Updated 14/12/14: Thank you everyone for the favorites and positive reviews. To repay everyone's kindness I've updated the story with correct grammar and tenses (about time, I know).

~ 3 ~

The first time Hitsugaya runs away, he's just spent one week in the Shinigami Training Academy. Only seven days, and he was already sick of the whole fucking school. There was something about the prudish attitude of everyone that he couldn't stand, and after being shoved on the head by some taller seniors on the afternoon of day seven, Hitsugaya's finally had enough and was all set and ready to bail.

Which he did, long after the night has fallen, during a time where no one would have enough energy to have a fully conscious, alert mind – he slipped out of the school compound at four in the morning, while the other shinigami slumber on. He doesn't take anything, not even the stupid sword they gave him. It wasn't as though he knew how to use it anyway, apart from grabbing the too-big too-heavy chunk of metal awkwardly with both hands and trying not to drop the thing into his feet. He had been studying the loopholes in the Academy walls everyday of the past week. He didn't exactly find one, but he knew enough about the campus grounds. He also knew that four a.m. was a good time.

He carried his sandals in his hands as he sprinted stealthily across the edge of the grounds, towards the exit. Wouldn't want anybody with sharp ears to hear him.

As soon as his feet cleared the line marking the entrance to the school he shot immediately for the dense forest surrounding the academy. He ran three hundred meters before putting on his sandals. Then he ran another seven hundred meters. Hitsugaya didn't know where the hell he was going. He'll find directions tomorrow, or rather, later on in the day. Right now he was just going to run fast and find a nice, tall tree to sleep away the few hours left till sunlight.

He had barely gotten comfortable on his branch before a voice, cool and female, spoke beside his ear, like the naggy, goody-two-shoes of his conscience: "Going somewhere, Hitsugaya-kun?"

Hitsugaya shrieked and falls out of his tree; her arms shot out and catch him. Two disgustinglyfamiliar lumps pressed around the sides of his head. Said head was nested directly and perfectly in the middle of her cleavage. Hitsugaya glared upwards, straight into the icy irises of Matsumoto Rangiku's face.

Boy, did he let her have it. A whole string of profanities, picked up from all the rich, arrogant snobs striding all around the Shinigami Academy in his brief time there. He spat in her face too, for good measure.

What he got for his effort was a good cuff to the back of his head, which smacked said head directly and perfectly into the middle of her cleavage, again. Matsumoto rolled her eyes.

"Neither Momo-chan nor your grandmother would have been proud, you know."

The quiet disappointment in her voice shamed Hitsugaya more than he expected and more than would ever admit, so even though he screamed you fat bitch just let me go already he let her, reluctantly, take him back to the Academy with very minimal resistance.

Her ice blue gaze pierced through his mind, his heart, his entire body, and Hitsugaya doesn't sleep well that night, even though Matsumoto had him tucked safe and snuggled into his futon for the night.

~ 2 ~

3 months later and Hitsugaya is on the run, again. He'd been doing well, both academically and socially. He'd changed his manner of speaking, so that instead of sounding like a crass, unfriendly boy from the village, he became the cool, indifferent boy from the village. His good grades also sparked interest in people, who often came up to him after classes to talk about the subject they were studying.

Evidently he'd done a bit too well on studying, because despite only spending three months at the Shinigami Academy, the higher-ups wanted promote him to a higher grade.

Four grades higher, in fact.

It pissed Hitsugaya off so much so that he didn't even deigned to stay for the promotion test, which was scheduled on the next day. Promotion? Four grades higher? He'll have to kiss goodbye the reputation he'd been building up, kiss goodbye all the people who might have become friends with him; he'll be lonely again, crass again, unfriendly again.

For goodness sake, Hitsugaya thought. Give me a break, I'm just a kid.

No sympathetic reply answered him, so Hitsugaya took matters into his own hands and fled, his second time now, from the Academy, again at four a.m. in the morning. Since he was so smart now, he casted powerful (for his level) spells to hide his reiatsu, his body, his footsteps, and left the Academy invisible.

