"What do you want," she said, her voice hoarse from violent abuse, "Grimmjow?"

He was snarling so hatefully down at her it was a wonder why he didn't instantly kill her. Ever since he had been beaten, publicly humiliated, by la Reina and had lost his arm, severely weakening him, he had been in the throes of hatred. He was so angry at his Reina. So very angry. He had trusted not to be undermined by her. Aizen completely disregards him and his strength because of his violent nature but never had Agito looked down on him.

In fact, she helped him, trained him, stroked the flames in his heart to crave battle. She had never been afraid of his violence. She had stared straight into the heart of him, his craving for destruction, and she did not flinch. She made him better.

He trusted her to never look down on him. And yet she did. She betrayed him. There was no lie in her eyes as she beat him in front of an audience. She was angered, disappointed, and disgusted. Agito proved to be just like every other Shinigami.

And then he got that secret little message. Ah, yes, how clever. How clever, how cunning, how infuriating was his Reina.

"I thought you wanted to see me?" he snarled, barely leashing his urge to bite and eat. She would taste delicious.

"Unhand me," she demanded, as calm as she could given the fact that her throat was currently being crushed by an angry Espada.

"Why didn't you give me Kurosaki?" he demanded, unable to rein in his thoughts, "You know I want to fight him. I earned that fight! Why didn't you give him to me?!"

"You stupid man!" Agito snapped, unwilling to take it anymore. Her reiatsu jumped and snapped at Grimmjow's hands. He released her and she controlled her power so that it wouldn't be noticed by any stray Arrancar.

"What-?"

"Idiotic! Selfish! You motherfucking piece of shit! Bastard of nine whores! You must have been born twenty minutes ago cause you're the most retarded being I have ever met in my life! Your hair is still wet from the fucking womb you asshole of a slut! God damn you and all your sons! I hope your balls turn purple and fucking fall off! Goddamnit!" She cursed while storming off, getting stronger and stronger in her cursing as she entered the Queen's Court.

Grimmjow was so shocked by her break of character that his anger had fled and he couldn't help but follow her out of curiosity. What he never realize that even this was strategic. Agito was leading them both out of the hall where anyone can see or hear them, into the Queen's Court where no stray spy would dare listen.

"Cocksucker! Tite Kubo called and said you're the cheap rewrite of his other character, Gamma Akutabi, you unoriginal crap even the dog won't eat! You're the type of man your girlfriend wouldn't even ask to go out to buy tampons from! Unreliable, oblivious, ass still looking for a carrot! Oh wait! You found one and his name is Ichigo Kurosaki! So desperate for the dick, you're asking the boy's godmother for a date!"

"Wha-" She whirled around to glare at him.

"You shut up!" she demanded, "I worked too goddamn hard for you to screw this all up! You're an idiot that nearly ruined my entire plan!"

Agito wasn't making any sense.

"What are you talking-" Agito screamed in frustration, running her fingers through her hair to mess up the style.

"You dimwit! Of course I gave Ichigo to you! It's so obvious, I'm nearly spitting blood at how stupid you are! Ichigo Kurosaki entered Hueco Mundo through the twenty-second underground entrance in the south, he fights with his right hand and naturally follows the right sided path. What do you know! That leads directly to your chambers! I didn't fucking tell you in the meeting because Aizen was there and I didn't want him to know I still play favorites!"

Like a kick to the heart, Grimmjow felt something cramp within. "What?"

Agito took a deep breath in to calm her rage and she ran her fingers through her hair to straighten it out.

"I still play favorites," she said, "And even though you cost me so much, I still like you enough to give you what you want, a fight with my godson."

"Y-you," Grimmjow stuttered, "You had me beaten. You didn't even look at me when my arm was torn off! You didn't care at all that your subordinate faced another Commandant's punishment!"

