A/N: You guys, I must say I feel really lucky to have you awesome people as readers ^_^ Thanks very much, as always!

This chapter is a bit different from the previous ones. I'm sure a lot of you were enjoying the flashbacks, but sadly, the more I thought about the direction of this story and what I could write about, it would seem that continuing the same pattern would feel like a filler. The stuff that was needed to convey were already shown (however haphazard the order ^^;;), and I hope you won't be too weirded out by its absence and would still continue to enjoy this fic.

Flashback order: 14, 2, 9, 13, 17, 3, 15, 11, 8, 7, 6, 5, 12, 4, 10, 16.

Disclaimer: Bleach belongs to Kubo Tite.

Chapter 18: Object

The only sound left was the gentle slapping of the river's wave against the descending steps.

On the steps, they sat, and Ichigo looked at her from the corner of his eye, swallowing back other words he'd wanted to use to give her reassurance. It hadn't been easy for him to judge what to conceal or reveal, but in order to keep her at his side the truth was what she needed from him.

A sigh escaped her lips, her brows puckering as she processed all that he'd told her. Orihime knew it wouldn't be easy to know how she had come to be here, but finally realizing the full extent of it...

"It's a lot to take in," whispered she finally, as something to fill the silence.

His head turned, a hand reaching forward but faltering, curling into a fist to fall by his side again.

With a deep exhale she stood, and he followed, couldn't help himself from mirroring her action. The deep set of his brows became that of worry; in showing her his truth, had he lost her?

She turned to face him finally, and her eyes, despite their direct gaze, were shuttered, unreadable. "Will you," said she, "grant me something? Just one thing?"

"Anything," was all he could say, a reply that burst out of him automatically. Anything she wanted, he would give, if only she could look at him the way she did. Yearning filled his heart, made it beat so hard and so fast within his chest, counting down to the moment when he could read love once more in her eyes and her expression.

"Will you let me go back to my village? Alone?"

He staggered back a bit, surprised, worry of a different kind clouding his features. He berated himself for his foolishness, wanted to strongly object against what she asked, but the touch of her hand on his cheek was gentle, and his eyes flew to hers, relief overcoming him to see softness there.

"Just for one day?" Her other hand rose to his other cheek. "Please?"

He took hold of her wrists, his grip tight, wanting to hold down and hold fast, to keep her in place. Fear made his own hands tremble.

"I forgive you."

And with those words she'd softly uttered, his hold loosened, his hands falling back down to his sides, defeat slumping his shoulders.

On seeing this, with a tender expression she rose on her tiptoes and pressed her lips to his, relieved to feel his ready answer. The kiss deepened, and he pulled her sharply against him. She could taste his desperation with every advance and retreat of his lips, and she plunged her tongue into his open mouth, massaging it against his. She swallowed his moan, pulling back slightly in order to breathe, leaning forehead against forehead.

"Just one day," he whispered, forcing the words out even as his hold on her tightened. He didn't want to let go, his mind filling with everything that could go wrong, but he couldn't bring himself to retract his words nor to deny her her request. She had really never asked him for anything, and he felt as though all he'd done to her was to take and take.

And with a final resolve, Ichigo released her, closing his eyes as her fingers lingered on his cheek, opening them again as he heard her soft steps down the stairs. He followed Orihime to assist her into the boat, unwilling to let go of her hand even as she sat down.

Releasing her hand only to grip at the rim of the boat, he said, "Just think of where you want to go, and this boat will take you there."

And with a push he watched as the river flowed his heart downstream.

"Do you know where it all began?"

She looked at him, the image of a friend, happy and oblivious of just how what he'd spoken could have borne such a curse on their village, flashed through her mind. Orihime took a deep breath, and answered softly, "With words."

The Death God nodded. "How such things begin with gods, with words."

She sat, huddled in the middle of the boat, sighing as she rested her cheek upon the arms placed over her knees. The boat's gentle swaying on the water failed to lull her; the cool and crisp emptiness of her surroundings mirrored what she felt, as over and over what the God of Death told her swirled through her mind.

"Humans do have power over gods. A simple word spoken can greatly hurt our pride. And so it was with your friend's words about you and the Goddess of Autumn.

