Challenge 4: Table of Doom
Title: In Search of Halcyon Days
Prompt: Word: fairytale, word: mission, place: skyscraper, wildcard: zombies, person: 3rd, tense: present, genre: survival
Word Count: 4636
Rating: T
Original/Fandom: Bleach
Pairings (if any): Ichihime
Warnings (Non-Con/Dub-Con/Underage): none
Summary: When Aizen learns of Orihime's miraculous healing powers, he isn't going to let her out of his grasp, but Ichigo isn't going to let him steal Orihime.
It is hard to imagine that Karakura Town used to be a busy, bustling place to live. As Orihime surveys the empty, decrepit streets around her, she wonders what life was like before the zombies had come. She had never known a life before the virus had spread, killing off most people and turning most of the rest into shambling, decaying husks of their former selves that hunger for more human flesh to sustain themselves. Her life has been one where you constantly have to look over your shoulder to make sure that there are no zombies nearby and that you always have to have a weapon ready just in case.
Humanity is at its end, even Orihime knows that. Although Seireitei has held on longer than most settlements, thanks mostly to the fact that it is an island and easier to defend, even it is reaching its limits. Food and other supplies are beginning to run out, and it is getting harder and harder to scavenge for them. Most of the old cities and towns are too picked over to provide anything anymore. Orihime’s own trip out today is most likely pointless and serving only to upset Urahara, and the longer the journey from Seireitei, the more dangerous.
The faint sound of scrabbling feet draws Orihime’s attention. Adjusting her grip on the crossbow, she creeps towards the noise. Her palms sweat a little and she bites her lip. This isn’t the first time she’ll have to kill a zombie, but there is a moment of anxiety every time she faces one, especially when she is alone. Pressing herself against the wall of one of the buildings, she peers around the corner, her heart thumping wildly.
A squirrel peers back at her, a piece of plastic in its tiny paws.
“Aw,” she coos, “you’re nothing scary!” Holding out a hand, she tries to coax it closer to her, but it refuses to move. “Are you scared of me? Don’t be scared of me Mr. Squirrel!” She inches closer to it, and as she does so, a hand falls onto her shoulder.
It is far too cold to be a human hand.
She freezes in place and for a second, she can’t do anything. When she regains her senses, she tries to pull herself out its grasp, but it’s too strong, stronger than any zombie should be.
It’s one of the new ones then. Some of the groups that have returned recently had come back missing too many men and with stories of stronger, smarter zombies unlike anything they have ever seen before. Just from the shear strength this one is exerting on her, she knows that it can only be one of them.
Turning her head, she comes eye to eye with it. While it still shows signs of decay, there is intelligence in his eyes and restraint in the way he hasn’t eaten her yet.
“No guards for you?” he asks. “I’m unimpressed.”
“I don’t need guards,” she says. And now, more than ever, she is afraid, because there can only be one reason why he is here: Aizen has sent him.
“You must think highly of yourself, or those you keep company with must not think highly of your abilities. Do not speak,” he says as she tries to protest. “I am here to take you to Aizen-sama. He wants your powers. If you do not come with me, we will invade your precious town and kill everyone you love and make you watch as we rip them apart and eat them. So, will you come with me?”
The intensity in his eyes terrifies her, and the last thing she wants to do is walk willingly into Aizen’s arms. He almost destroyed Seireitei once though, and she can’t let him try.
She knows that there is not a lot that she can do to help her friends, let alone humanity, but if she can do something this once, even if it is as horrible as whatever she is sure Aizen will make her do, she will do it.
“Yes,” she says, in a soft yet unyielding voice.
“You have twelve hours then. You may say goodbye to your friends but do not let them think that anything is wrong. At midnight we will meet here again. If you are not here by then, we will invade your town.” He lets go of her shoulder and she sinks to the ground, too weak to stand on her own in that moment and watches as he rapidly walks away from her, disappearing into the city.
It takes her a moment to realize that this is the perfect opportunity to kill him, but by the time she gets to her feet, he has truly vanished and she is left circling the city in vain until she runs into Tatsuki.
“Orihime!” Tatsuki greets her as she runs up to her. “Did you find anything?”
“Ah, no, just a squirrel,” she says with a laugh as she scratches the back of her head. “What about you?”
“A squirrel? I didn’t know any rodents were still living here,” she murmurs with a shrug. “No, I didn’t find anything either. We’ll have to try further out next time.”
“Y-yeah,” Orihime agrees.
“Are you okay?” she asks eyeing Orihime. “You sound a bit weird.”
“I’m fine, I’m fine!” Orihime rushes to assure her. “I’m just sad that we didn’t manage to find anything.”
“Don’t worry about. It’s not like we’re the first group to not get anything, and no one was really expecting anything.”
They walk through the empty city in silence until they get back to their boat, but once they’re in it and sailing back to Seireitei, Orihime starts talking again, afraid that Tatsuki will find it odd if she is too quiet.
When they get back, they go their separate ways, Tatsuki off to work out, and Orihime to her home. More than anything else, she wants to hug Tatsuki and tell her goodbye and that she loves her, but she can’t.
No one can know that tonight is her last night in Seireitei, and Tatsuki least of all because Orihime doesn’t want her to blame herself.
As she walks back to her home, she tries to memorize every detail and say hello to everyone she sees.
