Author's notes: So... this was my 2013 Christmas challenge to myself (because I should really be writing my WIPs like Fridge Notes but busy work has left me in a distinctly un-funny mood recently. Ho hum). Essentially, I went to TV Tropes and decided to use the random trope button as a one-shot prompt. The trope I got was "Red String of Fate", which was a lot easier than some of the things it could have thrown at me. *Cough*PWP*cough*

Despite being quite a nice prompt, however, such a romance-heavy trope is quite different from anything I have ever written before - usually I stick to ship tease at the most, so this was still quite a challenge - I played around with tenses a bit and it took me three days to write. I'm not entirely sure how successful an experiment it was, but I do hope you enjoy it either way. :)

A brief but crucial note: this is not an IchiHime fic. Just saying that now, because I managed to incur the wrath of a select few shippers who didn't realise that this site orders tagged characters RANDOMLY rather than by order-of-importance. That's not to say Ichigo's role here isn't important; I think of this primarily as a friendship fic exploring Orihime's relationships with these two. Just... please don't shout at me because you've never published a fic before and don't understand how this site works, 'kay? :)

UPDATE 17/03/2015: The incredibly talented La Kalaka has drawn a beautiful illustration of Orihime based on the final scene of this fanfic! *Fangirling over her art forever* Fanfiction dot net is a bit funny about links (read as: it automatically deletes all links and doesn't allow copypasta-ing anyway) so I can't link directly to the source, but I've reblogged it, so if you visit my Tumblr (URL's the same as my username here) and add /tagged/Found_fanfic to the end of the URL, it should come up. PLEASE GO AND LOOK AT IT IT'S AMAZING. And then you should go and visit Kalaka's blog (the post's source) because she's awesome and her art is gorgeous. THANK YOU KALAKA. :D

Ever since she had been a child, Orihime had been utterly fascinated by The String.

The String, in its endlessly looping, perpetually winding and occasionally tangled scarlet glory was a well-known and well-documented, if seldom observed phenomenon. From the moment a child is born, the legend went, an uncuttable red thread is attached to the child, connecting it to its destined other half, and every step the child takes draws them further along the winding path to another person until they Find each other and The String turns translucent-blue and hangs in the air, connecting the two for eternity.

And every so often, a child comes along with such a remarkable level of empathy and emotional awareness that they are able to see the invisible red threads obscuring the floors, the unwalked paths of destined lovers laid out before them as a nearly-unreadable map.

Orihime Inoue had just happened to be one such child.

Orihime had known that something was different about her since she had been a toddler. After she had pointed out the scarlet mass on the floor of her parents' house to her brother at the age of two and asked why mummy didn't clear the mess up for her many visitors, Sora had rushed to find a book documenting the experiences of those able to see The String and told Orihime stories.

Orihime had drunk it all in, enthralled by the tales, and by the time she had realised that the ragged, frayed crimson threads trailing from her parents' fingers weren't the healthy, taut translucent-blue connection of a functionally-married couple who had Found each other and were linked together forever, Sora had taken her away from the tattered threads littering the stained carpets of their parents' house to raise by himself.

On Orihime's sixth birthday, Sora had taken her out to an ice-rink for the day. She had fallen over so often for not being able to see the ice beneath her bladed feet for the tangle of Red Strings coating the ground that Sora had taken her mittened hand, gliding Orihime gracefully around the rink as she had laughed.

Noticing one of the strings she had been about to run over suddenly begin to pulsate gently, however, Orihime had pulled Sora to a stop and followed The String with her eyes.

"Sora, look!" Orihime had exclaimed, her face lighting up as a young woman wearing a bright green scarf had hurtled, out of control, across the rink, perfectly following the path of the pulsating string. Orihime had watched in delight as the careering woman had crashed headlong into a man standing by the side of the rink, sending them both tumbling to the ground.

Glancing briefly at her wincing brother, Orihime had beamed as the pair on the ice had helped each other to their feet, the string between them raising itself off the ground along with them and turning sky-blue when they had eventually made eye-contact.

"Was that it, Orihime? A Find?" Sora had enquired covertly, nodding towards the threads on the ground Orihime had known he couldn't see.

"Yep!" Orihime had chirruped, before taking on a slightly more melancholic look and examining the pristine scarlet thread trailing from her own little finger. "Do you think I'll ever Find somebody in such a cool way?"

