"Since then!" the Hollow suddenly shouted at us. "We've always lived together! Just the two of us! Forever! I am the one who raised Orihime! I'm the one who protected her! She's mine! I won't give her to anyone! Expecially not you, Kurosaki Ichigo! I won't... GIVE HER TO YOU!" The Hollow attacked Ichico, mouth wide open.

"Brother!" Ichigo blocked with his sword just in time to not get eaten by him and I ran to Inoue.

"You okay?" I asked her and she just nodded watching Ichigo and the Hollow fight.

"Don't be stupid..." Ichigo growled at it. "Inoue is Inoue. She doesn't belong to anyone...!"

"She's mine! All of her! I lived my life for Orihime! Yet Orihime... won't live her life for me! Then at least she must die for me!" the Hollow broke away from Ichigo's block and made his way for me and Inoue. I stood in front of her with my sword at the ready.

"STOP!" I never expected what happened, and stared in shock as Inoue hugged her brothers head which was biting her left shoulder and abdomen.

"Inoue... what are you...?" she fell to her knees with blood pouring from her wounds.

"Ori... hime...?"

"I'm sorry, brother," she told him. "I... wanted you to hear... all the fun things that happened at school. The things I like, the people I like..." I glanced at Tatsuki still unconcious on the floor next to Inoue's body. "At the beginning all I did was pray everyday... but I thought that that wasn't good. that I shouldn't just show you me being sad... that you would worry if that's all you saw... That's why I wanted to show you! That I'm happy! That you don't have to worry about me!" The Hollow seemed shocked at the words Inoue was telling him. "But... that was making you sad... I didn't... even realize... brother... I'm sorry for making you sad..." The Hollow released her and I knelt down next to her in case she fell over. She did lose a lot of blood after all. "I love you..."

"Ori..."

"Inoue!" I caught her as she fell and gently placed her down.

"Don't panic!" We turned to see Rukia watching us. "She can still be saved.

"Rukia..."

"The "Chain of Fate" on her chest hasn't been broken yet! As long as that is connected to the body, the spirit isn't dead!" I gave a sigh of relief at Rukia's words. "She can be saved with my demon arts!"

"Orihime... Orihime..." The Hollow seemed to have softened at Inoue's words, but I still watched him carefully as Rukia made her way to us.

"You're in the way of the healing. Move back!" Rukia started healing the poor girl as we all watched.

"Yeah... in truth, I knew that, Orihime... that you stopped praying not to worry me... but... Even so, I wanted you to pray for me... because only during the time you were praying for me... your heart was all mine..."

"I bet you never noticed did you?" I asked the Hollow and he looked over at me. "She wears the hairpins you gave her everyday. They were a gift from you, right? She told me and Tatsuki about them. They were the first present from her big brother, and that's why she never takes them out." His eyes widened and he looked down at Inoue again.

"It's the same," Ichigo told him. "Those that die and those that survive, both are just as sad as the other. Don't be so selfish to think that you are the only one who's sad."

"I never noticed..." the Hollow said before turning and going somewhere.

"Where are you..." We watched as he drabbed Ichigo's sword and pointed it at himself. "Wha...? You... What are you do...?!" His Hollow mask fell as tears of blood continued to fall down his face.

"It's fine. If I stay like this, I'll someday once again lose myself and come after Orihime," he reasoned. "That's why, right now while I have regained a small part of myself I want to disappear."

"But why... you don't have..."

"Ichigo!" We all looked at Rukia who was still healing Inoue. "His decision is correct. Once you become a hollow you will never revert back. Let him disappear."

"Rukia..."

"But doesn't that kill his spirit?" I asked her and she shook her head.

"Cutting a hollow is not the same as killing them," she explained. "It is to wash away their sins. By cutting them with Zanpakutou, there sins are washed away, and they can go to the Soul Society. That's why we Soul Reapers exist." Inoue's brother leaned over her spirit and stared down at her.

"Then goodbye, Orihime." I watched as Inoue slowly opened her eyes as her brother slowly started to disappear.

"... Brother... goodbye..." The pair said their final fairwells with smiles on their faces. I guess, in the end, that's all that we can really ask for, isn't it?

"He's gone," Ichigo said once he'd fully disappeared.

"Yep..."

"How are your wounds?" Ichigo asked her and she looked down at herself.

"Oh, yeah. Almost completely... N... nevermind that, Ichigo! There's so many things I want to ask you!" Rukia held something in her hand before a small explosion was seen and the girl was knocked out.

"Inoue!" Ichigo and I called out to her.

"What did you do?!" Ichigo asked Rukia.

"This is the memory chikan," Rukia told us. "It erases her memory and substitutes a new one."

"Memory chikan?"

"Yes. Well, in fact that the new memories are random is kind of a problem. Hmm... this one probably didn't see anything, but might as well use it on her too." Rukia did the same thing to Tatsuki as Ichigo and I watched. "If you don't understand, then wait until tomorrow."


"It's true!" Inoue was telling her friends in class the next day. "A sumo wrestler really came to my room and shot a bazooka at the wall!" Well, Rukia did say it was random. At least a truck hitting our house was more realistic.

"You and your imagination again..."

"Orihime..."

"Well.. I actually like that childish brain of hers..."

"It's true! Right, Tatsuki?!"

"Oh Y... yeah," Tatsuki agreed.

"WHAT?! Tatsuki sayss this too?!"

"I see," Ichigo said watching them.

"Yep."

"I bet the random thing is a hassel," I laughed and Rukia just sighed and nodded.

"You used that on our family the other day, didn't you?" Ichigo asked her.

"Yeah, I used it," Rukia confirmed.

"At least that was a normal memory change," I sighed with a small shrug.