Warning: this chapter contains attempted sexual assault! On the brighter side there is some cute Ulquihime stuff at the end.

Chapter Ten

Marabunta

Las Noches was quiet. It was hard to judge the time of day in a world with no sun, but Orihime was fairly certain that most of the Arrancars were asleep as she made her way down the corridor. After not getting in trouble for leaving her room with Lilynette she knew it was time to act. Despite never walking around Las Noches on her own before she had no trouble finding Aizen's smaller throne room. She held her breath as she pushed open the door, half-expecting Ulquiorra or someone to stop her. No one did.

Entering the throne room, she approached the spot where the Hōgyoku had risen out of the floor. Not sure what to do she just stood there, staring at it. Aizen had just used his spirit energy to raise it, but what if it didn't react to hers? If she failed her spirit energy would alert anyone nearby to her presence.

Well she couldn't just stand there forever. "Shun Shun Rikka," she summoned all six of them at once and pointed to the floor. "Can you open it?"

"No problem!" Shun-o said with a salute. The Rikka formed a ring around the spot and an orange-gold glow surrounded them. The pedestal rose from the floor.

Orihime stepped closer to the pedestal as the Rikka flew around her. "Oh no!" the Hōgyoku was gone! She let the Rikka return to her hairpins. What else could she do?

"Did you really think it would still be here?" She whirled around to see Aizen standing near the door. "I thought you might try something like this."

"Where is it?"

"Do you really expect me to tell you?" Orihime just looked at the floor. "What have the Shinigami done to deserve your loyalty? You know they've committed terrible acts."

She looked back up at him, "You're no better! You're going to destroy Karakura!"

"Nothing more than an anthill."

Orihime should have been afraid, but hearing him talk about her home like that just made her angry. She met Aizen's eyes and moved toward him. "Ants, huh? You've never heard of the marabunta have you?"

"What?"

"Ants, South American army ants. Every so often for reason anyone can discern they march. They can form columns a mile wide, and two miles long. The devour everything in their path. It takes decades for the vegetation to grow back. Even jaguars run when the marabunta are on the march. And they're no bigger than ordinary ants you would see in anyone's back yard. Be careful where you step, Aizen-sama, or we ants just might devour you."

Aizen stared at her, dumbfounded. Orihime started around him to the door, but as she passed him, he grabbed her arm. "You're not getting off that easily." He grasped her hair and pulled her closer to him, "I have tried to be gentle with you, but clearly that isn't working." He threw her to the floor and kicked her. She bit her lip to keep from crying out, refusing to give him the satisfaction, and stood before he could attack her again. Her shield between them. Or so she thought. Aizen grabbed her from behind. She stuck her foot between his legs tripping him and ran for the door, but he grabbed her dress, pulling her down. He rolled her on to her back and straddled her, then began tearing open the front of her dress. He leaned close to her face, she raised her head and bit his nose. She heard a satisfying crack, and felt blood spray on her chin and chest, but she didn't let go until he struck her face. "Bitch!" he scrambled to his feet, hand over his bleeding nose. She rolled away as he raised a foot to kick her again.

"You might want to get that looked at." Ulquiorra was standing in the doorway. Aizen glared down at Orihime for a moment, "It is bleeding profusely," the Espada pointed out, stepping between them. "You wouldn't want to make it worse." Orihime realized his hand was resting on his Zanpakutō. He couldn't be threating Aizen!

Aizen still glared, but nodded. Ulquiorra maneuvered to stay between them as the Shinigami left the room.

"Thank you," Orihime said as he helped her up.

"Your seemed to have the situation under control." Was he actually smiling? "You should get cleaned up yourself." She nodded and followed him back to her room.

"Wait," she said when he turned to leave. He stopped and looked back. "Could you stay? I don't want to be alone right now."

"You wouldn't prefer one of the women?" She shook her head. Ulquiorra nodded.

When she came back from the shower, he was sitting on the couch—reading her book! "Oh! Where did you find that?"

He looked up, "You left it here."

"Oh."

"I wasn't aware there were so many kinds of monsters in the Transient world."

Orihime clapped a hand over her mouth to stop herself from laughing. "There aren't," she managed to say. "It's a fantasy. They're make-believe."

"Why would humans invent such things when they already have so many troubles?"

She settled down on the couch next to him while she thought about the answer. "I guess it's encouraging to see characters defeating them. It makes us think our own problems aren't so bad. If the heroes in a story can win, maybe we can too."

"Of course, in your case you have real monsters to deal with."

"Maybe not as many as I thought," she said and looked down as she felt her face heat up.

Ulquiorra handed the book to her, "I suppose you'll get more use out of this than I will."

Orihime smiled as she took it from him. "Maybe I can help you with that."

Sorry for the uncomfortable bit, the idea is that it's more about showing her he's in control than for his own enjoyment so it made sense to me. I hope that wasn't too rough, let me know if you think I should up the rating because of it, I'm kinda on the fence about that.

I've been dying to write that Marabunta speech for years! Every time a supervillain compares humans to ants I think "Someone needs to tell him about the Marabunta." They are real ants, although Orihime describes the (slightly) exaggerated movie version here, I figured that would be more effective. If you think they sound interesting you should check out the Charleston Heston movie The Naked Jungle, where he's trying to defend his home from them.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed this chapter!

Thanks, and prayers,

RAHbooks