The Cold Is To Be Endured.

Thankyou for the kind reviews, notably her regular reviewer/readers, and from taixi, who took the time to leave a wonderful review, as well as some helpful input.

So thankyou all very much.

Chapter Six.

"King Aizen wishes to see you," The young female Arrancar who stood in her room seemed horrified of the fact.

Orihime suppressed a groan.

It was before breakfast, and she was starving.

...She supposed she should have expected Aizen to want to see her sooner or later; and she was probably luckier for it to have been later, rather than sooner.

Unfortunately the former Captain was the last person that she wanted to confront on an empty stomach, but she couldn't very well keep him waiting - it would be rude.

She had been having the most profound cravings for egg rolls lately though, and she was holding out hope that this day was the day.

Egg rolls with sweetbean paste. That was definitely what she wanted.

Her mouth watered at the thought.

Aw, why couldn't he have waited until after breakfast?

"You are to follow me immediately," The redhead said, her face twisting just a little further until she resembled a bleached prune. Orihime wondered if perhaps the girl would let her wait until her food had come, but one look at her face suggested otherwise.

Jerking her head once in an imitation of a nod that looked more like a tourettes spasm, she obediently began to follow, rather mournfully, the girl with the hair the same shade as Abarai's and freckles.

When she began to fall behind her escort, she at first thought that she was just a little sluggish from having just woken up (her raging stomach might have had something to do with it as well). Unthinkingly, she lengthened her steps...but still couldn't seem to catch up.

In fact, the gap had increased from a mere few steps to a good few feet.

Experimentally, Orihime quickened her steps.

And somehow the distance lengthened.

That couldn't be accidental!

Well!

She thinks if she walks quickly enough I won't be able to follow her, Orihime thought rather huffily. Well, I'll show her!

And she zoomed up to the Arrancar with a speed that was almost inhuman, and, hearing the small stampede closing in, the girl gave her a disgruntled look over her shoulder.

Orihime briefly saw one eye widen in surprise, and she grinned in triumph.

...Then the girl sped up. A lot. In the blink of an eye, she was down the very end of the hall.

That was so unfair!

Determined not to be outdone, Orihime tore down the long white corridor as fast as she could. It was enough to catch a glimpse of her so called escort turning right.

She darted after her, gasping with the effort to keep her in sight. After numerous twists and turns, all of which Orihime only just managed to catch the other take, she turned into a hall and ran full pelt into something very solid.

And fell on her behind.

"Ooh, ouchie ouchie ouchie!" She whimpered, clutching her forehead and trying to rub her bottom at the same time.

That sure smarted.

"Oohhh, are ya' hurt li'l one?" A slightly familiar voice cooed.

She stiffened, and peeked through her fingers. An incredibly tall gentleman with pale hair was looking down at her, attempting to look soliticious and failing spectacularly. It probably would have been more successful if he had stopped smiling while he was doing it.

In fact, he was smiling so broadly that his eyes were all scrunched up.

She scrambled to her feet, still rubbing the offending parts vigorously.

She knew him. He was the first Captain that she had ever seen. The one who had prevented Jidanbou from letting them through the gate.

He leant foward, and his grin widened even more, which amazed her a little, because she didn't think that could be possible. It looked as if his face would split, and she gulped a bit.

"If ya wanted ta know," He whispered behind his slender hand rather conspiratorially, "She went that-a way." He crooked a finger towards a doorway to their right.

She blinked. He was helping her?

"Thankyou!" She blurted out, because her brother always told her to be polite to people that helped her and then, injuries forgotten, bolted down the way he had directed her.

She saw him waving out of the corner of her eye as she ran pell-mell, and waved back.

No point being rude, after all.

The Arrancar girl's smug expression faltered a little when she caught up with her, but Orihime didn't let herself feel superiour about it...very much anyway.

"King Aizen is through here," She said stiffly, obviously put out that a human found her with very little effort (Orihime didn't feel the need to inform her that she had help), and Orihime nodded in what she thought was a regal sort of manner, pushed open the door and went inside.


This room was different to the one he had originally brought her into, and it was different from the room that he kept the Hougyoku in.

This one looked kind of like a huge English dining room that somebody had attacked with buckets of white paint. The huge chairs were made of the teeth of herbivorous dinosaurs, towering and blocky. The white table they hunched over was made of a glossy stone that she didn't recognise. Everything else was made the same way her quarters were.

Aizen had no imagination when it came to decor.

He sat at the end closest to where she stood, his chair half turned towards the door, and the smile he levelled on her was genuinely warm. She never could understand how a man who did all of the monstrous things that he had could look the way that he did.

He looked like he should be someone's father, or a teacher. He made her sad, and he angered her for lying to all of those people, and making everyone think badly of her and manipulating her with the lives of her friends - lives that he took anyway, because it suited him.

"I trust you are well, Inoue," He said genially, and gestured to the seat closest to his. "Please sit down."

She stiffly moved and slid into the chair that he had indicated.

