Author's Note: Something different for a change. Not IchiRuki! This is an older piece I wrote last year for an IshiHime contest at the lj community bleachness. For a time, it was only available in my old lj, but I am uploading it today as per a request. I did win something for it so I owe some big thanks to the people who voted for this fanfic. The first section was inspired by a title page in the manga that featured Ishida (I can't find it right now!), where he is depicted sitting in a chair floating among the clouds, eyes closed with headphones on. Part of this is set post-Winter War. Enjoy, and please leave a review.
ILLUSIONS IN WHICH SHE DROWNED HERSELF
Another man's name lived and died on the princess's lips like a prayer turned ritualistic chant; while he, on the other side of sanity, strove in desperation to rescue her as she slid into illusory blindness.
Not long after Ishida Uryuu had been introduced into this world had he been instilled with a single doctrine, a single philosophy. He only existed in this wide, terrible universe to wonder why the shinigami could not trust Quincies, to wonder if such cruel injustice really existed in this world. After his master (his grandfather, his one and only source of truth, of goodness, of pure humanity) died because of the utter ineptitude of those so-called honor-bound shinigami, he wasn't ever left to wonder anymore. He now knew that such cruel injustice really did exist and, furthermore, he now knew that he had found his one mission in life, and that was to avenge his master at all cost.
At a young age, Ishida had lost his precious innocence.
For the first fifteen years of his life, Ishida Uryuu felt as if he was hovering stationary hundreds of miles above the earth's surface, with eyes so seemingly peaceful closed, with headphones clamped tightly over his ears. But all was not as it seemed.
This was his life: in reality, his face was not calm and perfectly serene, but set with the grimmest determination possible, the strictest resolve imaginable. If his eyes had not been shut, the cold fury reflected in those dark pupils could have been seen. He knew nothing but to avenge, avenge, avenge. He thought of nothing else, and even if he could let his thoughts stray from this sole focus, he would have chosen not to. But for his closed eyes, perhaps Ishida could have seen the light; but for his covered ears, perhaps he could have heard the voice of reason.
He was helpless as he watched Inoue Orihime bend over the body of Kurosaki Ichigo (yes, that Kurosaki Ichigo, his longtime rival for whom he could not find a single shred of malice against anymore) as she screamed over and over the name of her love of a lifetime: Kurosaki-kun, Kurosaki-kun, Kurosaki-kun, Kurosaki-kun, Kurosaki-kun...
Ishida realized he could do nothing. He could drag her away from the body of the other man but that would have done nothing for Orihime's last remnants of sanity. He could put a reassuring hand on her shoulder, willing her to calm down in the face of the enemy, but he knew that the gesture would be ignored. Right now, in this very instant, Orihime was immune to everything in this world – she hardly knew she existed, never mind Ulquiorra, who stood over them all with something strange stirring in his never-ending lugubrious eyes as he watched the woman cry; never mind Ishida, the white knight who still tried to fight valiantly to keep Ulquiorra from Orihime and the dead man. Her world in this instant consisted of nothing but utter fear and panic, and all she knew was to repeat his name over and over and over again—
She wasn't the only one who wanted to say her love's name repeatedly, as if to reassure herself that this was not really happening. In his head, Ishida wanted to be the one who could bring her back to see the face of reality and stop her from driving herself crazy from grief into the dark depths of delusion. Inoue-san, don't do this to yourself. Inoue-san, let me help you. Inoue-san, don't lose yourself.
It was at this moment that Ishida realized that he was no longer fighting for himself, his father, or his grandfather. He was no longer fighting for the Quincy heritage and legacy that he had for so long taken so much pride in. No – he was fighting for her. In the heat of battle, even as his hand was viciously hacked off, even as his blood dyed white fabric scarlet, Ishida Uryuu came to the conclusion that he had been fooling himself for far too long. Yes, he hadn't forgotten what the shinigami did to his grandfather, to his race, but he also couldn't say anymore that he fought for the same exact reasons that a younger Ishida would have; the same sense of Quincy pride and justice were there, but it had transformed into something else. He fought out of love, not out of hatred.
