The Surprise

Genre: Humor/Light Romance

Rating: K+/T

Characters: Ulquiorra Schiffer, Inoue Orihime, Aizen Sosuke, Ichimaru Gin, Tousen Kaname, Szayel Aporro Grantz, Wonderwice Margera, Grimmjow Jeagerjacques, Nnoitora, Halibel

Mentioned: Tesla, Lolly, Menoly, many other arrancars

Pairings: Hints of UlquiOri, OrihimexSzayel friendship (XDDD Couldn't help myself. I just had to make Orihime and Szayel become friends!!!)

Summary: It's Ulquiorra's birthday! And of course, thanks to a certain Espada (hint, hint), Orihime now knows and plans a special birthday party for him! But of course, nothing can go right with an Espada that is not fond of birthdays like Ulquiorra, and chaos is inevitably ensured.

Chapter Preview: With a sigh, Ulquiorra took one look at the decorative room and...he took off as fast as his flash steps would let him.

Orihime cried out is distress. "Ulquiorra! Wait! You need to celebrate your birthday!"

AN: Well, this story is for Reverberatingwinds-san as a birthday present! Of course, we both have decided on the notation of Ulquiorra's birthday being in the winter, like in December, but since today (10/4/07) is Rever-san's birthday and she really (and I mean really) likes Ulquiorra (and UlquiOri!), I've decided to put together a birthday story that revolves around the theme of birthdays, chaos (which she loves oh so much!), Ulquiorra, and of course, to help add in the craziness and UlquiOri moments, Orihime herself. XDDD

...after rereading a lot of what I wrote, I must warn you readers: I am prone to adding sarcasm, and in which I found that my unintentional sarcasm might actually be funny...but then we all know (well, for those who know me or have read any previous works that I did) that I am prone to add some sort of...how shall I put it..."humor" in my works...wait, is sarcasm supposed to be funny? XD Well, of course it is...unless you have a weird, twisted sense of what humor is, or you just plain out don't even have one. /Is Bricked/

Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach and all brain damage complaints should be sent to Kubo Tite, the creator of this oh-so-wonderful manga, himself. XDDD J/K

Name: Inoue Orihime

Age: 15

Occupation: student at Karakura High School.

Status: prisoner in Hueco Mundo.

Mood: completely and utterly b-o-r-e-d, bored.

Sighing, the girl threw away the piece of paper that she was writing on. Well, there went all of my efforts to salvage some paper to write something out of pure boredom, she though with a sigh. And Ulquiorra isn't here yet. I. Am. So. BORED! With a cry of dismay, she buried her head in her arms.

The door suddenly banged open and a pink haired arrancar with a glasses-like mask fragment sauntered in, his/her hand resting on the hilt of his zanpakuto. It was really hard for Orihime to tell if the arrancar was a male or female. "Oi, onna, get up!" the arrancar shouted. The voice was deep. Definitely a male.

Orihime raised her head and furrowed her brows. "Where's Ulquiorra?" she asked, a small frown forming on her lips. "And who are you? Why are you here?"

"I am called in the manner of Szayel Aporro Grantz," the arrancar replied, giving her a malicious chuckle. "Szayel for short. Ulquiorra is out on a mission right now and won't be back for several days. I am to be your babysitter until then."

Orihime looked at her lap, down casted. 'And I finally came up with a good topic discussion for us too,' she thought dejectedly. She glanced up when Szayel's hand was waved in front of her face.

"Eh, onna, pay attention here," he scolded, giving her a frown. "I'm not doing this because I want to, you know, but the prospect of "observing" you does have its charms."

Orihime gave him a look of disgust and leaned back into her couch. "What do you want?" she asked angrily.

He grinned lazily. "Oh, nothing much," he replied coolly. "You eating would be one. Don't want Ulquiorra skinning me alive and all."

"I'm not hungry."

"How does the prospect of cooking whatever you want to eat sound?"

Orihime blinked and gave him a look of disbelief. "Are you...serious?" she asked.

"Do I look like I'm joking?" The girl shook her head. Szayel gave her a smirk. "Good. Now, let's get going."

They left the room, for Orihime, the first time since she had first stepped foot into this dreary place with Ulquiorra. The white and black hallways were deserted and desolate like the rest of the world that the citadel inhabited. The kitchen was located on the ground floor, two stories higher than the lowest basement of the citadel, right next to the dinning room.

