Title: Tranquility
Fandom: Bleach
Pairing: Hitsugaya x Matsumoto
Rating: K+
Warning: Spoilers for most recent manga chapters. Character death. Speculation. Blatant disregard of the Big Bad Thing that happened in chapter 336.
Summary: The silence is loud in his ears. There's a kind of hush all over the world, tonight.
When at last the battle ends, the silence that hangs ringing in the sudden void seems louder than any war could ever hope to be.
It sends him staggering.
As if sensing the absence of danger, Hyourinmaru dissipates, leaving him suddenly very alone on the roof of a partially-destroyed building.
It's over.
He sits down with a hard thump. In the distance he can see the creature that is Minazuki's shikai taking flight. Unohana-taichou is still alive, it seems.
He wonders how many others are not so lucky.
It's over.
The realization hits him like a tonne of bricks, and he falls backward, barely noticing the pain of impacting hard on the stone and rubble.
It's over.
We won.
How long he lies there, under the dusty sky, he has no idea. Time serves no meaning, not now.
At some point he sees his lieutenant rise shakily to her feet and make her way over to where he lies. When she reaches him, it is as if her legs can no longer support the full weight of her body, and she crashes, albeit gracefully, to the ground beside him.
They lie there in complete silence, and again time trickles by without being noticed.
There is a slight rustle as Matsumoto turns her face to him, and almost automatically he turns toward the sound.
The right side of her face is covered in partially-congealed blood from a small gash over her eyebrow, but, miraculously, she appears relatively unharmed.
Matsumoto smiles at him, and when he returns it he feels a cut in his lip crack open.
He feels her fingertips brush his hand, and he curls his fingers over hers.
"It's really quiet, isn't it, Toushirou?"
He smiles wider, and brings their hands to his face to brush his lips across the backs of her knuckles.
"It really is."