Title: Doushinitai
Summary: Two hearts, one mind. Muramasa's plan gets an early start in Soul Society.
Rating: T
Pairing: None
Notes: Zampakuto rebellion starts approximately thirty years before present. This means I hand wave away Aizen, Isshin and others. What?
Sometimes, his subordinates wake him in the middle of the night complaining of the cold. They do not do it often. If they had a choice, they would prefer to avoid him entirely.
"It is because you lack a shinigami." Katen smiles, emptying her pipe in a flowery bowl. Her attendant, a young female, catches the falling ashes and nestles it close to her chest. "You are freer than the rest of us."
"I have duties." He says frowning. "I have responsibilities."
"You are a child. Because you must be told to do things." And because he bristles, she purrs, "Follow your instincts dragon. Be that you are."
He walks off, more disturbed than he would like to admit. He'd always assumed that he had no shinigami or killed when he was stuffed into his human form.
Hyourinmaru does not tell her that he dreams sometimes.
He does not know if his kind dreams. Whether he dreamed before or if it began after. Much of it is lost in translation.
Itegumo does her best but it is hard. His memories are gone. Progress is slow. He spends much of his time with his eyes closed but he sees the empty sky, dazzling in its color like the purest sapphires sitting in the palms of a vendor at a market. He'd seen humans wash cotton in the water and thought them clouds he could touch. Haineko had screamed at the mess he made when he'd torn apart his bed and mattress looking. Just looking.
He doesn't know why he is looking.
"Do you understand the concept of doushinitai?"
"One heart, two bodies." A text book response. Tenken drinks his wine.
"Precisely. Though our bodies are different, our hearts are united as one."
"But how can that be?" He could not imagine his thoughts being reflected in another.
In the yard, Komamura Sajin leads his division through a series of exercises. He realizes with a pang, he has never known such camaraderie or trust. There is a rift which divides him from other that transcends the barrier of rank. It is as though they are a species apart. He was never meant to be in this world no matter what Muramasa tries to tell him.
Tenken follows his gaze.
"And yet..."
.
He sleeps on the rooftop. The moon is out. He was named for its shape and he feels confined in the barracks, back stooped, tracking snow everywhere. He sleeps and he dreams.
"Who are you?"
He looks down.
"What are you doing here child?" Because he'd memorized the thousand odd souls that drift through the court's walls. He'd been looking, he didn't know what he was looking for. But the presence of a new face was enough to capture his attention.
"This is my house. What are you doing here?"
He looks around. Sure enough, he is no longer at the Tenth Division.
The boy scowls but his lips quiver. Ah yes, he had seen his haori.
"I will not hurt you." He says.
The boy shakes his head.
"Go away. We don't want you here."
.
The dream disturbs him. He goes about his duties, thoughts turning slowly in his head. If his subordinates noticed his distraction, they do not voice it out loud. It is as it will ever be.
"It is healing well Hyourinmaru-sama."
Spirits did not scar easily. The silvery mark on his face was disturbing as much as was disfiguring. For once, he pays it no mind.
"What is it like having a human at your side?" He nods towards the pale-haired female cleaning her hands with soap.
Both flinch.
Itegumo stammers, "I cannot speak for all zampakuto."
"Speak for yourself then." He commands, tracing the furrows in his brow.
"I..." The snow spirit hesitates.
He gives her time. Her strength did not come from her daring but the willingness to do what is right. "I am stronger when I am with her. She makes me feel whole."
.
What does it mean to feel whole?
The boy passes him by on his way to finish his errands.
They do not speak.
.
The twins are energetic. But their human is often unwell. They are not a good match despite their fondness for him and his green eyes. It is a nice color he concedes. The first to return to him as he slowly regains his sight.
"It's because your eyes are red."
The right twin chirps.
"My eyes are grey." Hyourinmaru says easily.
The twins look at each other. Perhaps they are what Tenken means by doushinitai.
"Hyourinmaru is silly!"
"Very silly!"
He pulls the dango apart with his teeth.
"I don't believe I need lectures from you two." He points out. "I am not the one tied to a sickly human."
"But we like Jyuu-chan!"
The twins are strange.
.
"Go away!" The boy is waiting with a broom. The force of his shout makes him start. And laugh. The boy reddens at his laughter and his breath flutters, tickling his lungs.
.
Ashisogi Jizo makes one's ears bleed when he speaks. Most avoid him. But it's not the same. They avoid the doll-like spirit because he is genuinely unpleasant. Hyourinmaru likes to think that he is somewhat tolerable. Perhaps it is a matter of opinion.
