He was young when it had started. So young at the time he couldn't even remember when it had even started. As the familiar sting of his mothers hand striking his face pulsed through the left side of his face he cast his emerald green eyes toward the floor briefly before smiling gently at her " It's okay, Mama. I won't do it again. It was only an accident." The child had told her, only for the woman to start yelling about the broken vase not being something he could fix, no matter how 'sorry' he was.
The boy nodded, the smile falling from his face then before being order to clean his mess up. The woman then turns away and walks out of the room, warning him to remain quiet and in the back rooms, as she always had done. Kneeling down he reached out toward the shards of glass, gripping carelessly at them as he picked them up in his right hand and cupped his left hand out in front of him. Placing several shards into his palm. For the next few minutes he cleaned up the mess and set the shards aside in a storage room.
Years later the boy had sat in a classroom, the sun outside beaming in through the window to his side. Tapping the eraser of a pencil to his desk he had stared at the sheet laid out in front of him, thinking of the proper answers. But he had no will to write them down. He did not see the point in such a thing. For a long time now he had felt ...empty. Like nothing in life had mattered. Not like it did when he was a kid. Or at least, how he thought it had mattered when he was a kid. He had grown up since then, realizing just how useless all his efforts were.
However, he eventually started to scribble something down. The least he could do was just get by, the bare minimum. The teenager soon finished with the sheet and stood up, moving to turn it in. A few kids looking up from their own half finished sheets to look at him, someone pelting a piece of paper at the back of his head. Ignoring it he lazily sat the paper on the teachers desk and moved back to his own desk. Staring out of the window beside him for the rest of the period.
It was August, 1945, The Boy gulped as he walked out of a room into the hallway spotting a few girls his own age. One in particular he had known from school. They hadn't seen him as he neared them. Not until one of the girls had made some joke and turned her head, spotting him as he approached and giving a small 'Oh ?aA?A!?, you are here today.' ...She didn't seem enthused about it. Pausing he blinks and looks over toward them, nodding a little bit at the girls words before telling them he had to drop off some stuff for his mother.
Then asked if they were having a good day, trying to make idle chit chat. He tried to work up the courage to say something to the girl he had be interest in for some time. But missed his chance as the girls started departing, telling him to enjoy the rest of the peaceful day. The boy watched them leave for a moment before deciding to say something to the girl. Walking after them toward the stairwell they had walked down. He paused however when he heard them whispering about him being a freak. Looking down and seeing all the girls giggling as they went on talking about him being creepy.
Letting out a hollowed laugh the boy pulled away from the stairs leading down to the bottom floor of the building. Deciding he needed some fresh air elsewhere he walked up the stairs toward the roof instead. Maybe if he stared long enough into the void, he wouldn't feel so terrible all the time. The boy stepped out into the windy fresh air, enjoying the fact that the air had always seemed better the higher up he got. Walking toward the edge of the building he leaned onto it, looking over the edge and down toward the people. He watched as they walked away, going on about their meaningless lives.
Soon he would be graduating and continuing life with his own boring life. Just thinking about it had caused him some sort of existential dread. Looking up into the sky he grinned, even if the world around him had sucked, the sky had always seemed perfect over Nagasaki, even if it was raining, even in the night. Even if the war, and all that came with it. A mother that beat him, classmates who mistreated him and an absent father, he knew...one day it would end. All the suffering he was going through, and maybe in another life, he wouldn't be alone. Or maybe he would be happy even if he was.
----
He was alone, but at least he had been content where he was. Not happy. But what was happiness, anyway. Ulquiorra stared up toward the sky over Hueco Mundo, through the white branches of the tree/bush he had been laying in for...he didn't know how long now. Someone was talking to him though. He didn't bother looking over, figuring if he just ignored them long enough they would eventually go away. But they did not, they insisted he had 'helped them. Slowly, green cat like eyes shift to the side, a strange curiosity coming to him " Why do you need my help? What about me makes you think I am of any use to you?" Ulquiorra had asked the man then.
They had been their so long, the loneliness he had been feeling had started to leave. He didn't know what to think of that. He couldn't close his eyes or block his ears from seeing or hearing the other. So when their face appeared over his face he was forced to look at them. They did not look like the creatures who ate from before. This one had seemed very different from them. Though their was something in their eyes that had made them seem even worse than those creatures.
