Beside You In Time Ch 19

Chapter 19
It's Not My Time

"You'll open a Senkai Gate for me?!" Orihime was ready to hug the ex-captain if it wasn't for the state of shock she was sent into due to his answer.
"No," Urahara was now wearing a sly grin. "You will."

Unbeknownst to Ulquiorra Cifer, Aizen Sosuke was still alive. In the high-security cell next to him…





Kuchiki Rukia had been sitting by Kurosaki Ichigo's side for three days straight now, no sleep, no food.
"Kuchiki-chan…" Ichigo's father knocked quietly and then entered his son's bedroom. "You need to eat something and then get some sleep."
Rukia shook her head weakly. How could she sleep? This was all her fault… If she hadn't given Ichigo his Shinigami powers in the first place, he wouldn't be lying in a coma in front of her right now…
"Come on now, Kuchiki-san…" Kurosaki Isshin slowly walked over to the raven-haired girl and placed a hand on her shoulder. "You don't want Ichigo waking up to you with dark circles under your eyes, do you?"
Rukia sighed. He was probably right. Slowly she stood up and made her way down the stairs to the kitchen, where Yuzu, who had already prepared a warm meal for the exhausted Shinigami, smiled at her warmly.
"Thank you, Yuzu," Rukia fought to keep a yawn back and smiled tiredly at the girl.
After she had finished her first meal in three days, Rukia half-crawled up the stairs to Ichigo's closet, the only place in the Kurosaki house she could get a full-night's rest, and curled up against the closet wall. She was fast asleep as soon as she closed her eyes…


"How am I supposed to open a Senkai Gate?!" Orihime Inoue exclaimed. Had Urahara-san gone insane? She didn't have the power to open a Senkai Gate… she couldn't even fight very well! But her master healing and defensive skills made up for her lack of offensive skills… Would those skills be enough to open a Senkai Gate and save Ulquiorra-san?
Urahara Kisuke just grinned and simply stated, "Follow me."
Orihime wasn't surprised when the shopkeeper led her to the well-known underground training room. The thing that surprised her was the person, or rather cat, that was sitting there waiting for the two.
"Yoruichi-san!" Orihime ran up to the cat and hugged it, nearly suffocating her.
"Don't choke me!" Yoruichi pulled herself out of the girl's strangling embrace and sat down on the ground.
"Sorry," Orihime pouted, casting her eyes to the floor.
"It's alright," Orihime was surprised to hear the change in the cat's voice. Looking up, she saw a fully-clothed, human Yoruichi standing several feet away.
"How'd you change so fast?!" Orihime gaped in awe.
"It doesn't matter. Right now there are more important things to worry about."
Orihime nodded.
"Okay, I will leave you two alone," Urahara nodded at the two and disappeared from the training room in the blink of an eye.
"So, Orihime," Yoruichi began, "Why do you want to save Ulquiorra?"
"Umm…" Orihime thought about it, turning bright rouge when she realized that she wanted to save him because she felt pulled to him like a magnet, even more so now that he was going to be executed.
"I…" she didn't know how she should reply to Yoruichi's question.
Why did she want to save him? For the first time in a long time, Orihime felt helpless. Even in Hueco Mundo, as a captive to her now beloved Cuatro Espada, she hadn't been helpless. She had been captured for her powers…
So why did this make her feel helpless?
Orihime took a deep breath. Why?
Why? That was the question…
"I," Orihime hesitated. "I… think I l-love him."
She burned redder than before. Why had she just said that?
But then again… Orihime wondered if she really felt that way. Her heart told her she was right to say that she loved him by fluttering uncontrollably. But her common sense and logic was screaming at her, calling her an idiot for falling for the enemy. It wasn't just falling for the enemy… it was the fact that she knew him about two months. And that he was the enemy.
Yoruichi nodded and said, "Alright. Then I will teach you how to open a Senkai Gate."

Ulquiorra stared at the wall, mind blank. He refused to think about anything. Had he been a normal human, or even a normal hollow or plus soul, that would have been impossible, but due to his vigorous, unrelenting training as an ex-Arrancar it was very possible.
Several boring hours later, the Cuatro Espada still sat in the same position. He hadn't moved a single muscle.
The sudden opening of his door was the only reason Ulquiorra turned his head to look who disturbed his silence.
"Ulquiorra Cifer," a man in a white lab coat shifted his weight from foot to foot nervously. "Mayuri Kurotsuchi-taichou wants your gigai."
Deciding it wasn't worth pondering or fussing about, Ulquiorra nodded and quickly left his gigai. He quickly flash stepped to the door, causing the man to scream like a girl and fall over backwards.
Ulquiorra resisted the urge to roll his eyes.
Trash.
Tossing the gigai out of his room, he flash stepped back to his previous spot on the couch.
The man quickly scrambled to his feet and hastily locked the door, hoping all the while that his taichou hadn't been monitoring at that moment. Grabbing the gigai, he sprinted back to the laboratory…
Ulquiorra sat there like a statue, trying to ignore the thought slowly eating it's way into his brain.
Sonidoing was becoming harder.

