Strength: Will or Heart-Part 3

Orihime was never entirely sure exactly what woke her up. Later on, she would try to recall a dream she had been having just before she awoke, but only the vaguest bits and pieces remained. The most she could remember was think it likely had something to do with her burning a cake in the kitchen, but when she opened the oven, the cake had expanded to the extent that it was touching the walls of the oven and that's why it was burning. Even stranger than that was the fact that an image had been burned onto the cake's front in the shape of a person's face. Then, as she was about to try and extract the cake, she felt someone pull her away from the oven.

And that's when she woke up.

At the time, Orihime's sleep-fogged brain was slow to pick up on the urgency of the situation she was in right away, but she immediately knew that what had happened in her dream and what was happening at the moment were connected. She knew that because she had been dragged from bed and onto the floor.

In a slightly cracked voice, Orihime asked, "Yoruichi? What's-"

"No time, Orihime," interrupted Yoruichi with her eyes darting around, "Just follow me."

Before Orihime could nod in agreement, Yoruichi started crawling across the floor. While Orihime thought it was extremely odd for Yoruichi to be doing something so juvenile, nevertheless, Orihime docilely followed the woman's lead and stayed on all fours.

They crawled around the bed and then towards the wall. For a few moments, Orihime considered asking Yoruichi exactly what they were doing because running into a wall was even sillier than crawling at this point. However, Yoruichi stood up about two feet before she reached the wall and it was then that Orihime realized that Yoruichi's goal had been to approach the window, since she was now opening it.

Once again following Yoruichi's example, Orihime stood up to join the woman at the now open window (which Yoruichi had done while wrapping her hands in the curtains for some reason). As soon as the night air hit Orihime's face, it worked like a splash of cold water to the face and cleared the fog, or in this case smoke, from Orihime's brain. In reaction to the fear and smoke, Orihime looked over at Yoruichi as the true nature of their situation became clear.

Feeling a hand at her back, Orihime followed Yoruichi's prompting and heard the woman say, "Jump now," which Orihime did without question or hesitation.

Was she frightened? Of course she was. Was there anything below besides ground to break her fall? Orihime had no idea. But she trusted Yoruichi and knew that while she might have cuts bruises and possibly a broken bone or two, this jump would not badly injure her. And even if it did by some freak accident, Orihime knew that Yoruichi would not have told her to jump had there been any other safer option.

As her feet left the window ledge, Orihime just managed to hear Yoruichi yell, "Flip over!" and again, Orihime obeyed.

Orihime's active imagination only had enough time to imagine five possible ways of how her fall would be broken and all of them were wrong. It was a simple matter of Tessai catching her in his big arms and then jogging quickly away from the house. Craning her neck as far as she could, Orihime saw that when the two of them were clear, Yoruichi leaped out of the window feet first and did a kind of roll when she reached the ground so that when her feet next touched earth, she could run after them.

The next moment, Orihime realized Tessai had said something and asked, "Pardon me?"

"Everyone is safe," repeated Tessai, which caused Orihime to release a rush of air she hadn't realized she had been bottling up in anxiety. However, the tension in her body immediately returned when she heard strong metallic sounds coming from the side of the house.

Clutching Tessai's shirt front, Orihime said hastily, "Let me down, please."

Tessai's answer was to slow his pace and then stop before hesitating slightly and finally setting her feet on the ground. Orihime only paused long enough to give him a grateful half-smile before turning and taking off in the direction of the sounds of fighting. In spite of the fact that she was barefoot and the ground was rough, rocky, gravelly and in some places slick from dew, Orihime ignored the discomfort and pain, charging ahead with a determined light in her eye. There was also a touch of fear, but that came from her anxiety over her Servant and just what kind of foe he may be facing alone right now.

Rounding the corner, Orihime's eyes quickly scanned the scene in front of her. Everything was as she had anticipated except for one major detail. The opponent himself.

While Orihime knew her imagination could sometimes get the best of her, this instance had to take the cake...pun slightly intended. However, what concerned Orihime the most was how exactly it had happened. It had just been a dream…hadn't it? But apparently her dreams were bleeding into reality in more ways than one.

The man who was fighting Ichigo had the exact same face as the image that had been burned onto the cake in her dream. The next moment, Orihime's eyes connected with his and her skin began to crawl as a smile spread over his face.

"Well, well, well," he cackled, "Quite a looker you have there as your Master. Man, do I envy you."

Not normally a self-conscious person, Orihime now wished that she had woken up far sooner, if only so that she could have grabbed something to cover herself. The best she could do was cross her arms over her chest and hope for the best.

Apparently, that was exactly what she should not have done because the man's eyes widened and they glinted as he leered and said, "Oh yeah, baby. You stay right there looking pretty and after I've finished with this guy we'll have ourselves a real good time." Orihime may have been innocent, but she was not naïve as to what exactly this lecher was referring to just then.

Rather to her surprise, Saber clashed weapons with the guy hard enough to send him flying back several feet. On top of that, she was fairly certain she had heard Saber growl in rage as he did so.

Instead of backing down, this just seemed to amuse the opponent as he said, "Touched a nerve there, didn't I? What? Don't tell me you haven't thought the same things?"

Viciously slashing at the guy's head, Saber ground out, "She's my Master. And even if she wasn't, she's not that kind of woman and I'm certainly not that kind of man."

"Oh brother," groaned the man as he knocked aside Saber's blade, "another honorable, chivalrous bor. Just my luck."