His name was Aizen. Ulquiorra had learned when the other told him as he moved to pull himself out of the piles of white branches that had grown into and over him. Blood dripping onto the ground he stood, hollowfied, staring Aizen down with a predatory gaze. The other had given a smug smile toward him however before turning and commanding that he followed. Ulquiorra had obeyed. Even through the pain that would soon follow his decision to help this strange man. Breaking the shell and reforming into the Arrancar he was to become. Not long after he was given his orders to go to a town, there he had seen the orange haired woman for the first time. She didn't seem interesting to him at first.
But not long after Aizen had ordered him to take her. So he did. Because his Lord had wished it, and he was loyal. While holding her captive however he became intrigued by her 'heart'. She spoke of her friends and of things in such a way that Ulquiorra wanted to know more about it. The heart she displayed reminding him of something he had long forgotten about, that felt like it was just there right on the surface, only..it was behind a padlocked metal door. Unreachable by him
Ulquirra fought with the one called Ichigo not long after this, eventually coming to a draw, with the other. His body disintegrating to ash, just as he was getting closer to unlocking that door inside of him. His eyes meeting with the woman’s as he asked if she were afraid of him. Then reached out toward her only for his hand to crumble into dust as she reached out for him. It was a familiar feel, his entire body evaporating into nothing. It was probably for the best, that he was nothing. It had felt natural to him. His mind flashing back to August of 1945 as the boy on the roof watched something fall from an airplane that was flying over Nagasaki, followed by a bright light, and then an empty dark nothingness.
----
Scribbling something on the sheet of paper in front of him, Shou grinned a little bit before a paper ball hit him in the head. Looking over the nine year old frowned slightly as another boy made a face at him before saying he always looked sad all the time. Shou gave a small frown at that, the boy laughing and pointing at him before the teacher shouted for them to be quiet and get back to their test. After school Shou was packing up some stuff when a girl came up to his desk and said she didn't think he looked sad, but cute.
Shou prickled up a bit before stuffing the rest of his school stuff into his backpack and nodding before nervously giving a thanks, hearing a girl laughing and telling the other that she had some guts talking to a 'bird boy'. Shou ignored the rest of what was being said as he rushed out of the class room and into the hall. Rushing out of the building. Before hearing his name getting shouted from the left of him and then something hard hitting his face.
Falling to the ground he winced. Pushing himself up from the ground a bit he sat on the ground and lift a hand up to his cheek as the boy who had just punched him knelt down and got into his face, poking a finger into his nose and making fun of it for looking funny " Mm. Not as funny as your nose looks..." Shou had muttered, rubbing his hand against the swelling on his face. The kid laughing at his remark before standing and telling him that he would let him get away with it that time but only because he had found Shou to be amusing.
Shou stood then and rolled his eyes a little bit " Of course. I live to amuse you." He says as he brushes the dirt off of himself and shifts, walking out of the school yard and down the street. Once home he kicked off his shoes at the entry way and stepped inside, seeing his great grandmother smoking in the kitchen " Hello." He says, getting a dirty look from her before his mother popped out from the smiling at him. He gave a smile back toward her " Hello, Mama." Shou greeted and walked toward the kitchen.
His great grandmother put out her smoke then before commenting that he was too old to continuing to call his mother by 'mama' that he had sounded like a baby. Then brought up her dead son, as she usually did when criticizing him. Shou narrowed his eyes " Great Uncle probably doesn't like that you talk about him so disgustingly. He probably doesn't know what kind of ugly mother he had." Shou commented before being told he should speak more respectfully to his elders. Then calling him ugly looking, just like his great uncle had looked. With the face only a mother could love.
Shou's mother stepping in then to tell her not to talk to her son like that and that Shou looked perfectly fine the way he was and so did her uncle. Shou didn't stick around for any more of the bickering before walking into the back rooms and sitting down near a storage closet. Pulling out some old shattered pieces of glass that had been stuffed into it, half the pieces mostly put back together. He had been practicing repairing such seemingly repairable things in his spare time, when not having much else to do. The vase he was working on had been forgotten about in the closet that when he had asked his great grandmother about it she told him to toss it in the trash, as she had told her son many years before.