Chapter Ten
It was difficult... for him as a child. How do you learn to love a woman who resents your very existence? The woman who thinks of you as the sole reason her own child was taken away? How do you understand being the product of rape?
You don't.
When he was still a child, his enraged grandmother looked on as Hitsugaya took Hinamori Momo's hand and never looked back.
Karin Kurosaki was making him look back and he was irritated.
"Stop making so much noise as you walk, Kurosaki!" he snapped, "do you actually want to announce our arrival to the whole of Soul Society?"
"Jeez, Toshiro!" she stopped and crossed her hands over her chest in an annoyed manner, "Who pissed in your Cheerio's?"
"What does that even mean!" he cried in exasperation.
"It means," she replied, " that you need to relax because at this rate you're going to have a massive coronary even before we meet up with Kon."
He snorted, "that's a stupid expression."
She looked at him askance and said, " It's almost night. Kon must have gotten lost because we've been wandering in these stupid woods forever. What god decided to put this many trees in one single place? I can barely see the woods for the trees."
He looked at her blankly.
"That," she explained, "was another expression. Try to keep up. You don't think he got lost?"
"In a brothel, maybe." Hitsugaya replied unthinkingly.
She sat down by the base of a tree, "Why would Kon want to make soup? He's– "
"What are you doing?" he asked in exasperation.
"Look, I know we have to keep moving. That we have to find this key to reach the King of Heaven. I know. But I'm...," she shrugged and looked away in frustration, it was hard admitting this, "I'm not okay. I'm tired. Whatever made me pass out back there threw me for a loop. I just need a moment, okay?
After he too sat, looking at her for all the world as if she was going to spring up and devour him she continued, "Plus, I heard that you shouldn't go running in the woods for at least an hour after you've eaten."
This was patently untrue but Karin didn't think Hitsugaya was all that informed about such sayings. She was starting to understand he wasn't that keen with human idioms.
From his meditative position Hitsugaya opened one eye, "Isn't that about swimming?"
While Karin lay on her back staring at the darkening blue sky, Hitsugaya began to meditate.
Soon he was in a frozen wasteland. It would look harsh and forbidding to anyone else but to Hitsugaya this was hearth and home. He knew every icicle, snowflake and glacier. He walked forward through the frozen tundra until he came to a cave made completely of clear frozen ice.
Hyorinmaru, thought Hitsugaya, but the great dragon did not appear.
"Hyorinmaru," Hitsugaya called loudly, but his voice only brought about the frozen stalagmites to shudder in response. He tried to think of the last time he had felt the cold presence of his other half, but his mind come up a blank. He stepped forward but the cave seemed to give one short thrilling breath and then caved in with snow. Hitsugaya began to feel a bleak sort of terror rear up from somewhere within him. Hyorinmaru is not here.
He ran forward and fell onto his knees, he dug wildly with his bare hands in the snow.
"Let me in!" he shouted, "I can't be alone again! Hyorinmaru!"
There was a bright light and he was pushed back with the force of its intensity. When he was able to shake off his snowblind there was a figure emerging from the snow.
His relief was nearly palpable. It was Hyorinmaru, the version of him that was a tenth his size. He was the size of a very large dog. Hyorinmaru reared up and curled himself on Hitsugaya's shoulders.
"Why can't I hear you?" he asked outloud. The small Hyorinmaru jumped and landed on the ground in front of Hitsugaya, his tail curled back as if pointing towards a certain direction.
"What is going on?"
The dragon ignored him.
"Fine, have it your way. But I am getting back in there."
Hitsugaya stubbornly replied and began to dig in the snow anew, but the dragon was having none of it. It paced back and forced and finally lunged forward and bit Hitsugaya on his hand in the juncture of his thumb and forefinger.
He looked at the familiar Hyorinmaru and then down at his bloodied hand.
"I can't believe I'm having an argument with myself." But he followed the little Hyorinmaru to where it was he wanted.
Soon they came to someplace Hitsugaya had never seen before. It was still his mind, but the snow had melted enough so that he could see the hard dark dirt underneath. It was dark and foreign and Hitsugaya was no longer so sure that he knew what was going on.
