This is a FOLLOWUP to NINTH CIRCLE
All his actions until this moment have been orders.
Kidnap the girl, Ulquiorra.
Make sure Grimmjow doesn't kill the boy, Ulquiorra.
Protect Las Noches, Ulquiorra.
He does them with robotic grace, with commitment that can come only from one who has seen and understands the consequences of disobedience. He has followed orders and he has accomplished his tasks. Aizen is a good leader, he is like a man playing chess. He knows what every piece can do, good and bad, and he knows how to move them around the board accordingly. It would not surprise Ulquiorra in the least if a few of the deaths had been necessary sacrifices to Aizen's eyes. There is someone moving him across the board and in a way, Ulquiorra finds that to be forgiving. It is Aizen's hand that moves him, Aizen's hand that makes him do these things. What is there to feel guilty about when he is nothing more than a piece on a chess board.
Or he was anyway.
Now as he wipes the scarlet that Quincy spat off his face, he realizes that he has gone rogue. He did not need to reveal his second form to them. He could probably have ripped Kurosaki into such tiny pieces in his initial release. He knows that destroying the Quincy's form, well that he could have probably done without even going to his first release. Perhaps the amount of damage that he did to the two of them was rather excessive but it was necessary. That woman had to know that this was over. He had tried to show her, he had tried to imprison her but it was clear the only way to make her see was to take everything she held dear and to shatter it. He wanted to rip Kurosaki Ichigo into shreds but still, he found little joy in the action. It was necessary to the mission and that immediately detracted from the joy. But it was still nice to know that there was absolutely no way in hell that the orange haired idiot could pull his fragments together and come and kick his ass.
Now to deal with that woman.
On the chance he wins, Aizen's no idiot. He knows there are advantages to having a Queen and Halibel is far too violent to fill that position. But a woman with the hair like sunset and the powers of the Gods, she has Queen written all over her. Well not now, not with her eyes wide and her body shaking like a leaf but that is a temporary state. Aizen released her to her friends but her friends are now dead and by default she goes back to them. Until he hears otherwise he is still her captor, her guard, her protector. Aizen will be less than thrilled about the torn garments--hell he's less than thrilled about them. The last thing he needs is to be seeing more of that creme skin of hers. He has to get her inside and he has to change back into his initial release. But it looks like her grip on reality is waning and he knows that he's got to get her inside before anything else.
It awkward to walk on his clawed feet but he knows that flying will just frighten her more. The last thing he needs is for her to throw herself off the edge of the building and for him to have to explain to Aizen why she's unconscious. So he walks over to her on his feet, making sure to over ride his instinct to spread his wings in a show of disgustingly animalistic desire. He might look like an animal in this form, he might feel more in this form but he is neither an animal nor a primal being. He controls, controls controls everything about himself and everything the world will let him. He will control this woman in front of him for as long as Aizen lets him. He has shattered her hope, her dreams, everything she clings too with that foolish, useless heart of hers.
Then she looks up at him.
By now he knows to expect a degree of unpredictability when dealing with this woman and her friends. After all she slapped him that one time and Ichigo actually managed to land a few decent hits on him. But when she looks up at him what he sees in her grey eyes actually freezes him. He has seen that look before, somewhere he could not place. But this look, this terror and sadness, it is so familiar and it is so heartbreaking that he actually feels something. Something far more acute and far more deep than any physical wound. And just like that he feels disgust churn through him. He is her protector and he has caused her harm. He wanted to show her that the hope she clung to was crap but somehow he got caught up in his own selfish desires and he disobeyed his mission, his mission that is her and her well being.
"Woman," he sighs her name, his voice still the same even in this form. She continues to stare at him vacantly. Actual concern--for the mission, not the woman--weaves through him and he reached out, his hand grasping her shoulder. She's always responded to physical contact, even if he has made sure that theirs is as limited as can be, "woman," he says her name sharper.
She reacts this time but instead of rationally, she staggers back. Its instant as one moment his claws are laying on her and the next they are buried inside her flesh. It should feel no different, human is human is human but for some reason this does. it feels different to have her blood flowing down his fingers. She sinks to her knees before he can pull himself free and he feels his razor sharp claws slide up inside her. Her flesh parts under his fingers as if its nothing, each of his claws leaving a deep bloody line that will scar her forever. She sinks to her knees and buries her fingers in her hair, unaware that his hand has run its course and pulled free but remains extended, her blood dripping from between his claws.
He has marked her.
