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Chapter Text

Chapter 1: Once They Walked Among Us

When Grimmjow looked to the night sky, his gaze fell without effort to the constellation highest above the western horizon. His father had taught him many years ago where to look for Zangetsu the protector, the cluster of stars that took the form of a great sword, but even if he had not, Zangetsu was among the easiest to spot on a clear, dark night.

Even the smallest child in their village knew the protector. Perhaps they might not know the winter dragon, or the baboon and snake, or any of the other lesser constellations that dotted the sky, but everyone knew the protector.

When Grimmjow was four, his mother showed him how to pray to their gods. Senbonzakura brought the first bloom of spring, and Hyōrinmaru turned the morning dew to frost and breathed fury into the snowstorms of their winters. But these, and many other constellations, waxed and waned with the seasons.

Zangetsu did not. The protector was omnipresent in their night sky, never faltering, never wandering, and this, his mother said, was why their people prayed the most to Ichigo, the brightest star in Zangetsu.

And so Grimmjow prayed alongside his mother and father when the need arose. They prayed for safe travel when his father was called to duty to the neighboring villages that lined the coast. They prayed for protection against the vicious sea storms that often battered their coasts, against the marauding nomads who roamed the hills beyond their borders and the wild beasts who raided their pastures.

Ichigo protected them from these hardships and many more.

Ichigo was a difficult star to mistake for any other, for he shone the color of blood an hour old, a darker, more somber red than Zabimaru, the baboon and snake. Ichigo took his place at the hilt of Zangetsu, like a king on his throne before the smaller, lesser stars in his constellation, guiding the blade to its purpose.

Grimmjow had spent many an idle night gazing upon him and all the others, his young mind filled with wonderment and imaginings of what their gods might look like had they not taken their place above the mortal world as stars. He wondered why most stars were white while Ichigo was a deep, ominous red, and why, if Zangetsu was the protector, did it not take the form of a shield rather than a sword?

His mother and father listened to these questions patiently, and though they did not know the answers to all of them, there were some that others before him had wondered also and for which stories had been told to answer.

Long ago, in an era when the night had been without light and the moon shared the sky with no other, the gods had lived amongst their worshippers.

Toshiro, the winter dragon, appeared as a child, but with hair as white as an old man’s. Kenpachi, the only star who stood alone without a constellation of his own, was a man of great height and fearsome presence. Byakuya was proud and Jushiro was kind, and Ichigo…

Ichigo was strong. Some stories said he was frightening to behold, bearing the white face of a demon with great horns and insatiable bloodlust. But others described him quite differently, as a man with kind eyes and peculiar orange hair.

As a child, Grimmjow had preferred the Ichigo of gentler description. When he prayed alone for safety from the monsters that haunted the steps of any imaginative child, it was to the Ichigo who was noble, self-sacrificing, and gentle. Perhaps Ichigo appeared as a skull-faced beast to those who threatened Grimmjow and his people, but to those he loved, Grimmjow thought, he must be kind.

Grimmjow prayed often, more than most children did and perhaps even more than most adults. He prayed because he was a child unusually taken by fears both real and imagined, and as the son of their tribe’s greatest warrior, it was unbecoming to be seen jumping at shadows.

He prayed also for his father who was frequently absent for his duties in the assurance of their tribe’s safety. There were other villages that dotted the coastline and more still further inland, and his father travelled often to these places to convene with their leaders and negotiate shared defenses of their collective nation.

There were other nations beyond their western borders. While some cared only in trading for fine silks and other goods produced in their land, others were not so friendly, eyeing their fertile soils and good seasons with envy and wishing to take their land for their own.

The summer after his tenth year, Grimmjow grew tall enough to seat himself upon his father’s horse and was deemed ready to begin his warrior training. While every boy in his tribe undertook such training at some point, Grimmjow began earlier than most, a fact that caused him to puff his chest with adolescent pride when he passed the other village boys on his daily walk to the training fields.

He was fiercer than most, his father told him the day he presented Grimmjow with his first practice sword, a nameless blade with blunted edges and a plain, blue-wrapped hilt. And as Grimmjow swung the mock weapon about in excited, childish glee, his father remarked that he was fearless too.

Back turned, Grimmjow smiled then, for his father did not know that this was far from true. He was fearless because Ichigo kept the sharks at bay when Grimmjow swam far from the coast, and Ichigo ensured his father’s safe return from every trip abroad. If Grimmjow was fearless, it was because Ichigo gave him no reason to fear.

Grimmjow trained with the older boys of his village, but his days were not over until his father was finished training him alone at home too. At night, he would lay upon a hammock slung between two trees, nursing the day’s scrapes and bumps, and gaze upwards towards the skies.

As his mother had told him long ago, the dark red star in Zangetsu’s hilt never faltered or waned. Even when there were clouds, Grimmjow was content to know that Ichigo was still there, perhaps hidden from sight but ever-present and vigilant.

He would whisper a quiet prayer, thank the star for his protection, and fall asleep under its watchful gaze.

...

When Grimmjow was seventeen, his father began leaving home for longer periods of time.

Grimmjow was no longer a child, and in the last year he had sprouted like a weed into a gangly youth with too-big hands and feet and long legs that had him looking over the heads of many of his peers. He would overtake his father’s height in the next year or two, but his new frame would take several more years to fill out.

Tall warriors, his father said, had to work harder to fill their height with muscle.

And Grimmjow did. When other boys ached and complained of exhaustion, Grimmjow did not stop until he could no longer rise. His training never ended until he was well and truly beaten into the ground. He challenged anyone he could, peers and senior students and teachers alike, until finally one day he broke the arm of another boy in a sparring match and from then on his age-mates began to shun his challenges.

Grimmjow was insatiable.

He took to fighting like a bird to open skies, swung his mock weapon around as though the motions of swordplay were more natural than breathing. He reveled in the art of war like one gone mad. Some of the elder teachers spoke disapprovingly of this, whispering amongst themselves that the boy’s heart was touched by Kenpachi, the lone star who lusted for blood, and this was speculation of damnation, not reverence.

But Grimmjow’s father always looked upon his son with grim approval, and on the night before the boy’s nineteenth birthday, Grimmjow received a true blade of his very own, which whispered to him and told him its name.

Pantera, it said, and Grimmjow understood.

Pantera was worn with pride on Grimmjow’s hip and from that day forth, he began accompanying his father on his long journeys to their brother tribes. His training continued, but under his father’s tutelage now instead of the teachers who shook their heads when he smiled after drawing blood. Every night after a full day of travel, they would set up camp and find an open field to practice in.

Although years of training with a practice sword had made Grimmjow accustomed to the weight and feel of one, Pantera was sharp, and mistakes were more painful now. Instead of bruises and scrapes, Grimmjow would nurse deeper wounds after training now, but a prayer to Ichigo before sleep every night ensured that his wounds healed quickly and without festering. Though his travels took him to strange lands and unfamiliar terrains, Ichigo never changed, and so Grimmjow never felt homesick.

It was during these travels that he learned of the encroaching threat from the west. Unrest in the nations beyond their borders had been brewing since Grimmjow was small but only now beginning to threaten their lands. The people to the west were no longer content with the land they had been allotted and now looked to the lands of other nations with envy-green eyes. The tribes of Grimmjow’s people watched their borders with suspicion, hoping for the conflict to die out before reaching their lands but preparing for war if it did not.

This, Grimmjow realized, was the reason for his father’s frequent absences as of late. This was why his father watched him train with such grim satisfaction, why he did not rebuke Grimmjow for his savagery, and why he was bringing the boy to accompany him now to their brother tribes. He was preparing Grimmjow, educating him for a war that might soon appear upon their doorstep.

The first night after this revelation, Grimmjow sought solitude beneath the open heavens. There was no training tonight, but Grimmjow brought Pantera with him anyways, accustomed by now to the sword’s weight at his side and comforted by it.

Ichigo shone down upon him as he always had, and Grimmjow closed his eyes and conjured up the face he imagined the god might have. It was a face he had crafted in his mind many years ago as a small child who had been afraid of anything and everything. He had decided long ago that his Ichigo was the man with kind eyes, not the skull-faced demon other legends described.

Through the years, Grimmjow had never faltered in his devotion. He prayed as often as he had when he was small, though few things frightened him as they had before. But tonight, for the first time in many years, Grimmjow felt fear take his heart, the sensation familiar like an old friend but unwelcome. He lowered himself to his knees, Pantera laid out before him like an offering, and prayed.

He prayed because although his blood sang for battle, although Pantera wished to cleave flesh and bone, he did not want a war. Grimmjow was savage, but he did not want to see his homeland burn, nor his people slain.

He prayed for protection, that this land would never see the invaders from the west. He prayed for good fortune that his mother and father might live to see old age. And finally, he prayed for strength, that if his first two prayers could not be granted, that he could at least have the power to defend himself and his nation instead.

These prayers he repeated to the red star over and over, until his voice grew hoarse and his eyelids heavy.

Hours later, when Grimmjow was fast asleep in the open field beneath the stars, the brightest star in Zangetsu blinked and faded into darkness.

Chapter 2: At the Altar of a Forgotten God

Much changed in the year that passed after Grimmjow learned Pantera's name as the idyllic days of his childhood came to a sudden and unequivocal end.

His mother was not well, gripped by an illness that struck swiftly and made her cough without end. She seemed to waste away day by day, and with no siblings, the duty to care for her fell to Grimmjow.

Life in the village was changing as well. News of the threat from the west had travelled home in the time Grimmjow was away, so that when he and his father returned from negotiations with their brother tribes, everyone in the village knew. The decades of peacetime would soon come to an end, and their way of life would have to adapt.

Boys in the village would begin their warrior training as early as their ninth summer, younger even than Grimmjow had been when he had begun his. And Grimmjow, once shunned for his savagery, was now called upon to help teach them.

When diplomacy failed and war seemed inevitable, Grimmjow's father left with half their village’s warriors to join forces with their brothers on the western borders. They would attempt to hold off an invasion, hoping to buy some time for those left behind to prepare. Grimmjow's father forbade him from this journey, telling him that his place, for now, was in their village. His parting words were simple: Protect your mother. Protect our home.

Grimmjow clutched Pantera, the sword warm in his hands as though ignited by inner fire, and bid his father farewell.

When the last leaves fell, news of his father's death in the borderlands arrived from the west, and Grimmjow's mother, who had been clinging to life for a reunion that never came, saw no reason to live on into this frightening new time.

There was no time to grieve. Winter was upon them early that year. Early chill killed a portion of the harvests, and more than a handful of people succumbed to sickness and hunger.

The stars were displeased, people began to whisper. Hyōrinmaru’s anger had been roused, or perhaps Senbonzakura had seen his empty altars and did not deign to bring the first bloom of spring. But, most of all, people spoke of Zangetsu.

The great sword was incomplete, for where the red star of Ichigo should have been there was darkness. Never, for as long as anyone could remember, had a star disappeared from the night before, and the implications of Ichigo's sudden absence birthed fear and despair.

But there were none who felt Ichigo's disappearance more keenly than Grimmjow.

At first, he had not understood. He had stared at the heavens in stunned silence, disbelieving and incredulous. The star to whom Grimmjow had given his unwavering faith and devotion was suddenly and inexplicably…gone. Ichigo, and Ichigo alone, had been privy to Grimmjow's every whispered fear and uncertainty, in a way that Grimmjow had shared with no other living soul. His tribe called him fearless because Grimmjow burdened no one with his troubles, because Ichigo knew every one of them and promised him safety so that Grimmjow did not have to fear.

He had prayed to the star every night for as long as his memory stretched. He had slept in the open fields beneath its light more times than he could count. He had wept before it, sung its praises, and vowed his devotion.

Grimmjow still gazed upon the broken blade of Zangetsu on occasion, but when he knelt on one knee with his head bowed in the proper deference owed to a star, prayer would not come to him. What was the use in praying to one who was not there? The other stars of Zangetsu were yet unchanged. Shirosaki still shone in brightest white at the tip of the blade, but without its master at the hilt, the sword was without purpose.

Ichigo's absence was not temporary.

Grimmjow searched for the star the night before his father departed from their village for the last time, but Ichigo was not there to grant safe travel and protection in battle. The star was not there when his mother drew her last breath, nor when the winter storms threatened to tear his home down and hunger gnawed at his belly.

From the night Ichigo disappeared and all through the winter, Grimmjow's people performed their sacrifices. Goats and sheep and prized steer were bled before his altar. Bread and cheese needed to feed hungry mouths were burned to atone for any perceived slights or insults to the god. But still Ichigo did not return, and the people grew frantic.

What had offended the star so deeply that he would abandon them in this time of greatest need?

When the spring finally arrived to greet the bedraggled, weary survivors of the difficult winter, offerings at Ichigo's altar diminished to a trickle and then ceased altogether. The great sword had been broken for a year now.

The protector had forsaken them.

The faithlessness of his people angered Grimmjow. Tried by hardship though he was, he continued to bring an offering to the shrine every fourth night long after every other person had stopped. Blood from fresh slaughters, for all gods demanded carnal sacrifices. Fruit on the new moons, for Ichigo had a particular fondness for sweets. It was customary to say a short prayer of thanks after burning offerings, but the words always died in Grimmjow's throat when he saw the blank spot in Zangetsu's hilt.

Was anyone there to hear him?

...

"The other stars have not forsaken us, Grimmjow."

It was summer now, the season of greatest abundance. It followed on the tail of a brief but revitalizing spring and brought the land to swell with food and drink. The pains of the previous year had not faded from the hearts of the people, but summer was generous and lavished upon them warm days and ample fruit.

Grimmjow did not have many friends, but Shawlong was one of few who tolerated his vulgarities and brash manner. His father too had gone to the borderlands and perished there, but unlike Grimmjow, Shawlong still had a mother and a young wife to care for.

Grimmjow brushed him off, but Shawlong's hand fell heavy on his shoulder. He looked at the covered basket of fruit in Grimmjow's arms with an air of weary exasperation.

"We ride to war tomorrow. Pray to Kenpachi for strength, or Komamura for power. These are stars our voices may still reach. Do not squander your efforts on one who cannot hear you!"

But Grimmjow shrugged him off. "My business is my own," he growled. He pulled the basket away from Shawlong's disapproving gaze and pushed past him.

With no one but singing cicadas for company, he took the winding trail to the top of a small hill overlooking much of the village. The path was unkempt, almost overtaken by wild grasses. Grimmjow frowned. Up ahead, the twin trees framing the gates had grown unpruned, and dead leaves littered the shrine's stone floors, strewn about by wind and rain.

Grimmjow laid his basket of offerings on the altar before sweeping away the detritus with a broom he kept at the shrine's gates for this purpose. His wrists snapped a sharp flick, flick like the tail of an angry cat with every sweep.

With no one to bring offerings, the shrine had been allowed to fall into disrepair. Grimmjow had neither the time nor knowledge to maintain the trees and gardens, but he made sure the floors were kept clean. Ichigo deserved that respect, at least.

Finishing this task, he knelt before the altar and let his hands perform the familiar rituals of sacrifice while his mind drifted elsewhere.

Tomorrow, he and the remaining warriors in his tribe would set out for the borderlands to join their brothers. The western nation had not yet breached the border, but new reports suggested that they may soon. In his father's absence, the people now looked to Grimmjow to lead them to war. It was a burden Grimmjow had not asked for, but with the trials of the past year and Ichigo's disappearance, he could not tell them no.

The other warriors were enjoying their last night at home with loved ones, but Grimmjow had no family left to see him off in the morning.

His heart was heavy as he uncovered the basket and laid it all out upon the altar. There was a fragrant cake made of honey and milk, peaches as soft as baby skin and apples the color of a young girl's blush, succulent grapes and sweet pears and an abundance of strawberries, for Ichigo was said to favor these most of all.

It was a splendid array, perhaps the grandest that Grimmjow had prepared for his favored god. It seemed fitting to offer as much on his last night in the village, for it was uncertain whether Grimmjow would return here again.

One by one, Grimmjow washed the fruits and dabbed them with oil. Half of them he placed upon the burning tray to be consumed by the fire. The other half and the cake were left on the altar to be scavenged by passing animals, for it pleased the god to see his supplicants give to lesser souls.

When it was all done, he sat at the feet of the altar, watching the fruit blacken and peel in the embrace of flames. Thick black smoke billowed and curled up and up, reaching for the stars themselves. If Ichigo had truly abandoned his people, never again to return to his place in the sky, then Grimmjow would at least give thanks for the years of protection the god had given him.

His boyhood was behind him. The growing pains of adolescence had subsided, leaving in their wake a handsome young man of twenty-one who moved with the grace of a wildcat and fought with the ferocity of one too. His father had done his duty and taught him all he could. His mother had nurtured him and given him warmth. He had been allowed to grow in a time of peace and prosperity, and for that, Grimmjow should be grateful.

Why, then, did he feel so abandoned?

Grimmjow rested his back to the altar, and his eyes fell by habit to the constellation of Zangetsu. Though he was by now accustomed to it, Ichigo's absence struck a dull ache in his heart. Should he pray? He had not in almost a year.

Who would tend the shrine after he left tomorrow?

No one, probably. The altar would be empty but for dry leaves, and weeds would overgrow the garden. The image of the shrine of his most beloved star falling to ruin moved Grimmjow to speak, at long last.

It was not quite a prayer, for he was not in the proper kneeling form with his head bowed, but rather, sitting with his back against the altar and arm resting on one knee. The gods did not take notice of men who spoke at them so casually, but no matter. Perhaps Shawlong was right, and he was wasting his breath.

"I leave for war tomorrow, Ichigo," he said to the empty night. "I do not know what happened to you, but wherever you are, you better be watching me. Pantera and I, we shall grind them all to dust. I want you to see it."

A wicked grin curled his lips. Despite everything—the fear for his nation, his people, and their way of life—despite all he had been taught to fear about war, Grimmjow felt a terrifying, hungry thrill of elation for battle. Touched by Kenpachi, his elders said of him. He would show them just how right they were.

"I do not know if you will get visitors here after tonight," Grimmjow admitted. "But if there are other villages where I go, I will visit their shrines to you."

The night grew late. In the distance, lights flickered out one by one as people prepared for sleep.

There was little point in returning to his house. No one waited for him there, and the night was warm enough. Grimmjow untied Pantera from his side so that he could sleep more comfortably and lay down on his back with his arms folded beneath his head. The sword rested against his arm, and it was warm as though it had lain beneath the midday sun for many hours. Grimmjow let himself be comforted by Pantera's familiar weight and heat, as he had once been comforted by the red star.

As his breaths slowed and evened out, the sacrificial fire on the altar grew smaller and smaller until finally it too dimmed to embers. The summer cicadas droned on, like the earthly voice of stars that twinkled silently above. Not long ago, a warm summer night like this would have been an ideal occasion to celebrate Ichigo.

But tonight, his shrine was empty. There were no processions, no priests, no worshipping crowds.

There was only Grimmjow. Just a man at the altar of a forgotten god.

Chapter 3: The Ryoka

Two years later, the western invaders breached his nation’s borders.

Like the swell of a great wave, they crashed down upon the most inland village first and engulfed it in a tide of fire and blood. Their cruelty knew no bounds—no woman, child, or elder was left alive save those spared to spread the message: the invaders would not stop. What they had done to this first village was but a taste of their intentions for the rest of the coastal nation.

Grimmjow’s company arrived mere hours too late to find what the invaders had left behind. That night, he sat inside his tent listening to mournful wails of men who lost everything today—those who had found the bodies of loved ones in the ashes and those who were still searching—and for the first time in three years, thanked the gods that he had no one left to lose.

The war escalated. After breaching the borders, the westerners spread through the countryside ravenous and unchecked like an infection. For the first time in Grimmjow’s lifetime, foreign men claimed the soil of his motherland, and the true horrors of war played out before his eyes.

Villages were plundered and sacked, the people slain in the streets or barricaded in their own homes and burned alive. Their shrines were toppled with blasphemous disregard, their crops set ablaze and livestock turned loose for the wolves. All was left to ruin, and in this the enemy’s message was clear: there would be no negotiations, no bargaining, no mercy. They had come to conquer.

There were men whose minds splintered under duress of war, but others, like Grimmjow, grew hardened and learned to see such sights through a stranger’s eyes.

Confrontations with the enemy were brief and bloody, but it was in these battles, far from his home village and everything familiar to him, that Grimmjow came unleashed. The savage ferocity that had set him apart in the training fields of his youth now drew the attention of both comrades and enemy warriors alike. Here, there was no one to rebuke or frown upon his bloodlust, and now when men whispered that he carried the madness of Kenpachi, they said it with fearful reverence.

When Grimmjow fought, he forgot pain and fear and all manner of restraints. When he held Pantera, the blade warm and heavy in his hands as though possessed by a living soul, it was as if Ichigo himself was at his back, holding his fears at bay. In these moments, he imagined the face of his beloved god by his side, his hands clasped over Grimmjow’s as one upon Pantera’s hilt as they guided the blade to its purpose.

There were few men who could stand before him in battle for long before fleeing from his madness or falling to his sword. His reputation spread through the land until every tongue knew his name: Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez, la Pantera, for by some odd happenstance the man had become synonymous with his sword.

But one man alone, no matter how skilled, could not stop an entire army. The enemy was far greater in number, their ranks endless as they wore down Grimmjow’s people by attrition alone.

One year wore by and then another. By the third, Grimmjow was given a regimen of three hundred to command as he pleased, and he led them with the same ferocity by which he fought.

The war seemed never-ending. Some days were more trying than others. There were times when even Grimmjow felt weariness so deep his very bones ached for rest, when his men were beaten and hungry and wept for a warm hearth or the loving embrace of a woman or child.

Today was one of these days.

The aftermath of battle was always a solemn affair. The living scoured the battlefield for any wounded who might still be salvaged. The dead were accounted for and shallow graves prepared for their bodies. Vigils for those fallen in battle were held through the night and into the next morning. Grimmjow oversaw these duties and more, so that when he was finally allowed to rest, he could barely stand on his own two feet.

He retired early. Without even taking his evening meal, he retreated into his tent with strict orders that he not be disturbed. After stripping to a simple sleep garment, he wiped himself down with a wet rag and collapsed face first onto his sleeping mat.

It seemed scarcely an hour later that he was being roused again.

“Captain Jaegerjaquez…”

The young soldier sent to wake him sounded more than a little reluctant to be here. He carried a small lantern, which he brought closer to the captain’s face as he hesitated before raising his hand to nudge the man’s shoulder. “Captain Jaegerjaquez, we need your—”

His words died with a gasp as Grimmjow’s fingers snapped around his wrist in an iron grip, and he found himself inches from the man’s scowling face.

“Did I not order to be left alone?” Grimmjow’s voice was a rumbling growl. He sat up, still crushing the young soldier’s arm, and reached for Pantera.

“Yes you did, Captain, but—”

“Was I unclear?”

The soldier shook his head fiercely, wide eyes watching Grimmjow grasp the scabbard near the hilt and unsheathe it an inch with his thumb. “No, Captain, it is only the matter of—”

“Grimmjow, stop playing with him and come.” Shawlong stood at the entrance of the tent, arms folded across his chest and unimpressed. “There is a matter requiring your orders.”

“Tch.” Grimmjow scoffed but released the man, who stumbled back before making a hasty exit. “This better be worth my time, Shawlong.”

Outside, the camp was quiet. Most of the warriors, save those on watch duty, were fast asleep. Even the horses were quiet tonight, and Grimmjow’s scowl grew deeper as he followed Shawlong to the single fire still lit in the center of the camp.

Three of his warriors stood there with their weapons drawn and a fourth man whose face Grimmjow could not see was on his knees before them.

“Captain Jaegerjaquez.” One of his warriors approached him. “We found this man just outside the perimeters, watching our camp. He is not one of ours.”

Grimmjow gave the captive a once over. Even without seeing his face, he knew this man was indeed not one of his. His hair fell to mid-back and its color was that of the fire flickering behind them. He wore only a pair of lightweight linen trousers.

“We have searched him,” another warrior spoke. “He carries no weapons, nor anything else. He refuses to speak.”

Grimmjow barely heard him. He walked half a circle around the man before coming back to stand before him. “Oi, let me see your face.” There was no answer, not even a glance upwards, and Grimmjow’s scowl returned. “Did you hear me?”

One of his men fisted a hand in the captive’s long hair. “The Captain asked to see your face.” A sharp tug forced his head up, and the firelight brought his face to sharp relief.

This was no face Grimmjow had seen before. Though he could not have been older than twenty, his features had the handsome cut and strength of manhood. His eyes were brown and bore into Grimmjow’s with intensity the captain did not like.

“What is your name?” Grimmjow demanded. “Are you with the western army?”

Again, he received no answer, and Grimmjow felt his patience wearing thin. A dull throb had begun to pound in his head, and he wished nothing more than to lie down for a few more hours. He turned to Shawlong. “I am going back to sleep. Do what you will with him.”

Grimmjow turned and headed back towards his tent. He heard Shawlong giving orders, but he did not care to listen. He would tend to things in the morning, when his head was clear and he felt less like one the corpses they had buried today.

…

Grimmjow slept until well after sunrise. He woke ravenously hungry and joined his men for the midday meal before remembering the orange-haired stranger from last night.

Shawlong was nowhere in sight, so Grimmjow asked one of the other warriors and was brought to a little patch of land behind the fenced in pen where the horses were kept. The captive was sitting with his back to a tree, bound there with thick rope that encircled his chest many times.

He looked up as Grimmjow approached.

“Are you going to talk today?”

Silence.

Grimmjow frowned and crouched until he was eye-level with the man. “Tell me who you are with. Are you a scout?”

The man’s brown eyes narrowed.

“What were you doing at the perimeter of our camp?” Grimmjow tried again.

Still no answer. Grimmjow looked him up and down. The men from the west had dark hair, in varying shades of deep brown to black, and their skin was sallow like the color of a sick man who had lost too much blood. They were short with broad shoulders and deep set eyes. This man, with his fair skin and orange hair and lean build, did not look like a westerner. But nor did he look like one of Grimmjow’s people. Ryoka, Grimmjow thought—outsider.

Where did he come from? Who were his kin? Did he have any relation to the coastal nation or to the nation of the west? The man kept his silence with these and every other question, but not once did his keen gaze leave Grimmjow’s face. Though he answered nothing, he was not ignoring Grimmjow, but rather, regarding him with single-minded focus that was unrelenting and strange.

Unsettled by this scrutiny, Grimmjow wrapped his hand around the man’s throat and squeezed. The brown eyes went wide and a hoarse gasp came from his throat, the first noise Grimmjow had heard him utter. He grinned.

“So you do have a voice.” His fingers tightened until blood blanched from his knuckles and the sinews of his forearm rippled under the skin. The man’s pulse pounded a thunderous rhythm beneath his hand. He shook and writhed, gasping until the fingers around his throat tightened again and silenced that too. Grimmjow felt a familiar thrill rush through his veins, coursing up to his head until it filled his ears with the sound of his own heartbeat.

The ryoka’s eyes opened again and met his.

Something in Grimmjow calmed. It was like the moments he imagined Ichigo at his side in battle, but this time, the ghostly face of his patron deity was shaking his head, and the hand he laid upon Grimmjow’s urged him to loosen his fingers instead.

Grimmjow let go.

He rose to his feet, and without a further look back at the man coughing and gasping for breath behind him, he left. He knew without turning that those eyes followed him until he was out of sight.

…

By Grimmjow’s orders, the ryoka captive was moved to a spot closer to his tent, where he could be easily seen from most corners of the camp.

As Grimmjow went through the day’s duties, he found himself glancing often in the direction of the tree that shaded his tent. The man was tied there in kneeling position, his head bowed like one in prayer and his long hair falling over his shoulders and down his back like a river. It could not have been comfortable, but he stayed there unmoving and uncomplaining like a silent, frozen statue.

The ryoka drew many a passing glance from the warriors in the camp. Once or twice, someone would try to touch or speak to him, but not once did Grimmjow see him react. The prisoner seemed present only in body, oblivious or uncaring to the goings on around him.

At the evening meal, Grimmjow sat with a group of his men around a small fire to share bread, wine, and stories. Edrad was regaling them with a retelling of how he had once laid waste to an entire battalion, but Grimmjow had stopped listening to his comrade’s embellished tale some time ago. From where he sat, if he leaned just a touch to the right of Nakeem, he had a straight line of sight to the ryoka.

Although darkness obscured most of his figure, Grimmjow could make out enough to guess he had not moved at all from this morning. Long hair caught in the wind and furled outward like a teasing invitation to freedom.

And then, as though sensing the attention upon him, the ryoka’s head rose. Grimmjow could not see his face in the dim light, but he knew without question that the man’s eyes were on him.

Grimmjow frowned, remembering what had spurred him into strangling the man just that morning. He almost rose to his feet when he noticed a man approaching the captive. It was one of the three who had caught him the night before, and Grimmjow guessed his intentions. Perhaps by Shawlong’s orders, he had come to force the ryoka into speaking and determine what threat he posed to their camp.

Their voices did not carry across the distance, but the scene playing out was easy enough to decipher. The interrogator’s straight-backed stance and crossed arms conveyed authority and demanded obedience as he pressed for answers.

The ryoka would not give them, and as the minutes ticked by, Grimmjow watched as the warrior went rigid, first with frustration, and then with anger. He knew what would happen next, and so he did not flinch when the first blow came like a thunderclap to the ryoka’s lower jaw.

Grimmjow did not care to watch the rest. He already knew the beating would yield no answers. He shifted just enough so that Nakeem’s bulk blocked the interrogation from view, and finished his meal.

…

It rained that night.

The thunder woke Grimmjow sometime after midnight. He lay half awake in his sleeping mat and listened to the rain slapping against his tent, one hand resting upon Pantera’s hilt absently.

The horses would be huddled together for warmth under their makeshift shelters, and Grimmjow did not envy the men posted for watch duty tonight.

But they were not the only ones weathering the storm.

Silent as a cat, Grimmjow slipped from his covers and went to the side of his tent where he lifted a small flap of canvas to peer outside. It was difficult to discern anything, and Grimmjow squinted, looking for the ryoka he knew was still bound and kneeling not far from his tent.

In a flash of white lightning that lit everything for a single heartbeat, Grimmjow saw him.

The ryoka was doubled over, from exhaustion or cold Grimmjow could not tell, hair plastered wet against his skin and head bowed under the torrential downpour. Yet even in this humble state, beaten and half naked and muddied, he looked…magnificent. There was something in his suffering that appeared both noble and tragic.

For that brief moment, Grimmjow was breathless.

And then the moment passed. The land was dark once more, and Grimmjow pulled the canvas flap down more roughly than he intended.

He returned to bed with Pantera at his side, but tonight the sword offered little comfort for it was cold like lifeless steel. Grimmjow did not sleep well.

…

The following morning, the men endured their captain’s foul mood. Poorly rested and unhappy besides for reasons no one knew, Grimmjow bore down upon his company like an ill-tempered cat, baring his teeth at the slightest provocation and once even drawing Pantera on a hapless errand boy.

Shawlong, who was by now accustomed to his oft-unpredictable moods, stopped him before he could run the boy through.

“You are a madman today,” he told Grimmjow with a frown. “I will take your duties. Go—rest if that is what you need.”

It was only his long friendship with the captain that spared him the brunt of the man’s temper. Grimmjow stormed back to his tent, but the sight of the ryoka boy gave him pause.

The prisoner stared at him still. His bottom lip was split, and bruises covered his bare upper body from his recent beating. His thin trousers dripped water and mud from the storm and he shivered from cold but still Grimmjow could not enter his tent without those eyes following his every step.

Grimmjow remembered how he’d looked in the lightning last night, the rainwater glistening on the taut muscles of his shoulders and chest, the graceful bow of his head and the wretched, soulful beauty of his humility. Something stirred in his heart.

He had taken the fur pelt from around his own shoulders before he realized what he was doing. Grimmjow held the pelt in his hands for a moment, its warm weight reminding him how cold Pantera had grown last night, before he knelt and draped it across the ryoka’s shoulders.

His knuckles brushed cold, damp skin for a bare instant as he did so, but Grimmjow pulled away quickly and stood. He looked around, but no one had borne witness to what had just happened.

When he looked back down, the ryoka’s eyes were softer now, and the corner of his lips curled upwards in a ghostly smile.

Grimmjow was about to enter his tent when he heard the hoarse voice whisper after him.

“Thank you.”

Chapter Text

Chapter 4: Pantera On One Knee

Grimmjow forgot rest. He turned on his heel and gave the ryoka a sharp-toothed grin. “So you have remembered your voice.”

“It was kindness that loosened my tongue.”

Grimmjow did not know what this meant, but he squatted to look him eye-to-eye. “What land are you from?”

“One whose name you do not know.”

And in an instant Grimmjow’s smile morphed into something darker, and his hand curled around the prisoner’s throat again, pressing on the bruises he had left there last time. “Do not play with me, ryoka boy. I am not above beating answers out of you.”

He expected fear. He expected the man to flinch or shy from his touch, for Grimmjow had nearly strangled him once already.

But the ryoka only smiled at him, patient like Grimmjow was a child throwing a tantrum, and answered plainly. “My people call it Seireitei. Outsiders do not know this name.” The name was unfamiliar to Grimmjow, and it must have shown on his face for the ryoka nodded, unsurprised. “You do not know it.”

The ryoka spoke strangely. His speech was halting, stiff as though from disuse and slow like he needed time to remember each word. He spoke formally in the way only the oldest of wisemen spoke, with weight on his you’s and a lilting cadence that rose and fell with the rhythm of his words.

It was nothing like the harsh, guttural accent the westerners took when they adopted Grimmjow’s native tongue. No, this ryoka had learned their language from a very old member of Grimmjow’s people.

“Why are you in these lands?”

“To find and protect someone I once knew.”

“Tch.” Grimmjow scoffed, looked the man over from head to toe and tried to appear wholly unimpressed by what he found. “You will save no one like this. What sort of fool wanders through war land half-clothed and unarmed?”

“A fool in love.”

Ridicule danced on the tip of Grimmjow’s tongue, but the ryoka’s gaze was heavy upon him. He bit back his jeer and carried on.

“You have been in this nation before?”

“Long ago, yes. People knew me.”

“Who?”

“No one now. They have forgotten me.”

If Grimmjow heard sadness in this, he pretended not to notice. “What is your name?”

This time, the ryoka would not answer. He looked at Grimmjow plainly.

“You will not tell me your name?”

“I cannot.”

“Why not?”

Silence.

Grimmjow’s eyes narrowed dangerously.

“I cannot tell you.”

Grimmjow did not believe him for an instant, but he had already seen the ryoka withstand a beating without so much as a whimper, and he had determined that the man was no western warrior. If he wished to keep his name to himself, then Grimmjow would allow it.

“We will give you a name then, if you will not tell us yours.”

“No.” The ryoka shook his head emphatically as if Grimmjow had suggested something blasphemous. “No. I will not accept it.”

Grimmjow snorted in exasperation. “Well then what will you be called? I cannot call you ryoka.”

“You can.”

“Ryoka?” Grimmjow asked, one brow arched. “That is no name.”

“It is adequate.”

The ryoka would not budge, and Grimmjow, whose patience with this strange, difficult man was at its end, did not care to argue with him.

…

Later that evening when most of the men were in the training fields, Grimmjow snuck a piece of bread from the camp stores and brought it to the ryoka. After some thought, he untied him as well. The boy had no weapon on him, and he was weak from exposure and hunger. Grimmjow was more than capable of handling him.

The ryoka devoured the food like a wolf, and when he finished he licked his fingers and looked to Grimmjow for more.

The captain raised an eyebrow. “You are lucky I gave you that much. Our food supply runs low and a ryoka boy does not figure into our rationing.”

“I am not a boy.”

In their land, a boy was not a man until he could grow a full beard, and the ryoka’s chin was smooth with not even the shadow of a beard. Grimmjow smirked, running a hand over his own jaw where the skin was rough because it was evening now and he shaved in the morning. “You look like a boy to me.”

The ryoka scowled, but now that he had finished eating, he looked about uncertainly. There were angry red marks on his chest and wrists from being bound to the tree for two days and nights, and his trousers were sodden with mud and rain. He struck a sorry sight.

“What will you do with me?” he asked, and Grimmjow grinned wide in a way that would have sent many of his warriors running.

“I will fight you.”

The ryoka stepped forward, his eyes keen and eager. Grimmjow had expected protest as most men did when he challenged them.

“We will fight, and when I win I will leave your corpse for the birds to pick.”

“And if I win?”

Grimmjow threw his head back and laughed. “You are not from this land so perhaps you do not know, Ryoka boy. I am Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez, and I grind my enemies to dust. You will not win.”

“If I win?” the ryoka pressed.

Grimmjow paused, teeth still bared in a hungry smirk. He had never considered this outcome before, because it had been a very long time since he had lost a fight. “Then you may join us, or go your own way if you wish to continue searching for that woman you love.”

The ryoka smiled.

...

Grimmjow saw no honor in fighting a half-naked, hungry boy, so he permitted the ryoka one day and night to recover from his ordeal. He was given a fresh set of clothes and allowed to bathe in the river. A spare tent was erected for him to sleep in, and Grimmjow sent food and drink to replenish his strength.

At sundown the next evening, a small crowd had gathered near the field behind the horses’ pen. Grimmjow, who sat cleaning Pantera with an oiled cloth while he waited for the ryoka boy, looked to Shawlong for an explanation.

“The men heard what you decided for our captive. They came to watch.” Shawlong’s humorless face suggested that he did not agree with Grimmjow’s methods or the impending execution, which was what this fight would certainly end as.

Grimmjow shrugged. He did not care if he fought with an audience or not.

When the ryoka emerged from his tent, he was thrust into the center of the field in front of Grimmjow and given a plain sword. He hefted this in his hands, brow furrowed as he examined the weight and balance of it.

“Oi, Ryoka!” Grimmjow brandished Pantera. “Staring at that won’t make it a magic blade. Fight me!”

The ryoka lifted his head, calm for one facing his death, and came at him.

Grimmjow was not ready, but Pantera’s instinct was ingrained in him, and he blocked the blow by a hair’s breadth. The grate of steel on steel rang close to his ears, and Pantera’s blade was so hot it warmed his face. The ryoka’s face was suddenly inches from his own, eyes locked upon his so unwaveringly that Grimmjow felt naked.

He took a step back, breaking their sword lock and giving himself some distance to regain his footing, but the ryoka did not let him recover for long. He came at Grimmjow again, but this time the captain was better prepared and fended him off well enough to counter with a swing of his own.

Blow after blow, Grimmjow’s bones rattled from the force of his opponent’s strikes. The ryoka was not just holding his own in this fight; he was forcing Grimmjow onto the defensive.

He had underestimated this ryoka boy. He had expected little, and what he got was a man who fought like a demon. Their swords met and parted, again and again like the wings of a bird in flight, and Grimmjow felt a tremulous thrill infuse his body and set his blood alight.

Here was a warrior who could challenge him, who might even make him bleed. Here was someone who might be his equal.

“What is your name, Ryoka?” he demanded, because a warrior such as this was not someone to be forgotten. The grin stretching his face ear to ear was terrifying and thirsty.

But the man only matched his smile and brought his blade down in an arching sweep across Grimmjow’s chest. The captain stumbled, his blue eyes gone wide in shock, and in the next instant, he was being braced against the ryoka’s shoulder as blood spotted the dirt beneath his feet.

A gentle hand closed over his fingers gripping Pantera’s hilt, and orange hair filled the periphery of his vision. The image of it brought Grimmjow back to countless moments he had imagined the ghost of his god beside him in battle. Ichigo, Grimmjow thought in his daze, but when he turned it was only the ryoka boy at his side, a half smile upon his face and a peculiar gleam in his eyes. Grimmjow thought he saw golden irises where there should have been brown.

Grimmjow was vaguely aware of some commotion around them. His men were shouting and someone tore the ryoka away from him and called for a doctor. He wanted to stop them, to tell them all to go away so he could be left alone but nobody seemed to listen to his demands.

His head felt light as he tried to search for orange hair amongst them but other men crowded his vision, and the ryoka boy was nowhere to be seen.

…

In the infirmary tent, a field doctor cleaned Grimmjow’s wound and stitched it closed. The wound stretched from collar to hip, but it was not deep enough to pierce anything of great importance. Grimmjow lay there, taking little notice of the pain, for his thoughts were on the one who had given him this injury.

For the first time in many years, Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez, la Pantera, had lost a challenge.

And to a nameless ryoka boy, no less. Grimmjow could have laughed, if he had not been so stunned. In front of his entire camp, he had been matched—no, beaten—by a smooth-chinned boy who could not have been a day over twenty.

Grimmjow got up as soon as the doctor tied and cut his sutures, waving the man off when he insisted the captain rest.

“Take me to the ryoka boy,” he ordered the first warrior he saw outside.

The ryoka was in the same place as he had been before: tied to the tree outside Grimmjow’s tent, on his knees with his head bowed. The sword he had used against Grimmjow was nowhere in sight.

Grimmjow cut the ropes immediately. This time seeing the ryoka on his knees did not sit well with him.

“Ryoka boy, what is your name?”

He looked Grimmjow over, his gaze lingering on the stitches running down the captain’s front. “After that, you still think me a boy?”

Grimmjow paused. No, he thought. This was no mere boy. “Tch. Fine. Tell me your name.”

“You do not know it?”

“By the stars, how would I know your name?”

The ryoka’s face fell. “I suppose you will just have to call me Ryoka, then.”

Grimmjow wanted to choke him again.

“You said that if I won, I could stay or leave.”

“And?”

“I choose to stay.”

This was unexpected. Grimmjow had thought for sure he would want to leave, after having been kept captive, bound, and starved for most of his time in the camp. “Why?”

The ryoka smiled, and his eyes were brown, not gold. “Because I came here to protect. I can do that better traveling with you.”

Grimmjow did not see how, but nor did he care. The ryoka’s choice pleased him, for never before had he been in the company of a man whose strength challenged Pantera. Perhaps he would have another chance to fight him again, and with this hope, he offered him a smile and a hand. “Fine. Let us retrieve your sword.”

Chapter 5: A Disobedient God

They could not stay in one place for long. Once his men were rested, Grimmjow gave the order to pack up camp and continue on.

With supplies near depletion, their most pressing priority was to seek shelter with one of the villages nearby who could spare them food and shelter. There were few villages still secure enough to offer such things, for the war had ravaged this nation’s people and taken much from them. Grimmjow’s men numbered two hundred and thirty strong, and to feed and shelter so many bodies was no small task.

The town of Selae lay a week’s journey to the east, and Grimmjow knew of it because his father had taken him there many years ago when the war was still nothing more than a rumbling storm cloud in the distance. It was one of the largest towns in this part of the country, encircled by a high wall which, in peacetime, protected it against the marauding vagabonds who wandered the hills, but which now was the reason it had remained untouched by the western invasion.

When they reached Selae, its people and their chief threw the gates open wide to welcome the weary warriors, and the chief of this town clasped Grimmjow’s shoulder as he would an old friend: “What is ours is yours, my brother. Come and be merry; you have arrived just in time for Raahl!”

Grimmjow, startled, stopped short, and the chief laughed. “You have not been fighting so long that you have forgotten the Starlit Celebration, have you?”

Grimmjow had forgotten. He had been a warrior for several years now, always on the move with no home. Temporary tents had replaced a warm hearth; fire-roasted wild game had taken the place of home-cooked meals. He had taken no part in his people’s celebrations and traditions in all this time.

The chief invited Grimmjow into his own house as his honored guest. His wife showed him to a spare room, and his children, neither of whom reached Grimmjow’s chest, stole glances at him with wide eyes and whispered in hushed, excited voices.

“They know your name and your deeds,” their mother told Grimmjow with a twinkle in her eye. “As do all in this town.”

Grimmjow took no notice of the children, but he thanked the chief and his wife and lay down to sleep beneath a roof for the first night in a long time.

…

Raahl, the Starlit Celebration, fell every year halfway between the spring equinox and the summer solstice. It was a week of plentiful food, music, and dance around a central bonfire that burned all seven days and nights of the festival.

Grimmjow remembered celebrating Raahl as a child in his own village. His mother would cut his hair and his father’s hair, and every family doused their household fires to be re-lit with a fresh flame from the village’s central bonfire. At night, the hillsides were alight with the bonfires of every village along the coast and far inland, and Grimmjow would look out in wonder at them all, certain that his people were the mightiest on earth for the bonfires that stretched in every direction as far as the eye could see seemed as numerous as the stars above twinkling in mirrored light.

Raahl honored the stars. The people shared their plentiful harvest so that every god’s altar was heaped high with offerings of food, wine, and blood of freshly slain cattle. They gave thanks to the gods, sang their praises and told their stories, and prayed for their continued patronage.

Grimmjow’s hair had grown long in the years he had spent wandering the country, and so the first morning after arriving in Selae, he took a knife and cut his own hair to prepare for the festival. When he came back, he saw the chief’s wife doing the same for her children, and briefly, his thoughts turned to a simpler time when his mother was still alive to do this for him.

During the festival, men went without shirts and wore only a lièqún, a lightweight hunting kilt which wrapped around the waist and ended above the knees. The chief gifted Grimmjow with a light blue lièqún of his own. “To match your hair,” the man had explained with a laugh. Grimmjow grunted his thanks.

Later that day, he found the ryoka watching the bustling activity in the center of the village where men piled firewood to light the main bonfire that evening. His bright hair stood out amongst the men who had all cut theirs, and Grimmjow pulled him aside with a frown.

“You must cut your hair,” he said, pointing to the offending locks that fell almost to the ryoka’s waist. “Raahl begins tonight, so you must cut it before the sun falls.”

But the ryoka shook his head and gathered his long hair in one hand as though he feared Grimmjow might slice it off with Pantera himself. “It will not be bad luck for me if I leave it long.”

Grimmjow snorted, but he already knew the ryoka was stubborn and really, what did he care if the gods cursed him with bad luck for the next year for not cutting his hair during the festival? “Fine. But find yourself a lièqún before dark, at least.”

The ryoka ignored him. “Where are you staying?”

“I am staying with the chief.”

“Then I will stay with him too.”

Grimmjow sputtered. “You were not invited.”

“So I will ask for permission,” the ryoka said reasonably, and he followed Grimmjow back to do just that.

The chief’s family, despite Grimmjow’s skepticism, welcomed him without question and even gave him a black lièqún to wear for Raahl. The ryoka thanked them graciously, and Grimmjow was left trying to make sense of what had just happened.

“I did not say you were welcome to sleep beside me,” he growled as the ryoka set up his sleep mat next to Grimmjow’s.

“But I want to.”

“They do not even know you! What did you bewitch them with?”

“They let you stay here,” the ryoka pointed out as he pulled his shirt off.

“I am Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez. Everyone knows me. You did not even tell them your name.”

The ryoka appeared to consider this for a moment, but then his hands undid the ties holding his trousers up, and Grimmjow turned around so fast his head spun. He heard the rustle of fabric falling to the floor behind him.

“What—what are you doing?” he roared.

“I am changing into my lièqún.” There was more rustling and Grimmjow dared not turn around. “What are you doing?”

Grimmjow’s face was hot. Did this man have no sense of dignity? He had seen the ryoka without a shirt before, but men did not go about dropping their trousers in front of other men so easily. Not unless they meant to lie together.

“I am leaving,” he bit out. He picked up Pantera, eyes glued to the floor, before walking briskly from the room.

...

Dinner was served outside.

The chief of Selae and his wife heaped Grimmjow’s plate high with steaming rice and hot bread soaked in a savory sauce cooked with vegetables. Grimmjow craved fish, because he had been raised on fish meat growing up on the coast, but this far inland, fish only came dried and salted from traveling merchants. Still, the food was hot and delicious, prepared with care and delicately spiced, a far cry from the hastily heated swill he was accustomed to. Grimmjow ate his fill with no complaint.

He looked over at the ryoka, who had politely declined the hot cooked meal in favor of fruit. Fruit in Selae was plentiful, because the town had several large orchards that grew every type of fruit Grimmjow was familiar with and a few he was not. The ryoka gorged himself on sweet pears and crispy apples with no regard for cleanliness. Sticky juice ran down his chin and hands, and even the chief’s two small children giggled at him for it.

“You eat like an infant,” Grimmjow sneered, as the ryoka’s cheeks bulged like a field mouse hoarding seeds. With a peach in one hand, an apple in the other, and pale golden juice dripping onto his bare chest and lièqún, the ryoka indeed resembled nothing so much as a gluttonous child. This was the man Grimmjow had lost his first fight to in almost ten years.

But the chief’s wife only laughed, offered him a plate full of strawberries, and the ryoka’s eyes went round like two shiny copper coins. Grimmjow had meant to chastise him further, but something in the way his face lit up as he bit into the first strawberry made him swallow his words.

He thought back to the fierce fighter who had beaten him to his knees, how he had knelt bound to a tree for two days and nights suffering stoically in cold and rain and endured a beating by Grimmjow’s men with not even a whimper. This boy stuffing strawberries two and three at a time into his mouth seemed an entirely different man.

Grimmjow did not realize he was staring until the ryoka met his eyes. He had thought they glittered gold once, but they were not gold now. Maybe they never had been.

After dinner, the chief pulled Grimmjow aside for a conversation he had not wanted to have in front of his family.

“I regret speaking of a grim matter during a festive time,” he apologized. “But I must ask what you have seen of the enemy.”

The warrior frowned, but the chief of Selae was greatly respected in these lands, and Grimmjow’s father had often convened with him to discuss diplomacy and war. He could be trusted. And so he paused, but at length spoke his truth reluctantly.

“Our enemies fight like men possessed.”

“A strong assessment to come from la Pantera, who is said to forget all pain and reason in the bloodlust of battle.” But the chief did not deny Grimmjow’s judgment. His brow furrowed deep and his lips drew thin. “You are not the first captain to pass through this village. Others have said the same. They say the western soldiers fight with empty eyes, that they rise after taking even the most grievous wounds and do not stop fighting until the last breath has left their body.”

Grimmjow nodded; he had seen this for himself many times before. The first time he had looked into the eyes of an enemy warrior in battle, he had been taken aback by the cold emptiness in them. He had since grown accustomed to it, but still sometimes, after battle, his men would whisper amongst themselves of the unnatural strength that seemed to take hold of their enemy. The westerners were a different breed of men, so consumed by warfare they seemed at times more demon than man.

“Some men believe our enemy fights with more than mere muscle and steel,” the chief went on. “They say the invaders have been blessed with divine strength.”

A scornful spat made clear Grimmjow’s thoughts on the matter. “Superstitions have no place among warriors,” he said. “Such men should don aprons and wash clothes with the womenfolk, if they are prone to idle tongue wagging.”

“You do not believe our enemies are anything more than what they appear?”

“No.” Grimmjow’s hand went to Pantera’s hilt, and he felt his strength in its warm weight. There was only one fate awaiting those at the end of his sword. “Whether they are man or spirit, they bleed red just the same, and I will kill them all.”

...

The town bonfire was lit at the darkest hour of the night, and Grimmjow stood amongst a crowd of thousands to observe the ceremonial proceedings surrounding it. As Grimmjow watched the fire crackle and pop, greedily consuming oil-soaked wood piled up as high as a grown man, he was struck by a sudden, powerful wave of longing.

Longing for home, for the familiar dirt roads and the salty ocean smell of his village. For his old life, before the war had come to ravage these lands, when his father had still been alive and his mother in good health. For celebrating Raahl in the comfort of a place and time that had been good and familiar to him.

And perhaps, most of all, for Ichigo. For a time when the great sword of Zangetsu was still whole and Grimmjow could look upon it and know with certainty that Ichigo, the star he claimed as his patron god, watched over him.

What had become of the god? What events had transpired in the heavens so far beyond his mortal reach and awareness that could have caused Ichigo to vanish?

Their legends claimed the gods quarreled amongst themselves at times, and when such conflicts arose, the earth shook and reshaped with the might of their battles. Ichigo was amongst the most powerful of their stars, but even he was not invincible. Not against other gods.

It was not the first time Grimmjow had thought this, but the idea always made his gut twist and churn like ocean water caught in violent storm. He thought back to Ichigo's shrine in his home village and his final, heavy-hearted gift of offerings the night before he left for war. Had anyone come to visit that shrine after Grimmjow left? It seemed doubtful. The path to the shrine, unkempt when Grimmjow last saw it, must be completely overgrown by now. The altar must be empty, and probably had been in all the years of Grimmjow's absence. The garden must be overtaken by weeds and the floor a mess of dead leaves and dirt.

Perhaps it did not matter, if Ichigo was truly gone and no longer able to witness the faithlessness of his people. But Grimmjow felt great pain in his heart to imagine Ichigo’s shrine in such a state.

When the festivities around the bonfire turned to music and dance, Grimmjow slipped away into the night. He had one destination in mind.

…

Selae’s shrines were bigger and grander than the ones in Grimmjow’s home village, built with blocks of beautiful white stone and carved by the most talented hands in the coastal nation. Grimmjow encountered no one as he walked the stone path that would take him there, for it was late and everyone still awake was at the bonfire.

Ichigo’s shrine was difficult to find. He had expected it to be atop a high hill, as it was in most villages including his own, because shrines were meant to be closer to the heavens and the stars they were built for than the low ground on which mortal men walked. But the trail led Grimmjow to flat ground not far beyond the town outskirts, to a place at the edge of the forest where grasses grew wild.

