Stark now startlingly resembles his release form; not that I'm disturbed by the thought. His recently acquired speech fashion, however, baffles me. To say the least, it does not at all accord with the dormant slacker that he is. Whatever the case is, we have the upper hand.

"What the hell crept up your ass? He's fourth; I'm fucking sixth." Grimmjow growls at my attorney, eyes popping wide.

Stark ignores him. "No further questions, Lieutenant."

"Grimmjow, you may relieve the stand of your weight now." Lieutenant says.

Grimmjow storms off the area in heavy treads, his face still fastened on my attorney, in the interest of perhaps extending his murderous intents on him. As if.

Szayel scuds up front, looking as though he knows not what to make of the matter presently at hand. I recommend he forfeit this already—

"I'd like to call on Lilineth, Stark's Fracciones." Octava announces.

Stark makes an unbidden movement beside me. He wheels his head around to watch the entrance of his pesky little sidekick. Resentfully drinking in the sight as Lilineth flashes him a peace sign, a harrowing display of childish misdemeanor and mental deficiency as a matter of fact, he knits his brows—

"Yoh, Espada dudes!" The Fraccion greets as she occupies the seat.

"Lilineth, I shall make this quick for your convenience." Szayel assures her. He then winks at our direction. But a murmur issues from everywhere when he advances to their desks and fetches Pantera, Grimmjow Jaggerjack's Zanpakotou. Drawing the magnificent weapon up at the witness's eye level, he questions the little girl, "Are you familiar with this?"

Lilineth giggles in a rapid succession, to which Stark yawns. Nevertheless, I ask him, "And will you tell me what your Fraccion has got to do with all this?"

"Who knows? She's an idiot. Whatever she's bound to say isn't gonna be of any consequence."

So now his Fraccion is eyeing Pantera longingly. Yet, all the same, a surfeit of delight overwhelms her, "Pantera! I love that! Can I keep it?"

"No. But I ask you, did you or did you not get a hold of this lovely thing two nights ago?" Szayel pursues.

Shit.

I remember. It was Lilineth whom I bribed to nick Grimmjow's weapon on that night. But I only did that so he wouldn't try to murder me, no more, no less. It was plain self-defense, and I can prove it here and now if I may be allowed to venture on it and if no one is to dissuade—

"Fucking shit."

"..."

Fucking shit. My excuse for this exhibition of vocal carelessness goes as plain as that panic has borne down on me more swiftly than I could deny it residence. Naturally, I am, again, the victim of unbelieving gazes.

Tousen sighs, "Cuatro Espada, I'm asking you this for the first and last time; are you alright?"

I nod.

"Octava Espada, please repeat your question for the witness."

"Lilineth, did you or did you not get a hold of Pantera two nights ago?"

"Yaaaaah! Cuatro-san said I could play with it!"

Again, the air is stultified by these mumblings which are so confounded in nature that anyone can recognize the obvious distaste among their originators. Needless to say the absurdity of this all has gone beyond the insufferable, there appears to be the necessity to unravel the truth here and now! The truth is—

"So you took it? Played with it without the owner's permission, culprit?"

The fucking truth is—

"But Cuatro-sama said I could take it! And I placed it back where I found it after playing with it! Besides, I didn't need permission because Ulquiorra-sama is Cuatro while Grimmjow-sama is just Sexta, you know."

"I see. Well then, I'll let you off now. No further questions, your honor."

Stark is staring at me. I'll hazard to accept my unthinking carelessness has frustrated his plans. But most damning of all is the manner by which my operation was revealed. If somehow—

"That doesn't cover your allotted time. Would you like to call another witness or shall I pass the opportunity to the opposing side?" Tousen asks Szayel.

"I would like to call Ulquiorra Scheiffer."

I'm staring helplessly at Stark as nefarious eyes drill in on us. And now Szayel is hoisting himself in front of our table, grinning at my attorney. What a pointless exhibition of audacity. If only I were allowed to punish lower-ranking comrades he'd realize how wise it would be to just rest content in maintaining his distance from us top of the ranks—

"Please proceed now, Cuatro Espada." Tousen says.

I evacuate my seat and arrange my composure in due proportion. I then take long strides to the stand, producing soft thuds against the floor.

"So, Cuatro-san," Szayel starts in what I classify as forced cordiality, "What was your purpose in coming into Sexta Espada's private chamber two nights prior?"

I gaze at Stark again, only to learn he can't return the gaze with equal ease, let alone give me a mute reassurance. We're looking at each other, mutually declaring helplessness and nothing else. It appears time and circumstance have disappointed me. To complicate things, this whole tragedy requires more than an open mind and an unbiased standpoint to be grasped in its barest sense; don't they know that Grimmjow and I are sailing into the direction of romance and—

"Sex."

I—perhaps I should offer a more sophisticated elaboration on that one. Sex, after all, is sacred, and the execution of which should have a profound style and should break away from convention. You do understand, don't you? If I were just to head straight to Grimmjow's chamber and demand 'let's have sex', well, that would just obliterate the thrill—

"So you admit that you stripped my client here of all his defenses before you went on performing your sexual fantasies on him?" Szayel asks in trepidation, looking somewhat appalled by what my statement suggests. In contrast, the crowd is unmoving, still and silent with ponderous apprehension; only Grimmjow's disgusted face betrays it. Well, if I could insist on my rights to clarify the whole of this—

"Yes."

Allow me to say that I am presently scarcely in control of my speech, and attesting to that is what reality is presenting. With that at hand, my confidence wanes from here. All I wanted was to add color and beauty to my sex life, an aim which the people around me perceive as one and the same with sexual offending. If they could just devote sensibility in this whole matter they'd understand it without fail—

"But Grimmjow did verbally resist you, didn't he? By cursing you off shitless, yet you still persevered on your advances. Just what the hell is the matter with you?"

