Hinamori Momo frowned.
"So… you don't know where Captain Hirako is?"
The flustered looking squad-leader nodded jerkily.
"Sorry lieutenant! We thought he was with you!"
Standing a few steps behind her, her squad mates nodded as well.
Momo heaved a quiet sigh, brushing her side-fringe out of her eyes. She'd already heard the same thing from three other officers in other fifth division border-guard squads, but there was no harm in making sure.
"Thank you for your time, you're all dismissed."
The young officer nodded and she and her squad hurried back to their posts, disappearing through the garden.
Momo leaned forward against the railing of the fifth division headquarters, the breeze catching her short, wispy hair. She leaned her head on one hand and frowned into the distance.
Something was wrong with Captain Hirako, but when she'd asked him about it this morning he'd told her she "shouldn't worry about hip young men like me", and that she should focus on "charming that handsome young man a yours"— complete with a ridiculous eyebrow waggle and hyena grin. She'd blushed when told her that, protesting that she and Toshirou were just friends, but his grin had only gotten wider—and more lascivious. The whole exchange had flustered her so badly that she'd had to leave the office, forcing her to abandon her line of questioning entirely, which, now that she thought about it, was probably intentional. Her captain was a crafty, crafty man. By the time she'd gotten over her embarrassment and found the courage to slink back into the office, he was already gone.
Five hours had passed since then and she had yet to see any sign of her wayward captain. She'd already checked all of his usual haunts—their barracks roof, the second divisions private bath house, the empty 4th division birthing suites, that creepy lake behind the eleventh division barracks that she was half convinced was full of dead bodies, the Sour Monkey, the Rotten Apple, the Fork in the Road, the Pot and Stop Teahouse, Captain Komamura's house, Captain Ukitake's garden, Captain-Commander Kyouraku's office— but he was nowhere to be found.
Momo pressed her lips together, a deep crease forming between her eyes.
She knew it was silly to worry about her captain. He was strong, and capable, and smart enough to outwit their enemies and end battles without even drawing his sword. Any trouble he got himself into he could probably take care of without her help. Still, she couldn't help but worry about him. As much as he didn't need her to look out for him, it was still her duty as his lieutenant to make sure he felt like he fit in here at the fifth division. The last thing she wanted was for him to get tired of them and leave, go back to the human world for good this time.
Despite his lackadaisical attitude, Captain Hirako was a great division leader who cared deeply about his subordinates and the division as a whole. He was proud of them. He'd never say as much, but it showed in the way he always made time to personally run them through drills during training, the way he always kept his office door open to encourage division members—from the greenest academy recruits to Momo herself— to ask questions. Many of the officers looked up to him, and those that didn't still respected him as an accomplished, battle-tested shinigami with a lot to offer their division in terms of age and experience. In the short time he'd been their leader, Captain Hirako had turned their struggling division around. Already, in the two short years since he'd been made their captain, they were tripling their efficiency rating, as well as doublingtheir mission execution rating, which was pretty much unheard of in a strategic support squad like theirs. Quite simply, the captain leaving was not an option. The way he was wondering off lately, making excuses to be out of the office and shirk his work, made her nervous. The fifth division couldn't afford to lose him and (she could admit this to herself) she didn't want to lose him either, for reasons that had nothing to do with efficiency.
Ravi padded up next to her, laying his head on her feet. She folded down beside him with a smile, scratching that place behind his ears that made her daemon melt into a puddle of doggy bliss. Ravi was a Shetland Sheepdog, and she had always been proud of him. She knew what people said about dog daemons. She knew people looked at her and saw a follower in place of a leader: blindly loyal, eager to please, weak-willed, soft— but none of that mattered. Momo knew who she was now. It had taken her a while after Capt… after Aizen's betrayal to see that he hadn't broken her when he'd stabbed her through the chest—twice (because it might have been Toshirou's blade, but it was Aizen pulling the strings), to understand that Aizen couldn't take anything from her that she wasn't willing to give: not her pride, not her self-respect, not her strength, not her sense of duty or her dedication to the Gotei. Nothing. It wasn't his to take. It was hers and hers alone. She knew that now. She felt it, and it would take more than snide whispers from people she didn't know or care about to make her forget the hard truths she'd had to learn these past three years. This, she felt, was a lesson her captain had to learn the hard way too.
She couldn't imagine what it must have been like to look at Aizen, to see through his deception and lies, and still fall victim to the man. At least she had the excuse of being ignorant of the traitor's true nature to soften the blow, ease the blame from those around her. Captain Hirako had known what Aizen really was and had still paid: with his life, with his freedom, with his humanity.
Momo shuddered and wrapped her arms around herself.
Hollowfication…what a monstrous mutation. It must have been unbearable to experience. Captain Hirako used it now: was stronger, faster, more durable because of it, but Momo didn't fool herself into thinking that it was always that easy. She knew better than anyone the kind of games having your whole world reshaped in an instant could play on your mind, never mind having your body changed as well, warped and transmuted beyond even self-recognition. When she thought about it, considered how she might have felt in his place, she could only imagine being horrified, sickened, devastated. The very thought of it made her nauseous. She couldn't imagine how much worse it must have been to actually experience.
A light breeze fanned her cheek, just a touch too cold to be natural, and as usual she registered his presence just a touch too late to not be caught off guard.
"Hey Momo."
Momo jumped, slapping a hand over her heart, turning to stare at her friend, wide-eyed and startled.
"Shiro you scared me."
She put her hands on her hips, tilting her head up slightly to look at him—because she had to do that now, because he was taller than her now— and scowled softly.
