Chapter 31

Grimmjow could barely keep his eyes open. Hell, he could barely keep himself breathing. Nnoitra's attempted coup de gras had almost been the end of him. Kurosaki had saved him. It should have burned him up, but he couldn't quite summon the internal strength for the anger, the outrage. He was dying, and he knew it.

You're wrong, Kurosaki. He thought to himself. I have—had something worth living for. Was that still the case? He'd been too involved with his battle with Kurosaki to probe when he felt Vellena's reiatsu disappear entirely. Nnoitra was involved, and now Nnoitra was here, had tried to kill him, and was fighting Kurosaki. If Nnoitra was here, it was because he had won.

The idea of Vellena being dead bothered him. He would have never admitted it prior to this, but knowing his own death was coming, that kind of changed things. He could admit it now, he'd gotten… attached. Aizen had ordered him to bind her to them; well, he thought he'd succeeded in binding her to him. But in the process, the reverse also became true. What was this? It was commonly held that an arrancar, being a hollow, could not love. But arrancar weren't just hollows – they had been… shinigamified. And shinigami could love. Did he love? He rather thought he would die without finding out. What was this?

He sighed. He knew he was hooped now. He'd lost, again. This time he wasn't going to get out of it cleanly. He'd had his fair fight with a healed Kurosaki – Orihime even healed him at the kid's insistence. Grimmjow had fought, given it every iota of his being, and lost. Tōsen would no doubt kill him, if he didn't die in the sands here. It was pretty likely that he would die here, within the hour. The coldness of his limbs told him he'd lost a lot of blood, and he couldn't quite focus the energy to move his limbs. He felt so goddamn thirsty.

He turned his head towards the clash, where a beleaguered Kurosaki was being protected by a well-built, aqua-haired arrancar. She looked familiar… wasn't she the old Tercera, the one who had disappeared? Come to think of it, she bore an uncanny resemblance to the little toddler Kurosaki had been dragging around… Grimmjow put two and two together, and smirked despite the difficulty of making an expression. The former Tercera Espada, Neliel Tu Oderschvank, was facing off against Nnoitra to protect a shinigami. It was worth a few moments of humorous thoughts; gods knew he couldn't laugh right now, but he could think it funny.

Tesla had Orihime, zanpakutō ready, obviously keeping her from escaping or interfering while his master took out the brats. That was Tesla; always the perfect fracción. No independent thought, no initiative, no balls, no ability to win a damn fight; but man, he could take direction well.

A sudden surge of familiar, blood-soaked reiatsu caught his attention. He struggled to move his head, to see if it was really who he thought it was… She was alive somehow… She strode into view, that huge red sword in one hand. The other was in a sling made from some weird blue material. He could see more of that stuff wrapping her body – bandages of some sort. Her gaze fixed on Tesla, then Nnoitra, and then back to Tesla again, and he swore he could feel her rage crisp the air from where he lay in the sands. She raised that sword, and took several steps towards Tesla.

He watched as Tesla raised his zanpakutō to threaten Orihime – he had a hostage and he was going to damn well make sure Vellena knew it. She just raised her hands and lashed out with her death grip. No finesse, no sonido, just whoop, lasso Tesla, and the damn fracción had no choice but to let Orihime stumble to the ground, unharmed, as he was spun straight into the Death Knight's waiting blade.

Grimmjow saw flashes of green, blue and red, sensed the familiar discharge of her runes, and then felt it as she drew energy from Tesla – he had enough knowledge of rune magic now to know that she'd just used the very runes she'd inflicted on the guy to leech his own strength for herself. The huge blade flashed. The fracción dropped to his knees, eye wide in fear. Tesla had never even had a chance to react. He fell to the sand; dead or dying. Vellena let him drop, straightening and turning back to face Nnoitra, moving a little more easily. She viciously tore off the sling, freeing her now-unharmed left hand.

From the sands, the dying Espada realized her eyes were no longer blue. They had taken on a distinctly blood tinged glow.

