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app @ damned.
Series' Medium: Anime/Manga (Orihime will be taken from mangaverse.)
Character: Inoue Orihime
Age: 17 years old (real and listed by the institute)
Sex/Gender: Female.
Canon Role: The comedy-relief sidekick protagonist that deals with most of the heal plzing.
"Real" Name: Vega Highwell
HISTORY:
Three years after Inoue Orihime was born, her older brother (fifteen years her senior) stole her away from home and raised her as his own. According to him, their parents were violent people: their father hit the bottle hard, and their mother found bedtime company with other people. In contrast, Inoue Sora was a kind and gentle person, someone whom Orihime could depend upon. Perhaps it’s her upbringing that made her whom she was when Orihime was first introduced in the series: a bubbly, seemingly carefree girl attending Karakura high school. The violence that was found in her mother and father hasn’t manifested at all in Orihime’s character.
For nine years, she was protected by her brother. When she wasn’t, when the girls at school scoffed at her pretty long hair and cut it off, she did her best to keep Sora from worrying over her (I just wanted a change is all). But when he bought her a childish pair of hairpins while her hair was cut short and her self-consciousness remained high, she responded in anger for the very first time. They argued, and then they didn’t talk, and then he died in a car accident the next morning.
She never goes anywhere without those hairpins now.
Even then, mourning only lasted so long for her – she recovered. A year later, Orihime be(st)friended Arisawa Tatsuki who promised to protect her from people that would make her cry. She grew out the hair that had been the reason she was bullied, she depended on Tatsuki as both a protector and a friend. She developed a crush on Kurosaki Ichigo because of his funny grouchy face. She became well-liked, befriended, and happy again. And although she lived by herself in an apartment (with financial support from an aunt living outside of Karakura), she was rarely ever alone. Daily life went on as usual.
BUT THEN // DESTINY CHANGED
It is important to keep in mind that the story of BLEACH takes place in a world where the living and the dead often intermingle. Ghosts and spirits abound, but most humans remain ignorant to the presence of these otherworldly beings. While alive, a person’s soul is tethered to his or her body by a chain of fate, and when it is severed, the person dies. Unfinished business forces spirits to go wandering on Earth, and as they continue to remain, the remnants of the chain of fate begins to corrode away. The hearts that are attached to these chains also begin to degrade until a hole remains. The spirit becomes a masked monster, a Hollow, a being of instincts that devours souls and spirits alike.
That’s where the shinigami, the gods of death, come in.
A death god is responsible for helping spirits pass into the afterlife; the spirits end up in hell, or end up in Soul Society, a less than glamorous “heaven” for souls to remain after death. If the spirit has remained too long amidst the living, then the Hollow that results is also slain by a shinigami. However, the Hollow is not destroyed per se. The shinigami fight with a weapon called a zanpakutou that is imbued with the power of cleansing the Hollow of its sins. The cleansed spirit is then able to pass on to Soul Society. (Of course, the spirits that are truly evil descend to hell regardless of a zanpakutou’s cleansing.)
Orihime’s deceased brother comes back as a Hollow. Because Sora lived his whole life revolved around raising her, his Hollow instincts naturally led him to Orihime. Years of watching over her as a spirit had made him lonely. The prayers she made to his small shrine in her apartment became less and less invested, fewer and farther in between. She’d share stories of her school life instead, of the people she liked and the people she befriended, and after a while, Sora became lonely hearing of nothing but her happiness.
After all, if he’d spent his entire life for Orihime, why wouldn’t she do the same?
As a Hollow, he forces out and attacks her spirit, fueled as he is by selfish instinct (if she won’t live for me, then she’ll die for me). Kurosaki Ichigo and Kuchiki Rukia are there to protect her, but Orihime willingly takes the brunt of a large attack herself, arms held wide open to embrace her brother as he takes a bite out of her spirit. In a selfless display of kindness, she apologizes to him for being selfish, for never realizing that he was lonely; she’d been sharing happy times instead of praying because she didn’t want her brother to worry about her, to think that she was perpetually sad.
In the end, her brother realizes his own selfishness, finds out that Orihime carries a piece of him every day by wearing the hairpins he had given her before he died. He pierces himself with Ichigo’s zanpakutou, effectively cleansing his soul to pass onto the afterlife. And Orihime, who always regretted the fact that she never got to say goodbye, bids her brother’s spirit farewell as he fades and sends him off with a bittersweet smile.
During this period, she learns of Hollows, of spirits, of teenage boys fighting with large swords.
She’d never imagined that her high school crush was a super hero, after all. Kurosaki Ichigo gave her the opportunity to see her late brother one more time, and helped her put one of her heaviest regrets to rest. However, Kuchiki Rukia supposedly wipes away Orihime’s memory and substitutes it with another, and Orihime is next seen talking to her friends about the sumo wrestler that blew up her apartment wall with a bazooka.
Supposedly.
SO YOU DO // BELIEVE IN FAERIES
The next arc introduces the fact that shinigami (and humans made into shinigami by other shinigami… only not really, but that’s a story for another paragraph in another app -- ) are not the only beings capable of interacting with the dead and spiritual. The humans that are able to see spirits are sometimes those gifted with other spectacular powers, like the Quincy and the Fullbringers to name two…
Speaking of Quincy, in comes Ishida Uryuu, a member of the same Handicrafts Club that Orihime belongs to, and resident “good guy” – or rather, he would be a “good guy,” so Orihime claims, if only he didn’t talk in such a dismissive fashion. To prove to Ichigo that the Quincy were obviously superior to shinigami, he crushes Hollow bait, and a legion of the monstrous creatures come storming into Karakura town where they all live. Ichigo and Ishida battle it out to see who can slay the most Hollows, while unfortunate passersby are subjected to the large number of monsters suddenly parading through Karakura.
