Delirium

It was another long day in the cave. Kita was exhausted; from what she had no clue. They really did nothing all day, except Toshiro showing her a few more defensive moves to help protect herself. She wished she had her zanpakuto back, but she knew at this rate that was never going to happen. Her return to Las Noches was the only way it would be returned to her.

She lay down on the blankets that were laid out for a bed tucking her hands under her head. Crackling and popping in the silence of the cave the fire burned hot, and there, across the cave she saw Toshiro. He was sitting to the ground resting his back against the cave wall. The fire dancing in his turquoise eyes that looked so distance and his mind even more distance.

“Why won’t he talk to me? What is he thinking?” Kita thought to herself.

She sighed softly just watching him sit there. Before she knew it she was fast asleep in her own little dreamland. However, it was here in the deep recesses of her mind, that Ulquiorra knew his former fraction best. No matter what persona she took on, whether it be the seraph or his fraction, there was one place where she found she didn't have to mold herself into: Her mind.

"Kita."

For once he had caught her off guard and stepped out from behind her peripheral vision, but instead of recoiling, she did something rather peculiar. She turned. And turned. And turned. Looking with glazed over eyes.

"Kita."

He tried once more to reach her, but still she turned in a dazed fashion. As if she were... blind. Perhaps it was better this way. Blind. Such a short word for an eternity of sentencing. He watched as if he were a spectator at a carnival of tears. He wanted to reach out and grab her arm and shake her. Shake her until she looked at him--- But he wouldn't. This was her mind. Her mind was on Toshiro when she fell asleep, and there it managed to stay for sometime. She started to worry wondering what might happen to him if she were not able to return to the Soul Society with him. Would he be punished? Sentenced to confinement? She was certain that death would not be part of his punishment, but striped of his command was a very likely thing. Rolling over in bed she heard Ulquiorra call out to her. She closed her eyes tighter trying to block him out. Remembering what Toshiro had told her in the case he tried contacting her again.

“I can do this.” Kita said to herself concentrating harder on happy moments.

Little did Kita know, was that all her memories were tied with his. The physically painful happiness. The gripping sadness. The false hopes. The intense passions of wanting to be free. All of them. His. But he didn't want it. He didn't need it. All he needed was to reach her while she could still hear him.

"Kita,"

Ulquiorra pressed against her consciousness with a progressive feeling of drowning... drowning in a sea of ice. A sea in which Kita was allowing herself to sink into and let cold fingers wrap around her throat. And oh how it wrapped. So tightly; so smoothly. Almost innocently, but Ulquiorra knew better and so did Kita. The further she ran from him, the distance became smaller. It was too much. The memories of everything washed over her. Good, bad, mediocre. There was no balance to it. Her mind spun out of control. Her eyes popped open and before her.

There.

With his hands neatly tucked in his pockets.

Her master.

His eyes still the same.

Cold, dead and unfeeling.

"Master." She lowered her head to him.

Those same cold, unfeeling eyes slid over Kita's bowed head, ending where the shadows stretched over her cheekbones.

"Do you call me 'Master' to mock me, or do you genuinely think I still hold power over you?"

An icy hand slid from his deep pocket and pushed her hair back, revealing a face like that of a chiseled doll. Disgusting, he thought in the stillness of Kita's mind. Was it always night here, as in Los Noches? Did Kita not turn her face towards the light when she felt angry? Lonely? Oppressed? Who was this creature that stood before him with the glassy eyes? This was not the Kita he knew.

She looked to him, her eyes locking with his. She felt stillness take over her beating heart when he touched her. Her breathing turned shallow. She did not fear the man before her. She did not loath him either, but there was something about him. Something that connected them in away she could not understand. It was not the fact that the remains of his right hand lived within her arrancar form.

No.

There was more.

So much more.

But what?

And now.

That look.

The look he held in his eyes for her. The look of disgust. Again she has shamed him. Again she has hurt the unfeeling espada. He dared not show it, but she could see it. She could feel it. No matter how much he denied it. She knew it was there.

“I do not mock you. You will forever be my master no matter the distance between us.”

"Pretty words," Ulquiorra muttered.

Ulquiorra dropped his hand and added some distance between himself and Kita. The color of his mood shifted and the contours of the room melted into the physical manifestation of his imagination. Deep, recessive colors overlapped the mahogany shelves of a toy shop he had imagined. Ulquiorra liked watching the futility of toys. He took the time to observe trinkets become obsolete and the ephemeral emotions children experienced as they developed a darker sense of joy. And he wanted Kita to see this as well. He wanted her to see her imagination as if it were his own. And where better to start, than the painful stages of childhood?

As he backed away Kita watched as their surroundings changed. She looked to her right, then quickly to her left.

“A toy shop?” She looked around again, “I know this toy shop. I know it well.” A saddened look blanketed her face as she spoke aloud turning to Ulquiorra.

“How do you know this place, master?”

"You call me master, but do not know how I know these things?"

Ulquiorra sighed and turned his face away. He heard Kita taking small tentative steps, hardly daring to touch anything as if it were fragile.

“I know how. I want to know why you would care to know them.”

Without premonition, he seized her hand and looked hard into her dilated eyes. Why wasn't she afraid? Why wasn't she trying to tear him limb from limb? Perhaps she was torn between believing in the phantom toy shop and seeing the person whom all dark memories of happiness oozed from.

She looked to Ulquiorra quickly when he grabbed her hand. She did not flinch nor try to pull away. She looked into his eyes instead.

“I am not afraid of you, master. I never have been. Nor will I ever be.”

She looked back to the toys on the shelves then back to him.

“Would you like to see what happens in this memory?”

Ulquiorra glanced from his white hands to the flushed skin if Kita's wrist. Who was the true master of this tragedy, when the victim knew the ending?

Once again, the dream delirium warped itself to match Sumi's desired retelling of the tale. He let go and watched the horror unfold.

Kita made a large wave of her arm and hand as the toy shop became bright and alive with children. Their laughter warm their smiles bright. Not a worry one crossed their minds. Only the thought of HAVING TO HAVE THAT TOY.

Sounds of motors and horns being imitated by the boys pushing cars and trucks along on the floor. Little girls cooing and coddling baby dolls, feeding them and playing with their hair. Sounds of toy trains and planes, soft teddy bears for hugging, rocking horses for riding. All the joys a child’s life should be filled with. With a warm smile Kita looked to Ulquiorra. He then raised his hand and with the snap of his fingers her memory went dark and the flood of horror rushed the toy shop.