For the Better
Author's Note: I'm probably getting too emotional lately, since I still cry at the same parts of the novel. Hmm. Anyway, this is one reeeeally short oneshot – you may even call it a drabble – based on the D-Dust novel. Edit – just know that the pictures are on my lj account, under friend-lock.
Disclaimer: Now this time, I own the plot-less plot in this oneshot. One part of this, towards the end, is a translation from the novel.
Agreeing to take up the job of protecting the Ouin was probably something he intended to do so all along. In his younger days, he remembered, he would always talk about how grand it must be for a taichou to be put in charge of guarding the Ouin during the moving ceremony. He would always reply with a nod and a rolling of his eyes before continuing to bite into his sugared nattou. But he never realized how much the talk of the Ouin had really affected him even till the present day.
Giving him chase after he had caused the ravaged cartages, deciding that it was time to end it for good, were the things which he would normally do given any kind of circumstances. He just wasn't ready to kill the same man twice. But maybe, maybe…if he had shared his problems with Kurosaki in the first place, would it have made a difference in his and Kusaka's lives? He didn't like the idea of letting others get tangled in his personal problems, knowing fully well that they wouldn't be able to understand what he was going through anyway, but Kurosaki…was different.
He knew. He knew what it was like. Kurosaki had gone through something similar, but he didn't say exactly what. It was only when he took the initiative to ask Kuchiki Rukia did he know of Kurosaki's past – his mother, the hollow, everything. To a human, it was probably even more devastating than his own loss of the closet friend he ever had, for this human had lost the person who was prepared to take good care of him until he grew into his finer years. To this human, this former ryoka, he had pushed the burden to himself.
But there was one thing that no one, not even Kuchiki could understand; it was the unexplainable tugging at his chest whenever he unsheathed his blade at Kusaka during this course of confusion and battles. It was just like when they were about to graduate, the Central 46 forcing them to battle, offering the winner not only true ownership of the zanpakutou which they shared, but also a good place in the Gotei 13; it was too good an offer for Kusaka. And thus, the fight was brought upon; with him losing his life as a result. And just as Hitsugaya was mentally prepared to get over his death once the Ouin ceremony was over…he came to him again.
How nostalgic, he had said; indeed, the reiatsu was just too familiar to Hitsugaya for him to even think about forgetting this reiatsu after decades of his presumed death. Had it been the right choice to make when his heart decided to let go of the past and bring it to a closure? Had it been the right choice to let his feet take him to where Kusaka had fled to? Had it…?
And here he stood, below the Soukyoku Hill where they have fought for the second time, both of which ended in a similar manner. He was declared the owner of Hyourinmaru, but he wasn't elated. Watching Kusaka struggle against the brink of death, asking for one more chance, had been too hard for him to bear; he called for Kusaka, attempting to chase after him, but was restrained by the Central 46, only to watch him die before his very eyes. It was the same, just not too long ago; only this time…he wasn't going to come back.
He had killed the same man twice, with the very same blade. He had witnessed his death twice, his body turning into the dust that ascended the heavens. He had felt the reiatsu that was once clouding his senses disappear into nothingness twice, as if it had never existed in the first place.
"Taichou!" came a voice from atop the hill. Hitsugaya turned towards it, his eyes gleaming with a tinge of loneliness.
Perhaps it had been for the better.