Hell Butterfly
Heartless Beat
~38~
o)0(o
Orihime blinked awake. She felt fine. Lighter, in fact. Except for a slight weight on her heart and the burning, all-consuming sensation that there was something she really had to be doing. Something that just couldn't wait. But what might it be?
"…Maybe I left my toothbrush at the clinic?" she pondered. When she raised her hand to her chin and assumed the 'thinking position', a clinking metallic object brushed her arm.
A chain embedded in her chest. How odd. Now where had she seen that before? She tugged it: it hurt far more than the first time. And it was leading away to…to…to nothing. Wasn't her body meant to be at the other end, safe and sound, gold at the end of the grey rainbow?
But it was gone, and yet she was not, and she just couldn't fathom what her unfinished business might be.
The sickly aura of the Hollow had faded from the air, so she wandered around the small park in search of herself. Eventually she turned a corner and tripped right over the corpse, with a squeak and a muffled "Sorry!"
At the sight of her own demise her heart constricted and the chain lost two silver links. She hadn't fallen gracefully – more been dropped like a sack of bricks. Her clothes were streaked and puddled with red, hair clumped with it, eyes rolled back but lids open. Everything utterly limp. And a horrible smell in the air, the stench of the indignity of death. In the pool of blood, Ichigo seemed comatose. Something inside him had broken beyond repair.
But probably not because he'd been secretly in love with her the entire time, mused Inoue; which was a shame. Probably because he had failed again.
She counted the blades of grass breaking through the pavement, noted the single lamppost that wasn't lit yet in the mid-afternoon light, saw a million small details she would rather think about than the obvious.
Carefully stepping around her own gore, after taking a deep breath, she crouched down and laid a hand on her mussed ginger head, as if she could divine what was going on in there. She stroked the cold cheek gently, held her own hand. "Hello, Me."
"Don't worry. I'll look after you. See, in just a minute you'll be fine." Another silver ring vanished from her Chain of Fate. "You have to hold on, no matter what. You'll pull through, I promise." Her mouth squeezed into a tiny, tense smile. "See, see, we're not helpless anymore when these things happen… Ayame and Shun'ou will take care of everything."
Responding to her call the two fairies flashed out of her hairgrips, arcing over her head like wan fireworks. They were as faded as she felt inside.
"I'm…I'm not that unhappy," she protested feebly, waving. "Smile! In a little while it'll all be fine right?"
Shun'ou wrung his hands awkwardly. "Well, yes, but, only if it doesn't happen again."
"He isn't safe anymore," agreed Ayame; feeling the guilt that swelled up in the three of them as Inoue heard her own thoughts voiced.
As if to prove the Shun Shun Rikka right, a deep shadow was blooming above Ichigo, looming behind the fairies. It seemed to have no reiatsu, and Inoue leapt to the conclusion that it was dangerous. For just an instant she feared the Hollow had broken loose again.
When it coalesced into a man she had never seen before, with a face as stern as Yamamoto's hidden behind coloured shades, she began to be afraid for different reasons.
"Wait! Don't take him!"
Zangetsu glared at her, almost did a double-take, and then tried not to bash his head against the lamppost in exasperation. Of all the senseless… Ichigo was suffering a nervous breakdown, and the girl's ghost was stood there without a scratch.
"You're a little late," he growled forbiddingly, trying to convey all his disapproval in five small syllables.
"But not too late," said the girl quickly, attempting to edge between the zanpakuto and its master. "I realise you're some kind of other-otherworldly death god for shinigamis, but you can't have him. Because – because I'm a time lord!" she bluffed. "Well, time lady. And I've stolen him back from you before anyway! Um, please don't hate me for that," she added, as a small disclaimer.
His frown deepened. "You misunderstand me."
"Erk. You're here for me?" Inoue broke into a cold sweat. "I'm getting better! You really needn't bother…"
The sword raised his eyebrows, incredulous. She took that as a yes.
"I'm sorry Reaper-Reaper-san, but you can't have either of us."
The zanpakuto paused, curious. "Why not?" he asked, uncharacteristically gentle.
Orihime stepped forwards without fear, blazing with bright and sudden light. At her back the Souten Kesshun expanded, shining like the sun. "Because I will fix everything," vowed the human soul.
He dismissed this and turned back to his protégé. He stooped down and tilted the Kurosaki's head from side to side, contemplating how it could be hijacked. "The state Ichigo is in is not something anyone can fix. It's no physical scar you can simply reject."
"Hey!" yelled Tsubaki, materialising. He felt insulted on behalf of his siblings. "Who the hell do you think you are?"
"I am Zangetsu;" declared the sword with great pride. "I am not here to perform any kind of konsou upon my host. War is at hand, war on an unprecedented scale that endangers all four realms. Even if Ichigo should crumble and fall for petty reasons, I shall never back down from my duty."