"That's the whole point of it, Szayel. It would be vastly boring if he were just to submit to me before I even tried."

Octava is staring at me as though I have driven some calamitous affliction in his direction. He truly is not the genius I've been warned about. So he fidgets about, looking certain about absolutely nothing, least of all himself—

"Ulquiorra, you do understand that what you're saying now can be used against you and that you are facing serious charges of sexual assault, which you so now admit without inhibitions." Szayel tells me, looking at me square in the face, perhaps implying I'd be the last to digest his words. Fool.

"Sexual assault? I was merely thriving to expand my sexual horizons. If you don't understand such then, maybe, maybe you really need to get laid."

So now here he is, left alone to search for the right words. Why, he's not making any effort to render his discomposure more subtle—

"N-no further questions, your—"

"—now, now, you're not just about to suspend this exhilarating part of the hearing, are you, Szayel?"

It's Stark.

"You and Cuatro have lost this case, Stark. Give it a rest already." Szayel answers back adamantly. Me and failure. That's some combination I haven't heard in awhile. Funny.

"Have I, really? Let's have one thing straight here; you have filed a complaint against my client, after which you duly, and wrongly for that matter, categorized his attempts under harassment, and now here he is, with nothing but sincerity to offer, laying bare his original intent that is broadening his sexual horizons. Where's the malignity in that?"

"A-are you serious, Stark?" Szayel is gawking incredulously at my lawyer, his bewilderment going overboard. Please—

"Yes. Isn't that a pure, INNOCENT exploration? A path to self-discovery? Don't tell me you don't practice it yourself. Come on, who are you fooling? You've done it on me—"

"—unsuccessfully so! But the manner by which he tried to achieve such, Stark—surely, you don't subscribe to this baloney. He was trying to wreak his molesting tendencies on Grimmjow, no more, no less. Besides, my client suffered a few emotional complications after the event, something that pertains to dignity. As such, we can't just overlook that fact now, can we? The end justifies the means. Damage was done—"

"—so you're saying now that your chronic barging into my room unannounced is a heinous crime that should be punished? Are you sure you yourself are not simply trying to unravel sexual thrills? Perhaps I should enumerate the number of times you've tried to wrench my Hakama from me?" Stark finishes, his mouth abandoned to the mercy of a simple bliss.

In conclusion, both sides have played their strongest cards. Even so, we reign triumphant. I guess I should now consign everything to silence. After all, what use would there be in speaking further? We've won this, and, no, this claim has not come prematurely.

"You all can just fucking die now, you perverts."

It's Grimmjow.

Stark strides forward to regain the spotlight, thereby assuring everyone that Grimmjow's hopes of a comeback lie dead. Stark speaks, "You must understand, Grimmjow, that Ulquiorra had NO intentions of malice when he—"

"No, I think what you sorry lot don't fucking understand is, I don't care about his intentions, his mental and sentimental justifications, and just about any sick defense his twisted mind is coming up with. What you should fucking concern yourselves about is the fact that I fucking didn't like what he pulled on me because, if you look at it in its most ordinary sense, HE FUCKING TRIED TO RAPE ME." Grimmjow snarls at my attorney.

"Is that so? So you didn't like it one bit? Come on, man. You? Saying 'no' to Cuatro Espada? Just look at him! Chicks are breaking their necks trying to get a shot of him! Denials, denials."

Stark is a raving lunatic waiting to happen.

Sure enough, Sexta Espada steadies himself before blaring at Stark in a scandalous volume, "Oh yeah, you can perfectly relate because deep inside, in the fucking deepest crevices of your fucking mind and in the behest of your raging hormones, I mean if you had been paying attention to your goddamn mind forever ago, you'd realize that your days are most profusely spent waiting for Octava Espada to fucking finally get his dick shoved in your goddamn throat!"

Really, his hysterics are reaching unreasonable heights.

But Szayel tugs on his client's sleeves to indiscreetly voice his correction, "Grimmjow, it's the other way around; I want his dick shoved—"

"ENOUGH!" Liuetenant Tousen bellows. I have forgotten where we have been standing all the while. Slowly, we descend back to our wits, as he continues disgustedly, "All four of you, Grimmjow Jaggerjack, Ulquiorra Scheiffer, Szayel Apollo Grantz and Stark, I am sentencing you to a week of Penitential Incarceration for your unacceptable, deplorable, detestable, abominable, despicable, unspeakable, hideously disagreeable behavior!" He thunders at us four Espada. We shrink back from his volume.

Shit is going to happen. This is all their fault, all three of them morons; Szayel, Grimmjow, and Stark—

"This is all your fucking fault." The three tell me.

...

So. We're in this tiny chamber now, all four of us 8th, 6th, 4th, and 1st Espada.

"If you had just fucking asked me out instead we wouldn't be holed up in this fucking shit hole." Sexta Espada hisses at me.

"Where's the sexual thrill in that?"

"Fuck you."

"Would you?"

Grimmjow swallows hard.

"Later, when we get outta here."

Stark and Szayel are as silent as cobblestones in the far corner of the room, their faces a mere half a foot apart.

"So you subscribe to Ulquiorra's expanding sexual horizon's bullshit?" Octava Espada asks Stark.

"Yeah. Got a problem with that?"

"Want me to do that on you?"

"You'll fail; I've seen you do it a hundred times…failing, that is."

"Well then will you let me?"

"Let you what?"

"Fuck you?"

Stark looks away,

"Later, when we get outta here."

END