Date written: 22/08/10 – 08/09/10

Posted on FanFiction: 08/09/10

A/N: Here's a quick summary to refresh yourself: Orihime was supposed to be taught by Urahara, too, but Yoruichi decided to take over so that Urahara can concentrate on Ichigo. Orihime and Yoruichi move to a secluded place and started the former's training. She entered the world of her zanpakuto and was forced to fight her. Move on to the next chapter, please.

Last thing I want to mention: This chapter is completely raw. It hasn't been tenderized, marinated or even cooked yet. (My analogy for first draft and revisions) So expect some typos, missing words, and other confusing stuff. I'll fix them up later, when it's not one in the morning here.

- CHAPTER 29 -

Terasu (照)

Orihime clutched her stomach, blood pouring down her hakama and staining its dark fabric. Her knees gave out and she knelt down, gritting her teeth to suppress another scream that awaited release. She breathed deeply, eyes shut tight, lips thinned, and released that breath with a shaky groan. The one who gave her that painful wound stood in front of her, unmindful of her suffering, her eyes glazed like the fog around them, her face etched with a mask of stoicism.

"I will kill you if I have to, child," the kimono woman said, and that brought a cold shiver down Orihime's spine. She realized that the kimono woman meant what she said, would follow through it when Orihime was deemed a failure.

Orihime pushed her body up, her knees supporting her hands. She hefted her sword into the standard kendo stance, but her hands were shaking vigorously like a withdrawing drug addict. The kimono woman's words replayed in her head in a voice as monotonous as the speech of a robot. I will kill you if I have to. There was no hesitation in that sentence, no lie, no joke. The woman wasn't about to hold back anymore, and Orihime had to face this opponent head-on if she wished to survive.

But in a moment of desperation, a stray idea came to her. It beckoned for her attention and wished to spread its influence in every corner of her psyche. This was an uphill battle she was facing and the inevitable result of it was her lying down on the ground, her clothes ragged and torn and stained with massive volumes of blood. Her blood. It would make a pool under her body as the life faded from her. And in her last sight of the world, she would see the kimono woman's blade colored red. A lone drop of blood would travel down to the tip, detach from it, and land on the dirt, not splashing but splatting.

Run away.

She swallowed the lump in her throat. Her zanpakuto spirit stood firmly where she was, unmoving, but her eyes stayed calculating and hardened. The thought of escaping this place had come to her a few times during the short battle she faced against kimono woman. That thought now was plaguing her mind, her senses, her instincts. This was not a battle she could come close to winning. Urahara, Yoruichi, even the kimono woman . . . they expected too much from her. This was impossible.

And I'm going to die.

Orihime didn't want that. She feared death like any other person. While she knew that there really was a heaven somewhere—Soul Society, it was called—she wasn't sure how dying a second time could affect her soul. Would it implode? Cease to exist? Be brought down to hell? Nothing was for certain. And her fear capitalized on that aspect of the unknown. The panic rat within her had been thrashing around its cage for a while, but she forced herself to keep it away from influencing the expressions on her face. Panicking never got her anywhere, but self-control also had a limit. When she realized that death was again close to her, breathing down her neck, inhaling her scent, her life force, her very soul, so close that his skeletal hands could already grab ahold of her throat and suffocate her, the panic rat was let loose.

Orihime released the panic into her face and let it guide her out of the hole she had fallen into. Her panic-filled mind picked a random direction in the foggy forest of dead sakura trees and willed her legs to start running. She passed dozens of trees, tripped against roots, bumped eight trunks, and ignoring the pain she felt all over. The wound on her waist was the most troublesome as it protested every time she swayed her arms as she ran. She never even realized that tears were falling down her eyes, half of them mixing with the tears of blood leaking from the cut on her right cheek.

She never looked back, didn't want to look back. She knew that if she did, she'd die. She would die. Die. Die. Die.

There was a flicker in the fog, an array of distorted colors of red, yellow, and pink, that gave Orihime pause and prompted her to halt. The color assortment cleared up one moment later, and there stood the kimono woman, her sword propped up and ready for a downward swing. She swung the blade. Orihime dodged just in time to her right. Panic clouded her adrenalized perception, keeping her ignorant of the fact that the kimono woman's recent attack was but a feint.

Suddenly, a tight grip curled around Orihime's neck and pushed her towards the nearest tree trunk. Instinctively trying to get rid of the hand with its vise-like grip off her throat, she put half of her efforts on her hands while the other half were on her legs, which were flailing about, trying to kick the choker somewhere undesirable if she got lucky. The thought that she felt like the ground had become nonexistent was not lost to her. Breathing was hard. She had to pull that hand off her throat.

