Notes:

THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION IN AN ALTERNATE UNIVERSE. We do not own Bleach nor the characters used. They belong to their respective owners. Please feel free to comment or leave a review. We reply to comments! Kudos are awesome too. Thank you for reading!

Done for day 3 and day 7 of Ulquihime Week 2018! Magical Character Jar was used for this fic.

This is a joint story by users JK Robertson u/8377967/JK-Robertson and EspadaFour u/9915520/EspadaFour

EIV: *Gets soapbox and podium*
JKR: SIGH. Here she goes.
EIV: *DEEP BREATH* I HAVE A PRIEST KINK. It's never extended to the Bleach fandom but mostly just Priest!Kylo Ren... *Drool*
JKR: *SNAPS FINGERS* Your time is dwindling Pinkie Pie.
EIV: Oh, right. ANYWAY... Kinktober came and I was sad there was no priest thing on there because BRUH I WOULD HAVE DRAWN IT WITH KYLO REN.
JKR: LOLOLOL
EIV: Someone who shall remain nameless said Ulquiorra in a cassock and ISTG... my brain went ...^_^ YASSSS BITCH, YES! LET US DO THIS!
JKR: We did it.
EIV: ALSO, I challenged JKR to do Nanowrimo with me... We had a goal of 100K words... I should point out that this fic practically wrote itself. Like we laid 160,000+ words down in 2 weeks. Then spent a week writing the sequel only to scrap it and rewrite FMF.


CHAPTER 1: White Easter Lilies

It was still in the house. The child with black hair and green eyes should have been in bed. Inside of him, a rebellious streak was beginning to take hold and he did not want to listen to anyone who was older than his mere 11 years old.

Ulquiorra Cifer knew where each and every creaky floorboard was in that house. It was how he moved about undetected. He should have known. He knew every inch of this house perfectly. His bedroom was in the left wing with the rest of his siblings. His door was emblazoned with the number 4 and was right beside his biological half-brother and his adopted sisters.

Maybe, had he stepped on one of those noisy spots, he wouldn't have the knowledge that he had. He would have been scolded and sent back to his room.

The door to his father's office was open. There was absolutely no way he was going to be able to make it past the door without being seen. The boy would really be in trouble then. It was different when a nanny or their mother caught him. His father was much crueler than his mother.

Retsu Unohana was sweet at first glance, but if one got on her wrong side she was known to be ruthless - a formidable woman Sousuke Aizen married years ago. She refused to take his last name, instead sticking with her own.

Ulquiorra had witnessed people about shit themselves when they found out who she was married to. There was something about the satisfaction of watching the fear that would glaze over their faces like on a freshly fried doughnut. Whoever displeased Retsu would start apologizing profusely.

"I'm sorry ma'am. Please let me make this right."

"There's really no need for that-Is that a sword?"

Their strangled cries were cut off with their heads. Ulquiorra along with his siblings had all witnessed death in some form and capacity. An execution in a dark alley while they sat in the car. Tier and Ulquiorra with blank, uncaring stares. Grimmjow looking bored. Nel would cower beside her sister. Nnoitra would be watching with rapt attention.

The kids were a mismatched lot of hooligans. Five kids plucked from an orphanage in New York. The two girls; blonde half-sisters. Then Ulquiorra and Nnoitra; half-brothers with one thing in common… their biological mother. The two boys were complete opposites. Then there was the black sheep of the family, Grimmjow. He had somehow gone to school one day with blonde hair and came back with bright blue hair. That went down really well. Aizen had stared at all five of them with disapproving looks.

Collective punishment was the name of the game around the mansion or the townhouse, depending on where they were staying. If one of them got into trouble, all of them got into trouble. When Grimmjow dyed his hair, they all had to stand on their tiptoes holding canned goods for 2 hours. If one of them fell, another fifteen minutes was added.

Snapping out of his thoughts, Ulquiorra turned his head to see the rest of his siblings standing in the shadows. It was Tier who put her finger to her lips.

