A/N: Wow, I can't believe it's been more than a year since I last updated. Oops. Hopefully it will be a bit more consistent now that I have way more free time. I am determined to finish this story! Anyway, I hope you all are staying sane in these crazy times. Enjoy this long overdue chapter and leave a review!

Orihime needed an ally.

It was not to be Aizen. After all, it was he who had ordered she be brought here in the first place.

He had put his trust in her, he claimed, and shown her that strange object, the "Hogyoku," he had called it. She remembered that Rukia had spoken of it and its powers, once.

"To put it simply, combining the powers of a soul reaper and a hollow into one being. Using the Hogyoku makes it possible, makes for a more finished product."

Aizen needed this device, he alleged, to make his arrancars from the hollows in Hueco Mundo. He was building an army, she assumed. She dared not ask why, though she feared she already knew the answer.

It had had such an unusual aura, the Hogyoku. She gazed down upon the crystal resting on its strange, cylindrical pedestal and admired its hue—a lovely purplish blue she had never seen before. It pulsed slightly as she watched, like the flame of a candle flickering delicately in a sudden breeze.

"…deteriorated slightly," Aizen was explaining in that velvety voice of his. "But it's definitely moving towards a…"

Despite the man's naturally commanding presence, Orihime could hardly tear her attention away from the object in front of her long enough to focus on what he was saying.

How could Rukia have had this inside her and not realized? Orihime sensed instinctively that this was an object of great significance, one that did not belong in any world she knew.

"You will use your powers for me, won't you?" The soul reaper was murmuring in her ear, his voice sliding over her like silk. She nodded mutely.

She was not sure what was being asked of her, or the consequences that would follow. But non-compliance was not a choice available to her.

She needed out.

She considered her other options. Her ally was not to be Ulquiorra, certainly. Her kidnapper and now her jailer, he seemed to delight in tormenting the young woman daily, and Orihime had come to expect her regular torture session whenever he brought by her meals.

He never touched her, though—the abuse was always purely psychological. But Orihime would have preferred he just knocked her down and kicked her in the stomach. She could have healed those wounds, at least.

Her Shun Shun Rikka could not mend the holes he was tearing in her heart however, nor cut out the seeds of doubt he was watering in her mind. No one cared for her, she wasn't worth rescuing. No one was coming. By the time he left, she was too depressed to do more than just pick at the food he had brought her. Colorless and bland, she found it unappetizing to begin with anyway. It was nothing like the colorful concoctions she made with her family back home.

Her determination to get out, to do anything necessary to escape, even attempt to befriend one of these terrifying creatures and convince them to help her—a plan she had concocted in her desperation and now realized was quite foolish—was weakening. Her resolve, which on the night of her capture with the faces of her friends and family still clearly imprinted in her mind, had blazed brightly in her heart. Now, deprived of the fuel and oxygen it needed to thrive, it had dwindled to a tiny flame and flickered faintly, in danger of going out.

An ally. How ridiculous. She was here on Aizen's orders, and how many from his legion of arrancar would be foolish or reckless enough to defy him? Orihime had not yet witnessed a display of his power, but the man exuded confidence and self-assuredness. She had no doubt that he was a formidable soul reaper—certainly he must have exhibited significant strength and cunning in order to steal the Hogyoku and assume complete control of Hueco Mundo. And his rule was undisputed, as far as she knew—not that she could claim expertise in hollow politics. But his subordinates seemed to respect and obey him completely despite the fact that he was a soul reaper, perhaps because he had transformed them from mere hollows into arrancar, or perhaps because he allowed their natural inclinations for cruelty to go unrestrained, she thought, remembering Aizen's non-reaction to the murder he had watched Grimmjow commit.

Cruelty. From what she was able to glean from her limited experience with the inhabitants of Hueco Mundo, each one was vastly different, but their ruthlessness was the one trait that tied them all together. From psychological abuse at the hands of Ulquiorra to Luppi's violent murder at the hands of a gleeful Grimmjow to the thinly veiled threats behind Aizen's charming smile, each was trying (and succeeding, she admitted) to cow her into submission in their own way.

She gazed silently at the two smirking women who had just forced themselves into her room and wondered what their choice weapon of intimidation would be, though she thought she could very well guess. Their malevolent expressions told her they had come for blood.

She had seen them before, when Aizen had taken her to his chambers show her the Hogyoku. Provocatively dressed with masks that covered an eye each, one had short blonde hair and the other, sleek black tresses pulled back into pigtails. They were his personal aides, from what Orihime had gathered, and had accompanied the soul reaper leader and human teenager, protesting as Aizen ordered them away. They were worried, they had claimed, for his safety aside a woman with unusual powers. He had silenced them with only a look and they had obeyed swiftly after kneeling to express contrition for their insubordination.

Orihime mentally crossed them off her list of potential allies. She would find no help from this quarter.

"Umm…" she blurted nervously as neither of them spoke.

The ponytailed one forcefully pushed past Orihime into her chambers.