Her efforts weren't needed, however, as the kimono woman ejected Orihime from the dent of the tree and threw her to another one. This tree looked like a giant version of a broken twig after Orihime was hurled right through its trunk. Her back, which received the brunt of the impact, felt just like it. She tried to stand, but her lower back was screaming out in protest. There was a burning feeling around her neck, like it had been a friction-partner with nylon rope, and it hurt to breathe. The best she could do in her condition was to slump her aching back on a neighboring tree and try to catch her breath.

The kimono woman gave no such comfort for her enemy. She appeared in front of Orihime again, her blade's shine catching her attention more than her callous stare. The kimono woman swung her arm once more.

Orihime closed her eyes, waiting for that sharp sword to slice her neck. It didn't come for her neck. Instead, it sliced open her left cheek and scraped the skin of her nostril. Her hand came to that spot while she bit back every ounce in her partially crushed throat not to utter another scream. She stopped the scream, but the groan was audible enough, though it sounded gruffer and parched. The cut she currently sustained was deep and open enough for her to slip her pinky in. She tasted blood in her mouth, a spoonful of it. She swallowed rather than spat; she didn't know if she could still spit with how searing hot and painful the wound was every time she moved her jaw. A tiny, innocent part of her mind wondered if swallowing the blood she was losing would prevent her from becoming anemic or worse, die from blood loss.

"Why do you hesitate?"

Orihime looked up at the kimono woman, who stopped her relentless attacks and lowered her sword—Orihime realized that it was her nodachi.

"Why do you hesitate?" she asked again. "I thought you were serious when you wanted to rely on your own strength to help the others. Yet here you are, running away from your problems.

"Yet again." She spat out. "Cowardice. Utter cowardice, this is. I'm disappointed in you."

The kimono woman thrust her sword.

This time Orihime believed it was for her neck and the trajectory point was quite close. Close, but not accurate. The tip of the blade came close to cutting open an artery, but the best it could have done was graze the skin of her neck. The sword stabbed through the tree behind her, as she sat there, shocked, disoriented, and in great pain.

Strangely, the kimono woman let go of Orihime's nodachi, turned around, and walked away. "But I am not in the mood to beat on the weak," the kimono woman said. "I'll give you some time to think about what you really want. Clearly, you haven't gotten a breather after what Kisuke Urahara and Yoruichi Shihouin told you. As far as I can tell, Orihime, you only have two choices to make." She stopped walking. "The first choice would be to give up. It is obvious that you are not prepared to face me, not prepared to control me. Dissonance between the sword and the swordsman affects the intricate art of swordplay, making it as broken as a shattered mirror. To wield me in that state would be futile and look as if you're signing your own death warrant. And nothing could be more disgraceful to a zanpakuto than to have her master lying dead on the ground because her master couldn't use her zanpakuto properly."

Orihime thought that the nodachi, positioned just below her left ear, vibrated after the kimono woman spoke, as if it were shouting out its agreement. She glanced down, but saw it was as lifeless and still as any sword stabbed half of its length through bark and wood. Imagination, maybe, but Orihime bit her lip for some reason she couldn't completely fathom herself.

"The second choice would be to grab your sword, drop your fears entirely . . . and face me head-on. Standing for your beliefs, willing to change to better yourself. That was the path your father had taken back when he was as young and unassertive as you are. When something comes to stop him, he would shoulder his goals and shrug off his doubts. He was a man who believed in his strength as well as himself. Tell me, Orihime, are you afraid to die?"

Orihime didn't answer.

"I see," the kimono woman said, her voice whispery. Loudly, she added, "There will come a time when you'll understand that there is nothing to fear in death. It is living you should be afraid of."

With those words, the kimono woman continued her walk. "I will be by the Cliffside if you wish to stay and fight me again. Do not even think for a moment that I'll let you ponder here again, though. My sword will stab you in the heart before my mind would consider it."

Emi bided for the right time. She had been doing this ever since she had awakened when the princess died. One of the things she had immediately noticed after awakening was the passage of time. The last she remembered before the old hag sealed her away was Orihime's body looking barely a day old. And there she was, on the night of her awakening, looking as fine and sexy as she had imagined herself to be. And along with the awakening, she gave a small second to contemplate the onset of Orihime's memories downloading—for lack of a better word—into her psyche. She was now "up-to-date" and used these new memories to good use. She remembered the family tragedy when Orihime was three years old. She remembered Orihime's days in elementary school, when the local kids bullied her because of her red-orange hair, and how she tried to hide away the emotional abuse from her own brother. She remembered that day in middle school where Orihime was in the same class as her future best friend, Tatsuki Arisawa, how it was because of her that Orihime decided to make her hair long again. She remembered the assorted memories of Orihime's and Ichigo's encounters; how, slowly but surely, Orihime began to see Ichigo as more than just a mere acquaintance—a friend of a friend, if she wanted to stretch the meaning out. It was a small spark, and Orihime innocently thought that these feelings were nothing more than her seeing Ichigo as a fellow companion in the unusual hair color department. In time, it grew. By the time Orihime reached high school, the feelings progressed further and she finally realized that she had been having a crush on the male orangehead for quite some time.