"Why do you have to do that?"
He raised an eyebrow at her, otherwise blank-faced. "Why do you have to call me Shiro?"
"Because I've always called you Shiro. It would feel weird to call you anything else."
She scrunched up her nose, imagining it. She could call him Toshirou in her head easily enough, but saying it out loud would just seem strange… and a little embarrassing? She didn't know why it would be embarrassing to call him by his full name, just that she knew it would be. She's not sure she would be able to look at him afterwards. It would feel too formal—yet strangely intimate at the same time, to call him by his given name. It was stupid, really, when she thought about it. By all rights, they were old enough now that she should be able to call him by his name without feeling weird about it. Toshirou was her oldest friend. If there was anyone it was okay to feel intimate with, it was him. Toshirou was good. Toshirou was safe. He'd never hurt her.
Toshirou rolled his eyes at her, mouth twisting into a scowl that reminded her so forcefully of his younger self that she just had to giggle. He was such a cute kid. Pity he'd had to grow up.
"What're you laughing at," he asked gruffly, voice deep and rough like a man's.
She floundered internally for a moment, startled by the association. Inexplicably, she could feel her ears turning red.
"Nothing!" She said quickly, scratching the back of her head, laughing to hide her blush.
Toshirou looked at her doubtfully. "Right…"
Ravi came up and sniffed around Hitsugaya's feet, barking happily at the white-haired captain. Hitsugaya smiled when Ravi touched the tip of his nose to the captain's leg before bounding off again to chase butterflies in the garden.
Momo cleared her throat and tried not to feel embarrassed. Ravi was a friendly daemon, but he was notoriously, inappropriately, friendly with Toshirou. He always had been. It was, for lack of a better phrase, unbelievably mortifying.
Sure enough, Hitsugaya looked at her teasingly, a strange light dancing in his eyes that made her flush a deeper, richer red.
"So Ravi looks good," he said eventually, taking pity on her after a few awkward moments of her standing there red and squirming, refusing to meet his eyes.
"Yeah," she said, practically leaping at the opportunity to move on from her embarrassment. "He's happy."
Hitsugaya looked at her, long and searching. "Good," he said finally, apparently satisfied with the answer.
He stood with her side-by-side on the balcony, seemingly content to just remain in silence for a while. Momo, as she always had, followed her old friends lead gladly. Tension she didn't even know she was holding fell away and her shoulders relaxed. She let out a long breath and smiled, just a little, when Toshirou pressed their arms together on top on the railing.
They stood in silence for a few more minutes watching Ravi play in the garden. She wanted to ask, like she always wanted to ask, where Toshirou's daemon was. Momo hadn't seen Vashni since they were both very young. Momo had always assumed, like everyone else, that Vashni had settled as something very small and easily hidden not long after Momo left for the academy. But privately the idea had always confused her. Vashni had, when she'd known her, favoured large reptiles and predatory birds. To be honest, Toshirou was never the type of person Momo thought would have a small daemon.
Momo frowned thoughtfully.
Small in stature he might have always been, but there was never anything small about Toshirou's spirit. He was not a personality that was easily hidden or repressed. He was a presence akin to a natural disaster, like a hurricane or a tidal wave: powerful, primal, and utterly engaging. The type of person you couldn't help but pay attention to, even when he scared you a little. Everything about her old friend stood out—from his white hair, to his strangely beautiful eyes, to the way he moved and stood and commanded respect with a single cool look. Even his rietsu carried an unthinking chill wherever he went, announcing his presence like Captain-Commander Kyouraku's rose petals, or Captain Zaraki's bells. Momo never imagined Vashni would present as anything less than the perfect exhibition of her friends attention-grabbing presence.
The thought snuck up on her, like it always did, that Vashni had always liked Momo even when Toshirou was sour towards her, and Momo couldn't believe that Vashni wouldn't have poked her head out to say hello at some point if she was anywhere on or near Toshirou's person. It just didn't seem realistic that Vashni would have stopped caring about her after Momo left for the academy—or gotten shy like Toshirou had said the one time Momo had plucked up the courage to ask.
Momo frowned to herself, watching Ravi roll in the grass.
She'd find out what happened to Vashni, because as much as she wanted to believe that Vashni was a beetle hiding behind Toshirou's ear, or a spider creeping under his clothes, she just couldn't. She just didn't believe it. Her friend wasn't a spider or a beetle; he was something bigger, grander, more special. Toshirou was unique, and Momo would rather think something bad had happened to Vashni than believe that Vashni would have settled as something small and diminishing of her best friend.
Toshirou bent closer, brushing their shoulders together, strands of his fine white hair skimming her cheek. He smiled at her, a little lopsided, and remarkably easy on his often-serious face.
Momo swallowed, suddenly thick in the throat.
"Wanna get some lunch?" He asked.
Focused on trying to tamp down another blush, Momo could only nod.
Toshirou hated this part of lower Serentei. Shinigami hardly ever came here since it was a residential district populated by mostly lower-class noble families. He and Momo stuck out like sore thumbs as they strolled through the streets in search of a place to eat. The roads were narrow here, just wide enough for a few merchants carts to mount the curb without impeding the foot traffic. The streets were overstuffed with small eclectic stores and cafes, slotted tightly together so that no place was bigger than his office back at the tenth division. It was stifling, and too loud, and overpriced— but Momo adored it. Momo loved the smells of cooking meet, the laughing people all packed in together, the young families that wondered around, smiling, aimless.
