Date written: 20/12/09 – 31/12/09
A/N: This chapter was a total bitch to me. On some points, it came out smooth and easy. On other points, it was like trying to cut bread with a dull cleaver. Luckily, I had some whetstone to sharpen it up, but still, cleavers are not really meant for cutting bread. Do you know how irritating it is to write this chapter while listening to the noise of fireworks from outside? I'm sitting right next to a window, for God's sake! I'm just hoping I did this right.
Anyway, time to get back to Orihime and Tatsuki. This sub-arc has gone on for far too long, and I'm already anxious to start on the Training sub-arc. So to do just that, there will be only two more chapters before the next sub-arc. Next chapter will end Ishida's bitching—er, I mean the contest, and the chapter after that will go to Rukia running away and Byakuya and Renji intervening.
Happy New Year, everyone! And here's to hoping for more chapters to come.
--- CHAPTER 20 ---
Princess and Dragon: Interlude III
He was known as Helmil. It was a name given to him by his Master. It wasn't a really fitting name, in his opinion, but he hadn't been in the position to complain. The name stuck, and everybody started calling him Helmil. It had been very annoying during the first few weeks, but in time he had grown used to the two syllables that sound like there was a mill in Hell. Did it have such a thing? He wouldn't know; he wasn't motivated enough to check.
It was difficult for anyone to get him to be motivated over something. Unless it involved Master's grand master plan, then he could care less about anything else. But this human . . . this Orihime Inoue intrigued him so much that he couldn't help but hold back and let things develop. He knew his first intention was to kill her, but there would be no point in solving the puzzle if the last piece was all-out destroyed. And Helmil didn't like leaving puzzles unsolved. That was why he purposefully stabbed the girl on the right side of her chest, clearly away from the chamber of her heart.
Unless her heart's on the right, he thought mildly while he pulled his blade out of the girl's back. Nope. Her heart's still beating . . . rather erratically, too.
The other girl lying on the ground was twitching, as if forcing her paralyzed body to catch Inoue's falling form. She didn't succeed, and Inoue landed on top of the girl, the former's right shoulder lying on top of the latter's.
The raven-haired girl gritted her teeth and looked up to meet Helmil's gaze. Helmil sighed through his nose, feeling disappointed that there was no threat accompanying the animosity within that girl's glare. Her spiritual presence was slightly minimal, although a little alluring for some reason. She was the least bit of his concern, however.
The prone form of Inoue laid still, blood pooling out of the wound he had made. He expected something like a cough from the enigmatic girl, knowing that he may have stabbed her right lung, but he was given nothing. Just stillness. Quiet. Too quiet.
He sensed movement from the corner of his eye. The raven-haired girl was trying to stand up. Her stance was unsteady, as if her legs were made of jelly, but she kept on rising, the glare never quivering. Helmil knew right then and there that this was a very troublesome woman. Not only to his objective but also to his time. He always considered relaxation time to be twenty hours a day, nothing less. Well, with this kind of mission, he didn't have much time for relaxation now, did he?
"Don't move," he said to the girl, "or you'll end up like your friend over there." He was bluffing, of course. He would kill her, instead.
The girl growled. She actually growled at him.
"Dangerous woman," he muttered, while shaking his head.
"You . . ." the girl growled through gritting teeth. Her hands were clenched so tightly they were shaking. "You . . ."
Helmil didn't consider her a threat, so he immediately sheathed his sword. It would've been better to just slice the stubborn girl in half, but he felt the lingering of a benevolent entity within Orihime Inoue's spiritual presence. It was growing steadily, and it was doing so in-sync to the raven-haired girl's anger. It was almost like . . . like . . . this entity was channeling its spiritual energy to the girl.
This was interesting. Better make the most of it. There was no telling how mysterious this Orihime Inoue's abilities could be. Though now, Helmil was beginning to believe Nelbil's earlier report. The mere presence of the benevolent entity seemed to shout out danger right in front of his face.
