A/N: I felt guilty for the cliffy...so here's the next chapter! :D
Also, if you haven't already, please vote on my poll!
"Toushiro! Toushiro, dammit kid, get away from there!" Steve shouted, his voice cracking even as he watched the ray of blue light froth and bubble angrily underneath Toushiro's wavering blade. Hitsugaya had been above the Stark Tower for nearly an hour now – long enough to kill him, given his estimate. But he wasn't moving; he wasn't leaving his post.
"Toushiro, Stark has a nuke incoming!" he yelled into the headset, desperately warding away the last of the Chituari footsoldiers with his shield. "Get out of there so Stark can send it to them!"
Again, the boy refused to move, and slowly Rogers began to realize that maybe it was because Toushiro couldn't move. Perhaps he was so far gone that he could barely function, though it frightened Rogers to think of the state the young captain would have to be in to lose such basic senses.
But finally, with a loud cry of grief from Kurosaki, the white-haired boy plummeted sideways, slipping out from the Tesseract's well of unadulterated power, and the wormhole reopened for just long enough to Stark to launch the bomb through. And then Natasha, who had managed to get into position on time, closed it for good. And Toushiro plunged towards the earth like a falling star. His sword slipped from his fingers, tumbling into empty space, and time seemed to slow. Steve called out in a panic to Thor and Iron Man, yelling for them, for someone, for anyone to catch their fallen comrade.
And the Hulk leapt forward, grabbing the young man in surprisingly gentle palms, cradling the broken figure with an unusual amount of curiosity on the green man's face. Then he thundered over to Steve and Kurosaki, watching the unmoving body with a nearing-frantic panic. Thor and Iron Man came to join the group moments later – Thor with an unconscious Loki with a bandaged shoulder and Clint and Iron Man with Natasha and Selvig carrying the Tesseract in a small briefcase.
By this point, Bruce had regained his senses and shrunk back to the doctor he was, clad only in the ragged pants that the Hulk had torn through. Toushiro lay still, his eyes half-open and staring sightlessly, blood leaking from the corners of his lips, sprawled gently on the shattered concrete beneath him, fragments of melting ice clinging to his cold skin. The Avengers clustered around the fallen boy as Banner tried to find a pulse, moving his fingers from the boy's wrist to the side of the young man's throat. Steve knelt by the young captain's side, poisonous fear and grief beginning to creep through his chest and choke his breath, and for the briefest moment he felt asthmatic again. They watched in horror as Banner unzipped the young shinigami's top and pressed his ear to Hitsugaya's motionless chest, trying desperately to find some sign of life. And then the scientist's face changed to one of disbelief.
"No!" he lashed out suddenly; emerald panic streaking across his tanned skin. "Tony, tell me you've got a vital sign from him!"
Slowly, the Iron Man replaced his mask and the six watched as the metal suit's eyes glowed briefly. Then the facemask disappeared, and Tony's stricken face said it all.
Banner clasped his hands together and placed the heels of his hands over Toushiro's sternum, thrusting down with a sharp, quick movement. Hitsugaya's chest appeared to deflate suddenly as his ribs cracked, but the pressure was lifted quickly, and Banner repeated the motion with alarming urgency. A dim voice in Steve's head told him that he should contact the other shinigami to get help – Banner was using full-fledged CPR to try and revive the child captain, including artificial respiration – but he seemed to have gone completely numb. For some reason, losing Toushiro seemed to be the same as losing Bucky had been – mind-shattering.
"Shinigami-san, Romanofudesu. Hitsugayataichowa…"
He could hear Natasha speaking rapid, anxious Japanese into the communicator, and he could also hear Ichigo's choked, barely audible murmuring of what sounded like a prayer under his breath as Banner pumped the boy's chest, forcing air into the still lungs. Thor, Clint and Tony were silent as he was, watching with varying degrees of anger and lost grief on their faces. Even Selvig seemed subdued – though Steve knew the man likely thought of Toushiro as a child and was upset for that reason. Finally, however, a tall woman with long, dark hair arrived, clad in the billowy robes that Hitsugaya had worn prior to Tony's gift of the protective suit. She ran forward so fast that it seemed that she had blurred, and when she stood by Toushiro's side, she turned to Ichigo and spoke quickly, her Japanese commands hurried. Ichigo nodded and responded in kind.
Then she turned to the humans, her gaze serious.
"I will take over from here." She told Banner solemnly, her eyes never leaving Hitsugaya's pale little face. Banner nodded, pressing one last breath into the unresponsive child's lungs, then sat back and watched in shock as the dark-haired woman enclosed the boy in a pale green cube of light, chanting fast-paced Japanese under her breath. For several long, tense minutes, her palms glowed with every shade of green light, until finally it was clear that her voice had become desperate.
