A/N: POV switch/tense switching! I tried to keep Ulquiorra in character, and if you can't tell, this is the meeting where Grimmjow's debuts in the series. Oh, and at the end of this document, the italics end at "I couldn't…" I think FF hates me and will not let me change it.Review?

Part 2: Fatal

"Now you don't have anything to complain about."

His bright blue eyes flashed at me, outraged, loathing. He almost hissed. He was upset so easily. He was wearing thin, I noticed.

Very thin.

It was in his nature. He couldn't stop his own attraction, attraction for being and destroying. He loved the things he hated, and it only made his aspect of death turn him inside out. It was nothing.

Everything.

Arrancar, I've thought, have no soul. Most have raw, unbalanced impulses and tendencies, almost as childish and useless as human behavior. He was always like that - always foolishly reckless, stubborn. Always eager to overload his senses with violence-induced adrenaline.

Yet his lust for fight, lust for me does not sate him anymore. His attempts at injuring me during sparring are becoming increasingly wild, while at the same time we engage in behavior many would consider that of "love." Frustration, desperation seep through his cracking barriers of wild rage and delirium for blood. My polar personality forever keeps him wondering, wanting, but the Espada of destruction even has a shred of self-preservation.

There was only so much humility, only so much pride we could throw away.

I saw the disgust in his expression as my eye reformed. Spared. He thought I was making an allusion about our relationship. Unfinished, unrequited. I meant no such thing, but the accusation was not undeserved. He couldn't know. Of course he didn't know.

I wanted to want him as much as he desired me. His raw actions, emotions, kindled a longing in me. A want to see more than my eyes lent me, to feel more than the air, sand, blood. To be unrestrained.

He's never stopped to think that I can't return his overwhelming passion, that maybe

At that time

I was looking for a crack

in this static world.

I couldn't. That was not who I was, what I believed in. The entire span of my afterlife I had taken these principles, and now I was throwing them away.

If I let myself fall to these instincts, I'd become weak. I would be broken again.

The cracks so clearly etched on him were my warning, my cause, my burden. I couldn't become that, and strangely, though I tried to dispel these thoughts, I spent much of my time worried to the point of sickness that he would break. It was clearly wrong to have someone need you, and I couldn't need anyone again.

I've said the Espada are trivial in their tussles for power and respect. It is all we can do, as we can't forget what fading memories we once had.

I had thought I had rid myself of those.

The meeting adjourned - once Aizen retreated and Barragan finally hobbled away, I sonidoed in the direction of a large tower. I could feel his intention, and he followed me.

Gliding towards the window, the outlook was of the expansive dunes that we all once roamed. My attention was not held with that previous home, as the impending words were almost palpable.

"Why did I really do it?" I flatly quipped.

"No, why'd Nnoitra decide to become the patron saint of chastity? Of course. Why the hell did you do it?" The smart words, meant to be sarcastic, had a biting edge to them. "Your answer back there was bullshit."

I thought of the shocked, unknowing human, brandishing his meat cleaver of a zanpakutou, spirit pressure unsteadily bursting from him like a flood contained in an eggshell. I faced him. "Would you like the truth?" I slowly said. "I find him interesting. The child has more potential than any of us can even imagine, and I would like to see it one day." Even if that opportunity should manifest itself in a negative way for us.

"Interesting…" His eyes widened, the words blank. It wasn't a reply, but a replay of my words.

I tensed, expecting an attack, a scream, any retaliation. If this - this dysfunctional mess we were in - was ever going to end, it was now. I held my ground as he suddenly was mere inches from me, his eyes hidden as he stared at the floor.

"Tell me, Ulquiorra… Was I ever interesting to you?" His words were shaky. He was attempting to be calm, but the turmoil that brewed in him was evident. "Did I ever have this potential?" The stab at rhetoric was laced with the truth of the question. He leveled his gaze, a look brimming with an alien nakedness, an uncertain shield lowered, purposefully, temporarily. My chance at redemption; I was wordless.

The electricity that radiated off of him constantly was stilled, but the vortex wrapped around this eye of the storm tightly, closing in on us as I was paralyzed. I couldn't… My silence devoured this window to act, and his gaze hardened, the burning aura returning.

A whirring noise awoke as I stood, still motionless, him tracing my hollow-hole much like his unspoken confession that seemed so long ago. Sparks burned my flesh as he centered his palm on the empty space. I knew what was coming. He wasn't about to kill me. It was a message. Something that needed to show this was gone, because he needed it. I would've thought it dramatic, but my brain seemed painfully dulled and I heard the sound eclipse into a high-pitched keen. The loud vibrato of a cero echoed as the blue beam singed the edges of the gap and exploded into a sand-storm through the window.

Grimmjow Jaegerjaques didn't look back as he disappeared into the shadows.

I didn't move, grounded as a spiral of smoke drifted away to rejoin the cloud that had formed miles away. I kept my sights on the exact spot where I knew my chance at having a soul had deserted me.

I gave up everything to not feel anything, but this last piece I'd parted with affected me profoundly. Affected me in an odd, painful manner. I felt as if breathing was too difficult a task to bear.

Is this what I once called … loss?