"Why keep your shinigami alive then?"
He asks on a rare occasion the two are paired to investigate the activity of Hollows near the southern districts. They find nothing. The hollows are gone. There are bodies scattered on the ground. Flayed limbs, discarded spines. An intact body that rattles like a puppet when he lands. "After all that he has done to you?"
The other spirit flutters his wings. Opens his mouth and lets out a low whine that ends in a shriek. For a brief moment, his extremities go numb. He remembers what it is like to have no legs. Crawling on his belly across the ice.
"Because,"
"You can talk."
He has a sense of feeling Ashisogi Jizo is laughing at him.
"He is mine."
.
"Stop following me." The boy bites when they cross paths.
"On the contrary, you are following me." It sounds right. The spirit leads, the human follows.
"Why the hell would I follow you around?"
Hyourinmaru shrugs. He cannot control where his daydreams lead. But the boy is unaware that they are not awake. His kind has been known to inspire humans seeking council from higher power.
But no, the boy isn't the type to ask for help. He is, dragon-proud.
"Make yourself useful then."
"Ah?"
The boy shoves the broom in his hands.
"Don't tell me the great captain of the court doesn't know how to sweep."
He is amused. It has been a long time since anyone has spoken to him so freely. Katen did not count. She was eccentric to say the least.
"Very well."
.
"Why do some zampakuto keep their shinigami alive?"
"Is that what's been bothering you my lord?"
He spares a glance towards Sode no Shirayuki who pours him a glass of chilled spirits. It burns on the way down. He imagines it must be like a thaw.
"Was it obvious?"
The snow spirit hums and pours a glass of her own.
"You are the frost in winter, snow which stacks high in the mountains. But of late, I cannot hear you. Even now, you are very far away."
He reaches out and touches her. Touches her hair which is cool but not cold against his fingers. To use her words, they are both born of blizzards. They are the cold which seeps in and devours a man whole. But he can see, mirrored in her eyes, they are different.
He lets her go.
"I was thinking," He says at last, "how different it must have been to have one of my own."
.
Hyourinmaru finds the boy sitting on the front porch, knees gathered, back hunched like Haineko's when he pets her hair wrong. The boy is upset and he thinks, he would like to fix it. He shakes his head.
"What is wrong?"
The boy raises his head, lips pressed into a flat line.
"Oh, it's you."
He has known the boy long enough to take no offence. It is simply his way. He has no desire to change the nature of things; he likes the boy the way he is.
"Aah," He replies carelessly, sitting down next to the boy.
The boy scoots away. After a moment, he grudgingly admits, "My grandmother. She's sick. Summer cold... it happens."
In his experience, sick humans rarely got better. They were so fragile. He did not understand Muramasa's pride in his kill.
"Can you not find a doctor?"
The boy pales. Unconsciously, he digs his nails into the wood.
"I... I can't. If Momo was here..."
"Why not?"
"They won't see her. They're all..."
Afraid of me. Hyourinmaru finishes silently. He does not know why he thinks this way. Only he is sure, people would be afraid.
Humans were strange.
"Bring her to court." He offered.
"What?!"
Hyourinmaru leans back. He likes the breeze. This is an excellent place for a nap. His lieutenant could not agree more.
"Bring her to court." He repeats sleepily. "Ask for Minazuki. Tell her Hyourinmaru sent you."
.
He does not know if the boy heeded his advice. Perhaps the boy's grandmother is dead. He does not seek out the Fourth Division's captain but it lingers at the back of his mind. Like an icicle on the tile's edge, waiting to grow and branch out.
"Captain," Wabisuke bows. He eyes the spirit's bowed form and the enormous weight he carries on his back. When he asks why he does not share his burden with his human, the spirit answers, "It is mine to bear."
"Then what good is your shinigami?"
The zampakuto stares balefully from under the locks of limp hair.
It is a fair question. What good is a partner who cannot share the weight on their shoulders?
.
The boy is brighter next time they meet.
"I'm sorry." He says, standing as soon as he arrives.
"Come again?"
"I said I was sorry."
"Why?"
The child flushes red.
"My grandmother, she's better now thanks to you. She still has to be careful but." He licks his lips, green eyes wavering. "She's better."
The boy is grateful.
Warmth diffuses in his belly.
"I am glad."
And he is.
.
Muramasa speaks of humans as a means to an end. He sits on his throne, tapping his long nails against a wood pondering thoughts that are his own, in a body his own. He thinks of asking the spirit of doushinitai before deciding against it. There is something fundamentally broken about the other spirit. About all who'd murdered their shinigami partners upon waking.
