A/N: Wow. This is it. The last chapter. Thanks for coming on this ride with me! And super big shout-out to my lovely Espada-IV for watching me write this final chapter and encouraging me when I got stuck. (more notes at the end)

Chapter 46: Endgame

"Oh god, I'm so sorry," Orihime breathed, pulling away from Ichigo's lips abruptly as she realized what she had done. "That was so inappropriate." She stepped back, looking as contrite as she should. Whether or not she and Ulquiorra had any relationship left to salvage, she knew she had no right to just kiss Ichigo, especially considering their past.

Especially considering their past.

Ichigo quickly turned away from her, panic welling up within him. "What have you done?"

xXxXx

"Kisuke Urahara." the former Espada's soft voice sounded loud in the silent laboratory.

"What is it, Cifer-san?" the scientist replied, unconcerned with his charge's sudden interruption.

"Do you sense that?"

"I sense your spiritual pressure rising. I suggest you harness it soon, or I will have to have Jinta go and retrieve a suppression necklace," Urahara said, standing straight and raising his clipboard to his chest. This was cause for concern. The chaotic nature of the spiritual energy rolling off Ulquiorra in pulses alarmed him. It reminded him of what he heard from the voices of the hogyoku:

He will stop at nothing to protect her.

No one will be safe. He would destroy himself. He would destroy everything.

There are only two other viable hosts. One is the human woman. The other is the substitute shinigami.

The integrity of the fabric separating all the spirit realms is at risk.

"Well, shit." It was an uncharacteristic curse from the well-mannered merchant as his attention was ripped away from his memories to the now empty space in front of him.

xXxXx

Orihime. She was in danger.

Her reiatsu was muffled by the walls of Urahara's lab, but it wasn't enough to sever his connection to her.

He felt it like a puff of her breath against his neck, and that was all it took. Ulquiorra had used sonido to get to the bunker, and it was a good thing, too. By the time the door closed behind him, he had completely burned through his gigai. He found seven of the suppression necklaces Urahara kept there, and put all of them on at once, hoping it would be enough to contain the rage and panic he was feeling.

His heart galloped in his chest as he streaked above the buildings of Karakura town. Within seconds, he appeared inside of Orihime's apartment.

What he saw chilled him to the center of his soul.

Bone white skin. Yellow irises. Black sclera.

Ichigo's nails and hair were growing in front of his eyes. The young man's body heaved as he appeared to be trying to restrain a power beyond his control. "Orihime… Get-" he struggled to warn her.

"What is happening, Kurosaki?" Ulquiorra snapped, stepping behind him, between him and Orihime.

The woman barely had time to recognize Ulquiorra before a guttural scream ripped from Ichigo's throat and he rounded back on her. She cowered and covered her head, the force of Ichigo's hollow energy shaking the floors and walls.

Ulquiorra turned towards her, shielding her body with velvet black wings. "Are you alright, Woman?"

She peeked between her fingers and opened her mouth to respond, but was cut off by a cruel chuckle. Suddenly Ulquiorra was gone, and she was face to face with Ichigo again.

When he spoke, he sounded nothing like her friend. A sarcastic voice hissed, "Unbelievable. Of course. Of course that abomination would attempt to steal my vessel."

Black and gold eyes flickered to where Ulquiorra lay in a crumpled heap in the corner of the room, the broken remnants of a bookshelf strewn over his body. Ulquiorra groaned and moved his head slightly. The seven suppression necklaces had worked. His immense spiritual pressure was completely bound to his body; he had been unable to project it outward to cushion the blow.

Orihime's eyes followed the hollow's, and she panicked. What was he going to do to Ulquiorra while he was down? Why couldn't Ulquiorra stand? In her fear, she tried to distract the creature.

"What do you mean, your vessel?" she demanded, the bridge of her nose crinkled into a scowl.

