Orihime slept like the dead. When she finally woke, she devoured the long-cold remains of her curry fries, which she had stowed in the bedside table drawer, afraid that Ulquiorra or one of the others would whisk them away like they had her personal clothes. Not for the first time, she missed her school sweater—the damp stony chill of the air here never completely went away, even under the milk-white coverlet on her bed. The fabric would have smelled like home, and maybe…a little like Ichigo's room…
But she learned pretty quickly to steer her mind away from Ichigo, as well as Rukia or Tatsuki. Now that she was fed and apparently not in imminent danger of starving to death anytime soon, her mind returned to them over and over. It was like worrying a loose tooth with her tongue. She hadn't missed anyone so fiercely since her brother died. It hurt to poke at the memory of them, and particularly the one of saying goodbye to Ichigo, but it hurt to leave it alone, too, and if one kind of hurt was more bearable than the other, she couldn't tell which one it was.
She slept for a long time, long enough that her joints were stiff and aching when she finally woke. She dressed gingerly on the other side of her bed, throwing shifty glances at the doorless entrance to her room. Not that she expected that the Espada had so little to do that they'd stoop to peeping on a human girl, she thought—she just didn't want to be caught unawares.
Why do you feel the need to jump to the defense of the people who kidnapped and starved you? an obnoxiously reasonable voice in her head demanded. Not to mention they're literally excited about trying to kill your friends. She squashed it. Getting angry was pointless…wasn't it?
"If you're done," a voice said from the door, and Orihime spun around, "Lord Aizen is waiting."
Between one furtive glance and the next while she pulled on her skirt, Ulquiorra had appeared in the hallway. He stood in his usual spot just outside the room, like it pained him to step inside. Not that she minded. Doors meant nothing when it came to power like he and the other Arrancars weilded—but it would have been nice to have a shade—or even the false appearance—of privacy.
More to the point, she clearly wasn't done. Her tunic-like top and wide belt were still draped over the side of the bed, and she was concealed only by a tight, sheer undergarment like a shift or a camisole. Apparently bras weren't a thing in Hueco Mundo, big surprise there. Ulquiorra stared at her, expression never changing, even when his eyes dropped to her chest. She felt herself turn bright, raging red before going a sickly cold as he stepped inside and walked toward her. She grasped at the bedclothes to cover herself, then threw a barrier between her and him. The bedclothes did nothing to make her feel better, nor did the barrier, which Ulquiorra shattered with barely a gesture.
But he stopped at the edge of the bed and didn't advance any further, only peered at her. Preparing analysis…or something?
She shook herself. What did it matter what his intentions were? Part of her wanted to shout at him to leave, but the larger part was frozen with fear.
He stopped staring at her eventually and turned away, impassive as ever, while she finished dressing in a rush and followed him out of the room and through another series of halls and stepped corridors. It was cold here, and getting colder, but her face burned the whole way. She kept her arms crossed over her chest, though Ulquiorra never once glanced in her direction.
They arrived a few minutes later at a huge, airy chamber with a round fireplace at the center. It was real fire this time—not Kido light or any other spectral fire-stuff—and Orihime almost ran to it. But Aizen stood beside it, his back to them as they came through the door. Orihime held herself in check and clasped her blue-nailed hands together in front of her stomach.
"So," Aizen said without turning around. "How'd it go?"
"No measurable change in behavior, Lord Aizen. Other than signs of evident human discomfort, which…" he trailed off. His eyes darted to Orihime and away. She stood as still as possible.
"Which, what?" Aizen prompted, and turned around to seat himself on the lip of the fireplace. He nodded to her—an I'll-be-with-you-in-a-moment glance—but looked back at Ulquiorra expectantly, like a teacher mid-pop-quiz.
"Which one could classify, given the ability of humans to communicate desires relatively efficiently through facial expression and gesture, as an improvement, if pressed."
"Only if pressed?"
"I do not consider it adequate, my Lord."
"Hm," Aizen murmured, and nodded again. "Nor do I." He flicked a hand in the direction of the door, and Ulquiorra retreated without another word.
Orihime had expected Aizen to question her next, though she had no idea what about, or to maybe demand another demonstration of her abilities. Instead, he only sat on the edge of the fireplace and waited. She hadn't moved from where she'd stopped at the door, almost fifteen feet away. The cold was seeping into her feet through her thin-soled slippers. She hugged herself as the temperature dropped more and more, and looked longingly at the cheery flames dancing in the fireplace.
She thought of the food they'd brought for her next—barriered and in flames—and how she'd had to…what? Earn it? There was no ability she could demonstrate here to bring the fire closer, or disperse the heat more evenly through the room.
Apparently Aizen had all day, because they stood like that for what felt like hours before Orihime asked temorously, "Can I assist you with something, Lord Aizen?"
"That remains to be seen," Aizen countered evenly. "In the meanwhile, tell me what you want."
"You summoned me, Lord Aizen."
"And you came. And now I'm asking—what do you want?"
She was lost. Was he asking why she was here, or…"Do you mean…in general?"
He nodded.
"I—," she began, but stopped. I want to go home. The answer was as obvious as it was pointless. Aizen seemed to read her thoughts.
"Start small. Walk, don't run."
A small want, then? "It is rather cold in here, Lord Aizen."
"And…" he waved one hand languidly to encourage her.
"And I would like to be…warm?"
"Would you?"
Despite everything, this was getting annoying. Nobody past the third grade thought these kind of gotcha games were clever. And that was coming from her.
"I want to be warm," she said, evening her tone.
"Alright," Aizen said, in a slighty infuriating now, was that so hard? tone.
They looked at each other for a while, and finally Orihime shivered and lost her nerve under the scrutiny.
"Am I dismissed, Lord Aizen?"
"Only if you really have to be told to take what you want, Miss Inoue."