"Zangetsu…" breathed Tsubaki in awe, eyes sparkling. "I swear to all eight million kami I am your biggest fan." He flew in loops around the zanpakuto. "If my mistress had just half your resolve! Man, I coulda sliced Aizen in half weeks ago!"
Wavy brown hair and cloak as black as blindness ruffled by mysterious winds, the sword regarded the miniscule ninja in baffled silence. He wondered when and how the conversation had become so derailed.
"…Would you autograph my wing?"
Zangetsu felt a tad wrong-footed. Dare say, he hesitated. "I…don't have a pen."
The final three Shun Shun Rikka appeared, apologising profusely. "Don't mind our little brother," laughed Lily nervously; as Baigon and Hinagiku dragged Tsubaki away. "He just gets a little over-excited. Ha, ha…"
The man cloaked in darkness hid the fact that the attention was slightly pleasing. Instead he watched Inoue's body knit itself back together under Ayame's guidance. Before his very eyes her Chain of Fate was gaining more links, the pallor of death was fading from the human's face. Even though this was a miracle, it left him feeling nauseous. She was defying the natural order. She crossed barriers that only one other person could. That no one should.
"Can you…" Orihime fidgeted with the chain as the silver bond rejoined her body. "Can you tell Ichigo-kun I'm okay? He doesn't need to worry or anything. He died because of me before, and this…this just means we're even. He doesn't have to feel bad. I'll come back to Karakura. So please…"
Zangetsu laid a hand on her shoulder, though out of sympathy or respect he could not tell. Then without making any promises, he faded from sight.
o)0(o
All the towers were lying on a drunken diagonal slant, gravity had fallen over again, and the deep blue ocean sloped into the distance.
Ichigo sat where the sea scraped against the skyscraper; watching. His tawny hair had grown into a long tangled mane as if he had been waiting ten years for Zangetsu to return. And his skin was whiter than shock could make it, whiter than marble; and the zanpakuto wondered if it was really the Hollow crouching there, scouting for ghosts.
"Zangetsu;" the white strawberry greeted him, never shifting his focus from the turgid waters. "Have you ever realised you didn't know someone at all? I can't see that murdering bastard anywhere."
"With you, every day," responded the sword, approaching his counterpart with caution.
"It's so irritating, I waited for her every single day. I was so sure her ghost would come find me,sofucking dependent. Even after Isshin-oyaji said he'd killed the Grand Fisher, even in Hueco Mundo, every single second in stinking Soul Society – I was always looking for her out the corner of my eye. I still need her. I never wanted to let someone be the centre of my universe again: a needy little crybaby who smiled like a fool for – someone I knew nothing about. I was just a kid, I had no clue what kind of person she was, I still don't even know her maiden name! They never told us anything about themselves because they were lying the whole time. So I tried to be 'the one who protects' because I couldn't be Masaki's brat anymore. Now I know I can't protect anything… When Karin came back I started thinking it was all gonna be okay. When I found Hachimitsu in the queenie I thought I could steal back everything I never had. When I met Rukia I thought let me fight let me win let me rule but I never learned enough about shinigami never figured them out – 'you're growing faster than anyone ever has' 'you're stupid''you're strong' 'you're weak' 'you ooze' 'you're a monster'. I actually thought this was my destiny. I even thought my mum might be proud of how strong I was like her. Bull shit. We're nothing alike. She was never a Hollow, she was just a Hollow's dinner. Just like the queenie. I ate them both."
Words flew from his mouth as fast as they whirled in his mind. Zangetsu had never heard him bare so much of himself before, they only sought each other out for combat, never for company. With a great wrench of effort the boy turned to face the zanpakuto spirit. In his irises, the warm brown of Ichigo and the cold gold of Hichigo had melded into burning amber.
"Help me find that Hollow, Zangetsu; I'll kill him, and from now on I'll fight with my own strength. We don't need him. I have Soul Awakening. I'll awaken my whole soul, as far as it goes, we'll kill the Hollow with just you and me. It's never been just us before now; he's always been in the way, when he's gone I'll have total control… I'll be stronger. On my own, I'll be enough."
The Kurosaki-come-Shirosaki stood, faced his mentor, revealing the gaping hole in his chest he hadn't even realised was there. It shrank when Ichigo spoke in his own voice, swelled when he rasped in Hichigo's voice, marking their rise and fall. The pulse of insanity, the pump of a fading heart.
o)0(o
A lone girl boards the train, luggage straining one hand, the other curled but empty. She sits with her head down in isolation. The seat beside her is vacant yet she glances at it from time to time in concern. The carriage shifts from side to side as it races along the track, stopping and starting, crowds ebbing and flowing. She barely registers them; staring at her shoes, her lap, out of the window to the pebble-grey clouds gathering in the sky.
She clings to the hand of a ghost with all her strength.
