Thank you to all of you who were kind enough to review. I truly appreciate all your comments and concerns. Please keep reviewing!
In this chapter, a new twist occurs. Hopefully, this helps satisfy your Ulquiorra cravings!
-O-
Chapter 10:
Putrid Stranger
He glanced down at the cold bundle in his arms.
This girl truly was bothersome.
He sped through the night air in the sky -it was much faster than the ground -as he made his way back to the familiar white house.
Throughout the short journey, weak hollows that had been close enough to sense his suppressed spiritual pressure had moronically attacked him to gain power.
During the past week, he had vanquished his hunger by gorging himself with a vast amount of hollows that recently littered the once quiet and hollow-free city.
He knew that it was his presence that caused the dramatic and unnatural augmentation of hollows within the area. The hollows were drawn towards him in search for the object that all hollows seek: power.
With his strength and spiritual energy returning, it should not be long before the endless attacks for his power would cease, and the lowly hollows would learn to fear and avoid him much like before.
In the meantime, however, it was becoming quiet irritating to senselessly kill equally senseless hollows that felt the need for an early departure.
'Fools,' he stated.
As he neared Sayuri's home, he looked back down at the unconscious girl as her head restlessly tossed about against his chest.
He was painfully aware that she would be constantly targeted because the hollows can sense his spiritual energy mingling with her own aura. It was not like he could suppress his spiritual pressure that had glued to her form as a result of her long contact with him while he was healing. Eventually, once he leaves, the tiny amount of his spiritual energy that had attached to her would disappear, much like how a scent fades overtime.
Even more so, her soul smelled 'delicious.' It actually came as a surprise to him that her soul had not yet been devoured prior to her meeting him, but this was most likely due to the fact that the area in which she lives in had been completely devoid of hollow activity.
Unfortunately for her and the inhabitants of this quaint place, this little town had received a mighty boom in hollow population.
Ulquiorra noted the lights that remained on in the downstairs portion of the house and heard the commotion below as he neared his destination.
It seems her family had stayed up waiting for her return. He opened her window and purposely landed loudly on the hard floor.
Quickly, he set the young girl down on her bed and covered her body up to her neck with a blanket before disappearing out the window and blending into the shadows of a nearby tree. His wondrous eyes gleamed like a leaf coated with fresh dew.
Within seconds, as he had predicted, her doors burst open as her parents quickly rushed to her bed at the sight of their daughter.
"When did she get in?" the woman asked.
"I don't know," her husband answered, "Probably when we weren't looking."
At the agonizing expression on her daughter's face, the woman placed her hand on Sayuri's forehead and felt the teenage girl's frigid skin.
She gasps, "She's sick. Maybe that's why she didn't bother to tell us that she was home."
"She looks soaked, too," Sayuri's father commented as he observed water from Sayuri's hair make random patterns on the pillow.
Taking the blanket off, the eyes of both her parents widened considerably as the tattered and saturated appearance of their daughter sunk into their minds.
"What happened to her!?" her mother whispered in alarm, trying to maintain a low level of noise so as to not awaken their obviously exhausted and ill daughter.
In the same low but frantic voice, the father asked, "Where are her crutches?"
Though both were furious at their daughter's poor ability to care for herself and worried at their daughter's state, they did not want to ruin her rest. She appeared to have been through quite a bit of an adventure.
Feeling emotionally overworked, the parents dried their daughter with a towel and changed her sodden sheets. The father then left his wife to change Sayuri into warm and dry clothes.
The woman with curly black hair that resembled Sayuri's own ebony locks closed the door, after one final look at her daughter, for a well earned rest for the night.
Ulquiorra then seemingly materialized beside the bed when the room was finally vacated.
Walking over the sleeping bundle on the bed, he observed her pale complexion, her roseate lips opened slightly as heavy breaths escaped from them.
'What is her heart?' came his thought.
Slender fingers, that fooled the eyes of their latent strength, reached out to caress the pink skin of Sayuri's lips.
He was aware that most humans kissed to show their affection -their heart. However, he saw no merit in it.
"I wonder..." he uttered softly.
-O-
A tall, lanky form entered the dark room.
Dawn was barely revealing its bright head over the horizon, so most of the landscape was still coated in a sea of black.
His parents had told him that her sister was not going to school that day since she was ill and fast asleep.
However, he wanted to ascertain this for himself.
As he walked into the quaint space, his vision adjusted to the low light.
A strange dull gleam caught his eye. The minute amount of light cascading from the window was being reflected rather poorly from some sort of white thing.
A large smile gradually plastered its way onto his maturing face as the thing before him grew clearer. The light was being reflected by a white armor that belonged to someone he and his sister had long been searching for.
Ulquiorra's stared blankly at the boy.
Black vibrant eyes clashed with calm emerald ones.
In an excited tone, Shin exclaimed, "You're back!"
The ashen man merely nodded once to show his greeting.
"Where have you been?"
"Nowhere."
The middle school student laughed, "You haven't changed."
As if suddenly remembering a forgotten purpose, Shin ran up to his sister's bed to see its occupant still unconscious.
"What happened to her?" he pondered.
"Tell you parents that she tripped and fell in the river," Ulquiorra responded monotonously.
Shin quirked an eyebrow and laughed lightly.
