A slab of light cut through the barred window of Inoue's small room, spilling a path of moonshine across the cold weighted floor of her cell. She watched closely as small particles of dust drifted through the moonlights path to be briefly illuminated by the beam. Within that small ray they danced under the night's heady gaze before drifting back into the darkness to be swallowed up into nothingness. She wouldn't have been able to count the hundreds of passages she had witnessed within the halo of light. But eventually she turned away from the small changeable scene, tired beyond her belief.
When Inoue had first given herself up to the Espada she had imagined it would be the fight of her life. But she had mustered her courage to meet with a life of monotony and in this land of perpetual twilight her days of confinement slipped by without her recognition. She wondered briefly if a clock within her prison cell would bring her relief or madness.
She stretched herself out onto the cold stone floor, her face lying in the direct path of the windows gaze. The moon was only three quarters full but she couldn't recall when she had last seen a full moon. It could have been months, so immune she had become to the passage of time. She felt her will slip away slowly with every hour that she sat in idleness. It was so hard to be strong when one was so bored of life.
Can Kurosaki see the moon tonight? It was treacherous to let Ichigo drift into her thoughts. He was a beacon for her hope but also the paramount of her desires. She longed to hear from him, anyone! To just know where they were and what they were doing. Were they searching for her even now? Were they in danger, were they dead?
She shook her head violently at the thought. No, she would know if they had been…but it was useless to think of that now. She had to trust that they would be all right, just as they must have trusted her to a degree when she had left without seeing anyone or saying goodbye. Well, not completely. She had of course seen Ichigo.
But that was another treacherous thought. She had already re-lived that brief visit over again and again in her mind. Yet no matter how many times she visualised the moment she could not bring her own lips to meet with his, not even in her dreams. What if she never saw him again, would she regret forever that she had never given her first kiss to Kurosaki? But she had to have faith. After all, every obstacle Ichigo had been faced with, every quest he had embarked upon, and every promise he made with himself he fulfilled. He was coming here for Aizen, and for her, and he would not fail while there was still breathe left in his body. But she also feared him finally reaching this place; Aizen was not to be underestimated. There was a power buried within his cool physique that she feared. But more frightening was not knowing what it was he even wanted, there was more to his intentions than what it might seem. To find out what was the only drive to sustain her motivation, for there was little else for her to strive for in this bleak place. But would she have the strength to continue when the time finally came?
Inoue's eyes had begun to droop during her thoughts, but a sound at the door brought them open again. She sat up stiffly as Ulquiorra entered through the main door, his hands buried deep in his Arrancar uniform pockets. "Aizen-sama requires your assistance." So relieved was she to have something to occupy herself with she almost forgot to put her mind on guard to see Aizen, almost.
She rose from the cold floor, her body making quick work to restore the heat that had been sapped down through the cold stone floor. She followed the stiff white back of Ulquiorra diligently as they threaded their steps down identical marble passages. She gave up trying to mentally map out their path by the fifth turn. There was nothing distinct about this place, just cold walls and passages whose sequences were only broken by a door thrown in here or there. Even the lowly subjects they passed were so alike in appearance Inoue had yet to set them apart. Everything in this place was a uniform of homogeneity.
The corridors began to widen until the last one opened out into an open room. Inoue was reminded of a kings court with its towering pillars and eventual rise to a thrown like dais. As always Aizen was seated at the top, chin resting in his hand as he gazed out over his subjects. Even Gin was like a courtly jester grinning by his monarch's side. Inoue thought she liked Gin even less than Aizen. His malicious humour didn't sit well with her.
As she entered into the hall in tow of Ulquiorra it seemed like every eye in the room turned to stare at her. They were wary of her, and some of Aizen's Arrancars down right hated her. She knew this but yet what else could she do but stand and bear their untrusting gazes.
As soon as she was in the center of the room she understood why she had been summoned, after all they only seemed to trust her with one duty. The injured were lined up in two rows, ranging from the less seriously wounded to the worst. And as she approached them to begin her healing, without needing to be told, they all looked at her advancement with contempt. She was only a human after all.
She worked through them in silence; none bothering to thank her for her efforts even when her face was dotted with perspiration and her complexion was pale with the exertion. And she didn't bother to converse either, for this place seemed to swallow up sound in its impenetrable silence. She wondered for a moment if the thick air would just eat away her words before any sound ever left her mouth.
