Wrote most of this to Hans Zimmer's "Way of Life" from the Last Samurai soundtrack. 3:50-5:40 for the latter scenes of the chappie, though the beginning of the song fits in with Orihime's life at the Fourth Division.
Thank you so much for your reviews! They pushed the count to over 60! That's wonderful! And probably one of the main reasons this chapter is out right now.
'Tis a rather long chapter, too. The longest, in fact. But, in my opinion, it is also one of the better ones.
(For some reason, the document manager won't let me center the chapter title. Disregard the weirdness of it, please)
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach or any of its characters. I'm just borrowing, but sharing is caring, yes? No? STILL? Oh well.
Half-Truths
- Human -
The demon is even more terrifying in reality. Orihime stands still as a pinned butterfly, her eyes feeling too large for her head as she struggles to contain the sharp, animal fear spiking through her thin veins. The demon is a slight against all that is good and natural. Every inch of its long, heinous smile, every crease around its slanted eyes is an insult to sanctity. Even the soft sunlight that falls on its mercury-tainted locks is corrupted. Everything about this creature screams abomination.
So, of course, the abomination offers her a smile taut enough to break its face in two.
"Hellooo," the demon purrs. "And, uh, who might you be?"
"Orihime," she whispers, and shivers when she realizes that she's answered without thinking. She takes a small step back and nearly flinches when the demon replies with two steps forward.
"Orihime-chan." The demon gives a muffled giggle at the way she hunches her shoulders at the nickname. "Soul Society's very own ryoka, visitin' my division? Tell me…what did I do ta deserve this…honor?"
Orihime curls her fingers into her palms. She will not turn her back on this monster; she will not flee, no matter what obscenities her instincts shriek at her. She is strong. She is strong for Ishida-kun.
"Leave him alone," she says. The demon raises its eyebrows at her and pulls its head back like a startled predator.
"Hmm? Leave who alone, kiddo?" It turns its head toward Hanatarou-kun, who she can practically feel shaking at her side. "This one? But — hah — I haven't even done anything to 'im yet!"
"Not Hanatarou-kun," Orihime insists. "Ishida-kun."
"Ah." The demon bends its long neck down toward her, a beast sniffing out the fear in its prey. "Your ryoka friend. Tell me, Hime-chan, what could I possibly want with him?"
Orihime licks her lips, her mind whirring. This, she thinks, is what it must be like to be interrogated by Death. "I don't know," she admits. "I…I know you're following me, though."
Hanatarou-kun jumps as if someone has struck him with a red-hot poker. "I-Inoue-san!"
"How dare you?" One of the guards steps forward aggressively, his dark eyes livid with fury. The demon holds up a single hand, its fingers long and colorless, and the other shinigami stops in his tracks. Orihime can feel the hatred and confusion radiating off him in noxious clouds. She swallows to wet her parched throat and curls her toes into her sandals.
"I saw you last night," she says. "On the rooftop. You were watching me. I just came because I needed to know if it was you. So I would know who was following me and Ishida-kun. I…I'm going to save him. I'm going to save Ishida-kun. So don't…don't come near us anymore. Leave us alone… please."
The demon is still smiling in a way that makes Orihime's spine want to corrode away into dust. She averts her eyes and, her hands clamped tightly at her sides, moves to stride past him. Only three steps take her to the demon's side before its voice slithers into her cringing ears.
"If I were you, sweetheart, I'd watch how I talked to my superiors in the future."
Orihime comes to a stop and looks up at the monster out of the corner of her eye. Fear drives a dagger into her stomach; one of the demon's eyes has opened into a thin slit. A pupil redder than Ishida-kun's blood leers out at her. The demon's smile has stretched so wide that white, gleaming teeth glint hungrily in the hateful sunlight.
"Someone could think yer bein'…disrespectful. Then something terrible might happen. A nasty murderer might get punished. Terrible, terrible, terrible…I would really hate to see such a thing happen. Wouldn't you?"
Orihime recognizes a bad situation when she sees one. Just like in her nightmares, though, she cannot break out of it. She can't make herself run. The demon chuckles and lifts a hand to pat her cheek. Its touch burns like foul acid.
"There, there," the demon says sweetly. "Don't feel sad. Every human dies eventually. And, aha, hey…at least yer Kuchiki friend is still alive, right?"
Orihime jumps. Rukia. "Kuchiki-san?" she repeats in a faint whisper. Dread crawls into the pits of her stomach. "What did you do to her?"
The demon spreads its hands out in a bewildered gesture. "Nothin', princess. I'm innocent as a lamb."