As Grimmjow passed beneath the arching gate and followed the low stairs approaching the altar, he saw that this shrine, like the others in Selae, was more like a small temple, for four carved pillars supported a domed roof, and a graceful fountain in the back bubbled clean water from the river nearby. It did not look unkempt or neglected. Grimmjow wondered with a start if the people of Selae were more faithful to Ichigo than other villages he had seen in recent years.

As he drew closer, Grimmjow saw that he was not alone here. A hunched figure shuffled from the fountain, holding a bowl filled to the brim with water. His gait was slow but stately, and as Grimmjow watched, the man spilled some water across the altar’s surface and began to wipe away the debris with a rag.

Grimmjow recognized the wooden badge and white cloth armband fastened around his upper arm, and what it meant. Only wealthy villages kept priests, someone who saw to the preservation and upkeep of all the shrines and who guided the rituals of sacrifice, festival, and prayer. It was not surprising that Selae had one.

The priest did not look up from his work as Grimmjow approached, but he addressed the warrior with the familiarity of one who had been expecting an old friend.

“This shrine has not had many visitors in recent years. Welcome, Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez.”

Grimmjow frowned; nostalgia and sentiment had brought him here, and he had hoped to be alone tonight at Ichigo’s shrine.

“Did you come to pray tonight?” the old man asked.

“No.” The question annoyed Grimmjow for reasons he did not care to ponder. He had not prayed once since Zangetsu had broken. “What use is there?”

The priest shrugged. “For protection. I hear Ichigo grants that.”

Protection.

Bitterness coiled like a snake in Grimmjow’s heart as he thought of the past seven years of warfare and ruin. His faith in the protector, once a raging bonfire in his heart, had dimmed to mere embers. Lips curled in derision, he could not hide the mockery from his voice. “Oh yes, and a fine protector he makes, forsaking our people in our darkest years!”

The priest continued to wipe the smooth stone surface of the altar. His calmness infuriated Grimmjow.

“Tell me, priest, for what purpose do you keep this shrine? Ichigo is not in the sky to see your devotion. Your efforts are wasted.”

Just as Grimmjow’s had been. Just as every offering he had laid at Ichigo’s altars, in his home village and every village that he had come across since, had been wasted. Sweet cakes and ripe fruits, heaped upon the altar to rot and feed wild vermin. Grimmjow could not name the madness that prompted him to continue throwing away hard-earned coin into the abyss, but it filled his heart with black bile to see his own folly in this priest.

“You believe he has forsaken you.”

“He has forsaken all of us.”

“But you feel he has forsaken you, above all.”

Grimmjow grit his teeth. It pained him how true the priest’s words rang. Oh, he knew he had no claim upon the star. The gods abided by their own wills, and though they could occasionally be swayed by multitudes of worshippers, mortals commanded their attention only by the strength of their combined voices. The gods did not care for their worshippers individually. The idea that Ichigo paid him special mind was only a fanciful imagining of youth, which Grimmjow should have long outgrown and yet had not.

He had no voice to counter the priest’s shrewd observation.

The old man stopped in his work and turned his gaze to the heavens. Grimmjow knew without following his gaze he was looking in Zangetsu’s direction.

“The old stories tell of a time when the moon was alone in the night sky,” the priest spoke in a voice so low he might have been speaking to himself. “And the stars took the shape of mortal men but with presence so mighty that we could not help but bow to them.”

Grimmjow said nothing, not knowing what direction the old man’s musings meant to take.

“And when the great cataclysm struck, our stars fought and bled to preserve us, whom they loved. In the aftermath, they saw how their love for us would destroy them, and so it was decided amongst them that never again would they dally in the lives of men—”

“And so they ascended to a place where men could never reach, but from where they could still gaze down upon us and hear our voices,” Grimmjow finished for him, impatiently. “Every child knows the story, priest. What are you repeating it to me for?”

“I am simply reminding you because you, like so many others, have forgotten.” With a ghost-like smile, the priest gestured to the sky with an open palm. “That before the stars were up there, they were down here.”

The old man was senile, Grimmjow decided, because everyone knew the legends and here he was explaining it to Grimmjow like a—

“So if Ichigo is no longer above, then perhaps he has returned to walk amongst us.”

The mockery on his tongue shriveled and died as Grimmjow’s mind ground to a halt.

What?

The priest returned to his task, not noticing or not caring how the warrior’s jaw had fallen. His wrinkled, work-worn hands scrubbed back and forth on white stone, and the devotion Grimmjow had just moments ago derided as foolish took on different meaning.

If Ichigo is no longer above…

“What do you mean, priest?” Grimmjow demanded. His voice rose. “What do you mean by that?”

“I speak only what seems to me the most probable truth. Do you think the stars have forgotten how to don mortal skin?”

Of course Grimmjow did not, but—

“It is forbidden,” he cut in swiftly, grappling for cause that the last seven years spent in idle resentment at his once-beloved star had not been in vain. “The stars chose to never again walk this earth. What cause would Ichigo have to go against such law?”

The priest shrugged. “I cannot guess at the motives of a god, Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez.”

“The law was written long ago to be obeyed by all stars! Never since has it been broken!”

“Ichigo is not known for his obedience to custom and law.”

Grimmjow fell back a step as though struck, out of words and breath but with a hundred thoughts crowding his mind and his chest burdened with emotions without name.

The priest was wrong. He must be. Someone would know by now, would they not? Surely, someone would have seen Ichigo and known him for what he was, and such news would have spread far and wide.

And yet—and yet…

What if the priest was not wrong?

What if the night Ichigo vanished from the sky, he had returned to this world, hidden or disguised to evade recognition? It would not be beyond a god’s power to hide his nature.

But why? No living man had ever seen the stars on earth, nor their fathers before them, nor even those who came before that. It must have been hundreds—thousands!—of years since their gods became stars. Why would the protector choose now to break the heavens’ most severe law, to invoke the anger of his fellow gods and invite certain punishment by their hands?

For seven years, Zangetsu had been broken. Had Ichigo been down here, living amongst mortal men, for all that time? If he had, what had he been doing?

Ichigo on earth, in mortal guise. The idea made his heart tremble.

There were so many questions, and Grimmjow felt unable to articulate even one.

The priest offered no more wisdom. He washed the altar and cleaned the incense jars and shared only the air he breathed with the silent warrior who was his companion. Grimmjow stayed there long after the old man finished his task and left, and when the hunched figure was swallowed up by the dark of night, he sank to his knees before the altar and bowed his head.

Where are you, Ichigo? What madness drove you here?

Chapter 6: The First Night of Raahl

“You did not return to the house last night.”

The late morning air was sharp with fresh smoke still billowing from the town’s central bonfire. It tickled Grimmjow’s throat. The ryoka boy who addressed him held a bowl of ripe strawberries in the crook of his arm and stood in the doorway to watch Grimmjow clean Pantera as he stuffed his face with sweet fruit. When Grimmjow ignored him, he asked with mouth still full, “Where were you?”

“It is none of your concern.” Grimmjow glanced up and sneered. “I can barely understand you through all that fruit. Were you begat by wolves?”

“Where else did you have to sleep?”

His questions annoyed Grimmjow. What did he care what Grimmjow did on his own time? “Maybe I was fucking a woman and shared her bed.”

The ryoka’s eyes grew wide and his brows scrunched together, and his face fell so pitifully Grimmjow wished to take back his words. Perhaps his careless jibe had reminded the boy of his own woman, the one he had ventured so far from home to find and protect. He sighed. “I was with no woman. I was at a shrine.”

“A shrine.” The ryoka’s expression lifted considerably. “You must be hungry. I will fetch you something good to eat from the chief’s wife.” And then he was gone.

Sleeping on the shrine’s hard stone floor had left Grimmjow with a maddening ache in his neck, and his feet were still a little numb from cold. He had stayed there long after the priest left, his heart besieged by hope and grief, his mind torn between faith and doubt.

The priest was senile. No, the priest was wise. He was wrong. He was right. Around and around Grimmjow’s thoughts had spun, embracing and discarding by turn the priest’s words and uncertain what to believe.

His mind was no clearer this morning.

It was the first day of Raahl, and the festive air had taken hold of everyone in the town. The town’s people filled the streets with open-air cooking and chatter, the women clad in lightweight draping dresses and the men in their knee-length lièqún. The string lanterns hung across the streets had burned through the night, all of them lit by the same flame from the central bonfire. It was a painfully nostalgic sight in an unfamiliar place. Experiencing Selae during the festival soothed at the same time as it burned Grimmjow’s heart, for the familiar traditions of Raahl made him yearn all the more for home.

But there was nothing left for Grimmjow there. His mother was laid to rest, and his father had been buried in an unmarked grave at the western border. Unlike many of the warriors who followed him, Grimmjow had no wife awaiting his return, nor children to continue his legacy. His house stood barred and empty, and the garden his mother had once tended there would be naught but brown husks and weeds. Only memories remained now.

Grimmjow’s thoughts turned again to the shrine that lay atop a lonely hill in his home village. If Ichigo had donned mortal skin, as the priest believed, would he be insulted that his shrine had fallen to ruin in his absence from the sky? Would he be angered by the faithlessness of his worshippers?

The thought spurred him to action.

At the end of the street, a vendor stood hawking his goods. Raahl was a good time for fresh food markets, for tradition decreed for every night of the week-long festival the shrines should overflow with gifts. The timing of Raahl at the cusp of summer ensured a bountiful harvest and young meat to appease the gods.

The vendor’s eyes lit up as Grimmjow approached. “La Pantera!” he greeted. “What can this humble merchant offer you today, young captain?”

Grimmjow barely met his gaze, preoccupied with the array of fresh fruits spread out before him. He reached deep into his pockets and retrieved a string of heavy coins. “Your most succulent fruit,” he demanded. “And a sweet cake made of honey, if you have one to sell.”

He left with a heavy basket of apples that flushed deepest red, silk-skinned plums, and almost a pound of the largest strawberries the vendor had to offer. There had been no cake to buy, but the vendor pointed Grimmjow in the direction of the town’s baker.

By late afternoon, Grimmjow’s coin string was considerably lighter and his arms full with a basket heaped high. He made his way to Ichigo’s shrine as the rest of the town gathered around the central bonfire for an evening of dance, song, and ritual.

As he passed down the winding trail to the shrine, the lights and sounds of festivity faded into ambience behind him. After nightfall, the people would arrive in droves to pray and deliver their gifts to the shrines, but for now, Grimmjow was alone.

He laid his gifts out on the white stone altar, arranging them in a manner that seemed most pleasant to the eye. As he centered the sweet cake amidst the fruit, he cast his gaze upward. It was not yet dark enough to see the stars, but in a few short hours, Zangetsu would appear to witness his offering.

Grimmjow was pleased to see the priest had filled the anointing pan with fresh oil. With a pang, he realized that not everyone had forsaken Ichigo. At least one lonely priest had not abandoned his duty to their gods.

He daubed golden oil on a few choice fruits and set them in the tray to burn. As black smoke unfurled heaven-bound, Grimmjow lowered himself. The stone floor was cool against his knees, and the warrior’s broad shoulders curled inwards ever so slightly in supplication only a god could command of la Pantera.

Grimmjow hesitated; it had been so long since he had last prayed that this once-familiar pose now felt foreign to him. Many moments passed in silence before words finally came to him.

“Ichigo…” Even the god’s name felt strange on his tongue. Would Ichigo hear him, now that he was no longer in the sky where he saw all? Grimmjow did not know. He closed his eyes, bowed his head, and breathed out in a sharp, shuddering breath, “Forgive me. I have been unfaithful.”

Grimmjow’s prayer came as a trickle at first, halting and uncertain like languid drops of a stream melting its winter ice. But as the words gathered momentum and built upon themselves, his voice grew stronger.

He spoke of his mother and his father, both of them gone now and their bodies returned to the earth. He spoke of the war, of battles he had fought and won, of those he had lost, and of the many more that had been pyrrhic victories at best.

“Were you there, Ichigo?” he asked quietly, thinking of the countless times he had invoked his god’s name and image in the frenzy of battle. If Ichigo had been on earth all this time, had he ever heard these whispered prayers? How far did a god’s power extend when he was earthbound? These were questions none of the myths from Grimmjow’s childhood answered.

By the time he finished, the sinking sun painted the sky in hues of pink and orange, and small lights began to dot the distant village center as its people prepared for the first night of worship. Grimmjow stood, knees aching from the stone floor. His gaze lingered on the altar, where the fire had consumed much of what he’d put in its tray and its black column of smoke had been reduced to faintly glowing embers. The unburnt remainder of his offerings—the sweet cake and a plentiful helping of fruit would probably be scavenged by animals through the night. Grimmjow shook the stiffness from his limbs and started back the trail he’d taken.

Halfway to the village center, he met the ryoka. His long orange hair stood out amongst the throngs of freshly groomed village men, and he approached Grimmjow with a wide smile and a plate of savory smelling hot food.

“You left this morning without saying,” the ryoka reminded him. “This is for you.”

Grimmjow cast the food a critical look despite how his stomach wrung. He had not eaten all day, and it was now past sundown. “It is Raahl. You should offer that to gods, not men.”

But the boy shook his head in the same careless way he had when Grimmjow had suggested he cut his hair. “But this is for you.”

Grimmjow raised a brow, but the food smelled too good to refuse a second time. He dug in eagerly while the ryoka looked on.

“Where did you go?” he wanted to know. He looked behind Grimmjow, in the direction he had come from.

“A shrine.”

His gaze snapped back to Grimmjow. “Which one?”

Grimmjow chewed slowly, wondering why the man wanted to know, but saw no reason to lie. “Ichigo’s.”

He expected incredulity or confusion, for as faithless as he had been, most people had ceased their prayers and offerings to the god long before he had. But the ryoka neither sneered nor questioned. He simply accepted Grimmjow’s answer with a peculiar look in his eyes and looked again beyond Grimmjow, his gaze following the path to the shrine.

Grimmjow was about to leave; he looked down at the plate. The savory food warmed his belly, sating the hunger that had been building all day. It had been a long time since anyone had cared to chase after Grimmjow with a hot meal, and this stirred unfamiliar gratitude in him he felt ill-equipped to express.

“…thank you,” he said haltingly, and then he descended down the path without waiting for a reply.

The ryoka watched him go. When Grimmjow was no more than a dark speck on the horizon, he turned and took the opposite path.

...

As the night deepened and twilight chased away the rosy blush of sunset, small lights began to dot the land—a fire at the threshold of each home, string lamps that lined the streets, and handheld lanterns carried on sticks by children.

The ryoka sat atop the stone altar of Ichigo's shrine, helping himself to a ripe plum from the pile of fruit stacked beside him. His teeth broke the silk skin and sticky juice hit his tongue in pleasant bursts of sweetness. He chewed slowly, mashing the soft flesh against the roof of his mouth, letting the sweet juice collect on his tongue as he savored the taste. With a soft sound of delight, he leaned back, propping his arm up on one knee as he cast his gaze out at the lighted hillsides.

The people were beginning to disperse from the town center, traveling in lantern-lit processions towards the shrines of other gods and carrying gifts of fruit, freshly spilled blood, flowers, and meat. He watched as worshippers gathered at each shrine: the baboon and snake, the winter dragon, the hornet, and many more. But none approached the shrine of the great sword; Ichigo's altar alone remained dark.

But it was not empty. The ryoka tossed aside the plum's pit and reached for the bowl of strawberries. He smelled their sweet aroma even before he brought the first berry to his mouth. As red juice painted his lips, he smiled contentedly. No, Ichigo's shrine had not been forgotten. One man was yet faithful.

He ate as though he would never be full. The bowl of strawberries was soon empty, and one by one he devoured the remaining fruit. The cake was left for last, and he ate it in greedy handfuls, relishing the rich honey and soft milk. When he could eat no more, only a small portion of the cake remained. Pits littered the shrine floor and juice-stained fingerprints marked the altar. The ryoka rose and cleaned himself in the fountain, and the juice and crumbs washed from his skin to muddy the water.

Sated and pleased, the ryoka stretched out across the altar like a languid cat. The offering tray clattered to the floor, spilling ash and embers in striking black across the white stone. He paid this no mind, for his belly was full and his heart was at ease. He laid on his back, arms folded beneath his head and his long hair spilling over the edge of the altar like a river of fire.

The stars seemed brighter tonight. The constellation of the great sword Zangetsu, though broken, twinkled as brightly as any other. A longing throb clutched his heart and at his side, his hand clenched to grasp an absent blade.

Give him time, he thought, and sleep called for him as he closed his eyes. He will remember.

Chapter Text

Chapter 7: The White Star of Zangetsu

Grimmjow’s shoulders trembled.

It was mid-morning, and much of the village had yet to stir after a late night of celebration, feasting, and drinking. The morning after the first night of Raahl was often the laziest, and laziness was tolerated during this period of celebration with indulgence rarely enjoyed the rest of the year.

Grimmjow had risen early to pay his respects at Ichigo’s shrine, bearing a small woven basket filled with strawberries. He stood now upon the steps leading to the altar, taking in its sorry state with an expression that usually preceded Pantera’s unsheathing.

But there was no one present to demonstrate his fury upon.

The altar was empty. Fruit pits crunched under Grimmjow’s feet as he stepped forth, and he swept a large, calloused hand over the white stone. Its pristine surface was sticky and stained with dried juice, and discarded peels lay every which way as though spat out by an impudent, fussy child. Ash from the upturned burning tray coated the floor in fine black dust. The fountain, once so clear Grimmjow could have used it as a mirror, looked like the bottom of a murky pond, and the honeyed cake, which had cost Grimmjow much hard-earned coin, was all but gone, and finger-shaped grooves gouged that which remained.

This was the doing of no animal. No animal ate only the flesh and spat out the skins of fruit, and no animal scooped cake by hand. This…desecration was the work of one or many men.

Perhaps a man disgruntled by the god’s seven-year disappearance? Or one who believed he had nothing to fear from an absent star, or perhaps even one simply acting on drunken insolence.

Grimmjow did not care. For any man to enter here—bearing no gifts and seeking no prayer—and not only eat offerings meant for a god but leave the shrine in such a state…it was blasphemy of the highest order. And though this filth was not of Grimmjow’s doing, it would not do to leave Ichigo’s shrine like this for a moment longer.

He set down the basket and cast about for a broom or a rag to clean with but found none. Scowling, Grimmjow removed Pantera from his hip and laid the sword carefully at the foot of the altar, then untied the long length of cloth around his waist that served as a belt for the lièqún. It would have to do for a rag. He lowered to knees and palms and began to clean.

Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez on his knees was no common sight, and he bowed to no man or woman alive. But to a man too proud to bow even to most gods, there was one who commanded his respect, his admiration, and his devotion. Whether in prayer or in servitude, Grimmjow submitted to Ichigo and Ichigo alone.

He swept up the debris with his cloth belt. With a mighty effort, he heaved up the heavy fountain basin to empty its sullied contents before letting it refill once more with fresh water from the river. He wet his belt and set to work scrubbing the altar to its former state. When all was done, his back ached and his fingers were scoured raw, but the shrine at least looked fitting for a god again.

He sank to his knees one last time to say a brief prayer then rose, retrieved his sword, and left.

...

Grimmjow’s foul mood persisted through the day. His belt was ruined, and without it, the lièqún sagged and required constant adjustment. His mind lingered on the desecrated shrine, and even as part of him still seethed at the insolence, he soothed himself by promising retribution should he ever learn the identity of the blasphemer.

He was alone in his ill temper, for the rest of the town knew nothing of this crime and the celebration had not suffered.

The second night of Raahl was devoted to dance and, more significantly, to the courtship of new lovers. Men danced to win the eye of the woman who had caught theirs, and women danced also, though custom forbade the announcement of their desired suitor. Even so, many women danced with their eyes turned to the handsome young captain of unrivaled war fame, some more blatantly longing than others.

Grimmjow was not blind, and his fury from that morning had transformed into a different kind of heat altogether. Seven lonely years on the road was trying even for a man as suited for warfare as Grimmjow, and he was not unaccustomed to sating his needs with women whose names he never remembered. Here in a place of relative safety and ample choice, he had the rare luxury of indulging in those appetites.

He weighed his options, eyes drifting from one woman to the next, and as he contemplated the pleasures that awaited him tonight, orange hair teased the periphery of his vision and his attention turned.

But it was no woman bearing the long mane of sun-touched hair. The ryoka boy stood at the edge of the dancing crowd, doing nothing and saying nothing, and yet Grimmjow stared as though bewitched.

The boy dressed in the manner of all men during Raahl, clad in knee-length lièqún belted by a long length of cloth and wearing nothing above the waist. His bare skin gleamed golden in reflected light from the bonfire, his limbs long and his muscles lean. He was well shaped and exceedingly handsome of face, a fine creature caught at the crossroads of youth and manhood. Sure enough, when Grimmjow scanned the girls close to the fire, there were several dancing with furtive looks in his direction.

Selae had a number of beautiful young girls, and Raahl was one of few occasions they were permitted to dress in a manner to incite the lust of men. Grimmjow watched shapely breasts and firm bellies and long legs, wrapped in near sheer fabric, move in sensual dance to entice the ryoka.

Sudden pain shook Grimmjow from his thoughts, and he looked down to find crescent-shaped cuts in his palm where his nails had pierced skin. When he looked up again, the ryoka was staring not at the girls, but at him. His eyes glittered like two gold coins and, before Grimmjow could part eyes as though they had never met, he joined the dance.

He danced like he fought, with graceful precision and bold, strong strokes, only this time he wielded not a sword but his body. His spine arched and unfurled like a snake, the ripple of hard strength subtle beneath the skin, the curve of his calves tight then soft in rhythm with his steps. Sweat glistened on smooth skin and hair flowed like living flames. Grimmjow had thought him beautiful when he was still; in motion, the ryoka was entrancing.

Memory of their battle played in Grimmjow’s mind, so vivid it seemed as one with the dance. The ryoka raised his arm in time with a fluid turn of his foot, and Grimmjow saw in that stance the boy bearing his unnamed blade down in the arching sweep that had opened Grimmjow’s flesh from collar to hip. The memory brought his half-healed wound to ache like new.

Who is he dancing for?  

Grimmjow broke his stare to look around, trying to determine which of the hopeful girls had won the ryoka’s attention. It was hard to tell. At the end of the dance, the ryoka would reveal the intended object of his courtship and offer her his hand, but Grimmjow did not relish the thought of staying to watch this.

He looked away. The women dancing for him had not paused in their efforts to draw his gaze, but Grimmjow found them one and all suddenly charmless. Svelte figures and generous bosoms that had just moments ago whetted his lust now sparked little notice, and Grimmjow turned instead to a handsome young man of tall stature and lean build who had been eyeing the captain with much desire.

Grimmjow approached him with a shark’s smile and a lion’s gait, took his hand, and led him away.

Behind them, the ryoka had stopped his dance.

...

The boy from Selae—Grimmjow had neither asked his name nor remembered it when it was given—sated him that night in ways a woman could not. Grimmjow was pleased with his choice, and before the sun rose he took the boy twice more until he pleaded for rest. Grimmjow let him, for he had withstood the captain’s punishing lust with nary a whimper or complaint.

In the morning, he returned to the chief’s house to break fast with the family and pretended not to see the knowing looks that passed between the chief and his wife. The ryoka was there also, and he ate with uncharacteristic silence until prodded into conversation.

Later, the ryoka found him by the river washing his cloth belt. He said nothing, only sat on the bank beside him.

Grimmjow cast him a sideways glance, wondering what he wanted, but the ryoka appeared content with only his presence. Most men sought reason not to find or speak to Grimmjow, yet this strange boy from a foreign land seemed always to welcome him.

Not a man accustomed to idle company, Grimmjow returned to the task at hand. The belt was ruined but not beyond repair, and he scrubbed at the soiled fabric so that he may not have to ask for another from the chief’s wife.

The ryoka watched him use smooth river stones for a washboard. The warrior’s sword was absent from his waist but lay in arm’s reach on the grass, and the ryoka spoke finally.

“Few men command a named sword.”

“Few men have the strength,” Grimmjow corrected. “And where is your blade?”

The ryoka was not in the habit of bearing his sword wherever he went. But he was a warrior, the same as Grimmjow, and for a warrior to abandon his blade so easily was akin to a mother forsaking her infant. It was reckless.

His companion shrugged in that careless manner Grimmjow knew well by now, looking for all the world as though such earthly worries did not concern him. “It is not my sword.”

“You have another of your own?”

“Yes.”

“Where is it?”

This time, the boy frowned slightly and leaned back on his palms with gaze cast heavenward. “I left it behind.”

Grimmjow scoffed. “Then you are a fool. What good is a warrior with no blade?”

“It is not the blade which gives him strength. It is his strength that guides the blade.” The ryoka pointed to Pantera. “He told you his name because you are strong. To another man he would be unnamed.”

“And what do you know of named blades?” Grimmjow wanted to know. “Do you have one?”

“Yes.”

Grimmjow was taken aback. Swords that had names numbered as few as the men who wielded them. It was said that only those personally favored by the gods came to possess them. He knew of only a handful in this land, fewer than could be counted on a single hand. But the ryoka boy was strong. Why in heavens would he leave behind such a weapon in his quest?

“What is its name?” But the boy shook his head, and Grimmjow did not ask again. Although Pantera was known to all, not all men of named swords shared theirs so easily. “Fine. One day I shall fight you again with that blade. I will beat it out of you then.”

The ryoka smiled.

...

That evening, Grimmjow did not join the celebrations at the town center.

The third night of Raahl was for storytelling. The tales and deeds of their stars were immortalized in song, and these were passed down the generations through memory and tongue of the people. And because it took a strong voice and uncommonly sound memory to deliver these long tales by heart, the third night of Raahl was a popular time to flourish one’s singing talent.

Grimmjow was familiar with most of these tales, but tonight he sought respite from the bright lights and loud festivities. To this end, he claimed fatigue and waited until the chief and his family had gone to retire to a quiet spot.

He found a hammock on the edge of the property slung between two broad-trunked trees that had been stripped of leaf and limb. Here in an open field bereft of the cover of trees, Grimmjow could contemplate the stars in quiet seclusion.

The hammock was large, easily wide enough to accommodate two, and made of tough canvas that took his weight with slight stretch but ample support. Grimmjow had scarcely settled in comfortably when he noticed a figure approaching from the house. Though he had hoped for solitude, the ryoka aroused in him no ill thoughts.

“The festival has already begun,” Grimmjow said. The chief’s property sat atop a high hill from where they could see the central bonfire and all the lights surrounding below. Even from this distance, the clamor of music and song could be dimly heard as a gentle murmur in the night. “Why do you not join them?”

The ryoka had already demonstrated uncommon fighting and dancing talent. Perhaps he would enchant the town girls with an enviable singing voice as well. Grimmjow scowled.

The ryoka shrugged. “I am avoiding some of the town women. They can be persistent.”

Grimmjow’s brow furrowed. “Did you not fuck some last night? I saw you dancing.”

“I slept with no one.”

Relief lightened Grimmjow’s heart for reasons he cared not to examine. “Then who were you dancing for?”

The ryoka pursed his lips together, and Grimmjow nodded knowingly. He wondered who she was, to inspire a young man to spurn the attentions of many pretty girls in his fidelity. “I see. You were dancing for that woman you search for. The one you travelled all this way to find.”

His companion gave no answer to that, so Grimmjow laid back and folded his arms beneath his head. The ryoka came closer and sat down beside the captain as though he was meant to be there. Grimmjow raised a brow at this. “Most men would not presume such familiarity with me,” he warned.

The ryoka looked down on him, his chin tipped high and the set of his shoulders proud and straight. He looked, Grimmjow thought as his mouth went dry, like a king. “Most men do not make you bleed, Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez. Fewer still leave such a mark as that.” He pointed to the wound sliced across the warrior’s front, which was healing well but would certainly scar. “How long before me did you fight unchallenged?”

Grimmjow licked his lips and swallowed, torn by equal parts pride and grudging respect. “Ten years.”

They fell to silence but not to discomfort, and Grimmjow closed his eyes.

Companionship did not often befall him, loathe as he was to entertain those weaker than himself, but in this man he had found an unexpected equal. For the first time in his memory, he had the company of one both rival and friend.

He cracked an eye open. The man sharing his hammock had his gaze cast upwards, and it occurred to Grimmjow that perhaps the night sky here looked different than it did where he came from. The ryoka did not observe many of the traditions that bound Grimmjow’s people. He wore his hair long during Raahl and worried little of offending the stars. He carried no weapon despite being a warrior.

“Do you know these stars?” Grimmjow asked. “Maybe you know different ones, where you are from, and these are new to you.”

Grimmjow pointed towards Ryūjin Jakka, a constellation that, according to travelers who had seen more of the world than he had, was omnipresent no matter where you were. “You must know that one. Old man Genryūsai.” Genryūsai was the brightest star in this constellation, and he brought the sun to rise and fall every morning and night.

The boy nodded, so Grimmjow went on.

“And that, just below it—the one that looks like a cluster of a thousand blades—that is Senbonzakura. And there is Sōgyo no Kotowari, the twinned fish, and the one to the far right of it, Sode no Shirayuki.” He pointed to each of these in turn, telling his companion the names of the brightest star in each constellation and why each was worshipped.

But the ryoka knew them all and told him so. He pointed to a yellow star which shone very bright and stood alone. “I have heard men whisper of you and Kenpachi in the same breath.”

Grimmjow grinned wide. “Aye.”

“Do you know why Kenpachi is the only star which stands alone?”

The warrior tried to recall the tale his mother had told him once long ago. “He is strong, and so he is feared. Other stars do not gather around him because they fear his power.”

But the ryoka shook his head. “That is not why. He is a warrior, as you and I. But whether by arrogance or ignorance, he has never learned his sword’s name. That is why he stands alone. He is a brighter, fiercer star than any other, it is true, but he must rely on only himself for strength. There was once another star where he is now, but Kenpachi snuffed it out and took his place.”

Grimmjow stared; he had never heard this before, and he wondered where the ryoka had come by such a tale.

“You are not like him,” the ryoka went on. “You learned Pantera’s name the day you became a warrior. Were you a star, you would not be alone as Kenpachi is.”

This comparison seemed to Grimmjow vaguely blasphemous, and for a moment he lay stunned that the ryoka had made it. From the moment of their meeting, the ryoka had shown subtle disregard for the gods all men bowed to, and Grimmjow did not know whether to feel offended or awed by such boldness.

He thought of Ichigo, whose legends often praised how he defied law and custom. Many of Ichigo’s most famous tales recounted his struggle against higher powers and it was for this reason that mischievous children often invoked Ichigo’s name to excuse their own misdeeds.

The priest’s words echoed in Grimmjow’s mind, and his heart quickened. “Do you think…” he paused, but the ryoka was attentive and waiting. “Do you think the stars can fall?”

Brown eyes bore into his. He could not decipher the ryoka’s expression.

“Fall to earth, I mean. Do you think they could return to walk in mortal skin as they once did?”

Without pause, without even a moment to think, the ryoka answered, “Yes.”

Grimmjow said no more, but the thundering pulse in his ears filled the silence. Why had no one, in the seven years of Ichigo’s disappearance, thought this before?

He swallowed to wet his dry mouth and turned his gaze heavenward, seeking by habit the constellation of Zangetsu. “I see. It is only that I heard from this town’s priest—”

Words withered in his throat. His eyes went wide, and Grimmjow hoisted himself upright so quickly that his companion started in surprise. Grimmjow took no notice of him, for his heart now pounded so thunderously he feared it might burst.

The great sword of Zangetsu was missing another point. Where once shone the bright white star at its tip, there was only darkness.

“Shirosaki is gone!” Grimmjow exclaimed, and the ryoka followed his outstretched finger. “Another star has gone out from Zangetsu!”

What did this mean? Second to Ichigo, Shirosaki was the brightest star in Zangetsu. If Ichigo was the great sword’s master, then Shirosaki was its razor edge. Was he too now on earth, in mortal guise like his master? Would all of Zangetsu disappear from the sky one day?

He turned to the ryoka and found him calm but with grim face and narrowed eyes. Why was he not more agitated?

“Ichigo and Shirosaki have both disappeared now,” Grimmjow said, half to himself. He did not know whether to fear or hope.

Something was coming, of this he was sure. Something far beyond Grimmjow’s comprehension was unfolding before his eyes, and one day, song on the third night of Raahl would tell of how the stars of Zangetsu rained down to earth.

Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez, the warrior who ground his enemies to dust, trembled.

Chapter 8: When Gods Kneel to Men

Silence reigned the fourth day of the festival. Halfway through the week-long celebration was the day of rest, and custom forbade loud celebration and music. People stayed indoors, and children were urged to play quietly and laugh softly.

The fourth day of Raahl was the death day, for though the stars were worshipped as gods it was wise to remember they were guardians of death also and to avoid stirring their interest. The number four brought ill fortune and was shunned in all regards this day. Families of four did not sit together at meals, and round tables were favored to square. Fruits were eaten in twos or threes, and the elderly in particular paid close mind to these details so as not to be taken before their time.

This year, the death day was more somber than usual.

News of Shirosaki’s disappearance from the sky had spread to all by morning, and its coincidence with the death day, people whispered, was a foreboding sign of future troubles. The elders spoke of how such an event—the disappearance of two stars from a constellation—had never occurred in their lifetime or in any lifetime before theirs recorded in memory or written word. The warriors of Grimmjow’s company muttered amongst themselves of misfortune awaiting them in battle, and children watched their elders fret with solemn little faces, understanding the mood if not the cause.

The chief’s house stretched spaciously even by the standards of a prosperous town, but Grimmjow paced its floors today like a caged beast, his stomach tight and his head cluttered with heavy questions none could answer.

By contrast, the ryoka spent the day entertaining the chief’s children who questioned him on all manner of things. Where did he learn to speak in such an antiquated manner? Did all people in his land grow such oddly colored hair? How did he come to join Grimmjow’s company?

The children were indulged with more patience than Grimmjow had for the simple nuisance of hearing them ask, and after an hour of listening to the ryoka regale them with stories of their stars Grimmjow had never heard of, he got up and retreated to a quieter corner of the house.

In time, the ryoka joined him as Grimmjow expected he would, and the warrior’s curious thoughts turned now to him.

While every other person in the town whispered of Shirosaki and Ichigo today, the ryoka idled his time telling stories to children and eating fruit. While others looked to the sky and cried out in dismay at the twice-broken blade of Zangetsu, the ryoka had glanced up not once since Grimmjow had pointed out the missing star last night. When mention of the white star reached his ears, he would frown but nothing more.

Why did the ryoka appear not at all surprised by Shirosaki’s disappearance?

“Why are you so calm?” Grimmjow wanted to know. The ryoka’s mood annoyed yet intrigued him. “Do stars fall often where you come from?”

“No.” The boy settled before a window with legs crossed under him and unnamed emotion notched into his brows. “But it is the death day. Of all days, he would come today.”

The meaning of this statement was lost to Grimmjow who stared and scowled. He had carried the priest’s truth with him in isolation, holding to himself the revelation that fallen stars may walk amongst men. He knew more than most men, so why did he sense this ryoka knew even more than him?

His fingers itched for Pantera, but reverence for the perilous nature of the death day stayed his hand.

“Tch.” Grimmjow waved a hand as though to swat away a troublesome insect. “You impress no one with your cryptic words.”

...

Unlike all other nights of the festival, tonight dinner was served indoors, lit not by a house fire but with eight candles placed around a round table. The chief expressed gratitude for his two houseguests with a toast of wine.

“Tonight we are a family of six, not four! Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez, you bring us fortune on the most unlucky night of Raahl.”

They ate with hushed tones, and eventually conversation turned to that which weighed on all minds.

“It is because we neglected the white star, after Ichigo was gone,” the chief’s wife said. “His shrine has not seen gifts in more than a year.”

Grimmjow had seen Shirosaki’s shrine in this village. Like Ichigo’s, it too was more barren than others during the festival. Offerings to the white star of Zangetsu were carnal. More savage and hungry than his master, Shirosaki was said to prefer gifts of fresh spilled blood and meat which spoiled if not scavenged quickly and made his shrine forever reek of decay and death. It was not hard to see why the townspeople had neglected his altar once Ichigo was gone.

But the chief disagreed. “No. His shrines in other villages still flow with gifts. Those less fortunate than us in this war have seen to it that Shirosaki does not want for blood in a time they are most in need of his strength.”

Grimmjow looked to the ryoka. The boy sat quietly eating his meal in feigned ignorance of the conversation around him. But when Grimmjow’s eyes fell a little lower, he saw his hand clenched under the table, knuckles blanched bone white.

...

The night grew quiet.

When all the town’s people turned to sleep and the subdued mood of the day stilled to absolute, deathly silence, Shirosaki arrived.

In the deepest hour of night, he came through the forest like pestilence unleashed on virgin lands. Animals fled from his path, ignorant of his name but not his nature, and grass beneath his feet cracked dry and withered. The earth trembled with his steps yet moved not an inch, and not a single soul in Selae stirred in death-like sleep.

The door of the chief’s house was locked; it clicked open with no struggle beneath his white hand. The chief and his wife, their children and their guest slept on, ignorant of the terrifying presence that entered their home.

In the furthest room, he found his quarry.

The ryoka sat waiting on folded legs beside Grimmjow, face shielded by a curtain of hair and one hand upon the warrior’s bare shoulder. He did not raise his head; he did not meet the intruder’s eyes.

“You were quick to find me.” He made no effort to lower his voice. Grimmjow would not wake, not even if the earth opened beneath him.

“I have better aim than you, it seems.” Cat-yellow eyes turned first to the ryoka and then to the warrior resting beneath his protective touch. His smile stretched savage and sharp; he was a shark amongst minnows. “You disappoint me, King!”

Shirosaki folded legs to crouch cricket-like and leaned forth so close the ryoka felt chill breath upon his skin. His hair stood on end. Cold fingers touched the ryoka’s throat where, unseen to mortal eyes, a white chain of light encircled like a necklace. It flared bright and hot at Shirosaki’s touch, and his smile turned mocking; his voice jeered in a vicious laugh.

“I can barely even feel you, and you are right in front of me! You are practically a human!”

By contrast, the air pressed thick and heavy on all living souls from the weight of Shirosaki’s mere presence. In his death-like sleep, Grimmjow’s chest labored to rise and fall. The white-skinned beast reached for him with hands tipped in black nails, and Grimmjow’s mouth opened in wordless gasps, mortal heart fluttering in frantic pace as he fought for breath.

Fingers closed around Shirosaki’s wrist with strength meant to bruise, and the ryoka forced his hand away with power unexpected for one so calm just seconds before. His might drove the white beast back a pace; his eyes held the rigor of steel.

“Contain yourself.” His voice was no louder than a whisper, yet in his words lurked a terrifying will even the white star of Zangetsu paused to heed.

The pressure in the air trickled away like water from cupped hands. Grimmjow breathed easier. Through it all, the ryoka’s hand had not moved from the warrior’s skin, and when he released Shirosaki, he sat again with his body between the man and the beast.

This did not escape Shirosaki’s notice. Once, long ago, he would have taunted the other for such weakness. Your instinct to protect will be your fall, he had once jeered. Were I king, this land would run red.

Shirosaki was not king. For all his weaknesses, his king had not yet stumbled, and in the countless years since, an uneasy peace had settled between them.

“So this is the human that caught your eye.” Forbidden now from touch, Shirosaki tilted his head and looked. The human was strong in frame and handsome in face. His body was roped in solid muscle and his shoulders were vast. Shirosaki could see the appeal. “He is pleasant to the eyes, King, but you sealed your power for this?” He scoffed. “No human is worth that! I know you think me ignorant, but humor me: why do you suffer so for his sake?”

“You do not know what it is to have devotion and loyalty.”

“Ha!” In this sound, Shirosaki let known his ridicule, his amusement, and disbelief. “And you do? How long did it take these humans to forget you? How long did it take him to stop praying to you? How long before your shrines fell to ruin and your offerings ran dry? These humans know no loyalty, and what little they have they give in selfish hope of reward.”

The ryoka did not argue his criticism. There was truth in Shirosaki’s words. But even so, there was much the white demon did not know.

“The humans stand now at the precipice of a horror they cannot see,” he said. “Unchecked, it will destroy them all.”

The humor dried from Shirosaki’s face. “You speak of the deceiver.”

“Aizen. Yes.” The ryoka nodded, face grim. “The humans believe their war a simple one; they do not know what beast stands behind their mortal enemies.”

“Seireitei has found no evidence of Aizen unleashed. His prison beneath the earth withstands the passage of time.”

“Seireitei has grown complacent. Their separation from this world wrought them blind and deaf to its troubles!” the ryoka cried. His fists clenched and he bared his teeth. “His prison decayed beneath their noses and still they did not see! In their arrogance, they endanger this world and its people.”

“You have not been idle these last seven years. What have you seen?”

“I have seen that the men Grimmjow fights bear strength greater than mortal bodies can contain. I taste the poison of the deceiver in their blood and see his madness in their eyes. They are Aizen’s now—they fight for his interests, though by his lies they believe they still fight for their own.”

Silence coiled heavy between them as the white demon appraised his master with new eyes. When next he spoke, his voice was low.

“And what will you do? When last you fought Aizen, it nearly destroyed you. This time, you have neither Seireitei at your back nor even your own strength. You will be dust beneath his feet.”

The shadow of a grin curled the ryoka’s lip. “Do you fear for my sake?”

“Ha! Were it not for you, I would have to bear no king upon my back! I do not want your power extinguished before I can claim it for my own. That is all.”

The ryoka found his denial lacking. By his will, Shirosaki had been granted a body of his own long ago. Though still bound to his master, the white demon’s power and form were his own now. Pride hindered Shirosaki from acknowledging affection for him, perverse and deadly though it was.

“It is true my power is sealed.” Breaking the highest law of heaven was no easy feat. The safeguards placed to prevent precisely this violation were stronger than even he could overcome completely. While such restrictions did not chain Shirosaki, who by nature of their unique bond could follow wherever he went, they had exacted a high toll on his master. The white chain burned hot against his throat. “I will need my strength returned when Aizen stops hiding behind his human army.”

“And how will you reclaim it?”

The hand on Grimmjow’s shoulder tightened.

Shirosaki followed his gaze to the human warrior and raised a pale brow. “So you found a loophole in their seal. How does it concern the human?”

“Before we split heaven and earth, the humans invoked our strength by prayer. They called our names and we would hear.”

“You believe this human can break your seal?”

“He prayed to me the night I descended to this world. He called for me then. It is for his sake I was sealed, thus he alone can release me.”

“You wager your life on his questionable faith.”

“A wager carefully chosen.”

The beast and his master sat face to face in mirrored image, the one a stern figure in regal poise and the other a blanched reflection. That Shirosaki felt his master’s trust in this vicious, self-serving human unwise needed no words—his face wore a tapestry of disbelief.

“He is very like you,” the ryoka said in a thoughtful tone.

Shirosaki’s immediate reaction was to sneer. It chafed his pride to suffer comparison to a human, but his master went on.

“He is savage and fierce. He fights until he can no longer rise and breathes deep the thrill of battle. He is quick to anger and slow to charm. Power commands his loyalty.” Yes, very like Shirosaki indeed. Perhaps that was what drew him to this man. Shirosaki was of his own soul, after all, and he saw in Grimmjow the feral instinct in himself that had birthed the white beast.

“Hn.” Shirosaki sounded unimpressed. “If Aizen does not end you, your life is still forfeit. For breaking the first law of heaven, Seireitei will execute you.”

The ryoka turned from Shirosaki’s grim truth, settling his gaze instead on Grimmjow’s handsome face. In waking, the man was rarely at ease. Always vigilant, never still, brutal and brimming with wild passion, Grimmjow seized what he desired by force and cut down that which stood in his way.

But under Shirosaki’s unnatural sleep, the warrior seemed finally at rest. His admirer smiled a little, for here was a more pleasant thing to contemplate than his own dread fate.

“Why are you here, Shirosaki?”

“Have you ever known me to sit idle when there was blood to be shed? Our realm above has grown tiresome, while you walk here below stirring waves.”

He offered no aid, and none was expected. The pale shade crept forth on hands and knees, and upon his face stretched a smile so hungry and keen it was no wonder the humans feared him as death itself.

Cold lips touched the ryoka’s temple, whether to kiss or bite he could not guess, but after a breath of silence, Shirosaki did neither. His voice whispered soft like a snake’s hiss, a warning and claim of possession in one:

“Aizen has no right to you, nor does Seireitei—your end was always meant to be by my hand. So do not die yet, King.”

...

Sleep claimed all that night, but it did not come for him. Long after Shirosaki had gone, the ryoka sat vigilant beneath the sole light of a white moon. Grimmjow lay still at his feet, breathing deep and easy in natural rest. He would wake with the sun, bearing no memory of dreams and no suspicion of his unearthly visitor.

The ryoka would have no such luxury.

Shirosaki’s grim words weighed heavy on heart and mind. He had known what risk he took by coming here, forsaking all his power and even the sword forged of his own soul for mortal flesh. He had known the price he might pay and accepted it gladly.

If he survived the deceiver, he would still have to answer for his transgression. The law of Seiretei bound all and yielded to none.

At best, he would defeat Aizen and see Grimmjow and the humans safe before his condemnation.

At his throat, the unseen chain flared, sensing the rising swell of his sorrow and tightening its hold over him in answer. It burned. Like a hot brand upon his flesh, the seal seared skin and flesh in a slow, torturous assault on his senses. He bore the pain with muted breath until it grew too great to silence—a ragged gasp escaped his lips. The ryoka stayed his breath, looking askance to Grimmjow, but the man had not roused.

He could not abandon him now. Grimmjow would ride into battle not knowing what dreadful power he drew sword against, and he would not stand to watch the man cut down and killed. In this powerless form, he could protect Grimmjow from human threat, but before a greater enemy he was no match.

Shirosaki’s arrival was no coincidence. The white beast had come to deliver warning in his own difficult, frustrating way. Aizen the deceiver grew stronger by the day. He had misjudged what time they had left.

The ryoka bowed his head. His prayer was to no god, but a man.

Please, Grimmjow. You must act quickly now.

Chapter 9: In Sacrilege

Grimmjow woke with an ache in his head and knots in his gut. He threw open the window just in time to empty his stomach into the grass below. Little came up—he had eaten poorly the day before—but still he heaved sour water until no more remained.

A hand patted his back in soothing circles, and when Grimmjow lifted his head while wiping his mouth with the back of a hand, the ryoka boy was behind him watching on in sympathy. Dark shadows pooled beneath his eyes and his skin had the moon’s pallor. He looked as though he had slept not at all.

Grimmjow’s smile held no humor. “Are you ill also? Perhaps we ate food gone foul.”

The other man nodded, but his mind seemed poorly settled. “Perhaps.”

The town was quieter than usual that day. In the wake of a somber death day and the second breaking of Zangetsu, the festival continued in muted tones. The fifth day of Raahl was a day for worship, and Grimmjow spent it helping the chief’s family buy and prepare their offerings.

The people brought gifts to the gods whose aid they had greatest need of, or for whom they felt greatest affection. Before the first breaking of Zangetsu, Grimmjow had always chosen Ichigo to worship on this day. As a child, he would splurge handfuls of coin painstakingly saved the rest of the year to bring his god an offering worthy of Grimmjow’s love. Fortunately for a child with little coin, Ichigo was said to favor strawberries, and strawberries grew wild and abundant amidst the grasses of Grimmjow’s home village.

Here in Selae, strawberries were grown in lavish orchards, and Grimmjow bought another basketful to deliver in the evening. The ryoka boy watched as he washed these in a bucket drawn from the chief’s well, and Grimmjow cuffed him soundly across the head when he reached for them.

“These are for Ichigo,” he snapped, as the boy rubbed his bruised head. “Your insolence begs the stars to visit you with misfortune. Have you made a single offering since we arrived in this town?”

“I have no coin,” the boy shrugged, and Grimmjow rolled his eyes but did not scold him further. The ryoka’s disregard for the gods no longer surprised him, though still Grimmjow wondered what kind of place he came from to treat the rituals of offering and worship with such apathy. He sneered but returned to his work.

At the first instant that Grimmjow turned his back, the boy snatched the biggest, reddest berry in the pile and devoured it before he could notice.

...

Once the sun had fallen, Grimmjow set out to deliver his offering, bearing the fruit-laden basket in one arm and a lantern in the other.

The priest had been keeping this place in good state, the warrior noticed. He set the lantern to rest upon the altar while he daubed golden oil on the fruit and lay half to burn in the tray. The floor was swept and the water in the fountain clear like glass, and no sign remained of the unspeakable desecration Grimmjow had found here a few days ago.

When he returned to the town center, the people were gathered around the bonfire in great crowds. A stage had been erected, and Grimmjow found an open patch of grass near the front to sit and watch tonight’s reenactment.

Costumed actors in painted faces and elaborate dress walked across the stage to tell the tale of how Ichigo the protector had defied the laws of the gods and taken their court by storm. In three acts they would portray the struggle, the defeat, and the triumph of Ichigo’s quest to save the lady in sleeved white from certain execution.

Grimmjow watched in keen interest as the actor depicting his patron god stepped forth. He recognized the young man—it was the village boy he had taken to bed on the night of dance. His straw-colored hair had been made orange to mimic the god’s, but he was tall and lean and lovely enough to look at that Grimmjow was pleased to watch him act the part.

Shortly after the conclusion of the first act, an unannounced arrival settled down on the grass close to Grimmjow. Enraptured by the play and by the village boy’s performance, Grimmjow almost did not care to look. But the flash of long orange hair was difficult to mistake for any other, and he turned to find the ryoka boy sitting cross-legged at his side.

He appeared less ashen than he had this morning, and the light of the bonfire brought his skin to gleam as though kissed by the sun itself. The warrior’s eyes could not linger long lest he invite suspicion, so he cast a swift, greedy glance down the length of the ryoka’s half-naked body and found him lacking in nothing. His shoulders, though not as broad as Grimmjow’s, held the subtle build of strength, and his hips narrowed in an enviable taper downwards. A faint dusting of hair led Grimmjow’s gaze down from his navel to where it disappeared beneath the belt of his lièqún.

In the next breath, he had torn his attention away and returned it to the play. The village boy was in the midst of a lengthy soliloquy, but Grimmjow had no ear for his words. His hungry gaze, torn from the ryoka, settled now on the actor in displaced lust. The boy had given him ample pleasure in the single night they shared together, and memory of his lithe body beneath him goaded Grimmjow now to single-minded distraction.

The play and the village boy’s portrayal of his patron star should have dulled his arousal, yet it did only the opposite. Though an actor of only modest talent, he was beautiful and young, and the falsely colored hair was sufficient to invoke in Grimmjow the image of his favored god.

The intensity of his stare did not go without notice; the ryoka glanced between him and the village boy once or twice through the duration of the play, and before the end, even the actor had caught his gaze in the crowd and understood the intent in his eyes.

When all was done and the audience began to disperse, the ryoka stood and asked, in tone hopeful for an answer Grimmjow could not guess, “Are you returning to the chief’s house now?”

“No. I will not return tonight.” Grimmjow took care not to give the ryoka more than a passing glance as he said this, but even from the corner of his eye he saw the boy’s shoulders wilt like a flower in dry sun.

The village boy approached now, still in full dress from his performance. He was clothed in robes that had not been worn by common people in many generations, and black paint streaked his chest and shoulders in imitation of the war markings some legends described Ichigo wore. Of all interpretations of the god’s appearance Grimmjow had seen in plays before, he found this one most pleasing to the eye.

“Well met, Captain Jaegerjaquez!” the boy said with a cheery wave. “Who is your friend?”

The ryoka straightened his back under the newcomer’s curious scrutiny. He took a step closer to Grimmjow, who raised a brow but said only, “He is a warrior from my company.”

“Well, he certainly could have played my part tonight.” The village boy drew close and stroked playful fingers through the ryoka’s waist-length mane. “What lovely hair—he would not even have had to color it with paste as I did.”

Annoyance simmered in Grimmjow by unknown cause, and he struck the villager’s hand away from the ryoka with a loud strike though he had intended only a tap. He feigned ignorance of how both turned to look at him and seized the village boy’s wrist.

“Come on, take me to your place.”

...

The boy from Selae brought him to a house a short walk from the main street. He took Grimmjow to the bedroom and made to leave.

“Spare me a moment,” he said. He gestured to his painted body and hair. “I will wash this off quickly and return.”

But Grimmjow grasped his arm with bruising force before he could take even a single step. “No.” His voice uttered forth in a low husk, and his nostrils flared in a pulse of potent lust. Grimmjow took in the black paint, the hair colored with orange paste, and even the archaic robes and found in them a vision more tempting than the straw-haired boy beneath the costume. “Keep it on.”

That night, the house knew no silence.

Grimmjow took him like a fevered beast. The costume and paint and hair—each of these drove him to heights of lust neither the boy nor Grimmjow himself had predicted. The boy tired quickly, and after the first hour he was no more than a rag doll for Grimmjow to claim in whatever manner he pleased.

Grimmjow found his acting wanting and the whimper of his voice annoying. The boy submitted to him with the pliant obedience of a virginal bitch and took to whining the warrior’s name in long, sighing breaths until Grimmjow could stand it no longer and plugged his mouth with a handful of cloth.

