And there it was again: the roar.

Orihime felt herself recoil from the sound that bounced off of the dilapidated walls around her. It echoed in the hollow caverns of the abandoned palace's neglected courtyard. Its pitch dug into her ears; it hardened the ball of fear in the pit of her stomach. She lifted her still bloodstained hands to cover her ears and squeezed her eyes shut.

"Are you scared, maiko?" Commander Zangetsu's voice rasped beside her. He was holding the mangled stump that was now his bicep with his remaining hand. His leg bent at an unnatural angle and his hair was matted with sweat. He was nearly beyond repair and the panting breaths he made curled into puffs of smoke in the winter air.

"Do you, truly hide from that, which, your order says, it serves?" His voice strained as he mocked her. His chin jutted towards the space of the courtyard. "Look at what she does to save our king."

Orihime did as she was told and turned her head towards the courtyard.

There he stood: Karakura's king, for whom The Order of the Red Priestess served. The king, now changed—a form that those in The Order had always been taught to believe was real, its figure painted in the palace's holiest rooms.

Her whole life, through a thousand lessons and a thousand stories, she had believed it to be the benevolent creature it was. And even with this trek to this abandoned palace, she had ignored the questions she asked herself throughout this long journey. She'd clung to her devotion, her devotion for him.

But a devout life, meant to serve, couldn't have prepared her for what he was now.

The Red One.

No. Its other name, the name the people of the Seriteri Territory called this creature bubbled up to the surface of her mind: "The Red Yomi."

The Red Yomi, clothed in tattered robes. With alabaster-white skin. A face misshapen by pointed teeth; thick horns; and most vivid of all, a mane of thick, red hair that had grown down to his calves.

The Red Yomi. Her king changed.

And before him, small as a rabbit compared to his massive form and dressed in a way unbefitting of her nobility, if not her gender—a wool cloak and a soldier's red uniform and boots—Tsukishiro Rukia of the Kuchiki Clan.

Part of Orihime chastised herself for again being disrespectful of the smaller woman's title: Kurosaki Rukia, dana by marriage to Kurosaki Ichigo, the 150th Descendant of The Red Priestess and ruler of the Kingdom of Karakura. The queen.

The noblewoman may have been speaking but was too far away for Orihime to pick up on the words. Orihime wondered if she was telling Kurosaki-sama what she had told them before prying the fallen commander's black katana from his detached arm: "I can hear his voice. He's not yet gone, but we have to act quickly!"

The way she had raced towards him, black hair fluttering like a bird's wing, her gaze certain in what she had tasked herself with doing. It made Orihime's stomach knot, the same familiar knot she had had since she had seen Kurosaki-sama first look at her.

He roared again in that haunting way. This time the sound made her feel like her insides were cold. Again, he roared, and again, Orihime strained to hear the humanity in the sound, but found none.

Kurosaki-sama crouched to all fours, his bloodied claws dirtying the snow.

And Kurosaki-dana posed her body to attack, the sword's blade facing her husband by arranged marriage, her opponent.

They lunged towards each other.

. .

The Red Priestess is a hero, a once-living deity, among the people of Karakura. Fabled to have been borne of pure white hair, her family name, Kurosaki, had meant nothing among the kingdom's greatest clans. Orphaned and abandoned, she had been the perfect sacrifice to appease the kami, the beastly gods who suddenly no longer shed their skins to live among the people and bless, trick, love, and punish them. They had become yomi: demons, dumb and violent, who attacked the people without discrimination.

The orphaned, white-haired girl had survived the night of her sacrifice and had been much changed, though no mark was as visible as the fiery red-gold color of her hair. She spoke of being visited by a kami, the last of his kind, called The Red One. The Red One had spoken of a desire to save the people from his changed brethren, and so, he favored her with the last of his power.

With The Red One's favor had come an ability to banish the yomi that plagued the land. It was written that the power seemed to reside within her very bones, and for that power of purification, came prestige to her name, and a new title to be known by forevermore: The Red Priestess.

The people of Karakura treated her with reverence and spoke of her as divine. Their gratitude towards her became a prosperous matriarchy, and her most ardent followers became The Order of The Red Priestess. They vowed an oath to carry on her teachings and to protect her bloodline. And when her mysterious child of the same hair, The First Descendant, came of age, he was married to one of The Order's own, recreating what would be known as the Kurosaki Clan.

However, there had been a young holy man tasked with seeing the girl had been accepted as a sacrifice to the yomi. And upon witnessing the events of The Red One's visitation, denounced her. He called the being by the name of its corrupted brethren and painted the girl's changed form as evidence of an unholy union. And, most disrespectful of all to the people of Karakura and in defiance of The Order, renounced his holy station. And upon the birth of The First Descendant, he called the babe an abomination.

Others who agreed with his denouncements flocked around him. And together, the faction ceded Karakura's northern territory from the rest of the kingdom and gave it a new name, Seriteri. It was from this man, known to history as Kuchiki, another royal bloodline emerged.

The two lands warred for several generations, even as time continued on and descendants rose and fell. With every new generation and every new despot, the histories became folklore, and a tenuous peace began to take hold. Still, the people of Karakura were looked upon as devil worshippers and occultists; and the people of Seriteri were known as anarchists and usurpers.

Until the late Shiba Isshin, king-regent by marriage to the 149th Descendant of The Red Priestess, the late Kurosaki Masaki, made a mysteriously arranged proposal before his passing, an injury suffered under a mysterious form of the moon. He was the one to cast aside generations of the kingdom's traditions of marriage between the royal family and The Order, offering something more binding instead.

