Date written: 18/04/09 – 22/04/09

Posted on FanFiction: 22/04/09

Rewrote with Beta: 02/03/10

Second Rewrite: 28/05/10

- CHAPTER 6 -

. . . Her Conclusion

Orihime blinked her eyes a few times before looking directly at the mysterious black gate that was the size of a three-story building. She gasped at the sight, and yelped when the giant, purple arm shot out of the open gate and impaled the Hollow in front of it right in the groin. She saw nothing but red mist beyond the other side. It was almost entrancing; for some reason, she had this sudden urge to enter that place. Her right shoulder suddenly lurched forward, as if being pulled into the gate, which consequently made her lose her balance on the electric pole she had been standing on.

Fortunately, she landed on her feet with the grace of a cat, just as she had before. She found herself in the middle of a street maybe four blocks away from where Ichigo and Rukia were. She had a perfect view of them since she was standing in the same street they were, only she was behind them by about a hundred yards. Rukia was saying something to Ichigo as the body of the Hollow was slowly being pulled into the giant gates. The winds had picked up when those gates opened, reaching as far as where she was, but that did not make Orihime's heart beat rapidly. She felt a presence coming from within the red mist. A dark and dank presence that had a certain grip into her fear, and she couldn't help to shudder from merely feeling the spiritual energy of it. It felt like a Hollow, yet at the same time, it didn't.

Orihime ran towards them with haste when she felt the presence nearing the entrance of the gates, which had started closing after the giant purple arm had snagged its target, the Hollow, and pulled it into the bloody mist. The presence closed in on the remaining gap, dashing faster and faster, using all of its speed to breach through that small space between the doors and enter the Human World. Orihime trusted her instincts when it told her that this Hollow-like entity was an enemy that thirsts for bloodshed. And with Ichigo and Rukia standing in close proximity to the closing gates when that presence would exit them, she was sure its first target would be the first souls it set its eyes on.

The gates closed with a bang and scattered into smaller particles until they became nothing more but dust being carried away by the passing wind. And what stood just in front of the gates—its dark tail wagging and its yellow brown eyes searching its left then right—was a creature of darkness. Except for its eyes, the creature's whole body was shrouded in black, cloaking whatever other color it might be without the shroud. But what made it strange for Orihime was not the color itself, but the shadow enveloping the whole creature. She was sure it wasn't just black. It was almost as if it was sucking up light, turning bright colors into its own batch of darkness. It was humanoid in appearance but it had a long feline tail and two L-shaped horns sticking out of the sides of its head. It had two hands—the arms were almost twice as long as Sado's—with three fingers sprouting very long and nasty claws.

"ICHIGO! WATCH OUT!" Rukia yelled.

Orihime saw Ichigo react too late from the woman's warning as the creature closed the long distance between him and it in just under a second. She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw its three black claws burst out of Ichigo's back, blood leaking in spurts.

"Kurosaki-kun . . ." she whispered; her voice lacked volume and it had more to do with her shock than the lump in her throat, although both had actually been the cause of it. She whispered his name again as the creature pulled out, and watched as Ichigo knelt down, his head low, gasping for air while spitting out blood.

The doubts began to plague her mindset yet again, and she was becoming unsure whether she was strong enough to protect the ones she cared about. She had a sword, yes; she had the will to fight, yes; but did she have the intent to kill someone? Her mind and heart might have already decided what to do in this 'kill or be killed' scenario but her morals sure hadn't. Her mind told her that she needed to kill that black creature lest it wreak havoc upon the innocent; she saw the bloodlust in its yellow brown eyes. Her heart wanted to get revenge on that creature for hurting Ichigo, and sank when the thought occurred to her that maybe the wounds Ichigo had taken during battle and the new one the dark creature had given him was enough to sign his death sentence; it was next to impossible for any normal human being to survive after all that abuse. Her heart and mind both demanded the creature's head, demanded that she fulfill their needs. Yet her morals didn't share the same sentiments and still wished to avoid the bloodshed that was sure to happen once she drew out her sword.

