yay, long chapter! things are getting interesting so my motivation is up!

A painful crick was beginning to form in Erin's neck as she reared her head back, her flexible vertebrae allowing her to more or less lay her head between her shoulders as she stared wide-eyed up the massive-no, massive isn't enough-wall before her, still unable to see the top from where she stood. After a moment, she reared onto her hind legs and stretched upward, totally baffled by the gargantuan construct that stuck out like a sore thumb from the desert floor; dark reishi permeated the area, driving away most smaller creatures, but to her it only provoked a headache and slight dragging weight in her limbs as it crushed down on her. Ulquiorra stood silently by, eyeing her, curious about how was able to show interest in something as plain as a wall when most Hollows, even Adjuchas and Vasto Lordes, tended to ignore it for the energy that blanketed the very air around Las Noches. Indeed, she appeared to act much like a human child, ignoring what everyone else saw in favor of pointless observations. Whether this was an advanced form of reasoning or just sheer stupidity had yet to be reasoned.

"This thing is messing up my sense of scale," Erin commented, glancing around at the twiggy, dead trees that dotted the landscape and seeing how they were dwarfed by fortress until they appeared to be nothing more than toothpicks. "How long did it take to build this place? Jesus fucking Christ."

Not being attuned to identify rhetorical questions, Ulquiorra stated simply, "I do not know," before moving toward the massive set of doors just ahead that made the already small Arrancar even smaller in comparison. Raising his fist, he cast her a quick glance and said, "Enough staring," and she settled back down; he rapt out four quick knocks with the back of his hand that echoed within the foyer like thunder.

They waited a beat, anxiety beginning to settle in Erin's stomach and turn her recent meal sour as thoughts raced through her head at high speed: What will it be like inside? How many other Hollows live here? How many Arrancar? How strong are they? I won't have to fight them or anything, will I? Coming here was a bad idea. Holy fuck, what's that smell?

The great doors swung open with a deafening creak that made the ear crests of Erin's mask vibrate almost painfully, and with it came a rush of air that was almost visibly filled with reishi, Erin's body jerking only slightly under the sudden weight, but once more her attention was robbed by something less obivous but to her, even more important. A great stink had tumbled out along with the spirit energy and it made her bristle, her head lowering as defensive measures were triggered in her mind, her own reiastu channeling out and forming a kind of semi-solid wall between herself and the smell without meaning to.

Ulquiorra's back straightened in recognition of her mood shift and he turned around, seeing how she'd gone the road of fight against nothing. Even so, he moved toward her carefully, putting himself dead center between her and the doorway, his voice measured as he went from sensing no reishi from her to getting hit with a dense cloud of it in the span of a single footstep. "Enough," he commanded, once more expecting her to obey him but not the least bit surprised when she didn't. "We must go. Now."

"What," she barked, twisting her head away but keeping ehr eye on the dark inner hallway, "is that God awful stench?"

Once more, she proved to be overly observant of the wrong details; the energy was not what had her bristling as it did with most others, it was the smell that had upset her, which considering her ability to track solely by scent over miles of windless desert, it wasn't much of a surprise. This Adjucha was proving mroe and more interesting by the minute.

"That is the scent of many hundreds of Hollows and Arrancar, all living under one vast rule of the triad of shinigmai who banded us together."

"Sh... shinigami?" Erin repeated, quivering as her anxiety reached a fever pitch. She couldn't remember ever having met one of the black-clad soul reapers before, and yet something within made her hate them with a burning fury, as if they'd wronged her before, taken something from her or hurt her.

"Lord Sosuke Aizen is the ruling god of Las Noches, our leader and the mastermind behind this operation. He and his subordinates, Gin Ichimaru and Kaname Tousen, have defected from the Soul Society in order to raise this army of Arrancar. You will do well to show difference and respect when you meet them." With that, the Fourth Espada led the way into the grand fortress, sensing Erin's hesitant tailing of him by the sound of her talons clicking on the hard floor.

