Hey! Happy Wednesday! I hope to see more requests, but for now, here is the answer to both KaiFukugawa and JanusTheUnluky7. Answers to reviews will probably happen tomorrow, but I don't know, since I'm on vacation. Yep. Speaking of reviews... the addict awaits. XD Thank you so, so, SO much for sticking with me for so long! You guys are the best!
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Ulquiorra looked at the cake. And he smelt it. And he devoured it with his eyes. In all his many years, he had never once seen something that made him so hungry. Something that made his mouth water in want.
Well, the Onna had, but he was thinking about food, not women.
He had been asked to watch the cake while Orihime ran out to the table to set it, because she was smart and knew that if anyone did happen across the kitchen, they would be tempted to make away with her glorious dessert.
Why?
It was a simply two layer vanilla cake. It had cinnamon paste between the two tears, the fluffy coating sticking the two together. And then she had coated the whole thing in almond-vanilla frosting, something that almost all humans thought to taste good. (This frosting was a light purple, as the blue had 'mysteriously' disappeared.)
Ulquiorra was on high guard. He wasn't going to simply look around carefully to make sure that no arrancar walked in. No, people in Los Noches were much craftier than that.
He especially kept on eye on the freezer.
He would not be taken by surprise again.
That, of course, brings us back to another thought he had earlier that day. ..a freezer big enough for Grimmjow to hide in- long story…
You see, this was not the first time Ulquiorra had been asked to guard food. He could just barely recall the regal six-tear cake that had been brought back from the world of the living for Aizen, Gin, and Tosen on some anniversary of evil or something.
Aizen had a kitchen back then, too- much more grand than the one they currently had. He had loved food, after all. Anything fit for a king was almost fit for Aizen's pallet.
So, when the cake had arrived before schedule, Ulquiorra had been put on guard duty. His first time, he might add, practice for when Orihime was to come. (On another note, she was much more difficult than the cake had been.)
Grimmjow. The despicable cat had been after the cake since the beginning, after getting a good look at it as it passed through the halls of Los Noches on it's way to the kitchen. And Grimmjow was the sort of man to become fixated on something, for example, reaching a goal. A goal like stealing a cake. Despicable.
He had been standing in the kitchen, scanning the room for any sight of trouble. With Grimmjow 100 feet near the facility, it was obvious that he would find some sort of trouble somewhere.
The right set of doors to the kitchen flew open, and in prowled Grimmjow. "Hey." He nodded at Ulquiorra, like he had a right to be in the kitchen, and then started toward the cake.
Ulquiorra stepped between the sixth espada and his target, his eyes cold and hard as steel. "You are not permitted to be within the kitchen, sexta."
Grimmjow scowled, both at the message and at the reminder of his rank. "Who the hell do you think you are? I can do whatever the fuck I want."
Ulquiorra held his hand up, pointing a single finger at Grimmjow. The man didn't give second chances. He fired a small controlled cero as a warning, the amount of power pulsing in it small enough to extinguish itself if it missed its target.
The blue-haired espada had jumped up just in time to miss getting hit by the cero, stabbing his hand up through the frail ceiling and using the hole he made there as a hand hold. He swung forward, feet out to kick Ulquiorra.
Ulquiorra effortlessly deflected the jab, catching his foot and turning his ankle as he threw back the other man. Grimmjow crashed out through the open doors to the kitchen, yelling profanities the whole way.
After that, things had only gotten worse.
The panther tried getting in any way and every way possible. He came in through the ceiling, the walls, he threw ceros, he even tried taking one of the chefs hostage. Anything to get the cake. And not so much because he wanted it, but because he wanted to prove something.
Even looking back on the event, Ulquiorra didn't really know exactly what he was trying to prove.
At one point Ulquiorra had gotten tired to listening to the idiot yelling curses and insults, breaking down walls and such, and so for a moment he took the cake into his own two hands and stepped out of the doors to the kitchen and into the hall. He started towards Aizen's throne room, knowing that Grimmjow would possibly see him and think that he had lost his chance at the cake. He swiftly turned a corner and then went back into the kitchen in just ten minutes, finding that it was only twenty more until Aizen would need the sweet.
