Petrichor
War is not kind enough to give time for recovery. Post Fake Karakura battle AU.
Part I
Serein
"There is always a storm. There is always rain.
Some experience it, some live through it.
And others are made from it."
- Shannon L Alder
.
Ichigo woke to an unrelenting pressure to his gut. The smell of wet, crushed grass clogged his senses, and he blinked his vision into clarity. After several gasps of cold, humid air, his eyes managed to focus in the darkness on the barrel of a small pistol aimed straight at the centre of his forehead.
The grogginess faded instantly, but the confusion remained. He jerked upright, but the heel of a heavy boot dug into his side, its weathered rubber sole pressing him into the wet gravel.
The hand that held the gun was expertly steady, and a commanding voice loomed from above him. 'Speak, or die.'
'What?'
'I ask again. What is a stormbringer doing in our valley?' With one smooth flick of the wrist, the safety catch flipped off.
His first instinct was to roll out from under the foot pressing him down, but being dizzy from too many factors to count - mainly confusion - drastically hindered his ability to do so. Instead, he raised his palms in surrender. 'I can explain,' Ichigo started, hoping to buy some well-needed time to calm his frayed nerves, gather his wits and figure out what the hell was actually going on.
'Very good,' the menacing tone from beyond the gun said, completely unmoved by his surrender. 'Because you are in violation of the treaty.'
'Is it really a crime to get knocked out and wake up in a foreign land?' he questioned, regretting getting sassy with a stranger holding a gun only a moment later.
Ichigo tore his gaze from the terrifying weapon that was still trained on his forehead and forced himself to take in his surroundings. Dark grey mountains rose in all directions, imposing and grand, their rough and jagged silhouettes like the edges of ripped paper. Although the entire mountain range was pitch dark, the highest peak was alight with a shining blue flame, and the plateau to its left hummed with the gentle yellow glow of a civilisation - his town, he realised. The ink-black sky was flooded with innumerable stars and galaxies in the darkness, while thick angry clouds threatened to eat away at the clear night. The bases of the mountains melded together in a vast crumble of rock that descended into a plain of tall grass, which turned to gravel that bordered the lake. At the centre of the valley was an immense lake, its surface still as glass, yet darker than the night. Shimmering on the water surface were clusters of silver light that mirrored the constellations from above, wavering faintly despite the fact that there was neither current nor wind. Where there were clouds, he noticed, the lake was devoid of light.
He had never been to Starlight Valley before, but there was no other place with a mining lake so vast. Also, there was no other place on earth where he would be pinned down by a boot and held at gunpoint. Probably. Under different circumstances (ones that didn't involve his life at stake), he might have been excited. The process of mining starlight had always intrigued him - how did the reflections of the stars in the glassy still surface of the lake turn into tangible energy? He'd heard it was like scooping gossamer, shining and brilliant and glorious, off the lake; he'd heard it was like the will-o-the-wisps of the water.
The person holding the gun snarled like a feral creature. 'It is a crime,' he hissed.
A second voice caught him by surprise - he hadn't noticed that his assailant had company. 'Now, now, Captain. Whatever happened to "innocent until proven guilty"?'
'Shut up, Matsumoto,' the first voice retorted. 'We're arresting him.'
Matsumoto giggled. 'Aw, you're just mad that he sank your boat, aren't you?'
'...That might have been a factor,' the first voice said contemplatively. Ichigo felt the boot lift from his stomach, yet a seemingly otherworldly pressure kept him on the ground, stealing his consciousness. As quickly as it was revealed to him, the sight of a tall blonde and a boy with glowing green eyes faded with his senses.
Stormhunters, his mind automatically told him.
That's strange. Where have I seen them before?
.
.
'He saved the Valleys once - we shouldn't be treating him like some sort of criminal!'
'We have no choice, do we? He has no memory of those events.'
'It is only for his safety, after all. Aizen is on the loose.'
'Perhaps wiping his memory was not the wisest of decisions.'
'Is there a possibility of the recent events triggering a total recall?'
'Will his stormhunter powers awaken again?'
The meeting was, as usual, utterly ridiculous. What little starlight his men had collected that evening simmered quietly in a lamp, flickering weakly around the shadows of the remaining captains. No one had said a word about how he had showed up last to the meeting he had requested - drenched, five men and one boat less, and with unsettling news of an unexpected visitor in tow. It would only be a matter of time before the Captain-commander shut everyone up and began criminalising him.
Three, two, one-
Yamamoto rapped his heavy wooden cane against the polished wood of the floor, effectively silencing the murmurs that filled the hall. 'Captain Hitsugaya, if you would provide an adequate explanation for this,' he rumbled, gesturing vaguely around the inadequately lit room and the damp puddle that trailed from the doorway to the spot under Hitsugaya.