But if she hesitated, what was the point of her fighting at all?

Orihime didn't want to think about it, but there was definitely no choice to be made. The kimono woman's words came to mind: It is kill or be killed. There is no reasoning with Hollows. If you see one, you must strike it down without a moment of thought. A moment of hesitance is the difference between your death and the Hollow's. There was no other way around it, no matter how much Orihime wanted it otherwise.

She took a glance at Ichigo's fallen form and the creature that was slowly returning to him after being momentarily distracted by Rukia. He was slowly trying to stand back up. Even in that state Ichigo was still willing to sacrifice his life to save others. So if Ichigo was able to go so far just to save a person, why couldn't Orihime do the same? But now was not the time to linger in doubts. She had already wasted enough time, hesitating when she couldn't afford to. She had to come to a decision now, and not allow her resolve quiver with doubts any longer.

The creature raised its claws, ready to strike Ichigo down with the final blow.

Orihime instinctively dashed towards them once her resolve had returned to the right direction. The doubts were no longer in the forefront of her mind. She readied her katana as the claws of the creature swooped down for the kill. Everything seemed to go in slow-motion for Orihime as the adrenaline pumped through every part of her body. Her heartbeat was quick; her breath was held; and her gray eyes were steeled like titanium.

With an unconscious step that caused her to skid a bit, she gripped the scabbard of her katana with both hands and used it as a shield for her and Ichigo as the creature's claws came a mere two feet from reaching Ichigo's face. Orihime was on her knees and she sported a small scratch on her right kneecap because of her earlier skid. It didn't hurt her in the slightest. The adrenaline was doing its best to keep her mind off of the mild pain and allowed her to concentrate on the battle ahead.

She pushed the creature away once the power from the attack she blocked was canceled out with her own. She readied her katana and shifted her body, feeling out a natural stance that would give her strength and enough maneuverability.

The creature began to roar like a madman . . . or madbeast. The light-deprived shroud was clearer for her to make out. This creature felt like a Hollow, but with a different kind of aura that made it feel darker; it acted like one in that it relied on its fighting instincts than rational thought—if its recent actions were anything to go by—and most perplexingly was the fact that it had appeared by coming out of the giant gates. Orihime had seen enough of her brother's Hollow's 'disappearing tactic' to realize that how the creature had entered their world was completely different. Though the image of the gates seemed to shout out 'evil,' it didn't feel like it was related to Hollows, which felt like a different sort of darkness. This creature, however, seemed to match the gates because of the feel of its tainted aura. Orihime wanted to ask Rukia if she knew anything about this creature since it was unlike any Hollow she had seen, although she couldn't really know since she only saw two Hollows in her lifetime.

"Inoue . . ." she heard Ichigo murmur before hearing his zanpakuto fall to the ground with a loud CLANG!

That must've been the signal the creature needed, for it disappeared from her view and reappeared right in front of her, giving Orihime the impression that it could teleport. But her resolve did not quiver, nor did she flinch from the unexpected swiftness of her enemy. She grasped the ruler-length hilt of her katana, steadied her stance, and unsheathed her blade in a graceful arc . . . and resheathed it not even a second later, leaving behind a clean slice through her enemy, causing it to split in half then dissipate into nothingness.

The people of more than a century ago had called this style 'Battoujutsu.' Orihime didn't know why or how she had this ability and was able to apply it to the situation with graceful integrity and accuracy that one swipe of her blade was enough to defeat her enemy, its corpse flying away through the wind, almost like floating ashes.

But that was not the only thing that expressed the amount of awe etched in her face. Apart from her unknown knowledge of an art she had no idea of knowing—she quickly surmised that it must been an ability she had inherited from the kimono woman since she was also the spirit of her zanpakuto—her sword's appearance was nothing short from being amazing.