Yet another massive door stood out starkly against the bleached halls of Las Noches, towering over the massive she-Hollow and her Arrancar guide, decorated with what appeared to be a rather stylized depiction of one Hollow eating another which in turn was eating the first; a symbol of the eternal struggle for power all Hollows faced here in Hueco Mundo. It was here where the stench of soul reapers was strongest, and here where Ulquiorra held his hand out, giving his charge a sideways glance and uttering, "Wait until you are summoned," before giving four more swift knocks on the righthand entry. These doors opened silently, blanketing the air with more reishi and shinigami funk; inside it was only dark, the Cuatro Espada disappearing inside quickly and quietly, the doors whispering closed behind him, leaving Erin completely alone.

She glanced down either end of the hallway, hoping someone would come by; isolation and anxiety didn't mix well within her and she was beginning to shake. Even so, after several minutes of no hide or hair of a soul, she sat on her haunches with a sharp sigh, bored to death. "Hurry back," she said to herself, knowing he couldn't hear.

Inside, Ulquiorra stopped in the center of the blackened room, under the single spotlight before the triad of throne-shaped columns, surrounded by his fellow Espada and their fraccions. He bowed and said, "Cuatro Espada, Ulquiorra Schiffer. I have compelted my mission, lord Aizen." While straightening, he felt a sudden jolt move through his body, his chin jerking up just fractionally as it passed, stirring a small wave of curiosity in the back of his mind; he never got chills, yet that could only be what it was that he'd just felt. What could have caused it?

"Ulquiorra," a smooth, deep, arrogant voice he knew well drawled from out of the darkness above him, "well done. Show us what you have found out about our new sibling."

"Yes, lord Aizen." Without hesitation, the Espada reached up and gouged his own eyeball from its socket, the optic nerve detaching without struggle and leaving the orb in his palm as a nearly-perfect sphere of emerald and ivory for all of three seconds before it had seemly petrified from having been removed only to be crushed into dust that scattered into the windless room, revealing his thoughts and sights from his own point of view as he journeyed into the eternal night.

Vast doors opened out into a flash of moonlight over empty sandscape, nothing for miles and miles.

My target lies to the south. I will start at the borderlands.

The images blurred as the weeks passed quickly, only to stop suddenly at a pool of water surrounded by boulders and sparse dead trees where traces of spirit energy remained, though they were very weak.

There is one that was here that's not like any other trash I've felt. The must be the one I'm searching for.

The trace was faint, but followable, as no other creature's energy had been by to marr the trail the sands provided, as the sand absorbed all reiatsu it touched, leaving a small, near-permanent imprint; it was this he followed. Again the images blurred, showing brief instances of coming across other Hollows he quickly defeated, hinting at a new branch to the trail until it finally rested at their encounter.

One of them is the Adjucha, but I have not felt spirit pressure this dense in anything lower than the Vasto Lordes.

Three Hollows struggled in a cloud of dust, one all thrashing tail, another beating wings and the third a rolly-polly little thing that could be roundhoused into a goalpost for being mistaken for a soccer ball. The brawl ended swiftly with the winged beast coming out victorious, sharp eyes providing highquality imagery even at a distance; eyes that bore witness to severely un-Hollow-like behavior as the reptile gave up the last piece of its kill to the dying beachball.

They are not of the same creature. Why waste power on trash?

The Adjucha drew closer in a hurry, bristling at the sudden intrusion. No spirit pressure remained after the brawl, but even so it was an impressive specimen, white and blue and powerful; and female. The ensuing battle and negotiations passed, the impression of her reiatsu remained, heavy and slow to evaporate, almost as if it were denser than air and magnetized.

Her power may be impressive but her control and execution are pathetic. Still, her potential is enormous and I have never before seen a dragon-Hollow like this. For once I've been sent for something worth the time spent searching instead of more trash.

The images rushed again, but noticably slower in order to chronical the return journey, notes on her flying skills and personality dubbed valid enough to warrant attention being duly noted as the images drew to a close with the Hollow being left in the hallway and a white palm blocking out the rest before going black.

