Aizen had, by Grimmjow's estimation, killed hundreds of people.
It wasn't difficult to reach that number. How many shootouts, car bombings, and hits had Aizen coordinated? How many drug overdoses were the direct result of the man's actions? Grimmjow could respect the sheer volume of misery Aizen had inflicted on Karakura.
He could respect – also – the slickness with which Aizen avoided direct ties to that misery. Seemingly infinite degrees of separation lay between the stoic, powerful man, and the seedy world he controlled. Hell, even Grimmjow himself was a marvel of plausible deniability. Ask anyone on the streets and they would say that Grimmjow worked for Gin, a man whose small-time gang controlled the outskirts of the city. Even Aizen's own men believed this and would pick the occasional fight with him out of misplaced loyalty.
Sure, Gin would throw Grimmjow some money on the weekend if he needed a body for his underground fight ring – but that was chump change. The real money was with Aizen, and Grimmjow was more than willing to double-cross Gin for a piece of it. Usually this meant gathering intel on the rival gangs. More recently, however, Grimmjow had been tailing members of Aizen's own gang. Sniffing out disloyalties and dispatching of members who were showing signs of turning on their boss. Aizen was getting paranoid, seeking out loose ends to tidy.
Nnoitra had been one such loose end. It had pained Grimmjow to kill him. They weren't friends, really, but Nnoitra had grown up on the same streets as him. Both of them had floated around juvenile detention centers and foster homes before aging into real criminal work. Grimmjow had always admired how far the other man had gotten. Nnoitra wasn't strong or graceful – he'd always been too tall and awkward to achieve fluidity in a fight – but he had been fast and scrappy. His angular body absorbed an ungodly amount of punishment before Grimmjow was finally able to kill him. The sinewy limbs still twitching as if to continue the fight.
Kurosaki had been next on his radar. Aizen's favorite toy, constantly frustrating the boss with his disinterest in the gang. Disappointingly, following the scowling teen had been of little interest for Grimmjow. The kid was boring. His days a closed loop of school, work, and home. The only aberration had been the introduction of his classmate to the routine. A girl who was almost certainly uninvolved in Ichigo's real life, and therefore below Grimmjow's direct consideration. When he reported back to Aizen, Grimmjow dismissed her as merely "blackmail bait."
"Ah." Aizen had responded, "Does he care much for her, do you think?"
The question had made Grimmjow frown. Ichigo rarely touched her in public, a hand on the shoulder or the brushing of sides appeared to be the extent of their contact. Once he had observed an embrace – the girl tucked into Ichigo's arms for several still moments – but the gesture had struck Grimmjow as oddly restrained, lacking any of the frantic urgency of a hormonal teenage boy.
Still, Ichigo's body angled towards her when they walked together – subtle but unmistakable. Even walking home from school in broad daylight it was as if he was trying to use his height and shoulders to create a kind of shield around the girl. Grimmjow doubted the teen was even conscious of doing it.
"If you need a soft spot to hit…" Grimmjow had trailed off, but Aizen only nodded.
"Two sisters and a girlfriend" Aizen's smirk was mean-spirited, "So many points of vulnerability. I'll train him out of it soon. For his sake."
And perhaps Aizen would succeed. Rob Ichigo of this girl and ensure he never again tried to live a normal life. Truthfully, Grimmjow didn't give a damn about the girlfriend either way. His attention was held by Ichigo himself.
Weeks of observation had made him curious, so when the opportunity presented itself to fight the teen, he took it. At first Grimmjow had wanted only to test the boy a little, see how well he could take a punch. And yes, the feeling of his fist landing squarely on the boy's jaw was gratifying – sure – but seeing him bounce back with calculated cold intensity had been electrifying. Aizen would have been displeased if one of them had killed the other, but he itched to fight the teen again regardless. His mouth practically watered at the thought of testing himself against all that strength and power one more time.
