The semester had barely begun, and Orihime was already worried. This wasn't unusual for a college student, and especially one at Karakura University. Stress was a prerequisite.
But her stress didn't come from frantically studying for a quiz ten minutes beforehand, or from mistakenly taking an eight a.m. Monday morning class. Her stress came in the from of a disastrous promotion involving Colonel Sanders. Only a slightly unusual situation compared to her classmates, all things considered.
Tatsuki had apologized after the fact. Her passion for cleanliness led to a moment of weakness, and it nearly cost the theater department a much-needed revenue boost. Orihime was too kind of a friend to take offense. She smiled, gently, and assured Tatsuki that it was okay. They would just need to stay positive and move forward.
Yet, over the following weekend, Orihime couldn't help but find herself staring out of windows and into vacant space, a sigh escaping her lips. A sigh that said many things: tiredness, most likely. But also a lingering oppression of balancing so much at once. Then, she would look at everyone around her. They, too, would be guilty of the same thousand-yard-stares, as if hope had been drained from them the same way the bathrooms drained their wallets. Her smiles garnered weary looks in response.
The theater department was worse. There, it was less of a tired despair and more of a contagious chaos, a mad scramble to be ready in time for their rapidly approaching premiere date. The first play of the school year. Professor Ichimaru reminded them how badly they needed ticket sales in order to buy supplies. Worse, they had to stage a new play without buying any costumes or backdrops. Everybody felt the pressure of it. Questions gently asked received curt answers in return. Peopled snapped at one another over the smallest things. It left Orihime feeling helpless, like a small stormcloud had appeared and floated overhead on her walk back to her dorm.
The QuincyFashion social feed was an escape into a realm of couture and elegance. A world Orihime only wished she could be a part of. Ishida-kun's latest post was a series of runway outfits based on the colors of a parrot. Brilliant crimson, golden yellow, azul blue… They were bright, bold, striking. So colorful! It brought a smile to her face. His posts were a ray of light that cut through the oppressive struggles faced by a student. She smiled.
Then inspiration struck her, along with a new-found determination. She could wear outfits like the ones Ishida-kun talked about online. That was sure to get his attention! He was always so fashionable. Sometimes his tweets were for elaborate outfits and expensive labels that she couldn't hope to have. But sometimes she could get close enough with whatever was her closet. Sometimes she could borrow things from Tatsuki, who didn't care much for fashion. With some creativity, Orihime could devise new ways of mixing-and-matching her way to follow QuincyFashion's style tips.
She hummed to herself, smiling as she walked. It was amazing how such a small thing could shine light on her day and bring joy.
Her admiration was tinged by the smallest drop of envy. She loved that about Ishida-kun. He had the gift of bestowing joy to others with just a post online. Orihime couldn't do anything like that, of course- not with her fifteen followers. If only there was some way she could bring happiness to others. She wondered what Ishida-kun would think.
The idea continued to follow her into the night as she walked to the meeting she thought was the Handicraft Enthusiast's Club, but was actually the Hacking Enthusiast's Club.
As soon as Orihime entered the Hacking Enthusiast's Club meeting room, the air seemed to get cleaner, the lights brighter, and the faint scent of leather wafted faintly. The surfaces gleamed, as new equipment often does, unlike the worn state of the rest of campus. The computers were the nicest Orihime had ever seen. They even lit up with different colors, which she was particularly amazed at.
When asked about the nice room, Striker had knowingly said, 'The school's very generous to us with their budget.' Others in the room had chuckled and smirked.
That was because the school budget was ultimately a set of numbers, logged into a computer system, with very outdated security methods.
It was a fun exercise for Neo.
Normally, they would have felt guilty as a club for taking money away from the school- they weren't heartless, after all. They weren't the other, different kind of hackers, who bought 'hacks' to ruin video games for others.
They were hackers of information; they sought freedom from authority and The Man. They wanted to be able to stream the latest TV shows and movies from other countries whenever they wanted. Sometimes they rigged online polls. (A new bridge in Sydney was named the 'Bridget Bridgerton Bridge'.)
