"No! No, no, no, no, no, no, no!"

Other than those words followed by hyperventilation, there was nothing but complete silence in the room. Even the battle that was going on between Grimmjow and Starrk steadily came to a stop and the two of them stared at Aizen who was now indemnified to currently having no spiritual energy. Ulquiorra and I stood side-by-side and, even though we had finished putting our powers together to make the blast stronger, I still hadn't released Ulquiorra's hand. He didn't take it away from me for which I was glad because I would probably be needing his strength again to face the man in front of us that was distressed over the fact that his powers were stripped from him.

Aizen's brown hair was falling down in front of his face as he swung his sword wildly at us as if thinking he could still fight, but in his weakened state, he couldn't really harm any of us with such pathetic attacks. All of us stayed perfectly still while he continued to wallow in denial, "No! This isn't right – this isn't what's supposed to happen at all! I am supposed to be the ultimate being, separate from Hollows and Shinigami alike! How could I be defeated by my own creations and a weak human girl?! I should be able to crush you all like the little bugs you are! Why?!" Aizen, put out from his little fit, fell to his knees.

"It's over now, Aizen." I told him, feeling accomplished – not exactly happy, for some reason; but accomplished, "You lost, accept that. You won't be bothering anyone for a long time."

Aizen glared up at me through his brown hair that was dangling in front of his eyes, "You… bitch! You're weak, you're abilities are weak – they will fade over time. Yes, that's right – your powers don't last forever! I've seen them in action and I've calculated how long it takes to recover from it! It takes about three days to recover after being exposed to it the first time!" He forced himself to get to his feet, his knees were shaking but he seemed to ignore it as he smiled at me as if he had the upper hand, "And when I get my powers back, believe me, I will come back to kill you!"

"I don't believe it will be that simple." Ulquiorra piped up, which definitely caught Aizen's attention, even in the slovenly state he was in, "I, too, have observed Mistress Fukui's powers. Yet, while you observed from afar, I experienced it twice both up close and in combat. During those two times, I came to a realization: That not only does Mistress Fukui's powers take away spiritual energy, it also contains and seals it inside of her." This news came as a surprise to me – no one had ever told me about that. Then again, Ulquiorra was the one who experienced my powers the most out of everyone, even Halibel, so it made sense as to how he knew that kind of information about it.

"What?!" Aizen demanded, alarmed.

"That being said, if Mistress Fukui puts her mind to it, she can contain someone's spiritual powers indefinitely as long as she continues to concentrate her powers on it. The only reason it returned to me was because she was unconsciously feeding it back to me." Ulquiorra took this moment to look me in the eyes, "Therefore, until the day she dies, she will continue to hold onto your spiritual powers. Which no longer makes you a threat."

I could clearly hear Aizen's teeth grinding when he said, "Then I'll just have to kill her! I cannot die, but I can make sure she does!"

Ulquiorra glared over at Aizen, "I forbid it."

"How dare you! How dare you say something like that to your Creator!" Aizen shouted, "It is I who should be telling you that I forbid such defiance! No not even that – you're worth nothing to me now. I should have you killed!" Ulquiorra, before Aizen could even see it coming, pointed his finger at his former master and fired a green blast at him, hitting him in the shoulder knocking his weakened form back to the floor. Aizen coughed out blood, but seemed more insulted than in pain.

"You may have been the one who created me and I might have not gotten to where I am right now because of you, but you didn't help me change for the better." Ulquiorra told him, but though his voice knew no vehemence I could tell clearly from his shaking hand that was still in mine that he was seething with suppressed indignation.

"What are you saying?!" Aizen demanded, unable to get up again. Ulquiorra and I looked down at his pitiful sight, "Change for the better?! Are you suggesting this insignificant little human girl changed your life for the better? How?! I have done so much more for you, only to be betrayed by you; tell me how she did it, Ulquiorra!"