He does not respond, only standing when she drags him to his feet, only walking where she leads, only seeing what is inside him, unaware she is even there.
She huddles on the train, totally surrounded and totally alone, and tries to protect him.
o)0(o
"I want revenge," snarled the boy in a small twisted voice. "I don't care about protecting people any more. Look at all these other souls in me. The same thing happened to all of them. At some point they had to give way and become me. What am I fighting for? It'll all end up in the same place." Heavy, dense, liquid reiatsu was dripping from the tatters of Ichigo's shihakusho. It pooled at his bare white feet like ink, blue-black, plus and minus, crawling down towards the sea of sorrow in thin rivulets. The waves darkened even further, transforming. As the Hollow had promised, he was feeding off his despair.
That entire ocean would soon become fuel for his vengeance against himself.
"How will you conquer Hichigo now?" asked Zangetsu sadly, hand drifting to the void that dilated and contracted fitfully, an empty heartbeat in Ichigo's chest. "You can't find the Hollow because you're not looking at yourself."
The hybrid looked down, cracked a warped smile. "Aah, I told you I was the Hollow. But then I thought I must be wrong, because why do hearts still hurt after they've been thrown anyway? Dad calls it phantom pain.Why do I still feel empty when I'm finally human for the first time?"
The blade shook its head in defeat. "I don't know what you are."
Half a sneer. "You should. You're the one that gives the orders, retard. Fight your Hollow, fight your zanpakuto, fight the vaizards, fight, fight, fight! No one ever told me why I was doing this, I just do what I'm told."
Zangetsu glared at him. The words were lies, rotting in the air. It had always been Ichigo's choice to chase danger, rather than let it creep up behind him. "And who told you to break, Ichigo?"
The hole in his torso opened wide, a hungry mouth. "I did!"
"Why!"
"It's impossible to be two people! Every other Hollow is itself, a broken version of themselves, not a parasite inside someone else! I can't become a true Hollow until one of us breaks. You can't become someone else without forgetting who you were before."
Zangetsu threw the creature to the ground, whatever it was, it was not Ichigo. He did not recognise it at all. A razor sharp blade appeared in his outstretched hand, black as oblivion, guardless, hiltless, a sword only for cutting, a sword without regret. The demon raised its pale arms in defence, trying to shield its head. It spat words like daggers.
"Do you realise Hollows are just scapegoats? Sacrifices so humans aren't sent to Hell for their crimes? I don't want to be that. All the lives and memories in this city, I don't want to let them go, but it's like holding onto fire. I could go completely insane and destroy them all. But they don't want me to. They won't let me."
Zangetsu held the zanpakuto over his friend, ready to swing it down and straight through the abomination. It was a cancer, a mutation of the emotions. If two opposites cannot bring balance, then they can only bring annihilation.
"I don't know how to protect anything, especially not myself, they all want different things, Zangetsu, and it hurts. I couldn't hear them before. The Hollow shielded me from the voices. This is what my mother was. Insane, impossible. Can't be two people at once. Can't be a thousand memories at the same time. It hurts, Zangetsu. Help me."
"If you were truly Ichigo, you would keep fighting." The black fang arced down, biting into the moon-white monster.
A bare palm caught the descending blade. "I didn't just want to fight, Zangetsu, I wanted to win. But this isn't something I can win against, it's inevitable. We're all playing at being death gods, but we can't win against it. None of them rule death itself. And the Hollows aren't throwing their hearts away, they're just so much more scared of losing them. They hold on so hard they break. Hichigo wanted to keep Inoue, not kill her. It was always only the ghosts that could let go that could move on, I never realised before. That's why all the ones hanging around the clinic were so clingy and annoying. Is it any wonder that all of Hueco Mundo will follow Aizen, when he says he can be god and change the entire universe?"
His voice had calmed, the pulse that opened and closed the hole in his chest was slowing. Tears streamed down his cheeks, no longer tumbling from the sky. He lay on the floor looking so helpless, yet with all his might Zangetsu could not cut him.
"Yeah, all those souls inside me are complaining about what they want and can't have, but they gave up on those things the day they died. I can just ignore their opinions, right? As soon as I remember which one is me, I can reject all the others..."
Ichigo flexed his fingers and the sword crumpled like foil. The tears kept falling, yet the rainclouds had fled.
"If the Hollow just trusted me…we'd be fine, right? And all that stuff about Hachimitsu or whatever her name was…I'll just have to wait until I bump into her in another life right? Same with my mother, same with everyone, same with you, right, Zangetsu?"
The zanpakuto looked at his wrinkled blade, unimpressed, and flicked it over his shoulder into the sea. "I don't know why you're asking me. Souls affect each other by proximity, you must have been infected with Soul Awakening when Masaki carried you. I have known you in many other lives and never heard of it before, so don't expect me to know the cure." They watched each other, wary, utterly trusting.
