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Ishida's Second Choice	By : debbiechan Category: Bleach > Het - Male/Female Views: 10276 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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Ishida�s Second Choice
by debbiechan

Disclaimer: Bleach isn�t mine, and Kubo Tite�s story is better than this one; I�m only indulging in a little IshiHime fantasy.
Description: I really believe that my story is losing its narrative drive here, and I�m still waiting on Kubo-sensei to grant me a way out of this mini-IshiHime plot � but in the meantime, folks, here�s a bit more "what if." Ishida and Orihime are still separated. Canon has them struggling on separate identity quests during this time; does their previous, er, intimacy in my story comfort or exacerbate loneliness?
Warnings: References to teenage sex and specific spoilers for Arrancar arc up to manga chapter 226.

Part Five

Sharing ice cream with Rangiku-san was so fun! Orihime carried on about mustard being the world�s greatest condiment ever (Rangiku agreed!). She enlightened Rangiku about such Living World phenomena as freight trains, television, and support bras (Rangiku-san was appalled that living women would find breasts heavy or cumbersome in any way). And because Kuchiki-san had engaged all Soul Society�s curiosity about juice boxes, Orihime showed Rangiku how to open the mysterious drink (Rangiku said the tiny straw reminded her of a certain someone�s zanpakutou?). Having the Shinigami as a roomie, Orihime decided, was going to be the best thing since bean paste on toast.
Then, while washing the cups and spoons, Orihime fell out of her ice cream euphoria into another spell of worry over Uryuu. "He�s fine, he�s fine," Rangiku reassured her, but there was something about the vice captain�s face--hadn�t Orihime seen that look before? Wait. Earlier in the evening, when Orihime mentioned not knowing where Uryuu was, Rangiku-san had looked similarly� sad?

"Believe me," Rangiku said, fingering the pendant at her bosom. "I know how hard it is. When someone you care for is gone and you don�t know where he�s gone off to�."
Before Orihime could wonder much about Rangiku�s odd expression (Had her parents disappeared like Orihime�s had?), the new battle started, and there was no time to wonder about anything--except whether Rangiku had been killed or merely knocked unconscious.
It was a hideous night. Rangiku-san fell right away, and then Toushiro-san appeared out of nowhere to fight another one of those weird half-Hollow half-Shinigami things. The reiatsu in the skies was overwhelming, and even so, Orihime ran towards the fighting intent on helping until Rangiku--no, it wasn�t Rangiku-san, it was a mod-soul in Rangiku�s gigai--grabbed Orihime by the shoulders and shouted, "DON�T!" It was only then that Orihime remembered that her one offensive, Tsubaki, was crushed, his spirit evaporated into who-knows-where during the previous battle.
Weapons slashed the sky and there was blood everywhere, whipping through the warm air and spattering on the ground. Toushiro-san turned into a transparent blue ice dragon, and still the battle seemed lost. Then somehow the battle wasn�t lost--Orihime, praying on her knees, looked up to see Rangiku sheathing her zanpakutou and Toushiro-san falling out of the sky. His and Rangiku�s opponents� reiatsu had vanished.
"Orihime, come quick!" Rangiku�s voice was hoarse.
And Orihime rose and ran, tripping over her own shoes. She fell to her knees again beside the fallen Shinigami and summoned all the healing power she had.
She would need more than all the healing power she had to make it through the night�s wounded. The Shinigami had triumphed over the Arrancar�s surprise attack, but Renji-san, Toushiro-san, Kurosaki-kun � they all looked so bloody. Worst of all, Kuchiki-kun looked like she had been shot through the stomach with a cannonball. Kurosaki-kun said something about an Arrancar impaling her with a fist, but it was impossible to believe that one creature�s hand could do so much damage in a single blow.
"You can--" Kurosaki-kun�s voice was less than brave when it addressed Orihime. The quietness of his voice frightened her. "You can heal her, can�t you?"
"Yes, yes," Orihime promised with all her heart, and with one exhausted arm (the other was still in a cast), she lifted a golden healing orb around the space where Kuchiki-san lay.
Orihime�s eyes went from the tunnel of flesh at the center of Kuchiki-san�s body to Kurosaki-kun�s face. He really is afraid that she might--

