Doomed From the Start

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The Battle Within
Themes #9 (Hide-and-Seek), #15 (First Time), and #11 (Never Really Mine)

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Despite being immensely proud about his status within the Espada, Grimmjow hated everything about Hueco Mundo. The white walls that seemingly covered the entire building reminded him of a psych ward, and somehow Grimmjow had a feeling that it was the mood that Aizen was going for. And like a padded room in the psych ward, there was absolutely nothing to do, aside from putting a new hole through any unfortunate Arrancar that might get in his way. Grimmjow supposed that the place was designed that way, so that the Espada and the rest of the arrancar would have more incentive to obey orders given to them. What Grimmjow hated the absolute most through was the look in everyone’s eyes around him. The fucking pompous glares that seemingly everyone gave him were what ultimately fueled his explosive personality, although it was especially evident within Ulquiorra, Ichigo, and Aizen.

However, despite the fact that he truly hated Hueco Mundo, his whole view changed one day when Aizen summoned him. Enduring that annoyingly fake paternal look that made Grimmjow want to rip the eyeballs out of his sockets, he listened as Aizen spoke about how lonely their “privileged guest” must be, and then suggested to Grimmjow to do something about it.

Although he managed to keep a straight face during the entire conversation, Grimmjow’s face instantly morphed into a sneer as he turned around. He didn’t need Aizen’s permission to do whatever the hell he wanted, but he supposed that he did have some interest in that human girl. He figured that dropping by to see what the girl was about wouldn’t hurt any, and would also half-ass fulfill Aizen’s order, without actually doing the task that Grimmjow was sure that he actually had in mind for him.

Stopping at her door, the thought of knocking momentarily crossed Grimmjow’s mind, but he dismissed the thought quickly and instead he slammed the door open, only to see a room full of nothing. However, once he started looking around, he could sense the girl’s reiatsu in the room. He wasn’t much for child-like games, but he was curious as to why exactly she was hiding. Slowly walking over to the bed in the room, he stopped and knelt down.

“You should pick a less obvious hiding spot next time.” Grimmjow said dryly. He then stood up as he heard a rumbling from underneath the bed, followed by Orihime emerging her from underneath the bed.

“Grimmjow? Wh…what do you want from me?” Orihime asked. Noticing the stutter in her voice, Grimmjow looked down at her. He instantly recognized the look of fear within her eyes and narrowed his gaze. Usually, when he did see terror in people’s eyes, it brought him a great sense of joy. This time, however, something just seemed kind of off about her behavior. Although she seemed like the average teenaged girl, she didn’t strike him as the type to resort to hiding to avoid trouble.

“What the hell are you doing under there?” Grimmjow asked, ignoring her question.

“Oh…I was…um…looking for my hair pin!” Orihime said after a while. “Yeah, I was sleeping, and then when I woke up, it was gone! Fortunately though, I must be a really active sleeper, because I found it under my bed!”

Grimmjow only glared at her, as he didn’t believe a single word of her story. Sensing that her story sounded as ridiculous as she figured it did, she finally got up on her feet and scratched behind her head.

“I just thought it would be neat to see if Arrancars knew the concept of hide-and-seek! Apparently they do!” Orihime said cheerfully. Unimpressed, Grimmjow continued to glare at her story that somehow sounded even more ridiculous than before.

“It seems to me like you’re trying to hide something.” Grimmjow commented as his face formed into a sneer. “Are you planning something against us? It’s futile.”

“No! I’m not planning anything! How could I plan anything when…” Orihime started to say, but then had a momentary expression of fear, before reverting back to her normal expression. “Never mind, it’s nothing!”

Grimmjow was even more convinced that something was going on with her, but also knew that he probably wasn’t going to get anything out of her, even if he resorted to threatening her. Whatever it was that was bothering though most likely had nothing to do with jeopardizing Hueco Mundo, or more importantly, himself, so he decided not to worry about it and left soon afterwards.

However, there was still something about the girl, which intrigued him greatly, even if he wasn’t quite sure what it was. To try to figure it out, he started visiting her every once in a while. The first few times he dropped by, he was annoyed to find that she was hiding in a spot as obvious as the time before. She would never tell him the real reason why she hid, but Grimmjow found that it was at least amusing to watch her try to come up with an excuse.

After a couple of months though, Grimmjow was mystified to find that Orihime would no longer hide from him. He wasn’t sure if it was because she had grown out of her fear for him or if it was because she had learned to detect his reiatsu, or if it was both. Also around that time, Grimmjow was a little irked to notice that every time he was about to leave, Orihime would don a slightly melancholy expression upon her pretty face, before forcing herself to shift into a more cheerful expression to express her farewell to the blue-haired Espada.