They also wanted good computers to hack with. This was easy, given that the school budget was enough to run a small island nation. No one would notice the paltry amount Neo had allocated their group with a few clicks of a mouse.
From what they could tell from his trips into the system, the school budget was managed by a young child under the age of ten, using their hands to count and deciding to send funds at random. Her name was Charlene, perhaps. And she must have loved the theater, given how much money went towards it.
But that wasn't the HEC's problem.
That night, in the computer lab, many of the HEC members were gathered around a single computer. They smirked, chuckled, and laughed amongst themselves.
Striker looked up and noted Orihime's frown. "What's wrong?"
"Why is everyone so sad? Why isn't anyone happy?" she asked no one in particular. "The school semester's started, and… And we get to see our friends again… But why is everyone so sad?"
"Because the semester started," Striker said. "We've got classes and stupid tests again."
"And we have to pay to use the restroom," Neo chipped in.
"Yeah, that too."
She saw them huddled around a screen intently, smiling and snickering. "What's going on?" Orihime asked.
"We're sending messages across campus," Striker said with a barely withheld chuckle.
"Yeah, we just told some guy he's about to fail his history class!" Neo laughed. Another round of laughs erupted around them.
Orihime was confused. The gesture was well-meaning and helpful, because failing a class was something one needed to know about.
"They don't know it's from us, " Wraith smirked.
"How come? Don't you sign your names in the messages?" she asked.
Striker smiled and took her aside. "We're Anonymous," he said, referring to the infamous hacker group known as 'Anonymous'. They had no formal structure, and anyone with aspirations of hacking could say they were a part of it. The Guy Fawkes masks were optional.
"Oh! Anonymous," Orihime said, referring to the infamous adjective.
She watched over their shoulders as they sent message after message. They showed her how they did it with a couple of downloads and tricks. It wasn't very hard, she realized.
They talked about many things Orihime was surprised to find in the Handicraft club- such as spyware, trojans (not the wooden horse kind, to her disappointment), and viruses. When she asked what it had to do with sewing, she was told it 'was to protect the sewing computer programs they would use later.'
By the end of the meeting, she found herself sitting at a computer of her own. The Karakura University webpage opened by default when she went to browse the internet. Headlines and articles were displayed on the student portal; pictures of students smiling and laughing on campus.
Orihime recognized the woman in one of the photos- someone from her mathematics class. She'd always marveled at the woman's beautifully perfect hair, blonde with amber streaks, flowing in the air like a goddess. Orihime wished her own hair looked so effortless. But she wasn't mad at the woman- she was happy for her. She wondered if the woman knew how lucky she was.
And then, it hit her. Not a physical object (which would have caused some level of discomfort) but an idea so strong it caused her to visibly bolt upright.
Sometimes, people just needed to hear something kind about themselves. Or get some friendly advice. That was how she could do it- she could brighten someone's day, or point them in the right direction, just like the other club members were doing. Just like Ishida-kun. It was perfect!
Using the new techniques taught by her club-mates, she went to work, sending dozens of messages out to students across campus. Compliments and words of encouragement arose from her fingers as they flew across the keyboard in a fever. It was as if she was working for a higher purpose which she did not know. Following the club's instructions, she left the messages unsigned, so they would be from anonymous.
Two hours later, she left the meeting with a smile that earned her odd looks as she skipped back towards her dorm.
That night, a wave of paranoia and unease swept across campus.
"I like your dress?!" A woman read from her phone in horror, her friends looking over her shoulder in captivation. "What a creep!"
"'Your skin is nice?' For what?! Ew!" Another woman shivered, wincing.
"'Slow it down on the road, or you'll regret it,'" a man read quizzically. "Um…"
"This is messed up," a man said to his friends in the gym.
"Shit! I got one, too!" a fellow weightlifter said.
"What a stalker!" a woman cried while sitting on a bench.
