Grimmjow was too out of it to resit when his hands were chained behind him on the chair where he sat. He recognized this room as one of many that comprised Szayel's lab. He was faintly aware of other spiritual pressures nearby, soul reapers, humans, but as soon as he locked onto one dark force, he could feel nothing but that.

"Are you still upset with me, Grimmjow?" A hand ghosted over his bare back and slid into his hair until fingers intertwined in blue locks enough to pulled his head back painfully. "It's rude not to look at me when I'm talking to you."

"Let go of me."

"My, you are getting more life-like all the time, Grimmjow. Tell me, do you feel anger toward me? Do you actually feel something more than the loss of your soul?"

"All I know, is that I want you dead. I don't know if that is hatred or anger or simple logic but that is what I feel."

"Well, I'm going to try to fix that for you, Grimmjow. I'm going to get this right, right now, before our attack on Soul Society."

"How?"

Black eyes cut into a cruel smile and with intentional slowness, the king pushed back the dark shadow that cloaked him and turned to face his second prisoner.

"Nel." Grimmjow understood his intention. Her tiny hands were now clasped in iron shackles, even her ankles. She stood on the floor, shaking, but determined to stay strong for Grimmjow. "What are you going to do?"

"She exposed her true form to me last time. She transformed into an espada...with a Zanpakuto. I think you can guess the rest, Grimmjow. I will break her soul, like I did yours. I have no intention of her surviving, so I can do it quickly, but it will take with it the very last of Pantera. It will finally make you mine entirely."

"Why do you want me so badly?"

"I want to destroy you Grimmjow. You should not have been able to defy me, no one does. So you must suffer more than anyone because of it. But in practical terms, I must perfect my technique before I try it on someone like Yamamoto. So, if this works, I will simply know that I must destroy anyone who has ever loved someone enough to share part of their soul with them."

"Love?"

"Oh come, Grimmjow, I may not have known you for very long, but all those weeks we chased you through this labyrinth, you kept her close, you protected her even though she was a burden. Grimmjow, you destroyed your soul to save this child! No one would cause themselves that much agony for anything less than love. So I will destroy her soul, and her body, and if that isn't enough, I will do the same to the other third espada."

"Now, then." he stepped away from Grimmjow and looked to the child. "I need you to grow up."

"Nel doesn't know how!" She declared, for once with a bit of pride and alot of defiance. "Nel will never help you hurt Grimmjow!"

"Is that so, child? Well then, will you watch me hurt him instead?"

He took his time in drawing his long blade form his belt. Wide eyes filled with water and her lower lip trembled below those two little fangs that jutted up in her mouth. "Don't hurt Grimmjow!" She screamed.

"Nel." Grimmjow ignored the steel that approached him, "Don't transform. Whatever happens don't let him get your Zanpakuto."

"I know you're not quite all there, Grimmjow," the king placed one hand on his naked shoulder to steady it while the tip of his sword found its place just under his collar bone. "But I'm betting this is still going to hurt."

Azure eyes clamped shut, nearly as tight as his jaw clenched, but the pain came anyway, long, drawn out- a deliberately slow push past flesh and muscle, as if the king was actually severing each sinew one at a time, activating each nerve through his precision and cruelty. He made the blade jerk, quiver, cut and tear its way through his body rather than one smooth slide to the other side.

Grimmjow's screams were matched by Nel's wails.

"Stop! Stop it! Stop hurting Grimmjow!" She repeated between near-hyperventilating gasps.

The hilt met his shoulder, the blade sticking far out behind him, propped on the back of the chair to which he was chained. Sweat beaded over his body, he gasped, barely getting air, barley staying conscious. Fingers found his hair again and jerked his head upward.

"I know it's nothing like what you endured before, Grimmjow, but this must hurt." He rested his hand on the hilt and gently pressed down, shifting the blade inside the tortured man. Grimmjow cried out again, unable to hide his eyes by the way his head was held. Nel watched on in horror, wailing, screaming for help, for Ichigo, for Halibel, for anyone who could save her Grimmjow. The king watched her expectantly.

