This is a oneshot with the same OC and storyline as my other two Ulquiorra oneshots, Questions and Answers. I would recommend reading those two first, but it isn't essential. This one is a bit more gritty and harsh than romantic. Enjoy!

"Oh God."

Ulquiorra didn't believe in God. He had assumed that she didn't either, since he had yet to encounter an arrancar who did, but perhaps he had been wrong. Several of the books she had smuggled in from the Living World dealt with theology, after all.

"Oh God, God damn it…"

There was a Hell to be damned to, certainly. No God sent them there, unless one might count the Reapers of the Soul Society. They were hardly supreme beings to be worshipped, though, and he knew she would never call to a Soul Reaper for deliverance. Her salvation lay closer to the Devil.

"Please."

Ulquiorra almost raised a brow. She had whispered the word quietly, as soft as the pads of her fingers, as subtle as the slope of her breasts, as wavering as her lashes and as distant as her eyes; the word was so close to not even being there that Ulquiorra almost didn't hear it. But he did hear. And he knew that her plea, whatever it was, would have to go denied.

"That's enough," he said. Just barely, he saw her twitch. "You've spent enough time here. It would be counterproductive to Aizen-sama's plans if we were to be discovered."

For a moment, the only sounds were her shaky breathing and the squeaking of the swing in front of her. Then one of her hands groped in the playground's sand for the sword to her left, closing around the grip, and she clumsily pushed herself up off of her knees. When she made no further move but remained staring down at the ground, Ulquiorra stepped forward and took hold of her arm, turning her to face him.

Her downturned face was streaked as much with blood as with tears. The front of her shirt and hakama were so drenched that parts appeared more black than crimson, as though she had bathed in the gory mess. Grunting disapprovingly, Ulquiorra turned and began walking her away from the playground, leaving a small carcass to rot in the middle of it. When she started lagging to look over her shoulder, Ulquiorra opened the garganta and pushed her through in front of him.

"Ulquiorra." There was a question coming. He knew her well enough to know. "We were human once, weren't we?"

It was clear that she already knew the answer to that—she was leading up to something. Ulquiorra watched her eyes scan the horizon from the window sill. "Yes. A long time ago."

She grunted, a small noncommittal sound in her throat, and even though she probably hadn't intended it to be read into, it made it clear that she wasn't in the best of moods. Maybe it was because she didn't have a book in hand. Maybe she was thinking too much. Whatever it was, it made her nostrils flare and her fingers twitch, tiny little indications of restlessness that Ulquiorra didn't miss.

"Then we aren't human anymore?" She sounded almost pleading despite her casual tone.

"No."

"Is it because we are only souls? We hurt like them. …We bleed," she added quietly after a momentary pause.

Ulquiorra, who had been leaning against the wall, straightened up with a barely-audible sigh and clacked his way over to the window she was leaning in. As she lifted her chin from her palm to look at him, questioning, he took her hand and pulled her sleeve up to her elbow. She frowned and eyed the tile floor while he inspected her forearm. He counted. Four. Without a word, he took her other arm and checked that one as well. Two. He dropped her hand and turned towards the door.

"Let's go."

She furrowed her brows, adjusting her sleeves. "Where?"

"Sparring."

The shower ran for fifteen minutes before the sound of the water in the pipes diminished and cut off. Ulquiorra's eyes scanned her room lazily while clothing rustled behind the bathroom door. Two bookshelves, a couch, a bed, a table and two chairs. He frowned and ran his gaze over the room again. The books had always been packed tightly into the shelves, some stacked on top of each other for lack of space, but now there were small piles tucked anywhere discreet enough that anyone would pass by them without a second thought.

Ulquiorra wasn't just anyone. He had noticed the books multiplying more rapidly than ever, spreading like a contagion. He had noticed the time she spent outside her room decreasing. And he had also noticed her spiritual pressure vanishing into the Living World more often than ever. It was appalling that he hadn't put an end to it before she got to this point.

Her hair was still visibly damp when she stepped out of the bathroom, her blood-soaked hakama wrapped in a towel and tucked under her arm. The crisp white of her fresh clothes clashed with her bleak expression. "You didn't have to wait for me."

"Yes, I did." Ulquiorra stepped away from the wall as she made her way to the laundry hamper next to the bed and dumped the bundle in. When she turned to him, he held out a hand. "Your arms."

Her eyes dropped to the ground, the brows pinching. "I don't need you to—"

"Your arms. Now."

Sighing quietly, she held out her arms and let him push back her sleeves to count. The numbers were the same—four on the right, two on the left—but they were puffy and irritated, and he could see red stripes where her nails had raked them. He turned away and clacked towards the bathroom.