Sora had smiled, using his free hand to pat his baby sister's head before dragging her on another lap of the rink. "Not like that, I would hope, 'Hime," he had said with an affectionate laugh. "You wouldn't want to kill him the moment you meet."

Orihime had frowned and was just about to indignantly point out that neither one of the pair they had just witnessed Finding each other had died and that they both appeared to be very happy chatting to each other, when Sora had pulled her towards the door.

"Come on, Orihime, I'll buy you a hotdog. I'll even get you some jam to go with it, you weirdo."

Every argument in Orihime's head had evaporated at Sora's suggestion, and she had giggled as she allowed her brother to lead her away from the ice-rink.

Four years later, Orihime had been out walking with Sora when, crossing a road, she had glanced down at the crimson concrete and spotted an End.

Orihime had gasped in horror, tugging frantically at Sora's arm and pulling him to a halt right in the middle of the junction. "Oh, Sora, look!" she had cried, crouching down and sadly plucking the disconnected red thread from the road, examining the frayed fibres with an expression of deep sorrow.

"What are you doing, Orihime?" Sora had yelped, seizing Orihime under the arms and lifting her out of the road, just as a car came around the corner and drove through the spot which had been occupied by Orihime until just a few seconds ago. The girl had been forced to drop the String's End, but once Sora had put her back down on the pavement she had turned back towards the spot in the middle of the junction and wept.

"It's just so sad," Orihime had sniffled, wiping her tears on her sleeve. "That was an End, Sora. An End! Somebody is destined to die in that spot and never get to meet their other half!"

Sora had looked at Orihime sympathetically before wrapping his arms around her, holding his sister close as she had clutched at his shirt, sobbing.

When Orihime was twelve, she had received a phone call which had distressed her. Upon rushing to the clinic the voice at the other end of the line had told her to go to, Orihime had been led into a room by a boy about her age with shockingly spiky orange hair, only to see her brother lying, as though asleep, on a table.

"Sora?" Orihime had asked, tentatively following the red-headed boy into the centre of the room, where Orihime could see the End of the scarlet String dangling from Sora's fingertip as his hand had hung off the side of the table. "No, no, no," she had intoned, taking her brother's hand and delicately holding his ever-shortening String between her finger and thumb. "Please don't die, Sora."

The bearded doctor and the funny-faced boy, who must have been his son, had watched sympathetically as Orihime had succumbed to tears. As Sora's hand had finally fallen from Orihime's grip, the String connected to his finger shortened until it had appeared to retract itself into his digit and his heart had stopped beating.

"You can see The Strings, can't you?" Doctor Kurosaki had said, his gentle voice completely at odds with his fierce features. He and his son had both appeared to be staring at a spot over Sora's body, but the man had turned back towards the distraught Orihime first. "I'm so sorry you had to see that."

Orihime had dissolved into noisy sobs and flung herself at the kindly-seeming doctor, burying her face in his white coat, trusting him completely despite the fact that she had only just met him. The doctor hadn't pushed her away, instead placing one hand on the top of her head and rummaging in a pocket for a handkerchief with the other. Doctor Kurosaki had handed Orihime the handkerchief and she had let go of his coat, wiping her eyes and noisily blowing her nose.

"Orihime," the doctor had said carefully once the girl had calmed down. "I'm sure that wherever your brother is right now, he would want you to know that he loves you more than anything and he doesn't want you to be sad."

"Th... thank you," Orihime had eventually stammered, looking up just in time to see the doctor's son giving the older man a very strange look, as though he had just said something impossible.

Orihime had wiped the tears from her eyes, taking in the two Kurosakis properly for the first time. Passing over the scowling boy's unremarkable trailing scarlet thread, Orihime's gaze had been drawn to the severed, blue String of a fixed-length hanging from the finger of Doctor Kurosaki, a String-type most commonly dangling from the fingers of the very old, and Orihime had deduced that Doctor Kurosaki had Found, and lost, the love of his life.

"Ichigo, would you go and get Orihime something to drink?" Doctor Kurosaki had said to his son, barely loudly enough for Orihime to hear, leading the two children out of the clinic and into a living room, closing the door firmly behind them. "I need to phone the morgue and then chase down Orihime's relatives. Will you keep her entertained for a while?"

The boy, Ichigo, apparently, had nodded and led Orihime into a kitchen area while Doctor Kurosaki climbed the stairs, leaving the two alone. "What would you like to drink, Orihime?" Ichigo had asked, taking a tumbler out of a cupboard and looking at the girl expectantly.

