TRICK OR TREAT

CHAPTER 2: CALL MY NAME

The meeting with Aizen and his Arrancar soldiers was really terrible.

Although Inoue Orihime had already expected the worst, she still couldn't foresee it was THAT MUCH worst.

"How could they do that to their own kind?"

Then again, she sighed.

"What am I thinking? They are not humans. They just happen to have human-like faces and bodies. Why do I expect them would have some feelings toward each other like humans? I'm in the enemy's territory. A place of bad spirits. Hueco Mundo. Hollow World."

"Woman." A voice calling out snapped her back from drowning in an ocean of thought.

She had been looking down to the marble of the floor while her feet kept moving, following the trace of the coattail at the front throughout the long hallway. When she looked up, all she saw was an open space in the middle of the wall leading to a closed room inside.

"Get in." He ordered with the same tone and same rhythm.

She was reluctant, but she went in anyway.

Surprisingly, the room was bigger and loftier than it seemed to be. There were a couch, a carpet, a chair and a table for one person. She wondered if they were prepared for her. So they seemed at least to have some consideration when it came to human etiquette about furniture. She thought for sure that they would chain her up like an animal and lock her in a cage, giving the way that they had treated other humans so cruelly and brutally.

Following the trace of the light bending into the dark, she looked up and up. There was another smaller open space installed with three vertical bars located very high on the wall and through that window she saw the moon… the same white crescent moon that she had first seen in the desert.

Then it hit her.

She realized she was indeed a prisoner here. This room was like a prison cell and that prison window was made up for that. And…

Instinctively, she glanced over her shoulder to peek up a shadow of a ghost.

That man was the jailer of this prison… her jailer.

After giving her a quite amount of time to observe the room, with his hands in the pocket nonchalantly, he spoke again with his monotone voice and till now, she just couldn't get used of his deep, low and slow voice.

His voice wasn't like anyone's voices that she had ever known and heard before. There's no emotion in his voice. It was rather like she was listening to a machine making a mechanic sound like human language.

In contrast with her sweetly high-pitched voice and sometimes changing tone randomly in a larghetto moment, his voice was like a tranquil and lazy river flowing with a steady and unchanging current.

The vibration of the sound of his voice just kept echoing in the core of her ears. It wasn't a pleasant feeling, but it wasn't unpleasant either.

It was just strange.

"Woman, do you get everything?" The ghost asked.

"Eh!? Ah… yes, sir." Jointing back, she replied. What is he just talking about?

"Behave and stay here quietly." He gave out the order and proceeded to turn his feet toward the door.

"Ah… Please wait, sir!"

She burst out her voice suddenly and came to regret it later. He stopped his walking and turned his head around. His eyes were glaring at her strangely that she almost forgot what she had suddenly called him for.

Her lips parted. Holding her breath, she spoke softly, "Please tell me your name. I… I want at least to address you properly, sir."

The room fell into silence.

She thought that time had stopped after she finished her sentence. She looked at him nervously… This was the first time that she had enough time to observe his facial features. She thought if she could see some of his expressions to react. But she found none.

Just like his voice. The same frowning expression made by his eyebrows and his black upper lip curving downward. Adding to his tear streak markings, he looked sad… but was he really sad? She doubted it.

She focused on his green eyes which happened to be the most outstanding part on his face. She didn't see any life in them despite green was usually the color of life. All she saw in his eyes was just her reflection… a lonely figure. It was herself. Besides that, his eyes didn't reflect anything. They seemed dead. She suddenly felt it was a pity that his eyes couldn't feel anything like emotion because the color was beautiful.

"Ulquiorra Cifer, the Cuatro Espada" His voice broke the silence.

Is that his name? She wondered.

"Ulquiorra-san!?" She spelled out each syllable in his name slowly and stumblingly. In a deep corner of her mind, she thought it was a funny name if it weren't used for the hollow man who was in front of her.

"No need for honorifics. We're not humans and we do not need thing called keigo (human polilte language). The only one you need to address with respect is Aizen-sama." Ulquiorra corrected.

It wasn't like she expected.

She added suffix in his name because she didn't want to be familiar with him. She wanted to create some distances so that she could soothe the uneasiness in her mind. Yet he told her not to add it in because it wasn't needed.

Didn't he know that calling a person's name without suffix meant?

And then she guessed maybe he really didn't care.

"Then, is it okay to call you Ulquiorra?" She asked again softly.

"Let it is." He replied.

Taking it as a chance, she continued.

"So how long should I have to stay here, Ulquiorra?"

Finally, the real question that she remembered to ask before he made her almost forgot to bring it out. And the room went silent again as much as she wished that she hadn't asked this question, but she needed to know what Aizen's plan with her was when he wanted to keep her here.

If he were going to use her or her power to harm any of her friends, she would rather die than do those. If using her power were the purpose for her being here, then she would use that power to destroy their purpose to use her.

Looking at the woman asking him a question while expressing the determined eyes without any fear in them, Ulquiorra closed his eyes and said, "Until Aizen-sama has no use for you, woman."

"My name is Inoue Orihime." She corrected.

For some reasons, she felt odd when he referred her as "woman".

She just turns 15 years old this year.
She is a high school student.
Not really a "woman" yet.

