Lay Your Heart on Me [Ichigo, Orihime]

A garganta tore open in the sands of Hueco Mundo, in a far off corner where few traveled. It was the very same place Ichigo had simply sat in wait for decades, stewing in misery and waiting, desperately, for things to somehow be different.

They were different now. For better, or for worse, he didn't know. Every plan he'd built up seemed like it had suddenly fallen apart, but did that really matter now? The reason he'd done all of this was in his arms now, and he cradled her more gently than one would hold the most delicate of glass.

After all, Ichigo wasn't stupid. Even if it weren't for her pained expression, for the snow white hair that had replaced that vibrant orange, the energy that she exuded wasn't right, and he wanted answers, needed answers, but he didn't even know what to say.

"Orihime... What happened?"

He knew she had the same question. And if she asked it back, he'd only be able to answer her. Ichigo's faint glimmer of will would never be able to stand up to this one woman.

What happened? What happened? She felt herself grimace at the question. She should be asking that question, what happened to him. Where did he go? Why did it come to this? Her wispy white-hair swayed behind her in the absence of a wind from this dark world. How long had it been since she'd been here? She forgot. Even the entire events of Aizen's abduction of her had become a blur in the last century with only a few details sticking out to her.

"Everyone disappeared... and I lost."

She muttered while leaning on him for support. The pale white skin looked so wrong and twisted, maybe he thought the same thing looking at her as she was now.

Ichigo's hand tightened as he heard her speak, such a simple answer far from what he wanted to hear. But what else could he say? He couldn't be angry at her, not in a thousand years. Just seeing her, holding her, that was more than enough right now. He couldn't demand more answers, wouldn't even dream of it.

"...I'm sorry. I thought you were gone. I didn't mean to turn into this."

He wanted to hold her tighter, but he felt as though he shouldn't. She seemed so much more fragile than she had been back then, and how could he say that was surprising? But it didn't matter to Ichigo. No matter what she looked like, no matter what state she was in, she was still Orihime. She was still who he'd been looking for.

"I just wanted to bring you back. I didn't think...I didn't think I would see you again."

"Let go of me, Ichigo."

She said it with enough authority to get the point across. It wasn't a request or anything but his touch felt acidic to her, it just caused pain that wasn't physical damage but she didn't have the strength to push him away herself.

"You... you killed all those people."

For a reason she could not discern. She did not need saving from where she was. What did he do that for? Why would he attack the group of people that were trying to do the goal that they had all worked together to achieve as friends a century ago.

Ichigo had known the moment he'd seen her that she would hate what he'd become. Not physically, he knew her too well to think she could hate him just because of something like that. But he knew she wouldn't approve of his actions. His willingness to do anything to see her again. He did as he asked, letting her go and stepping back.

"I didn't attack them first. I didn't want to fight."

Even as he said that, his eyes couldn't meet Orihime's, and he looked away as one of his hands clenched tightly into a fist. The Vandenreich had made things difficult. He hadn't started that fight. But he wasn't going to back down.

Was going through the proper channels so hard? She was left speechless by his adamant answer that he was not in the wrong, that he had just waltzed into the City of Lights like he was charging into Soul Society or Hueco Mundo to save someone close to him but he wasn't. He just made it clear he didn't even know she was there.

It was the same behaviour as when she watched that hollow fight Ulquiorra. Merciless and indifferent slaughter and a soul so black that she couldn't visualise his emotions, reason was smothered in the black ink of instinct.

It had terrified her and maybe it still did if she wasn't so detached from her emotions like she was now. Wilting away and trying to fix everything before the last petal fell but now he'd taken that away from her and ruined everything.

She turned away and started walking a couple metres away, sitting in the sand and tucking her legs to her chest. She didn't want to talk to him and she didn't want to look at him. She needed to think.

This was everything he hadn't wanted. All Ichigo had wanted was to see her again. Hold her again. As long as she was alive, as long as she could be happy, that was what he'd wanted. But this had changed everything, and he'd hardly made her happy now. He wanted answers, he wanted to know why she felt like one of those rings.

Yet regardless of what he wanted, Ichigo couldn't feel anything except the dull, throbbing pain of defeat, of having failed yet again in the only thing he'd wanted. When he spoke, it wasn't to ask anything he wanted to ask, and his voice was empty. Hollow.

"I'll send you back."

Orihime didn't want to be here. Didn't want to be near him. What was the point then? He wouldn't force her. He couldn't.

"I'm staying here."

Orihime had no intention to budge from her spot, if he so much as tried to move her then she'd repel it with her Shun Shun Rikka. If she went back now then all of the destruction and sacrifices he'd made of the Vandenreich would be for nothing.

She also had no idea of what she'd even do if she went back, her identity was revealed and they were in no position to achieve her goal. Ichigo had shown her that he was the best pathway towards getting back to lost days by trivialising an entire organisation. Even if she didn't like it, it felt like the best path.

Those words only further left Ichigo unsure of what to say, of what to do. There wasn't anything he could do for her, it seemed. He couldn't leave her here, in the depths of Hueco Mundo. But he knew perfectly well that he couldn't force her to move.

"Alright."

There wasn't anything left for him to say, to do, to ask. If she was staying, then he could work up the will to say it eventually. But for now, Ichigo couldn't do anything else but sit in the sand himself, laying down and simply staring up at the empty black sky.

Just like before this had all started. Before he'd even started walking this path.