EH, I had an account on here before, but I felt like a new start.
Anyway, this story is no doubt gonna seem a bit odd, even AU wise, at least it does to me! But who knows, someone might appreciate it.
-.-.-.-
Fires crackled and snapped and threw sparks into the air, igniting every flammable object within reach and filling the sky with a thick smoke that promised to linger on for days. The dead no longer bled, the dying had ceased their moans and cries to stare up at the sky of swirling black and gray, mesmerized and bereft of hope. The only sounds were the hissing of the fires, but even those were muted, and were completely ignored by the only living creature still standing in the area.
Orihime hardly batted an eyelash at the destruction surrounding her, taking a deep breath of the tainted air, smelling and tasting only the promise of later rejuvenation. That's what she'd been told, and logic backed up all of Aizen-sama's claims; how many times had she heard that fire destroyed, but also cleansed? And there was certainly quite the cleanup to do on planet Earth, and they'd only scratched the surface. Remembering this fact, she suddenly sprang into the air, coming to land with clawed feet embedding themselves into the still twitching human body a few yards away. The man sputtered, blood pouring from his mouth, and went still.
"You enjoy this far too much, Princesa."
Orihime snarled over her shoulder, a definite animal sound that a humanoid throat should be incapable of making, but her features relaxed. It was Ulquiorra, surveying her work with an impassive, but not disapproving gaze, despite his comment. His white coat was untouched by the ash and dirt flowing in the breeze around them, and she thought the flames reflected beautifully off of his deep green eyes, like a ghostly hunting cat.
She flipped her hair back from her shoulders, poking one of her fangs with her tongue, a growing habit. "I suppose I am, but I didn't earn that name from doing nothing. It's because I enjoy this that I'm honored." Orihime twirled about with her arms up, a morbid imitation of a child spinning in the snow or rain with joy. "And anyway, I'd do it regardless. The title's just a perk."
Ulquiorra's searching gaze came to rest on her, and she stared back, hands on hips. "What's up?"
"You seem to have many faces. I wonder which is the real you."
The blunt and out of place remark caught her off guard, and her arms came to rest at her sides, one eyebrow cocked. "I don't get it."
A puff of dust kicked up into the air as the stoic Arrancar shifted a piece of rubble with his foot, as if to make a point. "The girl I knew when we first met wouldn't dream of doing something like this. I merely point out that it's strange to me."
Orihime's lip curled briefly as if to growl, and she flexed a clawed fist, but couldn't deny the fact. It was true; when she'd first come to Hueco Mundo as a prisoner, she'd been steadfast in her denial and hatred of the place, and all of the Arrancar, and that her friends would rescue her and defeat the enemy. But then she'd gotten to know them, had seen the truth for what it was. Remembering this, she looked back at him, confident.
"Hollow and Arrancar have as much of a right to live as anyone else. You can't have life without death, or good without evil. Who decides what's right or wrong anyway? Each side is going to believe that they're right and the other is wrong. I was ignorant before, I'm older now, and this is what I chose." And so she was, and so she did. It had only been 2 years, maybe a little more, but it felt like a lifetime of hard lessons and harder experiences.
"Do you not believe these humans also have a right to live?"
He had to be testing her. He knew exactly why they were here, why all the Arrancar were fighting together! The air between them visibly churned with her internal outburst.
"I only destroy what threatens the natural way of things. Humans have their place, even shinigami, but they both overstep their bounds. You know all this, what's your problem?"
Ulquiorra studied her for a minute more, than looked up at the sky for their companions. "I only wondered if that's how you really felt. Some would say that Aizen-sama has specifically manipulated you for this situation."
Now Orihime did growl, and had to resist the urge to leap at him; he may be ticking her off, but he was a partner, a friend deep down, when no one else was looking. But even a friend could go too far, and she satisfied herself with huffing a quick lick of flame from her mouth that danced and flickered out harmlessly at his feet. He definitely knew that Aizen-sama never unleashed his hypnotic powers onto the Arrancar, especially his Espada. The man was sadistic in many ways, but he knew the value of winning allies honestly to a cause. Hypnotized Arrancar just didn't have the same spirit, and often became bitter and unreasonable as they subconsciously fought against the binding.
Not to mention there was simply no reason to. Faced with the evils of the world, there was little they wouldn't do to help right it. It was regrettable that so many had to die, but things would start over, and hopefully the same mistakes wouldn't be made. She'd lived in the human world all of her childhood, at that, and wouldn't let it happen. And they'd saved what they could, mostly animals, to live under the artificial environment in Los Noches until the Earth was healed. It was a little like Noah's Ark, which probably appealed to Aizen's god complex, too.
Ulquiorra chuckled, which always creeped her out a little as he did it without changing his expression, not even giving the smallest of smirks. Of course he knew these things, and he knew that she was running the facts furiously over in her mind, making sure she hadn't missed some important fact that might explain his questioning. His questions were truly innocent, however, and to prove his point he released a sudden wave of energy, rippling out from his body and making the fires around them flare and burn even brighter.
Orihime smiled at this, spreading her crimson wings (ah, flight. Another "perk"!) and scouting around some more for their comrades. Spying them a mile off, she waved to Ulquiorra, whose own bat-like appendages emerged with his silent zanpakuto release, fiendish tail whipping out behind him and claws digging into the dirt as he took off to follow.
The last surviving human in that area, sporting a great gash across his chest and his lower body trapped beneath a piece of twisted metal roofing, watched them go. He'd hardly heard a word of their conversation over the roar of the fires, not that it mattered much to the dying man. All he saw was a veritable angel of death and the devil himself flying away to bring more destruction. He vaguely wondered what great sin finally brought humanity to it's flaming end, when death fell in on him too.
-.-.-.-
Well, thur you go. A bit morbid, but there's gonna be a lot of that, as well as a dose of everything else. Review if you like, and be honest, no matter what you have to say. If anything confuses you, simply ask, and I'll be glad to explain it, as long as it doesn't give away any plot points~