The Ichigo encounters before Emi came into the picture made her smile. It was cute, in a way. But also stagnating. There was no progress whatsoever, and while she believed herself to be the polar opposite of Orihime—whatever Orihime likes, Emi hates, and vice versa—when it came to the matter of love, be it platonic or romantic, that was one of the things they had in common. While Orihime loved Ichigo, Emi did, too. But while Orihime was shy around Ichigo, Emi held no inhibitions. When she loved that man, she was open to it.

Opening herself to the realm of minds in which she and the old hag resided, she sensed the presence of the princess. Her reiatsu felt chaotic and uncontrolled while her physical manifestation inside this world was hurt and bleeding. Emi understood even if she wasn't there to witness it: the princess and the old hag were fighting, so that the former could unleash her shikai. Well, what they didn't know was that Orihime learning shikai would be a double-edged sword.

The time had come to initiate her plan. This fight would surely weaken the old hag and she would capitalize that.

Still open to the realm, Emi unleashed her dark spiritual energy everywhere, changing the foggy plain in which she resided in into a black and starless void in space. There was no light, no mirrors, no color other than the blackest of black in her environment. And it was only spreading even farther, beyond the barriers where her realm and the old hag's realm had been separated. The old hag would probably be too busy fighting Orihime to realize that this was unlike the other times she tried to take control of the whole soul.

There were times in Orihime's life where she leaned to very dark thoughts. Emi had been the one to whisper in her ear in one of Orihime' dreams that the bullies were nothing compared to the powers they—she and Orihime—possessed and the only fitting way to get back at them was to kill, murder, destroy. But the old hag would stop her at every turn, and out of the twenty-eight times Emi had done that method, Orihime could only remember two, and those were fuzzy and bewildering at best. Emi's influence did not reach too far ever since the old hag came into the picture.

But not today. Today would be the day she would come out in full. No more holding back, no more barriers, no holds barred. This was deeply one-on-one.

The only way for her to usher complete control in this body was to eliminate every trace of the current queen. Or more exactly, the princess.

By the time Emi was through, the one called Orihime Inoue would seize to exist.

There was a disturbance in the air. It was small, something that could be ignored, but not for Yoruichi. The sudden fluctuations in Orihime's reiatsu told plenty in relation to the change in the surrounding air. Seeing as they were under the Urahara basement, where wind does not pass, the current movements of the air could be the effect of either two things: vacuums caused by bodies travelling in high speeds, and reiryoku discharge, although the latter had a much smaller scale in terms of air effect.

Yoruichi immediately took these as really bad signs. The wounds on Orihime were slowly closing up by themselves, while her reiatsu began to change. It felt chaotic, like the gathering winds surrounding them. Her aura, which had been a mild yellow color, almost invisible to the naked eye, darkened and wrapped itself around Orihime's frame. It was like she had been set ablaze with the darkest fires of Hell.

"Kisuke!" Yoruichi shouted. "It's happening."

Kisuke quickly strode to the corner of the narrow valley Yoruichi and Orihime were in, and began chanting.

"Don't tell me we're already going to use that."

Kisuke, too busy with chanting out the kidou spell he had planned beforehand, couldn't reply to her.

"Disperse!" Kisuke ended the chant, and the two giant rocks that make up the valley were pushed farther away from each other. The gap widened to Yoruichi's preference, as it should be now that desperate measures were being implemented.

Kisuke chanted another kidou spell. Yoruichi already knew the drill and so kept her guard on Orihime.

"This feeling," she murmured, staring at Orihime, her orange hair flying up and everywhere as the gentle winds grew stronger, "it's lot like back then, huh, Kisuke?"

He finished his chants and enacted the barrier. The corners of the now widened valley shone like vertical beacons and shot out rays of light among each other. It formed a complex web, with the two women in the middle of it, but none of these light rays were tangible. As far as Yoruichi could see, around eight rays were passing through her body, while Orihime had twelve. It didn't escape her notice that Orihime's dark aura seemed to have an effect on the rays.

"Truer than you can imagine," was Kisuke's answer to her question. "I just hope that we learned from that disaster, and that this barrier will be enough to suppress whatever will happen to her spiritual powers."