She thought "woman" wasn't really a right term for her. It was kind of… rude.

"I know." He replied with his eyes still being closed.

"Then why do you keep calling me as woman? You can at least address me by my name." Orihime made a soft smile and a gesture to show Ulquiorra that "I called you by your name so in return, call me by my name too."

Somewhere in her mind, a flying unicorn was irking her about what this current situation was.

Why was she chatting freely with him here?
Wasn't her intention trying to create some distance with him?
Why did she suddenly feel so close with him?

But she chose to ignore that irking feeling.

When Ulquiorra's eyes opened, he brushed it off what she expected him to do with her, "I address you as woman because that's what you are."

In other words, the subtle meaning that Orihime caught from his words was that Ulquiorra thought it was unnecessary to call her by name.

Unknowingly, she was making a pouting and disappointed face.

"If you don't want to call me by my name, just say so." Orihime whispered; her voice lowered.

Catching the tone of her disappointment, he sighed and stared at her with an amount of intensity that was enough to produce a beam that could kill anything catching in its firing range, "Woman, only Aizen-sama has authority to address you by your name. Remember that for what purpose both your body and your mind have here."

Orihime knew that she had failed to make Ulquiorra call her by name. In addition with him mentioning "Aizen-sama" caused distress inside her stomach again, she wanted to protest against him, but she still had other things to do.

If she was going to be here, she would let them think that she had some kind of value so that they wouldn't touch or harm her friends. And if disobeying him meant causing the death of her friends then she wouldn't want to.

Looking down at the floor, she replied in an almost inaudible voice, "Yes, sir."

"Good. Your meal will come in one hour. Wait in the room and don't try to escape unless you want to be killed." After giving out all orders to the woman, Ulquiorra turned his head toward the door and this time he would get out of the room.

All of sudden, Orihime reached out her hand to catch the coattail of his uniform very slightly and let it go immediately. That action caused Ulquiorra's movement to be halted once more.

Her mouth mumbled something, but he couldn't catch on the words. She averted her eyes away from his and he had an urge of forcing her to look back at him. This woman was hiding something.

"What is it, woman?" He asked with his voice extremely low.

By his question, the woman looked back at him. Her face seemed to have a tint of red on the cheek.

"Today is Halloween, so… may I ask for some candies in my meal?" Orihime said with an embarrassing smile.

She knew that she shouldn't do that, at least not in this situation. But when she heard him talking about the meal, she remembered about the last time she had her meal that was with Tatsuki-chan the day before yesterday and they talked about the Halloween party – the party that she had missed and probably never had any chance to participate in it again.

She thought at least Ulquiorra could give her something in her meal so that she could have the last memorial for this Halloween.

Candy seemed fine right? It wasn't hard to find.

But his answer was like pouring cold water on her head. He coldly walked out of the room and how she wished for herself not to do this kind of thing with him again.

Still, after settling her mood, lying down on the couch, she reviewed her flashback about the strange conversation with Ulquiorra today. Unknowingly, she gave out a little giggle.

"It's a surprise.

I've never thought that he could talk a lot. Has he been talkative like that in the first time we met?

Although all the things he said were unpleasant and terrible, he did answer all of my questions without being annoyed toward them. At least he didn't ignore me like the time in the dark pathway.

So his name is Ulquiorra, isn't it? What a weird name!"

For the first time, since she came to this Hollow World, she didn't feel any fear.

Yes, she was feeling much distress, nervousness, anxiousness and was worried to death. But it seemed that she felt no fear, at least not toward the ghost who had dragged her into this monster world.

After meeting with Aizen, she thought that Aizen was scarier. Despite Aizen was smiling constantly, all she felt was disgust toward him. Aizen's smile looked faked to her. How could he smile smugly after witnessing somebody's death?

Orihime recalled Ulquiorra's frown face and somehow… that expression of his seemed to soothe her mood better. She wondered why though. Ulquiorra's face didn't look scary to her. The horn on his helmet mask just made her think more about the funny Noh mask that she saw on the TV before.

She should be wary towards him because he was her enemy. Yet why? Was it because of the ghost man that she came to know about the nature of her power, so that she could improve it more? Or was it because she had found a purpose for her to be here so that she could help her friends?

Orihime didn't know.

She was making questions in her head, but she got no answer for them.

The ghost looked sad on the outside… being a hollow, she thought for sure that he must have also suffered inside.

Her mind was wandering and she fell into a deep sleep.

To be continued...

JinxJen's note:

Hueco Mundo in Spanish means "Hollow World" is the dimension where Hollows and Arrancar usually reside. Orihime stayed in a castle located in Hueco Mundo called Las Noches where Aizen and his Arrancar soldiers, Espada, reside.

In this chapter, Orihime attempted to use hornorific on Ulquiorra called keigo literally means "respectful language" in Japan using on people we don't know too well such as -san or people we talked with respect such as -sama. While not using the suffix, it becomes informal, intimate or rude in any case. Here is a reference link: (http://) (en.) (wikipedia.) (org/wiki/Keigo)

Noh is a classical Japanese musical drama where all actors wears mask... especially mask with horn for demon role. Here is a reference link: (http://) (en.) (wikipedia.) (org/wiki/Noh)