Days Forgotten
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach
Chapter 1
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Orihime sighed as she entered her home, kicking off her shoes at the door tiredly and dropping her bag near the table as she moved to the kitchen. If school and work weren't enough, she still had to face a hollow on the way home. She had 'politely' cleansed it, however the bruises she sported told of how she had been distracted, especially seeing as this wasn't such a huge hollow.
She made her way to the kitchen and put the kettle on, pulling out her mug and putting in the necessary condiments for a nice cup of soothing tea. Once her tea was made, she made her way to the table, settled herself and took out her books to complete the day's homework.
She liked math. She was good at numbers and problem solving. The intricacies of trigonometry, algebra and geometry, took her mind of things she preferred to avoid, such as reality…
Ever since coming back from Hueco Mundo, things didn't just go back to normal as how she'd hoped. On top of all the work she had to deal with, she still had to contend with the recurring nightmares she was having about the desolate sands of the place of her captivity. She tried her best not to think of it but it still troubled her.
She looked back at the books on her table and pushed the unwanted thoughts to the back of her head. Yep, math will definitely help with that.
Once she was done with her homework, she watched some TV, which brought some laughter into the quiet home and once her favourite shows were over, she decided to take a nice hot bath and then rest for the day.
She undressed and made sure to extract her hairpins off her jacket and place them in the box she was using to keep them in. She didn't wear them on her hair anymore but she still kept them close. Her hair now framed her face and Tatsuki had said she even looked more mature.
As she had a bath, she took notice of the bruises on her upper arms and her waist. She could heal them but she felt as if she would be cheating… She also didn't want to use her powers for every small scratch she occurred, she felt as if her powers weren't naturally given to her for the benefit of herself but actually for the benefit of others, for helping people in need, it didn't matter if it was friend or foe.
She was a big girl, she'd suck it up and deal with the pain. She'd done it before, never forgetting what those two arrancar women had put her through…which was one of the moments that played a part in her nightmares.
She got out of the bath and wiped herself dry, making her way to her room to change and dive straight under her covers. Hopefully tonight wasn't one of those nights…
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Orihime entered the school gates to see her best friend and love interest arguing over something. She smiled, no matter what they spoke about they always had to act tough with each other. Well she could diffuse the situation easily.
"Tatsuki-chan! Kurosaki-kun! Ohayo!" Orihime shouted and waved at them as she made her way towards them.
"Hi Orihime" Tatsuki said as she smiled at her auburn-haired friend.
"Hey, Inoue" Ichigo replied nonchalantly.
"Why are you late?" Tatsuki asked, raising her brow. The tom boy had grown her hair out which actually made her look more feminine making her usual glare not as scary as before.
"Heh eh eh, well you see… I kinda woke up late coz my alarm didn't go off, coz personally I think it was the little blue men that changed the time on it, and then when I was changing, my shoe amazingly disappeared! That must have been the green men…" Orihime answered, placing her index finger on her chin in a thinking motion.
Tatsuki and Ichigo looked at one another then shrugged, knowing how Orihime could lose track of things.
"Gah, well never mind, we're gonna be late if we don't hurry." Ichigo said, pulling Orihime out of her musings.
"Hai!" Orihime smiled and fell in to step behind them. She was lucky, they couldn't tell that she avoided telling them the truth. Unfortunately, it had been one of those nights…
She sighed as she thought about her sleepless night. Once again her dreams had taken her to Hueco Mundo, turning into a nightmare in which she had to re-live one of the moments she wished to forget.
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It was the one of that creepy lanky looking man. Of all the arrancar that creped her out the most, it was him. It was the night she had felt the reiatsu of her friends entering Hueco Mundo.
She was lost in her thoughts about how she wished they hadn't come. How, she had left to protect them and now they were placing themselves in danger, for her. Her eyes were shut tight, as she stood facing the crescent moon that spilled some of its light into the sad looking room.
Her eyes shot open and she gasped as she felt a thin hand sneak across her shoulders, pulling her back. On instinct she put both her hands on the one around her shoulders and pulled, the offending hand did not relent.
"Now, now pet-sama. Enjoying the view eh? Me too." He drawled lecherously.
She turned her head upward to find him staring back at her, leering down her body with the eye that wasn't covered.
She whimpered. There was no way she could fight him. She could feel his reiatsu was high, higher than that hunk of a man that had destroyed Tsubaki. She squealed when she heard a loud clang, turning her head to see his large weapon lying on the floor beside them.
