Bleach Fan Fiction ❯ Seireitei Monogatari ❯ The Thin, Red Line ( Chapter 94 )

Title: The Thin Red Line

Characters: Grimmjow, Ichigo (could be seen as pairing)

Rating: T (for mentions of bloody violence and language)

Warning: SPOILER ALERT! Don't read if you're not past chapter 280 or episode 190.

Words: 1637

Description: The last thoughts of a dying Espada, Grimmjow contemplates hate and the lack thereof. Companion to Quiet Destruction.

 

 

Plip.

 

Plip.

 

It is the sound of his own blood, dripping from his body and to the ground. It falls at the same cadence as the slowing beat of his heart. It's the same rhythm that guides the fluttering of his eyelashes and the final twitches of his muscles.

 

There is no wind here, so nothing stirs around him. He can feel the dust and grit against his bare back, caking into wounds left behind by Zangetsu. He can still feel their burn, the slice of the cold metal into his skin, grinding against his body. He can still see those brown eyes, momentarily tainted by the gold of a Hollow and then returned to brown again. Human brown, to go with those all too human emotions. The same emotions he seems to feel, too.

 

He hates him; Grimmjow is certain of this. He hates everything that Kurosaki is, everything that Kurosaki stands for. He hates his strength and his personality. He hates his ideals and his stupid sword and his bright orange hair. But most of all, he hates his words. After all, Grimmjow knows they hold some truth. And that, he cannot stand.

 

He hears the clashing of swords somewhere past his ears, but even that is slowly fading. He can see the bright blue of Aizen's artificial sky. So fake and covering the endless black that is the truth of Hueco Mundo. He honestly doesn't know which he prefers. On the edge of his vision, he sees dust billowing into the air. He sees the remaining bits of crumbled towers.

 

He blinks, and the image is still burned on the back of his lids. Fluttering black cloth.

 

Plip.

 

Plip.

 

The cadence of Kurosaki's own blood dripping onto his chest as he, just a boy really, defends Grimmjow from his own allies attack. Defends his enemy. Foolish.

 

He really hates that.

 

He wonders if this is death approaching him. He can't tell if the coldness in his extremities is the chill of deathly fingers or if he's just imagining things. He's always been cold but not quite like that bastard Ulquiorra.

 

Kurosaki's voice rises loud somewhere nearby, and Grimmjow still can't move.

 

“Don't touch her!”

 

Nnoitra's even more annoying tone follows, mocking and taunting. Goading the kid into fighting him.

 

Bastard. Grimmjow hates him, too.

 

He tries to make his finger move, but it won't obey his commands. Warmth is seeping across his chest, puddling over to the side. He feels like he's lying in a pool of wet and sticky liquid. He can't really breathe that well either, each intake a wet and raspy sound. Ragged. He really does think he's dying.

 

He could have won, Grimmjow thinks. If he had been just a little stronger. If he had pushed himself to that level. If he'd had a reason.

 

He thinks that it is pathetic. Kurosaki's strength comes from nowhere. It springs from nothing. He's just a scrawny brat. A human. A Shinigami. A Vizard. He's just this kid, who thinks he's better because he fights for something. Because his battles mean something.

 

And he pities Grimmjow.

 

Grimmjow hates that. That pity. It means that Kurosaki sees him as something - someone if he even is a someone - weak. Pitiable. Worthy of sympathy and nothing else. It is charity when he makes that offer, which is why Grimmjow rebels. He's humoring Grimmjow.

 

“Come at me anytime you want,” Kurosaki was saying to him in not so many words. “I'll defeat you every time, but if you hate me so much, I'll let you fight me every time.”

 

And why not? Grimmjow is a creature to be pitied, yes? What has he to live for in this existence of his? Let him have his one desire. Drown himself in his lust for battle.

 

It's pathetic. He wants to take that sympathy and strangle Kurosaki with it. Wants to take the pity he sees in brown eyes and claw them out. He hates the feeling that look evokes in him, the warmth that surges through his chest and the momentary helpless feeling it gives him.

 

Grimmjow doesn't want to name it, that clawing emptiness inside of him. The one he tries to fill with all matter of lusts - battle, food, alcohol, sex. Battle. Fight, fight, fight, and blood. He knows it has a name, but he ignores it. Pretends it doesn't exist.

 

“Loneliness,” those brown eyes tell him. “They call it loneliness, Grimmjow.”

