"Experiment number 36. Subject: Ryoka Orihime Inoue."
For the fiftieth time, Orihime swallowed her burning need to scream.
How many hours had it been? Despite her success, she could not control the tremble of her legs or the shaking of her hands. It was early morning- maybe two or three o'clock?- and nobody else in the Shiba household was awake. She was sure it was the Shiba household- she remembered the room and she had bitten her lip at dinner, which stung occasionally as if to remind her she was safe.
"Hypothesis: Nature of subject's ability is the result of a malformed zanpakuto spirit. Nemu you wretch, hand me the number 3 scalpel!"
She had done it. She had escaped that awful future.
Now that she was safe, her body seemed unwilling to relax. It was strange, she was perfectly safe here. It would still be a couple of days before everything fell apart. But still her heart raced, blood pounding in her head as adrenaline screamed at her to run. She was safe here, but knowledge of that fact would not calm her body or mind. They were all going to die, unless she fixed things.
Well, not all of them had died.
"Hmm. Conclusions: implantation of zanpakuto shards did little to stabilise the subject. Further study required. Nemu, undo the shackles and get her cleaned up. Her screaming is giving me a headache."
Sometimes, she'd wished she had.
But that was before. Now she had a chance to fix things! Clenching her fists, she strode the length of her room purposefully before faltering at the door. With a dejected sigh she resumed her pacing, the slight squeaking of her bare feet on the varnished timber the only sound in the room. What was she supposed to say to them? Sorry guys, the Orihime you know is gone now. Have a broken girl from the future instead!
She cackled at the thought. It had been so long since she'd laughed that the sound seemed harsh and foreign, but it soon transitioned into sobbing. That was more familiar territory. There was movement in the hallway outside her room and instantly, like flicking a switch, she was silent. The punishment for making noise was severe.
"Orihime..." the voice of Shun-O broke the silence. He often served as the voice of the Shun Shun Rikka, but the weight of the memories they had received from the future left him speechless. Each of the six spirits had taken their name from a flower and were fuelled by a different emotion. Shun-O was the marsh mallow. He was fuelled by happiness and held power over space.
"Shut up," Tsubaki threatened him. The camellia, Tsubaki was fuelled by anger and held power over electromagnetism. He unfolded his arms and floated over to Orihime, alighting on her shoulder and patting her cheek. "Don't say anything. This isn't the time for words. We've been through a lot but we're safe, for now. It's okay to cry Orihime."
All the Shun Shun Rikka joined him, enveloping Orihime in a circle of affection. She smiled- a genuine smile!- as her heart swelled with love for her friends. The spirits that had suffered with her through the bad future. That's right, she wasn't alone.
Ayame, the iris. She was the spirit of love and held sway over time itself.
Baigon, the plum blossom. He was the spirit of grief and controlled the gravitational force.
Hinagiku, the daisy. He grew stronger when Orihime felt fear and had power over the weak nuclear force.
Finally, Lily the… lily. She was fuelled by Orihime's excitement and held power over the strong nuclear force.
"Thank you, everyone," she whispered, wiping her tears away with steadier hands. Kurosaki, Sado, Ishida- even if they didn't recognise the person she'd become, she would save them. They would save them, together. But the first order of business was getting help. Steeling herself, she crept lightly from the room she was staying in, the wooden floor uncomfortably cool beneath her feet.
As she navigated the unfamiliar complex, she moved towards what she thought was the room they had met Kukaku in. Even at this hour, their hostess and their guide were drinking by candlelight- Kukaku straight from her jug, Yoruichi lapping the alcohol from a small saucer on the ground. They glanced at her with surprise, before Kukaku gave a barking laugh.
"Come to join us after all, girl? I seem to recall you sayin' you were too young!" she chuckled. Even in the flickering light, her complexion was obviously flushed from the drink. She wiped her mouth on her sleeve and waggled the strong-smelling jug in her direction. It swished and sloshed invitingly.
"I have- I'm here to talk to mister Yoruichi," Inoue began, declining the proffered alcohol. Her throat caught as panic threatened to overwhelm her again. A glance to the left, to the right. She rubbed her wrists, anything to get rid of the feeling of shackles tightening around them. "The plan- it won't work."
