It has always been impossible to run from her shining embrace; she is always, always waiting at the end of the tunnel. She's a beacon, she is bright and beautiful and everything any man could ever want.
And she's still not enough.
They fight and they fuck and then fight again and finally, finally he kills her, pushes the knife into her stomach and twists. She's never been a creature of violence, so she dies quietly in his arms, happy that it is him who has killed her.
The authorities find the two bodies of what seems to be young lovers the next day.
The next time they meet, she is a young woman, younger than any time before, and he doesn't have the heart to kill her; he doesn't really have a heart at all.
She as naïve as she is every lifetime, and blindly, she trusts him; grabs his hand and leads him away from the sorrow that is his life.
She thinks he's following out of love, out of trust and happiness, but he's quietly planning her death, thinks he'd like to strangle her and watch her turn blue.
There have been stories; stories of people who have been reincarnated, soul-mates in their past life and meet in the next and remember; remember every small detail of their lives before.
He tells her this as he wraps his hands around her throat and squeezes.
But before the light flickers and dies from her eyes, there is a spark of remembrance; and he can see every past life they have shared; every time she had loved him and every death he has dealt from his cold, pale hands.
And then, he tells her before she dies, that this is not us.
Like the past, they are found, dead and broken, but together, and are called a Romeo and Juliet tragedy.
The next time around, it's different. The next time they meet he is already dead and hollow and tainted.
He waits and waits and waits and finally it is time, but he's given strict orders not to kill her.
She is the key to their plan.
He is her keeper, and signs of Stockholm Syndrome start to appear; she's attached and dependent and loyal to him only, and he hates her, once again, for it.
When the orders come to kill her, she cries and cries and did I do something to displease you, Ulquiorra?
Ulquiorra! Ulquiorra please!
This time it's different, and so he sooths her and leads her to her bed and strips her of her clothes.
He suspects that this is the last time; that after this they'll never meet again, and so as he spreads her thighs and sinks into her, he relishes in the softness of her skin and the tiny cries that escape her when he grips too hard.
Almost finished and he pulls the knife from the table by the bed, shakily holding it to her throat as he continues to push into her.
A light flashes and she remembers.
"Why?" She whispers, broken and tired. He ignores her, and he is done, and the knife breaks her skin and a red blanket of blood covers her.
It starts with a boy; young and pretty and abused.
When he met her; a bitter, lonely old man dying a hut too far from the village, she is bright and shining and a sight for sore eyes. She ignores his insults and sharp jabs and shows him a side of women he's never seen. He falls for her, and she for another.
She dies of disease, weeks before her wedding day, and he's old and frail and dying, and he dies hating her and hating women and swearing to one day kill her himself.
And so the cycle began.