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you need a big god
big enough to hold your love
Grimmjow Jaegerjaques didn't have a god. He didn't need one. His own strength and his own sword were enough. Pantera sliced through his enemies faster than any deity could smite them down.
But Grimmjow had a hole in his soul. Sure, there literally was, but this kind of hole was different. Grimmjow felt it in his very being, his essence. He was hollow. Empty. Something was missing. And in the wastes of Hueco Mundo, Grimmjow wondered if he’d ever find it.
Living as an arrancar had its benefits; increased speed, heightened senses, and if no one killed you, you never died. Grimmjow had learned to be satisfied with his life, there was no other way to survive. The arrancars were not created for anything beyond killing Aizen’s enemies and occasionally each other. They simply did not have the capacity to feel as intensely as humans, or even soul reapers. At least, that’s what was drilled into their heads from the moment they were born. Grimmjow had always suspected that there was something more to it.
He hadn’t had proof of it until that damned Ichigo Kurosaki had come to Hueco Mundo in a stupid, suicidal attempt to save that girl with the giant boobs and healing ability that Aizen was so interested in. The Ichigo that came through the garganta was different from the Ichigo that Grimmjow had ground into the dirt in the human world. He had the same annoyingly serious attitude, but he seemed more stable, more comfortable in his own skin. Something foreign and strange had tugged at the edges of Grimmjow’s chest the moment he felt that familiar pressure appear in the hollow world. He could feel himself gravitating towards the incredible and mysterious power that was Ichigo Kurosaki.
…
Grimmjow saw it before he heard it. A flash of black light ringed in red shrouded the dunes in its shadow. Any being even a split second slower would have missed it. He barely had time to recognize the power before a gunshot went off in his head. The sound exploded across the sand, scattering dust like an angry hurricane. Immediately he sensed Ichigo, all around him. Grimmjow did not have to think. He took off in the direction of the blast, sonido leaving a crater in the dirt. He was going to find answers. And Ichigo was going to give them to him.
…
Ichigo's reiatsu was completely overwhelming. Suffocating. Grimmjow felt his lungs compressing into his chest with the force of the spiritual pressure as soon as he came out of his sonido. He dropped as if hit in the centre of his back by a cinder block, the ground cracking beneath his knees and the heels of his palms. He struggled to raise his head, the muscles in his neck screaming at him to pitch further forward and embed his forehead in the forgiving earth below. What he saw when he looked up to the being floating on the air above him filled him with a feeling he had never known, never imagined he would ever be able to feel in his hollow soul.
Golden eyes, ringed in amber light stared at him. They bored into his skull with the intensity of the very sun that would never grace the sands of Hueco Mundo. The familiar mask that held the power of a god appeared to shimmer like a mirage from the sheer concentration of reiatsu in the air around it. Horns the colour of the jawbone fragment secured to Grimmjow’s cheek pointed to the heavens, framing a head of hair the colour of ripe oranges. Hair that reached past shoulders, stopping in the small of a back covered in porcelain hierro. The arms hanging at his sides ended in clawed hands, looking sharp enough to rival Grimmjow’s own. As Grimmjow scanned his eyes up the black markings on the white torso, his heavy breath caught in his lungs. In the centre of the chest that captured all of Grimmjow’s senses lay a hole. Like a piece of the lean upper body had been cut out and all that remained was darkness.
And Grimmjow ached. He felt it deep within his bones, a kind of want, a need that consumed him and turned him inside out so that his innermost being was exposed to the open air. It pushed up through his chest and past his teeth in a guttural, weighted breath. It was as if Ichigo was calling to him. Calling his soul to crawl on his knees to his god and revere him. To worship him in the way only Grimmjow could.
He could hear Ichigo’s breath, distorted through his mask and shaky, like he was struggling with an invisible burden. Like he was either about to collapse or absolutely lose his shit. The sound of it snapped Grimmjow out of his self-induced trance. In both of those scenarios he had to be alert, not crushed by spiritual pressure and drooling into the ground. Grimmjow struggled to his feet, shielding himself with his own reiatsu. The golden eyes never left him, looking out from the darkness behind the mask. They were sharp, almost cruel, but there was something distinctly warm about them. Something distinctly Ichigo. The power in the air around Grimmjow felt like a cocoon of fire, protecting him and singeing him at the same time. If he focused, Grimmjow could feel something similar to when he and Ichigo fought in Las Noches; a will of steel and a sense of purpose. Ecstasy. He knew it from the first moment he laid eyes on Ichigo; something utterly dark lurked beneath the surface. A sharp edge to a strong exterior, like a hidden blade and a fatal strike. Something that could be covered in dirt and sweat and wounds, be driven to the very edge of life and still run a sword through his enemies. Still strike them down in fire and blood and feast on their ashes. It was exactly what Grimmjow wanted. What he needed. What his hollow soul had craved since he was born to this desert world.
Just as he was about to let his eyes close to bask in the feeling, the pressure in the air lifted. Grimmjow’s eyes snapped to Ichigo, who suddenly looked less like a golden deity sent from on high to raze the sinful world, and more like a snake shedding its skin in the summer heat. The hard ivory hierro was cracking, splintering at the edges and shattering into the wind. The glow of golden eyes faded to warm brown, which closed slowly as Ichigo sank towards the earth, no longer held by the air in adoration and awe. Grimmjow took three large strides in order to reach the fallen sun before he smashed into the hard rock. Grimmjow’s heart would have climbed out his throat, if he had one. He stared at the uncovered face of the cause of his great epiphany, held in his arms, tight to his chest. Like he was afraid the precious soul would break into sunbeams and be lost forever. Ichigo Kurosaki’s unconscious form shivered slightly at the contact, body sensitive from the loss of hierro. The feeling that was foreign and strange, that tugged on the edges of his chest appeared again. And when warm brown eyes cracked open to look up at him, Grimmjow knew what it was.
When Grimmjow looked at himself, he saw a hole. A black void, a missing piece. Something lost and broken.
When Grimmjow looked at his god, he saw the sun. His void filled with light and he remembered how to breathe.
you need a big god
big enough to fill you up