A Story In Three Parts
Part 1: Altruism
Chapter 1: Hitsugaya takes a nap, Rukia makes a new friend
She could, however, hear the sound of a zanpakuto blade piercing through flesh and then bone and then coming out of the other side. She'd heard it many times before.
Among the Thirteenth Division's buildings was a small storage shed. It had been built out of necessity at a date different from the other buildings and so didn't exactly match. But rather than stand out, it blended right in, as inconspicuous as could be and very easily overlooked. The roof of this building had a little design flaw—half of the roof had been put up before it had been realized that the building needed to be a bit wider; hence, the second half of the roof was higher and overhung the first half a little bit, making an alcove that unexpectedly provided an almost complete view of the Thirteenth Division's grounds while being both unseen from the ground and from above, should someone happen to shunpo by. It was a great vantage point, if someone were small enough to fit.
It happened to fit Rukia quite well and this is where she found herself presently. How she found this spot was by accident and was actually an interesting story but is a story for another time.
She was sitting cross-legged with a ball of vibrant blue yarn in her lap and long knitting needles in her hands and the vague beginnings of something forming between them.
These things had been given to her by Orihime during her last visit to the human world, who was also the one to hurriedly teach her at least the very basics of knitting during that time.
Anyway, here Rukia was, wrapping the yarn around the needle, pulling it through, and so on, when she heard the somewhat urgent rattle of shoji doors being thrown open and a breathless but equally serious 'Captain Ukitake!'
It should be mentioned that this shed was quite close to the captain's office, right next to it, in fact, and if she had been paying attention, Rukia would have noticed Fourth Division's Isane as she hurried through the yard and up to the door. Now, Rukia did not sit here to eavesdrop, and usually, the distance was too far for her to hear anything, but a breathless Isane was also a loud Isane, and Rukia distinctly heard her name, Kuchiki-san, from where she sat, even though she couldn't hear anything more than that.
She paused her knitting, brow furrowing slightly. She wavered about whether she should actually try to lean in and hear what was going on, since it had something to do with her, or maybe she wasn't meant to know about the conversation at all.
However, the shoji doors were rattling open again, and, actually paying attention this time, Rukia saw her Captain exit his office with an uncharacteristically serious expression on his face, followed by an anxious-looking Isane.
Ukitake was gesturing to Kiyone, who was nearby, and Rukia heard him clearly: "Have you seen Rukia? I need to speak with her urgently."
Okay, maybe she should make herself known. Rukia quickly put away the yarn and the needles and slid down from the roof, landing softly on her feet. No one seemed to have noticed her, so she cleared her throat. "Captain?"
Her captain turned to her and looked relieved, but there in the corners of his eyes was some rare tension, and the thin line of his mouth was clearly concerned. Ukitake gestured for her to follow him inside, so she did, and between him and Isane, they explained the situation to her.
Sometime yesterday, in one of the outer Rukongai districts, Captain Hitsugaya and Lieutenant Matsumoto encountered some unusually powerful Hollows. They'd managed to make quick work of them yet somehow Captain Hitsugaya had been injured and taken to the Fourth Division. No one was quite sure how badly he was injured. No one was sure exactly how he was injured either. Isane explained that he had no visible injuries they could see, and from what Lieutenant Matsumoto had reported, he'd simply fainted. And he'd stayed that way, no matter what Unohana tried to get him to wake up. This was obviously a problem, but Captain Hitsugaya didn't appear to be in any danger, as he was. The more pressing problem was that he was leaking reiatsu everywhere, the likes of which none of them, not even Kurotsuchi, had ever seen, and he was quickly freezing out the Fourth Division. No one could figure out what was going on and even if they could, no one could make it past the ice to do anything about it.
Rukia could already tell where this was going, nodding along but remaining silent.
"We've had to move other patients around," Isane said. "Which isn't good for them but at the rate the ice is spreading, we'll have to move them out of the Fourth Division completely, which definitely isn't ideal. So, you see Kuchiki-san, being the only other ice-wielding Shinigami, you're probably the only person who can get through to Captain Hitsugaya."
Isane didn't say what they expected her to do exactly, if she did get through, and Rukia didn't ask. She just nodded solemnly. "Alright."
Isane looked a bit surprised at her easy acceptance but quickly shook herself. "We should go," she urged them.
Rukia wasn't sure what she expected to find at the Fourth Division, which was good, because she definitely would not have been able to conjure up the scene that greeted her, so she hadn't wasted any brain space trying.
