Title: The Rain that Binds
Pairings: UlquiHime with a bit of IchiRuki and some one-sided IchiHime and IshiHime. Other pairings may be added later.
Rating: T
Spoilers: Up to chapter 282 of the manga
Word count: 4,444
Ulquiorra stood with the bag of clothes in his hand, watching Orihime as she stood over the stove cooking…something. He was hesitant to call it food. He looked around for a place where he could change clothes but was not able to find any, unless he was going to change right there and that was not an option. So, he walked up to her in order to ask where he could change clothes. Blinking, she replied that there was a bathroom at the back of the apartment.
' Even better,' he thought. 'The dirt and grime that has accumulated from the last few battles is starting to take its toll on my nerves.'
With that, he nodded lightly, walked over to where she had indicated the bathroom was and locked the door with a quiet click. He began to fill the tub with hot water and removed his clothing, folding it neatly. When the tub was mostly filled, he turned the tap off and proceeded to wash the dirt and blood off of him. He spent a few extra minutes washing his hair and mask before he washed the shampoo out. He looked at the button that he had placed on his arm a few hours ago and decided to move it so that it was on the 4 tattoo on his breast. Ulquiorra then made his way over to the tub, settling himself in carefully. He closed his eyes, enjoying the feel of the hot water on his body. He let out a small sigh.
' I have more time to reflect since I began to live here. I'm not sure I enjoy this very much, though,' he decided. ' It seems that my thoughts continually drift towards that woman…'
Speaking of that woman, he could hear her muffled cry that dinner was ready. At the mention of dinner, he could feel his body telling him that he needed to consume something. However, Ulquiorra ignored the feeling and banished it into some dark corner of his mind. He was not like the mindless Hollows or lower level Arrancar that could not control their urges to consume souls.
' Although, even I need to consume souls if I am to stay here for an extended period of time or else I will begin to weaken. Earth is not like Hueco Mundo, which has a high concentration of reiatsu.'
With that, he got up from the bath and drained the water. Grabbing a towel from the rack, he wiped himself off and walked over to the bag of clothes that Orihime bought him. He pulled out each article of clothing and began to put them on. It had taken him a few tries before he could get the underwear on, but eventually he did and then pulled on the black slacks. He wasn't really sure if he was partial to them; they were more form fitting than the hakama that he was used to wearing. Then, he buttoned down the shirt and inspected himself in the mirror. It was odd, he decided, to be in anything else other than his black and white Arrancar uniform.
' It seems I do not have any other choice,' he thought, looking at his tattered clothing sitting in a corner of the bathroom.
Ulquiorra picked up his folded uniform and placed it into the bag, unsure of what to do with it. Seeing a trashcan under the sink, he tossed the bag in without a second thought and exited the room. He noticed Orihime sitting at the table, hunched over a piece of paper that she was currently writing on with great enthusiasm. Suddenly, she noticed his presence and turned to look at him. Her eyes widened and a slight flush crept over her cheeks. She continued to stare for a few more minutes.
"…What?" he asked her, slightly annoyed. ' I'm fairly certain I put everything on correctly…'
She turned her head, trying to cover her blush…and failing miserably. He was confused why her face had gotten so red just by seeing him.
' Perhaps she is becoming ill? Humans can become ill so easily, after all.'
She then asked if everything had gone well and he nodded in response. He walked over to the table and sensed her following him, returning to what she was working on. Seeing as how he had nothing better to do, he tried to figure out what she had been working so hard on. He stared at the piece of paper and saw many numbers in an arrangement that made no sense to him but apparently made sense to her. Her writing began to slow until it eventually ceased altogether. Orihime looked up to face him.
" Is something wrong?"
"…No."
