I'm back and doing good. I hope everyone is doing good and staying clean during this whole thing. Sorry that it's been months since I've last uploaded but literally right after last chapter in November, I was switched over to night shift cause of Christmas. My classes ended for the semester but I spent my days asleep and nights working so I never got around to writing. After the holidays I had to readjust to being awake in the day time, so sleep schedule was everywhere, then classes started up again and now this whole pandemic with the Coronavirus. Classes are now online so I spend my time when not at work stuck at home with a lot of free time. So I decided why not use this new found free time to get back into writing more for this story?

I'm sure you guys don't care about my personal life anyway but I felt like putting it out there. Anyway on some great news, for those of you that haven't somehow heard for like the past couple of weeks now, THE BLEACH ANIME IS COMING BACK in 2021! The TYBW being animated makes me so hyped! I wonder if they're gonna better pace the ending of the arc since it kinda started feeling rushed. I just want to know what Yhwach saw in the future that made him break Ichigo's true Bankai. Also anyone reading Fairy Tail 100 Year Quest? It's honestly really good and the latest chapters just keep making things more hype!

I gotta give thanks to ShiroHollow96 for letting me use their OCs that made a very brief cameo in the last chapter and will be making their proper introduction this chapter. I did try my best writing this but since it's been months since the last chapter it took me a while to get it decent enough to publish. I made it longer than most of the chapters in this story but not as long as last chapter to make up for the time.

Anyway that's all I got in terms of an update, hope this chapter makes up for all the wait time I put y'all through.

Chapter 13 The Cat's Tongue

Grimmjow clicked his tongue in annoyance as he stared on at the mysterious trio standing at the top of the cliff. Both Nelliel and him could sense the energy signature of an Arrancar among the three, they weren't familiar with who it belong to. Clenching his reishi covered fist, Grimmjow scowled. "Great, as if sharing my prey with Nelliel and the pipsqueak wasn't enough." Grimmjow said with annoyance.

Nelliel looked at the the trio with slight suspicion. She could tell that out of the three on the cliff, only two posed a significant threat, the Arrancar and the one standing next to him. The second seemed to have been the one that pulled off the magic attack from earlier. The third standing along with them seemed to be much smaller, and weaker in terms of power.

Natsu, baffled, tried to wrap his head around the attack that was used earlier. "Crystal... Dragon..." Natsu said to himself as he looked on in deep thought. "I wonder if he knows?".

Nelliel looked around using her sensing to see if she could get find the Sinner. "He must be hiding in the shadows." Nelliel thought to herself as she kept her guard up as she made her way to Natsu.

Grimmjow used Sonido to appear next to the trio on the cliff. Upon appearing, the blue haired ex Espada noticed that the foreign Arrancar, and the other person next to him, both took defensive positions in front of the third member of their group. Not letting his guard down, the rather annoyed Arrancar approached the three taking in each of their features. His focus was more on the Arrancar than the other two.

The Arrancar had vibrant neck length strawberry blond hair, fiery amber colored eyes and a face that any girl could fall for. The hollow mask remnant normally associated with Arrancars, seemed to be located on his neck, it was a bone white scaled choker. From where Grimmjow was standing, he could tell the Arrancar was slightly taller than he was by a few inches. He had a thick muscular build that was barely contained by his clothing, making him look much bigger than he actually was.

The clothing that the Arrancar was wearing reminded Grimmjow of the type of clothing that would've been adorned during Aizen's rule of Hueco Mundo. He wore a white sleeveless hoodie that was black trimmed, a pair of white pants that opened at the ends. He wore white boots and from the slight opening in the pants Grimmjow could see black socks.

The Arrancar's expression was one of calmness as he stood at the forefront of the his little group. He was in a defensive stance with his fist at the ready, not making a move for his zanpakuto laying on his side. It had a red sheath, a diamond shaped guard, fiery red wrappings around the hilt with two tassels hanging at the end of it.

The second person seemed to have a more nervous expression on his face, despite this it was obvious that he was trying his best to remain as calm as the mysterious Arrancar. Grimmjow gave him a quick glance to acknowledge that he knew he was there but wasn't interested.

The apparent Dragon Slayer had short bright light blue hair that seemed to darken into royal blue before ending in purple at the tips. He had pale white skin, which made his bright blue eyes flicker with life, with some golden tint hidden beneath the bright sky that was his eyes. He didn't seem to have any distinguishable features on his face. He was about equal in height with Grimmjow, and had a muscular build close to that of Grimmjow himself.

