AN: I don't know if this has been done before (it probably has). It just was a little plot bunny that came to me from under my thinking chair. It seriously kept bugging me until I was forced to begin writing it.
Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN BLEACH. Otherwise I would be a good artist. For everyone's information I can only draw stick figures. And they look derpy.
She didn't know what had happened. One moment she was talking to Tatsuki, who had come over for tea, while the next she was staring at her body with a chain bound to her chest. Tatsuki was asking her body, or at least it looked like her body, if she was alright. She felt fine, she thought to herself, but started to look around. The room was normal, everything was in perfect order. The only things odd in the room were the ominous feeling she had and the chain sticking out of her chest.
She was fascinated by it. Not knowing any better, she began to tug on the thing to see if it was really attached to her. Each tug brought uncomfortable amounts of pain into her body, originating at the base in her chest. Hmm, so she was chained to the body. Err…her body. Maybe she could pull out the chain from it? She kind of wanted to explore a little bit. And why hadn't Tatsuki said something about the two bodies? It seemed kind of obvious. Seriously, there were two of her in the room!
She reached out to give a light yank on the other body's chain. The pain was worse this time, but still nothing to terrible. It was like the hole she had when her brother died. It was like her heart had been ripped out, but healed, leaving the echo of pain from the memories.
That was when she noticed it. The oppressive feeling was right behind her. She turned to look.
"Little one?"
She knew that voice. It had haunted her, teased her, nearly broken her everyday since his death. He didn't look like him, the pitch was slightly distorted, it was more sinister while maintaining the tone she had come to trust absolutely.
"Sora-nii?"
He looked at her, truly looked at her. Her overwhelming joy to see him made him happy, but bitter at the same time. She only now cared. She had stopped her prayers for him, lost her love for her elder brother.
"It's really you?" she was barely able to speak through the tears, now beginning to fall.
"Yes, it is. It's been a while Imoutou," he spoke softly.
"I missed you. I missed you so much! I'm sorry, I love you Sora-nii! I love you, I don't hate you! I could never hate you!" she was crying and talking at the same time, making her rushed apology sound more like small bits of language slipped between the pauses in her sobs. She didn't care what he looked like, what had happened to him. Her brother was back. The last words she said to him weren't hurtful now! He came back for her!
He felt less bitter, less angry. It was wonderful. His only, precious baby sister. She really was only a baby. She still needed him. She would always need him, but she had grown up because of his absence. He wouldn't leave her again. No, she would always be with him. She would stay with him. They would be a family again. Together forever.
"Imoutou, would you like to stay with me?" he knew she would want to. He would cut the chain of fate. She would be a hollow, like him, but they would be together again. He would protect her. He would help her, like he had done in life.
"Really? You mean we can stay together? You can braid my hair like you used to? And you'll eat my cooking?" She looked up, hopefully. Begging him to say yes. To tell her that everything would be alright.
"I don't know about your cooking, I don't think I would like to suffer death twice," he chuckled behind his mask. His hand enclosed the chain linking her back to her human body. He just had to crush it. Then they would be together again. His baby sister would be back.
"I want to stay with you Sora-nii! Can you stay in the kitchen? Or could I make you a bigger bed?" she started rambling, excited to be getting him back.
"I'm afraid you'll have to come with me. You see, I can't stay here long," he started, gripping the chain tighter in his claws.
"Oh, but what about my friends? Tatsuki-chan and Kurosaki-kun? I can't just leave them!" She started to protest, frowning. She looked for Tatsuki and realized she was carrying her body with her, presumably to take her to the Kurosaki Clinic.
The mention of those who had stolen her away, taken her affection from him sent him over the edge. He was her brother! Her family! The one who had saved her, even when she was a baby! These interlopers were going to try and make her stay. They were going to drive them apart.
He wasn't going to allow that. He could feel the shinigami coming. Coming to eliminate him and rescue her. He couldn't allow it.
In a split-second decision, he made his choice.
Without any regard to her thoughts or feelings on the matter, he crushed her soul chain.
Her world exploded in agony. Spirit particles warped around her as the encroachment began. It was sped up, though she didn't know it. The pain was so intense she wanted to, prayed to, faint. Yet she didn't. The enormous and uncontrolled reiastu of her hollow brother next to her and her would-be protector had ensured it would be quick, although agonizing.
Her chain was like a void, gulping rieatsu from hollow, gigai, and shinigami alike. Her chain devouring itself more rapidly then any hollow before her, burned and writhed as she began to twitch uncontrollably. She lost all sense of direction, became nauseous, and gasped, in shock from the pain.
She didn't even register the anguished cry of "INOUE!" her crush let loose upon seeing her.
She saw him as she wrenched her head to the side, trying to avoid the hurt plaguing her entire body. She wanted to tell him, at least before it was all over, that it wasn't his fault. He looked so tortured, so guilty, when he shouldn't have. Rukia had come in after him, petrified with a similar look on her face.
She tried desperately to push past the debilitating pain and tell them not to feel guilty.
It wasn't to be as the encroachment had reached the plate in her chest. She had thought the burning and tearing sensation was bad before. She realized she was wrong.
She let forth an agonized wail as it ate away the last bit of her humanity. It pierced through the night, shattering the windows in the small apartment. As suddenly as she began her cry, she was forcibly stopped. Liquid-white poured from her mouth and eyes, engulfing her face and changing her body. Her thrashing was soon the only outward indication she was in pain.
