For this chapter, I acknowledge Tite Kubo. Grudgingly. Why grudgingly? -Spoiler alert!- Well, because UlquiHime has been smashed to a pulp with the ending of Bleach. Anyway. We all knew it was coming. Or at least I saw the writing on the walls as to whom Orihime ended up with. Sorry, ya'll. Just had to vent. Please enjoy this chapter.
It was the sun that woke Orihime the following day. She mumbled in protest at the light shining on her eyes, then blinked them open. Half expecting to awake to a room of white, she was a bit startled to see blue walls. Orihime sat up, almost too quickly for her mind to register, and faced the window. She threw off her covers and flew to it.
The sun!
She awoke to the sun.
She tore open the window, not caring who might have been watching, not caring how absurd she looked, and she placed a foot on the window sill, climbing out with little difficulty. There were no screens to worry about, else she would have run out the hall and through the back door to meet the sun's rays.
She walked into the light, savoring its warmth as it coated her pale-white skin. Stretching out her arms, she closed her eyes and tilted her head towards the sky, welcoming the light. She felt it purging the darkness out of her soul with every passing second. The real thing was so much more tangible, more real, just…more…than the false sky in Las Noches. Under the blue dome, there was no sun. There were only clouds. Perfect ones. In perfect blue. A farce of the world Aizen had intended to reign over as a god.
She had no idea what time it was, but the sun was bright enough to cause her to sweat after several minutes. She didn't care.
She was quite ready to stand until she fainted, but a voice interrupted her.
"Did you climb out the window?" It was a young, female voice from behind her.
Orihime turned to face the girl. Ururu!
"Yes! It's been so long since I've seen the sun!" Orihime shouted.
A whistle came from another young voice at Orihime's side. That one belonged to Jinta.
The children—indeed, if the term still applied for both of them—looked older. Ururu no longer wore her hair in ponytails and had grown a few inches. Jinta also grew taller, but he still looked about as young as when Orihime had left. The changes were another hated reminder of lost time.
"Urahara-san said you would be acting funny," Ururu offered. At least the honesty was still there. Along with that sad, distant look in her eyes.
"Yah," said Jinta, stretching a lazy arm over his head. But then he turned serious. He looked at Orihime in the same way the others had the night before. "What was it like over there? A lot of us thought you were dead. Urahara-san was pretty beat-up about it."
Orihime hadn't expected to hear that about Kisuke. He was, after all, the one who had warned her to stay away from the war. But she was touched by it nonetheless. It was several moments before she addressed them. "It's a place I never want to go back to. I'm sure I'll talk about it more, eventually. But right now I just want to get my life settled again."
The two of them just looked at her, then looked at each other, then looked back at her. Orihime couldn't tell if they were looking at her in sympathy or curiosity.
"Urahara-san said that I can live with you at this shop," Orihime added cheerfully after the awkward pause.
"We know," said Jinta.
"I hope you don't mind."
"As long as you don't end up like Freeloader-san," Jinta replied, his lip twitching.
"Freeloader-san?" Orihime asked.
"The shinigami with the gaudy red hair and ugly face tattoos," explained Ururu.
"Oh! Abarai-kun!" Orihime choked out, trying to keep a straight face. "I'm sure he wasn't that bad."
"Pfft!" Jinta spat out. "All he ever does is eat! And ruin every gigai we've ever given him. And he doesn't do any work when he visits! He just sits and eats."
Orihime turned a little pink. "Well, I'll be sure to pitch in! I plan on getting a job as soon as I get settled in so I can help out."
"There's an opening at a bakery down the street," said Ururu, not missing a beat.
"Really?" Orihime squealed, genuinely interested. "I LOVE baking!"
As Orihime clapped in delight, she saw Jinta giving Ururu a small kick. He seemed to whisper something short to her, but all Orihime could make out was the word "why."
"Hey! That wasn't very nice!" Orihime said to Jinta.
But Jinta just waved his arm as though waving off a fly. He pulled Ururu's shirt. "Come on. We're going to be late." After walking away a few meters, Jinta called back, "Hey, welcome to the team."
Orihime wondered if perhaps Kisuke had told them to make her feel welcome. She appreciated it anyway.
"The bakery is called Mokusei," Ururu said, following after Jinta.
"Mokusei," Orihime repeated. She waved after the kids and then turned back to the sun.
.oOo.
"Have some breakfast, Inoue-san," Tessai said, laying a variety of dishes on the table—rice, miso soup, fried eggs, and a few sausages.
