Time within a counter membrane
seemed to move differently from the outside world, with no shadows creeping
along the ground or up the side of Aizen-sama’s palace, nothing to use to
differentiate between morning, afternoon, evening. There was no concept of
movement, or sound, or change of atmosphere, other than that which the
prisoner himself made.
Grimmjow’s Caja Negación had been swift; a dirty trick, entirely the sort of
stunt he would pull, and grin like a maniac while pulling it. Ulquiorra knew
he could break it down, eventually. It was just a matter of time.
Time that moved in undetermined chunks: first, the long moments of his own
frustration at the lower-ranking arrancar. Then came the moments of anger at
himself for ending up trapped in the first place. Then, using his
intelligence to figure out the weakest point of the membrane, he could put
the final chunk of time to use and start to destroy the obstacle, tearing it
down bit by bit.
Once free, Ulquiorra rose to his feet. Dusting off sand and grit from his
hakama and coat, he immediately realised something wasn’t quite right.
For one thing, nobody was around.
For another, Aizen-sama’s palace was no longer a magnificent white roll of
roofs and spires and gaping black windows, but a large and jagged pile of
rubble on the Hueco Mundo landscape.
Shit, thought Ulquiorra, which was rare for him because he normally
detested vulgarities like the lower-classes used. But looking around, at the
silent and desolate horizon, then the mass of grey destruction to his left,
he felt it was a fitting synopses of the general atmosphere. Everything
has gone to shit.
Traversing the sand dunes wasn’t a problem - he had travelled around Hueco
Mundo many times on foot, while recruiting strong hollows for Aizen-sama, or
when taking himself away from the inner sanctum to train in the open. But
picking his way through the rubble proved more tricky. Many of the fallen
beams and blocks of concrete were unsteady, haphazardly piled on top of each
other, and more than once Ulquiorra had to use Sonido to avoid an avalanche
of rock falling on top of him.
He carefully navigated his way around a couple of half-standing pillars, and
along a line of stone he assumed to be a corridor, its flagstones still set
in a checkerboard pattern from when it had originally been made.
Ulquiorra figured one of two things had happened during his absence. First,
the fight had been moved to a different location, and since he had been
stuck in that blue-haired imbecile’s Caja Negación nobody thought to tell
him. As angry as that made him feel, Ulquiorra hoped that was the case,
because otherwise it meant-
“It’s all over. This is the end.”
Turning quickly at the interruption, Ulquiorra caught sight of a shock of
pink hair among the drab grey debris. Figuring there was no other choice, he
edged closer, picking up more of the familiar, grating voice.
“I’m so bored. There’s nothing left to do. I’m so alone.”
“Szayelaporro,” Ulquiorra said, striding towards the other arrancar.
“What-?” Szayelaporro rose to his feet quickly, but the moment he spotted
Ulquiorra he seemed to deflate again. He slowly lowered himself back onto
the rock he’d been draped over. “Oh, it’s just you. Of all the people to
survive this too, it had to be Ulquiorra.” He spoke to nothing in
particular, staring off at yet more grey rubble as if Ulquiorra was made of
even baser material and not worth his acknowledgement.
“Where is Aizen-sama?” Ulquiorra demanded, stopping before him. “What
happened here?”
Szayelaporro looked vaguely uncomfortable.
“I’m asking you what happened,” Ulquiorra said dangerously.
Finally, Szayelaporro tilted his head a fraction, raising his bone-rimmed,
pink eyes. He let out a sigh. “You’re still here? Then I suppose I’ll tell
you.” He seemed to steel himself for the next bit. “Basically, we lost.
Aizen-sama fled. Tosen also fled. Ichimaru said he’d love to stay and play
for a little longer, but he had to go, too. Everyone else is probably dead -
I haven’t seen the others.” He rested his chin in the palm of his hand and
looked away.
Ulquiorra stared down at Szayelaporro’s pink hair for a long time, digesting
the news. His worst nightmares had come true. “Lost…” he said quietly. “I
see. And Aizen-sama is definitely gone - from Hueco Mundo?”
“I believe so.” Szayelaporro crossed one leg over the other and started
jiggling his foot impatiently. “There’s nothing left now. I’m just so bored
- I haven’t felt like this since my brother left for the human world and
never came back. I hated him, but at least it was someone to taunt.”
Ulquiorra slipped his hands into his hakama pockets and kicked at a pebble
on the ground. There were plenty of pebbles to choose from. “What about your
minions - can’t you taunt them?”
“I've eaten them already,” Szayelaporro said dismally. “I should have kept
one or two for a time like this, but I really didn’t think we’d… well.”
Ulquiorra couldn’t say anything to that. He didn’t think they’d lose,
either. Damn that foolish Grimmjow. If it hadn’t been for him,
Ulquiorra would have never been sealed away, and they would have probably
won the war. With his strength and intelligence, they could have been
reaping the benefits of their victory by now - Aizen-sama would be on his
way to the throne, the king of Soul Society, and all the arrancar his
heavily rewarded subjects.
“Ulquiorra,” said Szayelaporro, pulling Ulquiorra from his thoughts. “I know
you never liked me-”
“Nobody liked you,” Ulquiorra pointed out. Feeling at odds with the universe
in general, he turned and sat down on the other half of the rock
Szayelaporro was occupying.
Szayelaporro paused and Ulquiorra could almost hear the grind of his teeth.
“But it looks like you and I could be the only ones left here with any kind
of power,” he finally finished.
“Indeed.”
