Author's Note: Hello everyone! (blushes and shuffles feet) I know, I know, it's been months since I've updated, and I'm really really sorry. I was in South America building houses and helping starving people, so is that a good enough excuse? I got to play with adorable little Latin American children, and give them candy. It was wonderful. Anyhow, this chapter, long, long awaited chapter, is Orihime again. Stark's already kidnapped her, She's had the creep fest with Aizen (which I might do from Aizen's point of view, what do you think?), and now Ulquiorra's there and Orihime's all like, "Crap I'm gonna die." So... yeah.

13:

Kaleidoscope Heart

It's funny, Orihime thinks to herself, how different colors can be directly linked to each and every important point of her admittedly short life.

When she was younger, still living with Sora in the too-small apartment, her life had been drenched in yellow. Yellow is the happiest color of them all, Orihime firmly believes, so it only makes sense that the very happiest time of her life would be connected to the buttery color in her head. All of the memories of her brother before his death are tinged with yellow, the color of sunshine, the color of joy. And it's funny, because when Orihime thinks about it, she realizes that she hasn't felt that same happiness, hasn't felt yellow, for a very long time. Not even with Ichigo. It's funny, except that when Orihime stops to think about it, it isn't really funny at all.

Black. Black is another color that Orihime remembers only too well. Except that, really, black isn't a color at all, is it? It's the absence of color, a deep dark void that no light can ever brighten. Black is the absence of life, and hope, and love. Black is the absence of everything. Black is fear, black is despair, black is empty. Cold and empty and painful. Black is a car crash, and waiting after school for hours for someone that will never come home again, black is screaming and clinging to a body on a stretcher. Black is cold dead hands and a blank dead face. Black is the color of funerals, even though there wasn't one for Sora, wasn't even enough money for a tombstone. Orihime doesn't mind so much about the funeral; no one would have come anyway. So she went to school, and did her homework, and lived all by herself in the small apartment that suddenly seemed to big, and every time she went home from school and ate dinner all alone in a room that was empty it hurt, the Black followed. For months, Black was all Orihime had known, until the pit of nothing inside her her had faded into gray, and she began to move on, to smile and pretend to be happy again. She had lived in that gray for years, a gray that not even Ichigo could take away, gray covered with a yellow facade of happiness so forced and fake that Orihime honestly didn't know how anyone could believe it. But they did. And life went on, and no one noticed. Until the Red.

Red was a color Orihime had always loved. It looked good on her, brought out her silver eyes and pale skin. Red was the color of energy, vibrancy and passion. She had forgotten it was also the color of blood. Claws wrapped around her, stabbing into her, a chain connected to her body lying a few feet away, staring into the glowing ruby eyes of the person she loved most in all the world, Orihime thought vaguely that she would never love the color red again.

Orange was a color that Orihime looked on with perhaps the most fondness. It always reminded her a bit of Ichigo, truth be told, and it was also the color of her long hair, a symbol of her promise to Tatsuki. Whenever Ichigo was around her, the many other colors swarming inside her and around her calmed and stilled, and a peaceful, comfortable orange washed over everything. So Orihime did her best to spend as much time around Ichigo as she could, wanting to sooth away the other, painful colors, wanting to forget; have them banished away by the natural ease that Ichigo always seemed to produce. She had never expected to fall in love with him, however. That was something no one could have predicted.

Blue was a color that Orihime looked on with mixed feelings. Blue was a melancholy color, and the times in her life when she had been painted with it on the inside were not happy ones, but they were the times in her life when she had been able to see things most clearly, for what they really were. They were lonely times. Like waking up on Christmas eager to run out to the tree and open presents with Sora, only to remember that Sora is gone and there is no tree. Celebrating every birthday before she met Tatsuki alone, every New Years. Loving Ichigo. Never knowing if Ichigo loved her back. Loving Rukia. Seeing her with Ichigo, the careless ease they have around each-other making her heart hurt. Is she not good enough for Ichigo? Is it because she's ugly? Too tall? Too curvaceous? Is it her personality? Maybe he doesn't like girls that are clumsy, or ones that space off and say crazy things. But doesn't he know she only does those things so that no one will ever look close enough at her to tell how twisted and broken she is inside? Does he see? What is wrong with her, is she not a good enough person?

These thoughts are always there in the back of her head when Orihime is blue, and she wonders if they'll ever go away. If she'll ever be able to work past her insecurities and low self worth. Because if Ichigo won't help her, who will?

White. White is the opposite of black, because where black is the absence of color, white is the presence of all of it. White used to be Orihime's very favorite color, because if you took it and refracted it you would see every color of the rainbow. Now it is the color Orihime hates most of all. White is nothingness, white is even more empty and cold then black, even more unfeeling. White is no color, no happy colors or sad colors, not even the horrible ones. White is nothing. And when Orihime finds herself trapped in a world of it, she finds herself losing her grip on sanity. The only thing that keeps her aware, that reminds her that outside this Hollow World there is life, there is color of every kind, is her own orange hair, and a pair of vibrant green eyes.

Green. The last color in the spectrum, in the swirling mass of everything inside Orihime's small body. Green was a color she had never given much thought to before, a color she had never really particularly liked or hated. Now she loved it, thought it was beautiful. Sometimes thinking about the reasons behind this made her uneasy, sometimes she accepted it. She loved the color green, an exact shade of green, to be specific, and Orihime's never been one to lie to herself; it's because of Ulquiorra's eyes. There's something in them that Orihime has never seen before, something alien and strange and wonderful. Orihime thinks she will go on liking green for the rest of her life.

She ponders these things, these many colors, as she stands alone in the great white hall inside Las Noches, waiting to die. Ulquiorra strides slowly down the corridor towards her, and Orihime briefly wonders what dying feels like. Is there an elsewhere? A heaven? Will she go there? Is she good enough to? Will Ichigo miss her, will he even know she's gone? These thoughts swirl around inside her, and for a moment Orihime is afraid. Then, slowly but steadily, color builds behind her eyes. All the different colors of her life, all the different memories and loved ones explode in a tornado of brilliance, and it's beautiful, so beautiful that it's hard to look at. Like a Kaleidoscope. And this is what's been inside of her all along, Orihime realizes, a rainbow built from sorrow and hurt and happiness and love. A Kaleidoscope heart. That's what she has.

"Are you afraid, girl?"

"No."

R&R, please, and once again so sorry about the wait. Also, go see Harry Potter 7 part two if you haven't yet, Alan Rickman's acting! UCULYCLUYGILVJYVJHVJ HVKC I can't even...