A high-pitched cackle answered her first. Wicked amber eyes found hers and narrowed. "You don't know? You stupid, useless woman. Your spawn is near to half term, and you do not recognize it?" Ichigo's possessed body took two steps towards Orihime and wrapped its pale, clawed hand around her neck, lifting her to standing. "That won't do, Princess. You are the incubator for my vessel, not the hogyoku's!"

With that, the hollow raised Orihime off of her feet. "Perhaps this is for the best, though. I've come to understand that humans get rather attached to these things. However, since you didn't even know, the trauma will be minimal. I'll only need to wait for your physical injuries to heal," he muttered, drawing his arm back and curling his fingers into a fist.

Ulquiorra's eyes snapped open at the threat, and in an instant, he was on Ichigo's back. Black-pelted arms wrapped around white in an attempt to restrain its intent to pummel Orihime's belly. His long, whip-like tail coiled around the hollow's throat and down his other arm, squeezing to get him to release Orihime, and hopefully render him immobile.

Orihime's vision swam as she struggled to maintain consciousness, but Ichigo's words slowly started to make sense. Was it true? Is that why none of her clothing fit? Was she pregnant?

A soft fluttering sensation in her belly was all the answer she needed, and her survival instincts took over. Without a word or even a proper mental incantation, a bright golden light burst between her and Ichigo, and he was forced to let go.

Orihime's lightshield swooped between her and the floor as she dropped from the were she had dangled in the hollow's grasp. Gasping for breath, she could barely make out Ulquiorra's words as he called out, "Raise your shield, Woman! Protect yourself!" and charged.

Again, Ulquiorra's body flew in a blur of black and white towards a wall.

Again, the hollow inside of Ichigo screamed its rattling, bone-chilling wail.

"Ichigo! Ichigo, please, please stop!" Orihime screamed.

It was a familiar refrain.

Ulquiorra's memories immediately went back to the dome of Las Noches, when a younger version of the woman before him wore white and finally impressed upon him the meaning of the heart. He had let the monster that Kurosaki had become, back then, best him. He could not allow that to happen this time; not when it appeared that this monster would stop at nothing to get what it wanted.

"I WILL HAVE YOU!" the thing screeched, lunging for Orihime and bouncing back off her reconjured shield. It came at her again, and again, each time shrieking in frustration.

Orihime was terrified of the sight of the enraged monster attacking her barrier again and again, but she had to have faith. This is what Ulquiorra had trained her for. She had to trust her abilities.

That was it. Ulquiorra could not sit there and do nothing. He cautiously removed one suppression necklace, and then another, stopping at there when Orihime's shield appeared to glitch in response.

He sent out a test pulse of reiatsu.

"Ulquiorra! Be careful!" Orihime cried out, pushed to the ground by the heavy force of it. Just as Ishida had described in Hueco Mundo, Ulquiorra's spiritual pressure still had the immense oppressiveness of an entire ocean forcing its weight down on those below.

A snarl came from the hollow, who spun a quarter turn back towards Ulquiorra. "No worries, Orihime, I'll be able to find you and take care of your little problem after I take care of this pest," it said to her and then flexed its own spiritual pressure. It was disturbing to see the evil come through so clearly over Ichigo's normally kind face.

Almost immediately it faltered, and a more human cry emerged.

Both Orihime and Ulquiorra were horrified to see the Ichigo's sclera turn white and irises turn brown, just long enough for Ichigo's fearful voice to cry, "Run!"

The following scream was the worst sound Orihime had ever heard. But worse than that, what really she knew would cause nightmares for years, was when she watched the skin on his neck tear and a hollow jawbone rip through it to cover the bottom of his face. Ichigo's terror-filled eyes pleaded with her as tormented cries filled her apartment.

"Ichigo!" Orihime's deep-seated need to protect him cut through her other emotions, and she got to her feet, putting her hands up in front of her and beginning an incantation.

She never got to finish it.

"What do you think you are doing!?" Ulquiorra shouted at her, placing her gently on the roof of her building after a burst of sonido that Orihime had been unable to perceive.