Why had these assholes come down? They were going to get caught! Ulquiorra shook his head and scowled at the four of them. His attention was quickly diverted because he could hear Aizen's voice as he stood next to the open door.

"Are things going well?"

It was that slimy snake asshole who worked for the local government, Gin Ichimaru. Ulquiorra never trusted him because of the fake smile that was plastered on his face and the squinty eyes.

"I'm afraid not," his father replied. There was a clink of glass upon glass. Ulquiorra could imagine his father pouring himself a drink from the crystal decanters. Dark liquid would swirl in the antique container. "Barragan Luisenbarn refuses to back off and I'm not willing to allow him to take a cut of my business. He says that we would be letting the people chose which service is better."

"Whore houses are whore houses," Gin offered. "If you've visited one, you've visited them all."

There was a tsk. "Now, Gin, you sound jaded with the world overall."

"I'm stating a fact. Women are women, except for my Rangiku."

"Oh, I suppose I'm chopped liver?"

That was his mother! What could she be doing at a meeting between Aizen and his associates? Ulquiorra glanced behind him to see the boys and girls inching closer to his position.

"Retsu, you do look lovely tonight. I particularly love that white flowy gown you have on."

"It's called a robe, Ichimaru. Would you care to explain why you came to our home in the middle of the night?" the woman said, voice sounding flat.

There was a sigh. "Barragan has submitted documents for opening a new business a block from your establishment. Also, Bishop Tosen will be arriving soon. He's big into justice; you know, making a nice little world for the children."

There was some laughter, but it was cut short.

"Barragan has a family, doesn't he?"

"Mmhmm," his mother said. "He has a wife, a stepson and the cutest stepdaughter. I believe she's in Nelliel's class, though I could be wrong. Lovely red hair. It's a shame."

There was shuffling and the creak of an expensive leather chair whose springs needed oiling. His father had sat down at that massive oak desk with the scrolls and leaves carved into the surface. "A shame, my wife?"

"A shame that we will simply have to eliminate them. You cannot take out one and not expect backlash," Retsu stated. "They'll all have to be killed."

"Well, that's why I mentioned Bishop Tosen. Let him fight Barragan first. Let him carry out his march for justice and keeping this community a wholesome place." Ulquiorra could imagine the grin spreading across that sneaky face, ear to ear.

Aizen snorted. "A wholesome place. There's nothing wholesome about this city or the suburbs," he commented. His tone was flippant. "Fine, I'll give Barragan time to retreat back to his side of the city. Or he can take his ass back down to Providence. Boston is mine."


Orihime Inoue was born Japanese. She didn't look Japanese. Her mother had a thing for foreign men, and not many transferable job skills. She was good at drinking and having sex. She could speak just enough English to butter up American sailors and bed them. One such sailor was a tall man with sandy blond hair and a West Virginian accent. Nine months later, Ai Inoue gave birth to a beautiful brown-haired baby boy, whom she named Sora.

After Sora was born, Ai decided she needed more stable employment and got a job at a cabaret club, pouring men drinks, lighting their smokes, and providing complimentary conversation. That many were willing to pay to extend the evening's festivities at nearby accommodations for a pretty price was just a bonus.

A customer came in with fair skin and bright red hair two or so years into the cabaret job. That customer decided Ai Inoue was worth the rest of the cash in his wallet, and another nine months later, Orihime Inoue was born looking decidedly foreign, although she had dark, nearly black eyes and a soft, heart-shaped face like her mother. She shared most of her mystery father's features, including his nose and coloring.

When Orihime was three years old, her mother was working and met a man named Barragan Luisenbarn. He was significantly older than Ai, but robust and commanding, and Ai quickly found herself drawn to his air of authority, not to mention his financial stability. Rumors about Barragan swirled the club where she worked, and during his stay in Tokyo the older man visited the club every night. Luisenbarn's business dealings were mainly in human trafficking and prostitution, but he had been considering expanding into cabaret clubs and strip joints; above-the-board establishments that would give him more legitimacy. He recognized that Ai Inoue would be an asset in setting up this venture with her good looks and long cabaret career.

