Szayel's lab.

"Hello," said Ilforte painfully, almost crying, "Octava…Espada".

Just like he was waiting for this, Szayel instantly answered to him, without moving: "Why exactly are you here, Ilforte? I have no time, neither the will to play with you".

Ilforte break out in a desperate laugh, and blood came out from his mouth as well. "I'm not here…to play. I had…a fight with Grimmjow," he explained weakly.

Szayel gave at him a brief disgusted glance. "I see… so please, before you go, make sure to clean the fl-"

"Heal me".

For the first time, Szayel stopped to work to turns completely toward his brother: his golden eyes were two fissures of hatred. "We have an hospital wing, you know . And it's full of the nurses inferior beings like you seems to like so much. Now go away. I'm a busy man".

"…can't," said Ilforte, closing his eyes.

Szayel wide opened his ones. "You escaped from the fight?" realized. "And he's still searching you?" For a second, a light shined in his eyes. Then his expression returned plain. "If so, go get killed and stop bothering me. You are a coward".

Ilforte began to walk towards him, who had showed again to him his back. "You…".

"If you, a merely weak and useless fraccion, had the foolishness to fight with an Espada," continued Szayel, "you just can't run away. It's so humiliating, to have a fool like you as my-"

Ilforte almost collapsed oh his brother, sighing deeply. Szayel stopped talking, feeling Ilforte's warm blood dirtying his pure white hakama.

"What are you-"

Ilforte placed his left arm around his neck, his head on one of Szayel's shoulders – just like he was hugging him from behind. Szayel blinked. His first instinct was to push him away, but he knew that if he did this, Ilforte would fall on the floor and probably not be able to stand up again, since he was just leaning on him.

So he gave a groan and, turning slowly, put his arm around Ilforte's waist, and his hand on Ilforte's one, still on his shoulder – helping him to walk out of the room.

'I can't believe I actually abandoned my work…to help this thing…' said the Pink Espada to himself, in anger. 'He's just a useless Arrancar like all the others, after all. We keep playing the brothers' part, but… when we died as humans and were revived as Arrancar, we ceased to be brothers. Arrancar have no age, and no siblings'.

He heard Ilforte coughing and become more weak, so he clenched the grasp on his hand, to not let him fall.

'I'm just using him because I need him for my own things and researches. Giving him the illusion that I am different from the others, and more close to him, allow me to manipulate him and to have more possibilities of experimentations on him. But I've nothing to do with this thing. When I'll have no more need of him or he'll annoy me, I'll just break him. He's…just a toy'.

Szayel could hear a small laugh coming from Ilforte. "I know…" he said.

"…what, Ilforte?"

"I know I'm just a toy for you," concluded the Fraccion, just like he was reading his mind.

Szayel lost a breath. Was he talking without noticing it? No, he was sure that he was only thinking. But that was a really unexpected reaction from Ilforte, just - what allowed him to know what he was thinking in that precise moment?

"I'm a toy… That's why I…escaped…."

"Ilforte-"

"…I don't mind…of my life…".

"Shut up. The lack of blood in your brain makes you say nonsense things – more than usual".

"…I'm your toy, Szayel. So I had to escape. Every child would be sad…if his toy is broken".

Szayel blinked for single a moment. Then he adjusted his glasses, deciding to ignore Ilforte's last words.

He smiled a little. "Yeah…you always…ignores me…".

"Reality is, you're not a toy but just a box, Ilforte. If you'll get killed and so my box will break, I'll simply find and use another, after retrieving the data from your body," answered quickly Szayel but his brain, in that moment, was floating.

They arrived in a huge antiseptic white room, and Szayel let Ilforte laying on a metallic surgery-bed. "I don't think there will be any body left…after…" tried to smirk Ilforte. "I just…wanted…to…say you…" his whispers faded, "…t-that…"

"Hey. Ilforte," said Szayel, noticing that Ilforte was passed out.