"You dumbass! Of course I couldn't!" Agito shouted back, "You were being an idiot! Running straight into battle giving information to the enemy too soon! You unwittingly gave enough information to the Shinigami forces that they could train and match our forces! You gave them an advantage! Of course it was expected of me to punish you. If it were Baraggan who did exactly as you did, I would have grinding him into dust and blew his remains into the sands of Hueco Mundo. But for you, I just took a stick and beat down your pride.

"As for your arm," she said through gritted teeth, "There were other forces at work that had no business with you."

"My arm was cut off! How the fuck didn't it have business with me?!"

"To Aizen, Gin, and Kaname, you are all pawns, useless dolls. Them cutting off your arm isn't an act of personal vendetta. Them cutting off your arm after I punished you was a jab at me! It was them saying I was too soft, that my punishment didn't fully merit that of the crime! It was them saying, 'Agito, you can't do your job right so we'll do it for you.' It was an attack on my position as Comandante! You were just the toy they had to break to get their point across!"

"I am no pawn," Grimmjow hissed, so close to strangling her his fingers tingle with the urge.

"It doesn't matter what you say to me! What matters is how those other Shinigami think. They never cared for hollows, Espada, nothing! They will always look down at you. You are the scum they kick off their shoe. They won't ever see your life as valuable," Agito said, her voice hard and weathered as if she had seen this treatment before. She has. She was a stray mutt from one of the worst possible districts of Rukongai. She knew what it was like to be the underdog. In a way, she still was.

"You say that, as if you don't believe the same thing," Grimmjow said but now he wasn't so sure. She played 'favorites', she had purposely manipulated plans so that Grimmjow would have the fight he wanted, and in a way she was kind in her punishment. Beyond that, she never looked down at him.

"I don't," Agito said, finally calm enough to use her inside voice, "I don't care if you do or don't believe me. It doesn't matter about your faith. What truly matters is what plans I've already implemented to gain what I want."

"Plans? Plans for what?" Grimmjow asked and she scowled at him.

"Because of your reckless behavior, I nearly lost an important factor in my plan," she blamed.

"Oh yeah? Who? Cause the only person who could have been lost to my reckless behaviour would be Ichigo Kurosaki. Is he really that important to your plan?" Agito stared at him before bursting out into laughter.

"Aha! Ahaha! You think-hahahahaha!! Oh that's a good one! My ribs! Ahaha!"

"That's enough," he growled, not liking how she laughed at him.

"Sorry," she said, wiping a tear from her eye, "But no, the important person isn't Ichigo Kurosaki. It's actually you."

"Me?" he asked because he really didn't expect that! He blushed, scoffed and turned his head away to hide the fact that his entire face was ripening like a strawberry!

"Ichigo Kurosaki is important," Agito admitted, dismissing his weird behavior, "But he's not affected by my plan. He's just a boy, I'm not going to even try to manipulate him to do what I want. Sure, I'll lead him around on a wild goose chase but he's not important to what I want."

"Then what do you want?" The more she talked and explained her weird behaviour, the more he found that forgiveness was easier. Also the fact that even if he wanted to cut her down in battle to win back his pride, Agito was a fucking scary ass opponent and she wouldn't be beaten by the likes of him.

"Come here," she ordered and he did as he was told, falling back to the trust in her that was so easy to fall back on. She took his hand and clasped at his wrist, him doing the same in turn. She whispered, "The war against the Shinigami is approaching fast. I want to make sure that we all survive this. Aizen has no plans for any of you to survive. So I will. I will make sure you all survive."

"We're going to win this war," Grimmjow said in confusion, "What, is he going to kill us all when we make him King over all"

"No," she said, "I mean to destroy him." He tried to pull back, tried to step away from la Reina who seemingly lost her mind. She pulled him back and clasped another hand around the nape of his neck so that he couldn't step away again.

"Aizen's perceived future has no survivors. Nothing. Trust me when I say that Hueco Mundo will not exist once he's done. No hollows will exist. No Shinigami. There will be nothing. So I've already made preparations of an afterlife for all of us. This is only a precaution. Should you die either by some Shinigami's sword or by Aizen's hand, your existence would not cease.

