Finally! An explanation of what happened to poor 'ol Ulquiorra. This is what you've all been waiting for. (He's not dead!) I hope you like this chapter. It's mostly just to put in perspective Orihime's feelings. To show that she is still suffering but also moving on. And how she and Grimmjow have grown to sort of rely on each other, with mutual understandings. Let me know what you think and if you are eager to read more, cause I really don't know how people feel about the story at this point. Please tell me?

Chapter Title: "Wake Me Up Inside" -Evanescence.

"Look at how you suffer." A long and lanky silhouette appeared in the threshold nearby Ulquiorra's corpse. A tremor in the building caused bits of stone and dust to rain down on this new comer. But he only watched with scientific eyes at the scene before him. Somewhere far off in Las Noches, Aizen was fighting that intruder, and maybe he was losing. Wouldn't that be exciting.

"Suffer suffer, look at how you bleed." He let out a small laugh. "Don't worry, I won't let you die." The figure came into a beam of moonlight, and his pink hair shown vibrantly. He held up a syringe and let some of the liquid ooze out the tip. "Just a little concoction I made. It'll help you grow big and strong." He leaned in and stuck the needle into Ulquiorra's neck, injecting the fluid into him. "It's minimally tested, so there will be lots of unexpected side effects. But don't worry you'll live long to see her again." He whispered the last part in Ulquiorra's ear.

The demon writhed mildly as the fluid began spreading through his blood, moments later he broke out into full blown screaming and flailing. The other arrancar backed off, as Ulquiorra reacted wildly, his teeth gnashing and his eyes were spinning wildly with feral pain. His howling was loud and piercing, letting the 8th espada know that his medicine was working. And with one last smug grin, he vanished into the darkness, making his escape from Las Noches like so many other unfaithful arrancar before him.

"AAAAaaaaaaa-K-K-KAUUUUOOOOOO!" Ulquiorra began biting through the stone on the floor. Taking mouthfuls and crushing it in his jaws before spitting it out. His one good leg scraped gouges into the floor, and even his broken arm flailed about sickly slapping the ground around him. It became apparent the medicine had reached his severed limbs when flesh and bone began trembling and stretching. Soon bone began rebuilding and forming. Muscles and tendons followed after, crawling over the newly formed bones. The process was not that fast, and the way it was progressing it was going to take over an hour for his missing body parts to grow back. And every minute of the process was going to be pain worse than he'd ever endured, even worse than the pain of losing said limbs. Unable to bear it, he began digging into the ground. Teeth, foot and slowly mending arm, all working to rip up stone, and eventually sand.

Deeper and deeper, till everything went dark.

Orihime woke with a start, sitting up straight in her bed, and cold sweat clung to her brow. For a moment she didn't know where she was. Part of her even expected to be back in Las Noches, but slowly the familiar surroundings took hold, and she regained her composure. For a moment all was quiet again, and when her breathing returned to normal she was able to hear the breathing of someone else. Grimmjow. The cat-like arrancar was certainly making a habit of crashing at her apartment. He spent the night there at least three times a week.

Grimmjow's breathing was steady, and she absently wondered if he had woken up, usually she would hear him snoring lightly. When a quick scan of the room told her that everything was normal and that she was alright, she quietly hid back underneath her blankets and tried to go back to sleep.

What felt like ten minutes later strange scraping noises started outside her apartment. It almost sounded like claws or nails scraping on things outside. Orihime let out a whimper and tried to curl up in a ball, to afraid to poke her head out and see what it was.

"Grimmjow?" She whispered quietly, hoping maybe somehow he was causing the disturbing noises.

She got a hefty sigh from the male in reply, and the sound of someone getting up. The rustling of fabric and a few footsteps later, she felt someone sit down on the edge of her bed. "I'm gonna sleep right here for a bit. You go back to sleep." She felt him sprawl out on the foot of her bed, lounging there as if just relaxing. It was funny, but having Grimmjow so close by gave her a lot of comfort.

"Okay. Nighty night Kitty-kins. Don't let the kittipillars bite." Orihime pulled her blankets closer and tried to relax.

"You're lucky I'm used to your sillyness, or that would really piss me off." Grimmjow shifted on his side to get more comfortable.

For awhile they were both in comfortable silence, but eventually she felt the espada shift again, followed by odd movement and mild tugging on her comforter. This kept up for several minutes before Orihime finally opened her mouth to say something.

"Grimmjow, are you kneading my blankets?"

The tugging and movement immediately stopped. and she felt the espada roll over again. "No."

Before anyone could say anything more, there was a high-pitched screaming wail outside. Followed by howling that faded off into the distance.

"Sounds like whatever was outside has left." Commented her male companion. His voice was laced with a concerned undertone.

"I didn't feel any spirit pressure, do you know what it was?"

"No, but it smelled funny."

"Funny? Like what?" She poked her head out of her blanket's to fix him with a questioning look.

"Almost like a mixture of old spice, rodent... and naphthalene." Grimmjow sounded confused about the last part, and his voice trailed off.

"Maybe your nose is broken, that's a lot of funny things to smell."

"Fuck you, and your broken face. Go to sleep." With that the conversation was cut short and both parties tried to get some sleep now that the thing outside had departed.

An hour passed quickly and Orihime found herself unable to find sleep. So she opted for more friendly conversation. Surely Grimmjow must still be awake.

"Grimmjow?"

"RRawwg!" Grimmjow got up on his hands and knees and glared at the girl through the darkness, his cat eyes sparking with reflected light causing them to glow wildly. "What the fuck do you want? I'm trying to sleep you little witch bitch."

"Do you think Batman is still alive?" Although her question was outrageous, tone was quite serious.

Grimmjow let out a palpable sigh. "Batman doesn't exist, he's a fictional character, Princess." Grimmjow turned away and made about half a circle before he realized what he was doing, and flopped back on his side again to go to sleep.

"He is real, he helped me find Ulquiorra, and navigate Las Noches. He's a great guy." Orihime defended herself.

"Yeah sure sure, didn't you know, I'm cat woman." The sixth let out a chuckle to himself, and tried to ignore the human girl.

"Grimmjow?"

"This better be important, or I'm kicking you out of this bed, and you can sleep on the floor."

Orihime hesitated for several moments, but finally voiced her question. "Do you think He's still alive?" The question was as somber and serious as a lost soul.

"Princess..." The blue-haired arrancar started. "He's ciest la vie. I'm sorry you lost, But I think you would have regretted it more if you let your friend die. The lawn ornament could never have loved you anyway. You two had an... interesting run, But what you had was lust. After awhile you'll understand, situations like that don't breed true feelings."

As Grimmjow's words sank in, she could only bow her head. Even if what he said was true, it didn't heal the slow bleed in her heart. That bleed that would continue to pour out sorrow and loss for the stoic espada. Everyone could see her suffering.

Suffer, suffer. Look at how you bleed.

And that's Chapter 25. Hope you enjoyed it. I liked writing it. I bid you all goodbye till next chapter, your humble author, Saij Spellhart.