Well...Here it is.

Beginning

Kisuke Urahara stared at the gray sky through the window of his shop. It was tinged with a weak, sickly yellowish glow from the evening sun. He had neglected to wear his characteristic hat, as he had done on this day for the past two years. A penance to all the people he had killed; all the people whose lives he had unintentionally destroyed.

Two years…it felt like much longer since the end of the war. They had won, of course. No single man could hope to stand against the power that was Soul Society and the unstoppable juggernaut that was Ichigo Kurosaki and his friends. No matter how overinflated said man's ego was.

Urahara smiled; a small, wry, sarcastic smile, weighed down with sadness and a little guilt, as all his smiles seemed to be now. It had been Orihime that had pulled through in the last few seconds. Sure, Ichigo had put up a good fight. It was, after all, the efforts of the others that weakened Aizen sufficiently that his guard slipped. But it was Orihime – their shy, naïve, sheltered, domestic star-princess – who finished him. Destroyed him, unmade him.

There was, after all, no Hougyoku left to reject. So she settled for the next best thing, completely rejecting the existence of the man who had believed himself to be a god.

As if the act itself weren't terrifyingly out of character in itself (this was Orihime, the girl who wouldn't even defend herself from attackers), the look on her face only served to convince Ichigo that something more horrible than he could have ever imagined had happened to her during her imprisonment.

Her face was cold and hard, cleared carefully of any emotion other than pure determination. Determination to end this war, reject the reality of the man who had started it. And deep in her eyes, the burning pain of the loss of those who never deserved to die. Deep in her eyes were the scars left by the injustice of war.

Of course, there was no rejecting what he, Urahara, had done. And the effects lived on in her; her and everyone else.

Her eyes had become vacant, more than usual. Even though she still smiled and laughed and dreamed about robots with rocket-breasts and ate strange foods, it all seemed…empty, and false in light of what she had done and who she had become. Even emptier now that she was stripped of her powers. There was just nothing left in her, and her every action echoed with that hollowness.

Ichigo seemed empty as well, shaken in his belief in the right thing, shaken in his knowledge of his friends. He also lacked that particular spirit and determination that had pulled him through two multi-dimensional wars; it had left with a certain raven-haired shinigami when she disappeared from his life for good. As a precaution, Soul Society had stripped him of any and all power permanently. There was nothing anyone could do to restore it.

Uryu had made no attempt to continue his companionship with Ichigo, choosing instead to distance himself from the former substitute shinigami. He did, however, continue to visit Orihime, and he silently tried to restore that spark of life that she had left behind in the empty white halls of Las Noches and scattered across the deserts of Hueco Mundo, like ashes on the wind.

Tatsuki alone knew of her friend's troubles, whispered quietly and brokenly over bowls of chocolate-vanilla swirl ice cream topped with bacon bits and soy sauce; she had come over more and more often since the end of the war, finally becoming and almost permanent resident in the Inoue apartment. She knew the whole story, from Orihime's kidnapping to the moment when Ulquiorra disappeared. After that point, Orihime stared blankly at her bowl of ice cream, slowly melting, and refused to speak of any more. Of course, the things Orihime talked about were only the tip of the iceberg; Tatsuki could see that Orihime was holding things back that she would never tell anyone. Disturbingly enough, the majority of the story seemed centered around Orihime's green-eyed former captor. Tatsuki was sure that this…fixation was far from healthy…

They had fixed the usual, two large, cold bowls of ice cream with Orihime's strange choice of toppings coating the ice cream itself. They sat across from each other at the low table in the living room. Tatsuki listened silently while Orihime continued her story.

"…And when I woke up in the morning, there was this big pile of blankets by the end of the sofa! He really listened," Here she smiled a little, sad but genuine. "And all I did was say it was a little chilly at night. I didn't make a big deal about it, or whine. He just had that confused look, and he asked me why I was shaking so much. Of course I told him, and then…"

She could relate every conversation word for word. She remembered even the most minute changes on her guard's face, every question and response he gave her. It was almost creepy. Scratch that, it WAS creepy.

"I remember one morning – well, I think it was morning, it was a little hard to tell there when all you saw was the backwards moon, and no stars or anything, or even a clock…" Sometimes Tatsuki saw small, beautiful signs that Orihime was still Orihime. Her rambling had survived. "He woke me up out of a nightmare. He commented on how pale I was, and touched my forehead to see if I was sick." She smiled again, wider this time, and gentler. "He actually sounded concerned. I told him about the bad dreams I'd been having. When he came with dinner, he stayed through the whole meal and didn't even leave when I was done eating. He sat next to me and stayed there, and even let me lay my head on his shoulder. He was gone when I woke up, of course…he probably had a lot to do, entertaining me was never his first priority."

Tatsuki was confused at first as to how her friend could possibly be so…obviously infatuated with someone so cold and callous, someone who was everything that Orihime was not. The more she thought about it, the more it seemed that her friend was projecting onto him. There's no way this guy could be so kind; he was a hollow, heartless by definition, empty by necessity. Orihime had suffered when she'd been taken away from Ichigo, and at some point she had started to imagine his traits in this Ulquiorra guy. And she had suffered for it.

The sight of Ichigo in his hollow form, ripping the Fourth Espada limb from limb still haunted Orihime even now, two years later. Two years since any contact with Soul Society or Hueco Mundo, or even any use of her powers. Two years of normal, mundane, everyday human life. And yet still those green eyes graced her dreams and that twisted hollow form haunted her nightmares.

