DISCLAIMER: I do not own Shugo Chara or Bleach; they belong to their respective owners. Anyways, this is my first story ever published, so I intend to finish it. I have a summer to complete it or get a huge amount done before I head off to college where I won't have all the time to work on it. That being said, I intend to finish it. As far as liking it goes, I don't care it you like it or hate, I'm doing this for me, but feel free to leave comments about what can be improved because I not very good at using descriptive language and fluency could use some help. Anyways Enjoy!

The Heart Egg of Emptiness

Ch. 1 New Arrival

The warm, palpable atmosphere of a warm night teemed around Ulquiorra as his body felt the damp blades of grass being crushed underneath his body. His eyes instantly opened and were greeted by the dark, blue skies with bright spots of light shining forth, making the sight beautiful, a sight that couples would like to enjoy. The air, the skies, they were not familiar to Ulquiorra because the atmosphere of Hueco Mundo oozed with coldness and melancholy, something that he has grown accustomed to since he has lived in Hueco Mundo for a very long time. The dark, black skies that once harbored a crescent-shape moon that never sets or rises was absent; instead, a full, glowing moon with astonishing beauty located itself at the zenith of the blue night. Ulquiorra has visited the human realm several times, and he usually went when it was dark, so judging by the position of the moon, he would have to say that it is between midnight and 1 a.m. After his realization of not being in Hueco Mundo, he arose from the damp ground, and dusted himself off from any dirt that may have stuck to him. He then instinctively reached down to his hips to confirm that his sword was still with him. It did relieve his worry when he felt the hard metal sheath of his sword located on his left hip.

All worries aside, he analyzed his surroundings to ascertain some sort of idea about where he was, other than being in the human world. The area had a huge opening with tall, vibrant trees scraping the mid skies along with waist-high shrubs that were coated with small lively flowers that were complemented by the night sky, making them beautiful. It was almost hard to see all the tiny details shrouded in darkness, but the glowing moon provides enough light for a human to see at least rough figures. His best estimates were that he was in the middle of a small forest or park.

His head soon became flooded with many unanswerable questions, but the most important question that would linger within him for a long time was…

"How did I arrive in the human world? I do not recall using the Garganta to get here, and why was I lying on the floor?" The last memory he recalls is the battle with Ichigo Kurosaki. Ichigo just unleashed the power of his hollow mask and was beginning to overpowering Ulquiorra with its raw power. Knowing that it was futile to continue fighting in his current state, he sped through the hole in the wall created by Ichigo, and headed straight up to the canopy's fake sky. He kept going up until he slashed his sword, breaking through the canopy, and went through the gaping hole, making his way outside Las Noches and out into Hueco Mundo. Being outside Las Noches was a must for Ulquiorra because it was forbidden for the Espada to release their resurreccion if they are ranked four or higher; his resurreccion had the potential to destroy the entire castle if he released his zanpakuto. Unfortunate for him, he could not remember anything else; he knows that he released his zanpakuto and that's it. He put remembering the past aside since he knew that endeavoring to remember the forgotten was futile.

Before Ulquiorra did anything else, he immediately suppressed his spiritual pressure. It was a countermeasure to ensure that no being with high spiritual pressure can trace his spiritual pressure back to him and attack him. Anybody who had the ability to sense any type of spiritual pressure could easily pick up on his spiritual pressure. It was not because he was afraid to fight; it would be beneficial for him to first learn where he was before he engaged in a fight that could destroy a city. He then used his pesquisa to extend his own awareness to pick up people with spiritual pressure. After waiting for a minute, he could not identify anything. Unsatisfied with the results, he only closed his eyes and exhaled his breath to relieve some frustration without breaking his emotionless demeanor. With nothing else to do, he lifted his arm and tried to open up the Garganta to return to Hueco Mundo, but nothing happened. This alerted him because he can usually open up the Garganta with ease. This put Ulquiorra in a pensive mood. The best explanation he can make is that something is preventing him from opening the Garganta. If he wanted answers, then he would have to find somebody he can talk to. Taking to the skies using sonido, he looked around in the horizon to find anything that may help him in his situation.

