Two Days remaining.
"Another day lost." Rukia sighed in the cool night sky. She stood on the top of Urahara Shoten where they had decided to take Halibel and see if Urahara could get them into Hueco Mundo.
"Rukia." she looked down at the deep voice calling from the yard.
"What is it, Renji?"
"Urahara said it will take at least another hour before he gets everything ready, you should rest while you can."
She nodded, knowing how exhausting their last trip to the hollow world had been. "Alright, I'm coming."
"Grimmjow?" He was just barely conscious when the woman hoisted him onto her bare lap. "Look, I saved you."
But her gentle smile was lost on him when he winced and shut his eyes and she knew whatever was torturing him was still happening. "It's okay," she whispered soothingly, "I'm taking you away from here." She stood up from the bodies, lifting him easily. He was so wasted by the tortured done to him that he was barely a burden to her newly strengthened body.
"Stop." More white figures landed around them and she felt the power of their leader coming. Someone stepped forward to challenge her but her energy turned dense and flared about her. The smile from her features dropped and hazel eyes narrowed menacingly. "I will not allow you to touch him again."
The soldier leaped forward but the next instant she was gone. They just caught a glimpse of her vanishing through the ceiling high above.
"What happened?" they could feel the rage of their king and stumbled to answer. He set his jaw and clenched his fist. "The arrancar child...I was deceived."
"Ichigo."
"Is it ready, Kisuke?" the shopkeeper looked up from the device he'd been tinkering with but shook his head.
"No. Ichigo, just now...there was a sudden burst of spiritual pressure at your house.
"My house?" Ichigo didn't need to be told twice. He was flashing back before Renji and Rukia even knew what was going on.
He arrived just in time to see her collapse onto the form she lay so gently in his bed and shrink back to child form.
"Nel!" He jumped through his window and over the bed. "Nel" But she was asleep, sprawled on the chest of the man beneath her. "...Grimmjow." He too was unconscious. A rush of spiritual pressure and Rukia and Renji were back in the room with him.
"I, can't believe it." Renji started.
"She actually did it, she saved him." Rukia breathed out and they all watched the pair on the bed in disbelief.
Bodies littered the dry desert where Grimmjow and the girl had been moments ago. None escaped the wrath of their king for their failure and he stood now, staring up at the ceiling and clenching his fist.
"If they think escaping to the human world will bring them any more safety than they had here, they are wrong. I will reclaim those who have escaped along with those who have significant spiritual pressure in the world of the living before we destroy the Soul Society."
"What did they do to him?" Ichigo asked, staring down at the thin form on his bed, the gruesome scars all down his arms and hands. Rukia had done a brief inspection to see that he also had such scars on his neck, back and the back of his head—just like Halibel's wounds, though hers were not quite so severe and she had no scars from a lashing. But she also had yet to wake up, Urahara kept guard over her, and said he could see she had suffered a great loss of her own spiritual pressure.
"His soul..." Rukia had been shaken ever since the initial shock of their arrival. She was highly attuned to spiritual pressure- more so than both of the men, and immediately recognized what he was missing. "I don't understand how he is even functioning like this."
"But people's zanpakuto's are broken all the time, right?" Ichigo enquired, knowing that he had broken Renji's once and the lieutenant seemed fine. "It will heal."
"No, Ichigo, this is something I've never seen." Rukia spoke low and serious. "Pantera is just gone, not just his physical form, he is no more. Grimmjow's soul was cut in half and this is what is left."
"Why would they do this?" Renji asked, disgusted. Even if Grimmjow was the enemy, he couldn't imagine doing something like this to another being.
"We won't know until he wakes up. We should call Soul Society."
"What?" Ichigo looked between them, "I mean-"
"Ichigo, we have two days left, we can't hesitate if there is any chance-" but her words cut off when Nel went flying off the bed and she had to jump to catch her. The tiny girl woke up startled in Rukia's arms but they were all focused on the man on the bed who had come to and sat up so suddenly.
For a long time he didn't seem to see them. He just sat there breathing hard like he'd run a marathon and one hand raised up over his chest as if he was in pain. They could see in his eyes his mind was torn between the present and somewhere else. Finally, though, their presence registered with him and he looked up at them.