He then spotted something sparkling within Orihime Inoue's hand. A sudden burst of reiatsu assaulted his form, but he didn't step back or be overwhelmed by the force. The pressure was mild and weak, much like Orihime Inoue's prone and defenseless form. It would take that kind of pressure a hundred times over to actually intimidate someone like him.
But still, this was most interesting. He was glad he didn't kill her outright with that stab. This would definitely excite his Master and the possibilities of what their group could achieve if it were deemed useful to their cause.
He also noticed something else. The pressure was channeling its power towards the raven-haired girl. And the girl was accepting it, further amplifying her anger until her spiritual presence doubled, tripled, then quadrupled.
Channeling reiatsu without subject contact, he thought. Bizarre, yet useful.
As much as he wanted to have one of his hands resting on his sword, he didn't want to provoke the girl. He was certain the girl would react when he did anything remotely threatening. This was too good of an observation to pass up, and the curiosity in him took over. He would wait until the benevolent entity finished transferring its spiritual energy to the girl, and if the girl were to become another fly in the ointment . . .
His sword was always eager to feast on human blood.
Rage and vengeance.
These were prevalent negative emotions sparking out from Tatsuki's mind and spirit. And they had only one target. The target was around six feet tall, thin, and long fatless arms. He was wearing a black cloak that hid his torso but jutted out the limbs and head. His face was somehow deformed, as if it were half-burned and half-mutilated with a dull buzzsaw. He also wore a black mask that seemed to be shattered rather than cut below his nose.
The sword in his hand was ignored. Rage could blind anyone when they reached the point of no return. Tatsuki almost saw red; there was still some rationality in her mind, and that was what was keeping her from attacking the big guy immediately.
But there was also another reason. The longer she felt the anger rise within her like an overflowing dam, the stronger she felt the strange pressure compressing her whole body. It was hard to breathe and painful to blow, but the benefit of letting this pressure increase in magnitude outweighed something as simplistic as breathing. Who needed breathing, anyway?
She felt the power growing and growing within, but at the same time her breathing was diminishing at the same pace. But Tatsuki wanted more, needed more. This asshole would pay for what he had done to Orihime, and she would personally make sure that his due was paid . . . with a big interest.
Looking over at Orihime's prone form, she spotted something glinting inside her hand. Somehow not having control over her own body, Tatsuki unclenched Orihime's hand and picked up what she had been holding: one of her hairpins. It wasn't acting normally, too; not a lot of shiny hairpins glint even when in the shade of a person's shadow.
Again, as if someone else were controlling her mouth and voice, she said, "Santen Kesshun, I call you forth!"
The glint inside the ornament amplified until it became a very blinding light. Even with her eyes closed she could feel the weight of the tiny hairpin leave her open palm, and at the same time something started flying around her like a hungry mosquito. Something turned into three somethings, but Tatsuki didn't panic; there was no room for that emotion. Bewilderment, maybe. Fear, no. Rage was purely in her system. When the light subsided, she saw three miniature people on wings looking at her with mixed emotions bordering between confusion and caution. The same could be said to Tatsuki's side, but it was pretty mild compared to her currently main emotion.
The largest one of the three clasped his hands in front of his chest, fingers intertwined in a tug-of-war manner. A spike alerted Tatsuki's senses, and soon after the surrounding vicinity changed color, as if she were seeing through film negatives. Almost everything was white, some purple, others were in a haze between green and magenta. She checked her arms and they were pretty much normal in color, and so was the three circling mini-people with wings.
"You summoned us?" the purple one with the monocle questioned.
Her rage mysteriously left her when this perception change occurred. And the power she had been feeling before was slowly leaving her, like a full battery being drained of its juice. Not knowing what to say to the beings, she opted with the silent treatment. Well, it was temporary silence, anyway. She wouldn't find answers if it weren't.
The girl in the group, the one wearing a skimpy one-piece swimsuit, flew towards the monocle-guy and asked him, "Isn't she Orihime-sama's . . ."