Toshirou let her lead them around, and eventually Momo tugged him towards one of the more modest looking restaurants on the river. They were seated on a balcony overlooking the water. The other side of the river was residential manor homes with docks, so every few minutes or so Momo's attention would be riveted by the boats floating past, her gaze softening as she watched a young father teach his daughter to fish, or a husband and wife drift lazily along with the tide, curled up together at the bottom of a row boat.
Toshirou watched her as she watched the water and thought, not for the first time, that she was beautiful.
Momo caught him staring and looked back inquisitively.
He shook his head, and she smiled bemusedly, eyes drifting back towards the water a moment later.
One day he'd tell her she was beautiful, but not today. Not until he could be sure he could keep her safe. What good was loving someone if you couldn't protect them? His mind drifted back to thoughts of Aizen's betrayal and he clenched his jaw against the pulse of instinctive fury the other man brought out in him. It was an ugly thing, his anger. It was poisonous. Every moment he let it darken his thoughts and dampen his mood were moments he could have spent staring at the river with Momo, or even just looking at her, smiling with her as they sat in perfect silence. Instead, he could already feel his mood falling, the warm, easy atmosphere slipping through his fingers like coarse sand.
Sure enough, Momo looked at him with a frown. "Shiro? You okay? You look worried."
Toshirou shook his head. "It's nothing Momo. Let's just order."
Momo's frown only worsened. "I can tell when you lie Shiro," she said quietly.
Toshirou clenched his jaw.
"I don't want to talk about it. Can you just go back to ignoring me please Momo?" He said, too harsh by half.
Momo blinked at him, startled by his biting tone, and swallowed.
Toshirou sighed, and rubbed his forehead. "Sorry," he apologised. He wanted to explain, wanted to erase the worry from within her big brown eyes, but couldn't. What was he supposed to say? Hey Momo, I was just thinking about your murdering traitor of an ex-captain and he makes me more than a little furious, because, y'know, he stabbed me, stabbed you, had me stab you, and his trial is in two days so I'm pretty wound up about it, not that I can talk to you about it, because as wound up as I am you have to be ten times worse, and there is no way in hell I'm burdening you with more than I need to ever again, I've hurt you enough already.
"Whatever it is, I can help," she said earnestly.
The worst part was he didn't doubt it in the least. Momo had always been good at calming him down and making him see reason when reason was the last thing he wanted to acknowledge. But she couldn't help him with this, she just couldn't. He refused to subject her to any more of his angst about Aizen. The man didn't deserve to take up any more space in her life, even if it was just her mind. That bastard had played with that enough too.
"I don't want your help."
Momo flinched, and too late he heard how cruel that must have sounded. Momo deflated like a popped balloon, face lengthening, eyes growing quiet. Hitsugaya clenched his fists under the table. This was why he couldn't tell Momo how he felt. Every time he tried to protect her he only ended up hurting her more. Around her, everything he touched turned to dust, lost its shine and went cold. He drained the life out of her, made her small and sad.
Like Aizen, his mind whispered cruelly, just like Aizen. You even stabbed her too.
They got their food and ate in silence. The river was beautiful this time of day, with the sun high in the sky, children and young families playing in the water and on the shore. It was a gorgeous day, cruelly beautiful. Hitsugaya hated it immensely. Or maybe he just hated himself.
He walked Momo back to her division, listening to her tell him all about her missing captain, about her growing concern for him. Privately, he thought Hirako was probably as on edge about Aizen's trial as he was, but of course, he didn't say that.
He hesitated, but couldn't quite resist the urge to brush a kiss across Momo's cheek in parting. Momo touched the skin, wide-eyed and flushing happily. Life rushed back into her eyes and she smiled at him like a small supernova. Hitsugaya's breath rushed out of him all at once when she leaned forward and gave him her own kiss—a delicate press of lips against the corner of his mouth, just touching his lips.
She smiled shyly. "Bye Shiro," she said quietly.
Hitsugaya swallowed and whispered back, a little hoarse, "bye Momo."
Momo walked away towards her office, glancing back at him over her shoulder only once to send him another bright-eyed smile that made his heat thump against his ribs. When Hitsugaya realised he still had his hand sticking stupidly up in the air, waving, he dropped it with a scowl.
Out of nowhere, an arm slung itself around his shoulder.
"Well well well," a voice crooned in his ear, dripping with smug pleasure. "That's a bit new ain't it?"
Toshirou shoved the man's arm off him and glared. "Where the hell did you come from?" He groused.
Captain Hirako pointed towards the tree they were standing under, just in front of the fifth division gate. Hitsugaya growled under his breath, and started to stalk away back towards his own division. Hirako followed him at a loping pace, his strange raptor daemon streaking ahead of him.
"Momo's looking for you y'know," he informed the man angrily.
"I know," Hirako said easily, hands shoved deep inside the pockets he'd inexplicably sown into his captain's haori. Probably just so he looks cooler when he slouches all over everything, Hitsugaya thought sourly. He didn't dislike Hirako exactly, he just learned very early on to be wary of the older captain, and to develop a healthy amount of suspicion for anything he said or did. Hirako always had some kind of hidden agenda.
"She's worried about you," Hirako drawled casually.
Hitsugaya whipped around abruptly, stopping in the middle of the street. Hirako stood a few metres away, head tilted so his weird, lopsided fringe hung in his eyes. The pocketsdomake him look cooler, he thought disgruntledly.
"Me?" he asked incredulously. "Momo just finished talking about how she was worried about you!"
Hirako screwed up his face and scoffed. He looked at Hitsugaya like he was a particularly dull plank of wood.
