Bleach Fan Fiction ❯ Seireitei Monogatari ❯ Quiet Destruction ( Chapter 83 )

Title: Quiet Destruction

Pairings: Ichigo/Grimmjow

Rating: K+

Warning: Lots of spoilers. Like a lot. Don't read if you haven't read past chapter 280

Words: 756

Description: The last look Ichigo saw in his eyes was loneliness.

 

 

It didn't seem like it, but there was a healthy respect between him and Grimmjow. It was entirely beneath the surface and invisible to the naked eye, but nevertheless, it was present.

 

They understood each other on some base level. The need to be stronger, even if was for that reason alone. The want to be the best, to be unbeatable and unbreakable. Loving one's pride and refusing to let it go, refusing to be cowed by rules and regulations.

 

Ichigo understood Grimmjow a lot better than he ever told anyone.

 

He also kept it to himself just how much alike he thought they were. He and an Espada. A Vizard and Shinigami substitute was just the same as an Arrancar. At least, in his view.

 

When they fought, Ichigo truly felt as if he could let go. He threw everything he had into it, not just because he wanted to save Inoue and defeat Aizen and protect everything important to him. But also because he wanted to fight Grimmjow; he wanted to show the Arrancar how much he had improved. To show him that the determination that lit his eyes was the same as Grimmjow's.

 

Perhaps on some level, he wanted the Espada to know just how alike they were.

 

He took no pleasure in stabbing Grimmjow, the satisfaction at winning fading quickly in the end. Grimmjow, the bastard, he had time to block the blow. He could have done something. But Ichigo saw the defeat in that expression moments before his zanpakutou pierced Grimmjow's flesh. The Arrancar had already accepted his end.

 

It made him angry for reasons he couldn't understand. It made him feel as if he had been cheated out of the victory he was owed, out of the understanding they were supposed to share beneath the surface.

 

He watched with scattered emotions, removing Zangetsu and watching as Grimmjow's eyes slid closed, surrendering to the inevitable.

 

The last look Ichigo saw in Grimmjow's blue eyes was undeniably loneliness, so strong and consuming it couldn't help but show itself in the face of what seemed to be an inevitable death.

 

He fell. And Ichigo moved before he could stop himself, grasping Grimmjow's hand in his before the man could even touch the ground. He didn't want to see the Espada crash to the ground in an undignified pile. That feeling of being cheated rose up strongly again. That feeling of anger and sorrow bundling up into a messy coil in his belly and gnawing at his insides forced him to act before he could even think it through.

 

He stared at the Arrancar for several long moments because he couldn't understand. This string that had bound them, this understanding. That loneliness, it meant something. Only, he wasn't sure what exactly. He just knew it was important.

 

A kinship perhaps. Maybe it was the resonance of Hollow within himself and within Grimmjow. Maybe it was the knowledge that they had always sought the same thing, that there was nothing wrong with wanting to be stronger. Maybe it was the loneliness.

 

Whatever the reason, even as he walked away from Grimmjow, to actually attend to the reason he had invaded Hueco Mundo to begin with, he couldn't forget that last look. Both grateful and angry, bitter but resigned. Accepting that it was his fate, to die then and there. Alone and beaten.

 

It rang strongly inside of Ichigo, a constant presence at the back of his mind and a constant clenching inside of him. It was so achingly known to him, that loneliness. An arrogant sort of isolation, brought about by what was believed to be necessary.

 

It was loud enough, familiar enough, that Ichigo had every intention to return. That he had plans to ask Inoue to heal Grimmjow as the Arrancar had done for him. A part of him strongly wanted Grimmjow to live, perhaps to find that understanding. Even he wasn't entirely sure why; he just knew it was something he needed to do.

 

He never expected Nnoitra's arrival. He never expected Nel's change. Or Kenpachi's appearance. Or Aizen's attack. Or any of it.

 

He protected Grimmjow not out of pity or spite but because he honestly didn't want to see the Arrancar die. If he had, he would have killed Grimmjow himself. There was that kinship, that perception, that something curling in his gut that he had to comprehend.

 

In the end, Ichigo never got the chance.

 

And that, perhaps, was his biggest regret of all.