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chlorhexidineA week later, Ulquiorra came home from school with a frown on his face. “Mom?” He said, when he got in.
Delcine was in the kitchen, and she turned to see what was wrong. “Yes, Quiorra-chan?”
Ulquiorra didn't frown at the nickname. Instead he held out a piece of paper, and Delcine took it as he spoke, “The mid year exams are soon.”
She looked down at the paper he had handed her. It was an exam timetable, and she frowned. The first date was only two days after the wedding. “Oh dear,” she said, “I see the problem.”
Ulquiorra nodded faintly. “I won't be able to study if I go,” he said, with an obvious frown.
Delcine frowned as well. She wanted all her family there. Her little sister was getting married, and she wanted to celebrate it with everyone, but a wedding wasn't worth Ulquiorra falling behind in school, especially now. It was his final year at this one, before he moved up, and the exams were important.
“I'll speak to your father,” she said. “We'll sort something out.” Maybe they could ask the Fuentes to keep an eye on him, although they were a little full in their house to ask if he could stay with them for the whole week, as much as Ulquiorra and Neron might enjoy that.
When she spoke to Elden later that night, he agreed that Ulquiorra needed to stay behind and study, rather than come to a wedding so far away. Neron's dad, and Bonita's, agreed to keep their eyes on Ulquiorra for the week, and when they left, Ulquiorra waved them off from the doorway, slightly thrilled at having the responsibility of staying mostly on his own for the week.
“Neron!” Bonita shouted, out of breath and frantic as she raced to the tree-house “Neron!”
Neron hung out of the window of the tree-house “What?” He asked, obvious confusion and some indignation at being shouted for so loudly and desperately.
Bonita stopped, having to rest on her knees to catch her breath so she could talk. “Hurry up,” she shouted, “it's Ulquiorra!” She panted, fighting to get her breath back after running the whole way from her house to the tree-house.
Neron blinked, watching her for a second before realising that something was really, really wrong, and he swung himself out of the tree-house, abandoning the trap he'd been rigging in the process. “What's up with him? What's happened?”
“Gongaga,” Bonita said, her ears flattened and tail fluffed up to be twice its usual size. “It's,” she began, and faltered, because she wasn't really sure what Gongaga was except mostly blown up, now. “Everyone's dead,” she said, straightening up. “My dad went for your dad so they could get Ulquiorra, but you weren't there, so I came,” she said, still sounding out of breath.
Neron stared at her in horror as the words sank in, and then he asked, “What are we hanging around here for? Come on!”
Ulquiorra's parents were dead, most of his family, even. They couldn't just hang about and leave him to hear on his own. He took off at a run for Ulquiorra's house.
Bonita gave a groan of pain as she followed after him.
They reached the house just after their parents had, and Bonita's dad moved aside as the two kids burst through the open door. Ulquiorra just looked blank, his eyes a fraction too wide, and not really looking at anything in particular. Bonita slipped past the adults and flung herself around Ulquiorra, hugging him tightly. Neron came up just behind her, but he wasn't the hugging type.
Ulquiorra didn't hug back, just stood there, while Bonita held him, before he said, his voice low and impassive, “I'm fine.”
Bonita's dad took her arm and pried her off him, “He's had a shock, Bonnie,” he said, quietly, “just give him a little time.”
Neron's father shared a look with Bonita's, and said, “We'll take him with us while something's sorted.”
Neron looked between them, and then at Ulquiorra. He always looked a bit miserable, that was just Ulquiorra's face. Now he looked like he wasn't hearing or seeing anything that was going on around him. Bonita's dad might call it a shock, but Neron thought he looked more like he'd shut down.
A knock at the door made everyone turn, and Neron's dad went to answer it, and was greeted with a guy in a uniform. “Viteri?” He said, his tone turning the name into a question all of its own.
“I've come for Ulquiorra,” the visitor said. Neron and Bonita exchanged looks, and both unconsciously moved themselves closer to their friend.
“Isn't he going to be better with people he knows?” Neron's dad asked. “We can take him.”
Viteri, whoever he was, shook his head. “Delcine's whole family has been wiped out. Ulquiorra's the last surviving member.”
There was a pause, as Bonita and Neron looked at each other in confusion, and Bonita's father said, “You don't think it was an attack on the wedding party, do you?”
Viteri shook his head. “I don't, but I've got my orders. They're playing it safe.”
