For those of you who will read this multiple times, I apologize. Feel free to ignore this if you've already seen it, and move on to the chapter.
Here in my neck of the woods, it is now the 9th day of February, in the year 2012. Ten years ago today, I came across Fanfiction-dot-Net. I proceeded to publish "Lonely, Broken Hero," the first story I wrote that ever felt complete. It was inspired by a song, written for the Square-Enix game "Chrono Trigger," and marked the beginning of a lifelong passion.
Since February 9th, 2002, I have had the honor of meeting some of the greatest people on earth. These people have given me 5,885 reviews, thousands of Favorites, and over 1.8 million hits across 40 projects. These people have supported me, cheered for me, informed me, criticized me, and helped me embark on some of the most memorable journeys of my life. I never would have made it without them.
To celebrate this illustrious anniversary, and to thank you for being the best audience an author could ever ask for, I have written extra chapters for each of my 8 ongoing projects. I present them to you now, and humble myself before you. Were it not for you, these stories never would have come into being, or lasted nearly as long as they have.
Thank you again. You all have changed my life.
Here's to another decade of adventure and exploration.
Enjoy.
"This feels creepily familiar."
"No talking," Matsumoto said sharply. "Doctor's orders, Taichou. Conserve your strength. Now, open wide." Hitsugaya's face screwed up in clear disdain before he rolled his eyes and opened his mouth. Matsumoto slipped a spoonful of soup between the young captain's lips. Hinamori sat nearby, hands resting in her lap, smiling as she watched them.
"Hanatarou-kun told me that Madarame-taichou is feeling better," Hinamori said. "He threw a tin cup at Kurosaki-taichou this morning. Thank goodness he agreed to help."
Matsumoto nodded. "I might have known it would take Kurosaki to help that stubble-ridden idiot prove himself useful." Her tone wasn't nearly as harsh as her words, and it was clear that her opinion of Kudo Hideaki had softened, at least a bit. That it was his treatment allowing her captain to stay conscious long enough to eat may have had something to do with it. Indeed, it seemed that Hitsugaya had succumbed to sickness at the perfect moment in the cure's development.
Nonetheless, he was weak. He could only walk short distances, and couldn't attend to his duties no matter how insistent he was that they let him try. "Sugimura can handle it," Matsumoto told him often enough for it to be a mantra. "He's been learning, same as I have. Truth told, he's better at it. Maybe I should step down and let him be your adjutant?"
Hitsugaya's only reply was to roll his eyes again.
Whenever Matsumoto was pulled away from her leader's side, Hinamori took over. "Madarame-taichou would be offended if I tried to help him," she said. "Yumichika-san says he can handle things until everything's back in order. He says I'm more useful here in the infirmary." Indeed, she was. Many people expressed surprise that she hadn't joined the Fourth Division, so tender was her care. When she wasn't helping Hitsugaya, she was tending to the others.
But if she tended to the others, she fell over backwards for Hitsugaya. They all knew that she was still taking any excuse to make up for previous conduct, under the impression that she had something to prove. No one bothered to tell her otherwise, least of all Hitsugaya himself. Matsumoto, too, kept her tongue still.
At some point in the afternoon, Kurosaki Ichigo stepped into Hitsugaya's sickroom. He looked positively mystifying in his captain's cloak. Where most captains wore the symbol of their office casually, even nonchalantly, Ichigo seemed to have taken a leaf out of Kuchiki Byakuya's book and wore it like a king's cape, as though it were the most formal of honors.
Yet his face was calm, even bored.
"Toushirou," he said from the doorway.
"Kurosaki," Hitsugaya replied.
"Looks like you're pretty comfortable," the teen said, smirking. "Thought I'd come and make things worse. How goes the recovery? Can you walk steady yet?"
"For a while," Hitsugaya said. "Not long enough to be significant, but…progress is being made."
"Works for me." Ichigo watched as Ash came bolting into the room and launched himself onto Hitsugaya's bed. "Got another visitor," he murmured.