Suddenly several more people appeared in the street, each wearing the loose clothing of the shinigami uniform. Many of them bore superficial wounds, and Steve could tell that even from this distance that few had escaped unharmed, though the bloody marks were little more than scratches. From this somber, black-clothed crowd, two pelted forward, expressions verging on blatant sorrow on their faces. Both were girls, though one was tall and blonde, her top cut low enough to make Steve blush on a normal day, and the other was small and sweet, looking only a few years older than Toushiro.
The pair reached the silent group just as the healer's green magic vanished and she lifted the limp figure tenderly in her arms. And the healer turned slowly to them, Toushiro borne gently in her grasp.
"I…" she began in English, glancing at the Avengers with tears pooling on her eyelashes. "I…"
Steve knew then, knew what she was going to say, and he shook his head, unwilling to believe it.
"N-no." he stuttered, his tone unsteady, startling Tony and Thor – who hadn't appeared to realize it yet. The healing woman just looked at him; her dark blue eyes a dreary ocean of grief.
"I…I'm so sorry." She said.
"He's gone."
The young girl fell to her knees with a loud scream of grief, crystalline droplets rolling down her pale cheeks, and the blonde woman looked as if she'd been slapped with a slab of concrete. Steve heard Thor's roar of sorrow, Banner's angry, trembling curses, Tony, Natasha and Clint's stone-faced silence, and Kurosaki's flickering, choked voice rise, speaking to the pair of women standing by the healer and Toushiro's soft corpse. At the sound of Kurosaki's wavering, emotion-drowned words, both girls began sobbing silently, and the blonde sank down beside her companion, wrapping her arms about the young girl and burying her head in the girl's shoulder.
But Rogers felt numb. Completely empty, like he'd been shocked into silence. And then his thoughts flitted to Bucky, and the supersoldier cupped a palm to his face, choking on a tearing sense of loss. Silent tears raced down his chiseled face.
A white sheet, crisp and clean, was rolled out onto the cracked street, and Toushiro's body was laid gently onto the crisp white surface, his Zanpakutou blade retrieved and placed at his side. His face was peaceful, and the barest hint of a content smile played about the pale lips. For a moment he lay there, looking at them – through them, the ever-bright emerald of his stare hauntingly beautiful.
Rogers approached and the healing woman stepped aside, understanding what he wanted and silently giving him her blessing. The others watched, sobbing in their own ways.
So with trembling fingers, Steve reached out and gently – oh so gently – drew the soft eyelids down. The young man could sleep now, sleep peacefully and eternally.
And he could dream, smiling.
Steve couldn't stop his voice from breaking.
"See you later, son." He choked out. "H-hopefully you're headed somewhere beautiful right now – you deserve it. But we have some things to wrap up here, so we'll…we'll catch up with you in a bit, okay?"
His candid tone cracked both Natasha and Clint, and the assassins began wavering, their stone masks breaking along the seams. Tony was already a shambles by the time he'd finished speaking, and Thor was obviously stricken by angered grief, as was Banner.
"Farewell, young one." the Asgardian said, his voice thick with emotion. "I will forever remember you, Toushiro Hitsugaya, and if my father permits it I will write your name in the stars."
Banner nodded at that, looking faintly green around the edges.
"Me too, Hitsugaya." He seconded. "And Tony and I…I think we'll do our best to make sure that the world is a better place than when you left it."
Tony wiped his eyes suddenly, blinking rapidly, and purposely turned his eyes from the little body lying limp on the white sheet.
"Yeah." he agreed. "I'll…I'll start a charity or something, to help kids like you were – back in Germany – get adopted. And I'll…I'll name it after you…yeah, I'll…I'll do that. I'll dedicate it to you and Phil, and I'll get Pepper and Stark Industries to support it…and maybe I could even get Thor and SHIELD to endorse it…"
Steve stood, clasped the plating protecting Tony's shoulder.
"I'll support it." He said instantly. "If America still has a soft spot for me, I'll do publicity stunts."
Stark looked at him, droplets of saltwater caught in his stubble and nodded wordlessly, unable to look the supersoldier in the face. Natasha knelt by the boy's side, her eyes welling though no tears spilled over, a curious anger and sorrow marking her countenance. She touched the cold face gently, trailing her fingers over Hitsugaya's cheekbone with subdued fondness.
"I liked you." She confessed quietly. "You were one of those children that made me regret – really, really regret – that I can't have kids of my own. So kick some ass for me, wherever you are. And it's like Rogers said; we'll catch up with you someday, kiddo. Sleep well until then."