A treaty by way of marriage of his son Kurosaki Ichigo, the 150th Descendant of The Red Priestess, to one of the Kuchiki Clan's own.

A strange proposal, no doubt. But stranger still was the leader of the Kuchiki Clan and king of Seriteri, Hakuteiken Byakuya's, agreement to the proposal.

And stranger than that, the announcement that his younger sister, Tsukishiro Rukia herself, had agreed to the union…

. .

Their fight was like Orihime's favorite wall painting of The Red Priestess come to life. The ugly part of Orihime reminded herself that Kurosaki-dana was not the priestess whose legacy she served. That she lacked The Red Priestess' beautiful armor and the urshirodate that haloed her face and billowing red hair. But being without those things had not diminished the pale beauty and dignified air the woman had become known for. Even now, she flung a swatch of snow at the king's face and evaded the swipes he tried to catch her with the grace of a dancer.

Absently, Orihime wondered how many times she had imagined herself as The Red Priestess, vanquishing the demons depicted with grotesque expressions and bodies caught between man and beast. Too many times… Maybe for as long as she had imagined being married to the 150th Descendant when they came of age, their palms tattooed red in holy matrimony.

Even as changed as Kurosaki-sama was now, she was reminded of bits of their wedding ceremony and dance. She swallowed the jealously that again churned her stomach.

The smaller woman's cloak fluttered as she leaped in attack and struck the sword down upon her opponent. With gritted teeth, she hacked down as if the katana were a blade. Kurosaki-sama blocked the attack with a clawed white hand and threw her off him. She lost her footing, stumbling several steps backward but regained her balance. Now the disadvantage was clear and she was working to put space between them.

Kurosaki-sama saw the opportunity and lunged, coming into close range. His clawed fingers swiped at the hem of her cloak.

Kurosaki-dana sidestepped once, twice, and a third time before stepping forth and attacking once again.

Orihime knew that she had been successful as Kurosaki-sama reacted to the blow, another scream tearing through the air.

But he wasn't subdued and the queen had readied herself for another move. She stepped behind him and slashed again, Commander Zangetsu's blade dragging slowly across the king's thigh.

But there was no yell again.

This time, he stood and spun to face the smaller woman before running towards her. His curtain of hair and tattered robes billowed around him as he leapt through the air and came down on her. The way he slashed at her was so monstrous.

"KUROSAKI-SAMA!"

The commander's bloodied hand gripped her arm. She looked down and saw the delirium he was swimming in and out within his dark eyes. His nostrils were flared in anger. "Do not yell and bring attention to us, maiko," he ground out at her. "Do you, forget? She fights to save us as, much, as she fights to save, him?"

The way she said her title, maiko—patronizing and with venom. As if he was speaking to a child, a misbehaving child. "How can she save him?!" Orihime snapped, coloring rising on her cheeks. "He's a monster now. And we never retrieved what we came here for. She told him that The Red Priestess' Bones were here, but they're not. And now Kurosaki-sama is…he's—"

"Foolish maiko. Are you…not aware of what she's kept under her cloak?" His eyes rolled to the back of his head and he lost consciousness.

For all his harsh words, Orihime rushed to tend to the fallen commander's limp body, but she hadn't ignored his last question.

"ARGUHH!"

Her head swiveled around to see the queen's small body being thrown across the courtyard. The smaller woman's body slammed against the still-standing leg of the courtyard gate. She was certainly wounded—the katana fell from her hands and the dana struggled to stand but fell again to the ground.

Even if she had been able to run, it was no matter as Kurosaki-sama's demonic form loomed over her. There was no way that he was winded—no, in fact, he stood over her in clear triumph.

His hand rose and slashed her.

"ARUGH!"

Despite the risk it brought to her, Orihime yelled out again. Anything to stop him; anything to make him be less of the monster that he was now. "NO, KUROSAKI-SAMA! DON'T!"

He didn't even turn his head. Kurosaki-sama—the…monster—grabbed the dana by the front of her cloak and lifted her from the ground.

Orihime wanted to believe that this wasn't a dream. That the king, the bloodline that she had dedicated herself to serving, wasn't ending in this manner.

There was a gurgle in the air: he was growling. Or laughing. And then, abruptly, the sound cut off.

There was a light shot out of his body: a sharp shard of light.

The creature fell back from the queen's spent body, pawing at his chest with his claws to no avail. He fell to the ground and threw his body back in pain, screaming again.

"Are you not aware of what she's kept under her cloak?" The commander's words came back to her, and she began to crawl towards the two, to see it…

The white light in Kurosaki-sama's chest. One of the bones of The Red Priestess—a rib, an arm.

The dana crawled to the demon, grasping his thick hair. "Ichigo, listen to me!" Her voice bounced off the courtyard walls. "Don't fight it! Let it help you! That one was given to my ancestor by your ancestor, and it's just for you! To free you from this! But you have to let it help you!"

It mattered and yet, did not matter, if it was her words stirred him, for he was changing again. Part of Orihime shuddered to think of what new changes she was would see, but the white scales that had become his skin fell like ash to the ground. And his claws fell out and regrew back into fingernails. And the curtain of thick red hair sloughed itself from his shoulders.

He fell to his knees and slumped over, but what would have been him making contact with the ground was stopped.

The dana's arms reached for him and caught him. She worked quickly, ripping off her coat to cover his body. Orihime could only watch as the smaller woman…his wife…held him close to her.

The king, a human being once more, opened his honey-brown eyes and looked up into the face of the queen. He breathed evenly and lifted his arm towards her. His left palm, dyed red to signal their holy matrimony, pressed against her cheek.

"Rukia… Thank you."

Lifetime 271, a lifetime in which Orihime fears Ichigo.