Hyorinmaru dashed forward and disappeared into the shadows. Hitsugaya continued forward and soon he was able to feel the presence of something else. The feeling of some large animal very near. He could feel the slow inhalations and it made the hairs in the back of his neck stand on end like the snow never could.
He came to a barred door and crouched low to the ground, he could just make out the slithering footprints of his Hyorinmaru as they disappeared through the bars. He raised his hand to grab one of the bars and get a closer look but as soon as his hand touched the warm steel something huge slammed up against the bars from the other side.
The huge animal reared back, its cold silver eyes looked down at Hitsugaya and the boy suddenly realised this was no door at all. It was a cage.
And inside it...Hyorinmaru.
But this wasn't the small familiar animal that greeted him in his own mind, it was the Hyorinmaru of the Outside. The dragon made of ice and snow that towered massively over everything.
Hitsugaya stared dumbly for a moment. The animal snorted and placed its massive head on the ground and waited.
"What happened to you?"
The dragon just snorted and looked at him intently. Hitsugaya came forward but just as he was about to touch the massive head the dragon reared back and bellowed.
And instantly he knew: Kurosaki was going to do something stupid.
Hitsugaya was thrown out of his mind just in time to see Karin start running towards a dark shape in the distance. There was a someone laying on the floor a few meters ahead of where they decided to rest.
"Kurosaki, wait!" Hitsugaya warned but Karin had already taken off running.
A blur of images and feelings passed through Karin like a river of multicolored ribbons. I can't let this happen again, she thought. This woman needed helpand unlike that old man on the hospital ledge she'd be fast enough, good enough to save her.
"Are you okay?" she asked as she crouched near the fallen figure. The woman wore a white yukata, much like Karin's own, but it was a little frayed at the edges and she wore a blue shawl wrapped around her shoulders. She was laying face down beside the bank of a long river, her long dark hair was tied with a loose piece of thin leather and spread around her like a dark halo. Karin was able to make out a glimpse of the woman's profile. She would be young, if it hadn't been for the yellowish leatherlike quality of her skin. From what Karin could see the woman's closed eyes were sunk sickly into the sockets and her mouth was lined and chapped like two old pieces of rope pressed tightly together.
The woman let out a low pain filled groan.
Hitsugaya moved his hand over a large wound on the woman's side– right below her ribs– and began to chant. When nothing happened Hitsugaya looked at his hand quizzically as if a little betrayed. He began to chant again but whatever Hitsugaya expected to happen didn't and the wound did not heal. Hitsugaya grit his teeth in frustration and resorted to pressing down tightly on the wound instead.
There was a huge stain of blood on the stomach, but when Hitsugaya moved his hand to it, the woman cried out and tried to escape.
"No!"the woman whispered and grabbed Hitsugaya by the elbow pulling the boy forward.
Hitsugaya pulled his arm back, as if he had been burned. Karin felt the fire. The woman squirmed away from her nearness and Hitsugaya caught her sad eyes as she moved farther away, taking herself out of her line of sight. And for the dying woman this worked; out of sight out of mind.
"We ran after the third was Called," whispered the woman. Her eyes were bright, but they saw something other than Karin and Hitsugaya. "Night and day we ran. Yoichi's ankle was useless, and I couldn't...couldn't carry him."
Hitsugaya tried to hold the woman still, the more the woman moved the more blood poured out of her, the woman shrieked and fought against his hold.
Karin did not want to admit that there was nothing they could do for her, though she could feel her soul ebb and flow.
"It was Harutomo, then Shingen and Yoichi...Oh, god, Wakana!" the woman sobbed.
"What can we do?" asked Karin looking to Hitsugaya almost wildly. "What– "
"They were Called," said the woman, coughing. Blood came out with river water, bright in the moonlight. "After the first...he was trapped in his Calling. We buried him in the end. Then the rest... I told Yone and Wakana to prepare...Wakana is four and her bear was lost– "
"It's all alright," Hitsugaya said with such beautiful certainty and calm that had she not known otherwise she would have never doubted him, "They got away."
