Say Goodnight Till It Be Morrow
(Aizen x Orihime short story. Part II of II... Also, I have no plans on writing more of this little story series, so if anyone is interested in furthering it themselves, then I give full permission to do so.)
Preface: This story is the sequel to my other Aihime short story, Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow, and it begins after all the events that took place when Aizen left Orihime in Tower Five (from the manga), and as Ichigo's fight with Ulquiorra draws to a close (yet to be in the manga) in the same location (Tower Five).
"I told you to get away from her, didn't I?" asked Ichigo, rhetorically, holding his sharp, cold steel blade against the pale throat of his proud Arrancar opponent. Ulquiorra dripped blood from his head as it smeared all over his porcelain skin. He brushed away his blood-dampened, coal-black hair from his face, peering up at his enemy from the ground. He had been well cut and beaten, no longer able to reach his zanpakuto, as Ichigo had knocked it out of his hands and totally out of his reach only moments earlier.
His eyes flashed wide as he felt the blade of bankai-Zangetsu pressed even closer to his throat, as if it were trying to force him to acknowledge the truth of Ichigo's statement. Ulquiorra's brow furrowed in response to this threat, apparently disliking his current role as subordinate.
Ichigo chuckled under his breath with a smirk and turned towards Orihime, as she stood behind the two of them some feet away, her eyes and face crumpled like a disposed wad of paper. Slowly, Ichigo shuffled towards her, the bottom of his sandals scuffing the black concrete floor, so clear, he could nearly see his own reflection in it. His own blood and sweat trickled to the pristine surface beneath him in droplets of relief over a fight well fought and presumably won.
"Now, then, Inoue..." he began to say, trudging towards her, his eyes drooping from fatigue as they matched with a sweet, happy little grin on his face.
"Kurosaki-kun..." she said, squeezing her eyelids together at him, as if she were too afraid to believe her newly found good fortune.
Suddenly, those squinting eyes began to grow wider and wider, as if falling open. Her mouth gaped as she attempted to comprehend what had just happened to her, the breath stolen right out from her lungs.
"Inoue!" screamed Ichigo, reflexively. Her drifting eyes finally caught a glimpse of her own situation as Ulquiorra pulled his pointy hand out of her sternum, his sharp fingers dripping with her bright crimson blood. "INOUE!"
"Didn't I tell you I'd rip out your heart, woman?" said Ulquiorra as she collapsed onto the ground like a corpse, face first, her round bottom poking up in the air. Indeed, he held neither her heart nor his own in his hand, as he glanced over at an incredulous, astonished Ichigo with eyes the size of two twin moons.
"Hmph," muttered Ulquiorra to see the expression on Ichigo's face. He merely walked away from Orihime only a few paces to allow Ichigo time to react, which was transpiring very slowly. He watched as the frozen boy grappled with sucking air into his own lungs, totally unable to remove his gaping gaze from Orihime's downed figure.
"Inoue?" he said as if to ask a question, for in his own tortured mind he ceased to see Orihime lying on the ground nearby, but, instead, he saw the last image of his mother he ever saw of her collapsed on her face, on the ground, dead. "Kaa-chan?"
Ulquiorra's expression grew perplexed to hear Ichigo call this name.
Ichigo knelt down near her, lightly touching her shoulder and arm, fearing that placing too much pressure on her would cause her to crack like a fragile glass figurine. He could barely enunciate a word from his furious and frantic mind. He only sniffled and groaned under his breath as the tears streamed down his dithering cheeks.
In the next instant, he suddenly heard Ulquiorra gasp as if someone had suddenly violently bumped into him where he stood—and next to him, sure enough, stood Aizen, flashing his way back onto the scene without any warning.
Both Ichigo and Ulquiorra gaped at him, as the fear welled up in their eyes that neither had time to quell before he neared their presence.
"I see Orihime is not doing well," observed Aizen, moving his gaze from her, collapsed and unmoving on the ground in a pool of her own blood, to Ichigo, hovering near her in despair and unspotted, to Ulquiorra, trembling with fear as he stared back at him with one boney hand covered in someone's conspicuous blood.
"Aizen-sama! I—" said Ulquiorra, uncharacteristically quivering to bow to him in an effort to explain his obvious actions.
