Chapter Text
chapter one
OUROBOROS
And so it goes.
I. BIRTH
to bring forth, to be brought forth, to be given life
Grimmjow doesn’t know when he was born. He doesn’t know when he lost his heart, lost his soul. He doesn’t even know when Aizen promised him the world, when his body was changed into someone else’s weapon, when his paws gave way to hands.
That’s not to say he doesn’t remember it. He remembers it, of course he remembers it. How could he ever forget?
No, it’s not that it wasn’t memorable. It’s just that every day since then has been the same.
There is no sun rising and falling. There is no day or night, no week, no month, no year. There is just Grimmjow, spinning his wheels. How the actual fuck is he supposed to know how much time has passed?
And really, what the fuck does he care? Knowing how long he’s been bending to Aizen’s will would probably just be fucking depressing. Maybe it’s better like this, with the scope of things hidden in the dark of eternal night. The shadows of Hueco Mundo can hide a lot.
At some point before this point, Grimmjow was changed by cold, uncaring hands, and it doesn’t even matter when that happened, because it was not a birth. If anything, it was a death. The king died there, in the white sands of Hueco Mundo, and something unholy took his place.
Something alive, but not. Powerful, but not. Autonomous, but not.
Something trapped, kept, slave to a master that does not care whether it lives or dies. He barely cares whether he lives or dies.
Whatever. It’s not like it matters. None of this matters.
He’s stronger, now, and isn’t that what he wanted? Isn’t that what’s important? Who cares how much it cost him. Who cares how little he’s actually gained in return. Who cares how much has stayed the fucking same. Who cares if he’s happy.
It’s a foolish consideration from the ground up, anyway. A creature like him can’t ever be happy. It’s just a fact of biology, or whatever the word is for the undead. The simple truth of the matter is that he cannot be happy; he’s not built for it. He rejects happiness like a magnet with the same charge.
That is what it means to be a hollow. Long ago, before any of this, he was a human with a beating heart and a tethered soul—and then he died, and his heart decayed in the cage of his chest, and he became a beast. An animal shambling through an interminable afterlife.
Assimilation and evolution changed much, but it did not change that. He is a hollow. There is a gaping hole at the heart of him where his humanity used to be.
It’s an aching, yawning, hungry hole.
All a hollow can do is eat, and eat, and eat, and hope that one day it will be enough to fill the hole. Someday, the infernal wanting will end.
To evolve is to learn that nothing will ever be enough.
To evolve further is to learn how to skirt the edges of the void, how to look away from it, how to distract oneself, rather than toss things in ad infinitum. It’s better, but it also isn’t. You feel smarter, more enlightened, but you’re still so fucking empty. It still fucking hurts.
To evolve even further is to wonder, Why do I fuckin’ bother?
And beyond that, there is Aizen. What even is there to be said about Aizen Sōsuke?
The man is a force of nature, inevitable and powerful enough to bend entire worlds to his will. He just appeared, one day, out of nowhere, and declared himself the new king, and it was true. Hueco Mundo changed the second his reiatsu first scorched the sand. From one day to the next, everything was different, and the hollows did as they have always done: adapted.
Some fled. Some bared their fangs and were swiftly dispatched. Most of them, however, bowed their heads. Why wouldn’t they? Hollows are creatures of pure instinct—their first and foremost concern is staying alive. Going against Aizen, who eclipsed all else that had ever walked among them, was suicide.
It helped that many of them felt indebted to him. He gave them hands and hair and swords, gave them responsibilities, gave them purpose, gave them beds.
Grimmjow probably should have been grateful, too, seeing as he and his pack were the first ones turned by those cold, uncaring hands, but he’s never been one to do or feel as he should. As Aizen wants him to. From the very beginning, from the very moment he first inclined his head, he suspected that he was making the wrong choice.
He still said yes, of course. Because Aizen is strong, and Las Noches has beds. Grimmjow can’t remember ever sleeping in a bed before. There’s nowhere else in the vast desert with beds or showers or pillows.
It’s a high, high price he pays, but he’s so fucking tired of sleeping in the sand.
If he were still built for the desert, that’s where he’d be, but he’s not, so he’s not. He’s here, at the beck and call of people he hates, rubbing shoulders with other people he hates, pacing the halls of a palace he also hates.
He might hate the palace itself more than he hates the dumbfuck bootlickers he’s forced to share it with. Everything in Las Noches is black and white, just like everything outside of Las Noches. It’s all the fucking same everywhere you go.
…Except that fake fucking sky over the inner palace, blue and unchanging and wretched. It’s only there because Aizen refuses to assimilate into the world he’s taken over. Hueco Mundo is not the world of the living. It is not the Soul Society. It is different down to its very particles.
There is only one beautiful thing in this realm, the pearl white moon that shines bright against endless black, and Aizen covers it with a cruel, lackluster facsimile of what he left behind. The canopy can never compare to reality, to the shifting, endless, powder blue sky. It’s one of the only things Grimmjow remembers about being alive; the real sun is warm—Las Noches is cold and forever lifeless.
And yet he stays, because what else is there? It’s awful inside, but it’s worse outside. There are no blankets in the desert.