The effort, however, was lost upon Inoue Orihime, even as he held her in his arms.
How does a man save the woman he loves from herself?
Ishida leaned his head back and it met the wall with a soft thud that nevertheless resonated in the large empty chamber. He slowly opened one eye and at first all he saw was stark, sterile white but after several seconds, as if his eyes were adjusting to the dark (but instead of darkness, it was blinding whiteness), he began to see the minor details that he knew like the back of his hand but voluntarily missed in the first glance. The fine gray dust that congregated in the edges where the floor met the walls, the trampled bits of fur of the luscious rug in the center of the room, the tiny, almost imperceptible cracks in the crystal of the otherworldly lighting fixture. It was a mockery, to have such opulent décor yet not be a king; in fact, quite the opposite. He noticed these things, only because he had had an eternity to examine them.
The room was round. Ruefully, Ishida congratulated the architect for designing the room, whose sole purpose was to withhold a prisoner, as such – the room was without beginning and without end. A man could eventually go crazy just being in this room, trying to figure it out. It was doubtlessly a smaller, more opulent version of the Senzaikyu, which wasn't too far away from where he was being jailed right now. Originally, Aizen had used the Senzaikyu to a great extent but found he had too many prisoners of war and so built smaller jail cells of the same concept all around his conquered, perverse version of Seireitei.
Ishida was sitting on the floor with his back to the wall, legs stretched out before him and arms hanging limply by his sides. His breathing was shallow – not because he was injured by any means (no, he was fine; really, he was fine) but because the monotony of his life had caught up to him and living was such a routine to the point that breathing became a burden. He had to remember to inhale, exhale, and repeat.
His ears perked at the sound of hushed voices outside the room: a soft female's and a deep male's. Ishida immediately stood up, without little effort, and brushed off the dust that he imagined had collected in the creases of his pristine Quincy uniform (never mind the tattered hems that he could not seem to stop from fraying, the worn elbows, and the faded blue trim). It would never do not to look the best he possibly could. He still had his sense of dignity intact.
"...Aizen-sama has his eye everywhere. Be careful; don't spend so much time with him, or he'll suspect something, if he hasn't already," the male said.
"I know, but you can hardly expect me to leave him alone, do you?" The female whispered back. "Besides, I am only bringing him his food. How can there be anything suspicious about that?"
"...Do what you want, then. I see you still do not like listening to me."
"I'm afraid that won't change anytime soon."
He heard the rustle of her dress (fine silk and organza, he noted), followed by the slow, soundless opening of the door. He watched as Orihime cautiously walked in, so as not to spill the food on the tray she held before her with both hands. Behind her, Ishida caught the black stare of Ulquiorra before Orihime shut the door, after having set the tray down temporarily. The door's outline blended smoothly back into the vast, seamless expanse of the white wall.
"Inoue-san," Ishida spoke, his voice a little raspy from disuse. "You do not need to continue personally serving me my food. I am quite fine with an Arrancar servant dumping it in front of me."
The woman let out a musical laugh. "Don't say that, Ishida-kun," she said. "I want to do this everyday. It's the only way I can see you." Her tone changed almost imperceptibly, but Ishida caught it. "Otherwise, Aizen-sama occupies all my time."
"I see you insist on calling him Aizen-sama even after all this time," Ishida noted, slowly sitting down on the lone couch in the room, but only after Orihime had made herself comfortable.
"He is not known by any other name. How can I call him by anything else?" she answered simply.
"Even after the war?"
She hesitated – but that small moment of hesitation is all that Ishida needed to know that the Orihime that he knew was still buried somewhere deep inside of this woman who sat before him. "Yes, even after the war," she replied quietly.
He did not answer immediately; he was busy searching her face. Her eyes told a different story from what her mouth said. They used to be vibrant and gleamed with a certain sense of humor that he had come to known and even adore, but now, it was nothing but just gray. Dull and unresponsive. Ishida regretted having to remind her of the war, but it was necessary. He was afraid she'd forget, eventually, about everything that made them who they were. He was afraid that instead of her losing him as he slowly loses his sanity in this jail tower, it would be him losing her as she slipped into the enemy's illusions.
