Queen of Sea, Princess of Land (Tier/Orihime)

"What is it, Harribel?"

She laid in the sand, unmoving and famished from laying here wearily. It was fortunate that her single-mindedness made details like that bearable albeit uncomfortable. It was nothing compared to the pain of her body begging to disperse in the breeze but held on because she told it to. There was no real time to pity herself though, all she could try and think about was how to achieve her wish.

If she could return everything to the way it was and save everyone then she could die at peace. What else was she supposed to do otherwise? There was nothing because to abandon that wish would mean to forfeit the thing which was keeping her alive.

"It's meaningless, Harribel."

She answered back staring at the black void that was the sky of Hueco Mundo. The monochrome landscape was almost serene compared to how the world had gone but this still place did carry that sense of a pond that wouldn't be disturbed with a ripple. No matter what this place would always return to its peaceful silence while the worlds around it would twist and bend.

They all never reached peace though.

"I just want to make everything right again."

If Ichigo's war served that purpose then she supported it but if his actions ended up in the same situation as his choices for the Vandenreich then she would not support it. That was all there was to it. A dream that she couldn't wake up from and an impossible goal.

How narrowminded. She didn't understand anything but the human was too weary to correct her. Ichigo might've been her world once upon a time but she had accepted a greater burden than just him after the war, watching everyone suffer and their world be destroyed, Ichigo couldn't stop it and when the time came he tried to shoulder it once again. It was sad how trying to shoulder burdens and protect everyone else was a deal that sold your being to powers outside of your control.

"I don't want to be saved."

She muttered at the arrancar presenting her two options, a veiled ultimatum that she wouldn't meet. Whatever Ichigo wanted to do to save her should not be for her. It should be for everyone else who they failed, their loss gored her heart and left it rotting. If she could return them to their peaceful days that collapsed because of their shortcomings.

Interruptions. It is always something these days and everything Tier had said disappeared into oblivion in her mind. The singleminded rot-infested psyche of the white princess focused onto the newcomer, how familiar it was to that time that Ulquiorra had appeared in the Dangai to take her. Unfortunately, the princess then and the princess now were barely the same person. That person was pushed into a corner for the sake of her friends, friends that were all gone now.

No friends left to save. No friends she could trust to save her anymore. Though it wasn't really fair to trouble them with all with that in the first place. was it? So she willed herself to stand. She stood and faced the armoured individual with an intense glare that said everything it needed to.

Move aside. Begone. Do not obstruct me.

Things that didn't need to be said in words as she gave a scornful look, did this creature think it's display of reiatsu was impressive when she had seen titan's clash? She carried frustration, why? Was it Tier's words, the ghost of them haunting the back of her mind? Was it Ichigo's actions which had upheaved everything she had tried to do with the Vandenreich? Was it just frustration at herself for being in this situation?

The answer escaped her but it was fortunate in a sense. She didn't need that answer. Orihime just needed him to get out of her way and not waste her precious little time that was left.

"Let us not grow too hasty." Came a voice from the gargantua as a woman clad in black and blue stepped free from its confines. "I am simply here for an audience with the forementioned Orihime Inoue."

Questions may be asked, such as, who is this woman, why is she here, what is wrong with Tier? Those questions would remain answered for now as the woman moved the staff in her right hand across the chest of the brazen Hollow, its energy dying down into nothingness. The woman, her skin paled and her eyes an icy blue, seemed to let her gaze fall over Orihime's form, taking in the woman's frail failing body. Her mouth, a thin line, slowly formed into a small smile, any warmth the expression should convey absent.

"I only wish to understand one thing."