The kitten crawled up onto Hitsugaya's chest, purring as it turned itself around and around, kneading the sheets in preparation for a nap. The leader of the Tenth Division grimaced, but said nothing. Sighing, Hitsugaya lay his head back against his pillows and stared at the ceiling. "What's the point of pushing it off?" he muttered to himself. "It'll just climb right back up here."
"He wuvs his daddy," Matsumoto cooed, scratching behind the animal's ears. "He's worried. Aren't you, little one?"
"Kudo says we'll have one more treatment this week," Ichigo said, his tone turning serious, "then you're on your own. Should be fit 'n ready to go in a month'r so. Hey, while I gotcha cornered, there's something I've been wondering for a while."
Hitsugaya grunted.
"Old man's been talkin' about wanting me onboard. You know, indefinitely. Part-time for now, y'know, but…official. There ever been a case of a live person making captain before?"
Hitsugaya's brow furrowed. "I…don't know."
"No idea," Matsumoto said. "Not since I've been here."
Hinamori shook her head. "You're the first I've ever seen, Kurosaki-taichou."
"Huh." Ichigo scratched his head. "Interesting."
The atmosphere in the room turned awkward for a while, while Matsumoto continued to feed her captain, Ichigo stared off into space, and Hinamori hummed to herself, staring down at her hands as though she found them fascinating.
An attendant entered the room eventually, breaking the awkward silence by addressing Ichigo: "Kurosaki-taichou. You have visitors waiting in your barracks, sir."
Ichigo chuckled. "All right, then." He waved dismissively. "Peace out, bitches."
Hinamori gave him a strange look, but Matsumoto grinned.
Hitsugaya closed his eyes and went to sleep.
Kurosaki Ichigo didn't like to think of himself as a cruel individual.
Came right down to it, he thought he was a pretty stand-up sort of person. He tried, right? He was loyal to his friends, he stood up for what he believed in, he made decent grades. Hell, he'd saved the damn world. All told, that was a pretty good record when you got right down to it. This wasn't bragging, it was just the truth.
He wasn't a bad person. He wasn't cruel, or mean-spirited, or anything like that.
Sure, sometimes he let anger get the best of him. Sometimes he let his frustration at the world show a bit too clearly. Sometimes he was pretty down on himself, and that wasn't healthy. When he thought of his mother, he usually got mopey and depressed until he reminded himself that she'd have smacked him upside the head for acting like that. And sure, maybe you could say he disrespected his father, what with the shouting and the berating and the senseless beating. But…everyone's got faults, right?
All this went through Ichigo's mind as he strolled nonchalantly through the halls of the Fourth Division's barracks, after picking up his guests at the Ninth's court and showing them around a while.
Yeah. He was a good guy.
But all the same, he couldn't help but crack a wide, sadistic, downright evil grin as he stepped up to the doorway of Captain Hitsugaya's room and waited for the fireworks to start.
Bright green eyes snapped open like mousetraps, and the boy captain went pale as the sheets wrapped tightly around his body when he heard a high-pitched, almost shrill voice cry out in the sterile silence of the hall:
"Hitsugaya-niichan!"
For the first time in a long time, Kurosaki Ichigo and Kurosaki Isshin agreed on something, as they both threw their heads back and laughed while Yuzu nearly tripped over herself in a mad dash for Hitsugaya's bedside.
You know I had to do it, right?
This is a somewhat familiar scene; I've detailed sickness before, and the fact that Matsumoto would be the one to care for her captain while he recovered. This time, I decided to mix things up a bit. Seemed fitting. I daresay this is a bit of a cliffhanger, but don't worry. We'll see where it goes next time, which shouldn't take too long to get out.
This doesn't necessarily mean that Ichigo will be joining the crew from now on. I'm just leaving my options open. He doesn't seem too…against the idea, though. Not sure I expected it to turn out that way, but there you go. Sometimes these characters surprise me.
I hope you enjoyed this installment, and that you'll join me for the next one.
Later, everyone.