"There is no stopping this. You will die. I will kill Aizen. You will return to being as you are."

"How can you be so sure?" he asked, "What if you die?"

"I can't," she said, "Because failure is not an option. If I die, the world falls into ruin. It all lies with our final fight, me against him. I just want to be sure that you all will be there in the end. I want to be sure you all survive."

"How?" Grimmjow asked. Agito clenched her hand around his wrist and he answered the same.

"Give me a single shred of your soul. A little bit of your power. A drop of your character. That would be enough."

"What are you going to do with it?" he asked, already searching within his soul for a single bit to give. Agito was charismatic like that. She never asked for much but when she does, you want to trust her with everything.

"I will keep it safe within myself. Should you die, a bit of you will live on with me. After this war, I will return you to as you are. All I need is just a little bit of your soul." Grimmjow closed his eyes and focused within himself. He didn't fall very deep within, all he wanted to find was the surface, to feel the edges of his soul. He found an edge, a sharp piece like a claw and he broke it off himself. The sensation of him breaking that single bit made him shudder.

"I'm sorry," Agito whispered when she saw his flinch and the sweat gathering at his temples, "The pain will pass soon."

Slowly, he let the piece of himself flow down his arm and raised it as high to the epidermis as he possibly could. Agito, feeling the pulse of power and fluttering bit of something alive at his pulse point, reached within with her own power, latched onto the delicate piece and rented it out of him.

He gasped for air and stumbled back. Agito released him and quickly focused within herself to keep that small bit of soul alive and flickering inside a foreign body. She helped it settle deep within her heart and trusted for Michael, her zanpakuto, to do what he promised.

She opened her eyes and winced to see Grimmjow looking a little bit sick.

"You might want to sit down," she offered and he stumbled down onto her couch, breathing heavily.

"What the hell?" he muttered, closing his eyes to focus on himself. His body was having a negative reaction and his soul was ... shaking? What the hell?

"It won't last long," she reassured, "For me it lasted for five minutes before it faded away."

"You-?" he asked, unable to speak the entire question.

She smiled fondly, sitting beside him, "I didn't know what I've done. Only that, well, Ichigo needed me." She stopped to remember the exact circumstance of what she had done.

It was after Masaki Kurosaki's death, when the rain finally stopped. She had gone to the Kurosaki's house to visit Ichigo who hadn't returned to the dojo for training only to find Ichigo screaming at his father, tears spilling everywhere and Isshin was doing nothing but making the situation worse by not listening to his son.

Agito had swooped in and removed Ichigo from the environment, finding a place where they can be alone and letting the little boy calm down on his own. When Ichigo realized his godmother was the one to be there, he had quickly latched onto her and wailed.

She did not try to console him. The boy was grieving and was allowed his grief. She refused to ignore the boy's feelings about his dead mother but right then, she didn't want to try and heal the still bleeding wound from her absence. Instead, she let Ichigo cry against her shoulder, holding him close and later talking him through his feelings.

She had discovered his guilt, how he blamed himself for the death of his mother after seeing a spirit at the riverside. Agito wanted to smack Isshin for not giving his little boy the tools to both help himself and everyone around him with knowledge of the spirit world. But she wasn't raising the boy, and right then she didn't want to bring up the mess that was Hollows and Shinigami.

She talked him through his feelings, his frustration at his father for not understanding. She let him complain about how all the adults looked down on him with pity and how he hated how all the kids at school treated him different, kept quiet or how they were sorry for him. He hated how it was his fault Yuzu and Karin kept crying for their mother, still unsure how death really worked.

He loathed himself for seeing spirits.

Agito had to rectify that. She had to solve this problem immediately because seeing past the veil was such an important part of the boy, she couldn't allow him to loath apart of himself.

"You know," she had said, "I can see spirits too." The look of disbelief and tentative hope was heartbreaking on the boy.

