It's already high noon when she opens her eyes. The sunlight bounces off the fresh blanket of snow enveloping the Seireitei, blinding her, prompting her to shove her face back into her pillow.
The division knew not to expect her today. She never comes on this day. Her lieutenant has dutifully assumed her responsibilities.
Hinamori eventually convinces herself to leave the refuge of her futon and rises languidly to her feet. She stares at the haori hanging by the door.
It's so very cold today.
She saunters down the narrow paths of the Seireitei's labyrinthine cemetery. The graves seem more tightly packed than ever - lonely in the thin winter air, hungry for visitors.
Hinamori finds the one she's been looking for. She comes to a stop, star anise in hand, and kneels.
"Hi, Captain," she says softly, placing the star anise in the small vase anchored to the headstone. "It's hard to believe it's already been another year."
It's so frigid that her breath comes out in translucent puffs. She can hardly feel her lips and fingertips. Shivers rack her body, but she's accustomed to that sensation.
Per usual, she tells him the major events of the past year, the current goings-on.
"I know you told me that it's pointless to dwell on the dead, but you'd probably be upset if I weren't telling you what's going on, wouldn't you?" She laughs. "That's just like you, Captain."
She sits there, enveloped in comfortable silence, as she absentmindedly rearranges the anise in the vase. As much as she wants to, as much as she wills herself to, she simply cannot cry. Nothing comes out. She wonders if this year will be the year where she weeps and lets her soul filter out through her tears, but the silence stretches on and nothing comes.
"I guess it's time for me to get going," she says after some time. Hesitantly, she rises to her feet, blinking slowly and steadying her breathing. "I'll be back."
Guilt, a leaden leech, anchors her to the ground.
The white of the scintillating snow calls to mind many other things.
The whites of her captain's eyes as he succumbed. The white of his haori as blood seeped into it, staining it, swelling until there wasn't much white left at all. The white walls of the chamber where she was promoted under the captains' skeptical stares.
("We, the captains of the Gotei 13, upon recognition of the successful completion of taishu, hereby promote Momo Hinamori to position of Captain of the Fifth Division.")
There was none of the ebullience that accompanied Rukia Kuchiki's ceremony. It felt, if anything, like a trial, a psychic interrogation where not a word was uttered. Lips pressed into thin lines, breaths held. Her eyes had darted around, seeking camaraderie, and settling upon the floor when she had no audience. She had suppressed the urge to defend herself, despite no one having the audacity to directly question her.
It was not enough that she was crushed under the weight of her captain's death. It was not enough that her previous captain tried to kill her twice. It was not enough that everyone already doubted her stability, her sanity, her skills. Members of the Gotei 13 still sought someone to blame for Shinji Hirako's demise.
Several years later, she no longer feels the sting of their suspicion.
(Yet, it does nothing to relieve her of the legacy she has inherited.)
Hinamori swallows hard when Hitsugaya comes to collect her for an emergency captain's meeting.
"What do you think it could be, Shiro-chan?" she asks as a chill racks her body - for multiple reasons.
"Beats me," he replies, reticent.
They open the sliding doors to the captain's meeting room on the First Division grounds and briskly cross the threshold to their respective spots. She appraises the room and finds that nearly everyone appears to be just as perplexed as she was.
Shunsui gestures nonchalantly from his position at the head of the room. "Looks like everyone's here. I hate to interrupt such a peaceful winter evening, but your warm cups of sake will have to wait until Mayuri-san shares the reason why we're gathered here."
"Very well. I will waste no time making my findings digestible for the commoners here. His is a name I hate to feel on my tongue. But! Aizen's reiatsu can be felt now, however faint. I'm sure you all recall his strength during the war," Kurotsuchi says. "There is no reasonable explanation for how a man in Muken can become more powerful."
She maintains what she hopes is an impassive expression; she channels her energies into gripping the sides of her haori until her knuckles go white.
"The simple fact is that so long as the Hougyoku exists within him, he will grow stronger, and with that comes the ability to escape his bonds." A hint of glee creeps into Kurotsuchi's expression as he taps his fingers against his sides. "To spare us the annoyance of a possible breakout, however, my team has developed a way to extract the damned thing from him."
Stunned silence falls over the room. Sui Feng's jaw squares, Isane's eyes widen. The older captains - Rose, Kensei, Lisa - maintain neutral expressions, but the tension is thick and palpable. For her part, Hinamori looks down at her arms and notes the raised bumps on her skin.
"My, what a claim, Mayuri-san," Shunsui says with as airy of a smile as ever. "How exactly do you intend to go about that?"