Orihime encounters the Hollow, Numb Chandelier, and is able to see it due to her previous near-death experience involving Ichigo and Rukia. At first, she tries to deny its presence, opting instead to try to get herself and her friends, Tatsuki and Chizuru, away from the Hollow. Needless to say, it doesn’t work – Chizuru and Tatsuki are both attacked by the Hollow’s ability: seeds that, when implanted into the body, allows the Hollow to control them via the roots that grow into their veins. Controlled, Chizuru, Tatsuki, and many other students turn on and attack Orihime.
Here, we see a change that begins in Orihime who was always the one being protected since she was small. Tatsuki was attacked; Tatsuki was going to die. The first person to yell at her backing down, for isolating herself after she was bullied for her hair. Her best friend who always protected her, who kept her from crying, was in trouble. So this time she decides, she’ll be the one to protect her best friend.
In response to her determination, in true friendship prevails fashion, fairy-like beings fly out from her hairpins. Deus ex machina introduce themselves as the Shun Shun Rikka to a baffled Orihime. They tell her it’s because of Kurosaki Ichigo that she possesses this new power (because the awesome radiating off of him gives everyone special powers apparently). They give her a speed-run tutorial on how to reject the very fiber of reality by simply speaking a few choice words. She heals Tatsuki to perfect condition, she splits Numb Chandelier in half, and then… she promptly faints.
The next time she wakes up (with her hard head smashing right into Sado Yasutora “Chad”’s face – causing pain without feeling any of it herself, mind you), it’s at Urahara Kisuke’s humble “candy shop.” Urahara briefs the two of them about shinigami, Hollows, and Kurosaki Ichigo and Kuchiki Rukia in particular. And that’s how she’s absolutely certain.
The fight between her Hollow brother and a black robed Ichigo – wasn’t just a strange daydream; although Rukia had supposedly substituted her memories from that evening, Orihime hasn’t forgotten anything. Because the event was so troubling,she doubted her own memory, choosing to repress and run away from it instead of accepting it (i.e. her initial reaction to Numb Chandelier). But as she and Sado watch Ichigo and Ishida face-off against a Menos Grande, she realizes that they need to decide what path they need to take from here on out.
WHERE IN THE WORLD IS // CARMEN SANDIEGO // I MEAN KUCHIKI-SAN?
The next arc: Rukia is taken to the Soul Society, and everyone at school seems to have forgotten she was even there. That is, except for the select special handful; Orihime confronts Ichigo about the situation, asking him upfront where Rukia is, and why everyone has forgotten about her. He tells her the story about the kidnapping, and when he expresses a somewhat tentative desire to go get her back, Orihime pretends to test him by questioning his motives. If Rukia’s family and friends live in Soul Society, then would he really go so far as to take her away from where she essentially belongs?
In doing this, Orihime dashes the last bit hesitance he had about going to get Rukia. She tells him that the Ichigo she knows is the kind of Ichigo who would put on a scowl, cross his arms and say, as long as you’re alive, you’ll always have a chance of meeting your family – it’s when you’re dead when you can’t. Ichigo runs off, and Orihime decides what path she wants to take. She calls Sado and tells him she’s made up her mind.
She wants to protect Ichigo.
Yoruichi as a black cat approaches Sado and Orihime to train them. Although the invitation is also extended towards Ishida, he refuses. Orihime, seeing through his defenses and having faith that Ishida will stick with them until the end, lets him know that she’ll wait for him before heading off to train with Yoruichi and Sado. At first, it takes both Orihime and Sado a while to activate their powers. Yoruichi tells them that the key is wanting to protect – and Orihime, remembering that she had wanted to protect Tatsuki when her powers first activated, is able to activate Shun Shun Rikka after boldly declaring that the reason she wants to go to Soul Society is to protect Ichigo. Off-panel training ensues and it turns out well apparently, because then the heroes are all off to Soul Society.
But not before she and Tatsuki have a bittersweet see you later. Orihime tells her best friend that her brother could get dragonflies to land on his fingers while she never could (in a way, it was telling of how she wanted to become more dependable). Tatsuki realizes that Orihime has parted her bangs differently, and recognizes the change going on inside of her. She expresses concern that Orihime might wander off too far and not come back. Orihime assuages her friend’s worries and tells her that she’ll always come back, and that they’ll see the dragonflies together again.
We learn several new things about Orihime as the heroes enter the Soul Society: 1.) Shun Shun Rikka’s shield can double as a landing net, 2.) she likes to eat and eats a lot but will save her food if it’s for Ichigo, and 3.) she has fabulous control over her reiatsu. Although she wants to jump into the fray to help Ichigo fight, he often tells the rest of the group to stay back.
After a failed attempt to get into Seireitei by using a front entrance, the group uses fireworks with the help of Shiba Kuukaku to rocket their way over the gate. Although they were instructed to stay together in a certain fashion, an explosion separates the heroes and lands Orihime with Ishida Uryuu somewhere in the middle of the Seireitei.
Their first fight isn’t really a fight – for her, at least… The shinigami, Ikkanzaka of the 7th division attacks them, and when Orihime summons Tsubaki, Ikkanzaka basically swats her attack aside. Her attacks hold no killing intent, and so Ishida steps in to cripple Ikkanzaka who is left stripped of his powers at the end of their fight. Tsubaki is damaged, and she is unable to heal him, thus sealing her fate as a support character for the remainder of the arc. Although she expresses admiration for Ishida’s increased power and thanks him, she’s left feeling a little despondent when she realizes that in comparison, her training has amounted to nothing really changing in the ten days she spent with Yoruichi and Sado.