If she thought that having a ruler-sized hilt was exaggerating things—the whole length of her sheathed sword was already around two feet, just enough to be considered a katana instead of a wakizashi—then looking at her blade without the scabbard was very . . . surprising. With her short stature of only five feet and two inches, the sword in its scabbard was thankfully short enough to keep from touching the ground, saving Orihime the trouble of having to drag its tip on the ground when to her low waist. But when the blade was removed from its scabbard, you would have realized that the blade was far from what you had imagined. Instead of a two-foot long blade Orihime had expected, what came out was a blade that was twice as long. Her sword was neither a wakizashi nor a katana. It was actually a nodachi, a sword believed to be oversized in regards to the standard length of a katana.

Taking a better look at her nodachi, she found some familiarity to it. The hilt guard, especially. It was in a similar design as her hairpins: Six spikes, like rays of the sun, shooting out between the hilt and blade, along with a circular disc to complete the image of a two-dimensional sun. It resembled that massive ball of heat and light so much that Orihime wondered if it had a connection with her blade and its spirit.

That may be a plausible explanation as to why she only needed one clean sweep to kill (Orihime stiffened when her thoughts lingered on that topic; she felt whatever innocence she had left was slowly, bit-by-bit, withering away) her target. The sun normally meant light and her enemy was shrouded in shadow. Attack them with light and the shadow was sure to lose. But that was only a childish observation brought on by the belief that the light would always conquer the darkness. Orihime might be childish at times but she had suffered enough bad things in life to understand that this illogical thinking would not get her anywhere.

The second plausible explanation—this one being more realistic than the previous one— had to do with the length of her blade. Orihime calculated, almost without her knowing, the distance between her and the approaching creature of darkness. Since she had thought back then that her blade was roughly two feet, she let the creature come close enough so she could slash it without missing. But even then there was a small chance of the creature dodging it because of its speed. Though it seemed both of them had been shocked with the trump card Orihime unknowingly had. Even if the creature had the reaction time to realize that the blade was coming towards it, the arc of Orihime's slash along with the actual length of her blade left no opening for it to do anything but succumb to the wrath and desire of the incredibly sharp blade.

This was unreal.

"Inoue," Rukia spoke to Orihime with a tad of fear and bewilderment. Her fear wasn't towards Orihime or her sword; Rukia was still a little shaken up after narrowly escaping getting torn to pieces by the mysterious creature she had disposed of (she didn't like to word it as 'kill' for the time being) earlier.

Orihime watched Rukia as she stared at her nodachi's length. The blade itself was magnificent, glinting in sunlight even in the presence of twilight. It seemed to radiate its own source of light. Her mind suddenly went to Ichigo, who had successfully sat up during her mesmerized episode with her sword, and he was still in a very bad state.

"Kurosaki-kun!" she cried out, and dashed towards her crush. She was in conflict whether to hug him for being alive or try not to since doing so might worsen his incised wounds. Rukia was the one who reached him first and began healing his wounds with her kidou. Orihime felt a pang of jealousy enter her heart when she saw her move very close to Ichigo but she pushed that feeling away.

The seed of envy was growing . . .

"I thought I told you not to get involved," she heard Ichigo say. Orihime was about to retort to that but it seemed he wasn't finished. "You should let me handle this, Inoue."

Was it a man's pride? No, she knew that Ichigo didn't make pride a priority when his life and everyone else's was on the line. Was it caution? That sounded like a possible motive, but what was there to be cautious about? Didn't he just see her take out the creature that was about to kill him? She risked her life to save his yet he didn't give her a 'thank you' or a small bit of courtesy for helping him out.

At that point, Orihime felt as if her eyes were shifting between gray and brown. It was less of a feeling and more of a certainty as if she was watching a mental image of her eyes distorting in color, turning from a bleached white to the malevolent eye color of her other self. She could even feel her left eye turning brown, her right gray, settling into a heterochromatic effect that left her to wonder why she was even thinking of her eye color at a time like this. She didn't see any kind of significance of the subject with the matter at hand, though she suddenly had an urge to check out Ichigo's abs when Rukia tried to disrobe his upper body. Even with that little problem of trying to keep Rukia's hands off from anything but his wounds, Ichigo still had her attention on her and her alone. She closed her eyes and sighed deeply.

