Bleach Fan Fiction ❯ Negative Space ❯ You Idiot ( Chapter 8 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Memories. They made everything seem so much worse as they ran through my head in fading detail. How long had I been watching them replay in my mind? Months? Years? It felt like eons. My body had gone dormant long ago to preserve my spirit energy, leaving me with only my thoughts as I waited. I would have killed myself if whatever piece of my soul I still had would have allowed it. I had considered it, but by then I had surrendered to the binding kido that made me powerless.

A joke on Aizen's part, I was sure.

A memory lit to life, consuming me in the sensations of the past. My body had long forgotten how to feel anything in my prison, but the phantom feeling of pressing my hand to soft silk ran through me like it was real.

"Become mine, the way that I became the God Maker's," I cooed as my hand closed on the silk, holding someone close. "Wed our bond."

"You would really ask that of me?" A deep male voice asked. His face came into focus showing me the dark features of Gantenbainne as he looked down at me with a flat expression. I knew what was coming, but even as I tried to toss the memory away it continued to play, growing clearer as I was unwillingly sucked deeper into the event.

"It would change things between us, but it would be like you became my equal. Nothing else would be different." He needed to understand how I wanted this, maybe even needed it. "It's a deeper connection than just the bond as it is."

"Isabellia," he said my name like it was really a no, and I stiffened as his big hands closed over my upper arms and pushed me back from him. Those green eyes of his watched me cautiously as he held me at arms distance. "I want you to release me from the bond, not make it unbreakable."

I blinked up at him. He wanted me to do what? I knew the answer, but in the memory I didn't understand. We had just survived the war games. Most of my proginey had fallen victim to the games, but he had survived. I had survived. The God Maker would have been proud if he were still alive. But then again, I wouldn't have been bothering with Gantenbainne if he were still here.

"Why?" I asked, my voice having grown hard from the sense of pending rejection.

"I want to be an Espada by my own rights," he pronounced. I narrowed my eyes at him suspiciously as I shook of his grip on my arms and frowned at him. My actions didn't give him pause because he continued. "If I stay belonging to you, I will be nothing but your shadow, dying in your darkness as you stand atop our corpses like an angel of death."

"I am not the cause of their deaths," I snapped. "They were weaker than you and I. They could not face our enemies and fight as we can."

"Yes, you are. You stripped them of everything that made them powerful. They could have been Espada too if they hadn't stood beside you."

My mouth pressed into a tight line in a feeble attempt to hide my rage. "You really believe that?"

"Yes."

I scoffed and turned, giving him my back. "You know nothing, Gantenbainne. I have tried to teach you everything that I know, yet you have retained none of it!"

"I have learned from you, but you know as well as I that we are two very different beings."

I felt his touch drag down the back of the elegantly draped robe and like the motion had lit a spark in me, I reacted. My zanpakuto rang as I tapped the blade with the jewelry that adorned my hand and my armor wordlessly flowed into existence. Before Gantenbainne could react I had pulled a feather from my hair and slapped it against a square of bare skin that was exposed on his upper chest. He started to take a step back with his surprise, but stopped as I dug my nails into his skin.

"I take it back, the blessing of Amechania," I half shouted in an angry bluster as I met his relieved eyes with a hardened glare. "Everything we had offered is no longer. Protection, shelter, love - none of it is yours from this day on."

His eyes widened with my words and he started to step back again as if to stop me. I followed him, keeping my feather pressed to his skin as I pulled my power from within him. The healthy flush of color that had pigmented his skin drained away from his face as he felt my presence within him drain away. He had never stood as an Arrancar without my power to support him. It was clear that he hadn't understood what I had done for him all these years as he fell to his knees before me, his face ashen.

Once I felt the last of my power slip back into my body I pulled my feather from his skin and crushed it between my fingers. His eyes were wide as he watched the bone feather turn grey and crumble away. He knew what it meant for me to destroy the feather, to destroy the remnants of the connection we had once had.

"Isabellia," he murmured my name in shock.

I was acting out of anger and knew it, but I wasn't going to regret this moment. I had been willing to give him everything and he hadn't just turned me down, he had asked to leave me. The part of me that was Amechania wanted to drag him into the darkness and leave him there to die, but that would have made me more of a monster than I wanted to admit that I was.

"Go," I said as I pulled my Negative Space to my skin to give myself a godly aura of darkness. "I am your maker, and nothing more. Do not come to me for comfort, because you will find only darkness in my territory."

Ganten started to say something in reply, but a sharp scraping sensation ran down some part of my body, distracting me. I couldn't tell what was what any more. Time had worn my body down to almost nothing, making it so I couldn't define the memories from reality. I just existed, unable to die and unable to free myself.

