Summary: Orihime Inoue, 24 years of age, orphaned, and is currently occupied with her search for a long-lost relative. Or at least that was what was registered in his mind when he had first met her. AU.
Chapter 1: Autumnal Sunday Morning
"My car is not a public transportation vehicle, Grimmjow."
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It was five in the morning when his friend, the ever repugnant being with a mane of distinctive blue, Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez, decided to wake him from his sleep with an obnoxious phone call about something that sounded faintly of inhuman sobbing and incoherent shouting only to hang up moments later. Finally, after a minute or two, the man decided to ring again. This time, however, instead of the usual nonsense, the man had begun addressing him in a manner more detestable than his usual self.
"Yo. You gotta get down here, now. There's something I wanna show you."
He scrunched his face, appalled at the noise filtering through the speakers as it reminded him of those asthmatic old men who breathed through a tube stuck in their lung while grasping, pathetically so, onto the last living fibre of their already enfeebled life.
"It is five o'clock, Grimmjow. Can this matter of yours not wait till the sun rises?"
Grimmjow scowled, "The sun's up already, ya bastard! Just get your ass down here in fifteen minutes, tops!"
He wished he could have retorted with an obvious statement – an observatory one – that the sun was not set to breach the peripheral line separating earth from sky for another hour and twenty more minutes but Grimmjow had long disconnected the call, leaving him to face the blaring sound of static droning incessantly in his ears.
"So you finally got yourself out of bed and down here in the dung, huh?"
He glowered at the blue-haired man and proceeded to walk down the alleyway without further instruction, his friend in tow.
Somewhere between now and five minutes later, he was expected to see a gallery painted in deep crimson red against the grim and stale background that was the decrepit walls of the tall Manhattan buildings. If anything, what Grimmjow had wanted to show him were the leftover remains of those unfortunate few that had half a mind as to pick a fight with a psychopath who knew possibly no boundaries between life and death. What he expected to see was exactly what he was shown as five minutes into the walk, they had arrived at the sordid scene. A few of Grimmjow's lackeys were standing beside one body in particular, kicking and stomping the sorry sod-of-a-man with their boots while said sod cried out in berated anger.
"This. I do not deal with this." His eyes were trained on the man for a meager second before casting his gaze upon his friend who only offered a shrug of nonchalance.
"This ain't it. We still got to go a bit further down the block."
A bit further. It implied that there was something more than just bags of bodies to collect and blood to scrub and expunge. However, what more could such a brusque and uncultured being like Grimmjow offer other than more bloodbath and carnage perfumed in the smell of rotting flesh and buzzer fodder.
"Here we are." Grimmjow stated, pointing his finger to the building standing before them.
It was an old building, most likely built in the early 1900s to accommodate for the large influx of newly arrived immigrants and thus, hardly a thing worth noting. The rooms, even when viewed from the outside, were the very pictures of squalid frugality and the convocation of disease and insanitation; a place where you'd expect a person to raise their children only to have them die in it several months after birth, in short.
"This is what you wished to show me?" He questioned speculatively, certain of the fact that his friend had gone insane.
"Just follow me and keep your mouth shut for a bit. If I'm to go into real estate, you're the last person on this crap-hole-of-a-planet that I'd go to for help."
They crossed the narrow, still cobble-stoned street, and ventured into the building.
The building was dark and heavily accentuated the atmosphere of a prison house. Practically unlit in most parts, the place held the scent of mold and decay and although there was a person sitting at the front desk, life or the presence of it, was lacking in more than one way. How a person could possibly endure living in such a poor, inhospitable place was beyond him.
"You're here for the girl, ain'tcha?"
The man seated at the desk pointed to the hall running down the cramp corridor to the left and went straight back to attending to his drink and smoke, hacking and wheezing all the while.
He stopped and was about to turn on his heels when Grimmjow grabbed hold of his arm. "Where are you going? I haven't shown you –"
"There is no need to show me such a thing." He forcefully pried away Grimmjow's hand and made his way towards the door.
"Tsk, man, she ain't that! Just give me a chance, will ya!"
He leered – his lips, pursed into a thin line – and pondered upon the prospect of actually obliging the half-wit. Whatever it was that he wished to show him, it seemed genuinely important as for once, Grimmjow was not fooling around with him.
"Fine. If this turns out to be another fumbling 'mistake' of yours, do not expect me to come to your aid from there on."
