Date written: 19/03/11 – 13/04/11

Posted on FanFiction: 17/04/11

A/N: Hey there, my pretty little underlings. Did you miss me? To explain my long absence, I think I should start with the origins of the chapter first.

This had been on a few rewrites since the last chapter was posted. A part of the delay was my fault, because I wrote the previous chapter's ending with a full scene in mind of what to write next, only for Real Life to come and disturb my comfort zone and haul my ass back into it. Soon after that, it was busy life, busy school, busy, busy, busy. Some were bullshit-busy, but hey, it's not like I had much of a choice in the matter. Due to that, I've been more or less inactive for the past months. And now because of my writing inactivity—without even bothering to jot down my ideas into something concrete, opting instead to letting it linger inside my head, exposed to all kinds of mental shit schoolwork had been putting me through—I lost my grasp on that idea, like an edifice swept into a thick fog and when it cleared, the edifice was gone. Despite that, I've already written some tidbits during that time, but after a while, I find them severely lackluster. They were then scrapped. If my idea had still lingered in my head, it would've thrashed these poor imitations. I needed something with more edge and daring. And it was when I was in the middle of reading Clive Barker's The Great and Secret Show (an intriguing novel and wonderfully crafted and mesmerizing narrative, so read it!), a new idea came to me. So, with this in mind, I turned to the keyboard and churned this baby out, even with my snail pace because, even now, I'm still bombarded with schoolwork. Well, with how much I've written so far, here's the new chapter. And I sincerely hope that the wait was worth the effort for this.

And a final note of warning: It's summer vacation here, but I'm currently enrolled for OJT, slashing off 45 hours of vacation time per week. And I won't be done until the third week of May. In a nutshell, don't expect an update till then.

–– CHAPTER 30 ––

Wrath of the Black Sun

Orihime remembered a time when she was only fourteen years old, in her final year of middle school, when she was strolling through the shopping district of Karakura alongside her best friend in the whole wide world. They'd stop in front of a shop that peaked their interest and browse through the windows. And if the items for sale deepened their interest further, they'd enter the shop and buy something. She and Tatsuki always had this rule about shopping: when you enter a shop, it was rare for you to come out of it without a shopping bag in your hand. It was a method of caution on Orihime's part, because she often bought things like crazy, regardless if she needed the item or not. Maybe the prices mystified her or the razzle-dazzles of the clerks got to her. Whatever it was, Orihime would've gone through her month's allowance under fifteen minutes if Tatsuki hadn't been there.

She wished Tatsuki were here for this, too. She needed caution; she needed a voice of reason, a voice of calm, to aid her with this. She was treading on thin ice as it was, and with the new information Emi was about to indulge her with, she wasn't sure if she was mentally ready for it. When it came to Emi, she had to expect the unexpected.

Emihiro.

Orihime knew how to spell her name in English, and if she got the lettering right, then Emi's real name was her own name in reverse order. Did that make sense? Was it a coincidence? No, it didn't seem so.

"Don't be so nervous, princess," Emi said, tilting her head to the right, arms crossed just under her large bust. "I don't kill my guests."

It might've been a joke on Emi's part, but it just made Orihime more nervous; the thought of being killed inside her alter-ego's realm hadn't crossed her mind yet.

"Aren't you even going to ask why I won't kill you when that's all I've been doing since you awakened your powers?"

Orihime didn't say anything, but the curiosity beamed in her eyes, showing to Emi enough for her to understand without the need for words.

Emi smiled so broadly she closed her eyes midway, and kept them close when she said, "Of course you'd ask. I just never gave you the chance to think it up. I'm sure a part of you was thinking that. I wanted you to ask the relevant questions, princess. Do I have to hand you the questions along with the answers just as how the old hag gives away her powers with no bit of achievement from your end?"

She narrowed her eyes. "You tried to kill Ama—"

"Why would I kill her?" Emi paused, thought a bit, and then said, "A not so relevant question. Rather, the better question would have to be, 'How can I kill her when the dominating spirit wishes her alive?'"

"Dominating spirit?"

A finger was pointed at Orihime.