When she opened them again, that mental image returned and she knew without doubt her eye color changed again, and it was different. It became a combination of both: Brown and gray created khaki-colored irises.

"State a reason," Orihime said, in regards to Ichigo's earlier statement. In her mind, she was thinking Why should I let you handle this by yourself? in an offended tone. Orihime felt baffled at herself for thinking that Ichigo might be a chauvinist and that she had to prove to him that she could be very helpful in the battlefield. She had never antagonized Ichigo like this before.

"Wha—?" Ichigo 'smartly' said. He tried to look at Orihime in the eyes but she turned away before he could even see the new color her irises had adorned.

"State a reason why I shouldn't get involved. And it should be a really good one." Her voice took on a sort of commanding tone that was so completely different from what she was usually like that she wondered if there was anything wrong with her. Her gaze drifted to the pavement to her left, where she saw a trail of red ants droning near the railings of the canal behind her. Did her eyesight improve during this state? It seemed so. While she couldn't look eye-to-eye with Ichigo, she might as well try counting the ants. At least that would give her something to do as she waited for his reply.

She reached forty-three when Ichigo said, "I don't want to see you get hurt."

"I'm not a defenseless girl, Kurosaki-kun," she replied. Her voice came out monotonously, as if she had expected his answer to be that and had prepared a retort without making an effort. "I can take care of myself."

"I know that."

Orihime heard a bit of shuffling in front of her and a low 'Done' spoken by Rukia. She briefly wondered if the raven-haired woman would interrupt their argument.

"Then why?" Orihime asked, still avoiding his gaze. "Why won't you let me help you?"

"Inoue . . ." Ichigo said slowly. "Look at me."

She suppressed the shudder making its way all over her nerves. She didn't want Ichigo to know that her eye color had changed. There was something odd about it—if the improved eyesight was any indication—and if he were to know this, then he might use it as a reason for her to not take up the job of a shinigami. Rukia had briefed her a bit about what 'she' had supposedly done to her brother's Hollow, already understanding that whoever was fighting at the time was not really her. Of course, Ichigo was the one who had placated Rukia when she had shot a barrage of questions about Orihime's history when they thought said girl was still sleeping. Rukia had concluded that Orihime's supposed 'birthright' was an enigma to her. And being enigmatic meant that there was no telling if her powers were good or bad. Was this the reason for his caution?

"Look at me," he said again, more forcefully.

Orihime did as he requested, but shut her eyes.

"Open your eyes, Inoue." There was a trace of annoyance, she noticed, in his voice, but she supposed it was to be expected. How exactly could she look at him if she didn't have her eyes open?

She complied. Her eyelids flew open and she stared at the indifferent expression in Ichigo's brown orbs. He's not surprised? she thought. She had the sudden feeling of hope that maybe her eyes reverted back to gray. Or maybe all of that eye-color-changing feeling was all in her wild imagination. Of course, it was. There was no way for her eyes to change color out of the blue like that. She got worried and scared over nothing at all.

"Your eyes are different," Ichigo stated. "They look almost brown."

Orihime's heart sank. She looked away, closing her eyes, and bit her bottom lip. She bit it hard but not so much that it could pierce the delicate flesh of her pink and moist lips. She felt Rukia staring at her as if there was something Rukia knew about her that'd instantly made her suspicious.

"Rukia," Ichigo said, "do shinigami change their eye color at will?"

"No," Rukia answered without waiting for the question to sink in. "It is unnatural for a shinigami to change their eye color like what just happened to Inoue here."

"I figured as much." Although her eyes were still closed, she had the mental image of Ichigo standing up from the ground, almost falling down again when the abrupt change of posture was an unexpected shock to his legs. "If you want a reason, then I have one now."