Far out in the horizon in the west, Ulquiorra spotted a faint, eerie glow. Judging from the strength of the glow, he estimated that the glow was coming from a city about 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) from where he was standing now (in the air). Seeing that it was his only option to understand his situation, he proceeded to the glow at a high speed using sonido. As he got closer to the glow, it shone brighter and he can hear sounds of exhaust pipes churning out carbon monoxide and the sound of multiple people conversing with one another. He stopped his momentum in a single second, and he saw the towering skyscrapers that erected from the city, even though he was standing above the highest skyscraper far out in the distance. Looking down, he witnessed a river of cars flowing through the streets of the city. The honks and screeching of rubber on concrete added to the concert of the city's various sounds. It was unlike Las Noches. That humongous castle was twice, even three times, the size of the city before him, yet Las Noches was more silent due to every Espada did not talk to each other often for amusement. Ulquiorra felt it would be beneficial if he were to traverse within the city to ascertain answers.

Turning himself to face the ground, he plummeted himself in that direction until he was a few meters off the floor. He repositioned himself so that his feet would be the first to land on the ground. He did so a little ways off a road that lead to the city. Being right next to the road in the forest-like area, he headed for the street while his clothes were being tugged by the hands of branches sticking out to grab him, but his clothes were able to survive the onslaught of branches unscathed. Soon, he found his way to the sidewalk, only to be met by a roar of a semi-truck summoning forth a gust of wind as it passed to crash into Ulquiorra, causing his hair to ride the wind. As it settled, he proceeded to the city to investigate if anybody can help him. The moment he got closer to the city and left the outskirts of town, laughter, commotion, and all the other sounds that accompany a city began to flow out more in the city. The sounds got stronger and stronger until there was no denying that he was in the city, filled with humans, where they go to interact and perform their remedial jobs. When Ulquiorra got to an intersection, he turned to the left and kept on going, seeing ahead a crowd of people coming his way. He kept on going without falter.

Ulquiorra walked against the flow of the crowd, people ignoring him because they could not see him, or so he thought. He noticed that people began to give him funny looks towards his direction. No. It could possibly. There is no way that regular people with no spiritual pressure could possibly see me. Everything was confirmed when a small force hit his right shoulder, causing him to take a step back because he was not expecting for that to occurred.

"Whoops! Sorry, my bad." expressed the bystander as he bowed to show his apologies to him.

"..." Ulquiorra was surprised for a brief millisecond, but then his usual frown automatically reformed.

Seeing that it was not a big deal, the bystander continued with his business on the phone, walking in the opposite direction of Ulquiorra, talking about some business that might take off and make him successful.

That human was able to come in contact with my shoulder. I sensed no spiritual pressure coming from him, yet he was able to touch me. Does that mean that all these people can see me? That would explain why people are looking me with a quaint expression.

To test his hypotheses, Ulquiorra remained motionless in the same spot. He waited for somebody to pass by in order to test his hypothesis. After some time, he spotted two lively girls walking towards him. They were laughing and dressed to have a lot of fun. They looked to be around their early-twenties; the perfect test subjects for his hypothesis. They were having the time of their life until they drew near a Ulquiorra.

"You two, I have a question that must be answered."

The two women stopped, giving a big gulp and stepping back a little. They both looked at each other because they did not know what to do in a situation where a guy clad in weird clothing demanding a question from them, and asking in a command rather than in a question-like manner; this indeed instilled a little hesitation in the women.

"Y-y-yeesss." One of the them stuttered shyly.

His body was intimidating. His cold, piercing eyes locked on to both the woman's eyes, and the frown that always planted on his face added more intimidation to him. Sweat drops formed in the corner of their heads, and slowly began to slide down. They wanted to leave, but they were afraid of what was going to occur next. He stared at them with his blank eyes that show no sign of emotion for what seemed to be an eternity. The girls wanted to say something, but were too afraid to utter a single word; Ulquiorra could see their despair within their eyes.

"Nevermind. I got the answer I was looking for. You may leave." He finally stated, breaking the silent tension.

