(A/N: My apologies for the epic delay on this story! I keep putting it off, and putting it off, and I know I shouldn't but I keep doing it! Damn my penchant for procrastination!)

Neliel:

Sometimes, I can't breathe. Sometimes, I feel like my lungs are caving in, or shrinking. Maybe they've begun to turn black, and slowly they are crumbling.

Maybe I should not think such pessimistic thoughts. Perhaps I should imagine that those lungs of mine are pink and as healthy as health itself.

It's hard to think of such things when I feel terribly ill, and I barely want to move.

Grimmjow's not happy. I don't really care. He's never been happy, and he'll never be happy until he's dead.

I thought that I'd be happier if I were dead, but now I realize that I'm happier being alive, and suffering this out. If I could live through this, I'd be strong enough to kill Nnoitora. Assuming, of course, he were alive for me to kill.

Maybe I'm wrong about Grimmjow. Maybe he could be happy. I cannot say for sure, but he wants to be happy, and I can tell. If I could make him happy, I'd feel a bit of his happiness. That would make me shine.

He insists on taking me to either Orihime or Szayel, but he wants me to make the decision. I really doubt it matters either way, but I have a terrible feeling about this.

So I told him to take me to Szayel. We rest in the sand, our faces turned toward the hulking mass that is Las Noches. It's beautiful, really, but not in the way of such things as love. Then again, love isn't really beautiful all the time, anyway.

It's beautiful in a cold, forbidding way, and I hate the place. I hate it with every fiber of my being, like I've never hated anything before.

When I think about how much I hate Las Noches, I can't breath. My chest feels like it's collapsing, my heart feels like it will stop at any moment.

When I turned to ask Grimmjow how long until we reached the labs of Szayel Aporro Granz, I found that he was asleep, and I could not bear to wake him. He looks happy when he's asleep, sometimes, and that was one of those occasions.

Sometimes I find myself thinking that he's beautiful in the way he says I am.

Right now it's more of a sickly beauty. The worrying over me makes him sick, and I can see it.

How strange it is, really, but I suppose it's a natural thing. We feed off of each other's emotions, for we have lived together for far too long.

I'm starting to wonder if we'll really make it to Las Noches, but I suppose we have to.

After all, if I let myself die, Grimmjow will think of me as a weakling, or a quitter.

I can't have that, now can I?