Grimmjow craved more. He desired strength bucking back against him, a rebellious bite, or even a simple curse. But no matter how punishing his treatment, the boy responded with only submission and meek moans. When Grimmjow finally spilled his seed deep within the tight body, stark awareness broke over him in a cold wave to settle deep in his bones.

Chest heaving, he lay on sheets sticky and cool with the evidence of their frenzied coupling and stared up at the ceiling. The feverish heat of his arousal dispelled, and now he felt only cold.

Beside him, the boy lay curled on one side. He had finished not long into their fuck and now, finally released from Grimmjow’s clutches, fell asleep quickly. Sweat had smeared much black paint from his skin onto the sheets, and the orange paste now covered greater swathes of blanket and skin than his hair. The sight of him stirred inexplicable disgust in Grimmjow.

Disgust misplaced, perhaps, from its rightful focus. Of clear mind now, Grimmjow could no longer feign ignorance of what he had just done. He had fucked the boy in the image of his patron god.

A low growl rumbled his broad chest, and Grimmjow brought an arm to rest across his eyes as though to shield himself from the eye of divine judgment.

Fuck.

Though the boy’s poor acting had provided ample reminder of reality, Grimmjow had done his best to willfully ignore it. In his mind, it had not been a blond village boy whose name he could not remember writhing beneath his thrusts and receiving his hard cock between his legs. It had been Ichigo. The vivid fantasy playing in his mind had been of a beautiful, powerful god at his mercy.

He should feel shame. Of all things considered sacrilegious, surely this ranked amongst the worst. To harbor lustful thoughts for a star, to spill his seed to imagined fantasy of Ichigo the protector naked and defiled and impaled upon his cock…

But even now the image stirred heat to rise in his groin, spent though he was. The sinful, forbidden thought awakened him more powerfully than any number of beautiful young men or women ever had in his memory. This second wave of arousal lacked the brutal thoughtlessness of the first, and it burned with slow and smoldering heat less violent but no easier to contain.

He was committing a terrible profanity, and certainly, if Grimmjow had ever found another man doing what he was now, he would have cut their balls off himself. But his hypocrisy in this act would be known to none except Grimmjow himself.

Grimmjow was not accustomed to denying himself what he desired. He curled a hand around his cock and closed his eyes. On the blank canvas of his mind, the fantasy played.

He knew no face for the god in his vision. Ichigo lay upon his back, face obscured by the shadows of Grimmjow’s ignorance but no doubt as beautiful as the warrior imagined him. His lips were thin but pliant, capable of generous laughs and fearsome battle cries alike, but presently they settled in a secretive half smile reserved for Grimmjow alone.

Grimmjow trailed an open palm down the god’s bare chest, down the hard planes of his abdomen and to the sharp crest of his lean hips. The hardness of bone here lay just beneath the silken skin, and Grimmjow lingered to savor the contrast for a heartbeat before continuing his path downwards.

There was no true flesh and blood for Grimmjow to draw upon for his imagined vision. No star had walked the earth in many thousands of years. No living eye had ever witnessed their gods, and Grimmjow had only old legends to guide his imagination.

Ichigo was tall and lean, beautiful in both face and body. He appeared as a boy on the cusp of manhood, with orange hair and brown eyes. But beyond these scant details, the legends diverged, and Grimmjow’s mind was left to fill in the gaps.

His cock was still sensitive, shrinking from all but the lightest touch, but in his forced patience, Grimmjow was permitted time to elaborate his fantasy as he pleased.

Ichigo rose to his touch, elegant even in his basest need, and though he parted his thighs to welcome Grimmjow between them, Grimmjow knew his place. The god submitted his body only, not his mind nor his will. He permitted Grimmjow to take his pleasure from him by grace of his affection alone and, as Grimmjow pushed inside him and those expressive lips parted in muted inhale, he was struck low by awe of this most primal union.

Ichigo’s body writhed in mirrored rhythm to the steady pump of Grimmjow’s fist on his own cock. The warrior’s eyes were closed tight, his brow knotted in deep furrows to guard against any intrusion that might prematurely draw him from his erotic vision. Unlike his fuck with the village boy, this time his pleasure mounted in achingly slow ascent, feeding on the steady trickle of sights, sounds, and sensations produced by Grimmjow’s own mind:

The sharp cut of Ichigo’s hips, the breathy gasp of pleasure coaxed from his throat by Grimmjow’s own hands, and the sharp, sweet tang of his sweat and musk. Grimmjow thrust into him in slow, measured pace, gentle with the god in manner lavished upon no human lover. He chased Ichigo’s pleasure as surely as he chased his own. And when Ichigo’s breaths grew ragged and his muscles seized in anticipation, Grimmjow grasped him by the shoulder, one hand braced against the graceful arch of his back as he spilled his climax into the warrior’s palm.

Grimmjow’s hand tightened like a vise around the meaty girth of his cock. His seed came forth in slow dribble down rigid thighs, the release less forceful than his first tonight but infinitely more satisfying.

Sated now, he allowed the object of his fantasy to dissipate and retreat back to the dark recesses of his mind.

Grimmjow fell to fitful sleep.

...

That night, Grimmjow dreamed.

First it was the ryoka, head bowed and kneeling with his palms on the ground between splayed knees. Before him a terrifying figure loomed, his back to Grimmjow as he grasped something unseen and pulled it tight. The ryoka’s head snapped up, neck pulled taut by a chain Grimmjow could not see.

He clutched at something at his throat and clawed at himself there until skin flayed and blood stained his nails.

Then it was Ichigo who appeared before him standing in barren fields, face unseen but mouthing words at Grimmjow he strained to make out.

The deafening roar of a storm filled Grimmjow’s ears, obscuring the god’s voice and beating wind and hail upon Grimmjow’s head. Shielding eyes and face, he pushed back against the storm and pressed forward towards Ichigo with urgency he did not understand but knew to be dire.

“I cannot hear you!” Grimmjow screamed, but his voice too was lost to the wind. “Wait for me—”

The stars went dark. Tall shapes in black robes surrounded Ichigo and drew their blades. Grimmjow was yet too far; he reached for Pantera in desperate effort but his fingers grasped empty air at his waist. In a flash of foreboding dread, Grimmjow knew what would happen an instant before it did.

Ichigo made little sound when the swords pierced his flesh. Thirteen blades impaled him through chest, through shoulders, through throat and flank and belly. His blood ran without end. It carved rivers through mountains and tainted wells, watered fields and filled the seas.

Grimmjow could not rise; he drowned in it.

...

In the silence of deep night, an arrow whistled through still air and found its mark in the heart of the sentry posted in the watchtower of Selae’s northern wall.

At the foot of the wall, a red flare beckoned to the army hidden in wooded cover, lighting the darkness for one breath, then another, and went out. The city’s gates opened with the groan of a slumbering giant, and silent like a legion of dead men, the invaders spilled through its gaping mouth.

Selae slept on.

Chapter Text

Chapter 10: From the West They Came Like Demons

Grimmjow lay adrift in blood and fire.

Great tides of Ichigo’s blood bore down upon him, sweeping his feet from under him and thrashing him head over heels in boundless waves sized for gods.

Ichigo’s death played in his mind without end. Grimmjow had felt each of those thirteen blades in his heart as surely as Ichigo had felt them in his flesh. Zangetsu the great sword had fallen—Ichigo the protector was slain, and now, so too would be those once under his protection.

There was no help for Grimmjow. At the final instant when he could hold his breath no longer, blood rushed in to fill the void in his lungs and choke him from within. It burned like hot embers all around him, searing skin and hair, flesh and entrails. The heat threatened to consume him alive. He could not see, he could not hear, he could not—

—breathe.

Grimmjow woke gasping, and in the twilight between sleep and awareness it was as though his dream had followed into the waking world. He clapped a hand over his mouth, coughing in violent spasm that rocked his whole body. Ash and smoke dried his tongue and filled his throat.

He could not breathe.

His skin was sweat-slicked and hot to the touch and the air shimmered in rippling heat. Grimmjow staggered to the window. He pushed it open and stared into hell itself.

The main street of Selae was a river of fire. Its houses, its shops, its roadside stalls…everything as far as he could see burned. The merry lanterns of the festival lay crumbling in the road, and it was as if their flames had escaped to engulf all of creation. Smoke blotted out the dark sky, even as the blaze lit up the night like day. Screams both near and far reached his ears. Armed figures ran through the smoke.

The city’s walls had been breached. Grimmjow did not know how, or when, but these questions weighed little as he darted back to the sleep mat. Flames swallowed the doorway, and the pillars of black smoke they sent up obscured all in sight. Grimmjow fell to hands and knees to rummage for Pantera and found the smoke thinner near the floor. His foot kicked something soft and warm.

“Oi!” Grimmjow shouted. He kicked the bundle again. The boy sharing his sleep mat did not rouse, so Grimmjow kicked him harder. “Get up!”

No answer. His searching hands fell upon the familiar cloth-wrapped hilt of his sword. Grimmjow seized it and, with an arm covering his nose and mouth, kicked the window wide and leapt through.

He stepped into chaos.

The roar of fire and shouts of men surrounded him, oppressive as the thick black smoke that reached for the sky and weighed heavy on his breath. At the end of the street he glimpsed Shawlong, leading a small group of Grimmjow’s warriors against the invaders, but in the next instant a wide plume of ash and flame billowed out in his line of vision and he lost them.

Chaos and smoke made men out of shadows and a threat out of every sound. It was impossible to guess how many invaders there were, but Grimmjow judged they numbered more than his own men. There were so many of them.

So many he was free to unleash upon.

He straightened to his full height. At his side, Pantera radiated heat, thrumming in its sheath and eager to be drawn. Grimmjow breathed deep, and the scent of destruction thick in the air brought his blood to sing and his heart to soar. With a smile that stretched his hunger from ear to ear, he unsheathed Pantera and drew two fingers across the sword’s edge. His skin split open and the first blood Pantera tasted tonight was Grimmjow’s own. The pain enticed his excitement to ever-greater heights, bringing his vision to focus and his hearing to sharpen.

And from his tongue uttered an invocation to his god more battle lust than prayer:

“Ichigo. See how I shall grind them to dust.”

...

He sought first a sturdy-looking warrior in the crowd, one who rivaled him in height and had the look of strength about him. The man was bent on cutting down a pair of villagers fleeing him, and brandishing Pantera, Grimmjow opened wide his flesh from shoulder to hip to gain his attention.

“You are looking the wrong way!” he laughed, as the man faltered in his step and turned. “Come on! Strike me!”

The retaliating blow rattled Grimmjow’s sword, but he grinned wider and parried. These western warriors were not like other men, he had learned long ago. They did not know pain, or they did not care. They fought like the demons beneath the earth and stopped only when dead.

To Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez, the man people whispered was touched by Kenpachi, they made the perfect sport to cut down.

Grimmjow feinted to the side and, when the man lunged for him again, he raised Pantera and brought it down in a wide sweep. He clutched the hilt tight against the jarring grate of Pantera cleaving through flesh and bone alike, separating head from shoulders. The massive body hit the ground with a useless thud. Its head rolled to the side.

Grimmjow stood over it while blood darkened the ground and stained his shoes.

“Tch,” he spat. “You looked tougher.”

“Grimmjow!”

Coming from behind, the ryoka arrived bearing the plain sword Grimmjow had given him in his camp. He glanced over the captain from head to toe, searching for evidence of torn flesh or spilt blood and not noticing how the warrior looked over him in mirrored scrutiny.

“Did your boy escape?”

“Hm?” Grimmjow paid him only half a mind as he searched the pandemonium for his next fight.

“The one you went home with! Did you get him to safety?”

Oh.

With careless glance over his shoulder at the smoldering den he had escaped from, Grimmjow frowned. “Can you not see I am busy?”

Following his gaze to the burning house, the ryoka’s face went slack. “You left him to burn?”

Grimmjow turned from his accusing stare, not liking how his belly twisted at the ryoka’s horrified expression. But when the man spun on his heel and made for the house, his heart dropped like he had missed a step going down. “Oi! What are you doing?”

The ryoka disappeared through the broken window, and Grimmjow cursed after him. “You stupid fuck! You will be buried in there!”

He followed close behind, but the heat from inside hit him like a wall just before the window and pushed him a step back. Grimmjow covered nose and mouth with one arm and squinted into the inferno within. He could see nothing.

“Oi!” he shouted. “Get your hero ass out here, Ryoka! You yet owe me a rematch, so I will not forgive you dying now!”

There came no answer, and Grimmjow cursed once more. He stretched senses as far as they could go, eyes focused with single-minded purpose of piercing the smoke, ears strained for sound of voice or movement. “Ryoka!” The seconds slowed to minutes, the pulse of his heart loud in his ears and heavy like the weighted steps of an old man.

Deaf to all else, Grimmjow counted his heartbeats and readied himself to enter the blaze. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen—

Two shapes burst through the window, tumbling to the ground and rolling to a stop at Grimmjow’s feet. The ryoka lay panting atop his burden wrapped in a blanket to shield from smoke and flame.

Lip curled in hastily arranged disdain, Grimmjow drew his foot back and kicked the ryoka square in the ribs. “You fool,” he seethed. “If you wish to die, let it be by my sword in a duel and not by your stupidity.”

The ryoka looked up at him through a curtain of long hair. Coughing and cradling bruised ribs, he grinned wide. “Did you fear for me, Grimmjow?”

White encircled the blue of Grimmjow’s eyes, nostrils flared in ephemeral fury or shock. His mouth opened once, twice, but no words came.

Meanwhile, the ryoka lifted his burden once more, hurrying it away to deposit in the alley between two stone houses that did not burn. He lifted the blanket away from its face and held his ear to the boy’s nose.

“He still breathes,” the ryoka sighed before covering the face once more. To any passersby, the body laying here hidden beneath an ash-darkened blanket would appear as nothing of significance. “He will be safe here, for now.”

Grimmjow was not listening. Satisfied that the ryoka had not killed himself in the fire, he turned now to the battle awaiting him.

Pantera soon ran red.

It was no wonder to any who looked on why Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez’s name had become one with his sword’s and known to all. Through each thrust and parry, he bore his weapon as part of his own body—each turn and twist of the blade as graceful as though he were born with it at his side, cleaving in two all men who stepped before him. Grimmjow fought like one of the great cats that stalked the grasslands: light of foot despite his size, his bite sharp and his body a weapon of its own. There were few more masterful with the play of a sword.

He struck down one man and then another, turning back to strike the first once more when he rose again with an arm hanging by a few ribbons of flesh. These western men really were like demons, though the ghastly sights no longer surprised Grimmjow. He cut him twice more before he fell at last and turned to welcome more.

He laid waste to them all, carving his way through walls of flesh and leaving in his wake rivers of blood. Grimmjow stood above them all, ankle deep in blood-soaked mud, and howled his laughter to the sky. He trembled, in neither fear nor fatigue but exhilaration, his eyes wide with the thrill of it, the sting of his injuries a cleansing burn to goad him onwards.

“That’s it!” he cried, his voice a manic scream of animal lust. “This is what I want! My name is Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez! Remember that while you die, and tell it to the demons you meet below!”

Pantera was sticky beneath his fingers, the blue-wrapped hilt stained dark red like the color of Zangetsu’s brightest star before its breaking. Grimmjow grinned deep and hungry and now in the corner of his eyes he saw his beloved god at his side, his orange hair a bright spot of color in the periphery of Grimmjow’s vision.

His presence was comfort, imagined though it was, and Grimmjow would fight believing the eyes of his god upon him, to sate himself as much as to honor the god with his skill. It was for this reason that he invoked Ichigo’s name before each battle and gave a prayer of thanks for his protection at the end.

But this time when Grimmjow turned, the vision of his god did not vanish as it always did. It stayed in place, bearing a real sword and wearing true flesh. For a moment, all else faded around him—the roar of fire and clash of swords dimmed to murmurs, the length of a second stretched to infinity—and Grimmjow forgot to breathe.

Dimly he felt the touch of new rain upon his skin. The ground rumbled in mirrored growl to thunder somewhere above the false ceiling of smoke, and the deep sound pulled Grimmjow from his trance. Time sped up once more to normal pace.

It was not Ichigo standing there. The ryoka fought with his back to Grimmjow, and this time the warrior had new reason to stare.

He had always thought himself a masterful swordsman. From the moment he had laid hand upon his first sword as a boy of ten winters, Grimmjow had surpassed all others in natural talent and fighting instinct.

But this ryoka was magnificent to watch. Grimmjow did not recognize the style of his swordsmanship and it was no technique taught in these lands, but the patterns of his motions were beautiful nonetheless. He wasted no movements, each form bleeding into the next in seamless union, the tail of one strike arching around into the start of another. He stood outnumbered by two yet moved between each opponent so swiftly Grimmjow’s eyes struggled to follow. His feet were light and never still, moving in rhythm of grim dance. The number of dead sprawled around him exceeded Grimmjow’s own.

Grimmjow understood now how this ryoka boy as nameless as the blade he wielded had brought him to his knees upon their first meeting. He understood now how this boy claimed a named sword, absent now though it was. The gods favored the strong, and the ryoka had strength and skill to spare.

He turned now towards Grimmjow, sword raised, and with a jolt to his gut, Grimmjow lifted Pantera instinctively to defend himself. But his eyes were not on Grimmjow, and his sword clashed with another above the captain’s head.

Ducking away with a curse, Grimmjow turned and found the ryoka sword-locked with a blade meant for his head. The one holding it was a brute of uncommon size—he must have outweighed the ryoka by fifty pounds or more—and yet the smaller man held his ground with surprising resilience.

So certain of his own strength was he that he turned his gaze from the man pushing against his blade to Grimmjow instead. The ryoka’s eyes were narrowed in grim decisiveness yet calm, and Grimmjow was reminded of his own fight against him. He had been eerily calm then too. What kind of man stepped into battle touched by neither fear nor excitement?

“Do not lose your focus in battle, Grimmjow.”

Grimmjow was unharmed, but his pride was not. He scowled but swallowed all retorts and insults, for he owed now a debt of gratitude for his lapse in attention.

With a mighty heave, the ryoka forced his opponent back a step, and as the man fell victim to his own weight and shifted balance, he brought the blade down across bared throat and opened there a gaping red mouth.

He lifted and turned the sword again so quickly it was a blur, to hold over his back to block a strike from behind even Grimmjow had not seen coming. Despite his recent admonishment, Grimmjow could not help but stare, for surely this man possessed sight or sense beyond the usual. He fought as though aware of everything in all directions, predicting the motions of the enemy before they occurred.

With a wretched screech of grating steel, the ryoka lifted away the attack at his back and engaged him. But Grimmjow was no longer watching him, fixated instead on the man behind them bleeding out from the throat.

The rain was falling harder now and blurred their sight. Water dripped through Grimmjow’s hair into his eyes, and yet he knew he was not mistaken as he saw the dying man’s arm rise to clutch his fallen sword.

Impossible.

Grimmjow forgot bloodlust. He forgot to breathe. He watched a man rise with throat split open so wide he saw white bone within, who should have no strength to breathe let alone stand.

The ryoka suspected nothing yet. The patter of rain drowned out noise, and his attention was on the opponent before him, not the one behind presumed dead.

Grimmjow leapt between them, bracing Pantera with both arms to block the attack intended for the ryoka’s back. All trace of joy had drained from him, his face slack with shock even as he stood inches away from a vision as impossible as it was grisly. His eyes were wide like coins, and his mind stuttered at what they saw.

The fiend bearing down upon him stared at him with dull eyes like a fish, but the unnatural strength he pressed against Pantera was far greater than that of any common man, let alone one who should be a few breaths away from his last. Grimmjow’s arms trembled with effort. He feared Pantera might break.

Some men believe our enemy fights with more than mere muscle and steel, the chief’s words echoed unbidden in his head, and this time Grimmjow had no taste for ridicule or humor. They say the invaders have been blessed with divine strength.

Grimmjow’s strength failed. His arms buckled, his knees folded, and his feet slid back in slick mud.

Shit!

And then, the tip of a blade erupted through the neck, cracking through bone and spine and stopping inches from Grimmjow’s face. He fell back with a start, and standing over them both was the ryoka. Grimmjow had not seen him move.

The dead man’s body sagged like a puppet with cut strings, and the ryoka cast it aside before stepping closer to nudge the corpse over onto its back and gaze upon its face. For the first time tonight, Grimmjow saw the stamp of shock or horror in his eyes. The hand not holding his sword lifted to touch his own throat in a gesture Grimmjow did not understand.

But there was no time to exchange words. The ryoka came to Grimmjow and offered him a hand up. “On your guard,” he said, and this time the reminder did not rankle as before.

Already there were men coming to replace the one just fallen, and with new eyes, Grimmjow saw in them greater threat than before. He shook himself off, squinting against the rain, and held Pantera at the ready. Behind him, the ryoka likewise took his position.

“Remember you owe me a rematch with your true sword,” he told the ryoka. “Do not rob me of the pleasure.”

“Be careful too, Grimmjow.”

Grimmjow flinched as though struck, then scowled. “Tch.”

Back to back now, they stood as two lone boulders against a surging tide.

Never before had Grimmjow fought with an equal. Unmatched in skill, he fought alone even when surrounded by allies, defending no other and expecting no aid in return. But he realized with a start he had hesitated not a second to trust the ryoka with defending his back.

He had no time to contemplate this at length. The sheer weight of enemy numbers alone demanded all of Grimmjow’s strength to keep them at bay.

From the corner of his eye, he saw a sword coming towards the ryoka, and to great alarm, the boy made no move to parry it. Grimmjow stayed the oncoming blow with Pantera and beat it away before glancing over shoulder with reproach ripe on tongue.

“Were you not the one to tell me to focus—”

His words died. The ryoka had faltered, one hand clutching his throat even as the other still swung his weapon. Grimmjow’s heart froze, fearing the worst, but when he looked closer he found no blood, no wound on the ryoka’s neck or elsewhere on his body.

But Grimmjow had not the luxury to stop and ask what ailed him; no sooner had he beaten back the first attack than did two more take its place. Gritting teeth, he fended off all blows aimed at both himself and the ryoka’s open right side.

“Collect yourself!” he demanded, fearing the next blade to slip through his defenses would impale the boy where he stood.

Sweat beaded on the ryoka’s forehead. His eyes narrowed under deeply notched brows, his teeth bared whether in pain or anger Grimmjow did not know. The hand clutching his throat returned tremulously to his blade and for a time Grimmjow breathed easier.

It did not last long. For several minutes more the ryoka labored on, beating back men who would see them dead, but Grimmjow was not deaf to the sounds that belied his condition. Little gasps and ragged breaths, though uttered quietly, registered to Grimmjow’s ears as plainly as his own cries. He dared turn his eyes from his own fight to look behind.

His companion had fallen to his knees.

Though still clutching his sword, the ryoka had not even the strength now to defend himself from a well-placed kick to his gut that forced him to the ground. The sword fell from his fingers, and the ryoka cried out now as a muddy boot stomped his chest and meaty fingers closed around his neck.

Grimmjow’s blood caught fire.

Just as when the village boy had played with his hair, the sight of another man putting his hands on the ryoka stirred deep some emotion Grimmjow could not name, and in answer, rage guided his hand.

The ryoka’s attacker gurgled a wet noise as Pantera impaled him through the neck. With a disgusted grunt, Grimmjow kicked the heavy body off the ryoka and, remembering the man with the slit throat, swung Pantera once more to sever head from shoulders for good measure.

Still clutching at his throat, the ryoka did not rise. “Grimmjow…” From his tongue spilled the rasp of dry leaves, and Grimmjow sensed some unspoken plea, but for what he could not guess.

There was no time to wonder. Standing in low stance over his fallen companion, Grimmjow looked now to the men surrounding them. The ryoka, once so mighty in his strength, now lay at his feet paralyzed, and for the first time in longer than Grimmjow cared to remember, it was not elation for battle that seized his heart, but fear. He gripped Pantera tighter, the blade now red from hilt to tip, and with eyes wide and wild, roared his challenge to those who dared still approach:

“You want me dead?” His voice rose above rain and thunder in a howl more terrible than the wind. “Then come make it happen! I will tear apart every last one of you!”

The enemy warriors halted so suddenly and simultaneously they seemed of one mind. Grimmjow faltered and for the briefest moment wondered if his shout had somehow cowed them all.

Then one of them began to groan. It was a strange, watery noise more suited to spirit than man, and it brought Grimmjow’s hair to rise on end. He stared. The man clutched his chest, and the sounds uttering forth from his throat rose in terrifying crescendo to wails and screams. It was no man making these sounds, but a monster wearing man’s skin, Grimmjow thought with dread certainty.

All around, the others joined in eerie harmony—and not only those immediately surrounding Grimmjow and the ryoka. He heard them near and far and knew then that every one of the invaders in Selae had stopped in their tracks with voices pitched together in macabre symphony.

Blood began to drip, first a trickle and soon a stream, from nose and eyes, ears and mouth and then one by one, the afflicted men fell to hands and knees, weapons forgotten and still howling that awful, unnatural noise.

Grimmjow stood stricken amidst a nightmare. His grasp on Pantera wavered now, his resolve faltering as for the second time tonight, he watched the impossible unfold before his very eyes.

By the stars, what is happening?

Men with swords did not frighten Grimmjow. Fire and blood and even death did not frighten him. But this display before him, which defied all he knew about the living world, awoke in him primal fear rooted deep in the minds of all men.

This was the work of power he could not cut down, not with Pantera nor with any other blade in this mortal world.

One by one, the western men ceased their struggles and their screams, falling to the ground and rising no more. As quickly as it had begun, the nightmare was over.

In the wake of those wretched screams came silence so thunderously empty even the sounds of wind and rain could not fill it. Rainwater dripped down Grimmjow’s face, washing the blood from his skin and cleaning Pantera’s blade. At his feet, the ryoka still shuddered, but was quiet as he too stared at the mass of prone bodies surrounding them.

Grimmjow swallowed fear. He shook off leaden limbs and approached a body, still bearing Pantera with great caution. With one foot, he nudged it onto its back, and recoiled at the sight of blood-clotted eyes and gaping mouth. A shudder of revulsion took him by force.

“They are dead,” he said, but he felt no relief. Whatever had just transpired to deliver Selae from ruin was no blessing, he was sure.

“Grimmjow.”

The ryoka lay in blood-churned mud, sword forgotten nearby, long hair sodden with rain and blood. Grimmjow cursed, forgetting the dead men, and dropped to his knees at the boy’s side.

He brushed away the ryoka’s hands from his neck, expecting to find there some grievous wound. But the flesh was unbroken, marred only by scratches from the ryoka’s own nails. He stared dumbly. Tonight was full of things Grimmjow could not understand.

“There is nothing…” he began, but his words soon died. The ryoka’s jaw clenched tight, the cords of his neck flexed taut like rope, his knuckles white. He shook and writhed in a tortuous manner painful to watch. Though there was no wound Grimmjow could tell, the boy suffered greatly.

“Grimmjow, please—!”

The ryoka stared up at him, pleading with his eyes what his tongue could not. What did he want from him? Grimmjow clenched his fists uselessly. “I do not understand! What? What am I to do?”

The boy made a terrible groan, and Grimmjow’s heart stuttered. “I will fetch you a healer,” he decided, for this was all he knew to do. He gathered the ryoka into his arms and lifted him. Selae was still in chaos, and Grimmjow bit back dread and fear for he knew not where even to find a healer in this mess. “A healer will know what is wrong with you—”

The boy in his arms went slack and his cries ceased. Grimmjow’s blood ran cold.

“Ryoka!”

Chapter 11: Where The Horse Cannot Follow

Through the ruins of Selae, Grimmjow ran.

Merciful rain had quelled the fires, but now the smoldering remains of the town lay bare like open wounds. The air weighed heavy with smoke that coated the inside of Grimmjow’s mouth and throat, driving him to cough as though stricken by winter sickness.

Wretched wails from the townspeople struck a mournful chorus in the early morning air. A red sun rose on Selae, and in its amber light, the rain-sodden streets were awash in blood and fire once more.

The dead—invaders, villagers, and Grimmjow’s men alike—lay strewn about like leaves fallen after a storm. Those still living picked through the smoking debris for survivors, and the wounded moaned piteously where they had fallen. Grimmjow passed through them all unmoved; he had seen such ruin many times before in the last seven years of warfare.

The boy in his arms still breathed, but no shout or touch would rouse him. His head lolled limply against Grimmjow’s chest as the warrior hurried through ash-blackened streets, and the strangeness of his affliction gripped his heart with potent fear.

He found Shawlong in the town center near the main bonfire of Raahl. The fire was extinguished now, its life cut short just as the festival for which it stood.

“Grimmjow, I am glad to see you unharmed.” Shawlong dipped his head in acknowledgement and glanced briefly at the ryoka, who lay very still and very silent. “Is he—”

“No, he is not,” Grimmjow cut him off with a shake of his head before the man could finish. “Where are the healers?”

Shawlong looked at him strangely, taken aback by the urgency of Grimmjow’s voice and the restless way he hovered on light feet as one loathe to stand about waiting a second longer. Never had he seen Grimmjow fret over an injured man. “We are taking the wounded to the field before Retsu’s shrine. The south of the city is largely untouched. The healers will be there.”

Shawlong’s advice proved true. Grimmjow arrived in the expansive field near Selae’s south border to find chaos as frantic as what he had left behind. A single sick house stood near the shrine of Retsu the healer, and tight knots of people gathered around its entrance.

Grimmjow grit teeth and shouldered through the mass. The shouts of many men and women drowned out any hope of hearing the healers.

“My daughter needs a healer! She is burned—”

“—my husband’s leg is broken, and he cannot walk. Please, will you not—”

“—you seen a boy about this high? He has black hair to his chin and wore a green lièqún—”

Pushing his way to the front, Grimmjow’s height permitted him a glimpse into the sick house. Rows of sleep mats in white linen lined the interior, numbering far too few to accommodate all those waiting outside and the many more Grimmjow knew had yet to be brought here.

He spotted the healers in white robes running to and from bedsides and counted only three. Just three healers for so many wounded.

With scowling curse, Grimmjow pushed forward. A girl clad in the grey dress of novice healer blocked his way.

“My apologies, but you must not enter without permission. You must wait until we have cleared—”

“Get out of my way, woman,” Grimmjow snarled. His head pulsed a throbbing tempo, and the burden in his arms grew heavier on his heart by the minute. “Or I will put a new hole in you with my sword.”

The girl stepped back with haste, perhaps intimidated by Grimmjow’s threat or perhaps recognizing the man whose name was known to all. Grimmjow hesitated not a moment to run past her.

With care not to jostle, he laid the ryoka down on a vacant mat before standing. Not one of the healers had taken notice of the warrior who had just forced his way inside, so Grimmjow crossed the room and stopped one by the shoulder.

“Come with me,” he demanded of the grey-haired healer.

The man looked up with knitted brows and an air of frazzled haste about him. “Captain Jaegerjaquez, I am needed here. You will have to wait until—”

The last of Grimmjow’s volatile patience ran dry. With a wild look in his eyes, he fisted large hands in the front of the healer’s robes and forcibly maneuvered him towards where he had left the ryoka. He paid no heed to how the man cried out in surprise, nor to how others had stopped to stare.

He unhanded the man, who stumbled to his knees at the ryoka’s side. The steely glint in his gaze and the tense set of his jaw bid the healer to forget all protest. La Pantera’s violent temper was as famous as his battle prowess.

Grimmjow knelt on the other side, Pantera displayed prominently across his lap in unspoken threat. “Tend to him.”

...

Grimmjow watched the healer work with a hawk’s eye.

He understood only the basics of field medicine, knowledge acquired by necessity in seven years spent as a warrior. But still he watched with criticism ready on tongue and suspicion in his gaze, and under his scrutiny the healer proceeded carefully.

When all was done, the healer put down his tools and sat at the ryoka’s side without a word for a long moment.

Grimmjow growled. “If you have something to say, then say it.”

The healer did not meet his eyes. He was as a soft-bellied doe crouched before a lion. “There is no wound on him. He breathes easy and his heart beats strong.”

A disdainful snarl made clear Grimmjow’s thoughts on the matter. “A child could have told me that! I am asking you what is wrong with him?”

“I…I cannot say, Captain Jaegerjaquez.”

“You mean to tell me there is nothing wrong with him?” Grimmjow made to stand, one hand already on Pantera’s hilt. The healer hurried to his feet. “He was in agony. Men do not fall and cease to wake with no cause!”

“Grimmjow.”

A hand on the warrior’s shoulder stayed him. Shawlong stood at his back, his long, stern face impassive as ever. Behind him, the grey-robed novice healer watched on with wide eyes.

“Do not draw your blade against a healer of Retsu.”

“Tch.” Grimmjow glared at his fellow warrior. “What are you doing here, Shawlong?”

The somber man looked first to the ryoka lying still like death and then to his captain. Grimmjow’s hand, the one not gripping his sword, lay on the boy’s arm.

“I heard word that you were terrorizing the healers here. Leave them to their work, Grimmjow. Come with me. We could use your aid in clearing the bodies.”

Grimmjow clenched fists and gnashed teeth. He did not budge.

Shawlong raised a brow, and tried again. “If your ryoka can be helped, then they will help him. You do more harm than good here. The healers can tend to him better without you breathing fear down their necks.”

These were the right words to move a raging beast. After a moment more, Grimmjow rose from the ryoka’s side, replacing Pantera at his hip. Before surrendering the ryoka, he turned to the healer.

“You will tend to him. I do not care how many others you must look after. If his condition changes or if he wakes, you will send a messenger to fetch me immediately.”

...

The light of day revealed what destruction had been wrought upon the town.

Much of Selae’s north was in ruins, the houses in crumbling ashes and the bodies of the dead numbering by scores. The invaders had reached as far as the town center and a little further beyond, but by good fortune most of the city beyond Retsu’s shrine remained unscathed.

Though not all Grimmjow’s men were yet accounted for, by Shawlong’s count, their losses had been heavy. At least a quarter of Grimmjow’s company had not lived to see dawn.

Shawlong relayed these numbers to Grimmjow, but the man’s eyes were distant and settled on nothing in particular. He paused, for it seemed to him now that his captain cared only for one man’s life.

“I heard you allowed the ryoka boy to fight at your back,” Shawlong remarked as though in passing thought. Grimmjow’s attention returned to focus in the present at mention of the orange-haired man.

“And?” Grimmjow bit out, in his breath a question and warning both.

Shawlong was not a man given to great passion, or indeed, to much display of emotion at all. Having known Grimmjow for most their lives, he was one of few permitted to speak openly with him. “Men are talking, Grimmjow,” he said. “You were witnessed fighting alongside that boy, and word spreads quickly. Never have they seen you acknowledge another as equal, and yet he has not even a name. They say he fights like a devil in man’s clothes.”

“Tch. And what of you, Shawlong? Have you any gossip to add to this?”

But the man only frowned, cowed by neither his captain’s brusqueness nor the challenging glint in his eyes. “These are troubling times, Grimmjow. First Ichigo vanishes and then Shirosaki also, on the death day no less. Then Selae is breached just one day after by an enemy more demon than man. The people are restless and fearful—they look for hope wherever it may be found.” Shawlong now paused, and Grimmjow found himself pinned beneath the weight of many expectations neither asked for nor desired. “They look to you, Grimmjow. And if you deem that ryoka boy your equal, then they look to him also.”

Shawlong’s words sat like leaden bricks in Grimmjow’s belly. He shifted weight first on one foot and then the other but found neither more comforting.

“What are we to do, Grimmjow?”

Against invaders that did not know the meaning of death? Against an enemy greater than mortal flesh and bone? What could mere men do against such terrible foes?

Grimmjow closed his eyes. “I do not know.”

...

Grimmjow labored until sun fall.

The grim task of retrieving and counting the dead fell to his warriors, and for lack of better activity to occupy his troubled mind, Grimmjow had joined his men in this duty.

Selae had suffered many dead, and these corpses were laid out in a vast field to be identified and claimed. The losses to Grimmjow’s own men were even heavier than what Shawlong had first projected, and when all were accounted for, those remaining numbered barely more than half what Grimmjow had arrived with.

With so many dead and the days caught in the warm swell of summer, they had little choice but to perform mass funeral rites with haste. Shallow graves were prepared, and the bodies of villagers and Grimmjow’s warriors alike were laid to rest with minimal ceremony.

The corpses of the invaders were left where they had fallen.

“The men will not touch them,” Shawlong explained. “They fear the cursed taint.”

A day ago, Grimmjow would have sneered at such superstition and beaten sense into any of his warriors foolish enough to be ruled by it. But the night’s battle was fresh on his mind. It was difficult to shed memory of the man with slashed throat rising like a corpse possessed. What Grimmjow had witnessed that night was a violation of the natural order, and he could no longer deny what his men had whispered of for years. Their enemy was far more than man.

“We are…fortunate. The city would have been sacked had the invasion continued. By curse or blessing, we were saved this night.”

“It was curse,” said Grimmjow. “Make no mistake, Shawlong. The power that stopped our enemy was no friend to us.”

The terrible screams of hundreds of men bleeding from every orifice would echo in Grimmjow’s nightmares for days to come. He knew no relief at their uncertain salvation, only dread.

“Order the men to take the corpses beyond the city walls and burn them there.” It would not do to leave so much carrion in the streets for the ravens to pick at. “Demon or not, they will turn this city putrid if left to rot.”

...

The sixth night of Raahl was calm—too calm by far. What should have been the penultimate night of food and dance was instead wrested in stillness more foreboding than peaceful.

At the foot of Retsu’s shrine, the sick house bore a graveyard’s silence, and all the souls within lay as still as the corpses they were halfway to becoming.

Among rows of men in deathlike slumber, the white beast of Zangetsu knelt in a rippled pool of pale robes. He touched cold fingers to the ryoka’s throat where a bandage of salve and herb had been arranged by healers who knew nothing of what pained him there. Brown eyes fluttered open, slowly at start and then all at once.

The ryoka turned to observe his surroundings and after a moment, returned to meet eyes with Shirosaki above him. Though surrounded by men ill and dying, the white beast appeared at ease.

“How very like you to find peace in the house of the dying,” the ryoka said.

Shirosaki tilted head to one side. His eyes glinted gold and keen beneath a pale moon. “Do you greet all who come to visit your sickbed with such cold words, King?”

The ryoka paid him no mind. He looked about once more and his face darkened at the sight of so many sick and maimed. Though Shirosaki had concealed his presence and his power, his very nature drew life away from those already at death’s door. He made to rise, but his strength buckled like the tender knees of a fawn.

“Take me elsewhere,” he commanded the pale beast.

Like a white horse before a throne, Shirosaki knelt and bore his master away.

...

Shirosaki brought him to the open field where Grimmjow had showed him the stars.

The ryoka waited to be deposited onto the grass in careless fashion, but Shirosaki settled down with legs outstretched and rested his master’s head in lap instead. There was no help for it; the ryoka stared.

Shirosaki laughed in answer. “It is good to see I can still surprise you at times.”

The white star of Zangetsu was not a creature given to affection or tenderness, or at least, not in a manner easily recognized. He loved in blood and kissed with bites, and his possession had broken his master’s flesh many times before.

Thus it was not strange that the ryoka should stare so, but fearing Shirosaki might soon revoke kindness and this fragile moment might shatter with the slightest wind, he breathed not a word.

The grass was pleasantly cool beneath his skin. Above, the stars gazed down upon them, seeing all and moved by none. The ryoka regarded them with grim admiration, for in these years of wandering this land in mortal skin, he had not yet tired of seeing his kind as the humans did. But in time his gaze drifted, as often it did, to one cluster of stars in particular.

Above the western horizon, the constellation of the great sword lay broken in two places: once at the hilt and again at the tip.

His spirit yearned. His hands ached to remember their former strength, to reclaim the weight of his sword and the comfort of the spirit within. The power deep within him stirred, stiff from disuse but as potent as it had ever been, and for the briefest moment it surged forth—

—his binds snapped down like a guillotine.

Clutching his throat, the ryoka’s spine seized and arched like rigid lightning. Shirosaki claimed both wrists with strength greater than earthly flesh and pinned them to the grass. He leaned forth, ghostly face obscuring the stars in the ryoka’s vision, and grinned.

“Do not get too excited, King. Your human lapdog may murder one of those healers if your condition worsens.”

The ryoka thrashed; his body tightened and writhed, his face a rictus of pain. Shirosaki’s smile faded as he held the boy down with greater force. “Breathe deep,” he instructed. “Breathe as you do when you speak to Zangetsu.”

His master obeyed. Little by little, his struggles quieted as the tension bled slow and painful from his muscles. Yet even when the pain subsided, the tremors did not. Pearls of sweat dotted his brow and temples, and Shirosaki brushed these away with black-nailed fingers.

“Poor King,” he crooned, gentle like a snake. “You wear a seal that binds with pain and strangles when defied. Your friends in Seireitei are capable of great cruelty.” The white beast encircled his master’s neck with cold touch and traced the graceful contours of his throat. For the length of a single breath, his fingers tightened and nails dug deep. He had but to grasp just a little tighter and skin would break and blood would well up beneath his nails—but then the moment passed. His touch turned tender once more as he soothed the skin and brushed away all memory of threat and treachery. “Careful, King. Try too hard against this seal and you will burn from the inside.”

The sharp peak in the ryoka’s throat bobbed as he swallowed to wet his tongue. “It grows heavier.”

“It is like a snake. It coils more tightly the more fiercely you fight it. Would I be right to guess you have taxed it recently?”

“Yes.”

“And what provoked you this time?”

The ryoka’s eyes flashed in potent fury contained only by threat of greater pain from his binds. “The deceiver mocks us with his arrogance,” he seethed. “You were not there, Shirosaki—you did not see how he toys with these humans’ lives! He takes from them their humanity, and when it suits his whims, their lives also.”

He told the white beast all that had transpired the night before: how the warriors from the western lands endured when other men would fall, how they knew neither pain nor death, and how all of them had finally fallen as one to power unseen.

“I knew Aizen had given them strength beyond the usual,” the ryoka said. “But this—this is a violation of greatest insult! He toys with matters of life and death. He strips from one nation their dignity and sets them upon another to wreak destruction.” With an angry shake of his head, the ryoka made to rise and succeeded only in pulling himself to sit with his back to Shirosaki. “It is wrong. I know you see humans only as ants, but still it is wrong.”

Shirosaki was yet unmoved. He gazed upon the ryoka’s back and saw in his bowed head and defeated shoulders a burden even his master’s steed could not bear nor understand.

“Of all stars, only you care so deeply to risk all for these humans,” he said. He crept closer and settled against his master’s back. His cold breath chilled the ryoka’s neck. “You endure seven years of pain, forsake your power, and invite certain death…why, King?”

His king answered with silence. How could a creature so fickle and bound by few loyalties as Shirosaki understand his heart? How could he impress upon a vicious beast ruled by killing and survival instinct the meaning of devotion and sacrifice? He could not. It would be simpler to explain color to a blind man. He said nothing.

Shirosaki abandoned hope for an answer. “When last I left you, I went to find what became of Aizen the deceiver.”

The ryoka raised his head. “What news do you bring?”

“You were right. His prison has decayed, for he walks now amongst men.”

And Seireitei was still none the wiser.

“He sees through the eyes of those he commands. He did not expect to find you here. This town was one of few untouched places in this nation, and he sought to extinguish hope by taking it. And yet I wonder…” Shirosaki cast curious eyes upon his king. “Why did he destroy his own puppets, when you were on your knees? Surely he could have let them finish you.”

“He is too proud.” The ryoka sighed a breath that spoke of his exhaustion. “The rage he holds against me from our first battle lingers still. He would not be sated to see me die at the hands of a human, even one under his command.”

“He knows now you are helpless. He will come for you, King, and he will rejoice to feel your life strangled by his hands.” Shirosaki’s golden eyes grew dark. “Your human has failed you. He leaves you to stand alone against a foe you have no hope against.”

“There is time yet for Grimmjow to break my seal.”

“Not enough time.”

The white-skinned arms wound around the ryoka’s chest and clasped him tight. Gone was his mocking laugh; absent was his vicious nature. The ryoka’s eyes grew wide; Shirosaki seemed determined to surprise him tonight.

“Aizen flies here with great haste, so eager is he to claim you. He will arrive within the fortnight,” the white star murmured. “Will you not abandon your fool’s quest, King? You will die if you do not.”

So this was the cause for Shirosaki’s strange affection tonight, the ryoka realized. Sorrow ruled his heart and guided his hand to rest upon a head of hair as colorless as Shirosaki’s skin and robes.

“I cannot.”

“Then you go where I cannot follow.” Shirosaki bowed his head and clasped his master’s hand.

“Goodbye, my King.”

Chapter 12: The Lord Jaegerjaquez

Shirosaki departed with the dawn’s arrival.

The ryoka woke in the grassy field, alone but for the droning hum of summer cicadas. The morning was warm, but his skin was chill, and in the shiver that traced ghostlike down his spine he felt Shirosaki’s absence like a limb torn from his own body.

A pain settled in his heart to add to the one already around his throat. He closed his eyes and sought peace that would not come.

The morning grew short.

...

Grimmjow found him when the sun was high. He spotted the ryoka by the bright flame of orange hair that drew his eye to the green hillside and promptly abandoned his morning meal to run up to him from the chief’s house.

“Oi!” he shouted as he came to a halt standing over the boy. “I was not told the healers had released you.” He looked the boy up and down and found his face drawn and his skin pale like a man who had lost much blood. Grimmjow frowned.

“I left in the night when all were asleep.” And then when Grimmjow’s mouth opened to argue this, the ryoka brushed him off. “The sick house has too many bodies for so few beds. I was well enough to leave.”

Grimmjow’s brow furrowed all the more deeply for the boy still looked ill and in less troubled times he would still be under the care of a healer. But at least he was awake and talking now, so Grimmjow abandoned argument and found a spot in the grass to sit at his side.

The previous day had taxed both body and spirit, and he had rested poorly in the night, his mind driven to distraction by all that had happened and by the boy he had left to the healers’ care. His dreams that night had been troubled and dark, full of grim images of living corpses and Ichigo’s blood. Grimmjow felt as though he had slept not at all. He heaved a deep sigh.

“Thank you,” the ryoka said suddenly. Grimmjow’s bewilderment must have shown on his face for the ryoka smiled a weary smile that made him forget restless thoughts. “I fell in the midst of battle and you defended us both. I know you must have been the one to bring me to the healers also.”

Grimmjow’s weariness and grim mood fell to the back of his mind. He felt now the warmth of the morning sun upon his skin like new and stared at the boy for the length of two breaths and too many heartbeats.

Finally, he acknowledged this gratitude with only a slight dip of his head.

They fell to silence, but Grimmjow’s mind was not at rest.

He remembered how the ryoka had fallen clutching his throat as though throttled by invisible force. In the frenzied chaos of battle, he had not thought of it, but later it came to him that this was not the first time he had seen this image.

Before waking to fire and bloodshed, he had dreamed…of Ichigo falling to thirteen blades, of the ryoka collared by an unseen chain. He looked now to the ryoka, and there was no mark upon his slender neck or anywhere else on his body.

Grimmjow’s lips thinned. It was said that dreams which told of future events were marks of spirits or gods walking through a man’s mind. If this was so, then which spirit had tread through his mind? And if the image of the ryoka had come to pass, then what of the one of Ichigo?

The boy caught his gaze. “What is it?”

“Do you believe the stars can die?” Grimmjow asked. His tongue was swifter than his mind, and the result was this question he had meant to wonder in quiet now lay between them unsettling in its urgency.

He wished to hear denial. He wished for the ryoka to laugh and tell him that gods did not die and that he was foolish for wondering this. But the boy’s gaze fell askance. “Grimmjow, do you know why the death day falls in the middle of the festival?”

This was not the answer Grimmjow had anticipated.

“Because it is the fourth day,” he said. “Four is for death.”

The ryoka shook his head. “That is not why. During Raahl, we dance and sing and enjoy good food and drink. The festival is a celebration of life, but the death day lies at its heart to remind us that there is death in all things, and that there is no life without death. Even gods can die. Kaien died.”

He was right. Grimmjow had nearly forgotten the god who had fallen in the time before their gods were stars. But Kaien had died and been laid to rest in the earth like the humans he loved.

It was said too that Ichigo bore great resemblance to the fallen god Kaien, and of all gods Kaien had come closest to Ichigo in his desire to protect mortal men. The parallels between them drove a great spear of alarm in Grimmjow’s heart.

“Banish your fear for him.”

Grimmjow started. Were his thoughts and moods so easy to read? “How did you—”

“The child should not worry for his parent. Men should not worry for gods,” said the ryoka. He placed a hand on Grimmjow’s arm, and there was kindness in his smile.

“Give him your faith. That is all he needs.”

Faith.

The laugh that fell from Grimmjow’s lips echoed empty and humorless.

...

Grimmjow spent much of the day with the ryoka at his side. The reason he gave for this was practical: if Shawlong spoke truly and his warriors looked to the ryoka for hope as they did Grimmjow, then it was wise to let his men see him regard the boy as an equal. But having the boy close by allowed Grimmjow to observe his condition also and to return him to the healers should his mysterious ailment arise once more.

They oversaw the last of the funeral rites and excavation of rubble for those still unaccounted for. Those among the people of Selae still of sound body assisted where they could, but many were too seized by grief to be of much help.

Half the city was in ruins, yet the chief confessed to Grimmjow grim gratitude nonetheless. “Absent you and your men, all of Selae would be gone now.”

The chief’s house, located just south of where the invasion had been halted, had been spared. His family was shaken but unharmed, and the ryoka had embraced the children dearly upon his return.

They returned there to sleep once daylight faded and no more work could be done. Dinner was served indoors, and though the food was good, the tastes were lost on tongues that spoke of solemn matters instead.

The seventh and final night of Raahl should have been the most joyous night of all, with plentiful food and a closing dance where people wore white masks from the skulls of beasts to celebrate the triumph of their stars over the darkness imprisoned beneath the earth.

After the evening meal, the ryoka caught the children staring forlornly at their little deer skull masks and took them hand in hand to sit beneath the stars.

“It is a pity he has no name to be remembered by,” the chief said to Grimmjow as the ryoka helped the boys don their masks. “The children will miss him when you leave.”

When the chief turned back inside, Grimmjow stayed to watch the ryoka enchant the skull-faced children with more stories of their stars he had never heard before. He was pleased to see the ryoka at ease—he had been withdrawn and haggard all day, but right now he seemed comfortable at last.

In time, the children tired and Grimmjow approached when both had fallen asleep, one resting in the ryoka’s lap and the other slumped against his side.

The ryoka sat with gaze turned heavenward, and Grimmjow did not need to follow his eyes to know he was looking in the direction of twice-broken Zangetsu.

He sat down close by and no words were exchanged for a long moment. Unseen but all around them, the cicadas droned a chorus of summer languor. Grimmjow closed his eyes to breathe deep the warm air.

Never had he shared such easy companionship. Other men looked to Grimmjow with admiration, with expectation or hope or scorn. Even Shawlong, who of all men might be considered closest to friend, looked to Grimmjow as leader first and companion second.

The ryoka did none of these things. He took Grimmjow as he was, demanding nothing and seeking neither his guidance nor his strength.

The chief’s words echoed in Grimmjow’s mind like a ripple to stir murky discontent. It had not bothered him so much at first, but now the ryoka’s namelessness gnawed at him like broken armor biting into skin.

“Why do you not give your name?” he asked, and when the ryoka turned to face him he added with heavy scowl, “And do not say you cannot tell me. You and I both know that to be a lie.”

The boy gave pause and Grimmjow sensed a private struggle he was not privy to.

“Among my people, there is power in a name,” the ryoka said finally, choosing careful words. “There is power in calling one of us by name and it is not a power to be wielded lightly.”

Grimmjow did not understand, but he had already gathered that the ryoka’s people had strange customs he knew nothing of. The ryoka watched him with keenness that reminded Grimmjow of the early days of their acquaintance when the boy had refused to speak. How very long ago that seemed now.

“Our names are reserved for those who have faith in us. It is believed that if a man has faith, he will know our names.”

“Tch.” Grimmjow leaned back in the grass, resting his weight on his elbows as he stretched out beneath the stars. “That is ridiculous. How can a man know your name if he has never met you before? Is he meant to divine it?”

The ryoka stared at him with lips curled in a pensive frown, but at length, he turned away and did not answer. He embraced the little child resting in his lap and stroked his hair absently. “Help me carry the children to bed.”

Sensing the conversation had ended, Grimmjow sighed and rose to pick up the other child who roused in his arms but did not wake.

They brought the boys inside to their parents’ waiting arms and retired to their own sleep mats. Grimmjow slept with his back to the ryoka. Unlike the previous night, sleep came quickly.

He hoped to see no more of Ichigo’s blood in his dreams.

...

In the days that followed, dark gloom settled over the town.

Messengers and scouts departed on the second morning to deliver news of Selae’s invasion to their brother tribes while the people labored to salvage what they could of their homes.

Having delegated oversight of the town’s repairs to Shawlong, Grimmjow spent his days either in conference with the chief or alone at Ichigo’s shrine.