"Look at this, Menoly!" she exclaimed, head swiveling as she took in her surroundings. "What a nice room. Lord Aizen likes you, doesn't he?" She threw herself onto the sofa-like bed and ran her hands over the soft fabric.

Orihime stayed silent, unsure of how to answer.

The girl cocked her eyebrow. "It's true, isn't it? You're a star. Everyone is infatuated with you. You're all they can talk about, pretty little Orihime, come from the human world."

Infatuated? Orihime thought back to her first audience with Aizen. If being looked at like she was going to be devoured whole meant infatuated, then sure.

"Say, Orihime, you must think you're really something, don't you? Or do you think that this is only natural?" she gestured from where she reclined on the couch. Orihime didn't answer. What should a lamb say to a wolf to keep it from being eaten?

"Well?! Answer me!"

"No—I don't think that," Orihime stammered.

"What, did you say something? Speak up!"

"I don't think that."

The girl smirked again. "Hey, Menoly, did you hear? This girl knows she's nothing special."

Menoly laughed. "How unexpected, Loly."

Loly stood up suddenly and strode over to Orihime, until her face was only a few inches away. "Let me give you some advice," she whispered into the stunned teenager's ear. Suddenly and unexpectedly she reached up and grasped a handful of auburn hair, yanking it and throwing Orihime forcefully to the floor.

"Don't get cocky, you bitch! You're a human! Do you think that Lord Aizen will keep you by his side for long?" she shouted while kicking the prone Orihime in the stomach.

Orihime could do nothing but gasp for breath as she hit the floor, curling into a protective ball and praying for the sudden assault to end.

It did, mercifully, and as she looked up through the hair covering her face she could see Menoly sneering down at her. Orihime tried to sit up, to back away from this girl-shaped monster in front of her.

"How pathetic. What a little weakling. You don't look as pretty now, do you, crawling around on the floor. Like a dirty little cockroach."

She grinned suddenly, turning to her friend. "Hey Loly, let's beat her up! I bet her face will look even uglier covered in tears!"

Loly returned her grin. "Good idea, Menoly. Show us your ugly crying face, little girl!"

Orihime had only a moment to throw herself to the side in an attempt to dodge the red blast the blonde woman aimed at her. She looked back—the wall next where she had just been kneeling was charred considerably and smoking slightly.

She felt like a mouse being batted around by two vicious street cats. Clearly, the women were greatly enjoying this new game of humiliating Orihime and seemed to have no qualms about whether or not their playing left her dead. Perhaps that was even their end goal, and when Orihime finally lay motionless, blackened and smoking like the wall, then they would have their last laugh, lose interest, and find somewhere to lick the blood off their claws.

"Sorry," Loly was purring at her. "You looked like you wanted to go outside, so I tried to open the door for you. It looks like I used too much force."

Orihime wanted no part of their game. If they were going to kill her, they could do it and get it over with. She was not their entertainment. She turned to face her aggressors.

"Oh, you have something to say? Then spit it out!"

"If you have no business here, then please leave." Orihime was surprised at how calm her voice sounded.

Loly laughed, and the sound fell harshly on Orihime's ears. "Who do you think you are? Menoly!"

The blonde-haired woman, standing off to the side watching the exchange, raised her arm as her name was called, a ball of light forming in her palm.

"Lately her cero has been acting up. She says it just comes out without her noticing. If you're not careful, it might hit you by mistake. Unlike that bala just now, it'll do a lot more damage." She frowned, narrowing her eyes. "What's wrong with you? Say something!"

"If you have no business here, then please leave," Orihime repeated, staring steadily at the woman in front of her.

"You bitch! How arrogant! You think you're better than an arrancar?! You're nothing! I'll make it so that you can never stand before Lord Aizen again!" she shouted, grabbing Orihime by her collar, her other hand forming a cero of her own.

"Loly, you can't! If you go too far—"

"Then leave already, if you're too scared to do it—"

An explosion behind them ended the quarrel. All eyes turned towards the sudden disturbance and Orihime blinked, unsure of what she was seeing.

Next to the open doorway a massive crater had formed in the wall, a thin layer of rubble covering the ground in front of it. And in a turn of events that could not get any more bizarre, standing in the middle of that crater was none other than Grimmjow himself, his hands shoved casually in his pockets, his signature sneer etched on his face.

Orihime didn't know if she should be relieved or more terrified. Had he come to save her or to join in their violent game? From what she knew of Grimmjow, either was equally likely. Although she had done him a favor by restoring his arm, she could not forget the image of his arm coming out the other side of Luppi's chest, howling in laughter as he murdered his fellow arrancar. The man clearly enjoyed killing, and he was no doubt a creature of impulse. Orihime had no choice but to wait and see what compulsion had led him to involve himself in this chaos.

Not for the first time, Orihime longed for the rest of her shielding flowers. She doubted that little Tsubaki would stand a better chance against any of these arrancar than he had against Ulquiorra, but at least the other three could have provided some measure of protection against them.

She eyed the man idling in the makeshift doorway he had just created. She suspected she was about to test the limits of Shun'o and Ayame's healing powers.

She wondered if they would work on herself if she were dead.