She tried holding her tears back as he spread his now free hand along her stomach. She closed her eyes, there was nothing she could do…
"P-Please… Please leave me alone…" She whispered, gulping, trying not to cry.
"But I'm only keeping you warm pet-sama… Ya know, it can get really chilly around here…" He said huskily, bending his head and kissing her neck.
That action made Orihime's eyes widen and the unshed tears sprang forth along her cheeks. She couldn't let this happen. She pulled on the hand at her shoulders and elbowed his face that was lifting from her neck.
He howled and let go of her. She turned to see that he was holding his hands over his good eye, his face now contorted in anger. "You bitch…"
She didn't want to wait to see what he did next so she turned and ran for the door only to feel her jaw snap and her body fly across the room to hit the wall on the other side with a resounding crack.
Her back was against the wall and she opened her eyes to see him walk towards her. Her face was in a huge amount of pain, her jaw was completely slack. Her body hurt all over and she was sure she had a few more other broken bones. It hurt, it hurt so much. She couldn't even utter a word because her jaw was most definitely broken.
"I was gonna be gentle with ya, but I don't think so anymore. I won't kill ya straight away pet. No, when I'm done with you, you'll beg for death." He chuckled sinisterly.
She watched as he picked his zanpakuto off the floor, walking towards her, grinning evilly.
He bent down to her and raised his fist and just before he could deliver the blow she woke up screaming, finding herself soaked in sweat and out of breath.
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Thinking about it now, while Ochii-sensei scribbled away on the board, made her cringe at the horror she went through. He had managed to smack her around a bit, throwing in a few crude comments while he was at it but as luck would have it, Ulquiorra had arrived and blasted him out of the room.
He had taken her to the pink-haired Espada to heal her to a state where she could use her own powers to finish the process. It had left her broken and was one of the reasons why she didn't have it in her to fight back against the two women who had entered her room.
She had tried to thank the pink-haired scientist for his help, which had proved a huge mistake on her part but she didn't want to think about that incident right now…Right now she planned on staying focused and keeping her grades up.
She couldn't afford to drop her standards, she desperately needed a scholarship or bursary to help with payments for college, because she was determined to further her education and make something out of herself.
She furrowed her brow in determination and started scribbling down notes that would help her later.
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Lunch arrived and she made her way to the rooftop with Tatsuki, lunchbox in hand. After the whole Aizen fiasco, all their friends knew about their 'secret' lives so they had all decided to share their lunch breaks together from now onwards. It made Orihime happy to be with all her friends and watch how they interacted.
She sat down and pulled out her sandwiches filled with peanut-butter and wasabi. She frowned, it was a bit on the normal side seeing as she ran out off red bean paste.
"Minna-san! Anyone for a sandwich?" Orihime shouted, extending her lunch box to the group with a bright smile on her face.
Everyone blanched and plastered a small smile on their faces, offering a quiet 'no thanks' to which Orihime shrugged and took a bite out of one.
"So guys… What are we doing this weekend?" Keigo said enthusiastically.
A chorused 'work' resounded through the group.
"No way! Everyone can't be working! Even you Ichigo?" Keigo rambled on.
"Yeah, and would you stop with the shouting! My ears can't take any more of it!" Ichigo shouted.
"Well Kurosaki, it's very clever of you to inform Asano-san to quit shouting when you are doing the exact same." Ishida chirped.
"Who the fuck asked you Ishida?" Ichigo replied, glaring at the Quincy.
"No one asked me, I was merely just stating an observation." Ishida replied indifferently.
"Well shut the fuck up, I didn't ask for your observations"
"Always the barbarian aren't we Kurosaki, you just have to add in profanities when there is no need to."
"Why you… If it's a fight you want then let's go Quincy!" Ichigo hollered.
"Anytime shinigami" Ishida bit back, pushing his glasses up with his middle finger.
Before both boys could make real on their threats, they were clutching their jaws from a fist they didn't see coming.
"What the fuck Tatsuki!" Ichigo screamed, glaring at the tomboy.
"Arisawa…" while Ishida just gaped at her.
"I am trying to enjoy my lunch, so the both of you better shut up!" Tatsuki hollered.
Both boys continued to rub their jaws, Ichigo mumbling something about 'demon woman'
"What was that Ichigo?" Tatsuki asked, raising her eyebrow at him before she could take a bite off her half eaten sandwich.