Speaking of changing (haha), she comes up with the idea of stealing shinigami uniforms to blend in. Although she’s airheaded, her grades are still ranked third in her class for a reason! Oh, and also she knows karate at the level of a black belt quoth Tatsuki… since apparently she’s able to beat up two shinigami to swipe the clothes off of their backs (not kill, but you know… beat up). But yes, these are just tidbits of information that never get revisited in future story arcs. But such is the story ofBLEACH…
Anyway, Orihime and Ishida get caught when they are inquired after the division they belong to. Some 12th division folk appear to “rescue” them from some 11th division hawkers, but it’s a trap – the 12th division members are blown up in an attempt to incapacitate both Ishida and Orihime. She throws up a shield just in time, saving herself, Ishida, and Aramaki Makizo of the 11th division. Nevertheless, she still cries for the 12th division shinigami that lost their lives. Aramaki notes this after realizing that she’s not crying out of fear, and wonders why she saved him when he was giving her and Ishida trouble just minutes before.
Kurotsuchi Mayuri, the 12th division captain, reveals himself to be the one who had ordered the bombing. He expresses interest in experimenting on Orihime, and although she doesn’t back down, Ishida threatens Aramaki into running away with her in his arms (she protests the whole way, of course, going so far as to bite Aramaki’s shoulder). Orihime and Aramaki are found by vice captain Kusajishi Yachiru of the 11th division, and she brings them back to the 11th division barracks. Orihime is questioned, but after learning that she’s with Ichigo, Zaraki Kenpachi takes her on his back and they break Ishida, Sado, and Shiba Ganjyu out of jail.
Yeah…
A lot of getting lost ensues because both Yachiru and Kenpachi have excellent senses of direction; the group eventually splits off. Orihime, Ishida, and Sado make it near the scene of the climactic battle between Ichigo and Kuchiki Byakuya. She verifies Ichigo’s presence by scent, saying that no matter how strong his reiatsu becomes, the scent stays the same. Aramaki who had tagged along with them expresses complete bafflement, wondering why it is that they’d go through such lengths. Why would Ichigo go so far as to risk his life just to help a friend?
And Orihime understands completely. More than just a friend, or nakama, Rukia is the person who changed Ichigo’s world. Although she wants to help him, she wraps her own arms around herself to keep herself from running to him – and waits.
The end of the arc: Aizen is revealed to be a big jerk that escapes off into Hueco Mundo (where Hollows live), and a whole bunch of people are left injured. Orihime heals Ichigo with a power that rivals those of some of the more experienced members of the 4th division that specialize in healing arts. The group stay in Soul Society for some R&R, where Orihime befriends many shinigami, is led to believe Ishida has a crush on Rukia, and goes on a wild goose chase that includes climbing three stories up the side of a building with Ichigo. When they go home to the world of the living, Rukia decides to stay behind.
IT’S NOT A SHOUNEN // IT’S A COMING-OF-AGE STORY
… Another new arc, another new semester at school. Everything seems well and good; Orihime’s girl friends are up to their usual antics, everyone seems to be adjusting. But Ichigo seems to be acting off, and Ishida has lost his powers. Trouble in paradise hits all at once when some strange people start hanging off Ichigo: Hirako Shinji and Sarugaki Hiyori, but more on them later. Beings with immense reiatsu land in Karakura, and Sado and Orihime head them off. The arrancar Ulquiorra Cifer and Yammy Llargo begin scanning the area, and the latter begins consuming the souls of the humans living in town. Sado tells Orihime to run off with the lone survivor in the area, her best friend Tatsuki. But after seeing the immense damage dealt to him by Yammy, she stays behind to heal him, and fends off Yammy’s attack with Santen Kesshun. Not wanting to completely rely on Ichigo, she tries to attack Yammy head-on with Tsubaki and Koten Zanshun – Tsubaki gets crushed.
Ichigo arrives at the nick of time, and Orihime expresses an apology with despondent frustration – if only I were stronger. She senses a certain malevolent aura to Ichigo’s reiatsu, but when he seems to be in trouble, she doesn’t hesitate to jump in. This gets her beaten to the side by Yammy and she sustains serious injuries. They’re all saved when Urahara and Yoruichi jump in.
Fast forward, and Ichigo regrets that he was unable to protect her. She regrets she was unable to protect at all. With the arrival of the arrancar, Soul Society decides to send in reinforcements, and Rukia is part of the group. With Rukia’s appearance, Ichigo seems to recover from his strange mood, and apologizes to Orihime for not being able to protect her. And although she’s happy to see that he’s recovered from his slump, she’s also…
… envious. After all, she wasn’t able to pick Ichigo up from his upsets, but as soon as Rukia showed up, he was as good as new. And why wouldn’t she be jealous of Rukia? She was kind, beautiful, strong… Orihime becomes disgusted by her own jealousy, calling herself a bad girl. Teary-eyed, she expresses this envy to Matsumoto Rangiku, a shinigami currently staying at her apartment, and the latter responds by hugging Orihime and tickling her (while completely nude, mind…). Rangiku tells Orihime that she should be proud – she’s a strong girl who doesn’t run away from her problems. She reminds Orihime that Ichigo needs her and Rukia both, and that jealousy isn’t bad – that Orihime should accept this part of her. Orihime cries out the rest of her frustrations into Rangiku’s ample bosom. She shows fears over her inadequacies, and she feels petty for feeling envious, but… well, they’re problems she has to face head-on.
Several events occur thereafter. Another battle with different arrancar takes place where she again acts as a healer. A revelation is given to her – Aizen is after a key that needs over a hundred thousand souls to make, and to stop him, Soul Society is preparing for war. Ichigo goes missing to train his Hollow powers with Hirako Shinji and other vizard company, but she can still sense his reiatsu behind a barrier that supposedly hides everything that is placed within it. In fact, she goes waltzing right through this otherwise impenetrable barrier by simply walking through the thing. She finds Ichigo, and feels relieved when it seems he’s getting stronger. His reiatsu is no longer dark or frightening.
