Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach, or any of its characters. Tite Kubo does. This story, however, is mine.
Torn
Chapter 21: Welcome to the Jungle
Needless to say, the arrival of so many odd-seeming people on the first day of school, coupled by the whispers about a new substitute teacher, had the students of Ichigo and company's homeroom class in quite an uproar.
Keigo, for one, couldn't keep himself from making multiple passes at Neliel, despite the fact that she was using her newly-regained voice to politely tell him off every single time. Eventually she noticed Ulquiorra beginning to carve ridges into his desk with his fingers as his fist slowly clenched closed in anger, and Nel decided to knock Keigo out cold in order to save him the pain of being thrown halfway through a wall by the green-eyed Arrancar.
But that's not to say that Ulquiorra wasn't being given some unwanted attention of his own; every counter-culture, heavily-eyelinered girl who insisted on being called some kind of bird instead of her actual name was fawning over Schiffer, and for the life of him Ulquiorra couldn't figure out why.
"So… Ulquiorra's your name, right?" one particularly bold girl asked, and Schiffer raised an eyebrow before replying icily.
"I don't recall ever giving you permission to refer to me by my first name, woman."
"Ohmigod, that's so enigmatic and mysterious!" the student rebounded, the point completely lost on her as Ulquiorra's face darkened and Grimmjow just snickered as he looked on, wanting to see where this went.
"So, what should I call you instead, then?"
"Why don't you keep it a mystery and never speak to me again?" Schiffer finally snapped, and the girl all but swooned on the spot.
"I do so love the strong, inwardly-vulnerable-but-outwardly-cold types. Have it your way, then," she finished coquettishly, "but one day you'll come crawling to me!"
"I doubt it somehow," Ulquiorra half-growled, and Grimmjow saw his moment to pounce.
"Here's his phone number," the blue-eyed Arrancar whispered wickedly as the stalker strutted by, and she took the scrap of paper with something bordering on reverence. Ulquiorra noticed the look in Jaegerjaques' eyes and frowned.
"I know that look," he said as evenly as he could over the knot of dread in his stomach, "and I don't like it. What did you do, Grimmjow?"
"Oh, nothin'," the blue-haired Arrancar shot back with a mischievous gleam in his eye, almost daring Schiffer to attack him. But not wanting to incur disciplinary wrath on the first day, Ulquiorra bit his tongue and stayed in his seat.
Hichigo, or Shiro as he was now known to his great displeasure, was also the object of curious fascination.
"So, um… what's up with your… everything?" a painfully blunt student asked, and the Hollow fixed him with a remarkably restrained death-glare.
"It's a pigmentation irregularity," he snarled. "You gotta problem with that, asshole?"
The questioner scattered to the four winds, and as Shiro settled into his seat with a sigh the door to the room swung open to reveal a man who looked remarkably like Ichigo. Striding into the room, he gazed over the faces of the class for the first time. Having been warned by Rukia about the presence of the Arrancar rebels in the class, he took the sight of so many strange-looking people in with remarkable calm.
"Hello, class," he said easily but with poise, slipping effortlessly back into his Lieutenant persona. "My name is Kaien Shiba, and I'll be your teacher while Ms. Ochi is on sabbatical."
A high wolf-whistle sounded in the back of the room, and Kaien's brow furrowed slightly.
"I'll ask you to keep those comments to yourself from now on," he said. "I know I'm impossible to resist, but I'm not trying to lose this job. Besides, I'm way too old for any of you; trust me."
Rukia rolled her eyes and scoffed at her teacher's behavior, but Kaien just slipped her a barely-noticeable smirk before returning his attention to the class.
"Anyways, let's stop wasting time and get things rolling. Pull out your drawing pads: it's time for a little icebreaker!"
There was an almost universal groan in the room at the notion of an icebreaker, but the instruction was nonetheless followed as the rustling noise of backpacks soon filled the room.
"Okay, so here's the deal," Shiba explained. "I want each of you to draw something that explains who you are in a nutshell. I know we've all heard that 'a picture's worth a thousand words', but now we're gonna prove it. Get started; you have ten minutes!"
The scratching noise of pencil on paper in the room began as timid at best, with most of the students staring off into the distance as they brainstormed. Shiro, however, found his wandering eye caught by a rather strange sight, and he found that he couldn't look away as his pencil-hand began moving on its own.