He had little gift to offer the god, for much of the town’s orchards had burned and the market was empty but for a few lonely stalls that dealt only essentials to villagers in great need. So Grimmjow offered prayers instead and spoke to the god as he had done in his youth. To Ichigo he confessed all—the dread weighing on his spirit, the burden of the people’s hopeful eyes that followed wherever he walked, and his fear for the future of their nation.

Near the end of the first week, word arrived from beyond the city walls. The people had hoped for better news from abroad, but Grimmjow soon learned that good news was in short supply for all in the coastal nation.

Selae was not the only town violated during the week of Raahl and there were many that had suffered greater destruction and buried more dead. The western invaders had overtaken much of the land closest to their borders and as far inland as Selae’s sister town to the east, their encampments dotting the hills of Grimmjow’s homeland like ants. They looked now to extend their reach to the last untouched stretches of land along the coast, where lay the vulnerable fishing and farming villages defended by few warriors. Grimmjow’s own home village counted amongst them.

“Our war is on its last legs,” the chief confided in Grimmjow one night away from the ears of his family and other men.

It was no happy revelation. For seven long years they had fought to preserve their lands and their lives, but Grimmjow’s people now faced conquest and ruin.

“The reports we received today all confess the same. Our people are exhausted, Pantera. Our lands are fertile with the bodies of our dead and our hopes wear thin. We have strength enough to gather one last time, but no more. In the coming days, the leaders of our nation will gather here and we shall discuss what must be done. Your presence will be required.”

Grimmjow could not refuse, nor offer Shawlong in his place. Shawlong had been right. Wanted or not, for good or ill, the burden of hope had fallen somehow to Grimmjow.

He could have laughed—him, the mad warrior whose heart was touched by Kenpachi, chosen to bear the hopes of the people? But one look at the chief’s solemn face forbade ridicule from leaving his tongue.

Later, he sought solitude before Ichigo’s altar. To his surprise, the ryoka was already there, and he sat idly watching as Grimmjow swept the floor, lit the incense, and refilled the oil pan.

“You are devoted to your god,” the ryoka commented, and though his face was guarded, Grimmjow read muted sadness in his voice and eyes. He ignored the boy and knelt to give prayer in silence.

...

The leaders of their brother tribes began to arrive in Selae the next day. From dawn until dusk and into the next morning, they came on horseback alone or accompanied by small parties of guards and warriors.

Some were civilian leaders, like the chief of Selae, while others commanded military forces over great expanses of the coastal nation. Grimmjow knew most by name, but he did not recognize the pale, green-eyed man who arrived on the back of a black warhorse.

“That is Murciélago,” the chief told Grimmjow when he saw him staring.

“Ulquiorra Cifer,” Grimmjow recognized, putting now the unfamiliar face to rumors he had heard of the solemn man who commanded a named blade like Pantera.

“He served under Lord Baraggan in the north.”

“Served? Does he command his own unit now?”

“Baraggan is dead. I received word last night.”

Grimmjow’s eyes went wide. The warlord Baraggan had commanded the north of their nation for many years, since before Grimmjow’s birth. That he had fallen meant the bulk of their nation’s army was now without a head.

For the duration of an entire evening, each of the gathered leaders shared in turn news from their lands and the state of the war on every front. Grimmjow sat amongst them and listened to each with a growing shadow on his heart.

Ulquiorra described the circumstances of Baraggan’s death in battle in voice as featureless as desert sand. The rumors of Murciélago’s coldness and impassive heart, Grimmjow judged, were accurate indeed.

“Lord Baraggan’s death leaves us an obvious question,” Ulquiorra said, and Grimmjow found himself the subject of his green-eyed gaze. “Who is to take command of our forces in the north?”

Grimmjow met his eyes with equal weight, uncertain of his intent but quick to rise to challenge this stranger by force of instinct. But a great silence had taken all those gathered, and bewildered, Grimmjow stopped to look around.

Every gaze had settled on him, and realization of what this meant struck him with a heavy and sobering hand.

“Captain Jaegerjaquez,” Ulquiorra addressed him. “Your name has been on many tongues as of late. Your reputation is great on the battlefield and in the homes of the people alike.”

The weight of all eyes was on Grimmjow.

“You have led your men with fearsome conviction in the years past. We hope you will do the same with this nation’s army. In return, you will also have civil authority over the lands Baraggan once ruled if you so desire.”

Grimmjow tried for speech—his jaw opened yet no words fell from dry tongue.

“The people desire a strong lord. We face conquest and the extinction of our way of life and they want a leader who has demonstrated his ferocity against the enemy.” This time, it was the grey-eyed man sitting with chin in folded hands who spoke. Coyote Starrk was not a man to involve himself in any but matters of greatest importance. “They have already chosen you for this role. Even should you decline, they will see you as leader.”

“What say you, Captain Jaegerjaquez?”

In the eye of his mind, Grimmjow saw his patron god give a solemn, encouraging nod. Ichigo’s hand was upon his heart and his guidance banished all doubt. Grimmjow stood taller; his spirit did not waver.

“I accept.”

As one, they rose, warriors and leaders all. They turned to Grimmjow each with right fist clasped over heart in allegiance sworn unto death.

“Then we are yours to command, Warlord Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez.”

Chapter Text

Chapter 13: Vast as the Sea, Countless as the Stars

With a hundred surviving warriors behind him and an army awaiting his command two days’ march ahead, Grimmjow departed Selae the following dawn.

He thanked the chief for his hospitality and his wife for the good food and warm hearth, but when it came time for farewells, it was the ryoka this little family was most sad to let go. In the span of two weeks, the ryoka had endeared himself to them, and the children clung to him with heavy tears on their little faces when they learned he meant to follow Grimmjow to war.

“For a man with no name, you leave deep footprints wherever you go,” Grimmjow remarked later as Selae retreated to a small point on the horizon behind them.

The ryoka smiled at him with levity more than innocent yet less than flirtatious. “Then pray tell, Grimmjow, what mark have I left on you?”

Grimmjow very nearly lost his footing on the uneven path.

The sun set on their first day of travel in a foreboding canvas of red, chased by the deeper blues of evening, and then by black night and white stars.

Grimmjow ordered his men to make camp, and they settled down for the night, comforted only by the small fires they lit to warm their food. Talk was muted and laughter stifled, for though no danger lurked in the darkness, memories of recent battle had not yet faded from their hearts and the shadow of future battle yet loomed ahead.

Grimmjow raised his tent, a luxury most of his men did not have, and on his final round of the camp, he came across the ryoka rolling out a mat by the fire and preparing to rest amongst the other men.

The warlord paused a moment then went to him, paying no mind to how the other warriors sat up straighter at his approach.

“You are sleeping here?” he asked the boy.                

“I am.”

But Grimmjow beckoned the boy to follow. He had watched grey clouds gather at their backs all day and judged the storm would overtake them in the night. “No. You will sleep in my tent tonight.”

And when his warriors stared a moment too long, Grimmjow scowled deep and hastened to elaborate, “If you are poorly rested, then you will not fight well. We need our strongest to be at their best.”

Inside his tent, there was room enough for two, and Grimmjow moved his sleep mat so that the ryoka could roll his own out next to it. He watched the boy pull out the blanket gifted to him by the chief’s wife and braid his long hair in preparation for sleep.

The ryoka caught his look and lifted his brow. “I have felt your eyes on me often as of late,” he teased.

Grimmjow started; he had not realized how his gaze lingered. “Tch.” He was quick to scowl and busied himself removing Pantera from his belt to place in arm’s reach of his mat. “Do not flatter yourself. Go to sleep.”

...

He was awoken by a snap of thunder very close by.

Grimmjow shut his eyes tighter, turned in his blankets, and strove to recapture sleep. He listened to the rain slap against the beeswax-laden canvas of his tent and his breath grew calm. Those outside with neither tent nor waxed tarp would have a sleepless night indeed.

Lightning flashed white through closed eyes, and he heard a breath not his own within arm’s reach. Grimmjow sat up in a flash, hand on Pantera’s hilt, before memory returned to him.

That was right. He had invited the ryoka to share his tent tonight.

Grimmjow settled back down. “You are awake?”

“Yes. The storm woke me.” The boy did not have the rasp of sleep in his voice; he must have been awake for some time.

“You should try to sleep. You will need your strength for tomorrow’s travel.”

“Thank you, Grimmjow.”

Grimmjow was reminded of the rainy night when he had first found the ryoka. He had tied the boy outside and left him to endure the storm beaten and half naked. Tonight, he let him sleep in his own tent. How swiftly things had changed.

“Why do you follow us?” Grimmjow asked. “This is not your homeland. We are not your people, and this is not your war.”

He did not expect an answer. Though he had grown close to the boy in recent weeks, he still knew little about him—not where he came from, not his people, not even his name. And still the ryoka had risked life and limb to defend him in battle, fought with him back to back, and followed him even now to greater danger. Grimmjow did not understand.

“It would be a heartless world if we all feigned blindness to troubles not our own.”

“What of that woman you love?” Grimmjow pressed. “Do you not seek her still?”

The boy turned. Grimmjow felt the weight of his gaze and wondered if he had asked a question he should not have.

“I am where I am needed,” the ryoka said in veiled tone. “And you, Grimmjow? What do you fight for? What do you love?”

Grimmjow had few things to love in this world. He had loved his mother and his father, but he had laid both to rest years ago. He had once loved his village and the memories of a peaceful childhood there, but those memories seemed now distant as a half-forgotten dream and the home he had left behind stood empty and in disrepair. Grimmjow had no siblings and no wife. He had no children.

There was only one thing he loved now, and this love born in childhood had survived even through seven years of warfare and wavering faith. His devotion to Ichigo the protector was the only love that had not waned. He fought to show Ichigo that his protection had not been in vain. He fought to show Ichigo his strength.

But this was not what he answered.

“I fight because it is my nature.” He lay back down and turned his back to the ryoka. “That is all.”

...

The second day of travel passed with no incident. Though most of his men were ill rested after a sleepless night spent under rain, Grimmjow drove them onward as though the very demons of the underworld nipped at their heels.

The scouts had reported sight of an enemy force just a few days’ march behind them, and so urgency to reach the army awaiting his command in the east grew ever more dire.

Grimmjow rode astride a white warhorse gifted to him from Selae’s stables and kept an eye on the ryoka who followed on foot beside him. He could not fail to notice how the boy rubbed at his neck throughout the morning and how his steps dragged.

Fearing his strange ailment had returned, he dismounted his steed at midday and went to him.

“You are tired,” he said and the ryoka looked up at him and stood straighter.

“I can manage.”

But Grimmjow was not swayed. He grabbed the boy by his collar and steered him towards his horse. “Ride with me.”

For the remainder of the day, the ryoka shared his horse with his back to Grimmjow’s chest. They spoke little, and an hour before sundown, the boy relaxed and slumped forward. Grimmjow caught him with an arm across his chest, his heart in his throat until he realized he had only dozed off.

He chose not to disturb him. Grimmjow switched reins to his other hand, braced the boy more securely against his chest, and let him rest.

That night, Grimmjow invited him into his tent again. They ate their evening meal together there, but the ryoka picked at his food and ate barely half his allotted ration. He gave the rest to Grimmjow, who finished it without complaint but with one eye on the boy who had gone to sit just outside his tent’s entrance.

He was not ill as far as Grimmjow could tell, but nor did he seem well.

Grimmjow dawdled. He pulled out his sleep mat, folded his clothes, and sat down to clean Pantera with a thorough hand. But through it all, his mind and his eyes lingered on the ryoka sitting outside.

At length, he exhausted all distractions. The night grew deep, and yet the ryoka had not moved for the better part of an hour. Grimmjow went outside and sat down beside him.

“You should sleep soon. Tomorrow we will meet Baraggan’s army, and I want you beside me.”

The ryoka did not move, but his eyes turned to Grimmjow briefly. Without words, without even a frown upon his face, he impressed upon Grimmjow a mood so solemn and mournful the warrior felt his own heart squeeze in answer.

Grimmjow could not guess what sadness weighed the boy’s heart and he did not know how to ask. He breathed the language of warfare and measured strength by muscle and steel. He did not concern himself with others and others did not concern themselves with him, and so here faced with a moment that called for tenderness, Grimmjow had no words to offer in comfort.

The ryoka looked up when he felt Grimmjow’s fur pelt draped over his shoulders. Once the deed was done Grimmjow turned his head aside and did not meet his eyes, but no words were needed. They both understood.

The pelt was warm from Grimmjow’s body and smelled faintly of sweat gathered after a long day of travel and the warlord’s natural musk. The ryoka clasped it tighter and huddled into its warmth.

Close enough to touch but offering no embrace, Grimmjow stayed with him for a long moment. They shared no words and did not meet eyes, but the fur offered warmth and comfort in place of the warlord who could give neither openly. After a length of many breaths, Grimmjow rose and returned to his tent.

The ryoka joined him soon after.

...

“The people believe you are favored by our gods.”

It was morning. The sun had just broken dawn, and the air was still chill. All around, the men of Grimmjow’s company were breaking camp and preparing for a third day of travel.

Grimmjow turned, but Ulquiorra’s impassive face and voice betrayed no flattery, only simple matter of truth. “Why?”

“Why?” the pale man repeated as though this was a question for simpletons. “I have heard the rumors, Lord Jaegerjaquez. Last spring you stood before a battalion of six hundred with a company of less than half and emerged victorious with most of your men surviving. A week ago, you defended Selae from an ambush in the night and a miracle delivered you and the town.”

Ulquiorra met Grimmjow’s eyes. “A god protects you.”

Grimmjow knew which god. If Ichigo had been at his back through all the trials and hardships of this war, then he would not abandon Grimmjow now.

His heart grew fierce.

An hour before midday, Grimmjow’s party crowned the top of a high hill and at last they saw Baraggan’s army in the distance. They covered the hillsides in a great sea of black dots that stretched as far as the eye could see, and the enormity of what his new title meant came over Grimmjow like a great tide.

Warlord. Commander of an army that numbered in the tens of thousands and whose power reigned over warriors and civilians alike. Of all men in his nation, Grimmjow had been judged fiercest and entrusted to lead the greatest force these coastal lands had to offer.

They descended the hill with Grimmjow astride his white warhorse leading the front and Ulquiorra and Starrk riding just behind him. Baraggan’s army parted before him like mountains cleaved by a deep river, and the men bowed on bent knees and fists over hearts before their new lord.

There was no time to greet his new army. Scouts arriving in the morning had returned with news of the invaders three days' march behind and hurtling ever closer as though on winged feet.

Grimmjow retreated into counsel with the other leaders he had left Selae with. Together they determined to drive their army a half day’s march east towards the coast and to prepare for their final stand against the enemy there.

They set off once more. With the sun at their back, the army marched east like a great, lumbering beast that shook the earth with its steps. When the cries of seabirds reached his ears and the smell of salt filled his nose, Grimmjow halted his army and gave the order to make camp.

Later that night, he stood atop a rock cliff high enough to see the coast below and breathed deep the salty air. Was it fortune or curse that the final act of their war would bring him home once more and draw its curtains here?

Too many years had passed since he had last set foot in his native lands, too many years since he had felt white sand beneath his feet and ocean wind in his hair. It was said that Kaien had once tamed the seas, and that when he was slain, the seas grew wild and birthed the vicious storms of wind and waves that now often lashed these lands.

Kaien. Ichigo. Grimmjow clenched fists. His heart shuddered deep and impotent. In all that was familiar and dear in this land, one thing should have been here but was not.

Where are you, Ichigo?

...

Grimmjow woke with a horse on his chest and a woodpecker in his head. He lay on his sleep mat and gasped for breath that stuttered in his chest. The air was thick in his lungs and pressed on his skin from all directions.

A hand fell on his chest. The ryoka knelt over him, hand splayed wide over Grimmjow’s heart. “Breathe,” he said, and Grimmjow did.

The pressure eased. Grimmjow gasped like a man half-drowned. He sat up clutching his chest and stared at the ryoka boy who now gazed beyond their tent in contemplative stillness.

“What was that?” he asked when his heart had calmed and his breaths evened.

The ryoka’s brow furrowed deep. His lips drew tight and he whispered an answer that seemed meant for no ears but his own. “It is a portent of a coming storm.”

Grimmjow was not the only one to suffer so. All through the day, his men were slow to rise and quick to tire. The air pressed heavy, like the gloom of a coming storm, but the sky was blue and clear and when Grimmjow searched for storm clouds on the horizon he found not one.

A shadow grew on his heart, slowly at first and then all at once like an eruption of clinging vines. Dread was a living snake coiled around his innards and strangling him from within. He felt poisoned by the very air, for breathing it suffused his entire being with unease which gnawed in his belly. Grimmjow saw ill mood take hold in his warriors. They performed their training drills with dragging feet and the officers broke apart more than one scuffle that day.

Grimmjow did not bother to discipline the offenders. The nameless dread in his heart had infected all; it was only natural that lesser men would grow agitated by this primal fear and turn on each other.

Even Starrk, who would often nap after midday, could not rest. Grimmjow saw him stalking the outskirts of the camp like a hungry wolf, frowning and restless. Ulquiorra too seemed even more somber than usual, and he spent many hours that day gazing into the western horizon as though expecting their foe to appear at any moment.

“Lord Jaegerjaquez, the scouts report our enemy a day’s march from here,” he said that night, as Grimmjow sat outside his camp finishing his evening meal.

“A day?” Grimmjow repeated, drawing back with wide eyes. At his side, the ryoka boy had put down his food and listened with keen interest. “Do they not stop for food or rest?”

“Perhaps men ruled by cursed strength require neither.” Ulquiorra spared a cool glance at the nameless man he had witnessed many times in Grimmjow’s company. His impassive eyes took in the ryoka’s form but betrayed nothing of his own mind or heart.

The moment stretched—Grimmjow felt his ire rise and wished to sweep the boy behind him where he could not be taken apart under Ulquiorra’s examination—but then Ulquiorra broke his stare.

“Good night, Lord Jaegerjaquez.” He left without further word.

That night, Grimmjow’s dreams were troubled. The dread gloom of waking seeped into his dreams, and he suffered another restless night filled with visions of dying gods and heavy air he could not breathe. He woke feeling ill rested to find no relief.

Dawn broke with no light. The sky stayed dark through the morning and into midday until finally a bleak sun peered through the clouds at what should have been the warmest hours of day.

His army dispersed to take their positions. A portion he stationed atop a high cliff to be in plain sight of the invading army, but the bulk of his warriors Grimmjow hid behind the surrounding hills to surprise and encircle the enemy. The warlord took his place among the former, hoping to draw the enemy’s suspicion from the hills, while Starrk and Ulquiorra each lay in wait at the north and south.

And then, they waited.

The air grew heavier with each passing hour, and Grimmjow’s warriors felt it upon their skin and in their throats thick and choking. Few men spoke and those that did conversed in low tones barely heard beyond a few feet.

Grimmjow sat apart from his men kneeling with Pantera sheathed and laid before him in supplication. There was no shrine here, and he had no gifts to offer, but still he prayed to Ichigo.

He could not feign ignorance that this may be his final prayer to his patron god, that he may not live to see the dawn. Such was the possibility before every fight, but Grimmjow sensed the coming battle would be like nothing he had yet faced. The chief of Selae had been right; their people had no strength left in body or spirit to continue fighting beyond this.

So he confessed to Ichigo all he had left to say. First, his thanks for watching over Grimmjow and blessing his village with many long years of safety. Next, his apology for his wavering faith in the star’s absence…and his concern. The ryoka had said it was not the place of men to fear for their gods, and surely he was right, but still Grimmjow could not shake his dread at the images of Ichigo bloody and dying that haunted his sleep.

And finally, Grimmjow begged forgiveness for his transgression on the fifth night of Raahl. For his defilement of Ichigo’s name and image in the haze of lust that had overcome him that night, Grimmjow could no longer claim his devotion to his god pure.

“I do not know what possessed me,” he confessed. “My love for you is no longer innocent as it was in my youth. I am sorry, Ichigo. Remember me not for my sins but for my fidelity.”

When he rose to return to his warriors, he found the ryoka standing several paces away at his back. How long had he stood there and how much had he heard?

Were it any other man, he would have felt offended by this intrusion. But the boy invoked no anger in Grimmjow, only solemn peace that did not last once the warlord took a closer look at him.

“Your neck…”

The boy touched light fingertips to his throat and grimaced.

A red ribbon encircled his throat, as though someone had taken a knife and carved him a necklace in blood. The wound traced a collar just below the swell of his Adam’s apple and fresh blood oozed syrup-like down his neck. It looked both hideous and frightening.

There was no question—this was the very wound that had crippled the ryoka during battle.

“What is that?” Grimmjow stared, for never had he seen such a wound as this. “Are you cursed?”

But the boy would not answer. He stepped towards the warlord and took him by the hands. This unexpectedly intimate touch so startled Grimmjow that he did not think to pull away.

“I heard you praying. You love your god?”

“What?” Grimmjow drew back, for this question laid bare the soft underbelly of his heart. And like a beast with its throat exposed, he gnashed his teeth and snarled. “You had no right to listen to words exchanged between a man and his god.”

“Do you love Ichigo?”

There was fire in his eyes and iron in his voice. The ryoka pressed this question with such unyielding gravity that Grimmjow gave pause and confessed finally, “I do.”

“Then please, Grimmjow…”

Here again, just as he had when laying in blood-churned mud and rain helpless before a score of cursed enemy warriors, the ryoka beseeched Grimmjow for aid the warlord would give freely if only he knew how.

“What?” Grimmjow growled. “Speak what you need!”

Something tickled at the corner of his mind, like a mote of dust at his vision’s edge prone to vanish if looked at directly. Grimmjow stared into the ryoka’s pleading face and a familiar light in the boy’s eyes stayed his breath and seized his core. His heart beat a thunderous rhythm.

A horn bellowed low and deep.

Both men turned their eyes across the cliff to where the lookouts had been stationed. The long note stretched over the hills and filled the eerie silence of the day with a pulse that reverberated deep in both earth and bone.

Grimmjow’s heartbeat thudded in his ears as the sound tapered and fell finally to silence that still echoed its memory. “That was the lookout!”

They hurried back to the others. At the edge of the rock face, the warriors had gathered to search for what the lookouts had spotted. Grimmjow and the ryoka pushed their way to the front, shading their eyes against the falling sun and squinting at where the sky touched the earth.

Grimmjow felt the rumbling deep in the ground before he saw what caused it. A dark spot crested the horizon and grew on both sides, swelling forth in a black swathe of bodies that covered the land like a great wave.

The breath stilled in his chest. His first sight of Baraggan’s army had struck awe into his heart, but here was a sight he would not forget unto the end of his days. The western army was as vast as the ocean behind him and as countless as the blades of Senbonzakura.

Grimmjow stood taller and he did not tremble, for he had the army of his people at his back and Ichigo’s hand on the hilt of his blade. The earth would run red and Grimmjow would be the one to paint it so. Tonight on these hills, the fate of his people would be made.

At his hip, Pantera thrummed warm and alive and hungry for blood.

Chapter 14: Return the Slaying Moon

The invaders crossed the distance from horizon to the valley of the hills like wolves to fresh meat, tireless as though they had not spent the previous fortnight flying towards the coast on winged feet. Ulquiorra was right, Grimmjow thought as he watched the black wave of men surge towards them. Human notions of pain and exhaustion commanded no power over these men possessed by demon strength.

His warriors took their positions. At their front a rank of archers bearing bows as long as they were tall notched arrows to the string and at Grimmjow’s shouted command, let fly a hail of arrows down into the crowd. Within the length of a few heartbeats, they let loose another volley in flawless unison, and then another, the arrows falling like black rain upon an enemy force as endless as the sky above.

When the invaders drew within range, the assault joined from two more directions. From the north and south, Ulquiorra and Starrk led the men Grimmjow had positioned in hiding behind the hills in perfect, alternating unison of volley fire.

Thirty waves Grimmjow ordered, until finally his archers exhausted their quivers and he commanded them to fall back. And then, with his breath still and his heart beating behind his chest like a drum, he waited for the dust to settle.

The western army advanced forth as though untouched.

Grimmjow’s jaw fell open. Were these men so bereft of their humanity that even such relentless volley fire would leave no mark? Or was this army truly so vast that even a hundred thousand arrows drained only a single drop from an endless sea?

There was no time to contemplate this. Having passed through the archers’ fire, the invaders had now an open path to Grimmjow’s men.

Grimmjow had no words of courage to bestow upon his warriors, no final platitudes to offer these war-weary men facing certain death or conquest. He drew his sword and swept two fingers over the blade, his blood a carnal sacrifice to Ichigo and a taste to whet Pantera’s appetite in one.

His body trembled, exhilaration lighting his blood and setting his senses ablaze. The air tasted sweeter, the tang of his blood smelled sharper, the sight of endless foes below and white stars above clearer in his eyes. His nostrils flared, the whites of his eyes encircled blue irises, and his teeth bared behind lips stretched ear to ear in manic thirst.

If tonight would be the night he died, then he would die in a blaze of fire and blood worthy of legend. Pantera, they would call him in stories told around the fire. Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez, the warlord who carved new rivers in blood.

“Ichigo,” he whispered, a promise upon his breath and an inferno in his heart. “I will make you proud.”

Like a crash of tidal wave upon rocky cliff, the western army fell on Grimmjow’s men in a sweeping current that threatened to uproot them by the heels.

Grimmjow crossed swords first with a man impaled through the base of his throat by a black-feathered arrow yet unfeeling like one already dead.

Perhaps he was already dead, Grimmjow thought, for when he stared into those fish-dull eyes he met no spirit behind them. They exchanged half a dozen blows before the warlord removed first his opponent’s sword-bearing arm and then his head. He turned to seek out new challenge before the body hit the ground.

One by one the western men fell to Pantera’s sharp bite and swift strikes. Blood flowed freely from his blade and painted his hands with red that did not dry.

Grimmjow laughed his delight—he screamed it in a howl that carried above all clamor of steel and shouts of dying men. A windstorm of blue hair and razor claws, the warlord Pantera cleaved his way through his foes and blazed a trail in corpses wherever he went.

He was not alone. Through it all, Grimmjow never lost sight of long orange hair in the periphery of his vision. The ryoka fought at his side defending Grimmjow’s back even as the warlord cut down men on all sides. Though the boy breathed hard, he fought with the same savage grace Grimmjow remembered him by. He had not yet faltered, and Grimmjow prayed for good fortune that his strength might endure this time.

The last vestiges of daylight faded from the sky and soon they fought only by the light of a sickle moon and white stars.

Grimmjow had only half a mind to spare for the battle beyond his immediate surroundings. The plan had been for Grimmjow to engage the invaders with his men first and for Starrk and Ulquiorra to join him from north and south and hem in the enemy from all sides. In the chaos, it was impossible to see or know where they were, so Grimmjow could only trust they would lead their men as agreed on.

Time lost all meaning. Grimmjow’s entire world shrank to the clang of metal, the smell of sweat and blood, and the cries of men enraged and dying around him. The ground grew slick beneath his boots and Pantera’s hilt chafed sticky beneath his fingers. In time, he felt the ryoka’s absence from his side, but he did not know when the fighting had pulled them apart.

“Ryoka!”

He spun on his feet and parted the crowds with his blade first in one direction and then the other, but nowhere he turned did he catch a glimpse of that bright hair. Grimmjow cursed; he had not meant to lose the boy, but now he had, and in this madness of a hundred thousand men finding him again would be a feat indeed.

The battle wore on. Grimmjow was tireless, but his men were not. They crumpled and fell to monstrous warriors more demon than man, and he had to take care not to lose his footing over the bodies scattered across the ground.

At first, he did not notice the air shift.

It came as a slow encroachment upon his senses, insidious like pestilence spread under the cover of night. The heaviness in the air that had weighed on all Grimmjow’s men for the last two days swelled now to oppressive smog that resisted all movement. Pantera grew leaden in his hands; his legs plodded slow and heavy as though wading through marsh water.

Men fell around him, enemies and allies alike—first to their knees and then onto their bellies with wretched groans. Grimmjow gasped, his heart fluttering like a caged bird as unseen force bore down upon him from all directions and stole breath from his lungs.

He struck Pantera into the earth to take his sagging weight like a crutch. His strength fled and his arms felt like two limp weights at his shoulders. If he were attacked now Grimmjow would be without defense, but not a single man in sight still stood. He had strength enough to raise his head. His vision swam.

In the distance, a single figure stood tall amidst a field of fallen men.

Sweat beaded on Grimmjow’s brow and his breaths grew ragged as he strained to make out what he saw.

The man approached. He wore no armor, clad only in sheer white untouched by blood and grime and bearing a sword with green hilt sheathed at the hip. His stride was regal and on his face lingered the ghost of a smile.

He was terrifying.

His steps shook the earth, and with each pace closer, the air swirled thicker and dread grew darker in Grimmjow’s heart. At his feet, men retched into the earth and Grimmjow grit his teeth to bite back the bile rising in his throat.

The man stopped before Grimmjow laboring to stay upright, and though he was no taller than the warlord, he seemed to tower head and shoulders over him. With brow arched, he regarded him like an interesting but repulsive insect.

“I have heard of you, Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez.”

His tone was polite, but Grimmjow smelled a terrible malice that made his hair stand on end. Visceral fear seized him by the core of his being.

This creature wore a man’s skin, but he was no mortal man, and Grimmjow knew in a flash of insight what had been responsible for Selae’s questionable salvation on the night of the attack. His arms trembled with effort as he strove to lift himself higher with Pantera.

The monster in white tilted his head at him and made a half step closer. “Impudent mud creature. Men do not stand before gods.”

The air pulsed with power that seeped like a black miasma into every fiber of Grimmjow’s being and throttled him from within. He felt it like a noose around his throat and a blade pointed at his heart. His knees buckled, and he fell onto all fours. His mind stuttered.

Gods?

“You?” he gasped. Even speaking sapped his strength. He felt as though he would never have enough air. “You are a…”

“I am something you will never comprehend. But I have no time to waste on you, human. You are not the one I seek.” The god drew his sword. Its edge caught the moon’s light, and streaming from the blade was power as deep as what saturated the one who wielded it.

The warlord willed himself to rise. He strove to move leg or arm and found no strength great enough to lift even a finger. This, he realized in a moment of stark clarity, was why men bowed to gods. This was why they knelt to pray, because in the era before their gods became stars, the mere presence of a god was great enough to bring men to their knees.

“You should feel honored I draw my sword for you,” said the god as he advanced with blade raised. “Very few men can boast of dying by the hand of a god.”

Grimmjow shuddered with impotent rage. Was this how he was meant to die? On his knees with his head bowed, his hands empty of sword? No. He would not die so helpless. He refused.

But still he could do no more than watch as the blade arched down towards him, and with tremendous effort Grimmjow raised his head to meet his end defiant in spirit if not in body.

Orange hair filled his sight. A terrible clash of steel sent sparks of fire arcing through the air.

The ryoka stood over him, appearing from nowhere as though by magic, shoulders thrown back and wielding his nameless blade to block the killing blow meant for Grimmjow.

Grimmjow stared. How did he have strength to stand in the face of a god when Grimmjow labored even to breathe? How did he have might enough to stop a divine blade?

“Ryoka…!”

Had he not heard what was said? Did he not know what he raised his sword against? He would die. The ryoka was strong, but he was only a man, and the being before them was a god.

“Get out of here, you fool! You will—”

“Grimmjow.” The ryoka turned just enough to peer over shoulder at the man sprawled behind him, and Grimmjow’s tongue seized. The boy’s eyes were too gentle for one in the midst of battle, and here again, as he had many times in recent days, Grimmjow saw in them great sorrow. Unease coiled in his gut, for this scene before him seemed at once strange and incomplete, a puzzle for which he lacked a single piece. The warlord looked from man to god and then from god to man and sensed here a great truth that yet eluded his understanding.

The ryoka gave a solemn little smile that struck him deep. The collar-like wound around his throat had deepened and it appeared now like a raw ring of flayed flesh that bled freely. It painted his neck and collar red and dripped a steady stream down his heaving chest.

“Stay there. Do not rise.”

Grimmjow could not rise even without such order. He lay sprawled in bloodied earth, unable to part eyes from the scene before him. What manner of man was this ryoka? What man would stand before a god and dare to raise a sword against him?

The god smiled at the ryoka now and the expression chilled Grimmjow, though it was not meant for him.

“You presume to stand against me as you are now?” The god’s voice was mocking, almost pitying. “Why fight when you have no hope of winning?”

The god spoke to the ryoka familiar like an old acquaintance, but no man had met a god in many thousands of years. The ryoka stood unmoved, unshaken by the scrutiny of one who could crush him without pause, and not for the first time Grimmjow wondered at how little he knew about this boy who had traveled by his side all this time.

“I fight because I must win,” said the boy and fire brought his eyes to gleam with fierce light. “Aizen, you have no shame.”

Aizen.

Grimmjow’s blood ran cold.

Aizen the deceiver, the outcast god defeated by Ichigo long ago. Aizen, who had held humanity for ransom in his quarrel against the other gods, who whispered beautiful things but to trust him was to welcome death. Grimmjow’s people spoke of the deviant god with great caution, for Aizen disdained all humans and had been the cause of the great schism between earth and sky many thousands of years ago.

But it had been long since Aizen’s defeat. While his brethren had risen to the heavens and become stars, the deceiver had been imprisoned deep beneath the earth where he remained to this day.

Or so the people believed.

Aizen the deceiver walked free. Grimmjow dared not breathe and, for the first time in seven lonely years as warrior, despair was a black snake coiled around his heart where hope once ruled.

How could his people hope to prevail when the enemy boasted the favor of a god so powerful and deadly?

The ryoka did not share his despair, or if he did, he did not show it. He stood over the warlord like a grim champion, tall and defiant, but Grimmjow saw in him tragedy also. He did not understand why this boy would defend him so faithfully, what moved him to stand so fearless against a being he had no hope of defeating. Why did he throw away his life without a thought? What had Grimmjow done to earn such devotion?

These questions echoed in his mind without end, even as the boy raised sword against Aizen. The god did not deign to parry the blow, and when the blade struck his chest it tore neither cloth nor flesh.

Aizen laughed. “You think you can cut me with a mortal blade? Do not mock me.”

He swung his blade down at the ryoka’s head. The boy blocked it by a hair, his nameless sword shaking like the rattle of a dying man’s breath. Two strikes more they exchanged, both parried, and on the third the ryoka’s sword shattered in two and the useless hilt fell from his hand.

Grimmjow saw the next blow before it fell. The god’s mighty blade shot forth and in an instant, impaled his foe.

The ryoka staggered. He gasped without sound, and when the god withdrew his sword, a tide of red streamed forth from the wound in his flank.

Grimmjow gasped as though the blade had found home in his flesh instead.

No!  

He fought to rise, but succeeded only to raise himself an inch from the ground. He cursed, he strained, but all for naught. His blood boiled at his own helplessness.

Aizen leaned close and grasped the boy by the throat. Fingers closed over the hideous wound at his neck, and this time, the ryoka cried out. His screams tore at Grimmjow like a knife broken and buried in his flesh.

With so little effort as though he weighed nothing, the god lifted him in one hand high enough that his feet cleared the ground.

“You have always fascinated me,” said Aizen, in a soft voice almost reverent. He turned the boy in hand and gazed upon his face with amusement as pitiless as it was cruel. “You were magnificent, once. What a pitiful end for a creature so beautiful as you were.”

In that moment, Grimmjow knew the meaning of hate. He wished to wring his hands around Aizen’s throat and feel the crack of bone beneath his fingers. He wished to tear into his chest with teeth and claws and spill his entrails and gouge his eyes. A hideous snarl twisted his face, and for a time the warlord Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez was more beast than man.

“Put him down,” he said. “Do not touch—”

And then the ryoka turned his face, heedless of the divine blade at his heart and the god’s hand at his throat. He looked to Grimmjow with soft eyes and kind smile.

Cause for the ryoka’s solemn mood ever since they had departed Selae revealed itself now to Grimmjow with sudden clarity. The boy would not live beyond this day and he had known it for some time.

Why? Grimmjow wished to ask. Why did you come with me, knowing you would die?

A whisper nagged at the corner of his mind, a great feeling of unsettled angst which nipped at his heart and stalked his thoughts without rest. It was a sense of something important but forgotten, the very same sense that had seized Grimmjow in the moments before the lookout horn, and even before, during the battle at Selae when he had imagined Ichigo at his side and turned to find instead the ryoka fighting in mirrored image of his patron god.

Grimmjow could not shake his stare from the ryoka’s face. In that beautiful form that suffered and bled for his sake, he saw so stark an image that he was at once without words and without breath, a vision so impossible he would have fallen to his knees were he not already prone.

Our names are reserved for those who have faith in us, the ryoka had told him on their last night in Selae. It is believed that if a man has faith, he will know our names.

The tremors that seized Grimmjow’s body had nothing to do with Aizen’s presence or the chill air. His eyes were wide like coins.

Memories of the past weeks came over him like a great flood. How the ryoka would not cut his hair for Raahl, how he disregarded the usual traditions of respect and worship for the stars. How he claimed a named sword—Grimmjow turned eyes above to twice-broken Zangetsu—and how he had left that sword behind. The boy feasted on fresh fruit and on strawberries above all, and had Grimmjow not known all his life these were the favored gifts to his god? Each of these small peculiarities Grimmjow had noted and dismissed now came together with jarring force.

But though his world had come to stand still, the rest of the world had not. Aizen raised sword once more and Grimmjow knew the next wound he delivered was meant to kill. The blade fell.

“No!”

His cry was lost in a rush of wind and clash of steel. A powerful gale kicked up a plume of dirt that obscured earth and sky and Grimmjow turned face away to shield his eyes from debris.

The dust settled.

The ryoka lay crumpled on the ground and the earth beneath his body stained dark with blood. A third man stood now between him and Aizen, but Grimmjow knew from first glance that this too was no man.

Ghost, came Grimmjow’s first thought, for this new god appeared like an apparition in white robes and skin and hair pale as the moon above. His eyes glittered golden like a snake’s, but where should have been white around the irises there was black instead. Black-nailed fingers clutched the hilt of a white sword locked against Aizen’s.

His power steeped the earth and rolled from his body in near visible eddies at his feet, more chaotic but no less formidable than Aizen’s. He turned to look at the ryoka and Grimmjow saw they had the same face.

“King!” the white god shouted. “Rise! We must—”

Aizen pulled back and struck again, and the white god parried. The earth shook, the sound of their clashing swords deafening as thunder, the flash of light where the blades met white like lightning.

In the shadow of earth-shattering blows, Grimmjow crawled. His muscles burned under the festering power of two gods locked in battle, his bones ached, and his fingers clawed mud to pull himself forward. By painstaking inches, he crept through filth and mire on his belly like the mud worm Aizen deemed him, towards the ryoka whose blood pooled wider with every beat of his heart.

“Ryoka…”

Grimmjow reached him. The ryoka’s eyes fluttered open, and his gaze peeled back the armor around Grimmjow’s trembling soul.

“That is not my name,” he said.

The warlord nodded. His throat drew tight under a noose of shame. “No. I understand now. I know your name.”

“Then speak it.”

Grimmjow's heart thundered in his ears. He met the other's eyes and found there unyielding strength from which he borrowed. Absent doubt, absent fear, he uttered words almost too heavy to speak.

“You are Ichigo.”

Beneath the fang of a sickle moon, the heavens tore open. The night turned white.

Chapter 15: The Final Breaking of Zangetsu

Light brighter than the sun swallowed all of creation and pierced Grimmjow’s eyes behind closed lids. He braced himself and bowed his head under a mighty wind that appeared from nowhere. Debris pelted the earth, carried by a gale so powerful he felt as though caught in one of the massive wind and wave storms that often battered these coastal lands.

The cries of many men rose entwined with the wind’s howl. With faces pressed to the earth in forced worship, a hundred thousand warriors laid in helpless repose like mice before lions, their battle aborted and their war reduced to children’s quarrel in the shadow of a struggle between gods.

The light faded, and it was night once more. By slow inches, Grimmjow raised his head.

Long orange hair settled against the dying wind. The ryoka knelt by one knee with back to Grimmjow, and in his hand he clasped a long, slender sword struck upright into the earth like a pike. The blade, guard, and hilt drank all light like no metal Grimmjow had ever seen, blacker than the deepest night. Its power seeped deep into earth and air, a subtle caress like silk on Grimmjow’s skin.

Above, the constellation of the great sword had vanished. Grimmjow stared like a blind man given sight, eyes wide as though he would never see again and void of breath like one half drowned. The truth lay before him unyielding and irrefutable.

The ryoka was Ichigo.

Grimmjow trembled in body and heart. The nameless boy he had grown close to was a god in mortal skin and Grimmjow had been deaf and blind to all signs. And he was no common god; he was Ichigo—Grimmjow’s god, if ever a man could lay claim to a god, the patron star to whom he had devoted greatest affection.

Ichigo the protector pulled himself upright, one hand bearing Zangetsu and the other bracing himself across the midsection. The wound in his flank wept blood in a steady stream through caged fingers, and the sight of it shook Grimmjow from his reverie.

The visions that had haunted his sleep in recent nights returned now in vivid form. His dreams of the ryoka and of Ichigo had been one and the same.

Even gods can die, the ryoka had told him, and Grimmjow understood now these words and visions born of divine foresight. Dread reached cold hands deep into his belly and wrenched tight his innards.

“Ichigo!”

The white face of a skull-masked demon turned to meet him.

Grimmjow flinched back, for he had expected the ryoka but found himself looking instead into the face of a great horned demon. Not all legends painted Ichigo as the handsome youth of his imaginings. There were many that described him as a fearsome, skull-faced demon, and as Grimmjow’s eyes passed down the length of the demon-god’s body, he saw just how true the legends spoke.

But for the hair, no trace remained of the ryoka boy Grimmjow knew. The color of his skin was like marble, the hard cut of his muscles equally so. Streaks of black traced his flesh from shoulders to chest and again down and over his back. Hands and feet were tipped in white claws.

This was not the ryoka boy Grimmjow had grown affection for. This was a beautiful, terrifying god in his native skin, a living sculpture of white stone and iron will. Perhaps the ryoka had never existed at all.

But then the monster lifted its mask with blood-slick fingers. The ryoka’s face stared back at him from behind the skull, his eyes golden on black sclera.

“Grimmjow.”

The warlord shuddered to hear his name fall from the tongue of a god, but the voice that spoke it was familiar. His unease at the fearsome mask waned. The demon-god was fierce, and yet this fierceness was born not against Grimmjow, but in his defense.

“Thank you.”

For what?

No answer was given. The mask fell back in place.

Aizen and the white god had ceased their fighting, and both now turned to Ichigo.

“King!” said the white god. His strange eyes fell first to his master’s wound and then to his face.

Ichigo made towards Aizen, Zangetsu clutched in hand with purposeful strength. The earth drank deep his blood with every step. “Stand down, Shirosaki.”

Shirosaki.

Grimmjow reeled once more. This was the white star of Zangetsu, who had disappeared from the sky on the third night of Raahl. Born of the darkest instincts of his master’s heart, Shirosaki bore Ichigo’s strength and blade but possessed neither his restraint nor his benevolence. It was no wonder his power reeked of chaos and black death.

Shirosaki rushed forth, grasped his master by the shoulder, and for a wild moment Grimmjow expected to see his white sword plunge into Ichigo’s chest. But the pale beast only barred Ichigo’s path. His nails bit deep and drew blood from Ichigo’s skin even as he bore his master’s sagging weight.

“You are wounded,” he said. His face twisted and his eyes burned deep. “I will—”

They met eyes. A hundred words passed between them carried by silence. Shirosaki turned, gaze askance, and his hands fell from his master’s shoulders to knot into fists at his side. Ichigo continued.

Aizen regarded the approaching god with a passionless face, but though he stood as though at ease, his fingers held the hilt of his blade in white-knuckled grasp.

“So you have broken the seal of heaven. It would have befitted you to die as one of the mud creatures you so love, but no matter.” Aizen reached out his empty hand, palm up, as though to demonstrate the folly of Ichigo’s defiance for all to see. “When last we met, it took all your strength and Seireitei behind you to imprison me. Tonight you stand alone. You cannot fight on equal footing with me so wounded.”

The deviant god’s words cut Grimmjow to the bone with ice. He was right. Ichigo had defied all of heaven to return to earth and he stood now abandoned by his kin in defense of Grimmjow and his people. The wound in his belly bled deep. How could he walk with such a wound? How would he fight with it?

But the skull-faced god stood unmoved. “It has been long since we last fought, Aizen. Do not think me the child I was then. Your quarrel is with me and with Seireitei. You had no right to involve the humans.”

Aizen tilted his head to one side. Cruelty filled his smile and brimmed over in abundance. “What better way to draw your attention? I believed the ruin of men would draw them from their white palaces above, but it seems they have learned well from our last war. Their love for this world has waned. Of all gods, only you returned.”

Ichigo did not answer. He stood unwavering, a statue in white skin, the horned mask veiling all thought and mood. Eagle-gold eyes watched the deceiver long and deep.

A ripple stirred still waters and then a splash. Composure held close to the breast rocked loose and ugly rage turned Aizen’s face, nettled to insult by something in Ichigo’s silent regard. “Cease your attempts to uncover my heart. My will is not to be known to one like you!” He raised his sword.

Sudden thunder shook the ground and a flash of white light stung Grimmjow’s eyes. Aizen and Ichigo stood now inches apart, swords crossed between their faces. Grimmjow’s mind did not follow. Had they not, just a heartbeat earlier, been several paces apart? When had they moved?

The earth cracked. A great chasm yawned wide between the two gods and stretched a black line as far as Grimmjow could see. Awe eclipsed dread.

Just a single blow parried between gods had power enough to split the earth. A battle between them here would destroy both armies of men caught in the crossfire.

Ichigo realized the same, for he pulled free his blade and fell back. “I will not fight you here.”

For answer, Aizen swung his sword out to one side. He cut only open air, yet where the blade pointed, the flesh of many men opened wide and blood watered the ground. Their cries rose in sharp peaks and fell just as swiftly. Grimmjow knew them to be dead, but though he had witnessed this by his very eyes he did not understand. The blades of gods reached even where they did not touch.

Aizen spared the dead men not even a glance but met Ichigo’s silent rage with cold humor. “Do you also weep for ants crushed where you walk?”

Ichigo’s fists clenched tight and his heels dug deep in pliant ground. “Shirosaki.”

The white god stepped forth, weightless on ready feet and bearing his sword like a snake smelling prey. His lips stretched wide, the light of Kenpachi’s madness in his eyes—

“I forbid you to follow me.”

Shirosaki flinched as though struck. His smile twisted to violent displeasure, the turn of his mood lightning-swift. He opened mouth with protest ripe on tongue, but Ichigo turned from him and spoke again.

“Grimmjow.”

The warlord wished to rise. The eyes of his god were upon him, and Grimmjow wished to meet them with pride, yet he could only lie in wretched mud and look up at the magnificent creature before him.

“This battle between men is over,” Ichigo said, and though he spoke to Grimmjow, his voice carried on fell air to be heard by all. “Take your warriors and retreat to the hills. Should I fall, defend your people unto your last breath.”

But having said this, he paused. His eyes did not part from Grimmjow’s for a long moment, and the man wondered what might be said, if only he could hear Ichigo’s unspoken words like Shirosaki.

At length, Ichigo turned from him. “Aizen, what began between us long ago ends tonight.” He raised Zangetsu, and on its blade died the light of moon and stars. “We finish this now.”

The deceiver smiled black malice, and in an instant, both were gone.

...

Grimmjow knew not where they went, only that they had moved again faster than eyes could follow to take their battle elsewhere. Only Shirosaki remained, gaze cast skyward and his white sword clutched in hand, idle and frustrated.

He seemed to have forgotten Grimmjow and all the humans who lay sprawled at his feet, but finally he turned eyes from sky above to mud below.

“Rise,” he commanded Grimmjow, but still the warlord could not. Though two gods had now departed and taken their oppressive presence with them, Shirosaki remained, and his power lingered thick in lungs and bones.

Shirosaki recognized his error, and by slow measure, the tide of his power receded to draw tighter around his form. The air was tolerable once more, and Grimmjow’s head grew light as fresh breath filled his throat.

He pulled himself to his feet. To his right and left, behind and before him, men stirred, obedient to Ichigo’s final words for they had forgotten their battle in the shadow of two gods freshly departed and one yet amongst them. They looked to the white star of Zangetsu with fearful whispers and wary eyes. Great masses fell to hands and knees or lay fully prone on their bellies with faces pressed to the earth not by force of the white god’s power but by primal instinct which called for submission.

Of all men, Grimmjow alone stood tall, commanded so by Shirosaki.

The god’s eyes glittered like gold newly smelted. “Pray for my king’s victory.” His power brushed Grimmjow’s skin like the flicker of a snake’s tongue. A thirsting smile pulled wide his white lips. “For absent him, I am a caged beast freed. Absent him, I am death.”

A black cloud chilled Grimmjow’s heart. Unlike his master, Shirosaki had no love for men. Ichigo alone held sway over his vicious, destructive nature, and should the protector fall, no force on earth below or heaven above would bar the white god from bringing his chaos to all of humanity.

Men had as much to fear from Shirosaki as they did from Aizen.

Grimmjow reached for Pantera by force of instinct at this threat, but the snake’s jaws did not open. The flickering tongue retreated behind hidden fangs and then, much like his master, Shirosaki turned and vanished.

...

All men knew when the battle between gods began.

Thunder crashed, and lightning seared the sky yet accompanied by neither rain nor clouds. The storm brewing above was no true storm. The old legends claimed that when gods fought, the earth moved and reshaped, the seas rose to swallow land, and the night stretched without dawn.

Never before had Grimmjow considered such tales had been told in literal truth, but now he understood. In the age when the moon had been alone in the night sky, men had witnessed their gods in battle and recorded these tales observed by their own eyes and ears. And now legend was made flesh.

Around him, men rose to unsteady feet. All eyes were cast above. Grimmjow took note of the western warriors, but they seemed now smaller and extinguished of their unnatural might. With Aizen absent, they were merely men once more. One passed him, and though he spared a wary glance at the warlord, neither moved to attack the other. Mutual understanding stayed their weapons.

When gods raised swords, men sheathed theirs.

Ichigo had instructed him, and though heart and mind both reeled from all that had just transpired, Grimmjow would not fail his god’s order. With shouted commands, he drew back his men from the field of battle. The western army cast uncertain glances to left and right as though without a head. They did nothing.

Grimmjow’s army retreated to the hills and waited. Above, the storm raged on.

...

Chaos swallowed the camp. In the wake of battle suddenly aborted, the nervous energy of men snatched from action welled in unsettled feet and restless hands and pooled like static charge.

Word spread through Grimmjow’s warriors like a plague unchecked, but he had no mind for any but his own thoughts. Many sought counsel with the warlord, for it became known he had been present at the center of this conflict between gods, but Grimmjow refused audience to all. He retreated to the highest point on the rock cliff where trees and hills did not obscure the sky, and turned eyes and ears to the battle above.

Grimmjow felt like a ghost—divorced from his own body, at once without weight and so heavy he could not raise feet from the ground. Even now, it did not seem real. Even now, he felt as though he had not woken from the previous night, caught perhaps in a dream with no end.

Ichigo.

His beloved god had been at his side for all this time. He had fought at Grimmjow’s back, shared his food and drink, and even slept close enough to touch.

The priest at Selae had told him this—that Ichigo walked the earth in mortal guise, and yet not once had Grimmjow suspected the god might stand so close. He had worshipped and prayed and heaped gifts on white altars and not once had he dared to truly think of the star given flesh and blood.

Grimmjow closed tight his eyes and turned his face aside. He fell to knees and hands. Though no god was present to demand his worship, shame weighed his head to bow and his shoulders to fall. He had pride enough to bow before no man, pride enough even to rage against his death at the hands of a god, but he did not have pride enough for this.

He had strayed far, unknowing like a man both blind and deaf but with eyes open and ears unscathed.

And now Ichigo was wrested in battle alone and wounded against Aizen the deceiver whose power stretched so vast that even all gods together had only ever been able to imprison him.

Sorrow reached deep roots into Grimmjow’s heart, and though the oppressive power of gods had departed this air, now he labored to breathe by new cause.

Pray for my king’s victory, Shirosaki had said.

So Grimmjow prayed. Neither for forgiveness nor for the salvation of his people, but for the god whose protection he had once begged, whom he could not protect in return.

...

For seven days and seven nights, the earth trembled.

Shirosaki did not appear again and neither did the sun. Men whispered fearful thoughts that perhaps the sun may never rise again and this was the end of days.

Grimmjow prowled the camp like a beast. He did not rest the first night or the second, but on the third day exhaustion overtook him and he fell to restless sleep and woke with gnawing hunger but no desire to quell it. Shawlong pressed him to eat, but his insistence earned him only a close encounter with Pantera and a bowl of upturned stew. He did not press again.

The men took caution of their lord, for this was not one of Grimmjow’s usual ill moods. When oft the man would bark his annoyances and seek cause to draw his sword, now he was silent and sought no company. He had no mind for the keeping of his army, leaving such matters to other men and instead spent long hours turned to the sky watching and listening to distant battle.