For clothing, it seemed that he was dressed in a way that made him contrast the Arrancar next to him. If the Arrancar was primarily dressed in white with a lack of design, the mage seemed to scream the opposite. He wore a dark purple shirt that seemed made to hug his chest tightly. On top of the shirt was a form fitting, ashen colored duster that went down to his thigh in length. It was split from the bottom going up, giving the jagged and torn edges of the two coat tails the image of wings.

Black leather pants with sapphire colored flames adorned the pant legs. The belt that held up the pants was designed to look like a silver serpentine dragon that wrapped around the waist as the head of the dragon served as the belt buckle. The ends of the pants were tucked into a pair of dark leather boots that seemed like it was tied with ashen glass-like chains with a sapphire colored glass-like lock holding the chains in place.

What made him stand out even more compared to his other worldly friend were two things. First, a wooden staff in his hands with a dragon craved in such a way that it appeared as though it was wrapping around the staff until it reached the tip were it curled around a sapphire jewel. The second was a toxic green pendent that took the shape of a dragon's eye that hung around his neck.

"I urge that you not take another step closer. We decided to help you because you looked like you were in trouble, I do not aim to fight you but to aid you." The Arrancar said as he started to radiate with heat, clearly giving Grimmjow a warning sign to back away. In response to the heat, the second member in the group started to raise their magic energy as if to show that they will both fight against him if they have to.

Stopping in his tracks, Grimmjow started to grit his teeth and clench his fist. For the past couple of days, all of his fights have been interrupted in one way or another, it was starting to get under his skin.

"You want to 'aid' me?" Grimmjow snarled at the notion. "If you want to help me, than 'help' by staying out of my way as I kill that bastard down there unless you want to end up as mince meat!" Grimmjow said as he glared daggers at the three in front of him.

Immediately the trio tensed at his words before taking a step back to better defend the one in the back. Grimmjow noticed this and glanced down at the who exactly they were trying to protect.

To his surprise it was a child, or at least had the appearance of one. What Grimmjow was sensing, definitely had a magic signature to it like everything else in this world, but from what he could tell...it wasn't human.

What was before him had the appearance of a young human girl. She looked about half of Grimmjow's height. She wore a sunset orange kimono, trailing up her right leg was a golden Phoenix in mid flight with flames surrounding its wings as the design stopped at her mid-section. Her eyes were a nice bright amber honey color. Her shoulder length hair was colored in a fiery red and orange mix.

What gave Grimmjow a clear indication that what he was looking at wasn't completely human was the obvious cat ears that rested on her head, and a tail of the same color as her hair that seemed to be poking out from behind her.

The little girl poked her head out from in between the two standing guard. "Hey mister you don't have to get so angry. After seeing you get your butt handed to you as bad as you did, anyone would be willing to step in and help you." The little girl said in an almost joking tone as she stared at Grimmjow.

Caught off guard by the words of the child before him, Grimmjow gave her a crooked look. "I wasn't getting anything handed to me, I was just getting him where I wanted him." Grimmjow said with a scoff as he crossed his arms.

"Sure you did mister. Judging from how you and Pinky over there are the most beat up, I'm sure that you were just wearing him down so you could pull some epic comeback at the end right?" The little girl mockingly said as she punched the air in front of her like she was knocking someone out.

"Well I don't blame you for thinking you're all that. You know what they say, the dog with the loudest bark are the most afraid." The little girl said as she turned around shrugging her shoulders.

Uncrossing his arms and gritting his teeth, Grimmjow looked at the little girl with anger in his eyes. "I ain't afraid of nothing you little brat. I hate people that act all high and mighty because they think they're safe behind some meat shields."

"Ember you should probably stop talking, we don't know what this guy is capable of." The Dragon Slayer said not taking his eyes off Grimmjow with sweat rolling down his forehead.

"But Azul look at him, he was getting beat up by the guy who you took down in one hit! He can't be that strong." The little girl, now identified as Ember, said as she pointed down from the cliff looking at the mage in front of her.

A vein popped out from Grimmjow's forehead, he lunged forward at the trio with his reishi claws ready to tear each of them apart. "DON'T YOU DARE LOOK DOWN ON ME!"