Orihime dodged another one of Yoruichi's attacks. Rolling behind a rock, she tried to catch her breath. The two women had been fighting for about half an hour now. Orihime felt the sweat running down her forehead.
How was this teaching her how to open a Senkai Gate?
"Orihime?" the orange-haired girl looked up, wide eyed, immediately recognizing the voice.
"Shuno?" Orihime stared at one of her Shun Shun Rikka, wondering why he had suddenly materialized.
"Do you really want to save Ulquiorra-san?" Shuno stared her in the eye seriously.
"Y-yes," Orihime said. Was Shuno going to help her?
"Okay," suddenly the rest of Orihime's Shun Shun Rikka appeared out of thin air. "We're going to teach you how to."
Orihime's eyes widened.
"Surprise," Tsubaki said sarcastically after a few moments. "Now are we going to start, or are you going to sit there for another hour gaping at us?"
"Y-yeah!" Orihime jumped to her feet.
"Yoruichi!" Orihime called. Hopping out from behind the rock, Orihime barely avoided another attack.
"Santen Kesshun!" Orihime shouted, blocking another one of the woman's endless attacks.
Yoruichi grinned, "It seems you've become strong enough to learn the technique Urahara hypothesized about."
Orihime knotted her eyebrows, confused. "Huh?"
"Kisuke has had a pretty good idea about your potential for a long time now, Orihime," Yoruichi relaxed her stance, going from her fighting-pose to a normal conversational posture.
"Oh," Orihime didn't know what to think or to say to that. If Urahara-san had known about her potential, why hadn't he done anything to bring that potential to her attention?  Maybe she wouldn't have been so useless all those times before when Kurosaki-san and Ishida-kun had to protect her…
Orihime knit her eyebrows together in confusion and irritation.
Yoruichi chuckled at the combination of emotions on Orihime's face. Irritation was one of the emotions Orihime rarely felt.
"Now let's begin your training," the feline-woman grinned.
"But… haven't we been training for a while now?" Orihime looked at Yoruichi-san with confusion. What had they been doing for the past half an hour?
"No," Yoruichi's grin spread further across her face. "The real training starts now."

Kuchiki Rukia tossed and turned in her sleep. Her dreams were full of dark shadows and demons waiting around every corner, chasing her and making her feel like a rabbit running away from hunting dogs…
It seemed like after hours upon hours of running that she turned the last corner of her maze-like dream. Standing at the end of the maze were two people she knew all too well.
"Nii-sama! Ichigo!" Rukia gaped. What were they doing here? And wasn't Ichigo supposed to be lying in a coma?
Ignoring the logic running through her brain like a bullet train, the black-haired Shinigami took off running towards the two men.
It seemed like the further and faster she ran, the further away her brother and friend were. Finally, after what seemed like weeks of running, Rukia reached her brother.
She would have stopped and greeted her older brother, the captain of the 6th Squad, but the sight that was waiting for her behind him was far too shocking.
Ichigo had collapsed, unknown to Rukia. He was on his hands and knees, obviously experiencing some kind of excruciating pain. A split second later, black and red reiatsu shot out of him like a bullet shot from a gun. It materialized next to him and took the shape of Hichigo, Ichigo's hollow powers.
Rukia couldn't move. She watched in horror as Hichigo drew his sword and brought the tip of it to the top of Ichigo's back. The latter was too busy feeling pain that he never noticed the sword at his back until it pierced his body.
Ichigo screamed. And screamed and screamed.
Rukia's eyes widened.
"Ichigo!" she screamed. She gathered her strength to start running again, but was stopped by the words that left her brother's lips.
"Do you want to further add to your crimes by touching a dead man?" Rukia stopped dead in her tracks. Her eyes widened even more.
"Nii-sama…" Rukia turned to look at her brother. But her brother was nowhere to be seen. In his place stood a different red haired Shinigami.
"Renji!" What was her best friend doing here?
Déjà vu overwhelmed the black-haired woman. It was just like that time in the rain when she was taken back to Soul Society… Back when Ichigo was still young and inexperienced. She turned to stare at Ichigo.
It pained Rukia deeply to see the now powerful orange-haired youth collapse on the ground, bleeding again, just like before. Blue reiatsu was slowly seeping out of him and evaporating into thin air.
Rukia took a single step towards Ichigo. Before she could take another, a strong hand grabbed her arm and began pulling her away.
"Let go!" Rukia shrieked. Turning to hit whoever was pulling her away from Ichigo, she stopped dead in her tracks.
In the midst of the shadows and demons that had been following her was a Senkai Gate, open and waiting for her and Renji, who was pulling her, to step inside, sealing Rukia away from Ichigo forever.
"NOO!" Rukia screamed.
Rukia woke with a start.
"Kuchiki-chan!" an anxious voice whispered.
Yuzu had been trying to wake her for several minutes now.
"You were crying, so I tried to wake you up, but you wouldn't wake up… and then you… you screamed and I knew I had to wake you…"
"It's alright. Thank you, Yuzu," Rukia felt ten times more tired than before she had fallen asleep.


