This is a companion chapter for my main story Golden Thorns, if you have not read it this might not make much sense but I'm sure you can connect the dots!

Summary for Golden Thorns: Orihime is the Heir to the Golden Throne and she has been trained since birth to fight and defend. Her father the King, has shown her nothing but hatred and torment, leaving her with scars that run deep. But when a rebellion begins to build, and she notices a certain orange haired rebel trailing her every step, she will soon learn the world isn't as cruel as she thought.

WARNING: THIS STORY HAS DARK THEMES INCLUDING VIOLENCE, SEXUAL ASSAULT AND TRAUMA. PLEASE READ WITH CAUTION IF THESE THING MAY UPSET YOU

I do not own bleach or any of its characters!

Lets jump in!


The candle light cast a pale orange light around the room. And regardless of the pouring rain outside my window I felt cozy and warm.

I looked up over the spine of my book, glancing at Ichigo who longed in the chair across from mine, his eyes scrunched together as he read. I watched his expression grow more and more focused and I wondered what was happening in his book that had him so engrossed.

I chuckled under my breath and his eyes snapped to mine.

"Something funny?" he asked.

I only laughed again, low and quiet, "No,"

He narrowed his gaze at me, and I pretended to ignore him, attention on my book.

"What is it you're reading?"

I lifted the book from my lap, showing him the cover, "It's a tragedy."

Ichigo scoffed, throwing his head back, "Why are you always so focused on things like that? Why don't you read about something happy for a change?"

"What, like you? What are you reading, then?"

He stood and walked over to me, laying his book open over mine, "Take a look for yourself,"

I glared at him, before reading a few lines. My cheeks flamed and I pushing it from my lap onto the floor, "You did not get that from my shelves,"

Ichigo laughed as he bent to pick up his romance novel, "If I had I would have died of shock." he raised an eyebrow at me, "What's the matter, Princess? You look flushed, should I open a window?"

I glared harder as he plopped himself back into his chair, grinning. He went back to reading, and I couldn't help but stare at him as he did. "How can you read something like that with someone else in the room?"

He didn't look up, "It's easy. Here I'll show you," clearing his throat he read, "My stomach flared with heat. I quivered, engulfed, as he pushed his manhood into me. Pain mingled with pleasure and I arched-"

"Enough!" My face was its own flame, rivaling the candles.

He only laughed, satisfied with my embarrassment. He continued to read, this time in silence. I stared toward my wide balcony, watching the rainfall in the luminance of the moon. Many moments passed before I said, "I don't remember it that way at all,"

The air seemed to drain out of the room, and I felt Ichigo's steel attention fall on me but I didn't glance away from the moon, deep in thought.

Ichigo spoke softly, his words filled with something I couldn't place, "I don't imagine you would. They are very different things."

I couldn't imagine it at all, those differences. "The pain sounds familiar,"

"Orihime, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have-"

"No. That's not-" I struggled for the right words, the right tone, "I've just never really spoken about it before," But with the soft sound of rain, and the glowing candlelight… I did not feel so afraid to.

I still couldn't look at him, I knew I would lose this odd sense of anonymity if I did. "I'm not a porcelain doll. I'm a woman too."

He spoke slowly, "I know you are," when I didn't respond he continued, "It isn't meant to be that. Real men would never make you afraid, would never hurt you."

I finally placed that edge to his voice, fury.

I found the courage to look at him then, "And how do I tell the real men apart from the imposters? You all look the same."

His face was contoured with shadows, and his throat bobbed as he swallowed. I knew he had nothing left to say, knew he had no way to reassure me.

And despite the weight now in Ichigo's posture, the hard clench of his jaw, I felt lighter. Nearly like I had unclenched a fist deep inside my mind. I hadn't realized how I'd been holding so tightly to the illusion. Hadn't realized I'd been using so much energy to keep myself from imploding.

"Will you follow me somewhere?" I ask him suddenly.

He didn't hesitate, "Anywhere,"

Clad in our cloaks, we walked through the dark and empty court. I led him past the throne room, the library and the infirmary. And when we reached the descending staircase, Ichigo wiggled a torch from its perch and waited for me to take my first step downwards.

With a steeling breath I did. Each step feeling heavier than the rest. I felt as if I would never reach the bottom, and I doubted suddenly if I ever wanted to.

Yet regardless of my doubt, we came to a stop at what felt like the bottom of the world.

I lingered at the narrow archway, carved into mountain rock.

The rain had seeped through the hood of my cloak but it was the tingle in my teeth and fingertips that made me want to shiver, and I clenched them both until I thought my teeth would crack and my bones would snap.

Ichigo stood close behind, just close enough so that I could feel the brush of his sleeve against my shoulder when he breathed. I tried to center my focus to that small contact, training my breaths to match his until the tingling had dissipated to a slight numbness.

I could see the first step of the winding staircase that would bring me face to face with a darkness so thick it could choke the life from a person and the thought of willingly stepping into it made me want to vomit.