By the time his stay in Japan was coming to a close, he had decided to take Ai and her children with him back to Rhode Island and marry her. He did not bother adopting her children, who retained the last name, Inoue. This did not bother Ai; she would rather protect her children from her new husband's line of business. Surprisingly, Luisenbarn was rather religious and insisted his new family convert to Catholicism as soon as possible.

A couple of years after moving to America, Barragan decided to try to extend his empire up the coast of New England and moved his family to a suburb of Boston. He bode his time, leaving his legitimate business ventures in Providence and sticking mainly to smuggling in Boston as he set up his residence and nurtured his network of business associates through various channels, but none so accessible as those provided through the Church.

His children were enrolled in Sacred Heart Catholic School, which was attached to the parish they had joined on arrival. Sora and Orihime were well-behaved kids. Sora was into sports and made friends easily, despite being unmoved by the religion being forced upon him. Orihime, on the other hand, developed a strong faith very quickly, and despite being initially shy and soft-spoken, made a couple of little friends and was loved by her teachers.

There were some kids at the school who were not as good as the Inoue children. A boy in Sora's class, Grimmjow, bullied Sora relentlessly. One day, in late October of their first year at Sacred Heart, Grimmjow and his older brother, Ulquiorra, shook Sora down for lunch money in the hall between classes. Little Orihime, the tiny little soft-spoken kindergartner that she was, happened to be in the same hallway at the time and witnessed her brother being pushed around and held against a wall by the older brother, while his classmate searched his pockets.

Orihime was furious. How dare these kids do this to her brother!

She thought nothing of her own safety as she went up behind the older boy, pulling on his trousers and biting the back of his knees. When the boy whipped around, Orihime fell on her butt. Instead of being hurt or afraid, however, she glared up at the boy, who must have been 10 or 11, and shouted, "You leave my brother alone! You can't do things like that!"

An unimpressed look came over the dark-haired kid's face, and he hit Grimmjow's arm. "C'mon, it's not worth it," he said to his sibling.

Grimmjow made a face and then made like he was going to lunge at the girl. He laughed as the older boy flinched. "Stupid girls, always ruining things," the blue-haired kid spat, walking after his brother.

Ulquiorra took note of the redhead and her brother. He didn't like them at all. They had weirdly shaped eyes and the older one talked with a funny accent. His father said they were culturally different, Japanese. Whatever. Their goody-two-shoes behavior shined a bad light on him and showcased how he appeared to be a decent kid on the surface but underneath, he was a rotten apple, mirroring Grimmjow and Nnoitra's attitude.

It only became worse over the years.

Since his father was lord, master, and god over the other mafia syndicates in Boston, it was natural that all of Aizen's children were expected to be entitled brats, but they weren't. If they wanted something they had to work for it; working for their father meant running an errand, picking up money, placing a odd shaped package on the underside of a car or watching someone only to return and tell their father what they saw or what a person did.

The first time he spied on the Inoues, he was scolded for taking matters into his own hands. It wasn't his business. Of course, this happened after he had eavesdropped. That night the kids retreated back to their rooms, pondering over what they had heard.

"I don't like them!" Ulquiorra stated.

"They are not your concern," Aizen replied.

The green-eyed kid was smart, perhaps too smart. He'd gotten one of his father's lackey's to take him to a bank so that he could open a savings account. All he had needed was an adult signature. Any money he got his hands on went into that account. Ulquiorra had plans. He would not be under his so-called father's thumb for long.

At first, it was selling candy bars and gum in school. It was stealing lunch money, and gold crosses to sell at various pawn shops. He'd hang around with the older boys and men that hung around Aizen's pub which was a headquarters of sorts.

The first time he was dropped into hot water was when Ulquiorra had slipped into the church's offices and began to pick the lock on a safe. It was one where he just needed a key. He didn't have one, but he'd found a lockpick set that some shady underling had made.