She didn't finish; she didn't need to. The monocle-guy understood right away and nodded at the girl, affirming her question.
"Tatsuki-san, correct?" he asked, to which Tatsuki nodded. "This meeting may have come as a surprise to you for the moment, but we have been summoned by you for a reason."
"Are you okay, Baigon?" the swimsuit girl asked the other guy.
Baigon grunted a response. Probably a 'yeah,' if Tatsuki's ears were to be trusted; she had been experiencing tinnitus since the three were summoned, as if all external sound, excluding the ones the four of them make, were silenced along with the distortion.
"What the hell is going on here?" she finally asked them.
The monocle-guy looked at her. "It seems we are not completely compatible with Orihime-sama's spiritual system. You showed the ability to summon us at will, and that is already a sign of something."
"Huh?"
"Clearly a sign that you are worthy," the girl said.
"Yes . . . worthy . . ." The monocle-guy sounded amused. "I am Hinagiku, by the way. My specialty is strings."
Hinagiku? Specialty . . . strings?
"My name is Lily," the girl said. "Attacker of the trio. And the big guy behind me"—she thumbed at big guy—"is named Baigon."
"We are the guardians created for protection, and reside within the hairpins Orihime-sama wears," Hinagiku explained. "There are three more of us, but they have already found their place at Orihime-sama's side. We, however, seem to have a different master now." He eyed her meaningfully.
"Me?" Stupid question, but Tatsuki still wanted to ask that. She went from raging inferno to a bewildered teen talking to something that should be a figment of her imagination. But after what had happened to her and Orihime (mostly her) during the past weeks were stuff generally categorized in the 'it's just your imagination' folder, the appearance of the three beings shouldn't have come as a surprise to her.
"It would seem so. Just trust your instincts when you face battle with your opponent. We will do the rest."
"Hold up, hold up! What are you talking about?"
Hinagiku gestured towards the stranger. "Time is temporarily stopped, but I must say that Baigon seems to be more at ease in using his specialty than when he had used it with Orihime-sama. But I digress. Lily, do you wish to clarify for her?"
"Right-o," Lily said with a mock salute. She then said to Tatsuki, "Long story short, if you want to survive against the L—"
Hinagiku suddenly covered her mouth, and glared.
"I mean," she continued when he put his hand away, "if you want to survive against this enemy, you need to use us in battle."
"But I don't know how," Tatsuki replied. She also noted the exchange between the two beings as suspicious, as if they were keeping secrets from her.
"Don't worry about that little tidbit. Like Hinagiku said, trust your instincts and it'll do the rest."
Trust my instincts? So she said. But Tatsuki was left wondering if it that were wise.
"You ready?"
"Wait—"
Baigon grunted and separated his hands. The world blurred for a second, and then it returned in its original colors. The tinnitus was gone. In its stead was the rage that Tatsuki thought had disappeared. If she were still in the calm state of mind to think of why this had happened, she would've come to the conclusion that her anger must've been fueled by some outside source since she had never felt this anger so potent in malicious intent before, therefore when the world stopped, so did the source. But she was not in the state of mind, and for the next few minutes she was fueled by rage, and inside that rage, instinct prevailed.
Her enemy studied her with calculating eyes, arching a brow (or what looked like his eyebrow) at the three beings that began flying around her again. She was in an impatient mood, so she decided to draw the first strike.
Letting instinct convey her, she shouted, "Hinagiku!"
Said pixie rushed to her side, eliciting a short bow towards her before facing their mutual enemy.
"Web of Shadows, Release!" she chanted, which was like a signal for the little monocle-wearing pixie to bare his teeth, grab something inches away from his gums, and pull out what looked like black, glinting strings that were passing through the gaps between his fingers.
Hinagiku used his other hand to drag that hand's fingers perpendicular to the strings, like a harpist playing a harp. But no sound was produced; instead, his fingers were draped with similar strings. Grinning almost maliciously at the stranger, who was observing everything he had been doing, Hinagiku dropped his jaw, releasing the strings. At the same time, he shot his hands forward and upward, as if pushing the strings towards the space above the stranger.
