'Defying Gravity', I don't own the song. I don't own the characters either.
Scenario is a 'What If' situation. Orihime-centric.
Enjoy.
Edit: Thank you to roystealer for the correction... XD I knew there was something odd about what I wrote. Proves that coffee is a good thing. ^.^
Defying Gravity
By: IcaRue
It started off small.
He caught her humming softly to herself, snippets where she would climb quietly then dip in to a chokingly soft note, almost as if she were embarrassed of not remembering the tune. This went on for almost two and half weeks, often before, during, and after meals. He never questioned, though, what it was she was trying to do.
As long as she ate and did what he said, she could have her tune.
Then, she started adding words.
They started off like the tune had; quiet and barely there, flitting in and out like skittish butterflies. She'd break off when he entered, eying him warily, and resume slowly as her meal times came to a close. He could vaguely pick out a few things, like 'changed within me' and 'accepting limits', and there's the fleeting notion that the woman had truly given in to their cause, that his words and his traps have finally broken her.
There's a full week of this muttering... but, she greets him on the seventh day with words he never expected:
"I hope you're proud how you would grovel in submission... To feed your own ambition."
And she stared at him, expecting, waiting, and when he does not say anything, leaving her food and a confounded silence in the air, she smiles at his retreating back.
It is three days after that when she starts letting her voice ring, and he can finally fit the words to the song.
That first morning, she tells him that something inside her not the same; that "she's through with playing by the rules of someone else's game." He casts her words off, and forces the food in her mouth, and he does not hear her for a while.
At lunch the next day, she insists she will not be accepting limits. Even though he has said there is nothing she can do, it doesn't mean she won't try. He tries to shove the food at her, but she just knocks it out of the way, spoon clattering on the floor, and glares at him. "Kiss me good-bye, I'm defying gravity. And you won't pull me down." He doesn't bring her dinner that night.
On, and on, and he learns he can't shut her up. He learns that he is actually listening to the nonsense she's spouting.
He learns that he's not the only one.
He catches hints of Halibel humming the song, and her fraccion seems to enjoy repeating the words when they think he doesn't hear. Loly and Menoly have started leaving her be, but also have started avoiding the throne room. The air is changing, and Syzael notices, but is surprisingly interested in the farthest thing from dissecting the girl's throat. Nnoitra, he catches outside her door, but he's not doing anything, not saying anything, only listening as her voice filters through the stone, clear as a bell when it should not be fucking possible. Tousen and Gin have brought her out of doors more than once, and Wonderwyce begins to stick to her like glue. Old man Barragan is not seen anywhere around her, but he has softened, seems younger, and Starrk is up with Lilynette long enough to hear the last note. And he knows the others are being affected.
Things are changing, and he, Ulquiorra, fourth Espada, does not bother to tell Aizen.
Aizen. Not Aizen-sama.
Oh sure, the man hears her. But, Ulquiorra does not tell him it's not the nocturne of desperation he thinks it is. No. It's a ballad of light, of strength. It's a ballad of truth. A ballad of anything and everything Aizen was NOT. And he does not tell. No one tells him that they listen to her, that her words reach them, that they know what they can do. Together.
With her.
It is on the very last day... How he knows it's the last day, he was not sure... that she turns to him when he enters, smiles, and murmurs one word:
"Unlimited."
And he knows. She's found it. Whatever she was looking for, she's found it.
He nods, and steps aside, door wide open. He cannot stand beside her. He does not feel it is his place or that he has any right to. But, she thanks him none the less, stopping right next to him to place a hand on his chest, over the hole she knows is there. Like she could cover it and fill it right up, fix him up properly. And maybe if she stays, she can.
But, she has to do this. Her grey eyes, like steel now, determined, meet his, now so green and full of life, and she knows it's the right choice. "I hope you're happy in the end."
He smiles at the surprise on her face when his hand covers hers for the last time: "I hope you're happy. My friend."
Children and grand children and even great grandchildren will come and go and the lines of families and generations will go on, and the story will be read over and over again.
But, it always begins-
"Tell them how I am
Defying gravity!"
-and ends the same. Always about a young girl who was born in to a hurtful family, but still learned to love and live thanks to a brother who cared for her. Who healed, and smiled, and laughed, and was every bit as human as you and me. Who had the powers of a goddess-
"I'm flying high
Defying gravity!"
-but, never let it destroy her, control her. Who gave up everything to protect the ones she cared for, protect the ones she probably did not like, and even the people she never even met. Who fought with a different strength besides fists and blades and guns-
"And soon I'll match them in renown..."
-and didn't always win, but she never gave up. Who got even those who hurt her and frightened her to listen, and even fixed what had been broken. And how they joined her side against the one who started it all...
"And nobody in all of Oz..."
And there would be that fantastic finale, when all seems lost, and all seems gone... and the end seems near... that she glows, bright, brighter, brightest...
"No Wizard that there is or was-"
And in the end, she always hugs the enemy. She hugs him, and he tries to fight her off and growls and thrashes and even makes her bleed and cry, but she hugs him, drowning them both in her golden light, and doesn't let go. And she smiles. Even when she's fading away, and he's swearing at her, and hurting her, she smiles, and hugs him closer, tighter till the end. And they're gone, just like that; the one time she takes a life, she offers her own along side it.
The story is always going to be told. Generation after generation. There will be children with bright orange hair, or dark hair, blonde, silver, pink... and green eyes, violet eyes, gray, blue... swordsmen, archers, healers, leaders, and followers... but, they will all hear the story.
"-is ever gonna bring me down!"
The story of the Inoue Orihime.