"You've been yelling it at me from the start! Never retreat."
"Ichigo, the only way to protect a thing is not to give up. I have always only been trying to protect you. You chose to be weak, you decided you couldn't cope. Try again, and I will teach you how to only move forwards."
Ichigo sighed heavily and sat up, the Hollow just another thought in the back of his mind, the hole in his heart just a tiny pinprick, a wound he acknowledged but did not succumb to. "Since moving backwards is impossible, and standing still is useless."
o)0(o
We always look to the eyes first, for they tell us the most, and we stare every time, learning all we can. But sometimes there were demons hidden in Ichigo's eyes that led a person to fear, and so she did not look at them.
She heard his waking gasp, the scrape of soft air in a dry mouth; found herself panicking suddenly, nervous and clammy.
She dropped his hand like a hot potato, too late, had he already noticed?
For a minute of disorientation his breath was caught, his lungs did not twitch; he was transfixed on the should-be-dead girl beside him. The train barely registered, every one of the million thoughts tangling in his mind flew straight out the window: leaving him with a blank slate that had no idea what to do.
Teeth biting into her lip, Inoue twisted her body slightly away from him. Her suitcase was tucked beneath her seat and her legs curled up in the cramped space, shins resting against the seat in front; a pen and notepad in her hands.
She hid the page surreptitiously.
Ichigo's brain belatedly remembered how to function.
"YOU'RE MEANT TO BE DEAD!"
It hadn't quite finished installing tact yet, though.
"S-s-shhh!" hissed Orihime, frantic. "This is a quiet zone!"
"I just realise you're alive and that's the first thing you say to me?" asked Ichigo incredulously, punching the arm rest. "Is shut up? I killed you! You should be angrier!"
"I'm angry!" agreed Orihime with a look of mild annoyance. "This has just voided at least a third of my list! But if they catch me shouting at an empty seat, they'll think I'm insane."
Ichigo instinctively knew that following her tangents right now would likely cause his head to explode, so he ploughed on with his questions. "How are you here? Why didn't I see your ghost anywhere? Why the hell are we on a train?"
She blushed deeply and peered at the other occupants of the carriage slyly. "Well we're going back to Karakura because leaving didn't help at all," murmured the girl from the corner of her mouth, feigning normality. "And healing my injuries wasn't hard. Creepy, but not difficult."
"Those weren't just injuries, they were fatal!" whispered back the strawberry, forgetting he was inaudible as well as invisible. "Not that I'm trying to rub in your recent murder or...whatever..." he added wretchedly.
"I brought you back from a ball of fluff, Ichigo-kun," she artlessly reminded him. "This was much easier."
"You should've left me there and kept going. My dad's gonna give you a whole stack of leaflets on how to get out of abusive relationships when we get back," threatened Ichigo, if self-help could be considered threatening.
"I tried," shrugged the girl. "But it runs in my family. Maybe it's my destiny. At least we've proved I can't outrun you." In her imagination, Champ-Orihime was swearing to make a come-back at the last possible second. Champ-Orihime never took no for an answer!
"Don't be so retarded," said the murderer awkwardly; knowing he was a complete hypocrite. "Who'd have a fate like that…?"
"Well it's a conspiracy, you know, the Inbo Gnomes tried to get me through bullies, but Tatsuki rescued me…through my parents, but Sora rescued me; through Sora, but you rescued him; through you, but I rescued me… loads of times! If the gnomes are going to get me no matter what, I'd rather be with my friends. Do you really think bad things only happen because of Hollows?"
He flinched as she threw his words in his face, words he'd once said to Rukia. "I didn't always."
"Really, Hollows happen because of bad things."
Ichigo leaned back against the chair, utterly exhausted. He didn't have the energy left to process that. "Huh."
They both sat in silence, Inoue scrawling on her secretive notebook, Ichigo staring wide-eyed at all the wonderfully normal living things around him. A train full of people that had nothing scarier than deadlines to fight every day, and out the window were patches of countryside flickering past. He was so sick of looking at storms and skyscrapers, that he was sorely tempted to get off at the next stop and go climb a tree or something. But the shifting of the train was also comforting. A very human, real world invention that meant he was a million miles away from Hueco Mundo and Soul Society and the empty city under his subconscious.
Inoue didn't seem affected in the least, which was worrying. Power over life and death? He hadn't thought about it much in the past, but clearly the ability to reject any mistake had warped her at some point. Like she had lost her sense of perspective, because consequences were no longer absolute; or lost her survival instincts because death was no longer an issue.
The very moment he had learned to let go and succumb to the inevitable, Orihime had done the exact opposite.
But he tried not to change his mind, tried desperately not to cling to the past anymore, because he never wanted to go through that madness again.
"If I had your power," he blurted out before he could stop himself; "I probably would have tried to resurrect my mother."
