There's so much blood.
Being a high-ranking member of the Gotei 13, it's not like Momo Hinamori hasn't heard about the devastating nature of war. She's been through many harsh battles before, she's had every single bone in her body broken simultaneously, she's had her all of her internal organs entirely reconstructed. She's fought fiercely, she's been wounded grievously, she's killed mercilessly—
And, of course, the entire damn Seireitei knows that she's almost died twice, impaled upon the very swords of the two men she had trusted most in the world.
(Not like it was Toshiro's fault that Aizen had deceived him through his wretched illusions and trickery— but the stinging, agonizing sensation of the frigid steel that she felt pierce her skin upon being run through by Hyorinmaru still wakes her in a cold sweat on some nights).
Crimson liquid is splattered absolutely everywhere around her, painting the ground red— it's all over her delicate hands, her sweat-soaked clothing, even caked upon sections of her wispy dark hair.
The air reeks of rust, a testament to just how horribly injured all of the other shinigami surrounding her are after that last explosion. She can hear their guttural cries of agony, their gurgling coughs as blood fills their lungs or spills from their wounds, their last words sounding almost ripped from their chests before they die.
Momo is ultimately forced to listen and take in the awful cacophony surrounding her, entirely helpless and unable to save them. Her stomach has begun to ache intensely with a tangible sense of nausea and she suddenly feels a an unpleasant prickling sensation behind her brown eyes— tears, welling up and threatening to overflow, attempting to escape in streams down her cheeks.
No, she thinks determinedly to herself— not right now.
Not while she's trying her very hardest to save the person who had been her lifeline, who had instantly grabbed onto her outstretched hand when the explosion blew her into the air and destroyed all of her surroundings at the same time, the foundation of the ground crumbling beneath her feet far too abruptly for her senses to react.
In a literal flash he had been there, reaching desperately for her with a deadly serious expression on his face, his jaw clenched tightly and eyes wild with what she recognized to be total fear. At the time, a tiny voice in back of her mind made the unconscious observation that she had never seen him use shunpo that quickly before during all of their time so far together in the fifth division— ever.
It almost seemed like time had somehow stopped when she felt his long, slender fingers wrap around her left wrist, grabbing onto her like the whole world was ending (which it sort of is); she could see all of the wirey muscles of his arm flexing beneath his skin as he relentlessly held onto her, gritting his teeth and refusing to let her go despite whatever was coming next.
What came next, it turned out, was yet another massive explosion courtesy of the attacking Quincy— Captain Komamura might be holding off the bitch with the incendiary abilities now, but her repeated blasts have still been completely wild and unpredictable, causing a massive amount of collateral damage over a very wide area.
Hinamori curses to herself internally (the only way she ever curses, honestly) and closes her eyes, screwing them up tight with the intention of forcing all of her tears to spill out of them at once. She impulsively reaches up with her right hand afterwards to wipe away a stream of intermingled tears and sweat that is trickling down her cheek— and winds up unthinkingly smearing blood upon her face as a result.
His blood.
Bile rises rapidly inside of her stomach as the smell of iron overwhelms her senses and Momo is forced to cease channeling her spiritual pressure to her hands momentarily when she has to lurch aside and vomit on the ground. She coughs loudly several times afterwards, dry heaving for a moment or two as she stares down at the contents of the breakfast that it feels like she ate so very long ago— when it was only this morning.
Ice cold dread once again grasps onto her heart as soon as she's done reeling and it compels her to immediately redirect her spiritual energy back to her palms. Her entire body is shaking, but Momo isn't quite sure if it's due to a dreadful sense of fear, an excess of adrenaline, the white hot anger inside her, or the weariness of her body.
Hinamori inhales a deep breath of the foul air and then begins to softly murmur a rushed kido incantation. The smell of death and decay pervades her senses, making concentration very difficult— but moments later her hands begin to glow with the telltale green glow of a healing aura, and she feels her spiritual pressure begin to drain right through her fingertips.
There's so much blood.
Beyond that, however, there is so much worse—
Hinamori's chest tightens unbearably as she looks down upon his singed muscle tissue and exposed ligaments; there's a large gash in his stomach through which she can blatantly spot parts of his internal organs. Sections of his skin are charred, burned from the blasts; several of his bones are broken from his harsh impact with the ground, protruding from his body at all the wrong angles.