"With us, when we want something that we can't simply get with our own powers, we turn to other gods to bargain. We can only give something of ourselves in exchange for it. She couldn't bear to wait until the fall season came to punish you all for what your friend said, and so she came to me, offering her body for physical pleasure in exchange for my power."

Orihime felt her heart contract. The straightforwardness—so matter-of-fact in tone—struck at her. His truth wasn't laced with gentleness, as though he had masked himself from feeling how they could affect him. But her and her own feelings...it hurt still to learn of that other person being able to be with him and touch him, although she knew she had never been, and couldn't ever be, his first as he had been for her.

So then, where did she and him begin? The Orihime and Ichigo as they were now?

She closed her eyes and tried to distill the pain away, and concentrated on something else. She started as she finally comprehended what she had always realized at the back of her mind. "Because of his own words, Keigo was the first to die."

"Yes."

In the boat, she shook her head.

We are all fools, she thought. Inviting the anger of a goddess with such an inconsequential thing said by someone who had had too much to drink. Something so simple and so, so stupid that it caused the death of so many villagers.

Just for that. Her friends, her brother, everyone she had cared about perished because of those words. And as the subject of those words, she was spared.

"So is this my punishment?" asked she, trying to control her breathing, trying not to let herself become overwhelmed. "To be the one to know all this? Because I was the one he spoke them to?"

"No," answered he, still in that even voice, but gentle now and soft. "You're here because of my own selfishness."

She turned to him, a myriad of questions in her gaze.

"You're here," he continued, "because when Senna showed you to me, I felt something I've never felt before. I fell in love with you. More than anything, I wanted to keep you safe; I've wanted you for myself."

She could feel herself melting, and she broke eye contact to stare at something, anything, other than those eyes.

"But," he continued, "no matter how many times I've wanted to simply take you away from there, I couldn't bring myself to. The more I went to your village to usher the souls of those who died from the plague, the more I found myself drawn to you. The more I wanted you to look at me the way I look at you.

"When I parted ways with Senna, it was not on friendly terms. She still carried her hatred and anger for you and your village. I wanted, more than anything, to take you from that place, but I didn't want to take you against your will.

"And there is also the honour of the gods to uphold. I must adhere to the bargain with the Goddess of Autumn and even though what could be called our relationship ended, I couldn't just stop the plague without some sort of exchange for it. I had to turn to another god."

Orihime ran her hands through her hair.

Was everything that brought her to this point nothing more than a series of exchanges?

Her heart ached; she loved him but she felt betrayed, conflicted. She'd thought it was all a simple matter, beginning with what she'd learned from Rukia a long time ago: he had been with someone, their relationship ended, he sent the plague to her village because of it, and she was sacrificed to become his bride so that the rest of the villagers might be spared.

But it was all that and so much more. The cause of everything was the blabbering of a drunken friend, a comparison made between her and a goddess, who in turn turned to the God of Death to send them the plague as punishment. But he had fallen in love with her, a mere mortal, and sought out to bargain with another god so that she could be sent to him.

"Another god?" she asked.

He nodded. "Ulquiorra, the God of Despair, also the God of Visions."

She turned inward to her mind, recalling a page in her brother's book. A slight and pale figure, seeming to emit sadness with the green tracks that ran down his cheeks, sporting a dispassionate expression despite them. He had a curious power: he could remove his own eye and with it show others what he had seen of events that had transpired, and what he could see of things to come.

She swallowed, forcing herself to gain more knowledge of the circumstances that had brought her here. "What did you ask of him?"

"I asked him to send a vision in a dream to the elders of your village. That they must offer a sacrifice to me in exchange for the cessation of the plague. You."

Their eyes met and held. She couldn't find any words to describe how she felt. Her mouth opened and closed as she struggled with her voice, but in the end she could only turn away, feeling the nearness of him, wanting the space between them to lessen and at the same time to stretch so that she could gather what ever remnants was left of her heart.

Was this truly what loving a god was like? Learning of all these sequential manipulations was too much to bear, and her legs gave beneath her at their weight, flopping her down onto the stone steps.

From her periphery, she saw him lowering himself beside her, hands clasped together over his knees, casting furtive glances her way.

She listened, wary of yet more things left unsaid, but all that filled the silence was the flowing of the river.

To have done all this, for her.

