Work Text:
The first time Orihime defeated Yhwach, a sense of peace washed over her as she faded into flower petals. Ichigo was safe. Rukia, Chad…Uryu, they were going to be okay. If she had to lay down her life so that her friends could live, she would do it. Over and over again.
And she had done so—over and over again.
She would take it all on.
A gasp for breath; a barely-broken fall; slick, blood-splattered ice underneath her; the image of her dying friends waiting on the other side of her closed eyelids—
Orihime dug her nails into the ice in an attempt to gain purchase. This was the 11th, no, the 12th time she had found herself reliving this moment. She had to breathe.
“This is power,” Yhwach’s voice resounded.
She had to move. She opened her eyes.
Orihime thought it would get easier, seeing Ichigo and Rukia in such a state. Instead, her heart found new ways to contort each time—new ways to twist and burn with terror and rage and pain pain pain.
“—foolish of you. My dear Ichigo…”
Orihime used Yhwach’s monologue as a stopwatch. He had never once changed the verbiage. She knew exactly how much time she had. Her legs shook beneath her as she stood. Why was she so weak?
“Shuno…Tsubaki…Ayame…Hinagiku…Baigon…Lily,” she whispered in between gasps.
Yhwach paused, noticing the rise in Orihime’s spiritual pressure. He grinned like a cat that had found another rat to hunt, to toy with, to kill.
And, just like a cornered animal, Orihime bared her teeth and charged.
The worlds longed for balance, even now at the end of all things. If she wanted to completely erase a soul that was actively functioning as the Soul King from existence, she would have to offer a substitute lynchpin in exchange. It wasn’t death, exactly. Compared to the milliseconds of what-came-after she’d experienced, death was a daydream. She had been everywhere yet nowhere, everything yet nothing, burning yet unfeelin—
—she bit the inside of her cheek, hard. She barely registered the taste of iron.
She needed to focus.
Orihime flew toward Yhwach, her gaze piercing and unwavering. She didn’t spare a passing glance toward Rukia or Ichigo. She had no time to waste.
Four attempts ago, Orihime noticed that Yhwach’s eyes formed two additional pupils a few seconds before her final attack would land. His spiritual pressure shifted each time it happened; and, she knew somewhere in the core of her being that he was still there afterwards in the in-between, just as she had been, fighting her for dominance.
She had to erase him. Completely.
Orihime’s attack landed. Yhwach’s eyes both contained one pupil.
Her heart felt as though it would burst out of her chest from the amount strain it was under. She turned her head to look at Ichigo for the last time, the lack of any spare energy being the only thing keeping her from sobbing at the unfairness of it all.
He looked so sad. He looked so young.
They were both so young.
If Orihime sacrificed her life as she knew it, Ichigo would live. Orihime was grateful for the time they had been given and had fought so hard for.
Orihime thought of their time at school together, before the Quincy Blood War, before Ichigo lost his powers, before she was kidnapped by Aizen and his Espada, before she and her friends invaded the Soul Society with nothing but youthful innocence and dumb luck on their side.
She thought of the past, and she became painfully cognizant of the present.
Ichigo didn’t just look sad—he looked weary. There was a furrow between his brows that never relaxed these days. His eyes were wide. He was terrified...
…for her.
Ichigo would live, yes, but he would live with the knowledge that Orihime sacrificed herself for him—saving the worlds was incidental. This was for him.
Orihime smiled.
Ichigo called out to her, desperately, his injuries preventing him from rushing to her side. She had never seen brown eyes look so blue—
—this couldn’t be the ending.
She couldn’t hurt him like this. Some wounds never heal. He already had so many—too many—wounds that would never heal. They all did, herself included. If only she had been stronger when it mattered.
“If only my powers were much, much stronger,” she thought, “…so strong that I couldn’t hold it all myself. If it were so great that it was boundless, then I could envelop the whole world. Fighting…pain…suffering.., I could make it so that they never happened.”
As her powers ripped through the final threads of Yhwach’s defences, Orihime tore her gaze from Ichigo—her everything—and turned toward the empty, godless throne across the room.
She steeled her resolve. Fuck fate.
“I reject.”
The world faded to white; and all that never should have been, ever was.
_______________________
A gasp for breath; some kind of wall?; a barely-broken fall; cool tile underneath her; the image of her dying friends waiting on the other side of her closed eyelids—
“Oh, it’s you. Hey, Orihime,” someone said to her. Orihime’s ears rang, and she pressed a hand against her face, needing some kind of anchor. She peered through her fingers.
She was at school. She was on the floor in the hallway.
“—knock her down, and that’s all you can say? What the hell’s wrong with you?!” Tatsuki yelled at someone.
Orihime’s heart skipped a beat.
Ichigo.
Did it work? It must have.
Ichigo looked down at her. “Sorry about that. Uh, you gonna be alright, Orihime?” He asked.
It worked.
She nodded, “Yeah, I’m gonna be alright.” She grinned so wide that it almost hurt. “Everything’s gonna be alright!”
She did it.
Tatsuki gave her the side-eye. She brought a hand to her mouth, as if she was sharing a secret, and leaned in toward Ichigo. “You think she hit her head or something?”
Orihime couldn’t help but laugh, which didn’t help her case in the slightest.
Ichigo rolled his eyes at Tatsuki and offered Orihime a hand up.
The first time Orihime had lived this day, she had been too flustered to accept his kindness.
But, she, unlike everyone else she knew, could never again be who she had once been. Although her Shun Shun Rikka were silent in their slumber, the constant buzz of energy under her skin signalized that they, too, were changed—that they were still hers.
Orihime took Ichigo’s un-calloused, un-scarred hand into her own.
She was never going to let him go again.