Mt. Waialeale, on the north end of the island of Kauai, has the dubious honor of being the wettest spot on planet Earth. With an annual rainfall of over 450 inches, the peak is almost always shrouded in clouds even on the hottest and sunniest of days - a sharp contrast from the rest of the tropical island, where only a few miles away the rainfall drops to a mere 10 inches a year. Itself the remains of an old, blasted-out volcano, the sharp, jutting cliffs of Waialeale press into the laden clouds in a jagged ring, their peaks cradling the moisture in a relentless embrace. When it rains, at least once a day and for no fewer than six hours, the run-off pours down its sides in a curtain of tiny waterfalls. Anyone brave enough to venture its slopes would swear it looked like the entire mountain itself was weeping.
An unlikely place for anyone to spend a great deal of time. Ideal, however, for someone who hates to show emotion and finds himself lost in it. Someone who wants to be alone, to hide his own tear-streaked face for a while.
Tucked miserably under the sprawling branches of a kukui tree, Hitsugaya felt the precipitation trickling down through his thick hair and across his cheeks in warm, wide tracks. A sharp contrast, as it turned out, with the frozen gems that occasionally joined the rain in its trek from his long, dark lashes to the saturated, mossy ground. In truth, he'd hoped to hide the tears in the warm droplets, but seeing as he had only cried once before he'd forgotten the state in which his tears tended to present themselves. Instead of mingling with the rain, erasing all proof of his agonized weakness, he found himself ringed with a bed of glittering gems, sparkling in the gloom and refusing to melt.
I can't even cry properly, was the only coherent thought he could put together, as his black depression threatened to crush him.
He'd been fine, really. The forced, strange vacation had been a frustrating burden, especially as the days had parlayed out over weeks, but at least he'd managed to keep himself relatively composed. At least he had managed not to disgrace himself with a public display of his weakness and failure as the month ticked glacially on...
Right up until this morning. Roused by the stunning sunrise, Hitsugaya had strayed from his hotel room, ambling morosely down the beach lost in his thoughts, which as usual had meandered their way back to Soul Society, his probably furious Rangiku and the painful ways in which he was failing them all...
Then a soft obstruction had cause him to stumble. Recovering his footing, he'd whipped around in surprise.
"Hey, watch where you're going!!" Jinta had stood behind him, inexplicably awake at dawn and straddling the ruined remains of his latest sandcastle, glaring the way only an incensed and self-absorbed child could. "You ruined it!!" His little frame vibrated with affront. "Nice job - I'll never fix it now! What the fuck is wrong with you??"
Stupid, the inane ramblings of a child. No reason to get upset, nor take it personally. Certainly no reason for Toushirou's throat to tighten, for such pain to twinge through his chest. Wide-eyed and dumbstruck, all Hitsugaya had been able to do was flash away before completely falling apart, finding the most remote possible spot in which to lose himself...
What is wrong with me...?? Wrapping his arms tighter around his knees and leaning further under the kukui tree's sprawling branches, Hitsugaya tried even harder to disappear within himself.
Not a plan that worked; Hyourinmarou rustled through his mind like the raindrops shimmering through the leaves above his head.
A question to which you already know the answer, should you decide to finally accept it. Red eyes burned in his mind's eye; Toushirou shook his head, wet strands of hair plastering themselves to his forehead, but the ice dragon drawled on. Master, what are you doing here?
Hiding from you and everyone else I've failed, instantly flashed through his mind, but he couldn't say that aloud, "I don't know." Shame burned Toushirou's cheeks, along with a million thoughts and feelings he just couldn't fucking sort out. "I just-, I'm-" he ground to a miserable halt, realizing that he had no idea what to say.
Then it is time for me to speak.
Between one heartbeat and the next, the rain stopped.
Hyourinmarou's frustration rattling through his chest, Hitsugaya drew a sharp intake of breath at a sudden change in environment; blinking his vision clear, he looked around with widening eyes. The rainforest was gone; he was crouched in a twilit expanse, an enormous dome of sky above shrouded in hazy darkness, only the faintest hint of light glimmering on the horizon. All around him rippled swells of ashy ice, rolling off into the distance like a great, frozen sea. The smell of glaciers and smoke washed over him, resonating deeply within him, almost familiar, even though Toushirou knew this was somewhere he had never been before. It almost felt like the cold, wind-swept expanses of his internal world...but instead of that stark and empty wasteland, here and there, trapped in the warped folds of ground ice, were pockets of ash and dust. And in every pile, in any accumulation of size or substance, bloomed a tiny chrysanthemum blossom.