Ulquiorra had finally lost the battle with his mind. He was now pondering everything he had been holding back for hours now.
The thought that most ate at his mind was why it was becoming harder to Sonido.
The Cuatro Espada had known that there would be extra security measures taken to prevent his escape, but he had not anticipated loosing that simple ability so soon.
What would happen if (when) he got out of his high security prison cell? Would he regain his powers, or would he forever be the same as the trash he would walk along with every day in the World of the Living?
His thoughts were interrupted by the opening of his cell door.
"Ulquiorra Cifer," a voice sneered. "I am to take you to a meeting with the head of the Central 46 and Head Captain Yamamoto."
Ulquiorra raised an eyebrow slightly and stared at the captain who had come to get him. He was a brute. His hair was long and stuck out in several different directions. The Espada could sense the unruly reiatsu shooting off of this man like fireworks.
Standing up, Ulquiorra decided to go with this man. Perhaps this meeting with the head of the Central 46 and Yamamoto would turn out to be in his favor?
As he walked behind the huge, muscular captain, he couldn't resist rolling his eyes when the Stealth Forces appeared out of no where to surround him and keep him from escaping.
After several minutes of walking at a brisk pace, the brute of a captain stopped and knocked on a door.
"Come in," the voice of the Head Captain said. Ulquiorra was shoved in the door before having the door shut tightly behind him.
The Espada would have been extremely perturbed if it hadn't been for the reiatsu that suddenly hit him like a brick wall.
Sitting there, handcuffed to the chair he was sitting in with one hand and bound with strange black cloth all over his body, and having tea with two of the most powerful men in Soul Society, was Aizen Sosuke.
"Aizen," Ulquiorra growled. Everyone of his instincts was telling him to attack the brown haired man.
"Calm down, Ulquiorra Cifer, or you will be handcuffed and restrained as he is," Genryuusai stated matter-of-factly.
Taking a deep breath, Ulquiorra gathered his usual stoic composure and took a seat across the table from his previous "employer", who was wearing his trademark saccharine smile.
Ulquiorra wondered if his reiatsu would be ask weak as Aizen's soon… It was as though the short amount of time Aizen had spent locked away here in Soul Society had drained his reiatsu 90%.
"Now," the head of the Central 46 began. "I have gathered you three together to talk with you about what should be done regarding you, Aizen Sosuke, and you, Ulquiorra Cifer."
Ulquiorra had a feeling that his draining reiatsu was soon going to be one of his lesser worries.
He would never admit it, not even to himself, but he felt fear. A deep, bone-rattling fear. He knew that his fate was hanging on a thin thread.
And he had a feeling scissors were looming dangerously near that thread…
Ulquiorra was silently amazed that all of a sudden, the past several weeks were flashing through his mind. Meeting his Onna, dying, miraculously being rebirthed for unknown reasons, living in the World of the Living with his Onna…
He realized that he had come to see Orihime Inoue as a constant in his life. She was always there, shining like his own private sun.
A sense of déjà vu caught up with the Cuatro Espada's thoughts. He felt the same fear he felt when he had died, reaching out to his Onna, trying to hold on to her, hoping that she could somehow stop him from turning to ash.
Ulquiorra realized that he had planned on staying with his Onna until she sent him away, until she left him. And even then he would stay with her, following her to the ends of the earth, to the ends of all dimensions.
He suddenly wondered if Orihime felt the same, if she had become used to seeing him every waking moment.
A thought raced through his head for the splittest of seconds. What if she loves me?
Ulquiorra tried to push that thought away, knowing it was weak and human, but the more he pushed it away, the more it manifested into more power thoughts, like Maybe I am experiencing what the human race refers to as "love".
With a sudden burst of will power, Ulquiorra decided he wasn't going to let the two men sitting at the table with him determine his fate. He was going to take that precariously hung string into his own hands for the first time since his creation by Aizen Sosuke. He wasn't going to allow even a hint of fear tint his eyes or expression.
Ulquiorra Cifer was going to fight whatever kept him from his Onna, and his Onna from him.