White Soul, Blackmail

by debbiechan

Sequel to my last RenIshi "Red Wound, White Goodbye." My last fic in Bleach fandom, written in Den 2016, set to be posted April Fool's Day 2017. Warnings for yaoi, post 686 adultery, a less than likable portrayal of Orihime (she goes full yandere here), angst. TW: implied character death. This fic is a way to reconcile myself with the tragedy of Kubo destroying his manga.

White Soul, Blackmail

By debbiechan

This peculiar angsty love story is a follow-up to my previous RenIshi "Red Wound, White Goodbye" ( s/12188907 / 1 / Red-Wound-White-Goodbye.) My last story in Bleach fandom, written December 2016, planned to be posted April Fool's Day 2017. Blessings.

What does it mean when you have given and received love all your life, but then you destroy your dearest creation because love, as you understand it, isn't enough or you're afraid of being left alone? Maybe I wrote this story for Kubo?

Nah. Not really.

For Neha and anyone else who wanted Ishida Uryuu to move on from Orihime because "he deserved better." This fic is also my last true goodbye to the Bleach fandom (I mean it this time J ). My goodbye fic to the Dragonball Z fandom more than a decade ago was called "Goodbye" and was a canon love story that expressed my mostly positive feelings for that fandom. This work is an odd pair romance that features an unfavorable portrayal of a character I still love (in my way) and says goodbye to a fandom and an author who devastated me. I won't be involved in another fandom again.

Not only did I receive death threats, mockery of my rape experience, get falsely accused of driving a fan to a suicide attempt (the perpetrator later personally apologized), but worse things, believe it or not, happened to me in this fandom. Besides personal crap I endured for the sake of riding the train to the last stop, the canon story itself went off the tracks so badly many consider it the worst ending in shounen history. Apologetics for the ending would be amusing if they weren't so sad. Even given that I was guilty of reading the manga all wrong, especially during the last arc, I reference a few nutty fandom rationalizations obliquely in this very fic. (I never work with self-insertion or roman a clef, but personal life experiences do inform my writing; that can be said of all writers). The author himself used a dead child as a body shield to excuse his ending and win back his audience's sympathy; I've read a fan's meta that the IchiRuki phenomenon was based on Ichigo and Orihime's ADHD and Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (I can't even type that with a straight face). Fine. It's not my place to tell people what to say or do, only to emphasize that transformative art belongs to all of us. Bleach is no longer Kubo's. This fic explores some what-ifs. It's fiction, not meta. It's entertainment, not condemnation of anyone's personal ethics or right to exist in the world. It's fantasy, not Dada. Don't like, don't read. I like to play. I won't be playing here anymore. Hurrah.

Warnings for yaoi/homosexuality, post 686 adultery, a less than likable portrayal of Orihime (she goes full yandere here), angst. TW: implied character death. Extreme TW: Ishida is sad. Door prizes: Ryuuken being a little more Ryuuken than ever. Gay sex fetishized but lovingly so.

Blessings to the many wonderful friends I made in this fandom and thank you for the many, many beautiful letters and notes of support I received after the manga's ending. Sorry I could not answer them all; I tried.

This fic is a way to reconcile myself with the tragedy of Kubo destroying his manga. It speaks of what I could not speak about.

Sometimes people don't need to know the worst about someone they loved. They won't believe it anyway.

嘘から出た誠

At eight-o-clock p.m., never a minute late because the man was in the military after all, Abarai Renji appeared at Ishida Uryuu's fifth story apartment window, pushed his sunglasses to the top of his head and smiled broadly.

Tonight, Uryuu had worked overtime and was eating a late dinner, a bag of rice crackers with peanuts.

"I love that stuff," Renji said. "You humans have the best vending machine food."

"All for me, Abarai." Uryuu turned the bag upside down and patted the last crumbs into his mouth. "Last bag too," he said, still chewing.

Renji grabbed Uryuu and kissed him. The snack bag fell from Uryuu's hand, and his fingers swept into long red hair. "Ummm," Renji murmured. "Spicy hot."

"Liar. You hate spicy food."

"Tastes good on you."

"Shut up." Uryuu spoke between kisses. "You still hate spicy food. And I don't like sweet talk."

Sex always came first, without much preamble, talk later, a full night's sleep, breakfast, then off to respective work schedules.

"Do you realize it's been six weeks already?" Uryuu observed. The pair were nude, fondling one another on the narrow bed. The mattress didn't accommodate Renji's height and heft easily, so the Shinigami often found himself with one leg on the floor while Uryuu, beneath him, wrapped his thin legs around Renji's waist.

Renji kissed Uryuu's throat. "What?"

"Six weeks since your wife took Kurosaki with her to Soul Society. Six weeks since you came here and I saw the stupid mess I'd been living in for years."

"Anniversary fuck occasion? What's special about six weeks?"

"Nothing." Breath hitching, Uryuu narrowed his eyes because Renji was tweaking a nipple. Then he exhaled and spoke softly. "Six weeks. You know, the lifespan of a butterfly. Only six weeks."

"Butterflies in Soul Society live for thousands of years." Renji reached for the dresser drawer and a plastic bottle. "Need to buy more of this stuff, Ishida. Just about empty." He squeezed out a last, palm-sized globe of clear gel. The lavender scent was mild but had become a strong cue for what was to follow.

"There's more in the bathroom," Uryuu breathed. He tossed his head back into the pillow, exposed more throat for more kisses.

Renji gratified the unspoken request, began to finger Uryuu's asshole with the fancy lube. Uryuu responded with little guttural noises; Renji felt pleasure vibrate in Uryuu's throat as he kissed it. His kiss moved to Uryuu's mouth where Renji's lips brushed lightly, mimicking what the Shinigami imagined his erection was doing at Uryuu's shiny, lavender gel-smeared entrance. "You're so beautiful."

"You say that too much."

"You are, Ishida. I can't help it."

"Shut up and fuck me."

So Renji did, pushing inside at the same time he gave Uryuu a hard kiss. That taste of spicy peanuts again.

"You're delicious," Renji whispered.

"Shut up."

With two hands on Uryuu's thighs, Renji raised Uryuu up so the angle of penetration was deeper. They both loved it this way. Renji kicked a blanket off the bed as he worked to position himself: he jutted his knees forward to support Uryuu's lower back, and Uryuu's ankles rested on Renji's shoulders. Hard fucking right away.

There no talking. As prolonged fucking threw more reiatsu into each thrust, sweating body parts made occasional slapping noises; panting deepened; the floor creaked under the bed's weight; Renji growled some, and Uryuu let out sharp ahhs. In both men's ears, sex roared with its blood rhythm—bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. The devil to beat all other hells away. Uryuu had never known anything remotely near this ecstasy before. Renji had never imagined he could be driven so crazy to hear such a powerful warrior, a quiet, guarded man as Ishida Uryuu let out involuntary gasps of pleasure—to see his head thrash side to side. "You like this, Ishida? And this?" The fucking shoved Uryuu's head against the headboard with a thud. Uryuu grabbed his own erection, held it fast.

"I'm— "Uryuu threw his other arm across his eyes. He didn't ejaculate. He grimaced. Renji fucked him for a good while longer until Renji lost it, crying out, his upper arms shuddering as he emptied himself. It was then Uryuu gave himself permission, and his mouth opened with no sound coming out; his semen sprayed Renji's torso, and all that could be heard for long minutes was exhausted breathing from both men.

Six weeks of happiness, six weeks of allowing sex to alleviate pain. Sex blocked the harshest reality like an opiate injection every twenty-four hours and had allowed night to fall, sleep to happen. Before, Renji and Uryuu had talked about loss and impending heartbreak. Renji's failing marriage. How Rukia didn't stay in Renji's bed anymore. How Uryuu was exhausted from being Orihime's fall-back best friend because Kurosaki Ichigo was both an emotionally and physically absent spouse.

What Keigo and others called Ichigo's "god-awful funk" had gone on for years and years, and the day Orihime told Uryuu that Rukia, like always, had somehow roused the poor man out of it, Uryuu had felt no surprise and some relief. She said that Ichigo and Rukia had left together to Soul Society where Ichigo would accept a position in the Gotei. Interesting, thought some people later. A scandal, thought others. Uryuu thought at the time: what else to do but accept the inevitable? The inevitable had included a geyser of tears like he'd never witnessed from Orihime. Then Orihime had confessed love feelings for Uryuu, and Uryuu hadn't expected that part. Uryuu had broken off his friendship with her—that was that. Uryuu didn't want to talk about marriages and friendships spinning out of orbit. He only wanted to come home after work to the strange joy of not being alone with his worries anymore-because Abarai Renji was there to eat everything in the fridge and occasionally bring Uryuu a fish stolen from the corner market.