His white captain's haori and cravat are both entirely ruined, irreversibly dyed a blazing red now that they've both absorbed so much of his blood. Momo falters slightly, her vision blurring briefly as she struggles to maintain her focus upon the kido spell.
She won't let this happen.
He's not allowed to die.
Her captain isn't allowed to disappear and abandon her to drown in despair (yet again, she thinks bitterly, momentarily distracted by the memory of a man who had never truly existed, whose entire life was a lie); he isn't allowed to vanish from this world without nary a trace but his ancient record player and his prized collection of vinyl left behind in his quarters.
One of Momo's hands drops down to his wrist (the one that isn't contorted at an odd angle, of course), her own heart racing a mile a minute as she desperately feels for the telltale sign that he's still alive.
It's faint, but the soft throbbing of Shinji Hirako's pulse is unmistakably still there.
This time her tears do spill over despite all of her reservations and faculties, streaming from her eyes and cascading down her cheeks; Hinamori lets out a strangled sob and then instantly moves her hand back to join her other in hovering over his stomach.
Healing kido has always been very foreign to her, but all that she knows, she learned from Kira— a rather talented former member of the fourth division. At the very least, she thinks, she can do this. She can save him. She can heal most of his wounds and stop the bleeding. She can— and will— bring Shinji back from the brink of death.
(A tiny voice in the very back of her head mocks her cruelly, laughing about the fact that yet again her entire life is coming apart at the seams and she's powerless to stop it.)
She does her best to silence it, to smother the negative sentiment before it permeates her psyche and burrows deep inside. Her heart feels like it could burst at any moment, and wouldn't that be funny— dying from a heart attack after somehow surviving being impaled twice.
A sniffle escapes her, and Momo's jaw clenches tightly; the tears are flowing nonstop at this point, and she's well aware that trying to stop them is futile. All of her energy belongs in only one place right now, and it isn't behind her eyes to hold back her tears.
No— it's in her hands, tiny and trembling and glowing green as she patches his organs back together to the best of her ability (and she knows the placement definitely isn't great, but it means that he'll live and that's all that matters to her right now). Momo then observes very carefully as the tissue that once made up the surface of his stomach slowly begins to fuse back together, a rather strange and unsettling phenomenon no matter how many times she sees it.
As soon as his stomach is once again covered by flesh and the skin stretched over it is a soft pink color, Hinamori adjusts her body position so that she can place her hands shakily in the air above his right arm— an educated guess suggests his shoulder is severely dislocated and one of the bones of his forearm broken (either his ulna or his radius, she can't discern which, but it's one hell of a break because she can see it).
He's dying, the voice in the back of her head says tauntingly— he's dying, and you'll be left all alone again.
"Don't," she whispers to herself hoarsely, mustering up all of her willpower for an attempt to suppress her torturous subconscious.
"Don't what?"
The sudden sound of her captain's pained voice startles her so much that she jumps into the air slightly— but the utter surprise that she momentarily feels is erased entirely by the intense sensation of relief that follows. As a result of simply hearing him speak, all of the muscles in her body seem to finally relax at once as fresh tears well up in her eyes.
"You're alive," Momo chokes out, blatantly stating the obvious because she still can't quite believe it.
"Can't kill me that easily," he wheezes before trying to shoot her his familiar toothy smile that always fills her chest with warmth— but he winds up wincing visibly a moment later and the soothing sight drops from his face instantly.
Her captain's gaze falls down to his mangled body, and he sucks in a breath of air through his teeth as a result. Despite the obvious agony, Shinji grins at her again— and Hinamori, for the life of her, cannot figure out why (but she doesn't mind, because he's alive— Shinji is alive, he's not left her behind, she's not alone).
The thoughts that echo inside her skull may be selfish, but the tiny girl steadies herself regardless by inhaling a long, shaky breath. He had startled her so badly that her focus was disrupted and her kido ultimately dispelled, so Momo glances back down at her hands and then begins to force the all spiritual energy within her body back to her palms.
"Momo," he croaks, and she freezes up entirely before the flood of her power can flow to her hands— Shinji very rarely uses her first name, and it's only ever when he's dead serious.
"Don't speak," she cuts him off in what is clearly intended to be a chiding tone, but it comes out much more devastated and desperate.