A creeping hand of wicked claws dripping in black muck reached out from the shadows, ready to snatch me back into them.

I flinched back, my shoulder colliding with Ichigo's bringing me to a sudden stop. Yet the shadows remained still, revealed to be empty.

His fingers wound their way into mine, and I clenched them quickly. Calming the shaking in my limbs with his stillness.

Yet still, he said nothing.

"It is only an entrance-" I forced out through trembling lips, "only a door," And here I am, shaking like a newborn buck- I wanted to bash my face into the stone; to break it apart with my very skull. "In my memories, my dreams, it is only a crack in the earth. An unnatural crevice that I was pulled into," I looked at it again with ancient, tired eyes, "Yet it is only stone and cast iron the same as any other."

"It is not the same,"

I nodded mutely. No, not the same at all.

Would it all be different from my memory? A room made of stone and nothing more? The shadows, dark and empty?

I leveled my chin, and tightened my hold on Ichigo's hand, and took my first step.

I focused on nothing but the pulse I felt in the tips of his fingers and putting one foot before the other. The staircase was over long before I felt it should be. Not as far beneath the earth that this place deserved to be.

The first stretch of room was cells made of iron bars, all empty. Having been too long since my father had taken any prisoners.

The light from Ichigo's torch did not stretch far, but I knew my way. Passed the cells, behind the guard stations and then farther still.

The door was larger than I remembered somehow. I reached up to touch the wall beside it, and Ichigo lifted his torch higher.

I stroked my hand over the bloody marks long dried out. They were wild and long, small fingers gripping and then being pulled back, I stared at the violent scratches where my nails had dug in.

A flash of memory- being pulled by the neck, air strangled out, and reaching for anything, anything-

I let my hand drop.

"Say the word, and we leave." Ichigo said, deadly soft. "Say the word, and I burn this place to the ground."

"No," A shudder of breath, and then I steeled my gaze on the door before me, "It's time I face it,"

The smell of the room was that of copper and salt. Of dirt and rust. It was what I noticed first, and what I remembered most vividly. And when I breathed in, I could smell the stench on their breaths.

I locked my jaw to keep from sobbing outright, but the shudder of my body was beyond any control. I half expected Ichigo to pull his hand free from mine, as I crushed his fingers so tightly they must be screaming, but he did not. Instead, he pressed himself closer behind me, the front of his shoulder flush with the back of mine. And the smell of him filled my chest, my head.

It gave me enough strength to blink past my tears and look about the room I had never really escaped.

It was large, and misshapen, a small two step landing to the left, with chairs and a table, cups and plates still littered across it as if all signs of life had simply vanished on the wind. There was a long wooden table to the right, a number of tools thrown about hastily atop the narrow space.

And in the center of it all, a slab of stone with a sheeting of steel folded over it. The steel appeared to be copper at first glance, but the color of blood was hard to misidentify when you'd bathed so thoroughly in it.

I ran a finger over the slab, half expecting the blood to part underneath my touch.

My foot kicked something solid, and I nearly let go of Ichigo's hand to bend down to it. Fingers loosening only slightly before clenching down again desperately.

"I won't let go," he promised.

I nodded, then lowered. The chain was heavy, the manacle awkward in my small hand, but I heaved it onto the steel, and ran a hand over the coolness of it.

The flicker of light slid over my wrist, illuminating the scars left by these very chains.

"I would scrape my wrists against the shackles until I bled. I'd do it when I wasn't sure if I was dreaming- or dead," I choked on the words.

The hand still holding mine shifted slightly, until his thumb brushed my inner wrist, I wasn't sure if it was in comfort or to feel for himself how rigged those scars were.

Staring down at the bloodied steel, standing where they stood as they took so much of myself away from me… I could hardly breathe. I had been only a child, and I could still feel their hands on me, still hear their laughs as I cried out for help, as I begged them to kill me.

Hisagi's words rang into my head; The crushing weight of wanting to die.

I had been buckling under the weight of it for years, ever since they dragged me down here, since they'd broken me so thoroughly I hadn't been sure any part of me would truly heal again.

And I couldn't hold it in any longer, "I can live with what they have done, I can heal from the torture, the rape, the rage…" That rage simmered up to the surface, coating my throat with its oil, "It was what they'd made me do that I can never forget, never forgive. How they'd made me grovel, for a mercy I knew would never come. I will never forget what it was like to dream of death, of release. Never forget being thirteen, standing on the balcony of my rooms, ready to fall head first into the marble so far below."

His hand loosened, only for a second, "Orihime,"

"It was there, teetering on the edge of the death I had craved for so long, that I'd had a realization. That they had been merely a cover for the world, they had been just a fragment of the whole. And it didn't matter that I had taken them apart, that they had turned into the begging sheep. It didn't matter at all if this world, where my father had power, still survived and thrived.

"And so I lowered myself back down to the ground, and swore to myself that when Morta came for my father, that I'd be there to smile over his corpse."