He continued to visit the girl, out of purely platonic interest, but there came a day when everything shattered. The day had seemed normal, as he entered her room, and again found her sitting on her bed, with that big fake smile plastered on her face. Grimmjow, of course, knew how phony her expression was and sneered at her. As he turned to leave though, he felt a pair of arms grab around his waist to hold him in place.

“Please…don’t leave me.” Orihime spoke in a small voice. Even if he was momentarily stunned by her bold action, Grimmjow broke away from her embrace and glared at her.

“What the fuck has gotten into you?” Grimmjow asked.

“I know that you can’t stay here, but please…out of every one here, you have been the most kind to me.” Orihime said.

“Don’t be so naïve, woman.” Grimmjow snarled. “Do you know what that prick, Aizen, wants me to do to you? If I didn’t hate the bastard so much, I would have fucked you senseless against the wall by now!”

“…I see.” Orihime said in a surprisingly calm tone. She then stood up and began to unhook the latches in her dress. Grimmjow blinked, trying to figure out if this was really Orihime in the room, or if it was some kind of trick. Either way, Orihime was acting even more strange than usual.

“What in the hell are you doing?” Grimmjow said with gritted teeth. Letting her clothes drop on the floor as if they were nothing, she advanced closer to him, although she kept her gaze to the ground.

“You don’t have to disobey your orders on my behalf anymore.” Orihime muttered. Grimmjow wanted to scream at the woman that he wasn’t betraying Aizen on her behalf at all, but for once, he was absolutely flabbergasted by the sight of the naked girl in front of him. Then when he thought that he had finally worked up the nerve to yell at her, she looked up at him with her eyes brimming with tears and desperation. “Please…just stay with me…even if for just a little bit.”

Upon gazing at her defeated expression, Grimmjow finally figured out why he was so intrigued with her. It was her eyes. While everyone else’s pretentious glares fueled his anger, the look in that girl’s eyes marked the first time he hadn’t felt the urge to obliterate something. He felt his face soften a little, but still fought the desire he could feel creeping through his veins. Inside his mind, he fought an epic battle to resist the girl and thus successfully evade following Aizen’s suggestion.

Orihime must have sensed this though, as she stepped so close to Grimmjow, that he could feel her very feminine curves press against his body. She then looked up again with pleading eyes. Throwing a sling of curse words in his mind, Grimmjow knew that he lost the battle as his lips descended upon Orihime’s in a lust-filled kiss. Hearing her moan, he put a hand behind her to draw her body even closer to his own. After a few minutes though, Grimmjow became all too aware of the need he felt growing in his groin.

Feeling her hands slide to his waist, he made no attempt to stop Orihime from removing his pants, as he continued kissing her roughly. All it took from her to break his kiss was one gentle stroke. Gasping from a mixture of surprise and pleasure, he knew that the last shred of sanity he had in the situation had been lost. Quickly dropping his jacket from his shoulders, he pinned her underneath him on the mattress. His feral eyes met her calm gaze for a moment before his lips once again met hers as he entered her. Although he was a little rough with her, Orihime soon got over the pain and filled the room with her quiet moans.

When Grimmjow had climaxed some time later, he rested against Orihime’s sweat-soaked body for a minute, before picking himself up. Silently, he put all of his clothing back on. He headed toward the door, but turned around to look at the girl one last time. Despite the exhaustion that she felt, Orihime still gave him a tranquil smile.

“Thank you.” She whispered as her eyes fluttered shut. Not understanding the source of her gratitude, Grimmjow wordlessly turned around and walked out the door.

Immediately, a whole new vile feeling encompassed his body for the first time. His intense vow to himself to not follow Aizen’s orders was now broken, he was easily manipulated by the young woman, and all he got from all of it was this foreign feeling: self-disgust. That was why he swore to himself that it would be the last time that he would ever go into that girl’s room ever again.

For the following weeks afterwards, Grimmjow kept true to his vow and didn’t walk anywhere near the girl’s room. However, the feelings of shame and revulsion did not fade away with time. Now the look of condescension of others brought him to a level of rage that even he had not reached before. He supposed that it was good for combat, but he still wanted the feelings gone. After all, it was emotions that brought so many down to their knees in the past before, and he did not want to die a fool’s death.

There came a day though, when he sensed Orihime’s reiatsu in an area not too terribly far from him. That part didn’t bother him, because he was a few halls away from her room. However the thing that did bother him was that he could also sense another very familiar reiatsu in the area. What really irked him though was that he could hear the girl’s wails from his position. He told himself that he didn’t care what happened to her, as she was just another human girl and was the cause of all his grief, to top it off. However, there was another part of him that urged him to at least go see what was going on. Battling the war in his mind yet again, he finally came to a decision and gritted his teeth.

“God damn it all.” He muttered to himself before disappearing in a flash.

About a minute later, he blasted Orihime’s locked door into oblivion. As his eyes scanned the room, Grimmjow was immediately taken aback by what he saw. On the girl’s bed was a very naked Orihime, a sight that he didn’t mind in the least. However, another member of the Espada, Nnoitra, was positioned directly above her on the bed. Noticing that another visitor had dropped by, Nnoitra raised his head and grinned.

