I`d forgotten.
Over the years and decades and centuries, I`d managed to completely erase from my mind any memory of having once been one of them.
Of having been human.
Of having felt this tight bundle of pure life… right there… in my palm.
My eyes could see everything. I knew that. It still was true, at that moment, as my body dissolved into ash and the eyes, the eyes that saw everything became blind and ever-so-gently fluttered shut. That girl –that 'princess'—the Shinigami—they all dimmed as if a cloud had hid the moon suddenly.
There are no clouds in Hueco Mundo. Only the moon. I don`t mind. It`s beautiful. White, and luminous, curved so gracefully upon itself, like some wondrous blade over our heads –peaceful, with a sweet watchful gaze – all-powerful, like the weapon of fatality, stern and cold.
The only clouds my eyes have ever seen are from the Real World. The Human World. I`ve always thought that it was a much richer world by far than ours. It is not quite as desolate, or silent, or so eternally still…
There are so many more things in the Human World than in Hueco Mundo.
I wish my eyes had had the time to see them all before they closed.
There is another presence inside of me –something strange and new and alien to me—a third eye, is it? It opened. It opened and suddenly the world is so much more interesting than before: many new things appear, and I marvel at the sight of them; they are beautiful; my eyes cannot see them, but somehow, something inside of me –this new third eye, perhaps—tells me that that they are here, and that they are beautiful –and I know that it is the truth.
Even the word 'beautiful' seems new to me. It is not the first time that I use it, nor feel it –but this kind of beautiful… have I ever felt it before?
… Oh, yes.
Why yes, yes I most definitely have.
It`s a shame I`m only realizing it now, really.
Now, as I am dying.
Because now I remember who I have felt was beautiful –the only person I had ever or will ever deem beautiful.
The realization that I`ll never see that person again hits me, suddenly. And this thing inside of me –this new presence, which is actually old and buried and forgotten—it twists painfully. So this –this is what they called sadness, or regret.
I wish I could see that person again. They have probably forgotten me, though –and as I think that I feel another twist. They have probably put me as far from their mind as possible—and I don`t bIame them. How could I? I have lost that right, long, long ago. I have done them wrong. I`ve hurt them. I`ve been cruel to them.
I`ve been cruel to a lot of people. But this is perhaps the only cruelty I regret.
The biggest mistake of my long, pitiful existence.
I am pitiful. I used to think I was strong. I didn`t feel any particular pride or arrogance about it. I didn`t flaunt my strenght out to other people—unlike… unlike that person whom it suddenly hurts so much to think about.
But now I am pitiful –now, at the hour of my death, with the eyes of those humans looking upon me. Suddenly I feel lonely, scared even.I am dying and I will be gone soon and the only people in the world to have seen me like this, sad and pitiful and defenseless, but with a heart, will be those humans. My enemy.
I may have lost all desire to eliminate them –even for my lord- and they may have granted me one last moment of peace as I pass away into the wind, but for the longest time, they were my enemy and that's not the kind of thing that just gets erased with death. At least, in my opinion.
The opinion of a heartless, dying Hollow.
Surely, a human`s opinion should be more charitable?
I feel small –so small.
So vulnerable. I feel like my entire being is shrivelling up on itself, wrinkling, aging, dying in a matter of minutes, seconds. A gust of wind could blow me away. Me, Ulquiorra Cifer, who has lived decades and centuries. I feel as if I would cry, actually cry true tears from my blind eyes, if someone touched me. I`d cry and curl up into a ball, like a child. Like that person did, sometimes. Now I realize why.
Was it to forget this horrible, desperate, ever-present emptiness inside of you?
That thing inside of you, that thing which you no longer had nor felt, but suffered from its absence?
Tell me, was it to keep at bay that terrifying, crushing feeling of being utterly, completely hollow? Did you feel so hollow that it made you want to cry?
That hole in your abdomen –tell me, did it hurt to feel air passing through it every second? Nothing can stay with you, in you –everything passes through you, and you pass through everything. Because you`re empty.
Because you`re hollow.
You`re a hollow.
And nothing can change that; it is the unlucky circumstances of your death that have brought you here, and from here no ship will carry you further on. You`re stuck here. We`re all stuck here.
The girl looks at me with wide, sad grey eyes, and kind too. There is no fear in them; only an immense ocean of pity. Is it me she`s looking at with such pity? Is she feeling sorry for me?
That person would have been furious if she had looked upon him with such eyes.
I should be angry too, I suppose, or at least unsetlled; I`m not.
Suddenly the idea of causing pity in someone`s heart isn`t repulsive anymore. I am so small and helpless there`s no use in denying anything anymore.
Oh, human girl; of all the beings that have crossed my path, whether it was of their own will or not, you are surely the most selfless and pure.
There it is again: regret. What a despicable feeling. And yet, so beautiful too.
You are kind, and forgiving.
You could`ve been what they called a `friend` to me, as pitiful and cruel as I was, and still am; of all people, you would`ve had the tolerance to forgive my faults…
… and I would have felt genuine affection for you.
I feel the ghost of it presently.
It is too late to affect kindness, or guilt for my crimes; it is too late now to have a heart, but can it not be of some use? Can it not serve for some kind of absolution for everything that I have done in my life?
She is beautiful. The Shinigami too. And the desert. And the night and the moon and the wind that I cannot see and the hearts that are invisible to my eyes –all of them, all of them are beautiful, breathtakingly so, but they still do not hold a candle to… to… to that person.
There is another twist, unbearingly painful, and suddenly the black sky and white sand is replaced by a curtain of pure cerulaen blue in front of my eyes –the ones that see everything and the ones that see only the most important. Blue...
Oh, my fierce beauty –the only being for whom I have felt that thing called "love", that thing that is by far the purest of the emotions I could not feel.
My fierce beauty—the one being I want to see now with all my eyes, with all my force, with all my poor heart, with all the useless nothingness within me.
My beloved –you have called me that, and you have called me beautiful, and you have loved me truly, dearly even—and though I know that it is too late to call you that now, I cannot help doing so. I finally understand what you felt.
Can you believe it? I finally have a heart—it is for you, my last gift to you, it is not much, but it is all I have left to give you, my only love. Will it be enough, I wonder?
It is the best I can offer you. You deserve better—you deserve everything good in this world and all the worlds. I want only the best or you. Run from anyone who would give you any less than that –run, I tell you, you fool! I know you are not a coward; you are courageous –do you think I would`ve loved you if you weren`t? But it is that very same courage that puts you in danger most of the time; there are times where the best thing you can do is run. And I want you to stay safe in the future, because I won`t be there to protect you anymore.
The blue curtain is blinding my eyes; it`s so bright that it hurts to look at it. How lovely is that pain! How tender is its blow! May this sweet torture never end –as long as I am drowning in this color it still feels like some part of you is in me, with me—forever.
And I know, I know what this delightful curtain is: it is my heart. It has your name written all over it.
Our strange "relationship", if we may even call it that, was never easy; it was tumultuous and impredictible –much like yourself. I can`t deny that I haven`t exactly been easy either. Each second we spent together, we practically skinned each other alive. You snarled and yelled and spat at me; you tried to kill me several times – several times, you screamed at me that you hated me more than anyone or anything. You`ve punched me and bit me and scratched me until I bled on your hands—and I loved you more than anything.