As the two kept fighting, Orihime finally had the presence of mind to quit worrying about her state of dress and assess the situation at hand. If she had to guess, Saber's opponent was likely a Lancer. It wasn't out of the realm of possibility that he could be an Assassin due to the fact that he had set fire to the house, but Servants in that class weren't usually this good in sword-fighting. They only fought one-on-one when they had to fight someone who was about to catch them. Also, because he was fighting with something that looked like a cross between a spear, broadsword and club, it gave a pretty good indication what class of Servant he was.

Turning her attention away from the fight, Orihime's eyes scanned the surrounding area. The Master of this Servant had to be somewhere nearby in order to supply the Servant with enough magical energy to fight. Unfortunately, the house was bordered by a forest which the Master could easily conceal themselves in and Orihime knew that it would be very unwise for her to search among the trees alone like this.

Just as she began adjusting her arms to try and protect more of herself, Orihime's spine tingled ominously. Reacting instinctively, Orihime threw herself to the ground just as an object came whistling by. When it thudded into the ground, Orihime saw that it was an arrow.

This was bad. Apparently Lancer and his Master were not the only ones who decided to show up tonight. From the angle at which it had landed, Orihime concluded that the Archer and their Master were also hiding behind the tree line.

Orihime's brain went into high gear as she reassessed the situation. She couldn't take cover anywhere near the house, so the trees were her only option. However, she had no idea where Lancer's Master was, so she'd be running in there blindly. Her other option would be to rush in the direction the arrow had come from and maybe catch the other pair off-guard. Sure they had come after her first, but who was to say that the next arrow wouldn't be aiming for Saber.

Another option would be to have Saber abandon the fight and then both of them could get out of here. Intuitively, Orihime knew that Saber would not like that order, the only question was whether he would disagree with her to the point that she would have to use one of her command spells on him?

Just as she was about to open her mouth, Orihime's breath became stuck in her throat as a huge explosion rattled her world. All she managed to do was curl up into a ball and cover her head as best she could before she was showered with debris. While she did sustain a few cuts, bruises and a slight ringing in her ears, Orihime was mostly unhurt. That would not have been the case had she still been standing when the explosion came.

Next thing she knew, a pair of arms slid underneath her body. Automatically, her arms went up to encircle the person's neck and shoulders just before they took off at an inhuman speed. While Orihime did cling to the person carrying her, she only did so in order to maintain her balance in his arms and to keep from slowing him down. Saber would not drop her, of that she was sure.

When they eventually slowed and came to a stop, Saber turned to look behind them in order to make sure they weren't being followed. Then, he set Orihime on her feet.

"Are you all right?" Orihime asked as she re-crossed her arms over her chest, both for modesty and warmth.

"I was about to ask you the same question," replied Saber, "I'm fine."

Giving him a big smile, Orihime said, "Then I'm fine too."

Quirking an eyebrow at her, Saber said flatly, "No you're not."

"Huh?"

In answer to her confusion, Saber untied his outer robe. Before Orihime could protest, he draped it over her shoulders with a scowl firmly in place.

"You're shivering and…um…you know…"

Orihime was extremely glad that there was no moon tonight and that they were no longer illuminated by the burning house. She flushed way too easily sometimes.

"Oh well…thank you…" Orihime tried to keep her voice as steady as possible so as not to give away just how mortified she was, "I didn't have time to grab anything…"

This time her voice trailed off as a thought hit her, "Where is everyone else?"

"Don't know," replied Saber honestly, "but I doubt they're still back there. Urahara and Tessai probably took them to a safe place and are waiting for us to join them. Any ideas?"

"Um," said Orihime slowly as her mind raced, "they might have gone to Mr. Hachi's house."

"Where's that?"

"Um," Orihime said again as she looked up at the stars to try and get her bearings, "Which direction did we come from?"

Looking in the direction Saber indicated, Orihime clapped her hands and said, "We're heading the right way. I'm pretty sure we only have a couple more miles to go."

"That's something at least," replied Saber before he turned to Orihime and said, "The faster we reach there, the better, so I'm going to carry you the rest of the way."

"Ok," Orihime said as calmly as possible, once again grateful for the concealing darkness.

"It may not be dignified," said Saber, "but I can move a lot quicker if you climb on my back. Would that suit you?"

"Of course," said Orihime, "I'm happy to do whatever is easiest for you. I just hope I'm not too heavy for you."

There was a slight pause before Saber said, "I wouldn't have offered if I could do it."

"Right, of course," Orihime said hastily, "Please forgive me."

"No need," replied Saber matter-of-factly. Despite the fact that he was using the exact same tone as he had all along, Orihime felt her heart begin to race in response to his words.

As she carefully molded herself onto his back, Orihime began to second guess the wisdom of travelling in this way. While most girls dreamed of being swept into a man's arms princess style, being carried on someone's back was a far more intimate experience. She tried to force her brain to stop noticing all the places she could feel and all the parts of her Saber was touching. Orihime kept repeating to herself that Saber was only doing this for easy travel, not because he liked her.

In an effort to distract her thoughts, Orihime asked, "Saber?"

"What?"

Clearing her throat, Orihime said as clearly as she could, "Thank you for saving me back there."

Another pause before Saber replied, "Just fulfilling my duty as your Servant. My job is to keep you safe, remember?"

"Yes, of course," said Orihime brightly even though her heart was not in it.

Even though Saber had spoken the truth just then, why was it that her heart had stopped racing and begun to ache slightly?