" Then why do keep staring at me?" she demanded, the same look on her face that she had had right after she slapped him for offending her nakama. Ulquiorra really hoped that she would stop glaring at him like that. He couldn't understand why, but whenever she stared at him like that he had the urge to grab her by her forearms and…
He wanted to tell her that he had technically not been staring at her, but that he was staring at the piece of paper that she was working on instead. Deciding that it was not worth the effort, he told her instead that he had nothing else to do. When she heard his reply, she turned bright red again, the second time in about ten minutes.
' She really must be starting to fall ill,' Ulquiorra decided resolutely. ' It cannot be healthy for a human to become red this many times in such a short period of time.'
His eyes went back to the piece of paper, confusion spreading through him. No matter how much he stared at it, he could not figure out the significance the numbers possessed or, more importantly, why she was working so hard on it. He then noticed the large stack of paper that was beside her, which he surmised she would also have to finish.
" Oh this? It's just some make up work for school that I need to get done."
' Makeup work?' He searched his mind for a definition to the word but could not find one. This word was completely new to him. What was this 'makeup work' that she spoke of? He decided to ask her what she had meant.
" Well…makeup work is kind of like…a mission…or maybe…more like a writing a mission report. But because I have been gone for so long, I have a lot to do."
' I see,' he thought. " How much time have you been given to finish?"
"4 days," Orihime replied, a small frown forming on her lips. Obviously, she felt that such a feat would not be possible.
He glanced at her and then at the papers stacked next to her and then glanced back at her again. If it had been Ulquiorra that had been given that much paperwork (not that he would have been), it would have been more than possible for the work to be done in that amount of time. However, she was a human; she needed to eat, sleep, and go to school, among other things, and this left her with very few hours in the day to work on the stack beside her. He had decided.
" That is not humanly possible."
That being said, he stood from the table and walked over to the only window in the room, staring at the moon. Or, at least, he tried to stare at the moon. There were two things that were keeping him from doing so. One was the fact that the moon was not visible because of the clouds that had covered it. The second, and perhaps the most distracting of the two, was the fact that he found his gaze drifting to the girl sitting hunched over at the table, going through the stack of makeup work at a surprisingly fast rate. He frowned deeply.
' What is it about this woman that attracts me to her so? I am like a moth to a flame when it comes to her. If I am not too careful, she will bring about the end of me,' he thought bleakly.
He continued shifting his gaze between whatever objects he could find outside the window and Orihime. After about an hour, he sensed her stand up from the table and stretch, expressing her satisfaction as her muscles loosened themselves. He could feel her stare at him for a moment before he heard the blonde fukutaichou call to her. Sparing a quick glance, he saw that she had followed Matsumoto to the next room. Ulquiorra could hear their voices from where he was standing. Deciding that it was not worth his time to listen to what they were discussing, he continued to stare out the window until he sensed the trio moving towards him. He turned his head towards the direction he knew they would be coming from and saw the three enter the room. Orihime had a look of guilt on her face; He stared at her suspiciously.
" Um, Ulquiorra. Can you come here for a second please?"
Every fiber in his being sensed that it would be in his best interest not to move. The fact that she refused to meet his gaze solidified the fact. No. Whatever the reason was that she wanted him to come closer, he knew that it would not be a good one. He would stall her until she decided to drop the issue altogether.
" If you don't come here willingly, we can always use force and drag you over here ourselves, you know."
Ulquiorra glanced at the blonde and her white haired companion coldly before he began to walk towards the three, stopping a few feet away from them. He tried again to get Orihime to look at him, but her eyes were focused on the remote control-like device in the palm of her hand. She pushed the button in the center and he saw threads of reiastu come out from the button he had moved. They wrapped around him tightly, binding his arms and legs to his body. He could feel that he was losing his balance and, without warning, he started to fall face first until he hit the ground. He blinked. He could hear Matsumoto's laughter from above him and felt the urge to kill rise in him at an alarming rate.
"I'm… so…sorry…Ulqui…orra…Here, let…me…help…you," he heard Orihime say through her giggles. It didn't bother him the same way Matsumoto's laughter had, however.
