Chapter 5

A day at the Beach

She could see him lying on the beach over by himself with a few of his friends standing around him. He didn't seem to really care though. This is what really seemed to shock Halibel; this boy had charged into Las Noches the very heart of Hueco Mundo to save the life of the girl Orihime who was on the ship now. She had also heard how he had stormed Soul Society to save the short girl with violet eyes that was always hanging out with the red headed soul reaper. Yet despite this the boy looked like he didn't even care who stayed by his side as long as all of his friends remained safe and healthy.

Halibel found herself wondering about him a lot recently especially since she had witnessed the fight between this boy and the sexta espada back in Hueco Mundo. However, after he had spoken to her back on the ship, and calmed her nerves she could not seem to stop thinking about him.

Looking up she noticed that his friends were trying to get him to go swim in the odd clouds that were the consistency of water. Once they had all gotten down to the beach almost all the men had stripped down to just their pants, leaving their chests exposed to get a tan. However, Ichigo hadn't, instead he had remained in his shinigami garb, and when the other guys that had been hanging out with him tried to get him to go swim he turned them down. Leaving him they all continued on down to the sea clouds.

Halibel then observed him do something rather strange. Ichigo started to look around as if to see if anyone was watching him he stood up and walked just passed the edge of forest so that it would be harder to spot him.

Following him to see what was up Halibel walked to where she saw him last. What she saw astonished her as she noticed him taking his shirt off for the first time that day.

When it finally came above his shoulders she knew why he hadn't taken it off out where everyone could see him. His chest and back were scarred more than anyone else she had seen in her life, and she then remembered that out of everyone from their world he was one of the youngest being just around sixteen years old. As this realization dawned on her Halibel gasped quietly to herself as she moved her hand in front of her mouth. The gasp was loud enough though, that Ichigo heard it and turned around quickly.

"Shit I'm sorry!" he said as he made to put his shirt back on.

Halibel however, stopped him as she said "No it is my fault I should not have interrupted your private meditations here." She then turned to go.

She stopped when she felt him grab her wrist though, and heard him ask "Why did you follow me?"

Turning around Halibel expected to see anger in his face at the invasion of his privacy, what she found instead was open curiosity on his part. Deciding to be truthful she said "I was curious as to why you did not go down and swim with your friends."

Rubbing the back of his neck Ichigo replied "Oh you saw that. Well truth is they haven't seen what happened to me in Hueco Mundo, and I know they will get mad after they see a couple of my newer scars. Since we are trying to keep the peace here so that we can all get home, I figured it would be better if everyone had a chance to get to know each other before I unveiled what it cost me to save Orihime."

Looking confused Halibel asked "What do you mean when you say it cost you to go save Orihime?"

Ichigo looked down at the ground as he pointed to a large circular hole in the center of his chest. "This scar here is where Ulquiorra shot a cero through me. If you look on the back you can see where it exited." He then pointed to a large scar at the base of his neck right about where Ulquiorra's hollow hole was and continued "Before that though he stabbed me here with his hand. Both of these wounds killed me. Though no one else knows this so please don't tell them."

Halibel caught herself staring as she asked "Why are you telling me this if you don't want the others to know?"

"Well to tell you the truth I don't really know" Ichigo replied as a deep blush started forming on his face as he realized what he had just told her. "Crap I should have just said I was gonna come work out it would have been believable, and it would have made more sense," Ichigo thought in mild panic.

Noticing the blush Halibel thought to herself "Wow he looks pretty cute with a blush on his face." Noticing what just went through her head Halibel started to blush heavily too, though her blush was less noticeable due to the vest that covered the lower half of her face from view. "Tha-Thank you for trusting me." Halibel managed to stutter finding her blush getting even darker and going further up her cheeks due to her embarrassment rising.

It went so far up her cheeks that Ichigo noticed it over her vest, and grew mildly surprised. He didn't know what to say about this whole situation, so being the brainiac that he is Ichigo just decided to stay silent as they just stared at each other in an awkward silence.

Finally Ichigo turned around and lay down on top of the ground clouds, and stared up into the sky hoping that what he had seen had not been his imagination.

Noticing him lying there Halibel decided to do something not even she had expected to come out of this whole situation, and she lay down next to him. She noticed him stiffen at first, but after a few seconds of both being unsure of what to do they both decided to relax a little bit, and enjoy the day.

Ulquiorra pov

Ulquiorra was getting anxious it wasn't often that he felt anything, and yet since he had met the human girl he found himself actually starting to grow several worrisome emotions such as curiosity, annoyance, and even joy. Though, the last one was the weirdest one to him seeing as how it only happened when that very girl was around.

