Keigo was feeling rather abysmal. This was rather an understandable disposition considering the situation that he was now facing. Keigo had never had a particularly marvellous sense of direction, and the small amount of common sense he did possess was useless in the face of the expansive white desert before him. He had very quickly realised that he was completely incapable of returning to the human world and so his escapism had finally lead him to a very dead end.

"I don't want to die..." He whimpered.

A furious hollow rampaged past him, chasing some elusive prey. Cautiously, Keigo snuck into a small and tidy cave that had conveniently presented itself. He curled up in a snug, secure ball and sang rather untuneful songs until he fell to sleep.

"Hummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm... haa-ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm..."

A peculiar noise filled the silence of the alley and floated out onto the street. Ichigo could not help but feel intrinsically drawn to this strange and yet vaguely familiar reverberation. He paced down the alley silently.

"Haa-ummmmmmmm..."

The figure on the ground looked to be engaged in some great feat of concentration, so much so that he did not notice Ichigo's approach. The light in the alley was dim, but not low enough that the form of the humming figure could not be identified.

"H-hey! You're that arrancar guy who took Keigo!"

Ulquiorra's eyelid flickered as his concentration was broken.

"Can you not see that I am attempting to concentrate, Trash?"

"Well... yeah, but... why are you here?"

"I am concealing my location while I search for that of the lost one."

"Who did you lose?"

"Keigo."

"...YOU LOST KEIGO! HOW THE HELL DID YOU MANAGE THAT!"

"...Please keep your voice lowered, trash."

Ichigo scowled, and then squatted down so he was level with the seated Ulquiorra.

"What have you done with Keigo?" he asked through gritted teeth.

"As I have already informed you: I lost him."

"How?"

Ulquiorra declined to answer.

"Hah-uuummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm..."

"Will you STOP THAT!"

"Do you wish me to find your friend?"

"Well..."

"Then be silent, Trash."

Ichigo scowl deepened, but he accepted Ulquiorra's command and sat in relative silence.

"Haaa-ummmmmmmm"

" You know, I don't see how that's going to help anything..."

"Of course you don't "

"..."

"Haaaa-ummmmmmmmmmm"

"That is really annoyi-"

"Found him."

Abruptly, Ulquiorra stood and made his way out of the alleyway, Ichigo hot on his heels.

"Where is he?"

"In trouble."

"This is without doubt the most demeaning thing I have ever been required to do."

"I've had worse."

"Really? Please, enlighten us. I'm simply dying to know..."

"You know how you made us repaint Las Noches?"

"Of course I do! One of the greatest achievements of my life!"

"Yeah, well... it sucks Szayel."

"Aaroneiro! How could you say such a thing!"

"He's right, Szayel."
"Zommari? Not you too?" Szayel whined.

"I apologise Szayel, but that project was so terrible that not even my... special medicine made it any more tolerable."

"You were high and you couldn't appreciate my vision! I thought dugs were supposed to enhance creativity!"

"There is nothing creative about hot pink."

"Shut up Aaroneiro." Szayel snarled.

"Now, now. As much as I am certain we could continue to critique Szayel's fashion sense quite happily for the rest of the afternoon, Aizen-sama has given us a directive. We should put aside our differences and work on finding the strange human that has captured our Cuatro's interest."

Aaroneiro's heads scowled from within their tank.

"I don't want to..." He whined

"Well, we definitely have an advantage over those buffoons; I have the human's location narrowed down quite substantially." Szayel flipped his hair proudly at his announcement.

"Well, where is he?"

"He's not in the human world."

"... That's all you know?"

"Yep, good aren't I!"

"What! No! I could have told you that!" Aaroneiro flapped his arms about wildly to emphasise how useless Szayel's input was being.

"Oh..."

Zommari sighed and activated his resurrection. Szayel looked at him quizzically.

"We have to keep our eyes open for any trace of the boy, correct? So the more eyes we have looking, the better."

"I hate you all."

Starrk chuckled nervously.

"Now, now Hallibel. It's hardly our fault we're in this situation. You should be blaming Ulquiorra, or even Aizen."

"Can't blame Ulquiorra, he's not here. Can't blame Aizen, he's the boss."

"But why do you have to hate us?" Yammy asked pitifully.

"Because you are fat, he is old, and he is lazy."

"I'm not fat! It's all muscle!"

"And I am not old."

The other three espada looked at Barrigan in disbelief.

"Dude... Your resurrection is a skeleton. How is that not old?"

Barrigan frowned. "I am the King around here!" He exclaimed. "Therefore I am not old!"

They walked on in silence.

"How does being a king make you younger?" Hallibel asked finally.

"It just does! Shut up already Hallibel!"

"Why are we out here again?"

Starrk almost gave in to his sudden urge to connect his palm to his forehead.

"We are looking for Ulquiorra."

"Are you sure he's going to be in the desert?"

"I have NO IDEA where he would be!"

They stopped and stood in thought for a moment.

"Isn't his little pet here somewhere?"

"It's not our job to look for them."

"Yeah... But wouldn't Ulquiorra be looking for him?"

They considered this point.