"Well that's different ain't it? Momo's only been worried about me for a coupla days. Weeks, max," Hirako slouched a little closer, eyeing Hitsugaya sharply. "You she's been stewing over for years. You gotta stop screwing with her."
Hitsugaya's eyes almost bugged out of his head. "You think I'm screwing with her?" He hissed, stepping forward with dangerous intent.
Hirako held up his hands.
"Woah, easy there kiddo. Ya don't do it intentionally or nothin. Ya just got that way about ya where everything ya do is do or die, ya know? Ya don't half ass anythin. Makes ya a great captain. Makes ya capable. But it worries the hell outa Momo." Hirako shrugged, squinting at the sky. "People like us, we don't share our burdens. It can be hard on the people that love us," he continued a bit more softly.
Hitsugaya frowned, wondering briefly, madly, if the man had been following them all afternoon, or if he really was just as observant as Hitsugaya was beginning to suspect. "What're you giving me life advice for Hirako?" He asked. "Why the hell are you here at all?"
"Momo's my lieutenant. Gotta make sure she's taken care of."
His eyes narrowed, watching the way Hirako shifted on his feet, voice almost too casual.
"Bullshit," he said bluntly.
Hirako blinked at him in surprise. "Ya don't think I care about Momo-chan?"
"I don't think she's why you're here," he corrected.
The other captain raised an eyebrow, smirking.
"Well well, on the ball as always Captain Hitsugaya."
The visored grinned widely, like a shark among fishes.
Hitsugaya shifted on his feet uneasily.
"I need ya help kid."
Hitsugaya looked around in surprise when the 13th division office materialised in front of him and he was able to remember, abruptly, that it existed, and was not a massive empty space in the middle of the 13th division grounds.
"Huh," he said.
"Yep," said Hirako, popping the 'p' sound. "It's my mate Hachi's invention, a barrier kido that erases whatever's inside from people's minds. Pretty scary huh?"
Hitsugaya nodded mutely and let the other captain escort him inside. Ukitake and Kyouraku were there as expected— where one captain was the other usually wasn't far away, he'd found. Once Hirako had closed the door behind him, they crossed to either side of the room and put the barrier back up.
Hitsugaya could taste the magic in the air. The kido must be very powerful. He frowned. No, he realised, it was another kind of magic he was sensing, underlying the lighter, gentler hum of the barrier kido. Now that he was listening for it, he could hear two distinct energy signatures humming like discordant notes, together but apart. There was something older, something deeper and somehow richer humming steadily beneath the warbling high note of the barrier kido. It felt… the closest Hitsugaya could come to conceptualizing it was to think of a well of ancient magic, capable of being drawn up from deep within the earth, but resisting the pull.
He frowned and looked at the innocuous formal tea set in the corner of the room. Hitsugaya had never been inside Ukitake's office before, but if he had, it would have been impossible for him to miss a powerful magical signature like that.
"Nice tea set," he said.
Everyone froze.
Ukitake looked up sharply where he was just settling into a plush white arm chair. He stared at Hitsugaya long and hard enough that the young captain felt compelled to fidget in his seat.
"Hmm," Kyouraku said thoughtfully, looking at Hitsugaya with a single grey eye. Even though Ukitake was staring with greater intensity, it was Kyouraku's keen-eyed interest that put him on edge, made him think he'd done something wrong. Even though he knew the white-haired captain was dangerous in his own right, he'd always been so needlessly kind to Hitsugaya that he found it hard to be intimidated by the senior captain anymore. Kyouraku on the other hand… Kyouraku had always put him on edge. The man was intimidatingly intelligent and too observant by half. Honestly, he and Hirako were kind of similar.
Kyouraku stroked his chin.
"Why do you say that Toshirou?" He asked, deceptively casual.
Hitsugaya stiffened. He'd meant it as an innocuous comment, but he should have known better. It was unwise to prod at older, more experienced captain's and expect anything less than suspicion. He should have known from the taste of the magic that he'd stumbled across a secret of some kind.
Interestingly, Hirako was watching him with narrowed eyes, waiting to see how he'd answer.
Hirako knows too, he assessed quickly, maybe this has something to do with why he asked for my help, why he brought me here in the first place…
Hitsugaya shrugged, deciding to just be frank about it. Despite Ukitake's honest face and open nature, Hitsugaya held no illusions. He knew that he was the least accomplished liar in the room. It would be impossible to pretend the comment had been anything but intentional.
"You don't see a lot of magic tea sets, that's all."
Ukitake blinked, startled. Kyouraku smiled slowly, and Hirako flat out grinned, crowing with laughter.
"Ya hear that? Boys a natural!" He hollered.
Kyouraku looked amused, and muttered a low, "Indeed."
Ukitake, in contrast, was still frowning. "Can you clarify what you believe you are sensing Captain Hitsugaya?"
Hitsugaya looked between the three of them suspiciously. "Does it have something to do with why I'm here?"
"I think you know the answer to that," Ukitake said quietly.
Hitsugaya swallowed. Whatever was happening here, it was serious. Ukitake wouldn't have looked like that, so grave and cold, for any other reason.
He got up and walked towards the tea set, crouching down in front of the low table and running his fingers over the cups. Tingles shot up his arms as the magic searched him out curiously. His fingers brushed over the pot and he almost fell backwards. Carefully, he reached out again and pressed his fingers to the spout. He followed the magic up towards the rim of the pot, removing the lid and dipping inside. He gasped.
Ukitake stood.
Hitsugaya blinked dazedly. "I'm alright," he said, before the other man could worry too much.
