A/N: Haha. I haven't uploaded anything here in a long, long time. I wrote this about a week after the last TBTP chapter came out in 08, but I didn't feel like putting it up here until now. It's in six parts. There is a second one I've started from Kisuke's point of view that's also going to be in six parts. (6 + 6 = 12, I'm a sucker for trivial things like that.) As usual, constructive criticism is very much appreciated. I want to be a better writer.

Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach, I just enjoy everything to do with it.

I. Crossroads

Hiyori rubbed her tired eyes and rolled over to lie on her stomach. She had spent a good deal of the night preoccupied with coming up with plausible excuses for missing the inauguration ceremony. It was not going well.

She considered butterflying in sick, but she wouldn't be given leave for a cold. She could stay in bed, but Shinji would come to drag her out eventually. She was tempted to take a patrol slot in the living world, but she needed to ask the captain first, and speaking to the captain was something she wanted to avoid for as long as possible.

Hiyori wondered—not for the first time—if she had done something to anger the world. She hauled herself out of the covers and grabbed the nearest set of clean robes. A vein throbbed noticeably in her forehead as she dressed.

It was difficult to ignore the dull but persistent ache her former captain's quick departure left behind. It reminded her that it was likely she would never see the woman again. Zero Division was stationed in a different realm. It was practically the same as being dead.

She threw open the door, letting the chilly morning air attempt to cool her flaring irritation. She set off at a sprint from the twelfth division barracks.

Hikifune was a fast-paced person by nature. She didn't rush (except with paperwork), but she was always eager to move on. Consequently, she was not fond of bi-weekly captain meetings. 'No point in rushing to one of those,' she once told Hiyori as they leisurely made their way to the first division. 'It isn't as though I'll miss anything.'

Hiyori gritted her teeth against the unbidden, unwelcome memory. It seemed that even—perhaps especially—the simplest things reminded her of Hikifune. She wondered how she would get through the afternoon.

Hiyori hated her former captain today because the wound was still fresh, and she would hate her tomorrow because it would still sting, but perhaps not so much the day after when it would begin to scab. It was Hikifune, after all. She could never bring herself to hate that woman for long.

However, the replacement was a different story. This was a wound that did not have the advantage of fondness or time to heal. Heaven help her, she would never acknowledge that person.

Her quiet seething was cut off by Kensei. "The old man says to get in line. The new guy's almost here."

She stuck her tongue out at Shinji's warning look. The doors creaked open before she could pull her nose up at him, and she turned her glare to the entrance.

A personified beanpole stood awkwardly on the threshold, lanky and gawky as if he had just hit an unexpected growth spurt. Uncertain and uncomfortable, he stayed in the entrance, scratching his head under the gaggle of scrutinizing gazes.

You gotta be joking. He's a dork.

The newly appointed captain caught her staring and gave her a hopeful little wave. Hiyori's scowl deepened. Although his nervous little grin remained, he seemed to falter slightly under her narrowed eyes. She looked away.

Her captain was gone, and her tolerance was spent.

II. Aesthetics

For a moment, Hiyori saw red.

He had stripped away the familiar office—her second home, the place she spent sleepless nights griping about nonsense to Captain Hikifune—and he had replaced it with a dark lab out of one of Lisa's erotic horror novels. The one window in the room was no longer or wider than a cutting board. Light filtered between four vertical bars that gave her the impression of being jailed. The sleek metal of the pipes lined against the corners of the ceiling appeared incongruous with the polished floorboards.

It wasn't about rights, it was about courtesy. The bastard didn't have to say anything, but he could have. It was later, hours after they returned from the Maggots Nest with Kurotsutchi Mayuri looming behind them, that the little restraint she was able to exercise finally gave way.

"You could've told me."

He turned away from the tank housing a bored transparent frog and blinked quizzically at her.

"Captains are supposed to tell their vice-captains these things. We share the damn place! It ain't just your office, it's our office! If it was Captain Hikifune-"

And that was the heart of it all.

