A/N: Sorry for taking so long to write a new chapter! Lots of things happened: college, the publishing of my book "El filo del Olvido" (Forsaken's Blade), my nephew being born, among many others! And I was surprised that, despite my absence, the hits still came. The story has almost reached 7000 hits! 18 favs and 15 alerts, I'm really shocked and really grateful. I enjoy writing the story, but I never thought it would become such a monster hit! (you know, for my standards it is xD), so I just wanted to thank you all who read the story, you are plain awesome and I'll keep doing my best. Enjoy :D!


Traitor's Sword

"We're here"

Orihime's statement was anything but useless, that was what Uryuu thought as he, she and Ulquiorra walked down the golden round floor. The walls were pretty impressive, they were made in a way so they could also be a scaffold, in order for people to watch- or in this case hell prisoners-, and they were also made of pure gold that shone as a bright hut sun illuminated the way. There were no clouds in the lime sky above them, and for some reason that looked like a bad sign for Orihime as her feet kept moving forward, as if she knew something terrible was about to happen and tried to outrun that fate.

"Are you all right, Orihime?"

Ulquiorra's voice made Orihime snap; she was spacing out and her face showed signs of concern that worried Ulquiorra. She made sure to smile as she always did and waved her head. Ulquiorra sighed as he kept Orihime's pace. Uryuu did the same thing, but he wasn't going to stay silent like Ulquiorra.

"So, what's worrying you?"

Orihime gulped.

"It's probably nothing…" she lied "however I would like to catch up with Kuchiki-san and Tatsuki-san as soon as possible"

"I see" Uryuu said "We're not far from…"

He shut in middle of his sentence and he grabbed Orihime's waist; he jumped backward as something fell from the sky. It fell so fast that he couldn't recognized, he barely made it to react jumping backwards. Ulquiorra reacted the same way, but as he didn't have to grab Orihime he took the chance to draw his sword. Uryuu got his hand off Orihime and prepared his bow as Orihime herself got ready to fight as well.

Dust was raised when the thing fell from the sky, but in due seconds that dust dissipated and Orihime was shocked by what she saw.

"Sa… Sado-kun"

Indeed. Yasotura Sado was standing right in front of them. He dressed like usual, a long sleeves red shirt, elastic trousers, snickers, and he seemed the same, the hair was messy as ever, the body as big as she remembered. But she also remembered hearing that Sado was an enemy here, just like Ulquiorra was, so she didn't let her guard down.

"Do I know you?"

Sado's question made Orihime flinch. Did he remember? Or was he about to remember?

"Sado-kun! I…!"

It was a trap: she realized just in time to protect herself with santen kesshun, but if she didn't realize that it was a trap, that arm would have hit her in the chest, probably stopping her beating heart.

Ulquiorra was there in a split second and he waved his sword against Sado, yet he was quick enough to evade his attack and even land a kick on Ulquiorra's face while launching a spirit energy blast towards Uryuu who was about to shoot him. Uryuu dodged, Ulquiorra regained his stand, and Orihime moved towards Sado, holding her pins in her arms.

"Three against one, rather unfair" Sado claimed calmly "You could use some pride and face me one by one."

"Why would we…?"

"Fair enough" Orihime interrupted Uryuu at the double, she noticed she was being glared at, but she didn't mind "You'll fight me first".

"It's your call."

"What are you doing?" Uryuu complained as he grabbed Orihime's wrist "If we all go together…"

"… you or Ulquiorra might end up hurting Sado." Orihime stated "I can end the battle without harming him… badly."

Uryuu was about to complain, but he was shut the moment Ulquiorra put his hand on his shoulder and stared at Orihime.

"Is this what you want?"

"You bet."

"You understand that if you are about to be killed I'll interfere, right?"

"I would do the same thing".

There were no farther words needed or said, Ulquiorra grabbed Uryuu's arm and made him step backwards as Orihime stepped forward and made sure to stand very still and look strong: it was better sometimes if you were underestimated for being a woman or looking weak, however Orihime had already enough of that in the past and she wanted to be acknowledged as a warrior, like everybody else. This wasn't just about getting Sado back; it was about proving herself and the others that she could stand her own ground, on her own.

"Why are you so set on me?" Sado asked.

"You are an old friend."

"Interesting." Sado said as his right arm morphed into a shield "Yet I do not remember that".

Orihime gave a faint smile.

