Don't own characters or dialogue.
As Ulquiorra stood, disintegrating slowly, he felt oddly separate from it all. There was no reason for him to focus on the corrosion of his body, spreading though it was. It was simply inevitable. His attention towards that fact could not change it. After his final request for a swift end at the hands of the shinigami had been denied, he saw no purpose to any of the few things that he would be able to do in his last moments. So he decided he would do nothing.
He was surprised, then, when he found his eyes locked in the gaze of the woman, his charge of the last few days. She had fascinated him, in a vague sort of way. He had had limited experience with humanity in the past, and her strangeness surpassed even that. She clung to irrational and immaterial concepts like, hope, love… the heart. Though she had no longer held a purpose to Aizen, Ulquiorra had been reluctant to let her go; she was a mystery that he would have liked to solve, one of the few things that his eye and unfailing logic could not help him understand. And here he was, dying for that fascination.
He might have been resentful if she did not continue to fascinate him even still. As he stared impassively at the woman, he found himself wondering at how expressive her eyes could be. The eye, unchanging in and of itself, with its stark white and splash of color, should have seemed separate from the body, inanimate, inexpressive. But how strange it was, that the tiniest shift of the minute muscles surrounding her eyes could display such a range of emotion. Not that he was able to interpret what those eyes held, but it was fascinating none the less.
He finally admits to himself, and aloud, that he was interested in them, in her. The revelation startles him even as he speaks the words, though it does not show on his face. He gravitates towards her, reaching out, and finds himself with only one question in his mind:
"Are you afraid of me, woman?"
He sees so much emotion in her eyes, and asks about the one emotion he is intimately familiar with, the one emotion that he desperately wishes her not to feel. Her answer simultaneously relieves and bewilders him:
"I'm not afraid."
And somehow, he feels what she has been trying so hard to impress on him. At her words, his… heart grows lighter. Or at least, he thinks this may be the sensation she would describe with those words. She reaches out, mirroring his own actions, and he can't help but think there is something significant about it. His normal skepticism is in shambles and he's certain that there is some aspect beyond the physical attributed to her hand, reaching out towards his own. Perhaps… perhaps this is the heart he had so firmly denied, he thinks as his hand blows to ash on the wind, followed by the rest of his body.
"Really…"
His last word is nothing more than a sigh.
A/N: I know this has been done before, but it popped into my head and had to be written. It's not terribly original, I think. Also, forgive me for the title; I know it's been used before by other fics, but nothing else seemed to fit.
If anyone on author alert sees this and is disappointed, I'm sorry. I have actually been working on my other fics after two long years (has it really been that long?) and will hopefully have more updates in the near future. No promises though, as I am a lazy bum.