Chapter 11

"You're supposed to be dead."

My words are slurred, my tongue thick in my mouth, and a heavy fog sits in my mind as I tip the wine bottle back until the last of its contents hit my tongue. Once I'm sure it's truly empty, I place it back on the table, uncaring when my fumbling attempt at coordination only manages to send it rolling across it.

"All of you."

Eyeing the last bottle long enough to decide that my stomach is already too full to handle any more liquid, I dismiss opening it. The fog of alcohol in my mind makes me pleasantly sleepy and horribly uncoordinated so I slump onto the table, head pillowed onto my arms.

"What do you mean?"

A burp makes it's way to my lips, twinged with the sweet tastes of the wine and the last of my sandwich. The same type of sandwich I had put together and set Orihime's way with a bag of chips and a can of soda.

"You all die in the war, all of you, even Starrk."

It's nowhere near a gourmet meal, but it should fill her stomach at least enough that she won't starve to death. At least not intentionally. If she eats the sandwich or not is up to her. Though, considering how Ulquiorra has to threaten to feed her through a tube, she probably won't eat it anyway.

"Why?"

What a waste. Honestly, the more food Orihime throws away, the less I'll have to eat. If I even live long enough to need it, of course. Though, with Ichigo less than a day away from breaking into Las Noches to save Orihime, running out of food probably won't be an issue.

"Ichigo's gonna come."

So, really, I should be less worried about a possible food shortage and more concerned about how I'm even going to survive Ichigo's rampage through Las Noches. Or, more like how I'm gonna get all of us to survive it. For all that I've been beaten and bruised by them, I would still hate to see them all fall. Monsters or not.

"When?"

There's a hand in my hair. A cold one that easily moves the hair from my face and grazes against my cheek, trailing blissful ice across my overheated skin. I close my eyes against the cold, savoring it as the hand slips down to take my chin and tilts it up.

"Tomorrow? Today? What day is it?"

I've lost track of the days. They've all blended together in a mess of blood and pain, so I don't even know how long I've spent here. Trapped behind white walls and at the mercy of bruising grips and painful fits of rage.

"It is October 31st in your human world."

The hand on my chins stays gentle though. Even as I keep my eyes closed and lean heavily into it. It's comforting almost as it helps chase away the heat brought on by too much alcohol in my veins. Alcohol that I am in no way used to consuming, but despair has a way of making you search out self-destructive paths.

"At midnight then. Ichigo will be in Hueco Mundo by midnight."

The hand lets me go so suddenly, there's nothing I can do to stop from crashing back down on my arms. With a soft 'thwack' that would have hurt more if I wasn't so pleasantly numb, my forehead bounces off my arm, sending me dangerously close to slipping off the chair completely.

"I must tell Aizen."

The only thing that stops my descent to the floor is the blessedly cool hand that comes it my rescue. It catches my shoulder, easing me back on the chair as I turn bleary eyes up. Blinking the alcoholic haze from my eyes, I watch as those carefully blank eyes stare right back at me.

"Why?" I ask, tongue thick and foreign in my mouth as I try to make sense of what I've been saying. To think one bottle of wine was enough to lay me flat on my ass. "He already knows. He planned for it."

Even without ever really drinking more than a few sips of alcohol before, I would have estimated my tolerance higher than this. As it is, apparently one bottle is enough to have me blabbing my heart out to someone who would probably kill me if the wrong thing came out.

"He did?" Ulquiorra asks, doubt carefully hidden so that the words come out blank and confusing. My foggy mind has a hard time deciding whether that was a question or an agreement long enough that the hand on my shoulder turns unpleasant.

"Yes?" I answer, word questioning as I flinch out from under his hand. Of course, I overestimate the amount of flinching I can do. Too quickly correct, I'm screening off the chair, arms blinding reaching out and smacking both the air and the table as I fall.

But I never reach the damned tiled floor.

Cold arms snatch me up, wrapping me up and pulling me back into a cold chest that does wonders for the heat the alcohol has left behind. One arm goes around my shoulders, pulling me close. The other dips down once I'm close enough, sweeping my useless legs out from under me.

And that's how I find myself cradled against a cold chest, head lolling in the curve of his neck. That ink-black hair, soft as silk, tickling the tip of my nose as it brushes against it with every sway of his walk.

"My stuff?" I mumble against his neck, lips inches from his skin as the collar of his shirt has folded enough to reveal it. It'll be just as cold as his hands, I know it will, so I can't keep my self from brushing against it, savoring the stolen coolness.

"I will have it delivered to the room," he says, not flinching away when lips brush against his neck, soaking up all the cold he has to offer. He just continues forward, not even commenting on it as I all but sag against him. "For now, it would be best if you slept."