"Kisuke."

"Yes, Yoruichi-san?"

"Catch!" She tossed something to him.

Kisuke conjured a hole in the barrier for the object to acquire safe passage right into his hands. "Her hairpins . . ."

"I'd rather not fight her while having those around," Yoruichi explained, "so I removed them after she started meditating. Would the barrier keep them out?"

"Yeah." He fisted the hairpins. "The barrier suppresses any kind of spiritual energy within its walls, so I don't think that Orihime-san could call on her hairpins even if she learned how to."

"You don't think? Great, that's really reassuring, Kisuke."

"Don't let your guard down even for a second. You've made that mistake once with Aros."

"The little prick was nothing," Yoruichi retorted, eye twitching at the reminder of defeat. Aros's power took her by surprise, and she almost paid with her life if it hadn't been for Kisuke's intervention.

"Just be careful, Yoruichi-san. We don't know what will come out of this."

"No," she disagreed. "We both do. And we also know what Emi really is. And she's not about to stop with only partial control, is she?"

Kisuke looked away, lowering the front of his hat, as if he were ashamed to even show the expression on his face. He said nothing in return.

She looked over the railings, down at the black mist infecting the gray. She already knew that this was another of Emi's petty attempts at trying to invade her realm, but she had been expecting this kind of attack so she had installed a few defenses in case that the subsequent fight between her and Orihime were to escalate a little too far for her powers to keep Emi in her leash. Ever since she had replaced Orihime's old zanpakuto spirit, successfully copying that person's powers—essentially stealing someone's identity, but it was a necessary sacrifice because if she hadn't done so, then Orihime would've subconsciously rejected this section of her soul, and that would pave a clean path for Emi to exploit—she had been protecting Orihime's soul from the dark influences Emi often tried to force upon them. Most of these attempts were unsuccessful; she was thankful that Orihime had grown as a shy and compassionate woman, a complete far cry to what Emi was like.

She only hoped that the precautions were enough to keep Emi busy while she and Orihime finished what they started. If Orihime decided to continue, that is. She might've gone into her explanations a little too harshly, but what choice did she have if she wanted the girl to completely open her eyes and hear her name?

A sigh escaped her lips. It was not in her nature to judge the actions of people through logic and intuition, despite how accurate her predictions had always been. She never divulged this kind of information to anyone at all, and she wished for it to stay that way. But still, when she had predicted Orihime's decision on this current situation . . . it wasn't putting her at ease. She honestly hoped that she was wrong. She didn't want Orihime to turn her back on everything that she had accomplished up till now just because she was too afraid.

The sound of footsteps made her look away from the blackening mist below.

There was Orihime, her zanpakuto strapped at her waist, her head down, and her hands clenched.

"Have you come to a decision, child?" she asked her, keeping her voice callous. Compassion could be shown later, and only when Orihime proved to her that she was truly worthy of it.

Orihime gave a tiny nod. Was she unsure?

"I found my answer," the girl said. She raised her face, an expression of determination in place.

A ruptured wind tore through the clearing, waving their long hair along, but they both paid no heed. The fog did not lift, but the woman noticed that it had cleared a little. It was definitely a good sign.

The girl's hands reached towards the knot holding onto the strap and her zanpakuto to her waist. She pulled the little string and the knot was undone. The sheathed sword did not reach the ground, but was hefted up to the level of her shoulders, positioned horizontally . . . as if Orihime was offering the sword to her. That didn't seem to be a good sign.

"On that day," Orihime said, "when everything turned a complete one-eighty for me, I was confused, scared, and in denial. Not only from what my parentage implied, but also from what I have become. Kurosaki-kun thought that I had cried solely because I realized that I had been adopted and never been told. What he didn't know was that I also cried because . . . I didn't feel human anymore."

"Orihime . . ." She wanted to calm her—comfort her, even—but she believed that it was better for the girl to get this off her shoulder first. She had to let it out.

"Despite my misgivings, I wanted to embrace the powers I have because they were probably the only real connection I could get from my real parents. Or at least one of them, anyway. Maybe it was just a way for me to reconnect to what I have already lost. Mom . . . Dad . . . Onii-chan . . . they've all passed on. How could I have known that my real parents have died long before any of them? I was alone. I'd always felt that way. Not anymore, though. If not for Kurosaki-kun, I may have kept thinking that way, too.

"Kurosaki-kun showed me the way. Now it's time for me to journey through it. This will be my first step." Her free hand formed a fist. "I may not know who my real parents are, but there are two things I know are true. I . . . am a human person. In heart and in mind." She touched these places for emphasis. "But," she added after a moment of silence, "I am also a shinigami. In soul and in this sword." She grabbed the hilt, unsheathed her zanpakuto, threw away the sheath, and charged forward, crying out a battle cry.