"It's always been you," Emi said, "from birth up to now. Even when I tried eating your soul hours after we were born, something or someone always comes at the last minute to pull you out of my grasp. To tell you the truth, it's both annoying and saddening, like a baby bottle getting swiped from a baby before she could even take a tiny sip." Suddenly the smile was wiped from her face. "And right now that baby is very, very thirsty."

Orihime took a step back, assuming the karate fighting stance Tatsuki had taught her. "Come near me, and you'll regret it."

"I sense fear in you, yes, but there's also that gleam of determination alongside it. It makes all the difference between bravery . . . and foolishness. If you hadn't felt fear during circumstances like this, I'd have put you in the second group." She let out a girlish giggle that reverberated by some invisible walls in this void-like place, echoing its haunting, hollow melody everywhere, giving Orihime a really bad case of the creeps. "But I digress from the main point."

They retreated into silence, neither speaking, as if they were waiting for the other to continue this atypical conversation of theirs. Orihime was beginning to see that, just as her nickname might suggest, Emi was a woman who liked to smile a lot, and there could be no doubt that she broadcast most of her thoughts in unique curves and upturns of the lips. It seemed her mood did not dissuade her from smiling—the phrase "Why so serious?" raced through her thoughts, but she neither knew why or understood its relation to the topic—and while Orihime hadn't had face-to-face dealings with the raven-haired doppelganger before, she just knew, instinctually knew, what Emi's current smile had to say: "Ask a relevant question."

So she complied with the request: "Why won't you attack me?"

A few shifts in facial muscles and the smile conveyed another, different message. Orihime didn't decipher it quick enough before Emi's lips parted to answer the question. "There's a funny story in that, actually. And that's most likely a question with omitted words."

"What?"

"It's like in my previous example of relevant questions, except this concerns you rather than the hag. The most relevant question may have to be: 'Why can't I kill you at all?'"

Her figure shimmered from where Orihime stood, and suddenly appeared in front of her, one hand pulled back with four of her long fingers jutting out but neared together, as if she were about to deliver a karate chop but initiating the first half of a stabbing motion. There was little time to react and no time to dodge, and her chest was pierced by an arm. Strangely she felt no pain and neither was there blood dripping from the supposed wound.

"You see now? I didn't attack you not because I didn't want to attack you, but because I grew tired of trying to hurt you over and over and over and over. No matter what I do, I can't seem to make you go away permanently." The arm was removed and Emi stepped a few feet back, keeping a keen eye on her.

Orihime's attention immediately went to the entry wound—or rather, where the entry would should be. All she touched was unblemished skin, but the hole made from Emi's thrust was still there, so believing it to be an illusion was out. If she had wanted to question this further, her mouth must've been betraying her because all it could release was a shaky breath.

"And it has nothing to do with my healing factor, too," Emi remarked. "So, princess, care to ask me another relevant question or is that enough for you?"

With dry lips and sweaty cheeks, Orihime looked to be straining herself mentally. Thousands of questions waited to be asked, but as there was only one mouth to articulate them, most would have to be ignored. But even then, would Emi be able to answer the few that have remained? Would she want to? Orihime didn't know, and that was fuelling most of her hesitation; she needed her first question to ask the most important out of all the possible queries she managed to think up with little time to ponder.

Emi, impatient of her silence, continued the conversation. "Before you ask that question, princess, I'd like to at least indulge you with a little secret." The smile made Orihime shiver. Emi's right arm stretched to the side, and her hand was veiled in the darkness, giving the illusion of Emi not having a right arm at all. Smile never fading nor widening, she pulled something out from that tangible darkness and the sight of it turned Orihime's blood cold.

She took a step back, now fearing for her life. There could only be one explanation for why Emi would be wielding a nodachi—a kind of bastardized version of her own sword, with the blade glinting like the darkness was to it as the light was to the shine in Orihime's blade—and she had nothing to defend herself with.

The sword's tip shifted until it reached Orihime's cheek. She didn't understand why she was afraid of this blade when Emi's earlier demonstration clearly showed that inside this mindscape, it was probably impossible for Emi to kill her. But every instinct in her system wanted her to stay away from the sharp edge leaning closer and closer to cheek, lowering itself to the line of her jaw, then to the carotid artery located at the side of her neck. Fear overcame her, and so she backed off, barely in time before the black-tinted sword did more than grazing her skin. A deeper cut would've caused a gushing of blood like pressured water from a broken pipe.