"Can't you see? That hollow is ripping him apart from the inside!" Orihime shouted, too distraught by present circumstances to really come to terms with the fact that she was talking to her boyfriend, and possibly the father of her unborn child, for the first time in months.

"What does he mean, you are an incubator for the hogyoku?" Ulquiorra's eyes urgently searched hers for an answer as he held her by the shoulders.

She opened her mouth to answer him, but noticed that they were not alone. One figure clad in black after another appeared in the sky around them, all with deadly expressions on their faces.

"Orihime!" a familiar voice called, approaching the couple.

"Rukia?"

"What is going on? The Twelfth division said there was a disturba-"

With that, the shinigami in the sky were blown backwards and an ancient, earsplitting howl tore through the roof of the building. The hollow trapped inside of Ichigo's body rose through the resulting tear in the roof, eyes locked on Orihime.

"Protect Orihime! I must stop him!" Ulquiorra shouted to Rukia, then pressed his lips to Orihime's for just a second. He was in front of the short shinigami the next moment with Orihime, and back on the rooftop without her the next.

"Quick, Tessai-san, Hachigen-san, Kuchiki-san, we're going to need every kido barrier you can think of," Urahara stated, showing up out of nowhere with the two kido masters and working on spells of his own. "I don't think any of us can stop what will happen inside except Cifer-san."

Rukia threw worried glances around to her comrades, who quickly began following orders. She kept an eye on her human friend, though, who looked down at the two figures inside of the ever-fortifying barrier below, completely bereft of comprehension.

Orihime's eyes followed the flashes of black, green, red, and white as they clashed on the roof. Dread filled her as understanding finally began to dawn.

She was pregnant.

Ulquiorra was the father. The father who was not human by any means.

Ichigo, her friend, was trying to both hold onto his life and destroy Ulquiorra's in the process. And if Ichigo was successful, his hollow meant to kill her fetus and impregnate her for itself.

All of her breath left her and she collapsed against Rukia in a sob, still unable to rip her eyes away from the scene below.

Inside the barrier, Ulquiorra roared. He knew Orihime would be unable to completely forgive him if he killed her friend, at least that is what he believed. He removed another suppression necklace and then another as he tested the strength of the barrier surrounding himself and his opponent.

"Kurosaki!" he shouted, holding a finger out to him and gatherng his spiritual pressure. "Resist! Do not succumb!"

The monster within him paid no heed. Another muted human scream followed by another came forth as long, bull-like horns pierced Ichigo's skull from inside out and grew to the size they had been on the dome of Las Noches. The blood seeping into his hair was reminiscent of the shade it had been in a cowl around his neck as a Vasto Lorde. The ball of red that grew between the horns came as no surprise to Ulquiorra, who released his cero at the same time as Ichigo.

"Oh my god," Orihime whimpered, her eyes searching desperately for a sign that Ulquiorra had survived. When she saw a flap of black wings in one of the upper corners of the barriers, she blinked away her tears and made up her mind.

She called upon her power and a golden platform appeared below her feet. Faster than Rukia was able to stop her, she was down at the level of the barrier. Just as she had when she visited Ichigo training with the Vizards years ago, she was able to slip through the barrier without resistance.

"Stop!" Rukia screamed. "Orihime went inside!"

"There is nothing we can do," her captain replied from close behind her. "If we stop now, all of Karakura will be destroyed. Keep going!"

Inside the barrier, Orihime felt as though her skin was being singed. "I reject!" she incanted, and her shield wrapped around her body, buffering her from the other two souls' spiritual pressure.

"Ulquiorra!"

"What are you doing in here?!" he replied, immediately in front of her.

Ichigo was charging another cero. Their options were limited, and if Ulquiorra removed any more necklaces, he could not guarantee Orihime's safety, no matter how much stronger she had become.

He didn't realize it at first. Neither of them meant for it to happen. But as the moments passed, he felt himself weaken.

