Chapter 1: Once They Walked Among Us

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When Grimmjow looks at the night sky, his gaze falls without effort to the constellation highest above the western horizon. His father had taught him many years ago where to look for Zangetsu the protector, the cluster of stars that take the form of a great sword, but even if he had not, Zangetsu was among the easiest to spot on a clear, dark night.

Even the smallest child in their village knew the protector. Perhaps they might not know the winter dragon, or the baboon and snake, or any of the other lesser constellations that dotted the sky, but everyone knew the protector.

When Grimmjow was four, his mother showed him how to pray to their gods. Senbonzakura brought the first bloom of spring, and Hyorinmaru turned the morning dew to frost and breathed his fury into the snowstorms of their winters. But these, and many other constellations, waxed and waned with the seasons.

Zangetsu did not. The protector was omnipresent in their night sky, never faltering, never wandering, and this, his mother said, was why their people prayed the most to Ichigo, the brightest star in Zangetsu.

And so Grimmjow too prayed, alongside his mother and father when the need arose. They prayed for safe travel, when his father was called to duty to the neighboring villages that lined the coast. They prayed for protection, against the vicious windstorms that often battered their lands, against the marauding nomads who roamed the hills beyond their borders and the wild beasts who raided their pastures.

Zangetsu, and Ichigo in particular, protected them all from these hardships and many more.

Ichigo was a difficult star to mistake for any other, for he shone like the color of blood an hour old, a darker, more somber red than the brightest star in Zabimaru, the baboon and snake. Ichigo took his place at the hilt of Zangetsu, like a king on his throne before the smaller, lesser stars in his constellation, guiding the blade to its purpose.

Grimmjow had spent many an idle night gazing upon him and all the others, his young mind filled with wonderment and imaginings of what their gods might look like, had they not taken their place above the mortal world as stars only to be seen at night. He wondered why the vast majority of stars were white, while Ichigo was a deep, ominous red, and why, if Zangetsu was the protector, did it not take the form of a shield rather than a sword?

His mother and father listened to these questions patiently, and though they did not know the answers to all of them, there were some that others before him had wondered also, and for which stories had been told to answer.

Long ago, in an era when the night had been without light and the moon shared the sky with no other, the gods had lived amongst their worshippers and so the people had known what their stars looked like.

Toshiro, the winter dragon, appeared as a child, but with hair as white as an old man's. Kenpachi, the only star who stood alone without a constellation of his own, was a man of great height and fearsome presence. Byakuya was proud and Jushiro was kind, and Ichigo…

Ichigo was strong. Some stories said he was frightening to behold, bearing the white face of a demon with great horns and insatiable bloodlust. But others described him quite differently, as a man with kind eyes and peculiar orange hair.

As a child, Grimmjow had preferred the Ichigo of gentler description. When he prayed alone, for safety from the monsters that haunted the steps of any imaginative child, it was to the Ichigo who was noble, self-sacrificing, and gentle. Perhaps Ichigo appeared as a skull-faced beast to those who threatened Grimmjow and his people, but to those he loved, Grimmjow thought, he must be kind.

Grimmjow prayed often, more than most children did, and perhaps even more than most adults. He prayed because he was a child unusually taken by fears, both real and imagined, and as the son of their tribe's greatest warrior, it would be unbecoming to be seen jumping at shadows.

He prayed also for his father, who was frequently absent for he had duties to attend to in the assurance of their tribe's safety. There were many other villages that dotted the coastline, and more still further inland, and his father travelled often to these places to convene with their leaders and negotiate shared defenses of their collective nation.

Grimmjow knew that there were other nations beyond their western borders, and while some cared only in trading for the fine silks and other goods produced in their land, others were not so friendly, eyeing their fertile soils and good seasons with envy and wishing to take their land for their own.

The summer after his tenth year, Grimmjow grew tall enough to seat himself upon his father's horse, and was deemed ready to begin his warrior training. While every boy in his tribe undertook such training at some point, Grimmjow began earlier than most, a fact that caused him to puff his chest with adolescent pride when he passed the other village boys on his daily walk to the training fields.

He was fiercer than most, his father told him, the day he presented Grimmjow with his first practice sword, a nameless blade with blunted edges and a plain, blue-wrapped hilt. And as Grimmjow swung the mock weapon about in excited, still-childish glee, his father remarked that he was fearless too.

Back turned, Grimmjow smiled then, for his father did not know that this was far from true. He was fearless because Ichigo kept the sharks at bay when Grimmjow swam far from the coast and Ichigo ensured his father's safe return from every trip abroad. If Grimmjow was fearless, it was because Ichigo gave him no reason to fear.

