Onna

Chapter 5

A library, that's what Captain Unohana had called it, but the place the small group stared at in awe now didn't fit the casual description. The room was just as cavernous as the rest of Los Noches, but it held shelf upon shelf of books and other written material as far as the eye could see.

Farther even.

"Th-this place… is a… library?" Orihime craned her neck as she unsuccessfully tried to see the tops of the book cases. "Yes," Unohana continued to weave them through the maze of shelves, stopping when they reached several tables lined with multiple volumes of literature. "Here," The female officer said, waving a hand at the materials, "Is where you all are going to start your work. These are to be placed in the appropriate section of topic then shelved alphabetically in said section." The captain pulled a slip of paper out of her sleeve and handed it to a confused Uryu, "This is a ma of the library, I'm positive it will be useful." With that, she turned and began heading farther back into the library, "I will be in one of the back work rooms if you have any need of my help." The four of them watched her image slowly be devoured by bookcases and shrink out of sight.

Orihime wore an expression close to that of someone trying to carry on a conversation with a foreigner speaking another language. The bright headed girl was completely lost on the instructions just given. Rukia understood how to shelf the books alphabetically, but had no idea what Captain Unohana meant by the "appropriate section". Uryu pushed up his glasses as he examined the map given to them. To put it simply, Ulquiorra was looked slightly bored with all of it.

But then again, "bored" was better then to have him sulking still about having to come along with them instead of Grimmjow's group (Which he did the entire time the were making the trek down to the library).

"Well…" Uryu finally said, looking up from the piece of paper, "From the looks of it, the job sounds harder then it really is." Going over to one of the table, he found a clear space and set the paper down for all of them to view. "See, the shelves are kind of clustered together in a way." He made a circle with his index finger on the page, "And each group has a title by it." He pointed at "Anatomy" with the same finger, "That's how they're sectioned off. And then putting them alphabetically shouldn't be too hard." They all looked at the piles of books laying about them. "Well… if we start off by categorizing the books before we put them on the shelf we would be able to do one section at a time." All of them, excluding Ulquiorra, nodded in agreement and set to work on putting the textbooks in piles.

After they had spent almost five hours categorizing over two hundred books, helping Mayuri rebuild a demolished laboratory was beginning to sound pretty easy.

"And… Done!" Rukia set down the last book in its coordinating stack. Everyone let out an exhausted sigh. "Okay… I think… I need a little break." Orihime said. "Yeah, I think we all deserve a short pause before we actual go shelf these things…" Uryu sighed. The two girls were spread out on one of the empty tables; Uryu was resting his head on a load of books. Even Ulquiorra was leaning heavily on a nearby bookcase. "My brain hurts…" Rukia stated to no one in particular. Everyone grunted in agreement.

"Slacking on the job a see."

They all sat up to look at Grimmjow as he strode in. "Aren't you suppose to be assisting Captain Kurotsuchi?" Ulquiorra asked, a slight hint of venom in his words. Obviously the boy was still angry at being thrown. "Yeah, but we're taking a break for lunch. I was supposed to get you guys." Grimmjow said, ignoring the hate behind the arrancar-child's words. "Mmm, I think that's exactly what we need before we finish with these books." Rukia said as both she and Orihime slid off of the table.

They were once again seated at the long porcelain table. A wide variety of conversations circled the group. All ranging from the seriousness of how the Soul Society was going to manage the safety and security of all the worlds they now had responsibility over (the world of the living, the Soul Society, and their "soon-to-be" Hueco Mundo base), to the light fluffiness of what they were eating for lunch. Trying to avoid the darker conversations, Orihime happily jumped into a debate with Rukia about what they thought their meal might consist of.

Since the men involved in the harsher topics had shunned the little boy out of their circle of discussion, Ulquiorra humored the two other women and actually listened to what they were conversing about.

"No seriously, Rukia! I really think that sounds super good right now!" Orihime exclaimed. "Ice cream… ramen… and wasabi?" The soul reaper a crossed the table from her raised her eyebrows. "Yes, it's very delicious! I'll have to make it for you sometime!" The bright headed girl beamed and clasped her hands together. "Um, well… that's okay. I'll take your word for it." Rukia quickly replied, trying not to be rude.

Grimmjow had told him that humans could be strange, but Ulquiorra was positive the combination of food the onna had described wasn't normal even by human standards… or edible.

