Unintended
Disclaimer: Bleach belongs to Tite Kubo. These characters are merely on loan for the purposes of this story.
Author's Notes: Written a little hastily, but I like how this turned out overall. I still find it relatively difficult to write Ulquiorra and Orihime 'properly' given how sharply their characters contrast. I think I'm going to be terribly sad when this arc is over, but I wonder how it'll all be wrapped up. Obviously this is AU, as the series hasn't gotten to this point yet. Unintended is (yes, you guessed it) a Muse song. It does correlate highly with the story, although it is something that I thought of after the story was done while searching for a title. Anywho, comments are greatly appreciated!
The first time she feels a breeze stir the unchanging landscape of Hueco Mundo is on the day the world begins to end.
It's finally over, she thinks as Aizen's reiatsu disappears. There is no bang and no glory and no celebrations, only the silent promise of a future. The clothes on her back dissipate into nothingness and she has never been so glad to feel the wool of her uniform sweater on her skin. There is no movement as far as the eye can see but she knows what should be there. For a moment, in the stillness, it feels as if she is the last creature in the world.
She finds the shinigami have gathered in Aizen's old meeting room, tending to the wounded. There were many and more of those. Unohana watches her walk by curiously, surprised that she isn't already elbow-deep in healing the injured but rather certain she knows Orihime's affliction.
"Inoue-san," she calls softly, "Kurosaki-kun is being tended to outside. We thought it best not to move him."
"O-Oh," she replies distractedly. "Thank-thank you, Unohana-taichou. I'll just… go to—"
She never finishes her sentence but instead walks through quickly, averting her eyes from Sado-kun's decapitated arm and the sight of Ishida-kun's bloody and heavily bandaged head. She smells the burnt flesh on Rukia before she sees her.
Orihime stumbles through the oppression, half-blind, half-nauseous, fighting not to hear the moans and screams of agony. She breathes deeply of the outside air once she gets to it. There are rips in the fabric of the worlds; she can see the badly-sewn seams emerging in the ever twilight sky. Light from beyond casts its rays onto the inverted plane and renders the stars invisible. Uncaring, she walks and stumbles her way down the sandy slope.
Ichigo is where she was told he would be. His hakama is a pile of shredded rags and his skin is in even worse shape. Orihime watches silently as two teams of healers try to resuscitate him, bustling back and forth in turns. The petals of her clips are twitching; it has always been her instinct to go to him first, but this time there is something else she must do.
It takes her much longer to find the person she is seeking. She finds him half-buried beneath a pile of fallen stone, his eyes closed in sleep or death. Approaching him silently, awkwardly, she is both relieved and afraid when he opens his wintergreen eyes. There is blood and scars all over his body.
"What… do you want?" he asks quietly, voice hoarse with disuse. By her judgment he must have been stuck there for hours.
"Don't talk," she says gently, calling forth Shun'ō and Ayame to lift the boulder off him. Underneath, where there should have been injured sinews, there is nothing but a rapidly disappearing shape that had once been an arm and a leg.
Orihime can't help her sharp intake of breath and he strangely smiles at the sound.
"Leave me," he says, averting his eyes. She can see now that every part of him is starting to fade.
"I've come to save you," she says, smiling at the irony of the situation. She begins to form the barrier around him.
"To what end?" He still refuses to look at her.
Her voice falters a little as she answers. "Well, I… I thought you could come back to the human world with—us." She replaces the word at the last second.
"With you." They are words he has never used together before.
"You can live in the human world," Orihime smiles gently. "Aizen is gone now, you can leave this place and—and do as you like."
"I would not know how to live in the human world," he replies softly.
"Oh, well, neither did Rukia-san when she first came. Kurosaki-kun had to teach her everything! But it's not so hard once you get used to it and it's much nicer than it is here."
"Orihime."
He cut her off with one whispered word; it is the first time he has ever used her name. She freezes mid-sentence, mouth open halfway to forming a word.
"It's useless," he states matter-of-factly, and she notices for the first time that her ministrations have had no effect on him.
"I don't understand, what…?"
And then she recalls too well how difficult it had been to heal Kurosaki-kun after Ulquiorra had punched a hole in him, when she realized that his reiatsu was a barrier to hers. Tears welled in her eyes as understanding came.
"You cannot save me," Ulquiorra says almost sadly.
"Why are you doing this?" she whispers, crying. "Why do you want to die?"
"And what could be accomplished if I lived? I could not live harmoniously in the human world. No matter how you try to change the truth, it will not be denied."
"You're not like the others," she insists, heart aching. "You were kind to me, you protected me. I—I cared about you!"
Her blurted confession comes as more of Ulquiorra vanishes. All that remains is his right arm, part of his chest, and his ever-stoic face.
"So you believed my kindness was genuine, and that I had sincere affection towards you?"
She stops crying for a moment, somehow startled by his words. "Let me enlighten you: I was ordered to be kind to you. I was ordered to acquire your trust. When I protected you, it was but for Aizen-sama alone. Arrancar do not feel, so do not waste your tears on me."
Orihime stares at him, unmoving. "I don't believe you."
"How foolish a mortal you are, falling in love with an Arrancar," he says, knowing as well as she does that this was never meant to happen.
"You're lying."
"I am speaking the truth." It is the first lie he has ever told.
"No!"
She breaks the barrier around him, slaps him hard across the face, and is instantly sorry for it. Ulquiorra coughs up blood but looks at her unflinchingly, believing he has succeeded in driving her to the path of least pain.
Orihime throws herself onto whatever is left of him, as if clinging to him tightly could prevent him from ever dying. In his death-state he forgets how stubborn she could be.
"It was never my intent to cause you pain," he says quietly and this time he means it. When she lets go of him he raises his right hand to trace the tearstains on her face that mirror the lines on his own.
"Come back with me," she pleads again, knowing now more than ever that it's impossible. "Please…"
"You got your happy ending," Ulquiorra replies, looking up at the breaking of the world. "Return to your friends and leave me in peace."
She grabs onto the hand touching her cheek and presses it to her heart. "If that's what you really want, Ulquiorra-san," she asks, "then why are you crying?"
He is about to retort when he feels them, the warm, moist tracks of salty liquid making their way down his cheeks. His arm disappears so that she is suddenly gripping nothing.
"My greatest wish has been to die," Ulquiorra tells her almost truthfully. "It brings me no great sadness."
"You're lying," she says, and this time he doesn't deny it.
Orihime leans down to give him the kiss she had almost bestowed upon another, those eons ago, but when her lips get there nothing greets them but air and dust.
end