Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach. Bet you're all shocked.

A/N: Sorry once again that this took so long to update, things have been getting crazy around here. Anyhow, here's the next chapter, and I will try to update by Sunday, I swear it. For some reason I'm very fond of this chapter.

The Hole Where a Heart Should Be

Hollow's have no souls. Without a heart, there can be no soul. And there is an empty place in Ulquiorra's chest where a heart should be. He looks back on the horrible things he has done, and the blood he has shed, and he feels nothing, no emotions whatsoever. That is what separates him from his fellow Espada. To feel emotions, he knows, you must have a heart, and that is something he lacks (lacks a heart he lacks it he has never had a heart). It has never troubled him before. He looked down upon the world with an indifferent eye, living and working for no purpose but Aizen's.

But now. Now. Now that he has met this… this girl, this woman, his entire world has been torn apart and patched together again, unfamiliar to him. The girl has changed him. There are things inside him that were not there before, and although they bring pain, they are also fascinating, intriguing. He wants to know more. What is a heart? He feels that this girl might show him after all. So, when he strides down the long white corridor, posture ramrod straight, hands relaxed in his pockets, and arrives at the girl's cell only to find that the door has been torn apart, the woman is gone, something indescribable fills him. A burning, irrepressible emotion that blurs crimson behind his eyes and roars in his ears. The two lowly Arrancar females standing there quaking flinch when he speaks to them, obviously expecting death.

"What is the meaning of this." his voice is still dead, emotionless, his riatsu completely under control.

"It was... it was Grimmjow, Ulquiorra-sama." one of the girls stammers.

"Grimmjow." he says, deadly calm, nothing showing on his face. The blue haired Espada has been here, his loud, obnoxious riatsu practically slapping Ulquiorra in the face, and Ulquiorra has an inkling of a suspicion as to what the fool might have come here for. He whirls, striding calmly down the hall with a measured pace.

He can feel her, the girl, although he isn't sure how, feel the heat, the light that spills from her like she is truly a miniature sun. His senses are far above that of a human's, and within no time at all he is able to locate her, in one of the obscure towers on the outer edge of Los Noches. He hisses to himself, an unusual display of outward anger, and blurs away to the place he had left Ichigo Kurosaki's body to rot.

When he arrives, the scene is what he has expected, the girl (bruised and battered and more beaten than he has ever seen her look) is frantically trying to recall Kurosaki to life, and Grimmjow watches with hungry, eager eyes.

"Hurry it up bitch, or Ulquiorra going to catch-" the blue haired Espada freezes, sensing Ulquiorra directly behind him. Grimmjow whirls, and sky blue eyes meet emerald green. There is a predatory sort of expression on Grimmjow's wild face, lips pulled back in a smirk to reveal sharp teeth. Pointless dialogue is exchanged, and Ulquiorra is painfully conscious of the fact that Grimmjow seems to be attempting to provoke him into a fight, but his eyes are on the girl. She stands there, skin pale, bruises showing on her skin like ink splatters on thin parchment, and she will not meet his eyes. Ah. She knows, then. She knows who it was that killed her precious "Kurosaki-kun". Ulquiorra feels a sort of satisfaction. Perhaps the girl will realize now that he, Ulquiorra, has the power to tear away everything that is dear to her, that 'love' or whatever this ridiculous emotion that she feels for this Kurosaki is foolish, and breakable. Ulquiorra is satisfied. So why is the skin around his hole burning like it has been set on fire?

"The girl has been entrusted to me by Aizen-sama." Ulquiorra says softly (soft but deadly oh so deadly) to Grimmjow. As much pleasure as it would give him to tear off the idiot's head right here and now, Aizen-sama might not be pleased to lose his 6th Espada a second time.

"Hand her over."

"Blow me." Ulquiorra blinks, and then the two arrancar are clashing in the air. But even as he wards off Grimmjow's attacks, his eyes are on the girl. She is standing by the golden sphere her power has created, holding a small child in her arms. Her eyes are too faraway to see, but there are lines of pain on her face. Ulquiorra is not invincible (no not invincible not invincible but close to it), and he has experienced pain. Pain is relative, however, a large percentage of it is felt in the mind, and Ulquiorra has never taken any heed of it. Pain, like anything else, can be controlled. The pain on this girl's face, however, does not seem to stem from a physical injury (although she has those yes bruises and cuts and scrapes). This pain is of a different kind.

"You're afraid to fight me." Ulquiorra turns his eyes to Grimmjow in time to block a cero, leaping into the air in a cloud of smoke, his face entirely composed. A hand pulls his jacket open. Ulquiorra cuts his eyes to the side, expecting an attack, but a small black cube falls from Grimmjow's hand into his hole instead. Ulquiorra has seem cubes like this before. He knows what they do. This will perhaps inconvenience him. The blackness explodes from his chest, snaking around him and trapping him in.

"Damn." he says, quite calmly, the expression on his face never changing. The moment before his face is covered, he eyes meet those of the girl's. There is something in them that Ulquiorra cannot quite classify. Ulquiorra has never been unable to classify something. His hole is burning (burning burning he has never felt a heat like this). The blackness closes in, and there is nothing.

A memory of something lost?

Or a memory of something I have never had.

End

Well, there we are. Whew! That was exhausting! Not :) Anyways, read and review puh-lease.