"Except last time Grimmjow tried that, didn't we just end up losing the human?"

"Yeah because Grimmjow tried it. We all know how successful anything Grimmjow does is."

More standing and thinking ensued.

"How can we even begin to locate a human?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well... they have such pitiful reitsu..."

Barrigan sighed.

"Then why don't we track Ulquiorra's reitsu?"

They stood in reitsu-finding concentration.

"I think he's hiding his reitsu." Starrk said after a very long and silent silence.

"Damn him! Damn you all! I HATE THIS!"

"Woah! Hallibel calm down!"

"No I will NOT calm down Starrk! This is complete rubbish! I shouldn't have to do this!"

Yammy whimpered softly as the voices rose to a climax.

"Hallibel! Seriously this is not the- zzzzzzzz"

Starrk was abruptly silenced by a nap attack.

"Well... I can see that this team is going to be so very successful." Barrigan grumbled.

"GRIMMJOW GET YOUR FURRY ASS BACK HERE RIGHT NOW!"

"MAKE ME! Stupid spoon."

Nnoitra hissed and took up the chase. A lone and recently fed hollow seated on a nice sandy knoll took in the action from his cosy viewing post. The two espada had been fighting each other for the better part of the day, resulting in very little 'Keigo-finding' action. Of course, the hollow did not mind this. Dinner and a show. It was his lucky day.

"AAHHHHH! YOU STUPID SPOON GET OFF MY BACK!"

"STOP CALLING ME A SPOON YOU ILL-BRED PANTHER THING!"

His lucky day indeed.

As the two competitors collapsed into an exhaustion induced nap, the hollow decided that now would be a nice time to return to his cosy little cave and have a little rest. Howling tunefully to itself it made its way back to its home. It entered the cave and sighed contentedly at the sudden loss of sandblasting. It was about to curl up and go to sleep, when it spotted a very strange object huddled in the back of the cave. Reaching out with a tentative tentacle, it prodded the lump.

"AHH! DON'T EAT ME PLEASE!" The lump shrieked.

"Eat... I only just ate."

"Oh..." Keigo watched the strange white monster carefully. It was definitely not the emo one come to rescue him. He felt disappointed. His stomach growled its own disappointment at being rather empty, the noise echoing around the tiny cave quite loudly.

"You are hungry."

"Ye-Yes... I am."

The hollow considered its new roommate. It didn't look like any type of hollow it had encountered before. In fact, it looked quite like a human. Of course, it dismissed that idea immediately. There were no humans in Hueco Mundo.

"What do you eat?"

"Umm... food."

This was not the answer the hollow had been looking for.

"I can find you a small hollow to eat."

Keigo was horrified.

"I can't eat that!"

"No?"

"NOO!"

"Oh."

The hollow was disappointed. It was in a good mood and having a roommate pleased it further. But having its new roommate die of starvation would ruin his day completely.

"Tell me something you like to eat."

Keigo considered this carefully.

"Ramen!" He decided.

"But that's something humans eat!"

Keigo blinked.

"Well... yeah. I am human, you know."

"You are?"

The hollow was incredulous. How did a human end up in Hueco Mundo?

"How did you get here?"

"I used Nnoitra as a shovel and dug my way out of Las Noches."

The hollow sighed. Those strange people in Las Noches; he had just known that they were up to no good.

Keigo began to fidget as the strange hollow stared at him, lost in thought. Abruptly it stood and trundled out the cave entrance, leaving Keigo staring out into the bleak white desert alone.

"Aizen-sama..."

"Yes Gin?"

Gin paused, scratching the back of his head uncertainly.

"Are you sure that sendin' all tha 'spada away was such a good idea? I mean, what 'appens if none of 'em come back?"

Aizen smiled benevolently at his overly paranoid little side kick.

"Nonsense Gin. They know better than to disobey me."

Gin shuffled his feet nervously.

"Well... yeah... but we've been pretty active lately, what 'appens if soul society gets involved?"

Aizen considered this.

"My children are more than capable of looking after themselves."

"But what if-"

"Gin, Gin, Gin" Tosen interrupted patronisingly. "Surely you know better than to question our great lord Aizen-sama's judgement."

"Guuahh guuahhh guaah" Wonderweiss was following close behind his blind companion, and felt that his input was necessary.

Gin's ever present smile twitched, but he decided raising further argument at this point was futile. Instead he plastered on his smile wider than ever.

"Of course Tosen. I wouldn't dream of questioning Aizen-sama, and I am sure he knows that."

Tosen nodded.

"Good... good." He murmured, before turning to Aizen and striking up a strange conversation about pantaloons. Gin sighed and left the throne room, the corridors of Las Noches felt deserted without the boisterous espada roaming them. Still thinking fond thoughts of the missing espada, he made his way out into the bleak desert to see how said espada were getting on.

Ichigo was feeling rather breathless as he chased after the fast moving espada. He was about to yell out and make Ulquiorra slow down when he noticed a hollow. Normally seeing a hollow would not bother him too much, as he would just hit it in the head and be on his way. This one, however... was attempting to purchase ramen.