Title: How Before Became After

Rating: G

Characters: Orihime and Ulquiorra, circa chapter 262.

Summary: A brief meditation on the nature of hatred.

Disclaimer: The characters and setting of Bleach belong to the author and his publishers.

Was it possible to fall in love at first sight? Or hate at first sight?

Inoue Orihime couldn't speak for love or hate, but fear at first sight—now that was possible. The first time Orihime saw Las Noches she'd been afraid: deeply, immediately and for no rational reason. Fear just welled out of her unbidden when she saw the great tower. The thing reared over her like an annihilating wave; on seeing it Orihime was instantly filled with dread that at any minute it would crash over her and drag her off her feet into some abyss.

Ulquiorra Schiffer inspired the same dread. Him, she had reason to fear. She had watched him tear apart two shinigami as casually as if they were mosquitos, batted down and then forgotten.

Ulquiorra almost didn't look like a monster, with his fine features and shining hair and beautiful green eyes. He had beautiful hands too, and carried himself with elegant, predatory grace. He would have been bishounen if not for the dead white skin. And the bone helmet that covered half his head. And the hollow hole.

But the espada was as heartless as he was beautiful. He possessed neither malice nor mercy. His green eyes were as much like poison as jewels, and his unsmiling face was as incapable of being moved with kindness or compassion as the tower.

It was to the tower that he took her. It was in the tower he left her to make a place for herself in its vast and terrible silence.

So she did. Orihime was used to quiet—she had lived alone for the past three years, after all—and she found that the quiet was a good time for thinking. It was amazing, the things you learned about yourself when you had some time and a little bit of quiet.

In the dead white silence of Las Noches, Orihime learned something new about herself. To her surprise, she discovered that while she was not given to resentment, she was a good fierce hater.

And she hated Ulquiorra Schiffer.

She hated the way he looked at her. She hated the way he assumed her compliance. He thought she was worthless, that she was trash. She hated that too.

He barely spoke to her, but he didn't need to. His poison-colored eyes said it all.

Those eyes said: You are nothing.

They said: You do not matter, unless you prove to be a problem.

They warned: Do not become a problem.

Orihime set her teeth and did as she was bidden. She avoided those eyes and tried to convince herself that the tower was not so terrible. There was nothing wrong with the room except for the fact that she was a prisoner inside it. It was meant to be comfortable, perhaps, but Orihime found no comfort in it. The room was a mockery of a real home, the way Hueco Mundo itself was a pale dead mockery of the real world.

But this was the task she had set for herself, and no matter how afraid she was Orihime was determined to see it through.

So when she heard that her friends had come…when she heard that her friends had come…

Was it possible to be happy and sad and really, really angry all at once?

Because that was how Orihime felt. Happy that they cared for her, truly happy. Happy that she mattered to them. She might not be important—she might not be powerful—she might not have meaning or significance in this strange supernatural world she was now part of—but at least her friends cared for her.

So that made her happy. But she was sad too. Sad that they had come to Hueco Mundo, because she hadn't wanted anyone to come here but her. That was the whole point.

So she was happy. And she was sad. And she was also really, truly, very deeply angry that they had put themselves in danger. Because she had come here to keep them out of danger, not forever maybe, but at least for a little while longer. By coming here they had ruined everything.

And then Orihime felt guilty because she was angry at her friends. She should be grateful, right? Only a terrible person would be angry when her friends came to rescue her.

And then she came back to being afraid again, because she had seen what an espada could do, what Ulquiorra could do, and there were so many others here like him.

It only got worse when the fighting started. First she was afraid, and then she was angry with them again, and then she felt guilty again, and then her feelings circled back to fear once more. Here in the tower she was always afraid.

Orihime was almost relieved when the thing she feared finally happened, because at least now there was one less thing to dread. She felt guilty about that too.

When Ulquiorra walked into her room, that guilt and fear and anger flared into hatred so quickly and with such heat that Orihime was surprised the air between them didn't burst into flames.

The espada seemed to sense her change of mood. He halted at the edge of the carpet, hands in his pockets, cold eyes fixed on her. "It seems you've become aware that idiot Nnoitra strayed from the rest of the group, despite the fact that he was explicitly ordered to wait in his own domain."

"Sado-kun isn't dead," Orihime said. He wasn't. Orihime could feel his reiatsu, dim and weak but nothing she couldn't heal, given the opportunity, so he didn't count as dead. Not till she couldn't feel him at all. Not till there was nothing left to heal. "He isn't dead."

Ulquiorra ignored her, and called for her food to be brought in. How could he expect her to eat now? It was impossible. She couldn't eat a thing. But when she refused the espada threated to force it down her throat, or hook up an IV. His velvet voice didn't change in the slightest, but Orihime felt the threat as clearly as if he was holding her at swordpoint.

There was an unwelcome prickle of tears at the back of her eyes. She wouldn't cry in front of him. It would be a defeat.

"The fact is," the espada was saying, "all of your comrades will die at our hands eventually. Don't act like it's such a big deal because one got ahead of himself."

Orihime's chest hurt, and every breath came a little short, as if there wasn't enough air in the room to breathe. She could hear Ulquiorra's measured voice going endlessly on and on. Would he never stop talking? And at the back of that was the ghastly feel of Sado-kun's reiatsu dwindling to a frail thread.

Orihime caught her breath as the anger she'd been fighting all day rose up in her again. Why did they do it? How could they have been so foolish? Why couldn't they have had faith in her?

Ulquiorra's voice again. "If it was me, I'd be filled with anger at what pathetic losers they are, deciding to just run in here, completely out of touch with reality and their own power."

Yes, Orihime thought. And then, no. No. No!

Hot fury coalesced like a bubble of lightning in her chest. It flowed from her heart down to her feet and then raced back to her face. She felt the flush scald its way along her cheekbones. She felt the pinpricks of it in her eyes as they sought Ulquiorra's. Those eyes looked at her and it was as if he was still speaking, still telling her all the things she didn't want to hear. His beautiful green eyes. His calm, contemptuous face.

It was a face that Orihime wanted to hit, and she hit it.

The sound of that blow echoed like a bell, and in the vast, ringing silence that followed, those eyes tried to speak to her again. But Orihime, shaking, sick with rage, was no longer listening.