--
"Why are the uniforms white?"
She asked.
--
If it was possible to become full of a color, then Inoue Orihime was most certainly full of white.
White. White.
It curled around the corners and spread across the ceilings like anti-gravitational paint. It cloyed around the edges, and crawled around the walls. It consumed. And Orihime consumed it.
And even when she was full to bursting, she swallowed up that white until she could barely breath. She swathed it around her body; a stark white cape against a stark white dress. It asphyxiated her, and yet she continued to bring it to her mouth, her eyes, he ears, her nose, her heart, her soul.
All of which,
Were full of white.
--
In the shadows,
Ulquiorra watched her. Watched her eat up all that white.
He himself had already fed himself, fed himself to bursting. He had already eaten so much white, so much white that it had consumed him whole. He was at the point where he could eat no more. He was white, white to the very core.
And he watched her. Watched her feed herself to bursting.
Watched her feed herself with white.
--
The humans are covered in stains.
That was the first thing he noticed, as they forged their way through the crisp, white citadel of Las Noches.
How disgusting, and dirty. Stained.
Shameful. Messy. He scorned them, for daring to step foot into the blinding immaculacy of his beloved white world.
Undoubtedly, the mess will spread. Walls will cry crimson, crusting with gore. Floors will bleed gray ashes, curling into the air like dying snakes.
And the woman, that lovely white woman, took a single breath of color. He saw it in the morning, the flushing of her sheet-white cheeks.
How… unfortunate.
It would be such a shame, to let all that whiteness be tainted by stains.
Ulquiorra leapt forward.
--
Orihime felt her friends fall.
Almost as if she were right there next to them, she could see the burning black uniforms, the rivulets of dark red, and the malicious sheen of clashing steel.
It hurt her, to be blindsided by all these colors. It drug up the memories of others; the lush green of grass, the clear blue of sky, the bright pink, of a summer's day during the season of cherry blossoms. The rich plum, of a jar of sweet bean paste. The vivid orange, of his hair.
She wished for the white.
She wished, for the absence of the burning black uniforms, the rivulets of dark red, and the malicious sheen of clashing steel. For with them would come the other colors, and vice-versa. She could feel it.
Her friends fell, splattering the whitewashed world with the stains of their toppling, and dragging down all semblances of peace as they lay down for the last time.
--
Later that night,
Orihime felt the white return to her cheeks.
--
And he replied.
"So that we may know we are still alive."
--
A/N: Written on 06/14/09.
I appreciate any kind of feedback.