Aizen sat with a bemused smirk on his face, as he always found Ulquiorra's snide remarks about his missions amusing and insightful. He rested his cheek on his hand and his elbow upon the arm of his throne, eyes still closed until the information stopped flowing-only then did he look back down at his loyal Espada. "So," he mused, sitting upright and back in his seat, "you found this mission to be worth your trouble, Ulquiorra?"

"Yes, sir," came the unhesitant reply; somewhere in the shadows someone scoffed.

Aizen also appreciated Cuatro's honesty, though if he wasn't one of the strongest Arrancar they'd found, the rouge shinigami would have killed him long ago for impudence. "Is there anything more you wish to add on to your report?"

"No, sir."

"Alright then, bring her in."

Bowing, the Espada went back to the doors, a trained response from the numerous times he'd been in and out of the throne chamber. Unbeknownst to everyone else, Aizen had noticed two things while viewing Ulquiorra's interactions with the she-Hollow that no one else had probably even noticed: one was how innately curious Cuatro was about the Adjucha, which worked perfectly for him, and the other-which he would never admit-was that she was much stronger than he had predicted. Even by second-hand means, he felt her enormous growth just in the two Hollows she'd devoured en route, and she was still at Adjucha level. If she became Vasto Lorde, his calculations would become a moot point, as her will seemed to be far stronger than he'd hoped. Her unusual qualities could prove to be a blessing or a curse, depending on how he played his cards, and luckily, he always played his cards right.

But Sosuke Aizen would have to play this game very, very carefully.

His dwelling was interrupted as the great dragon herself entered the chamber, whispers going around that died with the shutting of the door, her bone white skin seeming to illuminate the pitch blackness. Beside her was Ulquiorra, a ghost in the milky light she reflected from the spotlight and completely at ease beside the garganutan Hollow-who was albeit smaller than most Adjucha, but still larger than a certain cocky panther had been-her empty eye sockets void of any indication of her mood or thoughts, which was interesting in and of itself.

Ulquiorra said something quietly to her and she entered the spotlight, he taking up his position in the shadowed crowd of silent onlookers, her gaze fixed upon Aizen himself, as if the dark-on-light effect didn't work on her. "Adjucha," he addressed casually, monitoring her dead-end spirit pressure, knowing it was a ruse.

"Yes?" she answered smoothly, tempering her tongue for the moment.

"Tell me, what is your name?"

"Erin."

"Erin...?" he prompted, seeing her shift. "Do you not have a full name, Erin?"

"Not one I'm inclined to share, no."

"Is that so?" His smirk became tighter, her attitude already bothersome.

"Yes."

He might need to put a short leash on this one, just to be safe. "Well, then, Erin," he went on, not giving a hint about his inner unrest, "do you know why I asked you to be brought here?"

"Not in so many words," she told him, looking off in the direction she sensed Ulquiorra to be in. "I was kept in the dark mostly, if you don't mind the pun. Something to do with an army, but that's all I know."

"And that it is," the shinigami said, sensing her resistance and urge to flee. "I have a great plan in the works, and for it to happen, I need Arrancar. Strong Arrancar. I already have many, as you can tell, and I plan to gather more. And you, my dear, have enormous power that I wish to utilize."

As he expected, someone snorted, drawing attention as they shouted, "What power? I don't sense anything. Whatever it was that Ulquiorra saw was a fluke, and no Hollow in their right mind would contain so much of it!"

"Grimmjow," Aizen purred with false kindness, "I do understand why you feel that way, but I can assurre you, Erin is not like any other Hollow. My dear," he continued, drawing her attention back up to him, "if you'd be so kind."

Grinning under her mask, Erin mused, So that's how he operates, and focused back on the rude shadow that was sprawled in the darkness. "Maybe I'm not in my right mind," she pondered.

"Prove it!" the shadow named Grimmjow challenge.

She sniffed, holding her release for a second longer. "Sure thing, pussy cat."

