10
Seiko hurried into her room and looked at the mess inside. This mess was the exact reason why no one was allowed in her room and her curtains were always closed. She sighed at the mess she could never believe she'd created and started digging around for her daggers, poisoned blades and tiny smoke-pepper bombs. She'd never liked to release her sword; it'd hurt her at the same time it'd make her stronger. She usually used some other tools and tricks to win. If only she couldn't win like that, she would release her sword. Since she would stay away from Seireitei for long, she took a considerable amount of trinkets with her.
She grabbed a bag from the depths of a pile of cloth and started tucking everything she had grabbed inside it. She also tucked in a few pair of gloves and two masks covered with bandage. Then she went on to her bathroom. She hurried to the locked cupboard and opened it easily. She grabbed the poisons resting in their crystal bottles, protected by a metal box, not letting them move an inch. She tucked it in the bag too. Then came her meds.
It was only natural that she liked to keep her reiatsu pressured to prevent it from hurting her. When not pressured the level of her reiatsu wouldn't let her sword to be sealed and she'd have to keep it in shikai which meant having a burning sword 24/7. No, she definitely didn't like that and yes, she would do almost anything to get Mayuri to make a refill for her when she was out of pills.
She hung the bag on her back and shunpoed towards the road she had left less than two minutes ago. As expected, Hitsugaya wasn't there. She ran the way to the gate and barely saw Hitsugaya disappearing into the gate. Two seconds later, she was in front of the gate herself. She was absolutely sure that Hitsugaya saw her before he waited a few seconds to catch her breath and sighed.
"Really, Captain, why not wait?" she mumbled to herself. Her hell butterfly appeared in front of her just as she stepped in front of the gate. She didn't waste any more time and followed th black bug into the gate. Soon she caught up with her captain.
"I'm back, Captain; but why didn't you wait for me?" Seiko complained. She wanted her answer, she believed Captain would never leave after he saw that she was coming.
"I told you I wouldn't wait." Hitsugaya replied coldly, glancing at her from the corner of his eye again. His stare was icy cold. It wasn't normal. It definitely wasn't like him.
"What's wrong with you, captain?" she asked, her worry reflected in her voice, "You're acting weird."
...
Hitsugaya didn't reply and kept on moving. Sure he didn't want to answer her question. As if he knew what was wrong with him! He wouldn't get so annoyed over anything and he felt so annoyed right now that he was taking it out on Seiko. It wasn't right. He wouldn't leave Seiko behind on purpose, not after he saw her coming – it wasn't just her, he wouldn't do that to any of his comrades. It was just not the way he was. And he wouldn't babble; but he sure felt like he had babbled back then when they were talking about... wait, what were they talking about back then? And when exactly was 'back then', anyways?
He fisted his hands to keep them from shaking and kept his expression as neutral as possible. He was going to solve this... this... this what? What was there to solve? What was he going to solve? Why was he going to solve? It felt weird; but he couldn't understand why. He couldn't understand what it was that he was feeling. He suddenly wondered what exactly he was doing.
His vision blurred as he kept on walking. He was starting to notice what a hard thing it was to do. One step at a time, keeping the balance and getting the timing right for the next step and standing straight in the process. Then stepping on the ground with the right angle to avoid falling on your butt just like a baby does when it's learning how to walk. He blinked hard to clear his vision. He was starting to remember how weak a newborn would be as his body felt too heavy to move normally. His vision blurred again as he stumbled and fell into the velvet stomach of darkness.
...
"Captain!" Seiko called to Hitsugaya and caught him by his arm as he stumbled, looking paler than normal. His colder than usual skin made her wonder if her body temperature had rocketed up again – and this was really something since it was Hitsugaya Toushirou she was touching: some kind of icy prince from the fairy tale books. The way he looked to her, at least.
"Are you okay, Captain?" she called to him worriedly. Hitsugaya's eyes looked unfocused for a second, as if he'd lost consciousness, then the light returned to them. He collected himself and pulled his arm from her grasp. She really didn't want to let go in case it happened again; but she did let go of his arm in the end.