She pulls out an old, half-used notebook when she gets home and begins to write down a list of chores that Rangiku will need to do. Of the two, Orihime is the one better at making sure the house stays clean, and she doesn’t want it to fall apart when she is gone.
“There, as long as she does this, the house should stay nice and tidy,” Orihime says, putting down her pen. Getting up from the table, she walks around the house. This is the place she grew up in, the place she and her brother lived in for as she can remember. They had lived elsewhere before, but he had taken her and come here when she had been very young. Her fingers linger on the marks on the wall where Sora had recorded her height until he died, and then she moves on, drifting through the rooms and remembering everything that has happened here.
She wonders when she last actually looked at her home and saw all of the marks and scrapes and scratches and all of the little things that made this place her home and filled it with that sense of familiarity. It has imprinted itself on all her senses as her home, but when she is gone, will it start to fade from her memory? Will she forget the smell, the scrape on the floor from when they brought in her bed, and the way the rain sounds when it hits her roof?
Will she forget her home and her brother and her friends?
Kneeling before her little shrine to her brother, she picks up the sole picture she has of him, and Enraku, the teddy bear he had managed to scavenge for her. The picture is old and faded, like her own memories of him. Orihime can remember how much he loved her and how much she loved him and the way he cared for her and played with her, even if some of the specifics are now forgotten, and the way it felt like her heart was being ripped to pieces the day he was turned, but she can’t quite remember his face the way she used to be able to or his voice.
And the same is going to happen to everything else in her life, until all she can see with clarity is Aizen and Gin and Tousen and their zombies.
“Sora,” she says as she places his picture and Enraku back, “I know I haven’t talked to you as much lately, and this probably won’t make up for it, but I love you and I miss you.” She has to pause to wipe her eyes and her nose. “But I have to go. My friends are in danger, and I’m the only one who can do anything, so I have to go. I don’t think I’ll be back, so goodbye big brother.”
She takes a few big deep breaths and forces herself to stop crying. “I have to go see some other people now, so goodbye.” She lays Sora’s picture down and leaves.
Chad. Uryu. Mizuiro and Keigo. Chizuru. Renji. Rukia. There’s so many people she has to say goodbye to and not nearly enough time to do it in.
Finally, it’s time for her to see Ichigo. The hospital is locked late at night, but she was given a key months ago by Uryu when she decided to start helping there. She laughs a little to herself as she thinks back on how nervous she was all those months ago. She was worried that she wouldn’t be able to help enough, but now she knows that she can probably help anyone in there more than anyone else on Seireitei, even more than Unohana can.
She smiles when she sees Yuzu and Karin and sleeping on the floor next to Ichigo’s bed. Tiptoeing around them, she sits in the chair next to his bed and takes his hand. He was badly hurt during his last supply run by the new zombies. She wonders if the one she met was the same one who hurt Ichigo, or if it was another one.
Urahara has told her repeatedly not to use her powers, so they don’t attract attention, but now it’s too late, and if there is something she can do for Ichigo before she leaves, she is going to do it. Summoning them is still a bit hard, and it feels weird, like a current of electricity running under her skin, but she does it, and her hands and Ichigo’s body are suffused in gentle blue light. It takes almost no time for him to heal, and when she pulls her hands away, he is as good as new.
“Kurosaki-kun,” she says, keeping her voice to a whisper, “I wish didn’t have to go, but I have to. To save this place and the people I love. There’s so much that I want to do. I always wished that there was some way for the zombies to be cured, and then I could go and travel the world and see everything we’ve heard about in the stories from before, and maybe you could have come with me. But I guess, that’s not possible now. But, I really wish I could live five lifetimes, and then I could eat five lifetimes worth of food and live in five different places and become a baker and a teacher and an astronaut, and in every lifetime I’d fall in love with the same person.” She leans over him, her lips almost touching his, but she can’t bring herself to kiss him. Sitting back up, she wipes tears from her eyes. “I’m sorry I have to go, Kurosaki-kun. I love you. I wish I could have told you.” She takes his hand again and squeezes it, and then she leaves his room and the hospital.
The walk to the docks is a cold and lonely one, and as she sails away from Seireitei for the last time and she whispers to herself, “Goodbye halcyon days.”
~*~*~
“You’ve done well, Ulquiorra,” Aizen says as he looks over Orihime. She feels exceptionally vulnerable as she stands in front of him. She has no weapons to defend herself, and on all sides there are zombies. They may not be lunging after her, intent on eating her flesh, but they are still there, and Orihime can almost feel the hunger oozing off of them. The only one she can trust not to eat her is Aizen himself, who is sitting on a throne high above the rest of them. “Welcome to Las Noches, Orihime Inoue. It is a pleasure to have you here.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Now, I don’t mean to be presumptuous, but perhaps you could give us a demonstration of your power by healing Grimmjow over there.” He points to one of the zombies who has been skulking in the back and is missing most of his left arm.
“Of course,” she acquiesces. As she walks over to him, one of the other zombies begins to protest.
“Why Grimmjow? His arm was ripped off by Tousen-sama. He isn’t even one of us anymore, so why should he be healed?”
“Wait and see, Luppi,” Aizen says to him.
“I bet this girl can’t do anything. If you fail I’m gonna kill you, got it?”
Orihime ignores his words as she calls upon her powers. Blue light engulfs the end of Grimmjow’s arm and the space where the rest of it should have been, and in a blink of an eye, his arm is back.