At once, the jovial atmosphere vanished. It was Yoruichi that responded, his eerie feline eyes reflecting the flickering candlelight. "Is everything alright Orihime? Did you perhaps have a bad dream? You ate an awful lot at dinne-"
"The plan won't work!" Orihime cut the cat off, harsher than she had meant to. She smiled feebly, her voice softening. "I'm sorry. I'm messing it up. I came from the future. The plan won't work, because I've seen it fail."
Yoruichi froze, his mouth open as though on the precipice of speech. But no words came. Only the occasional twitch of his whiskers stopped him from looking like a particularly bewildered statue. Kukaku collected her thoughts first, setting aside her drink and replacing it with a long pipe. She inhaled deeply of the pungent leaf and sighed, skewering Orihime with a gaze entirely too lucid for a woman as drunk as she was.
"First, you tell me what I'm thinking. Then you tell us everything."
"That easy?" Orihime replied. Her unbelievable tale- she had expected far more resistance.
"That easy. Now guess."
Orihime tried to relax, despite the tense atmosphere in the room. It didn't matter what she guessed. That wasn't the point of the test. She wasn't a mind-reader, or precognizant. All she needed to do was guess wrongly.
"Umm, you're thinking it's almost time for bed?" she tried, fully aware it would be wrong.
"Wrong," Kukaku snickered, tapping her pipe to dislodge the spent drug. Ganju would moan about it in the morning when she made him clean it up, but that was half the fun. "I was thinking about mister," she sarcastically drawled the word, "Yoruichi here, a secret you couldn't possibly know." There was a yowl of warning from the black cat, but Kukaku powered on regardless.
"It's not even a real secret ya furball. Orihime, what I want you to tell me is: Yoruichi Shihouin is a woman. You got that?"
She didn't even nod. As soon as Kukaku had spoken, she called the Shun Shun Rikka into being around her. Tsubaki, Hinagiku, Baigon and Lily spun equidistant about her waist. Electromagnetism, Weak Force, Gravity, Strong Force. The four fundamental forces that governed all matter, the most basic laws of the universe. Ayame took her place above her head while Shun-O settled between her feet. Time and Space. The others may have governed the universe, but they were the universe. A barrier formed between them, ensconcing her within it. This was it. The ultimate expression of her power, the result of her Shun Shun Rikka working in perfect harmony. She sequestered herself from the rest of the universe-
"I reject!"
-and then tore it asunder.
"-at I'm thinking. Then you te-"
"Yoruichi Shihouin is a woman," Orihime interrupted. Her memories fell into place seamlessly. There wasn't even a moment of adjustment required, she just was.
"I see," was Kukaku's stonefaced response. She tapped her pipe again, spilling ash on the floor for the first time that evening, but the second time in Orihime's memory. Her mouth opened as though she were going to say something, but then she stopped. She reached for the jug again and lifted it to her lips. She didn't come up for air until it was empty. Finally, she spoke. "Fuck." She did not elaborate.
"I take it from Kukaku's reaction that you are indeed from the future," Yoruichi said and then, impossibly, seemed to pout. Orihime wasn't sure how he managed it with feline features, but the effect was disconcerting. "And that she's become a spoilsport in her old age..." The cat trailed off into muttering, something suspiciously like "the looks on their faces" being the only thing Orihime could make out.
"What exactly does that mean, mister- or should I say, Yoruichi Shihouin?" Orihime's voice cut through the muttering like a knife. With a sigh that shook its whole body, the cat got to its feet and performed a long, full-bodied stretch. There was an explosion of steam and suddenly, in its place stood a beautiful, dark-skinned woman with long hair the most stunning shade of purple Orihime had ever seen. It could only be one person.
"Y-Yoruichi?"
"Yes," the statuesque woman replied with a sigh. "I am Yoruichi Shihouin, formerly of the Stealth Force. Sorry, I'm just… imagining what the look on your face would have been, if someone hadn't spoiled it." She levelled a petulant glare at Kukaku, who was tongue-deep into the empty jug of liquor, desperately scrounging for another drop of sake and utterly undaunted by Yoruichi's taunts. She flipped her off anyway. "Now, tell me everything about the future you came from."
"You're naked," Orihime said.
"I am," Yoruichi replied.
"...so it all went wrong basically from the start. We didn't even make it into the Seireitei before we got separated," she recounted everything she knew about their ill-fated invasion, as best she knew it. How she and Uryu were separated from the others. How they avoided and fought their way through enemy patrols until they stole a disguise.