"Don't Nel." Grimmjow commanded through clenched teeth. She quivered, feeling her body on fire, but his pleading eyes begged her to stay controlled.

"Fine." The king gripped the blade again and pulled it clean out in one go. Grimmjow screamed, slumped forward as far as the chains would allow and threw up. "You enjoying the show, little one?" The king put his hand on the back of Grimmjow's neck, forcing him to remain slouched forward. "Because you are the only one who can end it!" Grimmjow gagged again before the king drug him back up and put his blade against his other shoulder.

It only got a few centimetres deep before they all felt it. Weeping eyes took in the look of utter suffering on her hero's face; the crimson tide drenching one side of him; the mess on the floor where he could not contain this pain. The paleness of his skin, slick with sweat where it wasn't slicked with blood, and the new roar working its way out of him as the cruel blade worked deeper into his flesh.

And so a little girl's cries for someone she loved, awoke the one being left who could save him.

"..No, Nel..." he breathed as he watched slack chains go taught around the new form in their grasp. She stood in the rags of her green cloak, hair hanging long and wild beneath the bone mask on her head. The blade dropped from Girmmjow's shoulder and the king turned in triumph.

"There she is." She stood completely exposed, arms quivering at the strain the chains applied to them, holding them out from her sides and the manacles painfully tight. And there, at her side, with that pair of crescent moons forming it's hilt, was her zanpakuto, her soul. But even when the dark king came to stand before her, he was met not with fear, not with pain or hostility, but a broad, feral grin.

"Declare Gamuza!"

The words were barely out of her mouth before a second wave of power rocked them, swarming past in hot, white light, nearly toppling Grimmjow's chair.

The Vandenreich king had made a mistake.

Her body transformed into that of a centaur. Chains meant for feet did nothing to contain hooves that slid easily from them. Bone grew over her hands and wrists like gauntlets, shattering the chains that had moments ago bit into flesh.

"Even in this form you are no match for me." The king bared his sword as she raised her Zanpakuto turned-javelin.

"I don't intend to fight you." She stated simply and his eyes shifted to watch the aim of her javelin point not at him, but behind him to the man strapped in the chair. "This is my soul." She proclaimed proudly, "And I am his."

She blazed in yellow power before releasing her Zanpakuto. It was so fast, but straight, unwavering, and Grimmjow hadn't really understood what happened until he felt the swell of power as if it was in his very core.

"YOU BITCH!" The king was screaming but all was lost to the sixth espada when he looked down his body and saw the tip of her soul in his middle, thrown straight and true, embedded in the chair behind him—right through his hollow hole.

He looked up for one second- for one millisecond, her face was visible through the all-consuming flame of power around his body and he saw her serene smile, her utter bliss at knowing that, she, Nel, had restored to Grimmjow Jaggerjaques his soul.

And then her eyes shut, she seemed to be falling but he lost sight of her again and then all he knew was the absolute consumption of his body in her power, her life source, her soul that was half his.

His mind raced back through sands and forests and desert and night; bottles of sake, fights with Yammy; tea at Halibel's, white hooded figures, poison, pain and fear. He saw Yammy, shrunken nothing, felt his neck snap in his hands, his life slip away. He felt loneliness, sadness, emptiness. He felt a weight on his leg, small fingers pressed into his calf. He saw a face, round, scared, eyes wide, watery, now angry, now sad, now breaking into a toothy smile that consumed her whole face. And then he saw the sword descending on her, felt that moment when he knew he would destroy himself to save this child. He felt Pantera, remembered Pantera, that feeling of strength and wholeness that had evaded him all this time. He felt him break into nothingness to save him. He felt a pain so unreal it stole his mind, his heart, his ability to recognize friend from foe. It had taken everything in this world that meant anything to him.

And now it was all coming back.

Kisuke Urahara lurched in his captors' grasp. All three of them stumbled under the weight of spiritual pressure that hit them and the whole of Las Noches trembled. It was not just spiritual pressure, it was something so much more, a power none of them had ever experienced. A final shock-wave blew past them, upsetting them all and the wily shopkeeper used it to his advantage not only to slip out of their restraining hold but also to reclaim his Zanpakuto strapped to one of their backs. Suddenly the two Vandenreich found themselves sprawled on the ground with the soul reaper's sword poised threateningly above them.