With that, her nightmare turns on its heel and heads through the gates of its division. Just before the iron bars close behind it, it turns it silver head and smiles at her once again.
"Nice talkin' to ya, Hime-chan!"
Orihime stares after it with wide, unseeing eyes. Hanatarou-kun comes up to take her arm, his touch timid and more than a little frightened.
"Inoue-san? Are you…wh-what's wrong?"
"Hey, you two," the first guard snaps. "Get out of here."
Orihime needs no prompting. In an instant she has turned on her heel and is flying to the Penitence Tower, Hanatarou-kun babbling confusedly behind her as he follows. His questioning words glance off her turned back. Her heart pumps furiously in her chest, trying desperately to beat her in this mad race to Kuchiki-san's cell.
"Inoue-san!" Hanatarou-kun cries. "Wait! Where are you going?"
She doesn't bother turning her head and doesn't even falter when she nearly crashes into two passing shinigami. "To see Kuchiki-san!" she answers. Oh, please don't let me be too late — I'll never forgive myself —
"But wait!" She doesn't know how he does it, but suddenly Hanatarou-kun is in front of her. Orihime skids to a stop before she can crash into him. The timid boy winces in anticipation, but straightens when she does not rush past him again.
"Inoue-san, you can't just run off to see Kuchiki-san," he says. "The guards won't let you in, especially after your friend tried to break her out. They might not even let you see Ishida-san if you do that."
Orihime blinks and goes very still. "I…I hadn't thought of that," she admits faintly.
Hanatarou-kun's face flushes with color and his hand comes up to rub the back of his head. "You were worried. And you're only human, you can't expect to think of everything."
"I should have thought of that," Orihime insists. "I'm supposed to be saving Ishida-kun, and I almost got myself into trouble. Thank you, Hanatarou-kun, for stopping me."
"Umm." Hanatarou-kun's face turns an even darker color of shy embarrassment. "That's alright. And, umm…if something had happened to Kuchiki-san, we would have found out by now. I don't think Ichimaru-taichou would hurt her, let alone in broad daylight. We can go check on her if you like, but only if the guards let us. O-okay?"
Orihime nods. Hanatarou-kun's words soothe her, but the demon's have already staked their claim on her conscience. There is something terribly wrong with everything, something she can't seem to pinpoint. Whatever it is, it's threatening Kuchiki-san as well as Ishida-kun, now.
No matter what she seems to do, there is something to hold her back from helping her friends.
Kuchiki-san is alive and well. The guards will not let her into her friend's cell, but they do let her see Kuchiki-san. She smiles and waves cheerily, relief swelling up in her, as welcome as happiness. Kuchiki-san stares and waves back weakly. She doesn't understand what Orihime is doing here, grinning at her and waving like an idiot.
But that's alright. She hasn't been touched by the demon. Its threats are empty.
…For the meantime.
No more Ishida-kun for an entire day. It seems that only when one of her closest friends is on death row that she is impatient for the day to die. Impatient for the time when she can see him again; the guards won't let her back into his cell, no matter how much she pleads with them. Kurosaki-kun's attempt to steal Kuchiki-san away has made the Commander-General less than generous with the time she is allowed with Ishida-kun. So she'll have to wait until another day dawns to see the only reason she gets up in the morning.
Her morning was practically saturated with stress. Orihime's worn body insists on her rest, but she refuses to take even a moment to rest her head. This is how she fights to save Ishida-kun when she isn't with him: she pesters people with questions.
How will Ishida-kun be executed? Where? By whom? Will she be allowed to stand by him?
Questions that pierce through her very soul and remind her all-too-painfully of her human mortality. Deadly questions. Dangerous questions. Questions that need to be asked, and so will be.
Soukyoku is the name of Ishida-kun's end. He will not die by a shinigami's hand, then — though Orihime has every intention of saving the Quincy, she think she will be glad to know that his execution would come from a powerful entity, and not his most hated adversary.
Yes, she will be allowed to watch him die. It is her reward for getting him to cooperate while incarcerated.
Orihime would like nothing more than to cry and scream at the shinigami who tells her this. Instead, she bares her teeth in a polite smile and says, "Thank you."
She has learned to be cordial to blind cruelty.
That night, Orihime's dreams seek to break her mind in half with confusion.
She is walking through the hallways of the Fourth, going about her life without Ishida-kun by her side. Her friends greet her as she passes, their faces hidden from view by blank black masks. Dread and unease stir in her heart's depths, but no matter how hard she tries, she cannot act any differently than if her friends had been human. She cannot help but smile and laugh and sing a happy working song.