He bellowed, "WHAT DID YOU CALL ME?!" and jumped up, but just as he did she let her energy go, blanketing the entire chamber with her reiatsu, feeling the weight of it herself and sensing the way everyone buckled under the unexpected surge.

Aizen was almost knocked breathless-almost-as her spirit pressure slammed into him, confirming his worst fear; Ulquiorra staggered slightly, shock-and-awed that her power had increased so significantly after devouring just that single Adjucha. He started to think that maybe she had gone easy on him during their fight before and this was her full force, but if she truely had not wanted to come with him, she would've done her best to resist him, which is what it had felt like at the time.

She truely did have an exponential growth rate.

Erin herself was slightly giddy at knowing her strength had increased again and that Grim-kitty had more or less stood up and collided with the wall of her spirit pressure, getting flattened back down into his seat; only a handful of those present didn't collapse or get knocked off their feet when it hit, and it made her wonder how strong they were in comparision, not surprised that Ulquiorra was among them.

Aizen gestured, trying to catch his breath, and said evenly, "Thank you, Erin. you may stop now," and very nearly sighed with relief when the oppressive blanket receeded, a few sparse groans ringing out and making him even more aware of his need to halt her progress before she got too powerful. "And with that unquestionable display of strength, I'm sure no one else will question my decision about personally requesting your presence. So said, my dear, you will be turned into an Arrancar, but not now."

"Why not?" she cut in, suddenly disappointed; that was why she'd come along.

He waved his hand, indicating patience. "The Hogyoku, the device I use to create immensely powerful Arrancar, is in a catatonic state at the moment, and the soonest it can be awoken is in three days. After your transformation you will assigned as a fraccion to one of my Espada and trained. Once you've been deemed ready, you will be tested and ranked against said Espada. Don't fret, my dear," he added on when she lowered her head nervously, "I have high expectations for you that I know you'll meet."

Sweeping his gaze around the room, Aizen mused, "Now then, do I have a volunteer to take on the task of being dear Erin's Espada?" It was a trick question of course, as he already had his choice, but he powed it as a fair question in order to let some of the more difficult of his followers feel like they still retained free will and therefore compliance; the Numeros that fell under the wieght of her pressure were already eliminated from the bid pool as being too weak to bring out her potential the correct way, two of the remaining were too proud to give a shit after that little display-and one hated women anyway-while another was too lazy to do anything, which left the only suitable canditates: his choice, Ulquiorra Schiffer, and Tier Halibel, both of whom he would be fine with taking on the task, but he knew Halibel had her hands full with her three fraccions at is were, and so there was only one choice, even though he was unlikely to volunteer himself.

Ulquiorra knew already what his lord had planned, and the effectiveness of the simplicity that went in to doing so was impressive, and he asked himself if he would be willing to skip the obvious next step and just volunteer himself, as he was going to end up having the dragon as his fraccion either way. Being able to monitor, explore and understand her and her abilities might help answer some of his questions, so it wasn't like he was opposed to it, he just wasn't sure if he should volunteer himself or wait. Feeling a gaze upon him, he looked down at Erin and found her looking right in his direction, acutely aware of where he was, and in a way, she looked pleading, wanting him to step forward; frankly, he didn't trust anyone else to do the job anyway, so when Aizen mused, "What? No one wants the honor?" he took a step up and saw, for only the briefest of instances, a little flicker of surprise move across his lord's eyes as whispers kicked up once again. Albeit he'd surprised himself a little at his innate curiosity about the she-Hollow, he knew he wouldn't stand for anyone else taking on the responsiblity.

"Ah, Ulquiorra," Aizen cooed, smoothing over his moment of lapsed capacity for emotional control, "I'd hoped you'd volunteer. So, you'd like to take on the task of bringing Erin's full capabilities out?"

"Yes, lord Aizen," he answered imediately, though his gaze never left the Adjucha down below as he studied every little shift in her posture that would denote her mood.

"What if I wanted to?" the familiar voice of Grimmjow called out, sneering in the darkness.

