Prologue

"Um... spirit-san, are you lost?"

-was the first question the 'deceased' ex-Espada woke up to the human world. Dead, was what he was supposed to be. Even with the girl's curious gaze boring through his head, Ulquiorra conjured no response but instead, took his time to recollect. Not feeling the least demotivated by the lack of response, the sixteen year old brunette mustered up her words to repeat the same question.

In order to silence her, he must be compelled to answer. "No." Which could automatically be translated as 'Leave me alone'.

It was indeed quite odd for a human to be able to see his form. An average human should not be able to have high enough spiritual powers to do so. As far as he was concerned, the only humans he was aware that possessed such energy was Kurosaki Ichigo, that woman and her friends.

"Oh... that's good," the girl responded in relief before deciding to leave the spirit to his own devices.

"Who are you?"

Blinking twice, the girl pointed to herself in a silent question before realizing how stupid she must have looked when it was obvious that there was no one else that he could be referring to. "My name is Kurosaki Yuzu."

Kurosaki...

Kurosaki.

Eyes narrowing slightly in the form of distaste, the girl had better be grateful that the ex-espada did not have the habit of disposing those who did not act as a threat. "Kurosaki," he repeated her family name in a steely manner. "Are you related to Kurosaki Ichigo?"

Suddenly, the girl's eyes brightened up. "That's my big brother! Are you one of his friends, spirit-san?"

"No."

They were not friends, not by a long shot, not even when the ex-espada would be sitting at the edge of his flickering ashes. They were enemies, if not personal then natural foes. To even imply that they had an ounce of friendly interaction would not sit well for either of them.

But that was how the two met.

Four years went by and no one could have been this relaxed over the existence of a revived, dangerous nemesis in the past. ...Alright, not everyone. However, Urahara played a huge part in leveling out the tension and the sympathy from everyone, even Ichigo, at the prospect of handing Ulquiorra over to the 12th division in Soul Society. Not even Ichigo would want to damn anyone to that kind of fate.

After one of Soul Society's most harshest and tension-killing debates over Ulquiorra's fate, it was decided that he would remain in the human world under strict supervision. The decision was on hold, seeing how damaged they were after their fight with Aizen, they had a priority of avoiding another war. If not for Urahara's powress and capabilities, they might not have placed enough trust for the former captain to take control of the situation. They may not have trusted the exiled captain completely but they would begrudgingly agree to temporary let him analyze Ulquiorra's situation.

Inoue Orihime was the first and immediate one to welcome him back. She harbored no hatred for the former espada, which was what contributed to his growing curiosity over humans. Ulquiorra always had the opinion that they were set to fight among themselves to quench their thirst of superiority. Slowly, her friends started to make themselves comfortable around him, or at least, on the exterior.

Until, Kurosaki Ichigo found out that his youngest sister actually met Ulquiorra during their family's absence and even invited him to their house for to stay.

"He had nowhere to go," Yuzu argued in her moment of compassion. "And he knew you so I thought that you were friends and you might be able to help him to pass on."

And the only reason why Ichigo couldn't argue with her till the end was that there was no way he'd tell Yuzu about his life-and-death situation outside of his human life. To her, it was just that Ichigo had went into the sort of short, friendly quarrel with his friend that could be resolved with some time away.

Ichigo had never felt so compelled to do the weirdest face ever at being regarded as Ulquiorra's friend.

"We're off!" the highschooler twins chorused together as they made their way out of their house.

Yuzu, who had gained enough spiritual energy to see spirits completely four years ago, had been helping spirits to pass on peacefully. While she had encountered hollows or unfriendly beings, her first instinct had been to run. Knowing that unlike Karin or Ichigo, she did not have the capabilities to last herself in a conflict. The last thing she wanted to do was to put her family through the grief of losing one of them.

"Ne, Karin-chan. Are you going to be home for dinner today?" Yuzu questioned.

Shrugging her shoulders lightly, the older twin said, "Sure. I'm supposed to have soccer practice but I received a message this morning that it will be postponed."

"That's nice, isn't it? It feels better to have everyone eating dinner together!"

"Yeah. Otou-san could be more quieter over the table, at least."

Laughing softly, Yuzu could already picture the meals they had. It became less frequent than before Ichigo started his disappearing acts but such dinners became more valuable than ever. Even if their father liked to act rowdy with their brother, Yuzu probably wouldn't choose anything else other than their family interacting. But it is true that she wished her father would not make any sudden movements while their brother was still chewing his food.

"Onii-chan is starting to get along with more people. I still wonder why he and Cifer-san still hadn't resolved their quarrels."

Of course, Karin was aware of his episode with Ulquiorra thanks to Matsumoto. The bustier woman and her hung around whenever she came to Ichigo's house to bother him, with Hitsugaya reluctantly looking out for her behavior. "You are still calling him 'Cifer-san'?"

"But his name was so difficult to pronounce... and he wouldn't let me shorten it."

"It's Ul-qu-i-or-ra. It wasn't that difficult."

Tell that to someone who had been struggling with foreign language classes. "Ului... Ulqi... Ulor—I can't do it!"

"For god's sake." Karin shook her head in exasperation. "You might as well try to get used to his name if you plan to have him as your love interest."

"Th-that doesn't have to do with anything!" Yuzu instantly became flustered and disorganized.

"Right."

It was a fact that the younger twin developed some sort of attraction towards him during his stay in the human world. It started off as a typical crush and admiration for the calm collected former espada. With Yuzu's minimal knowledge, one would think that Ulquiorra could be the better guys in the world.

He was cool – in the sense that there was hardly anything that could deter him from his natural melancholic expression. He hardly loses his temper, unlike the people in the Kurosaki family. He just seemed to be the strong standing pillar that would not break down. Adding to those, there was also his looks and way of speaking that could send shivers down anyone's spine. It was a little different for Ichigo whereby that shiver would tempt him to land his bankai on Ulquiorra's frame.

Indeed, the younger Kurosaki had been pinning for him for a little more than two years now. However, Ulquiorra was foreign to feelings. He may have gotten interested in humans but he never felt the need to understand a much intimate form of emotions, other than it might be a possibility for Orihime to felt the sense of trust for Ichigo due to those strong feelings.

It was a clear cut that Ulquiorra was not interested in such matters. On top of that, he is a hollow and Yuzu is a living, breathing human. There was so much that could be worked against the idea of romance between the two races. With that in mind, Yuzu had the sense to keep her limits to a simple admiration.

To sum things up, Yuzu is 13 years old in the recent show, 16 when she first met Ulquiorra and somewhere before when she have enough spiritual energy to see spirits completely. In this fic, she will be 20. Note that this story will not include the Fullbringer and current arcs. Yet, anyway. This is just a prologue hence more details will be answered in the next following chapters.

This story will also be some sort of test-run to see how far I can go rather than a confirmed title. Still, I would deeply appreciate any of your inputs on this story so far!

Thank you for reading.