The other stars did not falter. Grimmjow studied them many a time over, seeking each constellation he knew by heart and counting each star that had a name, waiting for even one to disappear and hoping that this battle might move even one of these other gods to lend their aid. He prayed; he begged but to no end, and in their silence he knew their answer: Ichigo was alone in this battle.

With no sun, it was difficult to judge time, but they counted the days by the cycles of sleep and wake. On the fourth day, the northernmost land still visible from their hills split wide and the sea rushed in to fill the new valley. In the midst of the sleep period on the fifth day, men woke to deafening rumbles to find the mountain range to their south crumbling into the earth.

The sea rose and fell by turns, churned to white foam and immense waves, at times so low the beach stretched beyond sight and fish dried on white sand or so high it forced Grimmjow’s army to ever higher ground.

Earth and sky and sea alike were the field for this battle between gods.

On the eve of the seventh day, the fight drew near, and Grimmjow’s men cowered in the shadow of preternatural lightning and thunder. They lowered to knees and bellies, hands raised to heaven with palms upturned in supplication, their prayers rising in mortal chorus to the stars.

Grimmjow alone stood, one hand upon Pantera’s hilt for comfort. It was impossible to follow the battle by sight, impossible to know how Ichigo fared, but that the fight wore on meant he still lived. He clutched at this small hope like a man at the edge of a sheer cliff, but fear for Ichigo tempered his grasp to tenderness.

Few men chased sleep that night. Grimmjow paced a restless trail at the cliff’s edge, his belly in knots and his spirit torn by sorrow in one hand and fear in the other. And then, in the early hours when the camp was very quiet and the thundering battle above gave pause, Grimmjow glimpsed them at last.

They stood on clouds as men stood on earth, at last still enough, whether by exhaustion or intent, that mortal eyes could follow. Though they were but two small figures in a dark sky, Grimmjow knew Ichigo by the moon’s gleam upon his great horns and long hair.

Reverent whispers rose behind Grimmjow as many thousands turned their eyes above. The warlord heard his own pulse in ears, and though his heart pounded a thundering rhythm, each beat slowed and stretched to the length of many lifetimes.

He watched the godly swords move as though by inches in mirrored image of each other, but at the final instant when the blades were meant to cross, Aizen turned his sword to thrust at heart and Ichigo moved to parry.

Zangetsu shattered in two.

Ichigo staggered. He fell a step towards Aizen who grasped him by the hair at his nape. From the center of his back sprouted Aizen’s blade like a single wing stretching towards the stars.

Helplessness choked Grimmjow. He reached for Ichigo, but he had no wings to bear him closer. He could only stand in filthy mud to watch this terrible injustice play out beyond his reach.

Mud creature, Aizen had called him. How right he was.

The deceiver held Ichigo close like a lover embraced, his clutch of hair forcing the masked face up as he leaned forth to whisper words Grimmjow could not hear.

But Ichigo was not yet empty of spirit. In one hand he held the hilt of his broken sword, and the other lifted to clasp Aizen’s blade. He stood, and in the same motion that he pulled himself up, he drove the sword deeper into his own chest.

Aizen faltered. He strove to retreat, but Ichigo’s grasp on his sword forbade their parting. In one fell plunge, Ichigo raised broken Zangetsu high and brought it down where blade met guard. Aizen’s sword broke.

Head bowed like a man seeking prayer, Ichigo pitched forth and his great horns drove deep and speared the deceiver through the throat and chest. Zangetsu rose once more, and this time it found home in Aizen’s heart.

They stood frozen in deadly embrace for the length of a single moment stretched to infinity. And then, like splinters of glass, the great horns shattered, and next the mask, and the ryoka was himself once more. Zangetsu pulled free.

They separated, and under the eyes of worshipping men and immovable stars, they fell.

Chapter Text

Chapter 16: He Chased Red to the Dawn

Like fire, like lightning, two stars burned across black canvas of night in their fall to earth below.

Aizen fell to the hillsides to their west, but Grimmjow had eyes only for the star falling to their south, towards the crumbled rock landscape where mountains had once stretched proud and tall towards the sky. Ichigo streaked a ribbon of dark red, like old blood an hour spilt, down and down until he was no more.

The earth trembled once more as it accepted a star into its fold, a quiet, final shudder that rippled under Grimmjow’s feet and whispered to his bones. And then all was still.

Grimmjow was not still. His feet carried him to the southern slope of the cliff, and he had begun his descent before other men had even risen.

A swift hand clasped his arm, and in a flash, Grimmjow unsheathed Pantera and held the blade to Ulquiorra’s pale throat.

His breath rattled like dry husks and his voice rasped hoarse as though spent by many screams. “Remove yourself from my path.”

Ulquiorra did not waver. His dark brows knotted tight and low over his eyes. “An enemy army yet awaits our judgment,” he said, and he cast a hand out towards the mass of men in the valley below. “You are warlord of this nation. You must—”

Fevered light consumed Grimmjow’s eyes, and where Pantera’s threat did not loosen Ulquiorra’s hand, the madness in his face did. The pale man hastened a step back, hand upon the hilt of his own sword.

Grimmjow passed. He took the reins of a black warhorse in his path, and mounting himself astride the beast, made for the place where Ichigo had fallen.

The sun rose with the dawn over land that drank deep its first light in seven days, but it did not reach Grimmjow’s troubled heart.

He urged his horse onward, driving the beast with heels in its flank as surely as grief drove its rider. A deep pit opened in his belly, and it yawned wide and hungry for the frantic thoughts and questions tearing at his mind. Of these there were many, but only one ruled his heart.

Did Ichigo still live?

Aizen had impaled him twice, once in the belly and again in the chest, and Grimmjow could not say how many other wounds Ichigo had taken in those seven days of fighting. Just the first would be enough to slay a man, yet Ichigo had continued to fight for seven days more.

The path to Ichigo’s resting place stretched long and empty. Removed from battle and chaos, Grimmjow’s mind occupied itself with ample regrets and a paucity of comforts. He mulled over the recent weeks, turning them back and forth over and over in his mind, in each memory new understanding and bitter regret both.

It all made sense now. How the ryoka had defeated him so easily in single-man combat when first they met, the way he did not worship the stars and ate freely when men were meant to sacrifice to gods, why he had preferred to have no name at all to a false name.

There was great power in invoking a god by name. Children were taught not to utter their stars’ names in vain, and amongst Grimmjow’s people, great care was taken not to speak of Aizen the deceiver. Grimmjow had fought battles in the ryoka’s presence. He had invoked Ichigo’s name for prayer and blood sacrifice at their starts not knowing his god stood just beside him.

He turned his face, eyes shut tight in hope that in his blindness, shame would also blindly pass him over.

How foolish he had been. How stupid, how blind, how shameful.

The sun was falling when grass underfoot gave way to rocky terrain where nothing green would grow. His horse would not fare well on such uneven ground, so Grimmjow tied the beast to a tree and prayed no wolves took it in the night.

Seven days ago, this land had been a mountain range. Now, it was a field of boulders and stone hills. Even mountains bowed and crumbled to gods.

Grimmjow embarked on foot. He looked to the sky and traced in his mind the path the red star had fallen, but the rock field stretched vast and open before him and he did not know where first to search. He should have brought more men with him. In his haste, he had come alone, but more eyes and ears would have seen his mission through in less time.

Yet another regret piled upon the mountain already weighing his shoulders. Grimmjow forged on.

He ran with mind detached from legs and body, like a man already dead. Grimmjow felt weightless; his feet flew over dirt and rock unfeeling and numb. The sun seized back its last rays, and night drew black veil over the land. All was dark.

Grimmjow knew not how long he searched. In the darkness, boulders stretched to mountains and flat ground to endless plains. He should have driven the horse faster. If he had been faster, there might still be some daylight to search under. He should have foreseen the night, he should have brought a lantern, he should have—

A body lay strewn across broken boulders.

Grimmjow stumbled blind, his boot caught in a crevice unseen, and a sharp stone pierced his hand when he caught himself in his fall. He bled but felt no pain.

Ichigo!

Forsaking dignity, forsaking safety, he crossed the distance in a scramble of graceless limbs. A sound most strange, like the throaty cry of a wounded beast, echoed and lingered in the stillness of deep night.

Grimmjow did not know the sound to be of his own voice. He fell heavily to his knees, robbed of strength and breath by a clutch of wild grief. In the pale light of a waxing moon, he beheld his god.

Ichigo lay on his back with arms outstretched, broken Zangetsu still in hand. The horned mask was no more; the black war markings were gone also. He looked once more like the ryoka boy Grimmjow had known for all this time. His skin was ghost white and the dark glisten of blood shimmered all around him in silver moonlight, painting rocks and seeped deep into earth. There was so much blood—Ichigo’s white skin was smeared with it; his long hair was awash in it.

The dread visions of Grimmjow’s dreams had become flesh.

Something fluttered before Grimmjow’s eyes. He blinked away blurry sight as a broad-winged butterfly drifted through the air like a wisp of smoke and came to rest on blood pooled by a dip in the rocks.

It was not alone. There was one resting on the ground at Ichigo’s hand, two more near his head, another in mid-flight. They were as black as Zangetsu, beautiful but strange. Watching these butterflies gathered around the fallen star, Grimmjow felt as though plucked from his own body.

But when he looked closer, he saw their long mouths unfurled in blood. The one in midair landed upon Ichigo’s chest, settled on the torn flesh of his wound, and began to drink.

Sudden fire tore through Grimmjow’s veins. Awareness and mind snapped a jarring return to body, and with a hoarse scream, he lunged forward and crushed the vile creature in his fist. It crumbled to dust, and the others took to the air. Pantera whistled a deadly tune until shreds of black wings rained to the ground like ashes.

Grimmjow cast Pantera aside. The blade clattered to a rest many paces away. He stood taken by two forces—his mind for rage and his heart for pity—but in the end sorrow ruled them both and he fell to hands and knees over the body of his god, chest heaving.

Grimmjow’s chest was torn open and his heart inside bled raw. His throat ached, his eyes stung.

There was not a spot on Ichigo untouched by blood. Grimmjow reached for the god and found his skin cold like marble, but soft. This was no statue of white stone. His god was true flesh torn and red blood spilled. Grimmjow sought peace; his hands knew none.

“Ichigo…”

It was no man’s right to lay casual hands upon a god, but there was no one near to witness his sin as he raised Ichigo’s body and sank into it. Blood seeped cold through Grimmjow’s clothes. He clutched fingers in wet hair and brought Ichigo’s head in tender cradle against his shoulder.

I am sorry.

The change from man to god had happened when the fog lifted from his eyes and he spoke Ichigo’s name. Grimmjow could not say why or how, but he was certain now the god’s power had been tied to him. This was the unspoken plea the ryoka had begged of him during the battle at Selae and again just before the lookout horn.

How might the battle have turned if Grimmjow had realized this sooner? Perhaps Ichigo would not have suffered that first wound by Aizen’s hands. Perhaps he could have entered battle unhindered, on equal terms with the deceiver.

He hid his face in Ichigo’s hair.

Perhaps he would not have followed in Kaien’s path.

...

Grimmjow sat unmoving until the first light of pitiless dawn, when at last the warmth of morning drew him from his mind where time did not advance.

He stood on stiff knees and dead feet and retrieved Pantera. After a thought, he loosened Ichigo’s fingers from Zangetsu’s hilt and wrapped the broken sword in his pelt to sling over his back. And finally, he knelt and gathered Ichigo.

The burden in his arms weighed more than it should, but his heart weighed heavier still.

Grimmjow found his horse tied where he had left it. He took the reins and mounted the beast with Ichigo astride in front of him. The position ached in its familiarity; it had not been long since he had last shared a horse with Ichigo, but the memory invited bitterness in place of comfort. Grimmjow braced Ichigo with one hand across the chest as they began a plodding pace.

Ruined flesh seeped blood against Grimmjow’s palm. He shuddered, but endured, for there were precious few spots on the god’s body clean of blood or wound. He had fallen again to numbness when he felt it.

A shy thump against his palm, like the wing beat of a caged bird.

Grimmjow woke as though from a dream. It could not be—!

He pressed his palm tighter to Ichigo’s chest, his grasp tight but hope frail. Against all odds he waited, and it would take naught but a breeze to tip him from the pinnacle of lofty hope and plunge him once more to despair.

The silence stretched to torturous length, and then—a second, tenuous beat against his palm to strengthen his spirit. And soon a third, to perish all doubt.

Grimmjow sat stricken to silence and stillness. He could not release Ichigo’s chest, for tethered now to this fragile beat was Grimmjow’s own heart, and should it stop, so too would his.

His chest clenched and brimmed full to aching. He tasted salt on his lips.

The first fall of tears came from eyes that had long forgotten how to weep. His shoulders, once mighty enough to bear the hopes of a nation and the command of an army, fell at last under the dizzying ascent to hope and relief from the deepest valley of sorrow.

Over the body of his god, Grimmjow broke.

...

Chased half to madness by a spirit both frantic and wild, Grimmjow drove his horse with pitiless haste.

He had spared little time to indulge his weary spirit, for tears were useless and would bring no aid. Though Ichigo’s heart beat, his wounds were many and Grimmjow still feared for his life.

The healers stationed with his army lay a half-day's travel to the north, and that was to assume they still remained where Grimmjow had left them. Grimmjow would not wager his god’s life on this uncertainty, so he turned east instead and flew towards the coast.

Last he heard, his home village stood untouched by the invasion. It was not far. Two hours by horseback, less if he drove the beast harder. The healer of his village was an aging man with many decades of knowledge and experience. There could be no better choice.

If Grimmjow’s village had stood in peace for all these years of warfare, then the old healer must still live also.

He clasped Ichigo close and prayed for this to be true.

In the early hours of morning, Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez returned to the village of his birth for the first time in seven years, bearing no spoils but for an orange-haired boy cradled like gold against his chest.

His arrival stirred waves in a quiet village just beginning to wake, not only by the suddenness of his return but also by the news he claimed.

A god, he said the boy was—Ichigo the protector, the red star vanished from the night seven years ago. And the half blade Grimmjow bore on his back was Zangetsu, the great sword twice broken in heaven above, vanished a week ago, and now broken again.

And when they doubted, when they looked to the grieving lord with pitying eyes for his mind broken under the hardships of war, Grimmjow unsheathed Pantera and swore to bleed them of their faithlessness.

He had no need to. The village healer needed no proof of godhood to fear for a wounded boy’s life. He brought them both to the sick house, where Grimmjow wrenched from him a solemn promise:

“I will do all in my power to save this boy you love. You have my word, Lord Jaegerjaquez.”

...

The healer worked with few words, speaking only to his young aide, a red-haired girl Grimmjow did not know, when he had need to. He cleaned Ichigo’s wounds first, and when the blood washed away to reveal the true extent of the damage, Grimmjow’s heart broke once more.

His god’s wounds were beyond counting.

And now at last, the healer did not doubt the truth in Grimmjow’s claims. Such wounds would slay any man, yet this boy clung to life with greater than mortal strength. The old man paused just long enough to pay the proper obeisance in kneeling form, and then he looked to Grimmjow.

“You have brought a god to this humble healer’s care,” he said, shaking his head.

Grimmjow’s eyes shone fierce, but his broad shoulders slumped. “Save him.”

Hours passed. The red-haired girl came and went with many buckets of water from the well, boiling and setting them aside to cool, passing fresh linens and needles and knives to the healer and taking soiled cloth away. The old man labored long with blood-slick hands, at times almost wrist-deep in the wounds, and Grimmjow spared a moment for grim gratitude that Ichigo was not awake to feel pain.

Grimmjow had always thought himself knowledgeable on how much blood a body could hold, but Ichigo proved him wrong. His blood flowed slower now but still without end, a boundless tide enough to drown the world in. It covered the table, pooled on the floor, stained linens, turned water red. It painted Grimmjow’s hands with a sticky film that did not dry.

It would never wash clean, nor should it. For his failure, Ichigo’s blood would forever be on his hands.

When at last the healer stopped, the sun was beginning to fall. His robes stained more red than white, and the stench of blood lingered thick like rancid honey in summer air. Ichigo lay silent and still like a corpse, his skin ghost-white as his linen bandages. His pulse fluttered like an infant bird under Grimmjow’s fingers.

Red rimmed the warlord’s eyes. He had not slept in two days. With a heavy sigh, he put his head in hands.

“What now?”

The healer wiped himself with a fresh cloth, and the blood cleaned from his wrinkled hands with an ease that Grimmjow envied.

“Now, we wait.”

Chapter Text

Chapter 17: He Lays Diminished

Exhaustion weighed Grimmjow’s bones, but he had not yet earned his rest.

When the healer had gone, Grimmjow remained. He brought the last bucket of water close and set it between his feet before kneeling to scoop up Ichigo’s long hair.

It was matted and tangled beyond hope. He tried to comb his fingers through the mass, but they caught and pulled at crusted blood.

“Perhaps we should cut it.”

The healer’s aide stood behind him, bearing a pile of fresh linens in her arms that she set down on the supply shelf.

“What?” he growled.

“His hair.” She pointed to the mess in his hands and produced from her pocket a pair of shearing scissors, very like what herders used to harvest wool from sheep. “It will be difficult to keep clean while we tend to him. Perhaps it would be best—”

He sprang to his feet, and she hastened a step back, clutching the shears to her breast with wide eyes. He took no notice of the bucket knocked over or the water sloshing over his boots, for his mind was awash with memories from recent weeks—of the ryoka refusing to cut his hair before Raahl, of how he braided it before sleep, of the many times Grimmjow had searched and found him by its unusual length and color.

And here this common wench thought she had the right to lay hands on a god and cut his hair as she pleased—!

“Ah—I am sorry!” She held up her hands to cover mouth, face red. “I did not mean to presume—”

Grimmjow felt raw. His hands shook, whether by rage or exhaustion he did not know. How was it that even the blithering of an idiot girl could so easily incite his anger?

He kicked the empty bucket at her. It clattered across the stone floor and creaked like an old man’s knees. “Get out! And fetch me water.”

She took the bucket and ran.

When she returned, the shears were nowhere to be seen and she held instead a slab of soap and a wide-toothed comb. She set these down at Grimmjow’s feet along with a bucket of fresh water and skittered back half a dozen paces.

Grimmjow set to work. He first wet Ichigo’s hair in the bucket to loosen crusted blood and grime. It was slow work, for blood stuck to his scalp like glue and pasted the hair together in clumps, but Grimmjow separated the strands between his fingers with great care taken not to pull. His sight blurred; his head was light, and the floor spun in a dizzying tilt. He shook himself to keep the fog of sleep at bay.

“I…I can help. You should rest, Lord Jaegerjaquez!” The girl chanced a step closer. “My—my name is Orihime.”

Grimmjow ignored her, but when she knelt to take a clean rag to Ichigo’s bloody face, he bared his teeth, pinned her with bloodshot eyes, and she retreated once more as though from an ill-tempered cat. She bowed, and his baleful gaze followed her until she fled from the room.

Alone now with Ichigo at last, he returned to the task at hand.

With graceless hands, he ran through the fine strands of Ichigo’s hair first with his fingers and then with the comb. He tore hair loose more than once, and Grimmjow looked to each strand of orange fallen to the floor with stony frown and heavy heart.

This was not his hands’ native task. His hands had drawn an abundance of blood, cleaved to pieces men beyond counting. They strangled, they hit, they tore flesh from bone and life from flesh. In the language of destruction, of violent malice and bloodshed, Grimmjow’s hands could sing poetry on silvered tongue. In the art of healing, they were mute.

He persisted. Little by little, the hair flowed smoother as he worked out the knots and washed clean the blood.

By the time he finished, daylight had long faded and his eyes were strained, but at last he could run the comb through Ichigo’s hair without any catches. He retrieved a lamp and fresh water then settled down once more. The slab of soap lathered into pink foam and filled his nose with the scent of summer peonies. It was not to his taste, but as he worked the rich lather into Ichigo’s hair, he found it preferable to the smell of his god’s blood.

Two buckets more he fetched, until the water rinsed clean and no blood remained. Grimmjow patted the hair dry and used the remaining water to daub clean Ichigo’s face.

But when he finished, when Ichigo was mended and cleaned and he had no reason more to linger, still Grimmjow could not pull himself away.

It was time to rest. Grimmjow could not rest.

With skin so pale from blood lost, the wounded god bore great resemblance to Shirosaki. But even now in this humbled state, clinging to life by tenuous strength, there was a kingly grace to his white limbs and handsome face.

For so long, Grimmjow had wished for his god’s ear to hear his prayers, never dreaming, never daring to imagine he might one day know Ichigo in flesh. But he had. For nearly two months, Ichigo had been his constant companion, and he had not known this until his god lay at the mercy of his greatest foe.

There was so much he wished to say, so much he wished to ask. He rested his head in hands and squeezed shut his eyes.

You must wake, Ichigo. I must know why you have done this.  

...

Grimmjow fell to sleep but not to rest. He woke through the night with mind racing and blood cold, fearing the worst had passed until he found Ichigo’s pulse and soothed himself with its weak flutter.

Come morning, the healer returned to inspect the wounds and he looked to Grimmjow rousing in his chair. The warlord’s eyes were sunken in dark circles. His hair hung limp around his face and an abundance of filth, blood, and sweat pasted his clothes to his skin.

“Tend to yourself,” said the healer, and when Grimmjow bared his teeth, he added, “It is unbefitting to stand in a god’s presence in such a state.”

This moved Grimmjow at last. His gaze lingered on Ichigo a moment longer, but finally he turned and left.

In the light of early morning, he emerged from the sick house and beheld his home for the first time in many years.

The village stood quiet and still. A sparse scattering of people walked about, those early to rise to begin their day before the sun climbed high, and they passed Grimmjow with faces both reverent and wary. He knew a few faces, aged in the years of his absence, but many others were strange to him.

Snaking through the village heart was the main street which led to the market and descended down the hills towards the beach where Grimmjow had spent many lazy boyhood days swimming and diving for fish. There lay the grass fields where he once scoured for wild strawberries to bring to Ichigo’s shrine, and a little beyond that would be the shrine itself.

Nothing had changed, yet Grimmjow was a stranger in the only place that should have felt familiar to him.

He had once imagined his return to his home village, if ever he did return, would be a joyous occasion, but standing here now it seemed he had returned in body only. His heart had taken leave of his chest, his spirit divorced from flesh, and Grimmjow had no doubt what had stolen them both.

Behind him, in the sick house which had seen an abundance of sacred blood spilled, Grimmjow’s heart lay tired and fragile, beating inside the chest of a wounded god.

...

He returned an hour later freshly bathed from the river and dressed in clean garb taken from the clotheslines outside the sick house.

Ichigo lay in fresh bandages and the bittersweet smell of witcher’s herb lingered in the air. Orihime passed Grimmjow on her way out, bearing an armful of soiled linens. She put her head down and averted her gaze, and her steps took a clipped pace until she disappeared outside.

Grimmjow paid her no mind. He reclaimed his seat at Ichigo’s side where the healer remained, trimming the last of the bandages, and passed weary eyes down the length of the god’s body. No trace of blood remained, his many wounds hidden under swathes of white linen. His hair and face were clean and his limbs washed, but where once the tattered remnants of his trousers had covered, now a plain white cloth draped over his hips was the only guard of his modesty.

With a clamor, Grimmjow’s chair toppled as he stood up with rigid back and fists white-knuckled at his sides. The healer looked up at him.

“You uncovered him?” Grimmjow looked left and right and found the trousers discarded on the floor, cut apart down their length.

“It was necessary. Orihime washed all of him.”

Grimmjow’s head snapped back in the direction the girl had gone. “She what?”

The red-haired wench had stripped Ichigo and seen him bare when Grimmjow himself had not. She had touched and washed him in places only a lover had right to lay hands upon. Whore! Grimmjow’s teeth ground together so hard his jaw ached. He wished to trap her throat between his hands and wring until she frothed at the mouth, tear open her belly and make a noose of her entrails, break her arms and crush her face. Greedy, lustful bitch—

“It is her duty to tend to those ill and wounded,” said the healer.

This did not soothe Grimmjow. Orihime was a young woman, and unless her blood ran cold, she would not be blind to the god’s mortal form. It would be no oddity if her pulse quickened when she removed Ichigo’s trousers, or if she lost breath when she washed him.

And yet…

Even if the girl did lust for Ichigo, she was not alone in this sin. Cold doused the fire of Grimmjow’s vengeful thoughts.

Had Grimmjow not done the same? Had he not spilled seed to blasphemous thoughts of the god? He could not forget his transgression on the fifth night of Raahl, and for this memory of his own shame, Grimmjow closed his eyes.

The healer stood at last, taking his tools and unspent bandages with him. He cast the warlord a reproachful glance and shook his head. “Orihime’s sense of duty is greater than most,” he said. “Do not accuse her of imagined slights, Lord Jaegerjaquez.”

...

The next day, Ichigo fell to fever.

He woke delirious in the night, and Grimmjow was at his side, hopes high until he found the god incoherent and his skin hot and dry.

The healer and his aide worked day and night to soothe him, cooling his skin with cloths soaked in cold water, cleaning his wounds, and pressing him to drink. This last task proved most difficult, for Ichigo refused all water with what little strength he had remaining. But Grimmjow found him more willing when he raised the god’s shoulders and head in his lap and henceforth the task of making Ichigo drink fell to him.

With the greatest luxury afforded by the sick house’s austere supplies, Grimmjow prepared a more comfortable bed and moved Ichigo there. And then, with care not to indulge his profane lust, he replaced the scanty cloth preserving Ichigo’s dignity with a more modest lièqún from the market.

News arrived from beyond the village borders by a small company of warriors departed from the army Grimmjow had cast behind in his haste. At their front rode Ulquiorra Cifer, whose reputation parted the crowds gathered to greet him and whose words shook all:

Ichigo the protector, the long-missing star of Zangetsu, walked in mortal skin. His battle with Aizen the deceiver had been the cause for seven days of trembling earth and night with no sun. With a mere handful of words, the protector had ended their war, and the western army stood now with no head and scattered purpose. In the wake of battle, the warlord Jaegerjaquez had set out alone to search for Ichigo, and Ulquiorra had followed his trail here.

The people stirred. Where Grimmjow’s grief-maddened claims had moved few, Ulquiorra’s words were collaborated upon by the men in his company. There could be no doubt; an army of thousands had borne witness to these godly feats in the week past.

They had been remiss, the people murmured amongst themselves, first by meek whispers and then by lamenting cries. For seven years, they had strayed in their devotion to the protector, forsaken his shrines and neglected his offerings. And yet when the deceiver had descended upon their nation, still Ichigo had risen to defend them.

They gathered outside the sick house, bearing gifts of fruit and meat and flowers, and though the healer barred entry to all, the sick house saw no absence of men and women in prayer outside its doors at all hours of the day.

Ulquiorra sought counsel with Grimmjow on many matters, but at their head was that concerning the western army. What were they to do with these men who had invaded and violated their homeland?

They would wait for Ichigo to wake, said Grimmjow. Let the god decide their fate.

But Ulquiorra looked to the sick house, wherein Ichigo lay fevered at death’s gate. “And if Ichigo does not wake?”

Grimmjow’s face grew dark and in him dwelt a demon of rage, of destruction, of hunger for blood spilt and retribution exacted. And when he spoke, it was this demon which growled his poisoned words:

“Then let our land grow fertile on their corpses, sparing none.”

...

The fever persisted.

On the third day, the healer moved a second bed close to Ichigo’s, for Grimmjow would not leave the sick house but to retrieve supplies when Orihime could not. On the fifth, Orihime washed Ichigo once more, but this time she labored under Grimmjow’s eagle-sharp eyes. He did not permit her to finish. When her duty called for her to remove the lièqún, Grimmjow could bite his tongue no longer, and his displeasure needed no words to cow the girl into stepping back.

When Orihime fled outside, Grimmjow took her place and finished her work himself.

That night, he lay awake in his bed, listening to the slow in-out of Ichigo’s breath and soothing himself with its rhythm. It would not stop, even should Grimmjow fall asleep. Ichigo would continue breathing through the night, his heart would beat on, and in the morning he would be a step further from death’s door.

Grimmjow wrapped this thought around him like a blanket and closed his eyes.

He was beginning to dream when the gentle ebb and flow of Ichigo’s breath swelled to deeper tide. Ichigo shifted beneath his blankets, a gasp upon his lips, and Grimmjow roused at once and kicked aside his covers.

“Ichigo?” he said as he knelt at the god’s side. Perhaps Ichigo was delirious still. Should he try to coax him to drink again? The healer had said to make him drink every six hours, and surely it had been six hours since the last—

“Grimmjow…” Ichigo’s eyes opened.

The warlord froze. Though this was not the first Ichigo had spoken in the week past, now his eyes were clear and his voice held purpose. This did not seem to be a fever rambling.

Ichigo sighed deep and long. He spoke in halting bursts, with labored breath and slow words. “I do not know…if you are real or another of my phantoms…”

“I am no phantom!” said Grimmjow, eager to discern himself from fever-dreams. He surged forward yet stopped shy of clasping the god’s hand. This gesture he yearned to take, but uncertainty and reverence stayed his hand. This was not like the time he had clutched Ichigo’s broken body to his chest and wept over him—where none had borne witness to his casual touch then, now Ichigo was awake and to touch him unwelcome would be an act of profanity.

Grimmjow fisted large hands in the sheets. “Save your strength, Ichigo. Do not speak.”

He looked about, but the night was deep, and both healer and aide were absent. But Ichigo did not need them just now, did he? He suffered no distress. His wounds had been freshly cleaned and wrapped, and his fever had not worsened.

“Can you drink?”

Ichigo gave a slow nod, and Grimmjow rose. “I will fetch some water.”

He returned with more than water. The door of the sick house saw an abundance of food offerings delivered by the people of the village. Under the healer’s watch, Grimmjow had tried to feed Ichigo throughout the week, giving him first small bites and then pieces already chewed to softness as mothers prepared for their babes. But in his delirium, Ichigo accepted nothing. He coughed up what little they coaxed down his throat and choked on the rest. Perhaps now that he was awake and of clear mind, Ichigo would eat at last.

Grimmjow set aside the food. He had chosen a selection of fresh fruit, hopeful that Ichigo’s preference for sweetness might tempt his appetite. There was also meat and vegetables, if he had stomach for something heartier. But first, he would help Ichigo drink.

He sat at the head of the bed and lifted Ichigo’s head and shoulders into his lap. Even with the greatest care he could manage, every movement must pull at the god’s many wounds, but Ichigo did not complain.

Cradled between Grimmjow’s arm and chest, Ichigo peered up at the warlord. He did not look like a god. He looked like a mortal, too-pale boy wrapped in too many bandages and possessed of too little strength. Grimmjow’s belly clenched.

This was not Ichigo as he should be.

Ichigo was a fearsome warrior—gut spiller, corpse maker, a red star that shone with light of old blood and burned with the strength of new fire. He was power, he was strength, he was the unshakeable will that had taken the court of gods by storm and defied their law once, twice, three times hence. He was a mighty, skull-faced demon god who shattered mountains and roiled the seas. That was how he was meant to be.

Not this. Not this white-skinned half-corpse.

By the stars, it hurt to see him so frail, so diminished. Grimmjow’s chest ached. His heart knew pain as birds knew air.

The water was cool and fresh, and Grimmjow tipped the bowl to Ichigo’s lips. He took the water in small sips, and Grimmjow pulled back often as the healer had taught him lest he drink too much at once and retch it back up.

“Can you eat?” he asked, once Ichigo would drink no more.

“I have no desire.”

Grimmjow frowned. Ichigo had not eaten in so long. An ordinary man would be ravenous, but the fever had stolen not only Ichigo’s strength but his appetite also, and he seemed thinner than Grimmjow remembered.

He looked over the food he had brought. With Ichigo so quiet and still, perhaps he had stomach only for light fruit and water. He chose a fat red strawberry from the pile and held it to Ichigo’s lips. “Eat.”

The god favored strawberries. He had gorged himself on them in Selae, stuffing them two and three at a time into his mouth and always hungry for more. Grimmjow hoped some of that appetite might make itself known now.

The part of Ichigo’s lips came slow, the kittenish flicker of his tongue shy. He took the fruit in two small bites and chewed with worrying languor. But his slow swallow marked the first successful feeding Grimmjow had managed and lifted his spirit greatly for such a small victory.

A handful of berries more he took from the pile, and this time he cut them first with Pantera’s clean blade before offering the morsels to Ichigo. Each bite took Ichigo long to finish, but the wait did not nettle Grimmjow as matters requiring great patience often did.

He breathed a quiet sigh and leaned back in a more comfortable pose. Though not as broad or as heavily muscled as the warlord, Ichigo was a solid, pleasant weight against Grimmjow’s chest.

Sitting here, with his god resting against him, Grimmjow’s spirit felt more rested than his body. Sorrow, grief, and despair had been his loyal companions this week past. But now sidled close to these came a curious calm contentment that at first drew insult to the gravity of his god’s condition, but soon eclipsed all else.

In this duty, he had righteous cause to hold Ichigo, for the god had not the strength to bear his own weight. In this duty, to touch Ichigo was not profane.

He offered the fruit in small pieces and with great pause between each bite not to prolong this moment, but so that Ichigo did not choke. He embraced the god half in his lap not to hold him close, but to ease the strain of his feeding. These arguments Grimmjow made to himself with great ardor, but when Ichigo had filled his shrunken stomach and fell again to sleep, the warlord scrabbled for further reason not to release him.

In this came a struggle of mind Grimmjow sought to forget by observing his god.

Ichigo’s skin was still too white but for the fever-pink of his cheeks. His lips were stained red by the recent meal, and they parted with a wet glisten that caught the moon’s light through the window.

He is beautiful.

The madness that such a thought would come at this ill-suited moment did not occur to him. Grimmjow stared. He stared as though he had never seen this boy before, drinking in the sight of him until unease of clinging to now-expired duty overcame audacity and no longer could he feign just cause to embrace him.

He lingered. He faltered. But at great length he released Ichigo from arms made cumbersome with reluctance and laid him to rest. Grimmjow pulled the covers to his chin and retreated to his own bed.

Outside, wind stirred mournful whispers through the trees.

The night was short.

Chapter Text

Chapter 18: A Thousand Lonely Years

From that night forth, Ichigo roused more easily, and Grimmjow seldom left his side to ensure he was the first face to greet the god each time he woke.

The healer and his aide bowed and called him lord, and Grimmjow wondered if he should do the same. But the title felt stiff on the tongue and the first time he used it, Ichigo shook his head and bid him to rise from folded knees.

“They may call me lord, or king, or god if they wish,” said Ichigo. “But it is never to fall from your lips and you are never to kneel to me, Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez.”

Grimmjow did not bow again.

Ichigo was still weak. He could neither drink nor eat without aid, so Grimmjow was ever present when he needed either. Orihime, with her full red hair and ample bosom and pretty face, was an ever-unwelcome presence, a vulture at the edge of Grimmjow’s contentment.

There would come a day when Ichigo was healed and he had no more need for Grimmjow’s touch. So Grimmjow savored what he could and claimed all Ichigo’s needs his own to fulfill.

Ichigo ate more now but still only small pieces of fruit: strawberries, which Grimmjow fed to him in thin slices, and sweet persimmons and peaches, when he had taste for something richer. But the healer claimed a healing body had greater need for meat, so Grimmjow searched among the many food offerings delivered daily to the sick house and returned to Ichigo with a warm bowl of beef stew. The meat had been stewed to tenderness, but Grimmjow cut the pieces even smaller before feeding Ichigo.

A few days more passed before his fever broke, and now at last the healer turned to Grimmjow with wary hope for the first time since the warlord’s return to his home village. “The fever has not claimed his life. Our lord may live.”

That night, Grimmjow washed the sweat from Ichigo’s body. Though this should have been Orihime’s task, Grimmjow had sent the girl running once more and barked at her not to return until morning.

The healer’s words should have brought him relief, yet his heart tonight was no lighter.

Ichigo lay awake, breathing easier than he had in many days, and though his skin was still too pale, his pulse had grown stronger and less frantic by far. He followed the warlord’s movements, his lucid gaze a prickle on Grimmjow’s skin.

A multitude of questions pressed to the fore of Grimmjow’s mind and not only those of his own choosing. Ulquiorra had appeared twice more at the sick house door demanding orders and decisions from Grimmjow over the command of his army, but regarding the fate of the western invaders, Grimmjow would give no order. That was Ichigo’s choice.

But he was loath to press questions and requests on Ichigo. Not yet. Not while the god was still so wounded. So he had swept Ulquiorra aside once, twice, first by growled warnings and then by threat of Pantera’s blade.

A whispered gasp drew Grimmjow’s mind to present circumstance. His gaze snapped first to Ichigo’s face drawn tight, and then to his own hand which rested too heavy on the god’s bandaged belly.

Grimmjow cursed and flinched as though from fire.

In caring for Ichigo, his hands were clumsy as they never were when bearing a sword. He was no healer. Perhaps he should have permitted the red-haired wench this task after all.

“It is all right,” said Ichigo, forgiveness uttered to absent apology, and silence followed.

Grimmjow let go the washrag. It fell with a wet slop into the bucket. His fingers curled to fists and his stomach churned, but to neither fear nor sorrow.

It was not all right.

Nothing was all right.

Heat suffused his belly, unpleasant and clenching tight his innards. It burned a hollow hole through his gut that yawned wide and empty. He grit his teeth.

How could Ichigo be so placid? So forgiving? Did he forget why he lay in such a pitiable state, unable to eat, to drink, to wash himself? Was he not angry that he, a mighty warrior god, was reduced to such a state?

Where was his rage, his pride?

Grimmjow had rage. He had pride. He had enough for both of them and far more to spare.

“Grimmjow, what is it?”

Grimmjow did not trust himself to speak without shouting, and so for a long moment, he clenched his jaw and said nothing. But the rage in his belly coiled and blistered and seeped poison into his blood, his mind, and finally his tongue.

“Why?” In this hissed whisper burned fury equal to any shout.

Ichigo narrowed his eyes.

“Why did you do this?”

This question he had not meant to ask until Ichigo was well, but for weeks now it had hammered at his mind and would not be silenced. He could bite his tongue no more. Grimmjow rose to his feet and began to pace, arms rigid at his sides and the turn of his heels sharp like the flick of an angry cat’s tail.

“Why, Ichigo?” Grimmjow threw up his hands, as helpless in this gesture as he had been in watching Ichigo in battle beyond his reach and in finding his broken body in the mountains. “Knowing as you did, that Aizen was your foe, that none would come to your aid, that your own power was denied to you—why? Why did you fight to save men who have forgotten you, whose faith faltered the moment you left their sight? Tell me!”

By the time he finished, he was shouting. For weeks past, a vast sea of ill sentiments he had shepherded behind carefully gated walls, but now at last the cracks in his restraint had coalesced to a shattering point.

Grimmjow turned on Ichigo, chest heaving, his hair wild, a lion’s roar upon his breath.

Solemn-eyed and still, Ichigo watched Grimmjow unblinking and unaffected by his outburst.

Grimmjow recalled those same eyes turned to him just before Shirosaki’s arrival, when Ichigo had been in Aizen’s grasp helpless with blood pouring from his belly. The memory wrenched air from his lungs.

Ichigo struggled to lift himself. Grimmjow was at his side in an instant, but he misjudged either the god’s strength or his will, for Ichigo pushed him aside and sat up.

“I told you. When we first met, you asked and I told you. I came to protect.”

Grimmjow remembered, and for this his mood grew ever more black. “You said you came to protect a…a woman you love.” To speak this aloud inflicted near physical pain. Grimmjow would have preferred a knife in his flesh. Who was she? Vivid fantasy took hold of him of finding this faceless, nameless woman himself and strangling the life from her, of feeling her blood warm his hands and her breath flee her body. His nails cut deep into his palms. “What of her? You nearly died without finding her.”

Ichigo stared at him. “There was never a woman, Grimmjow.”

What?

Now it was Grimmjow who stared. “You told me there was.”

“You remember wrong. I did not. I love no woman.”

“Then who?”

“You do not know?”

“Why else would I ask?” he growled.

Ichigo turned from him, and Grimmjow’s fingers itched. Were he not a god, Grimmjow would have seized him by the throat and choked an answer from him. Reverence stayed his hand. Grimmjow would allow him his silence on this matter. What care did Grimmjow have for this answer? What care did he have if the god he had devoted himself to loved another? It was no business of his—

“Is it the lady in sleeved white? Is she involved in this?” Grimmjow demanded, for desire to know weighed heavier than readiness to feign surrender to indifference. She was a goddess not a woman, and many legends hinted at uncommon affection between the two. Had Ichigo not, after all, once stormed the court of gods and defied their law to rescue her from execution?

It must be her. Would her snow-white robes still be so beautiful when he painted it with her blood?

But Ichigo flinched and grimaced. “Rukia? No. She has no part in this.”

Fantasies of the goddess in a pool of her own blood faded like smoke in Grimmjow’s mind. He fell into his seat and thought to press again for answer. But Ichigo’s gaze had turned from him, and his shoulders were hunched. Shadows pooled beneath his eyes.

Grimmjow tried for an easier question.

“Why did you reject Shirosaki’s aid? You and him together—you could have defeated Aizen and suffered less injury!”

“And this world would be in ruins.” Ichigo shook his head. “It was by my caution that our battle did not lay waste to your land, that the seas did not engulf you and the earth did not swallow you. Shirosaki would not have spared such caution.”

Pray for my king's victory, the white beast had warned. For absent him, I am death.

Shirosaki’s keen eyes and hungering smile flashed in Grimmjow’s mind.

He looked to Ichigo, so brave and now broken in the service of mortal men who had abandoned their god seven years ago. How had a creature so ruthless as Shirosaki been birthed by one as merciful as Ichigo?

He wondered aloud, and to this, Ichigo gave a strange, wistful smile. “Shirosaki is the shadow in my heart. He is the truest aspect of myself, untouched by law and reason and restraint.”

Grimmjow gaped. “He is nothing like you!”

“I once believed the same. I spent much effort trying to prove as much, but that was long ago.”

This did not seem a story Ichigo wished to begin now, so though curiosity prickled, Grimmjow did not press. “Every answer you give begets more questions.” Perhaps gods were beyond his comprehension after all. With a shake of his head, Grimmjow put this aside. “Why was your power tied to me?”

Strange tightness drew across Ichigo’s face, but vanished again before it could take solid form. His fingers tangled in the sheets.

Beyond the window, an owl’s call echoed in the night, and the silence stretched too long for comfort. Grimmjow frowned. Perhaps Ichigo did not wish to answer this either—

“Do you remember?” said Ichigo at last. “The night you first learned of this war, you prayed under open skies for many hours. You called my name. You sought my protection.”

Grimmjow did remember. That night had been the last anyone saw the constellation of the great sword whole and unbroken.

“That is why you vanished from the sky? Because my people prayed?”

“No. I came because you prayed.”

“What?”

“You, Grimmjow. I came for you.”

Grimmjow drew sharp breath. He sat taller. “Me?” he repeated. Had he heard right?

Ichigo did not repeat himself. He gave Grimmjow a long look absent of jest.

The floor spun. It was fortunate he was already sitting, for his knees would not have held him. Ichigo had come for him? What was that to mean? What had Grimmjow done to warrant such attention from a god?

Grimmjow could not have been the first to pray for protection. There must have been hundreds—nay, thousands—of prayers to Ichigo. Every man, woman, and child in the borderlands where the war had first struck must have prayed to Ichigo before him.

“You ask why my power was tied to you. It is the nature of sacrifice,” Ichigo went on. “It is old power…very old. Sacrifice forges a bond between giver and recipient. It is why your people make sacrifices to gain our favor, ephemeral and weak though such ties are. But the one binding you and me—that is a far stronger tie. Strong enough to break the seal of heaven once you knew who I was.”

Grimmjow only half heard. His head still spun from the revelation Ichigo had just foisted upon him. Him. Ichigo had come for him. “What seal?”

Ichigo touched light fingers to the bandage covering the strange collar-like wound encircling his throat.

“I knew that could be no ordinary wound,” breathed Grimmjow.

“Seireitei placed many safeguards to prevent what I have done,” said Ichigo. “I laid waste to most of them, but this I could not fight. My powers sealed, being parted from Zangetsu—these were the price of my disobedience. I hoped the strength of our bond would break it…and I was right.”

Though Ichigo said this kindly, Grimmjow closed his eyes as though it pained him to look at the god. “All you needed was that I see what was in front of me.” So simple a task, and yet he had nearly failed.

“You succeeded. Aizen is no more, and I am alive. That is enough.”

A gentle hand took Grimmjow’s face and he opened his eyes once more. Ichigo had leaned forward, and mere inches parted their faces. Ichigo’s irises were flecked with amber, his skin smooth, his chin untouched by the shadow of a man’s beard. He appeared by all measures a beautiful human boy no wiser than twenty summers. But the subtle pressure of divine power seeped over Grimmjow’s skin where his hand touched with sensation more ephemeral than silk, and in this lived a persistent reminder.

This was no mere boy.

“Your faith and my sacrifice—these two things have forged a bond sacred and untouchable to all others, be they man or god. Only you could have broken my seal and saved your people.”

Grimmjow was not satisfied. Ichigo claimed much in Grimmjow’s name. To say that all this—his sacrifice, his blood spilt, the breaking of his sword, seven long years spent in mortal skin without his power—was given on Grimmjow’s behalf begged one question more.

“Why answer my prayer, when many others asked the same? For what purpose did you choose me?”

Ichigo’s eyes were keen, yet he turned from Grimmjow with gaze cast aside. Grimmjow’s brow furrowed ever deeper. What cause could a god have to turn shy from a man?

“…Ichigo?”

“Do you know what it is to live a thousand years? Ten thousand?”

Grimmjow could only shake his head. “I do not.”

“Do you know what it is to feel every joy, every sorrow, every regret and love and anger a hundred, a thousand, a million times over, until all emotion grows old and tiresome, loses meaning, and then you cannot feel at all?” Ichigo whispered. “That is what it is to be a god.”

His shoulders bowed, weighed by some great sorrow Grimmjow could neither know nor help bear.

“We were passionate once! We once loved and mourned and fought, as humans do, before Aizen’s betrayal tore us apart and nearly destroyed both men and gods. You must wonder, Grimmjow, why the other stars did not aid me. Why did they abandon me to fight alone against Aizen?”

Grimmjow had wondered. Many times during Ichigo’s week-long battle, he had gazed upon the stars, praying for their intervention and cursing their inaction.

“It is simple. They do not care.” Ichigo clenched his hands, and red began to seep through the bandage over his right palm. “When we lived amongst men, we mourned your losses, celebrated your victories. You burn bright but only for a short time, and for the tragedy of your ephemeral nature, we could not help but love you. Aizen saw this and sought to ruin us. After him, we believed our love would doom us, so we left this world and vowed never again to interfere in the affairs of men.”

Ichigo shook his head and made a disgusted snort. “Perhaps it did preserve us. But once separated from this world, we had nothing left to tether our immortal existence. Nothing left to stir our passion. We could watch from afar, yes, but it grew too easy to forget how to care or even that we had ever cared!

“Men will never know the pain of apathy. When you exist beyond the stream of time, you grow numb, as I did. As all my kin did. As they still are. How do we stars seem to you, Grimmjow? Do we seem bright and fierce? We are not. We have dimmed to mere embers of what we once were while your kind still burns as wild as you ever did. It is strange, that in these past millennia men have become more star-like than the stars themselves.”

“Ichigo…”

Silence yawned, counted only by the pace of Grimmjow’s heart and the rasp of Ichigo’s uneven breaths.

What was there to say to this lonely god’s bitter musings? Grimmjow had pity to spare, but of understanding, he was poor. Ichigo was right—what did men know of the burden of time? What did Grimmjow know of the lonely futility of watching an endless cycle of seasons or the steady assault of change and growth march on while passing him by?

And yet—

“You claim apathy, but I do not see it,” Grimmjow denied. “You seem to me—”

Passionate. Wild. Beautiful.  

His chest pulled tight at the memory of the ryoka dancing by the light of Raahl’s bonfire, of his simple joy at biting into the sweet flesh of a peach, of his savage grace when wielding a sword. He remembered the long battle against the deceiver and how fierce Ichigo had stood against him even before Zangetsu was restored to him.

Apathy, the god claimed? No, Ichigo was passion itself!

Ichigo pulled back, but now at last he turned to face Grimmjow. His eyes burned a haunted, fevered light. Grimmjow could not bring himself to meet them.

“You have always been fierce,” said Ichigo, and this time his words came slow, reluctant like a blind creature pulled into the light. His voice wavered but only for a moment so ephemeral Grimmjow could not be certain of it. “When first I saw you, I knew. You were only a child, but even then I knew you were different—that you were fire and steel and unbreakable will.”

Words eluded Grimmjow. The god spoke in wandering strands of thought possessed of neither head nor tail. He waited, not knowing where Ichigo meant to take this new stream.

“You feared nothing at all, nothing but a cage, and you were caged. You were a fighter with no cause to fight for, a warrior born in peaceful times. And watching you grow and live and yearn, I could not—I could not help myself.”

Help himself from what?

Ichigo was still, his body statue-stiff, and yet he thrummed with restless mood by cause that evaded Grimmjow’s understanding.

“You roused me from the stupor of a thousand lonely years. Your voice, your heart—these became anchors to my boat adrift. You were wild and you were beautiful and you burned with such passion I wished to see you in flesh, to know you more intimately than by the distance from earth to sky. I knew what I was falling to, and I did not stop it. I did not want to. And when war appeared at your door and I suspected Aizen had escaped his prison—what was I to do, Grimmjow? Was I to leave you to his mercy?”

Blood dripped from Ichigo’s palm, the wound there split wide by clenched fist. Grimmjow did not notice. All he saw were Ichigo’s fierce eyes. All he heard was Ichigo’s impassioned voice.

His heart pounded a thunderous beat, and he heard Ichigo’s next words as though from a great distance:

“You ask why I chose you? Why I chose to return to this world at your behest above all others?”

Ichigo reached for him, and stunned, Grimmjow did not think to pull back. He laid his bleeding palm upon Grimmjow’s bare chest, where the heavy, swift thud of his heart echoed deepest.

“I think you know now, Grimmjow.”

A tremor took Grimmjow. It began in his hands and soon spread to the rest of him.

There was never a woman, Grimmjow.

These words from before echoed in his mind.

Ichigo loved no woman, nor goddess. He loved—

Oh gods.

Grimmjow’s eyes were wide, the permanent crease in his brows slack. He rose to unsteady feet, and Ichigo’s touch fell away from his heart. It left there a bloody print in the shape of his hand, and Grimmjow touched it as he stumbled away.

Divine blood glistened upon his fingertips.

He ran.

Chapter Text

Chapter 19: If Only to Drown

Grimmjow ran with neither destination nor reason in mind.

Noise faded to muted muffle, his heart pounded as though from a mile away. He could not feel his feet.

His god loved him.

Ichigo had not said the words, but all that he had just confessed, all that he had done in these months—no, years—past spoke the depth of his devotion to Grimmjow.

All the times he had sought out his company despite Grimmjow’s abrasive nature. Why he chose to accompany the warlord even after winning his freedom in single-combat and how he followed Grimmjow to war after Selae. The way he defended Grimmjow’s back in battle and then against Aizen.

Though Grimmjow’s long abandoned house stood closer, his mindless feet carried him instead to a place more dear and sorely missed these seven years past.

The stone trail leading to Ichigo’s shrine was not overrun by weeds as he imagined it would be, and the shrine itself looked well kept: its floors swept, its altar clean, the trees pruned and the garden beautiful. The villagers had restored it in the belated return of their faith, but Grimmjow’s troubles concerning Ichigo were not so simple.

Grimmjow sank to his knees before the white stone altar, but he did not pray. For once, it was not Ichigo he sought here.

...

In the morning, he did not return to the sick house. Thought of Orihime tending to Ichigo stirred his ire, but when Grimmjow imagined meeting Ichigo again, his will faltered and turned shy.

He wished to occupy his troubled mind, and so he turned instead to the only other place he had to go.

His old house sat atop a small hill within sight of Ichigo’s shrine. The door opened with a whining creak, stirring up a flurry of dust and stale memories.

Grimmjow stood a moment on the threshold. Everything was as he remembered—the tables and chairs unmoved, the pots and pans in the kitchen, the fur rugs on the floor and the firewood in the hearth. All had remained unchanged for these past seven years while Grimmjow had travelled countless leagues, grown his hair long and cut it again, fought and bled and claimed the crown of warlord.

He had left a boy and returned a man.

The dust settled once more. Early morning light filtered thin and weak through grimy windows. All was as grey as the old memories Grimmjow had of this place.

He walked through the house, past the kitchen which stored no food, through the bedrooms where the beds lay untouched. Behind the house, weeds had overtaken his mother’s garden. Her grave lay just a little beyond.

On stiff knees and leaden feet, Grimmjow knelt before it. Grass had overgrown the marker, but he cleared the stone until grime covered his hands instead of her name.

He wished he could have buried his father beside her.

His father would have been proud to see Grimmjow as he was: his name known to all, wielder of a sword tried in many battles. Mighty warrior. Warlord. And his mother—she had once desired to see him wed, though Grimmjow had appetite for neither marriage nor siring children.

But she would have been honored to know Ichigo—

Grimmjow closed his eyes.

Ichigo.