The Espada let out a sigh, and began studying Ilforte's condition. Ilforte was losing an impressive quantity of blood. His right arm, for the strange angle it was forming on the bed, was probably broken, and there was a deep slash on his chest and stomach. Probably, some internal organs were damaged and he was also losing blood in his body. If so, there was no much time left for him. While watching him, he licked the blood on his glove, thinking.

"Tch…it's bitter".

He hated that brother of him. In the last weeks, he had a lot of problems while working at Aizen's project. And now, to complete the circle of misfortunes, he had to deal with his brother's foolishness.

You may need to know that some days ago, Szayel found some stupid hollows in his lab: they had already almost disintegrated it, before he managed to reduce them in dust.

Few days after, an Arrancar with no sense of humour made a subordinate call him to tell him that he was late for that important council with Aizen. Szayel had never paid attention to these things, so he was shocked knowing that he forgot completely a council: he sonidoed to a deserted throne room in a hurry, just to appear suddenly and almost spill Aizen's usual tea on him.

The Shinigami didn't say anything to him, but just glared at him – and he wished to die.

( So, when the day after there really was a council, Szayel didn't show himself – thinking that it was another joke – and he didn't want to remember the words that that damn conceited Shinigami directed to him after. )

In the end, the same day he ran into Ilforte's room, some of the Arrancar he was using for his project apparently got lost in Las Noches: they finished in Aaroniero's domain and then in his stomach – Szayel was facepalm and so depressed. He had to find other subjects and started again his experiments.

The scientist was tired and sick of all this. Healing Ilforte would have taken a lot of time, since he was a scientist and not a doctor. He wished he could just leave him like that and let him die as a punishment for what he did. But even though he had so much contempt for his brother, and seeing him like that only pleased him more, he knew he needed him for his experiments like he always needed and used other people for his own personal gain.

But he also needed to finish his project before another thing happened. Szayel looked down at his unconscious brother laying in the bed.

There was also another problem – Grimmjow would soon realize that Ilforte was here, and would have come to finish his work.

If so, the fastest and more rational solution was to retrieve as fast as possible the bacteria he did put in Ilforte's body before it was too late, and then just return to his project.

So he took a scalpel from a table near the bed, and aimed to Ilforte's chest to open it.

"I knew it would have finish this way…it's probably better like this," he said, as a farewell, to Ilforte. He touched with the scalpel Ilforte's pale skin, ready to cut it.

Szayel stayed in that position for minutes, watching Ilforte's chest rose up and came down with his calm breath. With his eyes closed, the mouth curled in an imperceptible smile, his longs blond hairs sprayed with blood, even in this state he seemed to him not a useless Fraccion but a beautiful angel or a prince.

Szayel sighed, and a sudden thought forced his way in his mind. He and Ilforte were totally different, in everything – but while he had to study hard to reach perfection, he bitterly had to admit that Ilforte –with his beauty, his strong determination, and even his lack of patience, his hatred for academic things, his foolishness and his tactless irony – for him, was perfect just the way he was.

'Wait…what the Hell am I thinking? That idiot is just…even in life, he was just…' The pink Espada bitted his own lips, confused. 'No, truth is that I'll never reach him,' he realized.

A flash of hatred recalled by envy passed through Szayel's mind, so the scientist raised the scalpel and violently pulled it down, stabbing the surgery bed near Ilforte's face.

"Why are you here?! What do you want from me?! You're just trash, who do you think you are?" he began shouting without thinking. "You're despicable! You just screwed me, obligated me to heal you! YOU! You…"

"Lord Szayel Aporro!"

"Lord Szayel Aporro…"

Lumina and Verona entered in the room together.

Szayel didn't look at them. "…what?" asked, his hand still on the scalpel, serious, gazing Ilforte.

"Grimmjow has just blown up the main door…".

"…of our wing".

"He's coming here, and he's very angry!" said Lumina, while Verona was trembling.

"…shit…" commented Szayel. He wasted all his time like an idiot, and now he had no more chances, neither to heal nor to recollect his bacteria from Ilforte. He looked at him one last time, and then he decided what to do.

"Lumina, Verona, go tell Grimmjow that I'm coming – so he can stop destroying my wing in order to catch my attention".

