Ashes
Rating: T
Summery: Orihime could have saved him. She didn't. Vaguely Orihime/Ulquiorra, spoilers for chapters 353-354.
Characters/Pairings: Orihime/Ulquiorra kind of, if you squint.
Comments: In second person, for some strange reason, mostly because that's just how it turned out. Written because we now have seen several times in the series that Orihime has near god-like healing powers, so why didn't she use them when Ulquiorra was dying? She could have saved him. But she didn't. Why?
Also first Bleach fic, please, read and review!
Spoilers: Major spoilers for chapter 353-354. You were warned.
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He is turning to ash even as he reaches a hand toward you and you reach a hand toward him.
And you know you can bring him back with a flicker of power, a few words dropped from your mouth. You can stop him from dying. You can turn ash back to flesh as easily clapping your hands together. You have brought many back from worse that what is killing him.
But one thing stops you.
It is the look in his eyes. Which is odd, you have never been able to read his eyes before this point.
But this is not an unreadable message. It's as clear as a bell, as clear as if he was waving signs at her, big flashing signs.
The look says NO.
It says that he does not want you to do what he knows you can, even though his fingers are dissolving into ash even before you can touch the skin you reach for. He does not want you save him. He is asking that you to not, even as his hand stretched out to you.
So you let Ulquiorra die. You let him turn to dust, disintegrate away into the air, one second so very much alive, and the next merely a palmful of ash in her hand.
You let him die.
Because cause he asked you to.
Even though you want to know, so very badly, if the rest of the look in his eyes, the thing under the refusal, meant that he understood. That he'd found what he'd always seemed to be searching for.
You look down at the handful of ash you have managed to grab before the rest drifted away.
And figured that he'd probably found his heart, one way or another.
So, pursing your lips, you blow the dust from your palm and out, into the wind.
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end.