That was the first run-in with Bishop Tosen and being delivered to his father by his ear. That was the first warning.

As he grew older, small-time stuff seemed paltry compared to what his father made on deals. They had a chemist named Szayel who Ulquiorra gravitated to only because Nnoitra liked to harass the man with pink hair. They were always in his lab as he mixed up ingredients, pressing them into pills.

"What's this?" Ulquiorra asked, looking at the pile of pills.

"MDMA, also known as ecstasy. Don't ingest it. The last thing I need is for your father to lop my head off because his kids are high," Szayel bitched.

Ulquiorra looked at the rainbow mountain of pills. "Why?"

"Why?"

"Why did you make them? What is their purpose."

"Duh," came the scathing reply from his brother. "The old man plans on selling them and making cash. God, sometimes you're an idiot, Ulquiorra."

After Nnoitra distracted Szayel, Ulquiorra swiped twenty pills from the pile. He knew where he could go to make some cash.

It seemed like every year he made more money that he stashed away in his bank account. He became smarter, avoiding detection from Aizen's prying eyes. He would show up at parties and do his deals, leaving without doing any actual partying. He didn't really like being around people; being an introvert and preferring silence over the hustle and bustle. He would steal down to the wine cellar and drink or he would sneak into his father's den and raid the bar.

No one ever said anything to him.

On one of his midnight forays into the mansion changed his life.

"Barragan is encroaching closer and closer to Boston. Someone is taking over my drug dealings in the suburbs and all fingers point to him." Aizen's voice. The coldness made Ulquiorra stop in his tracks. "He has to be the one. He's the only one I don't have control over, Tosen."

That calm, smooth deep voice of the black man spoke. "My years of trying to exact justice on him have not worked. He managed to build that whore house but disguised it under the ruse of a gentlemen's club."

"I want him gone. I want him and his whole family gone. I want to see them washed in blood."

That sentence sent shivers down his spine. He knew Aizen went go to Barragan's to talk to him often. If he wanted his family gone, did he mean the little girl too? She had done nothing. His father often spoke of the child in a fond manner. There was nothing he could do or say.

"How do you want it done?" The oily voice came from one of the lower crime bosses, Kugo Ginjo. "Got all them church celebrations going on, need to know when."

There was a heavy thunk, and Ulquiorra imagined his father placing both hands on top of his desk heavily. "Do what you do best, Ginjo."

"'Kay but when?"

"Easter seems like a good time to get him out of my hair," Tosen said.

"Easter morning, before Mass."


Orihime was upstairs in her bedroom getting dressed. Her mother had bought her a new white dress for Easter. She had been shorter than most of her class for most of her life until she shot up over the fall and winter after turning eleven, so her mother had constantly been replacing her clothes.

"Hayaku!" her mother had called up to her to hurry in Japanese from the bottom of the stairs. They were going to be late for church.

Orihime didn't really speak much Japanese. She had been too young when they moved to the States. She understood her mother though. "I'll be right there!" she answered, feeling annoyed at being hassled. She had been trying to braid her own hair. She looked at herself in the mirror and sighed. She needed more practice. Her mother was patient and kind about teaching her, but they had such different hair types. Orihime loved her mother's straight, black, silky hair. Her red hair was wavy and a bit coarser. She had just finished loosening the braids and fluffing her hair out when she heard a sound that changed her world.

Bang bang bang bang bang. Bang bang bang. Bang bang bang bang bang bang. The squeal of tires on wet pavement.

What a curious sound.

When it was over, she came downstairs. The first thing she noticed was the breeze. The curtains on either side of the large picture window fluttered, and it was cold.

The glass was broken.

Her eyes traveled to the floor, and that's when she saw it. The blood of her mother, brother, and stepfather seeping into the floorboards and pooling together on the Persian rug.

"Okaa-san? Sora? Barragan?" Her voice was so small.