"Please, Kurosaki-kun . . ."

The mental image of Ichigo shaking his head came to her. "When you fought that Hollow last night, your eyes were brown. And along with that, you had been a completely different person. The Orihime who fought was cocky, confident, and possibly dangerous."

"But Kuro—"

"It may look like you're in control of your body now, Inoue, but what would happen if the same thing that happened last night happened again?" Another mental image: Ichigo lifting his zanpakuto—Orihime thought he was going to swing it down at her for a second there—and sheathing it into the brown scabbard on his back. There was familiarity in that color, but it didn't have a welcoming response. The brown color; her gray-turned-brown eyes.

"I agree with Ichigo on this," Rukia said. "The origin of your shinigami powers is still a big question mark for us all. If there were any side effects or unknown variables apart from what we saw last night, then I do not think it would be good for you to continue on like this."

". . . Pathetic," Orihime whispered to herself. With her eyes still closed, she turned her head back at the two. "Am I so pathetic that you don't want me to help you?"

"No, it's not like that," Rukia said. "We don't think of you as pathetic, Inoue, but the cons of the situation overwhelm the pros. Unless I look more into the unheard-of transformation of a human soul into a shinigami just moments after death, then we can't risk you using these powers. You weren't awake the last time we saw you with those scary brown eyes, Inoue. You almost drained Ichigo of his reiatsu."

This was something she hadn't been told of. And when she opened her eyes again to look at the man in front of her, she felt something tug in her head and then the feeling she had when her eyes were shifting in color was gone. "Are my eyes okay?" she asked uncertainly.

Ichigo stared directly at her. "Uh . . . yeah," he answered in similar uncertainty. But for some reason, she didn't believe him. Her eyes may be back to their original color but they were far from okay.

"Just what exactly is wrong with me?" Orihime asked, but no one gave her an answer.

Ichigo sighed as he slumped onto his bed. Checking the digital clock on his bedside desk, he found that it had been three hours since he had slain the serial-killer-turned-Hollow and, courtesy of the creature that had emerged from the Gates of Hell, received a scar the size of a bullet hole between his chest and stomach. It left him to wonder about what that thing that attacked him really was. It surely felt like a Hollow—Orihime and Rukia claimed it felt like that to them, too—but it didn't look like one at all. Asking Rukia was no good because she was as clueless about it as she was of Orihime's birthright, and that was another enigma all by itself. He was sure now that he was afraid of what Orihime might become if that brown-eyed version of her were to appear and be in control again. He kept thinking what if the Orihime he knew disappeared and the other one took over. The only thing that he could think of, at the time, to prevent that from happening was to keep her away from shinigami work.

What a load of bullshit that had been. He tried to keep her away from harm yet she still got herself injured. Well, her physical body anyway. When he and Orihime went to the Kurosaki clinic to get back into their respective bodies, Rukia had to use her kikanshinki (df: Name of memory modifier) on his family again when his father pronounced Orihime's body as deceased. And thanks to her kidou, Rukia had no problem in healing the severe wounds to Orihime's physical body. Though there was a slight incident when she removed the blankets covering Orihime's physical body. Apparently, his father had stripped Orihime's upper garments probably to further examine the four fatal claw marks on her back. Thankfully, her body was lying face-down on the bed, so Ichigo didn't see much, though that didn't stop the Shinigami Orihime from slapping his face, shouting "DON'T LOOK!" at the top of her lungs. She apologized repeatedly after that, and Ichigo dismissed it while rubbing his very sore cheek. The girl could hit really hard.

But if he had wanted to say something other than accepting her apology, he would've commented that the grotesque image of her back with four bloody incisions was not actually considered eye candy. It was a fact—a true fact—but he didn't want to be considered tactless.

Apart from what happened here in the Kurosaki household, Rukia had also used her kikanshinki on Chad even after Ichigo told her that the guy could swear a pledge of secrecy on the whole thing. Rukia didn't listen and used the device immediately.