Grimmjow trained with the older boys of his village, but his days were not over until his father was finished training him alone at home too. At night, he would lay upon a hammock slung between two trees, nursing the day's scrapes and bumps, and gaze upwards towards the skies.

As his mother had told him long ago, the dark red star in Zangetsu's hilt never faltered or waned. Even when there were clouds, Grimmjow was content to know that Ichigo was still there, perhaps hidden from sight but ever present and vigilant.

He would whisper a quiet prayer, thank the star for his protection, and fall asleep under its watchful gaze.

...

When Grimmjow was seventeen, his father began leaving home for longer periods of time.

Grimmjow was no longer a child, and in the last year he had sprouted like a weed into a gangly youth with too-big hands and feet and long legs that had him looking over the heads of many of his peers. He would overtake his father's height in the next year or two, but his new frame would take several more years to fill out.

Tall warriors, his father said, had to work harder to fill their height with muscle.

And Grimmjow did. When other boys ached and complained of exhaustion, Grimmjow did not stop until he could no longer rise. His training never ended until he was well and truly beaten into the ground. He challenged anyone he could, peers and senior students and teachers alike, until finally one day he broke the arm of another boy in a sparring match and from then on his age-mates began to shun his challenges.

Grimmjow was insatiable, his teachers said. He took to fighting like a bird to open skies, swung his mock weapon around as though the motions of swordplay were more natural than breathing. He reveled in the art of war like one gone mad. Some of the elder teachers spoke disapprovingly of this, whispering amongst themselves that the boy's heart was touched by Kenpachi, the lone star who lusted for blood, and this was a speculation of damnation, not reverence.

But Grimmjow's father always looked upon his son with grim approval, and on the night before the boy's nineteenth birthday, Grimmjow received a true blade of his very own, which whispered to him and told him its name.

Pantera, it said, and Grimmjow understood.

Pantera was worn with pride on Grimmjow's hip, and from that day forth, he began accompanying his father on his long journeys to their brother tribes. His training continued, but under his father's tutelage now instead of the teachers who shook their heads when he smiled after drawing blood. Every night after a full day of travel, they would set up camp and find an open field to practice in.

Although years of training with a practice sword had made Grimmjow accustomed to the weight and feel of a sword, Pantera was sharp, and mistakes were more painful now. Instead of bruises and scrapes, Grimmjow would nurse deeper wounds after training now, but a prayer to Ichigo before sleep every night ensured that his wounds healed quickly and without festering. Though his travels took him to strange lands and unfamiliar terrains, Ichigo never changed from his position in the night sky, and so Grimmjow never felt homesick.

It was during these travels that he learned of the encroaching threat from the west. Unrest in the nations beyond their borders had been brewing since Grimmjow was small but only now beginning to threaten their lands. The people to the west were no longer content with the land they had been allotted, and now looked to the lands of other nations with envy-green eyes. The tribes of Grimmjow's people watched their borders with suspicion, hoping for the conflict to die out before reaching their lands but preparing for war if it did not.

This, Grimmjow realized, was the reason for his father's frequent absences as of late. This was why his father watched him train with such grim satisfaction, why he did not rebuke Grimmjow for his savagery in fighting, and why he was bringing the boy to accompany him now to their various brother tribes. He was preparing Grimmjow, educating him for a war that might soon appear upon their doorstep.

The first night after this revelation, Grimmjow sought solitude beneath the open heavens. There was no training tonight, but Grimmjow brought Pantera with him anyways, accustomed by now to the sword's weight at his side and comforted by it.

Ichigo shone down upon him as he always had, and Grimmjow closed his eyes and conjured up the face he imagined the god might have. It was a face he had crafted in his mind many years ago as a small child who had been afraid of anything and everything. He had decided long ago that his Ichigo was the man with kind eyes, not the skull-faced demon other legends described.

Through the years, Grimmjow had never faltered in his devotion. He prayed as often as he had when he was small, even though few things now frightened him as they had before. But tonight, for the first time in many years, Grimmjow felt fear grasp his heart, the sensation familiar like an old friend but unwelcome. He lowered himself to his knees, Pantera laid out before him like an offering, and prayed.

He prayed because although his blood sang for battle, although Pantera wished to cleave flesh and bone, he did not want a war. Grimmjow was savage, but he did not want to see his homeland burn, nor his people slain.

He prayed for protection, that his land would never see the invaders from the west. He prayed for good fortune that his mother and father might live to see old age. And finally, he prayed for strength, that if his first two prayers could not be granted, that he could at least have the power to defend himself and others instead.

These prayers he repeated to the red star over and over, until his voice grew hoarse and his eyelids heavy.

Hours later, when Grimmjow was fast asleep in the open field beneath the stars, the brightest star in Zangetsu blinked and faded into darkness.