"That is actually quite believable," he said, "She is clumsy."
The young boy analyzed his sister labored breaths.
"She gets sick really easily," Shin spoke, "Especially when it's cold. It's been this way since we were little."
"Hn."
"Thank you."
The older boy looked blankly, as if commanding an explanation, at the adolescent male.
Shin merely laughed in response.
"For always saving her," he finally clarified.
Ulquiorra's dark eyebrows furrowed.
'For always saving...her?' he pondered.
Shin's smile continued to light the room, but soon enough, he had to bid his farewell to the young man.
He had to go to school after all.
-O-
The day was rather uneventful.
He left the white home occasionally to eat some hollows that had been nearing his location.
Sayuri had not woken up, which worried her mother, who, in turn, had decided to stay home to watch over her daughter.
Ulquiorra observed his surroundings nonchalantly as he floated above the town. He had just recently killed some random weakling of his kind.
Below, students now littered the streets as the bell signaled their release.
Without anything else to do, the youthful-looking but powerful hollow, sauntered casually up in the sky towards his temporary dwelling.
As he passed the park and river that lead to the white home, he spotted Shin and some unknown individual walking alongside each other.
The stranger had messy brown hair and pools the shade of dirty mud. From what he could observe, the two males appeared to be quite familiar with each other.
Not really interested in the social life of humans, which he had learned from his observations of human activity to be quite complicated and emotionally draining, Ulquiorra passed them from above.
The ashen man entered the small bedroom window, and settled himself to his usual spot on the floor by the bed. He sat with his back supported by the bed and his left leg outstretched while the other was brought up so that his right arm may rest comfortably on it.
She still had not stirred.
From his place, he noted how she now slept more peacefully than she had the night before. No longer was she tossing and turning or crying out in her sleep, which he had to endure for most of the night. Frankly, it was truly bothersome. Then again, he had come to note that this woman was indeed quite troublesome herself.
He set Murciélago down to rest against the base of the petite bed. During his week long absence, he had managed to find his grey and light green sword behind some random bush in the park where he had fallen.
If only he can find clothing material that resembled his previous ones. He had been reduced to wearing the black pants, plain green shirt, and white jacket that Shin had given him to wear for their journey to the hospital the week before.
Nonetheless, he was not in a completely displeasing situation. He was now free to do as he wished without having to report to Aizen. He no longer had to arrive when he is summoned. He no longer had to live a life of servitude under a master that manipulated his kind as pawns simply because he could.
He was free.
Sounds of stirring, however, broke Ulquiorra from his deep thoughts.
Groaning, a body of pearl skin rose from the thick sheets that had kept it warm.
Confused, Sayuri surveyed the perimeter cautiously. Oddly, her hands found themselves brushing her lips, a foreign but comforting coldness lingering above the flushed surface.
'What is this,' she wondered, bewildered.
Her attention landed on the dark figure by the foot of the bed.
She blinked.
"Ulquiorra?"
The said lad stared blankly at the newly awokened female, "Hn."
"I fainted I presume?"
"Yes."
She sighed. "I see."
"How long was I asleep?" she questioned while attempting to rub the headache away from her temples and the sleep from her eyes.
"One day," came the simple reply.
"What about my pare-"
"Sayuri!" a male voice unfamiliar to Ulquiorra exclaimed as a recognizable brown haired boy suddenly opened the door and dashed forward towards the sitting girl.
"H-Hiro," Sayuri stuttered, surprised at the unexpected visitor.
Without warning, the boy encircled his arms around the petite form and brought Sayuri's body against his own in a tight hug.
"I was so worried!" he said during the embrace, "Shin had told me that you're sick, and then when I got here, your mom said you haven't woken up today."
Holding the dumbfounded girl at arm's length, Hiro continued, "But I am so happy to find that you're awake and well."
"I-I'm sorry to have worried you," was all Sayuri managed to say.
"No," Hiro began again as he brought the young girl into yet another hug, "I'm just glad that you're ok."
Abruptly severing the embrace, Hiro's lips then crushed hers into a one sided kiss.
Sayuri could only stay frozen.
'M-My first kiss,' she thought, her body still unmoving due shock.
When the two finally parted ways, Hiro leaned his mouth close to Sayuri's ears and whispered, "I was so worried about you. I love you, Sai."
Sayuri felt her jaw drop. She had been dating Hiro for about six months; they were merely dating. He was not her boyfriend nor was she his girlfriend. She had been, however, infatuated with him for two years. After knowing him for so long, she could tell that he had not feel the same level of adoration as she did for him, but it seems that fact has changed. She might even consider him a first love, but her first kiss...his confession...it was difficult to process it all. He had only kissed her cheeks before and never had he said directly that he loved her.
Sayuri stared disbelievingly at Hiro.
Just like that, Sayuri was sent into another unwanted fit of unconsciousness.
"Sai!" Hiro called out in alarm as his arms, which had remained around Sayuri's form, felt her full weight.
Hiro was completely naive to the loathe-filled eyes that processed the entire situation.
'This boy smells putrid.'
-O-
Thank you for your patience with me. I hope you all keep reading this story.
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Also, it would be much appreciated if you can comment as to whether or not the story is going at an appropriate pace or if it is too slow or fast.
Have a nice day.
Midnight4595 out.