Sometimes he wonders if the blankets are even worth it. Aizen promised him power, promised him purpose, and all he got out of it is hair that frizzes if left unstyled and a fucking job. There is no point to any of this—Aizen is the strongest being to ever exist; he doesn’t need help from anyone, least of all Grimmjow.
Aizen’s “army” patrols the empty desert, and maintains the palace, and squabbles amongst itself. They do not train. They do not strategize. They do chores.
None of it means anything. None of it is worth doing. His Highness lords over them because he can, because they’ll obey, because he likes being on top. Ha.
And then there is Grimmjow, aware of the bullshit but slave to it all the same. The Sexta fucking Espada. Not even in the damn upper half. It’s humiliating, really; he’s neither strong nor specialized enough to escape the grunt work, not that he ever actually does any of it himself. That’s what his fracción are for. Sending them off to take care of his inane responsibilities means that he doesn’t have to do them himself, and it also stops them from fucking hovering. He’s so tired of the fucking hovering.
It’s not the same as it was, with them. He’s not their king. He’s their manager.
Every morning, or whatever passes for morning in this eternal night, Tōsen passes Grimmjow a list, and Grimmjow passes the list to Shawlong. The administrative bullshit falls to Tōsen because Aizen is too important to concern himself with the day-to-day, and Ichimaru is too busy skulking around doing… whatever it is he does all day. Tōsen doesn’t seem to mind the busywork. In fact, he relishes it—he loves order and he loves lists and he especially loves telling the arrancars what to do. Grimmjow can’t fucking stand the guy.
Then again, there’s no one in this black and white hellhole that he can stand. His fracción, maybe, once upon a time, but not anymore.
Tōsen draws up his little lists and Grimmjow passes them off because why the actual fuck would he do any of that shit? He’s not going to maintain someone else’s palace. He’s not going to inspect the adjuchas population or look for vasto lordes. He’s certainly not going to fucking dust.
Look, he’s not stupid. Disobeying Aizen means dying a pathetic, inelegant death. Grimmjow won’t invite that. As long as the tasks get done, Aizen doesn’t care who does them. So Grimmjow will foist everything he can onto his fracción.
Certain things he still has to do himself, of course. He can’t wiggle his way out of everything. Aizen won’t let him.
And so it goes. Grimmjow spends his days haunting the pure white halls of Las Noches like he haunted the pure white sands of Hueco Mundo. He sleeps. He bickers with the lower-level arrancars, flexes his spiritual pressure a bit, reminds himself that he’s stronger than something. He sleeps. He tries to bait the other Espadas, maybe gets into a fight, maybe gets ignored, maybe gets punished. He sleeps. He heeds Aizen’s summons and arches his back. He sleeps. And sleeps. And sleeps.
Sometimes, when he’s feeling pent up, when pissing off Yammy or random Números isn’t enough, he strikes out into the badlands and cuts down adjuchas for hours, days, whatever. He cuts and cuts until all he can smell is blood and all he can feel is adrenaline coursing through his veins.
Sometimes it’s still not enough.
What does he even want? He has no dreams, no goals—what’s even the fucking point of clinging to consciousness with both hands? He wants to fight, of course, because you don’t have to think about this kind of thing when someone’s trying to kill you, but what about all the time in between? Because there is so much time in between, these days.
He can’t even remember the last time he had a good fight.
When he was just an adjucha wandering the desert with his pack, there was only one thing on his mind—to keep it. Once you regress, that’s it. You never gain true consciousness again. It’s the worst kind of death.
Now, though, through the power of that stupid little rock, Grimmjow isn’t at risk of that.
Without the threat of oblivion hanging over his head, what reason does he have to live? He fights and he fucks and he destroys but the hole in his gut can never be filled. He never became a vasto lorde, was probably incapable of it, and even if he had, the result would be the same. Aizen would’ve found him, would’ve promised him even greater power, and Grimmjow would’ve taken it every time. That’s just the kind of creature he is; forever crawling upwards for lack of anything else to do.
Power is intoxicating, sure, and he’s glad to be what he is, to have fingers and skin and hair, but it’s stagnant. He’s strong, but not strong enough to be more than a pawn.
Is this truly better than before?
At least he was free, then. Bound by the laws of nature, sure, but so was everyone else. Now he is subservient to something that does not belong here. Something that transcends the natural order. Something that hates him and his kind. Something with cold, uncaring hands. Something that cares only about its own pleasure, its own power.
What is to be done, though? If he gives up and offs himself, that would make way too many bastards way too happy. Besides, it’s not all bad, is it? The hole might not ever be filled, but he can still try, can’t he? He can fight until his heartbeat pounds in his ears and his grin hurts his cheeks. He can fuck until his eyes roll back into his head and his thighs burn from exertion. He can destroy until the ground shakes beneath his feet and the landscape won’t ever forget his hands and his sword.
He’s so fucking bored.
Grimmjow doesn’t know when he was born. He doesn’t know how long he’s been an arrancar, either. The days pass in a blur and he watches as they go by. He feels like he’s waiting for something, though he doesn’t know what. Something different, maybe, something that shakes up this sad little life of his. This wretched, pathetic afterlife.
And then it happens. Ulquiorra, the bastard, goes on an excursion to the world of the living, and comes back without a drop of blood on his hands.