"Oh." said the girl very, very quietly.
"...Why didn't...I mean...did you never even consider..."
"Of course," she said softly, shrinking, curling even further into a ball. "But there's no place for them anymore. It's not like you and me: really-near-death experiences. They're off the records, they couldn't work or travel or see anyone they knew, they'd live in hiding and be lonely, then they'd die and become Hollow again; just so we felt a little bit better? I don't want to see Sora that twisted again, wearing a mask and with a snake body and saying things that aren't him! He chose to go. Masaki chose to protect you. Why betray them now? Besides it's not natural and it's probably a paradox and Keigo-kun told me dividing by zero was bad for the universe and..."
Ichigo said nothing, but heard the Hollow somewhere within him sigh in loneliness. "I would rather be a vaizard than have no defence at all, but it keeps escalating every freaking fight. I cracked completely. I want this war to be over and it hasn't even started yet."
"It hasn't all been bad," said Inoue with a smile. "There were lots of donuts!"
They sat side by side on the train, the year's tragedies and glories hanging between them. Each felt the weight of the scars they had collected on their travels to hell and back for each other's sakes. And without their eyes meeting, both smiled at the memories of laughter and sunny days and every donut in the shop.
Her hand shifted closer to his slowly, fingertips brushing the back of his hand so lightly it made her skin tingle. Every time she had touched him before, he had been sick, asleep, or chilled by the pervasion of the Hollow. Today he was awake, aware and warm.
Today his wrist tilted and his fingers wrapped around hers.
o)0(o
They were walking through Karakura's streets, deserted due to the impending inclement weather. Inoue was giggling about haunted suitcases as an invisible boy had politely offered to carry hers. Ichigo shuddered as the heavens opened and the rain came pouring down. "I hate rain," he gloomed, hunching down inside his shihakusho.
"Really? I like it. Oh no," gasped Orihime, the compatibility sleuth all of a sudden. "Perhaps this means we're fundamentally too different after all."
"I don't think that's important…" argued Ichigo weakly. "And why fundamentally?" He was ignored in favour of yet another Inoue Special Moment.
"But have you never imagined what it's like to be a raindrop? First you're just innocently swimming around, in a puddle or the sea, and then suddenly you're evaporating! And you're just steaming up, and it's so hot you can't stand it, but then it's alright, because now you're flying way up high. You can see for miles and all your friends are in a cloud around you. But later it gets chilly, and scary," she wibbled, gesticulating wildly; "and everyone's plummeting down like their water-wings got cut off! And it's terrifying. You smash against the ground like WHAM! Splash! Finally, you realise you're your old self again, and it's okay because you're back home bringing life to the earth." She nodded happily, eyes closing as she watched this watery action-thriller in her imagination. "Rain is amazing."
Ichigo stared at her like she'd grown an extra head. Did she think like this all the time? How? Why hadn't her brain popped from overstimulation?
"If I were the rain that connects the earth and sky, whom in all eternity will never mingle; would I be able to bind two hearts together?" she hummed, almost under her breath.
He lifted his sword and attempted to use Zangetsu as an umbrella, frowning as per usual. "Is that from something famous?"
"…No; me. I know it sounds like a love poem but," she hastened to correct what she thought he thought; "it's what I used to wonder when I thought Sora was in heaven and I was stuck on earth and the only thing that could travel between us was the rain…" And only a teeny weeny tiny itsy bit about you too.
"…I like that," realised Ichigo, as moment by moment the downpour felt more like a blessing than a curse haunting him. It was calming, hopeful. Inoue was already babbling on:
"But my second plan was to tame a wild bird and train it to carry my messages."
"Uh huh."
"Or learn to fly a plane. I definitely wanted to be a pilot. In a super stealth invisible harrier jet!"
"…Right." He hid a laugh. It occurred to him that he would have to listen to every insane idea she ever concocted, because she wasn't Isshin who he could gently kick in the head to switch off the insanity.
Ah well. He could deal. He'd had a lifetime of training to put up with jabbering lunatics after all…
o)0(o
Ichigo and Orihime held hands all the way back to the clinic - the former's excuse that it would hold the remnants of his Hollow in check, the latter not needing any excuse in particular. However, they should have thought twice before entering the house in such a state.
"MY GAYDAR IS GOING OFF!" roared Isshin from his office, toppling off his swivel chair and charging into the hallway.
"Who you calling gay?" yelled Ichigo, catching the overgrown man-child by the face and gagging him, before a neat forced face-plant into the floor.
"As in, 'exceedingly happy', my dear uneducated offspring!" retorted his father, raising a wobbling hand.
Yuzu appeared stealthily at the end of the hallway, drawn to romantic comedy like a shark drawn to bloody water.
