Orihime's Confrontation

 is an event taking place during the Invasion of Hueco Mundo that focuses on Orihime Inoue being accosted by Loly Aivirrne and Menoly Mallia, two Arrancar who are jealous of the attention she has received from Sōsuke Aizen, and then saved by Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez, who intends for her to help him fight Ichigo Kurosaki one last time.

Prelude
Following Yasutora Sado's defeat at the hands of Nnoitra Gilga, Orihime Inoue stares up at the moon from within her room prior to Ulquiorra Cifer announcing that he is entering. With Orihime solemnly turning to face him, Ulquiorra deduces that she has sensed it and criticizes Nnoitra for getting impatient instead of waiting in his palace as ordered. When Orihime insists that Sado is not dead, Ulquiorra has an Arrancar attendant wheel in a cart with food on it and tells Orihime to eat it, only for her to claim that she is not hungry. In turn, Ulquiorra asserts that it is Orihime's duty to maintain her health until Sōsuke Aizen calls upon her and threatens to shove the food down her throat or strap her down and feed her intravenously if she does not comply.

Though Orihime reiterates that Sado is not dead, Ulquiorra dismisses this as irrelevant and questions if Orihime wants him to assure her that Sado is still alive, which he considers nonsense since he is not here to comfort her. After a moment's pause, Ulquiorra admits that he does not understand why it matters if Sado is dead since all of Orihime's friends will die soon and one of them simply happened to die before the others did, prompting Orihime to look at him in shock. Ignoring Orihime's request for him to stop, Ulquiorra states that she should have known this was coming and calls her friends idiots whom she should be disgusted with for rushing into Hueco Mundo to be slaughtered so easily, which leads Orihime to sprint over to him and slap Ulquiorra hard in the face.

Staring silently at a panting Orihime for several seconds, Ulquiorra departs and promises to be back in an hour, where he will tie down and force-feed Orihime if she has not eaten by then. Once Ulquiorra leaves, Orihime huddles against the wall and begins sobbing into her hands. Some time later, after Rukia Kuchiki is seemingly killed by Aaroniero Arruruerie and the latter's Cognition Synchronization causes her to witness this, Orihime repeatedly bangs on the door of her chamber and begs to be let out while crying over Rukia's fate.

Confrontation
Shortly afterward, Orihime senses the plummet of Ichigo's Reiatsu when he is defeated by Ulquiorra and turns to her door when it begins to open in expectation of Ulquiorra entering, only to be unnerved when Loly Aivirrne looks through the ajar door with Menoly Mallia and confirms that Orihime is alone prior to eerily asking the latter if she can come out to play. Moments later, Loly strikes Orihime in the face, drawing blood in the process, and sends her flying across the room. Laughing maniacally, Loly grabs Orihime by her hair and holds her aloft to disparage the idea of a Human defeating an Arrancar, but a bloodied Orihime merely stares at her silently.

In response, an angered Loly punches Orihime in the face and demands that she not look at Loly like this. Despite Menoly warning her to be quieter, Loly tells her to shut up and decides to pull out Orihime's fingernails just before the doorway behind them explodes outward in a surge of energy, allowing Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez to step through the door and stand before an intimidated Loly and Menoly. Approaching Loly and Menoly as they stare at him in fright, Grimmjow infers that they snuck in here while Ulquiorra was away and questions if they are having fun. In response to Loly demanding to know what he wants, Grimmjow kicks her hard in the abdomen, sending her flying away from Orihime.

With Loly vomiting on the floor from the trauma to her organs, an angered Menoly attempts to attack Grimmjow with a Cero formed around her fist, but Grimmjow simply grabs her fist, dispersing the energy around it in the process, and fires his own Cero that destroys the top half of Menoly's body, which Orihime watches in shock. When Grimmjow turns his attention back to her, Loly warns him that Aizen punish him for this, only for Grimmjow to grab her left leg by the ankle and press his own foot against her kneecap before ripping it off despite Loly's frantic pleas for mercy, causing her blood to spatter on the wall as she screams in agony.

After silencing Loly when she declares that Aizen will kill him for this, Grimmjow asserts that Aizen does not care what he does to them and turns to Orihime, who wonders why he did this. In turn, Grimmjow asserts that he did so for his left arm and grabs a confused Orihime by the collar to hold her aloft and clarify that he came here to repay his debt to her rather than simply help her, which is why there is something she is going to do for him now that they are even. Grimmjow tells Orihime to heal her face since she cannot have bruises all over it if she is going to be hanging around him, but once Grimmjow sets her down to do so, Orihime instead runs over to Loly, sets her severed right leg by her stump, and forms Sōten Kisshun over it.

When Sōten Kisshun begins healing the wound, Loly angrily hits Orihime in the face for touching her. However, Orihime continues reattaching Loly's leg without reacting and walks over to Menoly's corpse once she is done to begin reconstituting her upper body with Sōten Kisshun as well, leaving Loly to watch her in confusion and horror. Some time later, Menoly wakes up on the floor and wonders how she is alive after being blasted point-blank by Grimmjow's Cero, prompting a sweating Loly to inform her that Orihime did it as she huddles against the wall with her head in her arms, questions what this was and what Orihime is, and claims that the latter is a monster.