"You have bandages, don't you?"

"Yes. Bottom cupboard."

The roll of gauze was in his hand when she said "Ulquiorra" in that tone that he knew well. He didn't respond, just waited for the question to come. It wasn't what he expected.

"Do you know what I told her before I killed her?"

Attack. Parry and riposte. Withdraw briefly, fire a cero as a diversion, and attack again. Ulquiorra noticed the pattern more quickly than she had probably anticipated, and her reaction time was so sluggish he was able to disarm her before she even hit the ground. Her hair clip tumbled across the sand. Grimacing, she twisted under the forearm he had braced against her neck, struggling to pull her sword hand out of his grasp.

"Your mind is wandering," he pointed out, deftly grabbing her free hand before she could cero him at point blank. "At this level, even an unseated officer could stand up to you."

She grunted irritably as she tried to jerk free a few more times before finally slumping against the sand in defeat. "Alright, I lose. Again." He didn't move, earning a questioning look. "Ulquiorra? Can I get up now?"

Instead of answering, his face dropped lower until their noses almost brushed. Her sword, cast somewhere to the side, reflected an elongated version of him as his mouth inched closer, closer, then past her lips to hover by her ear.

"Why do you keep doing this?" Ulquiorra's fingers squeezed her wrist to indicate the scars under her sleeve, his voice lower but not gentler. "It's counterproductive. It's childish. If you're angry, then kill your enemies. This doesn't help you."

She felt her jaw tighten. "Look, I'm dealing with it, so you don't have to—"

"'Dealing with it' is not good enough. If this doesn't end soon, I will take action myself." Ulquiorra pushed himself to his feet, and she slowly followed suit, pulling her sword to her and sheathing it. "We're going back."

He had only taken a few steps towards Las Noches, expecting to hear her follow, when a familiar ripping sound reached his ears. When he turned around, she was halfway through the tear in the garganta.

"She asked me who I was before she saw the sword." The bandages rustled as Ulquiorra wound them around her arm. "Well, first she asked if I could see her. Then she asked who I was."

Ulquiorra tied a firm knot and then took her other arm. "What did you say?"

"I said, 'I'm a monster.'" Ulquiorra paused. He raised a pair of piercing green eyes to her red-ringed ones, her always-distant eyes that were waiting for a reaction. A silent moment passed, and she thinned her lips. "You're not going to deny it?"

"We are all monsters."

"I didn't say 'we.' I said 'I.'"

The garganta was closing, but she didn't turn away. It was like she was waiting for something—waiting for him to do something.

Ulquiorra kept her stare for a long time, so long that for a moment it seemed like he wasn't going to answer. Then, his gaze dropped and he continued bandaging her arm. "I can't decide that for you."

"Then what about you? What have you decided?"

Her eyes pleaded with him. Their silence was a shrill scream.

"I have decided to be a monster."

"Is that…easier?"

Imploring. Begging.

"If easy is what you are looking for…"

Save me.

"…then die."

She faltered visibly. Tying the end of the bandage, Ulquiorra stood and started towards the door. She fidgeted, her mouth partly open as though she wanted to say something, but nothing came out.

He turned away.

As he stepped out into the hall, Ulquiorra told her, "Stay here," and closed the door. Through the shrinking opening, he saw her face, a mask of desolation, disappear like it had when the garganta closed earlier. There was one difference. At that time, in the split second between breaking her gaze and turning his back, her face had contorted into an ugly vision of despair—not the pretty manicured despair they show in the movies on the faces of beautiful actors and actresses, but the raw pain that claws its way up onto a person's face and twists it into a crinkled mess of tears and mucus. The kind of despair that comes when someone turns their back on pleading eyes. His despair.

Ulquiorra thought he heard a soft cry, but the sound of the garganta sealing itself drowned it out. His feet kicked up small clouds of sand as pale as salt, leaving a wake of dust and deep imprints that could have been followed if someone were there to see them. But no one was there. No one heard the shuffle of sand pause. No one saw him bend down and tuck her hair clip into his pocket.

Her pale hair curtained her face as she cradled her head in her hands.

Thank you for reading. I like toying with the shades of gray in the good vs evil spectrum, especially distorting them with motives and unexpected reactions. There are always monsters inside us. Coaxing them out is just a matter of pushing the right buttons.

I was a little reluctant to go with the wrist slitting cliché, but considering that Ulquiorra helped settle her feelings in Questions by making her bleed, I figured that it was a logical reaction for her to apply that solution to her current inner conflict. Hopefully that makes sense.