"Nothing…" he mumbled
"Ano… You didn't have to hit them so hard Tatsuki-chan…" Orihime whined.
"Gah, the baka's deserved it." Tatsuki replied, chomping on her sandwich.
"Don't worry about it Inoue, it doesn't even hurt." He smiled softly at the healer.
Orihime smiled and watched as he went back to eating his lunch, scowl firmly back in place. She couldn't believe that she had reached such a pinnacle in her life, where she didn't stutter or blush every time she spoke to him or every time he smiled at her.
Hueco Mundo had changed her, she wasn't that naïve anymore in believing everyone ate the things she did or everyone saw or were affected by the little blue men and most definitely, she did not believe that Ichigo would return her feelings the way she wanted him to.
She had a lot of time to process her thoughts after Hueco Mundo. If Ichigo felt the same about her, she would have seen it in his eyes. She could read him better than anyone else. He didn't look at her the way she looked at him. She had grown up a lot since captivity and it had led her to give up on childish dreams and look towards her reality.
She didn't want to be alone forever, and she didn't want to wait forever… She wasn't gonna go out and look for someone else but she would take her time to let go off the attachment she has with him and ease off her 'obsession' with him.
She also knew that he didn't have any feelings for Rukia, she had just been deluding herself. Maybe it was because she was so infatuated with him that she mistook his reactions towards Rukia as affection more than friends and that's why she had been jealous.
Ichigo was all about the here and now. It seemed to her that he just lived for the next moment and that he didn't really think about such things as emotions too much. He just did what he felt was right. Like coming to save a friend. That's how he saw her, as his nakama, that's how he saw all of them and she was grateful and blessed to have such an amazing nakama such as him.
Even though she was on her way to letting go off her feelings for him, she still loved him and he'd always have a special place in her heart for all the things he did for her and the people she cared about.
She told Tatsuki about this and her friend had insisted she confess to Ichigo but she was adamant on her decision until Tatsuki understood and supported her. She was most grateful for the woman sitting beside her. She was honored to call her sister.
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The rest of the school day had gone by fast, everyone saying their goodbyes at the gate and heading to their part time jobs. Ichigo had the day off so he decided to finish his home work and get in a bit of studying for the test next week. He needed to get down to studying during any free time he had. With hollow duty, work and school, he needed to keep his grades up.
Although he had been lucky recently. His shinigami badge would go off and he'd leave to the location, only while he was on his way the pass would stop blaring. He figured that it was the shinigami representative who was doing all the work for once and he was glad, it gave him more time to deal with his life.
He opened the door and kicked off his shoes.
"I'm Hom-"
Before he could finish the sentence, he was kicked hard in his abdomen, his back slamming into the door. He groaned slightly, opening his eyes to see the fist that was directed at his face. His instincts awakened, he grabbed onto the hand and pulled until he threw the offending body across the room.
"Ahh, Ichigo my son, you're getting rusty!" Isshin exclaimed from his place on the floor.
"What the fuck old man! I just got back from school! Can't you behave normally for once?" Ichigo hollered at his father who was now getting up.
Isshin laughed, "I have to keep you on your toes my boy! So how was school? Finally meet a nice girl to bring home to your daddy eh?" he said, wiggling his eyebrows at Ichigo.
The vein on Ichigo's head began to throb as he gritted his teeth. He was about to punch his father when he heard the voice of his sister.
"Otou-san! Onii-chan! Would you stop fighting! Dinner will be ready in a few minutes" Yuzu chirped.
"Let them be Yuzu, it's their way of bonding." Karin drawled from her place against the wall.
"But Karin-chan, they'll get hurt!" the brown-haired girl whined.
"Now, now relax my darling daughter. A wimp like your brother could never hurt me!" Isshin smiled broadly, pointing at himself with his thumb.
"W-Wimp?" Ichigo stuttered, trying to reign in his temper to which Isshin just laughed.
Ichigo was tired of all the commotion so he decided to let it be for now, he had other pressing issues to take care off. "Gah, next time old man, you better be watching your back…" Ichigo smirked as he made his way to his room. "Yuzu, call me when dinner's ready."
"Isshin just smiled knowing that Ichigo was sure to follow through with his threat.
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Once Ichigo got to his room, he set out his books and continued to study. Lucky for him, Kon was locked up in Yuzu's room, so there weren't any disturbances from him. With everything else that was going on the last couple of months, he was glad that he was able to keep his grades up.
