The halls of Las Noches were deathly quiet; the sounds of the lone arrancar's footsteps echoing like drums.
The footsteps belonged to Ulquiorra Cifer, the fourth ranker arrancar, Espada cuatro. His jacket flowed behind him as he walked, moving at an unusually brisk pace, hands in his pockets.
Over the past few days unnerving whispers and rumours had reached his ears. They were slightly different, but they all concerned one person, Inoue Orihime, the human woman Aizen had ordered him to kidnap, the one placed under his care.
It had started several days prior, while he'd been nose deep in a book on human behaviour he'd been approached by Szayel, Espada octava. The pink haired Espada had questioned him on Orihime. They had been odd questions to say the least, questions regarding her pain threshold and strength. None of which he knew the answer to. Szayel politely accepted this and left.
Later that same day he went to inquire about the eating habits of humans and what was safe for them to eat. The lab was empty, much to his surprise, and he was about to leave to look for him elsewhere, or inquire as to his whereabouts, when something caught his eye, some papers lying out on the desk. An unusual curiosity getting the better of him, Ulquiorra picked up the papers to see what they were about. The notes on them were written in Szayel's own fluid, curly handwriting, which he could not make out. The images and labels and information on them however was not, it was printed. It seemed to be something on the transformation of a human to a hollow.
Ulquiorra simply shook his head and put the papers down, passing them off as nothing more than the ramblings and ideas of a crazy, mad scientist with nothing better to do with his time.
Only now did he regret ignoring them and what was written on them.
In the preceding days from that incident, he heard whispers all strangely similar. Eventually, after hearing enough of these rumours, that Szayel was conducting experiments involving transforming living creatures into hollows, Ulquiorra decided to question him about them to see if they were true.
"My work? Well you've never shown an interest in it before but alright, yes I have been working on that sort of thing. I've started small of course, just to see if it worked at all, on small animals. But, you're more interested in whether or not it worked aren't you?" he didn't give the pale Espada a chance to answer before he continued speaking again, "It does, but not well, and not without its share of problems. The changes seem to be painful indeed and, they don't survive long after the change either. I have no live test subjects to show you I'm afraid, to weak to handle it. But no need to worry, I'll work that little kink out."
For some reason, this unnerved the normally calm arrancar. As he turned to leave, he caught sight of something new on the papers that lay on his desk, Aizen's signature. What was he up to? Turning humans into hollows, why? Didn't Aizen have enough hollows and arrancar under his control?
The arrancar stopped as he reached the door to her room, chest heaving slightly, having almost run all the way there.
He placed a hand on the door and exhaled, closing his eyes
The other day he'd heard Szayel and Aizen talking and what he'd heard unnerved him.
"I'm quite sure it'll work Aizen-sama. The other test subjects did not survive because they were too weak, but a human would be much stronger, and more likely to survive the process."
And, you say this will produce an arrancar strength hollow?"
"Y-yes sir. I just need you to allow me to continue, and I would need a human-"
"You mean you want the girl?" There was something laughing and cold, about Aizen's voice.
"Well, her Spiritual Power is far stronger than that of a normal human's, and trying to find another like that would be hard."
"Very well..."
Ulquiorra didn't stick around to hear the rest; he'd heard enough to know what was going on.
And yet, the thought of her being used as a lab rat in one of Szayel's experiments one that would cause her unimaginable pain, and quite possible kill her, sickened him.
He couldn't allow this to happen, and yet, there was no way for him to set her free without her getting caught again and experimented on.
The door opened with a light click and he stepped inside.
"Cifer-kun!" her bright voice called out his name in surprise as she turned to see him. Her brown-grey eyes wide in surprise seemed to sparkle excitedly. "What are you doing here Cifer-kun?"
He breathed a sigh of relief, they hadn't taken her yet.
She frowned slightly, a little confused. The Espada's normally stoic expression was mingled with anxiety and worry.
"Is everything alright?" she asked.
"It will be soon enough." he thought. There was only one thing he could do to save her, even though it would likely result in his death if it was discovered what he was about to do.
Her hand touched the side of his face lightly, gentle concern in her soft brown eyes.
He closed his eyes, one hand going to the hilt of his zanpakuto.
A barely audible gasp escaped her lips, her expression becoming one of shock and confusion.
"Just an order woman." he lied as he drew his blade back, the end stained with her blood. "I'm sorry."