“This is ridiculous,” Neron's dad said.
“Right now, we don't know what's happened, except that Gongaga is a smudge on the landscape. They think it's terrorism, but it's really bad luck for Delcine's family that they're all there just when it happens, so we're covering an extra base. That's all. So I've been sent to take Ulquiorra while we find out what happened.”
“We're not leaving him,” Bonita said, her young voice piping up over the heads of the adults. “We're his friends, we're not leaving him.”
“Bonnie,” her father said, frowning.
“No,” she said, firmly, “Ulquiorra needs us.”
“I'll be fine,” Ulquiorra said, his voice still quiet and flat.
Bonita and Neron both turned to look at him. “Ulquiorra,” she said, quietly, trailing off because she didn't know what to say.
“Leave me alone,” Ulquiorra said, in that same tone, his hands in his pockets.
“Ul--” Neron began, and stopped when his father shook his head at him.
“You're sure you're all right with this, Ulquiorra?” Neron's father asked him. Ulquiorra nodded, just the once, his eyes closing as he moved, and Neron realised it was the first time he'd seen Ulquiorra blink since he'd walked into the room. “All right,” Neron's dad said, “but once this mess is sorted, you're welcome to come with us. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
Viteri looked at the two men, and frowned as some silent understanding crossed between them, and over the heads of Bonita and Neron before he took Ulquiorra by the shoulder, and led him out of the house.
Aunt Dolores wasn't really his aunt, Ulquiorra knew. She was a cousin of his father's, but of the generation for which 'aunt' was a better description than 'cousin so many times removed'. She was also a woman very firmly in the Irune Schiffer mould, and while she'd been gracious enough to the lawyers that had brought Ulquiorra to her door, and explained about the will, the allowance per year meant to tide Ulquiorra over, and that she was now the closest blood relative, she'd changed once the lawyers had left.
Dolores had shown him to a room, complaining that she'd need to buy him his own cutlery, and dinnerware, because she refused to share with a mist mutant, and then she'd told him to stay in his room until she called for him.
Ulquiorra sat on his bed. It was hard, and cold, like the rest of the room, and he only had a suitcase with him. Mechanically, he unpacked. Someone else had packed his things for him, and they'd left Bunbun behind, he realised, with a slight, distant pang that faded as quickly as it hit. His books had been left behind, too. The person packing for him had probably assumed, in their benevolence, that Ulquiorra would be with someone who would let him collect the rest of his possessions.
It didn't seem likely, now.
He had no particular desire to go back into that house right now. He didn't want to see it empty, and fading. If it stayed as it was, if he never went back, then he'd always remember it with his parents inside, the smell of his mom's baking, and his dad's aftershave.
He settled onto the edge of the bed, a frown etched into his face. It had been there for the last two weeks, ever since he'd been told, and it hadn't left him. It felt like he was drowning, but he couldn't cry. He didn't know where to start. He didn't even know if he'd be crying for them, or for himself anyway.
So he didn't cry.
When he started at the new school, and the names began, he thought of Bonita, and Neron, but he didn't cry. He didn't dare try and write to them. Dolores was unhappy enough with having Ulquiorra under her roof, she didn't like touching things he'd touched, like he was diseased, and not simply mutated. She'd be worse if she thought he was talking to other mist mutants.
The years passed, and when Ulquiorra was seventeen he sat up one night and packed a bag. He'd saved money, not much, but enough to get him away from here. Away from the memories, and the continent.
He boarded the early morning airship to Archades.
Shortly after, he enrolled in the Gotei Academy there.
The Captain was talking, and at the back of the class, someone was chattering, just loudly enough that it could be heard. At the front, a pale skinned mist mutant with bright green eyes and messy black hair took notes in a scribble that didn't resemble Archadian in the slightest.
“So,” the Captain said, with a gentle smile on his face, “can you explain why we see this phenomenon, Shiba?”
The chatterbox at the back fell silent, and the Captain waited patiently for an answer that was clearly not going to come just long enough for the student in question to squirm.
“Anyone else?”
The dark haired boy's hand went up, just enough, and the Captain checked his sheet of names as he called on him, “Schiffer?”
“Because the zanpakuto is an extension of the shinigami's self.”
The Captain smiled. They were new recruits, and they'd only be able to answer something like that if they'd done the reading, which a significant number of them always failed to do, but it wasn't that which had brought his smile.
