Title: Grasp
Fandom: Bleach
Genre: Drama, General
Rating: T
Timeline: Manga, chapter 353, "The Ash"
Word Count: 539
Summary: ...Are you afraid of me? Girl.
Insert Disclaimer of Choice here
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It is the easiest question ever posed to her, only slightly shocked, and even that's gone by now, and she thinks that if every test in school were like it, maybe she could be as smart as Kurosaki-kun, and they could go to a REALLY BIG university together, and fall in love, and raise smart orange headed children that have weird powers, and live happily ever after --
Only, someone else's story is coming to an end, and she doesn't know why she thinks there should be tears, to be valiantly fought back, but they aren't there, and she feels so drained, she thinks she might not get up if she sat down. She can't sit down, she can't fall down, yet. This chapter isn't over, yet...
She remembers this, there is a cycle to this, and the test is fill-in-the-blank.
Step one: A person is born. Step two: A person dies. Step three a: A person's soul goes to Seireitei. Step three b: A person's soul transforms into a Hollow. Note: At any point after Step three b, it is still possible for a soul to go to theSeireitei after being purified by a Shinigami, see Step four a...
But there it gets fuzzy and she starts to wish she had taken better notes or not traded letters with Tatsuki-chan or stared at the teacher and not out the window, because this is the Really Important Part, and all she can remember is...
All of the Espada are of the Great Hollows -- they are the culmination of many souls, with one controlling the combined power.
Each Espada is a collection of souls.
Ulquiorra is a collection of souls.
Ulquiorra is -- was -- started out as just... a person...
She does not like him. She knows this with as stark a clarity as she knows that given the chance, she will unmake the Houguoku and ruin all that Aizen plans to do with it. She knows it like she knows that Kurosaki-kun will fight Aizen until one of them is dead, and that soon Tatsuki-chan will find out about everything, because Tatsuki-chan just doesn't let nakama go. She knows it like she knows that under different circumstances...
I'm finally starting to find you guys a little interesting.
She could have.
And anyone that is a friend of hers, or could be...
He deserves the truth, even if, a part of her is laughing hysterically, it isn't what he wants her to say.
"I'm not scared." Her voice does not shake, and tears do not fall, and the page has not yet turned, don't make the page turn, please.
He's so very, very still, and bits of him are still -- drifting away --
"I see."
Of course he does, she thinks; she had always suspected, that those eyes could see right through her. She reaches out --
It isn't fair, she thinks, as she grasps only the slightest bit of ash.
"Somehow our devils are never quite what we expect when we meet them face to face." --Nelson DeMille
Author's Notes Bleh. Definitely not quite what I wanted to capture, but then again, I had three different lines of thought going on, and none of them wanted to merge into a single piece, the stubborn little things. This is just the one that got completed. Mostly unedited, simply because my brain was fried while trying to write, and still is. In any case, critique is appreciated!