A/N: Because I desperately can't help myself.

I suppose the usual warning apply: mature themes, some brief yet graphic descriptions of violence and gruesomeness for those who are squeamish. Could probably run with a T rating but you never know. Please excuse my pathetic attempts at humor to grease the wheel for the more tense aspects of this.

FYI: No swearing and no lemons! I feel proud. :P

As always R&R! Will happily take your thoughts and constructive criticism.

Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach or any of its characters. They belong to Tite Kubo.

Edge of the Vast Expanse

"There's a hole in your shoulder."

It is not the stupidest thing she's ever said, but perhaps maybe the most obvious.

He was there, he was conscious when the hand that made the hole was driven into his shoulder. And, if he hadn't been the conscious, the tickle of a breeze on the shredded tendons, the screaming pain of mutilated nerve ends with every brush of fabric, and the impotent arm at his side unable to move due to the lack of muscle is enough of an indication that something is amiss.

There is a hole in his shoulder.

Indeed.

The woman is standing in the threshold of the bedroom laden with bandages and gauze, ready to dress it as though it were a festering wound.

"All that is unnecessary," he says.

There is no blood, no weeping fluid. Just empty space.

"It's not healing," she says.

He is aware of this as well, but there is nothing to say about something so painfully obvious, so he remains quiet.

"I was thinking," she continues. "I mean I remember from before, in Hueco Mundo, everything is made up of reishi…And here in the world of the living, it's in much less abundance. That's why we have so many hollow attacks here in Karakura…because the concentration of spiritual pressure is more concentrated so hollows are drawn here…"

Here she takes a breath as though what's coming next requires some sort of mental fortification before proceeding.

"But you don't…I mean you haven't ever…I've never seen you eat anything or anyone…so I wondered if maybe that's why…if it's been so long that maybe you can't.. and so—so I thought that you could, if you wanted to…I could…I mean you can't eat other people but maybe if it would help you…I could give you some of mine…spiritual pressure, I mean."

This does surprise him. And it surprises him that he is surprised. Of her many irritating talents, her ability to state the most obvious and come up with the most ludicrous comments are without equal.

In this however, he will be perfectly clear. Though it pains him greatly, literally, Ulquiorra rolls over in bed and presents her with his back in answer. This, though, painful is much less tedious than speaking. And perhaps, most importantly, is effective.

The woman does not venture further into the room nor does she continue the conversation. She does not pester him for an answer or ask him why.

After all, nothing needs to be said on this matter.

Peace and quiet last for a week.

He has worked up enough energy to move from their bed to the couch in the living room, having tired of staring at the same four walls. He figures he will try to rot his brain for the afternoon with what passes for entertainment on the contraption she calls the TV.

And that has been successful….

…until this moment; the moment where Orihime has decided to plant herself directly between himself and the program on about space alien zombies.

Or something like that.

He's not entirely sure.

She's apparently worked up some courage, or it's possible that the issue has eaten away at her enough to compel her to try and broach the subject again.

"It's been over a week," she says.

Ulquiorra does not respond. He is well aware, as he has been for the duration of this experience, how much time has passed.

But, as before, he has no intention of doing anything about it. He is content for his shoulder to take however long it will to heal and to let the substitute Shinigami, wanna-be Quincy, and any of her other merry band of friends deal with whatever world ending event comes along in the interim. He's participated in more than enough for the time being.

And so, again, he says nothing as, again, there is nothing to say. He continues watching (or trying to) whatever program is on. He can't see what's going but he can hear which allows him, for the most part, follow what is happening.

Her fidgeting is distracting though. She wrings one hand with the other, then reaches up to rub the back of her elbow. One hand disappears altogether, he supposes, to tuck an errant strand of hair behind her ear. He has decided not to look at her face, not to acknowledge her because he is not willing to have this conversation.

Instead he stares at the juncture between her legs which happens to be eye level. The exact level of the television screen if she were not standing in the way. If he stares long enough she will move because he knows his gaze lingering on parts of her body such as those makes her uncomfortable.

Or not.

He is surprised for the second time when Orihime reaches quickly around to shut off the TV.

Ulquiorra does look at her then, pleased when the animosity that flares briefly across his features makes her flinch.

"It's been over a week," she says again. "And there's been no change. I'm concerned."

He is not.

He cocks an eyebrow, but that is all he will give her.

"I think you should go to Hueco Mundo."

Still nothing that requires a response. It's not surprising that she would say this, but she does have his attention now. She's never encouraged him to leave her for any reason. Any problem they've ever encountered has always been something that she's felt that they could solve, here, in this realm.

"But before you go," she continues as though her saying that she thinks he should go actually means that he is going. "I want you take some of my spiritual pressure. It won't do any good for you to go there and be preyed upon because you're in a weakened condition."

He's not even sure where to begin with that one. First that she'd even assume that he'd be so weak as to be killed over a wound such as this in a place where he spent more of her lifetimes that she can actually fathom is…

…appalling isn't even the right word.

Never mind the fact that she's still on the "munch on me" stint. One would think that they are talking about making sure he eats breakfast before going off to work since one never knows what the day may bring.

He must have zoned out because she's still talking and he's not sure what exactly it is she's said.

"…I mean my intentions aren't entirely altruistic either. I have my own selfish reasons too…I'm—I mean I've been thinking about it for a while now."

Thinking about what?

"I've been wondering…I want to know what it'd be like…"

What what would be like?

"All those poor souls that I couldn't save, that I've failed along the way…"

No.

"I've wondered what they felt…"

She couldn't…

"What they're last thoughts were…what it'd feel like if it were me…"

If it were her…if it were her?!

"I guess I'm curious."

Curious.

Curious.

As in eager to know, to know what it'd be like if he were to…

Something inside him snaps. Angry, raging isn't even adequate. This of emotion level does not have a descriptor. It's so strong he can't even feel it. It's just a cool numbing tingle that washes over him.

She wants to know.

Fine.

Then he will show her.

Something must show in his face, because when she brings her gaze back to his the woman's first instinct is to run. He watches as she takes slow cautious steps away from him, instinctually recognizing that if she were to bolt now he would chase after her and he would catch her.

