I swear, I'm such an airhead during the week. Sorry guys. Here I am trying to slip your Wednesday update to you at the last minute and hope you don't notice. -_- Forgive me! And please enjoy!
"Sado-kun." Orihime's voice spoke in feigned surprise. She was staring out of her apartment to see the massive young man standing on the doorstep.
"Inoue-san, how are you?" Chad asked, though he already knew the answer to the question. She was not herself and therefore, not well. He could see by the look in her eyes that she was still being controlled by someone; she had always had so much compassion in her eyes but now they were cold and lifeless. Outside of that, however, her body appeared to be in bad condition. In addition to the wound on her head there appeared to be a few fresh wounds on her hands and feet, primarily around her cuticles as though something had been pushing its way out. She was also noticeably thinner and he knew she hadn't been eating.
Ichigo and Uryū had advised him to keep his distance until they could come up with a definitive plan to deal with the entity inside the girl but Chad couldn't stand to see her waste away so he was going to take action, even if it meant putting himself in danger. He held up a sack of groceries to the girl's empty gaze. "I brought you something to eat."
Orihime's eyes floated from Chad's face to the bag and back again. She then smiled widely, ignoring his earlier question and motioned for him to enter the apartment. "Come in, Sado-kun."
Chad nodded and took a hesitant step into the apartment. He removed his shoes and stepped further in and noticed that aside from an overturned lamp in the corner of the living room, there was not a single light on. Through the dim light he could make out that the apartment was in shambles. Orihime's sofa had long tears in it as though it had been clawed, fabric and stuffing were hanging loosely from the piece of furniture. There were smears on the walls that upon closer inspection appeared to be blood. As he drew nearer to the kitchen he could detect the rancid smell of rotting food. He covered his nose with his arm and turned to Orihime as calmly as possible. "Inoue-san, why is all of your food spoiled?"
"Most of it is old." Orihime replied with a shrug. "The refrigeration unit is broken as well. I have no desire to repair it and no money to replace the spoiled food."
Chad looked to Orihime quietly. It wasn't the real Orihime, that much he knew. Even still, it was hard to speak to her without showing genuine concern. "Inoue-san, if you need anything you should know by now that you can ask and we will help you. You can't starve yourself."
"I don't need to eat." Orihime replied. "Menial scraps of human food can't even begin to placate my appetite so I find it best not to eat at all."
"Inoue-san, you must eat." Chad insisted. "You're wasting away. I know you must be hungry."
"Not really." Orihime replied with a shrug and a smile. "After all, it's her pain and suffering that feeds me. It's so delicious. It's the only thing that can satiate me."
Chad's already serious face turned sterner. Up until that point he had only ever seen the entity within Orihime pretend to be her. Now faced with its open admission, he felt he could be more forthcoming with his anger toward it. "You're destroying Inoue-san's body. If you keep this up she'll die and you will die right along with her."
"Promise?" Orihime said with a lusty chuckle. "That would be wonderful."
"Eat!" Chad demanded, his fury growing. "I won't let you kill Inoue-san like this! If you don't eat by yourself I'll force you!"
Orihime chuckled again and turned two heavily lidded eyes toward Chad. "You're not the first person to threaten to shove food down this weak little throat of hers. But go ahead. Be my guest. There's so many other ways to kill the woman. You'll just be forcing me to get really creative."
Chad reached out and clasped Orihime's shoulders tightly. "Why are you doing this to her? Why, Ulquiorra?"
Orihime stared up at Chad's face. A small laugh fell from her lips before it turned into all out hysterical laughter. Her fingers began to twitch at her sides, the skin splitting and breaking until her appendages were covered in torn and bloodied flesh. With a quick swipe, she slashed Chad across the chest sending the towering man toppling to the ground. "Why indeed."
…
He sat in silence and observed as the memory of his death once again replayed itself, always the same. Always unchanging. The only difference from the countless times before was that she was with him. His back leaned against one of the many towering pillars of Las Noches for support and she... she lay at his side. Her hand still clinging to his seemed now a constant reminder of her promise to him. She had long been asleep against him, her head lulled to the side and slumped against his arm.
He watched her features as she slept. Her brow which had so recently been furrowed in concern was now at ease. Her posture, though slumped, was relaxed and showed no signs of the tension she had displayed earlier. She seemed entirely at peace. Even the hair that fell carelessly in her face seemed to signal that she was without a care in the world despite the dire situation in which she found herself.
