Characters: Nemu, Ulquiorra
Summary: "Then you know what it is, to be nothing?"
Pairings: UlquiNemu
Warnings/Spoilers: vague spoilers; nothing specific
Timeline: Arrancar arc
Author's Note: Technically speaking, this can be considered a companion to Nihilism, though it takes place chronologically before Nihilism. Also, romance is a little minimal, but come on. It's Ulquiorra and Nemu. You aren't going to get fluff with these two.
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.
"I take it that you are here for the same purpose as I."
Out of all the people Nemu expected to meet at the abandoned battlefield after dark, a Hollow who appears to be one of the enemy combatants isn't one of them. Out of the gloom, a pair of green eyes just as vivid and just as dead and numb as her own is what she sees first. The most vibrant thing about him, when everything has bled out to stark white and even starker black.
Immediately, she can tell that he has had his feelings numbed, like hers.
Nemu does not immediately rush into combat as others might. For one thing, she is alone, and for another, she is without any weapon with which she defend herself or attack. The man standing hidden in shadow does not advance with any aggressive intent, and neither does Nemu. She sees no need to do battle, if there is not a battle waiting for her—unlike others whom she knows, she has no love of fighting.
"If your purpose," Nemu answers quietly, straightening and standing erect with her arms at her side—at attention, not a natural pose at all but something artificial that she's learned from watching insects at their business, "is to conduct further reconnaissance, then you would be correct, for that is my purpose for being in this place as well."
Clear, flat green eyes narrow slightly, as though this is some sort of interesting revelation. "I see." He steps forward slightly, and though the gloom still obscures him Nemu can see more, see that he wears what seems to be the standard issue clothing for Aizen's Arrancar, white coat and hakama.
Suddenly, he speaks, and his voice is almost disturbingly soft—at least, it would be to anyone else. However, to Nemu, this is just an observation she makes that his mood has possibly changed, if it can.
"I have a question, that perhaps you can answer."
He says nothing, and Nemu stands silent in her normal attitude, staring at him with wide, blank eyes, wondering briefly if perhaps it would be advisable to retreat. He is advancing on her slowly, possibly a prelude to attack. Nemu has her strength but he has a zanpakuto.
After a moment of brief hesitation, Nemu decides not to retreat. Her curiosity has gotten the best of her and—she hates to admit it—she is interested, as she always is in the suggestion of a question.
If the Arrancar is anything like her, then he knew that.
The green-eyed Arrancar, still perfectly detached and seemingly indifferent (Nemu begins to suspect, though, that the truth is something a bit different) to his surroundings, focuses her in a far more intense gaze than he had before, making the hair on the back of Nemu's neck prickle slightly.
"I am here," he states softly, "because I am deemed capable of gathering further information, information that may have been missed in preliminary searches, to aid Aizen-san's invasion of this world.
"I am here because I have a responsibility to fill out. You, on the other hand, I suspect, have been sent on a reconnaissance assignment for an entirely different reason." Those green eyes—it's uncanny, really, Nemu registers dully, how similar their eyes are in shade—seem to pierce straight through her skin.
"Is it possible that you are here because the one who sent you considers you expendable?"
Nemu's silence is all the answer he needs.
The face that seems to be cast in marble shifts a little bit, into the skeleton of an emotion that Nemu has no comprehension of. Something that she can't imagine, as a small spasm of jaw muscles takes over his face, for just a moment.
"Yes," he murmurs, almost to himself, "I can see it. You are in the mind of the one who command you expendable. Replaceable. The one that is sent when there is a great risk involved, because you can be replaced. You are all but worthless, nothing but an afterthought in their mind."
Nemu, again, is silent. As much as she would like to argue, as much as she would like to say that she is not in Mayuri's eyes replaceable, she knows she can't—Nemu has never been able to deny the truth of any situation. She's the afterthought in nearly everyone's minds, the one they don't remember until later.
And she does wish it was otherwise. Though the sensation that this should grieve her greatly is only a suggestion on the outskirts of her mind and the centers of emotion, Nemu does know that she should mean more to someone, anyone. She does regret the way things have turned out.
She gets the idea that the Arrancar is not usually so talkative, as he goes on—no proof, but Nemu is a keen observer and she can tell, from the stillness of his frame and the way his voice seems slightly rusted, that he does not talk on a regular basis. "Then you know?" He is still adopting a soft voice, with a note in it that, again, Nemu can't identify. It doesn't quite quaver, but it comes close. "Then you know what it is to be nothing?"
Nemu starts, and stares at him, more so than before. This question catches her slightly off guard, was not what she expected. Slowly, she nods, her widened eyes never leaving his face, and speaks for only the second time that night. "Yes," Nemu whispers, and can't bring her voice to anything louder than that.
They are both nothing. Nothing more than an empty body with no soul, searching for some purpose without ever knowing what they're looking for, and never finding it, but still searching anyway. And trying, more than anything, to understand, process and comprehend emotion. Taking looks at it from logical perspectives that tell them nothing.
The Arrancar nods. Then, he opens his mouth, as if to speak, but thinks better of it.
And then he leaves, gone within the intersection of a moment, as though he was never there to start with.
Nemu finds, that when he is gone, she wishes he wasn't. She wishes that she could still find that brief kinship, of sharing the experience of being nothing and perhaps, for a moment when together, finding that the sum of them both becomes something worth existing.
Now, that kinship is gone.
And Nemu feels an empty ache, something she doesn't understand, but knows that it hurts.
.
"That's everything?" Mayuri's voice is curt as usual, but absent and vague this time, as he sits at his desk. He is reading the latest results of experiments conducted by subordinates in the laboratories. Nemu thinks Mayuri is looking in to speeding up the maturation process of Shinigami this time, in a way that can be done safely—he seems to think that there are too many people running around with swords that are bigger than they are.
Nemu nods, once more standing to complete rigid attention. "Yes, Mayuri-sama." The night's long shadows blanket the office except for the two candles standing flickering at either end of Mayuri's office. Beads of liquefied wax dribble down to pool on the wood.
Gold eyes flicker upwards, to fix Nemu in his intense stare. Mayuri's face is completely serious for once, devoid of the maniacal gleam usually found there. "And you saw nothing?" he demands.
For a moment, Nemu hesitates, dry mouth slightly open, before dipping her head in a shallow nod. "Nothing. I saw nothing," she murmurs.