“What?” the one from before, Luppi, says. “How is that possible?”
“Inoue-san has a very special power. It verges almost on the territory of God himself,” Aizen says as he looks down on them. She looks up at him, awe bubbling up in her at the thought of just what she can do, but fear threatens to sink it because surely, a man like him can’t be planning anything good when power like that is before him.
“Hey girl,” Grimmjow yells at her. “I need you to heal something else.” He jerks a thumb over his shoulder, and she walks behind him. There’s a wound in the middle of his back, not decay, but an actual wound. She activates her powers again, and when they are done working, a tattooed six stands out against the deathly pallor of his skin.
“What are you doing, Grimmjow?” Luppi yells at him, but Grimmjow doesn’t answer him. He just grins and lunges at his fellow zombie, his arm flying through Luppi’s stomach, and then he tears the rest of his body apart. He laughs as he destroys the body, and when he is done, he yells out, “I’m six again! Sexta Espada!” as bits from Luppi’s body drip off of him.
Orihime manages not to gasp as she watches the destruction although she is sure that she looks horrified. Zombies frequently tear one another apart, but there is something so wildly indulgent in this, something so wild and yet controlled. Grimmjow isn’t doing this to eat or because he accidently grabbed Luppi and pulled, but because he wants to and because there is a reward for doing so. Is she to be the personal medic for this group of monsters? Is she supposed to piece Luppi back together?
But Aizen doesn’t call on her to use her powers again, and when she looks back up at him, he is smiling faintly.
~*~*~
When Ichigo wakes up, he is perfectly healed. His wrist is better, there are no bruises or cuts covering his body, and in many ways, he feels better physically than he has in years.
But something is off.
It isn’t until Tatsuki comes into his room later that morning that he realizes what.
“Have you seen Orihime?” she asks as she comes in.
“No, I haven’t seen her since the day I first got back. Why?”
“She’s missing. No one’s seen her this morning, and Rangiku says that she never came home last night.”
“Where could she have gone?” Ichigo says with a frown. “It’s not like this place is that big. I’ll come help you look for her.” He gets out of bed despite Tatsuki’s protests that he needs to still rest. “I’m fine. See? All better,” he says holding out his wrist to her.
He isn’t quite sure how to describe the look on Tatsuki’s face when she sees it, heartbreak, sorrow, awe, and maybe a bit of anger and resolve all mixed together. “Orihime was here,” she says. “Even if you didn’t see her, she was here.”
“What do you mean?”
“She can heal people,” Tatsuki says. “We found out during the outbreak. I was bitten, and Orihime healed it.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about it?”
“We told Urahara, and he told us not to tell anyone because it might attract the wrong sort of attention.” Her hands curl into fists as she speaks. “But maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe someone found out anyway.”
“What are you talking about?” Ichigo asks.
“Yesterday, Orihime seemed really off. I thought that it was nothing, so I didn’t really pay attention to it, but maybe someone came to her yesterday.”
“Who? There’s no way Aizen would risk his own neck to get her, and why would they let her come back?”
“More time for her to get away maybe? I would have known if she hadn’t shown up at the rendezvous point, but if she left sometime last night, then they have several hours to get a head start with.”
Ichigo walks to the door. “Come on, we should go check the docks and see if a boat is missing.”
Tatsuki nods and follows him. Before they are even halfway to the docks though, they meet Rukia and Renji.
“Did you find anything?” Rukia asks. “And shouldn’t you still be in bed, Ichigo?”
“I’m fine,” Ichigo tells her, “and we didn’t find Inoue, but she did visit me last night.”
Renji and Rukia exchange looks.
“What is it?” Tatsuki asks, and Ichigo imagines that he is the only one who hears the bit of panic in her voice.
“We decided to go and check at the docks, and when we got there, there was a boat missing. We figure it was probably Orihime who took it,” Renji says.
“We have to go after her,” Tatsuki says. “We can’t leave her alone out there. Who knows what Aizen could do to her!”
“We can’t,” Renji says.
“What do you mean we can’t?” Ichigo demands. “We can’t just leave Inoue.”
“Yamamoto-sama was there when we were, and he said that no one was going after her. It would waste of resources to go after just person who might not even be alive, and even if she is, she may be a traitor.”
“Inoue isn’t a traitor. Why would she betray us? If she wanted to, she would have left with Aizen two months ago. And how does he even know that Aizen is behind this?”
“He said that there was no way that we could know that, and that she could have been spy working for him, and who else could she go to? There’s no one else even remotely close to us.”
“Orihime never went near Aizen or Gin or Tousen when they were here! Why would she even want to work with them, and how could she have even set up the connection?” Tatsuki demanded.
“We tried to reason with him, but he wouldn’t listen to us. He said that no one can go after her, and we need to begin to prepare because they may now have new information and those new zombies may be their work,” Rukia says.
Ichigo turns away from them and stomps off. “Where are you going?” she yells after him, and he stops for a moment to yell back, “You can all just sit around doing nothing, but I’m not going to let Inoue down.”
Anger radiates off of him as walks to Urahara’s shop. The man sells bits of broken junk, odds and ends, and reminders that there was a world before the zombies came. No one actually goes to him for his goods though.
“Kurosaki-san,” the man greets him with a lazy smile. “How can I help you today?”