He carefully set the cake down on the counter, turning his back to it to look at the wall he assumed Grimmjow would try to break through next had his previous move not detoured the hair-brained idiot.
Click.
Ulquiorra's eyes opened just a bit more than usual, as suddenly he realized his grave error. He had left the kitchen unoccupied, and hadn't looked around to make sure Grimmjow wasn't hiding somewhere when he came back.
He turned just in time to see the freezer fly open, a streak of blue and white shooting out of it as a mad laugh took up the room.
Ulquiorra fired a cero, shooting the streak from the air, watching as he hit the ground, finally out for the moment.
At the same time, a servant came for the cake, ending the game. Later on he would find out that Grimmjow actually really liked hiding in the fridge, as other members of the espada asked to guard food for many of Aizen's tea parties had delt with the man. He was atually the only one who had been able to stop him after he burst from the fridge, the from Tia's watch he only ended up getting a crumb of pumpkin bread.
It didn't change the fact that he had been bested by Grimmjow Jaggerjauqes, if even for just a moment.
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Click.
Ulquiorra broke from the memory of Grimmjow's small and fleeting victory and concentrated on his surroundings.
He could practically smell Grimmjow's ego; egger to be boosted in a re-match.
Ulquiorra would just have to crush it down again. No one would get the Onna's cake. No one.
The click that had taken him out of his musings was just what he though, he discovered, as he noticed the slightest blur of blue and a tiny burst of spiritual energy off to the side. He almost fired a cero, but then thought about the Onna and how sad she would be if he destroyed her kitchen.
He would just have to decimate Grimmjow using caution.
Ulquiorra flashed behind Grimmjow, taking hold of the unaware espada's wrist and swinging him out of the double doors that made up the left entrance to the kitchen.
At the same moment, he realized his error.
Grimmjow not only had help, but he also had someone on his side whom knew how to use their brain.
Captain of division two.
He was barely able to move in front of the cake and grab it before she was before him, swinging her foot towards his head. He ducked, easily, leaning back and holding the cake in one hand. He didn't bat an eye when she deftly pushed off of the table behind him, coming back around with a hand aiming to take out the nerve in the shoulder connected to the arm holding the cake.
A small battle broke out in the kitchen, Grimmjow and Soi Fon against Ulquiorra. No one was aiming to kill, and it seemed Halibel had talked to Grimmjow recently about destroying things, but that didn't make the fight civil.
In an attempt to blind him, Soi Fon emptied a bag of flour over Ulquiorra's head, while at the same time Grimmjow ran forward with an attack.
He could still here Grimmjow, for one thing, and for another, there was nothing his eyes couldn't see- flour or not.
They danced about the food Orihime had left in the kitchen, no one daring to upset any single morsel. The goal was the cake- one of the only things in the room worth fighting over.
Soi Fon jumped up into a corner of the room, bracing herself there like some sort of black widow, while Grimmjow came flying at him again in an attempt to shove him back in the corner. Ulquiorra feigned to the side just as the sixth espada came flying at him, getting in a quick kick to the base of the opposing man's spine.
Grimmjow reached back and managed to somehow grab Ulquiorra's ankle at the last second, dragging him forward while the man held the cake back and out of reach. Soi Fon reached down with one hand, drawing herself out over the two men below her as she reached for the cake, and-
"Ulquiorra! I'm back! Sorry I was gone so long, I-" Orihime, whom had just skipped into the room, froze. She blinked in confusion at the three spirits frozen before her, before quirking her head to the side. "Huh?"
No one moved.
A breath later, and Orihime was doubled over in laughter.
Ulquiorra was pleased to see he had gotten the better of Grimmjow once more.
Now, if only he could make it through the woman's cooking, then everything would be fine…