She intercepted that charge with a strong strike of her own. Though if Orihime had given the time to glance at the woman's face when their blades clashed, sparks bursting from the heat of metal rubbing against metal, she would've seen a smile expressing pride.

"Good girl," she whispered before blocking Orihime's follow-up attack.

Marvelous progress.

"Hmm . . . no change in her condition. A minor mutation around the face, more specifically around the eyes like those of a raccoon's—"

"Or someone who put too much black eyeliner."

Kisuke shrugged. "That, too. Keep your guard up." Though his warning seemed to have lost its desired effect after saying it over a dozen times in the past half hour.

"She hasn't done anything for a while now, Kisuke," Yoruichi replied. "I don't think there's any need for concern." She then added as an afterthought, "Yet, anyway."

"Perhaps," Kisuke conceded, "but better to be safe than sorry."

"Yeah, but reacting to every twitch or new slash wound from her body is making me jumpy. I mean, ten minutes ago, I actually twitched when I thought she was about to stand up but was only taking a deep breath."

Kisuke snorted.

"When this is over, I'm going to kill you for that."

He then gulped. Her threats were to be feared, for she always kept true to her word, joke or no joke.

The battle had been grueling for both parties, the sleeves of their clothes shredded, the tiny cuts all over their unclothed skin, and the pervasive stench of blood mixed with sweat. Orihime thought that the gash on her waist could be one of the most painful wounds she had gotten, but now, that didn't come close to what she had endured for the past half hour. There were no moments of rest, just exertion, exertion, exertion. She was fuelled with adrenaline and the survival instincts hardwired in her head. More than once did she save her neck from getting cut, averting a nasty decapitation, and her limbs from getting dismembered. The kimono woman wasn't one without her own close calls, too. Orihime took this fight up close and personal; if the kimono woman wouldn't show mercy anymore, then she shouldn't as well. She didn't give time for hesitation. Instincts prevailed and when instincts both deemed the kimono woman a threat and fleeing no longer an option, then there were only the clashes of blades until one stood and the other on the ground lying over a pool of blood.

But Orihime was already at her limit. The adrenaline rush was fading, and her hands were beginning to shake again. This time, it wasn't because of fear but of exhaustion. Her opponent was slightly winded, but overall still able to keep the fight going. And that spelled trouble for her. She knew her moves were already sluggish as they were, and the kimono woman could counter any of her future attacks with ease. This was why Orihime prompted for more evasive maneuvers. She was glad for her six-foot long sword, for it had been the edge she needed to dodge in time when the kimono woman went for a lethal counterattack. But she had to change tactics quick before the next wave of their blade-clash began.

She shifted the position of her arms, foregoing the standard kendo stance she had been using since the start of their duel, and rested the tip of her blade to the ground behind her. The sharp edge faced her opponent, two hands clasped on the foot-long hilt, legs spread out and arranged like a horseman on his saddle, the right more bent than the left. She breathed in, breathed out, in slow intervals, forcing the shakes down to a subtle level. Her opponent made no moves to attack; she was still going for the defensive front, hoping to wear Orihime down before she could get more lucky shots in.

There was something about this new stance that made her feel a sense of longing that had been satiated, like she had reunited with her brother in the afterlife. "Steel is my body and fire is my blood," she whispered unconsciously. Words of encouragement, wisdom? If so, where did it come from? She didn't know the answer, but embraced the help it provided. It steeled her nerves, gave her the confidence to follow through with what she had in mind. "I have no regrets; this is the only path."

The tip dragged a jagged line on the soil as Orihime dashed forward, the pains from her wounds temporarily forgotten as determination kept her head and her hopes high. She only had one shot at this and if the kimono woman had not parted with her sword with this last ditch effort, then Orihime would no doubt be foolishly open to any counterattack. It was all or nothing now, and she wasn't about to back down like a coward anymore.

She faced her enemy head-on, the kimono woman shifting her position to block the incoming strike from below. "HAAH!" Orihime cried, swerving her arms towards her upper left. Both swords clashed as a spectacular blast of wind pushed their hairs almost parallel to the ground, the impact of their meeting blades creating a tiny vacuum milliseconds before the air returned. Her zanpakuto hung horizontally, its hilt and her hands inches away from her right shoulder, shaking as the kimono woman exerted almost the same amount of force Orihime was exerting, but Orihime still put up the fight. Releasing as much strength as she could, putting so much strain to her muscles that they were close to tearing, she forced the sword forward, dragging the sharp edges of their blades as sparks began to fly around them. There was a momentary pause as Orihime looked into the gray eyes of her zanpakuto spirit, a person who she believed was more than just an extension of her soul, more than just a mere instrument to defeat her natural enemies, the Hollows. What she saw beyond that indifferent gaze, she didn't know, but something was there. She just couldn't form words to describe it. The moment soon passed and she continued with her assault.

