Melding of the Heart

"Out of suffering

have emerged the strongest souls.

The most massive characters

Are seared with scars."

-Khalil Gibran

The man stopped dead still and looked down his arm at me. "What did you just say?"

I pulled hard, trying to get his fingers off my wristbut he was stronger than me. He looked like a stick, why couldn't he act that way? After seconds of flopping around, I stopped.

"Could you please let me go and tell me what's going on Mr.?" His reaction was like I had said there were bunnies living on the moon. The guy's eyes went wide and his eyebrows skyrocketed. Only for a second though, because then his face went blank and he stared off into one of the very white and boring walls.

"You do not know who I am."

"No." It wasn't a question but I answered as I pushed some hair out of my face - hadn't I just chopped it off so people wouldn't know I was a girl on stage? "If you don't let me go,I'll call for the police."

"There are no police here," He commented quickly and turned his head back the way he'd dragged me, "I would appreciate it if you were quiet the next minute and a half."

That's when I heard the footsteps and another man came into view. That's when I realized that there was something wrong with this place that I was in. This one had dyed his hair baby blue and was as buff as could be. Hair and muscle was fine, that was personal expression, it was the freaking holein the middle of his stomach that had a tiny bit of an effect on me. My knees went into a jelly state, my jaw dropped, and I sat down there on the floor, staring.

And this was before I noticed he had a jaw bone for a cheek.

"Grimmjow," the guy holding onto my wrist sighed, "why are you here?"

Grimmjow, who didn't apparently notice that he was missing half his organs, scowled, "Can't I be here without a reason?"

"No."

I dragged my jaw from the floor long enough to raise my free hand and shakily point, "y-y-you have a hole in your stomach."

He looked down as if he had seen me for the first time, "Yeah? Thanks Captain Obvious. Where's yours?"

The man above me cut in before I could go 'what'? "ignore this trash."

"What's up with your princess Ulquiorra? She looks like she's gonna faint."

There was a hole in his stomach, why couldn't I be a bit surprised? Wait a second, I was a princess now? Where in the world was I? Or was this all a dream? It must be, why else would there be people walking around with holes in the stomachs? That's right. A dream. All of it.

"At this second, my fraccion is highly drugged by mistake and now I must deal with the consequences," I stared up at this Ulquiorra. Dreaming? Yes. Drugged? No.

The blue haired one squinted up his face like he had just sucked on a lemon, "Yeah? Why did Aizen just tell me to tell you to inform Szeyal that he was needed because one of his experiments on that one were done? Like completed on purpose?"

Sitting on the floor, listening to two people that were talking about stuff that I didn't understand, or frankly care about, was not on my to-do list. I turned my wrist to see if I could maybe just pull out without my captor noticing till it was too late. There was a tiny bit of hope.

Bracing myself, I threw myself away from Ulquiorra. Nope. Instead, he glanced down as I started to move. His hand shot out of nowhere and jabbed somewhere into my neck. Only then did he let me go.

Too bad I didn't understandwhat he had done quicker, because then I probably wouldn't have landed on my nose unconscious.

Waking up with a sword to your neck is not fun.

Trust me because now I knew it firsthand. The pale guy had apparently dragged me into some cramped storage room and dumped me on something that looked like a chair but felt like cardboard. There was a headache that was eating at the back of my skull. I did not feel like having a long piece of metal shoved up against my neck either, thank you very much.

Psycho with the white face didn't give me the chance to express my feelings, "You will answer three questions and do what I command then and only then will I allow you to go home."

I squinted down the length of metal, "Wow. A sword. Did you know that a gun is a bit more… you know… advanced?"

"First question: What is your name and how old are you?" He blinked away my comment and surged into my interrogation. Leaning back as far as I could, I juggled my options until I came to a conclusion. Dreams were dreams, why not play along?

"Sola Kiri, I'm seventeen, actually I'm turning eighteen in a couple months," I shoved out the data, "can you pleaseput the sword away? Have you ever thought that it might be a bit distressing?"

Ulquiorra mulled over the question and slowly put the oversized knife away and asked question #2, "What is the date?"

"December 30th," I took a second to look at the room closer. There were two different doors and both of them were closed. Who knew which one lead out or probably more correct, who knew which one would get me less lost.

"Official date, trash."

Leaning forward, I didn't take these things well. "I'm sorry, did you just call me a piece of garbage?"

"You are a worthless item of existence, the sooner you accept it the less painful your life will be," Ulquiorra stated after a second of examining what he had just said. That was my philosophy lesson today, the world was nothing. How depressing. Along this train of thought was also the fact that rainclouds cry and everything you do is meaningless.

"Well, I don't think that I am worthless."

He sighed, "Let us agree to disagree, now answer the question."

I sat back, crossed my arms and shot out in one short burst, "December 30th 1904."

The silence was deafening. Ironic is that phrase was it was true. Just saying the date seemed to send this guy thinking and he just stared off in space like I wasn't here. I raised an eyebrow. I tapped a foot. I thought up getting up. I decided against it because psycho still had a sword.

"Look, I would like to get out of here," that's when I remember that the biggest event in my life might have happened without me, "I needto get out of here now. Actually no, how long was I out?"

The guy that had put me in all this trouble answered offhandedly, "About two hours."

