Free Talk- I wrote another chapter, though I'm not sure how it turned out. I'm actually rather nervous about how this story will play out because the basic plot (as it is in my head right now) is much simpler than anything I've written before. So I'm worried it might end up being too boring. I'll try my best though. Please comment and tell me what you think.
Sympathy
For the Devil
By Miss
Angel Maxwell
second chapter
PROTECT ME FROM WHAT I WANT
The pure white hairs on the back of Captain Hitsugaya Toushirou's neck bristled as a cold breeze lapped against his face. Above him, Karakura night spread out like deep blue velvet, flecked with thousands of twinkling stars. He let out a sigh and leaned back, tucked his hands behind his head, and stared out into space. Out of the corner of his eye, however, he could see that his solitude had been invaded by a voluptuous woman with a cascade of strawberry blonde hair.
"How long have you been standing there, Matsumoto?" he asked with a slightly annoyed snort.
"I just got here," the buxom shinigami answered, matter-of-factly. "I was taking a nap until about ten minutes ago."
"That sounds about right," the young captain interrupted.
"Anyways," Matsumoto continued. "When I woke up and you weren't there, I figured you were up here on Miss Inoue's roof again. You know, ever since you spoke to Hinamori over the communication screen, this seems to have become your favorite place." She looked down at her captain pryingly and rested her hands on her ample hips. "Do you want to talk about it, Captain?"
Hitsugaya shrugged his shoulders in his usual, humorless way. "This is just where I like to go to think," he said. "Now that we know what Aizen is really after, we need to concentrate more than ever on finding a way to stop him."
"True," the young woman replied. "But everyone else has been meeting each day and working together to come up with a plan. You're the only one who insists on isolating himself. Now, I can't help but think that this has more to do with whatever Hinamori told you than with the news about Aizen. I'm not trying to be nosey, Captain, but what exactly did she say?"
The young captain grumbled. It annoyed him how well his vice captain could read his emotions, even when he did his best to conceal them. "You don't have to worry about it, Matsumoto," he told her, though he knew she still would. "I think better when I'm alone."
He would never tell anyone outright how troubled he was by his dearest friend's behavior the last time they spoke. Bleary-eyed and erratic, Momo had begged him over the communication screen not to kill Aizen Sousuke, insisting that he was innocent. Her loyalty to the villain was disturbing to say the very least, and Toushirou was scared that she was on the brink of a complete mental breakdown. He was terrified, actually. But he had never been the type to pour out his feelings on others.
Instinctively, Matsumoto Rangiku sat down next to him with an audible sigh. "Sorry, Captain," she said. "But tonight you get company… whether you like it or not."
"Do whatever you want," he muttered. He was also not the type to admit when he was grateful for another's company.
The two officers from 10th Division sat together on the rooftop, unified in their silence. Neither of them was keeping track of time, and neither knew how many minutes had passed when Orihime joined them. She was dressed in her pajamas and rubbing her eyes sleepily.
"Excuse me," the human girl said sweetly. "Mr. and Miss Shinigami… I don't mean to intrude, but that big screen you installed in my living room is blinking and making a funny noise, I think someone is trying to send a communication."
Hitsugaya's blue-green eyes narrowed and he stood up slowly and dusted himself off. "Who would be trying to get in touch with us this late at night? Don't they know what time it is here in the living world?"
"In all fairness, Captain, you were not asleep," Rangiku reminded. "And it could be an emergency. Maybe it's something so important it can't wait."
"Don't get ahead of yourself, Matsumoto," he grumbled as he followed Orihime back inside through the skylight, followed closely behind by his vice captain. "Let's just see what they want first."
The video screen, which took up one entire wall of Orihime's living room, was indeed blinking, filling the small space with an intermittent blue glow. Hitsugaya pressed a series of buttons on the control panel, then all three young people stood back and watched as the picture came into focus. In the middle of the screen they saw the familiar face of Kira Izuru, though his physical appearance was in a rare state of disarray.