When the doors to the kitchen opened, Orihime couldn't help but gape at its large, white, spotless, and practically sparkling counter tops, sinks, stoves, ovens, utensils, everything. "I think I'm in heaven," she said in a dreamy state. "Which is funny since I've already been to Soul Society and—"

"Focus, onna," Szayel interrupted. "Now, you can use whatever you want, but don't make a huge mess. If you do, you'll have to clean it all up by hand until everything is spotless and sparkling again."

Gulping, she nodded and put on a determined face. "Don't worry, Szayel-kun!" she replied, balling her fists. "I won't make a single mess at all!"

"Szayel-kun?" the octava Espada asked with disbelief. "Szayel-KUN?!"

But the girl did not pay him any heed. Instead, she rushed over to the refrigerator and peered inside. "Uwah!" she squealed. "Wow, there's so much food in here! Oh! There's even noodles in here! I know! I'll make red bean udon with miso, pork, eggs, wasabi, oolong, mitarashi, anko, ketchup, and chocolate syrup!"

Szayel gave her a curious look. "I've been researching what humans eat," he said, looking at the ingredients she took out. "But I've never heard of that strange combination before. Is it good?"

"Eeeeeeehhhhhh? You never heard of it before?!" Orihime exclaimed, looking utterly shocked. "Wow! You have got to try it! It's so good! Here, I'll make you some!"

Twenty minutes later, the two sat around the island in the middle of the kitchen, enjoying a bowl of nice, hot, homemade (or as close to homemade as you could when you're a prisoner in the lion's den) udon noodles and soup.

Slurping a long noodle, Szayel nodded his head in approval. "You are right, Orihime-chan," he said. "This is good!" Orihime grinned and shot him an 'I-told-you-so!' look. Looking thoughtful, Szayel added, "It's almost lunch time too. We should make them some of your special udon!"

"Yay! We should!"

Two hours and some minutes later, Orihime and Szayel stood over on the side, grinning happily to themselves as the arrancars all took a seat at the ridiculously long table. All of them (except for Tousen and Wonderwice, of course) looked at the bowls in front of them with mixed looks of disgust, displeasure, and discomfort.

Orihime had looked expectantly at the doorway ever since the first dinner came in, hoping to find Ulquiorra, but it had proven to be futile. Even now, when everyone had taken a seat, she couldn't help but take a long sweeping glance at the table, hoping to find the familiar ink black hair and horned helmet. Alas, her search for her missing guard ended in a failure again.

Aizen stood up, a grimace of a smile on his face. "Eh, today we are privileged to eat a special lunch that Inoue-chan and Szayel made for us," he announced. "So, without further ado, please, enjoy your food."

There was a small, hesitant clatter of utensils being put to use and noodles being eating. There were small murmurs about the noodles: some of disgust, some of praise for how delicious the noodles were. Tousen, Wonderwice, Nnoitora, and Halibel had taken a liking to them right away. Grimmjow, Lolly, and Menoly made faces of disgust.

Both Aizen and Gin slowly raised some noodles to their mouths and ate them. Gin's face lit up. "Hey, this stuff is actually good!" he said while Aizen's face contorted with disgust.

"Good?" Aizen managed to croak. "This is so—" Aizen made a face and ran off to find the nearest bathroom—or at least the nearest window to regurgitate whatever concoction his mad scientist arrancar and prisoner had came up with. He swore that somewhere up there in Heaven, someone, namely the big boss of the world, the guy that he was trying to overrun, a.k.a. the awesome and wonderful God that everyone knows (except Aizen because he's delusional) that he will never be able to beat, was laughing his head off at his predicament. But hey, who isn't?

All of the people at the table who weren't gagging just watched as their leader high-tailed it out of there, some (like Gin, Nnoitora, Orihime, and Szayel) had grins on their faces at the scene.

"Oh dear," Orihime said cheerfully for one who was a prisoner. "Looks like Aizen-san's sick! Oh well! I'll make him some of my special chicken noodle soup later. It's a cure all!"

"Oh, is it really?" her new pink-haired friend asked gleefully. "You have got to give me the recipe!"

"Of course!" Then Orihime's cheerful face fell. "Mou, I just wish Ulquiorra was here. I'm sure he would like my udon too..."

Szayel raised an eyebrow and smirked. "Ah. I think we shall take our leave now," he said, nodding to Gin and Tousen. "Come, Orihime-chan!"

Back in her cell, Orihime sat down on her couch with a sigh when Szayel jumped in front of her, earning him a small surprised shriek. Grinning, Szayel waved a finger at her. "Ah-ah-ah!" he said. "No time to be going emo! I have the perfect idea on how to welcome Ulquiorra when he comes back from his mission!"

"Eh? Something to welcome Ulquiorra? What is it?"