"Soul Reapers..." his voice was monotone, they could read no emotion going through him at seeing them. When he said nothing more and just stared at them, Ichigo stepped forward.
"Grimmjow, do you remember me?"
"Ichigo Kurosaki, substitute Soul Reaper for the Gotei 13." He answered like it was some test.
"Ah, that's right..." Ichigo was perturbed.
"Grimmjow!" Nel squirmed in Rukia's grip, finally reacting to her hero's awakening. "Grimmjow is back!"
"The arrancar-child." He said when she landed on the bed before him.
"No, Nel! Remember Nel?"
"Yes, the arrancar-child."
"No Nel!" She insisted and grabbed his leg. "Remember? Say Nel. Tell Nel to go away and Grimmjow will remember her!"
"Go away Nel." He did as instructed in that dead voice but what Nel expected didn't happen.
"He's brain dead." Renji finally breathed out. "He's like a robot."
"Grimmjow wake up!" Nel continued to wail. "Nel saved Grimmjow! He has to get better!"
"Would someone get her out of here so we can have a conversation." Renji grumbled.
"Okay Nel," Ichigo said reaching out for her, "come here, let's go outside for a moment."
"NO!" She shrieked when his hands closed over her tiny form and her grip around Grimmjow tightened. "WHAA!"
"Nel, come on, just-"
The room turned bright red and Ichigo went sailing through the door of his closet, crashing in a heap of clothes. He'd managed to deflect the cero at the last minute but it had been very close. When he shook himself out of the ruin of his closet he saw Grimmjow on his feet, Nel gripped tight in his hands.
Renji had already drawn Zabimaru and Rukia had her hands raised to perform a kido but neither were moving just yet as they watch the rapid rise and fall of the espada's chest, azure eyes seeming just as confused as them as to what he was doing.
"Nel?" Grimmjow seemed to just becoming aware that he was holding her and he dropped her back to the bed on which he stood. She clung tight around his leg in joy.
"Grimmjow is back! Nel saved you! Now Nel has Ichigo and Grimmjow, Nel is so happy!"
"Kurosaki." Grimmjow stared at him suspiciously and noted the other two. "You're a Soul Reaper again."
"Yeah."
"We're...in the world of the living."
"My bedroom, to be exact."
The espada paused over this. He looked back to the child attached to his leg. "I told you to find the humans..." He seemed to be piecing things back together, "why...?"
Nel looked up at him, "Because Grimmjow saved Nel from the shadow man!"
"the shadow...I..." they hadn't seen it before but Nel had, and her own eyes widened to match his own. They watched the horror spread over him, that dreadful feeling of emptiness strike him all over again. He jolted like someone had hit him and then his hand shot back to his chest.
"Grimmjow!" Ichigo caught him as he fell off the bed. Nel detached herself once more and they all moved in around the arrancar.
"Kurosaki..." Grimmjow breathed out, he seemed to be barely able to get any air.
"What did they do to you, Grimmjow?"
But that was exactly what he was trying not to think about and the memory began torturing him just like it had in the desert. Ichigo felt his whole body clench up before he started to scream.
"What do we do?" He asked the other two panicked. Nel squeezed past them.
"Nel will spit on him again!" Rukia pulled her back before she could but at the suggestion all three thought of the same person.
"Orihime."
Grimmjow was back on Ichigo's bed, unconscious again. It had been Renji who had struck Grimmjow, saying it was more merciful than letting him continue on in such obvious pain and no one had argued. And now Orihime held her hands over him feeling out at the damage done to him and a mixture of horror and deep concentration her face. Chad and Uryu had been drawn to the house in all the recent spiritual activity and stood watching as well, the room packed. Nel clung to Ichigo's shoulder where she perched watching the human girl.
"I..." Orihime didn't drop her barrier but the look on her face when she turned to them was not reassuring. "I can't undo this. It's so horrible, I don't understand." Not even the scars would fade under her glow.
Rukia put a hand on her shoulder. "It's okay, it is hard for us to understand as well. He seems to have suffered severe mental trauma from it. What we saw earlier, it was almost like two personalities. Is there anything you can do to help him that way?"