Though he could've answered if he wanted to, Aizen knew Ulquiorra would take it upon himself to silence the overbearing Arrancar, as their unspoken rivalry tended to bring out the slightly-more-aggrivated side of Ulquiorra-which isn't terribly different from the normal Ulquiorra, it just makes him more likely to answer his taunts-so he left him to it. "You fell under her reiatsu," Cuatro began, finally looking away from his new charge, his gaze piercing the darkness and finding home in Grimmjow's psyche. "Therefore, you are too weak to be of any use to her. Furthurmore, your destructive tendecies, pride and short temper make you less than ideal as a teacher, and her taunting had most likely stirred a greater desire to kill her than teach her. You were never an option, Grimmjow, so keep silent. Erin is my fraccion now." Erin shivered, realizing that this was the first time he'd ever used her name, and his smooth baritone voice turning out each letter gave her tingles.

"Well spoken, Ulquiorra," Aizen commended, his curiosity peaqued.

"Thank you, lord Aizen."

But Grimmjow was indignant and sputtering like an angry idiot, shouting curses and various other profanities while demanding that Ulquiorra come say that to his face; Aizen dismissed everyone and told Ulquiorra to show Erin around Las Noches, ignoring the troublemaker and heading off to do whatever it was he did with his time. Cuatro descended to the floor and approached his new fraccion, giving her a quick once over and closing his eyes.

"You did well keeping your mouth shut."

"Um, thanks," she muttered, following behind him as he walked around her toward the giant doors, feeling as the other shadows disappeared in ones and twos around them, not sure if that was an actual compliment or not. "And I'm not stupid. I know my limits. I like my head right where it is, thank you."

"Good."

The odd pair-Arrancar and Adjucha-entered the Las Noches dome, the sudden transition from subtle light to artificial sun making Erin stop, squeeze her dark eyes shut and scrunch up like a cat, a protesting churrl curling from her throat. "What the hell?" she hissed, stepping back into the shadows and finding spots in her vision.

"It is light," Ulquiorra said patiently, pausing and turning back toward her. "You should be familiar with it from Earth."

"I've never been on Earth," Erin explained, frowning to herself about the brightness. "At least not since I died. Not that I remember."

"I find that highly unlikely. It is your ridiculous amnesia that's getting in the way."

She grunted. "Probably. But even so, I haven't been in light for a long time. Give me a second."

He waited since they had plenty of time and he wasn't in a hurry as Erin slowly crept out into the artificial sunlight, her neck scrunching into her shoulders, her back arching so her chest and pelvis were accordioned together, turning herself into a compact little box, her tail sweeping with irritation. Making a note to keep away from it, Ulquiorra started a bit as the light hit her body at last, casting little blips of light all over the narrow, suspended walkway they stood on that connected two different halls within the dome, her skin shimmering like many cut diamonds.

Her skin reacts to light. The glowing in the throne chamber was just a more minute version of this.

"What the crap," Erin chirped, uncoiling and eyeing herself, turning in a baffled circle. "This has never happened before."

"Your body utilizes photo-refraction," Cuatro explained, as in awe of this event as he could be or let himself be, as he'd never seen a Hollow do this before. "To what purpose remains to be seen." Still, he ended up staring at her for some minutes with absolutely no thoughts until she shook, bristling.

"Quit it, you're wierding me out. Let's get back inside."

His neck ticked and he came out of his trance, unsettled by his sudden zone-out, his thoughts picking back up with a vengance. All of my thoughts stopped. That's never happened before. As unsusual and curious as that was, he put it away for later, not wanting to be distracted from his current task; there would be time later to study the sparkling effect all he wanted.

Erin, disturbed by her newfound oddity, marched along behind him, stealing glances back at her shimmering flank and scowling, wondering what the hell it was all about. Distracted as she was, nearly ran into Ulquiorra's back when he'd stopped dead in the path, hardly twenty feet from the other side; she'd caught herself when his presence registered in her personal bubble and she arched so as to not bump him as her feet caught up with her brain.

