Another update. Hoo-ah! I'm on a roll. I hope this one has you on the edge of your emotions. I tried hard. I want to tanks my readers for being so patient with me. From college, to joblessness, to moving across the country. And then even when i got married, and lost my job again. I've postponed this story for almost 4 years. And i don't even know when i'll be able to finish it. But the least i can do is update it. Thank you, for still reading.

"You Fucking Bastard! I'll see you steeped in the blood of hell, there will be no mercy for you, because every demon there will see your skin peeled for this!" Arturo threw himself from his vantage point down at the remains of Ulquiorra. The suffering hollow had been attempting to regenerate even after his ever slipping consciousness. The arrancar landed hard on Ulquiorra's good arm. It replied with a beautiful satisfying crunch.

Thrust back into consciousness by sheer pain alone, Ulquiorra let out a howl of pain and writhed beneath Arturo's boot. His tail lashed back and forth, his clawed foot kicking and shaking. The hollow yellow eyes overflowed with pain and agony, but also great sorrow. A single tear escaped the corner of his eye, but it was lost among the blood, and dust.

"If you killed her! ...IF you killed her!" Arturo was choked on his words. He reached down and grabbed Ulquiorra's neck. His fingers dug in and he attempted to strangle the Espada. The dying 4th attempted one last effort, and dug his clawed back foot into Arturo's face, gouging his cheek and lacerating his eye. "AAaaarRRRRaaaahhhhhh!" The Arrancar dropped the 4th and kicked him square in the chest. The impact caused several of Ulquiorra's ribs to snap as well as sending him barreling into a wall. "I will return to strip the flesh from your bones."

The dying espada watched with weak lidded eyes, Arturo was retreating away, it should have spoken relief but it felt of none. His crumpled broken form could no longer regenerate. He felt the sting of blood dripping into his eyes, and shut them in defeat. Be safe Orihime. Saf-

The echo of reiatsu traveled throughout Las Noches. The strength and devastating power exhibited in the Arrancar's battle was tearing the confines of the fortress to pieces. Fissures spread through wall, floor and ceiling, and were growing wildly like rivers. Everyone within the building could feel it crumbling slowly beneath their feet, Even as more and more battles broke out.

"Ulquiorra."

"I knew this was a waste of time." He grumbled. Her companion glanced over his shoulder and fixed Orihime with a glare. "He's gone girly, that was the last spark of his Reiatsu." The tall stoic arrancar bent his head and stared at the floor.

"He's not dead." She said through tear stained cheeks.

"Keep lying to yourself girl, after all people come back from the dead." Batman fixed her with a longing look. "Unless of course they were already dead, shame. Now excuse me I'm leaving here before this fortress comes down on my head"

"Don't say that, I know he's still out there!" Orihime seized his sleeve and pulled on him. "For once just help someone besides yourself! We can help him, please! PLEASE!" She burst into tears, and they trailed down her cheeks spilling onto the ground.

"We can't help! and I can't save anyone! I've lost the other half of my soul! Without her I can't help anyone. I'm half what i used to be." He pulled his arm back and shook off one of his gloves. He placed his his hand back in front of Orihime so that she could see for herself.

Her soft hands cradled his larger and calloused fingers, she pulled his pale hand in front of her and traced the cold black tattoo of the number one on the back. "You are the strongest Espada?"

"I was." He sadly smiled. "My soul was once two, so that I wouldn't be alone." His face fell again, and he shut his eyes. "She went to go confront the intruder. And she didn't come back. I went looking for her, and all i found were the leftover eaten corpses of arrancars." He clenched his eyes shut, and gritted his bone white teeth.

"You know what its like to lose then!" She screamed at him. "Don't make everyone else lose too!"

"Get away from me! I brought you where you wanted to go," He pulled his hand away from hers and pointed at the shadows down the hall. "Go to whatever is left of him... I'm gone."

Orihime's gaze was drawn to a pile of fur and blood on the floor, she didn't even notice the Primera Espada taking his leave. "Ulquiorra?" She was so afraid to approach, so afraid she'd get the answer she so feared.

The devastation was immense, half the room was collapsed, chunks of stone littered the ground, smashing the couch and most of the other furniture in the room. The graffiti on the walls of the room was almost invisible now. And then there was the blood, it was everywhere. Puddled on the floor near the edge of the bed.