"I wish I had your eyes?!" another woman read, grimacing as she sat in a coffee shop. "Ew!"
"Mine just says 'I want your outfit.'"
Dozens more incidents happened all across the school, each of them eliciting some form of cry of disgust, of alarm, of concern. The words of the unknown creeper ruined countless dinners, workouts, bedtime routines, and the occasional jazzercise class.
By the following morning, the news had spread regardless of college or class year. The messages were shared with varying levels of horror and concern. People whispered as they walked. They watched around them warily for whatever monster might lurk nearby, staring, thinking their twisted and disturbed thoughts.
Walking down the sidewalk, Orihime smiled and found it a very sunny and pleasant day.
Three professors sat around a table, shrouded in medium-darkness, in which printed words could be easily read but the light was still dim enough to be considered ominous. They preferred it that way. And it had remained so for their meetings over the past three years. A thick haze permeated the room.
Professor Sousuke Aizen ran a hand through his elegant chestnut hair, leaning with one elbow on the table. On either side of him were fellow teachers Gin Ichimaru and Kaname Tousen.
Aizen was a man who longed to mold the world around him as he saw fit. At the age of eight, he realized he could get candy if he cried at the grocery store. His ambitions continued to steadily grow ever since, graduating to magazines and trips to the fair. But it wasn't merely the act of getting things that fueled him. He saw the way people around him acted, how they spoke. He saw patterns where no one else did, repetitions in people's behaviors that could be exploited to do his bidding. He aspired for great things. He aspired to own the world.
Had Aizen the benefit of several more decades of experience, or perhaps even a century or three, he could have reached the status of master manipulator; an architect who pulled the strings of those around him, all events proceeding according to his plans.
But Aizen, at thirty-seven years of age, had considerably less experience than that. A master he was not. He was, however, Pretty Good.
And being Pretty Good at manipulating others was still a very lucrative endeavor.
Embezzelment often was.
"Status report," Aizen said.
"We've got a corporate sponsor," Gin Ichimaru said with a fox-like grin. "Some chicken chain's givn' us money. And we've got that play coming up."
"Excellent," Aizen said. "I trust you've sold many tickets?"
He shrugged. "We're gettin' there. We didn't spend anything on sets or costumes, like you asked."
"I see."
Kaname Tousen cleared his throat. "There was another donation. I believe it was meant as an incentive for admissions for a student. I've rerouted it early enough before it was noticed. No one saw the full amount."
"Excellent work," Aizen said, forming a bridge with his hands in front of his face. "The donations seem to get bigger every year, don't they?" he smiled.
"Say…." Ichimaru said with a tilt of his head, "how close are we, Aizen?"
Aizen withdrew his phone from a pocket, expertly going to his apps for monitoring figures, his charts, and the latest account balances. "Close," he breathed. "Very close."
"How close?" Tousen asked, leaning forward.
"Four months."
"So close…" Tousen breathed. "Yet, it's been taking so long."
"The funds have been slow to accumulate, yes," Aizen admitted, his face and tone betraying nothing of his true feelings. "The University has increased its financial checks since last year."
"They're watching the numbers more than they should," Tousen said with a shake of his head.
"Almost like they suspect somethin'," said Ichimaru.
"I've done everything the right way," Tousen said defensively. "I've done nothing wrong."
"I didn't say ya did," Ichimaru said with his maddening smirk. "But I think they're onta us."
"Come now, Tousen, Ichimaru," Aizen said, ordering them to calm down in so many words. "Blame is irrelevant. We're almost at our goal, and the end is within our grasp." Aizen leaned onto the table with a single elbow, his chin resting delicately on his hand. "In four months, we'll have enough. We will have victory."
It was true they would reach their goal within four months. Technically, they would reach it in two- if they remained with their original plan. But Aizen's personal plans had changed, in that they now included a motorboat. And that would require a little something extra.
It would be easy enough. His 'extra helpings' on the side helped with that. So long as he was patient.
Students were less than lucrative when it came to blackmail, unfortunately.
