Chapter Eleven: Crossroads
Hitsugaya watched Jito leave the office. "The hollow allowed her to administer Konso? Willingly?" Hitsugaya was still grappling with the concept of using Konso on a hollow. The idea that a hollow might willingly submit was so far beyond anything he had ever imagined, he was still in shock.
"Karin saved Jito's life. And for that, I reward her by accusing her of playing hero, of trying to one-up her brother," he thought, bitterly. "That's the one thing she's tried so hard not to do." He had been a complete ass, and he knew it.
Matsumoto walked into the office, uninvited.
"Haven't I asked you to knock?" he growled.
"Yes," she said, laughing. "What's eating you, Toushirou?"
He said nothing.
"Hmmm, let me see…you yelled at her, didn't you?"
"Who?"
"Don't play dumb with me. You know exactly who I meant." Matsumoto crossed her arms over her chest, as best she could.
"I might have," he said, after a pause.
"So when are you going to apologize?"
Hitsugaya gave Matsumoto a look that said, 'You've gone about as far as I'm going to let you go. Drop it.' She took the hint. Whatever he did, she knew it would be on his own terms and in his own time.
"I assume Jito told you what happened," he said, changing the subject.
"He did. What do you make of it?" she asked, unwilling to offer an opinion before she heard his.
"The Arrancar are up to something. Whatever technique they used on the squad, it sounds a lot like Aizen's Kanzen Saimin. Perfect hypnosis."
Matsumoto raised her eyebrows. "You think there's a connection?"
"It seems an unlikely coincidence," he said, thoughtfully. "But why didn't it work on Jito and Kurosaki?"
"And why did the hollows aim their attack at Jito and not at Karin and the rest of the squad?" Matsumoto frowned. "It doesn't make sense."
"I want you to speak to the other squad members," said Hitsugaya, "see what you can learn from them. I'm going to hold off speaking to the Captain-Commander for now, until we learn more."
"And Karin?"
"She's my problem," he replied.
*******************************
Karin left the Fourth after her confrontation with Hitsugaya and headed directly back to her room. She needed time to think. Thoughts of Hitsugaya's unexpected reaction mingled with thoughts of the previous day's events left her feeling tired and overwhelmed. She had a terrible headache.
"Why would it be wrong to administer Konso to a hollow if the hollow asked for it?" she thought, angrily. "It's not like I risked anyone's safety out there."
The last time Karin had seen Hitsugaya before the confrontation at the Fourth was when he had kissed her. It had been a little like a revelation, that kiss. Unlike with Renji, Toushirou's kiss had lit a fire inside. But there been no opportunity to even speak with him, let alone try to figure out what the kiss had meant. The next day, Jito had come to her with news of the mission, and they had left immediately.
Given her lack of experience, Karin had been surprised that Jito had chosen her to accompany him on the mission to locate the hollows. "Kurosaki," he had said, "I am more than confident that you are ready for battle. If experience were everything, you would not have beaten me the other day. You must trust in your skill."
The squad had spent hours locating the hollows. And then, in seconds, they were surrounded. Karin had tried to call out to her comrades, but their eyes were vacant, unseeing. They couldn't, or wouldn't hear her. Then the hollows had attacked Jito, ignoring her completely.
Karin acted instinctively and destroyed one of the Arrancars almost immediately. She had been surprised at how easy it had been, given what she had heard about the strength of the Arrancars. She had immobilized the hollow using Kido, and then cleaved its mask in two with the blade of her zanpakuto.
Karin had watched the Arrancar dissolve into tiny bits of shimmering light and disappear. For a split second, she had thought she had seen something else in the shimmering light, but her attention had been diverted by the sounds of battle behind her. Jito was fighting the other three Arrancars, and he was losing.
Without considering the consequences, she had inserted herself between Jito and one of the largest of three Arrancars. As expected, the hollow had turned its attention to her. This time, it had proved much harder to use Kido. The hollow was much stronger. She had finally used Masumi to immobilize the hollow, and then a strange thing happened. Karin experienced the same shimmering effect that she had with some shinigami. Like with Renji and Toushirou, she felt slightly sick and dizzy.
Pieces of memories. A man, laughing, raising his infant son high over his head. A woman, carrying a heavy load of vegetables in a basket on her back, trying hard not to trip over the uneven pavement. A child, watching his mother bake a birthday cake, eager anticipation in his eyes.