That same scraping sensation became stronger, feeling less like a scrape and more of pressure. Pulling away from the deep recess of my mind that I had hidden myself away in, my awareness expanded back into my flesh and flooded my mind with the sensations I had abandoned in an attempt to keep myself sane. Hunger. Thirst. Cold. Pain. All the horrible sensations I had drawn away from overwhelmed my mind and forced a shudder to run through my body, making every nerve light on fire with burning hot pain. My eyes blinked open only for the light of another aura to blind me, and I was abruptly lost to darkness.

A soft snuffling sound stirred me from the darkness just before something wet and warm nudged my arm. I jerked, but my motion was stopped by the bounds that still trapped my arms. Something snorted and scrabeling sounds hit my ears. There was silence for a long moment, and I had to wonder if I has scared off whatever it was that had been bothering me. The thought made me want to laugh at how pathetic I was, but I didn't bother exerting myself. I wished I would just hurry up and die already, but even as I thought it, I knew it was a lie. I didn't want to die. I didn't know what I wanted, but it wasn't death.

Hot air blew over my face and I jerked at the foreign sensation. My eyes opened, but I hadn't used them in so long that at first I didn't understand what I was looking at. Then those large brown eyes registered, and I blinked dumbly.

Raacharg, you idiot...

Once through my garganta Grimmjow took the lead, guiding us through the chaotic reishi towards the world of the living. This wasn't the shortest route to the other side, but I didn't have the patience to explain that as I pushed for more speed. I doubted he had spent years mapping out the darkness like I had, and I wasn't about to explain. Sensing my urge to move faster Grimmjow picked up his pace, staying ahead of me as we went.

It was a strange sense of surrender on my part, allowing him to lead as he was. I hadn't been someone's subordinate for at least two hundred years. After my last master had died I had involved myself entirely in the Espada and delved into really becoming part of the ruling body rather than serving an individual master. Clearly, that hadn't gone well for me in the end, but that was just history now.

"Can you find him once we're in the world of the living?" Grimmjow asked, his voice sounding small as it was lost in the darkness.

"Unless he's suppressing himself, yes," I answered. "Since you're about to have to deal with me a lot, you should know one of my shortcomings is my lack of sense for spiritual pressure."

"I thought you were supposed to be a god?" He asked.

I frowned at his back. "I was, but even gods aren't perfect. We all had our strengths and weaknesses."

"And what were yours?" He asked as he glanced back at me.

I met his azure eyes for only a second before I turned my gaze back to where we were going. "My strengths are all related to combat. Concentrated ceros, on the spot strategies, reactions, close combat and melee prowess. That sort of thing."

"And your weaknesses?"

"I'll tell you them as you need to know, like my weak senses," I answered as I pushed power into the distance, calling forth our exit into the world of the living.

"Or you'll tell me when I ask," he said darkly.

"You'll have to earn that level of trust," I said with a casual shrug just before we emerged from the mouthlike opening of my garganta.

The instant I left the chaotic reishi I was greeted by the humid air that I was never fond of. It was worse with it being night time, making the cold of it stick to me like a layer of sweat. Of course it wasn't accumulating like that, but the sensation was still there. It was gross.

Grimmjow turned to me as I stopped to motion my garganta closed. I think he had expected me to dart off like some sort of homing missile by the look of confusion he gave me as I turned to get a good look at where we had emerged. Concrete walls that stood at least eight foot tall surrounded what looked like someone's backyard. Grass was underfoot, taking up the center of the yard and leaving the corners of the yard to house planters with various types of vegetation growing in well maintained clusters. I didn't pay it much mind as I tilted my head back to look up at the sky.

Fortunately, a clear sky greeted my eyes as I found the Living's moon in the darkness. It wasn't nearly as large as the moon in Hueco Mundo, but the familiar sheen of soft light was a welcome sight. My eyesight was great in the dark, but I always enjoyed actually seeing color rather than everything being in shades of grey.

My gaze flicked back down to see him looking at me expectantly. I let out a rough sigh and moved towards one of the walls. "Just give me a minute to spread my senses. If he's nearby, I'll be able to tell where."

"Pesquisa?"

"Excuse you," I commented back, not understanding what he had asked and quite frankly, not caring. With a huff I found a spot on the wall to lean on and pressed my back to it as I opened myself to feeling spiritual pressures. Normally, I wouldn't have had to open myself to the sensations of others, but Raacharg hadn't pricked my senses as soon as we had emerged. Either Grimmjow had been wrong and he wasn't in Karakura Town, or he was already - well, I wouldn't go there yet. I would have felt it if he had died, just like I had felt so many others pass while I lived on.

I frowned as bodies lit up on my senses like pins stuck in a map. Gods, there were so many people with power in this town that it was stupid. I had known that this town was the hotspot for gifted members of the living, but I never really noticed before just how many of them there were.