What the fuck kind of shit is that? He had the freedom to roam, to kill, to do something different from the endless fucking tedium of Hueco Mundo, and he did nothing? He just fucking stood there like a fence post! There’s a whole world out there, so many new things to destroy, sights to see, smells to smell, whatever the fuck else, and he came straight back! Is he stupid? He must be stupid.
Grimmjow seethes. He should’ve been the one to go, but he never stood a chance of being selected. Ulquiorra is Aizen’s favorite lackey and they all know it. Grimmjow is his favorite toy. It’s not the same.
How dare Ulquiorra squander an opportunity like that. The vision ends and Grimmjow feels half out of his mind with anger, jealousy, indignation, a million other things.
Aizen, from his throne high above, forever looking down on them, says, “I see. So you decided he wasn’t worth killing.” And what a fucking choice that was!
It’s stupid! Everything else aside, just talking strategy, it was dumb as all hell. Does Ulquiorra really think the Soul Society won’t find out? Those bastards have eyes and ears everywhere, according to Aizen, and for once Grimmjow actually believes that manipulative fuck. They’re going to find out about this, and they’re going to send reinforcements. They’re going to know how advanced the arrancar have become.
It was so fucking stupid.
“Yes, sir,” says Ulquiorra in that drab, monotone voice of his, the one that makes Grimmjow want to rip the tongue out of his head. “The orders were to kill anyone who might be an obstacle to us, and—”
And Grimmjow can’t fucking take it. “Yer soft!” he scoffs, unable to keep the vitriol out of his voice. Aizen likes it when they play nice, but Grimmjow doesn’t fucking care. Let the man strike him down. He won’t. He’s too sated from earlier, smugness still radiating off him the way it always does afterward. “If it were me, I’d’ve killed ‘em with the first strike.” It doesn’t matter if that’s true or not. He wants Ulquiorra to react, wants to be seen and heard, wants a chance to sink his teeth into something that isn’t a flavorless hollow.
“Grimmjow…” Ugh, keep his name out of your fucking mouth, Ulquiorra. It sounds disgusting coming from you.
“What were ya thinkin’? When you’ve got permission to kill, you kill!!” He wouldn’t have squandered such an opportunity. “Right?!” he tosses over his shoulder, knowing his fracción will back him up on this, even if none of the other Espadas ever will.
“I agree,” says Shawlong, because it’s always Shawlong. “He stood up to you. You should’ve killed him as a matter of course, worthy or not.” Not really the angle Grimmjow was going for, here, because he doesn’t really give a fuck about that kind of thing, but support is support, and that’s better than nothing. It’s not a bad point, even.
Let’s pivot, why don’t we? He’s in a sour, violent mood, and who better to take it out on than that big bald fuck? “And look at you, Yammy!” Grimmjow gestures towards the dipshit’s bloody stump with vehemence, knowing it’ll get on his nerves. “Yer a damn mess! And then ya come back here and tell us he ain’t worth killin’? Looks t’me like you idiots couldn’t kill ‘im!” Oh, good, Yammy looks like he’s about to pop a blood vessel. Serves his ass right.
Teeth bared in a hilariously unintimidating manner, Yammy growls, “Grimmjow… Didn’t you see what happened?” Of course he saw what happened! That’s not the point. “The guy in the geta and that woman got me, not the kid.”
“What are you, stupid?” He must be. Grimmjow’s obviously just trying to get a rise outta him, and it’s fucking working! “I would’ve squashed them like bugs, too!”
Yammy takes a big, hulking step forward, snarling, “Oh yeah?”
All it takes is a small movement from Ulquiorra to stop Yammy in his tracks. “Enough.” Fucking hell, that guy sucks. Ulquiorra locks eyes with Grimmjow and says, “Grimmjow…” Again with the name. He twists it into something lifeless and vile. “I don’t think you understand. The boy is no danger to us… yet.”
Oh, for the love of shit. There’s that high-and-mighty tone of his, like he’s the smartest bitch to ever live and everyone else should be on the floor kissing his shoes. Just like Aizen. Is it any wonder he’s the favorite? They’re the same, under all the bullshit.
“Huh?” Grimmjow huffs, more out of annoyance than any actual interest in what the guy has to say. It’s not like Ulquiorra needs prompting anyway—he’s not usually much of a talker, but he loves to make Grimmjow look and feel like an idiot.
“Lord Aizen isn’t worried about what his current abilities are. The problem is his growth rate… That boy has tremendous potential. His powers are extremely unstable at the present moment, but I sensed that if he does not self-destruct, he may very well become useful to us in the future. That is why I let him live.”
What a stupid answer. What a stupid man, talking to Grimmjow like he’s a child, like he doesn’t understand the ways of the world. “I still say yer soft!” Even without being there in person, it’s obvious that the boy will never be swayed to join Aizen’s cause. It is pure delusion to think otherwise. “And what if yer wrong about him, huh? What if his powers stabilize and we hafta fight him? What then?!”
“Then I will deal with him,” says Ulquiorra with a stifling pulse of reiatsu, because he’s a bastard.
Grimmjow is a lot of things, but he’s not actually an idiot. He knows Ulquiorra is stronger than him if he doesn’t prepare, knows Aizen would just watch with idle amusement if Ulquiorra decided to kill him over this, knows that that would be a fucking humiliating way to go. So he says nothing. His heart pounds under his ribs.