Ryuuken had pressed the Inoue Orihime matter. Ryuuken's position was that the opportunity had arrived for his son to finally win her— "You've courted her like a pining Lancelot for years. Admit it, Uryuu. You've never given another woman a second look." Uryuu didn't want to talk to his father, of all people, about the fact that the son who for eleven years had so dutifully followed Ryuuken's advice, pursued Ryuuken's career, imitated Ryuuken's workaholic ways, was taking up with a Shinigami instead. Uryuu began to avoid his father at work. Uryuu blocked Orihime on his phone. Renji didn't mention if he'd seen either Rukia or Ichigo; he didn't talk about any Shinigami business at all. No one in Karakura Town mentioned what might become of the Kurosaki child. Was Kurosaki coming home to visit? Who knew? Uryuu didn't want to think about it or care.

Then at breakfast, Renji ate all the bananas in the fruit bowl and announced, "Ichigo's in the 13th division now. He's strong but doesn't have the stuff to be a captain. So said our Captain Commander. For real." A hearty laugh. "Imagine that. Ichigo has to learn kidou spells and stuff."

"Hmm." Uryuu poured green tea. "You always sucked at kidou too. Kurosaki sucked at mostly everything except whacking enemies with—well, the Getsuga power of a thousand suns. Shouldn't that be enough to make captain? Didn't sheer crazy strength qualify Zaraki Kenpachi?"

"It's different with the 11th." Renji shrugged started on the apples. "Apparently Rukia has to traaaain Ichigo."

The weight of just that information was too much; the rest of breakfast was eaten in relative silence. Before Renji flew out the window, he asked, "Hear from Inoue?"

"No."

Uryuu wondered if maybe it was time to re-visit some pain. The honeymoon was over?

At lunch, Uryuu sat alone in the hospital cafeteria because colleagues knew better than to approach him when he brought caseloads to read. At some point, the wall of work didn't stand against the pressure of Abarai's question: Hear from Inoue? Uryuu shut his laptop and found himself pulling out his phone. A dark regret was already looming over him as his fingers skimmed the screen. There they were: so many, many messages from Inoue-san. He couldn't read them all. The ones he did read tugged at his sympathy, made him angry, stirred an old impulse to rush to her rescue.

I miss you…. I'm so alone. I'm so ashamed and sorry for things I said and there's no one else I can talk to…. Have you heard from Ichigo? I have no idea what he's been up to. No one here knows, and I can't believe any of this…. Kazui says his dad will be back, but I don't believe he ever will be…. Do you see Abarai-kun?

He found himself calling her number at the bakery.

She answered right away.

"Ishida-kun, are you all right?"

"I was just about to ask you the same thing."

"I'm … I'm at work. I'm doing what I can. It's hard." Uryuu could hear the clattering of utensils. "Ishida-kun, I'm so sorry for everything that happened the last time we saw one another. That was crazy of me. I didn't mean to upset you. I didn't want to drive you away. I mean, I understand why— "

"Forget it. I'm fine." Uryuu looked around to see if anyone in the cafeteria noticed him on the phone. "I'm better than fine, actually. I'm seeing someone."

There was a silence on the other line.

"Inoue-san?"

"Seeing someone as in dating?"

"Yeah. The reason I called is I was wondering… I mean, would you like to get together for lunch again? I think it's possible for us to be friends. I'm still concerned about all that's going on. Kurosaki is my friend too, and … I don't want you to feel abandoned by me too. Do you feel ok about us being friends again?"

She spoke in a measured way, as if considering her answer as she formed words in her mouth. "I don't think … we have any other choice? We're friends already, right? It all seems to follow. Your path, my path. We're … supposed to be … friends."

"Is tomorrow at one too early?"

"No, not at all! Come to the house. I'll get off the whole day and bring some nice cake."

"Great."

At dinner, Uryuu told Renji of his plans. Renji said it sounded like the time was right, but he himself couldn't bring himself to being friends with Rukia or Ichigo just yet. Ichika was in the Academy, and Renji checked up on his daughter and sometimes walked her to the 13th division where Rukia was now housed permanently—he didn't know if his wife was sharing a bed in the barracks with Ichigo or not and wasn't ready to confirm the fact.

"I told Inoue-san I was with someone, but I didn't tell her I was with you."

"Are you going to?"

Uryuu shrugged. Moments later, on the narrow bed, as Renji was twirling his tongue around Uryuu's nipple, Uryuu whispered, "I'm going to tell her. I don't want her to have any hopes of starting something between me and her. If it's you, she won't challenge it. You're a good friend too." Uryuu paused and swept his fingers across his lover's broad biceps. "Maybe I want to boast about you a little." At that, Renji smiled, his teeth gently holding Uryuu's nipple. Uryuu added, "She'll have to understand we make sense, right?"

Uryuu was ready to lose himself to forgetfulness, but Renji decided to talk. "Liar. Like you're going to tell Inoue that I'm the man. You should tell her I'm the one who taught your virgin ass everything you needed to know." Renji reached one hand under Uryuu's thigh and palmed as much of that virgin ass as he could for emphasis. "Maybe I should brag about you a little bit to someone—you're a fast learner."

"Of course I am."

"Still got some stuff to show you."

"Oh yeah? Well, show me."

The next day Uryuu walked around in a daze. He'd always figured Renji was a nothing fancy, meat and vegetables hotpot sort of a guy when it came to sex, but maybe there were more variations to a basic hotpot than Uryuu had imagined. He felt a little stupid. He wasn't used to that, to being the lesser skilled one. He'd been at the top of his class for too many years, and it'd been ages since he'd faced insurmountable opponents. Renji was different challenge, though—Uryuu liked being a learner again. It reminded him of a long-ago time when the world was new, and his own potential seemed mysterious and exciting.

Lunch was Inoue-san was going to be tedious.

It wasn't.

The lunch-date started typically enough. The young, abandoned wife was overjoyed to see her old friend and desperate for someone to lift her out of loneliness. She talked fast, as if she were trying to outrun her fears. Uryuu listened patiently as they ate cake. He'd been through lunches like this one so many times. All he wanted was to get a word in.

She had this way of making him feel he was her only savior-

"Tatsuki is another city; everyone is out of town in university. I haven't been able to talk to anyone. And who can I talk to about this? What does Abarai-kun say? Are Ichigo and Kuchiki-san a couple yet? I know it's going to happen, I just know it."

Uryuu was nothing if not honest. "Abarai doesn't know, but he suspects the worst."

Tears.

"I feel so sorry for him," she sputtered. "He must be going through what I'm going through."

The cake had been eaten; crumbs littered the pretty, embroidered table linen that had been a wedding gift; glasses stood full of melted ice. Uryuu held his breath for a moment. "Abarai is coping. He's…"

With that remarkable intuition she had, Orihime's eyes met his and searched for the source of Uryuu's hesitation.

"He's the person I've been seeing. At first, it seemed like we were being a source of comfort for one another, but it's.… "Uryuu was not accustomed to such announcements. "It's become an honest relationship."

He could tell by her face that the news was not going over well at all.

"Comfort? You're being … intimate with him."

"Yes."

"But you're not gay. Is Abarai-kun gay?"

"When friends become lovers, it doesn't matter what one calls it. Definitions aren't important. The mutual respect is." Uryuu found himself clarifying the relationship for himself as he spoke he words. "When a change in a relationship happens, it just happens. Like the mutual support and trust were there all along, and maybe this was the way it was supposed to be. Because we make one another better people."

Something about that last statement made Orihime's eyes flash. Her lips curled, and she swallowed as if she were going to vomit. Uryuu knew restrained rage when he saw it; he had never witnessed it in this loving person, though. Orihime's default reaction to unwanted news was to cry. Then it occurred to him that what he had just described—a friendship turning to love sounded an awful lot like what may have occurred with Kuchiki-san and Kurosaki.

"I don't understand." She tried to hide her face and started clearing the table. "When did this start?"

"It doesn't really matter, Inoue-san," Uryuu said. "He and I are good for one another."

"Abarai-kun is cheating on his wife," she said.

"Yes, I realize that. But he admits the marriage is over. I think we all have come to that conclusion."

She put the dishes in the sink with unnecessary force. The clanking sound startled Uryuu. This wasn't like her. She was really angry.

"Comfort? Comfort?" Her voice trembled. "I apologized to you for reaching out to you for that very comfort. I thought you were trying to protect me. Because you knew it was wrong. What did you do? You ran off to comfort Kuchiki-san's husband? You're not the person I knew, Ishida-kun."

He didn't know how to answer her; maybe he had been rationalizing his actions to himself.

"Don't lie to me and tell me you never had feelings for me all these years. Why?" At this point, she leaned over the sink, and the tears poured in silence. "It could've been us comforting one another. Why?"

He allowed her to cry for a while. He didn't want to start an argument, but he wanted everything out in the open. He'd spent so much of his life not talking about his feelings or standing up to her. He had been her knight, before her marriage and during.

"No," he finally said. "It would not have been us comforting one another. It would have been me comforting you and feeling profound guilt over hurting my best friend. You wouldn't have listened to my grief about any of this; you haven't listened to much of what I've been going through for years."