"Bitch? You're still alive? Couldn't wait for me to come get you?" Nnoitra spotted the night elf, taunting her from across the sands. He raised a device and pointed it at her. Before he could threaten her further, a bolt of something nasty flew from her hands. Grimmjow thought he recognized it – it was the technique she had used to heal herself a few times, and had accidentally healed Nnoitra with the time they 'sparred'. She called it 'death coil', and tried to teach him, but he hadn't quite got it down just yet. Her target this time was not Nnoitra; it was the device in his hands. It shattered, the suddenness causing the Quinto to take a step back.

Neliel had stopped her attacks on Nnoitra to watch this newcomer approach. Kurosaki was in the sand… actually, not too far from Grimmjow. The Sexto checked him out – the kid was badly wounded but conscious, and watching the proceedings.

"Nnoitra." Vellena's voice sounded more metallic than usual. "I have lost all patience with you. Prepare yourself." She raised her weapon, and everyone on the battlefield could sense the grim, crackling energy that surrounded it. "Nnoitra!" her voice was thick with rage as she charged, screaming. He saw the Quinto raise Santa Teresa, lashing out with incredibly speed. She parried aside his blade like it was nothing more than a flying feather, and kept on going.

Grimmjow suddenly realized he was going to get a chance to see her when the blade took over after all. The moves she was using were hers, but not hers. She seemed heedless to the damage; taking some hits in order to get him, parrying or dodging the lethal ones. Nnoitra wasn't faring so hot – she was scoring on him quite frequently, and every time she did, some of her wounds would close up and she would get stronger.

She really was going to keep going until either she died or Nnoitra did, the Sexto realized. And he realized that she would probably just keep on killing, too, just as she said she would.

"Kuro—," he coughed, blood bubbling to his lips, and tried again to croak out some words, "Kurosaki." The shinigami kid turned to face him. The look in his eyes – a mixture of concern, pity and surprise, pissed Grimmjow off, but it wasn't like he could do much about it right now.

"Grimmjow—," the kid began, but the Espada cut him off.

"Shut up, Kurosaki, and listen." He coughed again. "When she's done with Nnoitra, she's going to keep going. You gotta get her sword from her hands somehow, you understand?"

"What?"

Grimmjow rolled his eyes. "Just fucking do it, Kurosaki. Disarm her. Once she's killed Nnoitra."

"Uh… ok."

Oh, he had been right – she was utterly hot. Streaked in both her own black blood and Nnoitra's pleasant red blood, she fought like a demon. If he'd had any blood of his own to divert to something other than keeping him alive, he probably would have gotten hard just watching her in action. She was a thing of unholy beauty, lethal and bloodthirsty. A woman after his own heart. He smiled weakly.

The reiatsu surge when Nnoitra released his resurrección nearly knocked Grimmjow unconscious, but he managed to hold on just a little longer. Nnoitra's wounds healed as the Quinto regenerated rapidly, swinging four weapons at Vellena. The Death Knight was apparently unperturbed, finally utilizing sonido to dodge. The ferocity with which she attacked was still impressive.

Nnoitra lost limbs, regenerating them with screamed obscenities. He even pulled out his third and final pair of arms – he always held those back in fights. Still, she attacked. Grimmjow noted that Nnoitra's ability to regenerate was no longer so instantaneous – it was starting to take him longer and longer to bring shit back. Severed limbs littered the sand around the combatants like some kind of gruesome garden of flesh and weapons.

Vellena took a lucky (unlucky?) strike that opened quite a significant portion of her torso up, but managed to deal something similar to Nnoitra. When he next saw her, the wound had closed. She just kept on going.

A new reiatsu approached where Grimmjow and Kurosaki were. Grimmjow had to close his eyes and hold on to his consciousness with all his will. When he opened them again, another shinigami was standing near Kurosaki, who was gaping at him. Grimmjow could make out the white haori, the symbols for '11' written on them, and the pink-haired girl on the guy's shoulder. Zaraki Kenpachi, captain of the 11th, one of the deadliest motherfuckers in existence. Grimmjow would have laughed if he could have.

"Damn it, I wanted to fight her. And him." Kenpachi complained quietly. Kurosaki did a double take.

"Kenpachi!" the kid shouted.

The kid started to ask some question, but Grimmjow couldn't hold on any longer. He gave one final cough, and turned his gaze one more time to where Vellena was about to kill Nnoitra, and closed his eyes, vaguely aware that this was probably the last time. Everything went black.