And of course, because he’s a piece of shit, Ulquiorra asks, “Do we still have a problem?” That dull monotone scrapes against every last one of Grimmjow’s nerves.
As predicted, Aizen sounds amused when he says, “Very well. The boy is your responsibility, Ulquiorra. Do as you like.”
“Thank you, sir,” says Ulquiorra with a dumb little bow. Fucking kiss ass.
“Oh, and Ulquiorra,” says Aizen, as if a thought has only just struck him. It’s fake and calculated. Everything he does is fake and calculated. “I have an order for you. The girl? Bring her here.” Ulquiorra bows again, obviously about to set off. “Not yet, though. There’s something I must do first. All I ask is for you to be prepared to do so when everything is ready. Understood?”
“Understood.”
Oh, wow, ain’t he special! Always being asked to handle things personally, except, of course, the thing Grimmjow is expected to handle personally.
You know what? Fuck all that. As soon as Aizen dismisses them, Grimmjow stomps off to his little corner of Las Noches, which is just a small wing of rooms off the main palace. His fracción follow after, calling out, but he ignores them, slinking into his bedroom and slamming the door behind him like a petulant child. If that’s what they all think he is, he may as well act the fucking part.
It’s just such fucking bullshit. Whether they like it or not, Grimmjow is right.
Their dismissal of him is gonna bite them in the ass, one day. Aizen always thinks himself the smartest, the cleverest, the most powerful, and one day, that’s going to render him blind to his own downfall.
Grimmjow hopes he’ll get to see it happen, but he won’t hold his breath. Aizen is the strongest being in existence.
Right now, nothing out there is powerful enough to free Grimmjow from his fate without killing him again. Every instinct is telling him to fight, to live, but… maybe oblivion wouldn’t be so bad. His days are filled with hunger, the way they were before, but now there’s humiliation, too. Enough of it to smother him. What’s the point of carrying on?
But what would be the point of letting it end here, like this? His existence will have meant nothing if he does that. Is that better or worse than dragging ass through empty days?
So he keeps doing what he’s always done—spinning his wheels, ping-ponging between life and death.
Later, he’s on his bed, on his back, staring at the ceiling. Ulquiorra’s placid face haunts him. In the echoing silence, his feelings coalesce; he’s so jealous he could cry, if he ever did that sort of thing. He doesn’t care about the plan, or about the Soul Society, or about the boy. All he could think while watching the vision was, Wow. It’s so bright.
The world of the living isn’t just filled with living souls, it’s filled with light and color and sound. So much to see and do.
And for the first time in a long time, he doesn’t just hunger, he wants. He wants to go to the world of the living, wants to feel the sun on his skin, wants to see the sky with his own two eyes. His chest may lie forever empty, but the same need not be true of his days.
He can’t, though. Aizen would never allow it.
Then it hits him—who fucking cares? He’s not afraid to die. He’s never been afraid to die. Nothing lasts forever, not even here, in the eternal, unchanging desert. Everything dies. Everything rots. The end will come eventually, no matter what he does, so why not make the most of it? Why not squeeze out whatever scant joy he can? If he wants to do something, he should just do it, Aizen be damned.
On the face of it, that seems suicidal, but Grimmjow isn’t stupid. He’s gotten pretty good at navigating around Aizen and his whims. It’s not a death wish; it’s a gamble. One he’ll probably win.
Aizen may kill him for the insubordination, but more likely than not, His Royal Highness will let it slide. For better or worse, he’s indulgent with Grimmjow.
If Grimmjow is careful to spin it the right way, if he accepts his punishment afterward... He can probably get away with a lot.
There’s no way he could ever admit—or Aizen would believe—that Grimmjow wants to experience something new and full of life. So he needs to come up with a cover story. Something believable, something defensible, something that would convince Aizen that Grimmjow believes in the cause.
Maybe… he wants to take things into his own hands. If Ulquiorra won’t take initiative, won’t do what needs to be done, then Grimmjow can. He can show that pale piece of garbage how to be a proper fucking Espada. They’re weapons, after all, they’re supposed to kill all that stands in their way. That kid needs to be exterminated, if his growth rate really is as Ulquiorra described it.
Yeah, yeah, that’s good. It plays right into the whole ‘Espada of destruction’ thing. Aizen will eat that shit right up.
If he doesn’t, then he’ll kill Grimmjow, but at least that would be after he got a taste of something new. That’s reason enough to take the risk.
His fracción, loyal to the point of insanity, are all waiting for him in the main lounge of his wing. They all have their own rooms, they could and should have dispersed, but they didn’t. Warmth stirs somewhere in the depths of his long-empty chest. After everything, they’re still here. “Whaddya say we go for a stroll, boys?” He flashes his fangs, sharp and white.
They all know exactly what he means. They always do. The six of them have been together a long, long time. “Just say the word, boss, and we’re on it,” says Di Roy, grinning wide with his weird little teeth.
“Shawlong, you can open a descorrer, right?”
“Yes, of course,” Shawlong answers with a delicate little sniff.