There was an absolutely gob-smacked look on his face when Matsumoto Rangiku, caught him again,with a fond smile and a boobie-to-face greeting that was only authentic to her.

"What. The fuck." He said, and she hit him.

"Don't swear in front of an adult!"

Adult?! Hitsugaya screamed, and then everything started pouring from his mouth, fear and anger and jealously and worry all crammed into one long tirade. His mouth had never felt dryer in all of his life.

Like his escape three months prior, Matsumoto listened, ice blue eyes indecipherable, and after he was done with his part she pressed his face into her bosom in a strong embrace while he growled out I'm never going to let you do this to me again ever. Neither of them acknowledged the little boy tears he'd been shedding.

"Grow up, kid," she sighed, and it wasn't a verbal barb, it was more of a tried and tested ancient phrase-of-wisdom. "You're powerful and smart," she reminded him. "You're the one going to protect Momo-chan and grandmother."

His arms shook as he wrapped them around her waist. Her arms, by contrast, were warm and stable and comforting.

She tucked him into bed, again. That night Hitsugaya's mind swam with thoughts of Matsumoto, Momo and grandmother and he doesn't sleep, again.

~ 1 ~

The next time Hitsugaya runs was three months before graduation, the morning after Kasuka died.

He felt so empty and abandoned that he didn't think any guard was going to be able to pick up reiatsu from him even if he had no hiding spell in place. His entire being was too fucking hollow for anyone, much less himself, to feel anything as of this moment. As of this moment, to forever. Hitsugaya doesn't think he's going to recover from this. Not ever.

He'd tried. He'd tried so fucking hard. He'd listened to Matsumoto's words (when did he not?) and he'd taken his education and training at 200% seriousness. He was learning everything at once. Everyone, especially the snobbish ones, called him prodigy and genius whenever he was in their presence. The teachers were overjoyed. They told him, you're going to graduate by the end of this year.

The climb to the top was synonymous with isolation to Hitsugaya, but he dealt with it. After graduation, he was going to be "Hitsugaya-kun". No longer "Shiro-chan", no longer a boy, but a man. He had Hyorinmaru with him, and he was on his well earned way to becoming the youngest solider in Gotei 13, ever.

But the top wasn't as lonely as he'd expected. A boy by the name of Kasuka had introduced himself to Hitsugaya. They were like-minded souls, in pursuit of knowledge and experience, in order to protect their loved ones. For the first time in the Shinigami Academy, Hitsugaya had a friend. A best friend. Kasuka was precious to him.

Now he's dead. Hitsugaya killed him.

Kasuka was precious to him.

Immediately after their match Hitsugaya's feelings of self-loath and disgust had been so overwhelming that he had proceeded to retch all over the bathroom of his new, improved and larger dormitory. He had cried, sprawled and all alone, on the floor of his bathroom.

I can't take Hyorinmaru, he had thought, bitter, regretful, apologetic, unable to do anything else but run away.

Or rather: stumble, slip, fall, cry. Then slip, stumble, fall, cry. Then stumble, slip, fall, and cry. Again and again. He was far too tired with life to be ashamed about his tears and his gracelessness.

This time round, Hitsugaya used shunpo to fly through the whole damn forest and another five districts in, where another smaller forest starts. He stopped five trees into that forest. Now he's run out of the will to even move.

Or maybe he just wanted Matsumoto to show up. His running had improved, what with shunpo and all. Maybe she needed more time to catch up.

Halfway thought that thought Hitsugaya realized, she's here. His skills were so good that he could determine the identity of anyone trying to sneak up on him without conscious effort.

"Oh, Toshiro," she sighed, quiet, tired, but comforting.

This time round, Hitsugaya has nothing to say. Matsumoto doesn't say anything either. She folded him into her bosom (he's too tired to complain now) and held him close, held him dear. Her chin rested above his head. Her arms wrapped around his small, muscled back.