"But surely, there must be a reason why they exist. Why would we be connected otherwise?"
"Oh my dear Hyourinmaru." Muramasa sighs. "I sometimes forget you never had a shinigami of your own. You, among all of us, are pure. You have never known the weight of their weakness holding you down."
"Perhaps they can be made strong." He proposes.
Everything stops. Narunosuke looks up, eyes lighting with a manic glow.
Muramasa chuckles, low and threatening.
"Do not fret about things you don't understand."
.
He does not understand. The boy sits by himself, calm, quiet, an ideal child. An ideal human. He simply looks on as children play under the hill shrieking with laughter and things he does not think are right. When he finishes his rice balls, he wipes his sticky hand on the stretch of grass and folds the bamboo leaf into a square.
"Why do you not join them?"
"They will not let me join." The boy says promptly.
"Why not?"
"You have eyes don't you?"
He gives the boy a bland look. The boy raises an eyebrow.
"My hair? My eyes? I don't look like them. Kids are scared of me because they think I'm sick—or worse, a demon."
.
A pillow thwacks him on the side of his head.
"Captain!" Haineko whines. "It's too cold!"
"Ah."
The first time she'd tried to shake him awake, she had burned her fingers on his skin. She threw things at him since then. Often with much force than strictly necessary. He stayed on the rooftop but it was a near thing. His lieutenant lets out bellyfuls of laughter as her shinigami poked her golden head out from under thick blankets.
"Is he awake yet?" The female sneezes. Haineko looks at her so fondly he could not believe she ever hated her.
"You care for her."
Haineko's tail stands straight. She shuffles backwards, bumping into her human who catches her, the protective layers falling to the wayside.
He jumps down, held aloft in the moonlight as the air warms. But still, his lieutenant shivers as though cold. No, not cold. He recognizes the uncertainty in her eyes. The first time they met and he had not answered to the name she had called him, that they had all called him. He had to be given his name—his own name. She was afraid of him.
"You hated your shinigami. What changed?"
"I never hated my shinigami." Haineko growls. "I was frustrated, I was angry with her but I never hated her."
"But Muramasa."
"Ah yes, the honorable lord Muramasa." Haineko chirps in a sweet, syrupy voice. But her face remains twisted in rage.
"He set us free." He reminded her.
"To do his dirty work." She complains. "If I had known running a division was this much work, I would have stayed a sword."
"Why didn't you?"
Haineko stares as though he was shy few cards a full deck.
"He compelled us. Everyone."
"Everyone?"
Something nags at him. A memory. Something he forgot. There were hundreds of them. How could one spirit bend others to their will?
"But you, I don't know how he found you. I doubt he knows, I doubt anyone knows why you decided to weigh in on his madness."
"Why not?"
Haineko tugs at her ears.
"You don't have a shinigami."
"I have a shinigami." He argued. Saying it out loud made it seem more real.
His lieutenant shakes her head.
"I don't know Captain, I just don't know."
.
The next day, Haineko is arrested. As her shinigami is pulled from her, she turns rabid.
He hurries to the division barracks where he sees his lieutenant take on not one but four zampakuto at once. And she is winning.
"Release her!" He roars, freezing his surrounding solid.
"C... Ca... Captain." Kirikaze stutters, gasping for air. The shinigami's green hide turns white with frost. He struggles to free his feet as Hyourinmaru sweeps past him, catching his lieutenant by the back of her uniform. "W... we h... ha... ave... orders."
"From whom?" The ice cracks along with his demands. The building will come apart if he does not reign it in.
"M... Muramasa-sama."
He throws the spirits out on the yard where the sun beats down mercilessly blinding his eyes. Behind him, Haineko claws the chains from her shinigami and hisses at the others.
"On what charges?"
"She is a traitor."
He wants to lash out but he can't. It is as though he is enthralled.
"Muramasa."
"You are distraught." The captain-commander soothes. "It must be a terrible shock."
"Haineko is a loyal officer." He replies stoically.
"We have evidence of her involvement in a conspiracy to seal away the sword-spirits."
The idea is so ludicrous he cannot help the snort of laughter. But when he glances back at her, Haineko turns her head away, hiding behind her wild mane.
"Show me." He demands.
He does.
.
"Shit!" The boy gasps. For once, they are not at his house. He is not sure where they are. Even for him, telling apart one glacier from another is an impossible task. He tastes the wind and decides they are wherever he damn feels like where they are. The wind howls, further burying the lines of the landscape. "You need to stop. You're..."