"Not yet," I mumble against his skin, even though I make no effort to actually stop him as he carries me away. Wrapped in his arms I have no actual intentions to slip out of them. Instead, I let him hold me, allowing the swaying to lull me further into sleep. "I hafta, hafta…"

"Have to what?" Ulquiorra asks, seemingly humoring me even though his voice stays as blank as always. I smile at the thought, pushing closer into his neck as I do so that he won't see the smile that spreads against my lips then.

I don't need him dropping me in disgust.

"I have to…."

I never get to finish my sentence. Not when Ulquiorra slows to a halt, swaying stopping. Pressed up against him as I am, almost plastered to his chest, I feel it as he goes tense. As every muscle pulls taunt and goes firm so the once comforting embrace turns painful.

I can't stop the whine that leaves my lips then, pulled from deep in my chest as his fingers curl, digging into the soft skin as they go as tense as the rest of him. Though not even my whine of discomfort is enough to stop them. Instead, they only dig in deeper at the sound, tensing further.

"What?"

Shocked out of the sleepy haze by the pain, I snap back to myself, the alcohol-induced fog dispelling so fast, I feel disturbingly sober as I pull my face from his neck in confusion. The sight greets me then almost makes me wish I hadn't.

Because all I see is red.

It drips from the walls, splattered so far up them that they look like a morbid work of art, and pools on the floor, gleaming and wet and oh so red as it soaks into white silk, leaving it forever stained a deep rust red and damaged. Just as damaged as the body it seeps from.

A mangled and broken thing that lies in a crumpled heap, surrounded by all that blood. It's as bloody as the walls, drenched in it until the once pale skin is tinted in that rust-colored red. But despite all the red and blood and gore I still spot blue.

Wide, lifeless blue eyes that stare at nothing.

That see nothing as the soul once shining through them is gone, lost, and probably devoured by the bodies that stand above it. Tall and looming and just as covered in blood as the walls around them even as they grin blinding white smiles. Smiles dripping in blood and violence and death.

"What is this?"

The words leave my lips even as I'm not actually conscious of saying them. The sight in front of me is just too horrifying to not say them. Too violent and gory and just plain vile as the figures stand above a small thing who now stares up with lifeless eyes and a neck twisted, crooked, and as broken as the rest.

Why?

I want to scream it out. Want to yell and curse as I watch the pool of blood only continue to growl, seeping forward until it wraps around Ulquiorra's boots.

Why would they do this? What's the point of this? To the senseless murder of one of their own kind? Especially when there's a war brewing on the horizon. When Shinigami's will come, rampant and lusting for the blood of any Arrancar left alive?

When they will stop at nothing to exterminate them as they once did to the poor Quincy.

Why make their job any easier by killing each other off?

Why make each other suffer when there is nothing but death and pain heading their way?

"Why?"

Slipping from Ulquiorra's tense grip is easier than it should be. For how harsh his grip on my thigh is, slipping out of his hold is smooth. Like the alcohol in my veins has truly been burned out by the shock, so that even when my shoes dip into the blood I don't slip.

Approaching the Arrancars is just as easy, the blood under my feet doesn't turn slippery even as it pools thicker the closer I get to the twisted and broken remains of what was once a girl. A young, small thing with strawberry blonde hair, smooth pale skin, and wide crystal blue eyes. Eyes that I now slip shut, easing the pink-tinted eyelids down until those lifeless eyes are hidden from view.

Even as the Arrancars crackle around me, faces twisting the longer they watch me, there's something that shines in their eyes as they do. A crazed look that only deepens as they scent the air, taking me in in all the ways they can.

"A human," one of them whispers, surprised and something like huger in her voice as she inches closer. Who she is, I don't know, her face is not one I've ever seen before while watching the show or reading the books. She is just a nameless face in a sea of many other background characters.

That alone is enough for me to know that they're all low leveled Arrancars. Rankless and weak even as they prey on others. Even as they kill and destroy and revel in the chaos they create. They are the slum that wanders Las Noches.

Weak Arrancars turned in the early days of experimentation or simply to serve. To heed to the orders of Aizen and his Espada. As useful as I am and probably just as prized as the weak human that wandered into Los Noches, a den of monsters. Yet they stand tall.

Towering over their prey and yearning for more bloodshed.

"My, how…Delicious," another one purrs, a male this time. One that inches forward faster than the last. That makes it close enough that I can clearly see something dark and dangerous twinkling in his eyes. The very something that shines in all their eyes.

Hunger.

Bloodlust.

Insanity.

So deep, so crazed that, if there was ever any humanity left in them, it's gone now. Washed away by the bloodlust until all that's left is a hunger for pain. For death and destruction and it's enough for me to know that there will be no saving them.

That there is nothing left to save.

They have lost to the beast carved out from the holes where their souls used to sit.