But just as she was about to retreat from the boy's side, something caught her eye, and she took a closer look at the black glove covering the boy's wrist. She stiffened, then tenderly pulled the glove off his small, cold hand for a better look. With a gasp, she lifted her head.
"Selvig?" she questioned cautiously, and without warning, the scientist looked up from where he was examining the Tesseract's blue cube, eyes wide in stunned shock.
"Natasha, the Tesseract's going out!" he said, sudden panic engulfing his voice. "The light it gives off was pulsing oddly a little while ago, but now it's dimming, as if the energy is leaving."
Natasha nodded, then pointed behind her at the young corpse.
"And the veins in his hand where he was in the most contact with the Tesseract's energy are starting to shimmer a light blue." She said grimly. "It's like it was poisoning him."
For a moment, everyone was quiet, trying to understand why the Tesseract's energy would be leaving the cube to move to a corpse. And then Tony clapped his metal-plated hands together.
"Wait a second." He thought out loud, rubbing his chin. "Toushiro was directly expending energy to block the Tesseract's beam. So what happened when he'd used up all of his power?"
Banner spun on his heel, eyes wide. He seemed to still be unaware of the ragged state of his meager clothing.
"The Tesseract's excess would be drawn into the void!" he said incredulously. "You think that the Tesseract could be used to revive him? He's been dead for three minutes already, and the brain dies after four."
As one, everyone winced at the awful word used in conjunction with their young friend, but the healing woman nodded, sweeping over to them and plucking the blue cube up in her hands.
"We can only hope that it will work." She said, her gaze focused on the young boy before her. "Watch."
She set the Tesseract on Toushiro's chest and closed a green glowing magic-box around them, chanting feverishly in Japanese for several moments. It took several tense seconds for anything to happen, but when it did, the result was spectacular.
The blue light in the center of the cube suddenly flickered and died, and the cubic blue shell cracked and broke apart, revealing a small glowing stone which dropped onto Toushiro's chest and sank under his skin, the energetic cerulean light dissolving into the boy's body. And suddenly, the icy blue-white of the boy's personal energy signature rose up through him, a long breath escaping his lips…and…
A gasping breath escaped him, a sharp, desperate wheeze much like the choked inhalation of one who nearly drowned. His chest heaved, his body trying to take in oxygen as fast as it could, and slowly the violent wheezing calmed into long, measured breaths, as if he were merely asleep. And the Tesseract's clean blue light wove across the boy's face like a tattoo until a tiny blue polygon matching the shape of Hitsugaya's sword hilt coalesced over his left eyebrow, on the side of his face not hidden by his thick bangs. The healer-woman gently took his pulse, then breathed a long sigh of relief.
"It worked." She told them, her gaze wondering slightly. "He lives."
Clint whooped, and Thor shook his fist as if they'd won a great victory, his smile spreading infectiously. Kurosaki let out a yell of triumph. And for a moment, all was well. Steve buried his face in his hands, asphyxiating on his relief and broken sorrows.
Toushiro was alive again.
But then blue lines spiderwebbed over the young captain's visible skin, and his breathing hitched as if he was in pain. A convulsion wracked his thin frame, startling him into delirious consciousness and rendering him completely helpless. Blue wisps of the Tesseract's energies drifted off his skin, and even as Steve and the healer-woman threw themselves forward to quiet his struggles, he seized again, a strangled cry escaping his throat.
"Unohana-taicho!"
The voice belonged to a creaky-looking old man, one that Steve recognized with a start to be the same man that Toushiro had first made contact with from his own people. The Commander of the shinigami forces. Steve saluted reflexively, keeping Toushiro pinned with his knee and his free hand. The old man made a perfunctory nod in his direction, likely surprised by the show of deference, but quickly turned to the healing captain. For several long minutes, they exchanged rapid Japanese, the thrashing young man trapped beneath Steve's much larger frame gasping uneven breaths. The Avengers, Kurosaki, and the two unknown shinigami-women tried to calm him, tried to soothe the convulsing boy while Unohana and Yamamoto spoke, but as the conversation continued the Japanese-speakers, Natasha included, began to go pale.
Finally, Yamamoto swore explosively and knelt down next to the twisting captain.
"Hitsugaya-taicho!" he called, taking the child's face in his hands and immobilizing the boy's head. "Hitsugaya-taicho, focus on my voice. Do you understand? Focus on the world about you."
Toushiro's back arched, as if he was in pain, and a soundless cry rolled off his tongue. But slowly, as if he could only barely control the spasming of his body, he tried to speak.
