Yay! New chapter! :D Just letting everyone know that I probably won't be uploading all the chapters this quickly. I just wanted to post this one because the last one was just an intro-prologue-here's-what-the-story's-going-to-be-about type of chapter. So enjoy...and review...and bash it...constructively...thank you. :D Oh, yes; I almost forgot! I like good grammar. I find it takes away from a story if it has bad grammar. As such, I've taken a lot of time to edit and re-edit this story, BUT if you do happen to come across a grammar mistake that I missed, no matter how small, pleeeeeeeease tell me. I would appreciate it greatly. :D Haha, it's funny; after I posted this the first time, I found a grammar mistake in this little beginning rant thing. But I fixed it. So everything's fine. :)

I do not own Bleach.

Take It All Away

Chapter 1: Memories of an Empty Soul

*SLAM* Ulquiorra-sama! *CRASH*. Ulquiorra paid no attention. Most arrancar almost certainly would have jumped in surprise, but, well, for one, nothing really could make him show any reaction at all, and two, he had gotten quite accustomed to it over the past two months. This had come to be quite a common entrance for the young girl. So, what was it this time? Bumped into one of the useless objects that she insisted on covering his room with, or tripped over the coffee table? He glanced back. Tripped over the coffee table. Why was it even called a coffee table? Basically the only thing arrancar ever drank was tea. Shouldn't it be called a tea table? Why was he even discussing this with himself? It was the girl's fault. Her random way of thinking was starting to have an influence on him. "Heh heh." The girl jumped up quickly, slightly embarrassed. "Ulquiorra-sama?"

"It's Ulquiorra." It was almost an automatic response. No matter how many times he told her not to, she always called him that. Ulquiorra guessed it was due to a forgotten habit that she still subconsciously clung to, but he didn't like it. It brought back memories he would rather forget.

"Ah, sorry."

"You don't need to apologize." Another phrase he said more often than not. She apologized way more than she ever needed to and probably more than all of the arrancar in Las Noches combined. "Sorry" wasn't at the top of the average arrancar's list of favourite words. But then again, she wasn't an ordinary arrancar. Ulquiorra cleared his mind of this train of thought as he could predict where it was leading.

"What is it?" he said in his trademark monotone voice.

"Oh, yes. Aizen-sama wants to know if you're done your paperwork yet. You're the only one who's not finished. Well, except for Grimmjow, who took one look at the papers and burned them to ashes in a matter of seconds."

"Soon," he replied.

"That's what you said yesterday," she laughed. Ulquiorra shrugged, a little irritated. Why did they even have to do paperwork? Apparently, Aizen-sama wanted to be more organized in keeping track of everything that went on in Las Noches, so he needed to know things like inventory, number of arrancar etc, but Ulquiorra knew it was probably just to keep them occupied. Aizen-sama knew everything without the help of anyone else. No paperwork required. He could understand a little though. All of the arrancar had started to become increasingly bored since their enemies had left, which meant that chaos had started to increase more often than not because, honestly, Hueco Mundo was not a very eventful place. He, himself, didn't care, but most arrancar tended to have an innate need for action.

"Well, I'll be going then," she stated after seeing that he had no intention of making conversation.

"Where?"

"Exploring. It's been almost two months, and I still haven't seen half of this place yet." She was one of the few arrancar who did things other than trying to blow someone's head off when bored…like exploring, or cooking -- well, Ulquiorra didn't think he could rightly call it cooking -- or filling his room with useless trash. "Decorating" she called it. Why didn't she go decorate her own room? Ulquiorra suspected it was probably already decorated so much there was hardly any trace of white left on the walls.

"Be careful."

"Of what?"

He didn't answer. Most arrancar didn't know anything about her, and her unusual happy attitude allowed her to get along with the vast majority of them, but it was the others he was thinking about. The ones who knew about her past, or just hated her for absolutely no reason, and really wouldn't mind "accidently" throwing a cero in her general direction. He figured there might be quite a few of them. Not that she couldn't take care of herself. Ulquiorra knew full well how powerful she was. He knew she didn't like fighting all that much, but he'd seen her training enough to get a glimpse of the awesome power she possessed. She was clearly many times stronger than when she was a human.