"Orihime," he said, suddenly breathless. "I don't know what's happening," he said as his body began to sink back down to the surface of the roof.

"Ulquiorra!" Orihime cried, swooping down to catch him and enveloping him with her inside of her shield.

Ichigo's hollow roared and detonated the cero, which hit Orihime's shield dead on.

It didn't even crack.

"Let me out, Orihime! I have to strike while he is vulnerable!"

Orihime didn't even think, and Ulquiorra was back outside, feeling a bit stronger than he had a moment ago. He closed his eyes and imagined how it felt to conjure his Luz de la Luna. When he opened them, there it was, a jagged jade green staff of light.

His eyes narrowed and he charged at Ichigo. The only thought on his mind was protecting the woman he loved. "I'm sorry," he muttered, then sliced the weapon through Ichigo's abdomen, from shoulder to hip.

An animalistic shriek was cut short by the gurgling of blood. Ichigo coughed, spraying Ulquiorra with red. The black seeped out of his eyes as he fell to the ground.

Everything slowed down, and the previously charged atmosphere inside the barrier suddenly felt stagnant. Ichigo coughed a few more times before the blood stopped flowing from his mouth. "I'm sorry," he said, his voice that of a nineteen year old college student again. "I'm so, so sorry."

Tears filled Ichigo's eyes as he looked up, through the barrier, and saw his friends. He saw his father, and then he couldn't take it anymore. He covered his eyes and sobbed as the claws on his hands receded back to normal human fingernails.

"I'm sorry, Dad. Karin. Yuzu. I'm sorry Rukia."

He opened his eyes and looked through his fingers at Orihime. "I'm sorry, Ori-"

Shit.

He felt his chest grow cold. He saw his nails grow back into claws before he heard the sounds of bone cracking and sinew snapping back together at inhuman speed.

Shit.

Inside his mind he could hear maniacal laughter. This was it. White was going to win.

"Ulquiorra!" Ichigo shouted, fighting his body as it tried to force him to stand.

Ulquiorra had stepped back to stand beside Orihime. "What is it, Kurosaki?" he asked, confused by what he was witnessing.

Ichigo was standing upright at this point, and he used the position to look straight into Ulquiorra's eyes. "Please, you have to finish this. Please. I can't hold him back for much longer."

Ulquiorra was horrified when he realized what Ichigo was asking him to do. "No. Fight, Kurosaki. Fight. What did you tell me before I died? You fight because you must win. Fight now, and win. Only you can fight your demons."

"No!" Ichigo shouted, desperately pleading with the former Espada. "I'm too weak! I don't have the power! You have to finish this. If you don't, White will come for Orihime. He will hurt her. He will use her to make a new vessel for himself. That can't happen! We have to finish him, now, once and for all. Otherwise all of this will have been for nothing!"

"No!" Ulquiorra shouted, backing Orihime up with him. This entire situation was deeply disturbing. The more he thought about it, the more he knew he couldn't do this. He did not want to do this. It was one thing to end the life of a hollow intent to destroy the woman he loved. It was another thing entirely to kill a young human in distress.

Ulquiorra had left Orihime so he could become the kind of man that she would want to spend her life with. If he killed Ichigo now, he would be no better than the monster he had been in his past life.

"Ulquiorra…" Orihime said gently.

She knew. She had seen this before in a more muted expression, but she knew Ichigo was right. He had explained to her. She hadn't believed him completely then, convinced that he had used his hollow as an excuse to break up with her.

Now she understood. He had been trying to protect her.

"What is it?" Ulquiorra said in a shaken voice.

"It has to end," she said.

He turned to look at her, and her heart broke when she saw the expression on his face.

He looked so torn. So scared. "I can't, Orihime. I cannot. If I do, I will lose any shred of humanity in me."

"Ulquiorra, please!" Ichigo screamed as bone began to grow in a pair of plates around his forehead, from his temples towards the center of his face.