She rotated her wrists while keeping the enemy blade from breaching through the lock they were in. Her sword was now positioned vertically and pointed towards the sky. Orihime hoped that her luck could pull through this. It all depended on how fast she maneuvered her zanpakuto in the right moments and in the right places.

With little difficulty, Orihime risked severing some of her fingers when she deliberately tilted her sword in such a way that the kimono woman's katana slid down towards the zanpakuto's hilt guard. It got even riskier when Orihime timed the movement of her wrist, shifting the position of the sun-shaped guard, when the katana came close to colliding with it. As a result, the blade entered one of the six gaps, nicking Orihime's right forefinger in the process. Orihime probably didn't register the cut, for she lowered her sword, pulling along the imprisoned katana, and tilted it towards the kimono woman, whose eyes widened at the trap she had set herself in.

As if it had been a choreographed fight scene, the whole event happened in less than a minute, but its effect still left a lasting impression to the kimono woman as Orihime pressed the sharp edge of her zanpakuto to the unblemished skin of the woman's neck, probably the only bare part of her body that hadn't been on the receiving end of Orihime's sword earlier on in their battle. The woman couldn't remove her blade from its prison as Orihime's left hand kept it in place at the cost of her left palm, which was bleeding.

"Excellent work, child," the kimono woman said. "You thought on your feet, coordinated your movements to execute this hold precisely, and didn't hesitate in the slightest." She smiled.

Orihime, a little unprepared of the praise but didn't mean she wasn't welcoming it, could only respond, "Thank you."

"I do hope that your resolve will not quiver after this. There will be plenty more challenges to come in the future. Maintain what you have now and everything will turn out fine."

She nodded.

"I yield."

Orihime removed the blade almost grazing her neck and stepped back. Though Orihime now sported a nasty cut on her left palm, the heat of the moment numbed the pain along with the rest of her wounds. At least for a few more minutes.

"You didn't even let your guard down," the kimono woman said. "Excellent."

Believing that it was the most appropriate response, Orihime bowed deeply, her torso parallel to the ground. "Thank you for the great fight, oba-san."

The kimono woman made tut sounds, waggling her forefinger back and forth. "I have a name, Orihime. Don't tell me that even with your newfound confidence you are still deaf to hear it. It's whispering to you in the wind right now. Do you hear it?"

The fog began to lift and Orihime, with a feeling of great surprise, saw that the dead sakura trees were blooming. Freshly grown leaves on the branches were fluttering as light shown through the holes in the thinning fog. And from within that wind came an enchanting ethereal voice. Whispery at first, it gained clarity and volume as the landscape was literally resurrecting itself. She could hear it, her zanpakuto's name. And what a beautiful name it was. So fitting somehow.

"Yes," Orihime answered. "I hear—"

Whatever she wanted to say died the moment she saw the sword protruding from the chest of the kimono woman, whose eyes were as wide as Orihime's.

"You let your guard down, old hag."

Something dark appeared behind the kimono woman. Two brown eyes were staring over her right shoulder.

"E—Emi . . ." the kimono woman uttered before she was pushed aside, the sword pulled out before she hit the ground.

Before Orihime could come to the kimono woman's aid, Emi punched her in the stomach, very close to where the gash on her right waist was, and thrust her away. She let out an involuntary scream, fresh pain igniting from her waist to her head, leaving her slightly disoriented. Her butt hit the railings that separated the field from the deep cliff on the other side, where at the bottom, unknown to Orihime, contained the blackest darkness.

The last thing she saw was Emi's dark figure closing in, shoving a hand to Orihime's chest, sending both of them down into the void below.

"It's starting."

Yoruichi cracked her knuckles. "No holding back," she said.

"No holding back," Kisuke seconded.

The dark aura Orihime's body had been submerged in dissipated from its blazing entourage to a mediocre second skin-like appearance. It may have toned down in looks, but raw power seemed to have multiplied at least by three. Still, it was nothing that Yoruichi couldn't handle; she had been preparing for this confrontation even before the start of Orihime's training.

The zanpakuto, idly lying on top of Orihime's lap, was propelled upwards without outside force acting on it. The blade was unsheathed, but instead of a bright golden light shining out from inside the three-foot scabbard, shadows—or rather black light, as oxymoronic as it sounded—shone through.

