Prologue

Ulquiorra Cifer would have begged the unseen forces of this plane, the puppet master behind his torture to be done with it but his lips and tongue had been eaten away by fire worms and his vocal cords were rendered to the point of uselessness. In the recesses of his decayed mind, he fervently wishes for a true death.

Let it be no more! His own voice sounded raspy in his mind, unfamiliar as if this was the first time in an age since he last had a thought.

When large skeletal fingers enclosed around his middle, Ulquiorra quelled the shaking of fear of what's to come next as best as he could; willing his soul not break under the pressure of his woes. He identified his resistance to weep as pride. Slowly he's come to recognize new things within himself with each death and resurrection he'd been put through. There were times when the fire that robs his bones of flesh died down only to have his pesky regeneration doggedly regrow more of what it craves. Sometimes there were no bones left, just chared dust and soot. How long has he been like this? How many millennia has come and gone while he feeds the fires in Fifth Circle of Hell? Madness was a welcomed change but like his body, his mind quickly recovered from that state of bliss. Forced awake into the horror of his reality every time. At times he could sense beings about him, fellow souls in torment. At times there were only ghostly screams so loud and so terrifying they could chill the blood of lesser beings.

He felt himself tilting. A familiar progress, signaling that the circle of torture was about to begin again. His body must have regenerated enough for him to be ripe for the killing. Lifeless strands of jet black hair tumbled over glossy ones as he headed head-first into the Flame Basins. The flame basins only had two types of flames, orange and blue. The blue flames were the hottest ones he's known, meaning he died more quickly when they were available to lap at his skin. They consume him with hunger and need and he took longer to regenerate. An act of mercy.

At the moment they were glowing with orange-reddish lava boiling over onto the sides of the black rocks that both encircle and contained the bubbling soup in the cauldron. Orange flames were slower, as though they digested him at their leisure. Halfway through his regeneration would start.

The lobes of his ears had not yet regrown so the heat from the basins was like a direct air duct into his head. Watering his eyes and making him want to die for the last time. He couldn't stop this. Too weak from repeatedly dying, life was only a result for him now. One that suffered him from dust to bones then flesh. A systematic cycle that he wanted to end so badly he started a mantra in his head without knowing that he had. Repeating his first thought, his internal voice growing strong with practiced use added more words to his prayer. His proposition to whatever or whoever it was that would give a damn.

Let it be no more. No more. Let this be the last time I open my eyes ever again. Haven't I suffered enough in my first life, in my second and now in this one? What more do you want from me!? What!?

If there were was someone listening, some entity that controls this realm, they choose to remain mute as he was plunged into the orange lake of lava, slowly to be digested once again.

Ulqiorra's last thought before he was devoured by ravenous flames savoring their meal?

Don't let me rise again, I beg you.