He was determined not to fall back, he, just like everybody else, desired to go to college so he had to work hard. It wasn't as if they paid him to slay hollows, if that was the case he would have just left school all together. He chuckled at the thought.
He finished in time just to hear his sister call him for dinner. He took his place at the table and went through the normal routine of having a meal with his family. His father questioning him like crazy, occasionally running up to his mom's poster and turning on the water works. Yuzu making small talk and being her polite and motherly self while Karin threw in a few of her own comments or just sat indifferently to everything that went on.
He eventually went up to his room after watching some TV and got ready for bed, dozing off a few minutes since lying down, his last thought being that surprisingly there wasn't a hollow alert the entire day.
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Ichigo bolted out of bed, sitting upright and breathing heavily as he felt the sweat drip down his face and body. He placed his right hand on his chest, gripping his soaked t-shirt tightly. He pulled it over his head and threw it on the floor. He looked down at his chest and searched the muscles there with his hand.
Nothing… No hole... His eyes were wide as he recalled the dream, or nightmare in this case. He literally felt the pain as he remembered Ulquiorra shove his hand right through his sternum, leaving a hole…and then the dream had switched to when the bastard had blasted a cero right through him on the dome…
It was so real… He could feel the pain in his dreams as if he were reliving every moment. He'd been having this dream as well as others recently. All centering on his fights with the Espada's he had encountered. However, this time the dream went on for a while, showing him glimpses of a fight he didn't remember, a fight that had been brutal and inhumane…
He caught glimpses of pale white flesh, the formation of a bright red cero between two horns, Ulquiorra's hand being sliced off, by his sword… All this was seen from his view, not as if he was a bystander, but from his own eyes… Was that really him…? Did he really do that…?
He heard cackling within his head and stiffened.
"Hahahaha! Did you really think you were capable of all that power? That pure instinct? No King, that was all me. Don't give yourself too much credit, you don't deserve it yet."
"Why the fuck are you showing me this?" Ichigo replied to his hollow.
"Tch, I ain't showing you shit. It's probably your subconscious that's dredging up the memories. Well at least you'll see how you should take care of things in future" The hollow chuckled.
"That's not how I do things!" Ichigo hollered back
"Really? So you prefer to fight like a pansy ass which cost you to die almost twice thus preventing you from doing your duty and protecting the princess. Tch…" The hollow snickered.
"Princess?" Ichigo replied confused.
"You really are thick. How the hell I got stuck with you I'll never know… Figure it out Kingy."
Ichigo scrunched up his brows at his hollow's parting words, allowing him to retreat to the recess of his mind. What was he talking about? Princess? Ichigo's eyes widened, was he talking about Inoue…?
He did promise to protect her… and the hollow was right… It was her he was trying to save and protect when he received the holes in his chest. Why the fuck would his hollow be mentioning her!
"Why the fuck are you even mentioning Inoue?" Ichigo asked to which he got no reply.
"Oi! Answer me!" He tried again, still no reply. Tch, bastard.
That was one thing he didn't feel like thinking about. Inoue… It still haunted him how she had looked at him when she saw him in his mask. His nightmares were filled with her fearful grey eyes and the tears she shed for him.
She featured many times in his nightmares, those moments when he had thought he couldn't protect her. When she was being bullied by those arrancar girls, or when Yammy approached her, not to mention when that creepy 5th Espada was holding her while he got pummeled by his subordinate.
That moment had been one of the worst… All he could see was that freak with his hand over her mouth, holding her against him while he was being beaten to death. His body was being torn apart, bones being crushed and the pain he experienced had been unbearable. He wanted to pass out from the brutality of it all but he couldn't give up. He watched her fearful face and it hurt to think that the same fate would befall her as it did him.
So he tried to fight back with the last bit of strength he could conjure up but it was to no avail. He really didn't want to think about what would have happened if Kenpachi hadn't arrived… If he had died, then she would have been left alone with those bastards…
Well it wasn't as if she hadn't been alone with the arrancar before they could rescue her. Grimmjow's words still played on his mind, when he had said that maybe she had been hurt on the 'inside'. Had they done anything to her? She never mentioned anything. Maybe he should ask her about it, but then again he didn't want to invoke those thoughts again…
She was a gentle and soft hearted girl that had the miss fortune of enduring Aizen and his army. He wished he could have protected her from it all. He even tried to protect her from seeing him with his hollow mask on but Grimmjow's power was just too much to handle. It had hurt him the most when she looked at him with the fear she would have directed to one of the arrancar.