Schiffer had a Rozarrian accent. What was a Rozarrian mist mutant doing all the way out in Archades?
At the end of the class, the Captain sat behind his desk, a benevolent smile lingering on his face as the students filed up, and left the write up from the homework for him. Schiffer was the last.
“Thank you for your answer,” he said, “it shows you did the reading for this class,” he added, with a smile.
Schiffer stopped, eyes momentarily wide and a brilliant, piercing green, before he nodded, politely, a very Rozarrian gesture.
“What's your given name?” The Captain asked, settling back in his chair.
“Ulquiorra,” the boy answered, “Ulquiorra Schiffer.”
The Captain tilted his head slightly. “Ulquiorra would be the feminine version, wouldn't it?”
Ulquiorra murmured, and gave another one of those nods. “My mother preferred it.”
“She must be an interesting woman,” the Captain commented, smiling slightly.
“She was.”
Ah. “I'm sorry,” the Captain said. “You seemed to be a long way from home; I was curious.”
Ulquiorra nodded again, “It is fine, Captain.”
The Captain waved a hand, good naturedly. “Call me 'Aizen', everyone else does.”
“As you wish, Aizen-sama.”
Aizen watched Ulquiorra for a moment longer as the boy left, and then scratched his cheek thoughtfully before he left the classroom himself.
L sat working at his computer. His eyes ached, but it had taken him long enough to get at Captain Kurotsuchi's personal files; Draklor's being thoroughly and thankfully under lock and key. Aizen was working on something with the man, L knew, he just didn't know what, and not knowing what bothered him.
He went through the information, encrypted, and carefully decrypted by L. Some of the words didn't mean much. Arrancar Project, and scientific procedures, and then a list of names....
He stopped at one name.
Schiffer, Ulquiorra.
L stared at it for a while before the crushing sense of guilt swallowed him.
Delcine was in the kitchen, and she turned to see what was wrong. “Yes, Quiorra-chan?”
Ulquiorra didn't frown at the nickname. Instead he held out a piece of paper, and Delcine took it as he spoke, “The mid year exams are soon.”
She looked down at the paper he had handed her. It was an exam timetable, and she frowned. The first date was only two days after the wedding. “Oh dear,” she said, “I see the problem.”
Ulquiorra nodded faintly. “I won't be able to study if I go,” he said, with an obvious frown.
Delcine frowned as well. She wanted all her family there. Her little sister was getting married, and she wanted to celebrate it with everyone, but a wedding wasn't worth Ulquiorra falling behind in school, especially now. It was his final year at this one, before he moved up, and the exams were important.
“I'll speak to your father,” she said. “We'll sort something out.” Maybe they could ask the Fuentes to keep an eye on him, although they were a little full in their house to ask if he could stay with them for the whole week, as much as Ulquiorra and Neron might enjoy that.
When she spoke to Elden later that night, he agreed that Ulquiorra needed to stay behind and study, rather than come to a wedding so far away. Neron's dad, and Bonita's, agreed to keep their eyes on Ulquiorra for the week, and when they left, Ulquiorra waved them off from the doorway, slightly thrilled at having the responsibility of staying mostly on his own for the week.
“Neron!” Bonita shouted, out of breath and frantic as she raced to the tree-house “Neron!”
Neron hung out of the window of the tree-house “What?” He asked, obvious confusion and some indignation at being shouted for so loudly and desperately.
Bonita stopped, having to rest on her knees to catch her breath so she could talk. “Hurry up,” she shouted, “it's Ulquiorra!” She panted, fighting to get her breath back after running the whole way from her house to the tree-house.
Neron blinked, watching her for a second before realising that something was really, really wrong, and he swung himself out of the tree-house, abandoning the trap he'd been rigging in the process. “What's up with him? What's happened?”
“Gongaga,” Bonita said, her ears flattened and tail fluffed up to be twice its usual size. “It's,” she began, and faltered, because she wasn't really sure what Gongaga was except mostly blown up, now. “Everyone's dead,” she said, straightening up. “My dad went for your dad so they could get Ulquiorra, but you weren't there, so I came,” she said, still sounding out of breath.
Neron stared at her in horror as the words sank in, and then he asked, “What are we hanging around here for? Come on!”
Ulquiorra's parents were dead, most of his family, even. They couldn't just hang about and leave him to hear on his own. He took off at a run for Ulquiorra's house.
