AU. Post-winter war. No spoilers.
About loving, losing, and learning to finally let go.
If you thrive on nothing but bitterness, you'll die nothing but bitter.
Orihime is told this when she's so, so young during a long, long time ago. When it was Sora who soiled her eyes bright and ready with admiration. When things made less sense, but held more comfort to them.
There is glory that surges through Aizen's ruins and Orihime wonders if he truly died in vain.
"How ironic." Uryuu observes snarkily in a puddle of his own sweat and blood; deep breaths heaving against his broken ribcage. His glasses beside him are shattered.
Much like his soul. She can just feel it.
"Looks like we have another Judas betrayal on our hands."
Gin grimaces - not smiles - and extracts his sword from the torn, empty body of Aizen before Ichigo can slide his out of the fallen king; the fox's eyes slanting and weighed with what's that emotion? Hatred? Perhaps. Orihime isn't quite sure. She hasn't felt something so passionately or completely in her entire life; something to compel her to go against her moral standards and ideal obligations. Sure, she had went against her better judgment before but because she knew it was right, not because she was consumed so strongly in her decision she bypassed everything else. Besides, she owed it to her friends. She owed them. All of them. And because of them, she remembers how to fight, to never give up, and to stop being so silly and stop shedding so many tears, because this a war (a freaking war, goddamnit! yells Ichigo) and people are meant to be left hurt and destroyed and dead.
But she can't help herself from screamingscreamingscreaming bloody, bloody murder when she sees more pale; nearly translucent skin being ripped and cleaved apart with little mercy or warning and suddenly Gin isn't grimacing or smiling or, really, anything anymore.
Rangiku closes her eyes - a tad too tightly - and breathes a little too thoroughly to be feigned as calm. "Once a trader," the magnificent woman sneers, her eyes opening and peering downwards at her friend's shredded body, "always a trader."
Orihime glances at the shinigami with helpless eyes and Rukia's tugging on her shoulder, telling her it's time to leave, and that others will clean up the mess that's been dismantled and lost (Did you know that no one really wins in wars?) and never allows the human girl to ask how Rangiku it is to lose the one person she loves the most again and again - does it hurt more than a soul can even imagine; comprehend?
Because she's only lost a handful of those she cares about once, and she doesn't think she'd ever be quite strong enough to lose them again.
They return home, sink back into their usual rituals, and try shake their worries for the time being.
But there's a void in Orihime's big heart, a gaping ugly hole that hairpins, sincere words, and admirable determination can't refill. And sometimes she rouses in the middle of the night, clutching her neck and stomach in the wake of her nightmare; with no Kurosaki-kun to chase the monsters away like he always promised he would.
But Kurosaki-kun isn't a hero anymore, he's just a broken, broken boy with bruises and cuts wrapped around his body that will never heal; no matter how hard Orihime tries and tries and tries. And he still battles with his own quieted demons, all far worse than conscious physical ones he had to face beforehand.
The week he came back to the living world, after Orihime drains herself nearly of life to fix his broken fingers, missing skin, bruised organs, and ripped cartilage, he walks himself to a tattoo parlor, clad in bandages and fresh scars and he demands - his voice in a harsh, empowering snarl - that he be inked. Now. Kuchiki-san's locked outside of the shop (with Orihime standing idly by her side), immediately visiting their world when Ishida-kun had informed her of the anti-hero's rather questionable antics, banging with utmost protest against the locked entrance. Only when Kurosaki-kun emerges two hours later does her yells die on the tip of her raw tongue; a strange, lonely look in her eyes pushing forth instead.
There's tribal marking down his wielding arm and stretched across skin where his heart lies under. A pause and then, "for Renji," he coughs awkwardly; painfully.
Orihime can swear she hears a dog's howl toll off in the fading distance.
And, for the first time in what feels like forever, Kuchiki Rukia collapses and begins to cry.
The scars, she tries not to look at them.