Then, was all that had transpired her fault? Was she to be blamed for everything? She covered her face with her hands. What was she supposed to think? How was she supposed to feel?

And what about the Death God? What would happen to him?

She looked behind her, but the dock to the God of Life's house had long since vanished. There were only trees and mist surrounding her, alone in the water. There had been sadness in his gaze when last she looked at him, watching her as the river bore her away.

Even though she said she forgave him, she needed time; time to be alone, time to be away from him, time to sort her mind and heart from the jumbled mess they've been in since this all began. Even though she could feel her heart breaking, she felt she needed this. She needed to find herself and her place.

In the boat she laid back, and watched as the Night God's sakura petal stars begin their descent back from the sky, like fireworks, like snow.

She felt as though those petals were the pieces of her heart. Falling. Falling. Falling.

The boat drifted down the river as she watched the sky lit up with the coming sun. With her hand, Orihime shielded her eyes from the brightness, sitting up to make note of her surroundings. There was nothing much to see but trees and rocks, the mist having dispersed as the night waned, and the occasional stone steps of the dock of some god's palace.

She leant at the side of the boat, her chin resting on her arms, trying to guess whose house it was she just passed by. Judging from the relief of cherry blossoms carved into the stone all over the dock and its surrounding terraces, it was likely the God of Night and Spring's house.

She sighed as it disappeared from view, and stared straight ahead, startled to find another boat drifting along a little before her. As she neared it, it seemed to her to actually be floating in place, and when she was close enough she peered curiously over its side.

A figure lay in it, cloaked in black with a hood over its head. She stretched out her senses to feel its spiritual pressure, but she felt nothing that would indicate its identity; she sensed nothing about its presence at all.

She watched as one of its hands lifted up the hem of its hood, and a grey eye peered at her.

"Ah, madam!" said a voice that she instantly recognized, and she gasped, her mouth curving into an annoyed pout.

"You!" exclaimed she as the figure sat and pulled back the hood to reveal the smiling face of the God of Knowledge and Invention. "You changed me! You made me drink the potion that turned me."

He had the audacity to give her an affronted look as he took his fan from the recesses of his black cloak, opened it and flipped it back in forth in front of the lower half of his face. "Uh-uh. I did give you the cup, but no such command to drink did I utter. You drank it of your own volition, madam."

She opened her mouth to retort, but no such came, and she coloured at the recollection that indeed he'd merely handed over a cup to her, but he was still very suspiciously watchful of her behaviour afterwards. But she wouldn't allow him to simply brush aside her indignation. "Even so," said she, "you didn't tell me anything at all about what exactly it was you gave me before or after I drank it."

"True, and I admit that that will be the only thing I was culpable of."

She huffed, holding onto his boat just in case he had the presence of mind to flee.

"You make it sound like it's not entirely your fault I'm in this predicament."

"I was under orders."

One of Orihime's eyebrows rose at this, her expression conveying how very dubious she was of his answer.

Urahara stopped flipping his fan and closed it, and began tapping the end of it against his cheek.

"I'm sure the God of Death talked to you about the consequence of a human bearing a god's child, and since his father is a dear friend of mine, I felt inclined to do my utmost to aid any member of his family."

Her eyebrow lowered a fraction.

The God of Knowledge and Invention leaned in conspiratorially, a curious glint in his grey eyes. "You know, I must say how surprised I am to find you here, just by yourself. If you don't mind my asking, why is that?"

Orihime blinked, and leaned away from the sudden closeness, both brows lowering to a frown. She couldn't help feeling as though she was being perused like a small object under a magnifying glass.

"Oh, it's not hard to surmise the reasoning to be a lover's spat," continued the god. "Your husband being the way he is—and incidentally, I most certainly did not run away from the God of Life's house when Mr Death transformed. Ahaha. I just felt like I needed fresh air to clear my mind, yes indeed. And this cloak that I've invented to mask one's spiritual pressure...I'm only wearing it because I do not wish to be disturbed. It has nothing at all to do with hiding from the Death God—but you don't really need to know all that. However you want to believe my reasoning is entirely up to you.

"Anyway, this is quite curious, almost unbecoming, you might say, of him. I suppose I can conclude that he has confidence enough in the potion I made for you to leave you free like this."