Kurotsuchi launches into a convoluted explanation of what it would take to accomplish the extraction of the Hougyoku, one that not many in the room understand or care about.
"Captain Hinamori will assist with the sealing of his reiatsu."
"Out of the question," Hitsugaya says tersely before she has the opportunity to react. "Find someone else."
"Oh? I would ask if you'd volunteer yourself, Captain Hitsugaya, but you'd be ill equipped for the job."
Hitsugaya opens his mouth to object, but Mayuri continues before he has the opportunity to do so.
"The fact remains that Captain Hinamori is the only one among us currently capable of casting the kidou required to temporarily seal his reiatsu for the duration of the procedure. I cannot maintain the seal and perform this operation at the same time."
"Surely the Captain Commander could do it," Isane offers.
"Why waste his time when - "
"I'll do it!" Hinamori interjects. The burden of a dozen pairs of eyes falls upon her and she squares her shoulders. "I have no objections."
Hitsugaya stiffens. "Hinamori…"
"It's just kidou, after all," she mutters.
"Splendid. We will commence promptly tomorrow. I assume the traitor's execution will follow soon enough after that?" Kurotsuchi says to Shunsui.
Contradictory to his earlier statement, Shunsui takes a sip of sake, pensive. For once, Hinamori can't blame him.
"I had wanted to see if he could change," he admits, "but I suppose we can't hinge thousands of lives on one man's mercy."
Grief compounded upon grief following Captain Hirako's untimely death. Hinamori retreated and entered a chrysalis where instead of resting, she worked and worked and worked. She trained late into the night, she trained until every nerve was ablaze with pain, she trained until she collapsed onto the ground near the Fifth Division barracks and could taste the grit of dirt on her lips. She did not relent even when her subordinates dragged her back into her quarters in the dim light of dawn.
She emerged from her cocoon a husk - a powerful, fearsome, useful husk.
And so, no one said a word.
Hinamori wakes up with a throb in her head and an ache in her stomach on the day of the operation. Nonetheless, she flash steps toward the First Division, eager to be done with this.
Kurotsuchi and his team have already congregated in front of the barracks. He nods, acknowledging her presence.
"Shall we, then?"
Two First Division members lead the team across the threshold, opening - with some hesitance, she notes - the entrance to the underground prison. The droning silence of the first level alone is enough to drive her to madness, but Kurotsuchi appears unrattled.
She is ushered deeper into the prison, shadows engulfing her - choking her - until they reach Muken. It takes every ounce of willpower to stave away the dread.
Hinamori wishes it was dark enough that she couldn't see a thing.
"I was told to expect you," his sonorous voice says, piercing the veil of silence between the team.
"Good! Then you must understand that you're only a subject now. Your input is not needed," Kurotsuchi says censoriously.
Aizen looks her in the eye, studying her as one would a scientific specimen.
"I see you've been promoted," he says. "Congratulations, as late as it may be."
Her fingers twitch. "It would be in your best interest to stay quiet, prisoner."
Unfazed, he turns his attentions to Mayuri. "So you've come to extract the Hougyoku from me. Work quickly, then."
The Twelfth Division shinigami waste no time in hauling him from his chair. He does not resist when they set him down upon the gurney. She hears Kurotsuchi comment on how unnervingly pliant their subject is, but she isn't listening. As they prepare to subdue him, he looks up at her.
"That kanzashi is quite becoming on you." He regards her hairclip of plum tree flowers strung together, dangling, situated at the junction of her ponytail, with twisted fondness.
"I've had enough talk from the vermin," Kurotsuchi interjects. "Captain Hinamori."
She looks everywhere but his eye as she dutifully casts the binding kidou.
In the depths of the night, long after she has surreptitiously stolen away to her quarters following the successful completion of the procedure, she tears the clip from her hair and burns it, savoring the smell of smoke.
When she thinks of the captain that deserved to die and couldn't, the one who deserved to live and didn't, and the fact that she could do nothing for either of them, she wants to cry. That river ran dry many years ago, however.
"Captain," she entreats toward the moon, "how am I supposed to feel?"
When her time to keep watch comes, she approaches Shunsui in his First Division office.
"I want to stand watch alone."
"Hmm?" Shunsui rests his face on his fingers and raises his eyebrows in a conciliatory display of sympathy. "You know I'd be stupid to let you do that."
She pointedly studies the tatami patterns on the floor. "I'll be fine."
He suddenly sits up straight; the sympathy is gone, replaced by uncharacteristic severity. His eyes wander to the center of her chest and she feels unbearably naked before him. "I can see what you're trying to do. If you keep opening up that wound, it's never going to heal, you know."