Shaking the distraction of them away I focused on the bond that made Raacharg mine. In Hueco Mundo I hadn't felt a thing when I had been looking for him, but here there was a twinge of something where our bond resided. It wasn't even close to how it normally felt, but it was there. I couldn't put my finger on why. He wasn't hurt, but it was like something was muddying our bond. Interference? It was a difficult sensation to describe, but it would explain why he hadn't popped up on my radar right away.

With a frown turning the corners of my mouth I pushed away from the wall and turned in the direction that Raacharg was in. I glanced over to Grimmjow and frowned at him. "There's something wrong with the way he feels, like his spiritual pressure has been tainted."

"What do you mean by that?" He asked as he stepped to me.

"He feels wrong. I don't know why, but normally he feels alive, I guess." I let out a sigh and started walking down the street. "He is the reason why I act Human. Without his light, I wouldn't be how I am. There's something wrong with him. I need to get him out of Karakura town before I can spend the time to figure out what."

I slipped into my sonido with that word and darted up into the air. It was faster to run on the residual reishi under foot than it was to pound against concrete, not to mention just running over the buildings instead of around them. With Raacharg's warped spiritual pressure in the forefront of my mind I ran to him like he was a glowing beacon in the distance. Distantly I felt Grimmjow following, but as focused as I had to be on Raacharg he was little more than a presence.

It took me only a minute or two to be almost on top of him, and I quickly descended to the street level. He had been able to stand on reishi in his released hellhound state, but he wasn't exerting nearly enough energy to be in that form. He had to be on the ground, which would make it a thousand times easier to pin him down.

"Do you want to play a game Mr. Puppy?" It was the voice of a child that greeted my ears, making my face scrunch up with confusion. There was no way that voice belonged to Raacharg. He may have appeared to be a talking dog, but he had the deeper voice of a full grown man.

"I'm a dog, little boy. Not a puppy."

That was Raacharg, or his voice at least.

I turned my attention to a large concrete wall that stood between where I knew he had to be and me. I glanced around for the first time, taking in the residential part of town that we were in. Houses surrounded by eight-foot concrete walls lined the street for as far as I could see. Street lights were placed periodically down the road, but conveniently I was standing in a darkened section of street. Glancing up, I saw the broken bulb in the lamp above. Somehow, I didn't think it was by chance.

"But still, do you want to play a game?" The child asked, clearly undeterred by Raacharg's unamused response.

"No, but if you won't stop bothering me, I suppose I have no choice."

It may have been Raacharg's voice, but that wasn't Raacharg. He was far too nice to children. I had no idea why, especially when he was so driven by his hunger. But he was, and talking to someone like that was so out of character that it seemed like a different person.

"Good!" The child's cheer was piercing and almost loud enough to cover the sharp slap that followed. "Hide and go seek! Count to twenty, and come find me!"

A gate leading out from one of walls opened and a child burst out into the street. I reacted and darted up into the sky, but he didn't seem to notice as he giggled and started running down the street. "Start counting, dog! It's gotta be loud enough so I can hear it!"

If the way that kid was calling him a dog wasn't ticking him off, there really was something wrong. Raacharg hated being called a dog.

"One, two, three," Raacharg's tone was flat and bored as he began counting. I frowned, and with one quick glance to ensure that soul was far enough away, I darted down into the backyard that the boy had ran from. It took me all of two seconds to spot Raacharg laying on the back porch of the house with his front paws crossed. With what I had heard come from him and the sight of him sitting all prim and proper, I knew something wasn't just wrong. It looked like him, but there was no way in fucking hell that it was him in that body.

"Four, five, six."

I had touched the ground in the middle of the yard, but it wasn't until I started moving towards him that he actually looked at me. Red eyes met mine, and that alone had me stopped mid step. Eye colors only changed when someone was so under the influence of another's power that it reflected in the reishi of their eyes. Something had overridden the influence that our bond had over him. The part of me within him was still there, but just like I had felt earlier it was muddied by whatever had turned his eyes red.

"Raacharg is mine. Who the fuck are you to try and steal him away from me?" I said sharply.

His head tilted in a gesture that I would have normally associated with amusement in my Adjuchas. With whatever was speaking through him, it looked more like confusion.

"Raacharg? Is that the name of this Hollow?" A cough like laugh came from him and he shifted his back legs to give him a more relaxed appearance. "That's a strange name. Hidora sounds much better."

I didn't find it funny at all, and I showed my lack of amusement in my steps towards him. "I don't give a fuck what you call yourself. You're going to get out of my Adjuchas, even if I have to tear you out myself."

His jowls lifted in a smile and he turned his head up to call out, "fifteen."