"You make it sound like I'm in danger, and not just because of the pregnancy," she managed to say, a thread of thought untangling in her mind.

"But you are."

She released her hold on his boat and eyed him warily.

"Not from me, madam, I assure you."

But she did not feel reassured.

"I do believe, from certain rumours I've heard, that the Goddess of Autumn has been after your person for quite some time."

"Me?"

He nodded.

"But I thought she was after my village, and that she's had her revenge through the God of Death."

"Your village, yes. But mostly you, in particular."

She scrambled through her mind for anything that the Death God might have said about this, but can only recall him mentioning that the Goddess of Autumn still carried her hatred and anger. Her shoulders slumped with a long, drawn-out exhale, and on seeing this, the God of Invention and Knowledge pulled something out of his cloak.

"Here, take this," he said, handing over an identical black cloak to her. "I insist," he announced in such a way that brooked no arguments when she tried to push it back. "It's for your protection, my way of making amends, if you will."

Grudgingly accepting, she unfolded the cloth and pulled it over her shoulders, listening to his explanations.

"Giving you the potion," said the god, "was not done out of malevolence. It is, as I've told you before, my wedding gift to you and the God of Death. It is what is due to you in marrying a god. It is my own means of fulfilling a wish for a happy and prosperous life together between you and Ichigo.

"Further, I was simply helping the Death God; he feared for your safety and I merely gave a means of protection. I'm not usually one to say this, but nobody had ever seen him quite this happy, and as his father's friend, I felt inclined to give him the means to keep you forever.

"But alas, I see it was for naught." He opened his fan once more and leisurely fanned himself as he shook his head. "So soon into the marriage, and it's already rocky. His fault, of course."

She could only bury her head into the dark fabric, lacking any course to reply. Wearing the cloak was strange; she felt thoroughly hidden by it. Just as she hadn't been able to sense the God of Invention and Knowledge's own spiritual pressure, she could still make out others through it, however far off they felt.

"Why do I need to wear this?" Orihime felt compelled to ask.

"It is as thorough a shield as any, without using your own power to conceal yourself."

"Shield? Power?"

He nodded. "It seems that that's how your power as a god manifested."

She could only shake her head. "I don't understand. When did that happen?"

"Yesterday, while you were at the library."

"But—"She stopped, her train of thought derailed, and her eyes widened with surprise and realization. She had imagined a golden shield, had she not, to protect herself, and when it broke, she'd felt as though the shards were pieces of her own self. "It was real?"

Urahara nodded. "And it came from you. It was pretty powerful, too, though it lacked proper control." He pointed his fan at her. "You would need to practice on how to properly harness it."

"How did I—? How could I—?" Words hurried and blocked her throat, but she finally managed to hang onto something that she never realized she would utterly miss: "But I'm only human. I couldn't have done something like that."

"Were, madam. You were one, once upon a time. And now you're a god. And what better way to fight a god, especially one that's bent on seeking revenge, than with another god's power?"

"Fight? I don't think I can."

"Well, with that cloak on, there's little chance the goddess in question will find you, even with her magic mirror."

"Magic mirror?" She felt foolish for having repeated what he was saying, but she couldn't help herself.

"Yes, it is an artifact that she uses to glimpse at the past, present, or future."

She heard the smile in his voice as he went on. "Who knows, the Goddess of Autumn might have asked her mirror on who was the fairest one of all, and unfortunately, your image was the one it brought." On seeing her expression, he waved his fan. "I jest, of course."

As their boats began to flow with the river once more, Urahara asked, "Would it be alright for me to join you in your journey?"

Orihime had wanted to decline, but the thought of being alone just to have her thoughts entangle themselves over and over in her mind became too much to bear, and she supposed that having him around would be a somewhat welcome distraction. If anything else, she figured she could learn more from the God of Knowledge himself of yet more things that her own husband had not been able to tell her.

"Yes," acquiesced the newly-made goddess.

APPENDIX

Orihime - formerly a human, now a goddess by association for marrying a god
Ichigo - God of Death and the Moon
Senna - Goddess of Autumn
Ulquiorra - God Despair and Visions
Byakuya - God of the Night and Spring
Urahara - God Knowledge and Invention

Thanks for reading :)
Oct/2011