Here's your Saturday update! Enjoy!
Uryū sighed heavily as he walked toward his home from the fabric store. It was getting late but there were some important pieces he needed to finish before school the next day. A few girls in the Handicrafts Club had asked him to demonstrate how he made clothes and so he would show them the finished product before actually showing them how to do it and that meant a long night of sewing and stitching.
The streets were unusually dark despite the overhead lights and there was a natural chill in the air leaving the whole area feeling less than pleasant. He picked up his pace, eager to get home and finish his project. That was when he noticed a figure a few feet ahead of him. As he drew nearer he saw with shock that the figure was none other than Orihime, wearing a hospital gown no less.
He kicked into a sprint and rushed over to her, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Inoue-san! Are you alright?"
Orihime's gaze fell to Uryū. "You."
Uryū blinked down at the girl curiously. "Yes, me. What are you doing out here? You must be freezing! Here..." He sat down the bag he was carrying and pulled off his jacket. He draped it over her shoulders and pulled it close across her chest. "You're barely clothed. What are you doing walking the street barefoot and in a hospital gown?" He looked at her face and noticed for the first time the stitched up gash on the side of her head. "What happened? Are you alright?"
A smile crossed Orihime's face and her hand rose to clasp over Uryū's left hand. "How is your hand feeling? All better, I see."
"What?" Uryū stared down at her in confusion before he felt her grip tighten violently over his hand. "Inoue-san... that hurts!"
Orihime's eyes narrowed on Uryū dangerously. "You're just as guilty as she is. You tried to make her forget. Helped her to forget. You're just as much at blame."
"Inoue-san, stop it." Uryū tugged his hand out of her grasp and gripped her shoulders. "What's going on?" He stared into her eyes and for a moment the hateful glare she gave him vanished.
"I... Ishida-kun, I..." Orihime looked up at her friend as tears welled up in her eyes before she began to glance around. "Where are we?"
"Inoue-san, we're on the street." Uryū looked to her with concern. "You don't remember?"
"No. I..." Orihime began to search frantically around before everything began to grow dark.
Uryū put a hand to Orihime's head and felt that she was burning hot. "Inoue-san, you're sick. Come with me. I'll take you to my father's hospital."
"You can't help her." Orihime tugged away from Uryū but the action only sent her backward into a nearby wall. Her head collided with the hard brick and she quickly lost all consciousness.
Uryū knelt down beside his friend and tapped her face gently. "Inoue-san? Inoue-san!"
...
Ichigo groaned as he heard his phone buzzing on his desk. He sat up and grabbed the phone grumpily and looked down at the number that was calling. "Ishida? What does he want this late at night?" He pressed his phone against his ear and sighed. "Yeah?"
"Kurosaki, meet me at the hospital now. It's about Inoue-san. She's sick."
Ichigo furrowed his brow as he began rubbing the sleep out of one eye. "Inoue? What are you talking about? She's here at the clinic."
"Well, that explains the hospital gown she was wearing when I picked her up on the side of the street."
"What?" Ichigo jumped to his feet and bolted downstairs and into the clinic but sure enough, Orihime's bed was empty with the sheets thrown carelessly to the side. "What was she doing on the street? Did she say?"
"She didn't say. Kurosaki, she wasn't herself. She was saying strange things and she even tried to injure me. When I offered to help her she shoved me away."
Ichigo sighed. Just like what had happened with him and Tatsuki earlier. "Alright. I'll be there soon." He hung up the phone and rushed back up the stairs, speedily dressing and then out into the night. He rushed to the hospital where he was told that Orihime had a whole floor to herself. When he arrived on the top floor he heard the sound of screaming and thrashing coming from a room just down the hall from the elevator. He ran to it to find Uryū standing outside. "What's wrong?"
Uryū looked to Ichigo with worry. "I'm not sure. She started acting like this as soon as I told her you were coming."
"We can't just leave her in there by herself!" Ichigo started into the room but Uryū held up an arm to keep him back.
"She has nurses in there that are equipped to deal with this sort of behavior. They restrained her and strapped her to the bed. It's... not a pleasant sight." Uryū glanced at the door that lead to the room. "They're going to give her a mild sedative. It should help with her anxiety and allow her to get some sleep."