A man in a white captain's coat comes up to her and wraps his arm around her shoulders. She looks up, up, up…his face is blurred as a child's amateur finger-painting portrait, his features slipping and sliding as if someone threw water upon his face. As if he's the Wicked Witch, and the life-sustaining liquid brings only death to him.
Colors mesh together on his head. Brown, black, beige…but the eyes. The eyes always remain, dark, calculating things with cruelty and mocking malice echoing in their depths. Orihime wants nothing more than to run from this man. His arm around her keeps her immobile. The panic rises. The dream shifts chaotically, a broken kaleidoscope smashed by a child's uncaring hand…
And just like that, it all fades away. She is back in Ishida-kun's cell, the only light coming through that odd rectangular window in the wall. Ishida-kun is standing before her. He comes up to her before she can speak and she feels his hands on her shoulders.
"Ishida-kun?" She says, the words ring clear in her ears. "What's wrong?"
He doesn't reply. Yet she sees his lips turning up in a soft smile, those lips she's caught herself looking at more than once. Lips that take mere words and weave them together to form worlds that make her spirits soar, break, tumble to Earth like fallen angels.
She feels those lips against her cheek. Ishida-kun's hands tangle in her hair, lost in pumpkin strands, and everything is right. Orihime melts into his frame, heedless of the bloodstains his lips leave on her eyelids, her nose, the soft spot just above her mouth…
She wakes to a racing heart, colliding thoughts, an odd ache in her chest…and a single, solitary tear steadily rolling down the cheek dream-Ishida-kun kissed.
"Hanatarou-kun," she says quietly, just as she's about to leave to see Ishida-kun, "what do you think…what do you think dreams mean?"
Hanatarou-kun peers up at her with big, round eyes that remind her of a puppy the little boy down the street once had. "I don't know. Sometimes, my dreams are really weird and don't mean anything at all. I once dreamt that I was the Commander-General and that, umm..." He pauses to look around nervously, almost making Orihime smile. "Well…that Captain Byakuya ate this really spicy wasabi roll, and that's how he got to be so serious. And we know both of those things are impossible, so I guess some dreams aren't really meaningful. Others, though…others are different. Misora-san once said that dreams can sometimes hint at things that are about to happen, or things we want."
"Things we…want?" Orihime can't meet Hanatarou-kun's eye. She watches her fingers play, unwinding and winding together again, unsuccessfully trying to hold in the blush that she knows is rising in her cheeks.
"Mm-hmm," Hanatarou-kun says. "How come? Did you have a dream, Inoue-san?"
She nods and presses her palms flat against each other, her teeth teasing her lower lip again. Hanatarou-kun waits patiently for her to tell him about the dream, but it isn't something she will tell anyone. "I think I should go now," she says to her hands. "Lot of…lot of things to talk about with Ishida-kun."
Things we want, she thinks as she leaves poor Hanatarou-kun to start off the day as a ball of concerned confusion. That can't…I don't want Ishida-kun to do that, do I? No…no. Ishida-kun is my friend. Like Hanatarou-kun said, some dreams don't mean anything. Some dreams are just silly things.
But…
She knows the instant she steps through the door that she's in trouble. Ishida-kun stands next to the rectangle-window, looking out into the thin glimpse of freedom he is allowed. He turns to gaze at her when she passes through, and his eyes are so dark…just as they were in her dream.
Orihime is more than thankful for the dim light in the cell. She does not want Ishida-kun to see the evidence of her embarrassment smeared across her face.
"Inoue-san," he says gently, and takes himself away from the window to stand in front of her. Orihime reaches out to offer him her customary gift: breakfast. Not the revolting gruel he's handed for sustenance, but real, mouth-watering food. She takes shelter in normality. Dreams are dreams, and nothing more. This one doesn't mean anything, despite the recent relevance of her mind's nighttime workings.
They eat in silence, as they have done days before this. Orihime's appetite has conveniently decided to flee, the coward. She picks at her food. Ishida-kun's razor-sharp perception has not been dulled in the least by captivity. He stops eating once he notices her reluctance and taps her lightly on the back of her hand.
"Inoue-san. Is something wrong?"
Orihime works her jaw thoughtfully and stares intently at the apple cupped in her hands. She is tempted to tell him about the dream, if only to see how he will react. Instead, what comes out of her mouth is, "I think someone might be trying to hurt Kuchiki-san."
She is as surprised as Ishida-kun is; it wasn't what she wanted to say at all.
"What? How?" Orihime begins to flinch at Ishida-kun's tone before realizing it is not directed at her. She recognizes this voice; it's Ishida-kun's killing voice, the identity he takes on when faced with a particularly serious puzzle or trap. Something sparks in the back of her subconscious. She lifts her head to look at him, and sure enough, his eyes blaze with cold fire.
