"Uryu! Seen Kisuke?" The tanned lady with the aggressive voice shouted above. I looked above, and my eyes watched, stunned, as a boy willingly fell from the office block, beautiful glowing bow in hand, and land as graceful as a cat. His feet made a light tap as they made contact with the tarmac. I found his eyes, and low and behold, I was face to face with another of my apparent friends. His eyes were wide. "You look awful," his deep voice observed. His eyes then switched to the man by my side. "Orihime, what are you doing with him?"

My lips parted and wobbled to the struggle of finding a reply. "He's...with me! Stop treating him like he's the enemy!"

"Orihime, I was there when he died. His return is...only possible if he's one of them."

"Uryu," Ichigo began. He was standing guard the other side of my person, avoiding Ulquiorra while all the time making sure he didn't harm me. I wondered if he ever did. Ichigo mentioned I was once...his captive? Somehow, I couldn't picture this version hurting me.

"Uryu," I whispered to myself, and this name seemed more familiar to me to say. I looked back up at the faces surrounding me, slowly piecing together the fragments of my past. I was, however, eternally held in the present by the grey hand around mine, not loosening once. "I'm not abandoning him. You chose to help him too if you're going to help me."

I made eye contact with each of the blank faces, undecided as to what to do. I knew I was putting them in a difficult position, but I didn't really mind when it came to Ulquiorra.

"W-woman..." he began into my ear. I turned to see his face, ever so close suddenly. His eyes were wide with surprise. "May-be you should...go with them. Wi-without...me."

My own eyes felt dry and wide. "No, you cant mean that. I'm staying with you-"

"Orihimi," Uryu's voice said again. "Come with us."

"Not if he's not going, too! Its both of us or neither of us!"

The hand squeezed tight, and then it suddenly felt very, very cold. He backed away as I watched, and he was the furthest away he'd been since we'd left the school.

"I'll...be fine. Go." He backed away, and I was frozen in fear. I began to follow, unsteady, and then it turned into a sure march. "Ulquiorra! No, you're not leaving me with them."

"I'm...the enemy. Stay with me...so are you. You...wanted your old...life back."

"Yes! Wanted!"

Arms grabbed my elbow, unfortunately much stronger than me. I couldn't tug away. He continued to move further away. He kept his eyes on my hand. "They will help y-you."

Tears brimmed in my eyes, sickness settling in my stomach. I felt a tug in my chest, and then I was crying. "No they won't. Not like you have."

"Orihime," a deep, cold voice said. Not any of the ones I recognised. "No! Let go!" I turned my eyes on the stranger, a tall man in a black kimono just like Ichigo's, his slate grey eyes stoic and distant. "Now!"

"He Is the enemy, girl. He is now, and was then. Let him go. He has nothing, is nothing."

Anger bubbled up, and I turned to see Ulquiorra. I panicked when I found just a small silhouette, the remains of his jacket blowing out behind. His shoulders hunched, he never turned again to see me. I felt numb as he disappeared from sight.

"Ulqui...orra..."

I closed my eyes, and let the darkness fall.

...

"Will she be alright?"

Kisuke watched on, lounged against the wall as Tessai dabbed Orihime's sleeping head with a damp cloth. His eyes were shadowed beneath his hat. "In sure time."

She breathed slowly, but her eyes were restlessly twitching beneath the lids. I kept quiet, instead trying to appreciate that we had her back, just not quite how we knew her. What had that bastard done, exactly?

The door slid across, and Rukia sat on one of the available cushions. "All the hollows are defeated. Its quite impressive to see the captains at work, the Menos were gone in a flash."

I hummed in response, but I was too distracted to listen. Over and over again, against my will, the scene a few hours ago replayed. What made her so attached to him? It never happened before. Were all those memories truly gone? I couldn't believe that. She hated him before, detested him. When had that changed? The battle? His death? When they'd met again?

So many blanks, who knows how much time they'd had together.

If that was so, why didn't he kill her?

I thought myself into a trap. That espada had caused to much chaos to my friends and I, turned me into something, brought something out i'd never been aware of on a conscious level. He made me show mercy.

I'd not killed him then, because he was dying and pathetic. I'd not killed him hours ago. But he was supposed to be dead. Yet, he was more alive than i'd seen one of his kind before. Starrk, the first dead Espada id encountered, was nothing of his former, lazy, laid back self. Ulquiorra, I reminded myself, was speaking, thinking.

Was it possible?

"Urahara," I began. "Is it possible for an on of those things to come back to life? One...like him?"

"As opposed to your friend down there? I've just been thinking about that myself. It seems so."

Uryu cleared his throat. "He's very different, however."

"That's because he has no memory of his past."

The black cat slithered around Urahara's ankles. "Not entirely true. He identified Ichigo as a soul reaper, and as his enemy."

"So, he's getting memories of his past. Is that why he left?"

"That's very out of character for him. If he knew I was his enemy, he'd have stayed to fight."

"Not in his state."

Rukia stood, and looked down at Orihime. "Poor Orihime."

"What do you mean?" Ichigo said. He knew exactly what she meant, but he didn't want to admit it.

"I mean, idiot, she's going to miss him. You just don't want to see that, because of who each is to you. One, a close friend. One, the enemy who captured her and the guy you defeated. They've both changed. They're both different from how you remember.

"They've only had each other for however long, any idea what that results in?"

I bowed my head, and avoided her face. Yes it was her, but not quite. That wasn't the Orihime we knew and loved.

"We'll bring her back, we just have to help her remember who her friends are, and who're the enemies."

Rukia stared at me for a long moment as if i'd said the stupidest thing in the history of the world, and away to Urahara. She motioned to me. "How is this idiot even allowed to carry a zanpakto!" She yelled. Then back to me. "Are you really that stupid?! He's all she knows right now! He helped her, and she stayed with him despite knowing he was the enemy at some point! Orihime's a smart girl, Ichigo. Do you think she would stay with him if she didn't trust him? He might know what the soul reapers are, and who were his enemies. But that doesn't mean he knows who he is!"

I held my eyes on a spot on the sickly green walls, arms crossed high over my chest. I felt like a child, angry at being argued against. "Yet," I scowled.

"Yet," she repeated. She sat back down in front of me and nodded. "He's out there, right now, wondering. I don't know what happened with him that's different from the others, but I have a feeling she has something to do with it. I also know, from your accounts, he's coming back as a different variation of the 4th Espada. Now, do you guys really want to have an extremely powerful arrancar with a growing collection of memories wondering around by himself to dwell and become the thing he was before, or do you want to have him here, safe and away from harming others, back under the good influence of Orihime?"

I hated that little dwarf, stupid idiot genius. I kept my petulant pose going strong, until we all heard something to turn our heads.

"I'll...I'll keep it s-safe...Ulqui-orra," she whispered, eyes still clamped shut.