Again, always, his thoughts turned to Ichigo.

Like a marble falling into a well-worn groove, he could not wrest his mind from this path. It would be easier to cease breath.

He had hoped for clarity in the light of new day, but his thoughts were no clearer than the night before. Many times Ichigo’s words played over in his mind, but to recall them was like looking at the sun through a soap film: strange, dreamlike, lovely but impossible.

For gods did not love men. Perhaps by vague notion—perhaps they loved men as men loved dogs—but gods did not love men individually. Not as friends, not as…as lovers.

Ichigo is unlike other gods, whispered a voice within his mind. Grimmjow swallowed. A powerful ache awoke deep in his bones.

You desire him.

Anyone would desire Ichigo. What man would refuse a god, let alone one beloved as Ichigo?

No. You desired him even before you knew who he was.

Grimmjow touched his chest, his fingers mapping the line from collar to hip where Ichigo had opened his flesh. From the moment the nameless ryoka boy had defeated Grimmjow in front of all his men and given him this scar, Grimmjow had been captive to his strength. For those few short months travelling at his side, Grimmjow had found in him an equal and companion both.

He laughed low. How fitting that the first man to ever snare his interest would be the mighty warrior god of Zangetsu.

Ichigo was as beautiful in flesh as he had ever been in Grimmjow’s mind. He was all that Grimmjow desired: lovely, fierce, strong. Truly, a worthy mate for la Pantera.

And what did Ichigo see when he looked at Grimmjow?

Grimmjow unsheathed Pantera and held it up. His own face looked back at him from the steel blade: his eyes sharp, his jaw strong, his angled brows set in permanent crease which forever lent him the look of a savage cat.

When first I saw you, I knew. You were only a child, but even then I knew you were different—that you were fire and steel and unbreakable will.

Grimmjow was a man in shape but a beast in appetite, one that hungered for battle and lusted for strength. Not so unlike Shirosaki.

Shirosaki is the shadow in my heart, Ichigo had said.

Perhaps then it was not so strange that Ichigo had grown to love Grimmjow.

You may have him, Grimmjow’s reflection tempted. You need only extend your hand, and he will be yours.

Grimmjow’s mouth went dry. Ichigo—his? His fierce spirit, his wild strength, his courage and his beauty—all of these, Grimmjow’s own?

Heat roiled in his belly. He dared to imagine it. He imagined caressing Ichigo’s flesh with not a nursemaid’s touch, but a lover’s. And with this first imagined fantasy, a carefully warded gate broke loose and images filled his mind more vivid than that which he had pleasured himself to on the fifth night of Raahl. Of taking to bed one with the strength to match—nay, overpower—him. Of having at his side a mate unmatched in strength, who reigned over all and bowed to none.

Desire stirred Grimmjow’s heart to flames.

Ichigo had made his will known, but Grimmjow had kept his close to his chest.

He sheathed his sword and stood.

Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez was no coward. He would hide no longer.

...

He returned inside and opened wide the windows and doors. Summer breeze flushed through the house and sent up flurries of dust, while Grimmjow dug out a broom, buckets, and rags to clean with.

Hours passed in a whirl as Grimmjow worked. He cleared the dust, swept the floors, and washed the windows, laboring to erase many years of neglect so that when the house stood once again tidy enough to live in, his back ached, and his hands were scoured raw.

It was not for his own sake he restored his house.

In the early evening when the horizon had swallowed half the sun, Grimmjow returned to the sick house with his gut in knots and filled with quarrel between mind and heart.

He found Ichigo in his bed and Orihime crouched over him wringing water from a towel. Grimmjow’s jaw clenched at the sight of her, and the clunk of his boots drew her from her task. She froze like a wide-eyed doe and fled with a stammered apology.

Ichigo frowned, gaze fixed to the spot she had been. “She does not deserve unkindness, Grimmjow.”

Grimmjow ignored him and stood over his bed, sharp eyes casting up and down the god’s body.

Ichigo did not meet Grimmjow’s eyes. His muscles were drawn tight. Orihime had been changing Ichigo’s bandages, and she had bandaged all but the wound newly reopened on Ichigo’s palm.

The blood print lingered on Grimmjow’s bare chest. He had no desire to wash it away. With a growling sigh, Grimmjow put his hands on hips and cocked his head, looking down his nose at the god.

“I am taking you to my house.”

“What?”

“You have no need to remain here,” declared the warlord. “You are well enough to be moved. I can provide whatever care you require in greater comfort in my house.”

Ichigo stared at him with lips parted, but Grimmjow stood unmoved and met his gaze with no waver. The harsh set of his brow turned soft. He smiled. “Then we should inform the healer.”

“I will tell him after I have moved you.” Grimmjow stepped closer and knelt. With one arm under Ichigo’s knees and the other behind his back, Grimmjow lifted him with great care. Even so, a grimace pinched Ichigo’s face and swift breath passed through gritted teeth. Grimmjow made note to take a generous amount of the pain-dulling willow bark later.

At the first step Grimmjow set outside the sick house, he wished he had waited until deep night to move Ichigo.

The sick house saw no shortage of visitors these days—men and women and children who came to deliver gifts and prayer and hoped for a glimpse of the god within. Though Grimmjow’s ill temper kept most of them from attempting to enter or from bothering the healer and his aide, none of his threats could disperse them for long.

At present, there were only two: a woman and her young child kneeling before the steps deep in prayer. Before them lay a woven basket bearing gifts.

Grimmjow’s shadow cast over them and they lifted their heads with whispered gasps. The woman threw herself to the ground, but the child leapt up at the sight of the god in Grimmjow’s arms.

“Ichigo the protector!” she cried. “Mother, it is he!”

“Yuzu! We must kneel before Lord Ichigo—”

“Yes, you should,” said Grimmjow. His lip curled, and he stepped forward, forcing the child back a pace. “Get out of my way.”

A hand tight on his arm stayed him. “Wait, Grimmjow.” Ichigo lifted himself a few inches to peer at the girl and then at her mother. “Her name is Yuzu?”

The woman bowed her head. Her hands were clasped before her breast and shaking. “Y—yes, Lord. Her father and I named her for your sister. We hoped she might grow to the same grace and gentleness of spirit.”

“Let me down, Grimmjow.”

“This is not worth your time—”

“Let me down.”

With a scowl, Grimmjow knelt and set Ichigo onto his feet before her. The god took only a step before pain crumpled his knees—the child cried out—and Grimmjow was at his side in an instant, bearing his god’s weight with an arm around his shoulders.

“Ichigo, we should go—”

Ichigo ignored him. He reached for the girl and tipped up her chin with a hand most tender. “A child bearing my sister’s name has much to live up to.” Though the mother trembled, the girl did not. “Live well and touch the lives of others with grace, Yuzu. Honor the one you were named for, and you will be protected.”

He kissed the child upon her brow, and where his lips brushed, a faint gleam, like a touch of starlight, sank into her skin and faded.

The mother gasped; Grimmjow stared. But the girl only smiled and picked up the woven basket heavy with strawberries and sun-colored flowers. She thrust it into his arms. “For you, Ichigo!”

He took the basket as though it was filled with gold. “Thank you, Yuzu. I will cherish your gift.”

Grimmjow knelt and lifted him once more, and they continued on their way. Before the sick house was out of sight, he chanced a look back over his shoulder.

The woman knelt and took her child’s face between reverent hands.

She was weeping.

...

Grimmjow laid Ichigo to rest in the bed his parents had once slept in. He returned to the sick house twice more to retrieve bandages, towels, and other supplies needed for tending to Ichigo on his own. Ichigo was sitting with back propped against the wall when Grimmjow returned the second time.

“Lie down,” growled Grimmjow as he set down an armful of clean linen on the shelf.

“I am not so frail, Grimmjow. I have slept enough these past weeks to last a lifetime.”

The warlord turned. “You were impaled twice. You fell from the sky. Your body has been broken many times over. Forgive me if I feel it prudent you do not strain yourself.”

Ichigo’s lips quirked. “The healer speaks through you.”

“By chance, I agree with him.” At length, Grimmjow sighed. “He permitted me to take you, but only by promise that I would not let you be strained. I have watched him and the wench tend to you enough times that I can bandage and clean you without their aid, but if you tear your wounds open again, I will have to return you to their care.”

Ichigo was silent. He watched Grimmjow with an expectant air and Grimmjow, in turn, did not meet his eyes.

He knew what Ichigo awaited answer to, but though he had rehearsed it many times that day, now these practiced words knotted in his throat and would not make themselves known. His fingers clenched into fists, his mouth opened, and Ichigo sat up straighter, eyes wide—

“You…have a sister.”

Ichigo’s shoulders fell.

Grimmjow swallowed. This was not what Ichigo had hoped for, nor what Grimmjow had meant to say. Why was it so difficult to make his will towards Ichigo known? He had spent many hours strengthening his will for this purpose, yet the moment had come and still he cowered. Grimmjow feared neither swords nor blood nor death, so why did so simple a task as this bring him to his knees?

But Ichigo played along to Grimmjow’s distraction nonetheless. “I had two sisters. Yuzu and Karin.”

The names were familiar. There were many tales told of Ichigo’s father, but of his sisters there were few. “Few legends bear their names,” said Grimmjow. It was strange, for should their relation to Ichigo not be cause for greater mention?

“They were mortal.”

“Mortal? They were human?”

“Yes. Like our mother.”

Their mother—? Grimmjow stared. Legends spoke passingly of Masaki, wife of Isshin and mother of Ichigo, but not one ever mentioned she was a human woman.

But the ryoka had entertained the chief’s children with many strange tales of the gods Grimmjow had never heard. It seemed there were many things about their stars men did not know, or perhaps, had forgotten over many years.

“Then you are—” Grimmjow bit his tongue. No matter if he had a mortal mother, Ichigo was still a god of immense power, and to question or imply otherwise would be blasphemous.

“I have no mortal blood,” said Ichigo, guessing Grimmjow’s question. “Just as my sisters had no divine blood. Gods and men are not born by halves.”

“If they were mortal, then…they must have passed long ago.”

Ichigo drew in on himself. “Yes. I watched them pass from above.”

“From above?”

“When the choice was made to split heaven and earth, my sisters were still only children. For my birth as god and theirs as mortal, I was parted from them.”

Not one of their legends made mention of this. That when the gods had become stars, Ichigo had been taken from his young sisters. Bound by the law of heaven, he had watched them live and grow and finally wither away like motes of dust in the wind.

A deep shadow overtook Ichigo’s face. His shoulders bowed, and his fists clenched in futile effort. He looked far older than this mortal skin he wore, and pity swelled in Grimmjow’s breast.

Grimmjow would never know this pain.

How many other pains unfathomable to men had this god suffered in his unknowably long life? There were times when Grimmjow, after but twenty-eight years on this earth, had felt exhaustion bone-deep for all the trials of his life, days when he wished to sleep and never wake. What was it like to endure the same for a hundred years? A thousand?

The enormity of it eclipsed Grimmjow’s understanding. Perhaps it was not so strange that other gods had fallen to apathy.

Silence felt the only respect appropriate to offer here, and Grimmjow gave it in abundance.

Ichigo had no mortal blood, but he had loved mortals even before the gods were stars. Was this why Ichigo felt so strongly for men, when other gods had forgotten? Was this how he had fallen to such deep devotion to Grimmjow?

For Ichigo was not the first god to love a mortal. His father had done the same.

“Is it not profane for a mortal and a god to lay together?” Grimmjow feigned indifference, but his gaze evaded Ichigo’s face in a manner too deliberate to have no cause.

They both knew he was no longer speaking of Isshin and Masaki.

“I came from the seed of such a union,” said Ichigo gently. “How could it be profane?”

Something lodged deep in Grimmjow’s throat. His mouth opened, but with words absent from both mind and lips.

By this quiet statement, Ichigo had granted implicit permission—to be touched, to be taken to bed, to be claimed. Grimmjow sat under his silent regard, shy to meet his eyes should Ichigo possess greater-than-mortal intuition and read the carnal desires Grimmjow had struggled to contain these weeks past.

“Grimmjow?”

Ichigo’s hand sought his face once more, and Grimmjow leaned forward to meet its touch.

The god watched him a moment before he spoke again. “I have made my will towards you known, but I will force nothing of you. I…I will not accept a lover bound by duty or worship.”

Grimmjow could have laughed. In different company, he would have thrown his head back and barked his amusement to the sky at these soft-bellied words.

Him, made lover to Ichigo by force? As if any lover could force Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez to his knees! As if Ichigo needed to force Grimmjow to bed! Ichigo did not know he had pleasured himself to the greatest heights of lust at the mere fantasy of what was offered to him now. He did not know how many times Grimmjow had imagined entering battle with Ichigo at his side, how many times Grimmjow had looked to the heavens and wished to know the mighty warrior god of Zangetsu.

A teeth-baring grin stretched across Grimmjow’s face. I am dreaming. He thumbed Pantera an inch from its sheath and flicked a finger across the blade. The pain bit sharp and his blood ran red.

“What are you doing?”

I am making sure this is no dream. “It is nothing,” said Grimmjow. He sucked the cut and the taste of copper pulled his grin ever wider. This is real. My god desires me as I desire him.

For the first time since learning Ichigo’s name, he reached for the god and dared to lay a hand upon him. It was but a chaste touch from a man who knew no chastity. His breath was mute but his blood sang as though he had run a great distance.

Ichigo took his hand against his injured palm. Their blood ran together, mortal and divine, born of earth and sky.

Ichigo’s eyes gleamed amber. Lantern light flitted across his hair and skin like living flames, and Grimmjow stared entranced. Even like this, diminished and wounded and mortal in his frailty, Ichigo was magnificent. Grimmjow had seen enough—he had desired enough—he took the proud slope of Ichigo’s jaw between thumb and knuckle and closed the distance.

The first touch of lips came slow, a smooth glide of soft warmth and the scrape of stubble across Ichigo’s chin. Ichigo’s lips were thin but pliant and they parted with a whispered breath under his.

Grimmjow’s mind stuttered and spun. He had Ichigo—Ichigo!—in his arms, pressed to him, his tongue skimming the dry, rough skin of Grimmjow’s lips.

This is no dream. Grimmjow’s lips split wide in a grin and he choked out a laugh more akin to a sob against Ichigo’s mouth. Ichigo drew back, eyes wide, but Grimmjow only shook his head and pulled him in once more.

Ichigo swindled him of breath yet Grimmjow had no care—let him take all his breath. He would give it all gladly; he had no need of it. Let him suffocate, let him drown.

Grimmjow did not care.

Chapter Text

Chapter 20: One More Night

Ichigo slept.

Grimmjow retired to his own room, bound by lingering caution of modesty for Ichigo if not for himself. His body was limp, his feet light as though they tread upon clouds. He stumbled into his long-neglected bed, inhaling stale memories even as his mind spun with fresh ones.

He lay awake for many hours, face made sore by the wide stretch of his lips in unceasing smile.

Ichigo was his. Was it blasphemous for a man to lay such claim upon a god? Grimmjow’s mind begged caution, but his heart sang with reckless abandon.

By the stars, how had this come to pass? In just a short time, the tides of change had seized him by the throat and spirited him away to a fanciful dream.

He stretched out on his back, arms folded beneath his head as he stared up at the ceiling overhead.

The war was won. Ichigo would live. Every man, woman, and child in these lands knew Grimmjow’s name. He would rule all as warlord, and he had claimed now the most desirable of mates any man could have.

He laughed low and bared teeth in a grin that stretched his lips to splitting. His blood surged hot and loud.

Grimmjow was king.

...

Grimmjow woke early and set about the morning’s routines with uncommon energy. He gathered his clothes to be delivered to the village women to be washed for coin, and after a brief moment to linger in Ichigo’s doorway, went to retrieve food left for the god on the sick house steps.

Ichigo’s appetite was recovering with his strength, and for this Grimmjow gave grim thanks.

He chose for Ichigo a savory parcel of smoked meat and a basket of fresh berries and peaches. These he returned with to his house and placed at Ichigo’s bedside should the god wake hungry.

The smell of meat teased his belly to loud complaint, and Grimmjow contemplated the heap of food gifted on Ichigo’s behalf. It was too much to feed one person and most would spoil. The ryoka had shared food with him with no complaint and now Ichigo had claimed him as lover. Ichigo would take no offense if Grimmjow ate from his offerings, and should anyone else find fault in this…

Grimmjow grinned. Was he not king? Was he not warlord of this nation, lover to a god?

So for himself he chose a meal of fish and rice—still warm, for it had been delivered just that morning—and ate sitting upon the sick house steps. Sweet juice he drank to sate his thirst, and as he finished he spied figures approaching with gift-burdened arms. They called to him, but Grimmjow had no interest in entertaining Ichigo’s worshippers and answering their questions of the god. He scowled, and rising to his feet, he spun and took off in the direction of the market with not a glance cast behind.

At the market he suffered many stares and whispers uttered when his back was turned. Idolatry and admiration he accepted, but questions of Ichigo he spurned and silenced by growls and glares.

What right had they to know anything of Ichigo? Had they not forgotten him and turned their worship to other stars? Had they not let his shrine fall to ruin in Grimmjow’s absence and ceased their gifts but a year after Ichigo vanished from the sky?

So Grimmjow offered neither answers nor patience to entertain their curiosity.

He was taken by two desires: one to boast that he had claimed Ichigo as lover; and the other to hold this truth close to his breast and guard it with selfish secrecy, to be relished with private pleasure. He thought of Ichigo, hidden in his home away from the prying eyes and curious whispers of his worshippers, to be seen and touched by Grimmjow alone, and his heart swayed to secrecy.

Let him savor this alone a while longer.

With a heavy purse, Grimmjow sought robes spun of the finest silk the market had to offer. But when he found what he desired, the merchant shook his head and refused his payment.

“It is an honor to clothe the lord protector,” he said, as he wrapped black robes in a tidy parcel for Grimmjow. “May he find those to his liking.”

No merchant would take Grimmjow’s coin that day. He returned with new robes, blankets, oil, and a sack of white willow bark and his purse not a single coin lighter.

At the house, he found Ichigo awake and the food Grimmjow had left for him gone.

“How is the pain?” he asked, as he set down his purchases.

“It is nothing.”

A lie. Ichigo had been impaled twice and broken in many other places, and the tight set of his jaw told Grimmjow all he needed to know. He took from his sack a strip of willow bark and gnawed until it was supple like leather, then offered it to Ichigo.

“It will ease the pain,” he said, and Ichigo took it with more-than-casual eagerness.

There was still much to be done. Grimmjow left Ichigo with fresh food and drink. He delivered his soiled clothes to be washed, gathered medicine from the healer, and met with Ulquiorra, who conveyed news of the state of his army and departed with Grimmjow’s orders.

When Grimmjow finally returned to his house, the sun hung low and his stomach clenched to make known its want. He thought of Ichigo awaiting his return and his chest grew light as his feet grew swift.

His house stood waiting atop its hill. The door swung ajar. The giddy cloud around his heart dissipated and coldness took its place. Grimmjow ran the remaining distance.

He had latched the door. He was sure of it.

Had Ichigo risen? No—he was still too weak to walk more than a few paces unaided.

Drawing his sword, Grimmjow crept in on cat-silent feet.

Had someone else entered? Someone who meant the god harm? Grimmjow slipped through the house without a sound, through the kitchen, past the first bedroom, and when he reached the second he stood back and flung the door wide.

The room was dark, but Ichigo was not alone in the bed. A pale shape lounged beside him, long hair spilling across the covers like a white river. Shirosaki smiled sharp and wide.

Grimmjow missed a step and caught himself before the next.

Before he could speak, Shirosaki raised a long, thin finger to his lips. His strange gold eyes were narrowed and upturned with the curl of his lips.

“Shh. King is sleeping.”

Grimmjow swallowed to wet his tongue. Should he bow? But just as Ichigo, Shirosaki had once commanded him not to bow. He sheathed Pantera and stepped closer.

Flecks of red on the sheets beckoned Grimmjow’s eyes, and he followed their trail to freshly broken skin on Ichigo’s collar and shoulders. His knuckles blanched white upon Pantera’s hilt.

“You dared to lay hands upon your master while he lay wounded?”

Shirosaki tilted head to one side, fox-hearted eyes alight with curiosity. He was like a child—a cruel, vicious child with little compassion and even less restraint. “What do you mean? I have touched him with only the greatest care.”

Grimmjow had no answer.

Shirosaki rose with a liquid snake-curl of his spine and motioned for him to follow.

...

The night sky was clear and the moon near full.

Habit turned Grimmjow’s gaze above to the place where Zangetsu had once taken. Even now, it jarred his gut to see black where the constellation of the great sword should have been.

Shirosaki stood apart like a shade, paler than the moon, colder than night. Grimmjow could only stare. When had he begun to stand in the presence of gods as though these were ordinary events? When did having Zangetsu wrapped in a pelt in his house and a god in his bed become matters of mundane significance?

Did Shirosaki know who he was? Perhaps he did not care—perhaps to him, Grimmjow tempted no more interest than an ant digging in dirt.

But Grimmjow wanted Shirosaki to know his name, so he came closer and touched a hand to his chest. “I am Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez.”

“I know you. You have given blood to my shrines, though you favor Ichigo’s.”

Grimmjow searched his face. Was he displeased?

“Fear nothing, I am not offended—King deserves his worship.” But at length, Shirosaki turned and stepped forth, intent on Grimmjow. He no longer smiled.

Grimmjow stood firm, moving neither forward to meet the white beast’s challenge nor backwards to yield to him. Shirosaki narrowed his eyes; his scrutiny swept over Grimmjow by inches and returned to his face with a cruel curl of lip as though he found Grimmjow wanting by some measure.

“You are not worth his blood.”

Grimmjow flinched as though struck but only for a moment. In the next, he was growling. “What—”

“Do you think I would bend to any but one truly magnificent? No—King is mighty beyond your mortal reckoning. He is beautiful beyond compare and strong beyond contest,” Shirosaki said, and Grimmjow’s ire faltered in the face of such conviction.

“He could reign over all of heaven if he so desired,” the white beast declared. “And by my will, he would. By my will, he and I together would waste this world below and that one above, and bring all of creation to its knees. But instead, he stoops to shield you. He sheds blood to protect men.”

His voice ached brittle like cracked glass, and Grimmjow’s belly twisted on itself. Never had he imagined the white star of Zangetsu might nurse such thoughts. By all legends, Shirosaki was the razor edge of Zangetsu’s blade, ruled by vicious instinct and carnal appetite.

None spoke of his heart.

Shirosaki cast one arm out, palm outstretched while he clutched the other over his chest. “I am fierce! I am passionate and battle-ready! All that he finds beautiful in you, I possess in abundance!”

And in an instant, Grimmjow knew.

“You envy me.”

This he spoke with little thought, but by the wild look in Shirosaki’s eyes, he knew it to be true.

Shirosaki spat his contempt. “You presume much, mud worm.” But his pride sagged; his shoulders fell—so deep did the blade of ill-received truth cut.

Grimmjow marveled. Shirosaki, the white star of Zangetsu, envied him—of Ichigo’s devotion, his affection, his sacrifice. Only two days ago, Grimmjow would not have guessed that gods could love men, or envy them.

A shadow eclipsed Shirosaki’s face. “Soon it will not matter.”

“What?”

A hollow laugh wrenched from his throat, and Grimmjow’s belly shifted inside him unsettled.

“What do you mean by that?”

“I told him long ago his instinct to protect would be his end,” said Shirosaki with a shake of his head. “See now my words become flesh.”

“He is wounded, but his strength grows by the day. He will heal!”

“You think you have saved him because you have played nursemaid to his broken body?” Shirosaki threw back his head and laughed black spite. “You have forgotten.”

Forgotten?

Lead began to seep into Grimmjow’s belly by cause unknown.

What had he forgotten?

A great sense of unease twisted his entrails. Grimmjow’s heart flipped, and his palms grew slick.

“It was no common law he broke to come to your aid. It was the first law of heaven.”

Grimmjow wished to hear no more; he prayed Shirosaki would not speak the words he knew would come next—

“Seireitei will execute him.”

No.

Grimmjow staggered. His breath heaved. He shook his head in unceasing motion, as though denial alone could erase it all.

This could not be.

“They—they cannot!”

Not after Aizen. Not after all Grimmjow had done to see Ichigo healed, all he had suffered in fear for his god’s life. Not after what Ichigo had just confessed to him, when Grimmjow finally had all he desired in this life.

“Can they not? It is their will.”

“No! Not Ichigo. Do they—do they not know what he has done? He destroyed the deceiver! He saved this race of men!”

“They know.”

“Then why? Surely they would forgive—”

“Seireitei is a court of fools. They are bound by petty laws and blind idiocy of tradition.”

Grimmjow looked up at Shirosaki. The white beast stood tall and still and Grimmjow’s chest swelled with red heat and rancor. Was Shirosaki not indignant at the injustice of this? Was he not furious? And then he saw.

Shirosaki’s golden eyes were hard. His face was tight. He turned in the direction of the house where Ichigo lay resting, and Grimmjow understood.

Shirosaki grieved not with tears, but his grief was no less for it.

With nails biting deep into palms, Grimmjow clenched his jaw. “I will not let them!” But his oath rang hollow, and Shirosaki knew this also.

“And what will you do? You, a human warrior, against a company of gods?”

Shirosaki was right. What could Grimmjow do? He would be swept aside with not even a look. He could fight, he could struggle, but all for naught, for mortal blades did not pierce godly flesh.

“Ichigo is strong,” he grasped. “Of all gods, he is strongest!”

But not as he was now. He would not be healed for many months more. If Seireitei came for him now, what would Grimmjow do?

Grimmjow turned on Shirosaki, and his voice turned as wild as the fear in his heart. “You! You will defend him, will you not?”

“You do not know King as I do. He will not flee his punishment. Nor will he permit me to raise a sword against them.”

“Then defy him!”

“I will not.”

Grimmjow leapt at him and fisted the collar of his robes with no thought. “Why not! Why are you so obedient? Defy him in this one matter!”

Throwing back his head, Shirosaki barked a laugh. “You think me obedient?” He clasped a white hand over Grimmjow’s with a touch so cold it burned, and Grimmjow released him with a cry. “It is respect. I bow to no one but by my own choice.”

“You wish him dead!” Heedless of Shirosaki’s warning touch, Grimmjow planted palms against his chest and heaved him back. “Snake!” He reached for Pantera. “Long have you haunted your master’s steps and envied his strength!”

In an instant, the air thickened to sludge in Grimmjow’s lungs, and he fell to knees gasping for breath, leaning on Pantera struck upright in the ground. Shirosaki advanced upon him. His eyes flashed; his lips curled—he grasped Grimmjow by the hair and forced his head up.

But for its paleness, Shirosaki shared Ichigo’s face, and it stirred strange pain to see Ichigo’s face regard him with such ice.

“For his love to you, King broke Seireitei’s most severe law. To protect you, he suffered seven years under a seal that bound and seared his soul. He suffers still. His pity for you, for men, for Aizen—these things have damned him.”

Shirosaki was but two things—golden eyes and endless white.

“And now, Seireitei will come for him. I do not know when, I do not know how—but they will come for him.”

...

Grimmjow stayed there long after Shirosaki had gone.

Stars glittered in the velvet of black night—pristine, eternal, beautiful.

Grimmjow hated them.

He raged. He screamed. He shouted his fury at the heavens, for if gods could hear men pray in whispers, then they must hear his curses also. He clawed the earth, tore up grass, waved Pantera at the stars far beyond his reach. And when the night grew deep, when his voice failed and his throat ached raw from strain and grief, he knelt, eviscerated.

That morning, he had woken a happy man. For the first time in many years, he had been content beyond words, home at last in body and spirit. That morning, all had been well, and in his joy he had forgotten the consequences of Ichigo’s choice.

He wished now Ichigo had not come. Let him turn back time to that first night he learned of the war, and he would have prayed not for Ichigo’s protection, but for his caution. If he had known what Ichigo would suffer for answering his call, he would have held silent.

In this pitiless night, he found neither comfort nor answers.

...

The house stood silent and colder than a night in deep summer should be.

Grimmjow lingered outside the bedroom door, taken by equal parts yearning for Ichigo and a desire to retreat into solitude, but soon the choice was taken from him.

Feet scuffed on the other side of the door, and then a pause. “…Shiro?”

It was too late to retreat. Grimmjow swallowed a sigh and entered. Ichigo stood near the window, his bed abandoned with the covers pushed aside.

“Oh. Grimmjow, I wondered when you might return.” Ichigo gestured towards the open window. “I…wanted some fresh air.”

Grimmjow did not hear him. He took Ichigo by the shoulders and led him back to the bed. Ichigo shuffled like a man weighted in years, steps faltering and hunched as he cradled his bandaged belly until he sank back into the nest of blankets.

“I thought you would return hours ago,” said Ichigo.

Grimmjow busied himself checking Ichigo’s bandages. All were clean and dry.

Ichigo frowned. “What kept you?”

Grimmjow turned aside and fixed his gaze elsewhere. The lantern on the wall flickered; its oil ran low. He would have to refill it in the morning.

“Grimmjow?”

“It is not of your concern.” The words bit sharper than he intended. Ichigo flinched.

Did Ichigo know his days ran short?

Of course he must know. Why had he not told Grimmjow? Did he hope for Grimmjow’s continued ignorance, so that they might play at an illusion of happiness they had found in each other in the shade of distant storm?

Grimmjow bit his tongue. Hold your temper. He swallowed, but his throat caught and ached. Do not lash at Ichigo, for he is weary and burdened by much.

Ichigo stared at him for a long moment. “Shirosaki told you.”

Grimmjow’s silence spelled his answer.

He burned. Seireitei claimed justice, but what justice was this? What justice was there in the execution of heaven’s most magnificent star?

At his sides, his hands knotted into fists. He turned his mind to the sting and ache of nails biting deep into the meat of his palms, the relief when he unclenched his fingers, and the pain renewed when he dug in deeper. Blood welled beneath his nails, and Grimmjow savored it. It was a kinder pain than that which bit at his heart.

Ichigo had suffered too much already, and Grimmjow had not the power to shield him from more.

Amongst men, Grimmjow was mighty. There was no man he could not stand against, no man immune to Pantera’s bite.

Before gods, he was nothing—a creature of mud and pity. For Ichigo, he would lay down his life, but in this matter his life counted for little.

What could he do for a damned god?

What did healers do when they could not save a man? They made his remaining time happy. They prescribed good food and good company, so that he might meet his end in comfort.

A noose drew tight around Grimmjow’s throat. Just as a wounded cat, he wished to answer pain with rage.

But with a mighty effort, he unclenched his fists and breathed deep to quell the fire within. His breath shuddered and threatened to break; he held it close until he felt sure it would not and let air cycle through his lungs, a slow in and out, then twice more. His hands shed their tremors.

He did not know when Seireitei would come, but he had precious little time with Ichigo. He must not squander it in anger and regret.

For Ichigo he would feign peace, as the god wished for.

Ichigo looked up, shoulders slack and eyes large, as Grimmjow sank into the covers beside him and pulled him close to chest.

So swift was this turn of mood that Ichigo had not the time to grasp it. He sat rigid like a wooden plank in Grimmjow’s arms, heart to heart, face to shoulder.

Grimmjow wound his arms tight around. Ichigo’s skin was chill. He was too thin, despite all Grimmjow had done to make him eat these many days past.

“Grimmjow…?”

“Tell me what you wish,” Grimmjow murmured. “Whatever you desire, if it is in my power, I will give to you.”

A deep breath fled Ichigo’s chest.

“I desire a kiss.”

A simple wish, one that begged no effort at all to fulfill.

Grimmjow tried for a smile that would not take form and took Ichigo again by the chin.

It began much like their first: a tender embrace of lips, a shy meeting of tongues at the threshold between them. But last night had had Grimmjow biting down laughter bubbling up at this newfound joy. Tonight, he kissed Ichigo with a stone in his throat and a throb in his chest.

In time, Ichigo made to pull back. But Grimmjow grasped him tighter; he sank deeper, seeking more, demanding more. His hand, the one not cradling Ichigo by the shoulders, took Ichigo by a clutch of hair at his nape. His knuckles blanched white and his lips tasted of desperation.

When they parted at last with a gasping heave, Ichigo’s eyes were wide and his cheeks rose-tinted.

Grimmjow stared also. That had been no chaste kiss. He searched Ichigo’s face for reproach or offense and found none. How quickly he had shed restraint. How swiftly crumbled his self-control in Ichigo’s presence.

He shifted, half-rising to settle into a more comfortable pose, and Ichigo snatched him by the wrist with strength greater than Grimmjow expected of one so wounded.

He raised a brow, but Ichigo’s face was earnest, and he tugged at Grimmjow’s arm.

Ah.

“I am not leaving,” Grimmjow was quick to assure him, and Ichigo’s grasp fell soft.

He settled closer, legs folded under him, his face mere inches from Ichigo’s. The black robe, which he had brought from the market just hours earlier, hung from Ichigo’s frame in loose folds. It sagged low on one shoulder, the front half open to reveal a short expanse of bare chest that soon disappeared under bandages.

Ichigo wore nothing underneath.

Grimmjow swallowed. The robe was more modest than the lièqún, and Ichigo was more covered than he had been in many weeks. Yet still the sight of him stirred dangerous temptation.

With a silent groan, he swept a hand over his face then pulled the robe higher on Ichigo’s bare shoulder.

Ichigo seized the hand that preserved his modesty and guided it to his breast, wherein the soft beat of his heart echoed against Grimmjow’s palm. The strong, slow rhythm soothed him, for he remembered too well its weak flutter when he had found Ichigo near death in the mountains.

“You fear touching me.”

Grimmjow lowered his eyes.

“It was not your meekness that earned my love. You are passion, Grimmjow.” Ichigo lifted Grimmjow’s hand and pressed lips to knuckles. “So show me.”

Grimmjow wanted it. This invitation Ichigo extended—he desired it more than food or drink, more than air. Why, then, did his touch stutter and his mind turn timid? Never had Grimmjow shied from taking anyone, man or woman, and oft it was he who coaxed a nervous lover to bed.

Because Ichigo was like no lover he had ever had.

For though Grimmjow shared his body with kingly generosity, he was stingy with his heart. But in just a short time knowing Ichigo, he had stumbled and spilled his heart open wide, and Ichigo had swept it all up and kept it.

No, he realized. That was not so.

He had lost his heart before he knew Ichigo’s name, before he had even first laid eyes upon the ryoka boy who stumbled into his camp in the dead of night.

Perhaps it happened when he first claimed Pantera and the blade whispered to him its name. Perhaps even before that, when he was a boy confiding his fears in prayer. Sometime in his youth, Grimmjow had delivered a gift of fruit or cake to Ichigo’s altar and unknowingly gifted his heart as well.

Grimmjow’s home had never been four walls and a roof. It had never been his village nor his mother’s embrace or his father’s pride. It was why he did not grieve when he left his village on the eve of war and why he had not once in the seven years hence grown sick for home as other men did. His home was anywhere he could look up at the night and see the dark red star at Zangetsu’s hilt.

So when Ichigo had vanished from the sky, Grimmjow suffered far more than the loss of a star. Seven years Ichigo had wandered this world stripped of power, but seven years Grimmjow had also wandered, stripped of home.

Grimmjow cast the waiting god a long look down the length of his body. The robe clung to Ichigo in silken ripples, still loose on one side and threatening to slip down his shoulder once more. It was belted at the waist, but beneath that the robe fell open around Ichigo’s pale thighs.

Hunger clenched Grimmjow’s gut. Still he wavered. The healer had warned him to handle Ichigo with care, for what healing he had managed thus far could yet tear anew. It might take naught but a single careless movement to tear his belly open again or jar a broken bone.

“You are wounded.”

“Then we will be careful.”

“It will pain you.”

“A pain most welcome.”

Ichigo was possessed of certainty Grimmjow did not share, but in his eagerness he was not alone. Grimmjow leaned closer, and his hand fell to bare thigh.

It was no sin to lay with a god.

This he repeated to himself once, twice, three times again as he sought to steady his racing pulse. He stroked skin, but where his touch met the edge of Ichigo’s robe, he faltered.

His breath drew short.

His hand kneaded Ichigo’s flesh, starting first at the knee, then rising close to the boundary between skin and robe with each pass of its back-forth journey from knee to almost-hip.

It is no sin.

At the final pass up Ichigo’s knee, he slipped at last beneath the robe. The soft flesh of inner thigh was warmer than the rest of him, and Grimmjow lingered there only a moment before gliding back towards safer ground.

The robe slipped, hiking higher up Ichigo’s thigh, and with an effort akin to a starving man shunning food, Grimmjow halted it with a firm tug down.

Ichigo sighed.

“You cannot lay with me if you mean to never uncover me,” he said and pulled his belt loose. The robe opened all down his front and slipped down one troublesome shoulder.

Grimmjow followed the ridge of muscles down Ichigo’s abdomen, but at the first glimpse of engorged cock between pale thighs, he turned his head and fixed upon the lantern on the wall.

Ichigo took his chin and tipped his face back. “You may look upon me. I am yours.”

Mine.  

If it was wrong for a man to claim a god, then Ichigo did not know this.

Claim him now, while you still can. Claim him now before he is gone.

A heavy stone turned over inside him as Shirosaki’s revelation bore down upon him like a tide. They had no time to spare for Grimmjow’s burdensome caution. He must grasp what time they had left and use it—to show Ichigo all he wished to show, tell him all he had kept to himself.

Starting with this.

Ichigo made a sound—half-gasp, half-moan—as Grimmjow pressed forward. Coarse, dry lips took first his mouth, then his neck. Hands spread his robe open wide, and silk fell from Ichigo’s shoulders to pool at his elbows.

“Ichigo…” Grimmjow murmured his god’s name against his throat, careful to avoid the bandage binding the wound of his broken seal.

Many such bandages covered Ichigo’s body—across his chest and belly, where Aizen’s sword had run him through, around his thigh and shoulder and palm. This could not be like Grimmjow’s usual fucks, else he would end the night with his god bleeding out again in his bed.

He must be careful, thought Grimmjow as he gathered Ichigo into his arms and strung kisses along his jaw. This act begged gentleness, of which he possessed little. Was he capable of tenderness as Ichigo needed right now?

He must. If it was not his nature, then he would don another’s skin for just one night. Tonight he would tend to Ichigo’s comfort and pleasure first.

Grimmjow breathed deep and strengthened first his will and then his body. He pulled himself from Ichigo and gathered two pillows to stack one atop the other before pressing him to lie amongst them.

And as Ichigo lay amongst Grimmjow’s pillows and sheets half dressed in an unbelted silk robe with his lips kiss-swollen and his cock heavy yet untouched, Grimmjow finally shed modesty.

All the guilty glimpses and accidental peeks he had stolen of Ichigo until now could not compare to the pleasure of seeing him like this. Here was a sight meant for gods but to which Ichigo had invited one mortal man to witness.

A beast stirred in Grimmjow, hungry and lusting to fill the gaping hollow in his gut, demanding a taste—not of blood, as oft his desires ran, but of warm flesh and sweet cries.

Grimmjow denied it. Not yet. There would be time to sate himself later, if Ichigo permitted him.

He knelt between Ichigo’s feet. Ichigo followed him with tender gaze and half a smile, but this soon faded when Grimmjow bowed his head, closed his eyes, and clasped right fist over heart and covered it with his left.

His lips moved to deliver silent words which Ichigo heard nonetheless. Ichigo had seen Grimmjow take the penitent pose many times before but never at his feet.

“Grimmjow,” he said, and Grimmjow looked up. “You need not pray to me.”

After a long moment, Grimmjow dipped his head once in acknowledgement. He rose, moving forward, and Ichigo parted legs to accommodate him.

If Ichigo did not permit him to worship with words, then Grimmjow would use hands instead. He had no more need of shrines and altars. Instead of oil pans and incense trays, it was Ichigo’s long limbs and slender neck. Instead of fountains it was his long fall of hair that flowed over pillows and sheets like splashes of molten fire. Upon this altar Grimmjow would offer his heart and his body.

Ichigo’s body was carved from different stone than Grimmjow’s own. Where Grimmjow’s shoulders spread broad and his muscles weighed heavy, Ichigo was lean, and his limbs stretched long and shapely. His strength lay not in brutal fists but in wiry grace just arrived in manhood.

It should be no surprise that a god would possess a body of faultless proportion, but Grimmjow could not help but marvel nonetheless.

He passed greedy hands over the heaving sides of Ichigo’s ribs, tracing each rise and dip of flesh and bone downwards to softer territory where his cage of ribs ended. Ichigo’s belly was taut, an enviable canvas of hard muscle visible even in rest, and Grimmjow’s fingers drank each detail.

At his hips, bone rose just beneath the surface of skin and carved hollows belted by twin ridges of muscle which tapered downwards in a tantalizing vee towards his groin.

When first his hands grazed the coarse thatch of hair between Ichigo’s legs, Grimmjow abandoned his quest and skipped down his thighs, skirting the linen wrapped around the midsection of the left. Up and down he stroked, unhindered now by concealing robes. Closer he came to his prize at the end of each pass, and when Ichigo spoke his anticipation in a sweet shudder that overcame his body like a wave from head to toe, he could wait no longer.

Ichigo’s cock was full: its length near equal to Grimmjow’s hand, its girth a comfortable fit in his palm. Grimmjow grasped it in a slow, fluid pull from hilt to tip. A drop beaded at the slit and at the tail of the second stroke it pooled wider until finally it spilled languid like honey over Grimmjow’s knuckles.

With his second hand, Grimmjow reached behind the first and palmed the sack. Ichigo’s balls weighed heavy inside and Grimmjow turned his eyes to the god’s face while he stroked thumb over velvet skin between sack and hole. Ichigo’s lips parted and his eyes half shut: he was sensitive and receptive here. Grimmjow tucked away this bit of knowledge.

He knew no shame as he bowed his head low and took Ichigo into his mouth. Half the length he swallowed in a single effort and Ichigo uttered a cry deep from the throat. One hand he fisted in Grimmjow’s hair, the other in the sheets. Grimmjow breathed deep through his nose, ears keen for every gasp and whimper that fell from Ichigo’s lips.

He tasted like clean musk and new sweat. Grimmjow wrapped fingers around the base and pumped in time with the bob of his head, laving the broad undershaft with the flat of his tongue, circling the head with the tip.

Ichigo writhed. He bucked and tightened his thighs by turns. He moaned deep like no man Grimmjow had ever heard in the throes of pleasure before.

He is so sensitive, Grimmjow marveled. He wrapped his free arm around Ichigo’s right thigh to hold him still, both to ease his work and to stop Ichigo from thrashing lest he injure himself further.

The meat of Ichigo’s thigh strained against him, but even with one arm, Grimmjow held him down.

“Wait—!”

Grimmjow sensed warning in the sharp tug at his hair. He raised his head to peer at Ichigo, cock falling from his lips with a wet sound, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

Why had Ichigo stopped him so soon? Surely he could not already be close to—

A fat flush colored Ichigo’s cheeks. He covered his eyes with one arm, chest heaving.

Oh.

Had Ichigo been any other man, Grimmjow would be deriding his poor stamina, but here he was struck low by different thought.

For all that Grimmjow lamented his own loss of control when in his god’s absence, his god was equally undone by him.

His chest swelled with sinful pride. Grimmjow lifted himself on his palms and watched the god with great care. There was no red on any of his bandages. “Tell me how you want this.”

It had been long since Grimmjow had taken a cock in his mouth, for fame and power had seen to an endless line of willing bodies eager to pleasure him. It had been even longer since he had submitted to another man in bed. Despite all Ichigo had said and his reassurances that their union would be no sin, Grimmjow would not assume Ichigo would submit to him.

He was prepared to give Ichigo whatever he desired.

“I…” Ichigo lowered his arm from his face. “I will receive you.”

It was the answer he had hoped for. Grimmjow rose. “I will return shortly.”

In the kitchen, he took a moment to collect himself while he retrieved the oil he had bought from the market. He would take care not to strain Ichigo. He would make this night one the god would remember for—for however long he had left to live.

Grimmjow returned with oil dish in hand and setting this aside, he shed shirt and boots and trousers. When he turned he found the god watching with mouth half open.

Grimmjow approached the bed with measured leisure to indulge Ichigo’s curious gaze, in equal comfort in bare skin as when clothed. In this matter he did not shy, not even before a god, for he was as handsome in body as he was in face.

Upon the bed he settled again between Ichigo’s legs. Reaching across the stand he dipped into the oil dish and scooped as much as he could take between two fingers and thumb. Pale golden oil pooled in his palm—oil meant for use in worship and taken now for purpose altogether different and yet not so different at all.

“Grimm—Grimmjow, what are you doing?”

“Heh.” Grimmjow clasped Ichigo’s thigh to his chest, lifting his lower body half into lap for better leverage. “What do you think? I am using my fingers.”

“Why?”

Grimmjow looked at him strangely, focus broken by this question. Had Ichigo never been prepared this way before? “So that it does not pain you when I take you.”

Ichigo’s eyes went wide but only for a moment. He looked away. “Of—of course. I know this.”

How strange that Ichigo would question this. Perhaps gods had different practices for this purpose.

Grimmjow turned back to the task at hand. With oil-slick fingers, he stroked the skin between balls and hole. As expected, Ichigo’s head fell back with a groan half trapped in throat.

Oh yes. Ichigo did enjoy being touched here.

Grimmjow had no patience to linger there long. He swept the pad of his thumb over the puckered hole, slowly at first so as not to startle, and watched Ichigo’s face closely. With Ichigo’s continued tolerance, he grew bolder.

At the next passing stroke, he pressed a finger to the hole and bore down—not yet enough to penetrate, but enough to warn Ichigo of his intent. The thigh held against Grimmjow’s chest flexed, knee bending over his shoulder as though to urge him closer.

Grimmjow needed no urging. With a slow glide, his longest finger entered Ichigo. A shuddering breath escaped the god and Grimmjow held it there a moment.

Even with a single finger, Ichigo was tight. Grimmjow imagined his cock where his finger was. He entertained a lewd image of his hands spreading the cheeks while Ichigo strained to accept him, stretching wide around his fat girth and taking him whole. How sweetly Ichigo would moan—

Soon. Grimmjow twisted his finger round and withdrew. If ever there was a time for patience, it is now.

Patience was an exacting master. His own cock dribbled a steady stream of slick down its shaft, but Grimmjow had not a third hand to tend to it. He ached. Long had it been since he denied himself so.

With two fingers, the ring of muscle around his knuckles tightened and released, as though to push him out or resist further entry.

“Relax, Ichigo.”

Though he used only two fingers now, resistance would beget pain when it was his cock instead.

Ichigo did not relax. Grimmjow grinned and turned his fingers around, curling them up and searching—

“Ah!”

There.

As though to match Ichigo’s shock, his hole slackened just enough for Grimmjow to withdraw without resistance. Ichigo’s mouth was agape, his eyes wide. Grimmjow’s smirk bared teeth. Who would have guessed that in bed, the red star of Zangetsu was just a man like any other?

Again his fingers entered, and this time they gave no rest as Grimmjow worked Ichigo open with tight, twisting circles. Up he pressed against the firm swell of that pleasurable spot on each push in, and soon he learned to hold Ichigo down to keep him still.

Ichigo bucked. He swung arms out and clutched at the bed, knuckles white and sheets stretched to tear, but Grimmjow’s earlier mercy had dried up. He grasped shaking thighs tighter to his chest and leaned forward, lifting Ichigo’s ass higher still while he plunged his fingers in and out. He did not release him, not even as Ichigo’s hips squirmed and writhed as though to evade his touch. Ichigo shook like a man in his dying throes: his fingers clawing, his jaw clenched, his throat bared and sweat beading on pale skin.

At last Grimmjow could take no more. He pulled his fingers from Ichigo with greater haste than intended and finally—finally—reached for more oil.

Scooping half a palmful, he slicked first himself and used the remainder to smear over Ichigo’s ass. Ichigo propped himself on elbows and watched him with a strange look upon his face.

With his clean hand, Grimmjow pressed him back down.

“Rest easy,” he said. “Do not test your stitches.”

They met eyes—Ichigo’s cheeks were red, his lips swollen from bites of his own making—and Ichigo nodded.

Grimmjow took himself in hand and found his hands wracked by tremors too fine to notice were they not his own.

It was not fear of intimacy which gave his hands their tremor, his gut its heaviness, or his heart its cloud. What did give these things, he lingered not long to discern, for Ichigo lay before him waiting and wanting.

Grimmjow crawled closer, holding himself over Ichigo on knees and palm, and guided his cock to rest against oil-slick skin. He hesitated.

Had he prepared Ichigo enough?

Grimmjow had taken many a young boy with only enough care that his partner was not in enough pain to fight him. But never had he fucked a man who just weeks earlier had bled enough to drown the world in. Never had he fucked a man whose pleasure meant more to him than his own.

His cock weighed heavy and full, glistening with oil and pulsing with the beat of his heart in the underside of its shaft. In length he was generous but no longer than Ichigo, but in girth he was thicker than he could encircle between thumb and forefinger. It was far more than the two fingers he had prepared Ichigo with.

Ichigo squirmed. His ass moved against Grimmjow’s cock, sliding in oily glide down the valley of his buttocks.

Lust swelled sudden and vicious in Grimmjow’s belly and swept away these doubts in a tide. He pressed forward.

Oh, gods.

Ichigo was tight. It was as if Grimmjow had not prepared him at all.

Solid heat swallowed him inch by inch as he plunged deeper. Grimmjow’s entire world narrowed to the simple, exquisite pleasure of tight heat and the softness of Ichigo’s body inside. Slow was his descent, for he was determined to savor this first penetration, determined to imprint every squeeze and tremor of Ichigo’s body around him.

Finally there was no more to give, and Grimmjow’s head bowed, his eyes screwed tight to shut out anything that might pull him from the sheer ecstasy of this moment.

Perhaps he should not have been so quick to wonder at Ichigo’s humble stamina, when he also felt need to pause a moment to check himself.

Ichigo was quiet. Where before Grimmjow had fought to hold him down, now he had gone very still.

Grimmjow looked up.

The first he saw was Ichigo’s face, his lips pulled tight, his eyes wide and vacant. His body lay rigid, chest rising and falling in short, shallow bursts of breath.

Fuck!

The tightness around Grimmjow was not entirely of guiltless cause. Why had Ichigo not relaxed? Most men Grimmjow had lain with knew better than to tighten their bodies at this crucial moment.

“Breathe,” said Grimmjow, and he rested a hand upon Ichigo’s chest as though to still his frantic breaths. “I told you to rest easy, did I not?”

Ichigo nodded with a sharp jab of his head.

“Breathe slow. Do not fight me.” Grimmjow held still. The urge to fuck, and fuck hard, gnawed at his restraint, but Grimmjow noosed a rope around the beast’s throat and wrestled it back. Ichigo was not some cheap village boy he could toss aside in the morning and never see again.

No? He will be taken from you soon. Perhaps tonight will be your last with him.

Grimmjow grit his teeth. Gods, just let him have these moments with Ichigo in peace.

Ichigo breathed in through nose, out through mouth. Grimmjow’s hand found his cock and lavished upon it slow, smooth strokes to sweep away memory of pain. Up, down. A skillful curl of his wrist at the end and a gentle massage of his thumb over the head.

In time Ichigo’s breaths slowed just as Grimmjow commanded. His muscles loosened and released their knots and soon enough so too did the ring of flesh around Grimmjow.

Good.

Ichigo was still tight, but no longer choking around Grimmjow’s cock. Grimmjow waited a moment more, his hand steady on Ichigo’s length to distract against what he planned next.

He withdrew, angled his hips, and pushed back in. His cock dragged along the front wall of Ichigo’s passage, and Grimmjow knew he had found his mark by the drop of Ichigo’s jaw and the swift hiss of air between his teeth.

There.

Again. Pull and push—the rhythm of his hips matched the gasp of Ichigo’s breath and the pump of his fist over Ichigo’s cock. Again. Again. Again.

“Grimmjow…”

Most men in pleasure muttered expletives invoking gods and stars, but Ichigo, bereft of these, whispered only Grimmjow’s name.

Sweat beaded on Grimmjow’s brow and dripped down. He blinked it away.

Ichigo was lost. His eyes were fever-bright, wide but unseeing, his mouth agape and diligent in idolatry of Grimmjow’s name.

By the stars, he is beautiful.

His god whispered his name like a prayer and Grimmjow was taken by fantasy of blasphemous reversal: of himself as king, and Ichigo at his feet in worship. No sooner had this image taken form than he crushed it in fear.

But the weed had taken root, and though Grimmjow dared not look upon it with full intent, he sheltered it in the corner of his mind, to steal glimpses at when temptation took him:

Ichigo flattering him with kisses on his face and neck and chest as he lounged back upon his throne.

Ichigo’s mouth upon his cock, swallowed to his balls, eyes turned up to Grimmjow.

Ichigo fighting him and mastering him with his strength.

Ichigo spreading him wide, his long hair spilling over strong shoulders as he entered Grimmjow.

Oh, gods. Pleasure coiled tight in his groin.

Ichigo arched his back, straining, and Grimmjow knew what he desired, but he dared not go faster yet lest he spill himself before sating Ichigo first.