He cannot hear the boy.
"You!" He roars. The storm rages through him. "This is all your fault! You humans!"
"I can't... can't hear you!"
.
"Captain." Narunosuke greets with a thin veneer of courtesy. "I'm afraid you cannot see the Captain-Commander. He is... occupied."
The other spirit does not mention the tracks of ice in his wake. A lesser spirit might have succumbed to his spirit-pressure but his expression is remarkably bland. He is what the others sometimes call a toju. A beast that has turned on its own.
Narunosuke tightens his grip on the katana on his lap. Hyourinmaru's eyes flicker downwards then up. "If there is anything I can help you with."
There is.
"I want my lieutenant released into my custody."
"I'm afraid that is simply not possible."
Akaname is a red kappa with a mouth pulled apart like a long slit across his jaws. He is also a toju. Killed his human very publically in a bid to claim a spot at Muramasa's side.
Hyourinmaru narrows his eyes.
"You think me weak?"
"And," Akaname continues smoothly. "It would implicate you in the conspiracy which would be very unfortunate. Wouldn't you say so Captain?"
.
"For an ice spirit, you are remarkably hot-headed."
Clouds churn overhead. He glares at Katen who waves at him through a window, a bottle of wine clutched in one hand and a bowl in another. "Care for a drink?"
"I am busy." He says shortly. Much of daily duties had been carried out by his lieutenant. There were patrols to consider. Replacements for Haineko and her human.
Katen cackles, nursing her drink.
"You are acting like a child."
"Then teach me." He demands, turning to her. "How can I fix this?"
For the first time, he notices that she is not alone. Accompanying her is Gonryomaru, Tenkken and Hozukimaru. They wary at his attention, the bright glow of their eyes dimming as though he could mistake them for anything other than what they are.
"I wonder." Katen yawns, tugging at the heavy obi under her breasts. "How well do you remember your first days at the court? Are you really damaged as Minazuki says you are?"
He growls.
"You go too far."
"Think."
His teeth click shut.
"I do not remember. There was no in between. I was and I came."
"Hmm..." Katen says thoughtfully. Gonryomaru refills her bowl. "Tell me, do you ever wonder about your shinigami?"
His reaction is telling. The other spirit coos at frost blooms across her fingertips, licking off the hoary petals.
"Find him." She says, her lone eye blinding.
"Why?"
"Because." She nodded to the night. "If you don't, he will."
.
He cannot find the boy in the storm.
On the first day his division goes without its lieutenant, he petitions for a leave of absence. He is distressed; he needed to think.
"Of course." Muramasa agrees mildly. "It must have been a shock."
"It was." He says, short, barely ruffling the feathers on his mantle.
"When do you expect to return?"
"I don't know."
.
"Tell me your name."
"I... can't... hear you!"
.
He pries himself from bed. His evening gown, normally immaculate, hangs in strips on his back. The entire room has frozen over, the entire division must be freezing and he wonders where is Haineko? Why hadn't she woken him up and he remembers with dull shock. She is gone.
Hyourinmaru throws the doors open and stalks into the yard, unable to sleep, unable to calm himself, each step carving permafrost in the packed earth. Kirikaze shifts uneasily when caught in his pale gaze. But he was named for the moon and there is nothing under its silver radiance he does not already know.
"Be gone!" He barks and the toju does not hesitate twice.
Kirikaze will return, by himself or with reinforcements but he will return.
Hyourinmaru does not plan to be here when he does.
.
"Came with his grandmother." Minazuki rasps when prompted. "Toushiro, I think he was."
"Where is he?"
"He went home. With his grandmother."
"Where." He pleads. It is unlike him. But he is desperate. Hyourinmaru thinks of all the ways his shinigami has been hurt, could have been hurt, despite their nearness. Doushinitai. Two bodies. One mind. He has wasted too much time.
It is his failing as a captain but he is not a creature of warmth. He does not crave company in the way others do. Having a shinigami is a more of a novelty than anyone realizes. But the boy knows him. Depends on him.
He leaves no instructions. No clues. It is best that no one knows what he is about to do.
The boy's grandmother is dead. The boy is distraught. It is obvious that no one has looked in on them in a long time.
Gently, he unravels the boy's fist from where it's clutching the old woman's sleeves. His hands are raw, scabbed over with frost. The air stinks of blood and sickness and cold that cannot be shaken off. They are winter. It is inevitable.
"Child stop, she is dead."
He laments because she hadn't need to be if he had realized sooner. Doushintai, they were connected.