Hitsugaya sighed.
'We have a treaty with the Stormbringers of Granite Plateau,' he began. 'In return for peaceful weather in Starlight Valley, we supply them with ten per cent of the starlight we harvest.'
'Tell us something we don't know, will you?' Kurotsuchi could be such a pain, he thought. Hitsugaya refused to tear his gaze from where he was caught in a deadlock stare-down with the Captain-commander, but Kurotsuchi's voice always sounded like nails dragging across a blackboard and some days he just really, really wanted to punch him in the pasty white face.
'Let him continue,' Ukitake prompted gently.
'Yes,' he bit out impatiently. 'Let me continue. This evening, I sent five men to the lake, only to have them killed in a Class A storm before the backup they requested could show up. By the time I arrived, it had subsided to a Class C, and in the eye of the storm I find none other than Kurosaki Ichigo of Granite Plateau. It seemed that he retains no memories of the Valleys or his role in the war. To be on the safe side, we have placed him in a holding cell for now. What I want to know is, how did he end up here? What, exactly, has the Border Guard been doing to let him so far inland into my valley?'
Yamamoto did not blink. Instead, he said calmly, 'I received no report of a Class A storm.'
'I haven't reported it,' Hitsugaya reminded him irritably while he dripped water all over the floor. 'I just returned. I'm reporting it now.'
'Hm,' Yamamoto remained unconvinced. 'What does the Border Guard have to say about this?'
Soifon stepped forward, her face expressionless and unreadable. 'The border was not breached this evening, sir.'
'I want detailed reports on the events of this evening and border activity of the past week,' Yamamoto ordered. 'Captain Ukitake will handle the investigation - this meeting is adjourned. And, Captain Hitsugaya? I would prefer my captains dry and presentable when they request meetings in the middle of the night.'
'Yes, sir,' he sighed as he turned and went, squelching most unbecomingly out of the presence of the Captain-commander.
.
.
Upon returning to the warm comfort of his office, Hitsugaya dropped himself into his oversized chair behind his oversized desk.
'How was the meeting?' Matsumoto asked from behind an ominous tower of papers and files. 'Alcohol for you, sir?' She asked, without waiting for him to even answer her first question. She was, unlike him, freshly showered and dressed in dry gear. He wrung out the cuffs of his jacket fruitlessly and swept back hair that had pasted itself to his cheeks.
'I hate meetings. All old men and big egos and narrow minds. Also politics.'
'Hm,' his lieutenant responded mostly indifferently. 'Alcohol for you, sir? Warms the body and lifts the soul?'
'I shall "warm my body" and "lift my soul" with other methods not involving intoxication, thank you very much. Have you done any paperwork at all?' Hitsugaya began kneading his temples, as if it would do anything to cease the onset of another headache.
Matsumoto laughed again, though it would never be as bright and sunny as it had been before the war. 'What do you take me for? I've filled in that Class A storm report, the damages report, the paperwork to transfer the responsibility of Kurosaki Ichigo to the Thirteenth, and also conveniently left out any details about how you were nearly defeated by an unconscious stormbringer. Appreciation please, Captain?'
He slouched down and rested his cheek against the cool wood of the table. 'Okay, yeah. Do whatever you want.'
'Really?' Matsumoto perked up visibly, nearly toppling a stack of documents in the process. 'Then I want you to go talk to Momo.'
'God.'
'You haven't spoken a word to her ever since this whole Aizen thing began, right? That's almost a whole year,' she pointed out matter-of-factly.
'What can I do to turn you back into the slacking lieutenant who doesn't harass me into doing things I don't want to do?' He began rearranging his in-tray and wiped down his favourite pen.
'If you would just listen to me and accept the fact that she doesn't hate you-'
'This conversation is completely dysfunctional, you know.'
'You can't keep running from your problems the way you keep steering our conversations into the ditch, Captain.'
'Can't you tell that Aizen's betrayal hurt her the most out of all of us? How could I face her when I played such a big role in the efforts to take him down? How could I look her in the eye when, every time she was hospitalised, it was my fault?' He hadn't looked up from the desk at all while he spoke, and if Matsumoto didn't know any better she would have assumed her captain was talking to his knees, except she knew that nobody's knees had ever brought down so much guilt onto a single person's shoulders.
The prolonged silence that ensued was so tense that she wanted to scream, but just as she drew a deep breath, Hitsugaya lifted his head and fixed her with the gaze of a dead man, dull and limp. In that moment she wished she could wish away the system that allowed children to lead a war. In fact, she wished she could wish away the system that allowed children to even be in a war. He was sixteen during the war, still sixteen now, she told herself. Sixteen was far too young to die inside.