With a grin, Grimmjow says, “I’ll go on ahead, then. Give it a few hours, make sure no one’s noticed I’m missin’, then come through to the world of the livin’ yerselves. Make sure ya get a decent distance from Las Noches before crossin’ over, don’t want nobody sniffin’ around after us.”
“I assume our destination is the location from Ulquiorra’s report?” asks Yylfordt.
Grimmjow snorts. “Yeah, duh.” He rolls his shoulders, resting his hand on Pantera and squinting at his fracción. They’re weak, sure, far weaker than him, but they’ve served him well. Maybe this can be a treat for them, a little reward for all the chores he foists onto them. “Let’s paint the town red, huh? See ya in a few hours.” And with that, he’s out the door, farewells following him down the hall.
Why the head start? Well, he wants to poke around, of course, without anyone or anything hovering over his shoulder. If he closes his pesquisa and monitors his reiatsu, no one should notice his presence.
Even if they do, he can take care of it. Nothing alive can compare to him.
Carefully, he slips out of Las Noches and into the vast desert. He picks his way across the sand, over dunes and around pits, through thin copses of spindly trees. Once he’s far enough out, he scratches open a descorrer. Here goes fucking nothing.
Whatever awaits him there can’t be worse than this is.
II. DEATH
to end, to ruin, to cease to be alive
The thing about the world of the living is that it’s everything all at once. Sights, smells, colors, noises, souls—everything here is alive, moving, growing, changing.
In Hueco Mundo, everything is dead. Static. Monochrome. Silent.
It’s nearing dusk when he arrives, the sky a brilliant orange the likes of which he’s never seen. Or maybe he has. Does it count, if he can’t remember it? He has to squint in the blinding brightness. It pisses him off, how mundane this is for the pathetic humans underfoot, how they just scuttle by without even glancing up at the heavens. This is momentous, to Grimmjow. A revelation. To them, it’s nothing. Just another day.
He knows how hollows are made. This was his world, once, and now it is so distant a memory as to be forgotten.
The fake sky of Las Noches really is nothing compared to the real thing. The facsimile is always blue and stagnant. How arrogant to think yourself capable of recreating this—this wide, yawning thing that is forever shifting, forever changing.
Taking one step forward, and then another, Grimmjow reacquaints himself with the world of the living. He is not living, but he is alive all the same. His heart is beating under his sternum and chest is filling with air cycled by trees and his head is spinning with all the sights and sounds and smells. Despite the undeniable unfamiliarity of it all, he does not feel out of place here.
Carefully, he explores the city. It would be a pain to encounter any enemies before his fracción arrive, so he keeps a tight lid on his pesquisa and smothers his reiatsu, a ghost once again.
Everything around him is languid. Despite the brevity of their time in this world, the humans move around unhurriedly, like it truly doesn’t matter how long it takes to get from one place to the next.
If Grimmjow were less himself, he’d probably envy them, but he knows better than that. That kind of breezy, horizonless life is anathema to him. He is not himself if he is not moving forever forward toward some indeterminable end.
Stagnation is defeat, and that’s what Aizen has brought down on their heads.
Was Grimmjow like this when he was alive? It’s hard not to wonder. What was he like, then, before power took over everything, before he was a king that only devoured, only hungered?
Is this all he’s ever going to be?
Part of him wants to lay siege to the blissful, ignorant humans, to have a real bloodbath, but he doesn’t do that. Of course he doesn’t do that. Why would he? He’d have fun for a moment or two, maybe, but it wouldn’t last, and then he’d be left alone in the wreckage with a bunch of soul reapers after him, probably. It wouldn’t be worth it.
Nothing’s worth it, these days.
Instead, he wanders. He stays high above, leisurely ambling along, invisible to anything with a beating heart and a tethered soul.
Far below, people live. They walk and talk and eat. A woman chatters noisily into a small folding box about a new job she just got. A man laughs loudly, announcing to the gathered men that his wife has a bun in the oven. A snake sneaks up on a mouse and strikes, swallowing it in one gulp, jaw stretching to make room. Life and death play out in vivid technicolor.
And then there is Grimmjow on high, far above the minutiae of life. He has a beating heart but he does not live. He has hands and hair and a sword and yet he is nothing like those humans below. They live, and he does not, and ain’t that a kick in the head?
Two young men fistfight in an alley. Two lovers do missionary in a disheveled bed on the fifth floor. Two youths throw heavy bricks at an abandoned storefront.
He keeps walking. There are food stands selling things he’s never seen, people speaking languages he’s never heard, storefront windows full of objects he couldn’t even guess the function of. This isn’t his world anymore. After he died, everything just… kept going. Like he never existed at all.
One store has a window full of screens. They’re all lit up in bright colors, broadcasting moving pictures. He walks down, down, down to see it up close. He presses his nose to the glass. Women and men walk right through him, unaware.
The images mean nothing to him despite how long he squints at them. People behind a desk, people walking in the woods with flashlights in their hands, small fluffy things bumbling around—what do they mean? Why are they here, in these small boxes? Why are the humans ignoring them?
Something miraculous is happening here, behind this sheet of glass, and the living don’t care.
Maybe it’s mundane to them. Maybe Grimmjow is the only one confused.
It chafes like everything else.
