Chapter Text
One could barely see the moon through the thick screen of sand coarsing across the sky at breakneck speeds.
It shone like an opaque white sphere as the sand made the sky no more pitch black and starless, but smoky gray, speeding past the group of Adjuchas busy treading the dunes, masked heads or muzzles hung low to protect their eyes from the grains violently flying over them and to dodge whatever rock or tree got uprooted from their normally ubothered positions in the grand, desolate, deserted hellscape of Hueco Mundo, due to the abnormally strong current of wind that had decided to come out of nowhere that lunar week.
The group was walking in a huddle. two larger frames of their ilk hunching over three other smaller, but similarly strong Adjuchas.
One of the eldest walked like a bull... and would’ve looked like one too, were it not for its uncommonly large and wide beastly shoulders, as well as its blonde mane that developed from its head, which would’ve looked almost ridiculously small if not for its very sharp horns, making it look like a monstrous version of a wild minotaur, sort of humanoid but not quite and still tremendously savage and ferocious.
Slightly behind, but somehow even larger and more imposing, skulked a pitch black behemoth of an Adjucha, one of those who had chosen to bend as to cover its companions, including the boarish minotaur, as they crossed the desert; its white mask was solemn, very similar to a human skull, making it resemble a totem-like version of a grim reaper slowly advancing, and its pace was constant, less bothered by the wind compared to its smaller companions and taking it in stride.
Another one who didn’t seem to be handling the storm badly was the second bigger Adjucha, its body like that of a very sturdy and corpulent worm, its thin white eyes narrowed from fatigue in the almond shaped sockets of its horned mask, which made it look like a disgruntled dragon forced to crawl on land. It was younger than the black behemoth, but it struggled to match its pace anyway, never letting up, its serpentine body curved so that the minotaur-like Adjucha and its two other neighbors could benefit and have less sand in their faces.
Said two neighbors either shared or opposed the muteness of the horned hulk.
One of them looked like their mask resembled a knight’s helmet with a tress of the same mettle, chilling white bone, trailing behind it as it got swept around by the violent winds; the Adjucha looked skeletal, with wide shoulders and thin but sharper arms and legs; it was heaving and having more challenges to continue walking, despite the meager shelter offered by the greater fellow travelers bending over to cover him.
On his side, the fifth Adjucha, with its monumental shoulders and the posture of a gorilla, covered with better and thicker bone armor and a patch of striking red hair on top, kept a steady and powerful pace, and one would say it was ignoring the skeletal Adjucha, if not for those moments when it would halt its step to put a gigantic arm behind its back to support it.
There was however, in that mass of bodies of bone and dark matter, slanted forward to oppose the currents and prevail, marching relentlessly until the moment where they were finally out of the storm… a sixth Adjucha.
Like most of them it preferred to walk on all fours. It was the smallest out of the six, but just as muscular, and lithe. It resembled what a human from the world of the Living would define a jaguar. It’s blue eyes shone brighter than any shade of color carried on the person of the other members of its pack. On its muzzle, an expression of determination and ruthlessness seemed to have been permanently sculpted, a warning sign for all who dared hold his gaze for more than necessary: pure danger.
There was a reason why it walked up front, and the gargantuan beasts trailed behind. It was their king.
It didn’t stop pressing onward, even when its followers’ march came to a halt. The skeletal one had fallen on one knee, slim claws clutching at a wound on its shoulder it had gained in a previous scuffle with other Adjuchas, who they had all promptly chewed on and abandoned dunes ago… Not without the memory of them well pressed in their minds, with the way the sand was scratching the open, ruined Hollow flash that their exoskeleton didn’t cover, making it burn.
-Shit, Shawlong… -, the gorilla-like Hollow grunted, while grasping the skeletal Adjucha’s bony shoulders and forcibly pulling it back up, looking at the way the smaller ally wobbled. -This is why you listen when I tell you to trust me and let me handle my enemies alone…!
-I was merely returning the favor, Edrad-, replied ‘Shawlong’, allowing the greater Hollow to swing him so that he was sitting in the space between his shoulder an head, legs dangling, though at least he wasn’t directly facing the wind’s wrath now and could rest a bit after walking while being as debilitated as he’d been beforehand. -You helped me in the last dogfight, the least I could do is pay you back in this one.
-Tch, look where that led you!-, quipped in the worm-like Adjucha.
-Di Roy…
-What, Nakeem? Look at ‘im. That one wound is worse than all our bruises!
