Grimmjow gagged again, not able to keep the stench from activating his reflex. As he'd move forward, he'd discovered fresher kills. He started to think that maybe the bones back down the tunnel weren't old, simply picked clean. The ones at his feet, now, however, must have been killed only days ago, but down here in the dank, unfiltered air, the decay and rot of flesh was overwhelmingly.
He lost his battle with his gag reflex when his foot slipped in meat so rancid it melted under the pressure and gaseous vapour escaped it, wafting up to him as he struggled not to fall completely into the carcass. He got a grip on the wall but dropped Pantera as he dry heaved, which only caused him to breathe in more of the stench.
When his stomach calmed, he struggled to bend down and retrieve Pantera from the mess at his feet. The ooze of body fluids was reluctant to release his Zanpakuto but in the end he found the handle and pulled his sword out, vainly trying to flick the viscous liquids from it.
He gagged again.
"Dammit." He whispered in faint glow of fire—fire someone must have lit, or perhaps by some quincy magic just glowed on perpetually on the torches lining the walls. He had tried to carry one with him for better light but it was impossible to hold onto both torch and sword.
He kept moving. There had to be a way out of this hell, up to the sharply formed maze above, back to Nel. There was no logic to this network he made his way through now, some tunnels too narrow to ever manoeuvre through. He followed the torches. If something down here smarter than Ayon had lit them, he would assume it was to light the most used path. That also meant, however, he may very well run into that someone.
But all hesitation left him when a breath of air finally reached him. He saw natural light, even if it was only that grey overcast haze from the desert storm.
"I'm coming Nel." He hurried forward, well, as much as he could, but the clank of dry bone stopped him.
Less skeletons littered this area, but something was disturbing those he'd left behind.
He picked up his pace.
When Ayon's roar came, it echoed off the tunnel walls and sounded like it was just behind him. When he felt the quake in the earth, he knew he didn't have much time.
"SHIT!"
The light at the end of the tunnel might as well have been a hundred miles away when the next roar was well and truly at his back. He had one moment where he felt sad—felt despair and regret for never having found Nel—and then he felt the beast tear into him.
He was very confused when grey light struck, and didn't remember escaping into the open space he now seemed to be in. Then he began to feel the burn in his leg that had been fractured by Lothure, see the drag marks in the dirt where he must have been thrown by the beast. He was afraid to look at it, afraid that the slowly increasing intensity of pain would turn into something he couldn't handle. But when a blood thirsty roar reminded him a monster was still trying to eat him, he forced himself to sit up.
It looked like a t-rex had attacked him. The black pants Ichigo had gotten Orihime to buy for him were torn to rags from the thigh down, five bone deep gouges running the entire length of his leg.
He felt the gag reflex again.
Ayon thundered into his vision again, raising that clawed hand that must have dealt this terrible blow and Grimmjow just sat there, knowing there was nothing he could do.
"AYON!" The beast froze, and then shrank back from him, it's faceless gaze turning up.
Grimmjow only now saw that the maze had opened up into a clear space, still deep down in the earth, the walls of the maze more than twice as high as the first part here, and up above them were the clean cut tunnels of the sculpted maze. They seemed to end abruptly up there in order to open up into this large space, and Grimmjow realized that if he had been able to continue forward with Nel they would have been forced in this direction anyway, ending up in what was starting to feel like a gladiator style ring. His fear was only confirmed when the figure high above on the last edge of the maze spoke again.
"You aren't supposed to kill them so quickly, it isn't very entertaining that way."
She dropped the ten feet or so with ease and landed close to them.
He knew her.
"Apache." She was mutilated. Her left arm was gone; replaced by something else, more hollow like, pure white stripped with silver lines and ending in a three fingered claw of sorts. All over her naked body were traces of that same silver, something forced upon her in experiments no doubt. One eye was pure silver, and from her neck he could see rough spikes of some kind. She too, had been made into a chimera.
"An espada." She said in surprise. "The sixth no less, Grimmjow Jaggerjaques, what a pathetic end for you."
"Apache, why are you doing this? Did they break your soul ontop of everything else they did?"
