"What's all the comotion?" Grimmjow leaned on the wall at the entry to the main room. His hair hung down around his face in a dishevelled mess and he looked only half awake as he took a slurp of his tea.
It was well past noon.
"We're heading out," Rukia said shortly as she brushed by him.
"Wait what?" But his attention was caught by Soifon.
"Grimmjow."
"What?" he wanted to follow after Rukia but he figured Soifon would give him the answers he wanted as well.
"We're going North."
"Do you plan on me joining you on this little foray?"
"No." She looked him head to toe and he scowled at the implication but she made no comment on the fact he was hung-over and just waking. Instead her eyes came to rest on his arm.
"I think its best you keep out of harm's way for now."
"Whatever, it's a pointless journey." He hadn't had any plans on accompanying them anyway. "So's that all you wanted to tell me?"
"No, I wanted to ask you if you'd sober up and help keep an eye around here."
"What, me? How many of you are going?"
"I'm taking Rukia and Ichigo. Shinji insisted on joining us as well."
"You're taking all your high ranking officers?"
"Kenpachi will be remaining."
"Okay, let me rephrase—you're taking all your high ranking officers with all their limbs."
"I don't appreciate your sense of humour. And surely you aren't concerned that we're leaving you too unprotected."
"Hey, don't try your reverse psychology shit on me. Why are you all going? I keep telling you it's a waste of time."
"I beg to differ."
"Fine, whatever, when are you leaving?"
"In two days. You going to be sober by then?"
"Yeah, I'll think about it." he shrugged past her. She watched him with narrowed eyes all across the room.
"Ma'am?" Nanao came shoulder to shoulder with her.
"I'm concerned leaving him here is a mistake."
"Surely you don't think we'll need his help."
"No. I'm concerned he'll manage to screw up everything we've worked so hard for while we're gone. Put eyes on him."
"Yes ma'am."
"Grimmjow I'm trying to do something here."
"I know, so am I." He smiled against Rukia's collar and pulled her closer to him. She gave up trying to rebadge the stitches on his arm.
"You're so frustrating sometimes."
"I haven't needed anything bandaged for a week you just like getting my clothes off."
"You're one to talk," she said as he succeeded in unbuttoning her shirt and pulling it from her shoulders. He rolled her back onto the bed and leaned in over her.
"Grimmjow."
"Mm?"
"You are going to keep an eye on things when I'm gone right?"
"Rukia do you really want to talk about this now?"
"Yes."
He stopped all movement and looked her straight on. "Seriously?"
"Yes, seriously Grimmjow." She shoved him back and sat up again. "I'm just afraid when we come back you'll—"
"What go over the deep end?"
"No. Be gone. I'm afraid you'll be gone."
"Gone where? I've got nowhere to go."
"You could go after Cino."
Now it was Grimmjow's turn to back off. "Fuck you, Rukia, I'm not that dumb." He yanked his pants back up and rolled off the bed.
"You want revenge, Grimmjow. And you can't get that here." She also redressed and followed him out onto the balcony. He gripped the rail and stared out at the forest.
"I don't even know where he is."
"So you admit that you'd go after him if you did know."
"Of course I fucking would, what else do I have to do?"
"See that's it, right there. You're unhappy Grimmjow. Deeply."
"Is anyone happy in this world?"
"Yes they are. But the difference is, when the war ended, most people stopped fighting. You didn't, not until a few weeks ago when we carried you back here. You've been fighting your way through this world ever since. Now you're at a standstill, and I'm worried you're going to make the wrong choice."
He turned to her, tried to bark out some sort of retort and failed. He ended up just staring at her until she stepped into him.
"I have to say I've gotten used to having you around. I'd hate to wake up some day and find you gone."
"You going tempt me to stay with sex, Kuchki?"
"Maybe."
He smiled. "I suppose this ain't the worst place on the planet to be. But it doesn't feel right, rotting away in this place."
"Well just stick around for a little while longer, deal?"
"Fine, but only if you seal it properly."
"Fair enough."
Grimmjow greeted Ichigo still smirking. The young man tried not to notice—just as he'd tried for weeks to ignore when Rukia came back from the dark hallway that led to Grimmjow's with dishevelled hair and clothes and a rosy glow on her cheeks.
"You heading out?" he asked Ichigo.
"Not until morning, you know that."
"Right." He cast his eyes around the main room.
"She went to get ready."
"Huh? Who?"
Ichigo sighed and rolled his eyes. "Just remember she's my best friend, Grimmjow. I'll kick your ass if you hurt her."
"As if you could," he snorted in reply. "Where's Soifon?"
"With Shinji, why?"
"I wanted to assure her everything will be fine while she's gone."
Ichigo straightened. "What, really?"
"No, not really. The bitch put a tail on me ten minutes after asking me to keep an eye on things. You want to protect Rukia, well go beat-up the asshole who undoubtedly just jerked off to us fu—"
"STOP!" Ichigo's hands shot up to cover his ears. "Take it up with Soifon, I don't want to have this conversation!"