Orihime Inoue, the girl he knew to be nothing more than an airhead with a phenomenal rack, was thinking of something. And whatever it was, it produced a huge change in her: gone was the buffoonish, ditzy expression with the over-eager, puppy-dog eyes. She seemed to be years older in that moment as the sun framed her burnt-orange hair and cast an illuminating light on her face, with the girl reaching back to relive a memory that brought with it equal parts bittersweet pleasure, pain, and resolve.
"Oi, Orihime?"
As Inoue turned to face Tatsuki, who had called out to her, the spell was broken and the airhead Orihime everyone knew and loved was back in place. But for a brief moment the Hollow had seen someone else, and it intrigued him.
"You're hiding something…" he said half-to-himself, before looking down and realizing that his pencil hand had been unconsciously sketching Inoue the entire time she'd been meditating.
The drawing was remarkably good considering that it had been done blind and with one hand, but Shiro knew he couldn't show this to anyone, for a number of reasons. Scribbling the quick title of 'When Nobody's Looking' on the bottom of the page, the Hollow used his remaining five minutes and considerable talent to etch out a very violent and graphic drawing, grinning like a maniac as he did so.
"Okay, time's up!" Kaien called out as ten minutes came to a close. "Who wants to share with us first?"
"I will!" Orihime chirped happily, and the yellow-eyed Hollow wanted to snap something's neck at the sound. Inoue practically skipped up to the front of the class and pulled out her drawing pad, flipping over one page before presenting her drawing to the class.
"What the fuck…?" Shiro mumbled in shock as the rest of the class laughed at the picture of sweet red bean paste drizzled over vanilla ice cream and topped with something green.
"And this is… what, exactly?" Kaien asked with a raised eyebrow, which prompted Orihime into a long explanation of just what went into her favorite dessert. By the time she was done, the pale Hollow was just short of flabbergasted. There was no way that she'd actually been thinking of that ridiculous piece of shit…
Then he remembered that she had flipped over a page before showing the class her drawing, and it made sense. Somehow, he was going to find out what Inoue had drawn on that first page. Not once did Shiro wonder why he was so curious; it was just like an itch that instinctively needed to be scratched.
"Who wants to go next?"
Wanting to get this farce over with as quickly as possible, Shiro raised his hand up high and was called on, having beaten out Ulquiorra by a half a second. Walking confidently up to the front of the class, the Hollow deftly disguised his flipping over of the incriminating page featuring Orihime and proudly displayed his second drawing to the class, provoking many groans of disgust and one 'Awesome!' from the class' resident weird kid.
"And this is… a picture of you eating a baby?" Shiba asked in stunned disbelief. "Why…?"
"Because it's what I do in my spare time," Shiro shot back cockily, before returning to his seat and plopping down with a sigh. He was so concerned with not focusing on anything in particular that he missed the critical glance Orihime gave him for a few heartbeats before returning to normal, the same thoughts running through her head that had been running through the Hollow's not two minutes before.
Right before Kaien called out the next presenter, a red flag went up in the heads of all of the spiritually-aware people in the room as a Hollow's reiatsu could be sensed not too far off. And not just any hollow, either: this was an Arrancar, and a powerful one at that. Before Ulquiorra could even get up to flee the classroom Grimmjow was already racing out the door, shooting a glance back over his shoulder to warn his comrades and the Soul Reapers not to get in his way.
The blue-eyed Espada willed himself out of his gigai and shoved it into his locker, not worrying about the discomfort he'd experience stepping back into it later as he vanished with a buzz. Once he was on the streets Grimmjow tore along them like a man possessed, glad that he was finally going to be able to fight someone for the first time in a while who wouldn't sucker-punch him like that damn purple-haired Captain had.
When he finally reached his target, Grimmjow had to fight not to roll his eyes in exasperation.
"Oh, god damn it," he growled. "It's you?"
"Your arrogance is as appalling as ever, Grimmjow Jaegerjaques," Zommari Leroux intoned gravely as he stood in front of a stop sign. "Clearly, your exile has taught you no humility."
Jaegerjaques was about to retort when another reiatsu joined them, and a smile spread across his face. If there was one person he didn't mind fighting alongside, it was…
"Fancy seeing you here, Shaolin."
Soi Fon shot Grimmjow a glare that only made his smile wider, before looking over the face of their opponent.
"Mind telling me who this joker is, Grimmjow?" she snapped, and Leroux adopted an affronted posture.
"I see your keeper shares your lack of manners, Grimmjow," the Seventh Espada commented. "After all, that is what you are now, is it not? The Soul Reaper's pet?"
"You may be Aizen's dog, but I'm no one's pet," Jaegerjaques snarled before vanishing, appearing behind Zommari with his sword resting at the Espada's throat.
