DYE 2

So Help Me Help You

"So? What do you think?"

Gin smiled and waved his hand back and forth, trying to pass on the question. He looked back towards the monitor that displayed Ichigo's girl—little Orihime-chan—taking her fighting stance again and again. When he looked up, Aizen was still staring at him from his throne of a chair.

"Girl's got guts, is my 'pression," he answered, sliding his hands into his opposite sleeves. He leaned back against the wall like a snake sneaking back into the shadows.

Aizen smiled. "I agree." The former fifth division captain leaned his chin on his palm and watched the monitor again. "There is the matter of her reiatsu, of course…."

"Kinda interesting, y'think?"

Aizen made a non-committal grunt as Orihime's hands flew to her temples and a bright flash of light streaked out in front of her.

"It's unusual, but of no importance. Perhaps it's beneficial to us, even." Without seeing his face, Gin could tell Aizen was wearing his usual confident smirk again.

"Oh? How so?" Gin chirped, clunking his head against the wall behind him as he looked up towards the dark ceiling.

"I believe she's recognized her sudden growth, and is hoping it will prove meaningful. That is why she asked to join Ulquiorra's Fracción. She is hoping to get close to someone important, and then assassinate him." Aizen shook his head.

"So why'd you leave us a lil' spy?" Gin chuckled. "S'pose you want t'keep me on my toes, huh?"

"Think, Gin," Aizen said patiently, turning back around to face his subordinate. "Think what those poor fools on their way will believe when they see her acting as more than a prisoner. She's not even trying to run away. I'm rather impressed with Ulquiorra's trap. She's only pushing herself deeper into it with each moment."

"Mm. Maybe 's'all more fun for him than anyone else…" Gin remarked.

"Don't be ridiculous," Aizen said, stifling a grin. "You're the one who's enjoying this the most."

The silver-haired shinigami laughed. "Too true." He shook his head, grinning like a wolf. "I guess it means she's good for morale. Mos' times girls are, y'know," he teased, nodding sagely.

Aizen brushed off his comments with a hand, using his other to change the monitor to a different scene. "Go amuse yourself elsewhere, Gin. I'm busy now."

Gin shrugged and pushed off the wall, walking away from the throne and into the deeper darkness in the corner of the room. Behind him, on the monitor, the dawn broke for one of the last times over Karakura town.

Orihime paused in her practicing, feeling a familiar presence enter the large white dome of her training room. She turned around to face Ulquiorra as her fairies returned to their places at her temples.

"Do not tire yourself too much, woman," he said, drawing nearer. He had left the door open behind him.

"I'm alright," she answered, trying to will her breathing back to normal. She had been practicing with Tsubaki pretty hard earlier. So much that the spunky fairy had even complained about being overworked.

Ulquiorra gave her a measured look, and then shifted his gaze away. "You must not forget to rest or eat. Your strength was not fully replenished when you began your training session."

She flushed as her stomach made a loud gurgling noise. "Eh… heh heh," she laughed weakly, knocking herself lightly on the head. "I guess I lost track of time and forgot to eat lunch."

"I already told you—time passes without measure here."

She laughed weakly again, wondering what that phrase actually meant. Or maybe it was his attempt at humor? He turned towards the open doorway, apparently feeling that the conversation was over and thus his requirement to keep an eye on her satisfied for the immeasurable time being.

She could feel the reiastu of her friends drawing nearer. But she didn't feel any closer to her own goal. Ulquiorra hardly spent any time around her, so if she wanted to fight just as hard as everyone else….

"Ulquiorra-sama?" she asked, jogging across the room as he turned around to face her. "Uh, maybe… we could eat lunch together?"

He stared at her.

Belatedly, she realized that she had no idea if Arrancar needed to eat, nor what they ate if they needed to. In fact, her sudden request was quite stupid, when she thought about it. Abuptly, she felt the color begin to drain from her face. Hadn't Yammy tried to eat the souls of innocent people in town? He had tried to eat Tatsuki-chan, even! Maybe her request was only going to highlight their differences instead of helping them find some common ground, or maybe Ulquiorra was going to try to eat her!

"I don't mind."

The words were so bland and spoken with such a lack of enthusiasm that Orihime hardly recognized he had spoken at first. The Espada turned towards the door again, the long tails of his coat swishing lightly as he walked away from her.

She followed after, catching up to him in the hallway and staying at his side as they continued towards the kitchen specially equipped to make human food. They walked down a long corridor, the only sound coming from the sharp tap of her heeled boots on the mirror-like tiles.