"I fucking plan to." But he was half smiling at the look on Ichigo's face. "Later."
Ichigo watched him walk away.
"What's he down here for?" He jolted at the voice behind him.
"Ah...Rukia.."
"Ichigo what is it? Why is your face so red?"
"Ah...sorry, Rukia, I gotta go." He left her bewildered behind him before his face turned any redder, but just down the hallway he stopped short, hearing Yuzu's soft voice.
"Anything could happen to them..."
"Hey, your brother can take care of himself." Ichigo leaned back against the wall so they wouldn't see him. He'd never heard Grimmjow's voice so void of its anger and bravado.
"But you aren't going?"
"Nah, my arm's still gotta stay in this damn cast for a while."
"Your arm..." Ichigo could hear it coming. Grimmjow could too.
"Hey, kid, it's fine. I'm fine."
"I...I know." She was holding it back but still her breath came out shaking. "I'm sorry..."
"Kid it's okay." He heard her sniff but avoid the sobs.
"What if something happens to them?"
"Then they'll deal with it. They're strong, Yuzu."
"Yeah, I know...I just...I don't want to lose him."
"Trust me kid, after seeing what he did to find you, I don't think you have anything to worry about. Ichigo will never let anything separate you guys again."
He heard her soft laugh. "I still find it hard to imagine sometimes—you and him together. You must have fought alot!"
"Why do you say that?"
"Because you're both so much alike."
"I'm nothing like that asshole !"
But she giggled. "Sure you aren't."
"Whatever, kid. I've gotta go pick a bone with Soifon."
"Okay, just don't cause too much trouble."
"No promises."
They parted ways. Ichigo remained where he was, listening to Yuzu's steps go down another corridor.
"She's getting better." He practically jumped out of his skin at the voice right next to him. "You're getting rusty brother, maybe Yuzu has a right to worry about you."
"Karin don't scare me like that," he scolded, still trying to calm his beating heart.
"Seriously Ichigo, maybe you're not up for this."
"I'm fine." He pushed off the wall and walked with her. "Besides, I know you went to Soifon and asked to join us."
She didn't hide the truth. "She said my leg was in no shape and she didn't know me as a warrior so I'd be a liability."
"Karin you should have asked me first."
"I don't need your permission."
"I know that. But I could have told you she'd say that. Besides, would you really want us to both leave Yuzu alone?"
"No, that's your job isn't it?"
He stopped dead. She stopped just short of him.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that."
"Then how did you mean it?"
She let out a soft sigh. "I don't blame you, okay? I get it. It was Dad's fault really. If he'd just told us all what was going on...but he didn't. And you kept it all a secret. I know we were just kids, but so were you, Ichigo. You should have told your family you were a soul reaper, just like Dad should have been looking out for you long before the war started."
"Karin..."
"It's just...you left us so many times, going off on adventures. You'd be gone for so long. And we'd worry. Yuzu would get sick, miss school, and cry all night, because of it. And then you'd just come back and you'd never say a word about where you were. And then you both left...and he didn't come back."
"I...Karin I'm sorry. I just thought I was protecting you."
"Of course you did, you were just a kid when all this started." She looked him straight on and he found it strange to think he'd been younger than she was now when he'd first discovered the spiritual world. He wondered what she would have done, if it had been her. A small part of him thought she might have handled it better, but most of him saw so much of himself in her unruly temperament that he guessed she'd have acted the same. She must have thought this too, because there was no anger in her words.
"I just want to make sure we're on the same page now," she concluded. "That you look at me and Yuzu and you see who we've become. We're not little kids anymore. I don't want you to walk around trying to protect us from everything."
He smiled and raised a hand to her face. "But that's the thing, Karin, I'm your older brother. I'll always want to protect you." He pulled her into an embrace and held her tight. "And I'll always see you as a bratty little kid."
"HEY!" She wacked him hard enough his shoulder throbbed but they both laughed.
But their merriment was cut short when they heard the explosion down the corridor.
"They're smoking us out." Ichigo gagged next to his sister, clutching her arm tight, but Karin was calm, her watering eyes still scanning the smoke filled hall for dangers.
"I'll go for Yuzu, you go see who caused this."
"No." He hauled her back next to him. "Stick with me."
"But-"
"Karin I might need your back-up."
It was enough to stop her arguments. He let her go and she moved as swiftly as him down the hall, using the wall as their guide and keeping as alert as they could in the smoke or gas. It wasn't anything poisonous or to render them unconscious but it stung at their noses and eyes and made navigating very difficult.
They stumbled out into the main room and discovered the heart of the battle. Ichigo stopped short, seeing several of the soul reapers already felled—dead.
"Weapon!" He yelled the single word and Karin understood. She ran for the nearest body as did he and they both came away armed. The enemy littered the floor. Without uniforms it was hard to tell but by their organization, their deft and brutal strikes, Ichigo guessed they were Vandenreich.
The smoke had dispersed here but machines sparked and a small fire burned along the papers on a table. A second explosion rocked the pillar behind them.