Urahara soon contacts her and tells her to pull out of the warfront; with Tsubaki damaged, she’d only be a liability, he says. And although Orihime verbally agrees, the statement clearly upsets and disheartens her. She bumps into Rukia after her meeting with Urahara, and they talk. Orihime admits that more than anything, she feels lonely not being able to join the rest of the group – but she’d rather be lonely than be a burden to everyone. Rukia tells her that she is important, that without Orihime, she wouldn’t be where she was today. Rukia tells Orihime that she can fight, that they’d find the best way for her to do it, but before that happens, Orihime is whisked off back to the vizards. After Ushouda Hachigen helps repair Tsubaki and teaches her how to repair something out of nothing left, he tells Orihime that he wouldn’t suggest that she go back to the warfront even with her attack ability returned to her. Still, when Orihime expresses the will to fight, he confirms what Rukia had told her before – that it’s not the how to do it that’s important, but the how you want to do it.
Orihime hooks onto this newfound determination – she admits that in the past, she thought she was weak, and so she always relied on Ichigo for help. But now, she’ll continue looking forward, and learn how to fight on her own. Rukia brings Orihime to Soul Society to train together with her because that’s what friends do. Upon Orihime’s return to the world of the living, she is ambushed by Ulquiorra Cifer who quickly cuts down the two shinigami escorting her. She heals both of them, but Ulquiorra has another means of threatening her: in true bad guy fashion, he tells her to come with him, or he’ll kill all of her friends.
She’s given twelve hours to say goodbye to one person of her choosing. While covered by a spiritual membrane that hides her reiatsu and corporeal form from outside eyes, she slips into Ichigo’s room to say goodbye to him and him alone. She almost kisses his unconscious form, but she cannot bring herself to actually do it – instead, she professes her love to him, and proclaims that she wishes she had five lives. Then, she could have had five occupations, five different paths, but she’d still fall in love with him all five times.
GOODBYE HALCYON DAYS // AKA THE PRINCESS IS IN ANOTHER CASTLE
She is brought to Hueco Mundo and regenerates the left arm of Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez in a display of her powers for Aizen to see. Aizen comments that her powers surpass even God’s territory, but Orihime’s not one to have an inflated ego. She is given new clothes to wear, and Ulquiorra plays mind games – she’s a comrade of theirs now, her body, soul, and power belong to Aizen’s purpose. So when she feels her friends’ reiatsu in Hueco Mundo, he tells her it makes no difference. A whole lot of psychological warfare apparently happens… something about free will and Orihime not really having any or some such. The most important things to note are as follows: everyone manipulates everyone else, and Aizen is still a jerk. Oh, and the Hougyoku, which is like a glorified dragon ball that can grant all of Aizen’s wishes, needs to be repaired.
And then not or something. When Aizen shows the Hougyoku to Orihime, she expresses a determination to erase its existence – but her apparent shift of focus is never mentioned again… But such is the story of BLEACH.
Nevertheless, Orihime’s stay within Hueco Mundo tries her psychological limits. Left within a room and put under the watchful eye of Ulquiorra, she’s given nothing else to do but to wait and feel for her friends’ reiatsu. Soon, Sado falls and his reiatsu dims. She tries to deny that her friend is dead, and when Ulquiorra tells her that the rest of her friends will inevitably meet the same fate, she slaps him in a relatively controlled display of defiant outrage. She breaks down and cries after he leaves. Every event that takes place in this arc tests Orihime’s mental fortitude. Because she shares a sort of “shared surveillance” system with the arrancar, she’s forced to see Rukia get impaled on Aaroniero Arruruerie’s weapon as well.
Still, Orihime doesn’t show her captors any ill-will. Loly and Menoly, incensed by Aizen’s particular interest in Orihime, come into her room while Ulquiorra is away and beat her up. Orihime doesn’t fight back or cry, either too pacifistic or too self-punishing. It’s only when Grimmjow comes bursting through her wall that Loly and Menoly are stopped. He completely destroys the two weaker arrancar, but Orihime heals them both (completely restoring Menoly’s body from the waist up), and gets called a monster for her efforts. Here, Orihime is still seen to show compassion for her enemies, not too unlike the tears she had shed for the shinigami back in Soul Society. She heals those that hurt her, and shows blatant disregard for her own well-being – indeed, it’s only because Grimmjow refused to drag her around with a beat-up face that she heals herself in the end.
Again, Orihime sees too much all at once. Grimmjow brings her to heal Ichigo, who had been shot through the chest by Ulquiorra’s cero. Her first sight of him since her goodbye is that of his devastated, unconscious body. As she heals him, she has some trouble breaking through the leftover reiatsu that Ulquiorra left behind; later, she refuses to heal Ichigo at all despite Grimmjow’s intimidations, because if she were to heal him, then Grimmjow would just beat him up again. Ichigo coaxes her to heal him up the rest of the way so that the two of them can finish their fight.
Ichigo’s fight with Grimmjow brings many of her insecurities to surface. Although Orihime tries to encourage Neliel (an infant arrancar who tagged along with Ichigo) that Ichigo would be okay, she still falters. Although she expresses her faith in Ichigo, she’s chilled by his hollow mask, and also disheartened by the fact that she can’t see herself in his eyes. It almost feels as though he didn’t come to Hueco Mundo for her at all…
Nel berates her for her fears, especially when they seem to have a negative effect on Ichigo’s fight. The young arrancar tells her that Ichigo came to save her and so he needs her support. Orihime musters up the strength to shout down to him – you don’t have to win, just don’t get hurt anymore. She admits that in her heart of hearts, she was happy that her friends came for her, and that she was afraid that Ichigo’s hollow mask meant that he had ulterior motives to fight when he came to Hueco Mundo.