She turned around in astonishing fury. "Stop it!" A plate went sailing past Uryuu's head and splintered into pieces on the floor. "I would've listened if you talked. How often did you talk about yourself? Like almost NEVER. That's who you are. You never confessed, you never said a word. You sat there loving me for years and everybody knew it. I knew it, and I thought you were a weak man because you wouldn't fight for me. You were like a girlfriend to me." She was shuddering from rage now. "No wonder you're gay."

"Inoue-san." Uryuu felt nothing but remorse and sadness to see her this way.

"Just get out." She held her arms, collapsing into sobs again.

Uryuu found the door. Once upon a time, there had been six hearts, bound together with all the ideals of youth, and now everything was a fucked-up adult world. He would get through this. They all would. He still had hope—and there would be Abarai waiting for him at the window that evening.

"Wow." Renji hadn't expected Ichigo's wife to melt down so fast. "I figured she might not be happy that you were with me, but… I guess it's good thing she only launched a plate at you instead of that little fairy of hers that slices people in half."

"Inoue-san has it in her to be violent," Uryuu concluded. "Tsubaki is an extension of her true self after all."

Renji seemed protective of Uryuu at dinner, not talking unless it was to answer a question, asking over and over if Uryuu wanted a hot bath or an early rest. Uryuu agreed to the early rest. In bed, he didn't seem very responsive to Renji's kisses. Reni asked, "Is it because she made you feel like we're bad or something?"

"No but…." Uryuu kissed Renji's cheek to reassure him. "We don't know for sure if Kuchiki-san and Kurosaki are together. I mean, what if this whole Soul Society training adventure is perfectly innocent, and there's some way Kurosaki's marriage is going to be restored."

"Doesn't matter," Renji said. "Mine was shot to hell before those two ever ran off together." Then he sighed an unusually long sigh. "But yeah, maybe … maybe Ichigo wants to make it up to Inoue."

Uryuu gave Renji a look. "That's new. You weren't singing that tune before. What do you know?"

"I didn't want to tell you because you were so upset over what happened today."

Uryuu stiffened in Renji's embrace.

"I heard that Ichigo is coming back to the Living World this week," Renji went on. "I don't know why. I just heard he got leave of absence."

Uryuu turned his back to Renji. "I wish I knew what was going to happen. Not that it would make any difference between us. I just want to know how bad it's going to be."

Renji wrapped his large arms around Uryuu. "Just rest. Try not to worry about it."

Uryuu tried not to worry. He did, in fact, fall asleep, but later, near dawn, Renji was rubbing himself between Uryuu's bare buttocks—a fluid, gentle rhythm. The warm breath against Uryuu's neck woke him up bit by bit, aroused him until he started to masturbate himself. This intimacy was more than mere comfort or a way to forget pain; it felt like the simplicity of a natural bond triumphing over a big mess. Uryuu trusted Renji; Renji cared for Uryuu's feelings. That narrow bed felt safe. There was room for pleasure and doubt in this bed, room for worry. There was also no hurry. Things might work out. Uryuu shuddered in a silent, hiccupping orgasm in Renji's arms; Renji moaned into Uryuu's neck. So what if others didn't understand—it was none of their business.

Then Inoue Orihime made it all her business.

Three days later, Uryuu went to work and got the frightening news from his father that Inoue Orihime had been admitted to Karakura Hospital the previous night. Uryuu was stunned. "But—but—she can heal herself." Ryuuken Ishida's face betrayed no emotion when he told his son that the situation didn't appear to involve any physical damage; the young woman was having some sort of emotional breakdown, had been evaluated by a resident psychiatrist, and because the hospital did not have facilities for her needs, she had been transferred not far away to an in-patient ward for observation.

"What's wrong with her?" Uryuu's mind was trying to level the rising, churning waves of worry, guilt, and fear. "She's never shown any signs of …." Wait. She'd always been a peculiar girl; she held herself so tightly with all the strength he could muster through a lifetime of trauma and abandonment. What had happened?

"I obtained information for you, Uryuu. The psychiatrist here noted major depression and psycho-affective symptoms. Not my area of expertise. She can't have any visitors for the time being." Ryuuken un-buttoned the top button of his jacket. "I have to go to an appointment now."

Uryuu could not gather much from day staff except second-hand reports that the young woman had been found wandering the streets barefoot, incoherent, and that in the e.r. she had screamed about Shinigami and wanting to go with her family to the other world. Her ramblings had been interpreted as suicidal and off she went to a care facility.

Renji provided a little more information; Ichigo had visited the Living World with plans to enroll his son in the Shinigami Academy. Something about Kazui's powers being too strong and dangerous for the Living World and requiring proper training as soon as possible—by order of the Captain Commander. "I can't imagine Ichigo not allowing Orihime to visit Soul Society," Renji said. "It's not in his nature to be so cruel. She was given a Soul Ticket ages ago. She can visit whenever she wants. I don't know why she freaked out."

Uryuu cared deeply for Inoue Orihime, but he also wrestled with not knowing what was going on here; the mystery occupied his mind at the same time his friend's torment saddened him. He would have to see her; he would have to question neighbors, friends, get to the bottom of this.

He discovered that Kazui's school had been told by his father that the child was visiting a friend in America; neither Sado-kun or Tatsuki even knew of Inoue-san's hospitalization. Neighbors had heard screams and wondered what was going on—Uryuu tried to cover for his friend by saying "Oh, she was ill … uh, ah, a gastro-intestinal issue. I was just trying to determine what time it happened. Nothing to worry about. She's getting the care she needs. Please don't worry." Everyone was worried, naturally. The young mother had run out into the middle of the night and had been found before dusk by the Onose River by a pair of wandering lovers. Uryuu forced himself to think about the worst—but Orihime wasn't the type to drown herself. That was beyond the person he'd come to know and love. She had a child. She had a child.

Renji shoplifted Uryuu's favorite meals from store-vendors. He could do that because he was a ghost, and humans couldn't see him spirit hot buns and grilled meats away to an apartment window miles away. Uryuu couldn't eat much. "Can't you ask Kurosaki what happened?" Uryuu pleaded. "Kuchiki-san?"

"Do you think I should be the bearer of bad news? Maybe I can tell them about it when she's better."

Renji put down the food in the refrigerator and gave Uryuu a huge bear hug, the kind he unabashedly had given friends in the Academy, the kind that had always lifted Kira Izuru off his feet.

Uryuu found himself clinging to the large Shinigami the way he'd never held onto anyone in his life. Years of defenses had broken down; for Uryuu, he could finally allow someone to support him like this. Inoue-san? Her defenses were gone too. What sort of black hole is she falling into?

"You can visit now," Uryuu's father said one morning. "I expect she'll be released shortly. Here, I'll give you the address."

Uryuu took the day off and the bullet train to a hospital he'd never visited, not once during all his training in Tokyo as a student. He didn't even know of the existence of the place. Mental health was not a priority in the "push through your weaknesses and overcome your demons alone" social mentality of his country, and Uryuu knew that he himself had often succumbed to that rigid thinking. He reached the front desk, asked for Inoue Orihime's room and was told that the patient herself would need to grant permission for a guest.

Of course, Uryuu was granted access.

Vastly different from the reception room with its shiny wood paneling and live plant set by the sign-in book, the hallways he walked through looked old and uncared for. He knocked on the door—no answer. He turned the knob and let himself in. Before Uryuu could force himself to look at the small woman sitting on the edge of the bed in an almost transparent hospital gown, he noticed the peeling paint on the walls, the decrepit, spare despondency of the place.

"Hi Ishida-kun." She spoke in a monotone. "I'm on medication to keep me from crying non-stop." Her hair was unwashed, in dull but bountiful waves to her waist. She looked as white as the walls.

He didn't know what to say. Couldn't she reject her pain? "Is it true you're being released?"

"Yeah." She brushed hair out of her face. "They think I'm a stressed-out wife. That I need a therapist. Supposedly it's a natural reaction to go a little crazy when your husband is cheating on you with another woman."

"So… it happened?"

"Ichigo said so."

"Really?" Uryuu regretted the word as soon as it escaped him. He hadn't wanted to believe that Kurosaki would move so fast; he thought Kurosaki would request a divorce first. "Kazui? What's going to happen with Kazui?"

Her face was oddly unemotional. "He's in Shinigami Academy—didn't Abarai-kun tell you? He'll come see me every once in a white, but I told you before. I told you long ago, dozens of times, Ishida-kun. They're both Shinigami. They're not of this world. They'll live for hundreds of years. They're lost to me." Sadness cracked through her expressionlessness. Depression? Or was it resignation? "Why did I believe we could ever be a real family?"

He couldn't bear to look at her, but he did. Her eyes were sunken; the truth had aged them, and hopelessness gave them a listless, scary glaze.

"That's why it won't work out with you and Abarai-kun, you know." She rose from the bed. She was walking towards him as if she felt pity not only for him but for the whole world. The hospital gown fit her terribly, and the wan green color made her look pastier. It was too tight around her breasts, and her nipples poked through the thin fabric. Before Uryuu realized it, she held him by the arm. "How can you build a life with a Shinigami? I couldn't do it."