Thankfully there would still be enough time. I missed the last bit of rehearsing before the show and the warm up but if I got there now, I could still pull it off. Pushing of the chair thing, I walked up to Ulquiorra.

"Ask your question, tell me what to do, whatever, get me out of here."

He looked down at me, "I do not need the answer to my last question. Come with me now."

Ulquiorra walked to the door to the right and I followed. I didn't know now if this was a dream or not but I couldn't risk it not being one. Opening the door, I peeked inside and promptly became confused. There in the middle of the room stood a huge black, at least grand sized piano. The musical instrument looked like it had just gotten the works, dusted, polished and the keys washed. It yawned open and sat there like some content dog.

"Okay, so there's a huge piano in there. That's nice," I pulled my head back, "now what?"

He walked past me into the room and put a hand on the thing, "You are going to play this."

I froze at the doorstep and stared, "what?"

A couple hundred million thoughts went through my head that second. How did he know that I could play the piano? Or that I had any piece memorized? Or that I could even do anything related to music? Better to summarize, was he crazy?

Calling the psycho crazy wouldn't roll over very well, I rephrased. "No."

"You did not hear me. That was not a question."

"You heard me," I entered the room, laid both my hands on the beautiful black top and talked into the reflection, "why should I play? I play music for my own reasons. There's only one reason that I create my music, it's not something that I do on command, a whim, of a person."

"Play."

"You really can't do that," I moved down the instrument. It was like I was attracted to it as if it needed my touch to be there in that spot. Running my fingers down the side, I could feel that it was the most expensive thing that I have ever seen.

Ulquiorra watched me and placed both hands in his pockets, "play."

"Meh," by then I was practically facing those white keys. I rubbed the back of my head, trying to feel where my headache was pounding.

"Play," For once, his voice seemed to lose that hard edge.

I shrugged; the temptation was too much. I pulled back the seat and placed my fingers on the smooth keys. It had to be out of tune, the stuff down here was dusty, old and withered. The wood itself had to be warped. My fingers played a note and it sang in response. The note sounded correct, unlike the painful screech I was waiting for.

"It's tuned," I looked up at him.

"It was fully tuned five hours ago."

I shook my head and played a little ditty. It was a good piece of wood. Once that song had rolled away, I sat back and sighed.

"Ok, I played. Now can I go?"

Ulquiorra looked at the belly of the beast, the hammers and wires all set up right. "No… play the song that you will play tonight."

"Come on, I don't have time."

"Now, and do not skip a single part, you must finish it fully and completely. Then it's over."

I shook my head and tried a note. Before I knew it soon the whole song was rolling out. My fingers didn't feel like they were pressing on keys but more touching on the mood of the piece. The song cried and sang. My mind dived into the song and I lost myself. The rolling happiness came into my mind, the rhythm rose and fell and the notes turned into this pure beauty.

Then it was gone.

All emotion was gone in that hole in my chest.

I was dead again.

The music stopped.

It was over.

I was sitting at a very stiff chair and staring at a block of wood. Not that I wasn't happy not to have some sane thought but I did not expect to be in the basementof all places. I looked up at the Espada that was looking at my face like I had something on it.

"What?" I narrowed my eyes and then several thought shot through my head. "Actually, never mind, what am I doing here? Why am I at a piano? Why I am so tired? Scrap that, why am I sane?"

It was the first time there was a hint of relief in that trash-loving Arracar's face. "All those questions are irrelevant."

I shakily pushed on the keys to get myself up and it groaned in response, "oops."

That's when my legs went all noodles and I tumbled off the seat and practically into Ulquiorra's arms. Another oops. For once, I did not care. My whole body felt like stone. My head rolled back on it's own until I was starting up at Ulquiorra's chin. I thought about somehow dragging myself off the Espada. My limbs weren't listening anymore. The world closed as my eyes dipped shut.

Ulquiorra sighed in disdain, I felt the basement disappear to be replaced with my room. The next second my bed came up to eat me.

I rolled over on the covers and blinked up at Ulquiorra, "how did you know...?"

He looked down, annoyed, "you shouldn't ask such questions."

"Well, I am."

"There was a time… I was becoming who you became," Ulquiorra watched my eyes flop open and closed, "but I unlike you, I was intelligent enough to overcome it."

"That's-that's nice," big yawn, I stretched and pulled up the cover.

"Such trash, I don't know why I bothered fixing you."

"You care, that's why," I closed my eyes, turned over and dropped away into sleep.

Too bad I never heard Ulquiorra Schiffer's response to my comment.

It could have been the most heartfelt thing he'd ever say.

Or he could have just told me that I was trash.

Thanks to .13, Shiningheart of ThunderClan, iDon'tLiveiWatchOthersLive, Winter 'neechan, Rose202, and TheCrimsonKiss for reviewing! Wow...I was not expecting that! Why are you awesome people paying such attention to little old me? Thanks to Rose202 who literally made this chapter so you could read it.

Which one do you think it was? Trash or a heartfelt comment? :)

Actually I hated this chapter. Still kinda do, perfectionism is an awful thing. Humor next week though! Can it be true?

Thank you,

Review?

Quin

Kubo Tite=Everything here minus Sola/Human Sola (Quinhywvar, but you knew that already)