But Grimmjow's surveillance had yielded nothing of use. It seemed that all of Ichigo's vulnerabilities kept him in line, unable to defy his boss. Two sisters and a girlfriend. Three compelling reasons to keep Aizen happy.
After a few weeks of tailing Ichigo, Aizen shifted his attentions. He asked Grimmjow to follow up on some old loose ends, attend to crimes the man had committed in his reckless youth.
"I won't be undone by the messes I made before I wised up." He'd said to Grimmjow. Aizen had scowled when he said this, as if the act of admitting any mistake was unbearable. "I got rid of a cop six…maybe seven years ago. I still did my own dirty work in those days, stupid."
Aizen had reached into a drawer on his desk, pulled out a file. "Rookie kid, didn't want to play along and take my money."
Grimmjow had picked up the file, scanned the photo of the fresh-faced, smiling young man in a police uniform. Sora Inoue. Twenty-seven years old.
"Was there an investigation?" Grimmjow asked.
"No." Aizen leaned back against his chair, frowning. "No, I paid off a few detectives to declare it a robbery. But there was a witness."
"Oh?"
"A girl. A sister I think."
"Why didn't you kill her back then?"
Aizen shrugged. "I was young, I was invincible. I was certain a child could not take me down. I told myself that I had to play along with the robbery cover. Coming back to murder a second family member hardly looks good. But it was arrogance. An error I would no longer make."
Grimmjow nodded, folded up the documents and tucked them into his back pocket. "I'll take care of it."
"You always do." Aizen regarded him for several moments. "Tell me, what makes you such a good soldier for me Grimmjow?"
He did not enjoy the possessive look in Aizen's eyes. "You pay the best." He told him, truthfully.
Aizen nodded, as if he expected this answer. "Do me a favor Grimmjow. Get yourself a wife, a girlfriend. Hell, even a puppy. I'd enjoy having something to hang over your head."
Fat fucking chance. He thought, as he turned on his heel. Ready to kill a girl that had lived six years too long.
This is what brought him to her. It had been easy enough to find her information. Straight A student, spotless record, lived alone in the apartment she'd once shared with her brother. When he found her photo on the class roster, Grimmjow could scarcely believe it. The target – Orihime – was Kurosaki's little girlfriend. It was almost too delicious. For weeks he had been following Ichigo, watching as he spent more and more time with his classmate. Grimmjow had not spared the girl a thought, too engrossed in his bloodlust for Ichigo himself.
As he followed her throughout her day, Grimmjow's mind turned over with the possibilities this presented. He watched her wander the aisles of the grocery store, bike to the pharmacy. It would be simple enough to kill her, pull her into an alley and wrap both hands around her neck until her windpipe crumpled under the pressure.
Grimmjow followed her into the pharmacy, grabbed a few items as an excuse to stand behind her at the checkout lane. Looking down at Orihime, Grimmjow realized he may have dismissed her too quickly. The girl herself was more than interesting enough to entertain him. Small, with the kind of curves he could sink his teeth into. Polite. friendly. A soft round face that was easy to read.
He could pin her down with one hand if he were so inclined.
But today was about business. When she swung herself onto her bike and headed home, Grimmjow followed, finding a place on the street corner that provided a view of her apartment door. Yes, it would be easy to kill her. Strictly speaking, those were his orders.
But an opportunity like this came about very rarely. The girl did not know who her red-haired protector really was – Grimmjow was certain of this. If she'd possessed any inkling, she would recoil from him violently. A man who served her brother's murderer. Delicious.
Here was a way to fulfill Aizen's greatest desire. Make Ichigo as pliant and servile as a lapdog.
Blackmail bait. He'd called the girl. How right he was.
He would kill her. Yes, that was certain. But first he would use her. Use her to toy with her fascinating boyfriend. Perhaps when it was all over Aizen would allow them another fight. How perfect it would be to spar with Ichigo then. The boy broken and vicious with grief flowing through his veins.
It was too good.