He reached out, hesitant at first, and brushed the hair from her face. This action didn't cause her to stir in the slightest so he continued to push the hair back in order to get a clear view of her sleeping features. Everything about her struck his curiosity. How could she rest so easily knowing what hell she was being put through? How could she, even for an instant, not feel too terrified to close her eyes? He decided to vocalize these questions despite her slumber. "How can you sleep, woman? How are you not so filled with fear to the point of paralyzation?"
"Maybe it has to do with you babying her like a fucking child." His voice came, cold and callous. His arms crossed over his chest, clawed fingers drumming against cold flesh. "What the hell are you doing? I left her for you to deal with and I come back to find this. What happened to 'she forgot all about me, she disgusts me?' Don't tell me she's managed to cry her way out of your fury."
His emerald eyes flickered up to meet the amber ones staring back at him. "Murciélago..." He glanced quickly to his side to see that she was still sleeping before turning his gaze back to the monstrous form before him. "She hasn't cried her way out of anything."
A scoff crossed his lips and he moved his clawed hands to gesture toward the young woman. "Then what is she doing holding your hand and sleeping against you? I suppose that's all part of your plan to break her spirits and cast her into despair? You're pathetic, Ulquiorra. I should have known better than to trust this to you. You're weak. You always have been when it comes to her."
He was unmoved by the onslaught of insults. It was nothing he was unused to coming from that most vile part of himself. Instead he stared straight ahead at the memory still playing out before him. "How many times did we stand here side by side and watch the moment of our death? Did you count? I didn't count."
There came another scoff, black talons stepping closer to the two huddling forms. "Are you trying to change the subject?"
He continued on with his thought process, ignoring the question directed at him. "I've seen this all happen so many times and nothing has changed. It always happens the same each and every time. Only, sitting here watching it now, it's different than it was before. When standing there watching it with you I was convinced that this was entirely her fault; that she was to blame. Now, sitting here watching it with her I realize that it was only ever my fault. You are right to call me weak. When I'm in her presence it's what I become. That isn't her fault no matter how much I try to blame her for it. The fault is mine." He turned his gaze up to stare back at the demonic eyes scowling at him. "I can not punish another for my shortcomings. This woman is innocent."
"She is a poison." He hissed, halting just short of the two. "You are weak. And the worst part is that you know it but you're not doing a damn thing about it. I suppose now that you've changed your mind about killing the woman you think that she's going adore you and cherish you like some fairytale prince come to save her. Well, I have news for you, Ulquiorra. You are not her knight in shining armor. That boy is. The sooner you realize that the better off you'll be. No doubt they're trying to devise some way to get their precious princess back and do you know who they think they're protecting her from? You."
His brow furrowed for a moment and he looked up at the monstrous figure in questioning. "Me? Why would they assume it's me? Did you indicate me?"
"I didn't say a damn word to those idiots. I didn't give them an inkling at all. They just assumed you were at fault, likely due to something your precious woman has led them to believe about you. Because that's who you are, Ulquiorra. You're the monster they have to protect her from. You always have been. You know it, I know it, they know it and she knows it. There is no happy ending in this for you. Even if she does feel a sense of gratitude toward you for whatever kindness you've shown her, those friends of hers will just turn her against you all over again. It's better to end this than drag it on and torture yourself." A clawed hand extended out, reaching down toward the sleeping form. A devilish grin graced his lips and he opened his mouth to speak once more. "But if you really don't want to sully your hands, allow me the pleasure."
His hand shot out almost instantaneously, knocking away the taloned appendage from its intended target. "Do not touch her."
Amber eyes narrowed dangerously in anger but he noticed that his glare was matched, warning him away from further attempts at disrupting the peace. He stood straight, snickering as he turned away from the two. "Suit yourself. Just don't be surprised when she tosses you aside like trash all over again."
He sat silent, watching the demonic figure disappear into the distance. His gaze then snapped back to his side; her eyes were still shut and she seemed none the wiser. He tried not to let doubt creep into his mind, lest they both end up back in despair, but he couldn't ignore the thought that maybe he had made a mistake after all. The last thing he wanted was to be made a fool of. "Don't disappoint me, woman."