She wasn't much older either, she reminded herself.
He had stood up and was making his way purposefully for the door. 'Is that all you had to say?' he asked, his tone as empty as his eyes.
'No.' She chewed the inside of her cheek, wondering what kind of damage she'd have to deal with once she'd said what she wanted to say. This time, it was Matsumoto who looked away - she didn't want to see her words hit him where it hurt most. 'I would give anything to talk to Gin again,' she whispered, as if the volume at which she spoke would alleviate the stupidity of what she was saying.
'I'm sorry,' Matsumoto supplied, slightly louder, but she still dared not look up. 'That was out of line. Sorry.'
Her apology was met with a stark silence, save for the sound of the door clicking shut.
.
.
He needed a bath, not that he wasn't already soaked.
Hitsugaya lowered himself into the bathtub, doing his best to ignore the twinge in his shoulder and the flare of pain in his leg. If he pretended hard enough, maybe he could convince himself that the injuries he sustained just over a month ago did not exist. If he pretended hard enough, maybe he could convince himself that the war did not happen. If he pretended hard enough, maybe he could convince himself that nothing was wrong.
But he knew Matsumoto was right - that a year was too long.
It had been almost exactly a year since Aizen hoofed his evil traitorous intentions out of the Valleys, leaving a trail of casualties in his wake. He had banded together with rebel groups of stormbringers, somehow bestowed them with the powers of stormhunters, and proceeded to wreak havoc. Stormbringers in general had power - they could raise a storm of epic proportions, but with little control of the winds outside of the eye - while stormhunters had precision, the ability to finetune every last gust within a small perimeter.
They had narrowly evaded defeat because of Kurosaki, a boy who possessed both stormbringer and stormhunter powers but belonged to Granite Plateau. He had, at the expense of his stormhunter powers, driven a storm straight into Aizen, successfully weakening him into retreat, while their remaining soldiers destroyed Aizen's forces. Hitsugaya knew, however, that retreat was almost always followed by regroup, then revenge, and that he would never be ready for the counterattack. None of them had escaped uninjured, and the captains had decided it was best for Kurosaki himself that they erase the boy's memories of the war and his powers before sending him back home.
Experimentally, Hitsugaya concentrated his energy into his palm, raising a tiny whirlwind that spun in his lightly-clasped fist. He couldn't imagine life without this power, no matter how much he used to hate it. With a little more effort, he reversed its rotation and shifted its balance. The key to negating storms, they'd been taught, was to counter it with another storm of the exact opposite coordinates, and the only way to achieve that was to combine accurate observation of the storm with perfect control of his powers. Without warning, a bolt of pain shot through his arm, originating from where he knew there was a scar on his shoulder. The storm in his hand vaporised just as quickly, and his arm fell to his side like a deadweight, its movement slowed by the water. He swore under his breath, and slid down until the water level was just beneath his eyes, letting a breath out as a stream of bubbles.
Perhaps he really ought to see Hinamori.
.
.
As it turned out, Hitsugaya barely had the time to even step out of his division's compounds when a slew of events incapacitated any resolve he had worked up in the bath. The blue flame alight by Granite Plateau had turned bright yellow, signifying a distress call. Captain Ukitake requested a meeting with him the following morning, and the Captain-commander had ordered high alert procedures. The Sixth and Eleventh had been dispatched up the mountains, while the remaining divisions had to triple patrol, but being five men short meant he needed to rearrange the roster.
At least the excitement had waited until he was dry and dressed, he mused. It would have been even better if it had waited for him to sleep, too, but all things considered, he admitted he would rather be dressed and sleepless than the other way around.
Slamming the office door open, he found Matsumoto miraculously at her desk. Not so miraculous, unfortunately, was the array of doodles spread across a sheet of rough paper on the desk. With the smoothness of a hardened criminal, she flipped the paper over. 'Oh, hi Captain.'
'Emergency protocol,' he said, interrupting what was most likely an apology he didn't have the heart to discuss. 'No time for apologies and no time for feelings. Notify the division; I'm heading out.' Hitsugaya spoke brusquely as he holstered his spare handgun and loaded his equipment belt, hooking a communication unit around his ear. Outside the window, gathering heavy clouds consumed the lightening dawn sky, rendering a darkness deeper than night.
'I'm coming with you,' Matsumoto said immediately, mirroring his movements. 'If we yodel while we run down the corridor, the division will follow us out, if not out of curiosity.'