Oh, she knows - she knows all too well because she picks at that flaking scab on her soul far more often than she'd like to admit.
"Please, Captain Commander."
She raises her eyes to meet his, and she thinks she sees a glimmer of pity. It's a familiar, if bitter, sight.
Shunsui is quiet, pensive, for a length of time that seems to stretch and twist into forever. Finally, he sighs and shrugs, as though the matter is entirely out of his jurisdiction. "How can I refuse when a woman looks at me so honestly? Go ahead, then. He can't do anything to you anyway."
The First Division relocated him from Muken to the sixth level in light of the diminished threat he now poses to Soul Society. Nevertheless, he is alone on this level as he was in Muken.
She braces herself before entering the chamber - much in the same way she braces when she's knocked from the sky, plummeting toward the earth.
She enters the dimly lit room - oppressively grey and ashen. Her arrival rouses his attention.
"Captain Hinamori. What a pleasant surprise," he greets. "I see that you're alone."
"I'm not here to pay you a personal visit." She folds her arms across her chest defensively. It's a half lie, and she suspects that he knows this. She always was a butterfly pinned to a board in his eyes.
"Very well." He tilts his head with mild curiosity. "Although, this may be the last opportunity for you to say whatever is undoubtedly on your mind."
Her nails dig into the sides of her arm.
"...I see what's happening here."
"So you say."
Hinamori can see what Shunsui meant now. She knew what he meant all along. Her chest burns, and she abruptly yearns for Captain Hirako's return.
"I know the truth. This is exactly what you want, isn't it? You want to die. You could have done something to stop this, but you didn't."
The smile and its attendant condescension fade from his expression, leaving something inscrutable behind in its wake.
"I spoke to Kisuke Urahara once, a long time ago," she confesses, glancing at the floor. "And he told me something that I didn't expect."
"Oh?" He raises an eyebrow.
"When Ichigo Kurosaki touched your sword, he felt loneliness," she murmurs.
Aizen visibly bristles.
"Is that true?"
"That you would ask me such a thing shows me you haven't changed." The icy smirk has returned. "You want to believe that I might be redeemable."
Their time apart, their respective metamorphoses, has engendered a gulf between them that even he - he, who walks on water - cannot cross.
"Are you sure that isn't what you want to believe?"
He presses his lips into a thin line, and she fights the urge to continue when she hears someone speak.
"You are relieved." The rich baritone of Byakuya Kuchiki's voice penetrates the taut quiet between them.
She lets out a strained breath of relief and begins to turn around, ready to spurn the suffocating shadows of this place, before she hears him speak.
"Do you hate me, Hinamori?"
She looks at him out of the corner of her eye, and she can't tell how sincere that question is - if it is at all sincere. His expression yields no hints. However, Hinamori will assume that he's being earnest (just as she always has) and answers in kind.
"Yes," she says, "and I will never forgive you."
He's silent. His eye is looking at her, but appears to be gazing somewhere far beyond her. Somewhere that might not exist. Finally, he closes his eye and smiles.
"I'm glad."
A thick blanket of grey clouds hangs from the heavens on the day of his execution. She is present there and watches as Shunsui casts his blades down upon him. The earth runs red, and for an arresting moment, she fears that this is not the end. Others feel the same, judging by the way they hold their breaths, statuesque.
Rivulets of blood continue to cascade down the hill, mirroring the tears streaming down her face. He did not spare even a paltry glance in her direction.
There is no cheering; Soul Society's joy is quiet. No, there is no joy - relief is a more apt word. She surveys the other captains and lieutenants, the lower-seated shinigami, and comes to the chilling realization that she is alone in crying.
Shunsui sheathes his blades - the picture of uncharacteristic sobriety. His gaze moves slowly from Aizen's decapitated form toward her. Their eyes meet. He sees her tears. He heaves a sigh.
One by one, shinigami filter out and away from the execution grounds. She can feel Hitsugaya's concerned stare as he hesitates to leave, and he only does so at Matsumoto's urging. They all leave until Hinamori is the only one standing, her scar peeking through her shihakusho.
Hinamori feels nothing much at all when she opens the sliding doors to her quarters, just before the moon climbs to its apex in the night sky. She shrugs off her haori and hangs it up, slips the rest of her robes off, and slides into her futon, bare to the night. Sleep envelops her and she eagerly accepts.
She does not dream, but she wakes long before the sun rises and feels phantom fingers tracing her chest, pushing at her sternum and looking to steal her still-beating heart.
She wishes they would.