This time, Ulquiorra felt his own eyes burn as they filled with tears. It isn't fair! "I can't…" he whimpered, his voice weak and body shaking, until he felt a warm hand on his shoulder.

"Ulquiorra, it's alright," Orihime said to him in a soothing tone, and her orb-shaped shield collapsed until it only contained Ulquiorra and her hand that remained on his shoulder.

She squeezed, and he felt a lightness in his body that he hadn't since before the hogyoku had invaded it years ago.

Orihime released him, and the feeling remained.

That's when he started to worry.

Orihime's body vibrated. She felt strong. She felt decisive. She felt… godlike.

She approached Ichigo, calling out to him in gentle tones. "Ichigo? Can you hear me?"

His voice was still his own when he replied in a frightened voice, "Orihime? What are you doing? Where is Ulquiorra? You're going to get yourself killed!" His eyes found hers from under the hollow mask that was trying to obscure his vision, and when he saw her, he stopped struggling.

She looked like an angel. A golden halo surrounded her entire body. Her face looked so kind, so sweet. "No, I'll be fine, Ichigo. Is this what you want? Do you want to end this?" she asked. Her reservations felt like they were trapped behind a wall in her mind at the moment. She knew they were there, but she couldn't really feel them. She smiled at him and waited for his answer.

"What do you mean, Hime? You can't-" he paused when he saw it. There, in her right hand, was a sword as long as his own, bathed in golden light, with a six-pointed flower at the hilt. He looked back up into her face and was speechless.

"Ichigo," she repeated, this time her voice unnaturally amplified and multiplied, but still soft, still loving. "I have to know."

"It's the only way. Please. If you can do it, Orihime, please, end this."

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened her eyes, she smiled at him before she said, "I'm sorry, Ichigo. I wish you peace in the next life."

Time slowed down for him as he saw the slight flinch in her brow when she raised the blade, although she didn't hesitate to bring it down over his head. He watched its approach and felt no fear, closing his eyes and tuning out the sound of White's screams inside his mind as it cleaved the hollow mask on his face.

Before it happened, he thanked her silently.

Ulquoirra looked on in horror. The woman he adored, the one who would do no harm, had taken a life. A human life. Something he had found himself unable to do.

Orihime watched as Ichigo's body fell in a small, crumpled heap on the roof. Her shield broke and her sword disappeared, and very suddenly the reality of what she had done dawned upon her. That wall inside her mind that held back her reservations broke open. She slowly sank to the ground, sitting in a quickly-expanding pool of blood.

What have I done?

She choked and watched with wide eyes, a hand covering her mouth, as the hollow artifacts faded away from Ichigo's corpse.

Impossible. How could I do something like this?

Then the tears came.

She found it difficult to draw breaths, and when she did, she couldn't stop; breath after frenzied breath as she began to hyperventilate.

Her emotions were just about to spiral out of control, ready to plunge into a sea of despair and self-loathing, when she heard it.

"Yo."

Her breath stopped. She turned around slowly, and at first, all she saw was Ulquiorra. His mouth was open slightly and his eyes were raised to a spot somewhere over her head. She followed his line of sight, and a sob tore past her lips.

"What's wrong, Inoue? Looks like you've seen a ghost." Yeah, he knew it was an asshole thing to say, given the circumstances, but Ichigo couldn't let her beat herself up over this for another moment.

Orihime watched Ichigo smirk at her with a well-deserved blush painting his cheeks, and slowly stood up. That body behind her wasn't him. She was looking at him now. He wasn't human anymore, though.

He wasn't a hollow either.

He stood in the air before them clad in a shinigami shihakusho, with zangetsu secured safely on his back.

"Cifer-san, oh, Cifer-san!" Urahara's voice broke the quiet inside the barrier.

Three sets of eyes turned toward the shopkeeper, who stood just outside the kido shield.