The feel of the magic was indescribable. It was as deep and rich as he'd previously tasted, as deep and ancient as he'd felt— but deadly too. If he'd genuinely tried to weave his intent to dismantle the kido into the bindings of the magic, it would have killed him instantly. The pot, it seemed, was both lock and electric fence. But where was the gate?
Hitsugaya closed his eyes and focused on the sound, the smell, the taste of the magic. There, he thought. It was like sucking on a copper piece, a taste on the back of his tongue that said there was a touch of transmutation kido at work. He ran his hands over the table, bent and pressed his lips against the wood. He ran his tongue over his lips and tasted copper. Hitsugaya smiled.
"The pot is a lock of some kind. It only responds to a particular magical signature—not rietsu I don't think. There would be leftover traces of Ukitake's rietsu if that was the case. I'd say it responds a certain combination of seals in a particular order. Some kind of sealed artefact you'd need to put in the pot to open the door."
"Door," Kyouraku piped up, sounding far too interested for comfort.
Hitsugaya grunted impatiently. "Yes. The table is covered in transmutation kido. I can taste it. My guess is once the sealed item is placed in the pot, the bindings are keyed to release and the transmutation kido takes effect, revealing a door of some kind, or a passageway. He glanced at where the tea set was situated. "Since that wall backs onto a training ground, I'd say the door opens directly underneath the tea set. You have a secret room under your office Ukitake."
Hitsugaya stood and looked at the other captains. Hirako had his mouth hanging open unattractively, Kyouraku was smiling a little bemusedly, like Hitsugaya was a puzzle giving him more trouble than he appreciated. Ukitake… Ukitake looked floored, gutted, like he'd reached inside the man's chest and pulled out something important.
"You," Ukitake licked his lips, "you can tell all that just by looking?"
Hitsugaya shrugged, suddenly uncomfortable with the looks he was getting. As far as he knew everyone could sense this stuff. Sure, he picked things up quicker than most people, it was part of being a genius, but that didn't mean it was some kind of special skill.
"And touching, tasting, feeling," he elaborated, "but yeah basically. Why?"
Hirako snorted, mouth snapping shut. "Cos it's amazing kid."
Hitsugaya raised a doubtful eyebrow. "I bet all of you could pick up more than me. Just because I'm young doesn't mean I can't sniff out some perfectly obvious old kido," he said, starting to get offended by their surprise. Did they think he was incompetent or something? He was a captain. He might still be young, but he didn't get to his position by sitting on his hands. "Especially when it's as powerful as that. I'm not sensory-dead. Give me a little credit."
He crossed his arms.
"Oh!" Ukitake piped up suddenly, understanding dawning in his eyes. "Don't mistake our surprise as some kind of insult. We're not shocked because you can do something like this at your age. We're shocked that you can do it at all."
Hitsugaya faltered, looking between them, honestly a little lost.
Hirako leaned forward. "What he means kid, is that Shunsui and I walked into this office this morning and didn't smell, taste, feel, or sense any of that stuff. Not even my mate Hachi ever got more than a feeling when someone else was using kido, and he is one of the greatest kido practitioners ever born. He could never have done anything like you just did kid. That was something else."
"You mean…" Hitsugaya trailed off, hardly able to believe what he was hearing. "You mean everyone can't do this?"
Kyouraku shook his head, an amused, considering cast to his face. "No. Before today I would have said it was impossible to sense kido like that. We heard you were a talented kido creator, but nothing about your sensory capabilities."
Hitsugaya froze.
"Who told you I could modify kido?" He asked lowly. It was a skill he kept deliberately secret, a trump card as much as his Bankai. No one should know about it.
Kyouraku looked a little shifty-eyed, and Hitsugaya's eyes narrowed to slits.
"Who. Told. You?" He bit out, practically spitting.
Hirako looked up from studying his fingernails, legs slung over the side of the chair. "Oh, I did."
Hitsugaya froze. The air dropped a good ten degrees.
Ukitake wrapped his haori tighter around his chest, looking between the visored and the younger captain nervously. Kyouraku had his hat tipped over his face, trying to look like he wasn't watching avidly.
"And how," Hitsugaya asked, dangerously quiet, "did you know? I definitely didn't tell you. Momo didn't tell you."
Hirako grinned like a shark, crossing his ankles. "Ya sure about that kid? Momo-chan tells me all kindsa stuff."
"She didn't tell you this," he said, ignoring the jab. There were many things Hitsugaya knew his friend was capable of, betraying his trust was not one of them. Not when it came to something as important as this.
Hirako looked at him slyly. "Alright alright, ya got me." He held up his hands in surrender. "I followed ya ta that cave you're always slinking off to in the dark. Couldn't get inside for the life of me. Let little pink naw at it and everything. Knew you had to be pretty good to create something like that."
"You followed me, you and Yachiru," he said dully.
Hirako nodded, looking completely unrepentant. "The other day yeah. Pinky just started following me around for some reason. She's kinda cute for a brat so I let her. Had to make sure you weren't screwing around with Momo didn't I? I coulda sworn we already had this conversation."
Hitsugaya clenched his teeth, seething. "You left out the part where you invaded my privacy and stalked me all over Serentei!" He bellowed.
"Eh? Whatcha so angry for? Chill out Shiro. I aint gonna tell no one bout your mad kido skills or ya weirdo hermit cave. You're secrets safe with me." He paused for a moment. "Well, me Shunsui and Jushirou, but they're pretty good at keeping their traps shut."