Leaving the storefront behind, he climbs back into the sky and continues prowling around the world of the living. He sees babies and birds and buildings that reach towards the sun. There is a light breeze ruffling leaves and his hair and his jacket.
He smells asphalt and freshly baked bread and stagnant water. He hears sirens and laughter and dogs barking.
Eventually, he finds a lake. (More of a pond, really, if we’re going to nitpick, but whatever.) Either way, it’s more water than he ever remembers seeing. In the vast white desert, there was never so much as a puddle, and in Las Noches, there was only the bath.
The surface of the lake is stained gold by glittering, reflected sunlight. Small beasts with long necks glide across the water without moving a muscle. Grimmjow wonders what it would feel like to swim. He wonders if he even knows how to. Could he drown, if he’s not alive?
He can be killed, certainly, but can he die? Does he need the air he can’t help but breathe?
Standing at the edge of the lake, there is a ghost. Her chain of fate is still mostly attached, though one end trails off into the depths of the water. She must have drowned here.
The chain should have broken, though, when she died. She shouldn’t be tethered here. And yet there she is—stuck. Motionless. Stagnant and looking towards the end.
Grimmjow doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t go down there, or talk to her, or try to help, because fuck that. He doesn’t want to. It’s not his fucking problem, and it’s not like he feels bad for her or anything stupid like that. The Espada of destruction doesn’t have empathy.
What could he do, anyway? He doesn’t have the power to help her move on. If he killed her, she’d disappear, maybe reborn, but maybe not. If he broke her chain, that would hasten the loss of her heart, and that shit ain’t all it cracked up to be.
There are worse fates. At least she died somewhere beautiful.
And really, he doesn’t even care.
The next ghost he sees is an older man skulking around a konbini. He’s the harmless sort of haunt—he only seems interested in reading magazines over people’s shoulders and knocking over bottled drinks.
Grimmjow doesn’t remember ever reading a magazine, or drinking from a bottle, or walking through an automatic door.
Maybe it happened. Maybe it didn’t. Does it even count if he can’t remember it? Would it count if he did remember it, but no one else did? Is there anyone out there who knew him before he died? Would they recognize him as he is now?
Who was he, as a singular soul? Surely he’s different, now, for the assimilation, for the absorption of so many others unto himself.
Every person in this convenience store has a head full of memories, full of life and color. Grimmjow remembers the desert, remembers the palace, remembers the lord-size bed. White and black and false, empty blue. That’s it.
The ghost turns around and his eyes widen behind his glasses. “What the hell,” he says, pointing at Grimmjow. “Are you real?”
A woman walks through Grimmjow to get to the instant ramen display. “Does it matter?” Grimmjow replies with a snort. Real, fake, alive, dead—it’s all the same. Everyone is only ever spinning their wheels.
“You can see me,” the man says at length, “and they can’t.”
“Didn’t ya see that bitch walk right through me, fuck fer brains? We’re made outta the same shit. I can see you, you can see me, they can’t see either of us.”
“So you’re dead too?”
Grinning wide, Grimmjow says, “I been dead a long time. You have, too, judgin’ by that chain of yers.”
The ghost looks down at his chest, to the scant few links left in his chain of fate. The ravenous end is eating the fourth link as they speak. He says, “Yeah. Do you know what happens when there’s no chain left?”
“Nothin’ good. It’ll hurt like hell.”
“Oh,” says the man.
“Have fun with that,” says Grimmjow, and he turns on his heel. Once upon a time, he might have ripped that ghost’s heart out himself. He might have told him that to lose your heart is to become free, with no morals or scruples holding you back. He might have eaten him.
But Grimmjow doesn’t feel like doing any of those things, so he just leaves, just hikes back up into the atmosphere, towards the setting sun.
It’s peaceful, here in this world of beating hearts and tethered souls. Even with everything changing, everything in flux, everything flashing colors and blasting sounds—nothing here is going to eat him.
He doesn’t have to eat anything, either.
Eventually, the sky darkens entirely, and Grimmjow knows his idle time is up. He seeks out the tallest building and settles onto the roof, confident his fracción will find him.
When they do, Grimmjow is lounging, his back facing the moon, ready to fuckin’ rock and roll. All that time alone in the (safe, secure, nauseating) world of the living put an itch under his skin. He needs to get this energy out, out, out. He needs to tear into something.
“Everyone here?” he asks, though it’s a rhetorical question, obviously. He only has five fracción, and he can clearly see all of them standing there in front of him. (Except Yylfordt, the dramatic asshole, who is squatting, because he just has to be different from everyone else.) “Anybody see ya?”
“Of course not,” scoffs Shawlong, clearly offended by the question. He’s been Grimmjow’s right hand for long enough that it was kind of shitty to even ask. Of course not. Shouldn’t he trust them, by now? “I felt quite a few powerful spiritual pressures on the way here, contrary to Ulquiorra’s report.” Surprise, surprise. That skinny ass sack of garbage made the wrong fucking choice.
Grimmjow harrumphs, both pleased about being right and annoyed at now having to be the one to deal with it. “Open your pesquisas,” he orders, “all the way.”
After being together for as long as the six of them have, they’ve gotten good at stacking their pesquisas. They can cover a few dozen miles of rock and sand and reishi if all of them are there. This entire shit ass human city? Not a problem.
