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Chapter 2: News

He hadn't turned up today either.

Yukiko held her arms around her stomach, trying to shut it up. She sighed. I can go another day, but if he keeps this up I'll have to make a move, she thought. She had gone two days now without food, almost three, and she had done nothing else but thinking while he was gone.

She had long wondered of what they would do to her, or rather, what they would use her for, when brought her here. Aizen wouldn't have made the trouble of keeping her if she couldn't be used for anything, and there were plenty of women here, so her abilities had to be the only reason.

Aizen. She had never heard of the man, but the Arrancars that had come to collect her had mentioned that this man, the magnificent Aizen Sosuke, this Aizen-sama as they liked to call him, that he would like her to come to Hueco Mundo. Who is Sosuke, she had asked with slight disrespect before one of them had hit her in the face so she fell to the floor. They said she'd better come with them or they would have to kill her right there and then. She didn't believe them. If Sosuke, who's supposed to be a respected and powerful man, wants me to come to Hueco Mundo, he probably wants me alive.

She could have run away before they took her, but Hueco Mundo was a place she had heard of, and her curiosity made her go with the Arrancars. As she agreed to come with them she couldn't help to think: He sent five?

Her stomach made an aching sound again.

"Mattaku," she uttered, starting to get annoyed.

Her thoughts moved on to her food bringer. His face had been so intense when he tried to make her speak. He had most certainly noticed that something was wrong. When he held his hand around her throat, she had panicked, and she couldn't think of anything else than try to… she was glad she didn't go through with it, but the moment she'd started it, she couldn't reverse it. Not until it was complete. She had done this several times before, in the end, but she had never tried to go through with it only partially. What could this mean?

Her arms let go of her stomach as she started to remember things that wasn't hers to remember.

~ ( * ) ~

The great doors opened slowly and let in the stinging daylight. Two black shadows entered silently and walked toward the throne on which the magnificent Aizen Sosuke sat patiently, waiting for them to come forth. All the Vasto Lords and their Fraccións was present, standing on different levels and raised platforms. Their eyes attentively following the motion of the men's steps.

"We have returned, Aizen-sama." One of the men said as he bowed respectfully.

He was a skinny little creature with wide and open eyes, demon like and toxic green. A pathway of what looked like the tracks of old withered tears, made their way down his face, leaving him looking rather melancholy and gloomy. His dark straight hair was a deep contrast of his skin, which were pale and inhumanly white.

Aizen looked down at him from his high throne.

"Welcome back, Ulquiorra, Yammy," he said looking from one to the other.

"Now, let me hear your report, here in front of your twenty brothers and sisters." He paused, looking around the room at every Arrancar, before his eyed fell upon Ulquiorra again.

"Show us, Ulquiorra. Show us everything that you saw and sensed in the real world."

Ulquiorra raised his head.

"Hai," he answered with an obedient voice before he plucked out his left eye for everyone to see.

He stretched out his arm, holding the eye in his bony fist and crushed it to dust. The dust sparkled beautifully, spreading out through the room, surrounding every Arrancar where they stood.

The sparkling dust reached the man named Grimmjow, who sat in a corner with his five Friccións standing around him. He made a grimace when the dust sparkled in front of his face, like it smelled foul. Then he closed his eyes and saw.

Floating images appeared of Ulquiorra and Yammy making their way into the real world, looking around, observing the humans who could not see them. When they met two who could, Yammy severely injured one of them, a dark man with an unusual arm. Blood was gushing from the man's body; he lay still on the grass. Before Yammy could do the same to the girl that was accompanying him, a certain orange haired boy came and stopped him. He unleashed his Bankai without hesitation and cut off Yammy's arm before anyone could blink. The boy was a Shinigami, the Shinigami, the guy they were looking for.

Yammy attacked him and the boy fought him back. It went quite well for him, until his reiatsu came out of control, leaving an opening for Yammy. The boy's fighting became pathetic from now on, and it almost got him killed if the blonde man and the dark woman hadn't appeared.