Ulquiorra moves forward, rising slowly from the couch.

Now she's running, already in the hallway before his legs are fully straightened. Her hair fans behind her like the flames of a fire as she whips around the corner. It didn't even occur to her to head for the door, outside where there was marginally more safety in numbers and witnesses.

No matter.

He would've caught her, will catch her regardless.

Hide…

A place to hide….she needs a place to hide.

Someplace where he won't find her, not at least until he calms down…

She's not even sure he's angry, not even sure what made her run. Just all of sudden she was there and they were talking or rather she was talking and then…and then…

…there was nothing.

That's what scares her.

There's nothing.

No change in his facial expression, or mannerisms…not even a change in spiritual pressure. Not a flare, not a blip, just empty immeasurable obscurity.

Orihime runs past the kitchen and the bathroom, both of which are no good.

She can't go in their room, she'll never make it there in time. But she needs a place to hide. He's coming for her, she can feel it, even if she can't see or hear him.

He's coming.

There!

Sora's room comes up on her left, Maybe he won't look, won't think to come for her in there.

As quickly and as quietly as she can, Orihime slips into the room. She closes the door, keeping the lights off and the doorknob twisted so there's no betraying click. She stands just inside, waiting, listening for his footsteps down the hall.

It's taking too long for him to come. Even if standing pained him, even if he walked instead of ran…she should've heard something by now.

Maybe it's the fear, the adrenaline playing tricks on her mind. She'll give herself away and she doesn't want that so she moves backward slowly…quietly away from the door just in case he is there and he is listening and waiting for her to do just that.

Orihime bumps into something solid.

Right away she knows that something's wrong. She's not far enough in the room to hit a wall and there's not any furniture tall enough to walk into like that.

She turns and he's there.

How did he get in here? The door was closed…he never passed her….she never saw him….

In her scramble to put distance between them, Orihime's feet tangle beneath her.

She falls…

And it's over.

Reiatsu washes over her, thick and heavy and she can't move, can't breathe.

She's scared, terrified.

Everything inside her, every cell in her body is screaming at her to run…to move… to be away from this—this thing. But she can't. She can't get away. Won't get away. He has her now and he's going to devour her.

It starts with pain. Her hands and feet burn as though they're being licked by fire. Then a creeping cold settles in that she realizes belongs to this person holding her. It seeps at her, leeching away warmth, life, everything she holds precious, everything she holds dear.

Orihime tries to fight, to resist. She tries to recall emotions—what it feels like to laugh, what a smile is, what friendship means, what loyalty is, what love and hope are, what they mean.

Panic sets in. A terrible, mind-numbing fear. This man that holds her is not a man, but a thing, something very dangerous. Something that steals; that is stealing her very existence-the things that are most important to her. Orihime tries, she tries so hard to remember, to safeguard those memories against the miscreation before her.

She sees in her mind the brown eyes and short, dark, spiky hair of a young girl, but she can't put a name to the face. Before she can truly grasp it the face fades away replaced instead with a name.

Chad.

This person is strong and quiet but warm like the sun only she can't remember what it feels like to be warmed by the sun. And when she tries Orihime can't remember Chad's face either. She can't recall if this person is a friend or family member, a neighbor or a lover.

This person, too, fades away and in its place come rectangular spectacles that float in on a frown, glinting in the light. There is the color white. This person is another one whose name she cannot remember. In its place is the word Quincy. It has no meaning, no who, what, or where. It has no connection.

The glasses fade away like smoke on a flame. A new feeling settles in. It's not necessarily better than the cold that has taken hold in her bones but it is different and it's attached to these things, these memories that she's trying to protect.

It's cold again. But this cold is from a memory not from the thing in front of her. With this cold Orihime can see snow bunnies, feel the bite of snow on her hands. She remembers a boy older than her but kind and gentle, that cared for her and loved her, gave a most precious keepsake but she can't remember what it was, what they were. For some reason, she senses a duality, they were two things, but she wears them as one yet fights with them as six. But that can't be right she thinks. You can't fight with a keepsake, memories and mementos can't make you strong. The remnant of the memory becomes dark and ominous. The boy is gone, dead. For a while he was there with her, but it was sad. He was forgotten, felt forgotten. Everything is so sad now…

Two eyes, one a warm chocolate brown, the other a gold stud embedded in black. Those eyes she remembers and with them a deep fear. It freezes her in her tracks, kept her from moving forward when she needed to. But paired with it is an intense desire to be near this…boy? Yes a boy. A boy that takes a homicidal pleasure in crushing others, protecting others with his strength. A strength that shatters the wheel of fate.

This boy is very important. Orihime remembers a promise? A wish—a wish for five lifetimes and the sacrifice of one. Hers? His? He has died twice for her and it makes her feel guilty, helpless. She hears voices; so many different ones, old and young, strong and weak, fearful and arrogant. She is sure they are all calling his name but she can't hear what it is, can't understand it. It's all a muffled din of noise. Not words, just a tumultuous clamor.

She struggles weakly in the grip of the monster that holds her. He has taken-is taking everything from her. His hold on her won't weaken; she gains no purchase against him. It's a useless effort, one that comes entirely from an instinctive call for self-preservation. Why doesn't it understand how painful this is, how it is breaking her?

Ulquiorra watches with mild interest as the woman raises a hand to her chest, over the place where that abhorrent organ beat.

"…hurts," she says weakly.

He says nothing, taking in the broken picture she makes. Her skin is pale, her grip is weak. Tears well in her eyes and stream down her cheeks. Her face is twisted into a heavy frown. What he would have given to have been able to drive her to this point in Hueco Mundo? How much easier would it all have been had he been able to drive her to this point back then? He had been so close when he killed the boy above the dome. But shock had tempered her despair and then the hollow had spawned in the boy's place. It was what he had strived for. To have her broken and hopeless like this. How little it pleases him now. Even so he cannot deny his nature. While her emotional state is troubling, her soul is a different matter.