 

Fuck, he's even hallucinating. The final minutes of his existence… and he's hallucinating, hearing voices. And worse, it's that brat. Kurosaki. He really hates that kid.

 

He has clawed his way to the top, or as near as he could reach with his power. He's stomped on whatever he needed, used whatever he needed to make it there. He's made no promises; he's bound himself to no one. Save Aizen. And that has been in name only. He admits only to himself that Aizen's power terrifies him. But that doesn't stop him from loathing the former Shinigami, from wanting to tear out his throat with his teeth. Taste his blood. Grimmjow is sure that it's sweet.

 

Plip.

 

Plip.

 

Time stretches longer between each drop. He can't turn his head to see the source of the shaking ground even if he wants to. Kurosaki's voice within his mind and within earshot has fallen silent. He can hear that big-chested chick crying. Nnoitra laughing. He wonders if Kurosaki's dead and hates the feeling that thought produces.

 

Grimmjow doesn't know why he attached his obsession to the teen in the first place. From the moment he first faced off against those eyes, it became a desire to see them fall. They are so defiant and determined. Even when it is obvious that stubborn will alone won't win the battle for him. And against all odds, he comes back, stronger than before. Even more determined. It bugs the shit out of him.

 

The last battle… that last blow, Grimmjow remembers letting it come. Remembers hearing the words Kurosaki spat at him, about saving his friends. Remembers watching that black blade aiming for his chest and remembers not even bothering to block it. Not even attempting to try.

 

Whether it would have been futile or not hadn't even been an issue. He was defeated before the blade even touched his flesh. He had known in that moment he could rend Kurosaki limb from limb, and the brat would still find some way to stand up. To fight again. To get even stronger. And he was powerless against that determination.

 

“What's the point of it all?”

 

His eyes had been so earnest, so pleading. Filled with pity and wishing that Grimmjow would just end it. Stop trying to fight. Stop throwing his existence away on something that meant nothing.

 

Grimmjow really hates that about Ichigo.

 

Heavy reiatsu is pouring over the battlefield. It's suffocating, making his limbs want to curl together. His heart feels like it's squeezing in his chest, and he's almost reminded of Aizen in that moment. Except this reiatsu is only a quarter, maybe even less, of that painful press that had squeezed his very veins.

 

Another battle is about to begin.

 

He uses every last vestige of his strength and turns his head. His vision is blurry, darkening on the edges. But even so, he can make out a head of bright orange hair lying against the stark white of the sand.

 

Plip.

 

Plip.

 

He thinks that the cadence isn't just his own blood anymore. And Kurosaki is down, felled by Nnoitra most likely. That bastard. Grimmjow hates him, too. More than he had despised Luppi and just a bit less than he loathes Ulquiorra.

 

“You actually lost, and now, you're letting your enemy protect you?”

 

Che. As if he could have gotten up to stop him. Can't stop that brat when he's made up his mind. Saving his friends. Rescuing the girl. Defeating the Espada.

 

His vision is getting blacker around the edges. He wants to fight Kurosaki one more time. Feels his fingers twitch just once, two inches away from his blade. He wants to test his strength, test his own beliefs against Kurosaki's.

 

“What's the point of it all, Grimmjow?”

 

Damn, those voices.

 

The point? What is the point?

 

To be stronger, of course. To be the king, to stand above everyone and everything. For his existence to have a meaning. The only thing that ever mattered in Hueco Mundo was strength, and Grimmjow wants it. All of it. It's all he needs.

 

He really hates that kid, making him think things like this right before he dies. He hates everything about him. His voice and his words and his clothes and his sword. He hates his eyes, those damn sympathetic and understanding eyes. Lonely eyes, even when surrounded by his friends. Even when she stands on the side, crying for fear of his death. Damned lonely eyes.

 

Grimmjow hates that they may be more alike than he wants to admit. That he sees Ichigo in himself and himself in Ichigo. That maybe in the end, what he really hates is that reflection. What he really despises and loathes and wants to destroy... is himself.

 

One more shuddering breath, wet and ripe with the taste of copper, and he wonders if Ichigo is going to live. No, he doesn't wonder. He's pretty damn sure of it. Something always comes out right for the brat.

 

For some reason, the idea of that doesn't bother him too much.

 

His eyes are open, but he sees nothing but black now. Faint shadows of grey on the edges but black all the same. His memory recalls brown eyes, completely without his permission. And a sad smile, fresh with loneliness.

 

Or maybe that's just his own reflection.

 

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