"Yuzu! Bring the stethoscopes!" Isshin dragged himself upright with tremendous willpower, and immediately began studying the pair's clasped hands with a magnifying glass he'd pull from his pocket. "Definite symptoms of amantes sunt amentes syndrome," he muttered, prodding their fingers with a thermometer.
Yuzu scurried back into the corridor with two stethoscopes and eyes gleaming. Taking one each, the doctor and his nurse-in-training proceeded to check their patients' heartbeats, communicating in strange one-handed gestures and bizarre faces all the while.
"I'm very sorry," sighed the little girl with a manner beyond her years. "You are without a doubt lovesick, but Dr Kurosaki can offer you a second opinion if you feel it necessary."
"That's okay!" chirped Inoue. "I believe you. In fact I've known it was chronically terminal for ages."
Despite standing right next to her, Ichigo failed to hear these words as he and Isshin could not go sixty seconds without antagonising each other. "WOULD YOU GET OUT OF MY FACE? Go stitch someone else up! We've had a really shitty day, so don't bother us until your stupid curfew!"
"Oh MY," gasped Isshin in awe. "Such stamina! Well, you know where the box of freebies for the clinic is, and if you encounter any, ah, dysfunctions, I offer a confidential drop-in service between 4 and 6pm..."
The strawberry went an unprecedented shade of red, and Yuzu handed Orihime a tissue to stem her sudden nosebleed.
"Stop leaping to conclusions and shut up, baka-oyaji! We'll just be...studying, or something..."
"STUDYING THE KAMA SU-"
Isshin died messily of blunt trauma applied to the cranium via his firstborn's foot.
"JUST. STUDYING. HOMEWORK!" roared the vaizard, snatching Inoue's notebook from her hand and driving it into his father's face.
Isshin was silent a moment as he tried to focus on the open page.
"...Number One: Contact Aliens and get them to Skywrite it."
"…What?"
"Number Two: Ad lib. Three: Intimidate with Sumo Wrestlers until Accepted. Four: Take Him Down in a Dark Alley like Tatsuki-chan said."
She had indeed tackled him for no apparent reason when they were taking a shadowy shortcut. He'd assumed it was delayed revenge, and far less than he deserved. Ichigo peeled the writing pad off his father's face and read it in bafflement. "Five: Jedi Mind Trick. Six: Recite a Famous Poem. Seven: Express Myself Through Song. Eight: Hire a Cheerleading Squad Dressed as Leeks. What the hell is this? Why are some of these ticked off?"
"Oh, you were out of it for a long time...so I practiced?" explained the girl with big innocent eyes.
"I don't even get what these are for." His eyes travelled further down the list and he was forced to stop frowning just so he could raise his eyebrows high enough. "Octopus?"
"Well they were going to be a lucky dip and you had to pick a number from 1 to 57 but now you read them and CHEATED so it's all ruined and now there's no right way to do it!" Her eyes were tearing up and her arms flailing, then to everyone's utter astonishment Orihime knelt down, crawled over to the middle of the hallway and hid under the rug. "That's so ridiculously embarrassing I have to stay under here until the ground swallows me…" she informed her audience solemnly.
There was a moment of perfect silence as the auburn-haired girl tucked the fluffy white mat neatly around herself. Yuzu looped her stethoscope behind her neck and reached for the notebook, plucking it from her brother's unresisting hands. Stumbling over a few of the names, she read out the longest one. "Number Forty-Nine: As soon as he wakes up yell 'OF COURSE I'LL GO OUT WITH YOU' as if it was his idea and he just fainted and forgot, then if he resists knock him out, tie him up and fly to Las Vegas and marry Hichigo whilst he's asleep because at least Hichigo likes me, and if he still rejects me after that; threaten to go out with Ulquiorra/Grimmjaw/Ishida-kun instead; and if he says 'see if I care' elope with Rukia as revenge so he gets neither of us! …Wow."
"That's extremely thorough," remarked Isshin, shell-shocked. "...Highly commendable. Planning is half the battle."
Yuzu laughed and did a wriggly that-is-so-cute-I'm-gonna-die dance. She was a born gossip-hound. She had no idea who Grimmjaw and Ulquiorra were.
Ichigo's brain was flinging up a 404 Error - Appropriate Reaction Not Found. He was convinced the Hollow was cheering somewhere in the depths of his soul. It was like having a bucket of ice cold water chucked over his head, followed by a bathtub of very hot water. He croaked, expecting black smoke to spew from his mouth as the cogs tangled.
"What's the matter, Nii-chan?" asked his little sister, who would one day grow into a complete man-eater and couldn't understand his hesitance. "Ooh, what's number fifteen? 'Same as last time?'"
Her father stage-whispered, conspiratorial yet loud. "The problem is, Yuzu-chan, that my dear son is very shy around women but not naïve, whereas my fifth daughter over there is very naïve but not shy at all. Why only the other week my friend Yoruichi was telling me about one time when Ichigo…"
"Shut up, retard," commanded the strawberry in a doom-laden voice. "And Orihime, get up and put the rug back."