The way she tastes, the way this feels…it has been too long. He can feel the pressure building inside him. A fullness, a yearning that is at once as agonizing as it is pleasurable.

Ulquiorra leans in cupping her face in both his hands. Pale as she is his dark nails and pallid skin contrast sharply with her coloring, her life. Ulquiorra leans in to lap up her tears. The proof of her life, her grief, the evidence of her heart.

Orihime releases a wretched sob. With her other hand she presses it over his chest. If she is surprised to find a hole there, she doesn't show it. If anything, she should know wielding powers such as his and Kurosaki's comes with a price. There is something in her eyes, he can feel her pleading to him with them. Ulquiorra pulls his tongue from the softness and warmth of her skin. Ochroid eyes gaze deeply into stormy grey ones. He leans in close, two tone lips hover over plush pink ones. This is it, as far as he can push her without killing her.

"Hurts," she says again. As if he didn't hear her, didn't understand.

It's an almost whisper. Her lips brush against his with the formation of the word. So simple yet it carries so much weight.

"I know."

Ulquiorra seals his mouth over hers. It's not a kiss, not something so ridiculously romantic. He inhales deeply, pulling with his breath the penultimate fragments of her soul, everything but the very last of it. The pressure spikes sharply and his body burns. Ulquiorra finds it hard to breathe, like the weight of an entire ocean sits on his chest. Yet it doesn't matter because anything in the world he could ever want (warmth, love, light, humanity, life) resides in the abject woman that lays in his arms. The pressure grows, intensifies, overwhelms. Pulls.

Ulquiorra consumes until she is limp in his arms. Until he cannot feel the digging of her nails in his chest. Until her breaths are labored and thready. The weight releases suddenly, the way a spark pops in a fire. Much too soon. He feels the need to chase it, to keep it from slipping through his fingers because he almost had what he wanted, what he has needed for so long.

There is something, though, that holds him back. It's something important he must remember and it pulls at a place inside him when he looks down at the woman in his arms. Something tells him he must let this feeling slip away because to catch it and keep it would destroy it. It would corrupt it into something other than the purity he desires.

Ulquiorra watches the rise and fall of Orihime's chest, the stutter of her pulse under her skin. He sits there, sprawled on the floor of her dead brother's bedroom for a long time afterward waiting, and watching, and wondering what she encounters in the void, in the no man's land between sleep and death.

He pays strict attention to her vitals. Her breathing is irregular but her pulse is strong.

Most importantly, her soul chain remains intact. It shows the strain she's just endured. It is nearly completely rusted over; there is more brown than silver on it. If he runs his hands down the links, the rust flakes off, leaving a fine red-brown powder on his palms that reminds him of dried blood. Her chain does not, however, show any signs of spontaneous degeneration nor areas of extreme vulnerability. It is strong. Weathered, but she is still firmly tethered to the world of the living.

It takes six hours for Orihime to wake. When she does, the toll this has taken on her becomes painfully apparent. He's arranged them more comfortably on her couch. Her head lies in his lap while he sits with a book in the hand that lays on the armrest. Occasionally he'll glance down only to find her condition unchanged. She is breathing softly, one hand tucked under her chin, the other clutched on the hem of his t-shirt. He catches himself weaving his fingers through her hair, studying the fan of her eyelashes across her cheek, the pout of her lips.

She wakes quietly, peacefully. Her eyes do not dance beneath her eyelids like those in a light sleep. One moment they are closed, then in the next they are simply open; looking directly in his own and catching him by surprise.

"Hi."

"Welcome back. How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine." Her brow is furrowed. She looks unsure. "Can I have some water?"

When he returns with the glass the couch is empty. Instead, Orihime is wrapped in a blanket and crouched before a small shrine. One hand traces the face of a young man in a picture at its center.

"Is this your house?" she asks.

"No. It's yours." She nods once, simply and turns her gaze back to the picture.

"Who is this?"

"I don't know." He knows. She told him once when he watched her offer prayers to the shrine, maybe even before that when she was his ward in Hueco Mundo.

"He must be important to me if there is a shrine to him in my own home."

"Yes." He doesn't know what else to say. In any case, it must be true.

"Who are you?"

He tells her his name and hers because he has a sneaking suspicion that she doesn't know.

She sips her water quietly, pondering this information. But what else she might be thinking, he can't imagine.

Orihime sets the glass down at her feet and carefully, slowly picks up the length of soul chain that stretches between them. It rattles, dragging across the floor as she fingers the links, working them between her fingers.

"It's not supposed to look like this," she says. Ulquiorra notes that she doesn't ask what it is or why she can see it.

"No."

"You don't have one."

"No."

"You're different."

"Yes."

"Mine looks like this because…because I wanted to help you. Because I asked you to let me."

"Yes."

"You were hurt."

"Yes."

"But you are not hurt now."

"No.

"Show me." She's already moving. His skin burns under her touch. Sensitive due to the heat of her hand, the rawness of the injury, the flare of her soul that he can feel inside himself now.

"It was here." She runs her hand across his chest and back, over the bones of his scapula.

He'd all but forgotten the wound, the point of this incident. He shivers as her hands walk across his torso, gently poking and prodding where intuition tells her a wound was more than memory.

"Does is still hurt?"

"Yes," he says, shaking his head in the negative.

"Are you always this conflicted?" Orihime asks, her voice lilting with a giggle.

"With you, yes."

"Why is that?"

Instead of answering her he untangles himself from her and moves to the other side of the room. There he pulls out his cellphone, scrolls through the list of contacts the woman has programmed into it until he finds the one he wants.

A press of the button, a short clipped conversation punctuated by a growl, and minutes later Tatsuki Arisawa bursts through the woman's front door.

Orihime has not moved much, wafting around her apartment like a ghost, picking up and replacing pictures and keepsakes but respecting the distance he has placed between them.

They have not spoken again.

A picture of her and Tatsuki is in her hand when Tatsuki crashes in. He uses it to introduce her and then turns to leave.

"What the hell did you do to her?" Tatsuki asks.

He does not reply, choosing instead to shove one foot into his sneakers, then the other.

