Characters: Rangiku, Hinamori, Hitsugaya
Summary: Trouble's always followed Hinamori like a shadow.
Pairings: onesided HinaAizen, onesided HitsuHina, GinRan
Warnings/Spoilers: Spoilers for Karakura Town arc; any warnings would be spoilers in themselves
Timeline: Post-Deicide arc
Author's Note: Let me make this clear: I don't hate Hinamori. There are only three characters in Bleach that I really hate, and Hinamori's not one of them. It kind of makes me sad to see how hated she is by the fandom at large. That being said, whether you like Hinamori or not, what goes on in this story may offend you or make you uncomfortable. I'm sorry if it does; I simply don't believe that all stories are meant to have happy endings. If you must flame, find another reason to flame.
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.
Rangiku is just barely conscious to see Hinamori impaled upon her captain's sword, to watch a little bit of blood fall to the ground like rain, but black and thick.
Trouble… Hinamori's always trouble… Trouble follows her, wherever she goes. Even now, the universe has decided to be trouble for her.
It's a miracle she doesn't die, but Rangiku isn't surprised by the way Hinamori hangs on to life in a way that isn't really living at all, laying white, cold and still as if dead, consumed from the inside out by some arctic fire.
Beep!
The bleating of the heart monitor jolts Rangiku's heart and starts a pounding in her head, abrupt and painful. White lights and shards of pain jeer in the confines of her bony skullcap, a chorus of detractors.
Hinamori's purple eyelids don't so much as flicker.
Beep!
Fears, unspoken but so dominating and consuming, flit through Hitsugaya's eyes in a panic, his face as white as Hinamori's yukata and taut as the bindings of bandages over ravaged flesh. Rangiku can see no more hope in those eyes.
Beep!
Hinamori has had few visitors. The loyal friends still drop by and visit, their words growing fewer and fewer with each call, but the callers drop off like flies, and not just because it's useless to try to talk to someone who can't respond.
The little lieutenant's fixation on her erstwhile captain has earned her the scorn of the populace at large. There's a stigma attached to anything still saliently connected to Aizen and his kind, and that stigma, that ostracism, has extended to Hinamori as well. It's like they think she's the carrier of a disease that will fell them like wheat to blight.
They, Seireitei, want someone to blame. If a culprit can't be found, then a proxy will do.
Beep!
Rangiku tilts her head to look at Hinamori in another light. She studies the talcum powder-soft, baby-round curves of the face that never moves.
It would be so easy to hate her, for never seeing the blatant truth, for being blinded by nothing more than staunch adoration.
It would be so easy to hate her.
Beep!
But she can't. Rangiku doesn't even try to, because she knows she can't hate Hinamori. Because, really…
She's just like her.
Rangiku's felt that way, felt like she's being torn in two, like it can't be true, like it all just has to be a lie, so stop it please, and wake up from the nightmare to see that it was all just a dream—
Except Rangiku was able to drag herself away from the riptide's undertow, and crawl to shore. The only difference between her and Hinamori, is that in Hinamori, there is still idealism and naïveté and a belief that the night will heal all her wounds.
Beep!
Hinamori can still hope.
No one else can.
Beep!
Hitsugaya doesn't look like a captain of the Gotei Thirteen anymore. He just looks like Toshiro, a scared, terrified child, driven half-mad by his grief. He's always been half-made from grief, Rangiku realizes suddenly. She's just never been able to see it before.
But the cause is still the same.
Beep!
Hinamori is still attracting trouble, even a hairsbreadth from death and a heartbeat from life.
God only knows what it is about this sweet, naïve girl that the universe hated, that it had to make life so difficult and agonizing for her.
Beep!
Turquoise eyes sweep to Rangiku's face, watching for her approval, to still see if she's willing to go through with what they agreed on, because Hitsugaya is now Toshiro and Toshiro is unsure and apprehensive, needing, on this occasion at least, the approval of another to go forward with what needs to be done.
For once, he doesn't see it as beneath his dignity to be led.
Rangiku nods, unsmiling, and reaches forward to squeeze his shoulder briefly.
Toshiro sucks in his breath like he's drowning—and in a way, he is, but he's about to surface and taste the air again—and, with the agony of a man stepping on knives, steps forward.
…
The unbroken wail, inhuman and constant, is what brings two Fourth division members running. They hustle and flutter like frantic worker bees or hectic hummingbirds, but they will find nothing.
Rangiku and Toshiro are flat against the wall, the former's hand still on the latter's shoulder. Her grip is just as tight as it will ever be. They watch the medics work frantically before falling flat with disinterest, already knowing the outcome of their frenzied endeavors.
Eventually, the medics leave, and so do Rangiku and Toshiro, eyes down against the floor, voices muted. The eyes of others are on them as they step back out into the gray winter sun.
This solution is no solution at all.
But at least Hinamori won't be put through any more trouble.