"We can go back to the Soul Society, Captain." Seiko offered, "You really don't look too well."
"I'm okay. It's got to be the fatigue of yesterday's all-nighter. Let's keep going." Hitsugaya said as if nothing had just happened and went on walking towards the real world in the gate. Seiko followed him worriedly.
Hitsugaya acting strange was one thing; but almost fainting in the gate was a whole other thing. It was serious. And more than that, she wasn't liking the feeling he gave off. It was odd, but she didn't know how. The light in his eyes were kind of not right.
She didn't know what was worrying her so much, it just felt wrong to her. Maybe she was just being delusional. She hoped he was just in a bad mood and decided to let it go. And maybe it was really because of the fatigue that he had fainted here. He was overworking himself for days now, and Senkai Gate had this weird reiatsu current that Seiko absolutely hated. And there was this colorless reiatsu added to it now, even worse than before.
After a few seconds of walking, the colorless reiatsu started to invade her five sense, leaving a feeling of emptiness inside of her so that she couldn't even feel fear. She let some of her flaming reiatsu go wild to burn the colorless reiatsu away; she didn't like that false calmness, it felt too fake to be relaxing. When it went away, the first thing she felt was that she hated the colorless reiatsu, the second feeling was worry. When she could focus more easily, she checked out her captain to see if he was feeling the same thing; but he seemed perfectly okay, like he noticed nothing. She relaxed a little.
It seemed that the reiatsu was wilder and stronger here in the gate and got stronger as they got closer to the real world. It meant they probably would have to protect themselves from whatever it might do to them. She wanted to know what exactly that would be. Jeez, that was shy she hated this kind of missions! How was she supposed to protect herself and her captain if she didn't know a single thing about the enemy? What if it attacked with a completely alien attack and she couldn't block it? Really, why not send Captain Mayuri instead of them anyways? He would do a far better job then them!
She felt the flaming reiatsu go wilder, starting to spread. She breathed and calmed herself down, preventing the flames from spreading and burning her limbs as it used to when she couldn't control its flow. Medicine's effect must be wearing off, she thought, the flames were getting powerful again. She'd be okay for a while more; but she would need to take a pill when they arrived the real world, that much she knew. She didn't like being pressured from inside by the flames. She'd liked to get rid of them, definitely; but the flames also made her feel safe. She was torn between the two feelings.
She had never understood why it was her the flames had 'chosen' though. It seemed that there were no explanation other than her nightmares from long ago where she got burned – and got burned nasty. Even remembering them made her tremble with fear. She didn't want to turn into her ashes in the end. But she really didn't remember what those dreams were about. She just remembered the pain in her limbs and hitting some painfully hot thing hoping it would break and set her free. She had no idea what that hot thing was, but it never gave way, not even in one dream.
Getting her shikai had been considerably hard because of that wild reiatsu she had. Whenever she tried to communicate with the flames, they would burn her. She knew that she only needed the name of her Zanpakutou; but the flames refused to talk to her. She was on the reiatsu-suppressor meds at that time, that was the only way for her to go to school. She had thought she couldn't release her sword because of the meds and "forgot" to take her meds on purpose. The result had been very exciting. Before she could start to meditate, hell, before she could even unsheathe it the sword had started burning and had burned its sheath too. Seiko still remembered how terrified she had felt at that time.
A bright light broke the chain of memories and pulled her back to reality. The door of Senkai Gate was right there in front of her. Seiko shook her head and focused back on the present, followed her captain towards the exit.
A/N: oh noes! what happened to Little Icicle? to tell the truth, i don't know it yet either. not too much. i mean, i do have a plot in my head but it' not fully completed and edited. but we'll get to see the icicle melting soon enough. it's written in my red notebook and i have to type it so it takes longer than expected. it's the reason why this chapter was shorter than usual. anyways, it's still up in a day so i'm not complaining. tell me if i made any grammar mistakes though, i didn't take my time editing. so! the mission's starting. hope you like the way the story went up to this point. please review, thank you!