I felt Grimmjow drop from his sonido just behind me just before he said my name. I glanced back at him with a narrowed glare as he stepped toward me and said, "suppress yourself."

"Why?" I asked.

"Just do it," he growled. "There's a Soul Reaper in the area, probably coming for that soul."

I frowned at him and turned back to Raacharg. It would only take me a moment to take him back and free him from whatever had made his eyes turn red.

"Jesus cheese balls," I growled when I saw the empty porch. I turned back to Grimmjow and glared at him. "You're not helping."

"He's possessed, isn't he?" He asked as I turned my gaze to the sky and making me pause before I could run after Raacharg.

"Yes, and I have every intention of taking him back. Don't get in my way."

I stepped off the ground and darted into the air as my attention focused on the piece of my power within Raacharg. My gaze focused on an overgrown and empty lot that was only a few blocks away, but before I could follow Grimmjow was beside me. He had taken hold of my upper arm, stopping from going anywhere. Anger spiked inside me and I turned it on him in a silent snarl.

"What the fuck are you doing?"

I quickly noticed that his gaze wasn't on me, but rather focused in the direction that Raacharg had gone. "That Soul Reaper is over there. You need to suppress yourself."

"Why the hell would I want to do that?" I snapped. "To take him back from that person inside of him, I need to flush him with my spirit energy. Suppressing myself will make it that much harder."

"That Soul Reaper feels like the old Head Captain," he explained, sounding patient where I was not.

"The old Head Captain?" I asked, confused. "There is no old Head Captain. There's only ever been Shigekuni."

I had met the Head Captain he was referring to well before the Soul Reapers had been made. He hadn't had a title back then, but he was the most powerful soul I had ever met. The first time he had come to Hueco Mundo he had come chasing one of the God Maker's other proginey who made sport out of consuming and harassing the Soul Society. We had helped him hunt and kill him and his small army of Hollows. The next time he had come, it had been with the Soul King. I knew how devastatingly power that man was when he wanted to be.

"Yamamoto died almost twenty years ago," Grimmjow corrected me. "Yhwach killed him."

I blinked up at him for a moment, then shook my head dismissively. I hadn't wanted him to know that I was so ignorant of current events, but here I was, literally telling him that I had no idea what was going on in the word. Whatever. "So that one down there is what, his offspring?"

"I don't know. I've never felt them before, and I don't feel like getting into a fight with them unless we absolutely have to."

I frowned at him. "I won't let Raacharg get killed because of my inaction. I'll play at being a member of the living if I have to get close. I don't give a shit how I do it, but I'm going to him."

"How do you expect to fool a Soul Reaper into thinking that you're a member of the living?" He asked, his voice exposing his amusement with his tone.

"Watch me."

"Isa," his tone was warning, but I jerked my arm free from his grip and released my hold on the reishi underfoot, causing me to drop from the sky down to the street. I landed roughly on the ground, but brushed off the impact as I transitioned into a walk and raised my hand to my hair. I had pulled it up into a ponytail this morning, but as I walked I tugged at the elastic band to release my hair. With a quick flick my long blonde waves fell free to cascade down my back. I ran a hand through it, shaking my bangs out from the longer strands to cover the beads of bone that edged my hair line. As a final touch to make myself appear Human I suppressed myself and stepped up onto the sidewalk.

"Scared little Soul Reaper!" It was Raacharg's voice that had shouted, but instead of him running around the corner I saw a female Soul Reaper dart out from an intersection a few houses down. Before she could cross the road Raacharg shot towards her, his teeth sinking into her thigh. She swung at him with her zanpakuto, but he darted back to avoid her strike. She started to run again, but stopped herself as she muffled a shout. Yep, that hurt.

"We need to get back," Grimmjow growled as his hand found my arm again. I jerked away from his grip, but when he caught me again I flashed him a glare over my shoulder as blue light flashed across the street and vanished.

"He is right there," I growled. "I am not going to go hide. If he kills that Soul Reaper then demon boy is going to be out for our heads again."

"You're being a damn idiot," he snarled back. "Can't you feel it? A senkaimon just opened."

"I can't feel that sort of shit." I moved to pull away from him again, but his grip was too tight this time and he held me where I was. I let out a frustrated huff, but it was cut short when I felt Raacharg draw on the piece of my power within him. I didn't know how that thing inside him was using my power like that, but even as I watched his body shifted into the hellhound form he had taken the other day. With orange fur, bright orange paws that were basked in flames that seemed to spin as he walked he ran at a wall that had appeared between the two. With a swing of his scyth shaped tail he destroyed it in an explosion of flames, sending a barrage of debris at the Soul Reaper. He gave her no time to recover as he crashed into her back, his tail sinking into her chest.