Why were they laying down in blood? Didn't it feel uncomfortable?

She knelt next to her brother's form. It laid in an unnatural position, face-down. She pushed his face to the side.

Half of his skull was gone.

She had no reaction initially. Maybe if she asked her mother, she would explain what had happened.

She walked over to her mother, who laid partially on her side and partially on her belly. Her pretty brown eyes were open and glassy.

"Okaa-san?"

She always smiled when Orihime called her that. Orihime almost saw it this time too.

It was an illusion.

Orihime stood and looked down expressionlessly at the three figures littering the living room floor. Then she saw the state of her new shoes. Her new, white patent leather shoes, soaked in blood. Her white tights, the skirt of her pure snow-colored dress, now stained red.

She screamed.

Sousuke Aizen was getting out of the limo when he heard the scream. There wasn't supposed to be any screaming. He raised an eyebrow and looked at Tosen, who shrugged. The click-taps of their smart leather loafers on the cement pavement sounded too loud in his ears. Had someone already gone into the house?

When he climbed the few steps and stood in the open door he understood. Ginjo had fucked up. There were to be no survivors. Before him stood that little wretch of a girl. He smoothed out his features, quickly formulating a plan. "Orihime?" he called out, sounding shocked. "What happened? What happened to your Easter dress?"

Orihime looked up at him with wide, frightened eyes. Her mouth opened to speak but only squeaks and whimpers came out. She walked toward the tall, familiar man with her arms outstretched. Her mouth formed the words she could not voice, "Mr. Aizen… They're dead."

"I can see that, dear. You didn't do this, did you? Did you see who did it?" Aizen asked, playing the act of a concerned adult well. He knew he could fool anyone, a child would not be a problem. "Tosen, can you phone the police."

Aizen's calm demeanor helped Orihime come to her senses, such as they were for a traumatized eleven-year-old. She took his hand with her small bloody one. "Please. Please, Mr. Aizen, believe me. I didn't do this. I would never hurt my mother and brother. I wouldn't even hurt Barragan… This is his fault. He is a bad man. Barragan is a bad man!" she shouted the last part, looking into Aizen's eyes with utter earnesty, pleading for salvation from her predicament. "Please, Mr. Aizen, please."

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew she was asking for the impossible. She was asking for the lives of her family members, minus Barragan, to be restored. She knew even someone as magnanimous as Aizen would be unable to grant such a request. She asked anyway.

"Shhhh, dear. It's alright. Here sit down on the step. Stay there." Aizen made sure she sat down as Tosen came back.

"I've contacted the police. They're on their way," Tosen said. "I am expected to be at mass. Would you like me to take the car and your family? You'll be busy for hours."

Aizen nodded, his lips forming a thin line. "I suppose that's for the best. Have Retsu call a car for me and bring a nanny. Have the woman bring a change of clothes for-" he waved a hand at the girl. "This snag is unfortunate."

"It is, but perhaps it is the will of God. She can be useful."

The brown-haired man looked back at the girl and observed her. How could a girl be useful? Had he not given Ginjo explicit instructions that he was to leave no one in the house alive?

"Mr. Aizen?" the girl asked, her dark eyes full of desperate intensity.

"Yes, Orihime?" he turned his entire body towards her and moved her way.

"Thank you. I'll never be able to repay you, but thank you," Orihime looked down as tears finally began to roll down her soft, pale cheeks, the reality of her situation finally dawning on her.

He crouched down and quickly wiped her face. He looked worried as a fatherly figure should. "We're going to be here for several hours. I have a woman coming to clean you up and help, uh, just to help out. The police should be here soon."

Aizen hoped Tosen wasn't an idiot and called the actual police. He had several detectives on the police force who were in his pocket. "Oh, Kaname? Tell Ulquiorra to get out of the car," he said to the retreating black man.

The man nodded and within moments a black-haired, green-eyed boy was standing on the sidewalk glaring. "What the fu-"

"Language, Mr. Cifer. Your father wants you." With that Tosen got in and the limo pulled away from the curb.