Ichigo cursed under his breath and turned away from the room. "Why is this happening, Ishida?"
"I'm not sure but we're going to find out. She's scheduled for a CT scan tomorrow to rule out any possible abnormalities caused by the trauma to her head. Though, you and I already know that she was behaving strangely before that." Uryū sighed and stepped closer to Ichigo. "She's been given top priority and my father agreed to oversee this case himself. Whatever the problem, we'll get to the bottom of it."
"Do you still want to ignore the possibility that this is aftermath from Hueco Mundo?" Ichigo asked calmly.
"I'm exploring all options that medicine won't be able to detect. I'm also looking into whether or not this is an adverse effect from Tsukishima's Book of the End." Uryū said plainly. "I know you're thinking that we might all be at risk but if there was something about Inoue-san that caused it to have an effect like this, we'll find it."
"She said something off today." Ichigo muttered. "She referred to herself in the third person. It was strange. When I told her that she wasn't acting like herself she said, 'You don't even know what she's like anymore.' She referred to herself as 'she.' It was strange. I didn't think much of it at the time but..."
Uryū's eyes widened. "She said something similar. When she gripped my hand she said, 'You're just as guilty as she is. You tried to make her forget.' I didn't know what she was talking about or who she was talking about but it appears she was referring to herself." He paused in thought until a loud, pained scream came echoing through the hall from Orihime's room. He bolted into the room with Ichigo closely behind. When they entered Orihime's line of sight her gaze flew to them and she was clearly not herself again.
"Stay the hell away." Orihime seethed.
"Inoue..." Ichigo growled and looked at Uryū. "I thought you said they were giving her a sedative!"
Uryū looked to a nurse who nodded quickly. "They did." He stepped over to Orihime and placed a hand on her forehead. "Her fever has subsided. If she... OW!" He winced in pain as Orihime's teeth sank into his hand. He tried to pull the appendage away but she kept her jaws clenched tightly. "Inoue-san, let go!"
"Inoue, stop!" Ichigo grabbed Uryū's arm and helped him pull it away just as Orihime opened her mouth and released the bite she had on his flesh.
"I said to stay away. You don't listen. You never listen, Kurosaki." Orihime's eyes flew to Uryū before turning back to Ichigo. "Release these straps now."
Ichigo narrowed his gaze on Orihime and he stepped closer, leaning down face to face with her. "Who are you? What are you doing to Inoue?"
Orihime grinned widely. "Even if you knew you couldn't save her."
Uryū scowled and stepped closer, gripping his bleeding hand tightly to slow the flow of blood. "What is your goal?"
"It's none of your concern. This is between me and her." Orihime closed her eyes slowly. "This medication, I'm not strong enough to overcome it yet. But that's fine. I grow stronger while she sleeps."
"Inoue!" Ichigo grit his teeth and grasped Orihime's head. "Inoue! Don't go to sleep!"
"It's too late, Kurosaki." Uryū said quietly. "The sedative has kicked in."
Ichigo turned to face Uryū and looked at him angrily. "This is all my fault. If I had tried to help her sooner-"
"Don't go placing the blame on yourself." Uryū looked to Ichigo before turning his gaze to Orihime's sleeping form. "We all tried to help her. We'd all been noticing that she wasn't herself and when we tried to help she pushed us away. Whatever, no, whoever is doing this is there inside her and they are causing her to act like this. I don't believe this is an adverse effect from the Book of the End. This is something much different. Something worse."
Ichigo nodded stiffly. "I'm going to try to get a hold of Rukia. Soul Society may be better equipped to deal with this sort of thing."
"That's a good idea. I'll keep watch over Inoue-san for tonight. Sado, tomorrow. You the next night. We'll rotate until we get this all sorted out." Uryū looked to Ichigo sadly. "Get some rest. We'll all need it."
...
She could hear voices in the distance. Ichigo and Uryū were talking and she thought she heard her name mentioned. "Are they... talking about me?"
That same familiar voice came, soft and quiet to respond to her but that didn't make it any less frightening. "They are."
