It is a solemn and lonely world.

It is a truth that everything is meaningless; empty.

When mere trash tries to fight it, tragedy ensues. When they struggle with useless emotions, they nearly always lose. Why do they keep trying to fight the truth, knowing that, in the end, they die anyway?

"Happiness" is such a subjective term. When one sees that everything just is, and that there is no special meaning as to why the wind blows or perhaps why his or her life is miserable, that being will find solace in that there is nothing to lose. Is that not happiness? Freedom?

"The things reflected in my eyes have no meaning. The things that could not be reflected in my eyes do not exist."

Life is chaotic and cruel, and the ridiculous heart humans speak of will forever be their downfall, their fatal flaw that drives them to fight against infallible odds; knowing that they will lose, knowing that they will die, but continuing to do it anyway. Are they just reliant on hope? How utterly useless. Hoping and worrying will only bring one death and disappointment, but they don't care, they use those emotions anyway. Ignorant of the reality, they will never prosper.

I arrived in Hueco Mundo with incredible power, and easily vanquished all that got in my way. Otherwise, I did not bother with the weak mindless trash that drifted around, lost and thoughtless. I would not die by the likes of those who were so feeble and so fooled by desire. To live in that world, all that mattered was power and strength. All other notions, everything, was worthless…

…Worthless…

The sun was just rising over Karakura Town, bringing to light the reality that seemed to so mercilessly and unrelentingly hit the knowing individuals of Japan. Everything was peaceful currently, save a somber underlying tone softening the moods of those haunted by their past; life is always difficult, after a war. The blessed group of young teenagers with strong reiatsu was finally back from fighting a battle that was thrown at them at so young an age; and were now settling back in to their once monotonous lives. They rose with everyone else and got ready to go to school.

-Beep-Beep-Beep-Beep-Beep-Be-

With a swift touch of a button, Orihime turned off her alarm and sat up in her bed. She looked out the window next to her to see and hear the morning birds jumping around, signaling the start of her day. Sighing, she smiled lightly as she thought that at least it was Friday.

Tired and slow, she stretched with a big yawn and walked from her bed to go to the bathroom. Following her usual schedule of brushing her teeth, she suddenly looked up into the mirror and stared.

She stared at her large grey eyes, small bags lying underneath from the lack of sleep she had been getting lately. She looked at her fiery red hair that fell past her shoulders and down to her waist. She glanced at the slight frown that currently played on her lips. Orihime sighed.

It was getting a bit difficult to keep the façade she so effortlessly put up from day to day, and despite her usually cheerful face, she was beginning to become worn down by an inexplicable sadness. Her thoughts as of late had been contradictory to the peaceful setting of the area that returned after Aizen's defeat. She noticed that most of the day her mind drifted back to Hueco Mundo, as well as the rest of the war.

The healer felt sorrow for the casualties, both good and bad. She felt sadness and loneliness for what she thought was an unrequited love, and on top of that felt another layer of sorrow for a being that she believed she should have saved during her captured time but at the same time knew that he had tried to kill her friends, and felt bad for those feelings as well…

It was too confusing.

Absentmindedly brushing her teeth, Orihime thought about Ichigo. She had loved him, she really did, but deep down she knew that they would never work out. Their personalities differed way too much to last. She admired him, but what he needed she could not give. She was sorrowful for that too. She thought about Rukia; how strong she was, how tough, exactly what Ichigo always needed in times of struggle. She gave him a challenge; Orihime gave him apologetic words and comfort. Rukia was the better choice, so it seemed.

She washed her toothbrush and wiped her mouth.

That was alright, she thought. As long as everyone is happy, I will be happy. At least…I will try...

At this point she was in the kitchen making herself breakfast: just a bowl of plain cereal with red bean paste on it. Delicious.

As much as she would not admit it, her thoughts mainly centered on the one that changed her life, that challenged her views, that seemed so misled and…and sad…

What am I thinking? She swallowed her cereal and took another spoonful. He kidnapped me, he died trying to kill Kurosaki-kun and Ishida- san. He may have killed me for Aizen, so why am I…?

The redhead shook her head and tried to clear her thoughts. It worked temporarily, and when she finished her meal, she put the empty bowl and spoon in the sink. Next step was to get out of her pajamas and into her uniform. Thinking about it, she probably should switch the order of that one. Save it for next week, she supposed.

She went back to her room and stripped, replacing the comfy shorts and shirt with the tediously colored grayish skirt and top.