The strings took lives of their own and started multiplying and spreading around the perimeter. With a simple flick of Hinagiku's finger, some of the strings already in place split apart and those split-ends traveled in bullet-like speed towards the dark stranger, wrapping him up in unbreakable bondages that were as thin as hair. He was now stuck inside a dome of strings, but the intricate crisscross design of the dome looked to be more of a black convex-shaped web.
Hinagiku put each of his hand on the opposite shoulder, fingers contracted in a clawing position. "Imprison!" He shouted, and dragged his fingers diagonally over his chest until they reached his sides. He now looked to be forming a bad impression of a small 't' with his arms in the chicken wing position. Along this awkward performance was the effect of the shout.
The strings took the command by heart and tightened themselves around the stranger's torso and limbs. There was also a string or two wrapped around his neck, but it only tightened enough that the stranger had slight difficulty in breathing. Hinagiku doubted that the target needed air, though. It would've been a quick kill if he had complete control over the strings, but the amount of control he had was proportional to the amount of control his master had over her growing spiritual powers. And for the moment, Tatsuki was, for all intents and purposes, a novice when it came to control. Either way, he already did his job. So it was time for the others to show their stuff.
"Lily!" he called, moving back towards Baigon as the only girl pixie of the trio floated next to Tatsuki's face.
"Lily," Tatsuki said with a commanding tone, her eyes never leaving the imprisoned enemy. "Weaponshifter, Morph!"
Moving into a fetal position, Lily glowed bright blue then spread out into two directions. The glow intensified as the once human-shaped pixie turned into a majestic blue sword. It hovered in mid-air until Tatsuki grabbed it with her left hand.
Her enemy did not even panic or try to get away. And if she were to look close enough, she could see him smirking. Paying no notice to this, Tatsuki readied her sword and dashed towards her enemy. Again, her enemy only smirked as if he found this predicament more amusing than terrifying.
Inches away from delivering a vertical blow that could cut the stranger in half, Sword-Lily grew in length, her beautiful sapphire-colored blade glowing brightly. The blade went down hard and straight . . . but it did not cut the stranger in half.
Momentarily shocked, Tatsuki lifted the sword and slashed at him again, this time horizontally. It had the same effect. The blade did not cut, slice, or even get through whatever armor he was wearing beneath that dark cloak. She did a third time, then a fourth. By the sixth strike, the blade sank deep into the stranger's cloak like hitting wet dough with a stick.
The stranger laughed. "Interesting. Very interesting. But let me ask: is that all you have?"
Tatsuki's anger magnified. But before she could step back and go for another plan of attack, a giant hand grabbed onto her throat and squeezed it tight. She imagined her windpipe slowly getting crushed until the hole was as tiny as the girth of a needle. Completely on survival instinct, Tatsuki held her breath and stabbed the extended arm. The tip of the blade passed through one side of the forearm to the other side, spurting out black blood. Yet the big guy didn't even seem fazed, as if he was used to pain . . . or pain was nonexistent to his nerves.
She began to feel lightheaded. Her lungs were screaming for air, and his grip on her throat did not lessen in intensity. She tried to remove her embedded sword from the guy's forearm, but the flesh was too tough for her slender arms to take it out while short of breath.
Again on instinct, she snapped her fingers together. This triggered the strings still attached to the limbs of her enemy to tighten and hurl them away from her. This caught the guy by surprise, so he inadvertently let go of Tatsuki as his arms shifted onto his back. He now better fitted the imprisoned part.
Tatsuki fell to the ground and gasped for breath.
"Damn, you pierced my forearm," the guy said offhandedly. "Maybe you'll pay for that."