"Of course not." She planted a foot on his ruined leg and bent down to eye level while he tried not to give her the satisfaction of a scream. "I'm just bored."
"What?"
"Oh they experimented on me." She said, reaching out a hand to trace a bead of sweat down his face, "they tortured my body, changed it. Sung-Sung too, but she didn't survive it. Mila Rose went somewhere else, her soul they did break, but they wanted to see what a whole chimera would be like. So they sent Ayon and I here."
"Why?"
"To clean house."
She suddenly dove on him, flattening him and her teeth pressed up against his neck. He tried to shove her off but sharp teeth bit down deep into the flesh.
He hollered, he fought, but she only pulled back when she wanted to, his blood drenching her face, but a look of satisfaction plastered on crimson lips.
"You will be delicious."
"B-bitch." He stammered, holding a hand up to his neck, already losing too much blood from his leg.
"Just try to give me a good show." She said stepping back.
"Fuck that." He would rather lay here and die than give her what she wanted when he knew he wasn't going to live one way or the other.
"Oh, but I thought after all that struggle you would at least try to save her."
"What?" But her nasty eyes turned to the far end of the ring where he had not seen the small figure all alone against the near wall.
"Come here, child!" Apache called.
"No..."
Nel was already hysterical by the time she came within range enough for Grimmjow to see and hear her sobs. He was already starting to feel lightheaded and her image became fuzzy before him but he let go of the wound in his neck and opened his one arm to her when she launched herself against him.
"GRIMMJOW!" She sobbed into his chest.
"Nel." He pressed his face into her bone mask. "I was coming for you."
"Nel waited. She did. She didn't want to go with the lady."
"It's okay."
"Like I said," Apache spoke over the wailing child, "put up a good fight."
"Don't. Apache don't do this. We can work together to get out of here."
She smiled wide. "Well, now I didn't expect begging from an espada. Some of the vastal lorders yes, but not an espada. How the mighty have fallen."
"Then just not Nel."
"Then where would be my show?" She backed up further, "Ayon, start at the far end, give them a chance at least."
The beast obeyed. Grimmjow watched him retreat back but then turned his attention back to Nel in his arms.
"Run, Nel."
"NO!"
"NEL RUN!"
"NOOOOO!"
"FUCK!" he saw no place for her to go anyway. They had come to the end of the maze, there was no secret way out, no reward, just death—a terrible, hateful death. He stabbed Pantera into the ground like he had so many times since entering the maze. Here though, the ground was tight packed dirk and not stone so he was able to give himself a more stable aid in order to rise. One arm down, now one leg, he stood zero chance—but he stood nonetheless because he would always stand up and face whatever he had to for the child behind him, until he fell and could rise no more.
"One last battle, Pantera."
The blade rang when he pulled it out of the soil, and it met steel sharp claws. He spun on the spot from the impact but it had deflected and he raised his sword against the next strike. The claws missed him but the now blunt end of Ayon's shortened reptilian tail hit him square in the jaw, making him stumble and blurred his vision even more.
"She died for me, you know." He growled out, when he caught sight of Apache from where she watched.
"Who?"
"Halibel. She always refereed to you as her friends, not her Fraccion." He deflected another strike. "Did you know that?"
"It doesn't matter."
The edge of a claw caught him in the cheek, ripping open his face.
"You're almost done." she informed him coldly.
"She also died for this child."
"I don't believe it."
"BELIEVE IT!" He swung hard at that strangely small face, but Ayon was barely injured and so much faster and stronger and Grimmjow only succeeded in leaving himself open. The rake across his stomach was too much. Pantera dropped in the soil. Nel screeched his name as he fell to his knees. His stomach was torn open, his hand the only thing holding him together. Nel too, desperately pressed at the sickening wound, drenching herself in his blood while she sobbed his name.
"She died for out mission." He wheezed out, Ayon at his back but Apache must have given him some sign to wait for the finishing blow. She marched up to him, picking Pantera off the ground at his feet.
"What mission?"
"To stop...the people...who did this to us."
She froze, considering his words, but then hardness overtook her again and she raised Pantera over him.
