Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.

A/N: So my new obsession is Bleach. This might be a little bit of a weird idea...

Orange

Know what the color of unbridled, raw strength is?

Think molten lava, think the core of the earth, of rocks grating against each other, creatures all rough shoulders and jagged teeth warring against each other.

What do you see?

The noise fades, it's a distant memory. The noise is rushing, grating, mighty earth-shattering roars, the kind of sound you imagined monsters made. The noise always fades and it's always there. A distant memory.

But what's really left is the sight of this awe-inspiring, frightening strength.

Orange.

That's what it looks like.

Bright, fiery orange, the kind of orange that makes you squint when you first see it so you're eyes will adjust to the sheer force of the color.

I think of Inoue with her flitting, flighty magic creatures. They are like sighs beside the splitting screams of my strength. She'll always be only that much. She will never release herself.

Strength is freedom.

Strength is loud.

I think of Chad, with his brute force but he's solid, like a hunk of rock, like a jagged cliff standing stubbornly though its battered by the elements, like the lip of a mountain, unmoving. He's not strength, he's force.

Strength is fluid movement.

Strength is orange.

I think of Ishida and he's too narrow, too cold. He's ice blue and cold white. He's intent and purpose. He's not strength. He's shrewd logic and systematic, effective planning.

Strength is adaptive.

Strength is abstract.

I think of Rukia. Rukia and her glossy, black hair, with the odd way one strand falls across her face. Her motions have a purposeful grace and dignity. In her movements she initiates and awakens a sort of poise. Its too attractive to be real strength.

Strength is ugly.

I think of Tatsuki, Karin, Yuzu, my mother, my father, Kon, Uruhara…

Uruhara's strength is yellow.

Uruhara and his decisive calculation. He has the strength but he controls it.

They say power corrupts.

I'm the strongest of the lot.

You know what that power feels like?

Think unbearable pain, think moving when your limbs have been sliced through, think resolve after defeat, think going on when no one else would dream of it. Everyone else controls their power, I have to work at increasing it.

I feed the monster in me. And the people around me encourage it.

Knowing you have the strength to collapse the gates of heaven, defeat a creature ten shinigamis wouldn't take on together, to break through spirit force gates, to kill the monster within you.

That's not just power, its beyond power.

Its monstrous fucking strength.

And its orange.

A poisonous kind of orange.

It seeps into your bones, swims through painfully stretched muscles, dries the base of your throat tantalizingly, gnaws at your brain…

It drowns you.

Its fucking orange and it eats you from the inside out if you don't eat your way from the out to the inside.

Strength is destruction, self-destruction, mass-preservation.

The day before, I wanted to eat, I felt the desire to take, to fucking devour things whole. I ate like a monster, but it dissipated no hunger, it didn't soothe my palate, I was just throwing things down my gullet because this creature, this strength in my body, in my soul was ordering me to.

Last week, I felt the desire to kill every person I knew. A single blow was all it would take. I could see them begging at me feet, on their knees and I would smirk, my Soul Slayer would come down in a sweep and then blood. And it felt good.

Today, I want to fuck the brains out of every girl I see. I don't think I'd get off, heck, I'm not even turned on. Its just the need to control, the need to impose itself as a strength. I just have to think of Inoue casting her magic, of Karin's boyish voice, of Tatsuki practicing her karate, of Yuzu's shuffling footsteps and humming as she cooks, of Rukia breathing, of my own mother smiling down at me…

And I can imagine them screaming under me. I dream of their fingers grasping me, their sweat mixing with mine, soaking my skin, their tears on my clothes and sometimes even blood.

Tomorrow I'll feel the need to possess everything around me and everyone around me. It will be unprecedented jealousy. The day after I'll want to sleep and sleep for all eternity…

Until the next day comes and this restless strength within me feels the need for more, the desire to be more, do more, do something, do anything.

I'm sweating and shaking.

Orange streetlights filter through my blinds.

My sheets are soaked. I roll over and hold myself until the shaking stops. There's no silence. There's a quite musing, a humming in my chest as if the monster's interested in me. Interested that I don't embrace the power it gives me, but instead feel tortured by its presence itself.

The nausea builds up in my stomach. I can't stand the turning and the writhing. Strength withdrawal. I guess you have to feel pathetically human when you know you have managed to make a Menos Grande dart back behind the curtains of the sky.

It's the only way to keep the balance.

That kind of strength only corrupts.

I refuse to become a hollow.

I stumble to the bathroom and throw up. For a while its not about strength, its refreshing weakness. My knees tremble, my eyes water, my throat burns and my stomach heaves and turns itself over. If its possible I'm even more soaked in sweat. Thick, cool, salty drops trickle into my eyes and drip onto the counter between my tightly curled, nearly white knuckles. Now my eyes burn.

Now Rukia's standing behind me. Her hand's on my shoulder. Her touch makes me salivate and feel revolted at the same time. I can ignore the burning warmth through my thin, sweat-soaked pajamas and yet its unbearably solid.

I envision her, involuntarily, her back on his counter, my tightly curled, nearly white knuckles gripping her hips so hard they'll leave bruises and she's panting and sweating and jerking in rhythm under me and screaming like the little shinigami she is…

She asks me if I'm alright. Maybe I'm just a fifteen year old boy finally wondering what the fuck happened to him. Maybe I can't pretend I'm a boy anymore. Maybe I'm a monster.

I don't know, I say.

I look in the mirror before me finally and I see orange.