She gritted her teeth and lifted herself up. Lily was in her hand, a distant reminder of Orihime's death by this man's hand. And rage overcame her once more. Not caring about the consequences or if it was actually a good idea, Tatsuki channeled all of her spiritual energy into Lily, and her sword-form shone as bright as the sun and the blade lengthened by three feet. It almost resembled Orihime's zanpakuto, but Tatsuki didn't know that. What mattered to her right now was the effect of the sword after she delivered violent punishment on the immobile stranger.
Muscles tensed, eyes determined, palms sweating bullets, Tatsuki cocked back the sword—and gave herself a fraction of a second to rethink this gambit—then delivered all of her strength on her attack, crying out loudly as if it were one of her practiced Karate moves.
Metal met flesh.
Helmil was impressed by the display, but none of it was enough to damage him or his armor. Until he saw her final attack. It was almost suicidal to pour all of your spiritual energy into one attack; that kind of move was both rash and wasted. He could already tell that this girl was fueled only by rage, and her line of thinking rationally had disappeared before she even imprisoned him. Or rather an image of him. This was actually what he was talking about her attack being rash and wasted. The girl didn't even know that what she had imprisoned and now destroying with all of the spiritual energy she could muster inside her puny little body was nothing more than a mere illusion.
During his climb up the social ladder of his kind, there were plenty of occasions where he had to resort to backstabbing lest his so called friends backstabbed him first. And out of the fifty-two he had partnered with, all but one planned on backstabbing him. And that lone one who didn't happened to be his current partner. This was why he kept this motto as his lifeline: Be a hundred steps ahead of your enemy. It was better to observe and gather data by using distractions, decoys, and diversions (3D as he liked to call it); Devil knew how much it had saved his life more times than he could count.
With a sigh, he came out of his hiding place and approached the courtyard. His copied image, a simple spell he had crafted from experimenting with his shadow manipulation, was lying on the ground, dead and severed in half. The strings around it were dragging silently on the ground, moving back towards the closed hands of the winged guy with the monocle. With a flick of Helmil's wrist, the image melted into a flat shadow and made a beeline towards his feet, where it melded with his real shadow.
The raven-haired girl was panting, dead-tired from the physical and spiritual exertion of the technique she had just done. It was a pity she got fooled. Oh well. This was a dog eat dog world, after all. No use moping. And when did he ever feel pity? Probably a spur of the moment thing. It sure seemed to fit the image.
He masked his presence before the girl could detect him. She may be out of breath and her spiritual presence wavering out like a radio receiving bad reception, but that didn't excuse the possibility of a surprise attack by the three little persons, who were openly worrying over the raven-haired girl. The girl, of course, paid them little heed and instead gave most of her attention on Orihime Inoue. Helmil didn't mind waiting until she was alone.
He didn't wait at all, though. After finishing his earlier thought, the girl reverted the forms of the mini-persons into the hairpin, which she now held in her palm, looking at it . . . at least that's what it seemed to Helmil; the angle of view had her back completely in his sights. Her facial expression was unknown to him, but he could already picture a good mental image to fill in that particular blank. He was certain that the girl was bewildered over what she had seemingly accomplished and it all came from the hairpin her friend owned. The earlier benevolent entity he had sensed had already diminished; she had used it all up with that last attack. And now with no one to protect her, it was time for his move.
Unsheathing his sword, Helmil stepped away from his hiding place and approached the girl. She must've heard him because she immediately turned around, her eyes widening when she saw him.
"H—How . . .?"
Helmil didn't want to explain; it was too troublesome. So he decided to end it quick with one single thrust to her heart. Unlike what his shadow image had done to Orihime Inoue, he was sure not to miss the heart.
Inches away, his blade was about to pierce her left breast—
Metal met flesh.
Emi smirked.
It hadn't been easy for her to heal the puncture wound on her chest, but she had been in dire need of medical attention. If Orihime had not gone into shock and let her alter-ego take control, then Emi's natural healing factor wouldn't have activated in time to stop the bleeding. At least her blouse wasn't as bloodied as she had first thought; she had to play dead until everything in her body had been healed. And since she wasn't in spiritual form, her healing factor not only had to repair the damages to the soul but also on the physical shell that is her body. It had taken too much crucial time, but thankfully she was able to prevent an unnecessary death that she was sure would tear Orihime apart.