There was silence for a moment, almost like everyone in the room was mourning for the man that Aizen could have been and what he had instead become. I admit, I was saddened by what fate had in store for this man I had just taken the powers from. He may have beaten me, treated everyone around him as nothing – merely tools and he may have been pathetic enough to think he could get away with doing such terrible things to people… but no one deserved the kind of fate he was getting: A self-styled god thrown down from heaven and forced to instead live in humility in amongst the rest of us 'low lives'. I could only hope that this horrible transition was good for him so that he will change for the better.

Finally, Ulquiorra answered his question, "She didn't do anything."

"So, how—?!" Aizen began.

"Nor did she have to do anything." Ulquiorra continued, ignoring Aizen. I looked over at Ulquiorra who glanced at me when he noticed that I had shifted my eyes back over to his. Those eyes… even in this new form of his, they still looked just as beautiful. My heart raced in my chest as he went on, "Just by being with her, even in such few days, I came to realize that there were major differences between working under you and working under Mistress Fukui. I came to realize things such as kindness, acceptance and understanding were much more desirable than cruelty and indifference. In time, I had grown to long for it. And now… I have fought to defeat the old ways that I had been treated and fought for the new."

"Ulquiorra…," I murmured, my face turning a bright red. Did he… did he truly think all those nice things about me? Was this difference the 'change for the better' that he was talking about earlier?

"Nonsense! That's complete and utter imbecility!" Aizen roared back, "You wanted kindness? You wanted understanding?! Why would those things be necessary when you were only my tool? A tool doesn't need such soft things like that – they will only make you dull and unusable!" Aizen continued to ramble on, but I ignored him when Ulquiorra squeezed my hand and one of those black hole-like things – a Garganta, I assumed – appeared in front of us. Ulquiorra stared into my eyes and mine also burned into his as a smile crept onto my lips.

"Let's go back." Ulquiorra told me, "Let's go back to the apartment."

I nodded, "With pleasure!" And, with that, the two of us, hand-in-hand, walked right into the Garganta, with Aizen's screaming dwindling out behind us as we got further and further away from him and as the Garganta slowly closed behind us…

Hours turned into days and days into months as time quickly passed after the battle with Aizen came to a close. Ulquiorra and I had pretty much gone back to the life we had lived before Aizen came into the picture: Ulquiorra, willingly this time, returned to being my man servant even though I told him he really didn't have to and could instead be my roommate. He insisted, so I allowed him with a defeated smile. Every day was always an adventure with Ulquiorra and I loved every moment I spent with him. I didn't have to worry about him lying to me because he had already proved his trustworthiness back during the fight with Aizen. Soon, we had fallen into a lovely routine that suited us both.

As for Grimmjow, Ulquiorra had gotten word that he was listless as anything now that Aizen was subjugated. There was, I quote: 'No one strong enough to fight around here!'. So a lot of the time, he came and crashed in my apartment and flicked on Big Bang Theory and ate all my chips. He was a pain, but I had to admit, he really knew how to liven the place up. Also, I was glad that we had gotten to be somewhat friends – even if he wasn't exactly the nicest person to me at the beginning. It really filled my world full of more people and the more the merrier, I say! –Er, even if most people couldn't see them like I could.

Anyway, I managed to fix the window that Ulquiorra had broken the first night I met him. It took me about four months to get enough funds saved up due to my minimum wage job, but I finally managed to do it! Though, it was kind of sad to see the tarp and the blanket go because it reminded me of the first few days Ulquiorra and I spent together. So, instead of throwing those old things out, I replaced the curtains with the tarp and blanket as a monument for that day. Ulquiorra thought it was illogical to do something as sentimental as that, but I quickly reminded him who owned this apartment.