Ishida-kun pours her a cup of apple tea and she refuses the steaming liquor that frees her sniffling nose and soothes her puffy, watery eyes.
"Yamada-san can heal those," she informs him in a light tone before scratching the back her head sheepishly; apologizing, "I know I haven't been healing well but-"
"They're a reminder," interrupts Ishida-kun. "Of what grief the war brought."
Death is still very present and a chill tickles the back of her neck. She can suddenly feel secrets eating her alive at this solid moment. She swallows.
The retired Quincy then looks concerned, his blue irises flashing, and she bares him a pleasant, uplifting smile. His frown shoots right through it like his Quincy arrows had sliced through hollows. He isn't convinced the slightest but that's all right. She isn't trying to pretend, really.
"You know you're allowed to be sad, Orihime," he tells her. His voice is constricted and there's a lump in the base of his throat. Chest tightening, he continues cautiously - like she's about to crack and break apart at any minute (Oh Ishida-kun, I've been made much stronger than that! she thinks), "We did, after all, lose a lot of... people and... Renji was a good friend to us; and I really did like Zaraki, even if he was a bit terrifying and reminded me of a clown, and Hitsugaya, Hisagi, and Kira were very close to Hinamori-san. I can't imagine how they're feeling about her death. And Soi Fon-"
Orihime blinks before interjecting sweetly,"it looks like you've forgotten, Ishida-kun, that we fought a war. A war always consists of two sides."
He looks taken back and sympathy vanishes from his face. "Orihime," she doesn't like the sharp octave he's using so suddenly and she wants to cover her ears, "you can't possibly feel sorry for them."
Funny. Out of all her friends, she thinks Ishida-kun would be the most understanding. He's (or used to be) the brooding, devil's advocate of the group, is (was) he not?
"But why?" she asks, not in defense but of pure curiosity.
"They were hollows, they had no hearts." he answers firmly. "They were designed to kill for Aizen. That's all. To serve and to kill. They don't deserve anyone's remorse. Especially yours, of all people. Who they wanted to destroy before you even really lived yet!"
"But all hollows were once souls," she reminds him, gently. "And those souls once wanted to love and be loved, those souls feared death like us; those souls were alive, Ishida-kun, and they existed once and now they're gone."
Ishida-kun falls silent.
From then on he doesn't talk to her about the hollows who killed and were killed; the ones she spent most of her time with. Ichigo told him before that one of them displayed some type of remorse to her, but he figured it was that the hollow hadn't killed her with the first given chance.
"You think they were good souls," Rangiku-san states to Orihime solemnly, "underneath it all."
"Yes," grins the young girl.
"You think they had hearts?"
She shakes her head. "No but they used to. In order to be heartless, you have to own and lose a heart first."
"Grimmjow and Ulquiorra. You felt for them the most."
"I think they were respectable," replies Orihime, dipping her tomato slices into chocolate pudding. She furrows her eyebrows while rocking back and forth on the bare heels of her feet and pauses, choosing her words carefully as she leans over the yellow kitchen counter.
"I think they deserve to be missed." she concludes finally. Yes, that sounds about right.
They deserved to be missed. Maybe not loved, but being missed can sometimes feel all the same.
Rangiku inhales sharply; and then, "I agree."
"That is a very nice necklace, Rangiku-san," comments the teen, tilting her head to the side. "Is that a charm of a dog?"
The woman blinks, absentmindedly dancing the tip of her finger with the silver charm. "It's a fox."
Orihime decides to place a blue orchid in her hair along with a shark tooth around her neck and wears them until the flower eventually withers and the tooth gradually loses its shine, burning them to black dust before promptly scattering the dark remains in the widest meadow she can find.
She thinks - as the ashes sparkle across the sky while spreading the tips of her fingers the farthest they can separate from one another; allowing the sun to kiss every inch of her exposed flesh - that they would've really liked the light here.
She smiles.