'But your ribs-' Hitsugaya protested.
'Bah. If all the unrecovered people stayed home, we might as well enter lockdown.'
'And nobody is going to yodel.'
Fortunately for the figures of authority of the Tenth Division and their dignity, as they threw themselves out of the office, they collided into a group of concerned soldiers. Succinct orders sent them scurrying, filling the narrow corridor with the sounds of heavy boots on wood.
Outside, the wind was picking up with an eerie howl, tearing grass mercilessly from the ground. How could anyone conjure a storm of such insane proportions - it seemed to fill the whole valley, and rise fathoms up into the sky, calling and swallowing clouds from every direction. This was beyond any Class A storm he had seen before, and it had formed in a matter of seconds.
To his surprise, the earpiece Hitsugaya wore buzzed to life. He hadn't thought it would work in such terrible interference. 'This is Division Twelve, I repeat, Division Twelve,' the tinny voice reverberated. 'Large-scale Class A spanning Starlight Valley and Whitewater Valley,' it reported.
Two valleys? Whitewater was Eleven's territory, and Eleven had mostly gone up the mountain.
'All units in combat, report your positions,' said the controller on the other end of the communication line. Every division was split into units of ten soldiers, except Unit One which consisted of only the captain and lieutenant.
'Ten-one,' Hitsugaya said as he ran, not bothering to check if Matsumoto was following him - she was never more than a pace behind. 'Starlight east. Heading north. Anti-clockwise winds, clockwise undercurrent.'
He counted off the number of units reporting in after him - nine in Starlight but only three in Whitewater. 'Units Two and Eight,' he called into the air, marvelling at how the minuscule piece of technology could differentiate his voice from the screeching storm. 'Take the western pass and support Eleven.' Even if they were madmen from the Eleventh, thirty men could easily be wiped out by a Class A.
The humidity of the storm was unbearable, and he was sure the pressure levels were hazardous, but they needed to locate the eye of the storm and pinpoint the stormbringer controlling the gale before hail precipitated. Almost as if his mind had been read, the controller spoke again. 'Humidity 100, pressure 950 hectopascals. Wind speeds climbing above 55 knots.'
Hitsugaya could feel the energy draining out of him as he countered the winds around him, could feel his control slipping, but refused to let himself slow down. He wasn't sure how much time had passed without a single word in his ear, and he was beginning to wonder if the communication link had finally given in to the storm. If they could shield themselves through the inner spiral of the storm, the eye would be near. As storms went, this wasn't the strongest, he realised - just the largest.
'Ten-three,' crackled the earpiece. 'Starlight south is under control. Heading north with four and five.'
'Eleven-three,' the reports continued. 'Whitewater east is calming down. One man down.'
'Subsiding to Class B. Pressure 970 hectopascals, wind speeds 40 knots. We calculate the eye to be in Starlight northwest,' the Twelfth said. 'All units begin convergence.'
Matsumoto was slowing down, he noticed. Her lungs aren't fully healed yet, the thought horrified him. Hail whirled through the air, flying uncontrolled in the clashing winds of the storm and their efforts - the only sign that they were approaching the peaceful centre of the storm.
'Captain!' she called, showing no sign of how hard it was to breathe. 'I'll take over the wind. Find the centre.'
Slowly, he retracted his control over the air, watching carefully as Matsumoto poured out more power. Once he was sure she was as steady as she would get, he sent a sharp pulse of cold air outwards. It would, momentarily, reveal a haven of calm weather as it sliced through the columns of rushing air and sheets of rain. A stray sunbeam was instantly drowned in sleet, but they were closer than he had expected.
'Centre located,' he relayed. 'Ten-one moving in- shit-'
Hitsugaya's leg folded beneath him - he was surprised it hadn't happened earlier - and he swore as he hit the ground, barely aware that he had pulled himself into a crouch and forced himself to roll through the last wall of the storm, his left hand reaching for a gun. What he least expected was for someone to grab him mid-roll and jerk him upright. A strong arm wrapped itself across his shoulders, pinning him back against what had to be his assailant's chest, and a metallic singing was the only warning he received before something cold pressed against his jawline.
What a sucker, he smirked. This moron needs two hands to restrain one person, and I could kick him between the legs anytime. Then, I wish I were taller, then I could bash him in the face with the back of my head, too.
Deciding to not play dirty so early into the fight, he whipped his left arm upwards, jamming the barrel of the gun into the stormbringer's chin. 'State your purpose,' he ordered, pressing the barrel of his second gun into the stormbringer's knee. He could feel warmth spread from the wound he knew was on his neck.