Already too much time had passed between now and the last time he had thought this almost same exact thing.
He would never tell her this, but the way she was saying Aizen-sama over and over again – it reminded him of that fateful incident above the dome of Hueco Mundo when she had said the name of another man repeatedly, as if it was a mantra.
It was Orhime who breached the silence next, while pouring him a cup of colorless tea. "There is still no news of where the others are," she whispered, as if the low voice she was using would help conceal this small act of innocent treason. It was useless and futile, Ishida thought. Even now Aizen was probably observing them with an unseen eye.
"Don't say anymore," Ishida warned. "You'll get into trouble."
She shook her head, warm brown hair swaying (and he marveled at how they caught the dim light in the room, shimmering. Oh, how Ishida longed to reach out and finger just one of those long locks). "I have to say this," she said. For a moment, her steel determination of olden days returned. "I'll suffer through the punishment later. Aizen-sama is trying to find the others – Rukia, Abarai-kun, Chad... Kurosaki-kun. We don't know where they are, or if they're dead or alive. Kurosaki-kun, he – Kurosaki-kun..."
She met his eyes with an expression of utter horror and suddenly Ishida found the strength to take her pale, cold hands into his battle-worn ones, squeezing it reassuringly. "He's not dead," he said.
"I saw him, we both did. He was just lying there – Aizen-sama made him run himself through with his own zanpakutou, how can he still be...?"
"He is," Ishida said. "I just know it. Have faith."
She withdrew his hand from his grasp, hiding her face behind her hands. "It's getting harder by the day to 'have faith.'"
Ishida laughed drily. It sounded like two pieces of sandpaper rubbing against each other. "Ichigo always manages to swoop in and save the day. I don't think this is any exception."
"And then what?"
Ishida is puzzled. "What do you mean, 'and then'?"
"After he comes to save you, what will happen? Aizen-sama will cut him down – again. He will get killed – again. All of you will be killed this time. He won't make the same mistake twice; he won't spare anybody," Orihime's voice dropped to a whisper again. "I – I don't want him to come. The first time... It ended in a disaster."
He remembered. Ichigo had left the rescue mission without her. She had been brutally awakened to the type of person Ichigo really was, not the charming prince on a white horse who never loses that she'd imagined him to be.
"You don't want Ichigo to come?"
"No." She shook her head adamantly again. "If he's not dead... He should just stay in hiding. Protect his family. And Rukia. And Abarai-kun and Chad... All the people I couldn't protect even with my shield." She gave a tiny, hollow laugh. "How useless I am, the girl who couldn't even protect her friends when her only powers are defensive."
"Don't say that," Ishida said. "You have done so much for us."
Her voice turned spiteful. "I have done nothing. Do not think I am simple-minded, Ishida-kun. I know the truth." She looked up suddenly, horrified at herself for speaking so harshly. "I'm sorry. I mean, I will try to make amends, Ishida-kun. I am trying to make amends. I have talked to Aizen-sama several times to try convincing him to let you go alive."
"Thank you, Inoue-san." Ishida was saddened to hear this. It was not as clear-cut as she was trying to make it out to be. She must know this too. "But he would never agree to that."
"I have to try, at the very least." Orihime gave him a smile, and he could not help smiling back, although he knew that all his smile was doing was feeding her false hopes, which would just eventually cause her more pain. But her smile had always been like that for him: contagious.
"Do you remember, Ishida-kun, when we went to Soul Society and we were attacked by a shinigami? And you held me in your arms so that his attack would not hit me?"
Ishida smiled, nostalgia clouding his mind. "Yes. Yes, I do."
"You protected me then. I want to protect you now. Is that so bad?" She didn't let him answer. "I have something to ask of you, Ishida-kun. Why do you fight so hard all the time? Even when there is no hope of winning?"