He then felt three sets of hands flip him over so that he was on his back and he inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her walk about a half a foot towards him and then sit down, staring at him intently.
" What do you think you are doing, woman?" he demanded, a bit wearily. ' Haven't you gained enough pleasure from my embarrassment?'
" I'm waiting until this…whatever this is wears off."
He resisted the urge to look at her. She truly confused him. He was her enemy. The one that had kidnapped her, told her terrible things about the nakama that she held so dear, and almost killed the boy that she loved. Yet here she was, sitting next to him until whatever she had done wore off. He closed his eyes.
"Foolishness."
Orihime let out a small giggle, causing him to turn his head and stare at her. She was smiling ever so slightly, her eyes bright in the pale moonlight that had begun to filter in through the window. He turned his head back up to stare at the ceiling, waiting until whatever technique she used on him wore off. After about an hour, he could feel the strings begin to loosen. Ulquiorra moved his arms and, pushing himself up into a sitting position, turned to look at her. She had apparently fallen asleep some time in the hour it had taken for the technique to weaken. Her skin looked flawless and her hair looked an even brighter orange than usual. In that moment, bathed in the moon's glow, nothing else existed to him. He stood up and looked down at her.
' She is going to be sore in the morning if she continues to sleep in that position,' he noted.
He debated on whether to move her into a more comfortable position but decided against it. Instead, he forced himself to walk towards the window that he had been staring out for most of the night, although this time his thoughts were drifting towards a certain shopkeeper. He muttered under his breath a promise to kill Urahara if he ever saw him again and decided to count up the number of ways that it could be done. Ulquiorra was up to 44 when he was interrupted by an obnoxious knock on the door. Looking up at the clock, he saw that it was 4:44 in the morning.
' That idiot redheaded shimigami. What does he think he is doing here at this time?' he thought irritably.
He could hear someone open the door, followed by a thwack to the head and Renji yelling obscenely. At the same time, he heard a moan and turned to see that Orihime had woken up from all the noise, looking around the room to figure out where it had come from. Her gaze finally stopped at him and she looked up at him with sleepy eyes. She stared at him for a few seconds before turning away. She then started lowering the upper half of her body to the ground and, lying on her side, went back to sleep.
' Yes. She is going to be really sore in the morning.'
" Matsumoto! What the hell was that for?!" Renji demanded, rubbing his head where Matsumoto had punched him.
" The better question is, what the hell are you doing here so early in the morning, you idiot?!" she shot back, annoyed that her beauty sleep had been interrupted.
"Quiet, the both of you! And lower your voices," Hitsugaya ordered. " Now Renji. I'm assuming that you have just arrived back from Soul Society."
Renji nodded. " Yeah."
" And what was so important that you had to come here at this hour to tell us?"
" Well, first of all, I explained the situation to Yamamoto-taichou. After I could find him, that is. I asked everyone where I could find him but they all told me the same thing. 'He's busy preparing for the upcoming war. Whatever you have to tell him can wait till the preparations are finished.' The bastards…Anyway, Ukitake-taichou finally told me where I could find him. By the way, since when has Unohana-taichou made house calls?"
" RENJI!" the two exclaimed.
"Ok ok!" He said, holding his hands up defensively. " Anyway, I finally found him and told him everything that happened. He said that he would be able to come here in about a week."
" So, why could this not have waited until later this morning?" the white haired taichou asked, a vein popping out of his forehead.
" Yamamoto-taichou wants the three of us to return to Soul Society before the end of the day. He says that he needs everyone to be prepared for the upcoming war and that we can't do that here."
" What? What about Orihime-chan? We can't leave her alone with that…" Mastsumoto started worriedly.
Renji sighed. " I tried to tell him that. However, he said that the device that Urahara-san had given her, as well as Ichigo being here, just in case something happens, should be enough until he can come down."
