Quick update somewhere in between virus scans and working on originals. This story won't leave me alone.
Now, I don't know who sits where on pairings and who wants what to happen etc etc, (aside from the insiders who got that fecking monster of a word document full of all my notes and outlines) but all i know is that i cannot make any promises for anything, pairing wise. The CherryxTsuku fanservice is a given (because in my world it is canon), but for all the other pairings – i can't really say.
I'm still working out what exactly to do with the AiGin, i have a vague plan, but it's tough working out all the little details. All i know is that it will end and it might not be pretty when it does. I'm so happy i put the prologue in though, its made so much difference. And anything that increases my love of a story is always a plus.
Anyway, enough of my uleless prattle. My Scattered author-braindump is at the end. Just enjoy the chapter and devour it like the vultures you are~
note: this chapter occurs at the same time as ch47, but the chapters are still in chronological order. It just jumps to elsewhere in the story-verse for a moment.
Chapter 48: He's a maneater, honey
Orihime walked calmly back down the corridor, quietly trying to sort out all the jumbled thoughts bouncing about in her head. Loli was walking a little distance behind her, muttering to herself quietly, although Orihime couldn't exactly catch any of what she was saying. But she thought nothing of it and decided to set her mind to figuring out what had just happened between her and Aizen earlier. Smiling happily as she caught sight of both Cherry and Tsuku scampering past her down the hallway happily yipping and wagging their tails, letting the two white foxes distract her a little before she returned to her thoughts.
"What on earth just happened?" she asked herself. "Didn't Loli-san say that Aizen-sama wanted to talk to me? If he did, then why did he act as if seeing me was a surprise?"
Orihime slowed down her walk a little, and gently caressed the little swell of her stomach, smiling softly as she thought of the child she was carrying. Aizen-sama's child.
"Oh well, it's probably nothing." she thought, "I'm sure Aizen-sama was just a little distracted, that's all. Especially with the news about our baby and all..."
She sighed contendedly to herself, still smiling softly and running her hand over her lower stomach. This was the first time she had actually though of the child she was carrying as both hers and Aizen's, and if she were honest, it was a little surreal to her. A little surreal, perhaps, but not at all bad. In fact, it was natural to think of her child this way. Aizen was the child's father, after all.
Well, at least, she hoped he was anyway. There was always that small possibility that she was actually carrying Ulquiorra's baby instead... and what disaster that would cause...
But she shook her head, pushing that thought from her mind. No, she couldn't entertain that possibility. Her child was going to be raised by her and Aizen-sama, so therefore it was Aizen-sama's baby.
Speaking of Aizen-sama, why had he called for her just a moment ago if there was no real reason? Or better yet, why did Loli say he had summoned her? That part made no sense. Was this some kind of trick? Or a practical joke even? Just what was going on here? She thought she better ask Loli, who was currently stomping along behind her, but when she turned around to voice her confusion she was only met with pure hostility from the scantily clothed arrancar walking just a short distance behind her.
"Loli-san," she asked, with only a slight whimper in her voice. "Why didn't Aizen-sama want to talk to me?"
Loli just scowled, looking back at Orihime with an indescribable expression on her face.
"It didn't work." she muttered, cursing both heaven and hell for her horrible sense of timing, still quite outraged that her plan to uncover the truth to Orihime had failed in the most spectacular fashion. Not even registering that Orihime had called out her name again to try and get an answer to her question.
"Loli-san?"
Loli snapped her head towards Orihime, her lips curling into a snarl at her in response, disgusted that this pathetic human was addressing her – a superior being - as an equal.
"Ugh, you really are an idiot you know that!" she snarled, startling the expectant mother before her and making her jump slightly, "That's because he's busy with Gin! Don't you see it? Don't you see that you aren't his top priority? Don't you see that there's something very wrong here?"
"But... why?" Orihime answered, still quite confused. She really had no idea what Loli was even talking about. What did she mean when she said 'busy with Gin'? What did that even mean? She just didn't understand...
"But..." Orihime started again, not even quite sure of what to say to Loli's comments. "What's wrong? How is something wrong? Aizen-sama and Ichimaru-sama were just talking. There's nothing wrong."
Loli just started at her, clenching her fists in her anger. Oh yes, she was angry. Angry at Orihime for replacing her, angry at her own failure as a woman and her failure to bear children, and angry at her own inadequacy as a lover and not being able to satisfy Aizen-sama. In fact she was just angry at the whole damn world at this point.
"Ha! 'just talking..." Loli spat, not even trying to hide how much she despised Aizen and Gin even so much as being in the same room together.
"Why don't you go back there and see if they're just talking?" Loli said, suddenly full of unnerving calm. "Then you'll see what's wrong. Then you'll see they're doing a lot more than just talking."