Karin wanted to reach across and hold the woman's hand, like Ichigo used to do so long ago now. But she remained motionless.
"If we could just cross the river and make it to..." continued the dying woman. "The river."
"You made it," said Karin gently. "This is the river and Wakana...Wakana will be waiting on the other side."
"Ahh," sighed the woman. And then her eyes closed.
Karin instinctively reached for the woman's shoulder to shake her awake. "Lady! Wake– "
The moment her bare hand touched the woman's bared shoulder the world seemed to tilt and go fuzzy around the edges. What had been a sickly woman a moment ago was now a amorphous cloud of bright luminescent dust, like tiny stars thrumming through the night time air.
Karin gasped and scuddled backwards on all four limbs like a crab. Her eyes wide and panicked with disbelief.
A shadow pressed against her and she looked up at the face of the cold impassive Hitsugaya.
"I–I–Ididn't mean to!" She told him. I killed her, her insides wailed.
She got up, moved back and forth like a great cat in agitation, her hands gripped her elbows until her knuckles turned white, "I'm so stupid! How could I be so stupid!"
Hitsugaya didn't answer. He sat staring past her, out at the moonlit river.
She sat, pulling her knees close to her chest. She rested her head between the crook her bent knees made and felt rather than saw Hitsugaya somewhere near her right. She was breathing rapidly and it took a moment for her to catch her breath.
What happened? She wanted to ask but was afraid of the answer. She didn't want to hear that she had just eradicated a soul. That she had forever taken away someone's sister, or aunt or mother.
He finally looked at her. She was expecting to be yelled at, to be cursed and shamed. She would deserve it. He had told her. Don't touch. She waited. Karin's blue eyes seemed huge in their sadness and guilt.
At the sight of her– pale and wan– Hitsugaya thought she looked very lost, and was surprised to feel a pang of concern instead of anger. Was this her first death? He had been dead for so long he had forgotten what it was to see death for the first time.
"There's no use for sadness here," he said instead, but not unkindly, "When we find the King of Heaven they will all be reborn."
Karin watched him silently, sadness still painfully obvious, "It makes no difference."
Histugaya glanced away, "No. I suppose it doesn't."
Karin lifted from her knees and moved further away from the bank of the river, farther away from Hitsugaya. She clambered over thick raised roots and threw herself down at the base of a tall tree and hugged her knees as hard as she could. Eventually, Karin's grip loosened, and she slid down. Sleep had claimed her.
Hitsugaya watched the sleeping Karin for a moment then returned his gaze to the river, his hand still on Hyorinmaru.
"You can come out now," he said to the water. A few seconds passed and three slinking shadows separated from the darkness of the trees that lined the riverbank. As one, the shadows jumped into the air and three men in black materialized. They stood in front of Hitsugaya in a V and dropped to their knees in a severe bow, foreheads nearly touching the still wet earth. Hitsugaya was surprised at seeing the man before him, but he hid it exceptionally well.
The man nearest to Hitsugaya was the only one of the three who's face was completely uncovered, the other two wore masks of blue cloth over the bottom half of their faces. All three were dressed in black, but they didn't wear the kimono of a Death God, they wore the garb of what was known as shinobi-no-mono. All three were dressed identically, except for the maskless one, who– not unlike the Gotei 13 lieutenants– wore a crest of some sort on his upper left arm; a strange four pointed star. These men were, at least for the here and now of it, ninja. The maskless man spoke, "Hyorinmaru-sama,"
"Don't call me that," Hitsugaya hissed, "My name is Hitsugaya Toshiro."
"Apologies, Hitsugaya-sama. It has been a long time and I forget myself," the man said head still bowed low. "Sensei has requested your presence."
Hitsugaya made a half irritated motion and the men immediately stood at ease.
"Sensei?"
Histugaya turned abruptly at the sound of her voice, Karin stood behind him trying to rub the sleep out of her eyes even though she had slept only briefly. He turned and looked at her. Be quiet, the look said. She narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest, no way.
He grimaced, lip raised in a snarl but then he looked towards where that woman had died and his face became stone cold. Emotionless, except his eyes... please.