I felt as if I were burning, with anger, with grief, with glorious purpose.

I felt consumed.

"Did you count the days?" Ichigo spoke, his grip tightening.

I was glad for the question, glad for his voice. It pulled me through the sludge. "No. I had no interest in what the sun was doing so far from my reach. And even if I had, there was no way of keeping track of such things. Every second felt like hours, each day, years."

I ventured to the table of tools, not daring to touch them.

"When did you sleep?"

"A few minutes at a time. The best rest came when they let me bleed too long and I'd pass out." I studied the wall of small knives, "I remember trying not to scream, so they'd try harder, cut deeper. Then I knew I could rest,"

"I'm sure the unconsciousness never lasted long enough,"

I shook my head, "No. I realize now that I'd begun to hallucinate due to the exhaustion," and blood loss, "The men- they were monsters, with sharp claws and dripping teeth. Some had fur, like a bear, while others were all skin, wrinkled and grainy." I pushed past the tremor with a clench of my teeth.

While I regained myself, Ichigo reached his free hand toward a rusty saw, a long finger stroking over the metal in curiosity. I yanked him back, "Don't," I gasped, frantically grabbing at his hand, "Did it cut you?"

His eyes were wide, "No. No it barely touched me,"

My chest heaved, "Don't- Don't touch it." The evil of it, of this place, would cling to him. Torment him, as it torments me.

He stroked my wrist again, and I tried to breathe, "I won't touch it. I'm sorry." I could feel my hand shaking in his grip. His words were quiet, "I'm sorry."

I nodded, pressing my shoulder to his. Up and down. In and out.

Towering libraries and silk sheets. Fresh fruit and hot tea.

"I'm sorry," I said, finally, "I didn't expect to feel this way." Irrational. That's what I was, so clouded by my fear that I was suffocating on it.

"You control this, I should have thought before I did that."

Rain. Water and sky and a world beyond this stone.

"What did you dream of?" Ichigo asked, carefully, "while you slept,"

I studied him for the first time since entering the pits. His skin still had that sunshine glow even so far below ground, but his eyes were cloudy and dim.

Tears filled my eyes quickly, but they did not overfill, "I saw my brother and I dreamed of our training days."

"Why do you think that is?"

"He- the trails had only just happened. I was grieving him… He was all I'd known of love," Sora- closest to me in age and the kindest of any royal I've ever met. He had tucked me into bed, and cleaned out my cuts. He had kissed my cheek and combed my hair. I had loved him from my very first memory of him, to my last.

And he had deserved better.

"I'm sorry you lost him,"

It was the first time anyone had said so. Since the trials I had always been congratulated for my victory. Praised for my veracity. "Thank you," and I meant it.

Looking around the cell again, I confessed, "Speaking about it seems almost like talking about a character in some book. Someone separate from me, but still a part of me somehow... It's only the terror vibrating in my skin that reminds me the girl chained to that stone wasn't fiction. That it was me."

"It must be something the mind does to protect itself. To pretend the horror is separate, so it doesn't cripple us."

I met his eyes, "Is this how it is for you, too?"

He shook his head, "I can't pretend it's the same kind of horror."

I squeezed his hand, "It doesn't have to be the same to hurt just as strongly."

He looked away, swallowing.

The quiet that seeped in was as silent as the grave, it was thick and made me want to claw at my own throat.

"She loved me,"

I looked back at him. His jaw was set and his eyes were dry, but he clenched at my hand as desperately as I'd been clenching his and it told me enough.

"She had. She'd just mixed us up, that's all. Until she didn't know where her hate for him ended and her love for me began."

"Why did she hate him?"

Ichigo glanced at me, surprised, "I don't know. Maybe she'd always hated him, and I'd just been too young to see it. Maybe she'd loved him too much and he hadn't loved her near enough." His fingers tightened around mine, "Or maybe she hated him because he'd left her alone. Left her to live in a world without him."

"But he didn't choose it, he died."

"Grief is a demon with many faces. It never appears the same to everyone,"

I stared blankly at the room around me, and nodded.

"It wasn't all bad," he continued, "there were such great days too. So bright that even when I look back on them with adult eyes I can still see the happiness."

Looking at his face in the darkness, I couldn't find any words to comfort him. And he didn't look at me like he was expecting any, he just held firmly to me.

I wondered if he was similar to me in that way. If he didn't require comforting lies but just reassuring presence; to not be alone.

Even still, I said, "I'm sorry for your past, Ichigo, but I am glad it led you here," Ichigo stared carefully down at me, as I smiled at him despite my surroundings, "I am glad to have met you."

He slowly brought our joined hands up, using the back of his hand to brush my cheek, "I am happy to have met you too,"

And there, in the darkness of my past, a new, foreign light began to glow. From around me and inside me, and swallowed me whole.

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This is just a scene I have not been able to get out of my mind, and I felt that it deserved to be shared.

I hope you enjoyed it too