Bleach Fan Fiction ❯ Memoirs of Hime ❯ Through Gritted Teeth ( Chapter 1 )

Disclaimer: Bleach owns. However, I do not own Bleach. In addition, I do not own any Bleach characters, Bleach songs, or even Bleach the cleaning product. Here is where the confusion lies.

 

Bleach belongs to Kubo Tite. Were it not for his existence, our lives might be slightly less pathetic (having some time freed up away from Bleach-obsession). He slaves over the series so that we have something to wank over.

 

 

Brief Description: Inoue's account of her capture, her friends, and her captor. Memoirs of Hime. Not sure where it's going yet—I'll give a better description later.

 

Jealousy, depression, determination, and comic relief of Orihime. My apologies to any Ulquoirra fans. I do him great injustice in the eyes of Inoue, hahaha.

 

 

Chapter One:

Through Gritted Teeth

 

Alone. Surrounded by nothing but white walls and white faces; my only hope a small, unreachable window with black bars looking out to a gray abysmal sky. What looked like a moon that I wasn't used to; a moon which looked down on all the creatures roaming the barren earth. How can I feel secure in a world where nothing is familiar; a world with no color; a world in which the only light touching down on me felt as though every particle was devoted to exposing every atom, every twitch, every thought by which I was comprised.

 

Not that I wasn't used to spending my nights alone in the real world, but at least even when I was living by myself, Tatsuki-chan would keep me company from time to time, or I'd see people at school. I had freedom, which I often took for granted. Freedom to go where I pleased, freedom to see who I pleased, freedom to fight beside those whom I pleased to fight beside.

 

I miss the smell of fresh flowers in the springtime. I miss the smell of Kurosaki-kun, anytime. I miss chasing red dragonflies with Tatsuki-chan. I miss Asian flower printed skirts. I miss color. I miss food—real food, or what I think of as food anyway (mm, bread and honey sounds so good right now). I miss my brother, although he passed a few years back. I miss my friends and my school.

 

I miss Kurosaki-kun most of all.

 

I wonder if this is how Rukia felt.

 

Rukia… why do my thoughts always take me back to Kuchiki-san? Am I really that jealous? Maybe it's not even jealousy. Maybe it's just some sick coincidence that my life always plays out that way; that my footsteps will always retrace hers; that I will always come second, even in Kurosaki-kun's heart.

 

Kurosaki-kun… I yearn to call him Ichigo, as Kuchiki-san so comfortably does. It didn't take very long for her to achieve a first-name basis with him; so why is it so hard for me? Secretly (or sometimes, not-so-secretly) harboring my unrequited feelings for him for years, and it took Kuchiki-san's capture for Kurosaki-kun to even speak to me beyond the everyday, how-do-you-do's. And even after all this time fighting alongside him, I wonder if he's ever really looked at me without looking at the mirrored reflection of her in my eyes.

 

If I'd had half the confidence as Kuchiki-san, maybe things would be different between Kurosaki-kun and I. In truth, I've had several chances to essentially “twist fate” as Tatsuki-chan might say. I could have pulled some strings to arrange some “accidental alone time” with Ichigo. I could have just gradually built up the courage to call him by his first name. I could have whipped out a breast and made him turn to putty in my hands.

 

But that's just not how I am, or the way I always envisioned for things to progress. Maybe it's best for everybody that things just stay the way they are. I just don't see a happy ending for Kurosaki-kun, Kuchiki-san, or myself if one of us got our way. After all, it's not fair for Kurosaki-kun being so outnumbered and not even having a chance.

 

I almost scoff at the thought of Ichigo coming to save me. Captured by the hollow, kept alive merely for the entertainment of Aizen… does Ichigo have any idea what I've been through? But no—I cannot rely on him any longer. I cannot simply cling to the hope of Kurosaki-kun coming to my rescue once again. I must stand against the enemy myself. I will defeat Aizen, wit h or without Kurosaki's help. Maybe if I prove that I am strong, maybe if I prove that I can save myself, maybe if I prove that I can win this war without Kurosaki, without Kuchiki, without Chad or Ishida or the captains; maybe then… maybe…

 

Maybe he'll look at me the way he looks at Kuchiki-san.

