umbralant | GRAVEYARD

Graveyard

Reflexively, you curl tighter. Just another minute. Just another minute of sleep is all you need, but the sun waits for no one. Wait. The sun? After many days and nights with only moonlight to guide you, your eyes snap open and your pupils contract at the light.

It's been a while, hasn't it?

Bask in this euphoria for however long it lasts, until your memory snaps back against your mind like a rubber band. Weren't you dead? No matter how you met your end, you certainly remember dying in vivid detail. The pain that corresponds to the last moment's of your life chooses then to make itself known, trying to wriggle free from your skin almost literally. That mark on your skin wasn't there before either.

Take a moment to breathe and get your bearings, and really take everything into focus. The warm rays of sun that dance upon your skin are colorful and fragmented like a kaleidoscope, the effect of being filtered through stained glass. Of all the places to wake up, it seems you're inside a church that's no stranger to you, St. Mary's Basilica. While the odds are good you've woken up with company somewhere near by, the glint of gold from the altar will likely catch your attention regardless—embedded deep in the altar stands a golden staff, two sculpted wings draped down its sides.

While some things are the same, and some things are different, there are still more questions than answers. But the inscription engraved into the roof of the ceiling of the Church, now visible in proper lighting seems rather apt: Welcome to Krakow (again).

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[Ulquiorra doesn't even blink through the cackling or the ranting or anything. This is kind of a regular occurrence among certain factions in Hueco Mundo -- the unfortunate fact is that Hollows (and especially Arrancar, and especially Espada) are extra as fuck and this is just a Tuesday.

Or a Friday, as it were. He does shake his head a little once Shin comes down from his weird high, though.]

You still seek to place yourself on her level, I see. Unsurprising, but rather tiresome given your continued futile struggles to exist. [his tone is cold, lazy] If you wish to throw what is left of yourself at her mercy, then by all means.

... Are you kidding me?

[He does not sound happy at all.]

I may have been interested then. But now that it's clear how little she cares about help, I'd rather slice her open and ravage her soul as she has done to ours... Somehow.

[He doesn't know how. He doesn't know if he can. He doesn't even know if he should. But he does want to completely tear her apart and reassemble her into something more beautiful than she ever was.]

I do not kid, Shin.

[Did he answer that just to be terrible. Why yes. Yes he did.

Is he entirely sober himself in this ridiculous exchange? Questionable, but you'll never catch him. Alive, dead, unalive, or undead.]

Somehow. I see. Then you are merely a mad dog still looking for a master to point your fangs in the right direction -- or perhaps you always were, and merely have no eye for choosing the hand that feeds you.

I suppose it will be interesting to see who the next one is. If any.

[. . . Then he just snaps. Like a mad dog, he's this close from striking Ulquiorra, as terrible of an idea as it is.]

WHAT DO YOU KNOW?! You barely care about humans at all! Why should I be any different in your eyes?!

[He could have stopped there, but the emotions are running too high to be contained.]

It wasn't always like that! We were perfectly fine until those two came in! Those--! You wouldn't care, would you? The doctor and the gaurd accompanying the priest, from that photo! On the first week... If we didn't give in to their taunts, he would have still been here! And yet... That...

[He's trembling, his breathing's ragged... Are those tears? He's so raw and intoxicated it's hard to tell the anger from pain.]

You don't care, about that, do you? You heartless being who puts such little faith in mortals...!

And you are indeed no different, but you are correct: Hollows do not possess hearts, for those are thrown away when we cast off our mortal shells -- they are unnecessary, and simply lead to situations such as this, and situations such as the one currently taking place in the Night, where you attempt to rely on nonsensical things to continue living, or to continue acting as yourself.

To throw away the self: that is what it means to become a Hollow, I suppose. And a manifestation as well.

[Shin yelling in his face barely gets him to blink -- he continues to stare at him calmly, the ice behind him a secondary reflection like Shin is yelling into an imperfect mirror.]

How many taunts have you given in to by now, I wonder? Perhaps it's a good thing that soon you may no longer have the ability to do so.

[That's a very good question. He can't help but think of everything, all those words and thoughts mixing in his head. He wants to lash out. He wants to tear out Ulquiorra's tongue to stop the blunt insults from coming.

And yet, he can't bring himself to act. He can't bear to stare at the faint reflection in the ice. He can't help but imagine the cracks in that face, the body crumbling away at the seams because of those foolish mistakes.]

SHUT UP AND LET ME EXIST!

[He can't. He simply can't-

After a moment's hesitation, he turns on his heel and storms off into the massage room and slams the door. Looks like someone isn't gonna learn whodunnit today.]

[He can almost hear the sound of the gears grinding in Shin's head, what there are of them, clacking and clicking and stuttering and not quite stopping like the clocktower he spends so much time in; Night and Day are both stopped now, after all, and perhaps in the near future Shin's will stop too.

And then his own, and on, and on.

But Ulquiorra has stared death and the void beyond existence in the face more times than he can count, by now, and even if he will do his utmost against it he refuses to run away from it, and he refuses to countenance others trying to do it crawling along in his sight.

It's hard to say whether that's a failing of his, or something else, but regardless in the moment he just watches Shin storm off without any change in expression. This isn't a fight anyone will win, but at least it's quiet again now.]

GRAVEYARD

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