Bonita gave a groan of pain as she followed after him.
They reached the house just after their parents had, and Bonita's dad moved aside as the two kids burst through the open door. Ulquiorra just looked blank, his eyes a fraction too wide, and not really looking at anything in particular. Bonita slipped past the adults and flung herself around Ulquiorra, hugging him tightly. Neron came up just behind her, but he wasn't the hugging type.
Ulquiorra didn't hug back, just stood there, while Bonita held him, before he said, his voice low and impassive, “I'm fine.”
Bonita's dad took her arm and pried her off him, “He's had a shock, Bonnie,” he said, quietly, “just give him a little time.”
Neron's father shared a look with Bonita's, and said, “We'll take him with us while something's sorted.”
Neron looked between them, and then at Ulquiorra. He always looked a bit miserable, that was just Ulquiorra's face. Now he looked like he wasn't hearing or seeing anything that was going on around him. Bonita's dad might call it a shock, but Neron thought he looked more like he'd shut down.
A knock at the door made everyone turn, and Neron's dad went to answer it, and was greeted with a guy in a uniform. “Viteri?” He said, his tone turning the name into a question all of its own.
“I've come for Ulquiorra,” the visitor said. Neron and Bonita exchanged looks, and both unconsciously moved themselves closer to their friend.
“Isn't he going to be better with people he knows?” Neron's dad asked. “We can take him.”
Viteri, whoever he was, shook his head. “Delcine's whole family has been wiped out. Ulquiorra's the last surviving member.”
There was a pause, as Bonita and Neron looked at each other in confusion, and Bonita's father said, “You don't think it was an attack on the wedding party, do you?”
Viteri shook his head. “I don't, but I've got my orders. They're playing it safe.”
“This is ridiculous,” Neron's dad said.
“Right now, we don't know what's happened, except that Gongaga is a smudge on the landscape. They think it's terrorism, but it's really bad luck for Delcine's family that they're all there just when it happens, so we're covering an extra base. That's all. So I've been sent to take Ulquiorra while we find out what happened.”
“We're not leaving him,” Bonita said, her young voice piping up over the heads of the adults. “We're his friends, we're not leaving him.”
“Bonnie,” her father said, frowning.
“No,” she said, firmly, “Ulquiorra needs us.”
“I'll be fine,” Ulquiorra said, his voice still quiet and flat.
Bonita and Neron both turned to look at him. “Ulquiorra,” she said, quietly, trailing off because she didn't know what to say.
“Leave me alone,” Ulquiorra said, in that same tone, his hands in his pockets.
“Ul--” Neron began, and stopped when his father shook his head at him.
“You're sure you're all right with this, Ulquiorra?” Neron's father asked him. Ulquiorra nodded, just the once, his eyes closing as he moved, and Neron realised it was the first time he'd seen Ulquiorra blink since he'd walked into the room. “All right,” Neron's dad said, “but once this mess is sorted, you're welcome to come with us. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
Viteri looked at the two men, and frowned as some silent understanding crossed between them, and over the heads of Bonita and Neron before he took Ulquiorra by the shoulder, and led him out of the house.
Aunt Dolores wasn't really his aunt, Ulquiorra knew. She was a cousin of his father's, but of the generation for which 'aunt' was a better description than 'cousin so many times removed'. She was also a woman very firmly in the Irune Schiffer mould, and while she'd been gracious enough to the lawyers that had brought Ulquiorra to her door, and explained about the will, the allowance per year meant to tide Ulquiorra over, and that she was now the closest blood relative, she'd changed once the lawyers had left.
Dolores had shown him to a room, complaining that she'd need to buy him his own cutlery, and dinnerware, because she refused to share with a mist mutant, and then she'd told him to stay in his room until she called for him.
Ulquiorra sat on his bed. It was hard, and cold, like the rest of the room, and he only had a suitcase with him. Mechanically, he unpacked. Someone else had packed his things for him, and they'd left Bunbun behind, he realised, with a slight, distant pang that faded as quickly as it hit. His books had been left behind, too. The person packing for him had probably assumed, in their benevolence, that Ulquiorra would be with someone who would let him collect the rest of his possessions.
It didn't seem likely, now.
He had no particular desire to go back into that house right now. He didn't want to see it empty, and fading. If it stayed as it was, if he never went back, then he'd always remember it with his parents inside, the smell of his mom's baking, and his dad's aftershave.