"What...what happened? What was that?" One sputtered in his confusion.

"That," Urahara smiled, "is a soul being reborn—something I do not think this world has ever seen before—and a power I would not relish facing."

A steam rose up from the form on the chair. His hair stuck out in all directions. Nothing of the javelin remained in his hollow hole; he was slumped forward, held in place only by the chains and unmoving, body still drenched in blood. The Vandenreich soldiers watched their king look him over and glance back at the child behind him, now as small and helpless as ever. He bent and picked her up, holding her by the back of her cloak. She was barely conscious, but he noticed her face had changed—the scar that had run through her mask and nose was gone.

"I don't know what you did," he said, turning with her to look back to Grimmjow, "but you clearly failed."

"Gr..Grimmjow?" She asked weakly, seeing no sign of his zanpakuto, no sign that he was even still alive.

He examined her aura, she was weak, with the crack gone he felt no outpouring of power. She was a child now, truly, with no hope of transforming into an espada again. "Well brat, I guess I succeeded. Your powers are gone, you can't possibly give Grimmjow back his soul now."

"..no...NO...GRIMMJOW!"

"Shut up!" The king screamed at her. "You're of no use anymore. Someone please get rid of her."

He hefted her aloft for someone to take her from him but a low voice stopped him.

"Let her go."

The king paused, watching the figure in the chair.

"Still alive, Grimmjow?"

"I said," his head tilted back, and everyone stilled, held in breathless silence by the liquid blue flame lighting his gaze and turning his sharp features near demonic. Unadulterated loathing burned out of those eyes and dripped from his words, "Let. Her. Go."

None of the soldiers could escape the dark coil of dread born inside them not only from that devil's grin but by the falter in their fearless leader's smile.

Because he was just now seeing what he'd missed: no zanpakuto did not mean no soul.

Pantera might not yet be able to take on physical form, but he was definitely thriving inside his master.

"She did it..." and the king's anger took the form of dark shadows, lashing out, strangling everyone—even his own men- because this fury, this reaction to his own failure, was lethal. Nel cried when her own throat sealed off but for some reason the man in the chair before him, the cause of his wrath, remained untouched. "What is this?"

"I'm what you made me..." Grimmjow flexed his arms, and despite his wounds, despite the fact his spiritual pressure was not even half of what it used to be, he shattered the chains that restrained him and stood, "I'm a new animal, and I'm going to rip you apart."

The black power abandoned all others for him, tried to claim back what he'd made, but there was something about this blue-blazing creature before him that the Vandenreich king could not breach, not break, not defeat. Not right now.

He raised his sword. Grimmjow raised his hand. Dark eyes flared when his sword arm was caught and blue eyes narrowed, conveying a menace so profound it could almost cut the air.

"Impossible."
"Ha!" Grimmjow snarled. "No, impossible is you getting between me, and the people I choose to protect." Hot breath rolled over the king's face, his fist clenched around Nel but a second later he was sputtering from an elbow to his throat and Grimmjow had rolled away from him, child in his grasp. When the king struck again Grimmjow reached out and stopped his sword dead in the air, hand bare.

"You're dead." Grimmjow snarled out.

"Oh, is that so?" He hadn't noticed it at first but now Grimmjow felt the hot sting in his palm and looked up to see the trickle of blood. The king drew back, opening up Grimmjow's hand and darted forward again, raking him in the ribs. The espada gasped out in pain and hot blood spewed down his side. "Tell me again Grimmjow, who exactly was going to die today?"

Grimmjow stood his ground a second longer but glanced to the girl in his one good arm and knew he couldn't win this. He gave a sigh of frustration, and it fell to her ears like the sweetest sound in the world. It was the sound of her Grimmjow, her hero in all his glory. Her eyes sparkled with tearful joy, her two pointed teeth sticking over her lip and for the first time in her life, he smiled when he looked at her.

