Eventually there was very little of Inoue Orihime left; her metamorphosis into the Damaged Princess was nearly complete.

By this time, "Inoue Orihime" was just a mask, a façade used to mislead and distract those around her. It was a slave to the dominant side; the wishes of one were the wishes of the other, and the other was slowly disappearing.

When one deteriorates, one looses something…

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

Orihime walked into the building where Tatsuki's tournament was being held. She smiled, showed the doorman her ticket (Tatsuki had given it to her before she left), and went to find her seat in the stands. She chose one of the higher up seats and sat herself down, waiting for her friend's match to start.

She didn't have to wait long; there were six matches before Tatsuki's, three of which were won by a dark haired girl called Soi-fon. She was a good fighter, very agile and hard to predict. She very well might almost be better than Tatsuki.

Soon after the last match the referee came out and announced that the next match would be the title match between Soi-fon and the champion from the previous day. He said that there was a fifteen minute wait for the fighters to rest before their match, and that anyone who wanted should use the restrooms if they didn't want to miss anything.

Neither of Nature's callings beckoned to Orihime, so she just stayed on her seat and waited. She thought about all the times she'd seen her friend's considerable fighting prowess in actions, and knew that this girl with the long braids wouldn't last long Tatsuki at full strength.

Eventually the ref came back and announced that the match was about start. People began filing back into their seats, some with snacks in their hands, and stared at the ring in eager anticipation; both these girls were good, and regardless of who won it'd be quite a show. A few of the spectators even had homemade signs for their preferred favorite that they now held up.

After a moment Tatsuki emerged and the crowd applauded. She stepped into the ring, followed by other girl, and the two of them met in the middle with the ref. He explained the rules to them, had them bow to each other, and stepped back, chopping his hand between them. They were on each other like lightning; punching, parrying, dodging, and countering the other's blows. When one would come with an attack, the other would either dodge or deflect it before launching an attack of their own. It continued like this for a while, with neither fighter having an advantage over the other one.

Then Soi-fon got in a lucky hit, knocking Tatsuki slightly off balance. Soi-fon pressed the advantage, and eventually pinned Tatsuki for the ten count.

The crowd cheered and applauded as the ref held up Soi-fon's hand, declaring her the winner. Tatsuki picked herself up, hanging onto the ropes for support. She turned to Soi-fon and bowed, and the victor did likewise.

Orihime first started getting confused when Soi-fon got her lucky hit in on Tatsuki; she just couldn't understand how her friend could loose to someone who was clearly her junior. She'd seen Tatsuki fend off seven guys who were clearly larger than her, punch Chizuru a good thirty feet on occasion and even left a crater three inches deep in a brick wall with her bare hands; so why did she loose?

There was only one possible explanation why Soi-fon had won; somehow, someway, she must have cheated. This meant that the ref must also be a part of it as well.

And she just couldn't let them get away with this, could she?

"Sumimassen, Referee-san?"

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

"Thanks for coming to the match," Tatsuki said once she and Orihime were in her hotel room.

"It's the least I could do," she said, "I've always wanted to see one of your matches." Then she turned somber, "I'm sorry you lost."

"Don't be; I smashed my arm in a door yesterday," she massaged her right arm, which was bound tight, "so I was kind of off my game before. Don't worry about it."

"But you should have won," the damaged girl persisted, "it isn't right that she beat you like she did."

"Maybe so, but there's nothing that could be done about it; it was a freak accident, could have happened to anyone."

Orihime sighed, brushing away a stray lock of hair that had fallen out of her clips. "It wasn't an accident Tatsuki," she explained, "somebody set it up so you wouldn't be able to fight properly in your match."

"You not kidding about this, are you?" Tatsuki said as she studied her friend's somber countenance. She leaned forward, yearning to hear more, "Who was it? We need to tell the tourney official, and-"

"That won't work; they're part of it too." She suddenly brightened up, "~But I took care of it!~"

"You took care…" Tatsuki suddenly became wary, "Orihime, what exactly did you do?"

"~I fixed everything so that you'd be the winner!~" She got up and tugged Tatsuki by the wrist, "~Come on, I'll show you.~" She dragged her friend out the door and down the halls of the hotel, ignoring the employees and other patrons they passed along the way. Many left the two girls to their own devices, but a few who recognized Tatsuki from the tournament tried to engage in conversation. When they did Orihime would just say "~Maybe later, I'm taking Tatsuki-chan to see something special!~" and continue on her way, her bewildered friend in tow. Eventually the two girls made their way to the basement, somehow avoiding all the hotel staff.

"~We're here!~" Orihime announced, stopping in front of an old door.

"Are we even allowed to be down here?" Tatsuki wondered as she caught her breath.

"~I knew Tatsuki-chan would be sad about loosing the tournament,~" she explained, not answering the question, "~so I made it better for her; now you're the winner.~" She took a set of jingling keys out of her purse and inserted one of them into the lock.

"Orihime what did you do?" Tatsuki persisted. "I'm not mad or sad or whatever about loosing. OK, maybe I'm a little mad that someone sabotaged my chances at first place, but if you know who did it then why are we down here? You should tell what you know to the referees, and-"

"~Referee-san was part of it,~" Orihime told her friend, the lock clicking open. "~But don't worry, I took care of him.~"

The words Orihime said registered in Tatsuki's mind.