She jumped and whirled around to find his eyes burrowing into her. He wasn't demonic looking like he usually was. He just looked like his old self, calm and collected. "Ulquiorra, you look-"
"Better? Less frightening?" He stepped toward her slowly. "They've drugged you. It weakens us."
"I want to know why you're doing this." She said bravely. If there was any time to get the answers she wanted it was now while he was weakened and approachable. "How are you even here? You were supposed to have-"
"Died, yes. Well, strange things can happen when you make a connection to someone. But by all definition of the word, I am dead." His eyes followed her as she approached hesitantly. "I see you still have not learned to fear me."
"Why are you doing this? What do you want?" She asked as she stopped just short of him.
"You amuse me, woman. You never learn." He closed the distance between them and raised his hand to touch her cheek. "Does this form not frighten you? You aren't trembling."
"Why do you want me to fear you so badly?" Her gaze drifted up to his eyes proudly. "I've seen a lot. Not much scares me, especially not you so tell me why you're doing this."
He withdrew his hand and glared down at her bitterly. "Your memories were tampered with. When you regained them accurately you forgot something important."
Her brow crinkled in confusion as she stared up at him. "What are you talking about?"
He began to circle her slowly, his eyes watching her every movement. "You used to think about me every day. There wasn't a day that went by that you didn't look back on Hueco Mundo and wonder if you could have changed things. You even talked to your friend with the glasses about it but he just told you to forget it and move on. But you didn't. You kept searching your mind for a way that you could have improved the situation. Not so many people would have had to die. I wouldn't have had to die. And then one day-"
"It stopped." She looked to the ground in thought calmly. "When Tsukishima used his Book of the End on me he twisted my memories. He placed himself at the middle of everything I had been through and I just began to accept the outcome for what it was."
"Then you regained your true memories and yet that silly notion that there wasn't more you could have done was still lodged in your mind." He stopped behind her and stared at the back of her head. "You stopped thinking about Hueco Mundo. You stopped thinking about the Espada. You stopped thinking about me. You buried me deep down in your heart and all that was keeping my memory alive faded away."
"So..." She turned to face him and looked at him sadly. "You're doing this because I ignored your memory?"
"Because of you I understood what it meant to have a heart. Because of you I learned I could have feelings of joy and pleasure... anger and betrayal." His eyes narrowed on hers dangerously. "When I died I could have disappeared to anywhere. Instead I got taken in by your heart; the heart of the one person I made a connection to. I didn't ask to be there. I didn't want to be but it happened all the same. It turned out not to be so terrible. Dwelling there I could enjoy you through your memories of us. Each time your mind thought about us it made me feel as though I was still alive. I enjoyed it... but then you stopped remembering. You stopped thinking about me and if you will not think of me fondly then you will think of me as someone to be feared. You will think of me the way you should have been thinking of me all along. Now I will enjoy you through your suffering and I will cause you to despair. I will kill you when I have destroyed every piece of your life. I will cause you to lose your heart. Then I will be free from you."
"Y-you should have told me!" She said as tears began to swell in her eyes. "If all you wanted was to be remembered you should have just-"
"Don't be stupid. These dreams I've been giving you didn't always start out so horrifying. They were simple memories. Night after night you watched me fade away into nothing and you would still wake as though it wasn't your problem anymore. You had more trivial things to worry about like school and your job and your precious Kurosaki. Things that don't really matter in the grand scheme of it all and yet they were more important to spend your time dwelling on them." He scoffed and stepped closer to her. "But the truth is, I've really begun to grow bored of you. You are not the person I believed you to be and I want to be free of you. Because of you I understand what it is to feel disgusted."
"Ulquiorra, I..." She shook her head, her tears flying off into the darkness. "I'm sorry! I-"
"You discarded me like a piece of trash, woman. You don't get to say you're sorry. You abandoned my memory at the encouragement of your friends because you thought it would be better for you not to dwell on the past." He reached out and grabbed her head with both hands, pulling it back to look up at him. "Tell me, how is that working out for you?"
…
"Inoue-san… Inoue-san, wake up." Uryū said softly as he tapped Orihime's face.
Orihime groaned and opened her eyes, blinking in the bright light of the hospital room. She tried to sit up but quickly found that she was strapped to the bed beneath her. "What's going on? Why can't I move?"