Orihime wasn't paying enough attention to remember what she had asked for, but she had gratefully accepted the glass of juice or water or something from Ichigo and followed him back into the living room to watch some programme or other.

After an hour or so Orihime had given up fighting to keep her eyes open, so comforted she was by the presence of the scowling but kind Ichigo next to her that she hadn't even noticed a blanket being pulled over her and Ichigo slipping out of the room at some point in the evening.

One day, when she was fifteen, Orihime had been particularly bored in her Japanese literature class and had resorted to fiddling with the scarlet String trailing from her little finger and daydreaming of the boy she would one day Find. Without realising it, her gaze had drifted to Ichigo Kurosaki and his own bright red thread, and Orihime had found herself wondering whether it could possibly be the same thread tied to her own little finger.

Orihime being Orihime, she just had to test it, never mind the fact that there had been no verifiable accounts of communication via String working in the past.

Highly conscious of the fact that she was being watched, probably by Miss Ochi, Orihime had clenched her left hand into a fist under her desk with only the little finger protruding. Orihime had subtly jerked her finger and watched a small shockwave rippling through her scarlet String, causing the thread to vibrate until it had joined the tangled mass of red on the floor and became impossible to follow.

The response had been instantaneous, a rapid series of four sharp jolts causing Orihime's finger to involuntarily twitch as she had felt the String tugging at her finger.

Orihime had bolted upright immediately and jerked the String again, staring intently at Ichigo in order to catch him pulling the String. Orihime had been focusing so hard on Ichigo that she had barely even registered somebody else in the classroom asking Miss Ochi's permission to visit the bathroom.

Orihime had given the thread one last tug, determined to catch Ichigo out, and as the classroom door slammed she had felt a jolt which almost certainly hadn't originated from the stationary digits of Ichigo Kurosaki. Then again, Orihime had reassured herself, she couldn't clearly see his hands, and his thread was far enough away to not be visibly vibrating.

After a minute, Orihime had felt a series of tugs on her string, this time two short tugs and a longer tug before a brief pause, and then two more short tugs.

Happy to hear from Ichigo or whoever it was, Orihime had cheerfully replied with her own series of tugs, picking a pattern at random. First a short one, then two long ones and another short one, and then six long ones.

Orihime had felt nothing for a couple of seconds, before she had eventually received a response in the form of a short tug, a longer tug and then four short tugs.

Realising that Miss Ochi had been asking her a question for the last half a minute, Orihime had returned to the real world and temporarily forgotten about the person at the end of her String. Orihime had answered the question and gone back to taking notes as she had heard the classroom door opening and somebody returning to their seat, Miss Ochi's disapproving and yet somewhat apathetic tuts penetrating Orihime's consciousness.

"Orihime, what are you doing?"

Orihime had been lying on her back, in the middle of an abandoned building in the Seireitei when Uryu's voice spoke up.

"I'm playing with my String!" she had announced cheerfully, holding up her little finger and waving it at her companion.

Uryu had sighed heavily. "That's nice, but you should really be trying to slee... hang on, you can see the Strings, can't you?"

"Yep!" Orihime had chirped, turning her head around to focus on the scarlet thread trailing from Uryu's own hand. "And I must say, yours is very tidy! Most people's have the odd loose strand poking out of the weave, but yours is pristine."

He had given a very small laugh, folding his arms and regarding her thoughtfully. "That's good to know," he had said. "Do you think it means anything?"

Orihime had shrugged and smiled brightly at Uryu. "I have no idea!" she had declared.

"Okay. Get some sleep, Orihime."

"Okay."

After Orihime and her friends had returned to the World of the Living after the debacle of Rukia's cancelled execution and the defecting of three Captains, Orihime had played idly with her thread one day and resolved to follow it, in order that it might lead her to her other half more quickly.

Orihime had set off from her flat one Tuesday morning, noting that her scarlet thread appeared to be leading her to school, and had skipped merrily down her road in order to arrive more quickly.

Upon arriving at school, Orihime had thought that it might be quite a nice idea to stop by her normal classroom, and sure enough a brief examination of her thread had revealed that it quite agreed.

Orihime had bounded up the stairs, careful as always not to trip over the stairs buried under the tangled red Strings, only to find Ichigo standing alone in the corridor outside the classroom door once she had reached the top floor.

