PROLOGUE.

Red. The whole of the black and white world was coloured red as Nnoitra fell to the ground, hair billowing behind him like a black satin cloak stained with blood and dust. It seemed to take forever, even with the relatively small distance—Though it should have taken mere seconds, in Nnoitra's mind it felt like aeons before his chest collided with the bone white sand, knocking whatever air was left in his lungs out. His own blood dyed the fine grains, a crimson blot that would vanish almost as soon as he did, a non-existent memoir of a battle that once was. This was the way he'd wanted to die, the perfect death for a warrior. How long had he loathed Nelliel for denying him the very honour he was being granted now, but the Quinta couldn't help but feel... Bitter about the situation. Perhaps his bitterness was caused by the mere fact that he knew he would be forgotten, and soon—Hollows held no value in remembering fallen comrades, having no need for any such emotions. The Shinigami, too, would wipe him and his battle from their memories. In that, he'd have died without making an impact on not one person... Even that loyal swine, Tesla, was dead. Had he the strength, Nnoitra would have grimaced at the thought but even keeping his heavy eyelid open was a gruelling task.

The red in his vision was fading, the normal colours of his world returning slowly but surely. He had no idea how long he lay there, staring at one spot in front of his death-glazed eye, but he finally noticed what (or whom) his vision was directed at and it made his cloudy mind reel. Nelliel, still bearing the small child form she had when their battle had been cut short. He saw that her hazy hazel eyes were directed at him, a confused expression gracing her childlike features as the glaze slowly left her large orbs. Nnoitra saw her lips move, but didn't have a clue what it was she had said... Not that it mattered. Darkness had begun to tint the edges of his already-impaired vision and it was closing in fairly quickly. Not fuckin' fast enough...He thought to himself as he watched the object of his long-running hatred prop herself up onto the rock behind her to help her stand up and steady herself, expression worried. The fading Espada thought he saw glints of wetness in her eyes, but he passed that off to his dying state—The only thing that could mean was tears, and there was no way even a strange Arrancar like Nelliel, who seemed to have more feelings than most, would shed tears for him. No bloody way. That's why he didn't understand what was happening when the small, green-clad form of the ex-Tercera began to run towards him with apparent determination. Again, he saw her lips move but the words they formed didn't reach his ears; All he could hear was a painful, deafening silence.

When the child fell at his broken body, he saw that he hadn't been seeing things earlier. There were, in fact, moist droplets running from her eyes like liquid diamonds; The child began to push at his side in an attempt to turn him over, to no avail. Just when Nnoitra thought he couldn't be any more baffled by the female's actions, a cloud of powder pink smoke surrounded the two and Nelliel finally managed to turn the tall man over, his own weight was lifted off of his chest and so allowed him to take a raspy breath of cold air. It soon became clear why she was able to finally move him—She was no longer in her meagre child form, but now in her scantily-clad, voluptuous one. That was the only thing that had changed, though, as her demeanour and tear-soaked cheeks remained the same. A muffled stream of words finally started to reach his ears and he realised they must be coming from Nelliel's ever-moving lips. He soon caught snippets of the sentences broken up by heavy sobs:

"...Nnoitra..."

"... You can't die..."

"... Say something! Show me you're alive..."

"... I can save you..."

Another heavy breath rattled his destroyed lungs and a blood-coated cough sent white hot pain through his body; At the cue, Nelliel's eyes widened and she dropped her face onto his chest, in turn smearing crimson onto her skin. "Nnoitra..." She sniffed, smiling slightly when she felt his chest rise again.

"Get... The fuck... Off..." A weak, raspy voice reached the woman's ears and she got off instantly, earning her a deathly glare from Nnoitra's single violet eye. "Can't ya... Lemme... Even... Die... In fuckin' peace...?" Each word was weak, almost whispered, and the sentence was fractured by the biggest breaths the tall man could take, which were tiny and painful considering the state of his respiratory organs. He couldn't, however, explain the tiny amount of strength he had regained since this woman had arrived at his side; Moments ago, he barely had it in him to keep his eye open and now, however broken and quiet it was, he was speaking? It should have been impossible, and yet...

"You're not going to die, Nnoitra." He heard Nelliel say, her voice slightly stronger than before.

"Tche... Like hell... I'm not..." Nnoitra was beyond hope of repair, and he knew it. Nelliel should have known it, too, but there she went again with her false sense of hope. Espada had no need for 'hope', and yet she clung to it and it brought her to difficult situations time and time again—Her banishment being a prime example. "I ain't... Gonna live... So get... Fuckin' over it..." He watched her eyes soften while she looked at his face, which was full of certainty. There was no getting out of this. So, the woman lay down on her back, looking up at the eternally black sky, next to Nnoitra who didn't have the strength to move his head to look down at her. "The fuck's... Your problem...?"

He heard Nelliel shake her head on the sand. "Ssshh. Don't waste your strength."

"I ain't-..." A sharp intake of breath coming from his own lips cut him off, the blankness that had been slowly inching away at his consciousness flashed over his vision entirely for a moment, only to reveal a curious image to him; Blood everywhere, shouting and screaming in a language he couldn't understand... But the centrepiece of the image were two people; a tall man with long black hair obscuring half of his face and a woman, brown haired but with sea green splatters decorating it. The two were laying side by side, no life in their eyes, crimson marring their uniforms and flesh... But what shocked and baffled Nnoitra most was that he recognised the two. Recognised them as himself and Nelliel, but different, as if in a different world... But as quickly as it had appeared, the image faded.

Thoughts whirred in Nnoitra's head—Why had he seen that? What the fuck was it supposed to mean? Who-

Then it clicked.

"Shit..." He muttered, his eye closing slowly. "From that... fuckin' far back... Huh...?" And, before he could hear the confused reply Nelliel gave him, Nnoitra's eye closed, the darkness that had been threatening to overtake him for so long finally closing in.

Nnoitra passed away into eternal slumber.

A/N:

Hello! Thank you for taking the time to read this, my very first fanfiction! This chapter is, of course, only the Prologue of the story and there will be much more to come but I hope you enjoyed this fraction of the NnoiNel story I am writing. My current plan is quite different to my original plan for this story, the first being that there would be three chapters (One about Nelliel and Nnoitra's days as the Tercera and Octava, one about the time of the battle with Kenpachi and what happened after it [the end of which I took and used here, as the Prologue] and the third about the past life of the two), but I've changed that to only concentrating on their past life with only this here concerning their Arrancar lifetimes.

Honestly, I have no clue how long this will turn out but I hope it'll go well. Please review to notify me about any mistakes I have made, I will be more than happy to change them! Constructive criticism is also more than welcome, but flames will not be appreciated. I know I'm most definitely not the best writer out there (far from it!), but even the worst doesn't deserve some of the flames I've seen.

I hope this suits your tastes, NnoiNel fandom! Please read on when I finally manage to post the first proper chapter, which will hopefully be a lot longer than this~

~Kami~

Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach! That is the marvellous work of Kubo-sensei~