"What did you fucking do!" Tatsuki demanded, pushing past her sociopath friend and storming in the newly opened room, only to trip over something in the darkness not two seconds later.

"~Silly,~" Orihime chastised, "~you forgot to turn the light on.~" She reached into the room and flipped a switch on the wall, illuminating a small closet.

In the light Tatsuki saw what she tripped over; two corpses, their throats recently slashed. One of them wore the uniform of the hotel, and Tatsuki belatedly realized that he must have been where Orihime got the keys to open the door. The other one wore a referee's outfit, and Tatsuki recognized him as the ref from earlier.

"~I told you I took care him,~" Orihime said, coming in and sitting next to her friend, embracing her in a snuggling hug.

Tatsuki was unable speak, merely stuttering incoherently at the bloody mess before her.

"~Referee-san was part of it,~" the damaged princess explained, "~he wouldn't have let her cheat otherwise. He's retired now.~"

"Wh-what about him?" Tatsuki stuttered, just barely able to find her voice.

"~I needed his keys,~" she said simply. "~Besides, he was doing something naughty in a room with a bunch of TV's in it.~"

Tatsuki couldn't believe what she was hearing; Inoue Orihime, the girl who was so naïve, timid, and squeamish that she wouldn't touch snake because she was afraid they were slimy, who couldn't even begin to contemplate hurting a fly, (much less another human being), was sitting in a puddle a blood of the people she had killed on nothing more than a sneaking suspicion and a whim, smiling like nothing in the world was wrong.

This was not the same girl she was friends with.

"~It's too bad Miss Soi-fon bribed him to let her win,~" Orihime sighed, staring longingly at the dead ref, "~he was really nice to me.~"

"Soi-fon?" She grabbed the girl by the collar, "Where the fuck is Soi-fon? What did you do with her? If you fucking harmed one fucking hair on her head, then so help me I'll fucking-"

She slumped over into the bloody corpses, unconscious. Orihime's hand hovered where Tatsuki's neck had been.

"~If I tell you now it'll ruin the surprise,~" the serene killer said, picking her friend up and hefting her over her shoulder. She then turned to the far wall and stared admiringly. Whether by design or chance Tatsuki had never looked in that direction, too fixated on the corpses on the floor, and as such had not seen the third corpse strung up between the two shelves.

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

Tatsuki awoke slowly, feeling a dull pain in the back of her neck.

Unfortunately, the first thing she saw was a mutilated corpse. There were bloody cuts all over her body, the most notable were that her breasts were sliced open and folded open like a flower. The rest of her torso didn't fare much better; there was a long gash down her front, letting her organs and intestines spill out onto the floor. Her legs were stabbed to kingdom come so much that bone could be seen in some places. Her feet had been severed messily from her ankles, and one of them now resided in her lipless mouth. Her eyes hung limply out of their sockets, and a pipe was rammed straight through her skull, poking out the other side.

Tatsuki screamed.

"~See Tatsuki?~" Orihime said from behind Tatsuki, causing her to scream again, "~Now you're the winner!~"

Tatsuki couldn't find the words to describe how wrong this was.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?..." Tatsuki whispered, holding back choking sobs.

"~Nani?~" Orihime was thoroughly confused. "~I thought Tatsuki-chan would be happy she won…~"

"I didn't win," Tatsuki annunciated, "I lost, and just killing someone because they-"

"~She didn't just make you loose,~" the damaged princess explained. "~Remember the person who sabotaged your fight? She was the one made it happen.~" She walked over to the corpse and kicked it over; it's back was completely flayed of skin, leaving nothing but muscle.

Tatsuki fought hard to keep from retching.

"WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING!" she exploded, unable to contain herself any longer. "Why the fuck would you kill her? Even if she was responsible, she didn't do anything to you!"

"~She hurt you,~" Orihime explained simply, "~which means she hurt me.~"

"But…"

"~And if someone wanted to hurt you then they shouldn't exist, and the world would be better off without them.~"

It was the logic Tatsuki had helped her define just earlier that week.

"Orihime…," she said slowly, struggling to keep her composure, "I'm going to say something to you that I've never even imagined saying to you before…"

"~What is it?~" Tatsuki screwed up every last ounce of courage, stood straight up, and gave her former friend a mighty slap across her face.

"Go to hell you fucking bitch! You are not the same person I met three years ago! You aren't my friend anymore and I hope you rot for what you've done!"

"~That's too bad Tatsuki-chan,~" Orihime sighed, somewhat disappointed that things were turning out this way. The last time Orihime had ended the life of someone who had caused Tatsuki pain her friend had been glad of it, joyful even. It had made her happy, encouraged her to keep doing the same thing again and again. She hadn't felt like that since Sora was alive.

But now Tatsuki was frightened of her, of what she did. Orihime was hated, and she didn't really know how to handle that, "~but you're still my friend, and I don't like that I have to kill you now.~"

"I don't believe you," Tatsuki stated defiantly, "I don't think you're capable of killing the closest thing you have to a sister."

"~I don't see why something like that's important,~" the damaged princess said, "~after all, I killed my parents.~"

to be continued…