“Stay still,” he said, when Ichigo kicked his injured leg in protest. “You will tear your wounds open. Stop moving—”

Ichigo did not obey, either too lost in pleasure to hear or willfully ignoring Grimmjow. Grimmjow growled and trapped both thighs together against his chest once more. He held them tight. “Do. Not. Move,” he grunted between thrusts.

Grimmjow’s hand was slick with the eager drip of Ichigo’s cock. Even clasped under one thick arm, Ichigo’s thighs shook and strained. His chest heaved like a tide pushed and pulled by the force of Grimmjow’s thrusts.

He must be close.

Faster Grimmjow went, arching hips up to reach that spot inside Ichigo until his back burned from the strain. His grip tightened around Ichigo’s cock, jerking him fast and rough. The synchrony between hand and hips broke, each going their own frantic pace while Ichigo’s moans grew deeper, his voice tight, his whispers urgent.

A tightening pulse in Ichigo’s cock was Grimmjow’s only warning. He had time enough to react and slow his hand just as the first gush spilled across Ichigo’s chest. Again he thrust into Ichigo, a perfect drag of cock over the sweet spot as he pulled from Ichigo his climax in two more pumps of his fist. Ichigo’s thighs were rigid against his chest, Grimmjow’s cock strangled near to pain in his ass.

Three spurts Ichigo gave him. The fourth and last leaked over Grimmjow’s knuckles in a lazy dribble and then Ichigo collapsed back boneless amidst sweat-damp sheets.

His limbs flopped in graceful abandon, his hair pasted to skin by sweat in some places and mussed into chaos in others. He lay with chest heaving, spent.

Grimmjow’s heart thumped in his ears, cock still hard and wanting inside Ichigo.

A moment of silence, and then Ichigo looked to him with a languid turn of head. “Finish in me.”

Grimmjow let go of his legs. He hunched forward onto knees and elbows and wrapped arms around limp shoulders, gathering Ichigo to his chest but careful not to rest his weight upon him.

Ichigo stared up at him, breath fast and shallow against Grimmjow’s face, and wound his arms up to grasp Grimmjow by the shoulders.

Grimmjow moved, taking care not to rock Ichigo too hard, not to pull at his tender, still-healing wounds with each drag of his body. Even now, spent and pliant beneath him, Ichigo was a tight, hot sheath on his cock. Grimmjow bowed his head, resting his face against Ichigo’s throat as he fucked.

Light touches peppered his hair, his forehead, his temples. Driven to distraction by what transpired below his waist, at first Grimmjow had not the mind to discern what they were. But when he turned his face up, Ichigo pressed lips to his brow.

Kisses.

Grimmjow faltered.

Ichigo showered him with chaste kisses while submitting his body for Grimmjow’s pleasure.

Such innocence and tenderness juxtaposed to raw lust. It cowed Grimmjow yet he pressed his face close for more even as his thrusts grew deeper, faster. Ichigo kissed his brow, his cheeks, his temples, hand cupping the nape of Grimmjow’s neck, arm braced around Grimmjow’s shoulders as though Grimmjow was the one who needed protection.

Grimmjow closed his eyes.

Do not take him from me.

His breath grew ragged, his thrusts short but careful. Only distant memory of Ichigo’s fragile state held him back from mindless rutting.

Who must I beg to spare him? I will beg. I will submit.

Closer he inched to that lofty peak, though caution for Ichigo delayed his ascent to an agonizing crawl. Grimmjow gasped raw like a man half drowned—closer he came, closer still—

I cannot save him.

The first swell of pleasure peaked over him like a mighty tide. His toes dug into the sheets for purchase, and he shuddered deep, clutching Ichigo to himself as though this was all that kept him close.

He will soon be gone no matter how tightly I cling—

His hips snapped forward once, twice, fucking his seed deep into Ichigo’s body, and even after he was spent, Grimmjow continued to pump in vain effort chasing the receding vestige of pleasure until finally all strength fled him.

He had just enough mind to roll over to Ichigo’s side rather than fall atop him. He did not release him.

For a long moment, they lay together wordless, breathless.

Grimmjow was very still. His seed filled Ichigo in his most intimate place and Grimmjow had no desire to withdraw from his body. Ichigo smelled of sex and sweat. His hair was wild and his face fever-pink.

Ichigo was defiled, yet no divine power reached down to smite Grimmjow for his act of desecration. The sky had not fallen nor the earth split open.

It does not matter.

A shiver seized him by the nape and slithered down his spine. He clasped Ichigo tighter still, fingers digging into flesh.

It does not matter, because soon they will come for him—

No.

Stop.

Let the hounds of hell come for him. Let the tides of Seireitei’s unjust justice come for him—but let it be tomorrow.

Just let him have tonight.

Let him have this one, perfect moment spared from sorrow and regret, for in this moment he was whole.

In this moment he wanted for nothing.

Chapter Text

Chapter 21: His Lover is a God in Exile

While Ichigo fell to sleep, Grimmjow lingered amongst the waking.

Ichigo was pleased. This was plain in the whispered smile upon his handsome face, the languid fall of limbs, the gentle heave of his chest. With idle fingers, Grimmjow stroked damp strands of hair back from Ichigo’s face and beheld his god.

He had not thought there could be a more erotic sight than that which he had just seen of Ichigo eager and spread out to receive him, but here again he was wrong.

Ichigo, spent and desecrated by his hands, wounded but secure in trust, struck Grimmjow with fresh hunger. Of all men living, Grimmjow alone could feast upon this vision. Grimmjow alone had embraced and possessed a magnificent star of unparalleled beauty and strength.

Where once festered shame and guilt for his furtive, profane desire now birthed pride he wished to roar for all to know.

Ichigo was right. How could this be profane?

Profane was the mindless fucking Grimmjow had once pursued with great number of nameless, faceless men and women. This was not profane. This was the truest worship he knew to give.

He rose.

With a soft rag soaked and wrung of water, he cleaned Ichigo and then himself. The seed he cleaned from Ichigo’s hole was streaked with pink, and so it was upon Grimmjow’s cock. Grimmjow found this strange, for he had taken care to prepare Ichigo to receive him. But he did not worry, for Ichigo had made his pleasure amply known.

When this task was done, Grimmjow checked Ichigo’s bandages and found no wounds had bled.

In the morning, after a restful but brief sleep, Grimmjow roused to find Ichigo sitting upright and contemplating the bandage across his chest.

“Do not trouble with it,” Grimmjow grumbled with one eye open, and Ichigo turned to him. “I will change it today.”

Ichigo favored him with a smile, and let his hands fall away from the wound. “My dreams were sweet by your making, Pantera.”

Grimmjow stretched out, arms folded beneath his head. Though many men had called him by the name of his blade, it had never sounded as it did now from Ichigo’s lips. Not as an admiration of his battle heart, but a playful tease of one beloved. He closed his eyes, but he could yet feel the touch of Ichigo’s gaze and knew the god admired his form.

“Tell me. What dreams walked your mind?”

“Memories from when you were small.” Cool fingers skimmed Grimmjow’s hip where taut muscle melded to hard bone beneath the skin. “You would pick wild strawberries from that field behind the house and lay them on my altar.”

Grimmjow opened his eyes at that. Since that night Ichigo confessed all, he had known yet not understood the implications of his god’s devotion to him. Now he shuddered to consider them.

Each moment he had spent in prayer and offering to his god had not gone unseen. Ichigo had taken notice of every gift Grimmjow left at his shrine and seen the care taken to keep the floors swept, the garden tame, and the fountain clear.

“You saw me. You heard me.”

“In every moment you called my name.”

These moments numbered beyond counting.

“I was glad to have tasted your gifts in Selae,” said Ichigo. “They were all the sweeter having come from you.”

Memory of the desecrated shrine which had driven him to anger on the second morning of Raahl drew Grimmjow’s eyes wide. “That was you! I thought that mess was the doing of drunkards or blasphemers.”

“Truly?”

Grimmjow threw up his hands. “It looked as though a half dozen drunken men had descended upon that altar. Do you mean to tell me you alone devoured all that in a single night?”

Ichigo blinked at him, brown eyes wide like an owl. The mighty red star of Zangetsu was monstrously proficient in more than just battle prowess, it seemed.

But Grimmjow would rejoice when Ichigo’s appetite returned to such ferocity. In the weeks since his battle, Ichigo had yet to finish a single full meal. Grimmjow would gather the offerings left upon the steps of the sick house and see which would tempt Ichigo to eat today.

But later. Grimmjow was loath to relinquish the site of his conquest just yet.

Memory of the previous night’s coupling seemed now surreal and wondrously strange, and for a wild moment Grimmjow was stricken with uncertainty. Had he dreamed it all?

Then he caught Ichigo’s expression: curious, shy…but also knowing. He knew Grimmjow as Grimmjow knew him, in the manner of lovers no longer innocent with one another.

Last night had been no dream.

“You look like…the cat which has skinned the mouse,” said Ichigo.

“Ate the mouse,” Grimmjow amended. “Is that so strange? I have claimed a prize most worthy of boasting.”

Ichigo’s scoff was equal parts embarrassment and amusement.

Grimmjow leaned closer, his grin filled with teeth and arrogance. “Allow me my gloating. Few men can boast of bedding a god. I suppose to you, it is nothing new.”

Here now, a peculiar flush reddened Ichigo’s cheeks. He turned askance so quickly Grimmjow gave pause. Had he taken offense? But no, Ichigo did not seem angry. Grimmjow tilted his head as he sought to understand this sudden mood.

“What?”

“It is nothing.” Ichigo took sudden interest in tidying the tangled ends of his long hair, and the evasive tone of this denial hooked Grimmjow’s curiosity. Ichigo was clumsy in deception; Grimmjow smelled a secret of some importance here.

“Tell me.”

“No.”

Perhaps Grimmjow should let this go. Just because he had bedded Ichigo did not mean he was privy to all his secrets, and there must be much to a god’s inner thoughts he did not understand—

“I was better than you expected, is that it?” Pantera, which never strayed far from Grimmjow’s side, thrummed with satisfaction. Grimmjow rested his head upon his palm, grinning in lazy repose. “You did not think you could be so easily undone.”

Ichigo’s flush bled across the bridge of his nose. “You are full of pride,” he said with shallow reproach, but he would not meet Grimmjow’s eyes.

Grimmjow was entranced. Among men, he alone was gifted this vision: the red star of Zangetsu blushing like the boy he appeared to be. This shyness he had seen before. Ichigo had seemed ignorant of the custom of using oil to prepare for sex between men, and he had not known to relax when Grimmjow entered him for the first time.

“Do not tell me…” Grimmjow’s shock must have shown upon his face, for Ichigo scowled. “…have you never received a man before?”

Ichigo’s red face blunted the sharp edge of his displeasure, and Grimmjow’s jaw fell unhinged.

“You have never lain with a man at all!”

“Close your mouth,” Ichigo grumbled. “You look like a fish.”

But with impudent spirit made bold, Grimmjow tossed his head back and laughed. “See your own face! You blush like a sweet virgin maid.”

“Wounded I may be, but I can still crush you.”

Still laughing, Grimmjow shook his head. “Yet it was I who taught you something new last night. Well? It was better than lying with a woman, was it not?”

Ichigo was mute, and in this silence Grimmjow discerned yet another truth. Who would guess the mighty warrior god was possessed of such innocence? His knowing grin stretched wider than the sickle moon.

“It—it is not so strange!” Ichigo protested. “Before we became stars, I was often fighting and training. There was not the time to chase bedmates.”

But he was Ichigo. He had no shortage of admirers past or present. How was it that he had not once indulged in carnal appetites?

“I was only nineteen years old when I became a star! And then when I returned to this earth, I had other worries to occupy me. I was searching for Aizen, I was searching for you—”

“Nineteen,” Grimmjow repeated. His ears must have deceived him, for although Ichigo looked to be in the spring of manhood, gods did not age like men. He could not have been only nineteen in the legends Grimmjow grew up hearing. “You were nineteen years old when you imprisoned the deceiver?”

“Yes.”

Grimmjow had known Ichigo was young by the measure of gods when he had defeated Aizen the first time. He had not known Ichigo had been a boy even by the reckoning of men.

“I am much older now,” Ichigo hastened to remind him. “I lived many thousands of years in Seireitei before you were yet born.”

No wonder their songs and legends celebrated Ichigo so ardently. He truly was a magnificent creature, to have stormed the court of gods, defied their law, defeated Aizen and imprisoned him—all before he was even twenty years old. And Grimmjow had claimed him in the way no man, woman, or god ever had. He had taken Ichigo’s innocence. Last night had been wondrous, but for reasons more than Grimmjow had even realized at the time.

This realization sparked neither regret nor fear for divine retribution but a renewed hunger in the pit of his stomach. He wished to make fresh his claim. His seed was not yet stale inside Ichigo’s body, but he was wrested suddenly by desire to mark him again.  

His hand was upon Ichigo’s thigh.

Ichigo was incredulous. “It excites you to know this truth?”

How could it not? If last night had been Ichigo’s first, then there were so many ways he had never known pleasure. Grimmjow was eager to show him all of them.

The harsh set of Ichigo’s brows softened. He was clad loosely in the black silk robes which slipped down his shoulders with only a light tug, and he gave no protest at his uncovering. Naïve though he was, he was also content to let Grimmjow lead him in this. In this matter, Grimmjow was wiser.

The warlord laid his hands upon Ichigo once more, his restraint less than the previous night but his idolatry ever steady. This time, as he coaxed Ichigo to readiness, it was with knowledge of just how naïve Ichigo still was. But even so naïve, even so freshly defiled, Ichigo was yet a warrior god. He looked upon Grimmjow with steel in his eyes and a stubborn set in his jaw which incited Grimmjow to answer in kind.

This second coupling was less cautious than the first. Grimmjow permitted Ichigo greater freedom in movement than he had the previous night, intrigued to see the hard coil of his thighs straining against him, the cords of his neck taut as he strove not to cry out. Grimmjow bit his shoulder to loosen his voice and heard his prize in the sweetly uttered growls beneath him.

Grimmjow fucked Ichigo full, and when he sensed the end, he swallowed Ichigo’s cock down his throat and finished him with tongue and lips.

When he pulled away, Grimmjow sat over Ichigo lying back in the sheets, his chest heaving, his mouth panting with lips bitten raw.

“Grimmjow…” Ichigo groaned. “Stop looking so smug.”

“Heh. I cannot.”

Grimmjow ran his palm down Ichigo’s neck, over his collarbones and chest. Much of him was still covered by bandages, but his power still seeped into Grimmjow’s skin with a silken caress. It sent a thrill down Grimmjow’s spine to know such a powerful creature spread his legs for him.

There was red on the sheets. Grimmjow stilled and looked about for its source, and found it by the darkening patch on the bandages binding Ichigo’s belly.

He cursed and pulled the sheets away to get a better look.

Ichigo frowned. “It is nothing, Grimmjow.”

Grimmjow ignored him. He sought the hidden end of the linen and unwound it, then used a small set of shears to cut the rest away. He had intended to change the bandages today anyways.

The wound on Ichigo’s abdomen looked only a little worse than Grimmjow remembered it two days ago. The stitches held fast, and though it bled anew, the bleed was slow and not so fearful. The wound was closing around the edges.

Grimmjow went to retrieve the healer’s supplies and a shallow basin filled with clean water. First he cleansed Ichigo of the evidence of their coupling, to which Ichigo grumbled with embarrassment. Then he washed away the new blood before tending to the other wounds.

The smaller ones were nearly healed. But the one in the center of his chest, where Aizen had impaled him just before they fell, looked almost as fresh as the first night Grimmjow had spent sleepless at his side in the sick house. It was not bleeding, but the flesh around it appeared white and bloodless, corpse-like in its coldness. On Ichigo’s back, the wound where the sword had exited was the same.

Grimmjow’s stomach turned.

He cleaned and bound Ichigo’s wounds once more and did not ask. He was yet unready to know.

The day was new.

Old man Genryūsai brought the sun to rise, and Ichigo sat awash in this day’s virgin light. Grimmjow drank the sight, wordless but with heart rent asunder. For though Ichigo was surely most beautiful beneath the sun, even the sun would take part in his execution.

The darkness which shadowed Grimmjow’s mind mirrored plain upon his face.

Ichigo knew the cause. He took the man’s hand and brought it up to press a whisper of lips to the calloused fingertips, to the palm, and last the wrist. The angry crease of Grimmjow’s brow softened.

How could Ichigo accept his fate with back so straight and heart so still?

He stood.

“Grimmjow?”

“I am going to fetch us food.”

But he did not go to the sick house where the steps were piled high with offerings of food and gifts for Ichigo. His feet carried him instead to the hills where many shrines to the other gods stood.

He stood there for a long while.

The shrines were beautiful and peaceful in their stillness. The town’s people had taken care to tend to them and keep the altars fresh with gifts uninterrupted.

Madness beset Grimmjow.

He swept into the shrine of Genryūsai in a flurry of rancor and rage, and in two steps and a mighty heave, he upturned the white stone altar. The heavy polished stone split in two; the offering tray and oil dish clattered to the ground. Ash dirtied the mosaic floor, but Grimmjow was not yet finished.

He unsheathed Pantera and stalked into the shrine of Byakuya. Upon his altar were bouquets of lovely blooms. Bunches of rosy pink camellias, splendid in their newly unfurled perfection, adorned his shrine. Grimmjow raised his sword and tore through them. He kicked down the altar, ripped down the pale silk drapes, and pissed in the fountain.

Three more shrines he desecrated before he stumbled upon the grassy knoll. He turned his face upwards, his mouth frothing, his eyes wild. Though it was day, he knew the stars were still above. He hoped they saw what he had done. He hoped they could hear him.

“FUCK. YOU!”

If sheer force of rage could be made into power, then Grimmjow would have the might to transcend the distance to the stars.

“FUCK YOU! TRAITORS! COWARDS!” Grimmjow clutched Pantera’s hilt so tight his battered knuckles split. “I WILL SLAY YOU ALL! DO YOU HEAR ME?”

No hand came down to smite him. No power struck him down on the spot. Ichigo was right. There was nothing that could move these unfeeling, forsaken fucks.

He named the stars by every obscenity he knew and many more born by the muse of his rage, until his voice gave out and he sighted something out of place atop Suì-Fēng’s ruined shrine.

The white star of Zangetsu stood tall upon its roof looking down to Grimmjow with hawk-yellow eyes behind a white skull mask. How long had he been there, witness to Grimmjow’s insanity? Shirosaki was there, and in the next instant, he was gone.

Grimmjow stood alone once more.

...

His mood still black, Grimmjow went to retrieve food from the sick house as he had promised. The offerings piled high. Grimmjow sorted through them before choosing a few bundles he judged might appeal to Ichigo most and other gifts he found useful. He chose also a box of meat and root vegetables for himself.

The red-haired whore stood to the side, wide-eyed and mouse-hearted, as Grimmjow collected what he wanted. She said nothing, cowed by the memory of his temper.

“What would you see done with the rest?” asked the healer.

Grimmjow did not care, but Ichigo would want the food given to less fortunate souls rather than see it spoil. “Give it to the poor house.”

On the trail leading to Grimmjow’s house, where the air went still and the birds went silent, Shirosaki stood over a second figure. Grimmjow approached, one hand reaching for Pantera before he made sense of this scene.

Ulquiorra Cifer, on bent knee, offered to Shirosaki a long, slender object wrapped in linen. Shirosaki took it, and short of words, he went into the house. The door closed behind him.

Grimmjow followed. He and Ulquiorra exchanged glances but not words.

In the bedroom, Ichigo and Shirosaki sat together upon the bed, the linen-wrapped object laid at Ichigo’s feet. Grimmjow lingered at the doorway, uncertain if he was meant to bear witness to this moment, but neither god protested his presence.

Shirosaki uncovered the linen and therein lay the second piece of Zangetsu’s broken blade. Ichigo picked up the first piece with the hilt from the pelt which Grimmjow had wrapped it in and placed it end to end with the second. From hilt to tip, the sword was deepest black, striking even in this diminished state. It felt like a great wrongness to see it broken so.

Ichigo touched his forehead to Shirosaki’s and clasped the white beast’s nape.

“Thank you, Zangetsu.”

He was not speaking to the sword.

...

Shirosaki took the broken sword with him.

When Grimmjow felt permitted to enter the room once more, he brought with him the food and gifts he had retrieved from amongst Ichigo’s offerings.

He laid out before Ichigo a spread of ripe fruit and hot meals cooked with great care. Ichigo paid first mind to the bowl of ripe berries, but Grimmjow had little appetite. He ate his portion, hardly tasting the perfectly seasoned food.

“I am sorry.”

Ichigo paused, a succulent red berry halfway to his mouth, and turned.

“I should not have called for you.” Grimmjow’s hands were clasped tight before him. The blood on his knuckles had dried but now split anew. How was he to know, on that night seven years ago, that his prayers were heard and answered? And see now the consequences. Ichigo wounded and condemned, a god in exile. Zangetsu broken in two.

“You shoulder too much blame. I would have come even had you not called.”

“But—”

“Did you not hear me, Grimmjow? I regret nothing.”

Grimmjow had regret enough for both of them. “Zangetsu is broken.” The great sword he had looked to for strength and courage all his life was in pieces. What did it mean for a god’s sword to break?

“Zangetsu is fine.”

What? Grimmjow had just seen the two pieces of it in Ichigo’s hands. His confusion was plain, for Ichigo sighed and put down his food.

“Zangetsu is more than just a sword, Grimmjow.” He said this as a stark truth which should be obvious. “Just as Pantera is.”

And then, when Grimmjow’s confusion only deepened, Ichigo made to rise, bracing himself across his belly. Grimmjow started with alarm, but Ichigo waved off his attempt to support him. “Let me up. I can walk. I have something to show you.”

Ichigo brought him outdoors to the field behind the house where the grass grew short and dense, and sat down with legs crossed and back straight. He motioned for Grimmjow to follow his lead. Now, sitting together the same way facing one another, Ichigo spoke.

“What do you think Zangetsu is?”

Grimmjow frowned. “It is a sword, black as the night without stars or moon. It is your sword, the source of your power.”

“No.”

No? What riddle was this?

“Zangetsu is my killing instinct, the darkness in my heart given teeth and claws and a razor edge. He is strong and cunning, but without restraint, and the only humility he knows is to me.”

“You speak as if Zangetsu is a person.”

“He is. You know him.”

The description Ichigo gave seemed at once familiar and strange, and the face which came to Grimmjow’s thoughts was one which he had just seen—white-haired and white-skinned, sitting side by side with Ichigo on the bed.

Ichigo nodded.

“Shirosaki is the name I gave him long ago, when I did not understand him and sought to suppress him with all my might. But his true name is Zangetsu. The sword is but one shape of him.”

Grimmjow’s eyes were wide. The fearsome white beast was Zangetsu itself, given a voice, a face, and a white sword of his own.

“Now, what is Pantera?”

Grimmjow looked down at the blue-hilted blade at his hip with new eyes. Was it possible? Within his sword, was there a beast also?

“You begin to understand. It is not enough to know the name of this spirit in your heart. You  must know his face, his voice, and his will. Learn this, and you will grow in strength beyond the measure of men.” Ichigo’s eyes were keen. “I will show you how to hear him.”

Hear…his sword?

“You already sit in the proper form. Now unsheathe Pantera and lay him across your lap.”

Grimmjow did as instructed.

“This is jinzen,” said Ichigo. “It is the form my people use to speak to and bond with the spirit which takes the shape of their blade. Now, Grimmjow, close your eyes.”

Grimmjow did, and bereft of sight, he leaned on Ichigo’s voice to guide him in this exercise. He placed his hands upon Pantera. One upon the hilt, for it is by your hand the sword is guided, and the other upon the blade, for it is by your will the edge cuts.

Ichigo continued to speak. Grimmjow heard not his voice but the intent of his words. And as they commanded him, he listened to his own breath. He followed the air entering his body, rise in his chest, flow through him, and finally leave. One breath melded into another, each beyond counting, beyond sense of time or place.

His mind calmed, and the howl of frenzied thoughts and worries, which he had not known were ever so loud, took the stillness of a lake with no current or ripple.

And then, he heard it.

A whispered growl, so near it could be right beside his head. An animal rumble more felt than heard, and the massive bulk of a predator nearby. Hot breath blew on his ear.

Grimmjow’s eyes snapped open.

The sky, which had just been bright in midday sun when he had last seen it, was growing dark. Grimmjow leapt to his feet and cast about for a glimpse of what he had felt. There was nothing in this field but for Ichigo and himself.

Ichigo pulled himself upright.

Grimmjow’s blood sang as though he had just cut down a dozen foes worthy of his blade. 

“There was something beside me!” He spun on Ichigo with a smile full of teeth. “I heard him, I felt him! His breath was on face!” Grimmjow stopped. “But I did not see his face. He did not speak.”

Satisfaction reigned on Ichigo’s face. He looked proud. “You will do this again. It will come easier next time.”

Grimmjow looked up, and the sun had already set. His back ached. “How long did I sit there?”

“Six hours. Seven? I am not sure.”

Grimmjow marveled; it had not felt so long at all.

“He is beautiful. Like his master.”

Grimmjow spun. “You have seen him?”

“Just now. While you were meditating. He is wild and fierce and stunning. I had expected nothing less of you, Grimmjow.”

Fearsome pride filled Grimmjow’s breast. Ichigo found his sword beautiful. Though this time had yielded only a whisper of Pantera’s presence, Grimmjow knew now what he must do. He would not rest until he could converse as effortlessly with Pantera as Ichigo did with Zangetsu.

Grimmjow held up his sword to admire in the fading light. The blade, which had never chipped nor rusted in all the years Grimmjow bore it, gleamed deadly and sharp. I will know you, he swore. I will learn you.

...

They ate dinner outdoors. Grimmjow’s appetite had finally awoken, and he took the food with greater zeal this time. And while he ate, he considered Pantera.

Though he had not seen Pantera or heard him speak, he felt certain Pantera did not take the shape of a man, as Zangetsu did. He would have asked Ichigo what he had seen—what did Pantera look like?—but sensed this was not something that should be told. He must see it for himself.

Pantera was warm at his side, and Grimmjow sensed that he was pleased. Pantera wished to speak to Grimmjow as dearly as Grimmjow wished to hear him.

“How did you know I could do it?” Grimmjow asked Ichigo, who was enjoying a meal of steamed fish in savory spices over rice. “I have never heard of jinzen. This is an art performed by gods not men, is it not?”

“I have heard your sword screaming in battle. He wants you to hear. And you have heard him speak at least once before.”

“I have?”

“Of course. He told you his name.”

There was so much Grimmjow did not know.

At the close of their meal, the warlord stretched out on the grass, belly full of food and mind full of wonder. Ichigo laid down beside him, and for a moment, Grimmjow was taken with awe that in this field where as a child he had scoured countless times for strawberries to heap on Ichigo’s altar, he now lay side by side with his god as lovers.

The moment passed.

“I want to know Pantera,” Grimmjow spoke this ambition aloud. His heart pounded fast. “I want him at my side, not as a whisper, not as a ghost. I want him with me as sure and firm as Shirosaki walks with you. That is what I wish.”

Ichigo rested on his side, gazing not at the stars but at Grimmjow. “Then you will make it so. You alone of all men will have your blade made flesh.”

Ichigo sounded so sure of this. Grimmjow shuddered to imagine it so.

And Ichigo? What did Ichigo wish for? Grimmjow dared to ask.

The question invited silence. Ichigo gave a long, shuddering breath as though it pained him.

Grimmjow cursed himself. Ichigo must wish for a stay of his execution. He must wish for the other gods to leave him be, to let him live out his time on earth with Grimmjow. It was a thoughtless cruelty to remind Ichigo of his impending fate.

“Forget I asked. I did not intend to—”

“I wish for the stars to fall.”

Grimmjow fell silent and so did the night.

“I wish for my people to return to this land once more and remember what it was like before they split heaven and earth, before the world was changed.” Ichigo’s voice was a whispered conviction. His eyes burned with such simple, earnest yearning it made Grimmjow ache in the core of his being. “I wish for a night without stars, where the moon is alone and the sky is dark.”

A night without stars…

Ichigo wished for the world to return as it had been ten thousand years ago. He wished for gods to walk amongst men, to share not only their appearance, but their lives, their passions, and their very existence.

Grimmjow tried to imagine it: the night dark, the moon in solitude.

Ichigo wished for the impossible.

Chapter Text

Chapter 22: Festival of the Desolate Moon

“Back straight, Grimmjow.”

Without opening his eyes, Grimmjow straightened his form and sank deeper into his own mind.

Early morning sun dappled his skin beneath the foliage of a broad-crowned tree, warm but not yet oppressive. Ichigo rose with the sun these days and so too did Grimmjow to train in jinzen under his guidance. He no longer needed Ichigo’s voice to guide him into the meditative state, but Ichigo was present during these moments nonetheless.

Pantera was an elusive creature.

Though he had given Grimmjow his name eight years ago the day Grimmjow first laid hands upon his blue-wrapped hilt, he was far stingier with his voice and the vision of his form. But Grimmjow felt now the weight of Pantera’s breath and the warmth of his body each time he sat in jinzen, and these things came easier each day.

Time slipped by without measure like a flowing stream past the rock of Grimmjow’s focus. The grass beneath him faded from his mind. The whispered wind in his hair and upon his skin smoothed into nothing. Grimmjow sat adrift in boundless white.

Pantera was beside him.

The growling rumble of a great beast came from Grimmjow’s left, close enough to touch. His heart quickened, eager to reach out and know with his hands the spirit of his sword. But the last time Grimmjow had attempted this, Pantera had turned away from his outstretched hand and retreated into obscurity.

This time, Grimmjow restrained himself. His hands remained in their proper place, one resting upon the hilt of the sword laying across his lap, the other upon the flat of its blade. Still air breathed into his chest and then out.

Pantera circled his sitting form, his movements slow and keen. Grimmjow did not need sight to feel the scrutiny of his eyes upon him.

What thoughts did he bear of Grimmjow?

At last, he came to stop in front of Grimmjow. Hot breath ghosted over his face, and then Pantera was still. Grimmjow did not open his eyes, but he sensed in Pantera’s stillness expectation and measured patience. He awaited Grimmjow.

He lifted one hand from his sword’s hilt and reached out in front of him, moving by slow inches, for though he did not yet know Pantera’s form he was certain it had teeth.

Soft fur met his touch.

Grimmjow wrestled the beating of his heart and the rhythm of his breaths to calmness, for he was not yet ready to break jinzen. Here at last he was touching Pantera—not as a sword, but as the spirit he truly was.

Pantera was a living beast beneath his fingers, his body thrumming with life, with warmth and power. Grimmjow ventured his touch further, his calloused fingers mapping what his eyes were not yet permitted.

A short muzzle and whiskers below a cold nose. Powerful jaws, and a mouth which breathed hot air against his skin.

Grimmjow.

Like rolling thunder before a coming storm, the voice came over Grimmjow, spoken not within his own mind but around him, from all sides at once. Grimmjow knew that voice. He did not know from where, but he knew it as dearly as his own.

His breathing hitched and the tranquil stillness within his mind shattered. His eyes snapped open, as he emerged from jinzen with a gasp like breaking through a ceiling of water.

The heat of early afternoon pressed down upon him, and the gentle current of the stream nearby filled the silence of his mind. Ichigo appeared beside him, one hand upon his shoulder.

Pantera was nowhere.

Grimmjow clasped his hand over Ichigo’s. “I heard his voice.” The exhilaration he breathed was akin to the rush he felt only in the midst of battle, when his hands were sticky with blood and Pantera’s hilt seemed as though it might never wash clean. “I touched him. Ichigo, he is a beast!”

Ichigo smiled, and the generous curl of his lips told his pride and satisfaction. “Tell me more.”

“I did not see him, but my hand was on his head. He does not take the shape of a man. He is…” Grimmjow paused, trying to piece together what his fingers had felt. “He is shaped like a great cat.” Was this what Ichigo had seen also?

Ichigo gave away nothing.

“I could feel his power,” Grimmjow went on with whispered awe. Like a mighty river held back by a dam, Pantera’s strength felt barely contained within that shape he took.

“Pantera is strong,” said Ichigo. “That strength is yours, once you learn and master him.”

Grimmjow turned. “When did you master Shirosaki?”

“I mastered his strength when I was fifteen,” said Ichigo.

At that age, Grimmjow had been just a child untouched by war, his skin without scars, his spirit without calluses. Ichigo had been so young when he had become a warrior.

Ichigo touched one hand to his chest, and Grimmjow did not know the meaning of this gesture. “But I did not master his heart until much later. I wasted many years pretending his nature did not come from me, and in my shame I neither listened to him nor acknowledged him as my own. Grimmjow, you are not so foolish. You already embrace Pantera’s heart.”

This simple assertion found Grimmjow unready. He sat stunned by his god’s praise.

“Even when you were a boy, before you knew Pantera’s name or held his blade, you did not flinch from his heart. When others shamed his nature, you did not bend to them. I admired you from the day I saw you embrace your own heart.”

Ichigo’s eyes were brown, but in their depths was an unearthly golden light possessed by no mortal man. They cast over Grimmjow from his face down over his body, and Grimmjow was naked beneath their gaze. The god reached out and touched him by a languid stroke down his neck and chest, pensive.

“I chose well.” Grimmjow was not privy to the thoughts behind those immortal eyes. “Were you a star, you would be a magnificent one.”

Grimmjow did not know what to answer to this. He ached.

...

Grimmjow brought Ichigo food to eat in the shade of a tree.

He had learned now his god’s favored dishes. Fruit was always well received, and Ichigo would eat fruit of any variety with great ardor. But Ichigo liked tender cuts of meat as well and also the spiced roe of ocean cod.

The villagers no longer piled offerings on the steps of the sick house. Once word spread of Ichigo’s new resting place, they began to bring their gifts instead to Grimmjow’s own doorstep. But Grimmjow did not like the presence of strangers so close to his home and the wounded god sheltered within, and after he made this loudly known, the multitudes of worshippers now left their gifts a fair distance from his house.

Over a few days, a strange thing happened: upon what was once an empty patch of earth at the foot of the hill which led to Grimmjow’s house, there sprang a small altar. Upon this altar were placed the gifts of food, drink and other offerings which had once lavished Ichigo’s shrine before the first breaking of Zangetsu. They came touched with golden oil and smelling faintly of the incense which was set to burn each time a worshipper visited, and Grimmjow came each day to choose from the offerings what to bring back to Ichigo.

That morning when Grimmjow had gone out to the altar, Ichigo had caught his sleeve in passing and asked with eyes cast down, “Could you…bring me a meal with beef in it, Grimmjow?”

Grimmjow had laughed at Ichigo’s softly spoken request. As though Ichigo had need of shyness when requesting a meal taken from his own altar!

Ichigo’s pleased face upon opening his meal with the requested dish warmed Grimmjow’s spirit. He sat with legs crossed at Ichigo’s side. Their elbows bumped together as they ate, but neither made to move apart.

The meal Grimmjow had chosen for himself was again fish cooked in savory sauce upon a bed of rice, with a side of steamed vegetables. He had chosen the same meal for many days without pause.

Ichigo took notice. “You are partial to fish.”

“I am.”

Grimmjow had not had fresh fish in a very long time, for the war had carried him inland where people ate herded cattle more than creatures caught from the sea. He had craved it many times in those long years.

“You are a poor fisherman, though. You have not the patience for it.”

Grimmjow blinked, at first wondering how Ichigo knew this about him, before he realized. The god had watched over him since boyhood and no doubt been witness to at least one of Grimmjow’s failed fishing trips. Of these there had been many.

Though Grimmjow had taken Ichigo as a lover for only a short time, Ichigo had known Grimmjow his entire life. He knew Grimmjow more intimately than any other soul who lived on this earth.

Ichigo swept his hair over his shoulder with a grumbled complaint. This time of day saw the sun highest in the sky, and sweat pasted long locks to Ichigo’s damp face and neck. It was the third time he had done this since they began eating, so Grimmjow set down his food.

The god glanced up at him with a silent question, and Grimmjow answered by unwinding a blue string wrapped around Pantera’s hilt. It was old; he had used it when his hair was long, before he had cut it on the first night of Raahl.

He swept back Ichigo’s hair, peeling away every errant strand from sweat-sticky skin. Ichigo grew his hair longer than most girls, and Grimmjow spared a moment for gladness that he had stopped the healer wench from cutting it in the sick house. He wound the string many times around the base of hair and tied it tightly.

Ichigo sighed in relief. They returned to eating.

“What news of the festival?” Ichigo asked.

Some days ago, Grimmjow had heard talk of a grand celebration planned in Ichigo’s honor which would take place here in the village. With Ichigo on the mend and the war over at last, a great many people saw reason to rejoice.

Grimmjow did not share the festive mood. They did not know the depth of sacrifice Ichigo had made. They did not know of Seireitei’s impending judgment or the burden in Grimmjow’s heart.

“Hn.”

“Grimmjow.” Ichigo clasped his hand. “Do not be so stingy with your blessing. Your people have suffered much these last years. Let them celebrate.”

And Grimmjow stopped, for how could something so powerful be also so kind and forgiving?

There was a stone in his throat. “It…it will begin on the night of the full moon.”

“Oh.” Ichigo grinned. “I look forward to it.”

“Truly?”

“Yes. Raahl was wonderful. I wish it had not been so ruined.”

Grimmjow thought back to the Starlit Celebration, when he had known neither Ichigo’s name nor his true nature. Ryoka, he had called his god.

It felt like a lifetime ago.

Ichigo had a fat red strawberry in his hand and juice staining his lips and dripping down his chin. The ryoka had eaten strawberries by the basketful during Raahl, and Grimmjow had chastised him for indulging so much instead of making offerings to their gods.

Grimmjow himself would never again make offerings to the gods, but for one.

“I was jealous back then,” said Ichigo suddenly, as though the mood to confess this was only fleeting.

“What?”

Ichigo did not look at him. He wore shyness upon his cheeks. “During Raahl. I was full of jealousy that you had so many admirers.”

Grimmjow’s eyes first grew large and then he threw his head back and laughed. Had Ichigo not seen the number of hopeful eyes which had followed him on the night of dance? He opened his mouth ready with a biting tease, when sudden awareness noosed his tongue.

Was he not equally blind? Ichigo had danced before the bonfire that night with eyes turned to Grimmjow, and Grimmjow had left the dance for another man’s bed.

“What?” Ichigo scowled. “Why do you laugh?”

But Grimmjow only shook his head. He turned, and grasping Ichigo by the shoulder, pushed him onto his back. The half-eaten berry fell from Ichigo’s fingers and dropped forgotten into the grass.

Next time he danced, Grimmjow would know without question who he danced for. Next time Ichigo favored him with a wanting look, he would not squander it.

It seemed this second promise would wait no longer to be fulfilled, for Ichigo bit his berry-stained lip and cast his gaze over Grimmjow’s half-bare body. He said nothing, but his face spoke of carnal intent. The god was innocent no longer, and his lust for Grimmjow seemed to grow by the day.

He parted his knees and hooked a leg behind the small of Grimmjow’s back.

“You are eager for me,” growled Grimmjow, and he pressed his lips to Ichigo’s.

With his wounds healing, Ichigo’s body could now indulge in lust on equal footing with his spirit. He was all that Grimmjow desired: curious in his inexperience, courageous in his will to learn, and though he had only received Grimmjow so far, Grimmjow knew his place. He heaped his worship upon this flesh-and-blood altar and in turn, Ichigo permitted him to take his pleasure from it.

In these past days, Grimmjow’s skin had learned the bite of Ichigo’s teeth and the claw of his nails. Though he wished to return these lessons, he did not yet dare test the limits of Ichigo’s healing body.

This time, Ichigo pushed him to lie flat on his back and rode him. Grimmjow lay entranced, his body taken by lust, but his heart, his mind, his soul were taken by awe at this god bared before him.

This was an image most sinful. With his body tight around Grimmjow’s cock, his mouth half open, a fat flush across his cheeks, Ichigo appeared a tender young thing only just encroaching into manhood. But he was more ancient than the oldest moss-swathed temples in this land, and in those hands which lay fisted against Grimmjow’s chest was the power to slay gods. In that voice which moaned Grimmjow’s name was the will that had ended his people’s war with a single order.

Grimmjow braced Ichigo by his hips and took him beneath the shade of trees and clouds. There were now few places in Grimmjow’s house and the grounds surrounding that had not witnessed their lust, but Ichigo favored sex outdoors beneath the boundless sky.

Later, when they were sated and Ichigo curled up to Grimmjow’s chest while the sweat dried from their skin, the god turned to him with half-formed intent on his face.

“What is it?” asked Grimmjow.

Ichigo bit his lip. “I want…”

Grimmjow’s curiosity roused. He curled his fingers in Ichigo’s long hair and waited.

“I want you to receive me.”

The grin which spread across Grimmjow’s face by slow inches brought Ichigo to avert his gaze. Opening his mouth, the god made to take back this request, but Grimmjow spoke before he could.

“Alright.”

Ichigo’s eyes grew wide. “You want to?”

Grimmjow had not given himself in this way for many years, for he would not suffer a man whose strength he did not respect to take him. But for Ichigo, he would guard no part of himself. Grimmjow would bend for him.

“It would not be the first time you had me on my knees.”

“You are no worshipper now.”

Ichigo was wrong. He was the only thing worthy of Grimmjow’s worship. From now forevermore, Grimmjow would bend knee for no other. Never again would he bring gift or offering or even set foot into the temple of another god, for Ichigo alone had fought Aizen the deceiver while his kin watched unmoved from the lofty heavens.

Soon, he would not have even Ichigo to worship.

With a frown, the god ran his fingers over Grimmjow’s face as though to wipe these thoughts away. “What is it, Grimmjow?”

There was so much to say, and Grimmjow could utter none of them. He swallowed. “It is nothing.”

...

The passage of days saw Ichigo’s strength returning by inches, yet still swifter than any mortal would have from the wounds he suffered.

With hands that had once swept crackling leaves from the floor of Ichigo’s shrine, Grimmjow cleaned his wounds and changed the dressings. Grimmjow was a warrior—bone breaker, blood spiller, la Pantera of the coastal lands—and he had never played nursemaid to another man. But he had tended to Ichigo’s shrine many, many times, and so this duty which was most strange to his hands was yet not so different at all.

The wounds no longer appeared so grievous as they had the day Grimmjow carried Ichigo from the shattered mountains, broken and his life hanging by a spider’s silk. What had once been gaping wounds were now pink, held closed by hemp sutures and weeping thin clear fluid but no blood, and the sight of them soothed the rabbit-thump of Grimmjow’s heart.

All but for one.

Grimmjow always left the wound in Ichigo’s chest for last.

This spot where Aizen had impaled him on his sword was clean, but it did not heal. It did not warm to the touch. The flesh surrounding was cold and white like the belly of a fish, and were it not for the beat of Ichigo’s heart, Grimmjow might mistake it for the killing wound on a corpse.

It made him shudder to touch.

This was no common wound. This was made by weapon or craft beyond Grimmjow’s understanding. How did Ichigo walk with such a wound in his chest? How long could even a god bear something like this?

Perhaps Seireitei was not all that waited to take him.

One morning, on a swell of false courage, Grimmjow dared to ask the nature of this wound though he did not want the answer.

Ichigo went silent, and Grimmjow sensed him pulled two ways between honesty and mercy. But in the end he did not answer, and Grimmjow asked no more.

The days stretched long yet altogether too short. With each rise and fall of the sun, a wretched understanding shackled Grimmjow and dragged heavier with each step he took at Ichigo’s side. It haunted him day by day, lurking at the edges of his joy, his contentment, his adoration, kept at bay by his will yet encroaching like the coming night on even the most sun-drunk summer day.

Their time was an hourglass, and the sand was trickling away.

Shirosaki did not return.

Some evenings, Ichigo stood at the bedroom window, gaze turned to the sky as though awaiting Shirosaki’s imminent arrival. And for Grimmjow, bound and weighted by a thousand cutting, unreasonable thoughts, his god’s lonely patience struck him like a spear through the chest. He came up behind Ichigo at the window.

“…Grimmjow?”

The warlord had his face pressed to Ichigo’s mane of hair. He parted his lips, breath caught in a ragged hitch and words netted behind a cage of teeth. Ichigo turned and with grief in his sigh and love in his hands, took him to bed.

Grimmjow beseeched no softness—he had no need of it—but Ichigo lavished it upon him nonetheless. New though he was to the practice of love, the god did not falter, did not hesitate in his adulation. He brushed aside Grimmjow’s protests as he knelt before him, hands clasping him by the vee of his waist and sun-warm eyes turned upward. And as he took Grimmjow in his mouth, the movements of his lips and tongue more practiced than they had been only weeks ago, he closed his eyes beneath the clutch of Grimmjow’s fingers in his hair and his name uttered like a prayer on muted breath.

Ichigo took him that night for the first time, and though Grimmjow had prepared in private in anticipation of this moment, his mind submitted less readily than his body. Ichigo kissed whispered prayers into his skin, breathed adoration and worship into his hair as he entered Grimmjow’s body with languid thrusts. As the warrior lay on his back staring up at his god, a strange and frightening thought arrived unbidden.

See here Grimmjow’s reverence returned to him. See here his piety, his tender touch, paid back two-fold. Grimmjow had no temple of white stone, no altar to lay oil-daubed offerings upon, but Ichigo had no need of these things to pay devotion.

He had broken the first law of heaven for Grimmjow. He had forsaken his own sword for Grimmjow. He had bled, fought, and laid down his life for Grimmjow who was but one man amongst many to pray to him over unknowable years.

Ichigo was god, yet his god’s piety to him far outmatched his own.

This thought did not leave him for some time. Later, when Ichigo lay against him spent and sated, he laid a hand over Grimmjow’s chest and frowned. “You are quiet.”

Was it right for a god to pay such devotion to a man? It was not the way of the world. As surely as fish did not fly and trees did not speak, gods did not worship men. Perhaps it was for this reason that Ichigo’s transgression against heaven could not be tolerated. He had upended the natural order of worship and sacrifice, and Seireitei could not let this stand.

Grimmjow closed his eyes. His gut gaped wide and hollow as though someone had carved a hole through his navel and out his back.

Outside, the wind fingered through the trees and with sighing breaths, their leaves whispered.

He pulled Ichigo closer.

...

The makeshift shrine which had sprung up at the foot of the hill before Grimmjow’s house grew by the day with gifts left not only by the people of the village.

The village saw visitors from all across the land, a steady stream of people who had heard tales of the final breaking of Zangetsu and Ichigo the protector and wished to see for themselves what truth lay here. They brought with them offerings to honor the god but also their hopes, their thanks, their fragile faith and weary joy at the end of the long war.

Some were content to leave their gifts at the foot of the hill and gaze for a brief moment upon the house of Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez where a wounded god was rumored to rest. But many others lingered, hopeful for a glimpse of the warlord or the boy-god in his care.

Grimmjow hoarded Ichigo jealously away from view, permitting no one near his house, going alone each morning and evening to choose from the offerings at the improvised shrine. He gave news of Ichigo’s recovery to the village healer only.

But he could not bar Ichigo from venturing into the village of his own desire.

“I wish to see the market, Grimmjow” said Ichigo one morning with an airy sigh and large eyes turned to Grimmjow.

Grimmjow swallowed, and at the first fall of that beseeching gaze to him, his agreement was written in stone. Ichigo could ask anything of him and see it granted. He set down the knife he had been sharpening, went to the wardrobe, and pulled his finest robes over the god’s shoulders.

“Alright,” he said.

His village’s market was smaller and less grand than what Ichigo had seen at Selae, but it had all manner of food and drink and handspun goods to adorn the body and home. The god went from one stall to the next, eager to taste, to touch, to learn everything that was offered.

The townspeople heaped his arms full with gifts they would not suffer him to refuse.

“Try this! It is made of mountain honey and sweetnuts. You will want more—”

Ichigo swiped a finger through the sticky glaze, put it in his mouth, and agreed.

“—a fine silk scarf for you, Lord—”

Ichigo lowered his head as the woman looped cornflower blue fabric around his neck and thanked her.

Grimmjow stayed close to his side, watchful of each villager and worshipper who jostled to approach, vigilant as the stone lions guarding palace gates of old. Word of Ichigo’s appearance in the market spread quickly, so that by midday, the streets were choked with people come to witness the mortal vision of the protector.

They knelt as he passed, touched their foreheads to the ground upon which he walked, and whispered prayers and reverence.

Grimmjow ached to make his claim known, but he did not take Ichigo’s hand as they walked. He took care not to hover so close as to inspire gossip, lest the god prefer discretion of their private relations. But when Ichigo had had his fill of the market, he reached for Grimmjow’s hand and intertwined their fingers.

“Can we go home?”

Grimmjow froze. It was not a kiss, not even a telling embrace, but by the sudden fall of silence around them, their secret had come undone. The burden of many discerning eyes fell upon him, yet he had never felt so weightless. Bewitched, he was, by an amber-eyed boy-god whose love cut deeper than his sword, and he desired no cure.

He put a hand to the small of Ichigo’s back and guided him from the crowd. “Yes,” he said. His heart was full. “We will go home.”

...

“They say you are lover to a god.”

Ulquiorra Cifer said this to Grimmjow one evening at the close of their meeting. In recent weeks, he had taken to seeing Grimmjow outside his house, often late in the day as the sun touched the horizon. They spoke of matters pertaining to Grimmjow’s army, and Ulquiorra took his orders with him so that he would not have to abandon his care of Ichigo.

His steady nature weighed a balancing counter to Grimmjow’s temper, and he was not one to pay heed to the idle wagging of tongues unless it concerned his duties. But rumors of the warlord’s relations with the beloved red star of Zangetsu had spread far and unchecked, it seemed.

Grimmjow stood taller. He raised his chin and set his jaw. “And?”

Ulquiorra’s face did not change. “So it is true, then.” He looked to the house, but the only window to be seen from here was empty. Grimmjow had left Ichigo resting with a bowl of bone broth soup.

At his hip, Ulquiorra carried a green-hilted sword whose name and deeds were known to many in these coastal lands and beyond. Did Murciélago speak to him, unheard and unknown, as Pantera had to Grimmjow before he learned jinzen?

Ulquiorra mounted his horse and took his leave. Grimmjow went back into his house.

Ichigo sat at the table scraping the bottom of his bowl with a spoon. Grimmjow took the empty bowl and refilled it from the pot simmering over the fire.

“Was that Ulquiorra?” Ichigo asked. “What news did he bring?”

Grimmjow pushed the steaming bowl towards him. Ichigo’s appetite was well, and he dug into this second helping with equal fervor to the first. “Nothing,” he said. He did not wish to speak of Ulquiorra, so he turned to matters Ichigo would take greater interest in. “The preparations for your festival have begun.”

Ichigo put down his spoon with a joyous gasp. “I wondered when they would! The full moon is near.”

The people had taken to calling this a festival of the desolate moon, for it was to begin on the first full moon of autumn. With so many people arriving on mass pilgrimage in Ichigo’s honor, the outskirts of the village were sprung full of temporary shelters. Grimmjow had never seen his village streets so flush with new faces.

Earlier this evening, a visiting priest of high title had happened upon Grimmjow watching the preparations and told him of their meaning. The red lanterns being strung all along the streets were for the red star of Zangetsu whose presence here honored them all. They would be set to burn day and night until sunrise on the final night of celebration as a symbol of Ichigo’s watchful protection of their people.

Grimmjow did not care about lanterns and symbols. He had told the priest to ensure an abundance of strawberries, sweets, and honey cakes.

“Will there be music, Grimmjow?”

Undoubtedly. Music and dance and ballads to tell of all that had happened since the night a nameless ryoka boy stumbled into the war camp of Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez. Grimmjow unwound the blue string from Pantera’s hilt and combed back Ichigo’s hair with his fingers.

“Yes,” he said, as he tied his hair. “We will dance.”

...

Over the course of days, the village was transformed.

Red lanterns lined the streets, each tied with a ribbon of blue and lit with the pale gold oil used to anoint holy offerings. So entranced was Ichigo by their unearthly light that he took one down and tied it to the end of a walking stick to keep for his own.

The market stalls overflowed with all manner of goods to prepare for the celebration. Wreaths of red, orange, and gold chrysanthemums adorned the doors of houses and the village center. Chrysanthemums bloomed in greatest abundance in autumn, and from their petals came fragrant tea which soothed the stomach and cooled the body. Grimmjow purchased a satchel of it at the market stall of a hunched elderly man who knelt to pray at Ichigo’s feet. Ichigo lifted him gently upright and thanked him for his tea.

He took Grimmjow in hand and lit their way home with his lantern.

That evening, they sat beneath the stars and moon with cups of chrysanthemum tea warming their hands. Ichigo leaned against Grimmjow, closed his eyes, and sighed with honeyed tea on his breath. Grimmjow marveled, for whatever the stars were made of, so too was this creature at his side, and it had chosen him for a resting place.

The red lantern leaned upright against a nearby tree, amber light flickering in velvet night.

…

On the first night of the festival, the people welcomed Ichigo and Grimmjow into the village center by a path laid with flowers and lined with lanterns. Perfumes of incense and fresh-picked blooms wafted from the square and beckoned them forward towards joyous voices which called their names.