Hitsugaya was about ready to start pulling his hair out. How was it that this guy didn't get it. Did he honestly think Hitsugaya gave a crap about whether or not he kept his secrets? Is that seriously what that goddamn crazy idiot thought he was pissed off about?
"I don't care about any of that," Hitsugaya grit out from between clenched teeth, trying his hardest not to sound like he was contemplating homicide (which he was). "I care that you invaded my privacy. I care that you act like I don't know how to look out for my best friend— a woman, I might remind you, you've only known for two years, who I've known since we were growing up in Rukongai." Hitsugaya stood over the other man, hands clenching and unclenching. "I care that you think you have the right to lecture me, monitor me, and go behind my back, all because you feel vaguely responsible for a woman I have loved for three-hundred years. I care that you feel entitled to interfere in things that are none of your business. That's what I care about Hirako. Secrets? I couldn't give a damn about secrets. I care about Momo."
Hirako looked at him from under his ridiculous fringe, and very slowly started to grin.
"Well well, now why can't ya just tell her that eh?"
Hitsugaya was so damn furious he was nearly growling. Hirako was one smart ass comment away from Hyourinmaru chopping off that ridiculous fucking hair. Like he could read Hitsugaya's mind—or more likely, feel his killing intent—Hirako fingered the red hilt of his zanpakuto teasingly, that same smug smile stretched across his horse teeth, that same stupid fucking lopsided fringe hanging in his eyes.
Hitsugaya's hand twitched towards his sword.
Ukitake stepped between them. The older captain laughed nervously, scratching the back of his head.
"Your hair," Hitsugaya said slowly, forcefully banking his unrelenting rage, "is stupid."
Gratifyingly, Hirako actually looked offended.
"Hitsugaya," Ukitake said quickly, looking down with a slightly nervous smile. "Why don't I show you why you're here?"
The moment Hitsugaya entered the underground archive he was flooded with magic. Kido was everywhere: woven into the air around him, set into the foundations of the space so his every breath, his every step, was an exchange of magic. The kido seals siphoned a small measure of rietsu in exchange for light and protection— leaving behind a kind of magical footprint if you knew how to look for it.
Looking down, he could see the footprints of the other captains, Ukitake's by far the most prevalent. He could feel the man's rietsu it was so prevalent in the room, like walking through a dense golden mist. Ukitake's rietsu was a warm yellow colour similar to the reishi lamps all around them, which made him wonder about the origins of the strange seals set into the foundations of the building. Kyouraku's rietsu was a delicate, lofty pink colour that drifted around their shoulders like curious clouds as they walked. Hirako's rietsu was by far the most interesting however. Hitsugaya could see the other captain's original rietsu was a deep red colour. It hung heavily in the air, signposting his every exhale, making it look like the man was spraying arterial blood with every breath. Uncomfortably, it made him think of Ukitake's sickness and he found himself focusing on the oily film that overlayed the visored's rietsu instead. It was hollow energy; Hitsugaya recognised it from his interactions with hollows in the transient world. While Hirako's original rietsu was absorbed into the floor to be used by the seals, the hollow energy sunk to the floor and clung like oil. He almost grimaced every time he had to walk through it. It felt like slime around his ankles and smelled like death.
The minute— the second—Hitsugaya hit the bottom of the stairs he knew why Ukitake wanted him to see this. Each and every single scroll in the room was bound with a powerful sealing kido the likes of which he had never seen. The scrolls glowed with it. He didn't even need the reishi lamps to see down here.
He wandered over to the closest scroll, unsurprised to find he couldn't read a word on the paper. The contents of the scroll were sealed by magic. The kido was immeasurably powerful and of far greater compositional skill than any other he'd seen. The weave of the magic was so intricate, so precise, that there wasn't even a pressure point to exploit that would have any hope of unravelling the kido. It was seamless.
"Can you read it?" Ukitake asked.
Hitsugaya was trying to think of a more polite way of saying "no way in hell" or "are you fucking kidding me?" when his fingers brushed over the page and the kido shattered like glass.
There was silence.
"I… have no idea how I did that," he said honestly.
Ayame Tekei, the paper read, Madeline Rogers, Marcus Leeds, Laavanya Kaushik, William Wong. Hitsugaya read a little further down and almost dropped the scroll when he realised what it was he was holding.
"These are cyclical records," he said dully. He looked at Ukitake. "What the hell are you doing with cyclical records? These should be stored in the Soul Palace with the rest of the Soul King's records. Why are they here of all places?"
"They were entrusted to my bloodline a long time ago," Ukitake said quietly. "We don't have the time to explain in more detail, just trust me when I say that Yamamoto-soutaichou helped my grandmother build this place a very long time ago at the behest of the Soul King himself. There is a reason I am the captain of the 13th division and why I have remained as such despite my illness. You will just have to trust that I have committed no crime to obtain these documents. I inherited them, as another of my bloodline will do after I pass. I swear to you."
Kyouraku tilted his hat down, and Hitsugaya swallowed.
"Right," he said. "Well, I'm guessing I'm not here to read the Summary of Deeds for the many lives of Ayame Tekei?"
"Nah," Hirako piped up, slouching casually against a nearby shelf. "Ya gonna read this one."
He pulled out a slim purple box from within his robes. It looked innocuous enough, but Hitsugaya could both smell and taste the acidic tang ofsee-me-not wards, so he knew it was very much deliberate. Hitsugaya held his hand out for the box, and on closer inspection saw there were additional touch-me-not seals etched down the front. Hitsugaya screwed up his nose when the smell of dill pretty much leaped up and smacked him in the face.