"You don't know anything about us. All couples are different."

Her hand traveled up Uryuu's arm and came to rest on the top of his shoulder. She lay her cheek against his chest. "He'll outlive you by hundreds, maybe thousands of years. You know that." She wrapped her other arm around him, pressed a tiny fist into the small of his back and hugged him. "We are the ones who were meant to be."

Uryuu loved her; there was no escaping that. There was no denying that her small helpless body against his stirred an old desire to protect her. Who else could protect her now?

He bowed his head over her, hugged her, and asked, "Inoue-san, is there any way you can help yourself through this? Can't you reject what is making your mind so dark so you don't need medicine?"

She pulled away from him, still holding onto his elbows and looking at his face with a dour expression. "Oh? I've thought about denying all of it. My whole reality."

"Inoue-san!"

"Not like that. Not like walking in front of a truck. I mean, I can't go into the future and change it the way Yhwach could. If I could do that, I'd make it so you would make love to me and know that I'm better for you than any man … or a Shinigami…. but…."

Uryuu felt a little frightened. He didn't dare let go of her as she held him. She might drop into Hell.

"I've thought about erasing as much of world around me as far as I can see. I wonder if I have the power. Everywhere I look, everything hurts me so much. If I could only reject this world—could I make it go back to before I married Ichigo? Because that marriage was a mistake, such a mistake."

"You can't be serious. You have a child."

She let go Uryuu's arms. She stepped backwards. She sat on the bed's edge. She sank into Hell. "What child? Ichigo took him away."

Uryuu thought he should talk to the doctor in charge of her case. But how would he explain her power to reject events. Maybe he could say he had observed symptoms of schizophrenia. But what would keeping her in this depressing room do but aggravate all her symptoms?

"I want to help you," he said weakly.

"The only reason I had to be in this world is gone," she went on. "Can you help me find this child?" She looked up with him with a face that had no hope. "Can you seriously tell me you can help me find this child? Bring him to me and let him live by my side for thousands of years without being a Shinigami, encouraging me in all I do? He was my light. He was the only one left who made me feel ok. Can you bring him back to me?"

He couldn't. What did she expect?

She opened her arms. "Come to me, Ishida-kun. Here, right here, in this horrible place, give me a reason to want to live in this world. I'll make it sweet for you, I promise." She was trying to smile.

Uryuu had witnessed people dying on operating tables before; he had watched enemies explode to bloody pieces in war; he'd walked in on his own father performing an autopsy on his own mother. Watching Inoue Orihime lose herself to shamelessness and despair cut a tiny hole in his heart that would never heal. He would need to forget what he saw next or that tiny hole might get bigger and match her own despair.

She pulled off her hospital gown. Uryuu had seen hundreds of nude women by now, in and out of the same papery garments. He had never seen the body of the woman he had loved for so many years; she was as beautiful as he had imagined, but her skin was pimpling from the cold, and her eyes were full of a longing so deep that no one, not Uryuu-no one could answer that need.

"I'm sorry," he managed to say.

She bowed her head. "You will be."

"What?"

"I'll tell Ichigo you've been sleeping with Abarai-kun. He'll probably come over and punch you. You know, for wronging Kuchiki-san or something. Do you want that?"

Uryuu was horrified that she would make such a threat, but he shrugged. "It's not like Kurosaki hasn't threatened to knock my lights out before."

"The world's not right. It's not right. You have to give me a chance."

"What?" Who was this woman? It was as if Inoue-san were possessed, but Uryuu knew she wasn't. Her eyes were her own; she had crossed over into some other part of herself Uryuu had never seen. He wanted to convince himself he was wrong. He fought to keep his voice from trembling. "Are you saying you're going to do something violent with your powers if I don't sleep with you?"

Her head shot up, and she was smiling. Not a crazy person smile. The smile of someone who believes she has the upper hand in a battle. Uryuu's hand was on the doorknob.

"Silly. I'm saying that if you gave me a chance, you might find out that the world isn't such a mess after all. You know the truth. We were meant for one another."

"Inoue-san. I'm going to call Arisawa-san to make sure she checks in on you this weekend. I'll arrange a nurse to come stay with you at your house—don't worry about the cost. This will all get better; I swear to you. My father said you might be released today. I have to go now, but I'm going to leave you money for a train and some extra for meals. Please call my father when you get home, and he'll set you up with follow up care."

She was rubbing her cold naked shoulders.

"Inoue-san!" Uryuu said sharply. "Are you listening to me?"

"Yes, yes." She climbed into bed without her gown and pulled the thin blanket over her body. "You're always so kind. You have such a pure, white soul. You need to come have naughty times with me, though. When I get home, I'll be waiting for you."

Uryuu couldn't bear anymore. On the train ride, his head ached. At home, he turned all the lights off and lay his head on his desk. When Renji heard the story, he said he would request a leave of absence, and sure enough he was granted one. The whole Gotei knew what was up with the new recruit Kurosaki Ichigo and the captain of the 13th division, wife of Abarai Renji. It was peacetime anyway. The Captain Commander told Renji to take a month's leave, and so what Renji did was follow Uryuu around the hospital, invisible to all, sitting next to Uryuu at lunch, shadowing him at patient check-ups.

On the third day of ghost Renji haunting Karakura Hospital, Ryuuken called his son into his office. "Leave your boyfriend behind you," Ryuuken said.

Uryuu walked in with no sense of dread, only a weary expression.

"Look," Ryuuken began. "It's none of my business who you're fucking around with. I don't even care if it's a Shinigami with half a brain cell like Ichigo Kurosaki's father. It's your dependence on this man that's unseemly. Who's he supposed to be? Your bodyguard? Your emotional nanny?"

"I told him not to come here," Uryuu said. "He doesn't distract me. And truth be told, sometimes he makes me smile."

Ryuuken sat on the edge of his desk and lit a cigarette. "Inoue Orihime is doing poorly. I've been visiting her at her home myself. Do you want to know anything about her?"

Uryuu stood in silence for a moment. "I need to know."

"The nurse you're paying for makes sure she's fed and clothed, puts up with her rambling bullshit."

"Is Inoue-san on any medication?"

"No. She refuses to see a therapist. She tolerates the nurse because you sent her." A long drag from the cigarette. "When I went to visit yesterday, the poor woman begged me to deliver the message that if you don't come to see her, she's going to summon all her powers to fuck some shit up."

"She said that?"

"Well, not in so many words. Inoue-san doesn't say fuck or shit, but that was the essential meaning."

Uryuu looked around. "That's blackmail."

"Don't go," Ryuuken said. "Crazy people often make legitimate threats—I don't believe she's bluffing."

"I… I…" Uryuu nodded. He had never seen his father quite so shaken up before—angry, yes, but there was an odd vulnerability to this anger Uryuu didn't understand. Yet in response to Ryuuken's words, he said, "I understand," and left the room.

On the cab ride home, he felt a sizable earthquake tremor. His Quincy senses told him the origin was at sea and that the size of quake west of Tokyo precincts was at least 6.0. In a land that was quake-ready, he didn't give the rumbling much thought; a bigger quake last year hadn't caused any damage. Still, as shaken as he was from news about Inoue-san, he felt like he might vomit. He asked the driver to pull over; he opened the door and walked outside. Leaning forward, hands on knees, he recovered from his nausea, but one thought wouldn't leave him alone: What are you capable of, Inoue-san? Your powers are driven by your emotions. What will you do?

"You've lost your damn mind too," Renji said as soon as Uryuu proposed the notion that talking a mentally disturbed woman down was a sound plan. "She's lashed out at you before. Look, even if you eat her out until she comes twenty times, that will only calm her down for about an hour. Of course, you could run off with her to Tokyo Disney before she goes full yandere again and … well, even if you promise to live in koo-koo land with her and Mickey Mouse and all her little fairies, she's not snapping out of it."

"Do you really think ignoring her is going help? She's so alone. Since when has kindness not been the right answer—especially with a friend?"

"Uh, let me think about this one." Renji put his chin in his hand and pretended to be Uryuu pondering some profound ethical dilemma. "Kindness is not the right answer when … approaching a crazy woman with kindness means you get your dick chopped off by a little torpedo fairy! Did you even listen to what your dad said? He told you not to go to her."

Uryuu didn't want to eat again. He lay with his head on the kitchen table for a long time while Renji paced around the room. "None of this is your business. If you ask me, it was Ichigo who started all this shit by being a shitty husband and a lousy friend to her. He needs to know."

"Know what?" Half of Uryuu's mouth was pressed against the table, and the words came out slurred.

"Know ALL of it. That his wife has gone bonkers. That's she's been trying to seduce his best friend, the well-intentioned, always good-hearted Ishida here." Renji folded his arms. "And yeah, it's probably time for me to own up and tell Ichigo that the whole mess with Rukia hurt me too, and that Ichigo and I are even. I love you, and he loves Rukia, and that's just how it's going to be."

Uryuu lifted his head off the table. "You love me?"