And that's all I need to know that there will be no happy life here. No matter how much I wished to save them, they will never be able to regain their humanity. Not when it's been lost to the violence so deeply etched into their hearts.

Las Noches will never be the happy place I hoped it would become with Aizen gone. It will forever be ruled by monsters driven by blood lust. This young girl isn't the first to meet her end to that last. And she won't be the last.

Not when death and violence seep from every inch of this damned castle.

"I could just eat you right up," the male Arrancar coos, words soft as he reaches one hand out, fingers going to slip under my chin. He's centimeters away, long sharp nails softly scraping against my skin before he's suddenly on his knees, choking as the pressure around the room builds.

"What do you think you are doing?"

Ulquiorra's words are deathly ice even as he stares the Arrancar down with a gaze as blank as always. Not that the Arrancar can even answer with the pressure of Ulquiorra's Reiryoku enveloping him. Except those words don't turn out to be directed to him as a cold and harsh grip wraps around my arm.

"Lord Aizen has already spent resources to heal, do you plan to put his efforts to waste by recklessly throwing yourself to your death?" Ulquiorra snaps, jerking me away from the Arrancars before I can say anything at all. "Must you always search for trouble?"

"Let me go."

My snarl is met with his infuriatingly blank gaze and a 'tsk´ as he yanks me forward and away from the mess of blood and death. Being dragged as I am, has me finally slipping in the blood. Stumbling forward, Ulquiorra's harsh grip is the only thing that keeps me from landing in the pool of blood.

"You foolish thing," he says and something about his voice itches at my skin, unsettling me even as it's blank as always. "Do you really believe you stood a chance back there? They would have torn you apart in seconds. And for what? You would give your life to avenge the life of an Arrancar you have never met?"

I don't get the chance to answer him as I'm suddenly yanked back into his arms, cradled into his chest in a cruel mockery of what was once a comforting embraced. I struggle against him, pushing against his chest but slipping out of it is not as easy as last time. Nor is it even possible as he only holds me tighter, grip harsh as suddenly the world spins.

As it all goes rushing past me in a blur of white and black as it all moves too fast for me to make sense. Not that I leave my eyes open long enough to try. As soon as everything blurs, I snap them shut and cling to him, fingers digging into his top as he moves faster than I can understand.

It goes on for a while. The wind whips around us, fast and as harsh as his grip on me as he Sonidos down the halls. So, when he stops, we're halls away and standing in front of his room. Though he only stops long enough to kick the door open.

Then we're rushing in again, standing in front of the bed in the blink of an eye. He dumps me on it with no words. Almost tossing me in his haste to be rid of me. I waste no time trying to get my bearings. In a messy tumble of limbs, I roll off the bed, failing to really orientate myself before I careen over the edge.

I land in a heap on the floor, taking most of the bedcover with me as I go. It's the only thing that keeps me from truly hurting myself as I crash onto the floor. Though, then it becomes a struggle to unwrap myself from it so that I can finally stand.

"This isn't fair," I tell him as I finally fight off the blanket and rise to my feet. The room spins around me as I do, reminding me that, for all the shock-induced clarity, the alcohol has yet to truly leave my system. "They shouldn't be allowed to do that."

There's no real fire in my voice. The fight is gone, left behind with the broken body and blood-splattered walls. Whatever anger had pumped through my veins has been chased away by the alcohol so all that is left is something disgusting close to defeat. Especially since I know as clear as day that there is no stopping it.

There is no saving them from the monsters that have devoured their souls.

"Trixy," Ulquiorra calls as I pick the cover off the floor and toss them back onto the bed. His voice is blank even as it continues to itch at my skin, if only because it sounds dangerously close to condescending. "You are in Las Noches. The Castle of Hueco Mundo, where Aizen is King and Arrancars roam the halls. Killing and eating. There are no rules here.

"No restrictions," he says as he moves in front of me when I sit on the bed. Taking my chin in his hand, he lifts it, so I'm forced to look him in the eyes as he feeds me a cold dose of cruel reality. "The only goal here is to survive. To live to see the next day and tear down those who would see you dead. Only the strongest will make it to see the next sunrise.

"And that includes you now," he tells me, staring me down. "If we are tolerating you now, it is only due to Aizen's command. You are only alive because you are under Lord Aizen's protection and despite what it may appear as it will not last. As soon as Aizen command is lifted, you are as fair game as that creature was. No one will protect you then.

"Do not be so quick to make enemies in a world where no one is your friend."

He lets my chin go at those words, finally allowing me to break eye contact as he moves away. A heavy silence falls over us then, one I don't know how to break so I let it settle over us stifling because he's right.

There's nothing I can do. No point I can fight. Not when I'm stuck in a world with no rules, no laws. Any point I can try to make is moot when the only one that can uphold the law sees no issue with them killing each other.

"I'm sorry."