Yoruichi's eyes narrowed at this, already fearing how much Emi had taken over. But she pushed that thought aside quickly and dashed off, reeling her right arm back for a devastating first attack via one of her most powerful haymakers. With an uttered cry for added strength and confidence, her reiryoku-enhanced fist made contact with Orihime's left cheek.

Yet Orihime's did not move, neither from the punch's force nor its impact.

"What the . . .?" Yoruichi pulled her fist back and saw an imprint of her four fingers and knuckles on the dark aura. "A full body barrier?"

Her honed battle instincts sensed danger moments later, prompting her to flash-step yards back when Orihime's zanpakuto landed on the possessed girl's outstretched hand and slashed diagonally. If Yoruichi had stayed on that spot, she would've sported one arm less on her body. She liked both arms attached to her body, and she preferred that it'd stay that way until it was time for her to be reincarnated.

"Yoruichi-san," Kisuke said.

"I know, I know," she retorted exasperatedly. She needed to get serious. If that aura could block her haymaker that easily, she had to let loose a bit of her restraint.

"Yell when you need backup."

She snorted. That'd be the day.

With her resolve unwounded and her spirit for battle beckoning for the battle's continuation, she dashed forward once more just as Orihime stood up, her eyes vacant, but no one could mistake the brownish gleam in her irises.

When Orihime opened her eyes, she saw no difference from when they were closed. She blinked. No change. Darkness loomed at each and every corner of her vision. She looked to her left, to her right, behind her, but they were all the same. Then she looked down.

"Huh?"

She had surmised that she was inside a lightless room, but the fact that she could see the white fabric of her generally black clothing as well as the skin on her hands and forearms contradicted that. There had to be some light if she could see her body, but what did make of her surroundings? Was she really inside a dark room, or had she entered a room that was painted black?

"No, that wouldn't make much sense," she murmured. She looked around frantically, searching for a source of white light in the blackness. But there was none.

"Where am I?"

"Where do you think, princess?"

Orihime whirled around. Her eyes widened, staring into chocolate brown irises. "You . . . You're . . ."

Standing five feet away from her was Emi. No more shadows, no more shrouds. Orihime was meeting her alter-ego face-to-face. It was like looking into a mirror. She wore the same kind of uniform Orihime was wearing, but the collar was more opened, exhibiting a lot more of her voluptuous cleavage that made Orihime blush and check to see if hers were not the same way. Apart from their likeness in uniform, there were differences in color among the rest of her. While Orihime's hair was orange, Emi's was ivory black. Her skin was undeniably pale—paler than Orihime's actually. It could be just the void they were in and her black hair that emphasized her albino-like skin, so Orihime checked her own forearms to see if it had the same effect. Through her simple check for paler skin, she realized something else entirely: her arms were unblemished. No scars, no wounds, no blood. Even the deep gash she had gotten on her palm from grasping the kimono woman's blade was gone. Not even a faint scar was to be found.

"Healing factor," Emi said, derailing Orihime from her pondering. "Whenever I take control, the more"—she paused, hummed—"beneficial traits of my nature are amplified. Including the one that saved you from getting scars on your cheeks."

Orihime touched both cheeks. They were smooth, despite being a bit sweaty. One hand lowered to her waist and felt the torn fabric but no wound.

"Pretty useful, huh, princess?"

Her hands dropped to her sides. She looked straight at Emi, unsure how to proceed. "Emi?"

Emi shook her head. "Nickname," she said.

"Eh?"

"This is probably our first face-to-face meeting, ain't it?" she said offhandedly, one finger prodding the bottom of her lip, eyes looking up, as if thinking like a child. Then she chuckled. "Oh my, where are my manners? We haven't introduced each other officially."

"Huh?" Orihime tilted her head to one side. It was a habit of hers to do so when she was beyond bewildered.

"I'm sure you have a lot of questions you want to ask, princess, but we first need to make a few things clear." She stretched her arms sideways and turned lazily around. "This is my realm. Well,"—she stopped spinning, her back now towards Orihime, and looked over shoulder—"more like a portion of your zanpakuto's realm, but that'd be too complicated to explain."

"What do you mean?"

"That's not the kind of question you need to ask me, princess," Emi replied. She spun a one-eighty, facing Orihime again, her arms crossed under her breasts—emphasizing more of her already revealing cleavage. "There are relevant and irrelevant questions. They go hand-in-hand, just as how good and evil complement each other."

Orihime stayed silent. She debated whether to ask her the same question again or not, and also wondered if it was a relevant one.

"One cannot call itself good if there's no evil to counteract it. The same goes for evil. They are two sides of the same coin—good the opposite of evil, evil the opposite of good—neither meeting but always there for each other.