Peace before violence. There's been enough of that lately, of both peace and violence.

"Where are you going?" the woman's friend demands.

"To the shopkeeper. Contact him first if you need anything."

"You think I'm going to just let you walk out of here?"

He does turn to face her then, gaze lingering briefly on Orihime before settling on her.

"You are welcome to try and stop me," he says before sonidoing out of the room.

If the cat woman is in any way surprised to see him appear at the register she does not show it.

"So that was you earlier?"

"Mm."

"Is she alright?"

"You might want to send that buffoon to check on her."

"That bad?"

She turns and Ulquiorra follows her through the shop to the hidden staircase that opens into their underground training arena.

As the staircase drops, the cat woman asks, "Physical?"

"I do not think so."

"Mental, then?"

"Mostly. Somewhat spiritual, but that she can recover given time. The mental though, I'm not sure."

"Should I ask any more than that?"

He thinks hard about the answer to that question as he walks down the stairs. "If she does not recover then you may. I think at this point patience is what is needed most."

Clearly patience was not something he'd had.

The stairway fades behind him and Ulquiorra is left alone in the emptiness and quiet. Ulquiorra reaches out his senses, verifying that he is indeed alone. The last thing he needs are prying eyes and nosy meddlers.

He had stopped. That had to mean something.

He could've killed her. He could've kept going. He could've devoured it all.

But he hadn't.

He had stopped.

Refrained, before he even realized he was making the conscious decision to do so. Some part of him had decided that given the option of killing her—of having her soul or letting her live and giving it up—that the latter was more preferable than the former.

A more than unsettling notion.

When Ulquiorra took the time to think about it, really think about it, such a concept was truly disquieting.

What would happen after she died? The woman was human, her life finite. She would die. Even if she lived to a ripe old age and even if he did not fade out of her life to be replaced, instead with a husband and children and a career that was not related to the supernatural, her lifespan would be nothing but a wink in comparison to his own. A shadow, a small glimmer of light in the darkness. When she died there was no guarantee that their paths would ever cross again.

However if he were to be true to his nature—if he were to consume her soul…she would remain with him always.

To devour a soul, any soul not just hers would in effect keep it with him as long as he lived.

He had acted against his nature. He had stopped when there was nothing, really, that should've given him pause. When there was no reason for him to stop. He had chosen to let her go, to let her live.

And that meant something.

Ulquiorra looks out across the expanse of land before him. Similar to Hueco Mundo, and yet so different. It played tricks with him. Rock walls and caverns peppered with the same kind of light and shadow, yet in this place the sun anoints landscape instead of the cold and bitter moon.

Ulquiorra stretches his hand out as if he could caress the light that shines down.

In Hueco Mundo he would have killed her. Would he be able to kill her in a place like this? Would he be able to kill her if he brought her to there now?

When he tries to think back to the last time he fed, to the last time he aggressively hunted and ardently devoured his prey, he can't remember. He can't remember a soul that tasted as pure, as mouth-watering, as delectable as hers.

He needs to think. He needs to regain his balance, needs to put his thoughts in order and get them back under control. Because the thoughts he has now…

The thoughts that clamor in his mind now…

He can still taste her. If he runs his tongue along his teeth…it's like she's wedged in the grooves and dips of dentition. Her soul is like a subtle coating on his tongue and the back of his throat-he can almost smell it. As though she left behind something elusive, yet tangible.

Even now he still wants, stills yearns for more of it.

All of it.

He'd bathe in it if he could, immerse his entire being in every part of her.

Not like those fledgling hollows, wasting the souls they consume with their ravenousness. Fiends.

He'd dine on her like she was a delicacy, not just a meal but a banquet.

He'd make the soft bit of flesh where her thigh and her body meet his first bite. There is substance there and a smell unlike any other place on her body. Pure, unadulterated. In his mind he can feel the texture of her skin against his tongue, feel the weight of it in his hands. And yet that place retains a sense of delicacy, as fleshy and as succulent as he knows it would be.

He would sup on her blood as if it were the finest wine. He would quench his thirst on her sweat, on the secret nooks and satiny chasms of her body. He would savor her essence in the dip of her bellybutton, then gnaw on the ridges and the meat found on the concavity of her ribs. In the privacy of this space, Ulquiorra imagines taking her fingers in his hands, rolling his tongue over the knobbed joints and shudders.

If he ran his tongue along each protrusion of her spinal column would it reveal to him how something so malleable, something that so easily crumbles beneath his hands could stand so strong against him?

He can imagine the crunch of her bones against his teeth. How he'd peel open her chest and hold her heart in his hands. How if he could, he'd ask her if she would say he loved her now? Would her heart still be with her friends then?

And if he ate that too, would she say her heart is with him, that she would always be with him?

He would look, search until he satisfied his own curiosity. He would prise her open and follow every vein, every artery to uncover where she kept her love, her infinite capacity for selflessness and sacrifice.

If I cannot observe it with my naked eye, it does not exist.

Would he understand then?

"How long do you intend to stand there?"

A soft breeze rustles the hair at the nape of his neck. Neliel appears at his shoulder.

"Someone's been naughty," she says.

Ulquiorra checks from the corner of his eye but Nel's expression is as serious as ever. Was she teasing him?

"Have you talked to her?" he asks.

"So this is about Orihime?"

"If you don't know then why mock me?"

"You wear guilt very distinctly."

"I am not guilty."

"Not guilty? So you mean you are not culpable of any wrongdoing or do you mean you don't feel that particular emotion despite your actions."

"I see you're still an increasingly vexing woman."

"And if I remember correctly it was these particular traits that endeared me to you in the first place."

"'Endeared' is a strong word. At best I found you tolerable."

"Still a great compliment for one not known for his tolerance. In any case, if you recall it was your rationality that endeared you to me."

She continues despite his silence, "How much did you take?"

"What is it you think I took?"

Her hand reaches out to caress newly closed flesh of his shoulder, much to his irritation. Really, there were far too many who felt entitled to such casual familiarity with his person.