"Where am I?" Hitsugaya was instantly and instinctively on battle-readiness, hand curled around the hilt of his sword, and even though he knew that the ice-dragon had brought him here the air still crackled with a subtle danger. Above him, the transluscent figure of Hyourinmarou dipped and flowed along with his roiling thoughts.
Somewhere to which you have never before been invited, a place known only to soul manifestations. In your language, it could be called the Common Ground, Hyourinmarou replied, hissing softly through the air. You have your realms, in which you traverse. We have ours. In your worlds, paths and locations often coincide. The same is true here.
Hitsugaya's grip tightened, an uncomfortable uneasiness twisting through his stomach. With whom does this place coincide?
Hyournimarou swamped him with a stunning swell of anger; Hitsugaya could not remember his zanpaktou ever betraying such stark emotion and frustration. Whom do you think?
Hitsugaya stiffened, guilt seizing him as thoroughly as horror, but to no avail; no sooner did he grip as hard as possible on his reiatsu, a fruitless attempt to hide, than warm hands were brushing his shoulders. He twitched, violently, throwing off a touch he wished he could have embraced. "What are you doing here?" he snapped.
"Oh, gods Toshi - did you really think I wouldn't find you?" Rangiku cocked her head at him, curious and looking a mite annoyed herself. "You should know I would come to you wherever you were. Wherever this is..." She trailed off, mirroring a hint of his own confusion. "Heineko said that you needed me."
"Well, I don't," Hitsugaya snapped. "Just-, just leave me alone, would you?" He felt sick saying the words, but he was so damn confused...
Rangiku frowned but didn't say anything. In one smooth, graceful motion, she withdrew Heineko and tried to take his head off.
He got Hyourinmarou out and around just in time to block the blow. Barely. "Matsu- what the fuck!?" Again she said nothing; face set in stone, she made a valiant effort to stab through his left kidney. A quick block and solid parry had her blade glancing away. "What are you doing?!"
"Well," grunted Rangiku, a lightening-fast swipe disturbing the air around his eyebrows, "You won't look at me," Parry; riposte. "You won't talk to me." Her left shoulder dropped; he got his blade around to cover his right thigh just in time to avoid getting hamstrung. "And you're swearing like a sailor, so I know you're an emotional mess. Nothing left for it but to duel it out." Rangiku's beautiful face blanked unexpectedly, and it was only instinct and a hell of a lot of luck that saw him ducking away with both ears still attached. Pausing, her blue eyes bored into his. "Toushirou - trust me long enough to tell me what's wrong."
A flare of anger rose up, obliterating the sickening feeling that he couldn't answer her truthfully. "I do trust you." Nearly blind with warring emotions, he threw himself into offense; a flurry of volleys followed, but unlike their previous spars, this time Matsumoto was always inexplicably a hair's-breadth ahead of him, almost as if she had the edge on him... "What do you want from me, Matsumoto?" he grated, tossing a swipe at her that he knew she could block.
She did, almost contemptuously. "I want you to admit that you're angry with me," she growled, blue eyes crackling.
He grit his teeth. "I am not." Sword blades clanged. "I love you, you know that-"
"Toshi, you idiot!" An unexpected kido chant had him dancing out of the way of a bolt of lightening, though her next words left him feeling as if the demon-magic had hit dead-on. "You can love me and still be angry with me!"
Her words shocked him so deeply that he froze in place, long enough for her to very nearly run him through. "But..."
"But nothing," she snarled, swinging at him almost feverishly. "I didn't tell you I had a daughter." Clang. "I did't tell you that I bore the child of the one person who hate more than anyone else in the universe." The duel blades squealed in agony as they connected, again and again. "Because of me, we both very nearly got killed." Again, Hitsugaya's shock very nearly cost him an appendage, but Rangiku's face was screwed tight in self-recrimination and she barely noticed, hacking away viciously with hardly any forethought and a frightening amount of blind precision. "It's my damn fault we ended up in the Sphere in the first place!! I betrayed your trust, I abandoned my child, I let down the very people I love most-"
Unnerved, he threw a quick crack to her wrist with the flat of his blade, sending Heineko flying. "What are you talking about?" Hitsguaya gasped, panting hard with exertion and shock. "I've let you down. I should have protected you-"
"From what?" Rangiku hollared, rubbing her sore wrist and her eyes bright with unshed tears and fury. "From someone you had no reason to know about?? From a device you didn't even know existed?!" Her voice took on a brittle edge and started to crack. "From a hateful revenge borne out of my mistakes??"
ENOUGH!