He closes his eyes and focuses and yep—there are plenty. Refined ones, too, not just raw natural human talent. Motherfucking soul reapers.
“Just like I fuckin’ said,” Grimmjow drawls, “there’s a bunch of ‘em. They musta called fer reinforcements from the Soul Society. This shit wouldn’t be happenin’ if that fucker had just killed everyone. He’s damn soft!” Tonight’s gonna be fun. “Everybody ready?” They all nod at him, confident and loose. “No need to hold back, yeah? If they’ve got even a damn lick of reiatsu, kill ‘em. Spare no one.”
“We’re in for a bloodbath, eh, King?” asks Di Roy with a frankly hideous leer.
Grimmjow grins at him, wide and wild, feeling the anticipation bubble under his hierro. “Would I drag yer asses out here fer anythin’ less?”
Edrad laughs, brash and full-bodied as ever. “Been a long time since we’ve done something like this! It’ll be a nice change of pace, eh?” He digs a playful elbow into Yylfordt’s rib. Yylfordt’s eyes darken but he says nothing.
After a bit of back and forth, and a lot of squabbling, they eventually decide who is going after which spiritual pressure. Grimmjow, knowing damn well an easy battle will make him feel half out of his mind, decides to hang back for now, at least until a fight gets interesting.
“We found ‘em all, right?” he drawls, squinting at his fracción. All five of them nod. “Then it’s time. Don’t let a single one of these fuckers escape.”
And with that, his fracción are gone, shooting off with sonído in their chosen directions.
It’s quiet for a while, after that, which shouldn’t unsettle Grimmjow, but… Something feels off. He’s… Oh, for the love of shit, he’s doing that thing again. The ‘wondering if this is all part of Aizen’s machinations’ thing. Because, like… is it? It could be. It always could be.
He shakes his head to clear out the thoughts. It’s a little late for that. Whether this is according to Aizen’s plans or not, it’s happening, and there’s no stopping it. He can’t call his pack back. Even if he could, he wouldn’t. This is the only interesting thing he’s done since he died.
Flares of reiatsu blare all around him. The fights have begun, somehow perfectly in sync, as his fracción seem to always be.
Energy builds and erupts, disparate souls clash, and—a sharp lance of fear pierces Di Roy’s reiatsu. Surprise, surprise. Sighing, Grimmjow ambles in the general direction of his weakest fracción. It was always going to be Di Roy who stumbled, he knew it, they all knew it, and yet he never cut the kid loose.
He doesn’t know why he never cut the kid loose.
Maybe he’s weak. Maybe he’s the soft one, not icy ass Ulquiorra. Maybe he’d resent his pack being smaller. Maybe the others would miss the kid. Maybe he would miss the kid. Maybe he just couldn’t be assed. Maybe it’s none of those things.
Who the fuck cares? His thoughts don’t matter. His feelings certainly don’t, either—he doesn’t know why he even bothers with those. They’ve never done a damn thing for him.
And then, before Grimmjow even arrives, someone snuffs out Di Roy’s reiatsu.
Feelings? Who needs ‘em.
If he picks up the pace and slips into sonído, well, there’s no one around to notice, so. Did it really even happen?
Highly recommended method of denial, by the way. Works for everything, even when sensation lingers behind, even when you’re sore down to your very bones, even when you can still feel it seeping out and down your leg.
Oh. It’s the kid. The one with the orange hair and the angry eyes. The one who started all this.
Di Roy is nowhere to be seen. There’s not even a body, still bleeding out. He’s just gone. Like he never existed at all.
Maybe that would’ve been for the best. Maybe that’s true of all of them.
“What?” Grimmjow asks loudly, announcing his presence from on high. He pulses his reiatsu, too, just for fun, just to see the looks on their faces when it comes down on their heads like a damn anvil. “Di Roy already got his ass killed?”
Below, two heads snap up, identical expressions on their faces. There’s the kid, of course, and another soul reaper. A woman, maybe, though it’s hard to tell from up here. Who cares. The brunette is small and their reiatsu is weak. The kid’s is, too, actually. They’re nothing compared to him and they clearly know it.
Oh, beautiful. Wide eyes and trembling mouths—he’ll never get tired of that look. Prey when it realizes there is no escape.
He may not be a king anymore, might not have ever been one, but he is a predator. A hunter.
The pair on the ground haven’t moved. They’re both watching him, quaking in their stupid sandals with equally stupid slack-jawed horror on their faces. It’s lovely, really. Almost picturesque. It pisses him off. (Everything pisses him off.)
Damn it, he wants them to say something. Di Roy is fucking dead and they’re just fucking standing there.
…They don’t want to talk? Fine. He’s plenty good at it, himself. He says, “Damn. Guess I’ll just hafta kill yer asses myself!” Then, because he’s a nice guy, he introduces himself, gesturing down the length of his body. “Arrancar number six, Grimmjow!” If they know anything about anything, that will scare their pants off. If they’re really as stupid as they look, it’ll mean nothing, but Grimmjow’s all sorts of used to saying things that mean nothing. Like ‘I’m not in the mood’ or ‘maybe later’. “Nice ta fuckin’ meetcha, soul reapers!”