If he was at all distressed at the mention of his predecessor, it did not show in his expression as he continued to stare at her curiously, as if he was not sure what to do with her. The silence hung over the room, thick and tense, as she scrambled inwardly for something else to say.

"Captain Hikifune sounds like a better person than I am," he said carefully, after a time. "I'm not sorry that I can't be anything like her, but I am sorry for what her departure is probably doing to everyone. To you. It's never easy when someone you care for goes away."

She glared at him, as if willing him to spontaneously combust. "Don't pretend to sympathize with me, stupid baldy!"

He seemed to sag a bit under the weight of her anger, and he sighed tiredly. For one tiny, inane moment, a part of her—deep and small and traitorous—thought that the captain's haori looked too big on him—

"I'm not pretending, Hiyori-san." He stood by the door with the glass tank in his arms, regarding the small figure of his vice-captain with a small smile. "Let's keep trying, okay?"

"Like hell, you bastard."

Even as he left, Hiyori knew he was still smiling.

III. Try, try again.

Sometimes, he reminded her of a rug. A shaggy, yellow rug, much like the one Shinji kept in his office. He was as disheveled and worn as the dingy thing Shinji had procured a year ago in the living world, and just as resilient.

A gradual acceptance permeated the ranks within the first three weeks of his appointment. The skepticism was spread thinner day by day, explosion by explosion, until finally the twelfth division settled itself into a comfortable niche and went along on its new, hazardous course.

Except Hiyori. She was not one to give up easily. And as she was quickly coming to see, neither was he. For weeks, she followed this new course with old loyalties stuck firmly in mind, but that didn't seem to mean a thing. In spite of all Hiyori did to bruise his being and his ego, he never lost his temper with her.

He had the mentality of a mule on fourth division pep pills. He dodged every flying tube, replaced every broken door, and rewrote every single page of ruined notes with nothing more audible than a sigh. He trudged through her acrimony with the tenacity of a kicked puppy.

It was almost alarming. She wondered if this kind of mindset was also a requirement to be the leader of the detention unit. It was nearly as odd as him wearing armor under his hakama. It was no wonder he jumped at the chance to become a captain if being the third seat of the second squad was so harrowing.

She said as much to Shinji as they took lunch on the laboratory rooftop. Shinji considered this as he chewed absently on his riceball while Hiyori worked herself up a good temper, having all but forgotten her noodles.

"What I don't get," Shinji interjected in the middle of her tirade, "is why you haven't turned in a request for transfer yet."

"I'm not getting demoted because of this dork!"

"Ukitake's vice-captain position is open."

"Hell no! Are you stupid? Everyone knows he's trying to get that Shiba guy to take it."

He shrugged. "Sousuke's a weirdo, but he gets stuff done on time, so no way I'd trade him for you."

A vein pulsed dangerously in her forehead. "Shut up! Like I'd want to be your vice-cap—wait! This ain't even the point! I'm not going to transfer!"

Shinji stared at her thoughtfully. "You sure he's not starting to grow on you even a little?"

She swiped a foot at his head.

He ducked, still chewing industrially, as he favored her with an intensely long-suffering look. "He just wants you to get used to him. Don't you think you should ease up a little?"

"He's stupid if he thinks I'll give in."

Shinji rapped his knuckles sharply on the top of her head. He ignored her angry spluttering and said, "Dummy. It ain't about giving in. He's taking a chance on you so you'll take a chance on him. You ain't the only one that's learning to get used to something new, ya know?"

IV. Chances

"Why are you doing this by yourself?" she asked as she watched him fiddle with a bundle of wires with greasy fingers.

"Because I broke it. I don't mind doing this, though. In fact, it's kind of relaxing, but I'd be more relaxed if I could get a hold on the right couple of wires—" He paused and looked up, startled. "Hiyori-san?"

"What?"

"I thought you had already gone home for the night."

"I was washing the beakers."

"Oh." He stared at her for a moment longer, then, went back to the wires.

"You'll get done faster if I help you." She held out her hand. "Tell me which ones you're looking for."