Just as the two guarding her was ready to make a move, a shadow tendril wrapped itself around Grimmjow's left leg surprising everyone on the cliff. "That son of a-" Grimmjow didn't even get to finish as the tendril spun him around and slammed his body face first into the side of the cliff kicking up rocks and dust getting Natsu's and Nelliel's attention.

"GRIMMJOW!" Nelliel screamed as a cold chill ran up her spine. Spinning around on the heel of her foot she managed to block a tendril aimed at her head with the flat side of her sword.

"See, I bet that you and Siegfried could've dodged that!." Ember said with a smug smile on her face. Just as Azul was about to say something, the Arrancar put his arm up signaling for silence. "Are we not going to help them out Siegfried?" Azul asked his friend as the three of them walked up to the edge of the cliff.

"There's something about that man that tells me that he could help me learn who I am and where I come from." The Arrancar, now identified as Siegfried, said as he crouched down to watch what will happen next. "Just maybe he can help me regain my memories."

"How do you keep managing to escape death from me at the last second?" The Sinner's voice could be heard around Nelliel but she couldn't pinpoint where it was coming from. The tendril retracted back into the ground at high speeds before Grimmjow came crashing down on his back besides her.

The blue haired man scowled as he brought up his left hand with the tips of his claws glowing blue. The resulting swipe of his arm not only cut through the tendril holding his leg but also slashed some nearby buildings and left four giant claw marks embedded into the already damaged cliff wall.

"This bastard's really starting to annoy me." Grimmjow snarled as he got up.

A dark circle appeared from under Natsu before sucking him into the ground. A moment later the Sinner walked out from the side of one of the houses with his right hand choking Natsu. The Dragon Slayer going ablaze as he attempted to reach high enough temperatures to get the Sinner to let go of him. "Your flames will never be hot enough to actually cause me harm." The Sinner said as he applied more force on Natsu's neck.

The flames being produced by Natsu were starting to go dim down, and his body was starting to go limp. From the little that Natsu could see under the Sinner's hood, he was sure that the Sinner was smiling at him.

Just then buzzing was heard around the two as Nelliel appeared in front of the sinner with her zanpakuto glowing pink as she was going to swing her blade upwards. Behind the Sinner, Grimmjow was overhead as he readied to bring his glowing claws down on the Sinner's head.

In the next moment the Sinner disappeared into the ground, leaving Natsu to fall on his back coughing and gasping for air. Grimmjow had to move his head to the side as Nelliel had to change the direction of her sword swing mid-trajectory to avoid lopping her ally's head off.

On the opposite side of the tracks stood the Sinner clapping at the three before him. "I must congratulate the three of you, you managed to figure out that the only way to land a hit on me was with a light source fairly fast. I wasn't expecting for you to have got it within the start of the fight." Shadows started to swirl around his body as he finished his sentence.

"When the fight first started you didn't bother to block or dodge any of Grimmjow's attacks. When Natsu started to attack you with his flames you had to block. I wasn't sure if it was because he caught you off guard of if it was situational." Nelliel started saying as Natsu was finally getting air into his lungs properly now in the background.

"With your powers being focused around Shadows it's only logical that anything that generates light would be a natural weakness for you. Grimmjow realized this same thing as both his and my own attacks have been reinforced by light in some form or fashion." Nelliel said with an uneasy expression and some sweat on her face.

Her body was still feeling uneasy around the Sinner, it was taking her all throughout the battle to be able to stop shaking throughout long enough to fight as well as she was but she wasn't at her best. She didn't know why her body was acting in such a way around the Sinner.

The Sinner looked at Nelliel, that was the last thing she needed for her body to stop all function of resisting any further. Her body started to freeze as she managed to look into the Sinner's golden-yellow slit eyes same as before. Her body started to tremble as her heart rate started to speed up. The world around her started to go dark as her knees gave out.

She started to hyperventilate as she could no longer see anything around but darkness. In that darkness all she could feel was the Sinner's presence. She was starting to sweat really bad as she felt like she was ready to hurl.

"HEY NELLIEL!" Hearing her name being screamed into her ear snapped her back into reality. "This isn't you, I don't remember you ever being the type to lose your resolve in the middle of a fight." With his back facing the green haired Arrancar as he stood in front of her, he continued with what he was saying. "If I knew you were gonna get like this I would've had you just go with Kurosaki instead." Looking over his shoulder he gave Nelliel a glance from the corner of his eye.