"I can smell her on you. I can smell her in you," Nel says and her hand drops away. Of course she'd know. Nel always knew everything, she was deeply perceptive.

"That I took any at all was more than I should. Of what I took..." Ulquiorra hesitates. It is the first time he'll say it aloud, the closest to an admission he will get. "I took nearly all of it."

"And how much did you enjoy it?"

"Tch."

"Is that what's bothering you? You above all, should know we can't deny what we are. We can't pretend to be human. Are you surprised? Did you think you would last the longest?"

The anger that seizes him is sharp and heady. He wraps his hand around Nel's neck and throws her underneath him. She grins up at him even with his hand wrapped around her throat. She is the third after all. He knows that she let him throw her to the ground. He punches a fist next to her head with his other hand and the ground cracks with the bala it absorbs.

"We aren't supposed to play with our food," he says after a breath. "This is a façade of domesticity."

"We talk about the distinction between hollows and human. And yes, we are different, very different," Nel replies. "But we were human once too. Don't tell me you haven't noticed; as we become more powerful we strive to look more like them."

Nel reaches up and runs her fingers through the hair once covered the by the bone plate. The plate he shed to blend in to the world of the living. "And what am I, Ulquiorra, if not food too? What are any of us to each other? How did any of us get to where we are?"

I am the sum of many.

The next to come is Ichigo, though this is expected. The imitation hollow is the woman's knight in shining armor come to defend her. She is the princess, he has acted as the villain, and it is time to be vanquished.

The boy comes in with bluster. New and different moves that he employs desperately in order to maintain equal footing with him. All of it he has seen before. Kurosaki throws his zanpakuto at him by the chain the way Nnoitora wielded his own zanpakuto in one instant only to catch it by the guard and rush him with a Getsuga charged on the blade in the next in the hopes that it will set him off kilter.

Ulquiorra counters by alternating between hand to hand combat and swordplay. What Ichigo manages to block with his zanpakuto Ulquiorra counters with a knee to the temple, or a cero to the chest. The boy is agile but not enough. He has spent too much time relying on the sheer magnitude of spiritual pressure to win battles and the ineptitude becomes painfully apparent. His moves are repetitive and unimaginative. It feels as though he knows the moves Kurosaki will do before the boy knows himself.

The snap of bone beneath his hands is satisfying, though the fight itself is not. The boy's heart is not in it. Though the he uses his Getsuga and hollowfied bankai it is, as it always has been, a weak imitation of an Arrancar's cero. Nothing like the cero the boy used to kill him. Where is the creature who killed him above the dome? Where is that beast's fury? Ulquiorra is forced to wonder if it is jealously, and not apathy, that dulls Kurosaki's blade.

When Ulquiorra gains the upper hand, Ichigo's bankai bleeds away. The boy lays there on the ground in a puddle of his own blood with his face pressed into the dirt. Ulquiorra does not release his hold until he is completely limp. The cat woman, Yoruichi, jumps down from her perch on a nearby cliff, having watched the spectacle, and begins healing the boy with kido.

"You're such a bastard," Ichigo says, spitting a mouthful of blood at his feet. "I don't know what she sees in you."

"The same has been said about her with you. But to be honest, I don't know what she sees in me either."

The next day Grimmjow comes, though his visit is more to gloat than anything else.

"Did you think you were better than us? Not so high and mighty now, are ya?" he snarls, cracking his fist against Ulquiorra's jaw.

There is a gleeful madness that puts strength behind the blow.

"Tell me, how did she taste? Did she make you burn? Did you want to sink into her, to tear her up? Did she make you feel like a beast?" Ulquiorra wonders what Nel let Grimmjow think he did to her. It's been centuries since he laid down to rut like a beast in heat and the few times he did had very little to do with affection and quite a bit to do with power.

This fight is a good fight. Grimmjow has improved and he has succeeded in sufficiently provoking his ire. Neither of them hold back in this subterranean arena. Ceros are fired, caught and deflected. Cliff faces are remade, mowed down, and reshaped again. Both draw their zanpakuto. Grimmjow releases first. The Lanza del Relampago is in Ulquiorra's hand before he even remembers how to form it. The first one flies wildly, aimlessly exploding off in the distance, catching and tossing both in the blast wave. The second one is a sure shot, deflected only at the last minute by Grimmjow's own Gran Rey Cero. No matter though.

Ulquiorra sonidos to Grimmjow's side before he is recovered, Luz de la Luna in hand and poised to sever Grimmjow's head from his neck. The blade of reishi is already moving, slicing across the pantera's shoulder, heading for the juncture of his neck. But the sexta Espada is quick having poised his own Desgarrón to carve out his torso unless Ulquiorra moves back.

"Scream, Benihime."

What looks suspiciously like a cero fires between them breaking the stalemate.

"I think that's quite enough don't you? One would think you both actually mean to kill each other."

Kisuke Urahara walks between them, fan closed and resting against his shoulder, zanpakuto drawn, but aimed at the ground. "I thought you might like to know how she's doing," he says flicking the fan open and addressing Ulquiorra through it.

The blade of reishi in Ulquiorra's hand flickers out, and after several moments Grimmjow's bone hierro crumbles and he fades back into his more human form.

"You're no better than the rest of us," he says, then turns and limps up the stairs where the shopkeeper has come from leaving trails of blood in his wake.

Urahara turns his gaze back to Ulquiorra and cocks an eyebrow. "You're not going to change back?"

"I have no intention of attacking you." To prove this Ulquiorra stakes his zanpakuto in the ground before making his way to find a makeshift seat in a pile of rubble.

"She keeps asking about you, you know. Have you talked to her?"

Urahara watches and waits for the Espada to respond but all he gets is a flick of an ear from a face that looks off in the distance.

"Her recovery is slow, but it's progressing," he continues. "She's slowly regaining parts of memory. She knows most everyone's name but is still a little fuzzy on how she is connected to them. She remembers the Soul Society, the existence of hollows, her own abilities though those are currently manifesting much weaker than we are used to seeing."

"Sora?" Ulquiorra asks without turning.

If the shopkeeper is surprised by his query, his face does not betray it.