"Then she was as much a fool as you were." His last movement was to grab hold of Nel, not really expecting to shield her from the blow, but just to hold her while it ended.
But it didn't end.
Steel rang off steel. There was a thud and a grunt and when Grimmjow parted his eyes he saw Pantera on the ground before him once more, Apache on her side a few feet from him and a pair of tan legs before him.
"Maybe so," the Third espada spoke, sheathing her broken blade at her side and taking up Pantera while her former subordinate rose to meet her. "But fool or not, we will not die cowards. Apache, you disappoint me."
"...lady Halibel." but there was no love left in the mutilated arrancar, and she lunged at her.
Halibel cut her in half.
With one swipe, Apache's middle was torn wider than Grimmjow's; organs pushing out against her vain attempts to hold them in. Ayon roared in agony at their back and Halibel moved on him next.
Grimmjow could not track this battle, couldn't see with what fury Halibel fought even though twin stab wounds still marred her stomach, even though her powers were also sealed. All he knew was that the world was fading away, and by the time she returned to him, her hand pressing over his own wound at his stomach, it was far too late to save him.
"...Grimmjow...?" Nel's tiny voice was heartbreaking.
Halibel lifted her hand from his wound, knowing it was no use.
"I will take care of her." She promised him just before he could slip away, the kindest thing she could have said. He had no voice to thank her, to say good bye, only one bloody hand to raise up and place atop Nel's head.
"GRIMMJOW!" The walls exploded.
In the wake of the child's scream, those high, smooth stone walls cracked and crumbled, all around the arena. Halibel thought for several long seconds that somehow the child had mustered this power, until the dust settled and the wind tore at red-orange locks fanned out behind the teenage girl high above them. With the walls broken, Halibel instantly felt the return of his spiritual pressure, and didn't wait one second before scooping her arms under Grimmjow and Nel who was plastered to him and sonidoing up above the maze, which was quickly being drowned by sand long held at bay by those walls.
"Save him!" She demanded of Orihime when she dropped to the ground with her burden.
"I reject." the girl whispered.
Her shield didn't just take over Grimmjow's body. It enveloped them all. The power that had torn down those wall in an instant now sewed back together bone and flesh at a rate she'd never before been capable of. Her hands shook above them, but under their glow they felt such warmth and strength. In mere minutes, she undid the damage of hammers and swords, of grit and stone, of claws and teeth.
And when she stopped, there was silence. Because one child's tears had dried.
Grimmjow sat in clothes as clean as the day Orhime had given them to him. His shoulder showed no sign of ever having been touched by a hammer, his leg no clue of the break or cuts. Nel too was washed of all his blood that had stained her.
Halibel rose, those marks in her abdomen gone.
"You saved us." Grimmjow rose as well, lifting Nel with him.
"She did more than that." Halibel reached to her side and withdrew Tiburon, full, unbroken.
"You restored her zanpakuto?!" Grimmjow exclaimed, knowing this should be beyond her power.
"Not just hers," the teen whispered out, but there was no chance to explain this, she swayed where she stood and Grimmjow only just moved forward in time to catch her. "Hey, Orihime?"
"She should not have been able to do that." Halibel said while Grimmjow got his arms under the girls' knees and held her more securely against him.
"I know. She's breathing funny. We need to find the others."
He stepped forward but then paused, turning back to Halibel. He couldn't reach out to her, since he now held Orihime and Nel perched on his shoulder, bu the look in his eyes was more meaningful than any embrace.
"When I thought you were gone I...I was lost."
"Of course you were. You need me, it's why I decided not to die for you after all."
"You heard all that?"
"Most of it. I think living for you is a better plan though."
"So do I."
"Good. Then let's try to survive this."
He smiled and turned back to the horizon where Orihime had come from, where the rest of their friends now fought for their own lives. "Okay. Let's go kick some Vandenriech ass."
ARG! I have never ever experienced writers block to this level as I have with this story. I do apologize for anyone who had followed it but this morning I just decided that no matter what, I was writing a conclusion to this story. So I have just done that, it must be edited, but I feel so much better because now I can conclude this story in another chapter or two, and let this story end with some manner of dignity. So sorry for the terribly slow update!
Riza