Epilogue

It was a dark midnight walkway, blessed upon with the shattering despair of the sky as its welcoming tears splattered on the sleeping world. She walked down the murky path with snuffle in her eyes, this time, not for her giving up on her Kurosaki-kun, but because it was this rainy night, exactly one year ago she had found the pride and joy of her life; The young brown haired orphan who had brought her and her love together, the one who had made her stronger.

She missed her terribly.

A strong gust of wind blew her elongated auburn locks into her shivering face as a crash of thunder hurt her ears painfully. She knew that if she stood in the rain for much longer, she'd probably end up ill again, but she really couldn't care much at this moment in time. Her memory of when Ichigo had nursed her for the first time made her smile. How he had acted so zealous and out of character was amusing but so lovely. He always kept her in check now. Their one year anniversary was coming up in just a little over two weeks, which was more than Orihime could have ever hoped for, but she really did wish that they had their daughter still; it was never the same without her.

She cuddled her arms in a bad attempt to make herself warmer and stood under the old oak tree, thinking. Why couldn't she just see her again? Ichigo had told her everything that had happened after she 'died', and there was no viable reason she could think of as to why they couldn't even visit the young child they had cared for so lovingly. Wasn't there anything she could say to convince them otherwise?

Suddenly, an imaginary sound had grazed her ears over the loud booms of thunder. Was that... the sound of a baby's cry?

"No," Orihime sighed, "I'm imagining things again." She wiped some of the pitiful rain drops and grieving tears from her face. Again, the same curious sound passed over her hurting ears.

"Waah!" It screamed. She couldn't help but look hopefully around the tree, eager, wanting, but burst out crying as the fanatical sight before her appeared.

Not an empty space where the young girl once lied, but a young brown haired baby girl, crying in a cardboard box. She was less than a year old, but still she held the same wondrous face Orihime had been inconsolable for since she had lost her all those moths ago. Her big eyes opened, showing a strange pair of sapphire eyes with an emerald tint. Orihime picked her out of the broken cardboard caringly with even more falling drops down her frozen cheeks and looked with fuzzy eyes at the small note above her belly;

Safaia-Kurami Inoue

-Please take care of her-