"I've been doing a bit of thinking and came to this conclusion: I can't kill you outright. You have to be aware that you're dying, so I won't stop with just physical wounds, princess. I've thought of worse things to do."

Emi came to her with a horizontal swipe, intending to cut her head off, but either by survival instincts or reflexes recently honed from fighting her zanpakuto spirit earlier, Orihime ducked out of its reach in time, barely keeping her balance and not fall on her butt. She needed to grow the distance between them; Emi's black nodachi had the advantage of range. And with nothing to defend herself but her fists, caution might not be enough to prevent her from getting slashed. She understood little of what was really happening, but she surmised immediately that maybe Emi's earlier theatrics on the hand-into-abdomen was nothing more than an illusionary trick meant to put her off guard, to make her think that any wounds she would've received could be shrugged off. This made Emi much more dangerous; not only dangerous in swordsmanship but also in ways of words, like con artists mystifying their victims.

Feet slipping on the floor once, twice, thrice, but each time she remained dexterous, returning to a stable position—somewhat, anyway—and evading a follow-up attack that could've lacerated her left ankle. Her fear expanded when Emi began tailing her retreat, grinning a malefic grin. She didn't understand Emi's intentions, whether this was what she had planned from the start or not. One minute, she tried to be pacifistic, in the next, she orchestrated the whole mystery and secrets façade that Orihime fell for, hook, line, and sinker; and in the next, she reverted to her homicidal tendencies, brandishing a dark mirror image of her zanpakuto like how a child swings around a toy sword. But now that she thought more on the subject, she had to be honest with herself concerning her alter-ego: she was unpredictable. Mood swings, bipolarity, insanity, any of these could be a cause to Emi's erratic nature. To figure out which one was beside the point, because Orihime prioritized keeping her life for as long as possible while she was stuck inside this void-like prison.

She chanced a look over her shoulder, to see if Emi was still chasing after her. She was, the smile on her face seeming to have grown a few inches, stretching up towards her cheekbones, almost looking like Alice's disappearing Cheshire Cat. The sight made Orihime shudder and gave her more reason to put more speed into her dash, doing anything and everything to get as far away from the crazy woman. But her lungs were bordering hyperventilation from the exertion and her belly felt like it was being stabbed by hundreds of knives over and over, only stopping until she was either dead or numb to the pain. These just cemented to Orihime that she couldn't run from this forever.

Cowardice.

A disembodied voice swam in her thoughts, echoing its message like a chant. This was not a voice that came from the present but from the past, not too long ago, from a time when she was facing another life-or-death battle, but unlike this one, her combatant was fighting her to help her, not kill her. And it was in that woman's words that Orihime took strength from, putting pride and fear in the back while she used the time given to her to steel her resolve.

Utter cowardice, that is.

But for all that she had done, for all that she had accomplished, was this the result of it?

It couldn't be, Orihime refused to let things as they were. She went through so much trial—so much pain and blood and effort invested into making her into the shinigami she wished to be, with strength incapable of being looked upon as a burden to anyone—and she wasn't about to let it all go to waste without a fight. She encountered this predicament before and lived through it, so why fear Emi? Why fear the inevitable when she could die trying to evade it, in the off chance that she might succeed?

The thought of fighting back boosted her confidence exponentially. But there was still the disadvantage of fist versus sword. She needed her zanpakuto to fight back.

It was then that she realized her error. She had been thinking too logically, too restraint, that she missed the most important aspect of a zanpakuto: it was a part of her. Inside this mindscape, where physics and limitations of the outside world could by all means be rendered obsolete by thought alone. This was a place of ideas, dreams, and imagination. To think of this place as a part of the real world was instinctual, since it was the world every person had lived and adapted to from the day they were brought out of their mother's wombs. Orihime had to stop thinking as if she were still outside; this was her mind, her domain, her sanctuary. If she didn't trust her own mind, then who could she trust?