At that moment, Matsumoto broke into the eye of the storm, her gun cocked and ready, her stance solid. 'Unhand him,' she commanded, as if she wasn't gasping for breath - only the slightest shiver gave her away.
'You little stormhunters think you've won the fight just because you outnumber me,' the stormbringer's voice was arrogant and unruffled, yet rough like metal grating against rock. 'But today was not meant to be a fight - I'm just here to deliver a message from Aizen. He says, "Hand over Kurosaki Ichigo. This is just the beginning."' The stormbringer cackled unsettlingly, the ghastly noise akin to the rattling of bones.
'What do you want?' Hitsugaya demanded. 'What is Aizen planning?'
The stormbringer laughed mirthlessly again, his head tilted back. 'To create a pure race,' he sneered. 'A pure, powerful race, and of course step one is to obliterate little inferior beings such as yourself. Or perhaps, I'd be glad to take a hostage, and we could have a little human trade - you for that hybrid boy…' Hitsugaya felt the arm holding him down tighten its grip, and decided to take matters into his own hands - Matsumoto wouldn't shoot, not when he was in the perfect position to be a human shield.
Dropping the gun in his right hand, he grabbed the stormbringer's knife and flung it outwards, welling with satisfaction as he heard it smash into the ground.
Hitsugaya fired.
The shot momentarily deafened him - he was quite sure he would be the only idiot around to fire a gun above his own ear - and he wrestled himself out of the dying man's grasp. Once his head cleared, he sighed. 'What a mess.' The storm had dissolved when the stormbringer fell, and all the stormhunters involved were running towards them. Into his earpiece, he said, 'Requesting cleanup.'
'Cleanup?' Matsumoto practically yelled. 'How about some medical attention? I'll punch your lights out if that's what it takes to get you in the infirmary.'
'Could you ask them for some caffeine pills while you're at it? I think I'm at least two hours late to a meeting with Captain Ukitake.'
Matsumoto's eyes narrowed as she eyed him with suspicion. 'Are you saying I can punch your lights out?'
'You're swaying on your feet, you hypocrite,' Hitsugaya pointed out.
'Perhaps it hasn't yet occurred to you that I am graceful like a coconut tree in the breeze.'
He tried to laugh, but the world was spinning and tilting dangerously as adrenaline quickly abandoned him, and he didn't have the breath to spare.
.
.
Ukitake leaned back in his chair and exhaled deeply. He had concluded, after about half an hour, that either his message or Hitsugaya had been held up somewhere and his meeting was not going to happen. He could probably do with a little stroll in his free time, then.
Just then, the door burst open and Kiyone tumbled in, somehow balancing a teapot and teacup on a tray as she tripped over her own feet. 'Captain! I made you a pot of tea! It's that jasmine blend-'
The wooden sliding door had slammed so hard, it flew open on a rebound to admit an equally flustered Sentaro. 'Oh yeah? I swiped a couple of your favourite sweet buns from the steamer, Captain!' he shouted over the chaos.
Ukitake swiftly avoided the flailing limbs of his subordinates and caught the door before it rebounded for a second time. 'I have an errand to run, so why don't the two of you sit tight and have brunch together?' he suggested brightly. 'Tea and buns, if I'm not wrong,' and bolted with the grace and dignity that the duo lacked.
He made his way underground, to the holding cell where Ichigo was being kept and had, reportedly, regained consciousness. The atmosphere was dank and the lighting dim, the air brimming with the scent of earth - he wouldn't wish captivity in this miserable place on anyone. Ichigo had taken to lying on the ground, facing the wall opposite the corridor.
'Hello,' Ukitake called out to the room at large. 'Kurosaki Ichigo, I would like you to answer some questions I have to the best of your ability. But first, let me introduce myself. I am-'
The boy sat up and turned around then, with an oddly clear-eyed look on his face for someone who had recently been knocked out. 'I know who you are. You guys gave me all morning to think about all the gaps in my memory and this terribly dizzying sensation called deja vu. You're Ukitake Jushiro, captain of the Thirteenth Division.'
'Ah,' Ukitake said. 'This is going to be complicated,' he muttered to himself.
Ichigo proceeded to ramble. 'I remember everything. I remember that asshole Aizen, and I remember the war. I remember him literally storming my town like, last night. The only thing I don't remember is how I got off the mountain. Does that answer enough of your questions? Can you let me out now that you don't have to maintain some silly facade about how heinous a criminal I am for probably falling off the sierra?'
Ukitake stroked his chin with such fervour that Ichigo was sure a beard would begin sprouting at any moment. 'Well, could you tell me what happened last night, then?'