There was a time when Orihime would have been saddened to see such ferocity in his eyes. Now, she rejoices in the knowledge. It means he is regaining some of his former spirit.
"I had a nightmare," she offers, tripping over her words in her eagerness to excite the fire in Ishida-kun's gaze. "It was about you getting chased by a…a demon. A demon with silver hair and a mean smile. Then I woke up and went outside, but I saw it watching me. I went looking for it after it left. It's a captain named Gin Ichimaru. I…I told him to leave you alone, but he acted like he didn't know what I was talking about. I know he's up to something. When I tried to leave, he…he threatened you and Kuchiki-san. He said that it was a good thing Kuchiki-san was still alive."
Orihime winced, suddenly realizing how silly she must sound. Her gaze went back to examining the apple in her cupped hands. "I know it could mean anything; Kuchiki-san is scheduled for an execution right after you. But the way he said it…Ishida-kun, it isn't just the execution. I know it's something more. I could feel it."
"No," Ishida-kun says harshly, almost making her jump, "you're right. There are too many secrets in this world. Keep an eye out, Inoue-san. Don't let your guard down. Don't go anywhere without someone with you. Understand? It's too dangerous. There are too many people who don't like us here."
Orihime nods, her nerves jumping with fright. "What if he tries to…to hurt you or Kuchiki-san?"
Ishida-kun's eyes flash dangerously. "We won't let him. He's not going to get to her."
"But what about you, Ishida-kun? What if he tries to hurt you?"
Ishida-kun hesitates and gazes at her silently for a long moment. The look in his eyes reminds Orihime of her dream. She shivers and draws into herself, clutching the apple for support.
"Don't worry about those not worth saving," Ishida-kun says.
Orihime digs her fingernails into the apple's yielding flesh. "You're worth saving," she tells him. "More than anyone else I know."
They sit in a silent standstill for a while. When the guards come to take Orihime away not three minutes later, she leaves with a wondering mind and an uncertain heart. She doesn't realize she forgot to give Ishida-kun the apple until later, but by then it has been already scarred irreparably by her grasping hands.
It's funny, Orihime thinks later. How she could have started on the right path to saving Ishida-kun simply by giving him someone to save. Guilt and regret live side by side in her heart, but she cannot afford to stop and grieve for dead mistakes. This is the now. This is important.
She spends the day moving about from division to division, trying to collect information. Hanatarou-kun proves her best source; not many shinigami trust a ryoka, even one the Commander-General has granted temporary amnesty. How everyone knows what she is, she doesn't know. Maybe they have a secret underground system of alien spies who eavesdrop on her through uber-secretive radio transmitters grown in people's ears! Or maybe some of the death gods are aliens, Martians who use their evil powers to read people's minds! Or maybe word just gets around quickly and she's letting her imagination get the best of her again. She doesn't mind when that happens; rarely has she been carried away by her imagination in the past month or so.
In any event, people know who and what she is, and are reluctant or wary of talking to her. So Hanatarou-kun acts as her spy. Orihime is mildly amazed by how he can just disappear into a room with only two people in it. It's like people don't even realize he exists, sometimes. She wishes that could happen to her. Most of the time people notice her, if only for her overlarge chest — above all else, Orihime is not an idiot. She knows the reason behind people's stares. Recently, though, the scar on her throat seems to get much more attention. Orihime isn't sure whether to be glad or not and so takes to wrapping her neck in a cream-colored scarf. When asked about it, she hides behind a small smile and the response that she's merely cold.
Before he died, Captain Aizen was everything every shinigami hoped to be. Powerful, respected, well-liked — he was quiet and mild-mannered, and despite his withdrawn nature, his kindness won over many people. His little lieutenant had been devastated when she had found his corpse. Why anyone would kill Captain Aizen is beyond most people's range of thought. Some suspect a treacherous power play. Others think the assassin was simply jealous of Aizen's reputation.
Orihime isn't concerned with the why. She wants to know how Aizen appeared before Ishida-kun if he was already dead, how the demon-captain intends to hurt Kuchiki-san, and how she is going to convince Ishida-kun to forgive himself when they only have three days after the present.
With Ishida-kun's execution date drawing near, the shinigami are growing restless. They are eager for retribution, justice, judgment. She can see the anticipation clearly in the same eyes that refuse to meet hers. Even those who dread Ishida-kun's execution do so only for Orihime's sake. As far as they are concerned, Ishida-kun deserves his impending death. He killed tens of people in one merciless strike, no matter how young or old they were. The people of the Fourth might not be intimate with those of the Twelfth, but they still share a kinship that appears to have cropped up only after the other shinigami are dead.