"I—what?"
He raised his eyebrows expectantly but didn't repeat himself. She played his words back…she would be dismissed, which she gathered would not be a good thing, if she had to be told to do what she wanted. She wanted to leave, sure, but what she'd stated she wanted was to be warm.
She walked forward, knees shaking, and stopped a few feet from the fireplace. The air was dry here, and the rich crackling wood smelled like a summer night of fireworks with Tatsuki. Orihime's throat closed up, but she staunched the tears before they started.
"You very nearly lost that round, Miss Inoue," Aizen said, standing beside her now.
"Round?" she looked up at him and shuffled one step away as delicately as she could.
"Mhm. You lost the one with Ulquiorra earlier, it sounds like. It would have been a shame to forfeit two in a row."
"That was—you told him to do that? To—watch me?" She felt her face flush again as he nodded. At least he was watching the fire. She held her freezing hands out and crowded closer to the heat.
"Not in so many words. I told him to test your boundaries, and to see if you would defend them, then to bring you to me and report on his findings. Evidently, you failed."
Orihime ground her teeth. The Hime in her head told her this was another example of poor behavior, and she stopped.
"Do you disagree?"
He was facing her now, leaning one hip casually against the fireplace, arms crossed. She didn't have to look at him to know he was smiling.
"He is an Espada. Someone like me has no defense against him." She thought of the shattered barrier and shuddered. Luckily he was basically a robot, acting only on orders, or no telling how far he would have gone.
"If you're thinking of defense in only physical terms, then you're right. The percentile of beings that can stand up to Ulquiorra without being instantly crushed is vanishingly small. Currently, you are not in that percentile."
Something about his phrasing brought her up short, but before she could ask, he'd moved on.
"Regardless of the level of confrontation, or the means or severity or stakes, defense and attack both start with one thing: desire. Without a solid grasp of what you want, you've already lost the fight. Since you seem to be a bit ouf of practice with knowing what you want, to say the least, we have deliberately put you in several uncomfortable or compromising situations since you came here to guage your—you might call it, strength of personality." He chuckled appreciatively. "Given the research I had done on you, I'm not surprised food was the most effective ice-break."
Orihime stood stock still, rigid as a butterfly speared by a pin. She had been researched? She kept waiting for Aizen to get to the part where this was all about Ichigo, or Rukia and the Hogyoku, or maybe even Chad. About how he'd gone for the weakest link in the chain of his enemies, and had come up with her by default.
"If you'd done your research," she said, before she could stop herself, "you'd know that I'm the only one of my friends who can't fight."
"I'm going to correct your phrasing, Miss Inoue, and I must ask you not to deflect it this time." His words were neutral, but his tone grew sharp and severe. "You are the only one of your friends who is told not to, and who actually listens." His eyes cut her down to the quick.
"What?" she whispered.
Aizen conjured an image Orihime recognized at once. The field of dead bodies around the crater Yammy and Ulquiorra had created on their first advance into Karakura. She flinched away at the sight of Tatsuki's body, barely clinging to life, beside where Orihime herself stood with Chad in the image, but Aizen moved to stand behind her. He gripped her by the shoulders and held her in place. "Watch carefully."
The image became a film, playing from Ulquiorra's perspective. Orihime shuddered as she watched herself run toward the closest prone figure and prepare her rejection field.
"Leave him, Inoue," Chad's deep voice rumbled. "He is already dead." As the Origime of the film began to protest, Chad said again, more forcefully: "There's nothing you can do."
Orihime felt the shame and fear from that day wash over her again, burning her skin. The movie stalled and faded away, but Aizen did not release her.
"Tell me what happened there," he said softly. His breath shifted her hair around her clips.
"The man was dead," Orihime said miserably, reliving the moment in all its pain and fear. "The only thing I could do was get Tatsuki away."
"No," Aizen said. "That's what you were told, and it was what you believed. The reality of the situation was quite different. Your instincts told you to use your power. Your friend told you not to, that it wouldn't work. Which one did you obey?"
When Orihime didn't answer, Aizen turned her to face him. He tilted her chin up but she couldn't meet his eyes. "Which one, Orihime?"
"I—Chad was right, just like Mr. Urahara—" Tears began to spill onto Orihime's cheeks as guilt and shame clenched around her heart like a vice.
"Sado," Aizen said disgustedly, refusing to use the nickname, "knows even less about your power than he does his own, which is saying something. His simplicity of mentality is admirable only as long as he reserves such judgements for himself."
"Then—what are you saying? That I—?"
Aizen nodded gravely. "Yes, you could have saved him. And if anyone had had the sense to train you sooner, you could have saved all of them."
All of them…? Orihime's brain refused to process this. The regret was too deep—it would swallow her up.
"Urahara, on the other hand," Aizen continued, savoring , "is far more canny. He figured out your true potential shortly after you left Seireitei a few months ago, and he knew I'd notice. His mistake wasn't in attempting to take you off the playing board—that was a legitimate enough move in itself. It was in framing his true concerns in the only terms he thought you would understand: your evident self-loathing and your insecurity as part of a team. Ironically enough, if he'd been able to stop underestimating you and just trust you for even one minute, he would have seen that the better option was to simply tell you the truth."
"The truth?" Orihime looked up into Aizen's eyes for the first time, but she had no idea what he'd see looking back. She felt like a house being stripped down to its beams by a high wind. She could only hope it died down before it ripped up the foundation. "Tell me."
Aizen smiled. "The truth is that I'm not interested in your ability to mend the cuts and scrapes of some and poke small holes in others. I didn't borrow you as a way to fluster Ichigo or compromise his health. The truth is that at full strength, you'll either be my single greatest threat, or my most promising ally. You're here because I'm apparently the only one who intends to find out which you want to be."