Karin lowered her eyes.
Hitsugaya would wonder later when it had become so easy to hold such an advanced form of non verbal communication with the insolent girl but for now he nodded and turned back to the three men, "How long has she known I was back in Soul Society?"
"A day at most, Hyo– Hitsugaya-sama." the man replied.
"There's business I must attend to. Tell Sensei that I regret I must decline." Hitsugaya said though Karin could tell he was anything but regretful at ditching this 'Sensei'. Karin watched the man without the mask.
He was older, maybe only a couple years older than her old man. He was not handsome, at least not in a conventional way. His eyes were too small and his mouth too long and she knew that if he were to smile, it would be a wide endearing smile; all teeth showing and gums bared. It made her think, oddly enough, of a Bobo doll. Not that she meant any disrespect in thinking so, but she imagined him to be the type that if you hit him hard enough he'd just bounce right back, ready to fire off his long looping grin at the unsuspecting.
He was looking at Hitsugaya intently head cocked in subservience, but there was familiarity in his posture as well as if this man was caught between wanting to bring the boy into a fatherly embrace and honor him as a samurai would his emperor.
"Hitsugaya-sama, if you'll excuse my impertinence, it's imperative you meet with Sensei. We know what you found in the woods. It was not an isolated case, Hitsugaya-sama. Sensei– "
"I know what comes next," Hitsugaya said in a mixture of annoyance and brazenness, "'Sensei will tell us more when needs must'."
"Yes, Histugaya-sama." the man bowed as he said this.
"Tell Sensei that the years have been unkind to her memory and if she still thinks I'm at her beck and call anymore then she can kis– "
"Shiro! Enough!" snapped the man, surprising Karin. She had never heard anyone speak to Hitsugaya like that. It was clearly a shock to Hitsugaya as well, because he let go of Hyorinmaru and took a deep, dignified breath.
"You can't talk to me like that anymore, Togan-san."
The man, Togan, looked at him, tried to take an even deeper breath than Hitsugaya, and failed. His breath came wheezing out of him like a toad that had been stepped on. It was clearly a recognition of Hitsugaya's authority, if not a very dignified one. Karin immediately felt bad for him, she didn't know their history, but she was sure that Big Grin Togan didn't deserve such incivility.
"You said it was not an isolated case, where else?" Hitsugaya said.
"District 88, Hyorinmaru-sama." Togan replied, his voice low and mournful.
"District 88? How many?" Hitsugaya was so surprised at the mention of the 88th district that he didn't even catch the misnomer.
"Too many," the man said. Karin realised at once that Togan– even with such a wide grin– was highly trained in hiding his emotions and that one of the victims in this 88th district was one of his loved ones. Maybe even his family. Karin turned away.
"How far are we from Toko-ji House?" Hitsugaya said at last.
"If we were to leave now, we'd arrive well before sunrise," Togan replied stoically then he added, " There is a boy. He says he's 'a dear and loved friend' and would be 'direly missed' if anything where to happen to him. He is waiting at Toko-ji."
Karin nearly grinned. Kon.
Hitsugaya nodded once and Karin realised that this Togan, whoever he was, commanded more respect from the boy than she had expected. So he does care, Karin thought.
One of the masked men stepped towards her and kneeled in front of her, presenting her with his back.
"It will be faster this way," explained Togan. Karin stared at him a horrified expression crossed her face and she went white with terror. She shook her head hastily, unable to say any words (don't touch,don't touch,don't touch) and backed away.
"I-I can't–"
"She comes with me." Hitsugaya interfered giving her a hard forbidding look. There were no explanations. Hitsugaya for once didn't have a single thing to say, he just nodded at her and kneeled.
Togan looked on curiously, "let's go."
Everything seemed long ago as she clung to Hitsugaya's back, much more than just the single day that passed. But it was not at all like a dream. Karin knew that the face of that last woman would stay with her forever.
She was tired but she did not fall asleep, instead she watched the changing landscape slip by underneath her as she traveled pinion.