She can hear Ishida-kun's droll voice resounding in her ear. The irony, he would say with a roll of his eyes.
It is five minutes later before Orihime starts to wonder if hearing Ishida-kun's voice in her head is normal.
He practically scrambles to his feet the instant she's through the door. Orihime gives a little start to find Ishida-kun standing so close to her that she can feel the heat radiating off his body.
"Has anything happened?" He demands, that peculiar fire leaping up in his dark orbs again.
"Umm," says Orihime. Another day has gone by: two more days until the execution. She woke up earlier than usual to visit in the hopes that the guards will allow her more time with Ishida-kun, but the shinigami only warned her that their time today will be cut even shorter than yesterday. Wicked panic falls like snow around her thoughts. She knows what they're doing. They are trying to distance her from Ishida-kun so she won't cause trouble the day he is scheduled to die.
She is suddenly, irrationally thankful that she left her scarf back at the Fourth.
"I found out some things," she says, going over to their usual spot by the window. Ishida-kun's clean footfalls follow her quickly, as eager as their owner to discover new information. Orihime feels a light smile play with the corners of her mouth. She was right in giving Ishida-kun someone to save. He is never this animated for her.
The burning sensation that rises in her body like hot air is tamped down immediately. Orihime sits down on her side of the window and triumphs in not meeting Ishida-kun's eye. Even she recognizes jealousy when she feels it, and this is neither the time nor place for the envy she feels searing through her at the thought of Ishida-kun saving himself for Kuchiki-san.
More than a month ago, she would never have been jealous of one of her friends. But then again, she reminds herself, things have changed.
"Inoue-san?" Ishida-kun's worried voice lifts her from her despicable thoughts.
"Sorry, Ishida-kun," Orihime says with a faint grimace. "I was thinking about something."
"About what?"
The tender curiosity in his prison-hardened voice startles her into looking at him. Neither of them has touched their breakfast yet. Ishida-kun's sits patiently in his lap, beckoning with smells that only the cooks of the Fourth can create, yet he ignores it and pays attention solely to her. Half a smile is there and gone again before she can trap it and hold it there in her usual happy façade. Her resolve wavers. She's losing her touch.
Or maybe she just can't stand to lie to the shattered being sitting next to her, even if the lie is silent as her unspoken desires.
"Tomorrow," she says thinly, "is the day before the execution."
The fire in Ishida-kun's eyes is dimmed, though — thank God — not entirely gone. "Yes," he says tonelessly.
"And they're cutting our visiting time short today."
A low hiss snakes out from between Ishida-kun's clenched teeth. "Bastards," he growls under his breath. "I suppose tomorrow's visiting will be even shorter."
Orihime nods soundlessly. "I think so. I think they're trying to distance us."
Ishida-kun turns his head and gives her hand one of those feather-light touches they are so fond of using. Orihime smiles up at him and returns the touch.
"They won't." Ishida-kun's sure reply warms Orihime's heart.
She wants nothing more than to just sit here and bask in his presence, but she knows that to do so would be selfish. And she's had more than enough of being selfish.
"What I found out," she says, successfully snagging Ishida-kun's attention back to Kuchiki-san. She tells him about Captain Aizen, his death and the rumors surrounding it, his reputation and strengths. Also included are Kuchiki-san's execution date, scheduled the day after Ishida-kun's, the lack of the prickly-feeling in days after she confronted the demon-captain, and her worries for Kuchiki-san's well-being.
Ishida-kun barely has enough time to warn her against trying to find the demon again before the door slides open and the guards step in. Orihime leaves her untouched breakfast with Ishida-kun, glad when he does not protest.
"Inoue-san," he says just before she leaves. She turns to find him staring at her with that fiery look in his eyes again, and this time, it is all for her.
"Be careful," he says quietly. And she is gone.
Orihime is kidnapped on the way to the Twelfth Division. It is night and much later than she should be out, but she feels the abrupt urge to visit the site of Ishida-kun's "crime." Since the healers of the Fourth are incredibly gifted at distracting her from leaving, she sneaks out long after the sun has set and makes her way toward the Twelfth.
She has barely gotten past the exit gates of the Fourth when a hand reaches out from the shadows and pulls her behind a dark building.
Orihime yelps and struggles for all she's worth. Her hand comes back and smashes into someone's nose; she hears the man yell and feels hot blood spill over her fingers. She breaks away, nearly stumbling over her own feet in a mad dash to escape. Before she can scramble out of the building's shadows, two burly arms wrap around her and keep her pinned against an unyielding chest.
