Well, this is the final chapter. I'm sorry for the delay in posting, but it's not quite two weeks, sooo... it could be worse? Anyway, I hope you all enjoy this chapter -- I had a lot of fun writing it!
Pain and fear were what marked the existence of a hollow. It was always there, in every moment; consuming human souls might ease it, for a while, but it was never relief. It became the core of every thought, and the motivation of every action.
The one thing Ulquiorra had wanted and the one thing he had gained through centuries of struggle was the ability to control those impulses, to pull himself above the flood of raw instinct. As his power had increased, so had his ability to reason, to think and analyze, until he had realized that the best way to keep from feeling the pain was to feel nothing.
And so that was how he had survived, and if he had not been content, he had at least been able to bear his existence. He had even been able to almost forget what it was like to have emotions.
Until Orihime.
The darkness of his own rooms, far away enough from her that he could not even sense a wisp of her spiritual pressure, did nothing to help. The memory of her warm fingers against his skin still lingered, and his hands twitched to touch his face, almost convinced that she had damaged him in some way.
But it was ridiculous to think that she could do anything to physically harm him. Her slap those months ago had done nothing but surprise him somewhat, and her one offensive attack had proved to be similarly useless against Yammi.
No, where all her strength lay was in her character, something he had realized long ago. Yet he had never made that critical connection, that this inner strength could have effects beyond herself, that she could use it to touch those around her. It had seemed so impossible that she could ever reach him after he had so perfectly managed to detach himself from everything.
It had not been until she had physically crossed that boundary that Ulquiorra realized that she had already sunk so deeply into him. He suddenly recognized that he had not tried to understand her for Aizen; he had tried to understand her because he wanted to understand her, to somehow see the world in the strange way she did. Watching her, listening to her, simply being in her presence, had woken up things he had long ago set aside, left forgotten to avoid the torment of remembering.
But remembering now did not hurt as he had thought it would. It ached, of course, but somehow being around her brought greater relief than anything he had encountered before.
Ulquiorra had not wanted it, he still did not want it, but he felt her so tangled into the threads of his thoughts that he did not know how he could ever separate her again. So no, she had done nothing to physically harm him. But mentally she had destroyed him.
He wondered how obvious it was, if everybody else had watched these cracks grow in his perfect façade, had seen the weakness to which he had succumbed. In allowing this weakness to take root, had he also become weak? What would happen to him now?
It was almost unconscious when he opened his door, forcing his feet to move at a normal pace, to not reach her room in the half breath that sonido would require. The time was needed to think, to consider the wisdom of any action he might take and reflect on the issue with some semblance of logic. But as everything felt like it was crumbling, it was hard to remind himself of how adverse he was to simply following his impulses.
So when he had opened her door, checking the pressure of the shove so that he did not simply slam the heavy door against the wall, he had no idea what to say, or even if he wanted to say anything.
But she had already stood, the momentary surprise at his sudden entrance eclipsed by what seemed to be curiosity and worry, if he had learned anything about reading her expressions. He noticed that she did not approach him like she often did, instead watching him silently from the distance between them. Perhaps it was better this way.
Slowly, Ulquiorra shut the door behind him, thinking, gauging, considering. Why had it been so important to see her, why had he not forced himself to stop and ask what he even hoped to accomplish by doing this?
"Are you angry with me?"
The soft hesitance of her voice broke his disorganized thoughts, and he noticed that she had taken the first tentative steps toward him.
Angry… yes, he was angry. But with her? It would have been so much simpler if that had been the case, but he was realizing just how much he had lied to himself with regards to her. He would not continue to do something so meaningless.
Apparently, however, his continued silence gave her the impression of some reply he had not yet disclosed. "It's because I touched you, isn't it?" she asked, tucking a strand of hair back behind her ear. "I know I shouldn't have treated you so familiarly. I guess I just forget where I am sometimes…"
Here, at least, he could think of a clear response, without the hazy confusion that was interfering with so many of his thoughts. "That seems hard to believe. What about your condition would allow you to forget that you are a prisoner who is completely alone?"
For such a seemingly simple question, the silence that followed was puzzling. He saw her hands clench and relax at her sides, noted the shallowness of her breathing.
"You," she finally murmured to the floor, the word almost lost in the air.
He wished it had been.
For a moment he could think of no possible way to continue, feeling everything lit so that facets he had not even imagined were illuminated, nothing changed but everything different. "I am the reason you were brought here; Aizen-sama learned of your abilities through me. Everything you have gone through, and everything your friends went though for your sake, has been because of me."