Toko-ji was located in a narrow dale at the base of a water fall with countless clusters of houses all huddled close to one another. The people there were homely, but they were by no means like the ragged and sickly poor that they had encountered as they traveled. Karin was surprised at the abject poverty in Soul Society, it was not what she had expected the afterlife to look like at all. At any rate, Toko-ji was a glaring contrast compared to the other towns they had flown past.
Togan lead the procession, with Hitsugaya right behind him and the two blue masked men flanked at either side. They came upon toll gates, Karin walked cautiously beside Hitsugaya. The men guarding the gates saluted them, but as soon as they caught a glimpse of Hitsugaya's fair head, they dropped into severe bows.
It was a sea of people, the look of expressionless exhaustion and inevitability stamped into their faces. Karin thought they looked a little like the aftermath of a tsunami that hit the Northern coast of Okinawa a few years back. It was the blank look of survivors from a great natural disaster.
The river they had followed all this time seemed to disappear into a great cloud that smothered the cliffs and the land beyond was covered with mist created by the water fall at its back. Then just for a moment the mist parted and she could see a bright tower, its red tiled roof catching the moonlight. It looked like a mirage, shimmering in the clouds, but Karin knew she had come to Toko-ji House at last.
From what she could see of it Toko-ji House was massive. It looked more like a temple than a proper house, with more red tiled roofs emerging from the clouds, hinting at more buildings grouped around the main house. But she couldn't see more because the whole island that the house was built was covered in a giant undulating quilt of white. Only the red tiles and some treetops were visible.
The one who had offered to carry her took the role of tour guide, "It doesn't look like it, but the island the house is built on is more than three hundred yards long and a hundred yards wide."
Karin had a funny feeling. It was certainly, as Hitsugaya would have liked to say, the willies. There was something off about the whole thing, and Hitsugaya's silence was not helping. She wanted to elbow him but he looked so stiff that she thought he might shatter all together if she so much as breathed on him wrong.
"There's a garden," the her makeshift guide continued, "and an orchard as well as the House itself– you can just see the apple blossoms on the trees to your right. It's nothing compared to the Court of Pure Soul's main council building in size, but its bigger than it looks, and there's a lot packed into it."
Karin nodded along vaguely, trying to catch Hitsugaya's eye, but the reaper seemed too preoccupied in his own thoughts.
They soon reached the house proper. The atmosphere was hushed as if all the inhabitants had slipped into the shadows of the house. Karin saw no one as they where lead through the wooden paneled corridors of the great house. The moonlight slipped through the shoji screens that lined the walls. The pale rice paper seemed to glow with the silver light of the moon from its back.
Karin was reminded of a Chinese poem Ichigo had once read to her;
The moon is shining bright,
I think that it is frost upon the ground.
I raise my head and look at the bright moon,
I lower my head and think of home.
Sensei had told Hitsugaya that he had never died. He was born to a mother just as any human child was. His birth was in no way unique, there where no fireworks or fanfare, no men and women gowned in hospital scrubs or words of encouragement for a birthing woman. What Sensei hadn't said was that she was alone, his mother had crouched on her knees one night and quietly pushed until the infant Hitsugaya slid out from the darkness and into the bright world of Death.
It was only him and his mother. But it would not last, soon after his birth his mother was Called and he was raised by the woman who would be his grandmother in all but name. After, she had stood before him, her hair still elegantly black and streaked with gray, and told him, "You're starting to goo-goo-ga-ga till the cows come home. In no time you'll have a name for me, no doubt."
So, she made this perfectly clear: he was not to insult her with one of those mundane G words like gran, granny, grams or gramma. Sensei was aware that it was innate in an infant to produce hard sounds and soft vowels in response to maternalistic stimuli but if he had to call her anything at all, then let it be 'Sensei'. The gender neutral Japanese word for teacher or master. At least this had some dignity.
Little more than a year later, the child had marched up to his grandmother and commanded, "Call me Hitsugaya."
AN
that last bit about Hitsugaya's grandma was inspired by a book by Tom Robbins. I remember reading something like it a long time ago. And it reminded me of Hitsugaya.