Ichigo wins. He tosses Orihime over his shoulder like a gentleman and essentially tells her that she’s not as fat as he thought she’d be – truly Orihime made the right choice to fall in love with this guy.
Fast forward because protagonists are never supposed to have a chance to breathe in shounen manga. After Grimmjow, Nnoitora Gilga arrives on site, and he and his fraccion proceed to mercilessly beat on Ichigo. Nel’s not really a baby, Kenpachi shows up and defeats Nnoitora, and just as Orihime moves to try to heal everyone’s injuries, she’s swept up and away again by another arrancar, Starrk.
It’s revealed that Aizen was never after her powers in the first place. She was just a diversion to divide Soul Society’s forces and trap a number of their captains in Hueco Mundo. He knew that kidnapping Orihime would put Soul Society on high alert due to her powers, so being the jerky jerk that he is, Aizen kidnapped her.
Although she understands her position, that she was essentially used as bait, Orihime stays resolute. Ulquiorra is next seen talking to her, and he asks if she is afraid now that Aizen has no use for her – she can be killed at any time. Orihime replies that she is not afraid, that her heart is already with her friends. She keeps them all close in her heart so they’re essentially already all together. She won’t die – not alone, not when her friends all came to save her, not when she understands that she would’ve done the same were any of her nakama in danger. Ulquiorra questions her, denying the existence of the “heart.” He extends his hand to her chest, her eyes as he wonders aloud if he’d be able to find it if he were to break her skull or rip open her chest.
Cue Ichigo and his perpetual habit of arriving just in time. When he and Ulquiorra fight, Orihime doesn’t pull up Santen Kesshun until several scenes into the fight, which leads Ulquiorra to question her – why didn’t she pull up a shield earlier to try to protect Ichigo? Orihime hesitates, realizing her mistake and lack of initiative, looking rather torn. Ichigo tries to coax her to move to a safe place, but Orihime is again harassed by Loly and Menoly who have come out of seriously nowhere to beat her up (black belt martial arts may not do much against arrancar, but at least put some effort in, girl!!).
Long story short – Yammy comes out of nowhere and saves her from the -oly duo before wanting to kill her himself. Ishida comes out of nowhere and saves her from Yammy. Ichigo tells Ishida to protect Orihime with his body if it came down to it, and Ishida tells him he would have even if he hadn’t said anything. Again and again she’s protected. She asks Ishida to take them up to the fight although Ichigo relocated to get them out of the fray, and of course --
She arrives just in time to see Ulquiorra blow another clean hole through Ichigo’s chest.
This time, she breaks.
She frantically tries to heal him, but finds she cannot get through Ulquiorra’s stronger reiatsu. In the background, Ishida loses a good half of his arm trying to fend off Ulquiorra, and Orihime tries desperately to shield him too, only to have all of her shields broken by the arrancar. She panics when nothing works, when she realizes that they’re all going to die, that she can’t do anything and so --
Help me, Kurosaki-kun.
Regret always comes later.
Ichigo revives as a monstrous hollow form. Orihime realizes it’s her dependence on him to blame, and despairs that she was unable to do anything but rely on him again although it had been her original intention to fight for herself. She witnesses the horror that is Hollow-Ichigo’s brutal massacring of Ulquiorra, and when Ishida tries to preserve Ichigo’s humanity by keeping him from an overkill, Hollow-Ichigo impales Ishida with his zanpakutou right in front of her.
Eventually, a stray attack from Ulquiorra breaks Ichigo’s mask and returns him to normal. But Ulquiorra, sustaining massive damage from Hollow-Ichigo’s attacks, begins to fade away. At the last moment, he asks Orihime again if she is afraid of him.
Resolutely, Orihime says no, having experienced all there ever was to be afraid of within the span of hours (within the span of a few minutes). She watches him in a sorrowful and regretful fashion, reaching out to him as he does to her, as he scatters into the wind.
As Ichigo heads off to face Aizen, she stays behind to treat Ishida’s wounds, and they aren’t seen again until after the final battle. Somehow she’s reverted back to her childish persona, expressing her relief when she recognizes Ichigo although his hair’s longer. Despite all that she’s been through in Hueco Mundo, she shows up near the end of the arc teary-eyed and somehow OK.
It’s hard to see what’s changed, and it’s hard to see what’s not.
IT’S ALSO NOT A SHOUNEN // WITHOUT CONVENIENTLY TIMED TIME-SKIPS
The Fullbringer arc sets in after a 17 month timeskip and Orihime appears as her usual happy self. Her hair is longer, her bangs have parted naturally in the middle (note that, when she was about to leave for Soul Society during the Rescue Rukia arc, she changed the way her bangs parted, too), and she keeps her hairpins clipped to her collar over her heart. It’s difficult to see if Hueco Mundo has really affected her. She tries singing her “theme song,” but can only hum it – Tatsuki comments that it’s because she’s matured. She tries to go gallivanting off to save Ichigo when she hears he’s been kidnapped by a “strange person.” Other than that, it’s hard to see how she’s really changed.
Ishida is attacked and hospitalized, and two strangers show up in front of her apartment: Shishigawara Moe (whom she mistakenly calls Sushigawara) and Tsukishima Shuukurou. When the latter implies that he was the one to attack Ishida, there is an instantaneous change in Orihime’s expression – her face turns stern, and instead of running away, she faces them head-on. She still shows compassion when Tsukishima seems like he’s about to turn on Shishigawara, and she stands in front of the latter, using herself as a shield. Although she summons Shun Shun Rikka, she is sliced through with Tsukishima’s fullbring from behind, but appears unharmed by the time Sado and Ichigo show up at her apartment. In an effort to prevent Ichigo from worrying, she says that everything is fine, and informs Sado via phone later on.
