Entropy: a measure of the disorder that exists in a system.

~*~

Rukia awoke with an awareness of where she was. But strangely and disturbingly she didn't care. The cushion beneath her head was a light purple, undoubtedly he had brought them for her comfort as well knowing her fondness for that particular hue.

She turned over contentedly and sighed.

The screams outside were fading now.

Their entropic decline was ending.

She was glad of that. She didn't like to hear their fight against fate.

It was their mistake that brought this doom upon them.

The mistake of believing in their victory.

She saw it all now.

That day over almost the entirety of the Gotei Thirteen, an illusion had been cast.

When the first Espada fell-or appeared to have. They began to believe it then. Victory. Theirs, not the traitor's. And as one by one the copies began to show signs of weariness; the Shinigami cheered deep within their hearts. Never realizing that that was exactly what they were fighting. Faithful duplicates of the ten Espadas created by none other than the Octava, Szayel Grantz.

She knew, because she had just spoken with the pink-haired spiritual weapons' expert in the hallway outside Tenth Division. He had winked to her from behind his guise of Mayuri Kurotsuchi before knocking politely on the door to Tenth's office. Thankfully, Szayel had been nice enough to take Hitsugaya Toshiro's body elsewhere, knowing how Uqui's girl, as the loud Sexta had jeered to her; disliked seeing the bloodied corpses.

Rukia shuddered and drew the throw up higher from where it slipped down on her shoulder. Beneath the blanket she still wore her rumpled Shihakusho; he had promised to bring her a proper uniform, since she had refused the princess-kind like what Orihime had worn.

By proper she hoped something even less revealing than what the Tercera wore.

When Tia Halibel wasn't cloaked as one of SoiFong's officers.

It was silent now.

Her eyes closed.

The door was opening.

He had said she was the only one to know something was wrong, the only one perhaps whom hadn't had Perfect Hypnosis guiding their actions.

The first time...the first time she had seen him, instead of seeing illusion she had glimpsed an Espada not the image he projected.

When Ichigo had fought the second time and thought victory had been his.

And Orihime had reached toward ash.

It was all an illusion.

You've won.

It's over now.

"Rukia." His voice was quiet. A tone softer than she ever could have imagined. And despite the wrongness of it, the piece of her that remained stubborn and longed for Sode no Shirayuki to be among what was left of Seireitei to fight the battle that had been won months before; something else. Deeper. Stronger than the previous regret surfaced and overwhelmed her guilt.

...without hesitation Rukia looked up.

She loved him.

Ulquiorra stood in the doorway, his dark unfathomable emerald green eyes upon her.

Rukia was reminded of a very different gaze that had become filled with rage and deep hurt when she hadn't left the Espada's side.

"Rukia!!!!" The voice belonged to the past.

Wiping the memory of Ichigo's face from her mind, in its place she filled in that of the faintly smiling Espada. It was a smile he only gave her. No one else.

She smiled, "is it over now?"

And it was not in her imagination.

~Finis~

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