The other two made more sense than the first one thankfully curiosity came from him wanting to understand this new world, which explained why he seemed to be constantly curious as of late; and the annoyance was felt whenever he was around "the trash" that had been sent here with him, and "the trash" that they had landed with. Looking over at the ship Ulquiorra was surprised to see Orihime standing at the railing waving over at the beach in the general direction of her friends.

Noticing that he was all alone where he was Ulquiorra decided to go to the boat and become familiar with where he would be staying for the time being. Using sonido to get over there he was turned to the railing look at the girl, and noticed that she was looking at him now. Deciding that it didn't matter Ulquiorra then walked into a nearby door that led to the ships interior where he could feel Starrk sleeping, the ship's odd doctor, and both the sniper, and the most annoying person present on the boat, Urahara that damned eccentric soul reaper Ulquiorra thought.

He then realized that his annoyance didn't make sense he hadn't even been around this man long enough to know if he was really this annoying. Deciding to file that thought away for later he then continued on down to explore the ships interior.

After a while of this Ulquiorra decided that he had found everything that he would need to know the location of on the ship, and was now experiencing a new emotion. Boredom. It was so foreign to him that at first he didn't even know what the emotion was. After he realized what the emotion was though, he decided that he didn't like it and that something had to be done about it, and soon.

He didn't realize how soon the problem would be solved in though, as a few seconds later he was bumped into by Orihime as she ran around the corner without looking where she was going.

As they both stood up from having been knocked over, due to the suddenness of the situation, Orihime started to apologize profusely "Oh I'm so sorry Ulquiorra san I wasn't paying attention."

"It is fine I am not hurt. Why were you in such a rush? You act as though we are under attack." Ulquiorra replied.

As he finished his statement Orihime's eyes got wider as she all of a sudden exclaimed "How did you know?! I haven't told anyone yet!"

As she finished saying this Ulquiorra's eyes grew slightly wider as he all of a sudden used sonido to appear outside on the deck while drawing his sword.

What greeted him was a scene that looked more like it belonged in a comedy action movie rather than real life. Yet here in front of him were people who looked like they were skating on clouds while wielding baton's and bows as they attacked everyone on the beach as they all started to fall back to the ship. As he looked out at the attacking soldiers though, Ulquiorra felt a whole new emotion begin to stir in him. Amusement. Just looking at the soldiers made him want to chuckle at how dumb they looked, with their cloud camouflage and white berets.

Instead of chuckling though, Ulquiorra settled for pointing a finger at group that had remained on the beach who were shooting more of the weird arrows that created clouds at the fleeing members of the strawhat crew. At the tip of his finger a bright green ball of energy started to form. As he released this ball he said "cero." Everyone who hadn't seen the attack before was caught off guard and all turned to see either who fired it, or what had happened.

The effects were nowhere near as devastating as Ulquiorra had expected them to be however. Instead of the entire group being blown away and most if not all of them dying, he found that almost all of them were still alive. Though, most of them were incapacitated fortunately. "Hmm so that is what the soul reaper meant when he said that our powers were severely reduced. That attack should have killed you all."

With that thought in mind Ulquiorra drew his sword again and using sonido he went to start cutting down these pests before they hurt anyone he knew.

Just as he was about to cut one down though, he heard someone scream out "DON'T HURT THEM PLEASE!"

Looking over to see who had yelled he noticed Conis standing next to her father as he was about to start his killing rampage. Switching his attack Ulquiorra turned his slice into a bash as he brought the hilt of his sword to meet the man's temple. He then turned around and sonidoed to Conis and asked "And why should I not kill any of these men? They are trying to hurt my companions and you two as well."

"Because then god will send his guard, and the priests to come deal with you all and many more will die than is necessary including innocent civilians." Conis replied

Thinking fast Ulquiorra grabbed both Conis and her father, and sonidoed onto the ship. After he set them both down he turned to look around and see who all had as of yet to get on the ship, and who was left to guard those aboard. Seeing that both Urahara and Starrk were on the deck along with most of the strawhats, Ulquiorra then turned and saw that Grimmjow, was fighting off several opponents by himself. Looking around he continued to analyze the situation; on the closest section of the beach was the captain fighting dozens of opponents while dodging all of their attacks and protecting the navigator who had finally shown up and a little east of them were the humans and soul reapers who were trying to find an opening to run away in. It was then that he noticed that neither Halibel, nor Ichigo were anywhere to be seen.