"Shut the fuck up. I said it ok."

Renji was opening and closing kitchen cabinets until he found the new bottles he was looking for—still in the plastic shopping bags. He yanked a bottle out, pulled Uryuu out his chair and shoved Uryuu's limp, non-protesting body over the kitchen table. A few more swift motions and Uryuu's pants were down to his knees. "You can't do anything with this woman," Renji went on. "Who the fuck does she think she is? She thinks she knows you? How you can ride my ass with all your reiatsu and not have to worry about breaking a little precious human body into pieces? Can she fuck you like I can?" Renji was lathering Uryuu up. "I don't even need this human goop. I'm dripping like a fountain." Renji plunged inside; Uryuu clawed the tablecloth. "The fuck a Shinigami can't be with a human. That's the kind of crap I used to believe when I was young and stupid. Before I knew someone like you. Before I understood the power of the Quincy king, and all you guys, and hell, you guys live for fucking forever too." Renji kneaded Uryuu's ass. "Best fuck I've ever had, best friend I've ever had." He thrust in forcefully for emphasis. "You touch her and I won't forgive you."

"I won't, Abarai." Uryuu was already in the throes of lust and despair. "I told her I wouldn't."

"Bitches have their ways. You love her."

"Stop it," Uryuu protested. He maneuvered out of Renji's clutches, turned around, and kissed him on the mouth. "I love both of you, but you are the one I want to spend my life with and share my body with. You're the man, got that?"

The two fell to the floor in a flurry of love-making. Renji insisted, "Still gonna tell Ichigo first thing in the morning." He grabbed each of Uryuu's thighs, spread them wide. "Inoue is acting like she holds all the cards. She got played. She has no right to threaten anybody."

"Shh, shh." Uryuu sat up, kissed Renji's cheek, caught long stray hairs there. "Try not to speak ill of her. One day we might all be friends again?"

"Not me and you," Renji said. "We're more than friends now."

The floor rumbled beneath them. An aftershock. 4.0? Strong enough to rattle the kitchen hutch windows.

"I think it's her," Uryuu whispered. "I've always been sensitive to vibrations. Something's not regular about the past couple days—the patterns aren't usual for earthquakes."

"Let's finish up here." Renji kissed Uryuu hard on the mouth. "Then you eat something. I don't care if it's a bag of chips. I'm going to see Ichigo, and I'll be back by the time you're at work if not sooner. I'm on leave. I'll be with you every step of the way through this. We were all friends once, right? You don't have to fix everything all by yourself."

The next morning, Uryuu felt the absence of Renji's presence in the bed before he saw it. The mattress felt lighter. He thought about Kurosaki. Kurosaki wasn't the kind of guy to fly into a rage and beat up someone when Kurosaki himself was in the wrong. Abarai could lay the guilt on thick—oh could he. Kuchiki-san had left her husband for stronger, smarter, always the hero Kurosaki. Kurosaki had been a dick to Inoue-san. The news about Inoue-san being hospitalized? About her trying to seduce an old friend? All that had to have overshadowed whatever Abarai had said about a new lover. Whatever—all the information must've knocked Kurosaki Ichigo flat on his ass.

Abarai was right about plenty things. He was right when he said that it wasn't Uryuu's responsibility to be taking care of anybody's wife. Kurosaki had essentially abandoned Inoue-san—not just when he went to the Gotei to train but years ago. Maybe Kurosaki could make it up to her? Reassure her of their child's presence in her life? Reassure her of something? Anything? What had happened that Kurosaki, usually such a kind person, had been driven from his wife like a man on fire? Was Abarai going to return with Kurosaki to visit Inoue-san? Oh, would that be a firestorm.

Uryuu walked into the kitchen and found a banana Abarai hadn't eaten. He didn't feel up to even glancing inside the Styrofoam boxes in the fridge, but he needed to eat. He thought he might call in sick for work, but then the thought of his father commenting about his emotional dependence changed his mind. He fought the urge to visit Inoue-san. He was curious about her powers. He didn't think he could talk her down from her delusions, but he did wonder if he could discover something about them before any need arose for someone like Ryuuken, Kurosaki, or Urahara-san to have to restrain her in some way … if they even could.

At that very thought, Inoue Orihime walked into his kitchen through one of those portals of hers. Her figure wobbled, phased in and out of reality as if a camera was trying to capture an object in focus, but eventually there she stood. She looked so much tidier than the last time he'd seen her-hair in a ponytail, a bright yellow shirt over a pink shirt and pink flats, a purse slung over her shoulder as if she were going out for a shopping day.

Unsurprised, Uryuu lay down his banana.

"Where did you come from?"

"The house," she said. "I can cross barriers from long distances now."

"And you're here because?"

"Ichigo paid me a visit last night."

"I see."

She looked put-together. Maybe it hadn't been a disturbing visit. Maybe everything had started towards setting things right.

"He's a fool. I sent him away. Apparently, Abarai-kun is still in Soul Society talking with Kuchiki-san. They were arguing at first, Ichigo said, but then they went off to be alone somewhere. Who knows—maybe they're getting back together?"

"Don't even try," Uryuu sat in a chair. "They're not getting back together. Are you here to try to seduce me again?"

She sighed. She pulled a chair from under the table but didn't sit. Her hands clutched the back of the chair, and she leaned forward; her ample breasts stretched against her yellow shirt. Uryuu had seen that happen so many times that he didn't presume the gesture was intentional. She was cocking her head to one side, and her eyes were looking nowhere.

"You're causing the earth tremors, aren't you?"

"I don't know. Every time I get angry, the world starts to shift. When Tsukishima brought me back Ichigo's ban kai to heal, I felt the past. I understood at least one timeline—the one the ban kai had come from. It wasn't seeped in otherworldly reiatsu. It was full of ordinary objects. It felt within my reach, unlike Yhwach's future. Reiatsu is hard for me, but physical objects—I understood that past."

Uryuu felt his stomach lurch a little. "What are you saying?"

"Ichigo." She said the name like it was a curse.

"What happened?"

"I just want to start over—without him."

"Inoue-san," Uryuu spoke softly and chose his words carefully. "You are doing that right now. Starting over, I mean. The marriage is over, and you're free from the past. You can only go forward now. It's freedom. You can become a new person." He paused to see if his words had changed the faraway look in her eyes. She was listening but still looked dazed. "The future is a new world."

"I'm full of regrets," she said.

"Kazui," Uryuu said.

Her eyes flooded, but only one tear rolled down her cheek. "You mean Ichigo's child who I'll never see again."

"Did Kurosaki say that?"

"He said they'd visit, but I don't want to see Ichigo. I don't want to watch our son stay a child while I grow old and die."

"Die? People don't really die. You'll go to Soul Society where you can see your child again. With your reiatsu, your powers, anything is possible. Inoue-san, you're not thinking straight. Why are you talking like this?"

"No, you're the one who doesn't see the truth. You're the one who doesn't see how our lives were ruined."

"I don't understand why you came here. You know I'll never accept your view. You know I'll only try to talk you out of yours. I must tell you that if you try to destroy any human life or alter reality or push back a timeline, there are people prepared to stop you. Not just me. Kurosaki will try—I'm sure of it."

She laughed a little. "He can't."

Another earthquake tremor shook the apartment building. This time the refrigerator fell over and the glass in the cupboards cracked.

"Inoue-san, stop it!"

"I can't. I don't want to live here anymore."

"Then in the name of everything's that decent, destroy yourself and don't take out other innocent people with you!" Never in his life did Uryuu imagine he shout those words to a woman he loved.

"You won't have me either," she said sadly. "If I can't live in this world with you, then what reason do I have to live here. If we went back, I might be able to make different choices—we all might be able to."

She closed her eyes, and her hands touched her hairpins.

The door to Uryuu's apartment flung open. Orihime gasped, and before she could do anything else, Ryuuken had grabbed her by the arm.

"Stop now," Ryuuken commanded her.

She stared at Ishida Ryuuken.

"You have to stop," Ryuuken went on. "This is your only warning. Soul Society has been alerted. Do you want to be brought there and put under arrest?"

The look in her eye was so defiant that it frightened Uryuu; even more frightening was how Ryuuken seemed to return her look. His hard eyes softened—why? Hadn't Father always chided Uryuu for his own weakness?

"Tessai will be here in seconds," Ryuuken said, uncharacteristically giving out unnecessary information in an attempt to bargain with a crazy girl, "and he can restrain you with his forbidden spell and lock you in time."

She laughed.

"I'm not joking, Inoue-san," Ryuuken's hold on her was not firm. His look was not half as stern as what he cast an errant nurse. "I'll shoot you if I have to."

"Father- " Uryuu began.

Although one of her arms was still restrained by Ryuuken, Inoue Orihime closed her eyes and her hairpins began to glow. Plaster from the ceiling began to fall. Uryuu fell to his knees. Ryuuken covered Inoue-san with his body. A roaring noise like a cyclone drowned out conscious thought, and a blinding whiteness threw the room across the years and then scattered the world into a starless universe of pitch black.