“So, looking at it that way, we will have to fight.”
“That is our way,” Ulquiorra agreed, knitting his fingers together on his
lap and staring down at the ground. The truth was, he wasn’t in the mood to
duel right now. He’d just escaped a bitch of a Caja Negación set up by
someone on his own squad who was weaker than him, only to find
everything he had ever known and believed in crumbled to tiny bits and
pieces. As much as he preferred the clean, sharp edges of Hueco Mundo to the
sludgy weight of the human world, there was little left here to fight over.
“You could sound more enthusiastic about it.” Szayelaporro tilted his head,
his shoulder brushing Ulquiorra’s a little.
Ulquiorra said nothing. It was stupid, he realised - he was sitting there
debating the merits of fighting a lower-ranking arrancar over a scrap of
sand and a load of debris he wouldn’t know the first thing to do with.
Szayelaporro let out a dramatic sounding sigh, sitting up a bit straighter
and clapping his hands on his knees. “Then, if you won’t fight, what shall
we do instead?”
“Who said I want to do anything?” What he really wanted to do was
find Aizen-sama and offer his strength, for what it was worth. Surely there
was some way, some genius plan - Aizen-sama was an incredible strategist;
Ulquiorra refused to believe he had given up and run away.
“Well we can’t just sit here and do nothing. I’ve eaten all my friends, and
you don’t have any anyway, so all we’ve got left is each other.”
Szayelaporro twisted slightly on the rock so he was facing Ulquiorra more
directly.
He was sitting very close now, in fact, and Ulquiorra dipped his eyebrows at
him in warning. “I do not need friends. They’re just extra baggage.”
“I won’t be your friend, then,” said Szayelaporro, and with that he leaned
in, his pink-lashed eyelids sliding shut. “Call it... an experiment.” The
heat of his breath touched Ulquiorra’s mouth milliseconds before his lips
did, and then it was just skin, all soft and a little moist, right there on
Ulquiorra’s lips where extra skin should not be. Szayelaporro tilted his
head, just a fraction, so their mouths aligned more comfortably, and it
suddenly struck Ulquiorra what was happening: this was that inane human
physical exercise called 'kissing', the one that humans put so much stock
into and went to pieces over.
This was a first kiss.
His first kiss.
“Hmm,” he mused, trying it out. Szayelaporro opened his mouth a little and
Ulquiorra wondered if that was a challenge of some kind. After all, he had
made a noise, and Szayelaporro had seemed to react to it. He felt fingers
against his chest, moving up to slide along his collar, then the skin of his
neck above his jacket.
In response, Ulquiorra reached up and curved one hand around Szayelaporro’s
throat, squeezing a little.
“Mmph.” But Szayelaporro didn’t pull back; he opened his mouth more and
licked across Ulquiorra’s lower lip, then in a bit, grazing back and forth
along the line of his teeth. It was all Ulquiorra could do not to bite down
- although it would have been satisfying to hear Szayelaporro’s scream, he
did not fancy a mouthful of blood. Instead, Ulquiorra used the next best
countermove, and pushed back with his own tongue, licking it against
Szayelaporro’s with force and purpose. I am stronger.
The next noise to issue from deep within the other arrancar’s throat was an
octave higher than his speaking voice. It rose at the end to a
needy-sounding whine, and at the same time Szayelaporro scooted closer on
the rock, his legs awkwardly bumping against Ulquiorra’s.
Increasing his grip on the other’s neck, Ulquiorra felt the next moan
clearly in the palm of his hand, vibrating lightly.
He wasn’t sure if that meant he was winning or not - from the way
Szayelaporro thrummed against him and made small, desperate noises, he
thought perhaps he was. He kissed harder, forcing his tongue further into
Szayelaporro’s mouth and then pulling back, then pushing in again, a slow,
demanding grind. The other arrancar clutched at Ulquiorra’s shoulders, his
fingernails digging in through the fabric of Ulquiorra’s coat.
Finally, Szayelaporro pulled back, their mouths making a weird, wet sound as
he drew away. “Gah! Oh…” He didn’t sound in pain or particularly defeated,
but he was definitely having problems breathing and Ulquiorra detected a
high level of tension surrounding him - it seemed to radiate off
Szayelaporro’s body in heated, pulsing waves.
Ulquiorra took that as his victory, and decided he'd had enough. “I’m bored
of this.” Rising to his feet, he figured they were getting nowhere with this
pointless kissing. He could be doing more constructive things. As he looked
down at the other arrancar, Szayelaporro squirmed on the boulder and covered
his lap with his hands quickly. “I’m not going to be one of your
experiments.”
As he turned to leave, he heard movement from behind him, like the shifting
of fabric over stone. “Where are you going?” The tone was indignant.
Ulquiorra stopped and turned his head, looking at the form sitting behind
him out of the corner of his eye. “To find Aizen-sama.” He let his mouth
curl up at the corner. “There’s nothing of any worth left here. You can have
it all.”
He did not wait around to witness the sulking, but he could hear
Szayelaporro’s insults gradually fading behind him as he climbed out of the
worst of the rubble. Reaching a high, flat rise of rock, he scanned the
sparse horizon.
He would find Aizen-sama, and Tosen-san and Ichimaru-san, even if it meant
going to the human world to search for them. Then they could begin to
rebuild their magnificent army, along with any remaining survivors, and
fulfil the original goal.
It took Ulquiorra a little longer to decide whether he would mention
Szayelaporro to Aizen-sama or not.
~Fin~
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