He didn't respond immediately, giving the impression that he did not know the answer to her question, although he knew the reason why and knew exactly how he wanted to say it. He had had a lot of time to think about this in his years of imprisonment; he had just been waiting for her to ask the question. He watched as she unconsciously leaned a little forward, eager to hear his answer.
"I–"
Ishida was interrupted by a surreptitious knock, and the outline of the door to his jail cell reappeared. It was none other than Ulquiorra who opened the door, with the same non-expressive face, looking unapologetic even though he fully knew that he was interrupting a very private conversation.
"Aizen-sama summons your presence, Orihime," he solemnly announced.
"Oh!" Orihime hastily stood up, her cup of tea sitting cold and forgotten. "Then I must go, Ishida-kun. I'll come by later to pick up the tray. Take your time eating." She walked over to the door where Ulquiorra waited for her, and before exiting, she gave one last glance to Ishida, smiling, as if she was sharing some private joke with him. "I'll be waiting for your answer to my question when I get back!"
"Of course, Inoue-san," Ishida replied politely, standing up to see her go. When Ulquiorra had whisked her away, and when the door had disappeared after her, he slowly sank back down on the couch, staring at the simple lunch that Orihime had prepared for him. Despite her words (which were to her, the truth, but in reality were simply lies), Ishida knew that she wouldn't be able to visit him again that day. Aizen would make sure of that.
He had to content himself with eating a lunch made for two by himself, sitting alone in the white tower.
She came back the next day.
"I'm so sorry, Ishida-kun, Aizen-sama had me busy the entire day and I couldn't drop by and visit," she apologized sincerely, setting down the food tray that she had brought for him.
"There's nothing to be sorry about, Inoue-san. I fully understand," Ishida replied.
She sat down on the couch next to him and turned her body so that she was facing him. "About my question yesterday," she prompted. "Do you have an answer for me?"
"Yes," Ishida said slowly. "But first a question for you, Inoue-san. Do you remember the last day of the war?"
Her beautiful face darkened momentarily. "Of course," she said in hushed tones.
"Do you remember the moment when I battled Aizen?"
"Ishida-kun..." Uncertainty had appeared in the minute lines of her face.
"You must remember. I was fighting him for you. He refused to let you go. I refused to go without you. I fought him. Even as I was bleeding to death, even as he sliced me almost in half. My arrows were hardly denting him, I remember. Do you?" He was being ruthless, Ishida knew. But he had to make her remember, she must remember.
"Y—Yes, I do," she whispered.
"That is my answer to your question. I fight even when I have no chance of winning because that is my style. I fight even when I am dying because, in my heart, I have no other choice other than to keep on fighting, my whole sense of pride based precariously on the slim chance that I could have you in my arms again. And I vowed that if I won, I would never let you go again." Ishida paused. "But, I lost. And here I am today."
Orihime was silent for a moment, and for a brief instant Ishida was afraid that she was too far lost already for his words to make any sense to her. "I don't think you lost, Ishida-kun," Orihime finally said, and Ishida's chest leapt. "I think you won. I think you showed me how much you love me, at that instant, and I am grateful for that. But..."
"But?"
"You must know that these kinds of things do not last, Ishida-kun, right?"
In his mind, he was falling. He was no longer hovering peacefully in mid-air, with eyes closed and headphones clamped tightly over his ears, as if he was dreaming a wonderful dream. Instead, he was plummeting. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, you know that love does not last forever, right?"
"I don't know what you're talking about, Inoue-san," he replied, uncertain.
"It's a cruel world out there, Ishida-kun. I know that now. I learned that the hard way – when I saw Ichigo turn into that hollow beast, when I saw Aizen opening your chest with one swing of his sword. You were there. You must know that good things do not last," Orihime said.
Ishida sat up straighter. "Inoue-san, what's gotten into you? This doesn't sound like the Orihime I know. Orihime would say that good things will always come, no matter what hardships we suffer through..."
"Aizen-sama has opened my eyes," Orihime said simply.
"Inoue-san! What – What could you mean by that?"