The women quickly moved to the left of him and walked quickly as to get as far away as possible. He did not feel anything from them, and yet, they were able to see him, recognize that he was there. His hypothesis was correct: people can see him but can't feel his power. Normal people shouldn't be able to see him, not if they had some sort of spiritual pressure, but the previous two encounters beg to differ.

These people are not normal. They must have something that is allowing them to see me, but they don't emit anything that is remotely close to spiritual pressure. Can this have something to do with my appearance in the human realm and how I got here? Or, maybe, perhaps… He proceeded farther into the heart of the city.

If he wasn't attracting attention, he was certainly now. The eyes of many pedestrians began to gravitate toward Ulquiorra's coming. It is not everyday that a person witnesses a man with ghost-white pale skin, with white suspicious clothes clad onto him, while having a bone-like helmet sticking out like a sore thumb on one side of his head, and that's not including the sword hanging from his right hip. He ignored them all because he did not care what these people thought of him. They were all the same to him in his eyes-trash.

Ulquiorra kept going down the street until he had to stop at an intersection. To pass the time while the light gave him the signal to continue, he looked up at the night sky again. The glowing moon still persisted over the city, almost as if it was watching over the city like a guardian. Dark clouds swooped in from the east, masquerading parts of the moon with their puffy mass. Suddenly, a weird sensation came over Ulquiorra. He twisted his head to the left, only to be greeted by a man wearing a typical business suit. He gave off something different than the inhabitants of the city he witnesses. The others had vibrancy in their eyes, vibrancy that can be spread just by looking at one another, like a disease being spread in an air-tight compact room, but this man was different. He gave off a very apathetic aura. His back slouched forward, putting it in a state where prolonged exposure would leave him slouched permanently. His arms just dangled there, with no real purpose at all. The man's face showed no hint of any life at all, and his eyes stared blankly into space, not paying attention to his surroundings. A closer look reveals that his eyes had no pupils present. This man had the life sucked out of him, and now only an empty shell of his former self existed.

The crosswalk sign flickered green, and Ulquiorra began to walk across the street, except the man besides him remained his spot, not moving an inch, unaware of his surroundings. It appeared to Ulquiorra that this man walked around the city aimlessly, no purpose or idea about where he went. Ulquiorra disregarded this as an anomaly and continued going down the street leading to the other side of town.

He may have not known it at the time, but It looks as if Ulquiorra was going through town, taking in the sites the city had to offer. He saw coffee shops, clothing stores, and restaurant as he continued down the street. He even got the see the rare occasion of outside street performers playing music right on the opposite side of the road. The performance filled the air with the sounds of guitars, drums, and keyboards all working in unison place a well-deserved smile on the city's inhabitant; people gathered around them just to listen to their colorful music. It was rather annoying to Ulquiorra because he prefers a nice, quiet place rather than a place filled with various sounds to make people feel good for a moment. But hidden under the heavy racket of the melodious tune, Ulquiorra heard the sound of strings being slid across to produce a different sound; he believes that it was from a violin that was producing this sound. It was quite different from the racket he was listening to; it had a melancholic tune rather than an upbeat one, a melancholic tone that kind of appealed to Ulquiorra. He looked around the streets and nobody else was listening closely to the violin, or couldn't because this violin was being played somewhere else where the insulting racket couldn't disrupt its tune. It was thanks to him being an arrancar that he was able to notice the quiet echoes of the violin gliding through the night skies. Ulquiorra did not want to find where the violin sounds were originating from, so he continued on his walk, passing the band of racket makers, and slowly escaping the quiet whispers of the violin sneaking across the loud area for nobody else to listen. What a shame. He thought.

After an hour of observant walking, a dense fog rolled in to shroud his line of sight as he approached the outskirts of town. It was difficult for anyone to see ten feet in front of him, but not for Ulquiorra. His senses allowed him to generate vague figures in the fog, not quite seeing close details, but rough figures to know if something is there. The streets were empty, no signs of life were present. As he continued down the street, a black tall structure the size of a skyscraper started to unravel itself as Ulquiorra drew closer to it. The structure still remained dark no matter how close Ulquiorra got to it. Once he got near the figure, his feet were greeted by steps. The steps themselves were very large, indicating that this was either a heavily-trafficked area during the day, or an important area seeing that it owned wide steps in front of the base of the structure. He continued up them until a signed unshadowed itself from the mist, alongside with a stone figure of a crescent moon immediately to the sign's right. Letters could be seen, and the letters read…

"Easter." Ulquiorra said.