It took him a moment to take his eyes off the captain's chin and organise his thoughts. 'Just before midnight, the weather went crazy, and everyone hid indoors,' he recounted. For some strange reason, forming his memories into words to be heard by another made him doubt the credibility of his own mind - it was so simple for one to pass off another's account as mere hallucinations, and he felt he could even dismiss his own memories of the truth as ramblings of the mad if he put himself to it. He tried to shake the feeling and keep his story germane. 'I stayed outside,' he continued, 'because it felt like something was off. I didn't know what it was then, but I know now that it was because I had fought the same storm before.'
Ukitake nodded slowly, as if he were taking his time to comprehend his tale. 'And you don't remember anything after?'
Ichigo shook his head. 'You know everything else. You know, waking up in the valley, getting arrested by a psycho-'
His little spiel was interrupted by the creak of the door swinging open. 'Captain Ukitake,' the soldier in the doorway called. 'Captain Hitsugaya requests an immediate meeting with you.'
'That psycho,' Ichigo interjected. 'I remember him too.'
If Ukitake was affronted by Ichigo insulting one of his fellow captains, he didn't show it. Instead, he stood and lightly brushed off his sleeves. 'In his office?' he asked.
'At the Fourth, sir.'
'Oh my,' Ukitake sighed. 'Did he specify what it concerns?'
The soldier's look drifted towards Ichigo for a second. 'He requested for you to come alone,' he said.
'Very well,' Ukitake said as he turned and stepped towards the exit.
'Are you ever going to un-arrest me?' Ichigo called out after his retreating silhouette.
Ukitake massaged his temples. One day, all these young people would drive him to madness with their eagerness, he thought. 'I'll see to it,' he said tiredly.
He had never liked the Fourth - it was always too sterile, too quiet, too still, with a false air of serenity weighing its air down, compounded with the heaviness of illness and injury. It could hardly be considered a pleasant place, which was a pity since Stillmist Valley was incomparably scenic with its sheer blue lakes and fields of emerald blooming with cornflowers and poppies. The poppies were a cruel coincidence, he always thought, that the flowers for the death of soldiers flourished around the hospital.
When Ukitake hurried into the infirmary, he was mildly relieved to find a relatively unharmed Hitsugaya sitting up in bed, sporting a bandage and a scowl. A medic was shining a light into his left ear, which Ukitake could tell had been bleeding slightly.
'Gone and done something reckless again, have you?' Ukitake asked, not without care.
'All in the name of self-preservation, Captain Ukitake,' the younger replied, sounding slightly defeated.
'Good priorities,' he conceded.
In his right hand, Hitsugaya held a glass of what could only be Unohana's reputably repulsive medical tonic that supposedly did wonders for restoring energy and boosting recovery speed, while a glass of warm milk sat ignored on the nightstand. Perhaps he had his priorities straight on the battlefield, but elsewhere, they appeared to be questionable.
'You know,' Ukitake said, 'I've never seen anyone else prefer that tonic over warm milk.' He gestured mildly at Hitsugaya's choice of drink. The medic appeared to be done and he left the room with a silent bow.
'It's a false dilemma. Since I have to pick my poison, I might as well drink the one that's going to be good for me, right?' the eccentric captain raised a white eyebrow at Ukitake. 'Besides, it's disgusting - it's a wonder people don't drop dead all around dairy farms daily.'
Ukitake laughed. The boy had a constitution of steel that turned into a puddle before milk, it seemed.
'I assume though, that you called me here for issues more important than belittling the livelihoods of cows around the nation?' Ukitake said as he pulled a chair up to the bedside.
'Most definitely. We had another encounter with a Stormbringer in Starlight, with damages in Whitewater. He said Aizen wants Kurosaki - that he wants to create a pure race, ironically enough, of stormbringer and stormhunter hybrids - which explains why he's been messing around and creating hybrids himself. I have reported the matter to the Captain-commander, but we need the Border Guard to investigate how they managed to get past our borders twice in one night.' Hitsugaya leaned back into his pillow and ran a hand through his hair. 'None of this makes any sense,' he moaned.
'Well, keep your wits about you, because this mess is about to make even less sense,' Ukitake warned as he drew out a sheaf of papers. 'I spoke with young Kurosaki this morning,' he said as he absently straightened the thin stack of documents. 'And he recounted to me his version of the recent events – that last night, there was a storm atop the mountain that resulted in him somehow ending up in Starlight Valley, where you discovered and apprehended him. When did this happen?'
'Early this morning,' Hitsugaya replied. He could barely believe that so much had happened in one very long morning. 'Between one and two in the morning, right before the meeting I called.'