How the two of them were ambushed by a monster. A monster by the name of Mayuri Kurotsuchi.
They knew. Orihime could tell by the way the corners of Yoruichi's eyes softened almost imperceptibly. By the way Kukaku fumbled her pipe. They knew. She clenched her fists to stop them shaking, to hide her anger. Her frustration. Her shame. Maybe if she kept talking, she could kid herself into believing she succeeded.
She told them about how Uryu told her to run. How the monster grabbed her, with a hand that reached far, far too far. She fought him, just like Tatsuki taught her. It was enough of a surprise that Uryu, puppetting his own body like a marionette, managed to get a shot off. The monster laughed as the arrow tore its arm clean from its shoulder. Then it said one word. Two syllables that had haunted her in the months to follow.
"Bankai."
The creature was grotesque. Yoruichi nodded, obviously familiar with the beast. Winced, as Orihime described the billowing clouds of purple fog it belched into the air. The poison that had set her veins on fire and numbed her extremities. She was too busy coughing to really see what Uryu did, but she definitely felt it. His reiatsu doubled, tripled, skyrocketed exponentially. There was a light breeze and the monster was painted all over the alleyway. There was another, and this time she saw the arrow as it blew a whole through the despicable captain.
It was a meaningless victory. He escaped like the slime he was, while the two of them succumbed to his vile toxin. They found an unlikely saviour in the form of the man's own lieutenant, who offered them a single vial of the poison's antidote as thanks for sparing her father. One vial. Two patients.
"Inoue, see reason!" Uryu coughed at her. Dear, sweet Uryu. He didn't deserve what she'd done to him. "You need to take the antidote, then you can use your power to heal me!"
She wanted to argue with him, but couldn't. It just made sense, no matter how selfish it made her feel. Almost as soon as she swallowed the antidote, she felt her body mending itself. Presumably, it contained some derivative of the formula the captain used to regrow his limbs. With her own body in order, she settled down beside the wheezing Uryu and began her healing chant.
"Soten Kisshun: I reject!"
She wasn't prepared for him to start screaming.
"Whaaa-whaa-what's wrong?" she panicked, leaning over him to steady his thrashing form. His skin was regaining colour, his fever was subsiding as quickly as it arrived. He was perfectly healthy, except for the excruciating pain. She withdrew the healing barrier and helped Uryu shakily to his feet. He smiled weakly at her.
"That was almost worse than the poison," he laughed. She fretted and fussed over him, but for a moment it looked like he was alright.
Then his laughter turned into a cough.
"Oh," Orihime frowned, worry burrowing deep within her stomach. "Maybe- maybe I missed a bit?"
"Go ahead," Uryu said, his face not showing an ounce of hesitation. But once she began healing, it was impossible to remain stoic under the weight of such pain. He stifled his screams as best he could, but that amounted to little.
When the barrier finally went down he gasped for breath, drenched in sweat and utterly spent both physically and mentally. She had kept him within the healing field for almost a full minute longer than they thought he needed, just to make sure they removed it all. Only for his symptoms to return scant seconds after she stopped. His skin was growing paler by the second, his veins taking on a sickly purple tint beneath it. Angry, pinprick spots made themselves known on his skin. Even as she watched they grew wider and spread, bubbling and blistering when they overlapped. Frantically, she returned him to the agonising embrace of Ayame and Shun-O.
"How curious," coughed the wounded lieutenant. She wobbled to her feet, the effects of her father's paralytic poison only now beginning to wear off. "If I may approach?" The lieutenant waited impassively while Orihime shared a panicked look with Uryu. He tried to say something between his pained moans, but all that came out was a delirious slurry of mismatched syllables.
What did they have to lose? With only a moment's hesitation, she nodded to the lieutenant and removed the healing barrier.
"That must be a powerful healing technique," Nemu said as she knelt next to Uryu. "Even the most advanced healing kido would be unable to keep pace with Konjiki Ashisogijizou's poison, let alone keep the patient stable long enough to metabolise it." She poked and prodded at the groaning Quincy as she spoke, retrieving a handheld device from somewhere on her person and nestling it over his finger. When it clipped into place sharp metal teeth sprouted from the end of it, burying themselves beneath his flesh and greedily tasting his blood. Not a flicker of emotion crossed her face as she analysed whatever data it provided her, but her administrations ceased.