**

"So where's my Fraccion?" roared Grimmjow in the corridor, few minutes later, almost running towards Szayel, who was calmly heading for him.

"My, my…you look pretty upset, Sexta Espada," smirked the scientist, adjusting his glasses. He had no time to change his clothes, so they were still covered in blood, that was also dirtying his face.

Grimmjow didn't pay attention at this. "How else can you look when your Fraccion steal your Caja Negation and use it on you?!"

"Oh, so that's what happened. Unusually smart thought, for an inferior being like him".

"I know he's here," said Grimmjow. "I can smell his blood on you. Are you trying to hide him?"

Szayel raised his eyebrows, not answering.

Grimmjow grinned dangerously. "How lovely. The two brothers sacrifice their own lives to protect each other. Really, how lovely".

"I don't know what are you blabbering about," observed tonelessly Szayel, with his hands on his back. "The fool ran here, that is true. But – unfortunately – I can't give him to you".

"BULLSHIT!" yelled the other. "I swore that I'd kill him and you cann-"

"Grimmjow," said Szayel, "he's already dead".

Grimmjow's eyes went wide open. "…are you kidding?"

Szayel sighed. "Unlike you all, I've no time to kidding. He's dead. He's in the room you'll find down in the corridor I came from. Go prove yourself and then get lost, I must finish my work for Aizen-sama".

Without saying anything else, the Sexta Espada began running in the corridor, passing over Szayel. The scientist reached him walking slowly, and when he entered the room, he found Grimmjow smelling Ilforte's corpse and looking suspiciously at it. "That's Ilforte, no doubt. But he's not dead yet".

Szayel took away one hand from his back and touched gently Ilforte's forehead. "He will soon be. There's no doctor who can mend all this mess".

He laughed. "How can I say…that you're not going to use one of your tricks to heal him after I leave?"

Glaring at Grimmjow, Szayel raised his hand and sank it on Ilforte's chest. Along with the sound of broken bones and flesh, he took out from the corpse his heart. "Now, he's really dead. Are you satisfied, Sexta Espada?"

Grimmjow was a skilled warrior, habituated to these scenes - but when he saw Szayel, with that freaking serious glare pointed on him ripping with a rapid movement Ilforte heart's veins and showing to him that…disgusting…still pulsing thing, took a step back.

"I suppose…yeah," he nodded, swallowing hard.

"Now, take with you your trash and get away from my wing".

"Well I think…you can…have him," muttered Grimmjow.

"Why not? Are you disgusted?" smirked Szayel, delighted, showing him again the heart. "At least, take this. You know, the heart is the…best part," he concluded, licking his own lips.

"You are disgusting, Szayel," spitted Grimmjow. "Tch. This damn story cost me one of my strongest Fraccion. I give up, do what you damn want with him. I'll leave," said, walking out from the room.

"See you, Sexta Espada," answered the pink Espada, bowing ironically.

When he was sure Grimmjow had left his wing, he took a deep breath, watching Ilforte's body.

"Too bad…" he whispered. "…too bad… I had just finished to made you…and now I've just to do the whole thing again. DAMN IT!" he crushed the heart still in his hand, and the corpse opened his eyes in pain, and then he slowly closed them. He rapidly changed shape, turning into a hollow.

A clone. That was the project he was hardly working on for Aizen. A hollow who can transform into another being, copying all his abilities and every small detail of it, from his voice to his reiatsu, from his normal behaviour to his fight skills, just putting in him a small DNA sequence of the subject chosen.

He managed to realize this after a lot of efforts, and was just about to do the last experiment on it when Ilforte entered in his room. So, in order to save that idiot from his superior, he had to sacrifice his most precious experiment.

"You'll pay even for this, Ilforte," he whispered in frustration, exiting from the room and aiming toward the real room where the real Ilforte was – yes, it was so convenient, in these situations, to have the possibility to change the direction of your corridors at your own will.

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Oh, finished. :P

I'm not really proud of this chapter – but it's finished.

The next one will be the last, so… stay connected. :3