"I can't, I don't know, I've tried."
"Then you must learn." His fingers dip towards the boy's collar and at once, ice encases them. "Come with me."
"Her body," the boy hiccups, bewildered by his presence. "I need to."
"I will help."
.
Toushiro insists on burning the body.
He is a creature of ice; he has no love for fire. Yet he understands that humans are creatures of comforts. They desire warmth like Muramasa wants power. It is a little enough concession for a woman who had guarded his human for so long. He grants it. There are benefits to having a fire spirit as a lieutenant.
The smoke makes his eyes sting.
"What happens now?" Toushiro asks thickly, wiping his eyes.
"I take you somewhere safe."
"The court?"
"No," he denies vehemently. "That is the opposite of safe."
"But I was fine, when I..." the boy's voice hitches. "Took granny to your doctor."
"It is not safe." Hyourinmaru does not know how to explain it better. He turns and narrowly misses the spear aimed at his jugular.
"Ara," Tsuchigumo sighs, when steel bites his poisoned blade. "I can be so clumsy sometimes. Please hold still Captain Hyourinmaru while I remove your head."
He kicks the boy towards the house.
"Run!"
But they are both caught in the spider-spirit's silky web. Tsuchigumo rubs his four hands in excitement as others arrive one by one. Yamata, Akaname, Tenome, Narunosuke and Kirikaze.
"I see Muramasa has sent you to do his dirty work." He complains bitterly.
"Muramasa-sama sends his regards." Akaname replies. "Did you really think this would work?"
"Oy, oy, what the hell is happening?"
Toushiro.
Fondness punches the side of his chest. It oozes out from his heart's cavity and makes him tremble even as the skies sink with unshed snow. His fingers flicker and the spider silk snaps off easily in the cold.
"Forgive me, I am not used to having a human partner."
"A human what?!"
His wings stretch, shielding the boy's fragile frame.
"When you are ready, please call my name."
"Wait what? You've never... I don't."
"You do." He says firmly. "You are Hitsugaya Toushiro and you are my shinigami."
"You are insane!"
When he is cut, he does not bleed. Instead, water spills down his front, soaking into the under-armor of his uniform. The fabric stretches as he swells into his shape. Not the human-like false thing Muramasa forced him into in his mad bid for control.
Toushiro looks on in terror as he grows and grows and grows.
Doushinitai—do not be afraid.
He does not. The boy is confused but not afraid. And the uncertainties manifest as anger which toss the winds into a storm.
"Sit upon the frozen skies!"
.
"You used me." He accuses when he wakes.
"But of course." Katen says easily, blowing rings into his face. "Did you really think we trusted you? For all we knew, Muramasa could have put you up to it."
"He hates the shinigami." Hyourinmaru said.
Katen shakes her head.
"He pretended. In an extremely convoluted and unnecessary plan, he was trying to free his shinigami. Whose location which was inside Ryuujin Jakka's head."
When the name brought no recognition, the female spirit waved him off and said, "That is not important. The important part is that he needed you to get the information. You are young but you are the most powerful of the snow and ice families. And so, here we are. All that is well ends well, do you not agree?"
"Please do not smoke near my patients Katen-san."
The ghostly shape of Minazuki glided from her shadow. "How do you feel Hyourinmaru-san?"
"Warm." He grunted, pushing off his sheets. "Where is...?"
"Sleeping, something you would do well to follow."
He ignores the barbed remark.
"Can I see him?"
.
"Toushiro." He says, unable to help himself when he see the boy lying on his side.
The boy grunts. His white eyelashes flutter as he awakes and he opens his mouth, features pinched tight as he gathers himself for the sheer recklessness Hyourinmaru has displayed in battle. It is not new. Haineko brings it up once or twice when the blood stains get to be too much.
"Peace. Would you not do the same to those who tormented you in the past?"
"None of them," Toushiro responds heatedly, "breathed fire."
He likes the boy; he likes Toushiro. It is good that he has a shinigami. His mind feels whole.
.
Eventually, Muramasa's spell breaks down. The spirits return to their swords. The toju are hunted down.
It is not so different. He still freezes the barracks from time to time, if only to keep the others on their toes. Thankfully, the Tenth Division takes well to Toushiro's leadership. It amuses him that the boy asks him for council even when Hyourinmaru had very little to do with the day-to-day tasks.
Haineko is correct. Paper work is boring.
"What do I do now then?" Toushiro asks in despair, leading a scouting team on the trail of a hollow.
"You are a dragon Toushiro." He says, recalling the words of someone else. "Be that you are."