I wanted to scream at him, to tell him to stop because he was being a damned idiot, but nothing came from my mouth. Goddamn idiot. I was going to tear whatever shit it was inside him out and crush it slowly. Even as I watched the Soul Reaper pull herself into ball made of the earth around her while Raacharg stood there, tongue lolling from the side of his mouth in a pleased expression, I vowed I would get revenge for this. I was going to find and rip it apart-

A spiritual pressure so strong that I even felt it flared in the distance, stopping me mid thought as I turned to look at the sky. Grimmjow swore under his breath and wrenched me closer to him before his other arm surrounded me and I was abruptly forced into his sonido. I went for my zanpakuto in reaction to his show of force, but his grip shifted and he caught my hand mid motion to stop me. I struggled against him, but before I could get anywhere he stopped in the branches of a tree that had been a short distance away. With his arm controlling my movement, his other hand released my arm only to find a better grip over my mouth and he forced me with his superior strength to be still.

I could do nothing to fight his suppression hold as my eyes locked on the scene below. I was going to kill Grimmjow. I was going to kill him and roast his damn nuts in Raacharg's fire when I got free from his grip. He wasn't my master, not yet. He had no right to force me into submission like this.

"Suppress yourself goddamn it," he said in a harsh whisper. I hadn't realized my spiritual pressure had grown with my anger, but I didn't bother listening to him. If he wanted to keep me from saving my Adjuchas then he could damn well go suck a slug.

"Isa," his word was supposed to be warning, but I shook my head as best I could with his hand clamped over my mouth. It was the best I could do in that moment to tell him to fuck off. His grip around me tightened to a painful hold and he growled, "that spiritual pressure belongs to a Captain that you stand no chance of defeating. If you don't suppress yourself, you and your Adjuchas will be dead."

Rage ran through me at his words and I forced my mouth to open just enough so I could bite down on his palm. Even as the taste of his blood ran into my mouth he didn't jerk away like I wanted him to, but he did ease up enough so that I could talk around his hand. "I swear to the gods that if you do not release me I will-"

The spiritual pressure of that Captain that Grimmjow had been speaking of hit me so hard that my words cut off, and through the leaves of the tree I watched as a white haired Soul Reaper in a Captain's haori slammed into the ground in a wash of ice and power, taking down Raacharg in one bloody sweep of his zanpakuto. I started to scream in protest, but Grimmjow's hand clamped down over my mouth again so hard that the back of my head pressed to his shoulder, forcing me to swallow the sound.

"Suppress yourself!" His whisper was like a shout in my ear, and for some reason I actually listened to him this time. I couldn't explain why I did it, but my spiritual pressure dulled to nothing as I watched with wide enraged eyes as the Captain stood over the downed form of my Adjuchas. I wouldn't look away from this. I would commit to memory the appearance of that captain, memorizing everything that I could as I promised revenge upon him and his for what he had done to Raacharg.

The Captain's gaze quickly flicked around the area as he was joined by another Soul Reaper who didn't possess the same Captain's haori, but a pink scarf in its place. They were speaking softly to one another as his gaze passed over the tree that Grimmjow had dragged me into and continued on to look over the place. Once they appeared satisfied they turned to the mesh of concrete and metal that the wounded one had crafted to protect herself, and with another blast of power it was covered in ice.

It took him mere minutes to free the wounded woman and to bring her into his arms, but it felt like an hour as my gaze flicked between them and Raacharg's form. He wasn't moving, which was probably the only reason they hadn't gone to finish him off. He was still alive. I could feel him in my head like a weakening light, but he was still there. I was careful as I let a trace of my spirit energy slip into our bond to him. It wasn't enough to keep him alive, but it would help.

"Careful," Grimmjow murmured. "They're distracted, but they will still feel you if you're much louder."

I wanted to tell him to shut up and that I knew what I was doing, but clearly couldn't. All I could do was watch as Raacharg was completely disregarded by the Soul Reapers as they collected their kin and darted up into the sky to their senkaimon.

As soon as the doors leading to the Soul Society closed with a boom of sound, I tore myself from Grimmjow's relaxing hold and darted down to where Raacharg's bloodied body was strewn across the road. Ice had crept over his form, matting his fur over the wound I had seen him take and glueing him to the concrete beneath his body. The ice was saturated with the residual spiritual pressure from that captain, making my attempts to break it with a swift kick ineffective. The need to protect Raacharg drove me into reacting and I drew my zanpakuto, slamming the butt of it into the ground hard enough to rattle the earth beneath my feet. With a flash of my own spirit energy the ice shattered, releasing it's grip on my Adjucha.

I slammed the blade of my zanpakuto in the ground beside me, keeping Amechania within arms reach should I need the release of power as I knelt. Carefully, I pulled his unmoving form toward me and exposed the angry wound that ran from his neck, down his side and to his hind quarters in one fluid streak of ruined flesh. His fur looked black in the light, the once brown pigment now ruined with blood.