This just confused Orihime all the more. What the hell was Loli even talking about? This just made no sense to her at all. As far as Orihime was concerned, nothing was wrong and Aizen-sama was happy that she was going to have his child. In fact, everything was going so well with them. How could there possibly be anything wrong?
"But, Loli-san..." Orihime said quietly, her voice trailing off as she tried to find the words while the arrancar looked at her. Loli's eyes seemed to bore through Orihime, and she couldn't help but shiver under the arrancar's gaze.
She stood there for what felt like ages, looking at Loli, while Loli looked back at her. The arrancar was determined to prove something was apparently 'wrong', but she wasn't saying exactly what was wrong, so Orihime didn't know what to think. After all, Loli could very well be lying. And given her track record for mischief and general dislike of Orihime, it was very possible that she was just lying to stir up trouble and drive her away from Aizen-sama.
"Aizen-sama doesn't love you." Loli growled at her, determined to prove her point. Keeping her eyes fixated upon Orihime's until Menoli's voice calling her name reached her ears. And Loli then swung around, turning to meet her sister who was running towards her.
"What do you want, Menoli?" she asked, her voice full of a sudden calm as Menoli ran, panting as she skidded to a stop beside her. Whispering something into Loli's ear quietly, while Loli stood there silently, listening to her words.
"I saw..." Menoli panted, still catching her breath as she bent over, trying to get the breath back into her lungs. Loli's eyes just widened as she looked at her. "I saw everything."
"What?" she gasped, glancing quickly back at Orihime before looking back at her sister again.
"Are you sure?" Loli asked again, wanting desperately to make sure of the facts before she went ahead and made things worse for herself. Because it was possible that Aizen-sama might still be angry with her...
"It's true..." Menoli answered, standing up straight again now that she had caught her breath back. "I saw it... I saw it with my own eyes."
Loli's lips then curled into a very Cheshire cat like smile.
"Oh," she said, grinning widely to herself. "this is good."
"Wh- what?" Orihime stammered, almost afraid to ask why Loli was suddenly smiling so widely. "What's good?"
"Oh, just the fact that there's evidence to prove my point." Loli said happily, ignoring Orihime's protests. "That Aizen-sama doesn't love you and that he's just using you to get what he wants, like he does with everybody. Because it's not just you, ya know. He uses other people too. He's just a bastard."
Orihime felt her stomach tighten. Her Aizen-sama was certainly not a bastard, and he was just not the sort of person who would use people... was he? No, she couldn't think like that, Aizen had always been so gentle and kind to her, so it wasn't likely that he would be lying and deceiving her. Or worse, just using her. It just wasn't him.
"But... that's not true!" She cried, holding her hands protectively over her stomach. "Aizen-sama does love me!"
Loli just tilted her head, letting the smile fall from her face in a show of false sympathy.
"Aww, poor little princess." she said, rolling the words of her tongue in a mocking tone as she shook her head slowly. "What lies he has told you..."
Orihime clenched her teeth. "How dare she!" Orihime's mind screamed, "how dare she tell me these lies about Aizen-sama!" Orihime knew she had to stand her ground. She wasn't about to let this girl tell her what was truth and what was lies Orihime knew what Aizen was like, and she wasn't going to let this arrancar feed lies to her.
"You're wrong." she said, still trying to keep her calm composure. "I don't know what you're trying to do, but you're wrong about me and Aizen-sama. He loves me, and I love him."
"He doesn't." Loli said quietly. "He doesn't love you. You know, I was just like you, once. I thought he loved me too... But I was wrong, just like you. I thought he loved me, but in the end... in the end, it all turned out to be a lie."
Orihime just stared back at her, a blank expression on her face as Loli's words echoed around her head.
"I was just like you, once. I thought he loved me too..."
"In fact," Loli continued, bringing her out of her train of thought. "I don't think you even love him. I mean, you really don't know anything about him..."
"Th- that's not true!" Orihime blurted out, not even stopping to think. But Loli just laughed at her.
"Oh really?" she asked, tilting her head slightly, "if you know him like you say you do... then what's his favourite colour?"
Orihime hesitated. Actually, she hadn't even asked him what his favourite colour was. She hadn't even asked him anything about himself. She hadn't even thought to. Everything between them had all happened so quickly she hadn't even thought to actually talk to him...
"I... I..." Orihime stammered, trying to force herself to say something. Anything. But she couldn't. She really could have just said any colour, but words just seemed to fail her, much to Loli's amusement.
"How can you say you love him if you don't even know his favourite colour, princess?" she cackled at Orihime, not even trying to tone down her ridicule. "I bet you don't even know his favourite kind of tea either. You know, that stuff he drinks every day of the week..."