"Ah! Captain Hitsugaya!" he greeted frantically, pushing his frazzled platinum hair off his face. "It's terrible… ! Something… something's happened to Miss Hinamori!"
Toushirou gasped. "Hinamori? What? What happened?"
"She's gone!" Izuru croaked. "Hinamori's gone! I… I was going to pick her up and take her out to lunch, to celebrate her being released from the hospital… When I got there, her bed was empty! She never checked out and nobody's seen her. She's just… vanished! Into thin air!"
"Vanished?" Hitsugaya asked, completely baffled, while the two young ladies stood by in anxious silence. "You don't think this is Aizen's doing, do you?"
"I think it could be," Izuru answered. "If Aizen somehow found out about the research she was doing…"
"What research?" the younger shinigami asked demandingly, his thin white eyebrows furrowing tightly.
Izuru flinched visibly despite being in an entirely different world. "Hinamori has been researching Hueco Mundo," he timidly replied. "I'm not exactly sure what she was trying to find out… I assume she was trying to find something that could help you guys… She's kept very quiet about it, though… All I did was get the books for her from the central library."
In a rare display of aggression outside of combat, Toushirou clenched his fists and growled loudly, baring his teeth. "What! She was trying to learn about Hueco Mundo? And you helped her? Kira, you complete moron! Didn't you think it was at all suspicious that she wanted to do this kind of research? And you didn't tell anybody? How could a vice captain be so utterly stupid!"
The face on the screen melted into an expression, not of anger, but of abject guilt. Were they communicating face-to-face, Izuru's life might be endangered. It was well known within the 13 Divisions that Hitsugaya's personality was as cold as ice except in matters concerning Hinamori Momo. Izuru's protection now was in being a world away from the young captain. "So, should we assume that Aizen kidnapped her, or hypnotized her, or…" The blonde paused and swallowed fearfully. "…or…" His speech faltered as his mind began to contemplate the grisly possibilities.
Hitsugaya closed his eyes, now considerably calmed, and shook his head sadly. "I do not believe that is the situation. Hinamori was researching Hueco Mundo so she could figure out a way to get there. Her talent for demon arts is exceptional, it wouldn't be difficult."
"Captain," Matsumoto breathed from the corner of the room. "What are you saying?"
Speaking loudly, so that all parties could hear, the young captain stated the situation as if it were proven fact. "She's gone to Hueco Mundo of her own volition to reunite with Aizen Sousuke. And her intention is not to kill him."
"That's insane!" Izuru stammered from the video screen. "You're calling Hinamori a traitor! She couldn't be! It has to be a mistake!"
"It's not a mistake," the captain said. "And she's not a traitor. You don't understand how devoted Hinamori is to Aizen. You don't know her like I do. She won't even acknowledge him as an enemy. She still believes that there's good in him. He's got her completely wrapped around his little finger."
For a few minutes, Izuru was completely silent. Toushirou couldn't tell from his averted gaze whether he was hurt, or just deep in thought. "We have to get her back," he finally said, looking up with hotly determined eyes. They were eyes nobody had ever seen before. "I'm coming to the living world and we're going to get Momo back. That is, if Aizen hasn't already done something terrible to her."
Hitsugaya's nose crinkled. "Stay where you are, Kira. I don't need your help."
"No," the other young man replied defiantly. "It's my fault. I delivered all the information she needed to get into this mess. I'm going to do whatever I can to get her out… Even if I don't know her like you do…"
As Izuru's dejected last line slipped from his lips, Toushirou realized that he really had been hurt. He didn't regret what he had said to the fair-haired man, though. Hitsugaya refused to believe that anyone knew Hinamori Momo better than himself, and he wasn't ashamed to share that opinion. For him it was a matter of pride. He couldn't stand the fact that he had been unable to help her, and the idea of anyone else being the one to rescue her from Aizen's clutches scorched his insides.
"Do whatever you want," he replied gruffly. "I have no authority to stop you."