“Tell me about Inoue’s powers,” he demands.
“You’re going after her then?”
“You knew that she was gone?”
“With all of the commotion that your friends were making this morning, it was hard not to know. That’s part of the reason why I made sure that she and Arisawa didn’t tell anyone about Inoue’s ability. Once one of you knows something, the rest of you do, and then that information spreads to everyone else on this island.”
“What exactly can she do?” Ichigo asks.
“She can heal. I haven’t had the time to fully study her abilities yet, but they are impressive. She eradicated the virus from Arisawa’s body. There is great potential in her, but those powers could easily be used for less than wholesome purposes as well,” he says giving Ichigo a look.
“Aizen.”
“Among others, but yes, Aizen was always the biggest concern. I suppose the reason she didn’t come to say goodbye to me last night was because she didn’t want me to know that she had failed in keeping her abilities a secret.”
“Or maybe she didn’t want you to try and talk her out of going. I doubt Aizen asked her nicely.”
“And I doubt that I could have talked her out of it. Inoue can be as stubborn as you sometimes, and that’s why I’m not going to try and talk you out of going, and instead am going to help you. Come here, Kurosaki-san,” he says waving at him to come behind the counter and into the back room of his shop. He has been in there before and knows that Urahara keeps the best of his goods, and the ones he doesn’t want Yamamoto finding, there. Urahara lifts a slender, black case off of the wall and sets it on the floor. “Before you leave tonight, come and get this.”
“What is it?” Ichigo asks with a frown.
“Open it and see.”
The case is a bit difficult to open because the hinges on it have rusted some, but when he gets it opened, he is greeted with the sight of a sword. “A sword? I don’t even really know how to use one of these.”
“You should know enough to get by on, and I think that this may be more useful than your guns and your bows, and you don’t have to worry about running out of ammo with this.”
Ichigo closes the case and stands up. “Thanks, Urahara-san.”
He waves a hand. “Don’t worry about it. Just make sure you all get back in one piece. I’d hate to have to explain to Yamamoto-sama about how you all died, and why I helped you.”
~*~*~
Staring out of the window of her room, Orihime feels almost like a fairy tale princess. Maybe it’s the way that she can reimage the skyscraper she is stuck in into a tower, or the white dress she is forced to wear, or maybe it is simply a way for her to hope. Because princesses get rescued from their towers, but does it count if the tower soars up past the clouds and if she went of her own free will? She isn’t sure, and it doesn’t matter anyway because no fairy tale prince is going to rescue her.
The door to her room creaks open, and she braces herself to face Loly and Melony again. She isn’t sure what exactly they are to her, servants, jailers, something in between, but they hate her, she knows that. They are different from the other zombies here too, more decay visible and the scent of rot stronger around them.
Smiling in hopes of winning them over with kindness, she turns. But it is Ulquiorra standing there, not them.
“Aizen-sama wants to see you,” he says before she can even open her mouth. “I am to take you to see him.”
Silently, she follows him out the door and into the elevator. She feels a bit claustrophobic in it. She has never had an issue with small spaces before, but maybe it’s because she has never been stuck in one with enemy who probably wants to her eat her.
The elevator chiming to let them know their floor has been reached is her salvation, and she almost prefers being left alone with Aizen than with Ulquiorra. At least Aizen puts on a front of gentility.
“Hello, Inoue-san,” he greets her as she walks into the room where he is waiting. “You can leave us, Ulquoirra. Would you like something to drink?” he offers to her.
“Tea would be fine, Aizen-sama,” she tells him and accepts the cup that he pours for her. He is silent as she adds sugar and cream to it and sips on it. He seems unaffected by the silence, a smile present on his face, but to her it is unbearably uncomfortable. It is like pins in her flesh, pricking at her over and over again, and she fidgets in her seat, waiting for him to tell her why he called upon her. Finally, when she is ready to burst from anxiousness, he speaks again. “Tell me, Inoue-san, how were zombies created?”
She frowns. The question is an odd one; everyone from the smallest child on knows the cause of zombism. “By the virus of course.”
He smiles a bit more. “The virus is how zombies reproduce, but not how they were first created.”
“But everyone-“
He cuts her off with, “You shouldn’t listen to what everyone else says, Inoue-san. Zombies weren’t first created by a virus. There was a war, a horrible war between all of the nations in the world. It was the third one like it, and in it they used horrible weapons called nuclear bombs, and they destroyed everything. Because these weapons didn’t just kill immediately. They destroyed the earth and thousands of people when they first struck, but not all of the effects were known right away. Some people died of cancer, and others became the first zombies.
“But that’s not all that these weapons did. Some people were changed by them as well, but for the better. They were given extraordinary gifts as a result, gifts like your own.”
“Like mine?” she repeats.
“Yes, like yours. You have been given a very precious gift, Orihime Inoue.” He picks up a small vial off of the table and hands it to her. “I’ve been doing a great deal of research. Some of the results of that research are the zombies you see here in Las Noches. They are not human, but not quite zombie. You see, I have been trying to find a cure.”
“Find a cure for zombism?” she asks as she studies the vial.
“Yes. That vial you hold has in it something I call the Hogyoku. I believe that with it, I will be able to eventually cure the zombies and get rid of the virus, but I haven’t found the right combination yet. But I believe you may change that because you, Orihime, you have been given a gift, and I believe that because of it, you are humanity’s salvation.”