Nelliel looked over at him surprised before gathering herself. "I might still be out of it but it seems to me that you're going soft Grimmjow." Nelliel said with a small smile on her face as she gripped the handle of her blade as hard as she could, while trying to calm her nerves by clearing her mind as best she could of those eyes.

Grimmjow didn't say anything before putting his focus back on the Sinner. The reishi he had gathered around his hands started to dissipate as he made for the hilt of his zanpakuto. He was glowing blue as his power started to rise rapidly and releasing enough spiritual pressure around himself that the ground was starting to break apart under his feet.

Nelliel, having finally managed to calm herself, was standing over Natsu using her own spiritual pressure to shield him from Grimmjow's as this was much stronger than what he released when they fought. Thinking back on the words Grimmjow told him when they fought about being able to kill several times over, Natsu gritted his teeth as he clenched the ground from frustration. "Damn it" speaking under his breath.

The Sinner started to raise his own power to the same intensity as Grimmjow's. Bringing up his left arm, the shadows started to get darker and move around much faster. The two stared at each other, blue locked onto gold, neither moved as the town and train station that served as their battleground was becoming rubble from the sheer weight of their power.

On the cliff

The ground was starting to crack open. Ember closed in on Siegfried as he was using his own power to shield the little girl from the effects of the two gigantic powers below. "Ember how long do you think your runes would protect you if I went down there to fight?" Siegfried asked as he stood up and walked away with Ember as the edge started to crumble and fall down.

"With all the training we've been doing, I think i can hold it for about ten minutes." Ember said as she brought a finger to her mouth thinking.

"That's against your full power alone, not with two other people plus yours going all out." Azul threw in his opinion with a worried face, he stepped between the two. "Sieg I know you want answers to your past but I don't think this is the way. You saw how that guy threatened us earlier, he might kill you." Azul said as he got closer to him, resting his forehead on Siegfried's.

"I know but this could be my only chance I have to find out who I was before you found me laying in the woods all those decades ago." Siegfried said as he parted and picked up Ember bridal style.

"Besides it's been a while since I've had to fight without holding back. I'm sure that you're itching to get in on this fight yourself." Siegfried said with a smirk as he turned to look at the Dragon Slayer.

Letting out a small chuckle, Azul shook his head "I figured you wanted to get in on the fight from the get go. Honestly I'm surprised you didn't jump in sooner."

"I needed to get as much information as I could on my opponent, fighting someone without having a good idea of what they can do is foolish." Siegfried said as more of the cliff began to break off and fall.

Letting out a sigh Azul readied himself for the fight to come. Siegfried walked up to him and put his left hand on his shoulder. "I have nothing to fear in this fight, after all I know you have my back." The Arrancar was saying as he cradled Ember in his other arm, which thanks to their relative sizes to each other looked like a father holding his daughter in his arms.

Azul looked at him and gave him a reassuring smile. "And I know you have mine."

With Grimmjow

As the last of the cliff pieces broke off and crashed onto the ground below, Grimmjow lunged towards the Sinner at high speeds. With a gesture of his hand the shadows swirling around him formed a wall of darkness in front of him.

Believing this would be the Sinner's first move, Grimmjow poured reiatsu into his blade, making it glow bright blue. Bringing the blade down diagonally, Grimmjow managed to cut the wall and see to the Sinner on the other side but the wall was much thicker than he anticipated so his blade didn't reach his target.

'So he can mess with the density of the shadows under his control.' Thinking to himself, he jumped over the wall in hopes of get a shot in from overhead but as he made his way over, the wall proceeded to follow him blocking his view.

A spike shot out from the center of the wall, Grimmjow deflected it with his sword as he started to charge a cero in his free hand. The moment he was about to release the attack point blank, the spike turned into a tendril and wrapped itself around Grimmjow's hand resulting in a small explosion forcing Grimmjow back.

Looking at his target, he could see the wall became damaged and a large chunk of the wall was destroyed. Briefly looking at his hand, he saw that it was slightly burned but he was still able to use it thanks to his Hierro tanking most of the explosion.

Flipping his sword around, Grimmjow threw it like a spear through the missing chunk. The Sinner dodged the blade easily as he moved his head to the side. As he looked back to his opponent he found that he was gone and buzzing was heard behind him.

