When faced with death, he wasn't sure what he expected. Perhaps flashbacks of his dull life racing through his mind. Or a vast emptiness welcoming his arrival. Whatever the case, he was not afraid. For the embodiment of Nothingness felt little emotion and little fear.

Yet, as he arose from unconsciousness, his eyes slowly opening to a colored world and ears catching the sounds of nature and people, he found himself confused. His mind whirled, trying to understand the situation he found himself in.

He was alive.

The last thing he remembered was his pitiful defeat against Kurosaki Ichigo and the outstretched hand of one Inoue Orihime, unable to reach him before his body disintegrated in front of their eyes. Humans were so foolish. He had tormented them before the tables had been turned and the merciless onslaught was cast upon him. Yet, as he faded away, she held no fear or resentment. Only sadness.

Only pity.

Despite himself, he felt a pang within him. He didn't understand it and he wasn't sure whether he liked the feeling her image stirred within, so he quickly discarded it.

Ulquiorra sat up, noting the white blanket that fell off his chest to lay over his lap, as well as the lack of his jacket on his person. He brought a hand to his face, willing the dizziness to subside. At the side of the bed propped against what looked like a nightstand, Ulquiorra could see from the corner of his eye was his Zanpakuto. He wasn't sure where he was, but it felt like no Heuco Mundo.

Before he could observe his surroundings, he heard a doorknob turn. A woman walked in, carrying a tray with bowls in her hand. He bolted up, immediately his hand at her throat. Whatever the situation he had found himself in, he would be neither prisoner nor friend. To his utter shock, sparks ignited upon contact with her skin and his instincts screamed at him to pull away, forcing him to jump back. He spared a glance at his hand, seeing smoke flowing from charred skin. She had burned him.

No, that wasn't it.

He looked back up, expecting her to attack in return. Yet she stood there, tray of what he now saw was food lay haphazardly on the floor, and her eyes wide in shock and terror. Whatever she had done, he understood was instinctual to her. He contemplated attacking once more, though forewent that idea. She may not have meant to defend herself, yet the lightest of reiki coating her body told him the result would be the same if he tried again.

How irritating.

Her attention momentarily shifted as a voice yelled from somewhere outside the room. He couldn't help but think how idiotic she was for not focusing her full attention on the enemy in front of her. Or perhaps, she didn't find him as threatening as she should have.

After a small exchange with the woman, in which he refused to deign her with responses to her attempts at info gathering, he left. She had been preoccupied with keeping whoever was outside the door from coming in - a family member, he assumed. He didn't care. Patience was a virtue, yet he could only spare so much for lowly humans he had no obligation to.

Ulquiorra took to the sky and activated Pesquisa. As he'd suspected, this was no Karakura Town. He wasn't quite sure where he was, but the number of above average individuals told him this area wasn't as dense with energy. He stretched his senses out further and minutely furrowed his brows when he noticed an abnormality. The shrine house he'd come out of was barely registering on his radar. He'd noticed earlier, but the human woman who'd found him barely had any spiritual pressure to her, even while her body was layered with her energy. He wasn't so far away that he shouldn't be able to sense her, yet she seemed cut off from him completely now.

Strange.

For a moment, he considered going back there to investigate. Her pathetically low levels couldn't have possibly done anything to help him. In fact, at that level, she shouldn't have been able to see or interact with him. Yet the fact she could told him she was likely keeping her powers tightly sealed. A little too well, in his opinion.

It wasn't boastful to say he was a master of the Pesquisa technique. He wouldn't go so far as to say he prided himself in his use of it, for pride was not an emotion he strongly felt. Yet, his full mastery of it should have been enough to at least detect her still, even under her suppressed energy.

What a peculiar woman.

In the distance, he could feel the trademark signature of a Shinigami closing in on him. Best not to stay in one place too long. Disposing of the threat would not take much from him. However, he preferred not wasting any energy needlessly while he was still recovering. He was done fighting for the time being.

With a Sonido away, the air around him changed ever-so-slightly, yet the scenery largely stayed the same. Now, he was picking up many more above average signatures of humans. He understood. Karakura Town was not too far off from where he'd landed himself. He wasn't sure how long he'd been out for, but it had to have been at least a few hours or days. It was always hard to tell in the never changing scenery of Hueco Mundo, so he could only estimate the time spent in his fight against Kurosaki Ichigo. However long he had been out for however, should have been long enough for the fight between the Shinigami and Lord Aizen's group to have commenced - to have concluded even.

Yet, try as he may, he could not sense any particularly strong signatures coming from Karakura Town. There was no lingering traces of his master or enemies, either.

Had the battle already concluded?

Ulquiorra, much to his surprise, was both tempted to check the city out and also move as far away from it as possible. He was not an emotional being with wants and needs like normal creatures. What little he did feel was usually reserved only for flickers of annoyance or acceptance - little emotions that quickly came and went, never lingering for long. It was only recently did he come to feel anything stronger. All thanks to those two. He still couldn't quite understand this change in him. It was foreign. He did not like it, yet he didn't not like it. He was conflicted. A new development.

Whatever awaited him in Karakura Town or in Heuco Mundo, Ulquiorra did not care to find out. He had no purpose left in life, he reasoned. There was nothing to return to. Nothing to care for.

Whether it was Lord Aizen, the other Arrancers, or the Shinigami, ultimately speaking it would lead to his death. What other fate was there for someone with no purpose in life, after all?

Yes, he would not go back.

Not yet.

A face popped to his mind, one filled with such eyes of sorrow, and encouraged him to seek out the owner. He flickered her image out of his mind. A part of him wanted to see the human who had showed him her heart, yet he knew nothing would come of it. He had grasped it for but a moment, but it was enough to tell. It was not his to hold.

Not a commitment he was ready to make.

He turned back to the where the shrine of that strange human woman resided in. There was no meaning in his life, nothing to push him to keep living. However, he was not the type to seek out death. Whatever came for him next, he would accept it. As he always did. For the time being though, he would keep an eye on her. Higurashi Kagome, she called herself. He did not know why he was still alive, but perhaps the answer lay somewhere with her. So he would observe her for now, at least until he figured out what to do from here on out.