Orihime snarled quietly. But deep down, she knew that Loli was right. She was wrong about Aizen not loving her, but she was right about everything else; about Orihime not really knowing much about the man who fathered her baby. But then again, that was something that was easily remedied.
"You don't know him, princess," Loli continued, still in her matter of fact way, still showing little to no regard for any of Orihime's thoughts at this point. "If you really knew him, then you wouldn't love him. I can promise you that. You think that it's just you who shares his bed, but you're wrong."
"What..." Orihime started, her sudden boldness failing her. "what are you saying? Aizen-sama would never..."
Loli just cackled again, throwing her head back and laughing long and hard. This... this was just priceless. Could this little human girl really be this stupid and blind? Could she really just be a naïve little girl? Just what did Aizen-sama even see in her anyway? But Loli supposed he just wanted a good fuck and functioning reproductive organs, so he would overlook her obvious stupidity. Aizen was just that sort of selfish man. But nevermind, she would fix that. She would fix it so that Orihime saw Aizen for the bastard he really was, and make sure that he would never have access to the child inside her ever again. Because if Orihime saw what a lying, cheating, manipulative bastard he was, then she would want nothing more to do with him. And all of his careful planning would lie in ruins. It was perfect.
"Do I have to spell it our for you, princess?" Loli carried on, "He's fucking Gin. You're just his little bit on the side, just like I used to be!"
Loli snarled, gently lowering her voice again as she cast her eyes to the floor. For no matter how much she tried to pretend otherwise, it still hurt her to know that even though she loved him, Aizen had thought of her as nothing more than a dispensable toy. A plaything with a uterus and essge to fertilise.
Just someone to make a baby with instead of someone to love.
It was disgusting.
But she would get back at him for using her. She would prove to this naïve little girl that Aizen was a bastard. She would prove it.
"He doesn't love you." she said, although somewhat sadly. "He never loved you. And when he's gotten what he wants from you, he'll drop you too... just like me."
"But, you're wrong." Orihime said, steadily reforming the resolve she'd had earlier. Aizen-sama had already told her he loved her, and he had given her no reason to doubt that. It was obvious that Loli was just here to stir up trouble between them, that was all Loli was trying to do.
"Just leave me alone and stop telling lies to me, you're wrong about Aizen-sama and you're wrong about me."
Loli just smiled and shook her head wearily, smiling a half broken smile and laughing a half hearted laugh, wondering why on earth this girl still refused to believe anything she said.
"If you really want proof that I'm right..." she said quietly, not even looking at Orihime anymore as she spoke, "if you really, really want to prove that I'm wrong... then go back there and see for yourself. God knows you won't believe me until you do, princess. God knows you'll only believe when you see."
Orihime thought about just walking away. She thought that things would have been fine if she did walk away. But Loli's words kept bouncing about in her head, tormenting her, stopping her from walking away and forgetting it. There was just something about the way she said them, like she knew everything, that brought to life a little nagging doubt lingering in the back of Orihime's mind. What if Aizen didn't love her? What if Loli was telling her the truth after all? What if Aizen really did plan to drop her once the baby was born?
"He doesn't love you." she'd said, "He never loved you."
Could that really be true?
No, it couldn't. It couldn't be true.
"Fine." she said, wanting nothing more than to prove Loli wrong. "I'll go there and ask him."
And with that, Orihime pushed past the two arrancar women and paced off down the corridor back in the direction she'd come from. With both Loli and Menoli running after her.
She knew she should have walked away. She knew she should probably have just walked away and ignored the whole thing. But Loli's words had gotten to her, and Orihime was determined to prove that there was nothing wrong. She wants to prove to herself - and to Loli - that nothing was wrong and that Loli was lying to her. Hoping to god that the arrancar was really wrong as she started off on the long walk back to Aizen-sama.
This is quite possibly the most obvious setup in the world – or at least in the whole of this story – but it was fun to write.
Loli interests me for various reasons. I like this vendetta she has against Aizen, and also her resentment of Orihime for replacing her, and at herself for failing to conceive children. She sees herself as a failure as a woman for being barren, and her view of Aizen (and probably all men in general) is very coloured, so its interesting to write a character like hers.
I love poking and probing in the characters heads, and i like to know them, so i an put their perspective into things. Loli and her interactions with Orihime, who seems to her quite naïve, were a challenge for that very reason, but i think it worked.
My favourite line of hers though has to be this "How can you say you love him if you don't even know his favourite colour, princess?" because as much of a bitch she is to Orihime in this chapter, i like to think she has a point.
Anyway, the next chapters will come as and when. I'm not quite happy with them yet. Reviews are welcome as always, encouragement is always nice, but tis optional. I'll just try to keep things entertaining either way.