She shook her head, but did not reply.
"I have made you cry."
"But I've also cried for you."
He could not stand it, the sympathy that he had not asked for and had not earned. With measured steps, he approached her. "Why do you continue to try to treat me as though I were a human?"
"Because you were a human," she answered.
The movement was too quick for her to pull back, too quick for him to reconsider. By the time he had raised her hand, he had pulled down the zipper of his coat enough that he could press her fingers over the hole at the base of his throat.
"This is what I am now," he said tonelessly, trying to concentrate around the heat her small hand pressed into his fingers and chest.
She did not move when he let go, her hand still lingering against his skin as she looked at him. Her eyes were wide, but she stepped closer and moved her other hand to join the first, gaze lowering as she gently traced over the edges of the hollow hole. "This isn't what I see when I'm around you," she said, voice soft but sincere.
He had fought so many battles that they all blended into one long path of violence behind him. He had defeated opponents of incredible strength until he had secured a place where few could hope to even challenge him. By no means had he believed himself to be invincible, but he never imagined that the one he would fall before would be a young human woman.
He could feel it now, despite every attempt to again draw the nothingness around himself; it would take her no more than one word, one more touch, and what he had left would be undone. Because when she managed to look back up at him, he could see in her eyes what had haunted the edges of his own thoughts, kept at bay only because she had done nothing to put those things into words or actions. But with it hanging half-spoken between them, he could no longer deny it.
So Ulquiorra did not stop her when the fingers at his throat hesitantly moved upward, touching the remainder of his mask on one side and his hair on the other, before shifting to settle more firmly against his face. She had stepped closer, too warm and too alive to be so near him, but he did no more than watch as she trembled.
"You're afraid," he noted quietly.
"Not of you," she replied, and crossed the remaining space between them as though to reinforce her words.
She still looked at him, unflinching and undaunted. "You should be," he murmured, but it held a certain sadness he could not explain, because it was not a threat – it was merely the truth. As his hand slid from his pocket and curled around her hip, he wondered how many he had killed with those fingers that could now lie so gently against her fragile body. And when he felt her sigh brush across his skin, he thought about how simple it would be to remove the feeble restraints that anchored her soul. It would be so easy to destroy her.
But either she did not realize or did not care, because instead of stepping back, instead of pulling away, she turned her face up toward his. In that instant as she gently leaned against him to steady herself, he knew what would happen if he stayed. Edges of reason frayed by her proximity tried to remove his hand from her waist, tried to get him to take just a single step away from her, but he found that the only movement he could accomplish was lowering his head so that her mouth could finally reach his.
It was torture, dredging up things from lifetimes ago that were too vivid for the black and white world he had accepted. Yet it was impossible to pull away from that softness, so foreign and somehow so familiar, when the fire it had instantly sent through every nerve suddenly began to burn in an entirely different way.
For a moment, Ulquiorra felt his control slip as he pressed his lips more firmly against hers, as his other hand now wrapped around the small of her back to draw her closer. The pounding of her human heart sounded dimly in his ears, and the sensation of her timid fingers in his hair shivered somewhere in the back of his mind.
Only for a moment, he was sure it could have been only for a moment; he would not have so acutely felt the absence of that touch when she drew back if it had not been fleeting, too brief to truly even consider. But he realized that it really did not matter, because it had been enough to drown him in thoughts and emotions only half comprehended.
And even then, as he felt a sort of hazy realization, there were just new questions to replace the old. Watching her hesitantly look back up at him, trying to hide her eyes in the shadows of her hair, he knew that he was no closer to understanding her than he had been before. All that had changed was that there were things he no longer understood about himself.
"This is incredibly foolish," he finally said, when his thoughts had calmed enough that he could even consider speaking.
Her eyes, still so close, flickered between his. "You think so?" she replied, but there was no disappointment in her voice; perhaps even she acknowledged the absurdity of permitting anything – and especially something so intimate – to bridge their worlds.
"Yes, that is what I think." He lifted his hand and slowly brushed away the hair that had fallen across her face, allowing his fingers to linger momentarily against her skin, before releasing her completely and turning toward the door.
It was not until he reached for the handle that he could speak again, trying to ignore how the coldness, which had never been uncomfortable before, was replacing the warmth she had managed to press into his flesh. "Yet…" it is not what I feel.
For a moment he glanced over his shoulder, wondering if she could discern the things he would not speak, if she would understand. Watching the smile slowly spread across her face, he knew that yes, she understood what he felt perfectly.