Prompt: Word: fairytale, word: mission, place: skyscraper, wildcard: zombies, person: 3rd, tense: present, genre: survival
Word Count: 4636
Rating: T
Original/Fandom: Bleach
Pairings (if any): Ichihime
Warnings (Non-Con/Dub-Con/Underage): none
Summary: When Aizen learns of Orihime's miraculous healing powers, he isn't going to let her out of his grasp, but Ichigo isn't going to let him steal Orihime.
It is hard to imagine that Karakura Town used to be a busy, bustling place to live. As Orihime surveys the empty, decrepit streets around her, she wonders what life was like before the zombies had come. She had never known a life before the virus had spread, killing off most people and turning most of the rest into shambling, decaying husks of their former selves that hunger for more human flesh to sustain themselves. Her life has been one where you constantly have to look over your shoulder to make sure that there are no zombies nearby and that you always have to have a weapon ready just in case.
Humanity is at its end, even Orihime knows that. Although Seireitei has held on longer than most settlements, thanks mostly to the fact that it is an island and easier to defend, even it is reaching its limits. Food and other supplies are beginning to run out, and it is getting harder and harder to scavenge for them. Most of the old cities and towns are too picked over to provide anything anymore. Orihime’s own trip out today is most likely pointless and serving only to upset Urahara, and the longer the journey from Seireitei, the more dangerous.
The faint sound of scrabbling feet draws Orihime’s attention. Adjusting her grip on the crossbow, she creeps towards the noise. Her palms sweat a little and she bites her lip. This isn’t the first time she’ll have to kill a zombie, but there is a moment of anxiety every time she faces one, especially when she is alone. Pressing herself against the wall of one of the buildings, she peers around the corner, her heart thumping wildly.
A squirrel peers back at her, a piece of plastic in its tiny paws.
“Aw,” she coos, “you’re nothing scary!” Holding out a hand, she tries to coax it closer to her, but it refuses to move. “Are you scared of me? Don’t be scared of me Mr. Squirrel!” She inches closer to it, and as she does so, a hand falls onto her shoulder.
It is far too cold to be a human hand.
She freezes in place and for a second, she can’t do anything. When she regains her senses, she tries to pull herself out its grasp, but it’s too strong, stronger than any zombie should be.
It’s one of the new ones then. Some of the groups that have returned recently had come back missing too many men and with stories of stronger, smarter zombies unlike anything they have ever seen before. Just from the shear strength this one is exerting on her, she knows that it can only be one of them.
Turning her head, she comes eye to eye with it. While it still shows signs of decay, there is intelligence in his eyes and restraint in the way he hasn’t eaten her yet.
“No guards for you?” he asks. “I’m unimpressed.”
“I don’t need guards,” she says. And now, more than ever, she is afraid, because there can only be one reason why he is here: Aizen has sent him.
“You must think highly of yourself, or those you keep company with must not think highly of your abilities. Do not speak,” he says as she tries to protest. “I am here to take you to Aizen-sama. He wants your powers. If you do not come with me, we will invade your precious town and kill everyone you love and make you watch as we rip them apart and eat them. So, will you come with me?”
The intensity in his eyes terrifies her, and the last thing she wants to do is walk willingly into Aizen’s arms. He almost destroyed Seireitei once though, and she can’t let him try.
She knows that there is not a lot that she can do to help her friends, let alone humanity, but if she can do something this once, even if it is as horrible as whatever she is sure Aizen will make her do, she will do it.
“Yes,” she says, in a soft yet unyielding voice.
“You have twelve hours then. You may say goodbye to your friends but do not let them think that anything is wrong. At midnight we will meet here again. If you are not here by then, we will invade your town.” He lets go of her shoulder and she sinks to the ground, too weak to stand on her own in that moment and watches as he rapidly walks away from her, disappearing into the city.
It takes her a moment to realize that this is the perfect opportunity to kill him, but by the time she gets to her feet, he has truly vanished and she is left circling the city in vain until she runs into Tatsuki.
“Orihime!” Tatsuki greets her as she runs up to her. “Did you find anything?”
“Ah, no, just a squirrel,” she says with a laugh as she scratches the back of her head. “What about you?”
“A squirrel? I didn’t know any rodents were still living here,” she murmurs with a shrug. “No, I didn’t find anything either. We’ll have to try further out next time.”
“Y-yeah,” Orihime agrees.
“Are you okay?” she asks eyeing Orihime. “You sound a bit weird.”
“I’m fine, I’m fine!” Orihime rushes to assure her. “I’m just sad that we didn’t manage to find anything.”
“Don’t worry about. It’s not like we’re the first group to not get anything, and no one was really expecting anything.”
They walk through the empty city in silence until they get back to their boat, but once they’re in it and sailing back to Seireitei, Orihime starts talking again, afraid that Tatsuki will find it odd if she is too quiet.
When they get back, they go their separate ways, Tatsuki off to work out, and Orihime to her home. More than anything else, she wants to hug Tatsuki and tell her goodbye and that she loves her, but she can’t.
No one can know that tonight is her last night in Seireitei, and Tatsuki least of all because Orihime doesn’t want her to blame herself.
As she walks back to her home, she tries to memorize every detail and say hello to everyone she sees.