(And she is desperate, because he's not allowed to die.)
"If I'm gonna die, I'm not gonna die with a guilty conscience," he responds before letting out a harsh cough that results in him having to spit out a sizable mouthful of blood.
"You're not going to die," Momo's voice is insistent, as if verbalizing the sentiment will make it come true no matter what.
He chuckles slightly at her reaction and the sound leads to a fresh stream of tears flowing down her cheeks— Shinji finds himself wishing that he could reach out to wipe them away, but as it currently stands, both of his arms are both utterly useless.
The fifth division captain arches a single brow when he notices that one of his arms looks much less deformed than the other— and then he finally sees Momo's delicate hands poised above it; they may not be active and healing him at the moment, but he's smart enough to put two and two together.
"You're talented," he rasps, and her brown eyes widen slightly in surprise at his sudden observation. "Seriously, to think I would wind up with such a good lieutenant after the last one."
The last one—
Hinamori's heart plunges abruptly into her stomach as the realization of who he's referring to settles in, and if his facial expression is any indication, her captain most definitely notices the palpable change in her demeanor.
"Shit, I'm sorry, Momo—"
"Stop," she orders, and for once her voice is so strong that she even momentarily surprises herself. Shinji gazes at her with a guilty look in his eyes, and it genuinely pains her to see it.
Momo inhales a long, shaky breath before her hands begin to glow green once again and she sets her mouth into a firm line. The tiny girl is silent for a moment or two before she speaks up again at last.
"You're not the one who owes me an apology."
"Aren't I?" He rasps, a pained expression on his face. "I knew— I had a feeling, and I didn't stop him when I had the chance."
Hinamori is taciturn in response to his question, so Shinji continues on.
"I indirectly almost killed you twice. Momo, I inadvertently ruined your entire life. You should hate me, not share the division with me."
"The fifth division is as much yours as it is mine," she replies instantly in a sharp tone of voice, determined to stamp out any ideas he might be getting about leaving.
"…I don't understand."
A sad smile crosses her face after he makes his confession before the flow of energy to her hands comes to a sudden halt. Momo slowly lifts her gaze from where she's managed to repair the damage to the fragile bones in his forearm, making solid eye contact with the grievously wounded man splayed out before her.
"Captain Hirako," Hinamori begins before she abruptly stops, and for a moment he doesn't know why, but then—
"Sh… Shinji," she stammers, and this time she does waver slightly due to the fact that she's never called him by his first name before. If the look on her captain's face is any indication, she's completely shocked him into stillness by doing so; his facial expression is borderline goofy, looking like he's been struck by a bolt of lightning.
'You can call me Shinji,' he had told her once when they were still complete strangers, and she had refused quite profusely, citing a lack of respect and rambling on until he had finally cut her off and told her to forget about it.
He's fallen completely silent, and Momo takes a deep breath before summoning all of her strength to put it behind her next statement:
"I'm your lieutenant, so I can't give you orders," she almost whispers, "but I do want to ask you for a favor."
"What's that?" He asks, his voice unintentionally gravelly and harsh.
"Don't die."
Shinji stares at her blankly.
"You're not allowed to die." Hinamori elaborates with what she hopes comes across as an air of authority.
To her immense relief, it must work somehow because her captain visibly relaxes and slumps over slightly in what is clearly some kind of reprieve from his guilt. A warm feeling bubbles up in her chest when he then grins over at her with all of his teeth, and Momo finds that she can't help but return his silly smile— with the additional bonus of her burning red cheeks.
"…That sure sounds like an order," Shinji murmurs humorously after a few moments.
Hinamori shoots him a glare as a result, but the corners of her mouth completely give her away when they twitch upwards with poorly veiled amusement.
"Focus on something more useful, Captain Hirako— like not dying."
His response is almost cheerful despite all of his devastating wounds:
"Aye aye, lieutenant."
It doesn't happen right away.
No— it takes time, and it takes communication, and it takes a lot of effort on both of their parts; but someday, Hinamori will stop routinely cutting her hair because he remarks that he's quite fond of how long it's gotten, and Shinji will stop flirting shamelessly with every single woman he meets when his stupid ass (his words, Momo always goes out of her way to remind him) finally realizes that he only has eyes for her.
It takes time— but somehow, the right words from the wrong person light the way.