The crackling roar nearly split both their heads open as an ice-cold breeze swept around them, thick with ash, swirling with unnatural speed and rapidly obscuring the horizon. Lightening crackled as the smoke and ash surrounded them, engulfing them in a mass of roiling clouds and bone-chilling air; in moments they were inside the eye of a huricane, moving in slow motion around them, trapping them. Instinctively, Hitsugaya took a step closer to Matsumoto, felt her falling into a defensive position behind him, back-to-back, guarding each other. It was as natural as breathing, even though it was clear as day it was their own zanpaktous causing the melee of disturbance around them. Out of the maelstrom, eyes tracked them - red and quicksilver, both sparkling with perception and a decided lack of patience. Hyourinmarou spoke first.
Your hearts are in chaos. Hitsguaya's blood chilled in his veins at the angry resonance in his dragon's normally-patient tone.
But that's not the worst. Heineko managed to sound put-off as well as deadly serious.
Hyorunimarou seethed with frustration. You are turning from each other when you need each other the most.
Heineko sniffed. You are turning from us, ingoring us. Ignoring your deepest selves...
Believing lies. Hyourinmarou's eyes burned holes in them both, and Hitsugaya could feel the back of his throat dry out. Hyourinmarou was not yet finished with them, roaring on. You have both been through a great trial, and as a result you are confused, choosing to belive the lies of your pain and your false guilt instead of remembering the truth.
"What truth?" Hitsugaya grated; behind him, he could feel Matsumoto's stiff stance, every muscle taut.
You are not a failure, rumbled Hyournimarou. Hitsugaya felt his face instantly flush, his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth as his soul slayer slashed him with merciless truth. You cannot expect of yourself the impossible. It is not right to punish yourself for what happened inside the Sphere. If it were not for you, none of us would have escaped alive. You did not fail Matsumoto, you did not fail Heineko and you did not fail Me.
And you, Heineko piped in, glaring at Matsumoto, could not have prevented our daughter's actions by mentioning her existence earlier. We did not even know if she was still alive, Mistress. Matsumoto jerked; Heineko rarely ever addressed her formally, and there was a gut-wrenching empathy in the hellcat's tone. We looked and looked and did not find her. It never occurred to us that Gin might have found her first and hid her from us. And it certainly never occurred to us that he would twist her the way he did, raising her against us and instilling in her this desperate need for revenge.
Fingers wound themselves into his hand, and Hitsugaya automatically gripped them, reassuringly. His emotions were in a whirl, but for some reason his thoughts were starting to clear, his resolve starting to settle back into its familiar singularity, confidence slowly warming him like Rangiku's hand in his warmed his flesh. She didn't know...And I couldn't have...as he began to entertain the possibility that neither of them could have done any better than they had, Hyourinmarou rattled an approving chuckle.
Look at us, insisted Heineko from somewhere in the heart of the maelstrom. We have brought you here, to this place, to show you that your zanpaktous, your soul reflections, are not in chaos. We are together, joined, in perfect synchronization with each other. Eyes black as death, glittering silver centers, held them both captive as Hyourinmarou wove gracefully in and out of the swirls and eddies of Heineko's hurricane. Between us, there is no discord. No conflict. With us, there is only truth.
Fighting each other, withdrawing from each other, is to turn against your very souls, Hyourinmarou rumbled in counterpoint. By denying the truth about your circumstances, about yourselves, you are diving into chaos. Embrace the truth, and there will be nothing left to fear. With a final, simultaneous rumble, the maelstrom slowly began to dissipate; the air warmed and became heavy with moisture as the Common Ground dissolved around them...
Think on this, and cease punishing yourselves. It was impossible to separate the two voices; the zanpaktous spoke as one. Only then will you find peace, and the wisdom to face what is to come.
Between one breath and the next, Hitsugaya and Matsumoto were standing alone again the the rain-soaked glen on top of the mountain, surrounded only by rain and the tropical forest thick with mist.
A long time passed while they digested the words of their soul slayers. The air lay heavy around them, the slow dripping of water among the leaves the only sound accompanying their thoughts as they slowly wrestled with the truth...
Finally, as one, they turned and looked at each other.
A thrill of electricity shot through Rangiku as she saw, finally, the truth in Toshirou's eyes. Whether it had been real or she'd only imagined it, there was no more shadow of disappointment in them, only that ocean-mist color gleaming with resolve and glowing with the same love that threatened to split her chest open. Hitsugaya himself nearly broke down at the love and pride he found in her eyes, no longer haunted by the specter of his own guilt and shame. Every single part of him wanted to apologize for losing faith in himself, for punishing them both...but words failed him and so he simply kissed her.