Ichigo begins training with Ginjou Kuugo to get his powers back. Orihime is soon called onto the scene as a nurse, and is immediately hounded by Dokugamine Riruka upon arrival. When Riruka asks her if she’s really planning to heal him when it just means Ichigo will just keep getting injured, Orihime recalls her time in Hueco Mundo when she thought the same thing. Without wavering, she turns to Riruka and determinedly tells her that as long as Ichigo needs her for something, she’ll do whatever she can to help him. When Riruka asks what she plans to do if Ichigo gets so injured, she won’t be able to heal it, Orihime replies that she won’t let such a thing happen – no matter how broken Ichigo gets, she’ll heal it all.
Training happens. Ichigo gets injured and Orihime heals him. Ginjou tries to resume the fighting before she finishes, and she doesn’t have any of it – she stands and demonstrates a new ability, Shiten Koushun, to block his attack. Her shield explodes outwards and acts as a counter attack ability, which indicates that although she’d hesitated to fight before, she’s less hesitant tofight back nowadays.
Training continues, and Orihime has some bonding time with Riruka. When the latter spouts off careless comments, Orihime simply smiles. The conversation eventually leads to Orihime sharing the story of her violent parents, and the death of her brother. When Riruka asks her how she can talk about such topics so easily, Orihime contributes it to Ichigo – that, because he saved her, she has the strength to talk about such things without letting them affect her.
As the Fullbringer arc draws to a close, the climactic final battle stars Ginjou and Tsukishima in the spotlight. Tsukishima’s Fullbringer has the ability to insert himself into people’s pasts, and when he had sliced Orihime, he put himself into her brother’s position within her memories. Orihime and Sado turn on Ichigo, thinking that he’s gone crazy when he’s attacking Tsukishima who’s supposed to be their “friend.” Although she was previously wholly devoted to Ichigo, the belief that Tsukishima was the “brother” in her memories has shaken her.
At least, until Ichigo begins to cry. Although her memories have been altered, the sight of Ichigo’s tears causes her to sob as well, but because of her confusion, she can’t pinpoint the reason why the sight of Ichigo crying affects her so. Eventually, Tsukishima causes both her and Sado to have a mental breakdown by questioning their loyalties and altered memories. This allows Urahara and present co. to knock them out and drag them out of the battlefront. When Orihime next wakes up, she’s completely forgotten about Tsukishima, but expresses relief to see that Riruka and some of the others are okay.
WAR AND // WAIT WHAT PEACE
So the new arc is still in its beginning stages, but several key events have already unfolded. Of a slightly less important note, Orihime works at a bakery and often stops by Ichigo’s house to share leftover bread with him, Sado, and Ishida. Because that’s what friends do. It’s great that they’re all getting along, isn’t it!!
We learn that the arrancar are rude little assholes that like to stand on people’s beds without permission. Ichigo goes off to fight with one of these arrancar after defenestrating him via foot while his friends stay behind to eat bread. He hands aforementioned arrancar’s ass back to him even though the arrancar tries to steal his Bankai. Nel suddenly and very conveniently falls from the sky and tells him that there’s trouble in Hueco Mundo. Ichigo, Orihime, and Chad head on off to save all the things while Ishida opts to stay behind.
It turns out there are suddenly Quincy everywhere and Ishida is conveniently off-panel as all hell proceeds to break loose. Orihime is assigned babysitting duty when Ichigo throws Nel right at her, but it’s difficult to do much protecting. Because Quincy can absorb reiatsu, Orihime’s shields are absorbed and rendered useless when she tries to defend. Soul Society gets flooded by Quincy and a massacre occurs while Ichigo is kept busy by a Quincy captain in Hueco Mundo. Things don’t look very good for our heroes at the current point in time…
PERSONALITY:
The second glance, then, offers this realization – bright-eyed girl isn’t paying much attention. Inoue Orihime is often found staring into space, mouth agape and expression clear, or vacant, or both. In class, she’ll be the one posing strangely, suddenly, smiling and laughing. She’ll be the girl preaching wholeheartedly about the importance of school lunches, about her crazy cooking ideas (gelatin and leeks, really?), about the comedy she’d seen the other day, about her future as a robotic lifeform, about the new sport she's invented, about the theme song that accompanies her life. The thing about bright-eyed girl is that although she’s well aware of the threshold between imagination and reality, she has absolutely no problem crossing from one world and into the other at the drop of a dime, a pin, a hairpin.
The thing about Inoue Orihime is that despite all odds and oddities, she has the power not only to reject reality, but to transcend it.
Maybe it was her brother who taught her first – that despite the hardships and the difficult past that it was always possible to be kind, to protect and to love. And then her brother, as a Hollow, nearly killed her. But Inoue Orihime is the kind of girl to open her arms to it, to accept punishment for her mistakes, to be hurt when others are hurting.
Orihime is the kind of bright-eyed girl to want to protect. Her powers, awakened by Kurosaki Ichigo, saved Arisawa Tatsuki and her friends from a Hollow – six faerie-like spirits that represent pieces of her own soul. The sometimes quiet, the sometimes stubborn, the sometimes zany, the sometimes fiery, the brains, the kindness – all of it individual parts of her.
She is the kind of girl that keeps her hair long and keeps it growing longer because it represents her faith in her best friend. She maintains top marks in her studies despite her air-headed personality, once placing third in the entire school. She is independent for the most part, living on her own in an apartment and with the financial help of a distant aunt that looks after her grades. She’s unusually perceptive, noticing what others don’t: that Kurosaki Ichigo comes with a scent, that Ishida Uryuu is a good guy below that “cool guy” exterior, that Kuchiki Rukia has gone and no one else seemed to have remembered her.
The thing about bright-eyed girl, is that she wants to protect, but she doesn't know how to go about it; she’d been trying to find her place.