“So he was the one, wasn’t he?” Nnoitra asked the woman beneath him. Orihime only stared at him indignantly. Narrowing his one eye, Nnoitra glanced over at Grimmjow. “And here I thought it was Ulquiorra this whole time.”

“What business do you have in here?” Grimmjow asked, to which Noitora widened his grin even more.

“Isn’t it obvious? Pet-sama here looked lonely, so I thought we could have a little fun.” Nnoitra replied as he slowly snaked his hand across Orihime’s breast, which caused her to moan slightly, but it was obvious from the look in her eyes that she was really trying to resist the sensation. Narrowing his one good eye in the expression that Grimmjow loathed, Nnoitra continued. “You’ve had her before, so you should know just as well as I do that she’s a good little whore.”

Within an instant, Grimmjow moved from the doorway to hold Nnoitra against the wall by his neck. As he started to get a faint idea as to why Orihime had acted the way she did the first few times he had visited her, he was overcome with rage yet again, although he had no idea why, as he tried to convince himself that he didn’t give a damn about the woman. Startled by the sudden turn of events, Orihime looked on in fear.

“Grimmjow, what are you doing?!” she exclaimed as she wrapped a sheet around herself. Grimmjow didn’t respond as he tightened his grip around Nnoitra’s neck. Frantically, Orihime rushed behind him. “Grimmjow, if you kill him, Aizen-sama might do something really bad to you!”

“Like I give a shit whether I live or die.” Grimmjow muttered.

“But Grimmjow…I…” Orihime started to say, but thought if she said anything else, she would only make him angrier. Glancing over at the girl, something stirred in Grimmjow as he looked into her pleading glance. Giving a frustrated sigh, he loosened his grip on Nnoitra, but still kneed him in the groin as he let him down. Pissed beyond relief, Nnoitra picked himself up and glowered at both Grimmjow and Orihime.

“I don’t know why the fuck you would choose someone like him, but he’s no different from the rest of us!” Nnoitra spat. Leaving the room, Orihime softened her expression as she looked over at Grimmjow, who still didn’t look happy in the least.

“So you and him…” Grimmjow said, but allowed the sentence to trail off.

“He…made me do things to him since before you started visiting and swore he would do worse to me if I ever told anyone. Then every time he visited, he would make me do something new. I guess it was his twisted way of teaching me new things.” Orihime explained. “But I promise, you were my first. I knew that he would probably go after my virginity next, so that’s why I wouldn’t let you leave that day.”

“Has he fucked you since then?” Grimmjow asked. She only looked down at the ground in response, but that was all Grimmjow needed to figure out the answer. Punching the wall once out of frustration, Grimmjow cursed the fact that during the time he stayed away from her, it only gave Nnoitra more of an opportunity to have his way with her.

As he stood staring at the wall though, the inner turmoil of the thoughts boiling inside his head slightly quelled as felt Orihime’s arms wrap around him from behind. Feeling her rest her head against his back, he felt a new resolve burn within him. It was now revealed that the woman was never really his, as she was forced to share her body with at least one other. However, he was never content with sharing anything with any one else. Especially her.

“I’ll become stronger.” Grimmjow vowed. Figuring out the meaning behind his statement, Orihime loosened her embrace around him.

“But why?” She asked. Grimmjow turned around to look at the girl for a second before turning around to the empty doorway. Pondering his answer for a moment, Grimmjow finally chose the message that was the most cryptic, but was yet the most effective. Walking out the room, Orihime stared in awe as he responded.

“Because I have nothing else to live for.”




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Author’s Notes

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I’m sure this one’s one of my weaker ones, since was recovering from writer’s block when writing this one. But after a week or two of writing nothing, I started to get a couple of ideas in my head for this one, so I decided to finish it.

I didn’t get too detailed with the smex parts, because I figured it would distract from the story too much, and I write too many GrimmHime lemons anyways. :p

I’m sure you readers are smart, but I’m sure there will be a few that don’t quite get the ending of the story. Although I usually prefer to allow the readers to come up with their own interpretation, part of good art is also conveying your own interpretation as well. So if you’re content with your own interpretation, don’t read on! Basically, we all know that Grimmjow wouldn’t admit in a million years that he liked anyone in any sort of way, right? But that presents a problem when this story has romantic elements to it. So therefore, Grimmjow’s “I’ll become stronger” and “Because I have nothing else to live for” translate into his version of “I swear I’ll become strong enough to make you mine, and only mine, because you are the only thing to me worth living for.”

But if the actual Grimmjow were to hear himself say that, he’d probably have me mutilated, because those vague lines are already really pushing it. It’s okay though, because Orihime is a smart girl and knew what he was going for. ^_^;