Orihime opens her mouth to scream.
"Calm down, Inoue! It's us."
And closes it again.
Orihime tilts her head to look up into the shadowed features of her captor. Dark curly hair, one eye hidden by long bangs, a square jaw…
"Chad?" She cranes her neck to look past him at another shadowy figure clutching its nose. "Kurosaki-kun?"
Chad releases her the same moment Kurosaki-kun steps forward into a thin shaft of moonlight. Orihime gasps at the crimson dripping through his cupped hands.
"Kurosaki-kun! I'm so sorry!"
Kurosaki-kun gives her an awkward smirk as she rushes forward to envelope half his face in her healing shield.
"'S alright, 'Noue," he says through the blood, barely even wincing when his nose snaps back into place. He rubs the area around his nose tenderly. "I've had worse."
Orihime steps back to look at them both. They appear the same as the day they left her, which can't have been too long ago, though it feels like a lifetime. There is something weighing on their minds. She keeps her hands in front of her, idly toying with the ends of her scarf.
"Did you come back to help me save Ishida-kun?"
The two ryoka exchange a look. "Sort of," Kurosaki-kun says.
"We can't tell you everything," Chad continues. "We're not too sure of the plan ourselves."
"There's a plan?" Orihime leans up on her tiptoes, her eyes bright and gleaming with questions. "What plan?"
"You already know that Ichigo failed to spring Rukia from prison," Chad goes on, ignoring Kurosaki-kun's death-glare. "Has it…affected the way they're treating Ishida?"
"They're not letting me see him as much," Orihime replies, not liking the way Kurosaki-kun scowls with worry.
"Knew it was coming," he mutters to himself. "I should've tried harder to break her out of there —"
"Even if you had," Chad interrupts, "they would have upped the security on Ishida anyway. Maybe even more than it is right now."
Kurosaki-kun backs off with a grunt. Orihime wonders how months ago, she would have found that enough to set her considering his many endearing traits. Now, she only smiles at his typical response and turns back to Chad.
"We need you to fully convince Ishida of his own innocence before the execution," he says. "There are only two days left. We can't tell you much, but there's going to be another escape attempt on that day. We need you to be ready for anything."
Orihime nods in grim understanding. She doesn't question why she cannot hear the entire plan; she trusts that her friends will let her know what she needs to when the time is right.
"In the meantime," Kurosaki-kun breaks in, "you get through that unnaturally thick skull of Ishida's, alright? And don't go wandering off in the middle of the night! You don't know what kind of crazies are out there."
He pauses to blink owlishly at her. "What were you doing out here, anyway?"
"I was going to go see the spot where Ishida-kun broke his Quincy glove."
Kurosaki-kun shakes his head. "Not tonight, Inoue. We've seen a lot of people sneaking around tonight, don't know why — maybe they got a whiff of our reiatsu. Get back to the Fourth. You can't go during the day, either; I've heard the place is swarming with shinigami performing all sorts of investigations."
A chill goes down Orihime's back at the thought of what some might find…or not find. Bodies, for instance.
"We have to go," says Chad. "We're not allowed out much longer."
"Just remember, Inoue," Kurosaki-kun says as the two head off into the distance. "Keep an eye out for help."
She watches them until they are swallowed by the shadows, one with the night and secrets.
Orihime wakes to a sense of doom that settles around her shoulders in a strangling hold. For a single, blissful moment, she can't understand why.
And then it hits her like a stab in the back. Today is the day before Ishida-kun's execution. Tomorrow, if she can't save him today, he dies.
She tears out of the comforting cradle of her blankets and rushes to pull on her day clothes. A quick glance at the ripe light slanting through the thin walls of her room lets her know what she already dreads: she's late. Today is the last day to save Ishida-kun, and she overslept.
Her frazzled mind struggles to rationalize with her. She was up terribly late last night, yesterday was a harrowing day; her body was just trying to recuperate. Her friends only care about her. They wouldn't want to wake her if they knew it was what she needs.
No. Orihime snaps her hairpins into place and furiously drowns her neck in her scarf. There is no excuse — she needs to get to Ishida-kun now —
People exclaim and stare after her as she bursts out of her room and runs down the hall as if Death himself were after her. She doesn't stop for anyone, not even Hanatarou-kun when she almost crashes into him.
"Sorry, Hanatarou-kun!" she calls over her shoulder. "I'm late for Ishida-kun."