"Yes she remembers him. Remembers what happened to him. Ichigo helped in explaining some of that."

"Hnh."

"It seems as though she remembers some of Hueco Mundo, but how much we aren't sure. She's understandably quiet on that topic."

This Ulquiorra does not respond to. He is not sure how he feels about this bit of information.

"On an entirely different note, there will be no inquiry from the Soul Society. Just in case you were wondering."

He was not.

"She covered for the spike in spiritual pressure, though it was enough to warrant an investigation considering the signature was yours. She spoke on your behalf to the Head Captain and convinced him that she provoked you, stressing that she did so quite carelessly. That this whole thing is some kind of misunderstanding and that the explanation for your absence is a prudent decision on your part to isolate yourself before something…unfortunate happened."

More unfortunate than this?

"Well that's all I really came to say. I have a shop to run so I'll leave you to…whatever it is you do down here. Although it's not as though you have to stay. You're free to go whenever you'd like."

The shopkeeper strolls around the arena for a short time after, surveying the damage he and the others have caused, pointing devices that beep and click and flash annoyingly at what he assumes are the left over pockets of spirit energy, though he too, leaves eventually.

It is some time, possibly hours, before Ulquiorra feels himself shift back to his human form. A buzzing noise cuts through the silence. He had forgotten he still had the cellphone. Flicking it open he finds a message from the woman.

When are you coming home?

He has no intention of coming home. She should have no intention of welcoming him back. He just hasn't decided what to do. Thinking about it now, it makes no sense that he hadn't returned to Hueco Mundo in the first place. What reason besides her did he have to stay here?

Another buzz.

Dinner's getting cold.

Home. He would only return home if she could prove to him that she knew who, knew what it was she was welcoming back into her home.

What was your reason for coming to Hueco Mundo?

I wanted to become stronger. I didn't want to be a burden to my friends anymore.

What did I do to compel you to come with me?

A short stretch of time passes before she answers. It does not concern him though. There is no one left alive who knows the answer to these questions except her.

You killed to the two guards who were escorting me back and you threatened my friends. You said if I came with you they would be safe, that their lives were in my hands. That I held 'the rope to the guillotine in which they've placed their heads…'

What did I say you when I killed Ichigo Kurosaki on the ceiling of Las Noches?

You told me to watch. Then you put a hole in his chest with a cero…You told me that even if I could reach him in time not even my abilities would be capable of saving him.

He died with his eyes open.

Now she would remember. Now she would fear him as she was supposed to. The proper natural order of things.

Are you afraid of me?

No. I'm not afraid.

No hesitation. She takes no time to think it over and he wonders if she does it out of habit, out of blind recklessness.

The phone buzzes again.

You, also, died with your eyes open. You died reaching out to me.

This girl. This wretched, infuriating girl.

The cat woman waves to him from behind the register, encouraging to come and freeload again whenever he'd like. The children and the monstrously tall man whose role he is unsure of (nanny, business partner, Shinigami captain?) thank him and tell him to come again. The shopkeeper tells him to send Orihime his regards. They are all annoyingly cheery.

"Do you think that it'll be like this every time they have a marital spat?" Yoruichi asks.

"I hope not. We'll be in another war before we know it," Tessai replies.

"It'd definitely will keep things interesting. Things are almost boring now," says Yoruichi.

"The paperwork afterwards is such a pain, though," sighs Kisuke.

"Nah, next time I bet it'd be Orihime who shows up here. He'll be the one who gets his ass kicked," Jinta chimes in. Beside him, Ururu nods emphatically in agreement.

Ulquiorra walks back to the woman's appartment instead of using sonido. He stops by a convenience store to look for something to return home with. He does not want to return to the woman empty handed, though he's not sure why it matters. He settles on a carton of papaya and passion fruit juice because it's the most colorful, criteria that the woman would undoubtedly factor into her selection method.

As he walks up to the counter his phone vibrates again. It is not the woman this time but her older version, the Shinigami lieutenant. Why she has his number, he cannot fathom.

A picture flips up on the screen quickly of the tenth division lieutenant, Rangiku Matsumoto, scantily clad in lace charcoal bustier and matching bottom followed by a second of her in satin, hunter green one. A third vibration reveals a text message:

Which one?

"Dude, is that your girlfriend? She's hot."

Ulquiorra turns his attention to the young male attendant peering over the counter to get a better look at his phone.

"She is not."

"Oh. Then why is she sending you pictures like that?"

Ulquiorra pauses trying to think how best to answer the question. The store is the neighborhood of the woman's apartment and it is likely that she will encounter this clerk so to a small degree what he says, the impression he leaves matters.

"Her younger sister is. She wants to know which one I'd prefer so she can get it and give it to her."

"Oh. Well is the younger sister anything like the older one?"

Ulquiorra pauses to think for a moment.

"Yes, but with a much better personality."

"So how did you guys get comfortable enough with each other for your girlfriend to be ok with you, her boyfriend, getting naughty pictures of her older sister?"

"My employer killed her older sister's husband shortly after I kidnapped the younger one. My getting pictures of the older one in lingerie seems fairly mundane in light of that. Especially since the likelihood of getting the younger one to wear what she picks out it is extremely low."

"You mean what you pick out?" the clerk asks. Either he didn't hear the rest of it or he just didn't understand. The latter is more likely.

"I believe I'm due some change."

"Oh, right! Sorry."

Ulquiorra places the hand holding the phone on the counter, screen side up. A flick of the thumb and the two pictures flash back and forth. He watches the attendant's reaction as first the grey one then the green one occupies the screen.

Grey.

Green.

The attendant's eyes dilate, his breathing shallows.

Grey….

Green.

The attendant sniffs and wipes his nose on the sleeve of his uniform before handing Ulquiorra his change. Ulquiorra flicks his thumb over the contacts and speed dials Matsumoto.

"Ulquiorra-kun!"

"Don't call me that."

"Awwww, you're no fun." He wonders if the lieutenant is aware of what had transpired with the girl.

"So did you get the pictures? I like the green one myself or I could just get both and make it easy. You could-"

"The grey one."