Blushing furiously, Orihime had followed her thread right to where Ichigo had been standing. "Oh, hi, Ichigo!" she exclaimed, realising once she had reached Ichigo that her String had appeared to be circling her friend.

"Hello, Orihime," Ichigo had said, raising an eyebrow as she had started to circle him, staring at the ground. "Um. What are you doing?"

"Following my String, silly!" Orihime had giggled, briefly glancing up at her friend's face and wondering if her String was about to start pulsating gently before turning blue.

Ichigo's eyes had widened slightly in comprehension. "Oh, I remember, you can see the threads."

"I can indeed!" Orihime had replied, smiling broadly. The pair had been standing in silence for a minute as Orihime continued walking in circles around Ichigo.

"I think somebody up there is trolling you," Ichigo had eventually pointed out, once Orihime's circle around him had slowly grown more and more wonky.

"Oh! Possibly," Orihime had said, coming to the end of a loop and noticing how the thread was starting to lead away from Ichigo and along the corridor. "Well, bye, Ichigo!"

Ichigo had blinked. "Right. Bye, Orihime," he had said as Orihime had left him and began cheerfully skipping up the corridor after her String.

"No, no, no!"

Orihime had frantically scrabbled for Ulquiorra's dissolving hand, realising too late that she wasn't going to be able to reach it. Instead, Orihime had seized the frayed End of his ever-shortening String and held on tight, preventing it from unravelling any further.

"Let it go, Orihime, he's already dead!" Uryu had wheezed, barely able to breathe for his massive injuries.

"I won't!" Orihime had cried, fingering her own thread thoughtfully and pulling the End of a nonplussed, dying Ulquiorra's String closer to it.

"Don't you dare," Uryu had warned, his voice sharper than the sword protruding from his abdomen as he had realised precisely what Orihime was contemplating. "Do you really have so little respect for the person at the other end of your String as to introduce an anomaly to the equation? Some things just shouldn't be tampered with!"

Orihime had pondered his words at length before noticing that Ulquiorra had continued turning into dust despite her grip on his String, the thread now poking out of his stump of an arm. Orihime had stared at the peculiar sight until the remainder of Ulquiorra's body had turned to ashes and been scattered by the wind, revealing a solitary, beating red heart attached to his String.

"It looks like we found the heart," Orihime had mused, sadly, finally letting go and staring at the scarlet String as it had appeared to retract itself into the beating heart, before the heart had collapsed in on itself and folded away into nothingness.

"You couldn't have saved him, Orihime," Uryu had eventually said, kindly. "You did the right thing."

"What the heck was all that about?" Ichigo had suddenly demanded.

"At least I could keep him alive long enough to find his heart," Orihime had said, wistfully.

"Does that really matter?" Ichigo had muttered to himself.

Orihime had jumped out of her reverie as Uryu had suddenly given an hacking cough, his body convulsing with pain. "Oh my gosh, Uryu!" Orihime had exclaimed, turning her attention fully to her wounded friend. "Ichigo, you had better get back down to the fights, I'll take care of Uryu. Soten Kisshun, I reject!"

"Are you sure?" Ichigo had asked doubtfully as Shun-o and Ayame had flown forward to attend to Uryu.

"Yes. Having something to do might distract you from some of the guilt you're feeling over Uryu's injuries."

Ichigo had regarded Orihime gratefully at this observation. "Thank you, Orihime." He had made his way over to the golden dome of light completely surrounding Uryu and gestured towards his sword. "Is it okay if I..?"

"Be our guest!" Ayame had squeaked, before the sword had risen out of Uryu's torso of its own accord and begun to levitate in the air to be taken.

"Your thread is taking you straight back over the edge, now," Orihime had pointed out. "Good luck, Ichigo."

Ichigo had given Orihime and Uryu a brief salute before taking a running jump and diving over the edge.

Orihime had closely examined Uryu's String and determined that not only did it lead back over the edge, conforming that he would survive, but that the strands had been as tidy and unfrayed as ever.

"You're definitely going to live, you know," Orihime had said in a soothing voice.

Uryu had given a small smile at that. "But of course. I still trust you not to fall apart."

"Never again," Orihime had shuddered.

"Hey, now, your powers reject events, right? The whole thing never happened. You did perfectly," Uryu had said, gently. Orihime had frowned slightly at this statement, but had resumed healing her friend secure in the knowledge that he would live to touch back down on the floor. There could be no misreading the Strings when there were only two on the ground to observe.