When Uryuu woke up it was in the desolate world that had been once under Yhwach's control and made into rubble by war. The reiatsu of the Royal Realm oppressed his body with its dense weight. He raised himself to his shoulders. Wounded soldiers were staggering to Inoue Orihime to be healed. She cast a look in his direction—an anxious, knowing look. She remembered everything. Uryuu did too. Over a decade ago, he had sat next to her, reviewing the sorrows of what had just occurred, consoling her about the dead, reassuring her about the future.

There was Kurosaki, scratching his head, being interrogated by the Captain Commander. And Abarai, helping a wounded soldier walk towards the giant restorative golden orb.

A shadow fell over Uryuu. He looked up and recognized his father. "Do you remember?" Uryuu asked.

Ryuuken nodded. "Apparently, the two of us-and I presume Inoue-san-are the only ones who do. The ones who were in Soul Society-they didn't return to this time with their memories of our future. Neither did people who weren't in proximity to Inoue-san when she unleashed—whatever the hell that was. I've been talking to people while you lay there. Inoue-san said you were resting. "

"We're back for good? There's no changing this?"

"Looks like it, unless she decides otherwise. And I've alerted the proper people to what threat she poses. As the only apparent witnesses with memories of the future, you and I will have to testify in Soul Society."

"What?"

"There's already evidence of time manipulation from that damn Kisuke. I hate to have to interact with him at all, but he backs our story up with how this event was possible. And…." Here Ryuuken exhaled cigarette smoke and frustration. He dropped a cigarette butt to the ground and crushed it underfoot. "She may have destroyed our timeline."

Uryuu didn't even know what to say. Decades of his life had been stolen. Inoue-san had really gone through with it—. "Father, you expected her to do this? You alerted Soul Society and came to my place?"

Ryuuken looked peculiar, no younger than the last time Uryuu had seen him because Quincy with reiatsu like his don't age, but there was a softness in his eyes that Uryuu didn't know. "I wavered," Ryuuken said, without apology. "I could not have held her off if I tried, I believe, but I hoped, just as you did, that she would not do this."

"I still don't believe it," Uryuu mumbled. His fingernails clawed into the ground. He didn't want to stand up in the past; he didn't want to do the years all over again.

"Little Miss Time Warper will get locked up just short of Muken before she figures out that her dream world isn't going to work out."

"There has to be another way."

"No there isn't." Ryuuken was wearing his Quincy uniform. He snapped his lighter, and the flame obscured part of his face as he lit another cigarette. "Uryuu, she erased her own child from existence."

Is there such a thing as a betrayal so deep that one's heart no longer has room to love a broken, friendless friend? The hole in Ishida's heart grew larger than whatever compassion he could muster for her. Had he been wrong about her all this time? Had her kindnesses, her loving acts, all her tears for the downtrodden been about herself? Was her need to be loved deeper than any other motivation in her heart? She had always been so smart, so perceptive. She had finally convinced Kurosaki to marry her, and she had tried to move him, Ishida Uryuu, to have sex with her in order to save mankind. Uryuu snorted a hard sigh at the thought. What sort of person was she?

He walked past her as she knelt on the floor with her palms up, healing the victims of the horrible war.

"It's going to be a whole new world." Uryuu spoke the words in a flat voice not intended to convey all the mockery he meant, but she smiled.

Kuchiki-san and Kurosaki were talking, heads bowed, clearly relieved to see one another again. As Uryuu passed them, he thought what the hell. "Kurosaki, don't drag your feet when it comes to love or you'll regret it. You're with Kuchiki-san in the future—I've seen it. All the arguing—not worth it, trust me on this one."

He walked off, the stunned silence behind him so profound it seemed to take on its own life force. Uryuu didn't care. The next person he needed to talk to was Abarai.

"Look, Abarai," he said, "I know that Ichibe is going to request that you and others stay behind in the Royal Realm to train for a while, but when the transport comes to take back everyone to Soul Society and the other worlds, I need you to come back with me. There's something important I have to tell you."

The tall Shinigami squinted and rubbed his neck. "What?"

"I'm serious. My father is going to talk to Urahara-san and the Captain Commander, but I need you to come with me. Let's just say this goes beyond Gotei business, ok?"

"You're freaking me out, Ishida. Isn't Yhwach destroyed?"

"Yeah, he is… or he will be…." Uryuu shook his head. "Look, it's complicated, but by nightfall, just come with me and we'll meet up at my …. oh, I'm still at my old place. Ok, once the Fullbringer transport arrives in the Living World, follow me home."

Urahara walked by, his hat missing, his cane gone, but his eyes and wounds restored thanks to Inoue Orihime's miraculous powers. "Looks like the worst of the casualties have been taken care of," He was talking to Tessai who walked a few steps behind him. "Now that Aizen-sama has been refitted with another one of those potty chairs he likes so much and which you were so kind enough as to carry out here for him, I do believe there is one more person we have to check."

"Rikujoukourou," said Tessai, and six broad rods clasped Inoue Orihime from all sides; they surrounded her if she were the ovule of a flower and they were metal petals.

Her face turned to her attackers in shock. Her gold orb vanished; her fairies rushed back to her hairpins.

"Just a precaution, my dear," said Urahara. "Hanatarou can handle the remaining injuries. We have a situation here, and I'd rather examine it myself before Captain Kurotsuchi gets priority. We don't want you under his inspection now, do we?"

"What the fuck!" Renji was staring at Uryuu.

"You can't do that!" Ichigo protested. Rukia was speechless. Her hand involuntarily clutched Ichigo's sleeve.

"Inoue!" yelled Chad.

Ryuuken put a hand on Chad's shoulder. "Sado-kun. Please. My son will explain later. I know you're a patient young man and can wait for the full story."

"Orders from your Captain Commander." Kyouraku Shunsui approached the scene. "It's for her own safety. Believe me, Ichigo." Behind him, Ishida Ryuuken walked with the most unlikely companion, the Fullbringer boy Yukio, carrying his video-game.

Orihime turned to Uryuu with her wide brown eyes pleading. "Why would you do this to me, Ishida-kun?"

"Me? You did this all yourself," Uryuu said. "All I can hope for is that you come to your senses." And he thought but didn't say: But if you do that and realize what you did to Kazui, how can you live with yourself?

"Save," said Yukio, and Orihime disappeared into his little black box, into a world that wasn't real and had no contact with the reiatsu outside.

Renji's hands were on his head. "Fuck, fuck. What the fuck just happened?"

Everyone seemed to be looking at Uryuu for some reason, and that reason only became apparent to Uryuu when he realized that he was visibly shaking and that his eyes were blurred with tears.

Renji put his hand on Uryuu's shoulder. "It's ok. You don't have to talk about it now. We'll get a full report later. I'll do what you asked, ok? Hey, look at me. Ok?"

"Yeah." Uryuu wandered off to be alone for a while.

The transport ride home was awkward, and the hirenkyaku flight to Uryuu's old apartment was even more awkward. Hirenkyaku was the quickest way, and both men were exhausted from war. Renji held onto Uryuu by the waist, and Uryuu felt a familiarity as well as a distance in the touch. All those weeks of a relationship wiped out—Inoue-san had really done that. Uryuu's place hadn't changed at all; the spare key was still in a cut-away hole in the railing. Inside, the kitchen smelled like last week's fish, and the bedroom was no larger than the upscale bedroom Uryuu rented as noted surgeon. A single bed, only cheaper sheets.

"Why you looking around your place like you never seen it before?"

"Just…" Uryuu didn't know where to start. "Just checking stuff out."

"Are we in trouble? Is the universe going to explode or something? Is this like … it? Bam, we die tomorrow?"

"Since when have you been so pessimistic? Even Izuru wasn't like that, and he got healed up good as new today." Uryuu was looking through spare cupboards. "Want some tea? Sorry I don't have anything stronger."

"Sure."

Uryuu didn't know where to start, so he took it upon himself to ask Renji if he still held a torch for Rukia, and Renji didn't look the slightest bit embarrassed when he answered that yeah, he did, but that everyone and his neighbor's dog knew that something was up with her and Ichigo. "I threw away my chance years ago. What about you? I guess you don't want to talk about it, but it looks like something really bad went down with you and Inoue."

"I guess you could say that." Uryuu ran his hand through his hair and felt sand from a far-away world stick to his sweaty fingers. "Look, I'm beat. I think I'll take a shower. There are cookies—you know the kind you like in that drawer over there. You can take a shower after me if you want. We're both a mess."

"Hey, if it's no prob with you, I'll just join you."

Uryuu's heart skipped a beat.

"Oh stop it with that look. I know you're not used to military barracks, but loosen up. It's just a shower. In, out. No big deal."

"It's—I—" Uryuu felt his face getting hot.

"You're going to be a doctor, right? Everyone knows that, so start getting over the modesty thing."

"I'm not modest." Uryuu was already out of his clothes. "C'mon. It's just a really small space."