And it was from this line of thinking that she tried to reacquaint herself with her lost zanpakuto and its spirit. The last time Orihime had seen the kimono woman, Emi had fatally stabbed her before hauling Orihime into the dark corner of this mental plane. After achieving the 'revelation,' the connection between them was much more profound, and it pulsed in synchronicity to the beat of her heart, as if to underline that her zanpakuto was more than just a tool but another part of the whole body. It breathed life, it pulsed with life, and it possessed life. And whatever Orihime wished, it also wished the same.

Show Emi who's in charge.

Orihime concentrated on their connection, willing the solid feel of her zanpakuto into her hand, although she had to do so while struggling for her body to keep up the pace of its running. The revelation was an eye-opener, no doubt about that, but with Emi still chasing after her with that carbon copy of a zanpakuto being swung around like crazy, there was no time for rest. She needed a firm grasp of her zanpakuto; willing for it didn't seem enough. She had to pull it into this void at all costs, even if Emi sensed the intrusion into her world. Orihime's pulls were turning forceful for every failed tug, this action born out of frustration, exhaustion, and desperation. All three emotions were dragging Orihime through one of the roughest ordeals she had to face inside this mindscape (far worse than her fight with the kimono woman, because this predicament came upon her unexpectedly minutes after the fight), so maybe expecting her to be covert was asking too much.

It was a slow process, but at least there was progress. Little by little, Orihime could feel the accumulating power of her zanpakuto materializing from somewhere inside her, but the container was only a quarter empty. An incomplete summon was out of the question; she didn't know what kind of effect this could do to the spirit in the long run. Such sentiments were a little extreme, seeing that she was on the run for her life and worrying more on the effects of a botched summon than her own life, which could spell the end of the kimono woman regardless. But it never came to Orihime because to understand that would require a higher percentage of mental processes, which was much more than she was willing to give when she was close—so very close—in achieving full conjuration. No scratches, no flaws. Pure steel and spirit, ready for battle.

The wait was now over, and, whether it was by instinct or just knowing what went around inside her head now, Orihime knew that Emi felt the pulse she ejected from her system as she halted her dash. She didn't slip and didn't advance anymore once she thought of fully stopping, friction becoming thrice stronger than what was normal. She faced Emi once more—all fear that had once jury-rigged her flight response was absent from her gaze—and Emi, in turn, stopped tailing and brandishing.

Inside one measly moment, two pairs of eyes—one with the color of chocolate brown, the other of ash gray—met with lightning intensity. One showed amusement. The other signaled a torrid mix of feelings that it'd be impossible to tell which one was dominant. Maybe there wasn't; it seemed to make more sense that way.

Orihime pictured the image of her zanpakuto—a beautiful nodachi with its hilt guard mirroring the design of her hairpins—and went to work in bringing the sword into being. It was formed in rapid pace, faster than a person could blink, starting from the candy bar-shaped pummel to the tip of the blade seven feet later. She had her sword back, but she wasn't finished. A sword was only a sword if there was nothing special about it. Zanpakuto were special, and each of them bore a form that transcended its original shape, but to acquire this transformation, the wielder needed to shout a phrase—a code used specifically for activation—followed by the zanpakuto's name. And that phrase was . . . the zanpakuto's name was . . .

"Blind the unworthy, Amaterasu!"

Yoruichi slammed onto the barrier wall with her back and jaw aching from the impact and punch, respectively. From the start of the fight, she held back on her more lethal arsenal of Hakuda techniques and maneuvers, but she was also rusty. It had been a long time since she last did hand-to-hand combat with something other than a dummy she always went all out on. It had been decades since she really gave a thought on holding back, but it was to be expected since she and Kisuke and the others were in hiding. They had to be ready when Soul Society learned of their whereabouts.

Now while she was put into a slight disadvantage—and that's a very, very big S-L-I-G-H-T—she was willing to rise to the occasion. Besides, it was good practice for her to get back into the swing of things. It reminded her of the old days when she had been instructing the greenhorns of the Onmitsukidou in advanced Hohou and Hakuda. Of course with her extraordinary skills in these categories, it would be too easy for her to make a mishap and accidentally kill one of her subordinates. Control was not one of her strong suits, so sparring with her was limited to the ones who could go toe-to-toe with fourth-seat-level shinigami.