"Ugh," he said. "Urahara made this didn't he?"
"How the fuck did ya know that?" Hirako asked belligerently.
"Everything that bastard makes smells like dill because of his rietsu. It's disgusting."
"Huh," said Hirako, looking thoughtful. "Y'know now that I think about it Kisuke is a dill kinda guy. He's green most a the time, weird, fuckin gross, gets inta places he don't belong."
Kyouraku grinned lazily. "You should say that to his face."
Hirako waved him off. "Creepy bastard would just laugh and ask if he could experiment on the kid." He jerked his thumb at Hitsugaya who bristled at the kid comment—again. Something dark came over the older captain's face, as though Hirako didn't like the idea of Urahara poking and prodding at him one bit. To be honest, it kind of confused Hitsugaya since he had always gotten the impression Hirako thought he was an annoying little twerp he'd like to squash under his heel. There was no lost love between them that's for sure.
Kyouraku hummed and turned his attention on Hitsugaya.
"Can you open that?" He asked curiously.
Hitsugaya hesitated.
On the one hand, any invention of Urahara's was guaranteed to be flawless, and utterly invulnerable under normal circumstances. On the other hand, these were not normal circumstances—and even the most talented of kido practitioners, Hitsugaya had found, left holes in their work. It always used to confuse him why even senior captains performed flawed kido spells. Now that he knew other shinigami didn't sense kido the way he did it made a bit more sense.
He looked at Kyouraku, who was still watching him far too intently.
More than likely Kyouraku knew the sequence to unlock the box and just wanted to see what Hitsugaya was capable of. It rankled that the man obviously just wanted to test him, but that dill smell was creeping up his nostrils and he could admit to himself that he was petty enough to relish the chance to destroy something of Urahara's just for the sake of it after the whole zombie ordeal. As far as he was concerned, Kurotsuchi was Urahara's fault, and the man could pay the price for the former captain's sadism.
Hitsugaya ran his fingers over the box, feeling for faults in the magic and finding none. Impressive, but it did not discount more subtle weakness in the magic. He frowned in concentration, and felt instead for loose threads, something that gaped a little, a piece of magic able to be gripped and pulled. Finally his fingers snagged on something and he smiled. Jerking his wrist, he siphoned rietsu into his fingertips and snapped clean through the kido. In a slow progression, the spell unravelled, the seals sinking back into the box before disappearing entirely.
Hirako frowned at him, crossing his arms and looking like a thundercloud.
"You're fixing that later kid," he snapped. "Strong enough that not even you can break it, yeah?"
"Try that again," Hitsugaya said lightly. He looked up and smirked. "There should probably be a please in there somewhere, a please Captain Hitsugaya."
Hirako narrowed his eyes and looked off to the side. "Che," he groused. "It's always the little mouthy ones… Captain Hitsugaya, please will you fix the box after ya done? Y'know, so Aizen don't get to it, kill us all, and ascend to the throne of heaven? That'd be just great."
Hitsugaya froze. So did Ukitake and Kyouraku.
"What the hell are you talking about? Aizen's locked up and about to be put on trial. He isn't planning anything," he asked, mystified by the older captain's ramblings.
Hirako snorted, laughing a little hysterically, bending over so he could slap a knee.
Ukitake looked at him with concern.
Maybe he finally went off the deep end
Hirako wiped a tear from his cheek, shaking his head.
"The bastard's always plotting Captain Hitsugaya," he said mockingly. "It's what he does. It's his default setting. He don't know any other way ta be. You can bet he's got a plan to get outa that cell sooner rather than later."
"What're you talking about," Hitsugaya asked, trepidation crawling up his spine.
Hirako grinned like the Cheshire cat, a crazed light in his eyes that made Hitsugaya nervous.
"That scroll ya got there, it's Aizen's. Some mysterious old geezer gave it ta me after I got the summons for old Sousuke's trial. Reckon if he gets his hands on it he might try to use it as some kind of defence, get the jump on us."
Kyouraku cleared his throat, interjecting before Hirako could say any more— for which Hitsugaya was grateful. The visored's smile was starting to creep him out.
"It's also possible that Aizen has a mole inside the Tamura family willing to help him achieve a reduced sentence," Kyouraku mused, hat tipped back, looking troubled. "The more I think about it the more I realise how little of what Aizen did can be traced back to him, and all the things that can be proven—the kings key, the siege of karakura town, the kidnapping of that little girl ryoka— they can all be equally attributed to Gin and Tosen, both of whom are dead and unable to defend themselves if Aizen tries to pin this all on them. There is a possibility, slim though it may be, that Aizen could receive a light sentence due to insufficient evidence, or just because he spun a believably story about Gin being the mastermind all along, or Tosen being so driven by revenge he recruited them to help him destroy the shinigami and take over soul society."
"All a that, plus that cyclical record ya got there in ya hand, probably saying old Sousuke's impact on the world has been all kittens and rainbows, means we're in real deep shit proving he was masterminding anything," Hirako finished grimly, face frighteningly blank.
Hitsugaya's head was spinning in a million different directions. There were so many things wrong with that he couldn't even begin to process it, but his brain was stuck on one thing. "Aizen? This is Aizen's cyclical record?" He asked, staring at the scroll like it was a live grenade.
Hirako shrugged, looking shockingly calm for someone who was laughing hysterically a minute ago.
"Yeah. So?" Hirako turned around and all Hitsugaya could see of him were the tense, bunching muscles of his back. "Bastard's plotting again, so what? What the fuck else is new? Doesn't help us does it? What's gonna help us is makin sure Sousuke don't ever get his damn dirty hands on that scroll."