She only stops running when she feels like her side is about to burst. Orihime pauses for a moment, her thin arms wrapped loosely around her shrieking abdomen, and leans against a building's wall. Passing shinigami give her odd, curious looks, but no one stops to ask for her well-being. It's just as well. As soon as she can breathe without feeling like her lungs aren't going to stall and shrivel up, Orihime is off and jogging again.
As she goes, she tries to erect some semblance of organization to her thoughts. She is late. Late on the day when it most counts, late to the one person she cannot afford to be late for. Late.
The word never particularly bothered her before, but it is beginning to.
The time it takes her to go from the Fourth to the Shrine of Penitence stretches effortlessly, mockingly, into years. Orihime is exhausted and pulsing with heat when she finally arrives at Ishida-kun's cell; her eyes and forehead feel like they might burst into flames any second. The thick scarf wound tightly around her neck isn't helping anything, but she is too tired to reach up and untangle it from her throat. Sympathetic glances drift over from the death gods standing guard at Ishida-kun's door.
"H-here," Orihime says breathlessly, giving the men a weak salute.
One of the shinigami goes over to open the door. The other stands still and looks her trembling frame over in a contemplative way.
"This is your last day with him," he says just as the wall slides open into Ishida-kun's cell. "Orders are that you're to take as long as you need. We won't interrupt."
She knows she should feel some sort of uplifting relief at this, and she does, but it is weakened by the sweat on her forehead and the short, shallow gasps tumbling drunkenly from her lips. All Orihime can manage is a thankful nod. The guard grunts and moves to the side with his partner, leaving the way open for her.
The Penitence Tower is cool and heatless from the inside out. Orihime steps into the room and briefly allows herself to enjoy the faint puff of air that comes from the door sliding shut. As always, it takes a moment for her eyes to adjust. In that single instant, Ishida-kun has risen from his spot by the window. He stands there, waiting for her until her eyes recover, so silent and still he could be somewhere else entirely.
Orihime levels her gaze at him when the light-glare vanishes from her view. Her eyes skim over his tense form, something stirring in her at the sight of his posture. He looks…unsure of himself, as if he's unable to decide whether to take the offensive or defensive. His hands open and close into fists and splayed fingers. Emotions race across his face, quick as flash-step: uncertainty, relief, and that indecipherable expression that he makes sometimes when she touches him. She watches and waits patiently, her heart coming down from its mad sprint.
Finally, Ishida-kun acts. He doesn't speak, doesn't utter a single word. He just takes several decisive steps forward, reaches his arms out, and crushes her to his chest.
Orihime's eyes fly wide open. She stays stock still, shocked, not entirely believing her position or the hands curled tightly in her hair, the smell of grime and sweat and Ishida-kun that washes over her, the heart beating firmly against her ear. When her thoughts finally manage coherence, she finds she can't even return Ishida-kun's embrace. His arms are wrapped around her so tightly she can barely breathe.
"I thought they weren't going to let you come in," he murmurs into her hair. "I thought they decided to punish me by keeping you away. I thought…I…"
Orihime is overwhelmed by the naked fear in his voice. Even before her imprisonment, he never showed fear. He never broke down. Not like this.
She tries to reach her hands up and pat him gently on the back. "I'm here, Ishida-kun," she says into his chest. "I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."
His chest expands against her cheek as he takes in a long, cleansing breath. He releases her slowly, reluctantly, not seeming to realize how much air he squashed out of her lungs. Orihime feels nothing but deep, unending relief, even when he backs away and looks off at smudge on the floor.
"Tomorrow," says that familiar, breakable voice, "the shinigami are calling my 'death day.'"
Kurosaki-kun and Chad's welcome warning strays into Orihime's mind. Her lips part to let the secret free and for a moment she has every intention of telling Ishida-kun about the rescue mission. She finds his face in the dim shadows, the words preparing to dive off the tip of her tongue … and she cannot release them. If the mission fails, she cannot bear to dangle false hope in front of Ishida-kun like a tantalizing meal to a starving man.
Besides, he still has not forgiven himself. Orihime can see it in his eyes.
She still has not accomplished what she set out to do more than five weeks ago.
Hours of planning for what she will say at this very moment fly up the heavens. Orihime throws herself to instinct. Her feet guide her forward to close those few steps between them, and she reaches her hands up to cup the sides of Ishida-kun's face. He stares at her in confusion.
"That's not what I think," Orihime murmurs gently. "I think tomorrow we will finally be free. We will leave behind all the suffering, and the sadness, and the guilt. We'll go far away from here. Far away, where no one will find us and tell us that we are bad people."
