Chapter Text
Grimmjow groaned and opened his eyes to see the artificial sky of the underground bunker. He couldn’t move his arms.
“This shit is gettin’ old real fast,” he said.
“Oh, are you finally awake, Arrancar-san?” Urahara was using his obnoxious voice, the overly saccharine one he reserved for annoying difficult customers into leaving the shop, or prodding difficult Arrancar into agreeing to clean up after themselves.
Grimmjow squinted up and saw the shopkeeper standing above him, backlit against the telltale glow of a kidō barrier. Urahara held his sword-cane in one hand, and his fan in the other, but his hat was nowhere to be seen. That last detail, and the fact he hadn't addressed Grimmjow by name, meant he was not playing around. Or at least he wanted Grimmjow to think that.
“My name,” Grimmjow spat out from between gritted teeth, “is Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez. Fuckin’ use it already.”
“Ah, Jaegerjaquez-san then.” Urahara said, crossing his hands on his cane.
Grimmjow rolled his eyes. Trust the damn Hat ‘n Clogs to be purposefully obtuse. He tried to sit up, and found that his arms were bound to his side with glowing bakudō chains. Tessai’s handiwork, though he’d never seen it at this level, and never directed against him. A tiny prickle of unease formed in the back of his mind, but he squashed it down with the irritation of dealing with Urahara at his most annoying.
He took stock of himself: he was back in his stupid Espada uniform, his resurrección broken by unconsciousness, but Pantera was nowhere to be seen, and he figured that meant she was sealed up somewhere behind a dozen kidō barriers. It wouldn’t be the first time Yoruichi and Tessai got tired of him waving a sword around and put Pantera in zanpakutō time-out, as they called it. The bakudō sealed his reiryoku and sapped his strength, though underneath it, his injuries from the fight with Ulquiorra were healed without a trace, as if they’d never happened in the first place. He recognized healer-girl's hand, having been subject to that miraculous power many times before. At least one person didn't seem fully committed to whatever act they were all putting on.
Grimmjow struggled into a sitting position and looked around. Urahara stood closest to him, and Yoruichi just a few feet back. And behind her, hands pressed together and brown creased in focus, was Tessai, on the other side of the barrier. Healer-girl, to his surprise, stood beside him, also on the other side of the barrier, close enough to see what was happening inside.
And just to his left, drawing all of Grimmjow's attention with the maelstrom of his presence, was Kurosaki Ichigo, arms crossed in front of his chest and Zangetsu slung across his back, his face shadowed by a thunderous frown.
Everyone was staring at Grimmjow, like vultures around a piece of roadkill.
Like hell was he going to be roadkill. He glared up at them all, daring them to try him.
“This ain’t fucking funny anymore, shitty Hat ‘n Clogs,” he said, ignoring Kurosaki for now, though he felt a phantom heat on his skin from that direction, “fuckin’ let me up.”
“My my, you are being quite familiar,” Urahara said, not moving any closer.
Grimmjow curled his lip in a frustrated snarl. What the fuck were they trying to do here? The earlier uneasy feeling returned as he looked around once more at the crowd of unfriendly faces, and he realized abruptly what was bothering him.
The training bunker, as he remembered it, had been splashed, soaked and marinated in his and Kurosaki’s reiatsu, from their monthly fights and the moments between when Grimmjow had practiced his moves with the various other members of the Shōten.
Now, it only held the stale feeling of Kurosaki’s reiatsu, nearly covered by the scent of Kurosaki’s giant human fighter friend, and some shinigami that Grimmjoy only vaguely remembered. All traces of Grimmjow were gone. Scrubbed clean, like he’d never existed here.
So that was how they were going to play it.
“Fine,” he said, “What d’ya want? A fuckin’ apology? A gift basket for fucking up your place?”
“How about an explanation?” Yoruichi stepped forward from behind Urahara. She was smiling, but there was no humor in the way she curled her lip to show her teeth. “What did Aizen want? He sent you and those other Arrancar here for a reason, didn’t he?”
