The Story so far....
Orihime was folllowing Ichigo closely who was carrying Rukia on his back. Renji was carrying Chad and Ishida ran next to her, worriedly glancing in her direction every once in a while. They ran fast, Orihime thought that only a few minutes had past since they had last seen Ulquiorra. Just as the tunnel that let out of Las Noches came into view they were stopped by two arrancar. Ichigo and Renji laid their respective burdens down and joined Ishida who was already running towards the hollows.
Ichigo called back over his shoulder, "Just wait there next to them, Inoue. These guys are small potatoes! We'll cut through them in no time!"
Ishida had already taken one out with his bow and called back to Ichigo, "Why are you even wasting your time helping me when you could be getting Inoue and the others out of here. You know that I am quite capable of handling these two on my own."
"Why should I let you have all the fun?!" Ichigo teased while delivering the final blow to the other that Renji had already started on.
Orihime smiled at them, realizing that she had forgotten just how much she had missed her friends and their antics. Then Ichigo was back next to her and picking up Rukia. "Next stop home!" he smiled at Orihime. Then suddenly the palace was filled with echoing screams. Ichigo and Ishida looked at each other and Orihime's blood turned to ice. She suddenly stood up and started to run back down the corridor. "What are you doing, Inoue?" Ichigo called grabbing her sleeve. "We have to get out of here!"
"I can't! I can't!" Orihime screamed and sobbed as she tore from his grasp. She started to run down the hall again, but this time Ishida (who wasn't burdened with a weakened comrade) grabbed her and slung her over his shoulder.
"Let's go Ichigo!" he said and they all stepped into the tunnel.
Orihime beat at Ishida's back gasping and screaming, "I can't! I can't leave him! You don't understand! I never got to tell him! I never got to...tell...him!" Ishida, who was worried she was going to hurt herself, almost dropped her and then Ichigo grabbed Orihime's hands.
"You can't go back! They'll catch you again and then his sacrifice will have been in vain! You don't want that do you?!" he begged her.
"I can't leave him! I can't! He doesn't know that I love him too!" she sobbed brokenly. And then the screams were brutally cut off and all was silent again. Orihime fainted dead away.
--
Orihime sat in her apartment and stared out her window. She knew that there were people in the apartment with her. She could hear them mumbling quietly amongst themselves and every once in awhile they tried to give her tea or something to eat that she just waved away. None of that seemed to matter to her though. It was hard of late to find anything that mattered. Then she heard one of them mention Ulquiorra's name and her ears pricked up.
"...a horrible thing. To make hollows with the ability to feel human emotion again. What a curse."
Orihime wasn't sure who said that so she just looked out at all of them and whispered, "I don't think it is a curse and I think, though he might have argued otherwise, that Ulquiorra didn't think it was either. Not even at the very end." She thought back to his determined stride to what he must have known was certain doom and then said so quietly that only she heard it, "See...those emotions you so hated, they made you strong, not weak." And then she could feel the tears silently trickle down her cheeks and tried not to think about how they mirrored his own.
The End
This story is by DreamOperator23 on fanfiction.net!
Link to the author: http://www.fanfiction.net/u/1246726/dreamoperator23
Link to the story and chapter: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3646653/14/Fate_So_Cruel
Now lets have something interesting happen