 

Maybe he'll rest his calloused hand on my shoulder and say, “Good job, Inoue.”

 

Wouldn't it be so funny if he came to save me, and I instead saved him? Wouldn't we all just laugh ourselves silly? Wouldn't all of Soul Society drop their jaws and jiggle their bellies in one group guffaw? [Imagines Captain Commander Yamamoto Genryuusai jiggling his jelly in a big red Santa Suit. “Once again, you saved the day, Orihime!”]

 

I sense Ulquoirra coming. The wheels on the food cart are squealing with each nauseating step closer, and almost as soon as I sense the impending doom, Ulquoirra has arrived to bring “good tidings”. I wonder which of my friends is dying this time… is it Chad? Ishida? Rukia?

 

Why would my friends put their lives at risk… for me? What did I ever do for them? I never truly fought alongside them. When Rukia's life was on the line, where was I? Sure I went to Soul Society, but if it wasn't for Kurosaki-kun… if it wasn't for Ichigo, she'd be dead. I'm so… useless.

 

I smirk a little to myself. Ulquoirra, you emo-looking mother-fucker. For some reason, I always imagine that after he makes his leave from my room, spouting insults and blah, blah, blah, all your friends are dead; he retreats to his palace, where he writes gothic poetry and draws pictures of decapitated babies and other reflections of his soul.

 

“Dear Diary,

Today Inoue bitchslapped me. Why does she have to be so cruel? It's not like I have personally killed all her friends yet, Diary. I am merely informing her. Don't kill the messenger, as they always say. Unless the messenger is Kurosaki Ichigo or that Sandal Hat bastard.

In other news… Diary, Noitora keeps making fun of me. I don't wear makeup! And he's so very suggestive in this Inoue business; disgusting. I hold no interest in wo—humans; aside from, of course, eating or generally eradicating their souls. I'm not some kind of pussy fiend; I'm an espada. I'm one of the elite. I don't spend my days chasing women, the least of all human ones. I chase blood and decay and power, etc., etc. And oh, of course Aizen-sama's wishes, as of course I do this all for him, and I certainly hope he's not reading this Diary, as the mere suggestion of anarchy would have me dismissed, though of course that's not what I'm suggesting.

Well, I'm off to go cut myself and write poems about it. I think I'll entitle the next one, “I bleed just so I can feel anything but hollow on the inside.” Get it, `cause I'm a Hollow.

 

Ulqy (that's what I secretly call myself when I'm lonely)”

 

“Woman! Quit spacing off. You will eat this time. Don't make me shove it down your throat again.” I snapped back to reality as I watched the food-wheeling hollow at Ulquoirra's side try to suppress giggles at the suggestion of shoving something down my throat. Fucking perv.

 

I did not apologize, but simply lowered my head and closed my eyes in retort, awaiting any kind of news—good or bad—that he might let slip. I bit my lower lip and tried to discourage my tummy from growling.

 

“I'm not hungry,” I muttered, surprised at how meek-sounding it came out.

 

Ulquoirra inched forward, his face uncomfortably close; so close I could feel his breath on my cheek and smell the rotting hole above his chest. “This is not a choice, woman. You are confused. Do not forget why you are here. You live for Aizen-sama only. Your every breath should be in thanks to him. He can eliminate you completely if he so chooses. You are not necessary to him; you are merely a tool that he can and will dispose of. Do not forget, woman. Now, eat.”

 

I nodded, accepting my fate, though irate at his severe underestimation of my abilities. I WILL prevent your plans from unfolding, Aizen. I am not as weak as my body may seem to indicate.

 

“I'm sorry. I am grateful to Aizen-sama, and I will not forget that my life and my being belong to him.” I find the words rolling off my tongue without one ounce of the sarcasm I so wished to add. I cannot flinch. I cannot talk back. I will not give them reason to doubt me.

 

Taking hold of whatever gelatinous substance that I could only speculate was the hollows' idea of “food”, I timidly fought against my senses, specifically disregarding those of taste or smell, and swallowed the first chunk. Again wondering, surrounded by a void of white walls in a world where the only color was the evil combination surrounding the pupils of Ulquoirra's eyes, if this was the same kind of hell that Kuchiki-san had gone through.