-Do not put yourself in the middle, - commented the hulking black Adjucha, teeth of the skull-like mask chattering in a somewhat threatening display while the worm scoffed, almost as if looking for trouble. - They are the ones who are reprieving each other, not you. Grimmjow will have a say on this, if anyone else has to. You don’t wanna make him look down on us because we cannot solve our own disputes, do you?
Di Roy hissed lowly, casting a mean glare at the panther Adjucha, but did not reply. He instead started pushing his body to slither faster, in an effort to show his indignation perhaps, but mostly to try and get closer to the panther king, Grimmjow.
-Grimmjow, sir?-, he croaked, trying to make his voice rise above the furious wail of the wind and the sound of scraping sand. – Can we drop Shawlong already? This is the third time that he plays chivalrous knight!
He did not receive an answer, as was usual as of late. With sandstorm season in tow, they had grown increasingly irritated, and discombombulated due to the meteorological imbalances, so much so that they had begun to bicker (or worry) about each other far more that they usually would. Grimmjow, who had been selected as king of the pack but always stood to the side, wouldn’t grace them with comments, but he would always look at them with eyes sharper than usual, almost as if picking apart their exchanges, what made them tic and what made them crumble.
Di Roy had found it annoying, and he also found it annoying now that he was being ignored, shouting an “Oi!” towards Grimmjow’s figure as it marched and marched and marched while giving everyone the shoulder…
Or was he?
Shawlong knew different than to be petty and upset. While Di Roy was bigger, he was also younger, and due to the wound inflicted on him by their king when they first stumbled upon him, he probably couldn’t see all too well, and so he could not notice that Grimmjow had been slowing down, and that he had now grown stiff.
Shawlong patted Edrad on his extremely wide back, asking to be put down. Edrad bickered and sputtered, but then the elder Adjucha pointed to Grimmjow’s still frame. After a grunt from the red haired Adjucha, Shawlong was allowed to wobble up front, towards their leader’s unmoving shadow.
Approaching was difficult, especially because of the scalding burn of the sand’s grains brushing against his injuries, almost making him seem red. When he was finally close enough to Grimmjow, he realized that the king was looking at one specific spot among the dune to his immediate right.
Shawlong had to squint in order to properly have a look at what had caught the stronger Adjucha’s attention (an enemy hiding in the sand, a snack, a mirage?), and found it to be none of his previously elaborated hypothesis when he was finally able to comprehend what the panther had caught a glimpse of.
It must have once had a white sheen, but it was now darker, the sands making everything look as if it were influenced by a veil of static. Very small, only two sockets which occupied the majority of the bony surface, underdeveloped fangs, a few cracks that already seemed to be losing dust, which was joining the windswept sands, indicating a death which was still fresh.
The remains of a baby Hollow.
Now, reproduction wasn’t impossible for Hollows, but most of them would opt for splitting instead of attempting sexual intercourse, and Hollows this little and with similar skulls usually only originated from pregnancies, which were dangerous and often risked making a Hollow consume too much lifeforce. At the same time, a Hollow cub would always be easier to get along with than a split progeny, which would often be already grown, rebellious, and not entirely honest with its progenitor, though in the end a great synergy could be found and fostered even with offspring born through splitting.
Anyhow, this was not the kind of skull that would be found on results of this procedure. This had been a cub, through and through. Shawlong attempted spying an emotion on his leader’s face, and tried not to flinch.
Through the veil of the sands, he could glimpse widened eyes and an open mouth.
Grimmjow was feeling bad.
But Shawlong couldn’t exactly bring it up to him. Their king was extremely proud and reserved, and didn’t like his emotions to be scutinized: he liked it only when he was the one doing the same thing to others. He’d never had a heart to heart with any of them, and all Shawlong, Nakeem, and bull-headed but serious Yylfordt had managed to garner of his varying moods and degrees of sentimentality, they had understood from small quips, reactions, or by looking at him when they knew he wasn’t aware they were doing so.
Instead of making him feel worse (something in the way the feline’s irises flickered, disbelieving, didn’t sit right with Shawlong), he made a soft remark to the king.
-Shall we keep moving, sir?
Grimmjow’s muzzle turned to his keletal subordinate, irises still flickering, his fanged jaws now closed and clenched.
-You could have just kept going… Yes, we keep walking, don’t just stand here and dawdle.
Shawlong had hoped to reach him without making him feel pitied, and it seemed to have worked. They picked up their pace again, each of them turning their heads to observe the minuscule skull as well… and turning back around after a few moments spent staring at it, thinking, remembering.
Yylfordt was the one who slowed down, staying behind everyone else, to crush the miserable piece of bone.
-You’d have faded anyhow.