She melted into him like the rain on his skin, fragrant and warm. Slowly, he claimed her mouth with his, breathing in tandem, gazes locked and hooded. His hands couldn't seem to stop touching her, caressing her, his fingers digging into the intoxicating mix of firm flesh and soft skin; her thin summer dress had plastered itself to her in the rain, and as he reached up to brush the wet bangs off her forehead, she sighed.
Lips still touching, feather-light, he breathed into her. "Can you ever forgive me?"
She inhaled, pausing between breaths, blue eyes piercing. "Can you forgive me?" Her hands twined together at the nape of his neck, pupils dialated...her heart riding on the answer...
"There is nothing to forgive," he whispered, and then his hand was in her hair and he was pulling her into a relentless kiss and her fingers were digging into his shoulders. Clutching, almost desperate, he tore the wet fabric away from her body like it was nothing at all, barely noticing how feverishly she ripped off his own human attire. Shrouded in the clouds, the only two souls for miles, their pulses raced together as they frantically claimed every inch of each other.
Clothed only in the rain, they came together in mist and magic, and for the first time in a long time, nothing else mattered.
They lost track of how long they stayed on the mountain. It might have been hours or days before they collapsed, panting, drifting effortlessly into sleep, a wet and tangled array of limbs and flushed skin. At some point, the precipitation became a nuisance, but not for long; there was more than enough moisture in the air, not that Toushirou needed it in the first place. No one else braved the soggy mountain, so there was no one to stumble across the crytalline enclosure that shrouded them, doming off the rain and cocooning them pleasantly in their own little hideaway. The mossy ground made for ample beddding, and seeing as they had no desire to separate for more than moments at a time, it was all they needed. Long, langorous mornings disappeared into frantic, feverish afternoons, the sun occasionally glittering off the ice dome around them and setting off the light into tiny rainbows dancing across their skin. Once or twice the fractals made her sad, but he always noticed and if tears came, he was always there to kiss them away. It was a magical interval without words, only silent conversation broken by the frequent sounds of ecstasy as they drank deeply of each other. Too long without, they indulged and played until finally they lay spent, sated.
The moonshine glanced fractally around them as, finally, the time for speaking caught up with them. Sprawled along his lean frame, Toushirou could feel her reaching for words as he held her, watching the soft light of evening glowing around them.
"When do we need to go back, do you think?" It was a low murmur, barely perceptible, but as he'd been thinking along the same lines he didn't need the words to be audible.
"Hm," he grunted, quietly. "When we're ready, I would imagine." Softly, he kissed her hair.
He could tell she understood his meaning. Nuzzling closer, she made a tiny sound almost like a purr. "Yes." A long time passed before she moved against him, a weight steeling over her. "Leiko." He waited, this time unafraid; this time, he knew the answer. "What are we going to do?"
"We're going to love her. Relentlessly." Hitsugaya stroked her back, willing the concern out of her. "She won't be able to hate forever."
Rangiku stirred, contemplative. "Do you think loving her will be enough?" It was more inquisitive than pained, vulnerable.
He turned her head to look at him, to show her the earnesty in his eyes. "I have yet to meet the soul you cannot out-love." A small, affectionate smile quirked his lips. "It will be enough."
She smiled back, faintly, before her face grew serious. "Toushirou, there is one more thing I have to tell you. Something about Gin, and Leiko - something I don't think even she knows..."
As her quiet murmuring filled the cocoon, Toushirou's pale eyesbrows slowly crawled up his forehead. For a long time after she finished speaking, his thoughts continued to race... "Rangiku - it's a technicality, but that might just be enough for us to get her out of the mess she's in."
"I know," she replied, cautiously. "That's why I told you. Of course," her voice dropped, a tendril of concern lacing back through her tone. "That's only assuming Yamamoto and the others are willing to go along with this..."
"And assuming Leiko agrees to go along with it, too." His features settled into grim contemplation, and after a moment and a quick chant, a hell-butterfly appeared. "This is Hitsugaya-taicho, reporting from the Real World with an urgent message for Shuuhei-taicho."
"I'm sorry, sir, Shuuhei-taicho is unavailable..." The communication technician on the other end of the butterfly sounded decidedly nervous. "Uhm...can I take a message?"
"Don't be ridiculous," Rangiku growled. "This is Matsumoto-taicho, and it's urgent. Send him a butterfly immediately."
"I'm really, really sorry..." The poor girl was started to stutter. "He's...really not available." There was a long, staticy pause. "We, uhm...c-can't get a butterfly to him right now..."
Toushirou and Rangiku exchanged a quick, urgent look. "Why not?" Hitsugaya growled, the hairs on the back of his neck starting to stand on end. "Where are they?"
When they finally got the technician to tell them, it took all of Hitsugaya's strength and Hyourinmarou's besides to keep Matsumoto from going completely beserk.