He went passed the sign, and headed for the doors. Suddenly, for the first time since his arrival, he felt the presence of something that was similar to spiritual pressure, but not quite the same. This presence gave off an unnerving, yet familiar feeling, the same feeling regular hollows give off, but still different from hollows. Nevertheless, it gave off an energy that felt sad. The doors flung open, and something small and black rushed out of the door. Following this small object was a man with brown hair wearing a lab coat sprinting out, carrying a giant, oversized net that can usually be found in cartoons. Two more people with lab coats followed, one man and one woman, both carrying oversized nets. From the looks of it, these scientist, or idiots as Ulquiorra thought, were chasing down this black object. Having some interest as to what this object was, Ulquiorra's quick reflexes allowed him to spring his arm out and catch the thing desired by the scientist. It had an oval feel, like a chicken egg. He brought his hand in front of him and saw what he predicted-an egg. This egg's shell was covered in a abyss black, and it seems right because Ulquiorra could feel the negative energy radiating from its core. This egg also had a big, white "X" right in the middle. It was an egg, so it naturally felt fragile, like any egg should be, and it could be easily broken by the slightest twitch of his fingers. In a way, it kind of resembled his power, even if it was a mere fraction-calling it a fraction would be giving this egg too much of a compliment. Nevertheless,Ulquiorra deemed this egg trash compared to him.

The three scientist stopped in their track in a stooges manner as one kept on bumping into the other's back upon seeing a strange man capture the X-egg with his bear heads at a moment's notice. The first scientist looked at his colleagues, and they both gave him a nod. So he stepped forward, taking unnecessary step so he does not trip over and fall and make him look like an idiot in front of this stranger, not knowing that he already looked idiotic with his oversized butterfly net. He looked back at his colleagues, and they were all rolling their hands in a wheel motion; he had to ask for the egg.

"Hello, Thanks for catching that X-egg. You saved us the trouble of chasing it down the street in this thick fog. If you don't mind, may we have it back?" He did not want the director of Easter to find out about his mistake, or else it would mean he would have to talk to him in his office, and that brought unpleasant thoughts to his head, causing him shiver a little as he could already hear the director's angry voice directed at him.

Ulquiorra took another glance at the egg. He needed answers, and he was going to receive some.

"What is an X-egg?" Ulquiorra asked. This caused the scientist's eyebrow to raise. How can somebody of his age not know about X-eggs, yet able to catch one in a split second? He can obviously see the eggs, so it must mean he may of had an egg when he was young. Maybe he forgot about his guardian angel as he aged? No, somebody who had a guardian angel would never forget him or her. He looked at him with the utmost curiosity. He wore a white hakama and coat with a black sash and had very pale skin. The sword also brought attention, but that was not his main focus. He also noticed the half helmet Ulquiorra wore, but the one thing that grabbed his attention was his facial expression. That frown of his will be burned into the scientist skull because it was just uncomfortable to look at for extended periods of time. After recollecting his thoughts, he returned to the main question at hand.

"You don't know what an X-egg is? I find that very surprising for a person your age. Well, an X-egg is…"

"Tsukumo, what is going on?! Why are you not in the laboratory?!" The voice of the director caused Tsukumo to almost drop his earpiece. This was why he wanted to catch the X-egg because he knew the director would be visiting him later in the night, but the director must have moved his visitation to now. This caused him to straighten his poster to speak with the director with the utmost respect because he did not want to yelled at.

"Well, Director, you see, one of the eggs... managed to escape…" Tsukumo delayed while he was twiddling his fingers..

"WHAAAAAAT!"

"Buuuut," Tsukumo interrupted. "We were able to recapture it before it left Easter's vicinity. Actually, somebody else caught it for us." Tsukumo explained.