"O—Orihime . . ." Tatsuki's voice was close to a whisper. Probably from surprise. Emi was fine with that. It was better than having a dead best friend, anyway.
As much as she had questionable intentions with Orihime and the soul they share, she also shared some similar feelings with Orihime when it came to the people she loved. She loved Ichigo-kun for obvious reasons. This bond was also why Emi unconditionally loved Tatsuki in a platonic way, although she'd rather screw a dog than admit it to anyone. It was very disconcerting to do this, however. She had been sure that Tatsuki was capable enough to use one-half of Shun Shun Rikka to take care of the pest that decided to eliminate her. Well, Orihime anyway. The guy most likely did not know of Emi's existence . . . before. Unlike now, where she had to clean up the mess Tatsuki left behind.
"Hmm . . . a new player in the game?" the stranger questioned, looking more intrigued than surprised. A very curious soul, it seemed to her.
Her hands held the man's blade, and they were bleeding from the deep gashes on her palms. She purposefully did that. Cutting her palms was fine, but her fingers were another story. If she had grabbed onto the blade in the reverse way, the man had the advantage of slicing off her fingers whenever he wanted.
Emi pushed the blade away. "You don't look like you're in a murdering mood."
"Ah! You've noticed."
"I would've killed her outright than used a decoy," she explained, gesturing her head at Tatsuki.
"You sound like you don't care about what happens to her."
Emi put a hand on Tatsuki's mouth before she could say anything. When Emi took a glance her way, she saw the surprise when Tatsuki saw her chocolate brown eyes. The raven-haired girl's face was stained by the blood from her palms, little red dots in varied sizes. It looked almost grotesque, but nothing compared to the horrors she had witnessed in Orihime's past.
"Not really," she said to the man, "but I'll protect her all the same."
"You're not Orihime Inoue, are you?"
"Ah! You've noticed," she retorted, clearly mocking him.
The man, however, took the mock in stride and calmly said, "And you don't seem to be in a murdering mood, too. Shall we talk instead?"
"Your intentions?" She couldn't stop herself from smiling. She didn't know why; she just found this turn of events amusing.
"I sense something in you, something . . ." The man scratched his chin, pondering over the right adjective to use. ". . . something convoluted."
Emi raised a brow. She didn't know what 'convoluted' mean, but she found it insulting.
"Should I be impressed by your vocabulary?" she asked rhetorically.
Tatsuki slapped away the hand covering her mouth. "Orihime, what are you—"
Emi punched her in the stomach. She heard her gasp from the pain and from getting the wind knocked out of her. She didn't want to do this, but Tatsuki's safety was a priority for her. If the man only wanted to talk, that was fine, but if he had more ulterior motives than mere casual conversations, then she didn't want Tatsuki to be around when things turn ugly. She was limited to the strength put into this physical body, so the punch was not enough to totally put her down.
Moving before Tatsuki could react to her surprise attack, she put her hand on the girl's forehead and began draining her spiritual energy. She had no intentions of robbing all of Tatsuki's energy, but just enough to refill some of her reserves and to knock the girl out from exhaustion.
Tatsuki was doing her best to stay awake, but the human will sometimes cannot defeat the human needs. And Tatsuki's body was overly fatigued, no doubt about that. Wanting to give her alter-ego's best friend a parting gift, she put the other hairpin into Tatsuki's hand and squeezed it shut. And in that moment, Tatsuki relented and let sleep take her away.
"You're coming alone?" the stranger asked, as Emi laid Tatsuki down.
"She is not involved in this," Emi replied, her expression neither happy nor sad. Neutral. Probably indifferent.
"Mighty noble of you."
"This is not nobility." Emi stood, then faced him. "Just me getting corrupted by my other self's compassion."
The guy laughed out loud.
"Let's start our talk."