A human. That feeling welled up in him again. He didn't know what it was, only that it emerged whenever he thought of what he had done, and that it felt like an invisible hand was clutching at his throat, threatening to suffocate him. Memories uncontrollably flooded into his head. The cut of his sword. The breaking chain. The hollows taking advantage of the weak soul to feed their hunger. The hollow transformation. She hadn't stayed a hollow for long. For some reason, she had been able to advance to a Vasto Lorde at an alarmingly fast rate. Ulquiorra guessed it was due to the fact that she already had quite a bit of spiritual pressure as a human. Finally, by breaking her mask, she became an arrancar. She had exactly the same appearance as before; the only difference was the signature partial mask and a hole right where his sword had pierced her heart. In addition, a zanpakutou had replaced her previous hairpins as the source of her power, although she still wore them.

It was then that Ulquiorra had requested that she join his fraccion. He didn't know why. He previously had no subordinates, and he liked it that way. But on seeing her the way he had known her right from the beginning, something inside of him told him to, although he couldn't pinpoint exactly what had driven this feeling. She was more of an equal than a subordinate anyway. He basically let her do whatever she wanted, and she left him alone most of the time. It worked quite well. Maybe he was pushing it a little, but Ulquiorra imagined that if she was more of a fighter, and hadn't had the history that she had, she could possibly even be an espada. Maybe.

"Haha you're spacing out more than me," her cheery voice broke throw his reverie. He didn't say anything.

"Well, bye."

"Bye." And she left leaving Ulquiorra to the useless paperwork.

"What was that all about?" Ulquiorra recognized the voice of Grimmjow. Of all people. What was it? Annoy Ulquiorra to no end day?

"What?"

"'Be careful,'" Grimmjow replied exaggerating Ulquiorra's toneless voice. "Since when did you care about anything at all?" The Espada smiled. "Or maybe you've started to develop a slight crush on little Hanako, is that-"

"Don't be ridiculous," Ulquiorra cut him off.

"Sheesh fine. Don't kill me; it was just a joke," he said turning to leave. "Dumb emotionless espadas," he muttered under his breath as he stalked off.

Emotionless. That's what they called him, but it wasn't entirely true. It was a combination of not being able to express himself and not particularly wanting to anyway that gave him that reputation. It was true that he didn't care about hardly anything, but he was definitely capable of having at least some sort of feelings. And they had started to come more and more often when that girl had first arrived. They had crept up on him slowly, unnoticeably.

It had started out with just a sense of duty. Aizen-sama had told him to take care of the human, and he did. Duty had turned into a sort of curiosity. He'd hardly ever talked to a human before much less hold conversations and arguments. Then intrigue. How could a mere human girl have the courage to talk back to him at all? And then the feelings started to increase. Anger, frustration, confusion…he had even begun to show small acts of courtesy…knocking on the door after he scared her the first time…things like that. Why did he care at all? He couldn't answer that question.

And then she had slapped him. Slapped him, Ulquiorra Schiffer, Espada 4, right in the face because he had insulted her friends. He remembered how she had been like back then. Quiet, sad…fearful as well, but with a huge amount of courage to back it up. Completely different than the cheery person she was now. He wondered if that was what she had been like when she had been living in her own world. Had she acted the same way with her friends as she did now with him? Shown the same caring and kind attitude. They must have meant a great deal to her if she had gotten that angry, going against what he now knew was her normal character, and was willing to face him like that even though he could have killed her in two seconds if he had wanted to.

And he had stolen that from her. Stolen it and then shattered it forever. The feeling crept back again. And he was beginning to realize what it actually was. Ulquiorra slouched in his chair, overwhelming guilt consuming his entire being.