"I'll try."
Rukia nodded and turned to the others, "maybe it would be easier without an audience. I will stay, why don't you guys explain things to Uryu and Chad."
"Good idea." Renji said, leading them downstairs. Nel jumped off of Ichigo's shoulder to remain and no one argued.
Rukia sat back and watched Orihime work, ready to jump if Grimmjow suddenly turned violent like he had with Ichigo. But he had been reacting to Nel's cries, it was clear. Nel had said they were together ever since the war with Aizen. Maybe all those months with the strange child had changed him, maybe he really did care for her, though from her stories it just sounded like he tolerated her. But some connection had to have remained for him to snap back at her cries.
"I reject." She heard Orihime strain out, saw the sweat on her face.
"Orihime, what is it?"
"I found a memory...it's so...painful...the moment his soul was destroyed...but I think I can protect him from it, I think I can reject it from the rest of his mind."
"You're going to erase his memory?"
"No, just block it off. I don't know if it will work but..." Her face creased in concentration, "there." She gasped out and the golden barrier faded.
"Are you alright?" Rukia asked.
"Yes, but I'm not sure how Grimmjow will be."
"If you sealed off the memory of his soul breaking, then does this mean he will be himself again?"
"No. I mean, I think he will remember everything, but will still feel the loss of hi soul. There isn't anything I can do about that." she answered softly.
"It's alright. Can we wake him up?"
"You can try. Should I get Ichigo?"
"Yes, we should get the others in case he-"
But once again they didn't have time to do anything and the body below them stirred to life on his own.
"Inoue." His blue eyes found the girl and there was no way to read him yet. "Can you fix it?" He breathed out.
"I'm so sorry Grimmjow. I tried." he shut his eyes, not in the pain of the memory this time but just the agony of this reality.
"Are you in pain, Grimmjow?"
But he didn't respond. How could he possibly explain this feeling, this cold emptiness all around him, this detachment from everything.
"Grimmjow?" the small voice brought him back. "Does Grimmjow remember Nel?" She asked tentatively.
"I...remember who you are." But there was no hint of anything more, any recollection of those feelings that had driven him to destroy half of himself to save her.
"Rukia." Orihime said watching the arrancar, "I think we should give Grimmjow some privacy."
"A-Alright." She saw such sadness on Orihime's face that she agreed—she could monitor him from his spiritual pressure anyway. "Come on, Nel."
The little girl was staring at those blue eyes that practically looked right through her, and this time, when Rukia picked her up to take her away, she didn't fight.
"Rukia? Rukia, are you alright?" Renji stepped closer to the form hunched on the ground just outside the Kurosaki clinic. She was squatted on the lawn, arms clenched around her stomach and head against her knees. She looked like she was torn between tears and puking. When she and Orihime had come down from the bedroom she'd gone directly outside while Orihime updated the others on Grimmjow's condition.
"Rukia?" He knelt and place a broad, supportive hand against her back. "What is it?"
"The humans can't see it...but for us...Renji don't you feel it when you're in the room with him? He's wrong. He's so impossibly wrong. Can you imagine tearing out your soul like that? And that's what that monster wants to do to us all."
"Hey, Rukia, he won't, we won't let him."
She nodded into her knees but the feeling she got seeing Grimmjow like that wasn't leaving her.
"I know what you mean, Rukia, I see it too. His aura is so foreign looking. But he used Cero, he still seems to have power. Maybe it's not all gone."
These were important facts to consider but the best thing would be to get answers from the direct from the source. They needed Halibel to wake up or Grimmjow to open up.
They heard a buzzing noise and Renji pulled his phone from his pocket.
"Urahara." he answered. "What, really? Alright, we'll be here."
"What was it?" Rukia straightened.
"Halibel woke up. She wants to cooperate with us fully. They are on their way now."
"Grimmjow..." Green eyes swept over the bare back exposed to her. Grimmjow lay on his side, facing away from the rest of the room and completely unmoving, though awake.