It was backwards. So frustratingly, annoyingly, infuriatingly backwards. Even Orihime knew it. She had said it herself.

"Tatsuki," She murmured quietly. "Do you think someone can fall…out of love?"

"Sure Orihime, it can happen to anyone." Tatsuki hesitated. "Why?" She was afraid she knew the answer.

"I don't…I don't think I love Ichigo anymore." She said hesitantly.

"Is it because of his hollow?"

"Well…" She seemed unsure. "I think I stopped loving him before that. I don't know when it happened, but it did. Does that make any sense, Tatsuki…?"

"Yeah." She didn't say it, but it was implied, hanging in the air. ~Anything makes sense, after what you've been through…~

She laughed, bitterly. "I know it doesn't, Tatsuki…you must think I'm really crazy. You don't have to agree with everything I say…"

Tatsuki just smiled a little. "You've always been really crazy Orihime, you just don't surprise me anymore." They both laughed, and tried to forget what had just been said.

A gentle knock on the door startled Urahara from his guilt trip. He didn't need to open the door to know who it was, nor did he need to know why she was here. After all, it had been the same every day for the past two years.

"Hello Urahara-san!" She smiled; a big, bright, fatuous, utterly empty smile.

He simply stepped aside and let her enter, before handing her a dark green umbrella. "It looks like it may rain." She flinched involuntarily at the color, her captor's eyes flashing through her memory. She took it nonetheless.

She knew the way by now, Urahara didn't need to lead her. She walked back around the shop to a small grove of neatly trimmed bamboo that not many knew was there. She walked quietly through the tall stalks, coming quickly to a small cleared area.

In the fading light, she saw ten small, rectangular, identical stones. Not so much grave markers as memorials. Of course, there were no bodies buried beneath the stones. But it had seemed unfair that the executed traitors, Tousen and Gin, had been given proper graves and memorials, no matter how small and rough; little stones that were the last remaining proof of the two men's existence.

So in a small plot behind the Urahara Shoten, there were ten small stones dedicated to the Espada who had fought and died for a cause they had not necessarily wanted to fight for.

Orihime knelt before the one of the stones, as nondescript as the others, different only in the single character carved onto it: 四

She set up the umbrella, managing not to wince again at the color. She stuck a single stick of incense in the ground in front of the grave and lit it, watching the silvery smoke curl upwards into the now dark sky. It collected under her umbrella, pausing to waft around her head before escaping into the rain-drenched air.

"I guess I should start out by apologizing," she said, rubbing the back of her head awkwardly. "I know I haven't come in a whole week, and if you could hear me, you'd probably just tell me it was of no consequence." She mocked his deep tones and then laughed at how silly she was being. "You always acted like you didn't care, but I think you did...It's weird, huh. We're weird." She looked at the sky.

She hummed quietly, a song she had heard from somewhere. The lyrics had been lost to time and her less-than-reliable memory, but the song was beautiful nonetheless. Calming. It didn't need any words; everything it wanted to convey was said through the music.

"I do feel bad when I don't come like I promised…" Here she paused, gathering her thoughts. Rain was beginning to patter softly against the umbrella. The incense had completely filled the close space with its calming scent.

"After all, a promise is a promise. Because when you make a promise it's like swearing, heart to heart, that you will do something no matter what happens…" She smiled brightly, tiny tears gathering in the corners of her eyes, and paused again. Her smile softened. "Right there at the end, you knew. I could see it. You understood, didn't you Ulquiorra…" She could imagine she heard the soft affirmative. The rain picked up momentarily before softening again.

She continued again, as brightly as ever, the mood change seeming to have no effect on her. "So, I guess you're probably in Soul Society now. I hope you're happy; or as happy as you can be, living in a crowded place like Rukongai. It's a lot brighter there at least, and you don't have to eat souls to survive. In fact, I heard that people never get hungry there at all. Isn't that great? And maybe one day you'll even become a shinigami, and then someday I'll see you in my town!" She knew it was most likely impossible. Every conversation for the past two years had followed these same lines, but they always ended there; she would stand and leave, the incense still smoking behind her. Her thoughts would always pause at the moment of greatest pitch before they came crashing to the earth again, forever losing the name of action.

But she had sworn, this time would be different. "I got everything ready," she said, still speaking to the ever-silent gravestone. "That's why I was gone. I'm ready. I'm going to Soul Society and I'm going to find you, even if I have to look through every house in Rukongai and every barrack in Sereitei. I'll be there before you know it." The rain had stopped.

Orihime stood and closed the umbrella. With one final bow to the gravestone, she turned and headed back to the Urahara Shoten.

Urahara turned to look at her as she entered the training room. She was a little damp around the edges from the rain, but he thought she looked livelier than he had seen her since…well, since before the war. "Are you ready then?"

She nodded, resolute. "I'm ready." She stared up at the giant transdimensional gate that would lead her into Rukongai.

Urahara nodded, pleasantly surprised by the genuine hope he could see on her face. "You know you may not find him. If you do, it's very possible he will remember nothing." He felt it fair to warn her.

She simply shook her head, gazing straight into the white light that poured forth from the gate, meeting her future head on.

"I'll find him."

Hamlet reference FTW. I had to memorize that soliloquy, now it invades my thoughts at random moments.

四 is the Japanese character for "Four".

Constructive criticism is appreciated.