Chapter 175
As a Hollow, Ulquiorra did not understand what the heart was.
It was the same as what Shiba Kaien once said about the heart.
The heart does not exist in the chest.
It exists between people.
Since things that cannot be seen do not exist for him, Ulquiorra came to this conclusion.
In the original events, Kurosaki Ichigo knew he was not strong enough, yet he still entered Hueco Mundo to save Inoue Orihime.
Even knowing the enemies were stronger than him, he did not retreat.
Ulquiorra could not comprehend this and considered it nothing more than a foolish act of suicide.
He struck Ichigo down completely.
Yet in the end, Ichigo's victory represented the power of the heart between companions, stronger than the void Ulquiorra believed in.
Orihime herself, even in Hueco Mundo, always believed her friends would come for her. That belief was something Ulquiorra could not grasp. She told him that was the heart, and he replied by asking if cutting open the chest would reveal it.
At the moment of his death by Kurosaki's hand, at the moment his body was dissolving into nothingness beneath that unstoppable force, Ulquiorra turned toward Inoue Orihime as if he finally understood what the heart was.
What Ulquiorra lacked in his humanity was the heart.
This was why he was ranked as the Cuarta Espada. Compared to the top three Espada, there was something vital missing.
His designation of "4" was inscribed on the left side of his chest, directly over where his heart would be.
Perhaps Aizen Sōsuke had already perceived this, arranging it with purpose.
"Segunda Etapa… Murciélago."
"The second stage of Resurrección."
"I am the only one among the Espada who possesses this form."
"Even Aizen-sama has never seen me in this state."
An immense wave of spiritual pressure erupted from Ulquiorra.
It pressed down with the weight of an ocean despite his thin Arrancar frame.
The heaviness of it nearly crushed Pesche and Dondochakka below.
"This… what kind of spiritual pressure is this?"
"This is completely different from any Espada I've felt before. It's far stronger."
"So terrifying..."
Ulquiorra spread his newly formed black wings wide like a bat.
Behind him extended a tail whip, and two horns curved upward from his head.
His frame was gaunt, his ribcage clearly visible.
His hair and feet blurred into void-black.
The Hollow hole in his chest yawned empty, speaking silently of his nature.
Yet if he had ever come to understand what the heart was, he would not have been Ulquiorra.
Long ago, deep in a cave where sunlight never reached, darkness swallowed everything.
It resembled a bat's nest, pitch black and oppressive.
Ulquiorra's body was white while everything else moved in shadowed black.
He had no mouth, no ears, no nose-only eyes that could see.
What could not be seen was considered nonexistent to him.
He could not hear, eat, smell, feel, touch; he had neither rest nor companions.
The others in the cave devoured one another, but he only walked onward, directionless.
Blood sometimes dripped from his fingertips, the blood of those who had attacked him in vain.
At one point a translucent, shrub-like mass appeared before him-without color, sound, smell, interference, and seemingly untouchable. To Ulquiorra, it was the purest form of nothingness.
So he lay upon that "nothingness."
How long he remained there, he never knew. Until one day-Aizen Sōsuke found him.
"Lanza del Relámpago."
With the words, a glowing green spear manifested in Ulquiorra's hand.
Unlike the first stage, this time the weapon was sharpened into a distinct arrowhead.
"This is the first time I have used this move in Segunda Etapa against an enemy."
"I am not yet fully proficient… so take care."
He hurled the spear forward.
Ulquiorra was completely aware of its destructive potential.
It could not only devastate the battlefield but also annihilate countless stone pillars of Las Noches with ease.
Yet as the spear tore forward, Yuta simply raised his right hand.
That hand stood like a wall immune to destruction. The spear's energy diminished and dissolved into nothingness in front of it.
[You have successfully comprehended Lanza del Relámpago.]
Ulquiorra's expression did not change, but his words revealed his disbelief.
"This is impossible."
"You are not human."
"You are not shinigami."
"What are you?"
He could not comprehend Yuta.
The boy held a zanpakutō like a shinigami.
He displayed abilities akin to a Hollow.
On the surface he appeared human, but what kind of existence truly stood before him?
For the first time in Ulquiorra's experience, there was something he could not categorize.
"Have you ever thought that the translucent body you once lay upon was your heart?" Yuta said calmly.
"The heart exists between people."
"So it cannot be seen, touched, smelled, nor heard."
"The shrub you saw was the vascular structure of the heart."
Ulquiorra's eyes widened slightly.
The "bushes," intangible and silent, were the heart itself. The vascular structure of the heart.
"Then… all this time… I have been lying on your heart?"
The next moment, Yuta passed by him calmly, sheathing his sword as he walked away.
Seconds later, something hit the stone floor.
It was one of Ulquiorra's horns-curved and black like that of a demon, and like a bat's.
His body began to dissolve into fragments of nothingness.
He looked one last time through the broken dome above and saw Inoue Orihime, Ishida Uryū, Kuchiki Rukia… then Yuta himself… and finally, the endless night sky of Hueco Mundo.
As his body dissolved away, only his emerald eyes remained.
And within those eyes lingered the faint image of that translucent body-of the heart he had once lain upon.
At last, even his eyes disappeared into nothingness.
(T/n: Press f in the chat for Lil Ulqy.)
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