She cocooned him that way, not speaking, warm, just being there. She let him cry, until the moon went down and the sun started to rise.

New dawn, gentle, the sun reborn; Matsumoto spoke only then.

"You can't run away now," she said. Her words were his heavy fate, spoken like a lover's promise. "You can't let Kasuka or Hyorinmaru down now."

Hitsugaya shuddered. He wondered if she knew that Kasuka's last words were Why is it you, Toshiro Hitsugaya? Why wasn't it me? Or that shortly after he'd wonthe right to his zanpakuto, the first thing he'd told the spirit was You cursed sword, I don't want you.

But maybe she suspected, because she squeezed his arms tight. "You were in a fight for the partner of your soul. You killed the other and won. You are stronger the one. You had to kill to get so far. You have your zanpakuto now. You can't throw all these away, now, Toshiro!"

She is the admonishing mother who will chase him all the way to hell and back. Hitsugaya knew. Of course. And Matsumoto was right. Of course.

"Take me back," he breathed. It's so soft that she doesn't catch it, almost.

I won't do this again, he promised himself. I won't run away again.

But here, right now, in her arms, Hitsugaya cloung onto Matsumoto and his final moments of childish, cowardly behavior. She carried him back to the Academy, walking slowly.

The Academy they stepped into was different from the one he ran away from. That one was dark and shady, lit by the moon and her stars, forlorn and intimidating.

This Academy glowed from the light of the sun rising behind it. A new beginning, and a new promise.

~ 0 ~

Gotei 13 is reeling in shock from the betrayal of three of its captains. Captain Hitsugaya is no different. He stares at his reflection in the window and contemplates the traitors.

Ichimaru had looked like and acted like the scheming, manipulating bastard that he was. He had been the child prodigy before Hitsugaya, and if Hitsugaya had to trust him on anything, it would be that he was the mastermind behind the whole damn conspiracy.

But Matsumoto had trusted him. He flicks his gaze to her empty seat. Hitsugaya trusts Matsumoto, who, he'll bet, still trusts Gin.

Tousen had looked like and acted like the pompous, idealistic bastard that he was. He was a blind man, and as the rumors go, the owner of a zanpakuto that wasn't originally his. That made him, a very, very capable man – he'd worked past all of his handicaps to stand on the same level as the other captains of Gotei 13. Hitsugaya himself was a realistic man and never really had faith in ideals: they could be seriously believable and logical and fucked up simultaneously, case in point.

But Captain Kommamura had trusted him. The gentle wolf was Tousen's best friend. Hitsugaya trusts Kommamura, who is simple and strong and reliable.

Aizen was nothing like the caring, knowledgeable father figure that he had looked like and acted like. That man had crushed Hinamori without batting an eyelid. He was the true puppeteer, the most dangerous, the mastermind.

But Hitsugaya had trusted him. He'd trusted Hinamori with Aizen.

And Hitsugaya thought he could trust himself.

Hyorinmaru stirs inside of him. Frost seeps from his fingers and freezes up the window in front of him

He registers Matsumoto's reiatsu, slightly stronger then usual and completely undisguised as she enters through the other window into their shared office.

The frozen glass shatters as she lands on the floor. He's not sure which one of them broke it. His reiatsu easily stops the glass shards from hitting him, though Hitsugaya was very tempted to let them pass through. Maybe if he bled a little, he'll wake up and start making the world right again. Hyorinmaru growls in response.

He knows Matsumoto is looking at him without even having to turn his head. The two of them stay like this for a bit, her staring at him and him staring at the now empty rectangular hole in his wall.

"Yes?" he finally says, realizing that she might have something to ask him. He turns to see her shake her head. "Nothing." She shrugs carelessly and averts her eyes. "I was just wondering if you were going to run."

Her unexpected sentence brings fond memories to the surface in Hitsugaya's mind. For the first time in weeks Hitsugaya laughs, and soon after, Matsumoto too.