"Nel."

"Grimmjow?"

"Get away from me."

Ichigo rolled free of his restraints with relief, but he found even more relief when Urahara pressed Zangetsu into his hands.

"Are you alright?" They each asked when they saw the state of the other but there was no time to worry, their friends needed rescuing. Renji had an arm keeping Uryu upright but was already working on Rukia's straps and Halibel had Chad free. The three had arrived with Urahara who'd been near their cells when he'd escaped. Ichigo quickly undid Orihime's straps and scooped her up into his arms.

"ICHIGO!" The scream made them all freeze as Nel came speeding out of another room.

"Nel!" Chad quickly reached to take Orihime from the teen soul reaper and he ran forward meeting the wailing child. "Nel, where's Grimmjow?"

"Grimmjow sent Nel to find you! He needs your help!"

There was no hesitation. "Where?"

She pointed back in the other direction. Ichigo stood up from her and glanced back at the others. "Kisuke, get them out of here."

"Ichigo-"
"Please."

"It's alright." Halibel stepped forward. "I'll make sure he gets home. Go."

The others weren't in much shape to argue. Renji and Chad weren't hurt too badly but they were needed to carry others back. So Ichigo just looked to Nel, "get them home, please. I'll get Grimmjow."

"Okay." She said in her small voice and before anyone had a chance to rethink the situation, the arrancar child opened the Garganta right under their feet and they were gone. Halibel and Ichigo now stood alone. They wasted no more time.

"So you sacrificed yourself for her a second time?"

Grimmjow leaned against the wall heavily. The other Vandenreich in the room were dead—mostly killed by the force of their own master's attack. Grimmjow himself still seemed immune to some extent- enough that he was still alive, but without a weapon and with several wounds now marring his body, he wouldn't last much longer. Still, he was confident Nel would understand what he'd meant since she'd scampered away without protest. He just had to hold out a bit longer.

"I didn't sacrifice myself you idiot. Don't you know why you can't take Kurosaki's Bankai?"

This gave the dark king pause. "What do you know about it?"

"You don't understand who he is."

"He's the child of a human and a soul reaper, a hybrid."
Laughter lit up the espada's face, the noise that barked out of him may have brought up some blood but he didn't seem to mind. He only stopped laughing when he was slammed to the ground. He lay coughing for a moment, but he felt a familiar riatsu washing out uncontrolled and heading in their direction.

"You'll see for yourself, now won't you."

"ARGH!" The king lost all semblance of cool and slammed his sword straight down through Grimmjow's thigh. This did earn him an agonized scream which greeted the two who broke into the already destroyed room.

Water blast past them, a blinding slew, and out of it burst Ichigo Kuroskai. The water tugged at his body and dragged Grimmjow back and he screamed again at the resistance in his leg.

"Dammit." A soft curse reached him and he felt a hand close over his leg just above the wound. The water stilled, he could hear Ichigo pushing the king back- who was momentarily weaponless as his sword currently occupied a large space in Grimmjow's leg.

"Hold on." Halibel gave no more warning before pulling back on the hilt. Grimmjow's whole body lurched, he flung himself forward, grabbing her am with the biological urge to make this pain stop, but despite his sharp fingers digging into her tan skin she succeeded in pulling out the blade. Next thing she had her arm under his shoulders and she held her free hand out in the air.

"Kurosaki!" The orange-haired soul reaper didn't have much choice, some sort of powerful blow had struck him and he came flying their way. Halibel took the impact of his body and in an instant had the Garganta opened.

"Running away?" They heard the taunt from the king even as the cracks closed but he made no move to follow and the last thing they saw was a disdainful grin spread over his dark features.

They may have escaped this fight, but war was nearly upon them.

Hey all, sorry it took so long to get this one up, but I have not been feeling well at all lately and I find it really hard to focus on writing and making everything sound good when I don't feel good. Anyway, here it is, hopefully the chapter didn't suffer too much from my mushy brain. Thanks everyone, will try to update sooner this time!

Riza