RULES OF NATURE

Funny how it points out that Grimmjow actually went out of his way to pick out his followers as his Fracciones. Previously I assumed that Aizen simply picked up Grimmjow and his squad as a package deal, but now we're shown that Grimmjow had a choice, and his decision was to keep his guys around. And I think that says so, so much about him, despite the prickly airs he keeps on around them.

Grimmjow calls them cowards for giving up on being Vasto Lordes, but logically, their decision makes sense. All of them were eating other Hollows constantly, and yet Grimmjow was the only one to keep growing while the rest of them stagnated. In that case, letting him eat a portion of them and giving up their ability to evolve isn't really a sacrifice at all, because they now knew that they never had that capability to begin with. And I think Grimmjow understood that too, and he called them cowards because he felt sad about it. In a world like theirs, Hollows have to be strong in order to stand by his side, but his men are weak and they will remain weak.

Did Grimmjow discard them as soon as he learned that? No, because despite the knowledge that none of them have the capability to stand at his side as equals, he continued to keep them around and look after them, even if they might end up being a burden to him in that way. The men know it too, and that's why they stay so fiercely loyal to him. In the secret story, Di Roy even straight up says it and tells Grimmjow that they're all thankful to him, because if he hadn't pointed them out as his Fracciones, they'd all be dead. Aizen would've probably killed them all for being useless.

Then his men actually die. Does Grimmjow forget about them and dismiss their deaths because they were too weak to stick around him? Yes, but only on the surface. If he truly didn't care about them, he wouldn't have kept that scar on his chest as a reminder of them, and he wouldn't constantly keep them in his thoughts. We've been shown that he's capable of coldly discarding his thoughts and memories of people, as seen with how he couldn't recognize Luppi at first since he forgot his reiatsu, but he doesn't do the same for his men because he really does care about them.

I think all of that goes to show that despite Grimmjow's quotes and character poems being about how "the king walks alone," what he craves the most is companionship. He's just too prideful to admit that he wants to rely on someone else and have them by his side, to the point where he channels his grief over his men by fully throwing himself into his quest to become the strongest. And the secret story addresses this too, because in the last chapter, he challenges Harribel when Rudbornn tells him that she'll be taking over in Aizen's stead, and when Harribel defeats him, she asks why he's so determined to become king in the first place. Every person who has ruled over Las Noches in the past had a definitive reason to give her as their answer (Aizen and Barragan in this case) but when Grimmjow is given the same question, he's unable to answer her. Instead, his thoughts drift towards his men again, and then he tells himself that he has to become king and needs to get even stronger.

❝ if i wasn't keen enough, i could have cut you down Grimmjow. ❞

Seldom had Akari left her little hut in the rural crags. She had the rare bouts of thrill for a hunt. ( isolation for so long made her restless. ) & food had become scarce in her dunes . Caught off gaurd, her tracking was disturbed when the sands stirred before her, pulling her sight away from the tracks. Hemust have awakened from under the dunes.

⤿ @jaeguara

(And he has no fur to speak of now but hell, old habits die hard.)

But you are vicious in your hunt and greedy in your feast, you consume destructively.

To devour the meat, alone, is your punishment. You know this.

Yet, somehow, I can't help but to love you deeply.