Story by me

Translation by one and only Clio S.S.

My never ending gratitude for her

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A.

Princess Inoue

Orihime Inoue. Princess Inoue. A princess - a fairy - a bijou. A bundle of nerves. Sometimes she held so many emotions they burst her from the inside, pounded in her temples and made her eyesight grow dim. Sometimes there was so many feelings that she was only able to recognize people the feelings referred to, but didn't even try to grasp the events, word and sequential scenes. Her heart was as big as Fuji-san, yet it was still not enough.

The hearts of the ghosts, who kept coming to take her dear people away, were filled with dark abyss. Ghosts were finding their targets, choosing their victims and appeasing their hunger - faultlessly. Ghost felt well on their own.

Orihime's outside world was colourful and varied, and it was copying and, at the same time, disguising the chaos that always dwelt inside - in her mind, in her heart. Others' feelings kept attacking her from each direction, while her own ones kept swirling in vain and never brought any answer. Chocolate with shrimps, chocolate with bean, chocolate with jasmine rice - it tasted different and looked different, but Inoue never really knew if these differences were significant. They were just like her emotions – she never knew what there was to reject, to accept, to suffer, and to enjoy. Like code with no key to it or riddle with no hints - no magic jewel had ever fallen from the sky to save her from being at a loss.

Ghosts were afraid of the magic jewels. Orihime kept decorating herself with shining gems and pretended she was like anyone else - pretended to understand, rule and aim at concrete things. She tried to dream like anyone else - of happiness and of prince. Her prince had a heart as big as hers, helped her to find the answers and called her his precious and dear.

Orihime loved with all herself, loved so much it hurt, and pain did always flicker somewhere deep in her gaze. Wild emotions, unable to be told apart, kept banging at the thin walls of mind with their tiny stony fists. Orihime loved, worried and agonized over everything and everyone - before she even managed to open her eyes in the morning and after she finally managed to close them to sleep, while awake and while asleep. She was always tense and excited, always threw herself to act and help, and she could never grasp the goal and benefit.

Ghosts were so... together. Ghosts walked clearly laid paths. Ghosts didn't wander aimlessly. But, one day, the prince of her dreams would arrive and show her how to find herself in the chaos. He would support her, understand her and value her as a treasure.

Others could deal with themselves. Their hearts never broke from the excess of feelings; they never lost themselves in the mess of thoughts and sensations. They kept walking forward and never in circles; they had their families, friends and bonds.

Ghosts never showed themselves to others. Only to princess Inoue. Only to her.

Others blindly threw their emotions out - at others, at anyone, at Inoue too. She never wanted to unleash her mad confusion like this. Others didn't even notice what happened when their aggression, merciless sincerity and open feelings shouted deafening and inconsistent slogans right before her frightened eyes. They were free, comfortable and noisy; the excess of their excitement leaked out in a violent and aggressive manner, leaving only peace and order inside. Inoue was neither violent nor aggressive - neither ordered nor at peace, never. In her heart, Inoue suppressed too much that it would fit in place painlessly, and dreamt of too much miracles to spot them in front of her. She kept bumping into someone else's emotions, bleeding with someone else's suffering and receiving someone else's aggression, inert like a locked vault with no key, holding a jewel of no price and value. She was afraid of screaming and violence, didn't understand the way of the quarrels and didn't see the love; she only yearned for the safe silence.

Ghosts screamed soundlessly and didn't inflict the wounds blindly. Ghosts spilled the blood knowingly and then left - always moving within well-defined and fair limits of evil. In their hollow hearts, ghosts held everything and nothing; they hurt due to simple reasons, embedded between hunger and fate. The darkness of ghosts was infinite, silent and empty. And Inoue dreamt of a prince to provide her with sense of security in the storm that had been in and with her since ever.

Orihime Inoue had never felt like a real person. To be a person meant to have a character, patterns of behaviour, and moods; to act in a specific way and furrow a brow in a particular way, too. Real person knew what happened around them and could solve their problems, noticed other people and created bonds, families and groups. Real person could lie in order to save the harm, could hurt in order to save the lie, or even could lie and hurt, out of impulse of the heart - for themselves, for others, for their dreams. Real person could recognize the love before it was too late, and fight for it when needed. Orihime could only hold her confusion behind the veil of her smile and stars shining in hair and eyes. She could only hold the emotions - mountains of someone else's feelings and her own uncertainty - embrace them in her capacious heart and let no disruption to surrounding world any more.

For ghosts, Orihime Inoue was a bridge. Indefiniteness shade between light and darkness. No-one.

"Woman. I can't comprehend you. Get a grip on yourself."

He never comprehended anything - neither the fact that he had managed to reduce the chaos to simple basis, nor that he had given the shape to the world.

"Woman. You're living in a world of illusion. I can't comprehend you."

He never comprehended anything. Neither the fact that he was the only one to see the illusion of princess Inoue, nor that he was the only one to reach the person dwelling in its depth.

"Woman..."

When ghosts came for her, she didn't put up any fight, didn't defend herself and didn't object. Submissive, sensitive Orihime. Useless Orihime. She bid her farewell to everything dear, believing it would be for best. That others would be safe, wide of the depth, wide of her.