"Eh? Really, but I thought you'd like the green. It'd really bring out the—"

"The grey one," Ulquiorra says again before hanging up. He'd save the green one for later. Christmas, maybe. But for now it looked too smooth, too inviting. He does not need any more reasons to strain his already frayed self-control.

His hand vibrates. A quick glance reveals another text from the lieutenant.

You'll get it only once one of you sits down and tells me what the hell happened.

…

I was worried.

"I'm back."

He comes home to meet the woman precariously stretched over the table, hand poised to pilfer some food from the plate she set for him opposite her.

"Welcome home," she says flashing him an equally brilliant and sheepish smile before plopping back into her seat empty-handed. Ulquiorra places the juice on the counter before joining her at the table.

"Thank you for the meal."

"Thank you for the meal," she chirps before shoving an enormous mouthful in her mouth. He watches as she chews and swallows.

"I suppose we should talk about it," she says. Placing down her chopsticks.

"How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine, really. I'm sorry if you were worried," she says.

Her apology for some reason, rings hollow to him. As though it's not properly placed or worded.

"I would've called you sooner, actually I went to do it many times but I wanted to give you space, time to think. You were very upset when you left."

The woman does not apologize for pushing him to that point, not that that is what he wants either. He is the one who lost control, the one who nearly killed her. If anyone should apologize it should be him, if the feeling that weighs over him is any indication of anything, but he has no intention of doing so. He will not apologize for what he is, for acting in accordance with his nature, nor for giving her what she wanted. She had asked for it after all.

But still the weight is there, the feeling of wrongness persists.

Grimmjow says that next time we should…we might have better control, better results if we…"

"There will not be a next time."

"But-"

"I've decided to go back to Hueco Mundo. I'll leave as soon as you're fully recovered."

"That's good. I think it will good for you. And when you come back we can put this whole thing behind us."

"I will not be returning."

He expected tears. For her to firmly clamp down her emotions but to ultimately fail as they bled through the cracks. He expected her to apologize and plead and beg him to stay, to promise him that she would do better, be better the next time. That she could be what he wants if he simply gave her the chance.

Instead Orihime says, "I don't have a death wish. Even if that's what it seemed like. That's not what I wanted. I didn't to die, I didn't want you to kill me. I was using you to assuage my guilt. I kept thinking that it wasn't fair that those people died and that I was still here. It wasn't fair that I was too weak to save them, to do anything. So I thought that I should atone. At the very least I should know how they suffered, I should feel how they felt in their last moments-"

It is because you possess a 'heart' you humans lose your lives.

"Stop."

Ulquiorra presses his hand over her mouth. If she says anymore, if she continues to speak in this manner…

"You are not at fault. That fact that you are here at all and survived those situations are a testament to your strength. They are dead and you are not. That is not luck, that is not chance, and it is not weakness. You will not speak to me of this again."

He releases her only when she nods her acquiescence behind the muzzle of his hand.

"Why are you leaving?" she asks once they move back to their seats.

"It's not a good idea for us to cohabitate. Eventually you will be hurt, eventually you will die because of me."

"So you're doing this for my own good? To protect me? Then by that logic, you leaving is already irrelevant. If you don't care what happens to me, you should just kill me now. You should've killed me then after Aizen said I was no longer needed."

She is right, though at the time, his primary orders were for the boy not for her. What happened to her was irrelevant and she still intrigued him.

"I can't put my head back in the sand now it's been pulled out. If I die, it's because I chose to walk the path to help Ichigo, to become stronger for him, my abilities manifested because the Hogyoku heard and granted my wish to be of to help to him. I chose to see hollows, I chose to involve myself in the worlds of the living and the dead. If anything is to bring about my death it is that choice not whether or not I associate myself with you, or Nel, or Grimmjow, or Ichigo, or the Soul Society. Don't tell me you're leaving for my own good. You're leaving because you're a coward."

"Why do you wish to waste this one life, the only one you have on me? Five lifetimes you said. Five lifetimes you promised that boy. When Ichigo Kurosaki dies it is likely you will never find his spirit again. His soul chain has been shattered. When he dies he will become a hollow. You should enjoy him now while you can because that boy's fate is doomed."

"Will you come for me then, when I die?" Her voice is small, her gaze downcast. "I know I promised him five, but I can't deny that now I wish to share one with you. So if I can't have this one, then promise me, you will seek me out in the next."

He can't fathom it. As long as he's been alive he can't imagine what it will be like when she's dead. A funny kind of pain settles in his chest when thinks of searching for her spirit and being unable to find it. Is this longing? As long as her soul exists somewhere he is content knowing that. The thought of actively pursuing and being denied it hurts.

"I will not."

"Then I won't let you go," she replies. "I won't allow you to fade from my heart."

"Have you forgotten so quickly what I am? Need I remind you?"

He stands and she stands with him. There is an expression of resolve on her face that he can't recall ever seeing. Fear yes, anger, hope, despair, confusion, surprise, contentment, but not resolve.

This is wrong. Ulquiorra can't understand how this conversation has escalated so quickly. How with such arrogant, simple words she has blown away his levelheadedness.

What was it about her?

Ulquiorra draws his fist from her pocket and points his fingers at the center of her chest.

If I tear it open will I see it there?

She should run. She should remember and run. She is the one who healed the wound in Kurosaki's chest. The one he put there the first time with his own hand, not a cero. It was this same hand that he sunk into Kurosaki's chest, tearing away sinew and organ tissue, his fingers grazing against the bones of the boy's ribs, then butting against his spinal column before emerging again on the opposite side. The cold of Hueco Mundo's desert air that much more emphasized by the heat of the blood that coated his fingers.

Instead Orihime wraps her soul chain around his wrist and forearm.

Toward. Always toward. Toward Yammy after he nearly killed her friends in the park in a futile attempt to protect them. To him in the Dongai Precipice even as he threatened the lives of those same friends she valued above her own. To Loly and Menoly after they beat and ridiculed her so she could heal them, not only once but twice. To him when Nnoitora threatened her. Toward Grimmjow even after he killed Luppi so she could heal his arm and replace the number on his back, the symbol of their rank. To Ichigo each time he died only to watch him die again. Toward him as he was dying. She never turns away even when she should, even when it is the most logical and rational thing to do.