"Well, he's coming back in two days," Szayel replied. "That's the day his birthday is on. We should throw him a birthday party!"

"No way!" The door banged open as Grimmjow sauntered in. "Don't you remember the last time we throwing him a birthday party? Almost all of Las Noches was destroyed and about half of the arrancar forces were sent into a state of amnesia or insomnia."

"Not to mention about half of that half of arrancars were paranoid and had a bit of phobia of Ulquiorra for months," Halibel added, walking in with Nnoitora and Tesla behind her.

Orihime glanced between Szayel and her new visitors with confusion. "Ano...what?" she asked. "Why was almost all of Las Noches destroyed?"

Szayel sweat dropped. "E-eh, well, it's nothing important, really," he replied before turning to the guests. "And besides, when have you guys, especially you two, Grimmjow and Nnoitora, passed up the chance to see Ulquiorra have more emotion than his normal 'I-don't-care-what-the-heck-happens-just-leave-me-alone' stick-in-the-mud attitude?"

Grimmjow and Nnoitora glanced at each other. "Well," Grimmjow said. "You do have a point..."

Nnoitora nodded. "Let's do this thing, then!" he exclaimed.

Orihime nodded and grinned. "Hai! Ulquiorra's going to have the best welcome back birthday party ever!"

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Ulquiorra fought back the urge to shiver as he stood before the large white doors that led into Aizen's throne room. He just knew that whatever paranoid feeling that he had been getting several days back had something to do with the ominous feeling emitting from the room.

"I should just back away and go to my room," he muttered to himself before throwing open the doors. The site of the room confirmed his previous assumption. "I knew I should have just left."

Orihime ran up and jumped on him, hugging him so tightly that Ulquiorra could barely breathe. He swore that his circulation was cut off from her glomp. "Ulquiorra!" she squealed. "You're back! Happy birthday! Do you like it?"

"Orihime," he managed to say with his lungs cut off from the Las Noches air. "I can't breathe!"

"Oh, sorry!" the girl exclaimed, quickly letting go. "So, what do you think of your party?"

With a sigh, Ulquiorra took one look at the decorative room and...he took off as fast as his flash steps would let him.

Orihime cried out is distress. "Ulquiorra! Wait! You need to celebrate your birthday!"

Szayel, Nnoitora, and Grimmjow ran over. "Don't worry, Orihime-chan!" Szayel said. "We're going to catch him and force him to come to his own party!" And with a grin, Szayel and his two brothers ran off to find the missing Espada.

Unfortunately, the search wasn't as easy as it seemed. Ulquiorra was highly praised for his speed. He could easily outrun any of his siblings, which made the search even harder. Las Noches was a big place too, though if it was a good thing or a bad thing was how you looked at it. For Ulquiorra, it was definitely very good.

That is...unless you get into the minutiae of things. All of the hallways were stark white. If you were to hide in one of them, especially if you have black hair, you'd be given away dead straight since black and white contrast each other very much. Also, even though there were rooms, they were sparsely decorated, so one could just pop one's head in, take a quick sweeping glance, and would be able to find a hiding person very easily. And let's not forget to mention the oh so wonderful thing called reiatsu signatures.

So, it is without doubt, that both sides had at least one advantage. Or, in Ulquiorra's case, just one advantage and his incredible speed. Of course, with just these two advantages of his, Ulquiorra had to make some means of escape. His options were:

A. Surrender and go back to the party willingly. (Psh. Yeah, right.)

B. Hide (And risk being found by soul search?)

C. Go to the human world. (And hide in a place filled with trash? And they can still perform the soul search.)

D. Go to Soul Society (And have to fight all of those trash shinigami? No thanks.)

E. Do both B and C (...right. Sure.)

And thus, Ulquiorra resolved to just hide his reiatsu and hide in his room, the most decorated arrancar room in Las Noches. After all, he was Aizen's favorite and most useful, so those little perks helped. The thing is, of course, that's a pretty obvious place to hide, and prior to contrary, hiding in the most obvious place because the "they won't look in the most obvious place because it's sooo obvious" psychology does not work.

And both sides knew that.

"He is so screwed," Szayel said, his voice echoing in the long and deserted corridor. "When we find him, we're going to gag him and bring him back to his party."

"Yeah, but he's the cuatra Espada," Grimmjow countered.

"Tch. It's three against one," Nnoitora replied. "Even if he's the fourth, the three of us combined can take him down."

Szayel nodded. "Right! Now...let's bust open that door and drag him out! On three! One, two—"

BANG

"What happened to three?!"

"Sorry, got kinda inpatient."

"Well, there's something called SELF-CONTROL!"