"Ulquiorra, come here. Until the nanny arrives, you are in charge of this girl."

Orihime vaguely recognized her classmate's older brother. He had changed a lot over the years since their initial encounter. He was at least sixteen now, nearly an adult in her eyes. He went to the high school, so she hadn't seen him at all in about three years. Her eyes didn't linger on him long.

The teen gave her a dead stare and then turned that same stare on his father. "I wanted to go to Mass," he complained.

"I'm sure you did. Orihime wanted to go to Mass too. So did her family," Aizen said. He handed the girl his suit jacket to wrap up in and walked towards his son, head tilted up. "We will talk about this later," the man said quietly so that only Ulquiorra could hear. "Go sit with her. Now."

It was an order.

With a sigh, Ulquiorra shoved his hands into the pockets of his trousers and walked towards the redhead. There was no way that his father knew. There was no possible way that his father knew he'd told Ginjo to keep the girl alive; that he had paid the man money to keep her alive. She had done nothing to deserve death and really neither did her brother. He was a consequence of unfortunate timing.

To be honest, he didn't know why he did it. He didn't even remember her all that well. She was just some snot-nosed kindergartener in his mind. He scowled at her and stood at the bottom of the steps.

She peeked up at him when his shoes came into view. "I'm sorry, Ulquiorra," she said. His name was familiar to her, often being dropped from the lips of her classmate; his sister.

"The only thing you are is sorry looking," he replied, crossing his arms over his chest. "This is an inconvenience."

Orihime's head dropped to her chest. She looked aside toward Aizen, an adoring look on her face as she clutched the coat he had given to her around her shoulders.

When the police came, Aizen spoke for some minutes to one of the men dressed in a suit and tie. The man nodded several times. They asked Orihime some questions then talked to Aizen again. The brown-haired man was escorting Orihime to the car and he helped her inside. "Orihime, I'm going to help you. I'm going to take care of you. Please call me Uncle Sousuke."

Orihime hugged her body to his arm and choked on a sob as she nodded. Uncle Sousuke was her only family in the world now.


A week later, the combined funeral of Barragan and Ai Luisenbarn and Sora Inoue was held at Sacred Heart Catholic Church. The funeral mass was moving and well attended. Little Orihime Inoue was a pitiful sight; beautiful and precious in her knee-length black dress and tights. She cried quietly and kissed the coffins of her mother and brother, allowing an audible sob only when the coffins were carried out of the church to the hymn "Be Not Afraid".

Orihime followed the pallbearers out of the church all alone, passing rows of pews filled with mostly unfamiliar faces. Uncle Sousuke offered her a warm, paternal smile. In the pew behind him were his children. Her classmate, Nel, offered her a kind of half-hearted sympathetic face. The rest of them looked bored and/or resentful at having to be there. Ulquiorra was at the end of the pew toward the aisle.

Every Mass was the same. Up, down; sit, stand, kneel. He hated it but they had appearances to uphold. Not that it mattered, even if they weren't the perfect blended family, no one would say anything to Aizen. They wouldn't dare.

He was just glad this entire thing was over. He hated hearing the girl sob. There had been some nights he wished he never called or paid Ginjo. He sighed and managed to turn his head enough that he caught the girl's eye. Instead of resentment, his face was blank but his eyes held some pity in them. He should have left sleeping dogs lie.

Orihime got into a limousine by herself. She wept unrestrainedly until the door opened several minutes later, and Father Kaname entered along with Aizen.

"Uncle Sousuke!" she wailed. He held his arms open to her, and she didn't hesitate to find a seat on his lap and hold onto his scarf as she cried herself to sleep on the way to the cemetery.