'"Who caught it?" the director demanded.

Tsukumo looked at Ulquiorra, still gripping the egg in his hands.

"I don't know his name, but he was able to capture the X-egg with his hands in an instant." Tsukumo explained.

"With his bare hands you say? Hmmmm. Bring him to my office. I want to have a talk with this mystery figure. Also, I want you to meet me in my office as soon as the sun rises. We have a lot to discuss." the director added. Tsukumo then heard the sound of the static, ending the communication with the director. Tears moving at a high speed fled his eyes for he knew that he was in trouble.

Tsukumo then called out to the pale-white person standing before him.

"If you come with me, the director will be able answer any questions you might have." he stated.

Ulquiorra took a minute to analyze the people in front of him and the building. He was not sensing anything that can be a threat to him. The only thing he could sense is the egg located in his hand, but that was hardly a threat.

"Very well. I shall accompany you for the sake of my questions about these X-eggs." he responded.

"Okay, but first, can you hand me the egg? It is part of an experiment I am conducting."

Ulquiorra walked up to him, placed his hand over Tsukumo's open hand, and released the egg from his grip. Tsukumo gave a slight smile, but was returned with the frown constantly present on Ulquiorra's face. He lead him into the building, so he can go to the director's office on the top floor.

A dark, unfamiliar sensation creeped into the room slowly until it was something that sleep cannot stubbornly ignore. Amu's eyes jolted open upon this surge draping over her entire body. She likes her sleep, and usually nothing could wake her from her dreams except the light of the morning sun rising, but this was a special occasion. She brought her body up, and was not surprised to find Ran, Miki, and Su already awake and responding to this sensation. She found them staring out of the window, trying to pinpoint where this sensation was coming from. Ran noticed Amu from the corner of her eye.

"Amu-chan," Ran exclaimed, "Can you feel what we're feeling?"

"Yes, oddly enough." She usually have her guardian angels inform her when the presence of an X-egg was nearby, but she didn't need them for this because she could feel that this sensation was powerful; why else would she be able to feel it. X-eggs don't generate enough negative emotions for Amu to detect them on her own, so whatever is producing it is a problem for Amu if she is feeling some sort of energy on her own.

"I don't know how to describe this sensation. It has some of the qualities of an X-egg, but has something else mixed into it." Miki lectured. "Whatever it is, it is something I have never felt before."

"I don't like this feeling," Su chipped in. "It does not feel good, but rather sad. It is making me feel sad." Sad was all that Su can think of; there wasn't a better word Su can conjure that can accurately explain this phenomena.

This sensation sent chills up all their spines. Their skin began to get goosebumps, and a cold feeling emanated from within them. It was 69 degrees Fahrenheit (21 degrees Celsius) in Amu's room, and they were feeling cold just by this aura of this strange miasa of "sad" energy.

They all stood there motionless, taking in this feeling of sadness and hoped that it will eventually pass. It made them feel depressed the longer their bodies were submerged in this strange aura, and then, without warning, it disappeared. They all stood still until they recollected their minds to comprehend the situation at hand.

"What do you think that feeling was?" Ran asked.

"I don't know, but whatever it is, it can't be good. That's for sure." Amu replied with a serious, yet sad tone.

The guardian angels eyes began to succumb to the forces of sleep; their eyelids became heavier by every passing second. "It late," Miki interjected. "We can figure all this out in the morning."

"I agree." Ran exclaimed "Me too." Su supported. All three floated back to their respective eggs to slept the rest of the night away. Only Amu remained awake in her dark room. She laid back down to get some rest, but she couldn't because of the event that transpired. She tried her hardest to be taken by the night into her dreams, but she was bugged by the miasa of strange power, and it would not allow her to sleep. What was that? It didn't feel like an X-egg, but it felt like it resembled one in a way. She pulled her covers over her head to help her sleep, but she knew that she wasn't going to get any sleep. She knew her day was going to be terrible. She didn't think so; She knew, and that is the reason why she could not fall back to sleep.

"I wonder if anyone else felt it?" She whispered.