"Their cutting us off." Karin perceived quickly. "Separating us into small numbers."
"Shit." If the corridors collapsed that meant many of their warriors were cut off from them, including Grimmjow, Kenpachi, Soifon and Shinji and anyone else on that end of the building. "What are they after?"
"...us." Karin stood straight and a second later Ichigo did too.
"You bastards." A man came out a smoking corridor, covered in grey dust, but a thin form in his grasp. Yuzu struggled, but she was trapped in his strong hold.
"Kurosaki Ichigo," he addressed, the rest of his men falling in line with him. One of them had a gun and took aim for Ichigo's head, forcing him to remain where he was. "What a pleasure. We've been searching for you for a long time."
Ichigo looked to the gun and the other men. There was little choice. "Fine. I'm here. Take me and let my sisters go."
"Ichigo!" Karin protested.
"You know there's no other way," he shot back. "That's it, right? You want me? Well you can have me."
"Actually, you were not who we were sent to retrieve."
Ichigo looked from Karin to Yuzu. "N-no way! You are not taking my sisters!"
"Well, you are right. I'm not taking them both. I just need one."
The gunman's aim suddenly swung to Ichigo's right. The shot cracked through the air.
Not a sound came in its wake, just wide eyes and rising tears as the Kurosaki family shattered in the echo of a single bullet.
"NO!" Yuzu's shriek pierced the air. But Ichigo had no voice, as he dropped to his knees next to Karin, his hands pressing over the spreading blood at her stomach. She choked on air and blood where she lay in shock on the floor. No words found him. He stared at her, then lifted his eyes to Yuzu, unable to move, unable to leave one sister for another.
"Let's go." The leader ordered.
"Don't..." Karin shuddered, her body shutting down but one blood coated hand gripped Ichigo's and her eyes pierced into him, "don't you let them take her."
He looked desperately for help but there was none. He was alone, and if he lifted his hands from Karin, she'd die in seconds.
"Karin!" Yuzu cried as the men dragged her back into the dark of the tunnel. "Ichigo save her!"
"Yuzu!" He could only watch as she disappeared into the dark. "NO!"
His cry was futile. It echoed off metal and tile until it was nothing.
Then Karin gave a gasp and was still.
"Hey we need some—" Grimmjow stopped dead when he stumbled into the scene. "...help."
"It's okay, I can stand." He let Soifon down despite her badly bleeding leg and they both stared through cracked glass on the scene inside the medical ward.
Rukia was covered in blood to her elbows, working frantically side by side with Hanataro on the very still patient on the table.
"Is she even still alive?" he whispered, seeing Ichigo pacing behind them as if there was a hope Karin Kurosaki would ever breathe again.
"Hanataro is a professional. He wouldn't put other lives on hold if there was no hope."
Grimmjow glanced the other wounded soldiers awaiting treatment, but there were fewer than he expected.
"The others must still be cut off," Soifon concluded.
"Or dead," Grimmjow muttered. She shot him a look but didn't argue.
"Ma'am." A soldier limped up to her.
"Report."
"Vandenreich. Yuzu Kurosaki was taken. Seven casualties in the main room. We don't know the condition of the others yet."
"Anyone else taken?"
"We can't know until we open the passage ways."
"Get on it as soon as you can." She wavered and Grimmjow caught her shoulder. The soldier moved forward to take her weight.
"Her leg is cut up bad." He started to explain but the doors to the medical ward burst open and he saw Ichigo stalk out, hands in his hair, not seeing any of them. "Just keep pressure on it," he said shortly and left them to care for their commander while he followed the young man down the broken hall.
"Kurosaki."
"Grimmjow." Ichigo spun at once lowering his hands and facing the espada with eyes more devastated than Grimmjow had ever seen them. "I failed them. I failed them both."
He was hysterical but not crying. His eyes were wide, his breath shallow, he paced back and forth and scrubbed his face and head with frantic hands.
"Kid you have to calm down. Karin is strong. So is Yuzu."
"I just...I just found them again. We were just a family and now..." he came to a dead stop, just staring at the wall. "I heard what you said to Yuzu. You said I'd never let anything separate us again."
"Kurosaki..."
"I let them shoot Karin. I let them take Yuzu."
"Ichigo—"
"I failed them, Grimmjow, utterly and completely."
He turned now, and the first tear spilled over. "What if...what if she dies?"
Grimmjow watched him crumbled. At the last second, he took a step closer and Ichigo met his blue gaze.
"Help me, Grimmjow."
Grimmjow caught him as he half collapsed in the shock, in the agony of loss and uncertainty. He gripped him tight when Ichigo gave into it all, sobbing relentlessly against Grimmjow's shoulder.
"Get it out now, Kurosaki." He whispered as he held him up. "And when you're done, we go get the fucking bastards and bring Yuzu back."
The boys are back on the road next time. Heading for the end...but still quite a few chapters to come! Thanks for everyone still reading this story! And as always, I appreciate your feedback!
Thanks,
Riza