Wow, what an audience! Neither of them move a muscle, just watching as he moseys out of the sky, hands in his pockets, a perfect picture of nonchalance. He has their full attention. He makes a show of it.
(Edrad has released Volcanica. Grimmjow feels it, the familiar red-hot reiatsu.)
Still they say nothing. His grin widens, predatory and gleaming, even as annoyance turns into something bitter and caustic in the cage of his chest. This is fucking pathetic. These two are a waste of his time, and he knows it, and they know it.
There will be hell to pay back in Las Noches and these stupid, sniveling soul reapers aren’t even fucking worth it. None of this has been fucking worth it.
All that trouble to be a voyeur in a world that isn’t his, that won’t ever be his again.
He knows he needs to make the most of this, but he’s impulsive, and impatient, and everything else Aizen has called him while he’s on his knees. So he says, “So which one, huh?” The brunette’s eyes widen, the first spark of life from these two corpses. “Which one of you fuckers is stronger?”
And finally one of them speaks, spurred to action by another pulse of Grimmjow’s suffocating reiatsu. It’s the brunette, who screams, “Ichigo! Retreat!” Little late for that, sugar.
A quick burst of sonído is all it takes for hand to pierce torso. The brunette doesn’t even have time to blink before Grimmjow’s run them through, blood pouring over his wrist and dripping down his elbow. Predictably, he got them where he always gets them—the navel, perfectly mirroring his own hollow hole. All they can do is look at him with wide gray eyes.
“Just as I thought,” he sneers, face twisted into a gnarly grin, “it ain’t you.” With a flick of the wrist, he tosses them aside.
“You… You bastard…” It’s weak, thready. Probably hard to talk around a hole in the gut, though Grimmjow doesn’t have a problem. They hit the ground with a pathetic thud.
(Edrad’s reiatsu disappears like a wisp of smoke. He’s dead, just like Di Roy. Like he never existed at all.)
And suddenly the kid springs to life. “Rukia!!” he screams, which must be the brunette’s name, not that Grimmjow gives a shit. With a roar, the boy lunges, pretty quick all things considered, but it’s nothing compared to Grimmjow’s speed even without sonído. Still, it’s promising. This one will, at the very least, put up a fight before Grimmjow punches a hole in him.
He grins at the kid, wide and wild. He could go for a good beat-down right now. Two of his fracción are dead; two more have just released. He wants to trust their power—it’s a damn insult that he’s having this train of thought at all—but he can’t. Di Roy and Edrad are dead. Would it really be that surprising if Shawlong and Yylfordt and Nakeem were next? Wouldn’t it be just Grimmjow’s luck to take them out for a reward and come back alone?
The kid, stupid as anything, doesn’t even bother to feint. It’s a totally straight swing towards Grimmjow’s bare cheek, so well telegraphed as to be fucking insulting. The boy’s footing is off and his grip is all wrong for a sword that size. Grimmjow raises a hand to block it, not even needing his hierro. The kid has a lot of raw spiritual power, sure, but he’s ass at controlling it, and even worse at putting it to work for him.
Shit, this is fucking embarrassing. Grimmjow came all the way here for this? (Two of his fracción are dead for this?) This is the kid that has Aizen’s panties in a twist?
Another flick of the wrist and the kid goes skidding backwards. He yelps, scrambling for purchase in the air, and Grimmjow’s mood sours farther. What a fucking joke.
“Oi,” he calls out, digging in his ear with his pinky. This won’t be any fun unless the kid goes all out, so Grimmjow does what he does best: he goads. “Who do you think I am? I ain’t the kinda guy who slaughters lambs.” That’s what this is, though, isn’t it? A slaughter. (Fair’s fair, though. They’ve killed two of his.) “I’m goin’ easy on you, dipshit.” The kid stops short. His chest heaves with a stuttering breath. “Y’better hurry up and release yer bankai, otherwise you’ll end up fulla holes like that sack of shit over there.” He jerks his thumb at the brunette’s motionless body. He doesn’t even know if this boy has a bankai, but a guy can dream, can’t he? Even a guy like him?
“You piece of shit,” spits the kid, incandescent. Easy, easy, easy. Too fucking easy.
The manic grin slips off of Grimmjow’s face. He’s here playing with this pathetic excuse of a soul reaper instead of protecting his pack. They’re down two, and judging by the weird flaring of the unfamiliar reiatsus they’re facing, they’ll soon be down even more.
He won’t back down from this, of course, and he’d rather the kid at least try to fight him off, but. This isn’t fun anymore. It wasn’t ever all that fun.
That’s how it always is, with him. Nothing is ever as fun as it should be, as he wants it to be, as he needs it to be. Easier to just roll over and take it. At least that isn’t supposed to be fun.
“Bankai!”
Easy, easy, easy. “That’s more like it.”
Stupid and brash, the kid lunges again, faster than before but not fast enough. Pitch black sword held tight with two shaking fists, drawing up to come down like a guillotine.
Grimmjow, hands in his pockets, jumps out of the way. Easy, easy, easy.
(Is that—they’re dead. They’re all dead. His fracción, his pack… Like they never existed at all. He’s alone again. King of nothing.) Nakeem didn’t even get a chance to release. What a fucking joke.
…He’s gonna kill this fucking kid.
the serpent swallowing its own tail