Eventually, the more my parents visited Ulquiorra and I, the more accustomed my dad got to Ulquiorra. It took a long time… I mean a really long time, to get him used to Ulquiorra, but when he did – oh boy, did he. When he came to accept Ulquiorra he'd always come visit me with a case of beer under his arm for him and Ulquiorra to drink while watching the hockey game. It was kind of humorous, watching Ulquiorra drink beer for the very first time, but it was also nice to see dad get used to him. It made it seem… like my parents thinking that Ulquiorra is my 'lover' was almost a fact. Yet, even though I had confessed to him that day in Las Noches, he didn't respond to my feelings. But, I didn't want to push anything upon Ulquiorra – after all, why would I ruin what we had now for that?

There was no sign of Aizen, even after around four going on to five months had passed since I had taken away his spiritual energy. Ulquiorra, as a part of his duties, always reminded me to keep concentrating on Aizen's powers to keep them sealed away. It soon became a part of my daily routine, just sitting down for a few minutes to do some concentration exercises. Though, every time Ulquiorra mentioned it, I began to worry. What if Aizen somehow managed to escape Hueco Mundo and came over to kill us, like he swore he would? Every day I worried about it and it kept eating away at me.

After a while of worrying, Ulquiorra finally picked up on it on one of my days off, "Mistress Fukui, I've noticed a sudden change in your demeanor these past few days. What has caused you to become so lethargic?" I was sitting at my table drawing circles on a piece of paper while thinking to myself about all the possibilities that could happen if Aizen returned.

"No reason in particular…," I murmured back, but I must have made it too obvious that I was concerned about something because Ulquiorra stopped doing whatever it was he was doing and came over to the table and sat down in the chair next to mine.

"Your tone suggests otherwise." Ulquiorra speculated, "Tell me what it is that's bothering you." I sighed and tried as much as I could to avoid eye contact. There was just no refusing him; I just couldn't bring myself to lie or keep any secrets from Ulquiorra. It was as if he could see right through me – which was kind of creepy, but nice in its own way at the same time.

"I'm worried about Aizen." I admitted. When Ulquiorra didn't say anything to that, I continued on, "I'm worried that, if he comes back he is going to kill us all for what we've done to him. I don't… I don't want him to ruin this life we fought so hard to gain…," Anxiety poked its painful needles into my stomach, making me want to retch with worry. All of this, this whole five months that we worked so hard to obtain could just be gone in an instant. And that frightened me. I didn't want to die, but more importantly, I didn't want Grimmjow to die and I especially didn't want Ulquiorra to die.

"Mistress Fukui, allow me to tell you something." Ulquiorra finally said, causing my head to turn up and focus on him, "Do you remember when you asked me that if when it came down to deciding either Lord Aizen or yourself, who I would choose to fight for?" When I nodded my head slowly in response, Ulquiorra continued, "I finally know the answer to it."

I was astonished to hear those words, but I was even more shocked when Ulquiorra had grabbed my hand and lifted it up to his lips. My face went bright red and my heart pounded faster and harder in my chest than a racehorse. The gentle touch of his soft lips caressing my hand… it was so serene, I thought I was trapped inside a movie or something. Though whatever it was I didn't want to wake up from it! Don't pinch me!

Ulquiorra looked into my eyes, his head still bowed in front of my hand, "I would choose you. Any day, any time. After all we've been through, I finally found out what it was that caused me to have that pain in my chest whenever I saw you glare at me with hatred. All this time, I thought it out to be irritation – that you irritated me to the point where I couldn't do anything to cure it. It is quite the opposite: I am in love with you, Mistress Fukui." I could have easily melted from those words. Instead, all I could find myself doing was smiling stupidly in front of him. No one has ever said those words to me before; no man, anyway – or even woman for that matter. He was the first one – but that didn't even matter, I was just happy that he actually found it in himself, where Aizen thought him to be incapable, to love me.

Instead of saying 'I love you too', I ended up dumbly saying, "Please… call me Keiko…," I looked away from those eyes of his and stared down at my lap and felt the idea that Aizen could come back being erased from my mind. I didn't have to worry about anything – not now that the one I loved promised to protect me from such dangers. He didn't even have to say that part outright, I knew it anyway; because if I were in his position, I'd do the exact same thing for him.

The End of Book One~!