One day, a few month after the defeat of Aizen, Orihime had walked into school in the morning to find Ichigo sitting alone on the roof, a melancholy look on his face. However, there had been something not-quite-right about the picture, and looking closer Orihime had seen that his String had vanished from his finger.

"Ichigo!" Orihime had exclaimed in shock, and the boy had looked up from the floor to give Orihime a half-smile.

"Good morning, Orihime," Ichigo had said, pensively, briefly glancing up at his friend. "How are you today?"

"Ichigo," Orihime had repeated. "What happened to your String? Are- are you dead?"

Ichigo had frowned at this. "No, I'm not dead. My String? I don't know, what has happened to it? I can't see them like you can, remember."

Orihime had taken a deep breath. "Well, your String has just... I don't know, vanished. That usually only happens when people die."

"Or are paired with the dead, I imagine," Ichigo had responded, softly.

Orihime's brain had reeled at this. If Ichigo hadn't died, then the only other possible explanation was that he had Found somebody in some other world and the now-blue String was bridging the gap between dimensions, unseen by anybody in either.

"I get it," Orihime had sighed, any remaining hope that Ichigo's thread and hers might be one and the same evaporating like puddles in the post-rain sun. "It just hit you just how much you really miss Rukia, didn't it?"

Ichigo hadn't said anything in response, he had merely nodded silently, and Orihime had understood. Sitting down next to Ichigo in silence, Orihime had gently rested a hand on Ichigo's shoulder. "It's okay. I miss her, too. Granted, probably not quite as much as you do, but you will see her again. She's your match. You wouldn't have been paired with her if she was just going to disappear from your life forever after you realised and Found her."

"Thank you, Orihime," Ichigo had whispered, resting against her side as Orihime had put her arm around his shoulders and vowed to herself to forget any remnants of a wish to share a String with Ichigo, and to continue searching for her true pair on the other end.

Around a year later, Orihime had been just about to reach out a hand to hammer on a hospital door when she had heard a deep, imposing voice from inside.

"Come in, Orihime Inoue."

Recognising the formidable voice of Ryuken Ishida, whom she had just been talking to on the phone, Orihime had pushed open the door and let herself in.

"Whoa, that was creepy!" she had exclaimed immediately, glancing around the spotless white room until her gaze had landed on the Ishidas by the window. "The way you knew I was outside the door even though I hadn't made any sort of noise, Doctor Ishida..."

"Not at all," had been Doctor Ishida's curt response, and Orihime had felt his gaze very briefly flickering to her little finger before it had landed on her face again. "I merely felt your spiritual pressure and deduced that you had arrived."

"Oh, of course," Orihime had said, sensing the same guarded softness in Doctor Ishida as his son. Indeed, Orihime had glanced between the two and immediately noticed many subtle similarities: the same slight-narrowing of the eyes when taken by surprise, the same way of holding their heads upright, the same proud expression. The only real differences had been their hair colours, and the fact that while Uryu's String was still neat and scarlet, his father's was the same severed sky-blue as Ichigo's father's had been all those years ago. Orihime had wondered whether there was a shared story there...

"Orihime."

Orihime's eyes had widened at the sound of Uryu's voice, turning to her friend and smiling. "Yes, Uryu?"

"Why did you come here?" Uryu had demanded. "Why did you do as Ryuken said?"

"I was worried about you," Orihime had responded candidly. "Your father told me you had been attacked. Are you telling me that you wouldn't have done the same thing if it had been me who was attacked?"

"She's got you there, Uryu," Doctor Ishida had pointed out, and Orihime had noticed a slight reddening of Uryu's face. Reddening in anger, perhaps?

"Stop acting like you actually know me, Ryuken," Uryu had responded in a cold voice.

Doctor Ishida had given a strange smile at this statement. "I know you better than you know yourself, Uryu. Why do you think your String-"

"Can we not talk about the Strings right now?" Uryu had hissed, silencing his father with a withering look.

Doctor Ishida had given Uryu a formidable expression for a few seconds, while Uryu had glared back, before the doctor had finally looked away and begun walking towards the door. "Ichigo Kurosaki and Yasutora Sado have arrived," Doctor Ishida had eventually said. "I should go and greet them."

And with that, Ryuken Ishida had left the room.

"Please excuse my father," Uryu had said, glancing at an empty chair by his bedside. Orihime had taken the hint and moved to sit down, grateful that Uryu wasn't simply sending her away.

"Oh, he doesn't seem so bad!" Orihime had giggled. "He's very much your father."