"Who are you?" Karin had asked the Arrancar. In its eyes, she could see faces reflected. Blurry faces of people. Human souls.
The hollow had struggled against Masumi's restraints in much the same way as Jito had struggled, days before. And then, the shimmering effect coalesced into a particularly clear human face. The face was nearly as solid to Karin as her own hands.
"Who are you?" repeated Karin, unable to take her eyes off the face, stunned.
A man. Middle-aged. Heavy-set. "I am Kimura Hiro." Karin could hear him, but there had been no audible sound from the hollow. "Please, miss, help me. Help us. I am not alone here. There are others. We are lost."
Karin could feel the man's pain, his fear. It cut her like a knife. She heard other voices. Children, men and women. Suddenly, the hollow stopped struggling against Masumi's bonds, and as it did so, the realization of what the spirit was asking for became clear to Karin.
"Karin," whispered Masumi in Karin's heart, "now is the time to trust your instincts. This is your gift. You can set them free, give them peace."
Karin understood. She pointed Masumi's hilt at the hollow and rose up into the air so that she stood directly in front of the hollow's face. She touched the hilt to the forehead of the creature.
"Now you will find your way home," she said. And, as she watched, the hollow dissolved into a silvery haze. For just a split second, she thought she could see the faces of the human souls, now peaceful.
*******************************
"What I did was right," Karin thought, as she headed down the hallway to her quarters. She knew it in her heart, in her soul. "To hell with all of them, if they don't understand."
As she opened the door to her room, she saw a red-haired shinigami, seated on the windowsill and looking at her with some concern.
"Renji," she said, startled, "what is it with you and open windows?"
"Just like an open door, Kurosaki," he said with a slight grin. "Rumor has it you had a bit of an adventure outside the Rukongai."
"You heard?"
"Most of it," he answered. "Is it true?"
"What part of it? That I killed a hollow? 'Cleansed' it as you say in the Soul Society? That I performed Konso on another? Yeah. Do you have a problem with that?" she answered, defensively.
"Whoa, girl," he said, now laughing softly. "I'm not judging you, Karin. I was just worried about you. Besides, I wanted to give you a heads up that a certain orange-haired captain probably knows about what happened, too."
"Great." Ichigo was the last person Karin wanted to deal with at this moment. "Look," said Karin after a beat, "I'm not angry with you, Renji. It's just that I did something I know was right, nobody was hurt because of it, and now everybody is treating me like I'm some sort of freak."
"Everybody?" Renji looked at her, knowingly. "Or a particular somebody?"
"You know way more than you should, Renji," said Karin, reprovingly, "Do you just hang out here at the Tenth spying on me?"
He laughed. "Not exactly. But I like to keep an eye on attractive, eligible women. I also like to keep an eye on my competition."
Karin blushed, in spite of herself. Renji was charming, and she was glad that she hadn't frightened him away permanently. Still, her feelings for him remained conflicted.
"If it helps, Karin," said Renji after an awkward moment's silence, "it sounds like you handled the situation perfectly. You protected your squad, and you were willing to cleanse the hollow. Who am I to say that, under the right circumstances, Konso of a hollow is wrong?"
For the first time in days, Karin smiled. She stood up and walked over to the window and threw her arms around Renji, hugging him. "Thanks. That means a lot to me, Renji. I'm really lucky to have you as a friend. I mean it."
*********************************
Hitsugaya was headed to Karin's quarters. He had made up his mind - he would apologize for yelling at her. She deserved that. Still, he was loathe to admit he was wrong. It had still been insane for her to administer Konso to a hollow.
"You can fight hollows, run your division," he thought, as he walked into the building, "but one woman can make you act like a complete fool. Why is that?"
He knew the answer. He was falling for her. And falling for someone meant giving up more than a modicum of control over his destiny, his fate. It made him extremely uncomfortable, that vulnerability.
He felt it stir again. The memory, buried deep in his soul. It called out to him of hurt, loss and loneliness. "Damn," he thought, "what is it about her?"
Despite the memory, or perhaps because of it, Hitsugaya resolved to face whatever the future held for him. It was worth the risk if she might be part of it. He reached her room and saw that the door was open.
What he saw made his stomach tighten. There was Karin, in Renji's arms, her head buried in his chest.
Hitsugaya turned around and left, unnoticed by either Renji or Karin.
"You fool," he thought bitterly as he walked away, back to the safety of his office, "What did you expect?"