Uryuu turned the water on hot and stood under it. Even without soap, the rush of water made him feel instantly cleaner. It wasn't just his body that had felt grimy for hours, but a sense of wrongness had been clouding his spirit. Being this close to Abarai Renji in the rising white steam was restoring his soul. He lifted the showerhead from its holder and passed it to the tall Shinigami standing behind him.

"Do you ever get the feeling that some things were just meant to be?" Uryuu asked.

"You mean like destiny?"

"Yeah." Uryuu was rubbing shampoo into his long hair. It smelled like coconut. "For me, some things are of our own making, some things we're pushed into by accident, and some things… as much as I used to fight the concept, they feel like there's no way around them happening."

"You always this philosophical in the shower?" He took Uryuu's bottle of shampoo. "You put this in your hair? Is this what makes it so shiny?"

"Try it. Your hair tends to stick up every which way." Uryuu handed Renji another bottle. "Use this too. It's conditioner. Use a lot because you've got so much hair. Then wash it out. It works better than whatever oil you've been using to flatten it down. Trust me, this stuff will make your hair look nicer."

Renji looked at Uryuu with a half grin and blew suds out of Uryuu's hair with the showerhead. "My hair is already damn fine," Renji said. "But I'll take your word for it. Your hair looks beautiful."

Uryuu felt a pang at the word beautiful

Uryuu came from the future, and Renji was from this timeline. But were their hearts still connected? Uryuu was too weary to tell the full story yet; he wanted something else first.

Uryuu took the showerhead back from Renji and placed it back in its holder. The soft roaring noise forced Uryuu to speak a little louder than he usually would. "Abarai, will you listen to me? I'm dead serious about this." He received an intense look as soon as the big man pulled a curtain of wet red hair away from his face. "Abarai, I've never been with a man. Or a woman for that matter. I've never kissed anyone before. It's over with Inoue-san. She betrayed me."

"I'm sorry about that. I really am. You know I'm here to listen if you want to— "

"No, not yet."

"Ok."

"Kiss me." Uryuu said it without hesitation or shame. He felt the same way tonight as he did in that future where he'd learned to be free—with Abarai. "I'm sure I want you to kiss me."

Renji didn't look too surprised. "You've actually been thinking about this?"

Uryuu nodded.

"You're not fucking with me? This isn't some kind of spell? This isn't some kind of game from that Fullbringer kid, and the whole reality is going to pop?"

"No, Abarai—this is really me. I can explain the rest of today's weirdness later, but right now." Uryuu's voice cracked a little from emotion. "Please kiss me."

Renji pulled Uryuu's shoulders forward so that the two of them were no longer close to the stream of the water, cupped Uryuu's face in his large hands, and kissed him lightly on the mouth. Uryuu's hands glided up Renji's slick back, and the kiss deepened.

A true bond has its way of triumphing over a big mess—wasn't that what Uryuu had decided a few days ago, some years in the future? He turned off the water. The big naked Shinigami grabbed the one and only bath towel from the rack and wrapped it around Uryuu's shoulders; Then with one large palm, he practically shoved Uryuu all the way to the bedroom. Uryuu didn't mind that the naked towel-less Shinigami was dripping huge drops of water all over the apartment from long red sopping hair. The kissing resumed on the narrow bed.

Uryuu didn't know if he was shivering more from cold or excitement, but Abarai covered his body like a large warm duvet, albeit a damp one, and sucked on his neck with a hot mouth. The kiss traveled to Uryuu's jawline. "I've done this sort of thing before," Renji whispered between kisses. "With guys, I mean. Ages ago, when I was just a kid in the Rukongai. I won't hurt you. I swear. It's all good, all good."

"I know," Uryuu said. "I want this."

Renji pushed Uryuu's wet hair away from his face. "You're so beautiful. How come no one got you before?"

"Let's just say I'm picky."

Renji smiled broadly at that. Uryuu's breathing was deepening; his soul was filling up with a soft white serenity that comes from being loved the same way in two different timelines; the cracked place inside him that held splinters of regret and shame could no longer be split further by blackmail and fear.

The night deepened; the pain didn't fall away, but Uryuu knew for certain that he was a free man. Truth takes its time, but it finds you even if you're not searching for it. Maybe that is destiny, or maybe that is just the persistence of truth. However Uryuu could rationalize it, he understood that he had been set free. Not so much by Abarai Renji but by his own willingness to ask for what he himself wanted and needed.

A week later, Uryuu learned what true courage was—facing an opponent in battle had been easy compared to attending a Soul Society tribunal with his father, an event where Inoue Orihime was on trial. In lieu of Central 46, which had never been restored since Aizen's capture, the attending judges consisted of Ichibe from the Royal Realm, the Captain Commander of the Gotei, and Captain Kuchiki Byakuya of the 5th Division. No other Gotei members, only witnesses and the accused were present.

Uryuu had told Renji about Orihime reversing time but nothing about the daughter with Rukia, and the Captain Commander hadn't told Rukia either. In case Inoue Orihime would not cooperate with restoring the timeline, the Captain Commander decided it was best that none of the information be imparted to the general population, and under no circumstances should Ichigo be told about his son. Urahara, who had sat fidgeting at the trial, said that secrets had their way of being found out, that babbling new creeks grew out of rivers all the time.

Uryuu hoped that wasn't true. He wanted to protect everyone who had ever loved Inoue Orihime from the truth.

Orihime was allowed to sit at the proceedings under warning that should she attempt to escape, alter her surroundings, or otherwise harm anyone, Ise Nanao had been given permission to use a forbidden kidou to freeze time and trap the accused indefinitely in this altered state. In fact, Orihime's possible punishment for interfering with an established reality was confinement to this frozen state for a time yet to be determined by the tribunal.

Ishida Ryuuken testified on the young woman's chances of being reformed. "There is a temperament among humans," he said, "that is recognized by human doctors all around our world. It Is called major depression. No one person experiences it quite the same way, and many people who, like Inoue Orihime here, have lived through trauma and abandonment at a young age, develop what are referred to as cluster B personality disorders—Inoue-san does exhibit symptoms of such a disorder-a disassociation with reality, an intense need for validation, volatile mood swings and a profound sensitivity to episodes of abandonment…."

"I fail to see," said Captain Kuchiki, "how anything you're describing makes this young human a candidate for reform. Her powers are enormous. The person you're describing needs confinement or else she poses a danger— "

"In the Living World," Ryuuken went on, "there are medications, therapies for this. People recover. Perhaps if the young woman were allowed to return to her world—with a chaperone who could keep an eye on her powers, she may make progress, learn to harness her abilities for good. She has a history of being an ally for Soul Society."

"Then maybe we could keep her here where we all can keep an eye on her," said the Captain Commander. "Therapy? We have places where the emotionally disturbed are observed and cared for in the 12th division."

"I worked in the Maggot's Nest," Urahara said. "There were powerful inmates there I believed were capable of being reformed. Our technology one hundred years ago was top-notch, better than anything in the Living World." He lifted his hat slightly, scratched his brow. His eyes were visible and looked resigned. "Right now, we simply do not have the resources to let this young woman walk around freely." Urahara lowered his head and spoke his next words as if off the record, although Nanao, two seats away from him, was transcribing everything. "There was one gifted young man in particular I thought was deserving of freedom and…" He coughed a fake cough. "Hmm, he's been clever enough to avoid a tribunal such as this one." Another cough. "But he's quite the nutcase sometimes and could mess up."

Ichibe had not spoken during any of the testimony. "Why don't we ask Inoue Orihime what she herself wants for her future?"

"Yes," the Captain Commander said. "We were going to give her a chance to testify." He turned to Orihime who had been sitting quietly with her hands in her lap. "Inoue Orihime, I have a few questions for you. Please pay attention to these questions as you speak on your behalf. Why did you change the timeline as Ishida Ryuuken and Ishida Uryuu have testified here? Urahara Kisuke has provided scientific evidence that the time shift occurred, so please take into account that you don't have any counter-evidence should you deny responsibility. Second question: are you willing or capable of restoring the timeline? And finally, what do you yourself believe is a just consequence for your actions? Do you believe that you can one day again be the gentle person many people in Soul Society, Hueco Mundo and the Living World came to trust as their ally and friend?"

Orihime looked around the room. Ryuuken, forbidden to smoke, was sitting with fingers folded over a knee crossed over a leg. Uryuu looked miserable. Urahara-san looked less miserable, not in his element, shifting in his chair. Captain Kuchiki's expression was unreadable. Ichibe looked like he was watching rather than participating, gathering information rather than passing judgement even though he was an official judge. The Captain Commander and his lieutenant seemed cool and professional.

"I want to die," Orihime told the Captain Commander.

"Please answer the questions," he told her.

"Maybe you should state them to her one by one," Nanao suggested. "Inoue-san, why did you change the timeline?"

"I wanted to start over," she said. "I wanted to be free. Obviously, that didn't work out."

There was a pause while everyone waited for her to say more. The Captain Commander followed up with the next question. "There already may have been some damage done to this current timeline by your actions. Are you capable of returning this time to the future you unraveled?"