She went to the Soul Society to save Kuchiki Rukia from being executed because she wanted to protect Ichigo. And yet through that ordeal, she’d learned that she wasn’t a fighter. Her attempt to cut down a shinigami officer was met with failure, her hits held no killing intent. She cried over her enemies, she had to grip herself tightly to keep herself from getting in Ichigo’s way. She heals and she defends, but really she thinks, what have I done to really improve myself?
She wasn't without her fear or insecurities.
She went to Hueco Mundo to protect her friends, but instead she had been the one to be protected, to be saved. She's hopeful to a fault until it brings her to her knees, until she rejects it entirely (Sado-kun is not dead). She's kind-hearted to a fault, healing even the enemies that beat her to the ground. Her heart was and is in the right place, but when she was left hopeless she depended too much on Ichigo and called to him for help despite her original desire to not become a burden to him. She tried not to depend, but when she collapsed underneath the weight, she called to Kurosaki-kun for help. She tried to heal, but she thought, this is my fault.
But at the end of it, she understood, I’m not afraid.
The Orihime of then is only a little different than the Orihime of now. The girl who used to be able to sing her own theme song can only hum it at present (she’s a little more mature), but her sense of humor is still growing strong. She’ll still protect her enemies (stepping in front of Shishigawara when Tsukishima seemed ready to attack him), but she’ll also be just as quick to come to the aid of her allies (never hesitating to attack Kuugo when he attempted to fight Ichigo when he still wasn't finished healing). But if there is one thing that hasn't changed, it's her dedication to Ichigo, to Ichigo's cause. In the seventeen-month timespan between the Orihime of then and the Orihime of now, she seems to have left her worries behind her and to have found her role: to use her powers to help Kurosaki-kun no matter what.
That no matter how injured he gets, she’ll heal it all.
OTHERWORLDLY ABILITIES:
- Santen Kesshun - the ability to repel and therefore deny an event from occurring. This skill allows Orihime to use Hinagiku, Baigon, and Lily to form a defensive shield that can repel a great number of things on the outside. The shield itself has been shown to withstand hollow attacks, to reduce the force of reiatsu bursts, and to provide a safe landing for Orihime and her friends after a fall from a great distance.
- Souten Kisshun - the ability to reject an event that has already occurred. This skill allows Orihime to use Shun'o and Ayame to heal injuries and restore them to their former state. In the past, this skill has been shown to heal a wide variety of injuries and to regenerate a lost arm and the upper half of a blown apart body. Before, she had trouble regenerating items (i.e. Tsubaki when he was destroyed in a fight) because she needed "pieces" of what she was trying to recover; after meeting with Hachigen Ushouda, she seems to have overcome this block (i.e. regenerating Grimmjow's arm after it was essentially disintegrated by Kaname Tousen).
- Koten Zanshun - the ability to reject the fusion of matter. This is Orihime's offensive ability wherein Tsubaki forms a shieldwithin an opponent that essentially slices them in half. Due to Orihime's desire not to kill (i.e. in her good-naturedness, she heals Loly and Menoly after getting beaten up by them), her offensive skills are usually considerably weakened, however...
- Shiten Koushun - Orihime's ability to counterattack. It is much like Souten Kesshun in that it erects a defensive barrier, but Tsubaki is integrated into the center of the shield. When an enemy attacks the shield, Tsubaki explodes outward in a concentrated burst that is proportional to the amount of force that the shield had taken from the enemy.
It's also interesting to note, that since Orihime's abilities revolve around the creation of shields and barriers, she has the ability to sense barriers that others may not ordinarily be able to. For example, she was able to sense and cross Hachigen's barrier easily although it was otherwise impenetrable to outside forces.
Being in the presence of Kurosaki Ichigo gave her the ability to sense spirit power/reiatsu. Speaking of reiatsu, she is also able to control hers with ease and was shown to be able to create a Kidou cannonball without any trouble. She can see Hollows, shinigami, and ghosts - all things that "ordinary" humans are not be able to perceive...
ABILITIES AT LANDEL'S:
Although Orihime’s abilities have been described to transcend God’s territory… they certainly will not be able to achieve anything very impressive during her stay at Landel’s. For one, she will no longer have the ability to use Shiten Koushun. And during any one night, she’ll only be able to use one of her three abilities. For example, if she uses Santen Kesshun one night, she won’t be able to use Souten Kisshun or Koten Zanshun on the same night.
First, Santen Kesshun will be handicapped to the point that her shield will only be able to last a maximum of 4 minutes (accumulated) before shattering. However, her shield is most reliable during the first 2 minutes. She will be able to call it up multiple times, or sustain one shield a maximum of 4 minutes, but she will experience fatigue over time in the following order:
- After 1 minute of use, OR after she calls her shield up a second time (after putting it away), she will start to feel drowsy -- the kind of sleepiness one gets right before bedtime.
- After 2 minutes of use, OR after she calls her shield up a third time, she will feel very fatigued and will need to rest after walking a fair distance; if it's a sustained shield, her vision will begin to blacken around the edges. Every time she calls up her shield after that third time, she will get more and more fatigued until...
- After 4 minutes, she will not be able to walk on her own without some help or support; if it's a sustained shield, she will fall to her knees. If she pushes herself too hard after 6 minutes of Santen Kesshun (i.e. trying to force herself to walk at a "normal" pace), she will risk passing out for the rest of the night and into the next day.
