Hitsugaya does not know how he ended up here, in this place, with these people. He has never wanted to visit Earth, and of everyone who came with him, only one person is actually in his division. Before he had entered the Academy, he would never have envisioned being friendly with such an…odd group. He has never been what one would call normal, but he had never thought to fit in here, with them, and he fits in very well indeed. He wonders what that says about his character, that their association feels so natural and right to him.
It never felt this way with Momo, but that doesn't matter much anymore, because Hitsugaya is pretty sure that they won't be spending much time together in the future. Pretty, gentle Momo, his best, first (and for a long time only) friend. Momo, who had wanted to save people, who had adored Aizen, who had been betrayed and then betrayed others in turn. Momo, who had come at him with a sword in her hand and death in her eyes.
Momo, who he had only wanted to protect. It wasn't that he'd failed her (and he hates that word failure because as a prodigy, a genius, it should never be applied to him, but it is) because he hadn't, not really, even though he couldn't help but partly blame himself. Momo failed herself. She broke and she just didn't have the strength to put herself back together without Aizen to show her how. And perhaps that, and not her naïveté and gullibility, was her biggest failure of all.
Matsumoto is nothing like her. Matsumoto does not need to be protected, and if Hitsugaya tried, he knows she would just attempt to suffocate him (again) in her not-inconsiderable cleavage. Matsumoto fights at his back, and sometimes at his side, and she never gives up, even though she broke just as terribly as Momo. Hitsugaya wonders what it means that the main women in his life both fell in love with the worst traitors in the history of Soul Society. The difference is what happened after. Matsumoto picked herself up and put herself back together. And yes, she was a different shape and missing a few pieces, but she was stronger for it.
It's the missing pieces that really define you after all.
It is not unusual to break like that in Soul Society. It's practically a requirement for becoming a captain, for becoming strong. The one exception to this rule is Aizen, and this is partly the reason Hitsugaya believes they will defeat him. He has never broken and because of that fact, there are things he can simply never understand, and so he will never think to fight against.
Matsumoto loves to shop, and gives off an air of a bubbly air headed girl, but there is a core of steel inside of her that most people don't see. Gin saw it and tried to utilize it, but in the end he couldn't. Matsumoto has already claimed the right to kill Gin, and he thinks it will be a painful death for both of them.
Then of course, there are the three morons, Renji, Ikakku, and Yumichika. They are loud, obnoxious, boorish, slovenly, crude, strong, loyal, and dedicated. Sometimes, when Hitsugaya looks at them laughing, playing, fighting, living, he wishes, just for a moment, that he had been a part of the 11th division too. But then Ikkaku will do his stupid luck luck dance, and Yumichika will make some impossibly vain remark while Renji spouts off the most idiotic comments, and he will thank all that is holy that he never served under Kenpachi.
As for Rukia, Hitsugaya has actually trained with her before. This is not that surprising, considering the similarities in their Zanpaktuou. White winters, icy snows, and cold, hard, winds spin out from them, and at one point both he and Rukia covered almost all of Soul Society in beautiful unforgiving ice. Someday, Hitsugaya knows, he and Rukia will release their zanpaktuou together and the aftermath will be stunning in its destruction, one of the most amazing sights to behold. It's a silent promise between them, for after they defeat Aizen and relative peace returns.
Orihime is, he thinks, the most underestimated of their group. People see a sweet pretty healer and disregard the rest. There is great strength in her, and the ability to do things others don't even consider. Hitsugaya doesn't think it will be long until she shows people what she is truly made of. The other side of healing, after all, is death, and Orihime is a very very good healer.
Ichigo, Hitsugaya believes, would fit in very well with the rest of the 11th division (which makes Hitsugaya wonder how he would fit there, considering how he fits with them). He too is strong, stronger than he gives himself credit for, even though he thinks it's his duty to save everyone (it's not, Hitsugaya knows, because Ichigo is not the captain). He thinks of himself as the hero of the story, and he's strong enough to pull it off, despite the fact that he's not truly a shinigami, despite the fact that he's human.
Hitsugaya wonders how long it will take Ichigo to realize that his humanity is probably his greatest strength of all.
This is who he fits with. Not with the broken girl who didn't have enough strength to remake herself, or the captain who had too much of the wrong kind of strength to break the way he needed to, but with the pretty airheads and the stupidly strong.
Hitsugaya sits on the roof, watching Renji and Ikkaku throw punches at each other and scream obscenities while Yumichika smirks on the sidelines, the (forgotten) cause of the fight. He watches Rukia berate Ichigo for doing something stupid (again), as Matsumoto unbuttons another one of her buttons to display even more cleavage, and Orihime flits around, trying desperately to keep the peace. He watches and wonders how he ended up in this place, with these people.
He watches and wonders; is this what it means to belong?