"I'm not a kid anymore," he tells her. He watches the smile that slides slowly onto her face; the pair of frost-colored eyes, like the ice scattered at his feet, unreadable, like always.

~ -1 ~

The war with Aizen is over. The Shinigami wins, and the Gotei 13 return, bruised, battered, but in victory.

The General loses a limb. He's going to have to make do without. Captain Soifon, on the other hand, gets her arm back after three days in Captain Unohana's care.

Rangiku spends a week in the fourth division, and emerges with fully intact lungs and liver. Her heart doesn't feel very secure, but there's nothing to be done about that one, Captain Unohana made clear.

Rangiku doesn't cry. There's no point in crying. The first thing she does when she's able to move on her own is to check up on Hinamori.

The girl, stabbed in the heart, in the back, again. Captain Unohana only says, give her the rest she so desperately needs.

Rangiku stares at her small, broken body from outside, and thinks of Hitsugaya.

She heads off to find him. She can only walk, because Captain Unohana prohibited her from shunpo by placing some kind of horrible restriction spell on her body. She also can't run, because Captain Unohana wasn't lying – her wound, though healed, still hurt quite a bit.

It turns out she didn't have to worry about her slow progress to his cave all that much, though. Hitsugaya has his Bankai out and was training. Judging by the way only a tenth of the cave was covered in icicles and frost, her captain wasn't anywhere near done with his practice.

She walks into the cave and watches him fight off armies of thousands of imaginary enemies. Fifteen minutes pass this way, him training and her watching, and Rangiku gets the feeling that her Captain might be deliberately ignoring her.

Another fifteen minutes pass, and Hitsugaya finally stops his sword and turns to his lieutenant, who was leaning gently against a boulder. "You should be resting," he declares, staring her in the eye.

Rangiku gives him the grieving version of an eye roll. A deadpan stare, to be precise. She'd lost only part kidney and lung; he'd lost energy from resorting to his strongest technique and blood from the huge diagonal slash the Espada had given him across his entire body. He must have busted a few of Captain Unohana's stitches, and there's ice holding his skin in place where he was previously injured.

Toshiro Hitsugaya is no match for Matsumoto Rangiku's icy stare. He drops his sword, and his wings droop with him, like he, the great Ice Dragon, is defeated.

It pains her to see him like this. At some point in their lives all scouts must have felt this way: bitter, regretful, and despairing at having dragged someone else into all this bloodshed and drama that made the life of a Shinigami.

"You should run," she says. Her voice doesn't sound like her. It came out hollow and flat. The two of them wince, but while Matsumoto backs down, head bowed almost apologetically, Hitsugaya advances, defiant.

"Run?" Her Captain is just as hollow as her. "Run where? Run why?"

"You should run away, and cry." For the two of us, but that part she doesn't tell him. "I'll chase after you," she continues, making what was supposed to be a well-meaning advice sound like a desperate plea. "It'll do you good."

His next words choke all the breath out of her. "Matsumoto, I can't run away anymore."

Her energy drains from her body, and Rangiku nearly collapses on the floor. Since when? She thinks. Since when did he become the one looking after her? Since when did he grow so big, so fast? She shrinks away from him. He's no longer a boy, now.

It's my fault, she thinks, and some kind of hot, unbearable fire spreads from her stomach to her entire body. If feels like a burden. It feels like guilt. He wouldn't run.

Well, then neither will Rangiku leave. She stands outside his cave, keeping vigil, thinking about Gin, Hinamori, Gin, Hitsugaya, and Gin again.

At long last, the day ends, and a perfectly full moon rises, seemingly to deliberately contrast with every single one of Matsumoto's hopeless feelings.

This won't ever end. The two of them are too tangled up in their fates as the Shinigami Captain and Lietenant of the 10th Division – the two of them, together, but fucked up together. The moon will rise, and the moon will fall, and the days will go on.

They can't run now.