As soon as she had healed them, the Arrancar drifted out of the room. Even Ulquiorra was disinterested in her task as he approached Aizen's side to speak. She was left alone to deal with the last three wounded. The injuries were so bad by this stage that she almost had trouble discerning which end of the bloody mess was their heads. But there was another who lingered near and he watched her with eyes that burned most brightly with unmasked hatred. She tried to ignore Grimmjow as he stared down upon her. She began to immerse herself in her healing technique so strongly she almost yelped with surprise when a voice broke the stifling silence.
"Why do you heal your enemies? Are you a traitor?" His voice was deep and rolled with an almost purr like quality. Inoue might have even enjoyed the sound of that voice had it not been so deeply threaded with scorn. She turned slightly from her crouched position so she could watch the tall man out of the corner of her eye.
He stood tall and erect, his arms crossed on his chest in an almost aggressive manner. She would never forget the first time she had met Grimmjow, that had been the first time she had understood the anger that boiled down within his soul. She had healed him, only to allow him to destroy yet more life. Inoue couldn't understand his destructive nature. He was as foreign to her as the ice caps at the Antarctic would be. He seemed just as cold and formidable as any iceberg too. She knew he felt he owed her something for restoring his arm, yet resented this bond to her whole-heartedly. She wished he didn't feel this obligation for the longer this unspoken contract lay between them the more she felt Grimmjow would resent her. She had not healed him with any intentions of gaining something from him, yet he looked at her as though she might demand something unreasonable at any moment. She looked again into his cold teal gaze and spoke at last. "Do you hate me?"
Grimmjow's eyes widened in surprise but he only paused for a second before he answered. "Yes." Inoue furrowed her brow; she had known what his answer would be so why had she asked it in the first place? "I don't hate anyone," she replied in a soft voice, "I don't think I could ever really hate someone. People make mistakes, or live differently from me. But I don't believe I could ever hate someone for that."
"But these people, they hate you."
She was silent for a moment as she looked down at the body that lay beneath the golden halo of her rejection, pondering her next words as the pieces of this strangers broken body were restored to the battered whole. "I don't think I could watch anyone suffer if I knew I could help them. But I don't think I am a traitor either, for traitors are afraid. If it takes courage to watch someone suffer and die when you have the power to aid them then I would rather be a coward."
"Wake up you fool! The real world doesn't work so neatly into your scheme of good and bad. It's a lot crueller and darker than that. There is no line between the good guys and the bad guys. It just depends on how dirty someone's hands get." Grimmjow's voice was raised in anger but it didn't carry very far, yet the force of his words made her tremble at the rebuke. Inoue knew she shouldn't provoke him, yet her mouth would not let him believe that things were so negatively set. "Perhaps you may believe that, but if I want to change the world for the better than I have to start with myself and what I can do to help, and I intend to use the powers given to me to do what I believe…no what I know is right."
She stared up at Grimmjow fiercely, determined to make him see that her words were honest and all that she believed. She thought for a moment that he might strike out at her, so intensely rigid was his body. But eventually he just made a scoffing noise before turning away from her and disappearing down an anonymous corridor to leave her in the silence once more to contemplate how long she could hold onto the truth of those words.
--
Aizen raised his steel rimmed gaze from the bright beacon of the orange haired princess below him. He swung his gaze lazily to meet with Ulquiorra as his pale subordinate awaited his reply. "What is the next stage of your plans for Inoue Orihime?"
"Isolation." The word hung dangerously in the air as Aizen awaited Ulquiorra's full explanation. "At the moment she is dependent solely upon out interactions for company. I believe we can further gain her loyalty by cutting her connections to the outside off completely. Deprivation of all personal contact will isolate Inoue further until she becomes dependant upon Espada interactions and will begin to meet our appearances and summons with appreciation and enthusiasm. We will turn her contempt into desperation and destroy her will to defy the Espada."
Aizen smiled at Ulquiorra's cool analysis of Inoue's structured mental breakdown. He watched the slight girl as she concentrated so fiercely on her task. He wandered at her tenacity in healing the very soldiers he intended to send out and kill her comrades. He could not decide whether he respected or loathed her philosophies. But either way she was a remarkable human being, and one they had to destroy now before she could become a problem in the future.
"Begin her isolation."