"Why…" Hitsugaya trailed off, mind whirling. "Why are you assuming Aizen wants to use this as some kind of defence? Maybe the man who gave you this wanted you to use it to put Aizen away for good. Maybe this," he held up the scroll, "is incriminating."
Hirako blinked, looking like it hadn't even occurred to him that the contents of Aizen's scroll might be bad, that the self-proclaimed god might not have had a positive impact on the world after all. Maybe it was because Hirako had been beaten down, betrayed and mutated by Aizen for so long he just couldn't help but assume Aizen had prepared for every eventuality, or maybe it was something else, something Hitsugaya wasn't seeing, but it seemed to him that Hirako had a bit of a blind spot when it came to Aizen's capacity for fallibility.
Hitsugaya looked at the stunned expressions on Ukitake and Kyouraku's face and revised that assessment. Obviously none of them had considered the idea that Aizen might not have been a saint in his other lifetimes. That maybe this could help them prove he was a monster that needed to be put away for good.
"Only one way to find out," Ukitake said, eyeing the scroll meaningfully.
Hitsugaya swallowed his nerves and opened the scroll.
With the kido seal still in place he could only read the current information, Aizen Sousuke: 1303 –
Hirako poked his head over the shorter captain's shoulder and immediately frowned.
"Huh," he pressed his pointer finger to his chin, "bastard's the same age as me, who'd a known?"
Kyouraku and Ukitake exchanged a meaningful glance behind Hirako's back that Hitsugaya didn't have time to think about. He looked at Hirako coldly to get him to shut up, and blew out a breath, preparing himself to open the scroll.
Whatever you find, no matter what, Aizen is going to rot in the Muken for eternity, he reminded himself.
Then he pressed the tip of his forefinger to the paper.
The scroll exploded outwards, paper shooting out behind him like a great tongue, lengthening to such an extent that it rolled across the floor and hit the bottom of the stairs. It was at least seven times as long as Hitsugaya was tall.
Hirako blinked. "Fuck, maybe the bastard will live forever."
"That is a lot of past lives," Ukitake said, frowning, his eyes darting towards Hirako and away again quickly.
Kyouraku picked up a length of paper about half way down the scroll and began to read. He frowned. "I can't read this language."
"The names are all written in their original dialect so you have to understand the language to be able to read the text," Ukitake chimed in from where he was glancing over a section of scroll a couple of paces down from Hitsugaya himself.
Hitsugaya looked over at Ukitake and his breath caught.
He heard Ukitake call out for him to check the top of the scroll for Aizen's Summary of Deeds, but he was frozen, staring past Ukitake's shoulder right at the pulsing, angry, hunk of butchered rope he could now see sticking out of Hirako's chest.
Soul bond, his mind whispered, a broken tether
Hitsugaya let go of the scroll and Hirako's chest looked whole and normal, touched it again and the butchered tether was back, sticking grotesquely out of his chest like some kind of poisonous growth. It was…wrong.
"Hitsugaya?" Ukitake asked, brows furrowing gently. Ukitake followed his line of sight towards the oblivious visored and his face shuttered. "Don't look," he ordered quietly.
"What?"
"He doesn't know."
"What do you mean he doesn't know? How can he not know? This is…" he trailed off, not sure how to summarise 'fucking awful', 'disturbing', and 'makes sense actually' in one phrase.
"I know," Ukitake agreed, despite having no idea what he was thinking. Ukitake pursed his lips together. "Sometimes when a person's bond has been broken long enough they can forget they ever had one to begin with. They can become so used to the loneliness and the emptiness that they forget what it felt like to be whole."
Hitsugaya watched Hirako cackle to himself as he read a section of Aizen's scroll.
"Hey guys," he hooted, "Aizen died taking a shit one time! Oh that's gold."
Hitsugaya watched as Hirako dipped closer to the paper to read a small bit of text and a tendril of rope materialised from inside the severed, fist-sized mass sticking out of his chest. The tendril swayed in the air, reaching out towards the scroll beseechingly. Hitsugaya could feel the aching loneliness of the man's soul from here, and felt a pang of sympathy for Hirako. It didn't matter who was on the other end of Hirako's broken tether, just that the man was obviously in pain.
Hirako's brow furrowed and he placed a hand over his chest just as the tendril touched the paper and began to thicken and grow, connecting just the slightest bit with the latent energy from Aizen's former lives. Hitsugaya held his breath and he heard Ukitake do the same. Hirako's face screwed up and Hitsugaya could see the moment he slammed his walls back down, closed himself off to the connection. The golden tendril blinked out of existence just as suddenly, and Hirako seemed to wilt before their eyes. Now that he'd seen what Hirako looked like with just a tiny piece of that broken tether healed, he realised how empty the man looked, how broken.
Dead man walking, his mind whispered.
Hitsugaya looked down at Aizen's Summary of Deeds, noting that in all but one lifetime he had earned a negative karma balance. For some reason, he found it hard to be happy.
He turned to Ukitake.
"I didn't know it was even possible to break a soul bond," he said in a dull whisper.
Ukitake sighed sadly.
"It's the greatest pain you could ever experience, being separated from your other half. Most bonded pairs don't survive the process and those that do…" Ukitake trailed off. He looked at Hitsugaya, eyes old and very sad all of a sudden. "They don't keep their minds very long. It is a slow, lonely decay of the mind and the soul. I would not wish it on my worst enemy."
Hitsugaya closed his eyes.
Suddenly, the last three years made a horrible kind of sense.