"—Please do not explain what I can discern for myself, Ulquiorra..." said Aizen, with his usual calm demeanor, as he cut him off. "I never gave you any orders to harm Orihime. It is a wonder you disobeyed me in this matter..."
Ulquiorra opened his mouth, but before he could utter a single word, he was forcefully crushed beneath the colossal reiatsu owned only by Aizen, to the point where he fell backwards to the ground, lost all capacity to breathe, and subsequently, and quickly, died on the spot. Aizen stood completely still the entire time, merely glancing at the Arrancar as he flattened out on the ground nearby.
Ichigo coughed out what little air remained in his lungs as he witnessed this unprecedented episode of immediate punishment. He wondered that Aizen would do the same to him for being around the scene of the crime. He watched, still kneeling on the ground near Orihime, as Aizen waltzed over to him, and gently held out his right hand, sending Ichigo flying backwards, crashing into the wall behind him. He slid down from the wall to the ground, and found he was only a little winded from the attack. But, the attack seemed less of a means of harming him and more of a means to get and keep him out of the way, since he found he was being held away from Orihime by Aizen's spiritual pressure.
Aizen knelt down to Orihime's limp body, still unmoved from whence she toppled over onto her face. He gently smoothed his hands over her back and shoulders, as if assessing her condition, and then carefully turned her body over to face towards him. Her eyes were slightly opened, but there was little life left in them at all. A small stream of blood leaked out of her mouth like drool, and the most noticeable injury he detected was the gaping hole in the middle of her chest, exactly where her heart was.
Aizen's eyes narrowed more than usual upon this discovery, an atypical expression of disgust and anger flaring from them.
"Wait! What are going to do to her?!" screeched Ichigo, still gasping for air. Aizen ignored him as he was still unable to charge at them. He struggled and flopped around in place, but it made little difference in his ability to break free from the invisible pressure shield he was being held under.
Aizen placed both of his hands tenderly over Orihime's chest wound as a bright white light began to emanate from beneath them. Ichigo's eyes widened as he attempted to comprehend what his eyes were showing him. It lasted only a couple of minutes, but the wound in Orihime's chest had completely closed up, and all that was left in the spot was a gaping hole in her white Arrancar uniform. Aizen moved his left hand from her chest to her lips, wiping away the small stream of blood that trickled from them down the side of her face with his fingers.
And, finally, she drew breath, a diminutive, but definite breath, when his fingers slightly parted her lips. Her eyes remained closed and her mind, unconscious, but he gave her safe passage out of harm's way. Aizen placed one hand under her neck and the other under her legs and began to mildly lift her from the ground as he stood up.
"No! What are you doing?!" screamed Ichigo, as he sensed what was about to happen. "Where are taking Inoue?!"
"I'm taking her back to her quarters, if you must know," responded Aizen, as he glanced at Ichigo out of the corner of his eye without turning his head to the side. He stood on his feet, holding Orihime like his bride in his sturdy arms, as if she weighed as little as a feather, her neck slung over the back of his arm.
"Why did you say you didn't need her anymore?" scowled Ichigo, moving from sitting on his rear to sitting on his knees, which was the most he could muster while still beneath the pressure shield. "I came here to take her home!"
"She already is home..." said Aizen, cooly, as he began to stride gracefully away from him, his long white coat flapping elegantly behind him like the wings of dove.
"Give her back, you bastard! This god awful place is hardly her home! All you care about is yourself and your own goals! What do you need Inoue for?! You don't even care about her!"
All of a sudden, Aizen stopped dead in his tracks before he could leave Ichigo's sight. With his back towards him, and Orihime's head and legs still limply dangling over his arms, he began to say, with a low, but firm voice:
"Young man, you may doubt that the stars are made of fire, or that the earth revolves around the sun...You may even doubt the veracity of all truths in this universe...but, I implore you, here and now...never, ever doubt that I love..."
Ichigo gasped in astonmishment. Even though he could feel Aizen's pressure shield lift from crushing him down, he stood up perfectly in his own spot, as if his feet were glued to the ground. Panting, he watched Aizen take a few more mindful steps and then vanish in an instant from all of his senses...
...The End.
P.S. Orihime makes a full recovery, for those wondering. I figure Aizen's healing kidou is as impressive as his destructive arts talents.