Before bringing her to him, they had interviewed her in the living room. She gave every detail she possibly could concerning the Vandenreich, what they did to her, to Grimmjow, and were still doing to Yammy. She told them of what she knew about their plans and who they were exactly. Even after everything, it was unclear, but she had suspected long ago that these people were an amalgam of beings—and after Grimmjow's conversion her suspicions were pretty much verified. She explained to them that she believed the emperor stripped them of their original powers and gave them new ones. When Ichigo told of the Vandenreich with a mask but seemingly Quincy powers rather than those of an arrancar, she nodded saying that was a very common combination.
"What's the point though?" Rukia had asked. "How does that make them better?"
"Perhaps it makes them compliant in some way." Halibel had answered.
"Like Grimmjow?" Ichigo asked but at once Halibel shot this down.
"No. None were so...damaged."
This brought an end to the discussion and she'd demanded to see him. She hadn't held back in explaining how he'd come back for her, and even after he'd been so transformed, in the end, he'd saved her. Now she stood watching him lay there like he was already dead.
"Does he still think he's part of the Vandenreich?"
"I don't think so," Orihime answered, "when I sealed off the worst part of the trauma, both parts of his consciousness reunited. He should be aware that they did this to him."
"And us?"
"He hasn't responded to Nel."
The Third espada considered this for a moment and then moved over to the bed.
"Grimmjow."
He didn't respond. She sighed and grabbed his knees to force him onto his back. He rolled without resistance and stared up at her. His eyes weren't empty like she thought, they were exactly the opposite. So much pain filled them it actually threatened to spill out in tears. She sat on the side of the bed, glancing back at the audience and they seemed to understand, trickling out of the room save Nel. But the soul reapers didn't shut the door, they would keep a respectful distance but they couldn't really leave the pair on their own in case they did decide to make a bolt for it. So they watched the surprisingly gentle nature of the female espada.
"What do you feel?" She asked, placing a hand on his forehead like a mother a sick child. They couldn't tell what she was looking for.
"Cold." he answered up to her. "I feel pain so deep for something I can't even remember, and yet when I look at you, and Nel, who I do remember, I feel nothing. My soul is gone...I am filled with only that feeling of loss, Halibel. It's all that's left of me."
"It can't be." She whispered down to him, her hand moving to stroke his hair soothingly. The others were stunned to see such tenderness between two espada but then Rukia's break down returned to Renji and he considered that maybe even a hardened warrior like Halibel, seeing the horror done to Grimmjow, her ally, her kin, would allow such emotions to show like Rukia had.
"You still saved me, Grimmjow. So if your soul really was gone, how could you have done that?"
"I remembered our alliance and who the Vandenreich really were. It wasn't me feeling anything, Halibel, it was simply his hold on me wearing off."
"I don't believe it. I won't. You can't give into this despair, Grimmjow. I will find a way to restore Pantera to you." She slid her bandaged hands behind his back and pulled him against her. "Put your arms around me." She instructed and he obeyed. She held him in the embrace and they felt her energy swirling around him.
"What are you doing?" He asked her.
Her eyes were shut, she was concentrating deeply "It's true." she breathed out finally, "You really don't remember him...or yourself." She withdrew, he remained sitting up while she moved across the room to get something. The Soul Reapers watched her pick up a shard of the mirror that had once been apart of a whole attached to Ichigo's closet door. Then she took a hold of Nel by the back of her cloak and brought both mirror and child back to Grimmjow.
"Here." She placed the mirror in his hand and had him look in it. "That is you," then she swung Nel up and dropped her on the bed before him, "and this is Pantera."
"Nel!" the child corrected and Grimmjow now looked perplexed but Halibel seemed very confident in her conclusion.
"Your soul contains all those things which make you alive," Halibel began to explain. "Everything a being does is motivated by the desires of their soul. Some people call this the heart, or the mind, or emotions, but it is the soul. She knows your soul better than anyone. She spent her every waking moment with you, and though you never showed it on the surface, I could see it in your aura, in your soul- this child changed who you are Grimmjow Jaggerjaques. It's in her that you will find Pantera."
"Impossible." He said simply, looking at her. "I told you I feel-"
"I doesn't matter what you feel. Remember what I told you the day we met again, after Aizen's battle."
"You said I couldn't abandon her."
"It's still true. Don't let her out of your sight, Grimmjow. Don't let go of her, or him." she said pointing at the mirror. "And while you do that, I will see what I can do to bring the ruin of the Vandenreich."