The two lunatics obeyed meekly.
"Last time?" he repeated. "You've never mentioned this to me before."
"A-ah! You were asleep and I was invisible! It was before I went to Las Noches – Ulquiorra gave me a magic bracelet so I could walk through walls and told me to say goodbye to one person only, so I chose you. But you wouldn't have known even if you were awake."
He paused, scowling. "What the hell was the point in that?"
Inoue stared at the ceiling and tapped her mouth in thought. Ichigo caught himself staring and dragged his eyes away. "Well, because I healed you, and left a To Do list for Rangiku-san, the Soutaicho decided it wasn't kidnap. And he was right, you know, because it was actually blackmail."
The ginger boy coughed and crossed his arms inside the shihakusho sleeves, glancing slyly at his family. "So uh…what did you say last time?" Trying to look completely unbothered; as if very curvy girls asked him out all the time, and failing pathetically.
"I thought you might pick number fifteen, it's your lucky number," chirped his suitor with a dazzling smile. "You need to bandage your hands and lie on the floor. Pretend this is your duvet." She passed him the rug with a perfectly straight face.
He dropped it with a similarly straight face. "No. You can skip that part. Or were you planning to re-enact Hueco Mundo too?"
"You don't think Ishida-kun could cosplay Ulquiorra?" asked the daydreamer, crestfallen. Ichigo bopped her on the head, and she flinched, her body remembering the claws of not long ago. Yet they both pretended not to notice, and soldiered onwards. "Stop getting distracted and spit it out," he prompted.
"Well first, I ghosted straight through your window," she wriggled her arms, ghoul-like; then wisely chose to abbreviate her drama when he frowned at her pleadingly. "Essentially I could have five different careers in five different lifetimes but I would fall in love with the same person every time." Her face went pink.
Ichigo seemed not to be listening.
A thousand different faces and memories were bubbling up in his mind, things he'd forgotten, secrets the Hollow had discovered within the city of mirrors and kept for itself in hopes of building a heart with them. But now Ichigo was the Hollow and vice versa, it existed as a another thought in his head and just another choice he could make; rather than the invader of his soul. Now Ichigo was privy to Hichigo's true feelings. And although these remembrances were meant to hurt like a dagger in his back, lost days they could never return to; they were strangely comforting. Because she was right here, Hachimitsu and all the others. She had survived everything thrown at her and returned to him without a hint of bitterness.
"You're completely impossible..."
Orihime panicked slightly. Perhaps she would have to resort to #54: Seduction, but although Rangiku-chan had heartily recommended this tactic it still seemed like a last resort measure. She scooted a little closer to the object of her affections. "I - I was going to, um, kiss you in your sleep back then but it seemed rude without permission plus you might have woken up like Sleeping Beauty and caught me at the scene of crime;" stammered the Princess Charming. "Also there was the time when I resurrected you but I think I earned that one so-"
"It doesn't matter how you say it," whispered the vaizard in two voices; "as long as you say it."
Ichigo's eyes glinted gold as he focused on her with all his being, the good and the bad. The scowl softened, he smiled in the way that made her breath stop and her heart skip – the distance separating them melted away…
"AWWWW!" yelled the pair of onlookers, as loudly and obnoxiously as humanly possible.
Ichigo whipped round, hefting the might of Zangetsu in one angry hand. "Scuse me, I need to kill a couple of witnesses."
"You won't hurt me!" squeaked Yuzu, 90% sure and bravely holding her ground.
"He'll definitely hurt me!" bawled Isshin, 100% sure and diving for cover.
o)0(o
In the privacy of his room Ichigo mellowed out, and once more turned that magical smile on Orihime. It made her feel warm and cosy and eternally astonished he could actually pull off such a big smug grin. She found herself wondering if what Tatsuki said was true; that had Masaki never died, Ichigo would have grown up as bubbly as Inoue herself. That maybe they weren't too different.
Her mouth crimped into a smile and she made to pounce on him, but he held her at arm's length. No! cried Robohime mentally. I have waited over two years, undergoing countless modifications to survive and even been turned into a battle-cyborg to reach this moment!
"Orihime," he said slowly, voice slightly scratchy, and still those hints of amber in his irises. Rain was still drumming heavily against the window, the shadows of clouds darkening the unlit room. "You know I'm not just me anymore, don't you? Are you crazy? You'll be going out with the guy that just murdered you." He felt moral-bound to remind her it was a stupid thing to do, but he prayed with every fibre of his being that she'd be spacing out and not hear him say it, or something.
"It is OH-KAY," replied the ginger girl immediately. She flashed him a thumbs up and an intrepid-trailblazer expression. "I have never hated Hollows. I'm going to found the AA support group. Well, VA for you. Hey, do you reckon Hacchi-san would join?"