Ulquiorra shook his head and cleared his voice, although it broke when he answered, "What is it, Kisuke Urahara?"

"If it wouldn't be too much trouble, would you mind collecting the suppression necklaces you took from me? We'd like to take the barrier down, and-"

Orihime interrupted. "That won't be necessary, Urahara-san."

She looked at the two souls inside the barrier with a shaky smile. "Be right back," she murmured and crossed through the barrier, returning with the shopkeeper inside of her shield.

"You see, I think… I think he is no longer carrying lethal levels of reiatsu," Orihime explained before letting her shield dissipate.

Urahara frowned and carefully approached Ulquiorra. He studied him for several moments and then nodded, gesturing to Tessai and Hachigen, and the barrier collapsed.

Almost immediately, Orihime found herself crushed against the body of Isshin Kurosaki.

"Oof!" she squeaked, then relaxed, as she heard the man whisper in her ear, "Thank you, Orihime-chan."

xXxXx

May 2nd, 2:30 a.m.

"One more push, Hime-chan!" Isshin said, encouraging the exhausted young woman. She had been in labor since around nine o'clock the previous morning.

"Do not give up, Woman. Draw upon the hogyoku if you must, but persevere," her husband said to her.

Yes, husband. After Orihime's pregnancy was confirmed, Urahara took it upon himself to inform her aunt and offer to adopt Orihime. The older woman had been horrified that her model student niece would get knocked up before reaching the age of majority, and signed away her rights without argument. Once Urahara was named Orihime's legal guardian, he was able to give permission for her to marry.

It had been just in the nick of time, too. The adoption was only official at the end of March, just in time for both Ulquiorra and Orihime to finish their last semester of the year at university. Ulquiorra and Orihime submitted marriage papers at Town hall in mid-April. They had only enjoyed about two weeks of marital bliss before their offspring decided to enter the world.

Orihime scowled at Ulquiorra. "Thanks but no thanks. I'll do this the old-fashioned way," she grunted before screwing up her features and bearing down on an intense contraction. It was silent in the room for a moment, and then a sharp, goat-like cry filled the room.

"Congratulations, Cifers, it's a girl!"

xXxXx

They took the next semester off as parental leave. Orihime planned to return to university on a part-time basis after their child entered nursery school. Ulquiorra returned for the winter term, although he transferred to Karakura University. He found that he had an intense interest in philosophy, and that was the focus of his studies.

Urahara didn't care that it was a major that would confine Ulquiorra largely to academic fields. He planned on making the now-hogyoku-less plus soul useful to him anyway. There would always be work for Ulquiorra, either legitimate human enterprise or otherwise, and he would remain under Urahara's protection and surveillance for the rest of his natural life.

That part was significantly less complicated now, however. It did not take Urahara long to confirm that the hogyoku had been transferred to Orihime during the battle with Ichigo's hollow. It turned out that she was an ideal host. Powerful, benevolent, and most importantly, quite human. Unlike Ulquiorra, whose lifespan was theoretical at best, Orihime had a finite number of years as a human in her current lifetime. Soul Society was much less concerned with her being the host and Ulquiorra being an unspecified plus, than their previous arrangement.

Some questions remained, however. How Orihime was impregnated, in the first place, was one of her first ones. Urahara explained, again, that the hogyoku operated in large part on wish fulfillment. It could easily override biological constraints, such as Ulquiorra not being human and Orihime's hormonal birth control methods, just as it had when it had initially granted Orihime her powers to protect Ichigo when he first became a substitute shinigami. It had been a quiet, introspective evening when both Orihime and Ulquiorra recalled the night of their daughter's conception. Both of them had been so desperate to find a way to be together, to bind their souls together permanently.

"Where there's a wish, there's a way," Urahara had said.

In the end, none of that was important. What was important was their new family. Harumi Cifer, quite literally a "spring beauty", as her name implied, was a delight to her young parents. There was something not quite human about the brown-haired, hazel-eyed child, although they would not know until she was older what that would entail. In the meantime, it meant that she slept through the night at five weeks old and was intensely observational. She also was a source of joy for her family and their friends.