“Aizen?” Grimmjow repeated, caught wrong-footed again by the sudden shift in topic, and the way her grin looked more menace than mischief. “What the hell does he have to do with this? Last I heard he was still locked up in shinigami prison thanks to your fancy kidō technique.”
“As flattering as that is, I believe I would recall such a feat,” Urahara said. Though his tone was light, the lower corner of his mouth was tugging down into the start a frown.
Grimmjow squinted. “You’re the one who fucking told me!” he snapped, “This some kind of joke?”
"Stop fucking around and answer the questions," Kurosaki interrupted, "What did you want with Inoue?”
Grimmjow slid his eyes over to the healer-girl, standing on the other side of the barrier. “Didn’t she tell you?” He said, shrugging his left shoulder as well as he could, considering the bakudō bindings. “Thought I wouldn’t get it fixed if you took my arm off?”
Kurosaki blinked, then scowled. "I didn't take off your arm," he said, defensive.
“It sure as hell didn't just fall off and walk away on its own!” Grimmjow said.
“How the hell should I know what happened?” Kurosaki said, “It’s your arm!”
“You’re the last person I fought,” Grimmjow said, “Don’t try to weasel out of responsibility.”
“That was a month ago!”
Grimmjow's mouth snapped shut. A month? How the hell had he lost a whole fucking month? Unease morphed into something sharper, too close for comfort to constant paranoia of Las Noches, under Aizen's rule.
Why the hell was Kurosaki in on the stupid prank anyways? Urahara and Yoruichi sure, and healer-girl caved way too quickly to their stupid requests, but it wasn’t like Kurosaki to play along with these kinds of mind games.
He turned his glare back at Urahara and Yoruichi.
"This is getting real fucking annoying now," he hissed, "Don't tell me you're gonna keep pretending you don't know me, or feeding me this bullshit about Aizen being back. I saw him in the fucking Muken prison, strapped to that fucking chair. If you don't tell me what the hell is going on, I'm gonna start telling people about your secret stash of cigarettes that Tessai hasn't found behind the wall panel in the—"
Yoruichi started forward, eyes wide, bordering on anger, "How the fuck do you know about that—"
Urahara raised a hand in front of her chest before she could lunge. He tilted his head thoughtfully.
“I’m afraid I truly do not recall making your acquaintance prior to now,” he said, still infuriatingly straight-faced, “though one of your friends did cause quite a commotion here last month.”
One of his friends?
Grimmjow wracked his brains for someone else who might be in on this joke. Harribel? Or maybe--
“Did Nel piss in your morning coffee or something?” Grimmjow said, cracking a grin at the thought.
Urahara did not smile. “I don’t consider hurting the children very amusing.”
Grimmjow’s smile slid off. A strange feeling bubbled up underneath his ribs, the previous unease returned full force, tipping over into something closer to dread. Hurting Ururu or Jinta? He hadn’t sensed them nearby, but surely that was just Urahara keeping them out of the way so they wouldn’t give up whatever game he’d been planning. And in any case Nel thought the shop kids were cute, she wouldn’t—
“Nel wouldn’t do that," he said, vehemently, "it's one thing to try and prank me, but bringing her into it is fucking low, even for you."
Urahara raised an eyebrow. “Nel? I don't believe that was his name.”
Now Grimmjow’s headache was back. It wasn’t Nel, but then who—
“He gave his name as Yylfordt Granz,” Yoruichi spoke up, “And he’s won’t be hurting anyone else anymore.”
Grimmjow’s shoulders slumped. He didn't know why it was such a relief, that they were not talking about Nel, or that things hadn't changed so drastically in the time he'd been unconscious, or out of commission, or whatever the fuck was happening.
“You’re just messing with me, aren’t you?” he said, “Fucking assholes. Yylfordt’s been dead for years.”
Urahara tilted his head, face blanking in the telltale way that meant something had occurred to him. Grimmjow clenched his hands at his sides. It was a shitty joke, and fuck them all for picking at old wounds.