"Uh…"
"Anyway, back to business." Inoue dodged the hand blocking her way and bear-hugged the shinigami. She was immediately enveloped by his scent that she had a bloodhound's sensitivity to, and despite not smelling like strawberries it was still rather sweet. The boy quickly discovered that having a beautiful girl crush his ribs was exactly what his dormant hormones required to function, and found himself kissing her before he even realised it.
-and kept kissing her. Reading the braille of thrilled goosebumps, the shiver of lip against pulse. There no death this time, no despair, no crushing realisation that he was helpless against his own desire to destroy. Just a heated embrace and honey-sweet emotions.
Because the Hollow had learned how to protect, and Ichigo had been shown how to need someone with all his heart.
The ghost and the star edged towards the rather inviting bed across the room - however the star was above such foolish mortal considerations as balance and coordination; so inevitably tripped over something on the floor and crashed into the wardrobe. The ghost face-palmed, leaning down to help her up.
The cupboard door slid open and they both screamed.
Rukia stared at their flushed faces, ruffled orange hair and heaving chests, drawing the obvious conclusion. Then she coolly waited for Ichigo to reach boiling point, and cut in just as he opened his mouth to bellow at her.
"Ichigo! I'm trying to work in here! Get your own room!"
"THIS IS MY ROOM!"
"I have a lieutenant's right to requisition it in pursuit of my duties," lied the tiny shinigami, making laws up on the spot. "I can't concentrate in Division Thirteen. The Third Seats are too annoying. I'm very happy for you both, just ravage each other elsewhere."
The substitute steamed, and his girlfriend looked devastated. "Don't be happy about it, Rukia-chan! We're rivals! If there's no love triangle we won't be able to outnumber him, and then the girl's team will lose!"
"Piss off before I toss you out the window," was Ichigo's mature solution.
The bedroom door clicked open and Isshin poked his head into the room, Yuzu close behind. They both had their stethoscopes pressed against the wooden door. "You can borrow my double bed if you like," the proud father offered, grinning maliciously, whilst the sister squealed in glee.
Ichigo threw a chair at him, and things promptly went downhill from there.
o)0(o
Bloomake!
Shinigami Cup!
o)0(o
Ichigo sighed heavily and sat up, the Hollow just another thought in the back of his mind, the hole in his heart just a tiny pinprick, a wound he acknowledged but did not succumb to. "Since moving backwards is impossible, and standing still is useless, and going sideways would be…let's not go there."
Zangetsu coughed guiltily. "I recall one person who can reject the passage of time."
"YOU BASTARD!" roared the vaizard, lifting up the zanpakuto spirit deity and flinging him off the skyscraper. "WHY DIDN'T YOU SAY THAT IN THE BEGINNING?"
"I didn't want you to be dependent on others!" protested the sword, in a rapidly diminishing voice as he fell towards the horizon…
o)0(o
"I brought you back from a ball of fluff. I've seen your heart, Ichigo," said Orihime seriously. Then her eyes popped wide open. "And your brain, and your kidneys, and your spleen, and your-"
"TOO MUCH INFORMATION!"
"The spleen is a very weird colour, you know, and it's not where I thought it was, and..."
"FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WOULD YOU PLEASE SHUT UP! I DON'T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT MY SPLEEN!"
o)0(o
"But, but,'' whined Yuzu; "I'm the only one who can't tell when Nii-chan's not in his body!"
Rukia raised a permanent marker. "I know! For Kon, we'll draw a liony red beard on. And for Hichigo emergencies - an evil black moustache. And if Ichigo's just sleeping we'll draw a green - for safe - scowl - for Ichigo." She popped the cap back on with a sense of satisfaction.
"And when no one's in it yet it can just be blank." She reached for a cloth. "...Ah...they're not coming off..."
Ichigo's soul walked in and saw what looked like finger-paints all over his other face. "WTF happened?"
"DON'T PANIC!" cried Yuzu. "I know it seems like Hichigo took over your body whilst Bostov was sleeping, but it's not what it looks like!"
o)0(o
Chapter notes: Amantes sunt amentes – latin for 'lovers are lunatics', and there are indeed hundreds of versions of the confession that I may turn into a spin off. I've been trying to figure out how to get it right since HB began. For IchiHime loathers, fear not. This chapter was ridiculously long so that I could squeeze it all into one. It'll tone down after this. But hopefully I've converted a couple of ya. ; )
Not sure what everyone thinks of the manga at the moment, but I'm pretty pleased at the things HB has managed to foreshadow – especially the Shiten Koushun. There's been a few others too, to varying degrees of accuracy; but seeing as I came up with most of HB two years ago, sometimes what was original back then has become canon by the time it posts. Guess I need to speed up the writing. xD
PLEASE, PLEASE REVIEW! Especially if you haven't before. : D
Alliriyan~*