When the prince of her dreams came, it would be all light and beauty, tenderness and understanding, it would be finally peace. Her prince would wrap his cloak around her, shield her with a gold umbrella and guard her from any darkness.

She slept when ordered, ate when ordered and lived because she was ordered to. There was no sense or point in it - they were mistaken about her and about their plans too; they would be all disappointed with her. Everyone was disappointed with her, after all. Their land of desert was a kingdom of night, with silence ringing in the ears and ghosts hunting the shadows and looking only at their prey. No scream, no word, no feeling reached the mountainous palace between the darkness and the fake sun. In the silence, Inoue's heart was waking up, restless, for the first time grasping its own shape.

Ghosts kept passing by - she had never been such significant part of their world to disturb their peace, soothe their unrest, understand their talk. On their own soil, they spoke to Inoue in a tongue of unconcern - strange because completely unambiguous. Always unambiguous, always sincere. Comprehensible.

She put on their skin, walked in their footsteps and treated their wounds. They bled like humans, suffered and screamed in pain. They softened upon her healing aura and presented the bizarre smiles of ghastly hybrids, bare to the bones. They insulted her, mocked at her, questioned her, hurt her and avoided her. Their claws wounded her skin, their words wounded her conscience and their impassivity wounded her pride - yet they never tried to wound the only place that would hurt: her heart, dazed by the calmness.

Ghosts had their business. They were to destroy and kill on order; they wanted to play and dance in the storm; they needed freedom and a lodestar in their everlasting chase for the prey. Ghosts kept brushing against Orihime's knees, and their skeleton backs were silky like a sand abrading the rocks. They kept claiming they would take everything what was dear to her, and destroy it. They showed her she loved and how much she loved. They showed she owned something fragile but substantial. They showed her the meaning of life and put it on the edge of a precipice. On the edge of the precipice, it felt like at home. Like in her own heart. Ghosts smelled of sand, wind, and blood. They made sure she got enough sleep.

"Woman. You must eat. You must rest."

She didn't understand - why he kept coming and leaving. She didn't understand why she didn't want to understand.

"Woman. You're talking nonsense."

She didn't understand. She was surprised by his uncompromising sincerity, curiosity and mechanical protectiveness. She didn't understand why she had the answers for him when she wasn't able to find them for herself. She didn't understand why she wasn't afraid.

"Woman. You must survive."

They violated the silence. They shattered the sky, broke through the desert and trampled on the bone sculptures. Under the patient moon of Las Noches, Inoue shivered and cried silently when the screaming, anger and surge of emotions triumphantly took possession of Hueco Mundo. The illusory roof of peace, resting on the necks of Adjuchas, fell in.

He would come after her, this time he would come for sure and find her here, among the ghosts. The prince of her dreams. He would put her hand in his hand, and they would go together. He would be talking the most wonderful words of love to her.

"Attachment is an illusion. Love is an illusion."

He never left her alone. He didn't hand her over. He never lied to her.

"Woman? Are you not afraid?"

She wasn't afraid. She didn't flinch. She never let him down.

"I have no heart, woman."

She didn't understand how emptiness and silence could be so beautiful under the sky deprived of stars. But they were, and she had enough stars on her own.

"What is heart?"

He didn't understand he already loved the stars.

They won. They turned the enemy to dust and freed princess Inoue from the tower under the black sky. They broke the sky and kept shouting their triumphal cries at it. Their big hearts were deafening when they pounded in one rhythm.

Ghosts wiped away their sticky blood fingers and licked themselves like kittens, telling strange tales about the moon that called forth the marigold fairies to the world. When the sky of Hueco Mundo broke, they all fled. Light of the real sun hurt the eyes. People's voices roared in head aggressively.

Everything was all right. Everything was like it should be, again. Everything was all right. Everything...

The prince of her dreams would have eyes like velvet of the night's wings and he would come in silence, bring the safety, straighten the paths and admire stars in her eyes. He would wrap his cloak around her, put her hand in his hand and guide her. He would whisper the most wonderful words, and his breath would feel warm against her skin.

"Look well, woman. The one you trusted with your life is going to die today."

He sheltered her with his black wings and stayed with her to the last. Chaos, noise and feelings broke through from another world. Vivid and merciless life demanded attention from behind the mask of demon. Demons' screams were the loudest ones. Demons fought till the very end. The tears of ghost always tasted of blood, a bit.

"Now I see."

He saw through her; she surprised him, confused him, discouraged him and enchanted him. She calmed down when he was asking his questions about those painful, disquieting and uncertain feelings, and she was giving him the simple answers she hadn't known but a moment earlier. The sound of her heart, ringing in her voice, calmed him down - as well as the stars in her eyes. The sky overhead bore no stars - and now they didn't even have the sky any more. Only the umbrella of black wings was sheltering her face until the end.

"Now I see... Your heart... In my hand..."

He put her hand in his own. He disappeared - an ash that left felt warm against her skin. Chaos of emotions was somewhere far away, helplessly banging its fists on the demon skin on the woman's body. Sorrow. Simple and unmistakable. Sorrow.

Found - and left. Valued - and useless. A bridge for ghosts that were now banished from their world. But they would come back, one day, and bridge would still be there. Ghosts kept coming back. The prince of her dreams would arrive and touch her heart, again, smelling of ashes, blood and dyed tears, stars in his eyes and darkness in his wings.

"Woman."