"Um, Ulquiorra-sama?" she asked, peering over at him. His eyes drifted towards her, even though his posture remained unaffected. "Can you eat human food?"

"I have never tried," he answered.

"Maybe I could cook something for you," Orihime continued as they rounded a bend and started down a flight of stairs. The painted sunlight from the Las Noches dome seeped in through tall windows, causing every tenth step to gleam golden. "In the human world, I used to cook for myself every day, so I'm pretty good at it." Images of all her favorite recipes drifted through her head. If only the Las Noches kitchen was as well-stocked as the one in her apartment had been. The white kitchen to which they were headed had no refrigerator or oven, so she was always eating rice and packets of instant food like miso soup and cup ramen. She wasn't sure who did the grocery shopping, but she was beginning to crave something fresh. Like a banana, or maybe a tuna nigiri.

She wandered out of her thoughts as they reached the appropriate floor, which was lined with the nameless, identical guards of Aizen's palace, the Exequias. They remained motionless as she passed in the wake of the Espada. Sometimes she thought of them as those people who guarded the Queen of England's palace, and how they weren't supposed to move or speak to anyone. But most of the time she thought their skulled faces were creepy.

"Do you think you'd eat something if I cooked it for you?" she asked, holding open the kitchen door for Ulquiorra.

He stepped into the small room, silhouetted for a moment against the large window on the opposite side. Everything in the kitchen was a pure white, from the tall cabinets she couldn't reach to the sink's faucet to the circular table and pair of high-backed chairs. The tiny black writing on the rice cooker stuck out like it had been painted lime green.

"It's unlikely." Ulquiorra stared out the window, framed by the pillars on either side of it and the pointed arch above it.

She closed the door slowly, feeling slightly hurt. She hadn't even suggested a menu! Turning towards the counter so she didn't have to face him, she busied herself rinsing the rice.

"Why not?" she asked, trying to sound casual. She poured the rice into the cooker and added water, setting it to cook. Feeling petulant, she didn't turn around to look at Ulquiorra.

She heard the sound of a zipper, and then for once, footsteps from the usually silent Espada. His voice was much closer when he spoke, the deep timbre resonating from a somewhere less than a meter away. "I would think the reason is obvious."

She turned then, to see the top of his white coat unzipped halfway, revealing the fist-sized hole in his chest and the smooth, pale skin surrounding it. She felt caught, staring at the black walls of the hollow hole, and only after a few moments did she remember herself enough to look up at his face.

His expression was slight, and difficult to read, but she thought it held a hint of curiosity.

"Do I interest you that much?" he asked with his usual monotone.

Orihime squeaked and leaned back against the counter, nearly bumping into the rice cooker. "Eh, it's—you see—I—" she began, feeling her face turn red. Had Ulquiorra just called her out on staring at his chest? It wasn't like that! "I just don't know very much about Arrancar!" she spluttered, turning back around to check the rice which had barely begun to cook.

"I see."

She heard him move away from her, back towards the center of the room, and couldn't help sneaking a peek over her shoulder. His hands were in his pockets again, and she could tell even from behind that his collar was still unzipped. Clearly, the placement of the hollow hole meant he had no ability to digest the kinds of food she liked to cook. (Orihime didn't realize that living people couldn't easily digest her cooking, either.)

"Ulquiorra-sama?" she asked, looking back at the rice cooker.

"Yes." Even acknowledgement sounded like a statement from him.

"When I asked you if you wanted to eat lunch together, what did you have in mind?" Why had he come to the kitchen with her if he was just going to insult her cooking? Unless, of course, insulting her was the point…. She stared at the rice cooker miserably.

"My lunch is right outside the door. It does not require cooking."

"What is it?" she asked perkily, belatedly wondering if she really wanted to know.

She saw him turn out of the corner of her eye, so that just one vibrant eye stared back at her. "You'll see."

Orihime sat in one of the chairs, leaning her elbows on the table as she waited for the rice to cook. Ulquiorra remained silent, staring out the window to the warm desert sand far below. She pressed her lips together, wishing that maybe for once the Espada would initiate a friendly conversation. Of course, she knew she was waiting in vain… and wasting precious time to boot.

She exhaled loudly, and let her chin slide to rest on the table. "Ulquiorra-sama, when a person agrees to eat lunch with another person, it means they'll talk to each other," she complained, her head bobbing up and down as her jaw opened and closed with her words.

The Espada turned. "You have something to say to me, woman?"

"Er, well, it's your turn to say something. Ask me a question, or tell me something about yourself," she explained, straightening. "You have to continue the conversation."