"Make sure you don't miss, make sure you shatter it completely," Orihime says. "Don't leave me as something stuck in between. You won't have your answer then."

He imagines her with gold eyes and black sclerae. Would she keep her ability to reject time and space? What ones would she strip off, what abilities would she choose to keep? What aspect of death would she personify? Would her temperament be like Harribel's, like Neliel's, or would she end up like Loly? What would she fight for then? How would she fight for it? Would she even live long enough to be that powerful? Would she still want to follow him then or would she still chase after the Ryoka boy? Or would she find Kurosaki's hollow more appealing?

"I should've just let you heal my shoulder," Ulquiorra sighs, pressing his palm against her chest, relishing the warmth, the steady rhythm of her heart.

"Yes you should've. But it's good we talked about this. These things needed to be said. They would've eaten away at us otherwise." She looks simultaneously smug and fierce.

"Nothing's been resolved."

"But we understand each other a little better now, don't we?"

No they don't. He certainly doesn't understand her sentiments and she does not understand his. But they have reached a sort of impasse, the point where an immovable object meets an unstoppable force.

Borne of a human and yet, not one himself. Two sides of the same coin, yet unable to ever see eye to eye. Ulquiorra withdraws his hand. He sighs and returns his seat at the table, suddenly exhausted. His eyes fall close and he hears, rather than sees Orihime take her seat across from him.

A short while later, the silence is filled with the woman's quiet humming and content munching. Ulquiorra cracks an eye open to find all the meat, half the vegetables on his plate are missing, as well several bites of rice. The woman's plate is nearly empty save for several bits of meat she appears to be saving for last.

The shopkeeper. Tomorrow we'll go and speak to him. I want to hear his assessment on your condition, what happened and why. And if it can be avoided if it were to happen again," he says glancing away, choosing instead to direct his attention at rescuing those last bits of meat from her plate. He can feel her gaze on him, the wide, pleading eyes she pins him with as well as the mounting outburst she's trying desperately to smother.

"That does not mean it will." Ulquiorra pops a piece of beef in his mouth, followed by a bite of rice and refocuses his gaze on her.

Orihime nods so violently the chopsticks resting on her plate rattle.

"I wish to discuss some things with him privately. I'll go to see him while you are working. You can meet me there afterwards." He takes several bites of the vegetables remaining on his plate.

"Of course."

"I suppose that since there is no longer a gaping chasm besides the usual one on my person there is no need to rush to back to Hueco Mundo. That can be postponed for a while yet."

She's bouncing now. A ball of energy barely tethered by invisible, self-imposed restraints.

"And I suppose the next time I incur a wound that seems to take an inordinate amount of time to heal I will seek you out."

There's a squeal building, tears brim in her eyes, and a faint flush forms on her cheeks.

"However-"

The woman deflates some at this.

"While we have both raised very important issues that as you said needed to be addressed, we have also said and acted in a manner that was unbecoming."

"You're right. I said some things that were not very nice. I'm—"

"An apology is not necessary," Ulquiorra cuts in. "It won't change anything. While harsh, those things were mostly true and as you said needed to be brought to light, just less acrimoniously."

"So what do you suggest we do?"

"Since we are both in the wrong, it would probably be fitting for each of us to decide for the other an appropriate atonement."

"So you mean I pick for you and you pick for me?"

"Yes."

"Anything?"

"Anything."

"And the other person would have to do it. No questions asked, no switching to some other option? Like I could ask you to eat my wasabi and honey muffins and you'd do it right? Or to come to the light festival with Tatsuki and everyone else? Or movie night? Because you agreed to?"

"Woman."

"Ok, ok, I get it." Orihime crosses one arm underneath her ample chest and taps the other against her chin in contemplation.

"I want you to come with me on a trip, a long one. At least a week long where we get see all sorts of places and do all sorts of things. And you have to come with me to all of them. And we have to try all the different kinds of food and go on all the excursions and you can't be grumpy or stay behind at the hotel. Ooh! And pictures! I want lots of pictures with you and me in them together, and some of just you because I don't have any of you at all…"

Orihime breaks off as the scale of implementing something like this finally sinks in.

"You can take time to properly plan. It doesn't have to be executed tomorrow."

Relief breaks over her face, then curiosity and she asks, "Do you know what you want from me?"

Ulquiorra hesitates. Which is a mistake as it only serves to pique the woman's curiosity. She leans in closer, infringing on his personal space, silently encouraging him to continue.

"You're aware that occasionally that Shinigami lieutenant whom everyone seems to think you're related to sends me messages from time to time?"

"You mean Rangiku? Of course, she gets really upset when you don't text back to her. She says all the other Espada do except you. We made a shopping date along with Nel and Rukia this weekend…but what does that have to do with anything?

"I received a picture the other day…an outfit she picked out for you that she thought I might like…"

"Oh. Oh." Orihime withers in her chair. It's no mystery the type of outfit Rangiku has picked. It's Rangiku after all and she's not shy about her body the way Orihime is about hers. And it's not that the thought of doing that with him has never occurred to her. They are living together, they share a bedroom after all. It's just that in that respect she feels like such a child compared to him. He's been with other women, she knows this. There's a cool casual confidence that radiates from him in those awkward moments in the early morning when she wakes to find his hardness nestled against her or when she inadvertently walks in on him getting changed or when she catches him looking at her out of the blue. An expression crosses over his face that makes her feel flushed, her heart race, and her body tighten in anticipation. It makes her feel reckless.

And that scares her.

"I suppose I can't ask you think of something else?"

"If I can't object than you may not either," he replies.

Orihime fidgets in her chair. Ulquiorra watches with interest as a blush forms from the roots of her hair to well below the collar of her shirt. If he followed it how far down would it go?

"Maybe…maybe next time I'll just leave the hole in your shoulder," she says.