Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach in any of its forms, but if I did, Ichigo would have lost to Aizen. I mean seriously?

In the event that you are displeased with my level of skill, please, don't hesitate to send a Review. I will use the best of my skills to reply to each one, but in the event that things are getting repetitive, then I will make an area in my Authors note to comment on it. Please note that this is my first official FanFiction, so please go easy on me.

I give thanks to my first friend on this site, Pehpig, who helped me get things ready.

~Ulquiorra~

Hell.

This is where the damned live. Where those who have sinned and need to be punished shall remain for all eternity until they have truly understood their wrongs.

For Ulquiorra's case, he was being punished for murdering the souls of countless Shinigami and souls during his days as an Arrancar.

Arrancar were considered fully in control of their actions. They weren't judged like Hollows were. Hollows were judged on their crimes made during their days as a human. Most Arrancars had forgotten their Human lives the minute they became an Adjuchas. It's kind of hard to remember one life out of the ninety-nine other lives that exist in their head as well.

Ulquiorra was led by a group of three demons. Their job was to punish him. One was cruel and sadistic. He called himself Ruin.

The second was calm and gave appropriate punishments to him. Ulquiorra liked him. The two were kindred spirits (though they already were spirits.

The third struck Ulquiorra as weird. He only showed up once every ten punishments and never gave him any punishments himself. The other two never spoke to him, and he never spoke to them.

The Punishment for the moment was cliché. He was told to dig a hole with his bare hands, but none of the dirt was allowed to touch the outside.

Basically they wanted him to eat dirt while digging through solid stone with his fingers.

He was surprised through, when he heard the third demon give him the order. He was taller than him, though that wasn't hard. Ulquiorra was a rather short person. He had scales covering his entire body, making him look like a human-shaped snake with a long, black pony-tail hanging out the back of his head.

When he finally got to the bottom though, he looked up to find demon number one laughing like crazy. Realizing what was so funny, Ulquiorra slapped his face. He was trapped down there. All abilities had been removed from Hollows in Hell so he couldn't Air-walk up, not that there WAS any air to walk on here.

He then found himself getting dirt thrown on his face. They continued to toss dirt all over him and it began to fill up the hole he had made.

He knew what they were doing. They were burying him alive, or dead, or whatever you called yourself down here.

He wasn't going to let that happen freely though. Ulquiorra shoved one of his hands into the stone, making a foothold, even though it made his hand get covered in blood.

He had made it halfway up the hole when he felt water touch him. It never rained in Hell though, so he knew they must have decided to flush him back down.

Looking around for the water, he braced himself against the wall of the hole to prepare for a wave of water. Of course, he didn't expect a pipe to eject out in front of him and blast water at high pressure.

The force of the water knocked him against the wall across from him until it dropped a bit, causing him to fall down and get a mouth full of mud.

Looking up, he noticed the pipe bend down and face him before firing another powerful blast of water straight into his face, shoving him back into the mud.

~Rukia~

He had never seen his Lieutenant this heartbroken. Not even when her hand had killed Kaien did she seem this heartbroken.

But she didn't cry; No she didn't. She worked hard, she spoke with respect, and she always acted in the way a Lieutenant should act. But deep down, he knew there was a void in her heart. And even her brother knew that.

Byakuya-san was even the first to suggest that she go back down to earth to catch up with the others, even if she couldn't meet with Ichigo directly.

~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~

She knew why they had sent her down. And she admitted it, it felt good to be back on Earth. But she still wasn't ready to be wearing a Gigai. Even her brother had permitted her to meet Ichigo if she wore a Gigai, and her brother would normally do anything to keep her from being anything but business friendly with him.

But she wasn't ready. She had said goodbye and everything, but she wasn't ready to see him again OR leave him forever.

So instead, she went to visit Orihime. The two had been good friends for a long time before she said goodbye.

Climbing threw her window, Rukia had forgotten about her habit of breaking and entering into people's homes and wash shocked to see an arrow of Reiatsu fire at her only to hear Orihime call out "Tsubaki!", stopping the arrow and reverting it back into a black fairy.

Orihime ran over to her from the kitchen, she must have been cooking her dinner, "Rukia? What a pleasant surprise!" Her eyes and gestures were completely inviting. This was what had made Orihime her Best Friend, this open invite to enter her life.

"I was given permission to take a leave of absence for the weekend and so I thought I'd come over." While it was true that she had been given a leave of absence for the weekend, Orihime's house was not where she thought she'd come over.

"Well come on in! I'm making Strawberry Pot-roast with chocolate fondue!" It pleased her to see that her friend's bizarre eating habits had remained the same, even if they had remained disgusting.

Rukia declined, telling her that she had already eaten before she left, leaving Orihime a little disappointed but she cheered right up when she had three big ideas. The first was that she got to have all of the Pot-roast to herself. The second was that Pickles would make an excellent topping for this.

The third was that her friend was clearly hoping to see someone who she knew was stopping by, but Rukia didn't.

~Grimmjow~

Grimmjow was angry, like he always was. But this time, even he didn't know why he was angry. Was he angry with himself for being weak? Was he angry with that Mayuri scumbag for putting a brain-killer parasite in his head? Was he angry at Kurosaki for beating him and then putting in a good word for him? What about Woman?

"Something bothering you again?" that idiot Unkei appeared in the doorway to the balcony he was resting on.

"Yeah, your voice!" He snapped back before realizing that he wasn't even angry with this guy. That wouldn't change his attitude though. "So when are we going to Karakura Town?"

Unkei lifted up Pantera and tossed it to him. He had gotten strong enough that his reflexes had kicked in again. He grabbed it, pulling the blade out to inspect and say hello. Pantera was an extension of his body, and you don't treat your body poorly do you? Nah, only idiots do that.