My breath hitched when I heard a pained gasp drag from his mouth and one glowing red eye shifted to glance at me. My Raacharg wasn't in that gaze, and anger lit through me. How dare someone try to take what was mine. I leaned forward sheltering his smaller form in my shadow as I gathered power within myself.

"He is mine," I growled as I took hold of the bond between us and shoved power from me to him. For only an instant I saw the thing that had taken him over in my mind. It was all rage and bitterness, a being so opposed to Raacharg that he stood out like beacon of red against the darkness of my power and the bright white flames of his own. I felt it's attention turn towards me, but I gave it no chance. I slammed my power into it in one swift strike that resounded through our bond like a bell.

A bell. A purifying tone that chased away the clout that had tried to steal him from me.

His body convulsed and from his mouth black goo spewed onto the ground. I paid it little mind as I shifted to balance my weight on my knees so I could place my hands on him. The wound was deep and he was bleeding so much. If this had been done to me, a wound like this that was made my a Soul Reaper's blade would have crippled me for days. On him? Gods…

I had to try.

"Isa." My name wheezed from his jowls as his head struggled to turn toward me.

"Easy Raacharg," I cooed as I placed my hand gently on his neck and stroked against his fur, urging him to let his head rest on the ground. His mask hit the ground, making a slight scraping sound as he settled with a pained huff.

"What happened?" he asked as his chest rose and he abruptly jumped like he was feeling the pain for the first time.

"You don't remember?" I asked, hiding my shock behind a cold voice. It was the oldest mask I had, and it came easily like a natural reaction as I laid my hands on either side of his wound to try and push the flesh back together. I had nothing to stop his bleeding, but it was what I would have done to myself had I been the one injured instead. Thinking about his wound as if were my own was the only thing keeping me from slipping in a state of panic. I couldn't lose the grip I had on my humanity. I didn't want to be Amechania again. I wanted to be the master that Raacharg had made me be.

"I-I don't," his voice shook with his words and he started to move again. "Isa, what's going on?"

"Stay still and relax. We will figure it out later." Power flooded through my voice with the order, forcing him to obey with the dominating abilities that being his master gave me. He complied without complaint, lying down and his body becoming pliant under my hands. I would apologize later for forcing him, but for now I needed him to comply.

His chest was heaving under my hands as I tried to hold him together. I pushed my healing power down our bond, feeling the drain on my spirit energy as I shared myself with him. It mattered little though. Even as I felt him stiffen with the flood of power, the wound didn't mend. It knew that if I had been thinking logically, coldly, that I wouldn't have even tried to heal him. He had been wounded by a Soul Reaper, a being whose residual spirit pressure lingered on anything they touched. It was like a poison to us, making it almost impossible to heal a wound made by them.

"What the fuck were you doing in the world of the living?" I whispered to myself in frustration. Nothing was changing. His wound wasn't healing and as I pushed my power into Raacharg, I could feel the strain that holding so much spirit energy was putting on him. If I did much more to him, I would kill him instead of healing him. Gods, how did this happen? How could I let this happen? He was my ward, a responsibility I had gladly taken on years ago. Not matter what happened, it was my fault that I had let it occur. I should have gone after him sooner.

A hand rested on my shoulder and I jerked away, knowing it belonged to Grimmjow.

"Don't," I said sharply. "You've done enough. If I had gotten to him sooner-"

"You'd be dead," he finished for me. "Like I said, that was a Captain you wouldn't have been able to win against."

"You don't know that!" I half shouted, my words harsh with my anger. "I can bring anyone to the same level as myself. I have defeated so many others who were stronger than me."

"I was playing with you. Captain Hitsugaya wouldn't have. He would have killed you before you had even gotten close enough." His words were smooth and collected as I felt his hand return to my shoulder.

"It would have been worth it if I could have saved him," I spat out. I knew it was saying irrational things, but I didn't want to listen to him now. Talking was distracting me, I needed to focus. I had to do something. I didn't know what, but something. Anything.

"You can't use your healing on him?" He asked, sounding surprised.

"No, I can't." Giving in to his petty need to have my attention I turned my head and glared up at him. "I can't heal a wound made by a goddamned Soul Reaper. I fucking told you that when you asked me about my scar!"

"Why not?" he asked.

"Their nasty ass smut sticks to whatever they touch. It conflicts with my ability to heal. Even on myself it can take days to close a wound. On Raacharg," my words caught in my throat for a moment before I cleared it and turned my gaze back down to him. "On Raacharg, it will take far more power than he can hold to keep him alive through a wound like this."

"Then use me," he said simply.