"Right," he concurred. "Let's go over to someplace a little more private than here. Name's Helmil, by the way."
Emi narrowed her eyes, filing the name for future reference. Something about that name rubbed her the wrong way.
"Here, grab my hand," he continued. "I know just the place."
With nothing to really lose, she took his hand, observing how it was over twice the size of a normal human hand, and they both disappeared with a static sound left in their wake.
Ten minutes later, Urahara arrived on the scene.
Orihime slowly woke to a dark, barren, foggy wasteland. The ground was as gray as the fog, and she involuntarily shivered from the cold floor she laid on.
"W—Where am I?" she asked, standing up. There was no echo, the damp fog eliminating the sounds of her voice before it could reach farther than the limited distance her eyes could comprehend.
She looked around her. Nothing looked different. It was as if total darkness had turned into gray. Gray was above, gray was below, gray was everywhere. Orihime felt blind.
Putting her hands to her chest, out of sheer nervousness, she then felt the warm moisture clamping onto the fabric of her school blouse. She looked down, and then gasped in horror. She was covered in blood.
"W—Wha—Wha—What?" Her hands were dampened with the fresh and warm feeling of the red liquid. It felt thick, too thick to be colored water.
"Can't you tell what it is, princess?" a disembodied voice called out from the fog, "It's your blood. Your b-l-o-o-d."
"Who's there?" Orihime blurted, looking left and right, shivering in fear. She wiped her stained hands on the sides of her blouse. No sense in getting any of her unstained clothes dirtied with the blood.
"Somehow, I feel insulted. You don't remember this realm, princess, the place where you were forced to find the old hag among the thousands of fake swords?"
Orihime's eyes widened. She remembered now, the voice and this place.
"Remember now?"
"What do you want from me?" Orihime asked, not wanting to beat around the bush. Emi wanted her for something, but she didn't know what.
"I see we still have some memory lapses . . . don't you remember how you got blood all over your torso?"
She looked at her chest again, noticing a small hole on the fabric on her left breast. "I don't . . ."
"Don't answer that; it was rhetorical. This one isn't, though: What is the last thing you remember before you blacked out?"
Orihime answered truthfully. "I remember moving towards Tatsuki-chan, hoping that she's okay—" She then gasped.
"Before you go berserk over your friend, she's all right. Fatigued, but all right.
"Now then, since you're finally awake, do you want to come back out?"
First sighing in relief over the safety of Tatsuki, she then pondered over Emi's words. "Out?"
"You've been asleep for at least a half hour. And currently I'm having some fun killing the Hollows around Karakura. Speaking of fun, that crack in the sky looks to be getting bigger by the minute. Oh . . . a giant Hollow came out. Hmm . . . omoshirosou (tr. 'Interesting')."
"Hey, what's going on out there?"
"You mean apart from some giant Hollow crawling out of a crack in the sky, landing in Karakura Park where Ichigo-kun and Ishida are surrounded by an army of Hollows, and they might die at a moment's notice if they aren't backed up soon? Well, there's that shopkeeper—Kisuke Urahara, I think—standing just a few feet away from me, and he doesn't look too happy at all. I liked him better with the carefree attitude."
"Emi?"
"Sorry, princess, but I guess you're staying in there for a little longer. Gotta have some fun in the real world once in a while."
"Eh?! But—that—you can't!"
"Who says you have a choice in the matter?"
Orihime could imagine the shit-eating grin Emi was showing."Then I'll force my way out."
"Go ahead and try. By the time you can control me again, it'd be too late."
She narrowed her eyes, and they slowly closed shut. She concentrated on her spiritual energy and the gray environment Emi had created. "We'll see about that," she whispered to the fog.
In the outside world, Orihime was oblivious to how much shit has hit the fan.
Chapter Afterword:
To wartanker66: I actually got the name "Web of Shadows" from that Spider-Man videogame. I only discovered you using that title on one of your fics on New Year's Eve at exactly 10:14 PM; approximately 48 hours after I wrote that portion.