'Right,' Ukitake nodded. 'According to him, there was a storm last night and he was arrested this morning. Yet,' he paused to lay out the documents he had been holding across the bedspread. 'These records from the Twelfth indicate that there was no mountaintop storm last night, but that it occurred the night before. And, according to the Third, radio traffic with Granite Plateau has been silent since that storm - but it is entirely possible that their communication systems were simply wrecked in the storm.'
Hitsugaya sucked in a breath and reached for the nearest weather record for Granite Plateau. The night of the eighth and morning of the ninth - last night, the night Kurosaki claimed he had met with a storm - was a still night. The next sheet of paper laid across his knees was a document from the Second, reporting zero border activity at the foothills surrounding all thirteen areas of the Valleys for the past three days. The third sheet of paper was a topographic map smeared with curls of orange blending to red and green to blue amidst the jagged mountain contours - it was the estimated storm map for the night of the seventh to the morning of the eighth.
'If Kurosaki is telling the truth,' Hitsugaya mumbled as he let out a deep breath, 'there is a twenty-four hour gap that we know nothing about. Anything could have happened at Granite Plateau in that time frame.'
'Exactly.'
'When did the Sixth and the Eleventh leave?'
'Four this morning,' Ukitake answered. 'The journey is fourteen hours, so dusk will be settling by the time they reach.'
'And almost a full forty-eight hours will have passed since our last contact with Granite Plateau.'
.
.
Ichigo did not have to wait long before the holding cells of the Thirteenth saw visitors once again. The sun was high in the sky, warm arid breezes wafted in through the small window, and the slant of the shadows had reversed, so he guessed it was slightly past noon. To his surprise, it wasn't anyone from the Thirteenth, or even Captain Ukitake. The door swung open with a creak he had grown to recognise, and Hitsugaya descended the dank staircase without Matsumoto by his side.
The boy made his way to Ichigo's cell and leaned against the far wall of the corridor across from it, his arms folded across his chest. For a minute he was silent, a bored expression written across his features, and with every passing second of silence, Ichigo become surer that he was hallucinating and that there was, in fact, no one there at all.
Then, he spoke. 'I heard you wished to be exonerated.' The captain's voice was quiet, with none of the authoritative air he had exuded last night.
Ichigo laughed a restrained, dry bark. 'Who wouldn't?'
'What is it you desire?'
Ichigo squinted. 'Are we talking about my deepest darkest desire to turn into a dancing cockatiel?'
Hitsugaya raised an eyebrow at him. 'I had no idea you harboured such noble ideals. But no, I meant, what do you intend to do with your freedom?'
'I'm going to fight,' he said forcefully, almost as if he didn't believe in himself, and didn't expect anyone else to.
'There is no war without sacrifice,' Hitsugaya said, his bright green eyes staring straight at him, his voice frigid and distant. 'To fight is to place yourself as a weapon in the hands of someone else. To abandon everything in exchange for nothing.'
'I know,' Ichigo felt his temper flare like a hot wave. 'Do you think I have not thought about this? Do you think I have not already sacrificed everything? That I am not ready to fight a war I once fought?'
He directed a burst of wind at Hitsugaya, surprised to find it laced with flying embers. Yet without batting an eyelid, the captain killed the outburst with a sharp flick of his wrist, instantaneously and effortlessly stilling the air in the underground chamber, and a thin ring of frost drifted to the ground while the embers winked out to leave trails of wispy smoke. Hitsugaya levelled him with a glare, but threw a single, heavy metal key across the corridor and through the bars into his lap. 'Attacking a commanding officer could get you actually arrested,' he growled. 'Captain Ukitake is waiting for you outside.'
Hitsugaya paused, as if he hesitated to speak, then said, 'Be careful. The balance between power and control is a difficult one to strike.'
And he turned and swept out of the room.
Having finished the business with Kurosaki, all he had left to do was to wait for chaos to break loose. Hitsugaya was terrible at waiting games. He also hadn't seen Matsumoto since she took off after a simple check-up at the Fourth, where she had abandoned him with an impish grin and a bottle of caffeine pills she had swiped from the shelf. He raised a hand to his brow in an attempt to physically straighten the creases he knew had knitted his expression into a frown.
He knew she was not taking the loss of Ichimaru Gin as well as she pretended, and sometimes he wondered if he was a bad influence - surely if the usually boisterous and honestly blunt Matsumoto had learnt to put up an impeccable facade, it would have to be from himself. On more than one occasion he had seen her seated at her desk with two glasses of wine, one of them untouched, with a glassy, wistful look in her eyes. Every time, he didn't have the heart to enter the office, and would silently shut the door and slink away, leaving her staring emptily into her glass - just watching her hurt so badly, sometimes he doubted if emotional recovery was ever possible, that it was just another piece in the tangled web of lies spun around them.