She pulls out an old, half-used notebook when she gets home and begins to write down a list of chores that Rangiku will need to do. Of the two, Orihime is the one better at making sure the house stays clean, and she doesn’t want it to fall apart when she is gone.
“There, as long as she does this, the house should stay nice and tidy,” Orihime says, putting down her pen. Getting up from the table, she walks around the house. This is the place she grew up in, the place she and her brother lived in for as she can remember. They had lived elsewhere before, but he had taken her and come here when she had been very young. Her fingers linger on the marks on the wall where Sora had recorded her height until he died, and then she moves on, drifting through the rooms and remembering everything that has happened here.
She wonders when she last actually looked at her home and saw all of the marks and scrapes and scratches and all of the little things that made this place her home and filled it with that sense of familiarity. It has imprinted itself on all her senses as her home, but when she is gone, will it start to fade from her memory? Will she forget the smell, the scrape on the floor from when they brought in her bed, and the way the rain sounds when it hits her roof?
Will she forget her home and her brother and her friends?
Kneeling before her little shrine to her brother, she picks up the sole picture she has of him, and Enraku, the teddy bear he had managed to scavenge for her. The picture is old and faded, like her own memories of him. Orihime can remember how much he loved her and how much she loved him and the way he cared for her and played with her, even if some of the specifics are now forgotten, and the way it felt like her heart was being ripped to pieces the day he was turned, but she can’t quite remember his face the way she used to be able to or his voice.
And the same is going to happen to everything else in her life, until all she can see with clarity is Aizen and Gin and Tousen and their zombies.
“Sora,” she says as she places his picture and Enraku back, “I know I haven’t talked to you as much lately, and this probably won’t make up for it, but I love you and I miss you.” She has to pause to wipe her eyes and her nose. “But I have to go. My friends are in danger, and I’m the only one who can do anything, so I have to go. I don’t think I’ll be back, so goodbye big brother.”
She takes a few big deep breaths and forces herself to stop crying. “I have to go see some other people now, so goodbye.” She lays Sora’s picture down and leaves.
Chad. Uryu. Mizuiro and Keigo. Chizuru. Renji. Rukia. There’s so many people she has to say goodbye to and not nearly enough time to do it in.
Finally, it’s time for her to see Ichigo. The hospital is locked late at night, but she was given a key months ago by Uryu when she decided to start helping there. She laughs a little to herself as she thinks back on how nervous she was all those months ago. She was worried that she wouldn’t be able to help enough, but now she knows that she can probably help anyone in there more than anyone else on Seireitei, even more than Unohana can.
She smiles when she sees Yuzu and Karin and sleeping on the floor next to Ichigo’s bed. Tiptoeing around them, she sits in the chair next to his bed and takes his hand. He was badly hurt during his last supply run by the new zombies. She wonders if the one she met was the same one who hurt Ichigo, or if it was another one.
Urahara has told her repeatedly not to use her powers, so they don’t attract attention, but now it’s too late, and if there is something she can do for Ichigo before she leaves, she is going to do it. Summoning them is still a bit hard, and it feels weird, like a current of electricity running under her skin, but she does it, and her hands and Ichigo’s body are suffused in gentle blue light. It takes almost no time for him to heal, and when she pulls her hands away, he is as good as new.
“Kurosaki-kun,” she says, keeping her voice to a whisper, “I wish didn’t have to go, but I have to. To save this place and the people I love. There’s so much that I want to do. I always wished that there was some way for the zombies to be cured, and then I could go and travel the world and see everything we’ve heard about in the stories from before, and maybe you could have come with me. But I guess, that’s not possible now. But, I really wish I could live five lifetimes, and then I could eat five lifetimes worth of food and live in five different places and become a baker and a teacher and an astronaut, and in every lifetime I’d fall in love with the same person.” She leans over him, her lips almost touching his, but she can’t bring herself to kiss him. Sitting back up, she wipes tears from her eyes. “I’m sorry I have to go, Kurosaki-kun. I love you. I wish I could have told you.” She takes his hand again and squeezes it, and then she leaves his room and the hospital.
The walk to the docks is a cold and lonely one, and as she sails away from Seireitei for the last time and she whispers to herself, “Goodbye halcyon days.”
~*~*~
“You’ve done well, Ulquiorra,” Aizen says as he looks over Orihime. She feels exceptionally vulnerable as she stands in front of him. She has no weapons to defend herself, and on all sides there are zombies. They may not be lunging after her, intent on eating her flesh, but they are still there, and Orihime can almost feel the hunger oozing off of them. The only one she can trust not to eat her is Aizen himself, who is sitting on a throne high above the rest of them. “Welcome to Las Noches, Orihime Inoue. It is a pleasure to have you here.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Now, I don’t mean to be presumptuous, but perhaps you could give us a demonstration of your power by healing Grimmjow over there.” He points to one of the zombies who has been skulking in the back and is missing most of his left arm.
“Of course,” she acquiesces. As she walks over to him, one of the other zombies begins to protest.
“Why Grimmjow? His arm was ripped off by Tousen-sama. He isn’t even one of us anymore, so why should he be healed?”
“Wait and see, Luppi,” Aizen says to him.
“I bet this girl can’t do anything. If you fail I’m gonna kill you, got it?”
Orihime ignores his words as she calls upon her powers. Blue light engulfs the end of Grimmjow’s arm and the space where the rest of it should have been, and in a blink of an eye, his arm is back.