"You think that will ensnare me, Grimmjow?" Jaegerjaques heard from behind him, and he had to use sonido once again to avoid getting skewered by the blade that struck from behind him.
"Since when did you get so fast?" he asked sharply, and Leroux just shrugged his shoulders.
"My Gemelos Sonido has always been this fast," he said. "I simply had no desire to challenge low-born filth such as yourself for the right to a promotion, knowing that Aizen-sama would deign to acknowledge my greatness in time. And he has," Zommari finished, closing his eyes to reveal a '6' tattooed onto his right eyelid.
"Didn't anyone ever tell you not to take your eyes off of your opponent?" Soi Fon taunted, flashing forward and delivering a crushing knee to Leroux's face that sent him flying backwards.
"Good one," Grimmjow said with an appreciative whistle. "Looks like you haven't forgotten all of our lessons, grasshopper."
"Shut up and fight, Grimmjow," the Captain spat and ran forward, but with a twinkle in her eye as she did so. Right before the pair could reach their target, however, four more copies of the newly christened Sixth Espada appeared in front of them, with two engaging each of the warriors.
"There is no shame in being overwhelmed and crushed by the might of my Gemelos Sonido, insects such as you are."
Soi Fon and Grimmjow sliced through the doppelgangers with ease, but as Jaegerjaques looked up towards the puppet-master he could see why Zommari had staged his little diversion: to give himself time to release his resurrecion.
"Quash… Brujeria!"
Soi Fon could only stare in bizarre fascination as Leroux's sword hovered out in front of him and his head slowly tilted sideways on his neck, her eyes narrowing in revulsion as his head became completely perpendicular.
"Is he… did he just… what the fuck?"
"I know; just… try not to think about it too much," Grimmjow advised, before getting serious as the white stuff that enveloped Zommari during his resurrecion's release began to fall away.
"Listen, Shaolin," he said, "when that bastard finishes transforming, he's going to have a ton of eyes all over his body. If you see one of them light up, get out of the way as fast as you can."
"What?" the Soul Reaper asked sharply as she tried to prepare herself for whatever was about to emerge, not understanding the gravity of Grimmjow's words.
"Just stay away from his goddamn eyes!" Jaegerjaques snarled, worry putting him further on edge than he would normally be against this freak; if Zommari did anything to Shaolin with those screwy powers of his, there was going to be hell to pay and then some.
As Soi Fon saw what Grimmjow was talking about, her eyes went wide in shock.
"I don't think it'll be possible to avoid those if I want to land a hit on him, Grimmjow," she said, but Grimmjow had already sprung forward to attack.
"So, the feral cat strikes first," Leroux mused, raising his hand up palm-out. "Why am I not surprised?"
The blue-eyed Arrancar dove out of the way of the eye in the hand as it pulsed, before quickly checking behind him to see if Soi Fon had been tagged by the ability.
"Concern? From you?" Zommari taunted, appearing in front of Jaegerjaques as he sprung to his feet. "I did not think you had become so weak, Grimmjow. Let my Amor remind you what strength is."
Before he could blink, Jaegerjaques felt himself slide into unconsciousness as Brujeria's ability took away his sovereignty over his entire body, leaving a black sun marking on his forehead as it did so.
"Grimmjow!"
The new Sixth Espada heard the Soul Reaper's cry of alarm and turned, a mocking smile on his usually placid face.
"It appears that he cares for you, woman," Leroux spoke as the eye that had robbed Grimmjow of his free will flared and Jaegerjaques lurched forward like a marionette. "Let us see how he feels when I release him from my hold and he discovers his sword buried in your dying body."
Soi Fon set her mouth in a hard line and grit her teeth, every muscle in her body gnawing and gnashing against her restraint to spring forward and unleash painful retribution.
"If you kill him, I will make you suffer agony so great your mind will scarcely be able to comprehend it," she swore, and Zommari just smiled again.
"Me?" he asked with mock surprise. "Me? I'm not going to do anything to him. Unless you want to die, woman," he finished as he forced Grimmjow to raise his sword and dash forward, a sickeningly blank look in his blue eyes,
"You are going to be the one who kills him."
A/N: So, thus the new arc begins in earnest, and already things have gotten bad for our heroes. Will Grimmjow survive Zommari's Amor? Will Soi Fon be forced to kill him, with their history still shrouded in mystery? Will Hichigo/Shiro ever figure out what's up with Orihime, and vice-versa? Find out in the coming chapters of "Torn"! Oh, and as always, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please review!