She turned her back on him and he just watched her leave the room.
The Soul Reapers stared at her in shock as she made her way back down stairs before chasing after her.
"Will that really work?" Ichigo asked back in the living room.
"Of course not." Renji said, "You saw, his soul is gone."
"Then you are blind, Soul Reaper." Halibel said, sitting heavily. She herself was still exhausted, from all that had happened to her. "But that child stayed within his aura day after day since the war. And that child is unique, in many ways, but the reason she is the way she is, rather than the third espada, is because of that constant leak of spiritual pressure coming out of her broken mask. So for hundreds of days her spirit was washing over him, and she clung to him so tight his had to be washing over her. Their spiritual pressures intertwined. I saw it happen, very slowly, he never even noticed. If it had been me, or Yammy who'd been tortured like that, our souls really would be gone, we would have no hope left. But his survives in her spirit. I don't know that it will be enough, but if I thought there was no hope, I would kill him out of mercy."
Her revelation stunned them all. Urahara was the first to break from shock into a smiled. "Tia Halibel, I believe you are very wise. I am glad to have you on our side."
"Try again!" Nel commanded, Orihime silently observing what the child had very quickly turned into a game but was in fact very serious. "Tell me what you look like," she said, holding the mirror against her so Grimmjow couldn't cheat. But once again, he had nothing. The moment he looked away from his reflection he lost all sense of what he looked like. It was gone, he was nothing in the state he was in so all he saw was nothing.
"Nel?" he asked suddenly, "what do you see when you look in the mirror?" Orihime stiffened. He hadn't initiated conversation since she'd tried to heal him. He had answered all of Urahara and Renji's questions bluntly and honestly but as of yet had displayed zero original thought.
"Huh?" The girl pulled the mirror away from her body and looked into it. "Nel sees Nel."
He reached out and took the mirror back from her. "Now tell me what you look like."
Nel proceeded to describe herself in detail to him. She didn't understand what was going on but was happy for him to finally be interacting with her.
"You're wrong." He told her.
"Grimmjow?" Orihme rose. The girl had been correct, and she didn't know where this was going.
"You don't remember who you are."
"Yes, Nel knows exactly who she is!" She responded defensively. "It's Grimmjow who needs to remember!"
"I do. I still have all my memories. But you don't, Nelliel Tu Odelschwank, third espada."
"Nel has already told Grimmjow she doesn't know how to grow up and she doesn't remember the times when she was!"
"Do you wish you could remember?"
She considered. "Well, Nel doesn't really mind because she had Pesche and Dondochakka and then Ichigo and then Grimmjow. She doesn't need to be grown up or have those memories when she has friends."
"But I need my soul."
Orihime watched in fearful silence. She really had no idea if he was going to burst into a sudden rage or have some sort of set back or what.
"Of course Grimmjow needs his, soul!" Nel said. "But Grimmjow also needs Nel! That's what you want, right? You wish to have your soul back so you can remember that Nel is your friend. And Halibel, and even fatso?"
"No." he said to her with his dead voice and cold eyes. "I don't wish anything, Nel, because I can't even feel that. Wishing is the same thing as hoping, and I have no hope."
"Why is Grimmjow saying these things?" Nel's voice trembled, water sprung up in the corner of her eyes. "Nel will get it back for Grimmjow anyway!" She declared.
"How?" he asked simply.
Nel stood before him on the bed, watching him carefully and then jumping forward and putting her arms around his neck. "Now tell Nel to leave you alone."
"Leave me alone."
"Tell her to go away."
"Go away."
"No! Nel will never leave Grimmjow! She promised back then and she promises now!."
"..."
"Grimmjow..." Orihime asked softly, finally interfering. "I think you should rest now. Why don't you try going to sleep."
He regarded her, but just like everything else they asked, he complied without question, laying back, Nel still around his neck. Orihime knew the child was supposed to remain with him so she just pulled a blanket up over them both and turned out the lights.
Voila mes ami(e)s! Hope you are all still enjoying, poor old Grimm is in a tough spot, good thing he has friends! Thanks for the reviews!
Riza