"You're not a bad person for seeing spirits, little Ichi," she said, pulling him closer to her side, "In fact, you're a very good person. You saw that little spirit girl and you wanted to help her right?" Pathetically, he nodded his head, whipping his snot on her shirt but she wasn't going to complain. "You wanted to help that little girl. You couldn't have known that something bad was going to happen. It's okay for bad things to happen. Sadly, this very bad thing to happen was your mother's death." He started to cry again.

"I know, little Ichi, it hurts doesn't it? It's very sad that she's gone. But you know what?" she said, "I think she died happy."

"No," he whined, "She wasn't happy. It was scary. There was so much blood and-"

"I think she died happy because she got to protect her little boy," she said, "Cause that's what mother's do, little Ichi, they protect. And she protected you, so I bet she's in heaven right now, happy that her Ichigo is alive.

"She protected you because she loved you, Ichigo," Agito said, not even realizing her powerful her words were going to be to Ichigo Kurosaki who would grow up and protect everyone around him. "And I think that makes her brave and you are so much like your mother. You are very brave."

Ichigo started to cry again and she drew him up into her lap to cuddle close.

"It's okay," she said, "Cry all you want. It's very sad that she's gone, I know. This is a very sad time. But I'm gonna be here until you're done and then we'll go back home. We'll get ice cream on the way for you and your sisters. We'll watch a movie and tomorrow morning I'll make waffles with little blueberries in them. We'll go to the park and I'll teach you the karate you missed today and I'll teach you how to really punch something so that you don't break your hand. Does that sound good to you?"

"The park?" Ichigo tentatively asked, his voice tightening with fear. Knowing exactly what was wrong, Agito kissed the top of his head. Unknowingly, her subconscious was demanding that she would be connected to the little boy in her arms. She had a deep, personal connection with her twin sister and had never wanted for anyone more but after so many years of separation from Rue, her soul felt a need that she could not explain.

A piece of her soul broke and lodged itself into Ichigo becoming a connection between god mother and son that they couldn't break.

"We'll go to the park," she said, "And I'll protect you if something were to try and hurt us."

"But then you'll be hurt!" he cried out, "You'll be hurt like mom was!"

"Little Ichi," Agito said, ignoring her stomach twisting from some unknown happening, "Your mom was able to protect you and she wasn't a trained fighter like me. Now imagine what it would be like when you have me protecting you."

Agito quickly stood up, swinging Ichigo around her shoulders and running back towards the house, the little boy screeching in delight.

She looked upon the short memory with fondness.

"Feeling better now?" she asked but Grimmjow didn't answer. Instead, he flopped onto his side, lading his head onto her lap. Instinctively, she ran her fingers through his hair, letting her nails scratch across his scalp. He let out a rumble of pleasure before asking, "Who else is in on this?"

"That I can't answer you," Agito said, "Just know that there are others who I'm planning to save. That should be enough yes?"

"Are you really going to defeat Aizen?" he asked, looking up at her.

"Trust me, Grimmjow," she said.

Surprisingly, he did.

...

In the World of the Living, there was a knock at the door.

"I'll get it!" called out Jinta, running through the halls to open the door to Urahara's shop. Just by feeling the strangers, reiatsu, the boy and everyone else inside could tell their visitor was a Shinigami.

The door opened with a smack and the boy stared at their visitor.

"Boss Man!" he called out, "They're here for you!"

"Yes, yes, they're here for me when have they ever come here for anyone else? I'm like catnip," Urahara said flicking his fan open to hide his amused smile, "What can I do for you, Miss-?"

Urahara starred in surprise. He did not think she would ever come to visit him.

Rue Diabolos, twin sister of Agito Diabolos, looked a little worse for wear. She was dressed in her Shinigami kimono uniform, her long hair brought back in a high bun as large as a soccer ball. Dark, heavy bruises clouded her eyes and her honey gaze had turned dull and lifeless. She had a weary frown on her face and she looked so stressed and sad, Urahara wanted to wrap her up in a blanket and give her a cup of sweetened tea.

"Are you alright?"

Rue looked up at him and said, "Urahara-san.

We need to talk."

~~~