The man hid his face in the shadow of his striped hat and blocked Yammy's attempt of killing the Shinigami. With a nod from the man, the woman leaped gracefully up in the air and kicked Yammy several times until his massive body hit the ground with a loud thud. Ulquiorra stood still, watching them as they turned their attention to their friends.

Yammy got on his legs, unleashing his red cero, laughing madly. He had though he'd hit them, but when the smoke from the attack blew away with the wind, the blonde man had drawn his Zanpaktou.

Ulquiorra hindered Yammy from attacking again and they left the real world after some exchange of words, and disappeared into the darkness.

"I see. So that's why you decided he wasn't worth killing," Aizen said amused by the pitiful fighting of the humans and the orange haired Shinigami.

"Hai," Ulquiorra answered.

"Your orders were to kill him if he might become a problem."

"That's stupid!" Grimmjow suddenly shouted out loud.

"I'd have killed that sorry punk with my bare hands!"

Ulquiorra turned his head and gave Grimmjow an empty look.

"Grimmjow…"

"It doesn't matter what type of logic you use. If the word kill appears in your orders, then it's obvious that you're supposed to just go ahead and kill the person. Eh?"

One of Grimmjow's Fraccións, Shawlong, stepped forward.

"I feel the same way. He's our enemy either way. Perhaps there's no reason to kill him, but there's no reason to let him live, either."

Grimmjow turned his attention to the massive man at Ulquiorra's side.

"By the way, Yammy, you got your ass kicked, huh? With you looking like that, it's more like you couldn't kill him rather than him not being worth killing," he mocked.

Yammy held his anger.

"Teme, Grimmjow. Weren't you watching? The one who beat me up were the guy in sandals and the black woman.

This was too stupid to be true. Rather than killing the humans and the boy right away, Yammy wasted his time waiting to get attacked and making conversation. Their orders were to kill them, not to play with them. If Aizen hadn't wanted them dead it wouldn't have bothered Grimmjow, but it was. And Ulquiorra? He had done nothing but watch the fight. He is the Cuarta Espada, and he did nothing.

"You just don't get it, do you? If it were me, I'd killed those two in one hit, too!"

Yammy lost his temper.

"What did you say?" he roared back at Grimmjow, standing up.

Ulquiorra stepped in front of Yammy.

"Stop it," he said.

He then turned to Grimmjow.

"Grimmjow, do you understand that this guy isn't a problem for us?"

"Huh?" He was obviously confused.

"Aizen-sama isn't concerned about his current state, but rather his potential. He certainly has some decent latent abilities. However, it's very probable that they're so huge and unbalanced; he'll destroy himself if left alone. That's why I came back without killing him," Ulquiorra explained.

"And I'm saying that's stupid! What you're gonna do if he gets strong enough to take us on?"

"If it comes to that, I will finish him myself."

Grimmjow looked a little surprised.

"Now you don't have anything to complain about," Ulquiorra said flatly.

Aizen saw Ulquiorra's logic, and agreed with it.

"That's right. I don't mind, if that's the case. You may do as you see fit, Ulquiorra," he said.

Once again, Ulquiorra bowed in respect before the great Aizen Sosuke.

"Arigatou gozaimasu."

Grimmjow trembled in anger, trying not to make a scene.

~ ( * ) ~

Grimmjow walked down the hall with angry steps, face tense. That had done it. He went to his room and shut the door, putting a barrier on so no one could feel his whereabouts. He tried to keep down his reiatsu by breathing slowly.

Ever since Takahashi Yukiko had tampered with him, his reiatsu had started to fluctuate. He had to concentrate to keep it constant, and if he got distracted he would get restless and start to see things. What the hell did she do to me?

He thought of what had happened to days back, when he played with that girl's life and suddenly lost all ability to move. The intensive pain that came from her hands scared him as he could do nothing to stop it. All these images, emotions, and the energy that had flown through him, it was so vivid, so clear, and at the same time he felt like he was being pulled out. Aizen has either forgotten to tell me something or he doesn't know what the hell he brought back here.

Grimmjow gained control over his reiatsu and breathed normally again, but he couldn't help to feel the presence of something that wasn't his. Or was it? Either way it didn't feel like his body belonged entirely to him anymore.