9Ulquiorra wasn't surprised when he started to dissolve; he was instead surprised by how the Kurosaki boy reacted. An idealist. An idealist that refused to kill him even though that was his last request.
When the boy tried to be kind it seemed like he was only ten times as merciless.
He had one last question to ask Orihime. He reached towards her, silently wishing for her to get closer. He needed to feel her warmth again, for some reason he felt as if this would make up for her betrayal. Why, though, was the question he needed answered. Why did he care so much?
Instead, he asked her something else. "Are you scared of me, girl?"
Not her name. He no longer had the right to use it.
It took her a moment to answer, her eyes swimming with tears that weren't quite spilling over. She wouldn't cry for him, that he knew. He wasn't Kurosaki. "I'm not scared."
"I see."
And suddenly he did. What she meant to him. She had managed to give him something almost as impossible as the Kurosaki's three revivals. She had given him a heart.
Their fingers didn't brush but by then he had forgiven her. It was love he felt for her. A word humans threw around, a word he had filed away as nonsense… He wished he could be surprised at the irony. In trying to succeed in earning her love, he had fallen for her.
But Orihime loved another.
As everything faded, he thought he could hear her voice. Faint and beautiful it rang out... The only word he could understand was 'reject.'
I'm letting ya'll choose how it ends. ^^
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