The interloping arrancar hesitated for only a moment, then his sonido brought him to the bedside where he'd left the little soul reaper. His one good eye widened at the horror. This one reaper had shown more humanity towards him then any soul he'd encountered in the past several thousand years.

The Espada's cero had cut through her leg, severing it, and then ending in her side. it exposed some of her ribs, and had cauterized into her stomach. The cero had ended and its energy had faded before it had managed to sever her body in half. Arturo pressed his fingers against her neck and felt for a pulse. He was relieved to feel her heart beating, if only barely. He peeled back his own spirit pressure so that he could feel her own. There was a flicker, a small flame of reiatsu within her chest.

"I will fix you." He promised. The words were like ghosts escaping his throat. He stared down at her weak form, those sheets beneath her smeared with blood and burnt from energy. "Why do you do this to me? I've only known you for a few hours. What have you done? What drug have you slipped me?" Arturo swallowed down the threatening emotions. The soul reaper was dying, and despite his hollow sense telling him to let her die, to eat her and consume what was left of her powers. He made a rash decision, to take her away from here.

A tremor swept through the room, and another part of the ceiling collapsed. The teal-haired arrancar wasted no time slipping his arms beneath her body and pulling her up into an embrace. He tried very hard to be gentle and cradle her small body against his chest. "Little Kuchiki, can you hear me?" But the only response he received was her head lolling off to the side, blood dripping from her lips.

Holding the small woman tightly, Arturo held out an arm, and blasted a hole in the wall of the cell room, that had once had a window. Without another thought, unafraid of abandoning his pursuit of power, the arrancar escaped with the remains of his prize, and disappeared into the sands of Hueco Mundo.

Ichigo and Grimmjow had been battling for some time now, even after the immense bursts of spirit power had started crumbling Las Noches away. Grimmjow had remarked idly that Ulquiorra had engaged an intruder in battle. But that had been the end of that. Too busy were the two rivals to spare any attention to another distant brawl.

Renji and the others had already taken leave, they'd gone in search of Orihime and Rukia, hoping to find the girls before Las Noches collapsed. No one had taken note of their absence, it was as if they had never been there.

There was silence upon Las Noches and the surrounding area. The only noise were the clashes from the two men, so intent and obsessed with seeing the other's blood. Grimmjow's laughter would echo, but it was empty, it was like the world had been stripped of air. And even Ichigo noticed the sudden lack of presence. The battle that had been so suffocating and terrifying just minutes before had evaporated and consumed what felt like the very air with it.

A sudden crash of foreign spirit pressure interrupted the battle. It was like a crack of lightning had cut the air between the Orange-haired boy and and the panther. The light that followed was just as powerful, causing both parties to squint and avert their eyes. When their vision finally returned their attention was drawn to the figure between them.

There stood the teal-haired arrancar from before, he could almost have been mistaken for a more sophisticated Grimmjow, except for the blood, wounds and blindness in one eye. In his arms was a ebony-haired girl, and she was barely grasping at life.

"Cease your fighting, or i will cease it for you." His voice snarled as the accented words escaped from between his lips. With as much care as a mother handling a newborn, Arturo placed the girl at Ichigo's feet. "Save her... or else." His words were whispered but Ichigo heard them just fine.

Arturo locked eyes with Ichigo's, he held the boy's gaze for several moments conveying untold emotion. His one eye seemed to be laying everything at the orange-haired boy's feet, he was admitting surrender. When Ichigo dumbly nodded he tore his eyes away from the boy and fixed them on his rowdier looking doppelganger.

"Help him or I'll hunt you to the ends of the earth, eviscerate your insides, and roast them over perdition's flames." Arturo flared his reiatsu and the energy alone knocked Grimmjow down to one knee. He did this to show the little kitty that he wasn't fucking around, and to assert his dominance.

Then as quickly as he had appeared Arturo vanished, leaving Ichigo and Grimmjow to care after the dying girl before them.

FANART: I've drawn a scene from this chapter, and if you would like to see it, please express so in a review. If i post a link in this chapter will edit it out. Thanks.

My husband is not one for words, and he's never been good at expressing emotion. I on the other hand thrive on emotion, i love evoking it and i love feeling it. So i hope I expressed plenty of it through this chapter. Until next time, your author. Saij-Spellhart.