(NOTE: For information on this whole series, please refer to the first chapter.)
Déjà vu (Chapter 428.7)
Night has fallen. The cool breeze blew softly into her room as she watched the moon.
Wondering if those lost and far away can see the same moon.
Checking to make sure no one was at home, Orihime muttered silently as the petals of blue cascaded from her hair and formed a double barrier around her room.
Sitting on the floor she produced the broken bone from a case kept safely underneath her bed. She shivered at the memory of Ichigo's hollow; the monster that sliced his horn and reduced him to ashes.
She didn't dare to call that monster Ichigo.
As she stretched her hands over the bone, she braced herself.
"Souten Kishun…"
Hoping that she is ready.
"….I Reject"
A soft orange dome formed around the silver horn. Orihime knew her power had limitations, but she decided to stretch them as far as she could. Just to see him again.
Much time has passed since he was killed. Yet, the memories of him were fresh as if it was just yesterday.
Tiny particles of ash began to appear and float around her.
Orihime tried to remember every detail of him. His disheveled hair, almost touching his shoulders... His startling green eyes, his turquoise tear streaks, stained or scarred on his cheeks. She wonders which one it was.
The whole horn slowly came into form.
Come on Inoue, she told herself. Reject!
A familiar half-helm of bone joined the horn.
Orihime was already feeling the strain as she focused hard on her healing. She did not know how much of him she could bring back, if she could bring him back at all.
The raven-shaded hair began to reappear together with his face.
More and more ash collected around her, though she did not seem to notice. The peculiar dust drifted slowly into the air; some of it being continuously drawn down into his face to colour the surfaces of his lips.
Then his neck
Then shoulders.
Then, his chest and torso began to form. Though she cannot see them, she fought hard to bring back every part of Ulquiorra's body that was blown away.
As the hours went by, hours she could not count, the dust around her seemed more and more reluctant to join the healing flesh. Orihime knew she was at her limit; she has never brought back someone from the dead before, and everything in her power is now put to the test. She cannot fail.
"Please…." She whispered quietly.
Infinite hours it seemed, did Orihime spend kneeling with her arms stretched over his body. Just a little more, she thought despairingly. All around her the room started spinning. Her concentration of her power has never before been so drained, all at once.
All for a single person.
As the early lights of dawn broke the horizon Orihime finally lowered her stiffened arms as the orange shield broke around the renewed flesh. Breathing heavily from her ceaseless night of burning up all the strength and power she ever imagined having, tears of fear, happiness and sadness all seemed to flow from her ash-coloured eyes.
He is here. Here, at last.
Finally she allowed herself to succumb to her exhaustion, and collapsed onto his body.
…In the silence of the emerging sun, a fresh breath of air was taken into newly reborn lungs.