"Too powerful," she said, shuffling backwards and beckoning Orihime restart treatment. She raised her voice as she continued, so to be heard over Uryu. "Your technique is marvellous. His body is constantly being reverted to a perfectly healthy state beneath that barrier despite the poison circulating at a plasma concentration of six micrograms per decilitre. However, the same is true of the poison. As soon as he begins to metabolise it, it reverts to its prior state."
"But- but why is it hurting him so badly?" Orihime's voice cracked as she asked. Nemu considered this for a moment, sweeping Uryu's ragged, panting form with a gaze that didn't betray a shred of emotion. Looking back, it was because of that moment, that coldness, that lack of empathy as she assessed her friend, that Orihime decided she hated Nemu. Nothing the robotic girl did to her over the months that followed compared to that first, primal swell of panic fuelled loathing.
"Konjiki Ashisogijizou effects all the cells of the body, but it has a particularly high affinity for the nervous system." Nemu, seemingly oblivious to Orihime's feelings, continued. "That is what makes it such an effective weapon in combat. As a hypothesis, I would suggest that keeping his body in a perfectly healthy state is worsening his pain. Ordinarily, the death of the nerves leads to pronounced neuropathy but otherwise a progressive loss of sensation. With the nerve cells intact, he remains capable of feeling his body as the poison tears it apart." she nodded to herself as she spoke.
"Please, miss soul reaper-"
"My name is Nemu Kurotsuchi."
"Please, Miss Kurotsuchi, you have to help him!" she begged, tears flowing freely as she maintained the barrier keeping Uryu alive. "Can you make another antidote?"
"I cannot," a flicker in her eyes. Pity? Was there a person beneath that robotic facade after all? Or was it, as Orihime had come to suspect over the weeks that followed, just an act? A ploy to play on her sympathies, to make her more likely to fall into the trap she was about to propose. "The antidote is derived from Captain Kurotsuchi's blood. If you surrender now and accompany me to the twelfth division's laboratory, I will ensure that he receives treatment."
Orihime bit her lip, but it wasn't a decision she needed to think about.
"Alright," she said. Uryu looked like he had something to say about her decision, but his teeth were clenched so tightly that Orihime knew if he were to open his mouth, all that would escape would be a scream. Even still, he shook his head jerkily. Leave me, was his unspoken plea. She shook her head with a smile. Never.
She squeezed his hand and stood, touching her fingers to the clips in her hair. "Santen Kesshun. I reject," she whispered. With a thought, Baigon, Lily and Hinagiku flew down to surround Uryu. The shimmering triangle blossomed into existence beneath him and slowly, gently lifted him off the ground. At once, the gnawing sensation of reiatsu being siphoned from her into her barriers intensified. Maintaining the two structures at once was much harder than supporting one alone. She dismissed the sensation, reaching past the healing barrier and taking Uryu's clammy hand in hers again. Regardless of how far away the twelfth division barracks were, how long they had to wait, she would endure it.
As soon as the makeshift stretcher was off the ground, Orihime turned to face Nemu. "Lead the way."
Yoruichi stood silently as Orihime trailed off, resting a fist beneath the septum of her nose as her brow furrowed in contemplation. Separated before they even made it into the Seireitei- it was just about the worst case scenario.
"How long?" Kukaku asked. She didn't need to elaborate.
"Three months," was Orihime's carefully neutral reply. Both Kukaku and Yoruichi pretended not to notice when her voice cracked.
Yoruichi closed her eyes. Three months. So they had failed in totality then. There was no other situation in which Ichigo wouldn't have come for her. She shared a look with Kukaku. Neither of them had known Orihime for very long, but they would not have wished their worst enemy spend half as long in the care of Mayuri Kurotsuchi.
"You've never seen me in this form though?" Yoruichi inquired, mind ablaze as she tried to sift through the various possibilities. What would she have done? What would she do, if they were separated? The mission. She had argued with Kisuke about almost every detail of the mission except for one- above all, they had to retrieve the hogyoku. For decades, she had headed the Onmitsukido. Even after one hundred years of exile, as soon as she took this form that mindset flooded back to her. Cold, clinical, detached. A filter of unyielding steel that divorced her heart from her mind and told her with utter certainty what she needed to do.
She remembered why she spent so much time as a cat.
