Stripped

The author is not making money on the production of this story. It is a work of fan-oriented nature. All characters belong to Kubo Tite.

Rating : MA (For adult language, adult situations, strong sexual content, and violence)

AN : This story is written during, up to, and past current storyline (mostly the time in between the actual storyline). There are spoilers for the Arrancar and Hueco Mundo arcs. So don't read this if you aren't caught up on the anime (not the shitty fillers, I refuse to watch them) and / or the manga up to and possibly past chapter -100.

Also, this story is written from Grimmjow's POV. Previous examples of my work like this can be seen in Burritos and Tequila.

I never wanted to fight in any kind of war, it's not my style. I was perfectly content wandering the vast plains of Hueco Mundo, devouring everything that came into my domain, alone for eternity.

It would seem that my life is not something I have control over.

He came to us with out stretched hands and promises of glory, strength and our names engraved in the ever lasting history of our spiritual worlds. To all of us, it sounded beyond glorious. Even to the vasto lorde, who had spent their days lounging about, doing nothing of real consequence, his proposition seemed perfect. Aizen transformed our bodies and ripped away our masks, gave us zanpakutou and a sudden new meaning for our existence.

Or so we thought.

With every arrancar he peels the mask away from, we loose that sense of self that we have carried for centuries. Every time we feel that fluctuation in his reitsu, we slip away from each other. Our once tight knit sense of unity is being ripped apart by greed and destruction. We never used to argue amongst each other, each vasto lorde reined his own area and we kept to ourselves. If Earth has rulers and Soul Society has captains, Hueco Mundo has the vasto lorde.

It will never go back to the way it was.

He dangled false pretense in front of our eyes like it was a pure soul, begging us to jump. We fell for it, even if we are highly intelligent beasts, we are still simply beasts who function on desire and instinct. I remember the day he turned us. Rounded us up like cattle and yanked off the masks we had been hiding behind for years.

I was no longer hollow. I was something new, more powerful, foreign. Stark naked and completely confused, I was branded with a six and thrown into a world where my lack of compassion was my greatest gift and my largest weakness. I remember watching as he turned one of the oldest of our kind, stripping away his helmet and bringing his pale features to light. I shuddered then as I watched the tears splash down onto the floor between his shaking hands. To this day, I don't know if they were tears of pain or tears of despair as his identity was both exposed and torn away simultaneously.

He was never the same after that. His usual demeanor is now replaced with an empty shell of an arrancar.

The process only drove me to be angrier, more distant and colder. I killed anything I could get my hands on, including other arrancar. I sacrificed my few loyal companions simply because I needed to prove that I was capable of destruction and sorrow.

The day my only companions died was the day I met the one person that could bend me in ways I'd never known possible.

The damned kid bloodied me up pretty badly the first time we fought. I couldn't stop staring at him as he stood and took every blow I threw at him with a certain air of depressing grace. He became a god in my eyes when I dropped him to the ground in an explosion of anger and concrete. Just as that dirt cleared, I watched with stupidity as he launched a wave of black desperation at me, leaving two very different scars on my body. I couldn't stop laughing as he retaliated again and again.

I wanted him. Needed to feel the power that I could never obtain. I don't take to loosing with style, finesse or grace. I'll admit I'm a horrible loser, but my hard outer shell would like to say otherwise. But he had something about him that told me I could never destroy him, not matter how hard I tried.

And try I did. I fought with everything I had, in every manner I could imagine.

And still, he stood back up every single time and stared at me with those chocolate eyes that screamed he would never back down.

I left that night on the tail of one of Aizen's cronies, wishing that I could have dove into Kurosaki Ichigo's soul for just a moment. To lay within him. Dwell inside his thoughts. Discover what it was that pushed him to be such a perfect specimen of everything I couldn't be. With each meeting that passed, I learned more and more that if I were black, he was white. If I were cold, he was fire. And if I were hate, he was love.

Although love is something funny, at least in my case.

I paced my room, furious beyond reason that my arm had been blown off and my newly acquired rank stolen from me by an arrancar whose gender I wasn't quite sure of. He had stood there, with his masculine voice and feminine body, laughing at me while I drug my bleeding and torn carcass away from that place. That is how I ended up in my room, leaving a trail of scarlet running behind me as I walked around in an attempt to calm myself.

Nothing was helping. I ended up eating the first arrancar that walked passed my room. Some woman with orange hair and green eyes. As I stood over her, watching those green orbs roll into the back of her head, I imagined what it would be like to choke the life out of the orange haired shinigami. What he would taste like is still a mystery to me, but I like to muse myself into thinking he tastes like strawberries.

And as I tossed her limp form back into the hallway and stared for a moment at her head cracked against the white washed walls and blood splattered like paint, this hunger I could never fathom began building in the bottom of my stomach. Glancing around, I vanished through a black hole in space, unbeknownst to the rest of Hueco Mundo. They would never miss me, I was hardly an Espada anymore.

It was dusk in the human world. I sat on a nearby rooftop and watched as the sun sank lower and lower and the shadows became deeper, longer. I could feel the boy running toward me, but I just stayed still. I let him come to me. For a very long time, that is how we played. I would come to the human world, and he would appear before me. Even though I could find him in a heartbeat, I wouldn't. I could open a rip in space directly on top of him if I chose, but I don't.

Desperation is an ugly color on anyone.

It is this night, with the back drop of the sinking sun and the sky streaked blood red, that our story really begins.

AN : OBVIOUS LEAPS HAVE BEEN TAKEN WITH MY STORY. I don't want to read ANY reviews whining about how I'm not being super technical about the history of the Hollow race. None of us know what their history is, or how their chains of command work, or even what their previous realities were like. I am making INTELLIGENT assumptions based on what I know.

Review with smart criticism, or just plain kudos. I love kudos. Plot coming soon!