Orihime dropped her gaze.
He will always be connected to her in a special way. She is his courage and he is her strength.
And when at last Kuchiki-san�s wound began to close and Kurosaki-kun�s breaths became more even, Orihime allowed her senses to reach beyond her task at hand�

And no, there was still no hint of Uryuu anywhere.
**
Trying to track reiatsu during the battle that night exhausted Ishida. Trying to figure out which Shinigami was fighting which enemy and wondering if Inoue was safe--this drained Ishida emotionally, even as dodging his father�s arrows depleted him physically. The most powerful signatures were easy to detect, especially after they blazed into ban kai. Ishida could sense a smaller force in a girl-sized body that was draining, draining away. Kuchiki-san!

An arrow whipped by Ishida�s face. He had barely dodged it in time.
"Stop looking for the Shinigami," Ryuuken said. "I am your opponent now."
"What?" Ishida braced his hands behind him on the wall and panted. "Opponent? I�m your prey. This is not a battle."
"Yes it is, Uryuu," said Ryuuken and shot another arrow.
Ishida felt a stinging pain whip his ribcage as he leapt out of the way. This was the third arrow to touch his body. The cut above his forearm had scarcely bled and he didn�t feel it now, but these two slices on his abdomen--they smarted and reminded him of his slowness as he ran away from Ryuuken�s arrows.
It was madness. This "training" session had gone on longer than any of the others. Ishida was starting to wonder if he might lose feeling in his legs or if he might lose the contents of his stomach. Dizzy and nauseous, he glanced at the door.
"You�ll never make it in time," Ryuuken said. "I�ll shoot you dead first."
For some reason, Ishida felt his father was serious.
Ryuuken lowered his crossbow. "Alright, this time you try to anticipate my movements instead of revealing your movements to me. I�m sharper than you are. I saw you eyeing your escape."
The next arrow sliced through the hem of Ishida�s shirt and left a little fire there. Ishida swatted the fire out with his hand and dropped to a crouching position. He�s really trying to kill me. He�s not messing around.

Meanwhile, a giant reiatsu was attacking Kurosaki�s ban kai. Ishida, thinking he could play poker-face as well as his father, tried not to show the slightest reaction to it, but his shoulders shuddered involuntarily. He was tired; he was tired beyond the point of going on anymore.
"I am your opponent," said Ryuuken and shot another arrow.
**
Orihime was one of those people who slept when tired and awoke when ready to face the day. Nightmares--never. Restlessness--rarely. The morning of the battle Orihime was tired enough to drop into a long sleep, but she noticed that there were only another couple hours before school, so she decided to just lie down and "rest" and then make it to class. That atmosphere could restore her sense of normalcy, and who knows--maybe Uryuu would be back at school?
Orihime had never spent so much time with her own restlessness as in those two hours. For once, it was impossible to "zone out" as Tatsuki called it. No dreams happened, no flights of fancy. Orihime was aware of her tiredness and of a floating feeling in her arms and legs, but she couldn�t entertain herself out of a very strong sense of the past (the recent battle, her night with Uryuu) and present (her loneliness, her wakefulness on the futon). The future, usually colored in all sorts of dreamy effects, felt blank to her.
Something has happened to me.

Her body felt different.
Being alone with herself on the futon in recent months had meant imagining scenarios with two-dimensional boys in Chizuru�s manga, smiling into her pillow and wondering who she would marry in Real Life (Kurosaki-kun! She had always told herself it would be Kurosaki-kun!) Being alone at night these past few months had meant learning the rush of pleasure from touching herself. But that had all happened with unskilled, babyish fingers. After having been with Uryuu now, Orihime was sure she could do it better (she was more familiar with the parts down there) but something was different. Her body felt different.