"We leave…Right now." He said, grabbing Grimmjow by the back of his collar and pulling him along in the air. Unkei was moving as fast as a Lieutenant, not to say that Grimmjow couldn't move as fast, it just meant that his neck was being ripped off at the sheer velocity.

"Hey! Slow Down!"

"Can't. No Time. We'll be late for a very important date, or so they say."

"That's from a F***ing book! NO ONE TALKS LIKE THAT UNLESS THEY"RE BEING A TOTAL DOUCHE!"

~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~

After several minutes of arguing and running, Unkei finally conceded and let Grimmjow run along side him. The two would fight, or more specifically, Grimmjow would fight and Unkei would respond more nonchalant than Ulquiorra

It was Grimmjow's first time when they passed through the Seikaimon. It was creepy, what with the uncertainty of getting run-over by this thing called the Janitor. At least when you passed through the Gargantua you either fell into oblivion and died or you made a pathway and survived.

When they got out, Grimmjow was surprised to see the entire town to be completely intact. It was like Aizen had never been there.

"Hey!" He reached over and pulled the boring travel guide over by gripping his shoulder. "I thought Aizen had made it to Karakura. Why's everything so peachy?"

Unkei made a simple twist with his arm and removed Grimmjow's grip from his shirt. "Because before Aizen got here, Soul Society switched Karakura Town with a replica and fought while in the replica instead of Karakura Town."

The answer was blunt, but honest, and Grimmjow didn't know how to react. He heard a scream and a loud explosion and turned his head with a smile: Hollow Attack!

Unkei made a small effort to explain some things to Grimmjow, but before he could, he was already off to defeat the Hollow.

Down in front of the poor ghost, Grimmjow stood where he never thought he'd stand: Protecting the child.

The Hollow was equally confused, as Grimmjow's notoriety was, well, notorious, and everyone with a mask new that Grimmjow was one of the most vicious killers in Hueco Mundo.

"Yeah, Yeah. Get used to it, won't yeah?" He looked over at the little boy, only to find him terrified of him and on the ground almost as if he was killed.

Before he could reach over to touch him though, Unkei showed up to stop him. "Downsize your Reiatsu, idiot. Your killing him before you can even saves him."

Realizing what he was doing, Grimmjow dropped his Reiatsu down to the lowest he could make it. Before long the boy would recover and be well off again being chased by evil Hollows.

Looking over at the beast, Grimmjow scoffed at it. One look clearly told him that this one was one of those that relied on some kind of unique ability of theirs to kill.

"Listen here you douche-bag. I'm going to be nice for you. I'll only use my left leg and neither of my hands. No ceros, no ballas, no special power. Let's see if that's enough of a handicap for you."

With that, the Hollow took the invitation, sure that he could win with Grimmjow's reiatsu's level so low.

The Hollow had ten legs and a centipede-like body with an ant-shaped head. His tongue shot out like a javelin aimed for his heart. At first, Grimmjow's instincts told him to dodge it, seeing as his speed was still superior, even with his power level suppressed so low, but then he remember he was protecting the kid and if he jumped out of the way, the tongue lance would stab him or Unkei.

The tongue lance struck him square in the chest. Luckily his hierro was also high enough to block it. Grimmjow stomped his free foot down on the tongue, stopping it from going anywhere while he thought.

Only that didn't stop the Hollow from attacking. He heard some gas escape and the centipede's head fired at him, pinning Grimmjow's free-leg between them.

The Hollow gave off a blood-curdling scream of joy as it realized that it might be winning. That is, until he saw Grimmjow's look of Bloodlust.

Dropping his leg, he shoved his knee up, smashing it into the chin(?) of the Hollow. He then jumped up using only one leg to get above it and repeated to use a Hammer Kick to smash the Hollow back down, creating a crater in the cement.

After repeated Hammer kicks he heard the Hollow beg for mercy. Confused, he bends over at the Hollow's ear(?). "You're a Hollow and you're asking for Mercy? Pathetic."

Pulling out his Zanpaku-to, he proceeded to stab it into the Hollow's head. What surprised Grimmjow was that the reaction was far different than when he would stab Hollows before. "HEY! Unkei! What'd you guys do to Pantera?"

"Nothing much. We just made it capable of purifying souls. When an Arrancar stabs a Hollow, their soul gets absorbed by the sword and is fed to the Arrancar. We made it possible for your Zanpaku-to to work like a normal Soul Reaper's Zanpaku-to."

"F***ing Assholes!" Grimmjow growled, wiping the blood from his blade and re-sheathing it back into his sheath. Looking up, he noticed two, very familiar girls who looked too familiar to be anyone else and jumped up to visit them.

~Orihime~

Seeing Grimmjow in town was one thing, but seeing him PROTECT a Plus instead of killing it was something else entirely. She remembered vouching for Grimmjow's parole, but part of her never believed that he would take it.

After an unnecessarily difficult battle, she found that she and Rukia were getting a little too engrossed in the battle and that Grimmjow had spotted them and was coming straight for them.

"C'mon" Rukia said, trying to pull her away, despite the futility of escaping Grimmjow. Instead though, Orihime made a cheerful smile and opened her window wider and let Grimmjow in.

Orihime knew all about Grimmjow's court hearing, so she knew that if he would be coming over, it wouldn't be too dangerous. It would actually be more dangerous to try preventing him from coming over.

"Hello Woman. Thanks for speaking up for me during my hearing."

"No problem, Grimmjow-kun." She said, not feeling any real-killing intent. Instead, all she felt was a playful killing intent meant to scare her out of fun.

Author's Note: Yeah, Sorry it took so long, my mom had confiscated my iPod and my Computer, and so I couldn't work on the series. But here it is, back for more. Plus I kind of got bored and lost interest.