If she tries to call her shield up after she's used it for a total of 4 minutes, then the parts of her hairpins that represent Hinagiku, Baigon, and Lily will break, and she will need to use Souten Kisshun to repair them some other night (and will therefore use up her one-ability-a-day quota for that particular evening). Although she's usually able to block any form of attack as long as she's determined enough, her shield will weaken as its "time limit" winds down. During the first 2 minutes, the shield will be strong enough to block most forms of attack. After that second minute, however, it'll be much harder for Orihime to focus, which means the shield will fail anyway if the force that hits it is strong enough (i.e. let's say, for the sake of putting a number on it, more than 300 lbs of force is a sure-fire way to get the shield to fail; but there's a risk that anything <300 lbs will also cause her shield to fail if she's tired enough). In which case, her shield may falter, and she will receive a direct hit despite it being up. As long as she hasn't exhausted her 4 minutes, however, she will still be able to call up Santen Kesshun, but the chance of failing still remains.
Second, Souten Kisshun can also only be summoned for an accumulated 6 minutes before shattering. If she tries to summon the shield after it shatters, the sections of her hairpin that belong to Shun’o and Ayame will break and she will completely lose her Souten Kisshun ability. If this turns out to be the case, she’ll lose the ability to fix her hairpins should they break in battle from then on. Although Orihime's healing abilities have been shown to revive the dead (and restore a missing arm in less than a minute, good grief--), she will experience several limitations during her stay at Landel's. Things to keep in mind:
- Superficial wounds, such as scrapes, shallow bruises, or small cuts will not fatigue her -- this takes up a minute of healing time, however.
- Healing a deep gash (a couple inches into the flesh) will make her sleepy -- this takes up two minutes of healing, up to three minutes if there are multiple gashes on the person. If the individual is completely covered in gashes, it's safe to bet that healing will take around 5 up to the full 6 minutes, and will make her extremely fatigued to the point of limping while walking, or may even cause her to pass out.
- Trying to heal something more serious, like a broken bone and the injuries surrounding it, will take 6 minutes of uninterrupted healing. If she has distractions, or if the panic or fatigue gets to her (which it likely will the first time) then the full healing may fail and she will only be able to heal up to 50%. She will have to take subsequent nights to heal the same injury, and even then, she will have varying rates of success due to carry-over fatigue from a previous night (if she didn't rest properly during the day). Either way, trying to heal a broken limb will make her extremely fatigued; she will be very close to passing out at the end of the healing, and if she tries to move too much thereafter, she'll fall unconscious and wake up the next day with about fifty percent of her usual stamina, and her abilities cut down by an additional 50% (i.e. 3 minutes of a power versus 6). Healing a broken limb will still leave the individual with a "sprain"-like sensation for two days.
- If the injuries are large enough in magnitude, Orihime may faint during healing before her 6 minutes are even up. She will wake the next day, but will be unable to move until sometime into the night, without the ability to use her Shun Shun Rikka powers.
- Trying to restore missing limbs, etc. may be impossible to use efficiently with her current limits. 6 minutes of uninterrupted Souten Kisshun will restore 10% of something missing -- if Orihime doesn't collapse from exhaustion, first.
- If Souten Kisshun is used to fix broken inanimate objects, fifteen seconds is needed to restore her hairpins. If Orihime tries to fix something bigger, then she will only be able to restore about 50% of an object in 6 minutes. Using up 6 minutes for this does not cause her any fatigue besides drowsiness.
Koten Zanshun may only be summoned 3 times a night. Since her abilities are still very much dependent on her determination, Koten Zanshun may be subject to further limitations if she’s hesitant to attack. At its full strength at Landel’s, Koten Zanshun would be able to expand a slicing barrier about 7 x 9 inches in area. If her aim is accurate, she’ll be able to slice a cat in two. If it’s larger in size, then Koten Zanshun will only leave a superficial wound less than an inch deep. After the first use, Orihime will be very drowsy. After the second use, her vision will blur at random intervals for the remainder of the night. After a third time, Orihime will have a hard time moving without needing to rest. If she tries to summon him a fourth time, then the section of her hairpin representing Tsubaki can break. Again, since Orihime is oftentimes reluctant to fight, Koten Zanshun may not work at all -- in which case, Tsubaki will bump into what she's aiming for and fall uselessly onto the ground.
OTHER ABILITIES:
- Everybody Was Kung-fu Fighting - Orihime, although a non-fighter by nature, possesses the fighting skill of a black-belt (says Tatsuki...). If push comes to shove - or if she has to mug a couple of unseated officers to steal uniforms off of them... - then she'll be able to defend herself.
- I See London, I See France - wow, excuse me, let's see you think of something catchy to describe perspicacity!!! Anyway Orihime, when she's not with her head in the clouds, has an unusually keen sense of perception for certain things. For example, she's able to detect when Kurosaki Ichigo is in a mood and will usually empathize. It might also be her single-mindedness when it comes to Ichigo (i.e. she can detect him by scent for example), but she's also able to pay attention to things such as Ishida Uryuu losing his Quincy powers (i.e. or... he could have told her... but Mr. Pride...) or when Ishida-kun says one thing and means another (i.e. "You've really become good friends with Kurosaki-kun!"). Although she can be dense, she has her moments - more than anything, she's able to sense feelings.
- Even Better than Mama! - ... except, no, not at all. Orihime has the amazing ability to create monstrosities in the kitchen... I mean, gelatin and leeks? Then again, butter on sweet potatoes sounds... good. So does anko on bread (like a red-bean bun!!). Her dishes are a product of trial and error... with heavy emphasis on error. Besides cooking, she is also able to sew, and was described to be a rather skillful member of the Handicrafts club at Karakura High.
- I-M-A-G-I-N-A-T-I-O-N - ... well, Orihime is no strategist, but she has been seen to have the booksmarts to score her in the top 3 of her school rankings. She has the mind to imagine herself as a robot in the future, after all. And although her imagination may not always be completely relevant to the current situation, she has been shown to come up with good ideas. For example, it was her idea to disguise themselves in shinigami uniforms while she and Ishida Uryuu were navigating through Soul Society.