"What?" I asked as I tried to understand him. "You can't heal like me. How the hell are you going to heal Raacharg?"

"I don't have any problem healing wounds, I just can't do it as fast as you can," he explained he seemed to flex his abdomen, bringing my gaze to the scar that ran down his exposed chest. "This was made by Ichigo Kurosaki, a Soul-"

"Kazui's father," I interrupted him. "I'm acquainted enough with the Living to understand who is a threat."

He nodded. "You know what it means then. Channel me, use me to heal your Adjuchas."

I met his eyes again and held them with my own intense gaze. Arrancar didn't meld powers very well unless they were bonded, but his thought process shouldn't have even been possible. We couldn't heal wound like that. A Soul Reaper's blade was death and nothing could change that.

But, he had been made with a Soul Reaper's tool. The Hogyoku, Aizen's little toy, was made by them - for them. That was part of the reason why they didn't have the same weaknesses the original Espada did. That I did. It was possible, and I didn't have any other options.

I sucked in a steeling breath and shifted forward so I could rest my hand gently on Raacharg's mask. One golden eye shifted to look at me, showing me the fear that I had forced him to deal with alone when I had ordered him to be still. I didn't want him to see what I was about to do. It would be me actually accepting this fake, using him in a way that I had been so opposed to. I didn't want him to know that this point would define his death. If he could be saved, it was supposed to be me that did it and not him.

"I promise you will wake up again, Raacharg. I promise."

He blinked, his eyes showing the shimmer of tears when he met my gaze once more. He nodded ever so slightly, his mask barely moving under my hand. I nodded back, and pushed power into my words as I gave him what might be the last order I ever would give him. "Sleep, Raacharg."

Golden eyes blinking closed and the tension eased from his body as he fell into a power induced sleep. I had promised him he would wake. I could remember the dozens of other beings I had made that same promise to, only for them to die in the end. In the world that I lived in, promises were lies that we told those we cared about to bolster them with false hope. I had once believed that they meant something, but not anymore. I didn't think I could save him, but I would try.

Lifting my hand away from his mask I reached out to Amechania and flicked her handle. A pure note rang through the air and softly I whispered, "pacify, Amechania."

As my true form took shape around me I brought my hand to my mouth and didn't hesitate as my teeth sank into my flesh, drawing blood to the surface that ran in rivulets down my skin. Using that same hand I reached up into my hair to take hold of one of the feathers as it formed and broke it free from the bone that wove over my scalp. I closed my hand over it, covering it in a mix of Raacharg's and my blood. Once I was satisfied that I had completely covered it, I held it up for Grimmjow to take.

"My feathers have a stronger connection to me than anything else. Use this to channel your power into, and I will try to use whatever it is that makes you different from the rest of us to heal him."

"Your feather?" he asked as he gingerly took it. He was clearly skeptical, but that he had taken it anyway made me think better of him. He was trusting me at least enough to take my directions.

"Yes, my feathers," I answered as I turned my attention back down to Raacharg. "I'll explain later, but for now just do what I say and focus on it."

He didn't say anything as I reached into my hair and pulled another feather. I didn't bother coating this one in blood before I pressed it to the wound on Raacharg's side and held it there with my thumb as I used the rest of my hand to push his flesh back together around it. I closed my eyes and let my breath ease out before I took the bond between Raacharg and I in my mind and tugged at the power I had flooded him with. I pulled it back to me like a wave rushing away from shore and back into the ocean, sucking it in and replacing what I had lost in my attempt to force him to heal. I held it like a breath as I waited to feel something from the feather I had given Grimmjow.

Just as my anticipation began to change to impatience, I felt him. A power pure and bright like a star in the night ignited in the back of my mind and I reached for it, grasping it like a hand over an open flame. My entire body jerked as his power burned through me. It was only through sheer will that I didn't pull back from Raacharg. Gods, he had no idea how to control his power when it was within another. I could take it, but I would have to act like a filter for his power before it hit Raacharg. This raw power would kill him faster than his wound.

"Ease up," I whispered. I didn't think he heard me, but his light dimmed just enough that it wasn't making my body bristle with pain. With a small sigh I breathed out a thank you and tightened my grip on Raacharg's fur. Slowly I eased my power back into him, but this time I pushed my healing with a spark of Grimmjow's power to flavor it. I didn't know what the difference was between our two powers aside from the obvious, but as I concentrated nothing seemed to change.

Raacharg's breathing seemed to be growing slower, which in his state was not a good sign. He was getting weaker by the sound of it, not stronger. I shifted on my knees to find a more stable position before I leaned further over him to shelter his furry form with mine. I had to be careful as I adjusted the flow to push more of the power that Grimmjow was sharing with me through our bond to him. If anything was going to work, it was going to be his power and not mine.