"Tea?" He swept his hand lazily towards the table, upon which two cups and a small pot resided. Well, she was thirsty...

"That would be lovely," She said honestly, and he poured it for her, as a good host should, and she wished that he hadn't, because she didn't want him to act so normal! It would be easy for her if he was...slavering at the mouth, or was made of metal...something like that.

"Considering all that has occurred," He began, and her reveries of giant robots shooting foam out of their mouths were shattered, "I thought I would give you some time to recover, and to come to terms with the fact that Hueco Mundo is your home now."

She pursed her lips.

It wasn't her home! Home was full of friends and school, of bright colours and rugs that don't match the couch, cheap trinkets, chocolate and her brother's shrine. This would never be her home.

"I know that this is difficult for you," He continued in that same rich gentle voice. "Alas, we have a schedule to keep which prevents us from giving you more time.

I need you to fulfill your own part in the awakening of the Hougyoku, and healing of our wounded. I know I have already explained that to you."

He looked at her, and she realised that he was waiting for some kind of response, so she nodded jerkily and stuttered out an affirmative.

"I know how unhappy you are being cooped up in that room by yourself," His voice was a murmur, and he brushed a small lock of hair out of her eyes, "But you don't have to be there anymore."

It took so much of her self control not to shy away from such an intimate action that she almost didn't hear what he had spoken...and then it hit her with the subtlety of a falling house.

She didn't have to be stuck in that room anymore?

"Hueco Mundo is your home now," He said again, and she wished that he would stop saying that, "So, I don't see the necessity for you to continue being so isolated from the rest of our world."

Suddenly everything else he had said didn't matter.

Inoue was quivering in her excitement. She could finally see more than four walls! She would be able to walk around of her own free will, and perhaps glimpse that blue sky (it didn't matter that it wasn't real) again! Her heart swelled with the thought.

Aizen raised one slender finger, as if in warning. "But,"

And she wilted a little.

"But, I need to be certain of your loyalty before I can allow you to wander about unaccompanied."

Loyalty?

"You're a very beautiful woman, Inoue," He told her. "You are also a very unique one. Your powers are very useful to me, I will admit that, and you are incredibly lovely to look upon.

If you agree to my condition, You will be allowed free reign among the fortress, and be able to associate with the others. I have been told that you and Grimmjow seem to have developed somewhat of a friendship," She tensed, and he smiled, "Yes, I know. You could be a part of something enormous, something amazing, if you so desire."

"To what?" She was puzzled. He seemed to be saying a lot, and yet nothing at all and she wished that he would just say what he meant, because she wasn't particularly skilled in word play.

"I have been kind to you," And he actually had, "All I ask in return is your heart."

Her heart? What was he talking about?

"What are you asking of me?" She asked him, nervous.

He tilted his head to the side, softly, as if he were considering his answer.

"Healing someone, regardless of who the person is, or what they are capable of is in your nature," He paused, and caught her gaze. "However, taking up arms against another, fighting is something altogether different. You only fight if you need to protect somebody you love, or if you wholeheartedly believe in your cause.

To ask your utter devotion to me as of this moment, I know, is ridiculous. All I want from you is, shall we say, an openmindedness. Come into our world with an open heart, devote yourself to us and to our cause, and let us welcome you."

...Welcome her?

To even make friends? To talk to people other than harsh-mouthed Grimmjow and cold Ulquiorra?

But would they speak to her? Would they accept her?

She opened her mouth to ask him, but he spoke again, and his words destroyed those tiny tendrils of interest, and above all, self doubt that were slowly creeping into her resolve and destroying it from the inside out.

"Your strength of mind appeals to me, Orihime," He continued, "Your potential far outstrips what you are doing with it now. You could be an amazing fighter, with your powers. You have equal strength in defending, as well as offending.

You will make friends here, in Hueco Mundo. And they can assist you - I can assist you, in developing the powers you will need to protect them."

She blinked. Defend them?

Against the Shinigami?

Shinigami...

...Kurosaki.

"...It is a very fair offer," He was saying, and she forced herself to pay attention, to concentrate on his words, anything to push those horrible images out of her head.

"I think I know what you are saying," She told him, and he smiled that wondrous, benevolent smile.

"I'm glad that you do,"

"And I think you know that I could never accept."

He raised an eyebrow, and looked at her in mild amusement.

And suddenly, in her mind's eye, and as clear as the day she had not seen in far too long, she saw them all. The people that had been affected by all of the horrid things that Aizen Sousuke had done, those awful, vile things that he had hidden behind his beauteous, patriarchal veneer.

Captain Hitsugaya and his young friend, and Matsumoto, the red headed vice captain who had done so much for Inoue, and all of Soul Society. Ishida and Chad and Grimmjow and even Ulquiorra and Kurosaki!

Kurosaki, who was dead! Because of him! Because of Aizen!

All the people that he had wronged, and her heart burned with fire. Fire that cascaded from her lips, thick and molten and scalding.

