Disclaimer: Bleach is the property of Tite Kubo.
Possible spoilers for manga chapter 392.
The Winter War is won by Ichigo Kurosaki three days after the captains fall.
Or at least Hitsugaya hears, three weeks later when he awakens in a haze of white and antiseptic. The dead have already been honored and buried but the dying remain, the metallic tang of blood and cry of mortality.
Hitsugaya awakes in a hospital.
And all that means is he is still alive.
But that's only what Unohana says, ghosting pale hands over his chest and arm (her hands are warm; warm like reiatsu and the dregs of a blazing inferno). There are lines on her face that weren't there before, he thinks idly; this is a woman that has seen death more times than she can count. But Unohana is wrong, an overflow of grief has addled her senses, and Hitsugaya knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that living doesn't feel like this.
Matsumoto visits all the time. She babbles nonsense in his ears and he shuts her out, ignores the clever knots in her scarf that hide scars that stretch like a necklace around her throat. The azure gaze she slides over him is painfully bare and he wonders what he has become in their eyes (a failure? weak and useless?)
He says as much and their silence is words enough.
He can count the minutes it takes her to forgive him on one hand.
The time it takes him to forgive himself is endless.
The sunrise paints her hues of gold and pink and she is beautiful, infinitely beautiful, even with stark white hospital bandages wrapped around her middle.
Hinamori smiles and his inner world melts from ice to water.
"Does your heart ever speak to you, Shiro-chan?"
A pause. It doesn't, and she knows as much. His heart has long gone silent.
"My heart beats everyday, each time assuring me that I am alive. My heart has a rhythm that tells me nothing is broken. And I know, one day, your heart will tell you the same."
Hinamori drips with conviction, and Hitsugaya aches with it.
He once died on a plain of ice.
He dies now in a breathe of fire, smoke in his eyes and a gapping hole in his head.
"Hitsugaya-kun, Rangiku-san told me you haven't been eating well lately."
Hinamori has abandon her light soprano in favor of a troubled murmur. It makes no difference to him.
"You can't keep doing this! Please, Hitsugaya-kun, eat something, if even just for me!"
A tear trickles down her cheek and Hitsugaya feel something stir. The little drop of water falls from her chin, slowly, glinting, sadly, and he catches it in the palm of his hand.
"Don't," he whispers raggedly, and the first word he has said in weeks tears out of his mouth with surprising quickness. She blinks and reaches for the plate beside her. Hitsugaya hasn't touched it.
"Will you eat something?"
It hurts her to manipulate him. But this is for his own good, she tells herself firmly, and the next tear that falls is genuine. Hitsugaya catches it and the light sparkles off the two tears he has captured in the palm of his hand.
He thinks he would like to capture her pain this easily.
"Please eat, Hitsugaya-kun."
The plate is pushed forward again.
He would like to say, if it makes you happy, would like to rush forward and wrap her in his arms. Would like to brush away the scar on her torso that aligns perfectly with the sword leaning on his bed.
But Hitsugaya can only manage a listless nod, and raises the food emotionlessly to his lips.
He had been quick-witted and calculating once, alight with intelligence and the scorching blaze of his own potential. Hinamori had basked in that glow, once.
This newfound apathy scares her.
There are, on average, thirteen captain and thirteen lieutenant level shinigami in addition to the thousands of rank-and-fodder soldiers that make up the Soul Society. Hitsugaya can defeat most of them simply by releasing his reiatsu.
Once, that had been enough.
Now peace is a distant memory and Aizen is engraved across his mind as deeply as it is in hers and Hitsugaya hasn't come nearly as far as he would've liked.
Yamamoto could defeat Hitsugaya with ease. As would Kyoraku, Unohana, and maybe Ukitake. Hitsugaya is fast but Soifon is faster; he is strong but Zaraki is stronger; he is skilled but Kuchiki more experienced. The youngest captain, genius captain, and alive for less years than most had worn their haori.
He hasn't come nearly as far as he thought.
Yet some days Hitsugaya lies awake and wonders if he could have saved her if he had the time, if experience could have hardened his features into a stronger man, who wielded his sword for another and did it right. But Hitsugaya lies awake and knows he doesn't have time, doesn't have experience, because she needs protecting right now-in-this-very-instant.
And Hitsugaya is weak.
Weak, pathetic, worthless, useless, and the words tear viciously at him. A stupid, conceited boy so proud of how far he had come than he had forgotten how far he had left to go. Didn't he promise, once when he was younger and stupider (but not by much), to protect that which meant the most to him?
The self-loathing is utterly consuming.
Aizen is six feet under and it is enough.
But Hitsugaya knows it isn't and the vicious white scar imprinted across her torso is proof to the contrary. That very night he steals away from his suffocating hospital room, determination cut into his eyes, and prays for a godsend.
"You're too good for this world," Hitsugaya croons in her ear and his breathe dislodges a lock of hair near her ear. He tucks it back with a shaky hand. "I have to protect you."
Hinamori doesn't stir.
But that's okay, and Hitsugaya will settle for protecting her wherever they're heading now. She will never hear his final vow, doesn't see the content smile than drifts across his face as he lies beside her on her bed, wouldn't comprehend how far he had stretched himself for her.
But she will have all of it, all of it and so much more, in the next life when he has another chance not to mess things up.
Hitsugaya will make sure of it.
And that is the thought he keeps close when he draws Hyōrinmaru from its sheath, feels the metal whisper across fabric. Hitsugaya hugs her close (savors the last sound she makes, a soft inhale as she shifts closer) and kisses the top of her forehead.
Then he thrusts, hilt deep, and the two of them are impaled on his zanpakutō together.
His last thought is that he would like it if their spirit particles entwined.
End.