Ulquiorra Cifer [Approved 0-3+, ???]

[[Updated, my application for this character ready for review. ^.^]]



|✪|"Emptiness"|✪|

"What is a heart? What does it do really, and what does it mean?" Asked the 4th Espada to himself aloud.

He'd stood alone in his room for some time now. Waiting for the time to come when Lord Aizen would return. Painted across his face was a patient stare glancing aimlessly out a single window, not at the chaos that reigned within the sands far below but at something more. There was something in the glass and although vague iit stood out to him. A face, if you could call it that. A reflection of himself barely visible but it was there. Reflected upon the surface of the window mocking him, emotionless and pail. He could see the hole in his neck and the unmoving eyes, just as hollow, staring back at him. Piercing himself to the core. He'd always questioned others, but now it seemed as if he was questioning himself. In his own silence there was a raging storm of thoughts, ideas, theories buzzing within his brilliant mind.

"What do others see in these eyes besides shades of emerald around an ebony core? What is it they call fear, and why do I bring it about so easily?" He asked himself, silently within the confines of his own mind.

It wasn't that he wished to feel these things, only to understand them. Some would be unnerved by such lack of humanity in that gaze, that soulless stare. Something he'd grown accustomed to in his years. Never feeling the fear, the sorrow, the multitude of feelings that others felt when his eyes fell on them. Ulquiorra was complicated. It wasn't that he tried to be this way, but rather it was the burden of his aspect of death. Some might say that he alone epitomized his race more than anyone else. Hollow. Void. Empty.

Emptiness was what defined him, that state of lacking meaning or sincerity. Both allowing him to perform the task at hand without a second thought. To kill, and eventually make his way to the seat of power he currently held by sheer, heartless untamed killing. And yet, it plagued him. He could feel it, the void pulling at him, rising higher and higher in his throat every day. As if due this curse, he lacked something.

"Perhaps that is what lies within a heart…"

With a quick turn he broke away from himself, from that face staring back. Was it some means to try and defy himself? To deny the emptiness and rush off to find meaning in life? The simple answer is no. Such feelings of contempt needed to come to that conclusion, that defiance where beyond him. He was a servant of Lord Aizen. A vessel, void for a reason. For him, that was enough. His coat flared a bit as he walked briskly out of his quarters, leaving behind nothing. Save for an empty room, and a blank sheet of glass. Fitting I suppose.

Pit-pat-pit-pat-pit-pat

The sound of Ulqiorra's steps echoed through the simplistic hallway design of Hueco Mundo. He was alone, here in this palace with his own thoughts and his shadow for company. He was fine with that, it allowed him more time to think, and plan for what was to come next. Lord Aizen had use of him, and Cifer performed well, that was all that mattered. If he wished death, protection, cunning or grandeur, his Lord would get it. It wasn't that he was overly confident, he simply did not fear death, and he knew how to kill. A deadly combination to say the least of the matter. After some time of walking, lost in simple thoughts of past missions and of his meeting with Aizen himself Ulquiorra had come to find himself in Aizen's throne room, and as he gazed up with that blank stare of his his gaze fell on nothing. Just an empty white room with an empty throne. Yet again, quite fitting.

Hands crossed with fingers intertwined and eyes closed his chin came to rest on the backs of his hands. The 4th Espada sat in tranquility at the foot of a long set of pristine white steps. Steps that Aizen would eventually use upon his return. The silence threatened to swallow him, that is if you can swallow that which is already void. It surrounded him, pounding at his ears like a rhythm. A rhythm that carried him away, far from Aizen's palace and back to times of old. If the Espada, or most specifically he, could dream, he did now.

He was surrounded by vast sands. Not emptiness, but a whole lot of the same over and over again. This was before his mask broke, before he'd become one of the Espada and was but a simple arrancar. Though simple might not be the word, for at that time he questioned his existence, born in shadows from what had been nothingness with a white body it puzzled him as those he'd awoke to where all black. He'd left them behind now, and wandered the sand with not a thought in his head. Just the simple counting of steps.

"1…2…3…4…" echoed in his mind like a melancholic narration.

Eventually he was stopped as beast and bird and humanoid alike rose from the sands. The count still clear in his head as his eyes darted to each of the three victims, calculating their demise already. Fools. They rushed him all at once, making what came next all the easier. As they closed in he raised a hand and pointed towards the foolish hungry creatures.

"Cero…"

His words were cold, and lifeless as a massive blast erupted from his fingertips engulfing the other arrancar and obliterating the part s of their body it had touched. The humanoid was completely vaporized whilst a single wing fell to one side and the entire back end of the beast collapsed against the sands. Now he could continue onward, desperate to get somewhere it seemed, but with nowhere in particular in mind as the counting began again.

"1,324,037… 1,324,038… 1,324,039"

This pattern of killing and counting continued for far longer than the Espada could recall truly, it was far too long ago and had been far too tedious a task to truly recall with absolute perfection. But one thing stood out more than the rest. There among the vast grains and the hordes of wild creatures threatening to take his life, or he theirs, he found a tree. A fruitless, bare thing, solid white from base to branch. For the first time in his life, his eyes widened and the first glimpse of possible expression spreading across his lack of a face. It was so beautiful. The counting in his head stopped and a new goal, a new thought formed. He must reach this thing like him. He wanted to know all about it, yearned for it even. Here, surrounded by nothing but sand how could such a thing exist at all? And as he reach out for it, touching the first of its sharp ivory branches he felt…nothing. This thing whatever it might be was just like him. Void, dull and lifeless. It swallowed him, and as the two beings merged he truly understood what nihility was.

"Happiness…" He spoke aloud as it echoed quietly for a moment through the grand throne room.

He glanced upward, following the form of a man standing mere inches before him. His eyes falling ultimately upon the face of his Lord Aizen. There was no change in his expression, no feeling of relief accompanying the arrival of this man, only the expectation of orders and much needed direction. He rose to his feet slowly as Aizen quietly walked past the Hollow, allowing him a moment to collect his thoughts.

"Sorry I'm late." Spoke Aizen halfheartedly. "I had business to attend, and so do you."

Contemplation had ended. There was no lingering desire to go back to the past again, no feeling to be told of at all really. Only obedience.

"Tell me and it shall be done." His words came quickly like darts.

"The girl is currently traveling through the Dangai, go retrieve her would you?" Aizen spoke, more instruction than question.

His answer came quickly, and again rather short. "As you wish."

A wave of his arm was all it took to tear open a whole in space and time. Ripping open the Garganta, a space of black nothingness hollows used to travel between worlds. To be quite honest, if he could enjoy anything, he'd enjoy passing through this realm. But his thought's were not on that, but on his target. On breaking her will and making her obey his every word.

"Orihime, I'm coming for you."

| ✪|"I see. So this is it. It lies here within this palm. The heart."|✪|