She however, learned a terrible truth. Pain is dulled during time and exposure. She would quickly grow accustomed to it, especially considering her level of pain tolerance. When she first began to change, she had almost mastered it to where she could speak, to where she could push past it for a moment to accomplish her goal. Then there was this. It was another type of pain entirely, drawing strength from those around it. Magnifying itself before she could gain any semblance of tolerance. The strain was unbearable on her, fragmenting her mind as she silently screamed into the air.
Those around her were beginning to feel the drain on their reiatsu, most notably Ichigo. Rukia, feeling the transformation was spurred onwards at such an alarming rate because of Ichigo's presence, began to usher him out of the house.
"There's nothing we can do for her now, Ichigo!" she screamed, trying to move him away from the scene. He stood there, shocked he didn't make it in time, hurting as she changed.
"But I can save her after, right? Send her to Soul Society?" He growled back, not wanting anyone he knew to suffer the fate of being a hollow. Especially not someone as kind as Orihime.
"You're making it worse Ichigo!" The short shinigami retorted, finally getting him to move towards the door.
"But- Rukia I-" he stuttered.
"There is nothing we can do now," she regretfully whispered. "We're only making it worse now."
"Dammit. Fine. But we're gonna save her," he promised, knowing he wouldn't, couldn't, fail her a second time. He would purify her and send her to a better place.
"Of course, Ichigo. We will," she winced, looking back at Orihime, but steeled herself and dragged Ichigo away. He spared one last glance at the girl's body, then looked directly at her brother, disgusted. He couldn't imagine doing that to one of his own sisters and vowed to purify him as well.
Sora, on his part, had realized what he condemned Orihime to. He had realized what atrocity he had committed; he realized he had just killed his own baby sister. He was the reason she was in pain, was crying out, was being swallowed by the pasty white armor that came with being a hollow. He hated being unable to do anything, but knew he had made his mistake, and simply resigned himself to watch.
The white had covered her face completely, hardening and solidifying, despite her attempts to pry it off with her bare hands. She stopped, arms snapping down to her side, legs pointed straight, bound by some invisible force. She shuddered, then an explosion of reiatsu broke through the apartment. As the rubble and dust began to clear, he saw her form for the first time.
She was mainly bleached white like most hollows, but was smaller. She stood taller than most grown men and had little armor. Instead, she had a snowy cloak that covered her from the bottom of her neck to the very tips of her ankles, barely showing her tiny feet. Those however, were more feral, having claw-like nails and grey coloring. Her arms were lanky and long, with delicate hands attached to sharp, wicked looking nails. Each nail seemed to resemble a blade, long and dangerous, fading from the pure white of her cloak to a dull grey at the tip of the nail. They almost dragged on the ground as she simply stood there.
Six large orbs circled behind her head, detached from her body. Her mask was odd, even by hollow standards. It was a single piece, seemingly without eyes or a mouth. A single, thin, blood red line ran horizontally across the entire mask three-quarters of the way down, just below where her jaw would have been hinged. Her hollow hole was placed in her neck, allowing one to see the color of her hair through it. And her hair was longer than it had been in life, her auburn mane reaching the tip of her cloak. The few strands caught the last remnants of the explosion and floated around her for a few moments before falling back towards her body.
The spiritual pressure she emitted was substantial, larger than her brother's by far. While nowhere near the fully unleashed presence of her former crush's, her reiastu was much larger than many seasoned hollows. It intimidated her brother to know his baby sister was only freshly born, probably hungry from the transformation and clearly powerful. He wondered if it was still his little imoutou in that body and not a beast, driven by instinct and appetite.
"Imoutou? Little one?" he questioned.
Immediately the white spheres stopped their movement, one leaving the ring they had formed and moving towards her mask. It opened at what would have been eye-level to reveal a sickly yellow iris with black sclera moving about before settling on him as its focus.
"Sora-nii? What have you done?" She asked him. Her voice came out as it had before her transformation, as if she hadn't just screamed her vocal chords into exhaustion.
"Little one, you are a hollow now, just like me," he said. "We can be together forever now," he smiled. He may not have liked his decision, but he would lament over it later. For now, they needed to return to Hueco Mundo before the shinigami came back.
"A…hollow?" she was confused. Why did everything feel so different? She was lighter and had more energy. But there was this gnawing hunger, this need to eat, consume, and gobble down anything within range. Her brother was looking pretty tasty, actually…
No! She wouldn't! She loved her big brother. She was sure of it. They would be together. Always. But what was a hollow? Wait, she was a hollow, but so was her brother! Maybe they looked like twins?
"I'll explain later, Imoutou, but we need to leave," he opened a garganta as he spoke. The air parted as it revealed a gateway in the realm of hollows.
"You promise you'll explain?" she asked, peering though the portal.
"I promise little one."
With that the two hollows disappeared as a substitute shinigami and a former shinigami ran back into the apartment, desperately trying to stop them from escaping.
The garganta closed as Ichigo and Rukia caught a glance of the hollow Orihime had become.
She never heard the frustrated and heart wrenching cry of despair Ichigo let loose at failing to save her a second time.
So, Orihime becomes a hollow and follows her brother into Hueco Mundo. I've heard of Ichigo actually becoming a hollow and such, but never Orihime. I mean, instead of eating her or attacking her friends, I would want to make someone a hollow so they could stay with me. At least, I would if I was thinking on a purely selfish basis.
So, drop a review if you please!
Monty