The pale-faced Arrancar was perfectly still, perhaps contemplating her words. After a long moment, he spoke carefully. "I find it unusual that you are telling me what I must do."

Orihime froze, wondering if he had taken offense. "N-no! I meant it as a suggestion! Like, when you're eating lunch together, it's generally expected—generally expected that…" She trailed off, catching sight of the small curve on the corner of his black upper lip.

She blinked. Had he just been teasing her?

"You are not what I expected," he stated, "and"—there was a sharp ding! from the rice cooker—"now that your lunch is ready, I will collect mine." Without another word, he walked leisurely towards the door.

Orihime jumped up to fetch a bowl and the pair of ivory chopsticks she always used as the door swung shut behind him. Even though her actions were focused on getting rice into the bowl, her mind was still on the now-absent Espada. What did it mean for him to say she wasn't what he had expected?

Did that mean that previously… last time… she had been exactly what he had expected?

She shook her head, rounding the rice into a proper ball. It didn't matter if she surprised him or not. What mattered was that she convinced him to stop fighting for Aizen's sake.

The door opened and Ulquiorra returned, followed by one of the creepy Exequias. Picking up her bowl of plain rice and trying not to stare at the meager meal glumly, she looked back towards the table, where the Exequias was pulling out the two chairs. One for her and one for the Espada.

She gave the creepy, masked Exequias a nod of thanks as she sat down, though she couldn't tell if the hollow understood it or not. It walked around the table to stand at Ulquiorra's right as he sat, keeping his hands in his pockets.

She smiled across at the silent Espada as she picked up her chopsticks. He made no move, causing her to falter as she spoke. "Itadaki… masu…."* She stared down at her bowl of rice, feeling awkward.

At least her rice tasted normal… though it was rather plain. She chewed slowly, feeling like her mouth was making lots of noise. She glanced up, wondering if the Espada was simply staring at her.

What she saw next made her stomach turn.

Ulquiorra lifted one elegant hand, gesturing for the Exequias to come closer. It obediently lowered its head as if to listen to a whisper from the Espada. Ulquiorra opened his mouth, and with a slight rush of wind, the Exequias went ghastly limp, crumbling to the floor. The skull-like mask cracked and folded into itself as it reached the floor. The dust from its disintegrating body dissipated, floating towards the empty corners of the white kitchen. Ulquiorra sat back, licking his lips slightly.

"Y-you just ate him!" Orihime gasped, horrified, as she shot to her feet. "The guard! You ate the guard!"

Ulquiorra stared at her calmly. "Rudobon will not mind," he said simply, as if that made eating one's subordinates okay.

"W-was that… his name?" she asked, feeling the color drain from her face as the small dust pile continued to erode. She slowly sat back down, feeling nauseous. She needed a hand on the table to keep her steady.

Ulquiorra blinked at her, his eyes showing something akin to interest or surprise. "Rudobon is the founder of the Exequias. It is the right of the Espada to do as we please with the Exequias, and Rudoban knows this."

"B-but… don't you think that meant ordering them around, and not…." She shuddered, bringing her hands around her shoulders. "Y-you ate him…."

"I don't see why you take such an interest in one Exequias." He paused. "There are many more."

"That's not the point!" Orihime replied, squeezing her eyes shut and seeing the Exequias crumble into dust again on the backs of her eyelids. When she opened her eyes again, Ulquiorra was shaking his head.

"That is precisely the point, woman." He held her gaze suddenly in his dark, green one, keeping her from protesting further. "I'm surprised you haven't noticed that the Exequias are all clones. Aizen-sama gifted Rudobon with the ability to create an expendable army. Thus we have the mindless extensions of Rudobon's will, the Exequias."

Orihime blinked. "They're… mindless clones?" She couldn't help but think of Star Wars.

The Espada nodded, and gave her a look that would have been scrutinizing had he not been perfectly still. "It is not my habit to destroy those who are useful and not easily replaced."

Orihime paused, not sure if his words were meant to inform her… or console her. She was, after all, his Fracción, and he was technically able to do with her as he pleased. Though, as he turned away, looking out the window again and ignoring her, she wondered if perhaps he had meant to reassure her.

In that roundabout, read-between-the-lines way of his, of course.

She exhaled loudly and stared at her half-eaten bowl of rice. Her stomach was queasy after watching Ulquiorra's display with the Exequias. "Ulquiorra-sama, you're not eating lunch with me ever again."

DYE …2

/ END

*Obviously, this is Japanese. It literally means "I humbly receive," and is said before eating, regardless of whether one feels humble or not. It's in here in the original language because trying to translate it is awkward.