"Why'd you stop?" she inquired, noticing he was looking straight ahead. Following his vision, she tensed, seeing a tall, muscular man with short, messy, sky blue hair and a malicious grin, half his face covered by a skeletal jaw from a Hollow mask, a large hole gaping through his stomach blocking the walkway. The Arrancar-man's scent was familiar as well as his voice when he chortled, "Looky looky," and the five others around him all chuckled evilly under their breath.

"Grimmjow," Ulquiorra acknowledged with a sigh. "What are you doing?"

"None of your business," he shot back, cracking his knuckles. "I just want to talk with the lizard."

Erin growled sharply, the vibration shooting through the spada in front of her and vibrating the floor directly beneath them. "Not interested, pussy cat."

He snarled, "Watch it, gator, or I'll make a nice jacket out of you." His short brows knit together as he finally looked at Erin. "What the fuck is with the gay strobe light effect?"

"What the fuck is with your face?"

One of the Arrancar beside him snickered and Grimmjow kicked him, muttering, "Shut up, D. Roy," and glared at her.

Arching her back in challenge, Erin lowered her head to the ground and let out a long, rising half-roar, telling him to, "Come at me, bro," and he crouched a bit, grinning and accepting her offer.

Ulquiorra, of course, decided to intervene by holding his hand between them and chastising them both. "Grimmjow, enough, before lord Aizen learns of your terrorizing his protegy. Adjucha,"-Erin blanched, wondering why he didn't just say her name again-"he is the Sexta Esapada, not common trash, and though you have the power to you lack the application capacity necessary to stand up to him. Leave it be."

She sat on her haunches, deflated, and hung her head, muttering, "He started it."

"I'm finishing it. Grimmjow, move."

"Make me," Sexta retorted, flicking one of his hands; his fracciones stepped back, ready to intervene but willing to let him show off.

"Call us if you need us," Shawlong told him and Grimmjow scoffed.

"As if. Move it, Cuatro, I'm not interested in you right now."

For whatever insane reason, Grimmjow thought he could just walk right past Ulquiorra and get right to the point, but to his surprise, the Cuatro Espada stepped right in front of him, his intense eyes making Sexta pause. "Erin is my fraccion, she is under my care," the smaller Arrancar stated; Erin tipped her head, wondering why he'd said her name that time and not before.

"Big whoop, Cuatro," the bigger one snapped. "I don't want to fight you at the moment, Schiffer. Don't give me a reason to."

Meanwhile, while the two Espada exchanged words, Erin was readying a little trick she'd been working on, trying not to be obvious about it as it required a lot of her concentration to do; she'd gotten to know the nature of her spirit pressure quite well-especially the volitile part-and had been trying to utilize it for some time, but condensing it into compact shapes took time and focus, the constant turmoil of the many, many Hollows within her making it insanely difficult to work effeciently. As such, her best technique were reiatsu blocks, and her second reiatsu spheres: or boom bubbles, as she liked to call them.

The denser she made her pressure, the harder it became, and the harder she made it, the more likely it was to fight back. While everyone had been distracted she'd been peeling her energy off and forming one such boom bubble at her feet, trying to shape it without looking at where it was and drawing attention. Eventually it was the size of a football and practically quivering with contained force-not that she could see it, she could only feel it-and she cleared her throat, interrupting the bickering duo and using her mind to scoot it across the ground, between them and then settled it between Grimmjow and his fracciones, half her attention devoted to simply keeping it contained for the moment.

"Look, as much as I'd love to have at it with you, pussy cat, we're in the middle of something and I don't feel like wasting time right now. Ulquiorra, let's just go somewhere else."

Cuatro nodded, having known there was no point in getting the blue-haired jackass to move if he didn't want to, and he turned away from Grimmjow and walked toward Erin; Grimm reared his head back a bit, having not expected Ulquiorra to just up and walk away from a fight like that. Once he was level with her, Erin jerked her chin a bit and Ulquiorra paused, turning back around, having caught the movement at the corner of his eye; Grimmjow raised his hands and made a "What?" gesture when suddenly there was a loud pop like a firecracker and the six Arrancar went flying in different directions, Erin's densely-floating reiatsu having enveloped Ulquiorra and neutralized the effect like she'd hoped before stuffing it away again.