He settled onto the edge of the bed, a frown etched into his face. It had been there for the last two weeks, ever since he'd been told, and it hadn't left him. It felt like he was drowning, but he couldn't cry. He didn't know where to start. He didn't even know if he'd be crying for them, or for himself anyway.
So he didn't cry.
When he started at the new school, and the names began, he thought of Bonita, and Neron, but he didn't cry. He didn't dare try and write to them. Dolores was unhappy enough with having Ulquiorra under her roof, she didn't like touching things he'd touched, like he was diseased, and not simply mutated. She'd be worse if she thought he was talking to other mist mutants.
The years passed, and when Ulquiorra was seventeen he sat up one night and packed a bag. He'd saved money, not much, but enough to get him away from here. Away from the memories, and the continent.
He boarded the early morning airship to Archades.
Shortly after, he enrolled in the Gotei Academy there.
The Captain was talking, and at the back of the class, someone was chattering, just loudly enough that it could be heard. At the front, a pale skinned mist mutant with bright green eyes and messy black hair took notes in a scribble that didn't resemble Archadian in the slightest.
“So,” the Captain said, with a gentle smile on his face, “can you explain why we see this phenomenon, Shiba?”
The chatterbox at the back fell silent, and the Captain waited patiently for an answer that was clearly not going to come just long enough for the student in question to squirm.
“Anyone else?”
The dark haired boy's hand went up, just enough, and the Captain checked his sheet of names as he called on him, “Schiffer?”
“Because the zanpakuto is an extension of the shinigami's self.”
The Captain smiled. They were new recruits, and they'd only be able to answer something like that if they'd done the reading, which a significant number of them always failed to do, but it wasn't that which had brought his smile.
Schiffer had a Rozarrian accent. What was a Rozarrian mist mutant doing all the way out in Archades?
At the end of the class, the Captain sat behind his desk, a benevolent smile lingering on his face as the students filed up, and left the write up from the homework for him. Schiffer was the last.
“Thank you for your answer,” he said, “it shows you did the reading for this class,” he added, with a smile.
Schiffer stopped, eyes momentarily wide and a brilliant, piercing green, before he nodded, politely, a very Rozarrian gesture.
“What's your given name?” The Captain asked, settling back in his chair.
“Ulquiorra,” the boy answered, “Ulquiorra Schiffer.”
The Captain tilted his head slightly. “Ulquiorra would be the feminine version, wouldn't it?”
Ulquiorra murmured, and gave another one of those nods. “My mother preferred it.”
“She must be an interesting woman,” the Captain commented, smiling slightly.
“She was.”
Ah. “I'm sorry,” the Captain said. “You seemed to be a long way from home; I was curious.”
Ulquiorra nodded again, “It is fine, Captain.”
The Captain waved a hand, good naturedly. “Call me 'Aizen', everyone else does.”
“As you wish, Aizen-sama.”
Aizen watched Ulquiorra for a moment longer as the boy left, and then scratched his cheek thoughtfully before he left the classroom himself.
L sat working at his computer. His eyes ached, but it had taken him long enough to get at Captain Kurotsuchi's personal files; Draklor's being thoroughly and thankfully under lock and key. Aizen was working on something with the man, L knew, he just didn't know what, and not knowing what bothered him.
He went through the information, encrypted, and carefully decrypted by L. Some of the words didn't mean much. Arrancar Project, and scientific procedures, and then a list of names....
He stopped at one name.
Schiffer, Ulquiorra.
L stared at it for a while before the crushing sense of guilt swallowed him.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-05 05:20 pm (UTC)Dick.
And heeeeeeeeeeeeee! I liked that. Bonita and Neron are both adorable. BeanLala is also cute and needs all the hugs, poor little bastard.
8D I'm gonna have to set up a Spira-fic comm, aren't I?
no subject
Date: 2012-12-05 10:25 pm (UTC)They also regularly got L with the traps of crap, which is a bonus.
A fic comm may be necessary, I fear XD
no subject
Date: 2012-12-06 12:56 am (UTC)Poor Lala, all shut down... And still cute somehow... /cries on him
no subject
Date: 2012-12-06 12:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-06 01:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-06 01:41 am (UTC)But yeah, he had an adorable smile. Now... not so much with the smiling.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-06 05:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-06 10:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-06 10:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-06 10:53 pm (UTC)