A pair of young girls came to Ichigo and crowned him with sun-colored chrysanthemums strung together. Their laughter sang bell-like as they tossed handfuls of loose petals which dusted his clothes and caught in his long hair. Ichigo looked over at Grimmjow, wide-eyed but smiling, and let them pull him towards the festivities.

The village center had been remade. Red lanterns lit every corner, and open booths offered all manner of food, drink, and trinkets to the crowds. The girls turned to Grimmjow and approached him with a necklace of chrysanthemums in hand. A half-formed sneer fell away when he caught Ichigo’s smile, and inspired with patience, he bent his knee and allowed the girls to loop their gift over his head.

Ichigo took his hand as the girls left them. “You are pretty wreathed in blooms,” he teased.

He was sun-like, unfathomable—so radiant in his joy it stayed Grimmjow’s hand from tearing the flowers off. He smoothed them against his chest instead. “Shut up,” he growled.

Ichigo laughed.

Village natives and visitors alike bowed as they passed. They laid fresh flowers at Ichigo’s feet and followed with whispered prayer and reverence. Grimmjow put his arm around Ichigo’s waist so that they would not be stopped by any worshipper who intended to take their time. The festival was, after all, for Ichigo’s enjoyment, and—

“Grimmjow! Look!”

Grimmjow snapped around and found his arm empty. Ichigo had absconded to a nearby booth laid out with sweetcakes of an uncommon variety, for beneath the glaze of honey were cakes colored pink and peach.

“What are these?” Ichigo asked, and the booth-keeper bowed.

“L—Lord Protector, these are honey-milk cakes flavored with syrup of many fruits.” His voice trembled. “It was said you had a particular fondness for such sweets.”

“Was it?” Ichigo tilted his head. “Who said?”

“Lord Jaegerjaquez requested it.”

Grimmjow’s half-formed scowl fell when Ichigo turned to him with a strange soft mood in the curl of his lip. The noise and sights of the festival around them faded to muted lights and murmurs, and if Grimmjow closed his eyes he might imagine they were alone together before a warming fire. Ichigo took his hand and ran his thumb over rough knuckles, absent in mind but pensive, smiling.

“Would you like a taste, Lord?”

Ichigo nodded, and with unsteady hands, the man cut a slice of honey-glazed cake topped with candied berries. He offered another for Grimmjow, but the warlord shook his head. Entranced, he watched as Ichigo lifted a bite to his mouth and his eyes fluttered shut.

Ichigo’s life was counted in centuries. His trials and triumphs had been immortalized in song and his sword carved into the night sky long before the first man named Jaegerjaquez ever walked these coastal lands…and yet, his delight in simple pleasures was akin to a child learning life for the first time.

“You should be proud,” Ichigo told the man. “This is decadence fit for kings.”

As the booth-keeper sputtered humility, Ichigo raised a bite to Grimmjow’s lips. Grimmjow cared little for sweets, but still he opened his mouth without a thought. The sweetness of honey weighed too heavy on his tongue, the tang of berries struck too sharp, and yet…

“How is it?”

Ichigo watched him, and in his smile shone the light of a thousand stars. Grimmjow swallowed, bewitched.

“…Perfect.”

Grimmjow laid a handful of coins on the table—he had not the mind to count them, but they weighed heavier than the slice of cake in Ichigo’s hands—and they went on their way.

As the night grew old, the glow of festival lanterns deepened to amber, and the celebrations carried on. Ichigo sampled from every booth which offered sweets or snacks, pulling Grimmjow this way and that, and the warlord surrendered to the tide of his caprices.

The festival was but a backdrop to Ichigo, the lanterns and moonlight a hazy glow around him, the people faceless blurs and their voices all but white noise. Grimmjow had ears deaf to all but Ichigo’s voice and his laughter; he saw only Ichigo, felt only the warmth of his body and the touch of their joined hands. He was caught in a state akin to the deepest battle trance, but the singing of his pulse was not bloodlust, and the slick on his palms was not blood.

Ichigo stopped and pointed at something in the distance. “What is that?”

Grimmjow dragged his gaze from the graceful set of Ichigo’s shoulders to look. The people had stopped in place and made an open path down the center of the street, and even those tending the booths had left their wares to join in waiting. All heads turned in the same direction. A slow melody laid over steady drum beats drifted closer, and Grimmjow glimpsed costumed headdresses approaching. He grinned.

“Come, Ichigo,” he said and guided him to the front as the crowd parted before them.

At the first sight of the costumed dancers making their way down the street, Ichigo raised his hands—clutching a milky tea in one and a half-eaten sweet bun in the other—and cheered. “Grimmjow, it is a parade!”

It had been many years since Grimmjow had witnessed a ceremonial parade. He had not known such a performance had been prepared for tonight, but for Ichigo there could be no effort too grand.

The music swelled over them as the dancers came closer, narrating with graceful forms draped in flowing silks a tale sung by reed flutes and plucked strings. As they passed, they each bowed to Ichigo without breaking form, and Ichigo dipped his head in turn. At their heels came a succession of men robed in black and masked in the white skulls of beasts, darting at the audience and feinting attacks in the manner of hollow souls hungering for the living. The hollow-men told a different tale—of departed souls who had lost their way, the invisible other who wandered unseen by the living. They too passed, and in their place came men trailing banners of each tribe united under the eastern nation.

Ichigo stood entranced and so too did Grimmjow, but it was not the parade he watched.

After all his trials and yet awaiting the judgment of Seireitei, Ichigo was at peace. His shoulders were without burden, his smile without bitterness. And the cause was all around them: the joyous cheers of Grimmjow’s people, the weightless feet of dancing performers, the music and lanterns, the plentiful food and good spirits.

Grimmjow took a long breath. The simmering anger and festering grief which had been his faithful shadows these many weeks past were finally at rest. Ichigo had been right, after all. Grimmjow’s people had suffered much and now at last they had cause and spirit to celebrate. Why should they not?

Overhead, a desolate harvest moon hung like a pale copper coin. The night had begun to chill. Grimmjow feigned a shiver, and Ichigo pressed flush against his side to share warmth.

All was well.

...

They slept past noon the following morning.

Grimmjow was first to wake beneath ginkgo-dappled light of midday. They had not made it home after the parade. After a late night of celebration, he and Ichigo had sat down to rest beneath this tree, speaking of many things and nothing at all, until Ichigo’s voice quieted to nods and then to slumber. Grimmjow had cushioned his head against his shoulder and pulled his heavy cloak around them both.

He lay now blinking up at a golden canopy of ginkgo. His arm was numb, and his back ached from a hard root digging into his spine, but he could not remember when last he had woken so rested.

Fan-shaped leaves drifted down, carried on a lazy wind. Grimmjow plucked one from the air. He turned it between his fingers, and the sun caught and splintered through its radiant veins.

Ginkgo blessed altar, never illness-fraught, his mother once said. Crown of ginkgo, undying lovers’ knot.

The grey-haired believed all ginkgo trees sacred, blessed by the gods themselves in the old days when the night had no stars. So long as one rested beneath the shade of a ginkgo, it was said, no harm would befall him. Weary travelers or vagabonds with no place to rest their head would search for a ginkgo tree to sleep under. Young lovers wore wreaths of ginkgo to bless their union, though these days most forwent true ginkgo for a necklace or headband bearing the image of the fan-shaped leaf.

These were but old wives’ superstitions. Grimmjow had never paid them any mind.

Ichigo lay asleep. With care not to wake him, Grimmjow tucked the leaf behind his ear and covered it with a tress of orange hair.

...

On the third night of celebrations, they danced.

It was unlike the dance of Raahl. Back then, believing Ichigo danced for the eyes of Selae’s pretty girls, Grimmjow had sought distraction and found it in the bed of a village boy whose name he did not recall.

Tonight, the entire village knew who Ichigo danced for. Grimmjow did not know what thoughts they must bear of this union most strange, and he did not care. He hoped they spread the tale far and wide; he hoped every man, woman, and child heard of it and knew: the red star of Zangetsu had chosen Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez for his mate, and la Pantera bent for him alone.

Grimmjow sat amongst the admiring crowd gathered, his breast filled with boastful pride yet tempered by poignant warmth born not from the bonfire. Ichigo donned a sheer silken robe tonight—Grimmjow could not guess where he had gotten it from, if not stolen from his own lustful fantasies—and he danced like the flames at his back.

The music set a pace like the slow pour of honey, sung by two-stringed instruments with sweet weeping notes laid over deep drum beats. Ichigo, moving with languid grace and draped in silks which flowed like smoke around him, did not look of this world.

Though it was night, he was luminous with the subtle light of divinity, sun burning beneath his skin. Grimmjow’s mouth was dry, his stomach tied in knots. Ichigo was so humble, so kind, at times it was easy to forget his true nature. What Grimmjow had was no human boy, but a young god of terrible beauty. By some strange and unfathomable stroke of fortune, he had fallen into Grimmjow’s hands, and Grimmjow would never find such wonder again.

He rose. Shedding cloak and shirt, he left his place in the audience and joined the dance.

Ichigo stepped a half pace back with eyes that lingered long on Grimmjow’s bare chest. They fell into well-worn steps before each other, practiced as though they had shared this dance a thousand times. Just as grass and trees reached for the sun yet never touching, never meeting, so too did Grimmjow. They danced with inches between them yet touched only by glances shared.

In time, he had shared enough of Ichigo to the hungry eyes of his worshippers. Taking his god by the hand, he led him away from the festival, away from the dance and lantern-glow of the main streets.

“Where are we going?” Ichigo laughed.

Grimmjow did not know. He had no destination in mind, for he already had it in hand. Turning, he gave a wolf’s smile. “Anywhere. Where do you want to go?”

Ichigo thought a moment and took the lead. The sky rumbled overhead with a rolling threat of distant storm weighing the air. He brought them away from the town center, through the winding hills, towards a mossy stone path Grimmjow could walk in his sleep.

“Your shrine?” he asked.

Before he had left his village for war, Grimmjow had been the last to tend this holy place. But since his return, many hands had swept the steps and floor, garlanded the pillars with fresh greenery and blooms, and left offerings. The shrine was splendid in its beauty, as it should be. As it should have always been.

“I wanted to see this place.” said Ichigo. He stepped onto the polished floor and trailed a hand down a stone pillar. His smile ached more sweet than bitter. “Here I first heard your voice. Here I first took notice of you. Here you brought me many gifts.”

It was true. He had spent countless hours of his youth in this very place kneeling in prayer or preparing offerings or merely talking to Ichigo as though he had an ear for the ordinary troubles of a mortal boy.

Grimmjow came behind him.

Ichigo turned, reverence and awe painted in broad strokes across his face. “Sometimes,” he breathed, drinking in Grimmjow as though he was but a daydream. “I can scarcely believe I have you at last.”

A stone lodged in Grimmjow’s throat. Ichigo had him, and not only in the present. He understood now why many a tale had been told on the matter of love, why bards sung stories of long-dead lovers, why their legends were flush with the affairs of men and gods alike, why these stories survived their times and lived on into his.

We love but once, some men said. And forever after, we search for the same.

For Grimmjow, there would be no searching. There would be no other after Ichigo.

Ichigo grasped him by the shoulders and caught him with a kiss. He tasted of nostalgia—of boyhood days foraging for strawberries, of incense lingering on his clothes, of copper on his tongue and fingers sticky-red around Pantera’s hilt. Ichigo was warmth. He was house and hearth; he was ten thousand long days in Grimmjow’s memories.

Lips tied, breaths mingling, Ichigo backed him up until Grimmjow hit the stone altar behind him. They parted, and Ichigo dropped to his knees and pulled at the warlord’s belt.

Grimmjow stayed his hand. “Here?” he asked in hushed tone, and Ichigo laughed.

“For whom do you whisper?” he teased, eyes glimmering and mouth sly. “This is my shrine, is it not? I wish to indulge in my offerings.”

Grimmjow examined these words for fault and found none. He released Ichigo’s hands, and soon after, his trousers pooled around his feet. Ichigo did not share his caution; he took Grimmjow into his mouth with a soundless sigh, and bracing him by the hips, he sank into indulgence, eyes closed.

Grimmjow’s head fell back; his mouth opened but his tongue shaped no words, only a moan which came from the throat. Fumbling, he grappled for a handhold to steady the sudden buckle of his knees and found the soft squelch of ripe fruit beneath his palms.

“Ichigo.” Grimmjow faltered, thoughts banished by the wet heat of Ichigo’s mouth around his cock. “Your altar—”

A sly flick of tongue across the tip, and Grimmjow swept his arm back, clutching white-knuckled at the edge of the altar. An incense tray clattered to the floor and filled the shrine with the aroma of sandalwood.

Grimmjow lurched.

Ichigo released him as he leapt to recover the tray. Tilting head, he crossed his arms and said, “How pitiful you find my mouth more charmless than a tray of incense.”

The warlord stopped. He turned, and beneath the scrutiny of Ichigo’s laughing eyes and lips shaped to tease, he contemplated his own folly enough to laugh at himself. This place was holy, yes, but what need was there to tend the shrine when the god himself stood before him wanting?

Thunder rumbled no longer distant. The river frogs’ song swelled in crescendo, carried on heavy air which tasted sharp in the back of Grimmjow’s throat. His skin prickled; his hair stood on end. He returned to the altar, and this time, he did not falter when Ichigo grasped him below the hips and hoisted him onto the sacred white stone. Grimmjow laid back amidst a bed of chrysanthemum and spilled berries, beset by greedy hands and eager lips. Ichigo knelt above him, hair spilling over shoulders and down his back, mouth on Grimmjow’s chest and fingers tugging back his robes.

The sky opened with a white flash of lightning, but orange hair and sinful heat veiled Grimmjow from the world beyond. The sudden downpour and piercing winds, the townspeople and the festival beyond the hills—these things did not reach him here. Midnight chill nipped his skin, but Grimmjow had above him the sun itself, radiant and wild and beholden to nothing so trivial as earthly tempests.

Eyes closed, drunk on sun and rain upon the altar of a thousand boyhood memories, Grimmjow curled his fingers in Ichigo’s hair and brought his face up. At their first touch of lips, he drowned deeper, sank further into this most gentle of sin. He coveted much, far more than any man before him, but his god was generous and gave him all.

At length, Ichigo pulled away, and Grimmjow gazed upon him with such a face as one confronted with unknowable wonder. His gut was spread open and hollowed out, and in its place sprung foreign sentiment most unbecoming of a warlord.

Ichigo smiled. “Who knew la Pantera could look so soft.”

“My cock is hard,” Grimmjow growled, and to this, Ichigo only laughed.

Ichigo opened his own robe down the front and gathered a handful of oil from the anointing pan. With thumb and forefinger, he daubed oil on Grimmjow’s throat and collar, streaked it across his chest and down his belly, and touched his lips to each spot as he went. Grimmjow lay stunned, spread out and hiding nothing, as his god worshipped him.

It felt like blasphemy, yet the clenching in his gut was a glut of hunger and shy of guilt. When Ichigo finally touched him between the legs and entered him first with fingers, it did not feel a violation nor submission. How could it, when Ichigo looked at him as though he was the one who had fallen out of the sky?

Thunder crashed overhead, and rain slapped against the roof like stones, but these and all else beyond the shrine sounded very far away. Grimmjow’s breath slipped when Ichigo finally entered him, but he found it again as the god fell into a slow rhythm. Ichigo braced him as he moved, face pressed to Grimmjow’s throat, lips whispering soundless words into his skin. Grimmjow spread his knees to urge Ichigo deeper. The god obliged but kept his maddening pace, dragging out and savoring each slow push in. There was no haste, no urgency in the languid poetry of his body, even as each thrust edged Grimmjow closer to a precipice of heat and pressure.

He drove Grimmjow mad.

Was Ichigo so gifted a pupil in the study of lust, or was Grimmjow simply in thrall to him, hopelessly bound by the push and pull of his whim like the tides to the moon?

These weeks past had taught Grimmjow something of Ichigo’s nature in bed. He spoke little during the act, but Grimmjow found his breathy sighs and expressive face more erotic by far than cries of pleasure. Often his only words were whispers of Grimmjow’s name, uttered like prayer so softly Grimmjow was not certain if he was meant to hear.

Ichigo dragged him over the crest of bliss and followed close behind. Grimmjow caught and welcomed him into the fold of his arms, and grasping the discarded robe, he covered them both. Curling fingers in Grimmjow’s hair, panting into his sweat-slick chest, Ichigo clung to him like one bereaved, yet Grimmjow sensed his contentment like a blanket warmer than the robe covering them.

They rested thus for a long moment: Ichigo boneless on top, Grimmjow embracing him while his heart calmed. His hand laid atop the clean bandages wrapping Ichigo’s chest, which covered the frightening, deathless wound still unhealed. He strove not to consider it. Ichigo walked and laughed and danced as though it did not exist; Grimmjow wished his own mind was equally unburdened.

“Grimmjow.”

“Hm?”

The god’s voice had a strange tone to it. Grimmjow opened his eyes, but in the next moment, warm lips claimed him, and he sank gladly into another weightless kiss. Ichigo clutched him by the face, fingers pressing into Grimmjow’s temple and scalp, mouth and tongue wrenching his breath from him as though it would be his last.

Something was amiss. Grimmjow made to pull back, but Ichigo tightened his grip and pled with his lips—not yet.

He relented. Whatever Ichigo needed from this, whatever he desired, Grimmjow would give. And as he determined this, strange heat bled from Ichigo’s lips into his. It burned just shy of pain like the radiance of fire held too close. It spread through Grimmjow’s mouth—his teeth ached, his nostrils burned—before coursing down his throat into his chest and lungs. He broke from the kiss and gasped, and with his outward breath the fire diffused down his body into every limb and finger and toe.

Grimmjow held up his hands. Every vein lit up like molten gold beneath his skin, his very blood suffused with sunlight. He burned from within, yet there was no pain. Ichigo took his hands, and Grimmjow realized they were trembling.

“Ichigo—” Even his voice shook. “—what is this?”

He had seen this light before. He had seen it in Ichigo, though never so intense. Yet even as Grimmjow stared at his hands, the light began to dim. The living fire inside him faded also, and then, quicker than it had come, it was gone.

Ichigo sighed a long breath, and his expression was glad and solemn. “I gave you strength.” He smoothed a hand down Grimmjow’s chest. “And endurance to see your will made flesh in whatever endeavors you take in future days.”

Grimmjow sat up. He thought back to the little village girl outside the sick house, whose name was Yuzu for Ichigo’s long passed sister, and the gift Ichigo had imparted unto her. But what he had just given Grimmjow was nothing so small as that. In the old days, people spoke of rare men chosen by the gods and blessed with their favor. Without exception, the names and deeds of these men survived into the present, exalted in the legends of their people. When the gods departed the earth, there came no more of such men.

“You blessed me.”

“That is too simple a word for what I did. You will see.”

Grimmjow touched his chest. He opened and closed his fists and felt beneath his skin, pulsing in his blood and woven into his bones, something which had not been there before. He looked to Ichigo. What was there to say? This was a gift received by no man in many thousands of years.

“I hope it aids you in the greatness you are meant for, Grimmjow.”

Grimmjow was a man ill-practiced in humility. He carried himself like a lord. He spoke with haughty command. And yet here beside Ichigo, he felt himself at the foot of a vast mountain whose peak stretched beyond sight.

Was he not in a strange dream? Was he a madman, conjuring up in his own mind imagined lovers and sacred blessings?

Ichigo looked upon him with pride so plain it made Grimmjow ache. “You are strong. I would not have taken a weakling for a lover.”

A tapestry of sentiments choked him, for there were no words ample enough for this moment. Grimmjow bowed his head.

...

The festival lasted four nights in all, and on the final night it slowed to a close as the harvest moon began to wane.

In the streets, red lanterns burned on, but they seemed dimmer now like the light of a candle nearing its end. The celebrations were quieter also yet no less joyous, as the people favored feasting and drinking and revisiting old memories around the fire to the raucous night markets, parades, and dances of the previous nights. Village natives mingled with visiting countrymen from across the nation, forging new ties over hot food and bonding over shared losses in the war.

Grimmjow and Ichigo retreated to the house, content to spend the day in the comfort of home after three nights of late celebrations. They sat beneath a magnolia tree with a steaming pot of chrysanthemum tea between them, and as the light of day faded to dusky blue and purple, Ichigo rested his head on Grimmjow’s shoulder. In his long sigh, Grimmjow knew his contentment.

He smiled.

Ichigo’s cup was empty. Grimmjow lifted the teapot and filled it again.

They stayed there until the pot was empty and the waning moon hung bright and low above the horizon. In time, Grimmjow got up. Tea alone was not enough to fill his belly.

“Are you hungry?” he asked Ichigo. “I will get our dinner.”

Ichigo’s gaze was turned towards a grouping of trees that flanked Grimmjow’s house. He did not answer.

“Ichigo?”

The god started. “What?”

“What do you want for dinner?”

“Oh.”

Grimmjow looked over at the trees, but saw there nothing of note.

“I…I will have anything.”

Ichigo always had a preference, whether for a favored dish or something new he wished to sample. Grimmjow frowned. “Spiced roe? I saw them preparing some this morning.”

Ichigo’s smile did not touch his eyes. “Yes. Thank you, Grimmjow.”

Grimmjow did not move to leave. Ichigo’s mood was strange, but all had been well just a moment ago.

The god stood and took his hand with a squeeze. “I am tired, that is all,” he said. His face did seem pale. Perhaps it had not been so wise to spend the last three nights in such boisterous celebration.

“Then we will rest early tonight, after we have eaten.” Grimmjow would bring back the spiced roe Ichigo favored and whatever else he might have taste for. Last night, he had seen also a curious new confection made of milk cream and sugar sold in small paper bags and noted it for future purchase. It seemed the sort Ichigo would enjoy. “I will return shortly.”

Ichigo caught his arm. The glisten in his eyes was moonlight, but then he bowed his head and Grimmjow was not certain. They stood there for one breath, two—with Grimmjow half-turned to leave and Ichigo’s fingers tight around his arm—as unnamed heaviness made its home between them.

It was Ichigo who broke this strange spell. Stepping close, he closed arms around Grimmjow’s chest and fell into an embrace that tasted yet again heavier than the silence. He breathed in long and slow, fingers clutching, bodies flush together, as though he might stamp himself beneath Grimmjow’s skin.

When he released Grimmjow at last, he smiled once more as he had many times in recent days: wide and generous as though caught in the instant before a laugh, his eyes bright, his shoulders unburdened. His hands first lingered, then loosened from Grimmjow’s robes and fell away. “Go, Grimmjow.”

Grimmjow hesitated, but the peculiar mood had passed. He picked up the lantern-tied walking stick. “Very well.”

Ichigo watched his departing figure grow small as he descended the hill lit only by lantern glow, until this too was swallowed by the turn of a winding path. At length, he turned back to the crop of trees beside the house. The fire had dimmed to spent embers and bore no more warmth. The night was black.

A white form stepped out from the trees, and Ichigo breathed deep.

“Hello, Zangetsu.”

...

Grimmjow hurried towards the village center.

Upon arrival, he was met with warm welcome, invitations to the fire, and a great many offerings and gifts. Desire to linger did not press. To his back, beyond the twisting path and away from the lantern-lit main streets, Ichigo awaited his return.

Refusing all distraction, he went to the central gathering where a vast spread of food had been prepared and left open for any to take. There were dishes to suit every taste both common and strange, drinks squeezed from the flesh of every fruit, and desserts crafted to tempt the tongue and eye. Grimmjow filled a box with spiced roe and tender young vegetables for Ichigo and another full of fish and greens for himself. He scoured the table of cakes and sweets and found there the milk cream candies which had caught his eye the night before.

Bundling all these into a woven satchel, he hefted Ichigo’s lantern and turned back the way he came. With the warmth of communal fires at his back and Ichigo’s presence at home hastening him forward, Grimmjow cast the lantern glow before his feet to light the way.

The satchel of freshly prepared food warmed his side as he went. Savory smells teased nose and belly, but more tantalizing still was the promise of another night with Ichigo beside him and a languid morning hurried by nothing. With this in mind, Grimmjow quickened his pace as he turned up the hill leading to his house.

He crested the hill, satchel in hand and a shout ready on his lips to announce his return.

Ichigo stood not alone.

White-haired and white-robed, Shirosaki, the spirit of his sword whose name was Zangetsu, had him in fierce embrace. It was strange, for though Grimmjow understood now what Shirosaki was to Ichigo, he had not believed the vicious pale beast well-practiced in tenderness. But stranger still was Ichigo’s stance: quiet, motionless, sagging into Shirosaki who held him up by one arm.

Grimmjow stopped.

At his side, Shirosaki clutched his long white blade dripping red. A florid dark patch bloomed down the shoulder of his robes where Ichigo rested his chin.

Ichigo’s lips glistened wet red.

Chapter Text

Chapter 23: A Promise to the Stars

Satchel and lantern fell from unfeeling fingers.

A wild cry rose, and Grimmjow did not recognize it as his own. He flew across the distance in an instant, Pantera drawn with Shirosaki’s throat promised for its cutting edge.

The white demon—vile devil, traitorous scum—clutched Ichigo close to his chest and closed his eyes with a deep crease in his brow before laying the god into the grass.

Grimmjow lunged at him. He could not think, he could not speak; his mind splintered beneath the strain of madness. Pantera cried in echoed grief as the blade reached for Shirosaki.

Shirosaki caught the blade in his palm, and it did not cut. Grimmjow screamed. His arms trembled; his knees buckled, made feeble with fury and futility. How dare he? Grimmjow wrenched his sword back, and Shirosaki released it willingly. He swung again, aim clumsy, and the white demon stepped aside Pantera’s reach.

Coward! Traitor! How dare he raise a hand to his own master!

Grimmjow advanced; Shirosaki turned to him, shoulders bent as though beneath a mountain’s weight, eyes dark and face stricken.

It was maddening. What right had he to look at Grimmjow so, like one bereaved? What right had he—

“Grimmjow.”

Shirosaki’s gaze shifted to the ground behind them, and like the moon-pulled tide, Grimmjow followed.

Ichigo lay in the grass with arm outstretched and fingers curled towards Grimmjow.

Grimmjow choked. His fingers forgot their strength; his heart abandoned vengeance. He pushed Shirosaki aside and took a leaden step towards Ichigo and then another. At the final moment his knees buckled, and he fell to kneel.

Hot blood soaked through his trousers. He grasped the collar of Ichigo’s robes, hands shaking like a wind-tossed leaf, and pulled them back.

The wound in Ichigo’s chest lay just a palm’s breadth from the one Aizen had given him, and blood pooled wider with every beat of his heart. Grimmjow’s fingers fumbled graceless as he pulled off his own tunic and pressed it to the wound. Ichigo shuddered.

Impaled again—why? Ichigo had scarcely healed from near death—and now, again—

This could not be. He was caught in a nightmare. He had fallen asleep with Ichigo again, had he not? He would wake and find Ichigo beside him—asleep, content, and well.

The copper tang in his nostrils and the blood beneath his palms did not feel like a dream.

“Do not blame Zangetsu.”

Grimmjow raised his head. “What—”

“The blame—is not his.” The labor of Ichigo’s words inspired pity. His fingers found Grimmjow’s wrist and curled vise-like around it as though to stay his hand. His face was ashen. “You—will not—touch him.”

Grief curled a noose around Grimmjow’s throat. He took a shuddering, furious breath. Not Shirosaki’s fault? Ichigo would waste his dying breath defending this treacherous snake?

But he would not argue. He could not.

The bleeding did not staunch. Grimmjow’s shirt soaked through and still more blood came—unending, as relentless as his regrets. He kept one hand pressed upon the wound and tried to gather Ichigo into his arms with the other. “I will—” He swallowed around the stone in his throat. “I will take you to the healer. He can…”

The village healer had saved Ichigo once from the precipice of certain death. Surely, he could—

“No.”

Grimmjow’s eyes turned from the terrible wound to his god’s face. Ichigo looked so tired. His mouth spilled more blood than words.

“I will—not recover. Not…from this.”

Grimmjow shook his head and denied. “You are not thinking clearly.” His voice was hoarse. His hands shook. “Be still and be quiet. I am not ready—”

He choked. He was not ready. There was still much he wished for: to relish a peaceful winter with Ichigo in his house, to welcome the first thaw of spring, to celebrate Raahl together once more. He wished—he wished—

His breath caught like a netted bird and broke.

A touch to his arm stirred him from his stupor. Ichigo’s lips glistened red—how Grimmjow wished it was only the stain of berries—and his eyes were soft for Grimmjow, for the pain in his face and in his heart.

Even now, even like this, Ichigo cared more for Grimmjow than himself. The warlord laughed, and the sound tasted bitter like unripe persimmon. Was this not the very cause for Ichigo’s present state? He cared too much for Grimmjow, for this world of faithless men—where was his selfishness? Where was his duty to himself, to his own life and will?

“Fool,” he whispered, yet the word lacked ardor. “You—you knew—”

Ichigo had known this would happen from the moment he sent Grimmjow for their dinner.

No.

He had known even before then. How long? How long had he allowed Grimmjow this happiness, knowing it would not last? How long had he foreseen the breaking of Grimmjow’s heart?

Ichigo folded Grimmjow’s hand in his, and they were blood-slick both. “Forgive me.” His smile ached ephemeral. “It was…but a happy dream.”

Grimmjow held him. His hands were without strength. He knelt, stricken and stripped of all power to nudge the course of this terrible night. Never had he felt so small.

A happy dream.

So it was.

Shirosaki knelt opposite him with back broken like that of an old man. His long white hair trailed in the wind like a ghost.

Grimmjow had not the strength to chase him away.

The sky was without clouds.

No doubt the stars were lovely tonight. Grimmjow could not bear to look upon them. Later he could hate them, but at present, the throbbing ache in his chest left room for little else. He stared ahead, but his sight blurred and he saw nothing. He felt as though very far away, taken from his body and mind both.

The night was short; the night was long.

Ichigo pressed something into his hand. Grimmjow opened his fingers and blinked his vision clear. A dried leaf of golden ginkgo lay in his palm.

Ginkgo blessed altar, never illness-fraught.

What a cruel mockery of fate. Not two days ago, he had laid ginkgo in Ichigo’s hair with whisper and prayer for good health and long life. Grimmjow could neither look at the leaf nor discard it; he closed his fist and clasped Ichigo to his chest. The stench of blood loomed heavy and dark. If only he had the power to preserve this moment. If he held just tightly enough, if he wished just ardently enough, then perhaps there was a power that could keep Ichigo here with him.

Do not go. Grimmjow closed his eyes. Do not leave.

“Crown of ginkgo…” whispered Ichigo.

Grimmjow could not speak, and Ichigo did not finish the verse. At last the flow of his blood had slowed. Grimmjow dropped the blood-sodden cloth and bowed his head in Ichigo’s hair. 

He tasted salt and copper.

...

In the field where Ichigo had taught him jinzen lay a sunny spot upon a gentle hill. The stream flowed within hearing distance, and in summer strawberries grew thick and heavy with fruit on the slope.

Here Grimmjow chose for Ichigo’s final resting place.

It was not the ornate tomb of white stone with pearl and gold inlay some insisted more befitting a god. But it was quiet, close to Grimmjow’s home and the places where he remembered Ichigo’s most joyous smiles. Standing upon this hill, across the distance in clear sight was the village center, and in the opposite direction was the sea.

“His Lord would have liked it here, I think.”

Orihime laid her bouquet beneath the rosewood marker. Magnolia and peonies bloomed earlier than most flowers, but even before the first thaw of spring, Grimmjow had glimpsed Orihime, bundled in warm cloaks, paying her respects here all through the winter. The snow along this path had often been tracked with her small footprints.

“He did not seem the sort of person who would have liked a grand tomb.”

She was bolder with Grimmjow these days, for he no longer growled at the sight of her. Ichigo had been fond of her after all.

Grimmjow did not look at her. “He was not,” he agreed.

She hesitated.

“Lord Jaegerjaquez, I…I hope you are well. If you have need of anything, or if you wish to share a meal in company…you are always welcome at our door.”

Grimmjow said nothing.

Orihime did not press for an answer. She knelt before the marker, whispered a prayer or blessing Grimmjow did not care to hear, and took her leave.

Wind combed through the field, and long grass rippled like waves. Sprays of sea-blue wildflowers grew thick over the burial site. If not for the marker, this place would have appeared not out of the ordinary. Grimmjow ran his fingers over the polished, sun-warmed marker. A familiar ache began in his chest, too sharp for a wound that had been scabbing all winter. His breath stuttered in his throat.

A rumbling chuff came from beside him. Grimmjow reached out and buried his other hand in Pantera’s thick fur. He closed his eyes.

Pantera’s grief was his own.

...

The night sky held no wonder.

Grimmjow no longer gazed upon the stars. There was nothing there worth his reverence or awe.

It had been five months since he had laid Ichigo to rest. Grimmjow spoke to no one but Pantera in moments when the tides of his heart swelled too high to bear. To his people, the color of his robes said all that needed to be said.

Grimmjow had worn white on two occasions before for the passing of his mother and father. And now again for the third time, the color of mourning made its home in his wardrobe.

He had seen Shirosaki just once since that terrible night.

Four days after the burial rites, on a moonless night shunned by sleep, Grimmjow had found the white demon before the grave marker bent on one knee. With Ichigo’s final command resonant in his mind, he had hesitated in drawing his sword, and Shirosaki spoke without turning:

“Do you know how to kill a god?” the demon had said. “You pierce him twice. Saketsu, the binding chain; Hakusui, the soul sleep. Pierced through one, he will never recover. Through both, and he will die in an instant.”

Later, as he had lain awake in bed turning those words over and over in his head, Grimmjow understood.

Aizen had been the first strike, the wound in Ichigo’s chest that would not heal. And with Seireitei’s judgment looming and inevitable, Ichigo had allowed Shirosaki to be the second.

Understanding did not dull the ache.

He saw Ichigo in all things: in the ginkgo trees flourishing anew with green as the days grew warm and long, in the reflection of steel when he oiled and cleaned Pantera’s blade. He heard the echo of Ichigo’s laughter on Raahl’s night of dance, and turned so swiftly Orihime startled and asked if he was well.

Some believed ghosts were not the dead lingering on but desperate fantasies of those bereaved. Grimmjow imagined Ichigo’s presence all around him.

After all, being haunted was preferable to being left behind.

...

Grimmjow worshipped no gods.

With spiteful heart, he left his hair long during Raahl and dared the gods to strike him for doing so. He listened to the ballads on the third night of the festival, but when the bards turned their songs to the tale of thrice-broken Zangetsu, he rose from his seat before the bonfire and returned home.

His path took him once more to Ichigo’s grave.

In the valley below, the lights and festivities of the town center continued on, too distant to warm, too muted to hear. Alone in the black maw of night, Grimmjow stood a world apart. He stood there a long moment and breathed deep the sweetness of spring evening.

The air shifted.

Grimmjow frowned; he moved a hand to Pantera’s hilt, and in the next breath, he turned and swung the blade in the same motion.

A white sword met his. Shirosaki’s face was slack, his eyes wide behind his blade for a moment too fleeting to immortalize. Grimmjow’s resolve faltered. Shirosaki pushed him off.

“You dare aim your blade at me,” he hissed.

“I dare.” Belly full of fire, Grimmjow raised his chin and sneered. He pointed Pantera at Shirosaki’s chest like a declaration. “And I know where I aim. Saketsu, the binding chain; Hakusui, the soul sleep.”

Shirosaki regarded him as though seeing him for the first time. “Insolent creature,” he said, but his tongue lacked bite. He sheathed his sword.

White-skinned, white-haired, white-robed—Shirosaki had Ichigo’s face, but stripped of warmth and the affection Ichigo had reserved for Grimmjow. He looked so like Ichigo, and yet, not like him at all. The sight of him inspired pain.

“Why are you here?”

Shirosaki ignored him. He stepped past Grimmjow towards the grave marker and stood before it. He said nothing, did nothing, but at his sides hands curled to fists. When at last he turned to Grimmjow again, his face was taut.

He unshouldered a long slender bundle from his back and held it close to his chest before holding it out.

Grimmjow stared a moment until he realized he was meant to take it. It was wrapped in linen, tied with string, and from the weight of it in his hands and the rigid length of the object within, it could only be a sword.

Grimmjow looked from the bundle to Shirosaki whose eyes were hard. “What is this?”

Shirosaki did not answer, so he pulled loose the ties and uncovered the wrapping. On a humble bed of white linen, Ichigo’s black sword lay gleaming whole and perfect as it ever was, unbroken as though that terrible battle with Aizen had never happened.

A stone caught in Grimmjow’s throat. Ichigo’s sword. As precious to Ichigo as Pantera was to Grimmjow.

“It is yours now.”

Grimmjow nearly dropped it. “What?”

Shirosaki’s stare weighed on Grimmjow’s shoulders like a mountain. “King commanded it be reforged and bequeathed to you.”

Ichigo had left his sword to him.

The weight of it all crushed Grimmjow to his knees. He curled over the precious gift in his arms. His sword, his blood, his innocence, his life—was there anything Ichigo had not given to Grimmjow?

“Take it back,” he said to Shirosaki. “I do not want this. I want…”

He faltered, but Shirosaki understood.

He wanted the same.

...

Shirosaki lingered.

He offered no privacy, silent and pitiless as Grimmjow knelt on hands and knees in front of Ichigo’s grave, clutching the sword to his chest as though it might make him whole again.

What did this mean?

The sword was Ichigo’s, but the sword was Zangetsu, whom Ichigo had named Shirosaki. Grimmjow turned to look at the demon who possessed Ichigo’s fearsome strength and will, but none of his compassion or restraint. Shirosaki stood like a sculpture of white marble beneath the moon’s gleam, his strange golden eyes keen and hard.

“Pray for my king’s victory,” Shirosaki had once said to him. “For absent him, I am a caged beast freed. Absent him, I am death.”

Ichigo had not left him the sword out of sentiment alone. He had planned past his own death and foreseen the danger Shirosaki posed to this race of men he so loved. In bequeathing his sword to Grimmjow, Ichigo had bound Shirosaki to him also.

Shirosaki caught his stare and read there his realization and wonder. His jaw tightened. “You are not my master.”

Grimmjow rose. “I am not.” Why should he be? Ichigo had been wrong about men, after all. They were not worth saving; they were not worth his blood or his life—not by far. Ichigo should have left them all to Aizen. Grimmjow’s blood ran hot but he did not weep. He had not wept since Ichigo’s final night, for what were one man’s tears worth in the loss of heaven’s most magnificent star? “Go. Savage this earth, if that is what you intend. It is no less than we deserve.”

Perhaps Shirosaki should start with the western nation, he suggested, for their foolishness in falling prey to Aizen’s seduction which had started this all.

“I already have.”

Grimmjow looked up.

“I went to the western lands. For each one I killed, I spared another,” said Shirosaki, and his bloodless face, white like bone, was both terrible and beautiful in its cruelty.

There was no need to ask; Shirosaki did not mean the soldiers alone. He had slain men, women, and children also.

But only half.

“You should have slain them all.” Bitterness and vengeance were poisons, said men wiser than Grimmjow. He drank deep of both.

Shirosaki smiled most unpleasant. “Perhaps it was not me King should have worried of.” He turned and cast Grimmjow a final glance over his shoulder. “Shed the mourning white,” he said. “It does not suit a creature like you.”

He was gone.

...

Grimmjow carried Pantera on his hip and Zangetsu on his back.

He no longer wore white. Though Ichigo lingered in his thoughts and walked often in his dreams, Grimmjow turned forward to his work ahead.

His people rebuilt. Though the war was fresh in all memories and most families still grieved for lives and homes lost, they were glad and grateful to remake their lives in the memory of peacetime.

Some days, when Grimmjow walked through the town market amidst people buying and selling their wares, when he glimpsed children playing in the sea or mock fighting on the training fields, he was taken back to his youth—before the war, before the passing of his mother and father, before a nameless ryoka stumbled into his camp at night—when the world had been ordinary and his sword bloodless. Grimmjow had gone to war and returned, and all had come back around to where it had begun. The earth felt as though unchanged.

Heaven was not.

Where the constellation of the great sword once reigned was now only pitch black night. It was a terrible void, emptier than empty, that would never again feel right.

Grimmjow had changed also.

He noticed first when, on a night beset with anger close to madness, he raised Pantera’s blade to Shirosaki and cut across his shoulder a thin red line which spilled stark and shocking over the demon’s white robes.

Grimmjow nearly fell over himself.

He had drawn blood from a god.

Shirosaki touched the wound, contemplating the sight of his own blood, then smirked and challenged him, “Do it again.”

This time, Grimmjow ended on the ground with eye swelling shut, white bone piercing out his arm, and Pantera laying out of reach. Shirosaki stared down the length of his white blade with its point pressed in the hollow of Grimmjow’s throat and laughed. “Impale yourself on this and spare me the sight of you.”

Grimmjow snarled and nearly cut his palm in two swatting the blade away.

Shirosaki returned three days later and found him near healed.

Sneering, he seized Grimmjow by the throat and crushed him to the earth. The potent swell of his power pressed down on Grimmjow from all sides, filling his lungs and squeezing his chest like a snake. With a wild light in his eyes, Shirosaki loomed above as though he meant to crush Grimmjow with the force of his power alone. And yet, Grimmjow did not labor to breathe. His heart did not stop. He glared up at the white demon with his one eye not pressed into the dirt, mouth frothing with rage and fire.

“So, King left you with more than just his sword.”

Shirosaki let him up. His laugh echoed cold and joyless, and he turned towards Ichigo’s grave upon the hill.

“King!” he shouted, and at the mad pitch of his voice, Grimmjow laid a hand over Pantera’s hilt. “Was this your will?”

He climbed the hill, frenzied, and Grimmjow followed. Whatever Shirosaki intended in his madness, Grimmjow would not allow him to desecrate Ichigo’s resting place.

At the top of the hill, the demon struck his white blade into the ground and dropped to hands and knees before the rosewood marker. He beat his fists down and shouted at the earth as though Ichigo might hear him—

“Was this what you wanted? Was this all you could conjure in your holy wisdom?”

Grimmjow stood aside and wavered between stepping back and advancing forth as Shirosaki railed his toothless fury.

“Fool! Weakling! Was this what I labored for? All the blood we shed, King, you and I together, for this?” He whipped back around on Grimmjow. “Do you even know what he gave you?”

Grimmjow stood tall, mud on his face and in his hair but pride in his shoulders thrown back. Ichigo’s blessing in the shrine whispered ghostlike across his lips. “Everything.”

Shirosaki laughed. He bowed, curled over the grassy mound where lay the remains of his once-master, and broke.

“Yes,” he whispered. “He gave you everything.”

...

Shirosaki continued to return.

His visits left Grimmjow bruised and bleeding. Grimmjow struck back where he could and spat cursing and hissing where he could not. But he did not demand Shirosaki to stop. He did not want him to. For every cut and broken bone, the pain of Ichigo’s absence waned for a brief moment, just enough for Grimmjow to continue breathing without him.

This was atonement. Whatever punishment Shirosaki heaped upon him, Grimmjow would take, for Ichigo had suffered worse.

Perhaps it was the same for Shirosaki.

On a sweltering summer day, he succeeded in cutting Shirosaki again.

Stunned into stillness, Grimmjow stared at Pantera’s blade, at the impossible blood staining its edge, but Shirosaki hardened his face and demanded, “Again.”

Grimmjow did not land another blow that day, but at the end of it as he lay bleeding and battered in the dirt with Shirosaki standing above, he understood at last the purpose of these visits.

“You are training me.”

Shirosaki was quiet and still, gaze cast beyond the hills as though his mind was very far away. Perhaps he had not heard. Perhaps he had heard but did not intend to humor Grimmjow’s bold remark with an answer. As Grimmjow pulled himself upright, leaning on Pantera like a cane, Shirosaki turned and looked down upon him at last.

“King did not give you his power for you to sit idle with it.” He sheathed his sword. “I pushed him to be stronger, faster, greater, to wield his true power and use it to make his will known. Now I do the same to you.”

Grimmjow’s chest pulled tight. “Why?”

He should have known the answer, for what else could compel this strange, vicious creature to swallow disdain for Grimmjow and instruct him in Ichigo’s image?

“It is what King would have wanted.”

...

Shirosaki painted his lessons in florid bruises and broken bones, but his words cut deeper still.

“You have his sword and his power, but not his strength,” he sneered. Grimmjow lay in the dirt with Shirosaki’s sword to his neck. The ground here may as well have the imprint of his prone body for how often their days ended like this.

He healed quickly these days. Ichigo’s gift had given him power and endurance unknown to men in living memory, yet Grimmjow did not know what Ichigo had intended him to do with it.

“I hope it aids you in the greatness you are meant for, Grimmjow.”

There was yet one wound which did not heal. A dried ginkgo leaf lay in a drawer Grimmjow did not open.

There were few to offer him solace, and none to give him wisdom.

Shirosaki came closest.

“I do not know what King gave you his power for,” he said when Grimmjow asked. “Why do you puzzle over this? Have you no will of your own?”

Grimmjow did, but these were not things which required a god’s sword or his power. The title of warlord conferred more than just military power; in times of peace, Grimmjow wielded civil authority also. With the turn of the seasons, Grimmjow departed the village of his birth once more with ten score soldiers under his command. These were but a small fraction of the army he had led the previous year, but the war was over, and most had been released from duty. Those who remained followed Grimmjow in a task less familiar and less comfortable to him than warfare: the rebuilding of his ravaged homeland.

They travelled first inland, for the towns and villages furthest from the coast had suffered greatest in the war. His soldiers exchanged their bows and swords for saws and hammers to aid in the rebuilding of homes and towns, and Grimmjow sweated alongside them.

This was labor most strange to him. Wherever he went, the people bowed and thanked him, sometimes with hot food and a temporary bed, sometimes with open tears and embraces. Their tongues knew his name and his deeds, and their eyes lingered on the black sword worn across his back. Though Grimmjow had told no one of Ichigo’s final gift to him, rumors guessed the truth nonetheless.

Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez, the man touched by Kenpachi, they whispered. But touched also by the red star of Zangetsu. Ichigo’s chosen warrior and the inheritor of Zangetsu.

Shirosaki found him no matter where he travelled, and it was against him Grimmjow’s strength was tested.

He was an exacting teacher.

Grimmjow was never without wounds half-healed and aching in reminder of his lessons. His men took notice and on occasion glimpsed Shirosaki himself, but Shirosaki did not entertain the presence of other humans and preferred to make himself known when Grimmjow was alone.

Shirosaki’s lessons bore fruit. Grimmjow no longer sparred with other men. Against Shirosaki, his endurance grew and his strength hardened until he could stand on his two feet long enough to see Shirosaki’s breath ragged and his brow crowned with sweat.

He still ended in the dirt every time.

From town to town Grimmjow went, and his company of men followed. Overseeing the restoration of his homeland was duty, but it was not duty alone which compelled him in this task. With every house rebuilt, every child’s careless laugh and every meal savored in good company, Grimmjow tried to see through Ichigo’s eyes.

Seven years the boy-god had wandered these lands before finding Grimmjow. What had he seen, what had he witnessed and lived to find worth dying for? Never once had Ichigo regretted his choice. Was this race of men truly worth so much?

Grimmjow wished Ichigo had left him his certainty in this also.

The following spring, Grimmjow and his men rested in a prosperous town along the northern coast. The ruling family here was named Shiba, and they had claimed sovereignty over this stretch of coast since the old days. The lord and lady of the house invited Grimmjow to share their roof. They had three children but only two of their own blood.

The third and eldest child was a boy, black-haired with long lashes, and his little face seized Grimmjow’s speech and breath both.

“Who was that?” Grimmjow demanded when the boy had gone, run off to play with his brother in the gentle ocean waves below.

“Our eldest son,” said Lady Shiba. She poured Grimmjow another cup of fragrant rose tea. “He does not have a name, but he is our little seabird.”

“What?”

The seabird was wú míng, Lady Shiba explained. A foundling child with no name, discovered one day eight years ago toddling in the shallows. He had come at a time of grieving, a little miracle most precious to Lord and Lady Shiba whom the healers had called barren. In the old days, children wú míng were given names by the gods. But now the gods were gone, so the boy would choose his own name one day when he was old enough to hold a sword.

“It is strange,” she laughed. “Less than a year after he came to us, I was with child. My husband is a superstitious man. He believes our seabird a most uncommon blessing.”

From Lord Shiba, Grimmjow learned more.

“These shores were once treacherous,” he told the warlord. “There were great storms which pulled boats under. When I was a boy, there was no profession more dangerous than being a fisherman. After we found our seabird, the seas calmed. We have lost no more boats. And now…we permit even small children to play in the waves.”

He turned to Grimmjow and smiled. “My wife says you took great interest when you saw him this morning. The way he came to us was strange, but what curiosity did you find in my son, Lord Jaegerjaquez?”

Grimmjow gave a deflecting answer, and Lord Shiba did not press.

The boy resembled Ichigo.

At second glance, the differences were clear. The boy’s eyes were green. His hair was black, its texture rougher than Ichigo’s had been, and his lips were fuller. He was only a child with a passing resemblance to a departed god.

Grimmjow searched for Ichigo in places he was not.

At sunset, he sensed Shirosaki’s presence, but the white demon did not appear for him. Instead, Grimmjow sighted him down by the shoreline, kneeling before the eldest Shiba child and clasping his little hand before the sun-swallowing sea.

With a shout, Grimmjow hurried down the shore with Lord and Lady Shiba close behind, for Shirosaki was cruel, and his vicious nature did not spare children.

But the seabird was unharmed. Lord and Lady Shiba knew at once what Shirosaki was, and they hastened to kneel as the god rose.

“Lord, please forgive our son. He is young and does not know the ways of worship—”

“His name is Kaien.” Shirosaki released the boy who did not flee from him. “And he is ready for a sword.”

...

Kaien.

It was said in the old days before the gods were stars, the god Kaien had so loved mortal men he chose to live amongst them. This love had been his ruin, and his final resting place was near the sea whose waves he once tamed.

Kaien was Ichigo’s kin through his father, and they had always borne strong resemblance to each other, said Shirosaki. He had not named the Shiba child for Kaien. No. The boy was Kaien.

“What does this mean?” Grimmjow demanded.

They sat shoulder to shoulder, a breath apart with gazes cast out to sea. Waves glistened beneath a silver coin moon. At their back, the last light blew out in the Shiba house. The Lord and Lady of the house had already put their children to bed and turned to sleep themselves. All was dark but for the moon, the sea, and the wretched stars.

“Kaien lives again.”

Grimmjow sank onto his back in the grass. Above, the stars spun, and his mind spun with them. He felt like one of the small fishing boats tossed about at sea by waves untamed. It was too much to hope, too much to wish for. But if Kaien could live again…

“Ichigo can too,” he whispered.

Shirosaki bent over, and the twist of his face fell between anguish and hope. Grimmjow felt it as his own. The currents of Shirosaki’s heart were deep as the sea and equally mysterious. But now at times Grimmjow could see into the shallows when the tide was low by Shirosaki’s allowance. He rose.

“We will find him.”

Shirosaki’s strange gold eyes snapped up.

“We can,” said Grimmjow. “If Ichigo lives again, we will find him.”

At his side, a rumbling purr. Grimmjow buried his fingers in Pantera’s fur. The beast’s solid presence soothed his heart, and his keen approval hardened his resolve. They would find Ichigo—they would move heaven and earth, turn this world inside out or burn it all down—but they would find him.

“He will remember nothing,” whispered Shirosaki.

“Then we will remember for him. We can tell him all, one day.”

Shirosaki swallowed. Pantera touched him with his nose, and he laid a hand on the beast’s head with a trembling sigh. He nodded slowly. “We will find him.”

Grimmjow unshouldered the sacred black sword at his back and held it in his hands. It weighed like a mountain. “One day, I will return to him this sword.”

“And until then?”

Grimmjow looked out into the open waters and sensed the world opening before him wide and yawning. He thought back to a night like this that felt very long ago now, a night in a different place, in different company. He had told Ichigo what he wished for most—Grimmjow looked upon Pantera at his side with solemn pride—and Ichigo in turn had confided his most desperate wish.

“I will make the stars fall.”

Grimmjow clasped the hilt of the black sword in his palm, and its blade sang to his blood. The stars sat in their lofty thrones above, unchanged through all the turmoil of these past years, through Ichigo’s sacrifice, through Grimmjow’s grief. They had no right to be so unmoved. They had no right to feel nothing.

“I will do this,” he swore. “Ichigo hated what his people have become. He wished for the stars to fall.”

“You will do this?” asked Shirosaki. “You, alone against the gods?”

“I am not alone.” Pantera’s purr rumbled soundless beneath his hand. “I have my sword. I have an army. And I have you.”

“Do you?”

“I do.” Grimmjow turned to him then and held the black sword between them. “Ichigo left his power and his sword to me. And you, Zangetsu, have not been training me to fight against men.”

Shirosaki’s smile curled slow and vicious. He clasped a hand over the hilt, fingers encircling Grimmjow’s, and looked upon him anew. “So you have found your will.”

Grimmjow’s will was a promise to the stars:

One day, the stars would fall. They would rain unto this earth, mere embers of what they had once been, and walk in the mud amongst those forgotten. The evening sky would fall dark and empty, and the moon would rest alone. As certain as the turn of seasons, Grimmjow would see this done.

The night was his witness.