He looked at her with a sense of disbelief. "That's nice of you, but I'll be fine—"

She jumped down and pulled the bundle from his slick fingers. "Stupid baldy, just tell me."

And he did. She sat on a large pipe, pulling wire after wire as he crawled underneath the wheel with a wrench in one hand and a replacement plug in the other. The silence was interrupted by the occasional clanging and her frustrated snarls when a particularly stubborn wire refused to be separated from its brethren.

By the time the sun was already bright in the sky and the turbine was turning again, the pair looked as if they had emerged from a coal mine.

"Here, use this to wipe your hands."

She caught the white haori with greasy fingers.

"It's fine," he said when he caught sight of the skepticism on her face. "It's already dirty. I forgot to take it off when I went down there."

"Tch. You're so damn irresponsible."

He laughed. "I suppose I am."

"Captain?" Akon stood in the doorway with a bubbling beaker in each hand. "What are you doing here? I thought you were supposed to be at the meeting."

Hiyori groaned into the haori. "The bi-weekly captain's meeting."

"Oh? Is that today?"

xxx

No one commented on their late arrival or about the hand prints on his haori, but as they filed out of the room after the meeting, Shinji quipped, "It's nice to see you two doing some bonding."

Hiyori's footprint was visible on Shinji's face for a week.

V. Value

She still kicked him. No shin was sacred when she was nearby. But she did it to him just a bit less often. Her acerbic comments were now merely rude. When he was out cold in his office, sometimes she took care to shout her frustration at Mayuri and the world farther away.

On the day she called him by his name ("Kisuke, you stink! Go home!"), she realized that he had become more than her captain, and it was as surprising as it was unnerving. Somewhere along the way, she had given him a place in her carefully guarded heart. If he were to leave as abruptly as Hikifune had, she wasn't certain she would forgive him.

Hiyori had finally given him a chance, and had perhaps grown too fond.

VI. The road to Hell, or something like it.

"You're alive" was the first thing he said when she opened her eyes and the mask disintegrated in a flurry of broken porcelain, as if he needed to say it to believe it. It sounded like a condemnation, but she couldn't be sure who it was for.

"I'm sorry" was the second. She couldn't remember ever seeing him look so confused, so defeated. It was then that she realized that everything had gone to hell. She looked at the others still unconscious around her and then back at him.

"What do we do now?"

He picked up one of the larger shards from her mask and watched it blow away into dust.

"We wait."

xxx

The horizon turned steadily pinker by minute increments with the slowly rising sun. The man standing at the edge of Soukyouku Hill took no notice of this or of the girl standing behind him.

"Hey, baldy. We have to go."

He nodded, but did not turn around.

Hiyori stood beside him, taking in one last view of Soul Society. She would have been lying if she said she wouldn't miss it. She didn't dare. For good or ill, this was the only home she had ever known, that most of them had ever known. At that moment, Hiyori felt immense hatred toward the shinigami, toward Aizen, toward the invisible force that seemed to do everything it could to make life rough going.

She looked at her captain's—no, former, all over again—hunched figure and peeked at him apprehensively. "Kisuke?"

Instead of facing her, he looked to the side, at the forest of dead trees. "The view from Soukyoku Hill is one of the best in Soul Society, you know."

It seemed to be an odd thing to say under the circumstances. She stared at him strangely.

"I made this hideout here because Yoruichi-san and I wanted someplace quiet and out-of-the-way where we could play. It was our biggest secret in those days. Even as we grew older, we never stopped coming here. This place became a home away from home." His smile was regretful. "I wish I could have brought you here under better circumstances. It still amazes me how much I came to take this all for granted. I never thought I'd have to leave forever."

The knot in her chest tightened just a bit, and the feeling of hatred hardened and became insurmountable.

"I still don't."

When he finally turned to look at her, she saw the bright glint of a promise in his eyes. He was still a far cry from the idiot Kisuke she was used to, but it was a good start. He hadn't given up, and neither would she.

When she crossed the threshold of the gate, she didn't look back.

A/N: It's been a while. I had forgotten that ffnet doesn't allow us to make our own lines.