Grimmjow raised his arms in resignation, "Deal."
Making their way down the corridor and finally in front of the last door on the floor, one would think that they would be privy to all the details concerning the thing beyond the threshold of the entrance. However, he was walking into a room filled with uncertainty and obscurities. The foreign 'thing' his friend wished to show him could range from the lowly sort that one could find prowling the seedy streets while wearing nothing but a flimsy piece of fabric to the lowly sort that one could find prowling the seedy streets while wearing everything to anything, except without modesty and humility. He hoped the girl in question would not be either of those two varieties. He has neither the time to court the charitable graces of the divine nor the good willed intentions of a saint. So, when the door opened and light began to filter through the shabby windows, what he saw sitting by the table could be amounted to prove that he was indeed in the Lord's good graces, at least for the time being.
"That's the girl there."
"I can see that. What of her?"
He spared no time for Grimmjow's banters and lengthy explanation. Instead, he crossed over to her and gave her a curt but ascertained nod of his head. She acknowledged this with one of her own although with some sort of wavering, unknown emotion embedded in the grey irises of her eyes.
"Hey, that's my friend there. He's gonna help you out, all right?"
Grimmjow was comely and genteel when around women of preferred interest. He has known this for the longest of times, but for the man to drag another person into his relationships was another thing; Grimmjow was anything but kind and thoughtful. This girl with her doleful grey eyes and messy auburn hair must have done a score to his friend if the man had been serious enough to call upon him to help her out.
He examined her with a critical eye while standing as far away from her as possible as Grimmjow continued to pour out his explanation of the details. So far, he has learnt that the woman's name was Orihime Inoue; she is twenty-four years of age; orphaned; and currently is in search of her long-lost relative. Normal enough, he thought, although that was the standard tale of woe women with ulterior motives and baleful agendas around these parts would tell to garner sympathy and cajole those foolish enough to trust them of their money and assets. This woman, Orihime Inoue, could be no different from those despicable pieces of trash as far as he could see it.
"So, can you help her?"
"Help her with what?"
Grimmjow scratched his shaggy hair with frustration, "Help her locate the person she's looking for."
"I do not have the time to waste on something such as that. If she wishes to locate whoever that person might be, she will do so on her own. If you wish to assist her, do not expect others to share the same sentimentalities you hold in regards to the woman. I will be taking my leave now."
He glanced at the woman then and saw the look on her face. It was not one of disappointment or sorrow or was it of surprise, shock, and anger. Orihime Inoue's face was straight-laced and passive; it was the face of a person who had long come to terms with the expectation that all pleas could and would end in denial. She stood then and bowed, and as he watched her recline her head till they were eye-to-eye, looking straight at one another, something in him wished he had been able to retract his previous statement, almost wished he had, but the moment passed and the woman, Orihime Inoue, who now graced him with one final smile, opened her mouth and said, "Thank you."
He left the room with a nod of his head, the same way he had greeted her upon his entrance, leaving behind an irate Grimmjow to sort out the mess that the man had brought upon himself. The door gave a weak clanking slam as he released his hold of the knob. The world beyond the threshold of the doorway became vague and unfamiliar to him once more as the deadlatch finally clicked into its place within the hollowed centre of the strike plate.
The sun was just beginning its hike up the viridian sky when he exited the building. Reminding himself that there were bodies he needed to collect and things to clean, Ulquiorra walked down the cobbled streets one step at a time until the noise of wailing streetcars and buses drowned out the click-clack sound of his shoes against the ground on that autumnal Sunday morning.
A/N:
At this very moment, this story hasn't exactly been completely plotted out. As in, I barely have more than three-four chapters of thoughts and plans to write about although strangely, the general plot of the story has long been established and an ending fitted into it as well. The reason for this would be that this story was the result of a spontaneous desire to see more AU's on the site for this pair. Why AU? Because it has long been established that Ulquiorra has passed on in the manga therefore, writing about something that would go against the natural flow of canon events while the story's setting is in the same canon universe leaves me feeling awkward sometimes. :Y Besides, AU stories can be refreshing. It gives me, as a reader and writer, a new venue to choose from instead of the same prisoner-ward-Stockholm-syndrome-complex thing that we are all accustomed to. Well, that's all there is to say for this first chapter. See you all next time! :D Also, I apologise if the characters in this story are or have or will have turned OOC. I'll be certain to correct that as I go about editing and rewriting the chapters.