"Yama…Yamamo…" he choked out, unable to fully form the man's name. The lithe little figure bucked again, and suddenly an extra punch of power threw the supersoldier pinning him bodily away, as if he was no more than a rag doll.
"Easy, Hitsugaya-taicho." Yamamoto ordered, his tone anxious. "Do you understand what's happening? Block it out! You can't lose control yet, do you understand me?"
For a moment, all that could be heard were the white-haired boy's rippling whimpers of both pain and fear.
"Ye…yes…sir" he spat around clenched teeth and a locked jaw.
The Commander stood, his wrinkled old face lined with a certain angered determination. He sighed deeply.
"Asgardian." He snapped. Thor looked up at him, worry for Toushiro filling the creases of his face.
"Yes, Sir Shinigami?" Thor responded warily, keeping a firm grip on the slowly reawakening Loki.
"Can you contact Odin from Earth?" The old shinigami asked sternly. Thor looked confused, then shook his head.
"Not directly. But Heimdall, the keeper of the Bifrost, can see and hear all that goes on. Doubtless he can tell my father of what has transpired here on Earth." Suddenly Thor's face became troubled. "However, I will need the Tesseract's power to return to Asgard, so any message carrying must wait until the young captain has recovered enough to separate himself…"
Yamamoto was shaking his head, as was Natasha, and it was these expressions which cut off all noise surrounding the small group.
"Thor…" Natasha started slowly. "The Tesseract is…it's changing him. It's waking up some sort of genetic memory in him and rewriting that to incorporate itself…comparable to the process that Rogers underwent when the supersoldier serum was injected – except it is far more painful. I didn't understand many of the technical words in the conversation…so that's my best guess at a translation."
Steve paled sharply, remembering the moment when the serum had entered his bloodstream and how much pain he'd endured. Yet this…was worse?
Yamamoto nodded jerkily, his gaze fixed on the child before him.
"This process has happened once before." He said. "It is the reason why Asgard and Soul Society broke ties. My younger brother took part in an experiment similar to this one, but nobody thought to inform me. He was dead before I could understand why, and Odin seemed to think that my interference had been what killed my brother. My stance was different. I thought that it would at least be common courtesy to inform the family of a man who was taking part in an experiment which could – and did – cost him his life. I withdrew all communications with Asgard the next day, and Odin and I have not spoken since."
The old man's eyes narrowed in twisted anger, a pained grimace crossing his features.
"However, as far as I can understand it, my brother's death stemmed from his low capacity for containing the power of the stone used in his transformation." He said bitterly. "The Asgardian technology used to smooth and control the transformation was all fully operational."
The admission appeared to hurt Yamamoto deeply, but then he composed himself. A slight whimper escaped Hitsugaya's paling lips, streaks of luminous, clean blue darkening along the ridges of his face and arms.
"His only chance is if we take him to Asgard immediately." Yamamoto decided firmly. "We can only hope that Odin has not destroyed the device used to contain the effects of such a transmutation."
Thor leapt forward, shaking his head in distress.
"We cannot return to Asgard unless we can use the power of the Tesseract!" he raged quietly. "And the Tesseract is unusable!"
Suddenly, the old man smiled thinly, his narrow glare winking in suppressed amusement.
"We shinigami can travel by other means, Asgardian." He asserted firmly, sweeping the shuddering young captain up in his arms. "I will take him to Odin now. Matsumoto-fukutaicho, Unohana-taicho, if you will accompany me."
Thor nodded, then readjusted his grip on the dazed Loki and scowled deeply, his muscles rippling as he practically threw his adopted brother over his shoulder, ignoring the semi-conscious man's groan of protest.
"I will go with you." He declared forcefully. "I must return to my father's side. And I believe that perhaps Captain Rogers and Mr. Stark should go as well. Young Hitsugaya appears to be put at ease by Captain Rogers's presence, and Mr. Stark will likely be able to understand the technological aspects of the device you speak of. He may be able to assist in a quick assessment of any calibration involving this particular instrument. He has previous data concerning the lad's physiology."
Yamamoto gave the two humans in question a hard look, but then Toushiro contorted, a strangled cry of mixed shock and pain filling the boy's mouth, and the old man nodded darkly, passing the seizing child captain to Steve as gently as he could.
"Very well then." He allowed unwillingly. "Let us go."
Heh heh. Plot point for *Tipping Balances* (tentative title) is planted!
By the way, Crash-landed is FULLY WRITTEN! Will upload at a measured pace, however - more reviews means faster update time ;) (though I suppose I'm pretty fast already...)
Read & review!
~avtorSola