Ishida-kun does not utter a word. His hands come up to lightly hold her elbows and she smiles, running her thumbs over his smooth cheekbones. Her mind and soul are divided into two unequal halves; one shies in embarrassment from the intimacy, and the other is drawn to it, lured in by the still-healing soul she cradles in her hands. The embarrassed side is not the greater.
"I think you are a good person, but you don't like to see it. I don't know why. Maybe you think you don't deserve to be called good. Maybe you…you think that one mistake defines you. My brother used to tell me about that. He used to warn me of letting my mistakes convince me I was a bad person. He would tell me that everyone makes mistakes, because we're human, and that's what we're bound to do.
"You think you're a bad person, Ishida-kun, I know you do. You don't think you deserve to be saved. But you do. I've seen it. Remember when I first told you I thought Kuchiki-san was in danger? All you could think about was saving her, even though you probably should have been thinking about saving yourself before anyone else. You never hurt me, even when you were mad at something I said. And you feel guilt, Ishida-kun. You know it was a mistake and you feel guilty over it. And that's something no bad person could do."
Her thumbs still on his cheeks as a brief shudder passes through his body. He is staring at her with an intensity that belies the way his gaze passes right through her. Orihime can't imagine what horrors he is seeing, what nightmares plague him as they hound her every night. She leans forward and passes her fingers over the skin beneath his eyes. Her pointer finger comes away wet. His pain and guilt and self-hatred, all bottled up for days on end, endless hours that corrode his untouchable soul — all of it, rising up and spilling over her fingertips in one, two, three droplets. The breath catches in his throat. He swallows tightly, his eyes suddenly roving sightlessly above her head, seeing nothing that she can see.
"It's okay," she coos quietly. "It's okay, Ishida-kun. Everything's okay."
Ishida-kun's grip on her elbows tightens, his fingers digging into her skin. He holds onto her like a dying man to his last hope.
"Let go of it, Ishida-kun," she whispers. "You're only human. Forgive yourself."
His mouth opens twice before any sound comes out. Orihime remains still as his hands come up from her elbows and slowly undo the scarf twined close around her neck. The cold prison air makes her skin crawl as the scarf falls away and lands on the floor in a small heap. Ishida-kun is still very quiet. His fingers go once more to the pale scar on her neck, a silvery mark against her peach-colored skin. It slashes horizontally, its edges rough with the force of its infliction.
"I —" Ishida-kun gasps, and that is all he can manage. The dam breaks. The pain and suffering rushes out in a thick, choked sob, and he buries his face into her neck, his body shivering and jerking with suppressed cries. Orihime wraps her arms around him protectively, shielding him from the monsters that threaten to sweep him up and swallow him whole. His grief stains her shirt and neck, running down her back in freezing droplets. Orihime closes her eyes.
It is a long time before Ishida-kun finally becomes calm again. He does not try to remove himself from her embrace, and neither does she. Ishida-kun has seven inches on her, yet he fits perfectly in her arms, more perfectly than she ever thought Kurosaki-kun or anyone else could. Ignoring the burning ache in her arms from holding tightly for so long, Orihime turns her head the slightest bit. Her lips touch his hair.
She has never felt Ishida-kun so still in her life. If not for the strong heartbeat pressing against hers, she would wonder if he had died holding her.
"Ish—" His name is silenced by the touch of his mouth against her neck.
Suddenly, her legs cannot hold her weight. She sinks against him and abruptly their positions are reversed. He is keeping her upright, her hands pressed flat against his chest as he straightens. Ishida-kun looks down at her, and Orihime trembles at the fierce gleaming in his eyes. This is Ishida-kun — the Ishida-kun who disappeared for more than a month, who vanished off the face of the world of the dead, and was replaced by a mere shadow of his former self. She refuses to let go. She will not let him leave her again, not like that.
A flickering smile makes its way to her lips as he bends his head down. His breath comes in soft waves against her mouth, his forehead touching lightly against hers before he breaches the distance and presses his mouth firmly against hers. Coherency scatters in shards at Orihime's feet. She is dimly aware of her arms coming up to encircle Ishida-kun's neck, her upper half pressed flush against his, the movement of his lips on hers. Here, there is no execution, no blame, no death. Here, there is only them.
High above them, higher than even the Penitence Tower can reach, Orihime sets free her soul.
A/N: Review, please.
I've been waiting to write this chapter since the first one. I had wanted to make it longer, but it was already thirteen pages on Word. That's huge! And the ending would have been a terrible, horrible cliffhanger. So you can be thankful that this chapter was so long, otherwise you would probably be hurling pitchforks at my head. Not to worry. That scene will be in the next chapter. (Poor foreshadowing effects)
-Kimsa