“What?” the one from before, Luppi, says. “How is that possible?”
“Inoue-san has a very special power. It verges almost on the territory of God himself,” Aizen says as he looks down on them. She looks up at him, awe bubbling up in her at the thought of just what she can do, but fear threatens to sink it because surely, a man like him can’t be planning anything good when power like that is before him.
“Hey girl,” Grimmjow yells at her. “I need you to heal something else.” He jerks a thumb over his shoulder, and she walks behind him. There’s a wound in the middle of his back, not decay, but an actual wound. She activates her powers again, and when they are done working, a tattooed six stands out against the deathly pallor of his skin.
“What are you doing, Grimmjow?” Luppi yells at him, but Grimmjow doesn’t answer him. He just grins and lunges at his fellow zombie, his arm flying through Luppi’s stomach, and then he tears the rest of his body apart. He laughs as he destroys the body, and when he is done, he yells out, “I’m six again! Sexta Espada!” as bits from Luppi’s body drip off of him.
Orihime manages not to gasp as she watches the destruction although she is sure that she looks horrified. Zombies frequently tear one another apart, but there is something so wildly indulgent in this, something so wild and yet controlled. Grimmjow isn’t doing this to eat or because he accidently grabbed Luppi and pulled, but because he wants to and because there is a reward for doing so. Is she to be the personal medic for this group of monsters? Is she supposed to piece Luppi back together?
But Aizen doesn’t call on her to use her powers again, and when she looks back up at him, he is smiling faintly.
~*~*~
When Ichigo wakes up, he is perfectly healed. His wrist is better, there are no bruises or cuts covering his body, and in many ways, he feels better physically than he has in years.
But something is off.
It isn’t until Tatsuki comes into his room later that morning that he realizes what.
“Have you seen Orihime?” she asks as she comes in.
“No, I haven’t seen her since the day I first got back. Why?”
“She’s missing. No one’s seen her this morning, and Rangiku says that she never came home last night.”
“Where could she have gone?” Ichigo says with a frown. “It’s not like this place is that big. I’ll come help you look for her.” He gets out of bed despite Tatsuki’s protests that he needs to still rest. “I’m fine. See? All better,” he says holding out his wrist to her.
He isn’t quite sure how to describe the look on Tatsuki’s face when she sees it, heartbreak, sorrow, awe, and maybe a bit of anger and resolve all mixed together. “Orihime was here,” she says. “Even if you didn’t see her, she was here.”
“What do you mean?”
“She can heal people,” Tatsuki says. “We found out during the outbreak. I was bitten, and Orihime healed it.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about it?”
“We told Urahara, and he told us not to tell anyone because it might attract the wrong sort of attention.” Her hands curl into fists as she speaks. “But maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe someone found out anyway.”
“What are you talking about?” Ichigo asks.
“Yesterday, Orihime seemed really off. I thought that it was nothing, so I didn’t really pay attention to it, but maybe someone came to her yesterday.”
“Who? There’s no way Aizen would risk his own neck to get her, and why would they let her come back?”
“More time for her to get away maybe? I would have known if she hadn’t shown up at the rendezvous point, but if she left sometime last night, then they have several hours to get a head start with.”
Ichigo walks to the door. “Come on, we should go check the docks and see if a boat is missing.”
Tatsuki nods and follows him. Before they are even halfway to the docks though, they meet Rukia and Renji.
“Did you find anything?” Rukia asks. “And shouldn’t you still be in bed, Ichigo?”
“I’m fine,” Ichigo tells her, “and we didn’t find Inoue, but she did visit me last night.”
Renji and Rukia exchange looks.
“What is it?” Tatsuki asks, and Ichigo imagines that he is the only one who hears the bit of panic in her voice.
“We decided to go and check at the docks, and when we got there, there was a boat missing. We figure it was probably Orihime who took it,” Renji says.
“We have to go after her,” Tatsuki says. “We can’t leave her alone out there. Who knows what Aizen could do to her!”
“We can’t,” Renji says.
“What do you mean we can’t?” Ichigo demands. “We can’t just leave Inoue.”
“Yamamoto-sama was there when we were, and he said that no one was going after her. It would waste of resources to go after just person who might not even be alive, and even if she is, she may be a traitor.”
“Inoue isn’t a traitor. Why would she betray us? If she wanted to, she would have left with Aizen two months ago. And how does he even know that Aizen is behind this?”
“He said that there was no way that we could know that, and that she could have been spy working for him, and who else could she go to? There’s no one else even remotely close to us.”
“Orihime never went near Aizen or Gin or Tousen when they were here! Why would she even want to work with them, and how could she have even set up the connection?” Tatsuki demanded.
“We tried to reason with him, but he wouldn’t listen to us. He said that no one can go after her, and we need to begin to prepare because they may now have new information and those new zombies may be their work,” Rukia says.
Ichigo turns away from them and stomps off. “Where are you going?” she yells after him, and he stops for a moment to yell back, “You can all just sit around doing nothing, but I’m not going to let Inoue down.”
Anger radiates off of him as walks to Urahara’s shop. The man sells bits of broken junk, odds and ends, and reminders that there was a world before the zombies came. No one actually goes to him for his goods though.
“Kurosaki-san,” the man greets him with a lazy smile. “How can I help you today?”
“Tell me about Inoue’s powers,” he demands.
