These drabble-fic things were written for LJ's community, Bleach15. Yeah. I hope you enjoy them!

A Benediction

Theme 1: Shinigami

The next time Ulquiorra meets Kurosaki, he sees not who he's seen before, but someone new.

The boy comes charging through the wall, through the melee of people, through all adversity and still perseveres. Rubble and various other debris cloud the air in the obligatory dramatic fashion only to be settled in seconds, revealing the shock of red hair and blood-covered scowl of the intruder.

Ulquiorra waits, as he often does, and watches. It takes the boy a few moments to locate his new opponent, stupid thing that he is.

He wonders if this isn't just dumb luck that brought the boy here, or real courage. Unfortunately, there are too many definitions of the latter to clearly define the answer.

When Ulquiorra was first born, Aizen explained to him thus: "I am courageous. In the face of opposition, I have not only tried the unachieved, but I have succeeded. Courage is the ability to go unflinchingly where no man--" And here he paused and looked smilingly down at his creation, "—Or otherwise free-thinking being has gone before."

When Ulquiorra met Orihime, his definition was altered yet again. "Courage," She informed him dutifully when asked about her friends, "is when you do something even when you know it is impossible." This was not much different from the original one, and he told her so. "No, it is different," She insisted, eyes upturned defiantly, always strong. "Courage is when you stand up for something that is right, and not for the sake of personal ambition."

Ah. So there it was. Ulquiorra supposed the boy was courageous, if stupidly so. The probability of the achievement of their goal was next to nil, but still it was sought after.

"You!" The boy exclaims, finally discovering him. "I'll beat you, and you'll tell me where Inoue is!" He waves his sword tip in the air, threatening-like.

Ulquiorra does not respond.

"Well?" He obviously expects some kind of response. "Which will it be?"

Considering a moment, Ulquiorra finally speaks. "I will defeat you, for more reasons than one."

Orihime flickers through his mind's eye, the last piercing look she gave him, but he does not take back his words.

Kurosaki smirks, and he is almost infuriatingly self-assured. "Oh? I think I have something to say about that."

Before he left, Orihime had stopped him in the halls. "You're going to fight him now, aren't you?"

Ulquiorra had paused, and stared at her. "Yes."

She managed a small smile. "Good luck, then."

The boy rushes forward, brandishing shiny steel and brazen force. He is only testing the waters, and Ulquiorra steps aside. Not enough. This boy will have to perform to a greater extent to gain any sort of respect or equal footing.

"You want him dead?" Ulquiorra brought himself to ask her, in the hallway. Otherwise, why would she offer him luck?

"No," She responded, speaking one of the first truths she had uttered in the days following her acquisition (Ulquiorra was not fond of the term 'kidnapping'). "But I don't want you dead either."

Green eyes watched her fidget under his gaze.

"So I will give you this warning," And words fell forth from her mouth as fast, it seemed, as blessings dropped from her fingers. They were worth gold, these words, these blessings, these graces of her very existence.

It wasn't until now that Ulquiorra realized their worth.

"Come on, draw your sword," The boy prompts with a slash. "You don't have to release yet, I just wanna see it."

Ulquiorra sidesteps another advance, takes in his surroundings, and makes sure that he doesn't get himself pushed up against a wall. "Not until you go Bankai, boy."

"Am I not worth it?"

"Is that a rhetorical question?"

During the few days Orihime resided in Hueco Mundo, Ulquiorra had accompanied her on her many missions. She gave the lower arrancar back their arms, their legs, their masks, their lives. She uttered words of hope and whispered encouragement, and it seemed as though she could see no thing in pain. Despite her place, these gestures of goodwill came naturally to her, and she distributed them equally and without discrimination. She was the maternal influence none of them had, and she only wished to make them whole again, to ease their empty feelings.

"I know you probably have inferred this," She told Ulquiorra, "But Ichigo is stronger than he may seem, or even understands himself. He is no mere shinigami."

Orihime turned to face her initial captor, to enunciate properly what she believed.

"So this is my benediction to you, Ulquiorra."

He could never forget that look. Her eyes burned with ill-hidden anger and contemptuous rage for what he did to her, and, more punctuated, what he was going to do to her by going into this battle.

"Come back alive if you can, and although I know you have a duty to perform, I will be hoping for both of your survivals." She lowered her head slightly in an attempt to hide her traitorous eyes. "Ichigo is more than a mere shinigami," She said once again. "He is a Vizard."

Kurosaki's zanpakuto comes dangerously close to Ulquiorra's foot whilst he is still remembering. This does not escape his notice.

"You're supposed to be focusing, arrancar!" He yells. "What's distracting you?"

After a moment's hesitation, Ulquiorra's hand moves to his sword's hilt. "Unfortunately, I may have to disobey her wishes."

He does not think, 'I must destroy him because he is the girl's treasure'. He does not think, 'I must destroy him because she hates me because of him'. He does not know exactly what he thinks, because he does not understand the tumult of thoughts and information and those all-too-dreaded feelings that are flooding through him at this moment.

"What is distracting me?" He repeats the boys question, unzips his white uniform to reveal the hole that is always present in his mind. "I told you, there was more than one reason for me to destroy you, shinigami." He stops to correct his mistake. "No, Vizard." And Kurosaki's face is enough of a reward.

Ulquiorra's thumb snaps the sword grip out of its sheath. "That is not what is distracting me, however. What is distracting me is the possibility of becoming whole once more. Is that not courage?"

And he swings his blade down in a monsoon of what was, what is, and what is possible or impossible.

A/N: Hopefully the last line was not too melodramatic. :\ Please CC!