"So the relevant question you need to ask, princess, is what does that make of us? Of you and me?" Emi took two steps closer to her while gesturing to Orihime and then her herself with her hands, back and forth. "Do you even know which is the good side and which is the bad side?" She smiled lopsidedly, clearly amused at her alter-ego's bewilderment.

Orihime didn't know how to answer. While it may seemed the answer was quite obvious, something in her stopped her from saying a response, as if it knew that the question was more rhetorical than anything.

"But that was an irrelevant question." She took one step backward, her arms returning to their previous positions. "So an answer is not needed. Still, think about it."

Licking her dry lips, more confused than when she first woke in this place, she asked, "Why am I here?"

Emi nodded vigorously, lopsided smile still on her lips. "A relevant question, finally. The answer: Because I wished you to be here."

Orihime waited for her to elaborate.

"While I commend your progress with the old hag and your newfound ability to unlock shikai, I deemed that it was time for you to learn a few more things that the old hag was keeping from you."

Her eyes widened. "Why—"

"—would I tell you this?" Emi interrupted, then shrugged. "I don't know myself," she said, pausing, and then snorting at the end, as if she found something funny in her statement.

"Who are you exactly?"

"I called myself Emi because I didn't really like my given name. I find that Emi was much more compatible to my personality than my real one does. That doesn't mean that the nickname I christened myself is very different from my real name, though. Simply put, the name 'Emi' is a shortened version of my real name."

"Then . . ."

Emi turned that lopsided smile to a full grin. Lifting her face up, their eyes meeting, she said, "My name is . . ."

Yoruichi dodged another slash, countered with a horizontal kick to the girl's legs, only for said girl to backflip, increasing the gap between them. Fists clenched tightly, set for more hand-to-hand combat, which had gone on for over two hours now, Yoruichi flash-stepped behind Orihime. A swift jab aimed for her right waist, the place she knew Orihime had suffered an agonizing wound. It connected. But the girl did not flinch or even registered a hit. Like her first attack, the dark aura seemed to have cushioned the blow.

But that was not possible. She had powered that punch with as much of her strength as she could, unlike her first attack. By the time of the second and third and more subsequent offensive strikes, she was fighting in full force and the aura became almost useless, like a thin book absorbing the force of a sledgehammer. Now it seemed Yoruichi had gone back to square one.

"Yoruichi-san!"

Acting on Kisuke's warning shout, she kicked Orihime's back to both get her away from the girl and at least make her stumble. The latter reason showed zero results.

Yoruichi rolled shoulders just as the possessed Orihime let out a blood-curdling roar to the pseudo-sky. "Kisuke, how much time do you think she has left?"

"Probably less than a day. Keep her busy for another eighteen hours. If Orihime-san is not back in control by then . . ."

"Yeah. Understood."

She didn't like where this situation was leading, but Ichigo was being given the same kind of option. It was either survive the training or become something no longer human. Then the latter would just lead to them being killed because Kisuke wasn't about to risk having such powerful beings as them rampaging through the world like rabid animals. Now that the fight had drawled to more than two hours, she was beginning to see the effects of the transformation behind the aura enveloping Orihime's whole body.

It may have been late to notice but Yoruichi could now see that all of Orihime's wounds were fully healed, no doubt thanks to her dark persona's special healing factor. She held the zanpakuto in her right hand. On the whole, there were no physical changes in Orihime, but that would soon change if the fight went on to reach the eighteen hour limit Kisuke had set. The transformation was a slow process and no doubt that it would start with Orihime's head. Because covering three-quarters of her beautiful face—

"Simply put, the name 'Emi' is a shortened version of my real name.

"My name is . . . Emihiro."

—was the parasitic presence of a black mask.

Chapter Afterword:

I had originally intended for this plot twist to occur near the end of the Soul Society arc, but it felt more compatible here in this scene than in any other. The story grew in a whole new other direction than the one I first envisioned, but at least I'm writing with my heart and not with plot. Outlines are all well and good, but I'd advise beginner writers not to rely on them. They are your guides. They are not the writers. Ideas come when they come, but it is best that you keep an open mind as you flesh out the chapters of your outline because the most brilliant ideas often come unexpectedly. Sometimes at inopportune times, too.

I'm sure that someone might have suspected where I've gotten two of Orihime's lines from. And you'd be right. It's my favorite scenario out of the three in the visual novel. Remember in an earlier chapter where Orihime had to search for her zanpakuto amongst the hundreds in the graveyard of swords? Most would assume I had taken that from Ichigo's bankai training, but they were wrong. I've gotten this, too, from the same source. Can anyone guess what game/anime/manga/movie I'm referring to?