He wasn’t going to sit here and wait for them to pick him apart. He tried to flare his reiatsu, pitifully weak as it was. If he could just get a hand under this stupid kidō—
“Don’t try it,” Kurosaki said, raising a hand to Zangetsu’s hilt.
“Or what, you’ll stab me?” Grimmjow sneered, relishing the way Kurosaki’s face reddened in anger. That, at least, was simple, straightforward. “You don’t have the guts.”
Kurosaki’s hand flexed around the hilt of his zanpakutō, still in its old, singular kitchen knife form, the way it had been when they’d first met. Where was his smaller blade?
“And what’s with you now?” He said, “I lose one fight and you’re suddenly weak as shit, Kurosaki. Knocked out by a single punch? A fist-shaped turd could take you down.”
“Shut up!”
Grimmjow squinted, struck again by the feeling that something was wrong. Kurosaki did look slightly different, in a way he couldn’t quite put to words.
“Even your face looks weaker,” he said.
“There’s nothing wrong with my face!” Kurosaki’s face went even redder. Maybe if Grimmjow kept going he’d burst a vessel and die.
“Heh, and this is the guy who trashed Aizen and took down the Quincy god, huh?” Grimmjow said, “you sure as shit don’t look like it.”
“You’re not making any sense!” Kurosaki shouted, flailing his arms around, his grip on his zanpakutō forgotten.
“I’m not making sense? You’re not making any fucking sense, fuckface!”
“You’re the one who came barging into town, looking for a fight!”
“You promised to fight me!” Grimmjow said, “How’re you gonna do that if you fold with a single punch?”
“I never promised you anything!” Kurosaki snapped.
Grimmjow reeled.
Never promised him anything? Did Kurosaki have fucking brain damage? Or, another more insidious inner voice whispered, is he finally tired of humoring you? Is he taking it back, now that he’s realized you’re just a blight on his peaceful human existence?
Kurosaki blinked, anger melting away to confusion at whatever he saw on Grimmjow’s face. His mouth fell open slightly, lips forming a tentative question. It looked too much like pity, and Grimmjow recoiled from it instinctively.
“Then what the hell am I here for?” Grimmjow said, harshly, before Kurosaki could make any excuses for revoking that already tenuous connection between them. This was what he’d wanted when he’d challenged Kurosaki to that fight, wasn’t it? To shake off the stupid promise that had dogged him over years and across dimensions. To get Kurosaki to admit it, to force his hand, make him realize that there was only one way it could all end. To break off all the soft, stupid emotion embodied in those words that were holding Grimmjow back from--from his true potential, from being the kind of Hollow that could rule over all others, or whatever it was he deserved.
And now that bond was severed, without even a hint or mention that it had ever existed in the first place. Grimmjow should be ecstatic.
Then why was his chest aching like he’d just been run through again by Kurosaki’s blade?
Kurosaki’s scowl returned, full force. That Grimmjow could deal with: the thought that he was right after all, that there was no fucking way someone like Kurosaki would ever tolerate a Hollow acting so friendly with him for so long.
That the world was righting itself once again, and at least now Grimmjow knew where he stood. And at least when he stood alone, back to the wall, he knew no one was going to come up from behind and stab him.
Whatever the look on his face, it only seemed to infuriate Kurosaki further. “How should I know what you —“
“Ah,” Urahara, who had been infuriatingly silent for the last few minutes, interrupted with the slap of his fan swinging shut. The rising voices died down, leaving only the roar of blood in Grimmjow's ears, and Kurosaki's heavy breathing.
“If I might put forward a hypothesis," Urahara announced.
Then he paused for a long moment to let everyone turn stare at him, because the man couldn’t stop the dramatics if his life depended on it. Finally, satisfied that the moment had been milked dry and aged into cheese, he spoke.
“Could it be possible, Grimmjow-san, that you are somehow from the future?”