“You’re going after her then?”
“You knew that she was gone?”
“With all of the commotion that your friends were making this morning, it was hard not to know. That’s part of the reason why I made sure that she and Arisawa didn’t tell anyone about Inoue’s ability. Once one of you knows something, the rest of you do, and then that information spreads to everyone else on this island.”
“What exactly can she do?” Ichigo asks.
“She can heal. I haven’t had the time to fully study her abilities yet, but they are impressive. She eradicated the virus from Arisawa’s body. There is great potential in her, but those powers could easily be used for less than wholesome purposes as well,” he says giving Ichigo a look.
“Aizen.”
“Among others, but yes, Aizen was always the biggest concern. I suppose the reason she didn’t come to say goodbye to me last night was because she didn’t want me to know that she had failed in keeping her abilities a secret.”
“Or maybe she didn’t want you to try and talk her out of going. I doubt Aizen asked her nicely.”
“And I doubt that I could have talked her out of it. Inoue can be as stubborn as you sometimes, and that’s why I’m not going to try and talk you out of going, and instead am going to help you. Come here, Kurosaki-san,” he says waving at him to come behind the counter and into the back room of his shop. He has been in there before and knows that Urahara keeps the best of his goods, and the ones he doesn’t want Yamamoto finding, there. Urahara lifts a slender, black case off of the wall and sets it on the floor. “Before you leave tonight, come and get this.”
“What is it?” Ichigo asks with a frown.
“Open it and see.”
The case is a bit difficult to open because the hinges on it have rusted some, but when he gets it opened, he is greeted with the sight of a sword. “A sword? I don’t even really know how to use one of these.”
“You should know enough to get by on, and I think that this may be more useful than your guns and your bows, and you don’t have to worry about running out of ammo with this.”
Ichigo closes the case and stands up. “Thanks, Urahara-san.”
He waves a hand. “Don’t worry about it. Just make sure you all get back in one piece. I’d hate to have to explain to Yamamoto-sama about how you all died, and why I helped you.”
~*~*~
Staring out of the window of her room, Orihime feels almost like a fairy tale princess. Maybe it’s the way that she can reimage the skyscraper she is stuck in into a tower, or the white dress she is forced to wear, or maybe it is simply a way for her to hope. Because princesses get rescued from their towers, but does it count if the tower soars up past the clouds and if she went of her own free will? She isn’t sure, and it doesn’t matter anyway because no fairy tale prince is going to rescue her.
The door to her room creaks open, and she braces herself to face Loly and Melony again. She isn’t sure what exactly they are to her, servants, jailers, something in between, but they hate her, she knows that. They are different from the other zombies here too, more decay visible and the scent of rot stronger around them.
Smiling in hopes of winning them over with kindness, she turns. But it is Ulquiorra standing there, not them.
“Aizen-sama wants to see you,” he says before she can even open her mouth. “I am to take you to see him.”
Silently, she follows him out the door and into the elevator. She feels a bit claustrophobic in it. She has never had an issue with small spaces before, but maybe it’s because she has never been stuck in one with enemy who probably wants to her eat her.
The elevator chiming to let them know their floor has been reached is her salvation, and she almost prefers being left alone with Aizen than with Ulquiorra. At least Aizen puts on a front of gentility.
“Hello, Inoue-san,” he greets her as she walks into the room where he is waiting. “You can leave us, Ulquoirra. Would you like something to drink?” he offers to her.
“Tea would be fine, Aizen-sama,” she tells him and accepts the cup that he pours for her. He is silent as she adds sugar and cream to it and sips on it. He seems unaffected by the silence, a smile present on his face, but to her it is unbearably uncomfortable. It is like pins in her flesh, pricking at her over and over again, and she fidgets in her seat, waiting for him to tell her why he called upon her. Finally, when she is ready to burst from anxiousness, he speaks again. “Tell me, Inoue-san, how were zombies created?”
She frowns. The question is an odd one; everyone from the smallest child on knows the cause of zombism. “By the virus of course.”
He smiles a bit more. “The virus is how zombies reproduce, but not how they were first created.”
“But everyone-“
He cuts her off with, “You shouldn’t listen to what everyone else says, Inoue-san. Zombies weren’t first created by a virus. There was a war, a horrible war between all of the nations in the world. It was the third one like it, and in it they used horrible weapons called nuclear bombs, and they destroyed everything. Because these weapons didn’t just kill immediately. They destroyed the earth and thousands of people when they first struck, but not all of the effects were known right away. Some people died of cancer, and others became the first zombies.
“But that’s not all that these weapons did. Some people were changed by them as well, but for the better. They were given extraordinary gifts as a result, gifts like your own.”
“Like mine?” she repeats.
“Yes, like yours. You have been given a very precious gift, Orihime Inoue.” He picks up a small vial off of the table and hands it to her. “I’ve been doing a great deal of research. Some of the results of that research are the zombies you see here in Las Noches. They are not human, but not quite zombie. You see, I have been trying to find a cure.”
“Find a cure for zombism?” she asks as she studies the vial.
“Yes. That vial you hold has in it something I call the Hogyoku. I believe that with it, I will be able to eventually cure the zombies and get rid of the virus, but I haven’t found the right combination yet. But I believe you may change that because you, Orihime, you have been given a gift, and I believe that because of it, you are humanity’s salvation.”