"No one must know of our work," she said to him. "Especially humans who can't see these dangers."

He didn't like it and would've given Rukia a piece of his mind, but Orihime stopped him before he could spit out his first curse word. She said to him that what was done was done and arguing about it wouldn't help things. Her gray eyes looked at him, piercing him with such intensity that he couldn't utter a word of reply.

Right now, Orihime was probably sleeping in her bed downstairs in the clinic. She was not discharged—not by a long shot. Though his family had been given a different set of memories where Orihime didn't 'die,' she was still supposed to stay for at least two days until she got better. Apparently, the replaced memories were about Chad bringing in an injured Orihime with several scrapes and contusions prominently on her back. Orihime said she didn't mind sleeping in the clinic for the night; she confided with Ichigo that she was still feeling some phantom pain in her physical body, along with feeling a little weak, which was probably because of the severe blood loss. Ichigo just hoped Orihime won't become anemic.

Well, at least the day didn't turn for the worse. Even now Ichigo was still against the idea of Orihime fighting these battles with Hollows. He was prepared for Orihime to be completely against his proposal when he brought it up again after she saved him from the thing, but she didn't do that. She wanted a reason for his actions and he gave it, albeit reluctantly. He didn't want her to know that she might be a danger to not just everyone but also herself, but the cat was out of the bag now. But she took the news with little incident, though he wondered what she meant when she said, "I'm not giving up on my resolve."

If there was one thing he was really sure of, it was that Orihime would not back down that easily.

He rolled to his left and gazed at the closet where a certain raven-haired woman was bunking. He was glad Orihime didn't ask Rukia where she'd be sleeping. It was bad enough that Orihime had asked if Rukia was living in his house—why it was bad for Orihime to know, he couldn't really figure out—but to clarify exactly where she was bunking would make it seem like there was something going on between him and the shinigami. Come to think of it, Rukia had been busy during the past few hours after they got back home. He didn't bother her since she didn't bother him when he had been visiting Orihime in her temporary room. But now, though, he wondered what exactly she had been up to . . .

His last thoughts before he fell asleep were of the thing, Rukia and Orihime, and the extremely long sword that had appeared out of and disappeared into a short scabbard.

Rukia Kuchiki was perplexed over the matter concerning two particular humans. She could understand the male human since he attained his shinigami powers through her. But the female was an enigma. She did a bit of background checking on her and found out a little about her history.

Orihime Inoue once had an older brother who had died when she was only eight or nine years old. That brother had taken care of her since she was only three until the time of his death. There was nothing odd about the siblings but what intrigued her were the parents. Rukia saw some resemblance between Sora Inoue and his parents but none whatsoever with Orihime. For one thing, none of them had the vibrant orange hair the girl had. The mother had gray eyes, which Sora evidently inherited, but they were almost hazel in appearance, but Orihime had perfectly light gray eyes. This didn't really concern Rukia since her main objective was to find the origin of her birthright, not compare physical differences between parent and child. But then—

She was struck with an idea. It was possible—no, it must be what she was looking for. If she was right about this, then there was more to Orihime than she first suspected. The baffling change of her eye color was already putting her mind into a loop, and she hoped that whatever deep shit she'd be digging from here on out wouldn't come back to bite her in the ass. Apart from the libraries of Soul Society (that option's scrapped), she could only think of one person that might just have the answers she needed, but she had to be careful in how she got it out of him. The guy could be a very sly bastard if he wanted to be. Well, there was no point going around it. This was already something big and if it weren't for her current energy-depleted predicament and the law she had broken, she would've asked for help from some of her contacts in Soul Society to dig up some of the old tomes in the Kuchiki library and to see if her hunch was right. If it was, then she was practically looking at someone that was likely unheard of in all of Soul Society.

But first things first: Pay a visit to the Urahara Shop tomorrow morning.