Orihime almost cried tears of joy. "This looks delicious!" She sat down and ogled at the food for a good moment, but then something else caught her eye. "Chop sticks! I haven't eaten with these in a year!" She grabbed them and held them close to her face in an embrace.
"What did they feed you?" Yoruichi asked with a concerned look as she sat down to join Orihime.
Orihime chuckled, blushing. "Oh, I don't know. Vegetables. Meat. It was pretty bland. It varied, but not much. It wasn't too bad. I just haven't had my favorite things in so long. I did get to cook a meal once."
"Really?" said Urahara.
"Yes! It was so funny, you know, because when I came back, I found Ulquiorra asleep in my room, and—"
Yoruichi spit out her tea. "Ulquiorra? The hell?!"
Swiftly, the table grew silent.
Orihime couldn't think of a response. The way her statement came out spoke volumes about the familiarity she had attained with the arrancar.
"I mean…I—"
"He's the one we fought the day the arrancars showed up, isn't he? His hefty colleague beat the snot out of you! What was he doing in your room? Did he hurt you?!"
"No, never! He never laid a finger on me," Orihime answered back, a little too quickly.
"They didn't keep you locked up in a cell?" Yoruichi asked.
"No," Orihime answered. "They let me stay in my own room. Ulquiorra was the one who watched over me."
"Watched over you?" Yoruichi choked out.
"Yes."
"Interesting," Kisuke smirked. Orihime saw his eyes dart towards Yoruichi, but she didn't see. Her brows were still sharply knitted at Orihime. Kisuke addressed Orihime again, still smiling. "So, I guess that means Kurosaki-san caused quite a stir in Hueco Mundo when he came after you, didn't he?"
Orihime looked down at the dishes, all the excitement from the food gone. "I don't really know exactly what happened, but Ulquiorra and Kurosaki-kun fought twice when I was there. The first time, I got to heal Kurosaki-kun. The second time, Kurosaki-kun…he…"
She burst into tears.
"Orihime." Yoruichi mumbled a few things and placed one of her hands on Orihime's shoulder, but Orihime was crying into her hands and could not understand any of what Yoruichi was saying. Eventually, she calmed down, but the deeply concerned gazes around the table were too much to bear.
"I'm sorry. If you'll excuse me, I need to be alone."
Orihime got up from the table and went to her room.
.oOo.
"It's not possible," Yoruichi choked out, biting her thumbnail and staring hard at the floor.
Urahara crossed his arms on the table and set his head down, smirking up at Yoruichi. "I mean, it's not unheard of."
"How can you be calm? What the hell did they do to her?"
"It sounds like they didn't do much," Tessai chimed in.
"Have you looked at her?! She's so pale. And thin. She hasn't seen the sun in ten months. When I looked out the window earlier this morning, she was staring at it. I had to yell at her to stop, or she would have gone blind!"
"It's going to take her a while to adjust," Tessai said.
Urahara sighed. "I think we should just give it time. It's only her second day, Yoruichi-san."
Yoruichi shook her head. "She needs her friends. She needs to see reason. She—" Yoruichi looked towards Orihime's room to ensure she couldn't hear. She lowered her voice to a whisper. "She can't have fallen for that arrancar."
Kisuke chuckled at Yoruichi. "I mean, why not? I wouldn't be surprised if he fell for her, too."
Yoruichi rolled her eyes. "That guy was like a stone. Don't you remember him?"
"Mmhmm! But I have faith in Inoue-san. She's got a good head on her shoulders."
"And," added Tessai, "She managed to stay alive in Hueco Mundo for almost a year."
Yoruichi blinked. "We should contact that friend of hers. The feisty one with the black hair."
"Well, you can get her, then. I'm not doing it. She'll kill me!" Kisuke retorted.
But Yoruichi had no sympathy for him. "Oh, please, that was months ago,"
Kisuke shook his head and rubbed at a spot on the bridge of his nose. "She almost broke my nose the last time she was here!"
"I think Inoue-san should go to see her friend on her own," Tessai said. "It would avoid anyone contacting her directly, which is better for all of us, I think."
Neither Yoruichi nor Urahara said anything, but Tessai's logic seemed sound enough.
.oOo.
