Road to Redemption

Chapter 7: Through the Devil's eyes

A/N: Hello everybody! Hope you liked the last chapter. This one will be a bit more lengthy. I'm going to try and post at least one chapter weekly. Hope you like and thanks for reading!

©Bleach and its characters don't belong to me. They belong to Tite Kubo and Shonen Jump (Only and Shizuka belong to me)

Chapter 7: Through the Devil's eyes

She didn't want to back to sleep. Not when the tangy scent of blood and smoke still lingered in her mind.

"You cannot stay awake forever. That was just a nightmare, you should go back to sleep." Ulquiorra tried to convince her to go back to bed. She wouldn't budge.

"I can't. I don't want to go back there."

Orihime was wrapped in a white blanket from head to toe. Ulquiorra was sitting beside her, immersed in the book. Every once in a while he'd glanced at her, she pretended not to notice.

The coziness of her living room wasn't enough to keep her from flashing back to that dark burning cell. 'This was just a memory, actually living through that...' her bones ached and her skin was still warm. 'What crime could be so horrid, for her to be executed in such a manner.'

A thousand theories crossed her mind. Maybe her formulas for hollows had been discovered, maybe she took the fall for Aizen's schemes or maybe she committed some unknown atrocity. Whatever it was she wasn't sure if it could excuse that cruel death.

***
The woman calmed down in the past half hour. However, she was still looked sad. He didn't blame her, having been on the receiving end of Kurosaki Ichigo's ceros he knew how those painful burns were. 'I should've known Anna would find a way to mess with the woman.'

He was at a loss of what to do. How could he cheer her up? He never had to deal with sadness in Hueco Mundo, and why would he? Hollows were easy to predict, easy to understand. Humans and shinigami were another matter entirely.

Ulquiorra put the book down. She glanced at him.

"Ulquiorra?" her usually melodic voice was raspy, probably due to the screaming.

He felt angry. Angry at Anna for doing this to her, and angry at himself for not being able to prevent it. He wrapped his arm around her shoulder, reluctantly pulling her close.

Orihime didn't protest, she rested her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes.

Seeing how this seemed to calm her down he ran his fingers through her hair. To him, it was one of her most beautiful features, fiery yet soft to the touch.

She giggled. "That feels nice."

He was relieved to see her smiling again. After a few minutes, she fell asleep on his shoulder. He didn't move an inch, fearing that she might wake. Soon enough, he too fell asleep.

***
This time she wasn't in a dark room, but rather a fancy bedroom. She could tell it was another nightmare, for she had never been here before.

"How did you find me?" She asked in that strange voice who she knew belonged to Anna.

She heard a dark chuckle. A man stood in the doorway to the room. His skin and hair were pale, but his eyes were pools of black, trying to swallow her whole.

"It wasn't hard. I only had to ask the right person. The fool thought he was helping you."

She clenched her hand and felt her nails pierce through the skin. "I'm not going back! You can't force me, I didn't commit any crime!"

The man's expression turned from amusement to rage. "Can't force you? You seem to forget that the moment we took you into the Fujiwara clan you ceased to have control over that aspect of your life!"