" But Ichigo isn't always going to be around to protect her! He's also fighting the hollows that are increasingly appearing in the real world! Also, that Arrancar may figure out a way around the device and…"
" He also stressed that we should remember that…" He paused.
" That?" she asked nervously.
The redhead looked at her sadly. "That the fate of the world rests on this war and that we shouldn't let our emotions cloud our judgment. The loss of one life is worth it if billions are saved."
The two tenth squad members stared at each other and sighed. They knew what they had to do. It was an order from above and they had no choice but to follow it.
" We understand. We'll leave as soon as we explain to Orihime-chan the situation," Matsumoto replied, her hands tightly gripping each other.
She had never felt a shooting pain like this before in all her life. Pushing herself off the floor, Orihime could hear and feel the popping of her spine. She let out something between a moan and a groan while she tried to get the tightness out of her shoulders.
" Oh! My back! Why was I sleeping on the floor?" she asked no one in particular.
" You fell asleep while waiting for whatever technique you used to reverse itself,' she heard a voice answer her monotonously.
Turning her head towards where the voice was coming from, she found Ulquiorra sitting at the table that she had previously been doing her homework. He stared at her blankly.
" Ah! Is that what happened?" She looked towards the clock. " Well, at least I have time to get ready for school."
Standing up, she made her way to the bedroom to take a spare uniform out from inside the closet. She took the clothes with her and made her way to the bathroom. Orihime didn't have enough time for a bath but decided that a shower would be good enough until later that evening. After she dried herself off, she put her uniform on and walked to the kitchen to eat breakfast. She saw that Ulquiorra was still sitting at the table, now staring at her unfinished homework.
" You know, Ulquiorra." She saw him look up at her and continued. " If you want, you can read some of the books on the shelf if you have nothing else to do. It's mostly some shojo manga and old textbooks, but…"
He nodded and, taking that as his answer, she went back into the kitchen and grabbed a quick bite to eat. When she was finished, she put on her coat and started stuffing the homework that she had finished in her school bag along with her writing utensils. Orihime then turned to go out the door and announce that she was off to school when she was stopped by the three shinigami.
"Ah! Abarai-kun! When did you get here?" she questioned.
" Orihime-chan, there's something we need to tell you before you leave," the blonde said, looking at the young girl sadly.
"Rangiku-san?"
" Yamamoto-taichou said that he would be able to come here in about a week," Hitsugaya explained. "However, he has ordered us to return to Soul Society to prepare for the upcoming war."
" I see…when are you planning on returning?"
" We don't want to leave the Arrancar by himself for the time that you are at school, so we will leave as soon as we sense that you are returning home."
She nodded, tears beginning to form in her eyes. She didn't want her friends to leave her all alone with Ulquiorra, who was listening to their conversation from where he was currently sitting.
"…So, I guess this is goodbye for now, huh?" she replied, trying to hold back the tears that threatened to spill. Matsumoto walked over to her and gave her a big hug. After a moment, she released her and the two males said their goodbyes. With that, she muttered quietly that she was off to school. The three walked over to where the green-eyed Arrancar was sitting. Renji pulled out a thermos-like container and tossed it at him.
"….What is this?" Ulquiorra demanded, eyeing the container suspiciously.
" Concentrated reiatsu. We wouldn't want you going crazy with hunger and start eating every soul in sight, now would we? There should be more than enough reisatsu in there to last you a week until Yamamoto-taichou can come and question you, " the redhead explained.
The trio waited a few minutes for Ulquiorra to respond. However, sensing that he wasn't going to say anything more to them, the three walked back to the room, packing up their supplies so that they could be ready to return to Soul Society. Ulquiorra let out a sigh and walked over to the bookcase that Orhime had mentioned to him earlier. He picked up a book and began to skim through it before deciding that it was not worth his time to read it.
' This must be one of those 'shojo mangas' that she had mentioned,' he thought, looking at the pictures of a man and woman hugging and kissing each other intimately.
