Inspired by CODEno-103 piece titled "It's Okay"

He unsheathed his sword, the sound of metal scraping grating against his nerves as the noise reverberated harshly in the silent room cutting to the very core of him.

Slowly, ever so slowly, he moved it toward the woman on her knees before him. It seemed the act of lifting it proved difficult. To point it at its target, even more so.

It was not that this target he had been assigned to execute had power greater than him that made this so hard, in fact it should have been easy - simple and done with, without hesitation- but there was something else holding him back. Something he could not name, nor fathom. It was a feeling.

Even as he did this, the woman made no attempt to stop him, to shield herself in any way or fight against her fate. Maybe it would have made it easier had she done so.

Instead, she remained where she was and simply stared up at him from her position. Her eyes were soft, kind, almost understanding, and he hated it. He did not want to look upon her face, or into her eyes that appeared to see into the very depths of his being, yet he could not make himself turn away. To do so would be a grave insult and would only add to his sin.

He didn't want to do this - that he felt enough to even want, or not want, as the case may be, to do something was astonishing enough already - but it was an order, and he always followed orders. It was how he ended up in this mess in the first place. Had he not been ordered to watch over her, he would not find this task difficult at all, but having been in her company for as long as he had, it became the hardest thing he had ever been forced to do.

Her soft, reassuring voice sounded in the excruciatingly quiet room. "It's okay." Such simple words, yet they made his hand tremble and his blade shake.

If the woman had simply remained quiet, not talked to him whenever he was around her, all the time about everything that came to her head, not pulled him in, intrigued him with her beliefs, her will, her heart, had she just done as she was told and said no more to him than was necessary, this could have all been over with already.

Of course that was not meant to be. She had talked to him. She told him stories of her world, the wonders she described and insisted he see one day. She spoke of her friends, of connections, of feelings, of the heart.

He mainly remained quiet when she talked of trivial things, taking to study her face and the whirlwind of expressions that passed through it that left him dizzy with how quickly they changed during her stories. He was stonily silent most of the time as he took it all in, absorbed every little thing he could about her. He only interjected when he did not understand something or found something she said or spoke of to be foolish.

It was when she would talk about matters of the heart, human emotions, when he became truly vested in the topic she brought up. He was curious about what made her, and other humans, act as they did. What made them tick? What made her, her? So odd and different, and unafraid when surely she should be.

He tried to grasp just what reason they had to do so many foolish things. Emotions were foreign entities, intangible and undetectable by his eyes, which he used to perceive all matters in this world. He continued to try to piece the puzzle together, to figure humans out, to figure her out. He desired to understand, as he had always been a curious creature. It just seemed the concept continued to elude him.

Despite his inability to comprehend her, it appeared eerily effortless for her to understand him. It was unsettling, how easily she slipped into his life and without warning began to grow on him.

He had been more than just her jailor. He was her guard, her caretaker, her sometimes companion - the only one she had here - and her protector, someone whom she trusted to keep her safe from the others, and from harm. She trusted far too easily for now he would be the one to cause it. How cruel this twist of fate was.

"It's okay, Ulquiorra-kun." She repeated, this time with his name and the suffix she had given him some time ago when he had acted as a protector shielding her from harm and earning her trust, her naïve heart reaching out to him and proclaiming him her friend.

He remained silent as she claimed him as such, allowing her that comfort, letting it go despite his own judgment on friends and other matters of human feelings. Insisting in his mind that he was simply doing his duty, that he had only protected her because he was her caretaker and guard so believed it part of his job to not allow harm to come to her.

Maybe he had built up some sort of attachment to her, it would explain why he was hesitating, his blade wavering and not yet plunged into her awaiting, unbelievably vulnerable, flesh. Humans, after all, were so very breakable.

He maintained, had he not been assigned her caretaker, this would have been easily done and handled without a problem. Yet, he had been, and so he continued to pause conflicted as to what to do, his sword suspended, hovering over her chest.

He was not doing so to intimidate or scare her, that would be pointless, she had never feared him and even now her eyes held none, even with the tip of his blade where it was and the intention evident.

It was like he could not bring himself to end her life as per his order. It was the first time he had ever wanted to defy an order.

She must have seen his reluctance, read his struggle as she had always so effortlessly been able to read him.

"Don't be sad."

Her eyes were hard to look at anymore, they were far too compassionate, far too understanding, even as they filled with tears.

"It's not like you have another choice…" He did though, and that's what made this a terrible sin on him, one that would surely haunt him.

He could ignore the order, but he would find himself where she was. He would be destroyed for disobedience, and all it would serve to do is stave off her death until another came to end it, because they would follow the order.

She did not fear death, she feared dying alone. He knew this. He knew she did not want to die without someone she cared for with her, even though she spoke of her heart being with her friends even if she were to die. It was just another thing that had confused him at the time. Now, he wanted to, at the very least, let her die with someone she cared for, someone she believed to be her friend - even if that someone was him. No matter how it would affect him, he would do this, because he had to.

"It's okay, I…" Her voice cracked, unable to get anymore words out as the first of her tears slipped down from those beautiful orbs that were locked on his own. Still refusing to back down, she was defiant and strong to the end, never once looking away from him or her own death she could clearly see.

"I…" She tried again, her eyebrows moving up and a small painfully kind smile that was only for his benefit forming on her lips.

The sight of it should have sickened him, or left him without feeling anything at all, for he was the epitome of nothingness. Yet she had always made him feel, even when he shouldn't. So instead, he felt some terrible pain that he could not quite place as his vision became blurred.

Those eyes staring unflinchingly back at him, and the words she spoke next branded his very being.

"I forgive you, Ulquiorra-kun." He visibly flinched at her words and felt something wet trail down his cheek, right along the dark colored tear marks on his face.

Only then did he realize they were tears, that he was crying, and that this feeling, it was true despair. He had thought he had known it before, for all the suffering he had lived through in this retched life, yet here and now he found an unimaginable facet that tore him apart worse than anything had ever managed.

He believed himself unworthy of her forgiveness. He did not deserve to be forgiven. Not for this, never. He would never deserve forgiveness for this.

Without really knowing why, he took a step closer, the sound of the single footstep echoing loudly in the unbearably silent room.

He never broke eye contact despite how desperately he wished he could look away or close his eyes, to not have to see what he was about to do.

Her eyes shown with understanding, forgiveness, and utter acceptance as she resigned herself to her fate.

This sin he was about to commit, it would never leave him.

The sight of her, her very being etched its mark on his bared soul.

Maybe that's why it haunted him.

Her soul, he didn't know where it went. Despite that, her ghost lingered in the now broken kingdom.

Her friends had come to rescue her, of course they had. They left empty handed, with nothing but heavy hearts grieving for the girl they failed to come save in time. Somehow they still managed to be victorious in the war, to defeat Aizen, not that it changed anything, she was still gone. Nothing could bring her back.

The remaining few who survived it once more lived within the walls of the place he had been assigned to protect. His last order ever given to him. In an uncharacteristic fit of fury, he had wanted to blow the entire place up just to spite the man who had given him the order. But he couldn't bring himself to.

In doing so, he would have destroyed the last place she could be found. The last trace of her in that room, locked away like a princess in a tower.