But there was no snark in his voice as he said so. He looked at the grains of sand rising to join the furious vortex his pack was still trapped in, swirling around them unperturbed by their findings, and then he faced the same direction as his companions.
It would be hours until they would manage to feel the moon’s shine, and find refuge to rest, away from the eyes of anyone trying to take advantage of their sore muscles. And when they did, for once, they had been surprised to find…
… that Grimmjow had chosen to join their huddle for the first time.
Because he had, apparently.
The memory in the dream offered a stark contrast to the way his frame was now curled in itself, on his bed, safe on mattress and sheets, but alone.
It seemed like the only thing his brain wanted him to see as of late, whenever he slept: the same scene of the same day (or night, depending on who you asked), the same sandstorm and the same pathetic skull, playing on repeat everytime he conceded that he needed to give his eyes some rest.
The former sixth Espada grunted as he slowly, tiredly sat up on the bed whose sheets he had tormented that night, the motions he went through to attempt stretching feeling incredibly devious and painful to perform.
There was a specific spot he could feel in his shoulder that he knew was going to bother him the entire day, and he also noticed the unusual stiffness in his neck as he skulked towards the sink, opening it and gathering some water in his cupped hands to splash his face, the cold very welcome though sudden as it instantly spread across his skin and helped him open his groggy and squinting eyes.
He then started fixing up his hair, though there was something in his instincts telling him that it would not be enough to make what seemed like one of the worst days he’d lived through any better.
Fucking squirt howling in the dunes. It was all its fucking fault if he kept dreaming about the same stupid memory and the same stupid feelings, urgh. He’d heard the little shit start yowling and yelling five nights or so before, and ever since then, his mind had kept making him pay attention to details of a past he’d rather be completely erased from his mind.
Nelliel and Harribel hadn’t heard the cub well, apparently; it made sense, their hearing was somewhat worse than his, though they made up for it with brute strength (which, Grimmjow hated to admit, still risked surpassing his own). Grimmjow also hadn’t wanted to bring it up to them, didn’t want them whispering behind his back that he cared.
Because he didn’t, ok? And nor should he. Being a bleeding heart was useless on the path to strength and absolute freedom. But the two queens had figured out something had been going on and had forced a confession out of him, only to suddenly realize that the humming they had been hearing in the background had been perceived much more specifically by him, and that had been the reason why he’d been so awful at negotiations with external parties lately.
He’d hated the looks they had given him. He could see something different from pity in their eyes, but whatever it was exactly, he didn’t know, and it didn’t matter. He didn’t fucking care and he didn’t need to fix that shit. He was merely pissed that the pup was still screaming its lungs out, somewhere out of Las Noches, apparently out of any of the former Espadas’ grasp and thusly disturbing his slumber every night, making Grimmjow want to chuck the brat into the sky with the force of a thousand suns.
Or so he liked to force himself to think. Spite was his favourite fuel after all. But underneath his well-practiced and honed shield of ruthlessness, whenever he heard one of the cub’s wails echo in the wind until it reached him, he could feel, much to his chagrin, something churn in his stomach, something true though very inconvenient, and he could also perceive his brain’s cogs spinning faster, in alarm, spurred by something he’d convinced himself he had killed and buried, never to resurface again.
But the little shit seemed to have offset the ghost of that side of him, which he thought he’d demolished, with all its crying and desperate requests for aid. Didn’t change the fact that he shouldn’t do shit to help the squirt, even if there was a part of him that wanted him to.
It was a useless and pathetic side of him anyway. Why the hell would a king like him heed it? Nelliel could try and stare into his soul all she wanted before she left for yet another journey into the lands of other colonies, he didn’t want a lecture or to change, he was perfectly fine.
He chuckled cruelly.
“Perhaps the moment has come for me to shut it the hell up”, remarked Grimmjow sadistically, ignoring the painful pang at his heart.
By Garganta, had he grown soft with all the demands from the queens to assist them in rebuilding the colonies and enstablishing diplomatic ties to the Gotei 13. He hated how fighting Kurosaki Ichigo was not the first thing on his mind anymore. Only the two Arrancar women’s requests and the nearly constant cries from beyond the walls of Las Noches reigned supreme.
He needed to reclaim control of his mind. Curse them. He would not play nice this time.
“If they are too busy traveling and holding everything together…”, he realized, “...Then maybe I should really get a move on and handle this myself. What happened to my independence and shit, for fuck’s sake? When you want something done well, you do it yourself. And besides...”
“… I guess it is a King’s duty to remind snotty brats how one survives in Hueco Mundo”.