Putting it back on the shelf, he started to read the other titles. His eyes stopped on a book entitled Paradise Lost and, grabbing the book from the shelf, he walked over to the table and began to read. After reading about a chapter in, the parallels between the main character of the book and Aizen were not lost to him.
' I wonder if Aizen has read this book as well,' he pondered.
After he finished reading the book, Ulquiorra placed it back on the shelf and noticed that one of the books had numbers decorating the cover in a similar design that had been on the worksheet that Orihime had been working on the night before. Picking it up, he began to read it and suddenly everything that he had seen her doing began to make sense. He was on his fourth textbook, this one about Japanese history, when he felt the three shinigami's reiatsu disappear. A moment after, he heard the click of the door as it opened and a certain orange haired girl walk in.
" I'm home," she replied, but not as energetically as she had yesterday. Taking off her shoes and coat, she walked over to the table, sat down, and placed her head down with a light thump. She stayed this way for a moment before lifting her head and staring straight at him.
" It's too cold outside. I wish it would hurry up and be spring already!" She pouted. Seeing that he was reading her old textbook, she asked him, " So, how was your day?"
He looked up from the book to look at her. Her eyes looked tired and her face was pink, most likely from the cold weather outside. Her hair was a bit messed up from the slight breeze, a few strands standing up in odd places.
" It was fine," he replied, returning to the book that he held in his hands.
She waited for him to elaborate but seeing that he wasn't going to, she began to talk.
" My day was ok. It was lonely, though. Sado-kun and Kuchiki-san and Kurosaki-kun still haven't come back to school yet, although…they were the most injured of the group, so I guess they won't be back until Monday. Ah! But Tatsuki-chan and Ishida-kun were there, so I was able to talk to them. Ishida-kun asked me if I was doing okay, what with you staying here with me and all, but I told him that everything was fine and…"
He glared at her. ' I know I did not ask her anything, so why does she continue to try talking to me?'
"Woman, what are you going on about?"
She looked at him, clearly annoyed." Why do you always call me 'woman'? I'm not really a woman yet, you know. I'm only sixteen," she replied.
Ulquiorra closed his eyes and let out a sigh. He knew this day would come eventually, although he had not expected it to be so soon. He continued to call her woman, even though he knew her name, because it was just one more way to emotionally distance himself from her. He had only called her by her name once, after the first time he had seen her in her Arrancar uniform, but that had been a tactic to intimidate her, not that it had worked as well as he had planned.
" Fine then," he replied, irritation starting to make its way into his voice, " Inoue Orihime."
Her frown deepened. " That sounds weird if you keep calling me by my full name all the time. Not to mention, it's really long. Anyway, I only call you Ulquiorra so it should be the same for me, right?"
" Alright then…Inoue."
Orihime smiled brightly at him and he found himself startled by its sudden appearance.
' I wonder if I will ever get used to her smiles,' he mused.
He was about to return to his book (he only had a few pages until he was finished, after all) when she started talking to him again.
" And you're supposed to ask how someone's day was if they ask you first."
" What?" Ulquiorra asked, confused.
" You asked me why I was still talking. Well, I asked you how your day was and you told me that it was fine. Then, you should have asked me about how my day was and then I would tell you all about it," she explained, pointing a finger in the air.
Human customs were so bewildering to him. " Why? Why do you have to ask someone how their day was even if you have no interest in what had happened to them whatsoever?"
Orihime shrugged. " I don't know. That's just the way it is. You ask someone how their day was and when they are done telling you about it, they ask you. It's just the polite thing to do."
Ulquiorra sighed. Marking his place in the book, he set it down on the table and looked at her. She looked back at him, a look of confusion spreading on her face.
"Inoue, how was your day?"
Her eyes brightened at his words and her smile grew even wider. He couldn't believe that something as simple as asking how her day was could make her so happy.
" I'm so glad you asked, Ulquiorra…" she started, going into even more detail about her day.