"Jeez, Szayel, lighten up! I got impatient too, ya know!"

"AM I SURROUNDED BY IDIOTS?!"

"Hey, I resent that!"

"Oi, will you two shut up! He's getting away!" Indeed, to Nnoitora's observation, Ulquiorra really was running away. "AFTER HIM!!!"

Sighing, Ulquiorra ran even faster. Then again, who wouldn't when they absolutely loath birthday parties? The only problem was that at the end of the corridor was a dead end. Glaring at the wall, Ulquiorra swore he heard Gin in the control room, snickering to himself on how he cornered Las Noches' fastest arrancar.

"Heheh, we've got you now, Ulquiorra, dearest brother of ours!" Szayel said maliciously as the three closed in on the poor Cuatra Espada.

But of course, like a wolf surrounded by hunters, Ulquiorra was given three options:

Stand and fight them and likely lose, because even though he was higher ranked than all three of them, it was still three to one, and the chances that he would win would be two thirds not likely.

Run away. But of course, this option would also force him to fight the three, and again, his probability of winning and escaping was one third yes.

And three was to do both one and two.

Best option? Ulquiorra decided to do both. Luckily, or maybe not so luckily, he managed to win, but could only get about three or four hundred sonido steps in before he was tackled to the ground by the three. They had another little scuffle in which Ulquiorra was tied down and was dragged back to the throne room where the party was being held.

"Now, now, Ulquiorra, don't struggle," Szayel said when he noticed Ulquiorra trying to break free of the ropes. "That's not going to do you any good because you are going to go back and enjoy that party one way or another!"

"Hn," was Ulquiorra's reply. "And what makes you think that I won't try to escape again once I'm free?"

"Oh, we're going to chain you to Orihime-chan!" was Szayel's cheerful answer. "These special cuffs can only be taken off by me or by my brother, but sadly, he's dead. Oh well!"

"Oh, Szayel-kun, you're back!" Orihime said excitedly when Szayel, Nnoitora, and Grimmjow came back in, dragging an unhappy—well, what they can assume to be unhappy—Ulquiorra. "Ulquiorra, you really need to stay still! How are you going to celebrate your birthday if you don't? Eh? Szayel-kun, what are you doing?"

"Relax, Orihime-chan," came the reply from the pink-haired Espada. "I'm just handcuffing you two together so that Ulquiorra can't escape."

"Oh!"

Ulquiorra narrowed his eyes at her while Szayel handcuffed the two together, shooting her a look that seemed to say, 'Once I'm through with this, onna, you're dead'. She ignored the look and took a slice of cake, making Ulquiorra mentally shudder. It was strawberry. With leek, red bean paste, fish paste, lettuce, and pocky.

"Say 'ah', Ulquiorra!"

"Get that concoction away from me, on—mmph!" Ulquiorra's green eyes widened in shock.

'She just shoved that spoonful of cake in his MOUTH!' Szayel thought in disbelief. "YOU JUST SHOVED A SPOONFUL OF CAKE IN HIS MOUTH!!!" he couldn't help but shout as well.

A dull thump was heard when Nnoitora fainted in shock.

Szayel sweat dropped. "Um, I think it's time we leave now," he mumbled. "Oi, Grimmjow, help me drag Nnoitora back to his room."

An awkward silence filled the room as Ulquiorra tried to comprehend what had happened and Orihime just looked blankly at him, confusion written all over her face. "Ne, Ulquiorra, what just happened?" she asked.

"..."

"...Ulquiorra?"

"...just...don't ask..."

"Oh. Ok! So, what did you think of my cake?"

Ulquiorra mentally groaned. He was afraid she would ask him the question. So, after taking some time to think about it, he finally contemplated with telling her the truth. "It was...actually good..."

Orihime's eyes lit up. "Really?" she asked happily. "Yay! Orihime's going to make more food for Ulquiorra, now!" she chirped, mostly to herself, latching onto Ulquiorra's arm. "Let's go!"

'Maybe it was a bad idea to tell her that I liked the cake after all...'

lol Poor Ulquiorra! X3 Hoped you all like it! 'specially you, Rever-san! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! /Showers Rever-san in pocky and cookies/ oh, and let's not forget! /hands everyone a plate of cookies/ :3

For Rever-san:

Bon Anniversaire.

Nous voeux les plus sincères.

Que ces jolies fleurs

Vous apportent le bonheur.

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Que l'année entière

Vous soit douce et prospère.

Et qu'à l'an fini

Nous soyons tous réunis.

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Pour chanter en choeur:

Bon Anniversaire!

X3 Enjoy the French birthday song, un! 3