"Well I…" the blond began, but be was cut off. Hitsugaya reached over and turned off the screen mid-sentence, ending his conversation with Kira Izuru.
Orihime and Rangiku stared at the young shinigami in front of them. They had heard everything that he had, witnessed his outburst, but neither seemed able to think of any words to reply with. Were they afraid that he would snap at them too? The toxic silence in the room had to be filled, however, so eventually Rangiku spoke up.
"What are we going to do now, Captain?"
He looked at his two beautiful housemates with steely determination. "We're going over to that orange-haired human's house. It's time for us to call a meeting."
Hinamori Momo had waited until the dead of night, when the 4th Company infirmary was as quiet as a tomb. She changed out of her plain white kimono, folded it up neatly on the bed, and put on her standard black uniform. She'd scoured every book that Izuru brought her, forsaking the rest that her body still needed, in order to find the demon arts that would get her to Hueco Mundo. And even though she had studied and practiced every moment she had alone in the hospital, she still did not feel completely confident in her abilities.
"There's no stopping now," she whispered to herself. "No turning back. This is the night I decided on."
Her heart was pulsing uncomfortably in her throat as she began to perform the black magic that would open the portal. All of her energy over the past several weeks, mental and emotional, had been put into research and refinement of technique. She didn't even have a plan for after she arrived in Hueco Mundo, she just knew that she had to get there.
As soon as the last word of the forbidden incantation left her mouth, Momo felt her body being tugged out from the world of Soul Society. Though she did not witness the dramatic exit of the three deserting captains, Izuru had described it in great detail for her and this was nothing like it. There was no trembling of earth, no host of hollows welcoming her up into their thin, white claws. It was almost anticlimactic the way the fabric of space merely unzipped, swallowed her up inside, and then silently zipped back up.
For a moment there was nothing. No light. No sound. No gravity. No air. Momo couldn't even feel her own body. For a moment she was nothing. Next came the sensation that her body had returned but was strapped into a giant centrifuge. It was the return of gravity. Then, all around her, white walls began to rise. Or was she falling downward? She couldn't tell. The environment stabilized and she found herself standing in the middle of a vast corridor of polished marble. It was like a palace built during the height of some ancient civilization.
"Is… is this Hueco Mundo?" she uttered to herself, still disoriented. She spun around in place to take in a panoramic view of surroundings. As she did, black shadows began to rise from the floor, swelling and thickening like dark liquid as they closed in around her. A gasp of horror tore from her throat as their white masks appeared one by one. "Menos Grande!"
Momo sank to the floor, trembling, certain that she was about to be devoured by the grotesque horde. But for some reason, she wasn't. The Menos Grande backed away from her and parted, and a figure in a white jacket stood there in front of her.
"Well, well, well… Now what do we have here?" the man greeted slyly. "A pretty little butterfly caught in the spider's web…" The sickening, slippery voice was unmistakable and Momo knew who it belonged to before she even looked up.
"Captain Ichimaru…" she muttered, calling him by his title out of habit. "You've come to kill me?"
Gin's eternally shameless grin curled up even higher, narrowing his fox-like eyes into even tighter slits. "I wish that I could have that pleasure," he purred, bending over and chucking her under the chin. "But my orders are to bring you alive."
The young woman opened her mouth to speak but no sound came out. The silver-haired shinigami grabbed her wrist and yanked her to her feet. Disgusted and scared, she tried to pull away from him, but his grip was firm. He dragged her out of the circle of hollows, then across the room and shoved her roughly forward, causing her to trip. With a small squeak of surprise, she caught her footing and straightened her posture. When she looked up, she was in front of a glistening white throne, and seated upon it was the one man who had the power to steal the very breath out of her lungs.
"Captain Aizen," she tried to say, though it came out as a choked squawk.
"Ah, Miss Hinamori," he said silkily. "You've finally come. I must say, it took you longer than I expected."
To be continued…