"Oh- Ah- Um...!" Hanataro Yamada stumbled into the room balancing several teetering trays of food in his hands. "L-lunch is s-served." He stuttered as he unloaded the food onto the table trying his best not to send everything he'd just spent a good portion of his time on clattering to the floor. "Oh, here!" Orihime took a few of the dishes off of his hands. "No no, I can handle this Miss Inoue! Thank you for the offer though!" She shook her head, "It's ok, I'm closes to you, so I can just help you give everyone their food. Plus since there's so many of us, we can all just help pass the plates down the line!" The girl smiled. "Yeah, it's no big deal, Hanataro." Ichigo added. "O-okay then…" The fourth seat replied, hesitantly he handed Orihime another bowl.

In the end Orihime had been right. They'd all distributed the food fairly quickly. It probably would have taken longer had they allowed Yamada to do it all himself. "I hope the food taste alright, and thank you all for the help." Hanataro bowed quickly before taking his leave from the room. "Well that was stupid." They all looked at Grimmjow who had begun eating. "If the guy couldn't carry all of that stuff then why did he not take more then one trip?" Actually, Ulquiorra had just been thinking the same thing. It would have been smarter to take several trips with the food then risk dropping it all at once. "He probably didn't want us to wait any more then we had to." Renji shrugged. "Yeah? Well it was still foolish of him to try and handle something he couldn't manage."

Ichigo was getting fed up with Grimmjow's attitude. It'd had been that way since that morning when they'd helped Captain Kurotsuchi. All he'd done the whole time was make smart-ass comments about everything and everyone. That was starting to piss the teen off; he could tell that the others weren't exactly pleased with his behavior either.

Ichigo would have to have a talk with him later about that because he didn't completely like the idea of having to deal with his behavior for much longer.

"Has the food already been served?" Captain Unohana and her lieutenant entered and took a seat near the head of the table. "Yes, but there's still quiet a lot of food left for you and Captain Kurotsuchi." Rukia nodded. The female officers began dishing out their food onto their plates. "I'm afraid Captain Kurotsuchi will not be joining us for lunch today. It seems that he's become too preoccupied at the moment to come." Unohana replied, though it was more of an announcement to the group. "Shall I bring a plate down to him and Lieutenant Kurotsuchi, Sir?" Lieutenant Kotetsu asked pausing what she was doing. "No, I'll have whoever finishes their food do so." Her captain replied. Isane nodded and continued to eat.

Orihime looked down at her plate. She'd eaten a decent amount and was no longer hungry. "Um, Captain Unohana?" The other women looked up from her plate. "If you want, I could take Captain Kurotsuchi's food to him. I mean, it's just that I'm finished with my food so…" She trailed off feeling like she was babbling. "Yes, that would be helpful." Waving a hand, Unohana motioned for her Lieutenant to fill two plates with food. "Are you sure you can handle the dishes on your own?" Isane asked as she handed her the plates. Orihime wasn't the most graceful, but she nodded anyways.

The bright haired girl hadn't even got as far as the door before she stumbled, almost sending everything crashing to the floor. "Sorry! Sorry! I'll try to be more careful!" She quickly righted herself and shifted the two dishes in her hands. Suddenly there were no longer two plates in her hands, but one.

Ulquiorra had taken it upon himself to carry the other dish.

"I am finished eating and it would be a waste of time if you had to come all the way back because you dropped the food." He stated flatly, "And you don't know your way around the palace either." Blushing Orihime had to admit it was true. She hadn't exactly considered the fact that she had no idea how to navigate around those halls. "Oh, thank you… Ulquiorra…" Without another word, they left for Captain Kurotsuchi's temporary office.

What Ulquiorra had told her was only half true. Yes, it would have wasted time if she had dropped the food and no, she didn't no which corridor led her where, but the main reason he was accompanying her was because Mayuri Kurotsuchi and his Lieutenant weren't people he trusted. Especially since the captain had made it very clear that he planned on taking the boy for himself once he was given the all clear. The child-arrancar didn't want to think about what the officer might have done to the onna had she gone by herself to give him the food.

'So trusting… So ignorant…'

'Very.'

Ulquiorra didn't know what he was more frightened of: the voice in his thoughts that wasn't his own, or the fact the he no longer tried to hush it.

That he and his inner demons were beginning to agree with one another.

"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

Woo~ Fairly short chapter, but that's ok :)

R&R Please