"You were whimpering in your sleep." Uryū replied. He was relieved to see that Orihime was her normal self but he was still cautious. "We had to strap you to the bed because you were thrashing around violently."
"I was?" Orihime instinctively tried to raise her hand to place to her head but it didn't budge.
"You don't remember leaving Kurosaki's house, do you? You don't remember anything..." Uryū smiled down at her calmly. "That's alright. Here, just relax." He reached up and pulled the blanket that covered her closer to her neck.
"What happened to your hand?" Orihime looked at Uryū's hand with concern before turning her eyes up to meet his. He averted his gaze and that told her everything she needed to know. "I did that, didn't I? I'm so sorry, Ishida-kun."
"You weren't yourself." Uryū pulled his hand from Orihime's sight and forced a smile. "All that matters is that you're yourself now. How are you feeling?"
"Groggy." Orihime responded almost immediately after the question was asked. "A little claustrophobic too but that's alright."
"I can loosen the straps." Uryū offered. "Not a lot. Just enough for you to move around a bit."
"That's alright." Orihime said with a chuckle. "Could you just stand over me so I can see you a bit better?"
Uryū stepped closer and looked down at Orihime, trying his hardest to appear relaxed so as not to alarm her. "Inoue-san, I promise you that we will find out what is happening to you. We're going to help you."
Orihime shook her head to the best of her ability and smiled. "You can't help me. The things that are going on are out of your control. This is between me and him and I have to face it on my own."
"You and him?" Uryū's eyes narrowed in thought. "Who do you mean, Inoue-san?"
Orihime looked away from Uryū quickly. "I shouldn't tell you."
"Inoue-san!" Uryū grabbed her hand tightly in his injured one and stared down at her. "Please! If you know something that can help us help you, you have to tell me."
"Ishida-kun, you've already been hurt. I don't want to put you... put any one of you in any more danger! I can't even use my Shun Shun Rikka right now to protect anyone or heal anyone." Orihime looked up at him sadly. "You should just go home and don't worry about me."
"Inoue-san, you're being ridiculous!" Uryū gripped her hand tighter despite the pain it brought to his wound. "You're out of your mind if you think any one of us is going to give up on you! We rushed into Hueco Mundo blindly just to rescue you. We will never turn our backs on you. We love you."
Orihime's eyes filled with tears as she tried to shake her head. "And I love all of you too which is why I can't put you in any more danger!"
"You don't have to say anything. Just nod your head yes or no." Uryū looked down at her seriously. "Does this have anything to do with what happened in Hueco Mundo?"
Orihime looked up at Uryū sadly. "Ishida-kun... please."
Uryū sighed and continued to hold her hand tightly. "Inoue-san, does this have to do with the Espada?"
"Ishida-kun, please remove the straps. I can't take this anymore. I'm starting to panic." Orihime's eyes looked up at Uryū pleadingly. "Please."
Uryū stared down at Orihime a moment before nodding slowly. "Alright, just for a moment." He reached up and unfastened the strap keeping her head held in place before releasing all the other straps one by one. He reached up hesitantly and unfastened the latch that was keeping her right hand strapped to the bed but just as he reached for the left one, he felt her hand on his chest.
"You're sweet." Orihime mused as she smiled at Uryū. Her hand twisted up the fabric of his shirt until she was holding him tightly. "Your softness for her is sickening as always."
"You bastard!" Uryū grit his teeth but he soon found himself flying to the floor of the hospital room. His head collided with the hard floor and he instantly felt himself begin to bleed. He stood slowly but by the time he regained his footing Orihime was standing in front of him smirking widely. "G-get out of Inoue-san's body!"
"Do you want it all for yourself?" Orihime said with a light snicker. "Don't worry. When I'm done with her all that will be left of her will be her body. You can do with it what you please then."
Uryū grit his teeth and launched himself at Orihime. "I won't let you hurt her!"
Orihime dodged Uryū and placed her hand on the back of his head, giving it a rough slam against the railing of the hospital bed. She took a step back and looked down at him and when he didn't move, she smiled in satisfaction. She then stepped over to the window and opened it slowly.