Raacharg's body spasmed under my hands and I opened my eyes, not realizing that I had closed them in my concentration. His body spasmed again and I drew back the power I had been pushing as worry overcame me. Had I given him too much? His wound looked the same as it had before, but his fur was so matted with blood that I couldn't tell if it was actually healing or not.

"Don't stop," Grimmjow said softly from behind me.

"He can't handle the amount of power that you and I can. I will kill him," I responded breathily.

His hand rested on my shoulder pauldron, making me hesitate in my objections. "Either you make him heal, or he dies."

He was right. I knew he was right, but I didn't want to risk it. Raacharg meant too much to me, to my humanity, to lose just because I couldn't control the power flowing from me to him. Then again, was I just being to paranoid? As my gaze drifted down to see his fingers on my shoulder pauldron, I could help but to wonder. He was a fake. He was young and hadn't learned the horrors of the world. But he was also confident. He wasn't even a little worried about what I would do. Was it feigned confidence, or did he truly believe that I wouldn't kill him?

Fuck it. Either Raacharg was going to die because I did nothing, or because I had done too much. Or he wouldn't die.

In one singular instant, I flushed a surge of our power down our bond. Raacharg's body jerked with the force, most likely feeling it like lightning through his nerves if he had been awake. I pulled back after a second, removing my hands from his fur to ensure I had stopped. Seeing his chest rising and falling with his breathing, I returned my hands to him and did again. This time though, I didn't stop. His body seized and I kept pushing, holding him still with my hands until I was sure it was all he could take and just a bit more.

My hands came away from his body and I slammed a lid on my spiritual pressure. I had stopped breathing at some point, and the realization had me sucking in a gasping breath. My entire body was stiff with tension, but it only grew worse as my eyes ran over Raacharg's side. The wound had shrank and appeared to be covered in heavy scar tissue, but his chest wasn't rising. He was still with death.

No, just like I didn't have to breathe, neither did he. It was a motion as habitual as a beating heart, but the lack of it didn't mean that I had killed him. I hadn't breathed for years while I had been trapped, having drawn away from my body to keep myself from going insane.

Nodding as I agreed on a course of action, I rolled backwards only to run into Grimmjow's legs. Gods, he had been standing awfully close. Thankfully he stepped back with my sudden movement, giving me the room I needed to sit on my butt. Not bothering to look even remotely decent, I sat with one leg bent up and the other unceremoniously flopped out to the side. My arm rested on my knee as I closed my eyes and concentrated.

Being this close to Raacharg, I didn't have to try hard to focus on him. He was just there, in my mind like a pulsing beacon. Pulsing was good. My power within him was brighter than normal, but that was to be expected after what I had just done to him. Grimmjow's power had been like a scalding flood of light, burning my synapses like a mean kid roasted ants. Thankfully, it had translated into Raacharg as just an extra radiance to his light. He was still alive, but if he would pull through or not, I wasn't sure.

"He needs to be in Hueco Mundo where he can breath in the residual reishi," I said after a moment. "There's no food here in the World of the Living. I can keep him strong enough for a time by sharing my power with him, but I can only do that for so long."

"You'll really be able to sustain him like that?" he asked.

I lolled my head to the side so I could glare up at him from the corner of my eye. "You will understand just how beneficial the bond can be when you've finally experienced it. You're like a baby, naive to the wonders that only experience can reveal."

He held my glare with a cool look of his own. He had been holding my feather in a closed fist the rested on his chest, allowing only the red ends to extend from either side of hand. He must have noticed me looking at it because he lowered it to me and opened his hand. I eyed it for a moment before I reached up and plucked it from his hand and returned it to my hair. I kept my eyes on him for only a second more before I turned my gaze down to Raacharg and reached out to tap Amechania with the metal of my hand guard, making the metal ring and my true form slide away as my resurreccion dropped. With a push of power my zanpakuto shifted from a spear to a dagger, and I caught it as it fell.

"Am I naive, or are you just so old that you know more than everyone else?"

I frowned at my zanpakuto. I didn't know the answer to his question, so I avoided it and slipped my zanpakuto into its sheath. "It doesn't matter. I need to get Raacharg back."

I moved to stand, but as I did Grimmjow walked around me to kneel at Raacharg's other side. I opened my mouth to protest as his hands slid under his body, but stopped myself when I realized just how much bigger Grimmjow was than I. If I have tried to carry Raacharg in my arms it would have been awkward and probably made his condition worse. In Grimmjow's arms though, it was like he was lifting a sleeping child. He was being gentle. I almost didn't believe it.

As he stood straight he shifted Raacharg's body in his arms, careful not to press against his injured side. My mouth had fallen slightly agape, but I closed it just before Grimmjow could see.

"I'll, uh, lead the way."