That's right. He died. I could have saved him. He disappeared right in front of my eyes and I did nothing but reach out to him…the one moment he started to understand, right when he needed me…I will forever regret doing nothing. Especially when the last thing I remember where those bold green eyes, looking into my soul to his very end…

Wiping a few tears that started to fall down her soft pale cheeks, she wondered why she nearly always wept for him these days. Pinning her hair clips to her collar and letting her hair flow, Orihime slipped on her shoes, picked up her backpack, and walked out the door for school, entering the spring filled town to last yet another day.

Returning to her carefree mask and giddy expression, she joined Tatsuki with a friendly "Hello!" as they began their usual walk to the educational building. Orihime just barely noticed a pair of forest green eyes accompanied with long black hair as the figure nonchalantly walked down on the other side of the street.

Just barely.

He was surrounded by nothingness.

Naked and cold, he was laying within his own aspect of death: Emptiness. He felt, smelt, tasted, heard, and saw nothing at all. Was he even alive? He could not tell. He did not even know how long he had been in this gap of space and time. He, everything, was nothing.

After the original feeling of suffocation, Ulquiorra felt true peace in this purgatory. He vaguely wondered if he would be in here forever, left to his thoughts. He could do that.

So there he was, in this unknown emptiness, just lying there for who knows how long, resting.

Memories of the past slowly began to creep up on him, until he remembered in full the time of his demise. He felt the irony of the human hybrid kid who had managed to defeat him, despite everything that made him weak as a human, as a person. He remembered the look of self loathing on his face once he turned back from his full hollow form and saw what he had unknowingly done to his enemy before allowing himself to ask to be put in that same state. The fool.

However, most importantly, Ulquiorra suddenly remembered the large grey eyes along with deep red hair and a chime like voice that could only belong to one person…

His eyes widened at the memory of the woman who tried to change his views, who tried to get him to understand the useless human emotions; the woman who had foolishly placed all of her hope into her friends, who had actually pushed him to slightly understand what the "heart" she talked about was.

Orihime Inoue.

This blankness was no longer satisfactory, all of a sudden. He was next given an irrational yet intense desire to see her once more, for no reason that he himself could determine. The vision of her played back in his memory, the last memory before he drifted away into this nothingness.

"Are you afraid, Onna?"

"No, I am not afraid…"

The light feel of her fingers against his was fleeting, and as he stared into the depths of her grey orbs, he vanished, her being the last thing he saw.

Suddenly, Ulquiorra snapped his head to the left, instinctively knowing something was there from old honed instincts.

All he saw against the black nothing was a pair of brilliant angel wings stretched out from behind a tall figure that he could not quite decipher.

Being still despite his curiosity, his eyes bore into the figure, wondering what it was. The next thing he saw before it vanished as quickly as it had come was a pair of pink and soft lips on a pale face that played into a knowing smile. Just like that, the figure disappeared, but behind where she was formed a small light that slowly grew in size. Slowly, Ulquiorra got up and walked over to the light that started to turn into an entrance to another place.

The light was almost blinding, and he automatically squinted before looking out past what reminded him of a garganta. His eyes fell upon a familiar place, all too familiar, in fact. It seemed as though it was raining there, the loud droplets falling onto the ground made so much noise that he was not used to. He had a feeling what stepping through this void would do to him, but to test this theory he lifted a finger and placed it outside the entrance.

It was cold, and each rain droplet that fell onto that one finger felt freezing compared to the neutrality of where he was now. But there was something else. Something that he noticed more than the new sense of feel.

His finger turned from white to a paler tan, his nail from black to pinkish with a white tip, his sense of touch much more sensitive then it was. It was a human finger.

He pulled it back and down at his waist, where it turned back to normal. So he would have to turn back to a weak human should he go through. Right now, he was in this peaceful emptiness. Was he willing to follow someone he never saw before and go into the human world again? To suffer?

Ulquiorra then heard another noise behind him, and once he turned around, he saw that it was another entrance to another familiar world. A dark, monotonous, depressing one.

Oh, so now he realized. It was one world or the other. Looking into the barren and forlorn world, he knew that that was one of the last things he wanted to experience again. He asked himself though if turning into a weak human was worth it, in a world where there is so much suffering and ignorance.

But then, one name came to the forefront of his mind. The Onna.

Without a second thought, he put his hands into his pockets and sighed, turning around to face Karakura Town.

He stepped into the void.