Very, very faintly, as he heard the shocked wails of the unfortunate group as they were sent flying, a corner of Ulquiorra's mouth turned up, the side that Erin couldn't see, and he remarked, "Clever," and she raised her chin, happy.

The blast had K. the fracciones, but Grimmjow shook himself awake before he hit the ground and shouted, "STOP MOCKING ME!" while turning a summersault and rocketing back to the walkway, his fury directed at Erin; the sparkling effect of her skin distracted him for a moment as he closed in and having sensed his return, Erin had rounded, blocking him from Ulquiorra, her wings spread as she hastily threw together a wall of her reiatsu, trying to stop him, but Grimmjow literally punched right threw it, even though his arm erupted in blistering scratches and aimed right at her throat.

Saved only by her reflexes, Erin's wings folded in front of her and-with her spirit pressure on the rise-blocked his fist, if only barely. Ulquiorra, saving his questions for a later moment, used sonido to come up behind the enraged Arrancar and roundhouse kicked him into the wall of the tower they had been heading toward where he stuck for a moment. The victorious pair were ready to depart when Erin's body prickled with awareness and she once more stepped between Ulquiorra and Grimmjow, who'd gotten free and launched a turquoise cerro at him; one of her wings formed a curtain between him and the deadly beam of energy, the pair seeming to work as a funnel to draw the attack into the black swirling void in her chest, the little dots on her body lighting up once again with the color of the beam before fading.

Wondering why she did not return the attack like she had to him, her sparkling body seeming to take on a temporary blue shine for a moment, the Adjucha compeltely still as she concentrated, Grimmjow's rage almost palpable as he staggered across the walkway toward her; after a brief second of studying, Cuatro noticed she wasn't compeltely still: she was slowly pulling her body into a spring, her instinct probably fighting her sense as her self-preservation kicked in, driving her to devour the Arrancar that was endangering her.

Knowing it would be bad on his part to let it happen, Ulquiorra stepped up to her great, fanged jaws, almost completely ignoring the injured Espada that had gone down on one knee from pain despite his will to fight. Without really thinking about the fact he could've lost an arm doing so, he reached up and took hold of the little ridge at the tip of Erin's nose, bringing her face down closer to his level and looking right into her empty, black eyes. "Once more, Grimmjow is the Sexta Espada and much less disposable than Septimo, Octavo or Noveno. End him and you'll only cause trouble for yourself."

The raging cloud within her had died the moment he'd grabbed her by the nose, almost as if that were a trigger that broke her growing shift of consciousness, allowing her to finish forming the block that floated right above Grimmjow with a burst of ease before disorientation set in. "So he's the cutoff point?" she asked dreamily, feeling a little off as she came back to her senses.

"So to speak. Leave him be. His fracciones will make sure he's found, as long as you didn't kill them with that trick of yours."

"Doubtful, but possible," she quipped, glancing between him and Grimmjow who was panting and bleeding into his eyes, blinding him. She allowed herself to be tugged around by Ulquiorra, his hand gripping her by the nose firmly, still keeping half of her attention on the block she'd made. As they entered the dark hall and the distracting sparkle went away, Erin gently tugged herself free of her Espada partner, turning to look through the doorway at Sexta who'd begun stringing together a series of profanities that would impress truckers and sailors alike, demanding that they come back and fight him. "It's a pity he's such an idiot."

Ulquiorra grunted.

"May I?"

"Yes."

She released her hold on her block and watched as the next second passed with a horrendous series of cracks and a cloud of dust that left Grimmjow Jaegerjaques stone cold knocked out in a small crater just big enough for him. "Whoops."

"Impressive."

"Should I go see if he needs to be scraped up?"

Ulquiorra slowly shook his head once, eyes closed. "I can still sense him. He's alive, though barely."

"Well, they say cat's have nine lives."

He hoped not. That would be a nightmare.