Intervention
Meanwhile, in the tower that Ichigo was left to die in, a battered Nel Tu crawls over the rubble to find him lying motionless and unresponsive in a pool of his own blood, causing her to begin crying as she drops to the floor and pulls herself over to Ichigo, whom she begs to not die. However, Nel finds her path blocked when Grimmjow appears in front of her and tells her to get out of the way. With a terrified Nel recognizing him, Grimmjow approaches Ichigo and flips the latter over with a rough kick, exposing the hole left in the center of his chest by Ulquiorra's hand, which Grimmjow notes he expected. Though Nel begs him to not harm Ichigo, Grimmjow instead brings out a bound and gagged Orihime from underneath a cloak, and as a stunned Orihime falls to her knees in front of Ichigo with her gag removed, Grimmjow sits down on a chunk of rubble behind her and orders Orihime to heal Ichigo while Loly and Menoly find themselves confronted by Ulquiorra, who wonders what happened.

Back in the tower, Nel blames herself for Ichigo's injuries since he shielded her from Ulquiorra's Cero with his own body and got beaten up afterward, but as Nel pleads with Orihime to save Ichigo, Grimmjow tells her to shut up and threatens to obliterate her if she does not. After a frightened Nel complies with this, Grimmjow tells her to watch as Orihime mentally notes that she cannot reject the tremendous Reiatsu swirling around Ichigo's wounds. When Orihime wonders who could do something like this, Grimmjow informs her that it was Ulquiorra while the latter simultaneously learns from Loly that Grimmjow is the one who took Orihime.

Grimmjow elaborates that Ulquiorra always unconsciously leaves a hole in the same location as his own on opponents he is intrigued by, and as Grimmjow promises to teach him a lesson for going after someone else's prey, Ulquiorra leaves Loly and Menoly in Orihime's chamber. Suddenly, Ichigo's fingers twitch and he regains consciousness, resulting in him recognizing Orihime and Nel as they call out to him in relief, but Grimmjow angrily tells Orihime to heal Ichigo instead of wasting time. Upon being asked about what he is doing with Orihime by Ichigo, Grimmjow declares that she is going to heal Ichigo because he wants the latter healthy when he kills him.

With Orihime left aghast at Grimmjow wanting her to heal Ichigo solely so he can kill the latter, Grimmjow questions if she would rather leave him to die instead and warns that Ulquiorra will be here soon, only for Ulquiorra to suddenly appear behind Grimmjow with Sonído and glare at him. When Ulquiorra questions what Grimmjow is doing here and why he is having Orihime heal someone Ulquiorra defeated, Grimmjow remains silent, leading Ulquiorra to infer that he has nothing to say for himself and stare at Orihime, who looks away, before dismissing this as irrelevant and ordering Grimmjow to give Orihime to him since Aizen put her under his supervision. However, Grimmjow refuses to do so and comments on how chatty Ulquiorra is today just before lunging forward to grab at Ulquiorra, who blocks this with his left hand.

After asserting that he knows Ulquiorra is afraid to fight him under the belief that they might kill each other, Grimmjow fires a point-blank Cero that sends Ulquiorra flying back, but as Grimmjow claims that he knew Ulquiorra would deflect it and that one strike would not be enough, Ulquiorra reappears above Grimmjow with Sonído and points his index finger down at Grimmjow's head to begin charging his own Cero with it. However, Grimmjow responds to this by holding his palm up against Ulquiorra's finger and firing another Cero in turn, creating an explosion of energy that levels the upper portion of the tower and engulfs a slightly burnt Ulquiorra in a large cloud of dust.

From behind Ulquiorra, Grimmjow reaches over his shoulder and deposits a Caja Negación into Ulquiorra's Hollow hole, which causes ricocheting beams of energy to burst outward and encase an annoyed Ulquiorra prior to seemingly erasing him from existence.

Aftermath
Having erected Santen Kesshun in front of herself and Ichigo to protect from this, Orihime dispels the barrier and wonders what this was, prompting a landing Grimmjow to explain that Caja Negación are given to the Espada by Aizen to punish their Fracción with by sealing them inside a pocket dimension forever, though it was not designed for use against Espada and can likely only hold Ulquiorra for a few hours at most. Despite this, when Grimmjow orders her to continue healing Ichigo, Orihime refuses, and though Grimmjow grabs her by the throat and declares that he is not asking her, Orihime vows to not help him kill Ichigo, to Grimmjow's further frustration. Suddenly, Ichigo grabs Grimmjow's arm and tells him to let Orihime go, which Grimmjow does, before asking Orihime to heal his wounds as well as those of Grimmjow, who has had his right armed severely burned by his clash with Ulquiorra. Grimmjow claims that he does not want Ichigo's pity, only for Ichigo to remind Grimmjow that he wanted a fair fight and assume that he wants to keep his wounds so he has an excuse when he loses. In response, Grimmjow draws his Zanpakutō and attacks Ichigo, who blocks with his Shikai, Zangetsu, and begins their final battle.