A/N: New chapter! Sadly, this will be the last one for a little while. I am moving and starting a new job at the end of this week, so I have to get back to adulting. Updates will still be coming, they will just be a little slower. But I am really excited to continue writing this, so I will do my best. Hopefully this chapter wraps up the arc in a way that is somewhat satisfying and can tide you over until the next one. Thanks for reading and thanks to everyone leaving such kind reviews!

3:03 a.m.

Orihime froze.

The light from her flashlight was trained on the door. If she could move, she would have tried the handle.

Instead, she stood quietly, trying to hear over the sudden palpitations her heart was having. She imagined she could hear deep, irregular breathing coming from over her shoulder. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, then spun around and shone the flashlight behind where she had been standing. She didn't see anything that hadn't already been there.

That did not comfort her.

Her eyes searched the room carefully, and were drawn to a sudden movement by the dresser at her right. A picture frame, so thick with dust that Orihime wouldn't have been able to make out the faces for the life of her, fell to the ground as if knocked off by someone passing by.

Then, so did she.

Orihime felt something slam her to the floor and hold her there. She felt a sudden, strange release and then she was flying across the room to meet the other wall forcefully with her shoulder. Her shoulder throbbed with pain and she was confused to find that her body felt much heavier than it had a moment ago, not to mention she was suddenly having trouble breathing. She looked up, searching for the force that threw her.

In that moment, her mind registered two terrifying details. One: she could see her body lying on the other side of the room, long orange hair covering her face. Two: there was a giant, horrifying monster towering above her, leering at her. She wasn't sure which fact was more disturbing, though she opted for the latter.

The creature loomed above her, enormous and monstrous and grotesque. It stared at her silently, giving her a moment to take in its horrifying form. Its face was covered by a giant, milky white mask that stretched taller than her. Its eyes, one as big as both of Orihime's fists put together, featured red pupils outlined in black. The teeth were massive, and though they weren't sharp, Orihime had no doubt they would have no trouble tearing her to pieces. Lank, black hair hung lifeless about its face.

Orihime's eyes moved to its body. It was an alternating red and grey, a perfect hole in the middle of its center as if taken out by a massive hole punch. It had two long powerful arms, but its body tapered into a tail, like a snake.

Orihime instantly recognized the creature from her dream, the fear she had felt then now multiplied tenfold. She wondered if that man had really transformed into this, if her dream had gotten that right, too. Even if it was, she was beyond insane to ever think that she could do something for him. What could she, a tiny eight-year-old girl, who wasn't convinced she wasn't already dead, do to stop this massive beast? Her senses, no longer silent, were screaming at her to get out. But the monster, taking up almost the whole room, was blocking her only escape route.

The monster grabbed her and slammed her against the wall, holding her there.

"So you finally came to see me, Orihime," it rasped.

Orihime couldn't decide which emotion was strongest: shock that it was capable of speech, or terror that it knew her name.

"How—how do you know who I am?" Orihime managed to gasp.

The creature's mouth seemed to turn up slightly as if in amusement.

"How could I not know who you are? I, who took care of you at the beginning of your life? I, who protected you from your own parents, who would try to harm you? I, who have been calling you for years to bring you here?"

Orihime grasped at the only information she could understand.

"All those dreams—that was you?"

The creature said nothing, and she took that as affirmation.

"But you—I saw a human in all of my dreams." She thought back to the most recent dream and the transformation she had witnessed. "So that was you trying to tell me what had happened."

"Yes."

The creature lowered her back to the ground and she fell into a sitting position, still too overwhelmed to stand.

"But who were you? How did I know you?"

The creature pointed at her with one long, giant finger.

"You are my younger sister! We both had the misfortune to be born to parents more monstrous than I am now. People so evil that they would try to quiet their own baby's cries with beatings instead of lullabies. I endured mistreatment at their hands for fifteen years, and I was determined that my sister would not suffer the same. So when they would scream and cry and argue, I would take you and comfort you myself."

Orihime simply stared in disbelief.

"Look for yourself," the creature said, indicating to the picture frame that had fallen on the ground.

Eyeing the creature warily, Orihime crawled the short distance to the picture frame, which was miraculously unbroken. She picked it up, brushing off most of the dust with her hand and blowing off the rest.

She examined the picture. There were four people in the photo, but Orihime only had eyes for two of them. The teenaged boy with long, dark hair that fell about his eyes, and the infant girl, no older than two, that he was holding in his arms.

"You were the one who sang to me," Orihime whispered. "The dreams…"

"Yes."

There was no doubt that the man in the picture was the one who had occupied her dreams for as long as she could remember. And if he was speaking honestly, she was the child he was holding.

"What happened to you?"

The question caused him obvious anguish and he thrashed his tail on the ground, shaking the room.

"You happened! You brought the hollows here and they devoured us. I have lived the last six years of my existence in agony, filled with an emptiness I could not satisfy and a hunger I could not satiate while you ran free!"

He pointed an accusing finger at her and Orihime shrank back at his sudden anger.

"How…how could this have been—"

"This is all your fault! And when I finally found you, I couldn't get near you with all those…those soul reapers always watching you, always so aware of you. So that's why I brought you here, so we could finally be together."

Orihime didn't fully understand what he was talking about, but she didn't like the direction the conversation was turning.

"Be together?" she whispered, uncomprehending.

"Oh, yes. After all these years of feeling so hollow I can finally slake the emptiness. This is the only way, you know."

"What's the only way?" she asked nervously, dreading the answer.

He grabbed her again and lifted her close to his face, his grip tighter this time. "I'm glad you finally found me, Orihime," the creature said, and as his jaws opened, Orihime knew the rest of the nightmare was about to play out in real life.

She didn't hear the shattering of glass over the roaring in her head, but suddenly the creature writhed in agony and she was released, landing in someone's arms.

The edge of her vision turned red as blood spurted in all directions, covering the walls and ceiling. Orihime could hear nothing over the creature's cries of pain and anger. She looked over and was startled to see Lisa of all people crouching next to the bookshelf, holding a bloodstained sword, eyeing the creature coldly.

And then Hiyori was there too, leaping off said bookshelf and slicing through the creature's mask with such force that it split neatly in two and began to evaporate, the monster's eyes turning to look at Orihime in accusation and resignation.

And then it was gone.

"And the others?" the one holding her asked. It was Kensei.

"Taking care of the rest." Lisa answered.

Orihime looked up at him and he nodded, not meeting her eye.

"Kensei…"

"We'll talk about this later," he said brusquely, cutting her short.

"Her body's over there," Hiyori indicated, then jumped on the windowsill. She gave the girl a glance that Orihime could only interpret as regret, and then disappeared.

Kensei carried Orihime over to where her other body was and—as she just realized—connected by a thin metal chain. She reached out to grab it, but Kensei swatted her hand away. He lowered her to the ground as he kneeled, and gently placed her on top of her body. Orihime felt a rushing sensation, as if she were at the bottom of the ocean and ascending quickly towards the surface. Then she opened her eyes and she was looking up at Kensei from where she lay on the ground.

She didn't ask what had just happened, and he didn't offer an explanation. There was always a later, a tomorrow.

Heroes were real, Orihime learned, and they didn't wear capes. Some of them had silver hair and eyebrow piercings and others had blonde pigtails and bad tempers. And while Hiyori may have been the one to kill the beast, Kensei had been the one to carry her home.

The last thing she thought before she fell asleep was that she had never asked her brother his name.