The funeral procession was long. By the time the car's door opened, thirty-five minutes had passed. Aizen gently woke Orihime and the three exited the limousine. Aizen led her by the hand to the burial site. He had hired a chamber choir to sing "Lay a Garland" as the coffins were lowered into the ground after Tosen said a small prayer. Orihime sniffled and held tight to Aizen's hand until it was time for her to take a flower from one of the funeral arrangements and throw it down onto the coffins. She did and turned around, looking for the brown-haired man. He had walked away and stood in a group of serious, intimidating-looking men. She knew better than to interrupt their conversation.

"Don't you wish you could throw yourself in there with them?" Ulquiorra asked quietly. His mood had turned foul in the ride over. Why did they have to come? No one cared about some old mob boss and his whore of a wife. Sitting beside his brother had made it worse. Nnoitra had a penchant for death and would often talk about dying. The teenager was stupid.

Seeing those men show up was bad. He knew who they were and he had fidgeted and fiddled with his suit until his father walked away. Those men had shown up time and time again as he made his deals. Those men knew his face. "You should do that you know, just jump in."

Ulquiorra could not show his true thoughts. He could not show any emotion.

Orihime looked at him. Her face was not what he expected. She was, of course, hurt by his words, but she Regarded him curiously. Her little nostrils flared and her lip curled in distaste at his words as she held his gaze, her watery eyes searching his for something unspoken. She stared him down for the better part of a minute, then turned back to the limo.

Ulquiorra paid her no mind. He was too focused on his father and the way the man's eyes widened and then turned to him. Saying Aizen was disappointed would have been a complete understatement. This was not going to be a collective punishment. There was no way the rest of his siblings would stand for it.

Over the course of the week leading up to the funeral, it had been decided that Orihime would be sent out of state to live with foster parents. Aizen knew he would not be able to maintain the appearance of a benevolent, innocent uncle if she remained under his roof. Arrangements had been made and she would be leaving that evening. He would pay a foster family to raise her and he would fund her private, all-girls Catholic education. He had big plans for Orihime. He had taken steps to ensure that she would remain dedicated to her faith and that her loyalty to him would be cultivated. The limousine had all of her worldly belongings packed in the back, and instead of returning her to Uncle Sousuke's mansion, it took her to the airport, where Father Kaname checked her into a flight bound for Milwaukee.

When they arrived back at the mansion, everyone was sent to their room except for Ulquiorra. He was ordered to his father's office. The anticipation was causing his body to vibrate. It seemed like forever had passed until his father walked through the doors, followed by his mother.

"Ulquiorra," Aizen said with a smile. "You know why you're here, don't you?"

It was hours later when he stumbled back to his room, smearing blood on the wooden surface of the door. In addition to getting the shit beaten out of him, he had been enrolled in a private Catholic boarding school in Idaho. He'd gotten too full of himself. Ulquiorra was too unruly to be allowed to influence the other children. He'd caused trouble when there wasn't any need for it.

"Ginjo told me what you did. He told me how much you paid him," Aizen said as fists rained down upon the boy. The man who posed as his father didn't lift a finger. It was some goon that got to kick his ass. "Szayel told me that you would steal the pills or give him a cut of your profits. Not to mention my men followed you."

Punch. Thud. Kick. Crack.

It wasn't just him who was getting sent away. Nnoitra and Grimmjow were being sent to some military school. They would become killing machines for Aizen when they emerged. Tier and Nel were being enrolled to some school out in California.

Ulquiorra had to do the walk of shame the next morning, drifting past his siblings and the hired help of the house, dragging a suitcase down the stairs and out the foyer. A simple sedan waited for him to drive him to the airport. He could feel his brothers and sisters hostile glares directed at his back. He could hear the littlest one start sobbing. He could sense his mother's indifference to the situation.

She wasn't happy with him either. Retsu couldn't save him. Ulquiorra had caused the death of Orihime's family because he had decided to take a slice of his father's income, all because he didn't want to be under the mafia boss' thumb. The green-eyed teen didn't even look back as he got into the car.

He wouldn't allow himself to be blamed for Aizen's decisions either. His father had made that choice on his own. He would not ask for forgiveness, especially from these people.