Uryu had quirked a corner of his mouth up at that. "I'm not quite sure whether you're paying him a compliment or myself an insult," he had pointed out. "Either way, please stop it."

Orihime had simply smiled in response, a brilliant grin lighting up her face until she had eventually cracked Uryu's shell and encouraged a small smile from him, too.

Orihime walked through the rubble, occasionally stumbling over the detritus littering the ground of what used to be the Seireitei and keeping her face tilted up towards the sky, constantly on the lookout for any attackers. She wasn't entirely sure where she was going, only aware that some indescribable force was leading her on and that her heart was beating fast, adrenaline coursing through her body as though it had been substituted for her blood.

After a while, Orihime found herself at the ornate doors to a palace, the force leading her on as though such an intimidating door ought to be no obstacle.

"Koten Zanshun, I reject!" Orihime declared, determined not to let the door stand in her way. Tsubaki emerged from her clip and effortlessly cut the door in half, both sections of the immense object falling inwards into a colossal entrance hall and hitting the floor with a BOOM which shook the building to its very foundations. Unconcerned by the guards which would no doubt be arriving soon to escort her away, Orihime purposefully strode over the fallen door and mounted the intricate staircase as Tsubaki returned to her clip, determinedly turning left at the top and entering a long corridor.

Orihime marched down the corridor, her feet knowing exactly where to take her until she caught sight of an open door at the end of the corridor. At the sight of the door, Orihime's already racing pulse skyrocketed and she took off running, her feet pounding forcefully against the floor as she raced for the open door, gracefully stepping inside once she reached it.

Inside the strange room was a person.

It was Uryu.

Just standing there, looking at Orihime.

... Had he always looked at her that way?

"It would appear that you Found me," Uryu said, matter-of-factly, as Orihime's racing pulse suddenly calmed and she looked down to notice the scarlet String on the floor connecting the two of them suddenly change colour, a sky-blue hue emerging at the centre of the String and quickly rippling outwards until the entire thread was blue.

"How long have you known?" Orihime found herself asking.

Uryu gave a small chuckle. "Ever since I saw and felt you yanking my String in Miss Ochi's Japanese literature class that time. Of course it would be you achieving the impossible and communicating when there should have been no possible method of communication."

Orihime laughed, before finally looking around at the surroundings she had been ignoring. "Where exactly are we, Uryu?"

"The Vandenreich headquarters," Uryu responded, shrugging. At Orihime's surprised gasp, he crossed the room and put a hand on her shoulder reassuringly. "But don't worry," he added, covertly. "Mayuri Kurotsuchi is planning a break tonight. The bacteria he planted on me will have given him just enough information to orchestrate something in another couple of hours. This evening, the Vandenreich falls, and I am free."

Orihime nodded once, completely trusting that if Uryu said it would be okay, it would be okay, and even if it wasn't, at least he would have her there to fight with him from now on.

More author's notes: Well, there you have it. I'm not entirely convinced about the ending, but please let me know what you think. :)

A few brief notes: 1. When Orihime and Uryu were communicating via the String, they were speaking in Morse Code. Here, Uryu understands Morse, and Orihime doesn't. Yes, I have a really weird sense of humour. ^_^

2. On the IchiRuki - I included it here because it works best in this context. I think it's the most likely to be endgame in canon and communicates more of what I wanted to say here. I do ship it, but I actually marginally prefer the idea of Ichigo with Tatsuki and Rukia with Renji. Yay multishipping? :D

3. This fic is (obviously) an AU. Certain scenes are based on canon scenes, but obviously I've added an enormous concept to it and I've also played around with some minor timeline things a bit (so Ulquiorra doesn't rip Ichigo's sword out of Uryu's stomach here like he does in canon, the final scene totally flies in the face of canon events which have happened since I first published this fic, and other small things like that). Just pointing that out because I'm a pedantic little whatsit and if it were me reading I'd probably be bristling in indignation. XD

4. I have left a lot of blanks here because it's from Orihime's perspective and even though she can see the Strings, she doesn't understand everything about them. I have some more ideas to do with the concept I might possibly build on in the future, but for now, please make up your own mind on the aspects I haven't covered. For example, is Orihime the only character here who can see the Strings? What happens to you when the person at the other end of your String dies? Does it actually mean anything if your String looks perfectly tidy, or is it a coincidence?

5. Now please scroll back up for instructions on how to find that pretty art. :)