And what of their friends?

Ishida kept his distance, although he did send a card of congratulations at the birth of Harumi.

Tatsuki and Chad had been surprised, when they returned to Karakura for Ichigo's funeral, to see Orihime's round belly and Ichigo looking very much alive and present. He apologized for leaving them prematurely in the world of the living. The ceremony was mostly for the benefit of the non-spiritually aware people in Ichigo's life; his former teachers, classmates, and random bullies he had reformed throughout the years.

They had a party at Urahara's that night after the funeral for the majority of his friends who were able to see him. Even Yuzu, who previously had no ability to see ghosts or hollows, was able to come to terms with this new situation. Her brother had a new job, in a new place. It didn't mean he was gone forever. It was just like he was going away to University in another prefecture. The only weird part would be that she would grow older faster than he would.

It wasn't an ideal situation for her or the rest of her family, but it eased the loss significantly.

Orihime still carried around guilt that she had been the one to end Ichigo's life, although she did not regret it. He had thanked her multiple times, insisting that her actions were heroic and that she had done all the realms a great service by ridding it of Aizen's abomination. She took comfort when he reminded her that had she not done it, Harumi would not exist, and the cycle of White possessing a child until it could find another host would continue.

It was what Ichigo had wanted. He was forever grateful that in that moment of passing, it had been his dear friend, Orihime, who had taken his life with kind, benevolent eyes and a soothing aura.

Ichigo, Rukia, Renji, Matsumoto, and others from Soul Society would still visit throughout the years, coming down to visit on rare holidays and on missions. Life went on for those who remained in the World of the Living.

On an evening several years later, as Ulquiorra and Orihime sat on a bench watching Harumi play in a park with other children her age, the redhead looked down at her belly, once again swollen with child, then up at her husband. "You know, if you had asked me, when I first saw you in this park ten years ago, if I would have ever believed that this would be our life now, I would have laughed in your face."

Ulquiorra smirked and draped an arm over her shoulder. "Laugh? Really? With Yammy there sucking up souls like Pixie Stixx?" Urahara sold the foreign candy in his shop, and Ulquiorra had found it disgusting.

Orihime rolled her eyes. "I'm serious. This is all so absurd, if you think about it."

Ulquiorra's smirk stretched into a grin. "Good thing you're so pretty. You don't need to think too hard," he teased her. Of course he thought she was intelligent, he had just picked up some idiomatic humor over his years living as a human.

Orihime groaned and poked him in the side. "You're awful. What would you tell Harumi if she were in my shoes back then?"

Ulquiorra's brows fell as he watched his daughter. "I very truly hope that our daughter doesn't have to spend her childhood, or young adulthood, growing up, er, gifted," he said and shivered.

Orihime felt it and nodded, reaching out for her husband's hand and giving it a squeeze. "Agreed. I wouldn't wish that upon anyone."

A/N: So, I published the first chapter of this story in August 2017. I really, really wanted to finish it this month, August 2020. Three years. Wow. This is the first fic I ever wrote and I am humbled that so many of you have read, and some of you actually *enjoyed* reading it. Thank you so much for all the comments and idea bouncing. Thanks to so many of you who I've come to think of as friends.

The way the ending played out might have come as a surprise, but I actually planned this ending somewhere around chapter 27? I know I've slowed down a lot in my upload frequency, but that was because I was dreading this last chapter. It was incredibly hard for me to write it; and I cried the day before and during and hard a terrible headache that only let up when Ichigo's torture finished. I DID NOT ENJOY DOING THAT TO HIM.

Anyway, I tried to tie up all the lose ends in this chapter. If you have any plot holes or unanswered questions, please don't hesitate to ask. I'll answer for my shortcomings, LOL.

Once again, thank you for reading. I hope to see you again. Love, JKRob xoxo