"I don't know."

"Are you willing to try?"

"I don't want to do anything but die."

"This is depression," Ishida Ryuuken said. "She needs help in the Living World."

Uryuu had dropped his face into his hands.

"Inoue-san." The Captain Commander's voice was soft now, as if talking to a soldier fallen in battle with a mortal wound. "Tell me what you believe is a just consequence for your actions and if you believe you are capable of returning to your former self."

"I told you already," said the young woman with her hands folded in her lap. "I want to die."

"Unfortunately," said the Captain Commander. "Your actions are not by law deserving of the death penalty."

"In that case…." Orihime's hands rose from her lap. Her eyes closed. "I want to be free."

"That's what we want to decide—" began the Captain Commander.

Orihime's fingers touched the hairpins on either side of her head.

"Nanao!" The Captain Commander need not have shouted because his lieutenant had already shot the kidou in Orihime's direction.

Everyone in the room was standing, but Inoue Orihime was gone. She wasn't sitting in the chair. She had vanished. Ichibe walked over to the chair and picked up the hairpins which lay on the chair seat. "It would have made no difference," he said, "if we had taken these away from her. They were only a channel for her powers. The powers came from a deeper place inside her." He held up a pin. "This? This is perfectly useless now."

Uryuu's voice was hoarse with despair. "She's dead? Or did she go to another dimension? Or…" A sob choked him. "Is she dead?"

"Does anyone sense her reiatsu?" Ichibe's voice was calm. "She's not in this world. She left behind items precious to her. That is what people do when they leave life."

"No, she's human." Uryuu had regained his composure and was attempting to rationalize what had happened. "If she's died, she's a plus—she's here in Soul Society."

"I don't think so," said Urahara gently. "She had the power to change a timeline. She has the power to skip to another timeline. She said she wanted to die." Urahara looked at Uryuu with eyes shadowed by his hat. "I'm sorry, Ishida-san. If she's not dead now, she will be. Wherever she is."

Uryuu was trying to find her. He didn't understand the limits of his antithesis power, but if there was a way he could find her in another timeline, he could switch her death with a suffering life somewhere in the Living World—yes, he easily could locate someone in pain and on the verge of imminent death. Haschwalth had taught him the ethical consequences of that choice. Inoue Orihime deserved a future. Didn't she? All the muscles in his face clenched as if he were being tortured; not being able to sense her was torture.

Ryuuken's voice was quieter than Urahara's. "Let's go home, Uryuu."

Home was a world without her now.

There was the matter of letting Orihime's friends know what had happened to her. After refusing dinner, lying listless and quiet in bed for a few hours and then sobbing in Renji's arms for longer than was seemly, Uryuu pulled himself together and said that the whole truth shouldn't be revealed, that it would be too cruel.

"Keeping secrets is cruel," Renji said, and Uryuu felt on the verge of tears again for not having told Renji about the marriage to Kuchiki-san, about the daughter whose life had been erased. Maybe one day that story would be told, not now though. Not now.

"Arisawa-san is going to punch me in the face," Uryuu said.

"So she punches you in the face," Renji said. "She'll never believe the worst of Inoue. The truth is that Inoue-san disappeared. That should give people hope, right? We don't have to say what Urahara-san said. What if he's wrong? We don't have to reveal what Inoue-san said about wanting to die."

Renji kissed the soft areas under Uryuu's eyes that were still drenched with tears.

"Leaving out parts of the truth," Uryuu added, "is a form of lying."

"Sometimes," Renji said, "people don't need to know the worst about someone they loved. They won't believe it anyway."

Uryuu believed that Urahara-san was right, that the truth would come out in time. The truth could destroy a person as easily as it could save another—it had that much power. Had it destroyed Inoue-san? Surely it was within her own power to destroy her own soul.

Uryuu's power as a Quincy was to utterly destroy a soul. He had never fully felt the consequences of what that power meant until today. His power was supposed to protect human souls and meant to destroy Hollow, but technically, his arrow could shoot any soul out of the cycle of reincarnation.

Once upon a time there had been six hearts, bound together with hope for the future and a belief that everything would end up better, if not perfect, then better.

Uryuu readjusted his pillow, closed his eyes. Hollow did not have hearts. Inoue Orihime, everyone had believed, had a good heart, one devoted to her friends, right? Hollow lost their hearts; Orihime's heart—what had become of it? Had she taken her own life because she knew she was losing her own heart?

The Hollow Uryuu had met in Hueco Mundo were not all unredeemable beings—not monsters he shot at from a far distance, not the screaming inhuman beasts who preyed on souls in the Living World. Neliel and the Desert Brothers had been friends and allies. Uryuu had watched Ulquiorra behave like the most cruel and heartless of villains and somehow during all the horror that was that battle, Ulquiorra saved Uryuu's life as well as Inoue-san's. Uryuu had seen a heartless enemy Hollow turn to Inoue-san with understanding eyes; Uryuu had watched humanity fall over Ulquiorra's frail body like a blessing. Inoue-san had run towards Ulquiorra to try to catch the Hollow's outstretched hand—to heal him, to comfort him? Didn't these two souls deserve to be reborn and to readdress wrongs in new lives?

Where was Ulquiorra? Ash among ash. Inoue-san? Had she turned to dust among the stars, lost outside timelines? When she said she wanted to die, what had that meant?

Uryuu never wanted to fire another arrow again.

"What's the matter?" Renji asked. "You're worried about something."

"Sad," Uryuu said. "What else? Been a shit day. I'm sad."

"Liar," Renji said.

The truth always comes out. Inoue-san, too, used to have that way of calling Uryuu out, back when she cared what Uryuu was thinking, before she became obsessed over losing Kurosaki.

"I don't know where to go from here," Uryuu admitted. "I don't know what my role is in making the world a better place. I've been in the future where it's not that great. What do I differently this time around? What choices matter?"

Renji folded his arms behind his head and stared at the ceiling. "Ichigo was pretty upset. Sometimes when he gets upset, he gets kinda crazy and angry. He said he was going to join the Gotei and try to push for major change. Rukia was all for that. Like, there have been plans since forever to have the Soukyoku rebuilt, and he's screaming against that right now."

"Ichigo joining the Gotei…." Uryuu nodded. "In the future, he and Rukia argued a lot about that, and it messed things up a lot between them."

"So in the future, you and me are an item?"

"Yeah."

"And your dad doesn't give a shit?"

A corner of Uryuu's mouth turned up. He didn't smile, but he made the attempt. "He said it wasn't his business who I was fucking."

"Wow. So you didn't get together with Inoue. Why was that?"

"I'll tell you eventually. But it just wasn't meant to be." Uryuu turned to face Renji, and Renji wrapped an arm around him. "I'm trying to look at it this way," Uryuu went on. "I have to suffer through med exams again, but I have more years to spend with you."

"We're that good, huh?" Renji kissed Uryuu on the forehead.

"That good."

There was no need to discuss it; both men understood that there would be no lovemaking that night. The grief felt thick between them; Renji felt fortunate to be ignorant in this situation because he understood that Uryuu was wracking his brains over what could have possibly changed the outcome of today's tragedy. Renji didn't yet know his own full role in what had happened. He couldn't imagine that he was blameless, but he knew what was done was done.

"Hey," Renji said. "It's not like you need me to absolve you or anything, but if you're worrying about some little thing or even some big thing that could've stopped what Inoue did—"

"I know I didn't do anything wrong," Uryuu whispered.

"Don't kid yourself," Renji said. "We all do wrong stuff. It's just that some of us go forward and try to be better people."

Uryuu reached past Renji's shoulder and clicked off the nightstand lamp. "There's nowhere to go except forward."

From the small window, stars shone against the familiar mystery that was the vastness of space, and out there, souls flew from world to world with their lies and truths trailing them. Some souls were lost—or were they? Is a soul lost when memories are left behind in a safe place? Isn't that why gravestones and memorials are erected?

Uryuu's father had pocketed Inoue-san's hairpins. Uryuu had been too distraught at the time to wonder what the man intended to do with them, but later he figured out that his father guessed that Uryuu might want them. Sometimes people need tangible objects to recall the past better. Uryuu didn't need the pins to remember Inoue-san's story.

It was up to Uryuu to tell that story or not.

He shut his eyes, and stars shone under his eyelids. Once upon a time I loved a young woman. She lost herself to sadness and obsession. While trying to hurt herself, she hurt everyone around her who loved her. She erased her own child from her life. Can I forgive her? I loved her. I don't need to forgive her. I need to grow back the pieces of heart she cut out of me. I can do that.

The stars under Uryuu's eyelids dimmed. He felt sleepy. His own soul felt white and free even as it acknowledged the greater darkness beyond the night.

END

I hope this is my honest goodbye to Bleach fandom. This piece was the most important in my making a reconciliation with Bleach's horrible end, as well as many sad aspects of fandom, and I do hope I'm over it all now and can move forward.-debbiechan