He looks down at the hysterical woman. Her hands are buried in her hair and she's shaking her head back and forth like she's trying to get rid of a bad dream. Its hits him what she's about to do. But for all his speed, for all his power he cannot move to stop her. He knows that the one who wakes her from her nightmares is him. The one who chases away the other Espada, the Arrancar, anyone whose trying to hurt her is him. The one who protects her even from herself is him. He can do nothing as she squeezes her eyes shut and screams for the one that has been her protector through all of this.
"ULQUIORRA!!"
The desperate shout of his name is enough to drop his hand. His tail hits the ground as he stares at the woman in front of him who has doubled over, her body shaking with sobs as she begs for her protector to save her from this nightmare, unaware that he is the one who has put her in this position. Its easy to drop to the first of his releases, his power level dropping as fast as the sensation in his stomach. There is no logical reason to take his first form. They are on top of a building but Sonido could take care of that. Just like that his helmet breaks and reforms, his wings disappear as his cloths come back on his body. Mercielago seals his forms and secrets away as it returns to his side. She continues to sob and shake but somehow the weakness he always found pathetic is actually justified at the moment.
"Woman," he says her name, his voice dull and echoing to his ears.
"U-Ulquiorra?" her tear filled eyes look up at him, revealing the shattered woman who is held together only by her physical body. Bile rises to the back of his throat at the sight of the innocent hopefulness that plays in her eyes. He feels his own narrow but he bends down anyway, "I had a--" her lips fall silent. Bent down she can see. She can see the orange and the white and the black and all that ruby spreading around the roof, "a dre--"
"No dream, woman," he says, his voice cold and practical as the hope flees, "your friends are dead. Didn't I tell you caring about them was pointless?" he demands getting to his feet.
"They can't be dead," she gasps shaking her head, "no no no," she touches her fairies, "I can heal them," she says but when she tries to push herself up her legs won't work, "I can fix them!"
"Woman stop being ridiculous," he says, frustration lacing his tone, "your friends are dead and you cannot help them. I am not wrong or lying to you. You can see it with your own eyes."
"You killed them!" she cries suddenly turning her grey eyes to him.
He isn't sure how she manages to walk on legs that are more rubber than bone but she staggers forward and her fists slam into his cheek. He feels her knuckles tear on the bone of his helmet as her hands slam anything they can. He can barely feel it but she seems to need to hit something. So he lets her pound against him. She's torn and bloody already, at least the blood on her knuckles will be justified. He feels the scarlet stain his shirt, stark against the white fabric but he does not move. Her punches waver in their force until both her hands pound his chest in synchronization before they bury themselves in the white of the garment and she begins to sob in earnest.
He looks down at her with an odd sense of detachment. She had been hitting him and he knows she hates him but now she is sobbing against him, clutching him like he is the only thing real. He tells himself the hands he places on her are to steady her, to make sure that she does not fall and hurt herself further. The fact that one is around her shoulders and the other is at her waist is just because those are two points good for stabilizing people. He is not hugging or comforting her. She can hate him all she wants, it is not like he wants her to forgive him. He is just glad that crazed hopefulness is not in her eyes anymore. Nor that vacancy. for a moment he thought he broke her. He does not wonder why that bothers him.
The hand that is at her waist goes under her knees as he pulls her sob-wretched form against his body.
"Wh--" she cannot speak.
"We are going back to Las Noches," he says, "There is nothing for you here."
"How do you know?!" she cries pulling back to glare at him, her grey eyes huge with tears, "the others--"
"They will be dead soon as well," he tells her knowing it to be the truth. A small handful against an endless army? Besides he imagines they will know of their friends death and grief will cripple them as well.
"I believed in them," she says the words hollowly, with the shock of a child that has just found out Santa is nothing more than their parents, "I believed in them."
"You were foolish woman," he scolds her. She nods meekly, "relying on others will bring you nothing."
"You're still here," she whispers.
"I am ordered to be here," he tells her.
"But you're still here."
He takes her away from the nightmares and back to Las Noches to wait for the next orders to come.
Still here.
He has no reply for the sense in her words.
Okay so I've gotten a few questions as to what the titles of the chapters are.
"Saints and Sinners" refers to a quote by Oscar Wilde.
"Kyrie" refers to a type of music that is often played in church, its also a prayer.
"La Luna" means 'The moon' in Spanish which is a reference to "Las Noches" which means 'The Nights'
"Virtue" obvious and a play on the thing that they're doing which is obviously NOT virtuous.
"Ninth Circle" refers to 'The Divine Comedy' by Dante Alighieri
"Songs of Innocence" refers to one of the two books "Songs of Innocence and Experience" which is a collection of poems by William Blake.
"La Vita Nuova" is also by Dante Alighieri and tranlates to "the new life"