"I mean that it is no use living in a dream anymore," Orihime answered. "I'm so sorry, Ishida-kun. I've changed. I — I think that something's happening and I am just not myself anymore." Her hands flew to her temples. "Sometimes I'm not sure who I am and what I'm doing here. I don't know what's happening to me. But – But, I will still try my hardest to correct my wrongs. I'll still try to get you freed, Ishida-kun."
Slow realization dawned upon Ishida as he recognized the handiwork of Aizen in Orihime's eyes. His revenge on Ishida had begun, and Ishida lamented that Aizen had chosen his method of revenge so well.
Orihime rose from her seat. "I have to go now," she said.
"Yes. Good-bye," Ishida said. She looked at him as if expecting more. "You know," he began, "usually, it's the princess who is imprisoned in the tower, waiting for her knight in shining armor to come rescue her, not the other way around."
"Usually," Orihime smiled wistfully. "But this time, it's finally my turn to be the knight."
If Aizen ever lets you have a chance, Ishida thought silently.
It was a night of tumult and confusion.
The details were not important. He couldn't remember them if he tried. All that was important was that one night, Ishida found himself being dragged out of the white tower he had lived in for years and into the dark night as Seireitei lay sleeping and being passed from one set of hands to the next and when his eyes finally adjusted to the darkness, he found himself looking at the bright orange of Ichigo's hair, the passionate violet of Rukia's eyes, the brilliant metallic flash as Renji's Zabimaru roared in the air and the ethereal glow of Chad's arm as he powered up for another shot. He was at lost for words. They had come for him.
(In the background, Ishida caught fragments of Rukia's screaming, can't leave you here and won't leave you here and finally, Are you crazy? and she seemed to facing a woman with warm brown hair tied up in a determined bun on her head; Ishida realized with unabated horror that Orihime had been the one who had dragged him out of his bed in the middle of the night and she was the one standing there, in between him and the enemy...And he screamed over and over again, over the din of battle, No, no, no, no...)
All of a sudden, somebody (Renji? Chad?) grabbed him around the midsection and was dragging him back but he was fighting (oh, how he fought) and struggling to get back on his own two feet and to rush back to Orihime. What are you doing, we can't leave her behind, let me go, let me go...
We have to go now, she'll follow us, trust her...
She won't, it was never in her plan to come with us, no, she won't, let me go!
The world was progressing in a dream-like trance and Ishida felt as if he was living an illusion, as if he was hallucinating, as if this was how it felt like to be in the grasp of Aizen's hypnotic powers, but deep, deep inside of him he somehow instinctively knew that this was real, all too real.
Orihime's shield blew up in fragments, and Ishida's lungs forgot to breathe and his heart forgot to beat, but she stood up again, seemingly unharmed. She caught his eyes, and she smiled a heartbreaking smile. Ishida found the monstrous strength to break free of his friend's grasp and he rushed over to Orihime.
"Uryuu!" she yelled, even as the enemy advanced and even as she reflexively projected her shield again. The fact that she was finally using his first name is lost upon him.
He doesn't know what to say, except: "Why?"
"I want you to know," Orihime whispered, "I want you to know that I'm doing this because I love you and because I rather see you free than suffer while staying here with me. I have this bit of sanity left to know this. Aizen hasn't won me over yet."
"Don't be ridiculous. Come with me!" he desperately pleaded.
She shook her head. "I can't. Maybe in another life..."
He was being dragged away again; he was so distraught, so delirious he couldn't fight against the power distancing him from her. "I promise I'll come back for you, Orihime," he said. There was something hot and wet on his cheeks.
She smiled. "I'll be waiting for you," she said, even though they both knew the truth. The reality was they would probably never see each other again, but they both chose to live in the falseness of this life, if only for a little while longer.
When he closes his eyes and blocks his ears from the outside world again, all Ishida Uryuu hears is her voice, playing over and over again: I love you; maybe in another life, I would have made the same mistakes but I'm glad I had you by my side to let me see the truth.
Orihime had lifted the headphones from his ears but when he opens his eyes again, she isn't there beside him.
It was supposed to be him who says those words, not her.
fin