Orihime sighed and raised her hands above her head, placing them on either side of her head, near the barrettes she wore even at night. She had never felt so restless and exhausted at the same time. She was alone now--trying not to remember the gruesome wounds she�d just healed or the scary creatures she�d seen in the past hours (those Arrancar things had just exploded to their deaths! They had rained spirit blood just everywhere).
Raising her knees slightly and squirming her hips, she was aware of an undisguised need for the sparkly diversion of orgasms (she had called orgasms "fireworks" before learning the technical term), but it just wouldn�t be the same without�.
My body is different because it was touched by Uryuu.

How could she have known what that learning physical closeness would change her so much? She had imagined that the comfort of another person that way would be something like sleeping with a life-size teddy bear at night. Boy, how stupid could she have been! She had been the assertive one at first. The memories washed over her: at first she had only wanted to eat him up, to kiss and cuddle and express affection, but at some point (When? She didn�t know) her assertions had started to melt under him. There had been a moment when she could not, simply could not, lift her face to kiss him, and she had lain there--entranced, trembling--as long, gentle hands swept over her shoulders, her breasts, her hips.
In one evening he had taken her soul. That was it. He had just taken her soul. Not her innocence, because even after losing her virginity in his arms (as he lost his), Orihime had never felt so small and awed before the marvelousness that is�. sex. Who would have thought it would be that good with a real live person! Was it because he was the one? Sex� wow. She had felt all the more innocent for being aware of how much she didn�t know.
Uryuu, there�s so much I need to learn about you, still.

She clutched the covers that were not his shoulders and pressed her thighs together. It was a physical longing like hunger or thirst.
Uryuu, where are you?
Orihime wanted to squish the loneliness out of herself. It seemed to her a tragic wrongness that she could sense the reiatsu of her former crush clearly but not the reiatsu of her love Uryuu, and she was just about to get downright mopey over the fact when--
She felt something stab her chest. It wasn�t that she caught Uryuu�s reiatsu. It was� there! She felt a connection to his spirit for one trembling moment and then the feeling was gone. He had been hurt somehow--she knew this, and yet she also knew that

his soul had been turned inside out and had been restored. He has his powers back, she told herself. Her restlessness vanished and her joy rose--he has his powers back!

**
The arrow ripped through Ishida�s chest.
His first thought was: It doesn�t hurt. His second thought was: He did it, he really did it, my father killed me. And as his body flew backwards and his glasses flew off his face, he thought, this is what it feels like to die.

Ishida wanted to say goodbye to Inoue Orihime but there was no time for that as he died. He saw a picture of her face in his mind. Kind eyes and a smiling mouth. Then the picture vanished, and so did Ishida�s ability to shape words to say to her.
But he wasn�t quite dead yet. He was dying? Strange that there is no pain.

There was no up or down, no color or purpose. He thought he heard footfalls, quiet slow ones but then that sound stopped. If he was dead, then why did he feel grief? He killed me, he actually killed me.

There was a rising warmth in the place he knew the spirit chain linked to the physical body. It didn�t hurt, but it felt strange. Death was failure, in a way. He had never known true and complete failure, not even when he had lost his powers in the battle with Mayuri.

And after that, the euphoria of Inoue (no, no, Orihime, he told himself, even as he died) had made him feel that he was anything but a failure.
Now he lay dying and he was never going to be able to protect her. He was leaving her behind--to whatever dangers threatened the living world.
"You could have at least injured me, if not taken me out," Ryuuken said.
Was his father going to haunt him in the afterlife too?
"This is why I call you an idiot. You make me sick."
The voice grew distorted with distance as it spoke those last words, and Ishida felt the warmth in his chest grow cold. Yes, I am an idiot. To leave you behind like this, Orihime�to leave you behind.

END

A/N: I have to stop smash-stopping all my chapters with that word "END" but this was a two parter when I started it, and now it�s a chaptered fic. The English teacher in me knows better than to end chapters with "END."

The next part of the story may be a total diversion from canon with a nice open ending that points toward canon. I suspect Kubo-sensei will have our favorite pair interacting before long, but if he doesn�t, never fear--I�ll turn this story into a freaking IshiHime epic novel. ~debbiechan 05.26.06
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Ishida's Second Choice