He wouldn't admit it but he was more than glad when she had screamed out to him as she stood on the tower. She had hardened his resolve and put him at ease which allowed him to defeat Grimmjow.
He hardly ever thought about his fights, or the time he spent in Hueco Mundo. He felt it was best to push it all to the back of his mind but his mind had other ideas when it brought it to the fore-front on occasional nights, which were becoming frequent recently.
He wouldn't tell anyone this but it scared him. The whole ordeal had scared him… Fighting opponents that you didn't know what they were capable off. Hollows with powers that surpassed his own, that weren't afraid to kill, that had no mercy. He was afraid for his family, his friends and his town.
He was afraid that he wouldn't have been able to defeat them and he came close to not doing so, many times. It looked like he was always being saved instead of doing the saving… He was nearly defeated by Ulquiorra that first time when he tried protecting Nel. It was Inoue who had brought him back.
He was almost defeated by Grimmjow when Inoue strengthened his resolve, then there was the 5th Espada and Kenpachi saved his ass, and he was once again defeated by Ulquiorra but he came back somehow, thanks to his hollow…
"Tch. It wasn't all me… And I'm not talking about you."
"Oh so now you decide to speak up? What the hell are you on about?" Ichigo asked irritably.
"You'll see in due time…" And once again his hollow's voice faded out.
Ichigo was really irritated with his interruptions that made no sense at all. What did he mean when he said it wasn't all him that brought him back? Did he mean Ishida? He knew Ishida helped in the fight with Ulquiorra... and he remembered seeing his sword impaled through him… He shuddered at the thought. He still couldn't believe that happened.
On the one hand he didn't want to know about the fight, maybe he was better off not knowing, but on the other hand he wanted to know, especially after receiving the glimpses through the dream. He wanted to know what he was capable of when he lost control, when he became the horse…
He was still a teenager but it seemed he was thrust into manhood too quickly. At the end of the day, even if it may not have been him per say, it was still his body that had destroyed Ulquiorra… That was not how he had wanted to win and the vision of Ulquiorra's barely there and torn body still plagued him… He just couldn't imagine doing such a thing.
He could ask Ishida about it, but he knew he would act indifferently and he really didn't want to hear it from Ishida how his sword ended up through him. He could ask Inoue…
He had thought about talking to her about it but he could never bring himself to do so. What if she wanted to just forget it all? He didn't want to bring it all up.
He saw her in school, she looked fine. Still the same smiling and exuberant as always but he noticed that it was toned down compared to how it used to be.
He also noticed that she didn't greet him loudly and ecstatically as she used to, also she didn't stutter or get all flushed and act weird when she talked to him. Strangely she seemed more mature… Well they all probably matured in some way or the other after everything that happened…but it still nagged at his brain…
He just didn't know how he would approach her. Maybe he'd think about it some other time or just let it go all together. It had been 7 months since the Winter War and he didn't want to be the one to bring things up, especially if everyone seemed to be doing okay.
Although, they all might be trying to put on a brave face, just like him… The memories of the Winter War still haunted him. It's not something a teenager should be exposed to but unfortunately, that's how life is… So he shoved all his memories back and tried to move on as best as he could.
He sighed and tried to go back to sleep, it would do him no good to think about things best forgotten… For now…
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A/N: This is my first IchiHime multi-chapter, it's not gonna be that long though. I already have it planned till the end so it's definitely going to be finished.
Let me give everybody a heads up. This follows the canon story line up until just before Aizen's defeat with a few adjustments here and there. However, for the purpose of the story, Ichigo did train in the dangai but it wasn't for the Final Getsuga Tensho (Although I loved his transformation!). It was just to help him extend and strengthen his hollow powers.
Also, Ichigo did fight Aizen and was strong enough to extract the Hougyoku from him which in turn allowed the Vizards and Urahara to finish Aizen off and now he's locked up in the deepest darkest dungeons of Soul Society. I really felt that they should have had a bigger part in defeating him, he really wronged them and he was so arrogant about it.
Just so everybody is aware, this story isn't big on plot. I'm, just leaving this as background information so no one is confused. I mostly want to focus on character and relationship development, especially with Ichigo's Hollow.
Thanks for reading and this one is especially dedicated to all those who stuck with me on my first fanfic :)