Kisuke was different. For all he tortured himself over his ruthlessness, he was too kind. In that situation, Kisuke would have crafted some elaborate plot, some intricate scheme like a complex mechanism with one thousand moving parts. He would have tried to save the girl, take back the hogyoku and reveal the turth of Aizen's treachery all at once. It would have blown up in his face, of course, but in many ways that was when he was truly in his element. In the chaos of his failure he would surprise everyone, seize some secondary goal and call it a win while she, or Tessai- or Ichigo, she considered- cleaned up the mess and actually got some work done. It was a crazy, impractical, naive way of doing things but, damn him, he made it work somehow. That was part of why she- why she went along with his plans.
But she wasn't like Kisuke.
As soon as it became clear the plan was unsalvageable, she would have made a beeline directly for the hogyoku. Using the invasion as a distraction, she would have extracted it herself using the glove she had eventually convinced Kisuke to give her and then returned to the living world. She wouldn't have been happy about it, but as long as the hogyoku was in safe hands, everything else was secondary. But now, with the benefit of this girl's ability to relay the future to her-
Maybe, just this once, everything could go according to plan.
"We can rest for a minute, if going on is too much," Yoruichi assured her gently. The voice of the Onmitsukido commander within her roared in protest at the mention of a delay. The sun was already peaking through the windows of the Shiba household, bringing the time of their planned departure closer and closer. She overruled it. The girl she had come to know over the last few days would respond far better to empathy than an order to report. She was a high schooler, not a soldier with a decade of experience in the field.
But the girl in front of her was not that same girl. There was a flash of something in her eyes, something hard and sharp and raw. She raised her head and met Yoruichi's gaze without flinching. "Miss Yoruichi. I watched all of my friends die. Ishida. Kurosaki. Sado. Right in front of me. But no. I never saw you in that form. I have no idea where you went, or what you did, but after we split up I never saw you again," Orihime paused. Unspoken, her questions hang heavy in the air. Where were you. What were you doing. Did you abandon us. The fury behind her eyes was impressive, but Yoruichi had stared down scarier. Had been scarier. She inclined her head as a perfunctory show of contrition, but before she could respond the sliding door opened.
"'morning Inoue, you alright? We heard raised voi- holy crap a naked stranger!" the door slammed shut as quickly as it had opened once Ichigo caught sight of Yoruichi. She sighed, taking a moment to imagine what the look on his face would have been, the first time she transformed. She mourned it, briefly. It looked like the cat was out of the bag.
"Kukaku, where's that spare uniform I left here?"
"Tossed it."
"Damn it Kukaku!"
"That was a century ago! Why would you think I kept it?" Kukaku couldn't keep the grin off her face as Yoruichi grumbled. Suddenly she was gone, leaving behind a burst of static that was drowned out by the sliding door clattering open with a bang that shook the entire house. Kukaku's smile vanished even quicker than Yoruichi. "Oh that bitch better-"
Before she could finish, there was another burst of static and Yoruichi was back, dressed in an outfit suspiciously similar to Kukaku's own. Ignoring the narrow-eyed glare that was threatening to bore through her, Yoruichi turned to Orihime as though nothing had happened. "Looks like they're awake. Are you sure you want to tell them? They're going to have a lot of questions. They won't look at you the same way afterwards."
"This way please," Nemu said. The cell was spacious, but bare save for a single cot and bucket. A pair of unranked soldiers flanked them as another strode ahead and opened the prison door.
"Please," Orihime said, narrowing the triangle of her stretcher-shield so that it would fit through the door of the cell. It still jostled against the door-frame, eliciting a fresh howl of pain from Uryu. She did her best to steady the shield, sweat glistening on her brow from the stress of maintaining two of her projections simultaneously."We're here now. You said you'd help him." She followed her patient into the cell, turning to Nemu as the door was shut behind her.
The lieutenant was silent as the key turned in the lock. Was silent as the soldiers flanking her saluted and walked towards the door. Was silent as she turned to follow them.
"Please! He's dying!"
She paused in the doorway, her voice steady and cool.
"Once Captain Kurotsuchi makes his way back to the lab, it will take him a number of days to reconstitute himself. Then, work on the antidote can be commenced."
She kept walking. She didn't look back.
"I don't care," Orihime declared, her eyes flashing with steel, "I will not let them get hurt again."