Tatsuki had little patience for chemistry. She sat at her living room window attempting to solve an equation, but she simply couldn't get the right answer. She checked and double-checked her work. She went back to her periodic table to ensure she had written down the correct atomic numbers, and after that, she reread the problem. Twice. Finally, she looked at the clock and realized she had spent at least 45 minutes just on this one. When she looked back at her homework assignment, she nearly broke her pencil. This was problem 2 of 20.
In an attempt to curtail her rising frustration, she got up from the floor, stretched out her arms and legs, and was about to head towards the kitchen for a drink when she heard a knock at the door. Good, she thought. A welcome break.
But as she began walking over to the door, she sensed a presence. One she knew well. Surely it had to belong to the person at her door, but this was someone she hadn't sensed in over ten months. And it was too faint. Tatsuki had always been able to sense her until she disappeared. Tasuki wouldn't even have noticed it had she not been several meters away. But surely, it was impossible. Impossible.
There was another knock. Tatsuki took a couple more steps to the door and froze. The presence could not be mistaken.
Orihime.
No…she's…dead.
For the first time in a very long time, Tatsuki felt fear. Of what, she couldn't be sure. She almost didn't want to open that door. Perhaps it was because she didn't want to face what she had been trying to run away from since she'd given Ichigo a swift punch in the face almost a year ago.
Then a voice from behind the door. "Tatsuki-chan? It's…me."
At that, Tatsuki could no longer stand there like an idiot. She ran to the door, nearly tripped over the rug, and almost broke the handle when she ripped the door open.
It was Orihime.
But she looked thinner. And much paler. And very sad. Much like herself in the past year.
Tatsuki's grades had slipped. That was why she was doing chemistry homework. It was extra credit she had begged the teacher to do so she could get by with a passing grade to graduate. She was lucky the teacher had some sympathy. He had known how close Tatsuki was to Orihime, one of his star pupils. Orihime had always helped Tatsuki with chemistry. It was a common routine they'd developed every week. Tatsuki would buy cookies for the both of them, and Orihime would take the lead on the homework. But Tatsuki had fallen behind since Orihime's disappearance, and she could never tell whether it was because of the depression or whether it was because the material was genuinely difficult.
Tatsuki just stood there, wordlessly. Orihime's spirit felt dreadfully dim, a mere echo of the brightness Tatsuki was accustomed to feeling. Maybe that was why she hadn't immediately sensed it. But she was too stunned to even ask. Orihime was giving her that puppy-eyed apologetic look she often gave when something wasn't even remotely her fault. But there was an added melancholy in her eyes—Tatsuki had never seen anything like it, not even when Orihime's brother had died. Orihime's sunken eyes and ashen demeanor made it even worse.
They just stared at each other. It wasn't until Orihime wiped the tears off of Tatsuki's cheek—tears she hadn't even noticed were falling—that she finally realized her friend was real, was standing before her in the flesh. Tatsuki snapped in that moment and lunged at her friend.
"I thought you were dead, I thought you were dead, I thought you were dead!" was all Tatsuki could say, over and over again. She cried into her friend's neck like a lost child who had found her mother after an alarming absence.
Orihime just stroked Tatsuki's hair in silence as she sobbed and sobbed. Orihime said no words, but Tatsuki did not need to hear them. In that moment, they were unnecessary.
.oOo.
Mayuri flipped to the final page of Orihime's interrogation report. The description of the final fight was annoyingly bare, but it had enough information that confirmed his theory about the cause of the crater.
They'd found remnants of a curious reiatsu-spear or lance of some kind. From the analysis, he was able to determine that it probably belonged to a very high-ranking arrancar, likely Espada-level. From the report, he was able to gather that the substitute shinigami and one of the arrancars had fought at Las Noches, and the angle of impact demonstrated that Las Noches was almost certainly the origin of attack. But what could the arrancar have been aiming at so far away? Unless acute vision was part of the hollow's skill set and he sensed a threat far away.
"No," he said aloud, to no one in particular. It's more likely that the Espada wasn't skilled enough to handle his weapon. Judging by the damage, something like that would be difficult even for a high-ranking arrancar to control.
If this was the same arrancar who had fought Ichigo on the dome, as the report indicated, then Mayuri could hardly believe his luck! But he had to confirm his hypothesis. He got up from his desk and headed over to the Shinigami Women's Association meeting, where Nemu would be.
Arrangements for a meeting with the Inoue girl must be made immediately.
Author's Note: Apologies for the quality of this chapter. It was not beta-read. If you are interested in being a beta for this, please let me know! Relatively solid grammar skills are preferred. Danke.