He had once asked her how she was coping with her loss, if there was anything he could do. She had tucked a stray lock of messy golden hair behind her ear and smiled at him. 'I'm okay,' she had lied through a layer of smudged eyeliner. 'Momo chose her captain, and…and I chose mine. So…just don't do anything stupid, okay?'
The initial realisation had been agonising, had hit him like a stack of bricks, that Hinamori had indeed chosen her captain over him, but he knew that Aizen had been nothing but gentle and kind with her, while he had been nothing short of awful. He couldn't blame her. And yet, yet Matsumoto had followed him.
The sun was low in the late afternoon sky, staining it with streaks of pink and dabs of golden while the clouds glowed a heavy orange, their shadows greyish-purple. His footfalls were silent in the cold corridor, the glow of the autumn sunlight outside soaking the polished wood with warm light that filtered daintily through vibrantly coloured leaves of all shades of fire. How ironic that the most beautiful season of the year was when all of nature was dying.
He inched the office door open and peered in through the crack. Matsumoto was there, seated in her chair with her shins propped against the edge of the desk and her chin tucked into the valley formed between her knees. She was biting her lower lip and staring off into the distance.
He pushed the door open and stepped in while she sat up straight.
'Did you climb out the window again?' Matsumoto asked suspiciously.
'I was discharged by noon,' Hitsugaya justified irritably. 'Besides, that was two years ago, and it wasn't my fault - if they hadn't barricaded the door nothing would have happened.'
'If you say so, Captain.' She squared her shoulders, the last vestiges of her downcastness falling away like water.
Hitsugaya opened his mouth to object, but quickly decided against it. He was absolutely terrible at this - she always diverted the conversation away from herself, locked herself away before he could even gather the courage to ask if there were any words he could offer to lighten her burden.
Just as he was torn between sitting down and leaving, the door rattled on its hinges, and the soldier on the other side of the door spoke with a slight edge of panic. 'I bring orders from Captain-commander Yamamoto!'
'Open the door,' Hitsugaya answered, and it promptly swung open.
'The Sixth and Eleventh have arrived at Granite Plateau. Captain Kuchiki reports the town deserted, torn with damage and devoid of life. Captain Soifon's squads have detected movement partway down the mountains - unidentified entities descending towards the foothills. We are expected to enter battle within the next hour or two; the Tenth is to support the Fifth, as it is currently without captain, at Sunbeam Valley by the border. That is all,' the soldier bowed deeply before taking a step back, waiting for their orders.
Hitsugaya stood, loading his equipment belt just as he had done twelve hours ago. 'Relay the message to the rest of the Tenth,' he told the soldier. 'Tell them to report to me battle-ready at Sunbeam in half an hour's time,' and he dismissed him.
Once the door shut, he gave Matsumoto a withering sidelong glance, pausing in his preparations. 'They never pair the Fifth and the Tenth. Ever.'
The lieutenant shrugged. 'There's a first time for everything, right?' she answered cryptically.
'I'm pretty sure you had something to do with this.'
'Weelll,' Matsumoto hesitated. 'I may or may not have slipped a little somethin' something into the Captain-commander's mid-morning tea before making some nuanced suggestions and asking some loaded questions while he was busy with a little paperwork.' She smiled charmingly at him.
Hitsugaya tried not to cradle his own head as he sighed. 'I'm going to pretend you didn't just tell me that.'
'Thank you, Captain. Though objectively speaking, alcohol is said to have healing properties, rather unlike cyanide.'
Hitsugaya seemed to shrink further into himself as a portion of what precious little sanity he had left shrivelled up. 'Heaven knows where you would get cyanide from, though.' He resumed his rhythmic motions of gathering weapons and necessities, loading a fresh battery into his earpiece before putting it back on. Beside him, exactly as she had done twelve hours ago, Matsumoto mirrored his actions.
Matsumoto had chosen him.
He shut his side of the cabinet and turned on his heel, striding out of the office.
'Come with me, Lieutenant,' he said. 'Watch my back.'
Matsumoto had chosen him, and it was about time he chose her.
.
End of Part I
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Review? Please? I put a lot of effort and research into this, so pretty please? Part II (the final part) will be up...soon.
I know in canon they arrested Aizen but...I took some artistic liberties so we can have a story. Excusable? Yes. Thank you.
Once again I am unsure of my lousy genre categorisation. I don't even know if angst/adventure exists. Oh well. Can I petition for a genre called nefarious-plots-against-humanity?