"Four months…" Tousen said. "Four months."
"I think I can manage that," Ichimaru said with a shrug.
"One medium three-cheese pizza, and one large supreme pizza," Mary-san said as she entered the room, balancing two large pizza pans. She placed them down on metal stands in the center of the table, the aroma of cheeses, oils, and fresh-cooked meats enveloping the men.
"Thank you, Mary-san." Aizen said with a well-practiced smile. He held up a hand, asking her to wait, and reached into his satchel. He retrieved a small brown paper bag that was filled with paper bills, pulling out a decent amount of yen- a percentage of the order, as a tip- and handed it to Mary-san.
Aizen thought of the mustached student who gave it to him.
She smiled in pleasant surprise and bowed eagerly. "Thanks, Aizen-san! What's this for?"
He smiled, this time devious and yet truthful. "I heard they tip service workers over in America. I'm trying to get into the habit of it."
She shrugged and bowed again, before disappearing out of the private party room and into the main dining area, a hazy room due to poorly ventilated ovens operated by college students.
They wasted no time in claiming their slices of pizza. Nothing was said as they satisfied their appetites and devoured the expertly crafted food. They tore into the layers of tomato sauce and toppings readily, with the ferociousness of starving wolves.
"I didn't want tha' surpreme," Gin said dourly, several bites behind his cohorts.
"And I wanted pineapple," Tousen said with a scowl. "We shoud've gone to Alfredo's."
Aizen narrowed his eyes, still chewing.
"But they sell by the slice," Gin said.
"They sell whole pizzas, too," Tousen said.
"They still charge by the slice," Aizen said, having finished his bite. "It's much more expensive."
"Yeah, what kinda place charges by the slice? Somethin' wrong with them, I tell ya. That Alfredo," Gin said.
"Have you met him?" Aizen asked with a delicately raised brow.
"Nah," Gin shrugged. "Just heard of 'im. But I bet he's sick in the head." Gin sprinkled additional cheese on his pizza. "Chargin' by the slice and all."
"It's a sound business model," Aizen said. Even if that business model included pineapple. Pineapple was a fruit Aizen respected greatly, but it had its proper place. Pizza wasn't worthy of it.
"But everyone can get what they want," Tousen continued, "You can even get half one kind of pizza, and then half of another."
"So I could've gotten the cheeseburger pizza instead of the surpreme?" Gin asked.
Tousen, mid-chew, nodded.
"Cease your prattle," Aizen said. "Alfredo's is too expensive. And we need to be mindful of our funds. I shouldn't need to remind you of that," he said with a deadly gaze.
A tense three-way stare befell them. Finally, Aizen's associates averted their eyes.
He took a final bite of his pizza, which was not bought individually but part of a sensibly priced large pizza. Aizen dabbed carefully at his mouth with a napkin.
Aizen inclined his head backwards, just slightly, enough to see the picture on the wall behind Ichimaru's head. It was a travel poster that was adorned with brightly colored tropical flowers, palm trees, woman clad in hula skirts, and coconuts. Crystalline beaches of the purest blue water. The soft lull of a ukulele singing calming tunes that were carried by the ocean breeze.
There were many mysterious things in Hawaii. He'd heard they had a type of coconut pancakes there. And something called a 'Pasta Salad'. It was pasta, but served cold. And a pineapple plantation that had unique music. Surely, the land was filled with many other such wonders that he'd yet to read about.
Four months. That's all it would take. Then, they would have enough. He would have enough.
Aizen would be there, lounging on the beach just like the poster. The rest of his life would be an extended vacation. Days of sunshine, of crystalline waters, of rustling palms and the sigh of ocean tides. The drinks would have those little colored umbrellas in them. He'd have a woman wait on him while wearing a coconut bra. Her name would be Charlene, perhaps.
Aizen couldn't wait to meet her.
Author's Note: We're slowly getting towards the halfway point! And we're just starting to hit some of the reveals and twists. (Don't worry- there's more of that to come.) :)
Thank you everyone for reading so far!