As for Orihime—or rather her half-possessed state—her powers and skills didn't even come close to that. The best she could offer was the chance to become a tenth seat in the Fourth Division, what with her level of control and special healing abilities. But as it stood, Yoruichi had to pull her punches to what she regarded as a playful slap, while maintaining her current level of speed. That was like wishing for a bullet to switch from lethal to sting.

That didn't mean she wouldn't step up to the challenge, though.

The black mask adorning Orihime's face was three-quarters into covering it all. Once it reached completion, then it meant Orihime had lost the inner battle and Yoruichi would be forced to deliver the fatal blow. Peering through the corner of her eyes at Kisuke, she saw him watching the battle intently, even the pause that put both combatants in silence and distance. His face was unreadable, but with her knowing the man for centuries, she knew the emotions he was trying to suppress behind that expressionless façade. Fortunately it wasn't distress or worry, but impatience. If Kisuke didn't have the need to be distressed, then Yoruichi shouldn't as well.

The fight would still go on for hours, it seemed, so she stood straight up and resumed her battle stance. She needed to find an opening in her opponent's defenses; most of her attacks had been deflected before, and the few that she was able to breach through that tank-like defense were botched by some kind of armor wrapped just on top of Orihime's skin. Compressing reishi and molding it into a second skin deserved praise, but this was a different situation where Yoruichi rather liked to curse at it instead.

Orihime attacked first, brandishing her nodachi as she released a disturbing roar. Yoruichi tensed up her legs, preparing for the dodge she would have to make, but the attack never came close to her.

Because her opponent suddenly tripped on her own foot.

Everyone was silent for seconds. Yoruichi turned to Kisuke for answers, but he looked as incredulous as she felt. Here she was, fighting a monster possessing the body of a shinigami-human hybrid, and something like this turned up. Yoruichi would've laughed at her opponent's face right then and there if the situation had not been so serious. Her experiences with black-masked Hollows could be written in books worth a thousand pages, but even when one were to read each and every volume, they wouldn't find a passage containing a comical scene. The Lückenhaft just didn't work that way. They were efficient killers and predators, more so than the weak Hollows that pop up in this world from time to time.

In a nutshell, if this were a trick to bring her guard down, then she wasn't falling for it. This kid is centuries too young to pull a fast one on me, she thought irritably.

Discontent over the change of pace, Yoruichi decided to take the bait and draw near to where Orihime lay. Aside from a big twitch of the right shoulder—prompting Yoruichi to stop and observe for a while, then continue walking—the body was unmoving. The menacing aura circulating Orihime's system felt almost nonexistent; only fragments and its lingering presence remained, like the soot marks caused by a great flame.

Yoruichi thought that maybe Orihime had finally done it, finally been able to control her shikai as well as put her alter-ego on a leash. This contemplation didn't last when she found the faults in it. For one thing, even though Orihime was lying facedown, the three-quarter mask was still covering her face. Another would be the tight grip on her zanpakuto.

Keeping her guard up, she inched even closer to the body. "Orihime," she said softly.

Her hands shifted and a groan was heard. No longer distorted and demonic-sounding, Yoruichi's hopes rose a notch. She knelt down and grabbed the girl's shoulder. Another groan was heard before she turned Orihime on her back, the menacing mask looking like it had been glued into her face. Her eyes were closed, which still put Yoruichi on edge. There was no telling if behind those eyelids would reveal brown or gray orbs.

The third groan accompanied the steady opening of those eyelids, where Yoruichi held her breath and her guard to the max. This wouldn't be the first time that she'd be faced with a surprise attack this close, and unlike that last time she would be fully prepared for it. Any kind of muscles twitching in the arms or legs, signs that could lead to an attack. She was ready.

"Yoruichi . . . -san?"

Gray-colored irises danced around the girls' dilated pupils.

"Orihime." Yoruichi couldn't help the smile forming on her lips. "Good job."

She was silent, her eyes moving from corner to corner as if it were looking for a way out of its sockets. Those eyes suddenly stopped, then shifted back to looking at her. Yoruichi could not understand the full brunt of the emotion screaming within those gray orbs, but something in her gut seemed to have translated it for her.

Get away.

Too late.

Gray turned to brown, a smile must be forming within that black mask—

Before Yoruichi knew it, she had been stabbed deeply in the stomach.