Turning around as fast as he could he saw Grimmjow grab the hilt of his sword as it passed him. Using the same momentum from the throw, Grimmjow spun around and aimed to lop off his opponent's head only to fail as the wall dispersed around the Sinner to block the blade at the last possible moment at his neck.

Than the wall broke into several blades and started attacking Grimmjow from all angles, forcing the Arrancar to jump back as he parried each blade as fast as he could. A few of the blades managed to slip past his defense and managed to leave small cuts mostly around his arms and thighs.

Using Sonido to gain some distance, Grimmjow launched a few balas at the blades managing to redirect a few away from him. He charged up another cero and released it, bulldozing right through the blades and straight towards the Sinner.

Changing the wall into a large spear and threw it towards the destructive blast resulting in a bigger explosion than before. The large dust cloud blocked Grimmjow's view of his opponent. using his senses he could tell that he didn't move or disappear into the shadows. Thinking of his next move Grimmjow was taken off guard by the shadow fist that shot itself from the ground into his stomach with enough force to knock him off his feet.

The Sinner than appeared from under Grimmjow using his shadow to close the distance and delivered a left hook to the right side of Grimmjow's face. Taking advantage of his surprise the Sinner than kneed Grimmjow in the gut hard. Grimmjow doubled over only to have his face grabbed by a shadow hand coming out of the ground, which then retracted into the ground at high speeds, resulting in Grimmjow's face getting slammed into the ground.

The Sinner than disappeared into the ground and in the same moment he shot out of the ground with both his feet in Grimmjow's chest as he used the darkness under Grimmjow's body to launch himself upwards with enough force to make Grimmjow cough out blood and send him into the air. Some drops of blood landed on the Sinner's chest.

Recovering fast, Grimmjow flipped in the air and landed on his feet. He glared daggers at his opponent as he wiped the blood off his mouth.

"I told you if you want any chance at defeating me you'll need to release your sword." The Sinner said as he gathered shadows around his arms before he solidified them into black gauntlets with spikes at the knuckles.

"If you really think that was enough to force me to release than you're really underestimating me." Grimmjow said as he covered his left hand in reishi like before. Both his zanpakuto and his claws started to glow blue.

"You're arrogance will be your down fall." The sinner said as he brought his fist up to eye level like a boxer.

"I don't plan on dying like Barragan." Was all Grimmjow said before the two lunged straight towards each other.

-Crystal Dragon's Imperial Shield- Before the two were within arms distance of each other a wall of crystal shot out from the ground stopping the two. The wall had crystals of differing shapes, sizes, and colors. Grimmjow looked over to the end of the wall and saw Azul with the tip of the staff touching the ground at the base of the wall.

"YOU!" Grimmjow said with anger in his voice. Before either could do anything, something broke through the wall and shot out behind Grimmjow. Turning around he saw the Sinner sliding across the ground as he tried to slow himself down.

"Like I told you earlier we're here to aid you not fight you." Siegfried walked through the gaping hole in the wall. Grimmjow looked at him and saw that his hands were glowing bright red as he was radiating intense heat.

"HAHAHAHA" The Sinner was laughing as he stood up to his full height. He had a burn mark the size of a fist around his chest. "It seems things are finally getting fun around here!" The sinner said as he summoned a bunch of shadows around himself.

'His demeanor changed from before.' Grimmjow thought to himself as his focus went back to his original target.

"I know you probably don't want anything to do with us right now but you need our help in this fight. And regardless of what you say we're still going to help you out." Azul said as he walked up to Grimmjow while eyeing the shadows for any attacks.

Grimmjow scowled but knew that he had a point, he couldn't fight all three of them at once even if he was in a better state he could tell they were all relative to each other at the moment.

"Once this is all over I have some questions I want to ask you about where you come from and what we are." Siegfried said catching Grimmjow off guard.

'Does he not know?' Thinking to himself as he looked the taller Arrancar.

"Enough chitchat let's get this started!" The sinner said bring everyone's attention to himself. He shot forward with his shadows trailing behind.

AN: That's the chapter, I hope you guys liked it and I hope it was good enough to make up for the couple months of waiting for it. This fight is gonna drag on for a least another chapter before we get back to Ichigo and the others. I have plenty of ideas on where I want the rest of the Lullaby arc to go after this fight so hope you guys stay and enjoy the ride for as I can keep updating.