"Nobody remembers anything anymore".

Somehow this match felt fated for Orihime: after she learnt about her powers for the first time she and Sado were trained by Yoruichi to learn how to use them, both felt powerless in the Soul Society and also during the whole arrancar invasion, and just now both of them seemed truly mighty. And only one of them would prove to be actually skilled enough to hold a fight with Ichigo. And that, of course, had to be her… but would she be?

"Here I go."

Why announce himself? If an enemy wants to connect a hit the usual strategy is to remain silent and do nothing until you can take your enemy by surprise, if you actually announced that you are going to attack it meant that you probably want to test the enemy's reaction. That much Orihime understood, so instead of covering herself with either santen kesshun or shinten koushun she decided to simply dodge the blast that was thrown at her. It wasn't hard, Sado wasn't going all out.

Without even talking Orihime called Tsubaki forth and threw him toward Sado; he covered himself with his shield like arm, but Tsubaki was lost of his sight in a split second and his back was slashed. Sado merely reacted to the pain by jumping towards Orihime at high speed; this time she chose to cover herself with shiten koushun and Tsubaki came back as high speed to help form the pyramid like shield that Sado would end up hitting. After he made contact with the shield the backfire impacted on his left arm, opening a straight and long wound around it.

Sado jumped backwards; he didn't seem affected by the blood. Orihime thought it was weird that she was winning so easily, that Sado wasn't actually pulling some hits, or was he waiting for a trump card.

"Interesting skills." Sado said "May I ask you why are you interested in seeing king's hell?"

"So you know what I'm after." Orihime said calmly.

"It's only logical. You are not a hell prisoner, so why else would have you not come here if not to meet king's hell?" he asked while glazing at Uryuu "Surely he came here for that reason."

Orihime was about to talk, but she was astonished by seeing how the blood continued to flow and what it was doing: as the blood started slipping through Sado's arm towards his legs she noticed that they started changing.

"So you noticed."

Sado's words came from her back; she barely made it to shield herself with santen kesshun and then jump backwards.

"It's useless."

She was hit in her back before noticing. It was a clean hard hit that made her cough blood, still she made sure to hang on her breath as she leaned on the floor. She quickly kicked Sado's feet and then rolled to her right as he fell. She stood up trying to swallow the blood that struggled to come out her throat, and she held her hair pins even tighter in her hands as she covered herself in souten kisshun.

"So you can even heal yourself" Sado said as he got up "Impressive."

Orihime noticed that he was still analyzing her, not even going for real. The bleeding finally stopped, but the legs were already fully covered on the blood. It was a real bad sign, but she was not giving up.


Wake up and smell the disaster.

Those were the first words Rangiku heard before being slapped. She was tied to a chair, her sword was just some inches away from her feet, but her legs were also tied up. Her wrist held some kind of spiritual blocker, some kind of bracelet. She could not use kidou, which was really bad considering the situation. Toshirou was in front of her, talking to someone from a cellphone. She could barely listen to anything he said, her ears were not able to detect any noise. Her mouth was dry, she was thirsty and just hoped that someone would give her some water. She didn't understand what was going on. The place was so dark that her eyes could only stare at Toshirou's white hair as if it was a flare; who was he talking to? And about what? Rangiku wanted to grasp what was that it was going on around the place, but there was no clue. Nothing made sense, why would he hurt her?

"Got it."

Those were the only words that she was able to recognize, and after that Toshirou hanged. His eyes turned around towards Rangiku and she knew she was screwed by the cold looking eyes he gave her. What did she do in order to make him loathe her so much? What has she ever done?

Toshirou left the room and Rangiku had no longer something to see, and so she was wrapped in darkness. Was that a nightmare? Hardly. You never feel what you touch while dreaming, so she couldn't be dreaming. She understood that she was both awake and alive. But why was she being punished like this?

"Poor thing"

Those words scared her only because she didn't know where they came from. She wanted to reply, but she was unable to, for some reason the words just wouldn't come out.

"Everyone needs their martyr." The voice said "It's a shame that it has to be you".

Rangiku became even more scared by those words; she couldn't recognize if it was a man or a woman, she couldn't even tell if he was in the room, next to it or outside, she could just tell that it was there.

"Don't worry, you won't be forsaken":

What he said made no sense whatsoever, but she made it to understand one thing: she was being framed for something she didn't do.