"You have taken everything from me that I have held dear. You killed my friends, you made everybody believe that I had betrayed them, and then you trapped me in that little room as if I was a naughty child! I won't betray the people I love by doing what you want! You cannot persuade me to fight against the very people that made me what I am today!"

As quickly as they came her words left her, and she realised that she was standing, her hands curled around her tea cup as if it were a weapon.

The silence stretched until it was so loud she almost covered her ears, and he just kept looking at her with that bemused smile on his perfectly formed lips. His eyes seemed calculating, as if she had done something unexpected and even amusing. She wanted to slap him, to crack his composure as he had hers.

Instead, she stood there, her bust heaving and her tea wobbling dangerously in its china clutch, and she met his eyes unwaveringly.

He unwound himself from his seat, his movements sinuous and hypnotising, as a snake. He clasped her clenched hands in his large warm ones, and wrapped around them as if they were something fragile and precious as his gaze held hers.

"I do understand," He said gently, "But I am not the monster that you have pictured me to be in your own mind."

Stop looking for what isn't there. I am not what you are hoping I am. It was as if he were standing right there, murmuring those words in her ear. But he lied! He lied: he was exactly what she thought he was!

"Tell me," The man in front of her said suddenly, "Have you ever been with a man?"

She blanched and stared at him, anger forgotten.

She was unsure of what he was insinuating but suspicious of what it could be. Her suspicions were confirmed when he moved one hand to trace the curve of her lip with his thumb, and then beyond, trailing delicately down her cheek and along her jawbone.

His dark eyes were like warm honey as he looked at her with affection that was anything but fatherly.

Shock and horror rattled her bones, and she jerked away from his touch as if she had been burned. Realising too late that she probably angered him, she tried to hide it by bringing her half full cup to her mouth and gulping it down.

She ended up coughing most of it back up anyway.

"I see," He said, that small, smug smile still firm upon his face as she spluttered unbecomingly. "I do hope that you change your mind."

He snapped his fingers, and an Arrancar male entered the room. His hair was green and was both short and long at the same time, with the long strands kicking about in all directions. His Hollow mask looked like a spikey leaf on his forehead.

"Thankyou for you time, Orihime." Aizen said, and stroked her face again, once, as if he could not quite tear himself from her flesh.

Politeness prevented her from physically shuddering, but something in her expression must have changed, for his eyes flickered with some unknown emotion. Nervously, she placed the sticky cup back on the table.

"See that our guest is taken back to her quarters," Aizen said. Green-hair bent so low that Inoue thought that he might break in half.

"Of course, King Aizen," His voice dripped in adoration, and he took her by the elbow and near steered her from the room. She had two choices; she could walk with him, or he could drag her (which he looked hell bent on doing), so she stumbled after him, nearly tripping over her own feet.

Scratch that; she did trip over her own feet. He just carried her along anyway.

She couldn't quite wrap her head around what had transpired in the huge room that he had asked her to visit. Didn't she just defy him?

She just said that she would never fight for him, and he hadn't even batted an eyelid...
She thought he would have been furious - she had basically told him that he was a monster, and he had seemed completely unfazed!

The white walls and doors passed her unnoticed as the man escorted her back to her room (They all looked the same anyway), so intent was she on her own thoughts...but something else was troubling her...more so than Aizen, more so than Ulquiorra or Grimmjow or anything else...she just had to know...

"Does your hair stay like that naturally?" She blurted out to the Arrancar by her side, "Or do you use gel?"

Wow, all natural. She wished her hair had that kind of volume!
And that colour - like seaweed, she thought.

Yes, like seaweed. Nothing like those melancholy orbs that stare at her so balefully, so coldly. So full of loneliness.

Nothing like them at all.


She didn't fully understand what had gone on in that enormous room. Aizen had not seemed displeased until the very end, when she had rejected his touch. What had he been trying to accomplish?

What had he meant by 'loyalty'?

And most of all, what had he meant by touching her?

Her head was so full of questions, chasing their tails and tripping over one another in their eagerness. They buzzed inside of her head like a swarm of curious bees, making it ache unpleasantly.

What made him change his mind? Why did he want her to fight for him as well now? Why had he touched her? Why had he said those things? Why now, after so long? Was he ever going to let her leave this little cell? And why...why did it seem as if he wasn't bothered by her refusal?

...No, not that. Why did he seem to expect that she would respond as she did?

She wasn't that predictable, was she?

She supposed she was, but why would Aizen want her to say 'No' to him?

She just wished people would be honest for once!

Orihime lifted the tray of her breakfast, which had obviously come while she was gone and was now long cold.

It wasn't even egg rolls.

The redhead sighed, and bit unenthusiastically into her soggy toast; It only had butter on it. It was all well and good, but she would have really liked something a little more exciting.

The food here was as dull as the decor.

She spent the rest of the day wondering what Aizen wanted, and poking at the lunch that they had so thoughtfully provided.