The Fourth Division, unlike the other twelve divisions, was comprised of several sprawling buildings. The main buildings were typically used to separate and treat various types of injuries and ailments, while the smaller outer buildings were for recuperation and recovery. Unfortunately, Hitsugaya seemed to be in one of the former. Rukia could tell because one building was covered in a healthy heap of snow and ice. The roof was blanketed by a soft, thick layer of snow that Rukia kind of admired, while the doorway and surrounding courtyard glimmered with a sheet of sleet and ice. Even as she watched, the ice inched forward at a steady pace and she agreed with Isane—the entire Fourth Division was sure to be completely covered in a few hours at least.
Even more interestingly was the ring of raging fire that surrounded the building, melting the ice about as fast as it was spreading. Rukia's skin prickled somewhat unpleasantly as a mix of hot and cold air brushed against her intermittently.
There were a few people in the courtyard: Captain Unohana, who, given that her division stood a very good chance of being frozen over, looked remarkably calm, an uncharacteristically worried-looking Lieutenant Matsumoto, Lieutenant Hinamori, who was sitting cross-legged on the ground, looking exhausted, Captain Kurotsuchi and his Lieutenant Nemu, and Head Captain Yamamoto himself and his Lieutenant Sasakibe.
Rukia could tell it was Yamamoto's reiatsu keeping the fire raging around the building. There was some of Hinamori's too, but it was faint and quickly disappearing.
"Head Captain Yamamoto, Captain Unohana, Captain Kurotsuchi," Rukia greeted them quickly.
"Kuchiki," Yamamoto addressed her. Rukia stood up straighter; having your name called directly by the Head Captain did not blow over one's head.
"Sir."
"I trust you know why you are here."
"For the most part," Rukia replied honestly.
Isane hurriedly stepped forward. "My apologies Head Captain, Captain Unohana. I've explained the gist of the situation but I figured it was best if Captain Kurotsuchi explained the rest."
"Very well," Yamamoto gestured to Kurotsuchi, a person who always looked displeased but who looked especially displeased right then.
Kurotsuchi did not even look at Rukia, which she was greatly relieved by—she had spent some time as the object of his interest in the weeks following the removal of the Hougyoku from her body and she much preferred him ignoring her.
"Nemu," he called and she stepped forward to face Rukia wordlessly. She lifted her hand, offering Rukia a small, neat red square of paper.
"This is a reiatsu suppressant," Kurotsuchi explained disinterestedly. "Captain Hitsugaya appears to be within his inner world and has no control over the flow of his reiatsu. This needs to be placed directly on his body, preferably his head. However, it is only temporary and is meant to last a few hours. Given Captain Hitsugaya's strength and the intensity of his reiatsu, it will likely last less than that, an hour at most, I would say. It will be up to the Fourth Division to solve the problem thereafter."
"We will handle it from there," Unohana assured them calmly.
Kurotsuchi scoffed quietly, like he was unconvinced, but said nothing more. Rukia took the small bit of paper from Nemu.
"What about Rukia?" Ukitake spoke up behind her. "I understand your plan in theory, but we can't know for sure until she goes in, and by then we won't be able to enter and save her, should something happen."
Rukia frowned. She thought back to the few interactions she'd had with Captain Hitsugaya's reiatsu in the past. To say she was unaffected would be a lie, but Rukia chalked this up to the, admittedly, vast difference in their abilities and raw power. She didn't think she would freeze to death, and though she was immune to her own cold and frost and she definitely was not immune to Hitsugaya's, she was probably less affected by it than anyone else here, Yamamoto included.
Hinamori got to her feet then, and Rukia could see that there was a rope wrapped around her waist. She quickly untied it and handed it to Rukia. Hinamori smiled at her somewhat apologetically.
"I tried to melt my way in first," she said. "Unfortunately, I didn't get very far before I had to be pulled out. I use this rope in my training a lot. It won't burn if we have to use fire to pull you out."
"I would go in myself," Yamamoto admitted. "But fire against ice would be a fight and fire consumes energy, which is limiting. Captain Hitsugaya's reiatsu is fuelled by the moisture in the atmosphere, which is limitless. It is better to walk in than fight our way in."
Rukia didn't know that, somewhat surprised. But she didn't dwell on it and just nodded. Together, Hinamori and Matsumoto tied the rope around her waist. A rope probably wasn't the most sophisticated plan in existence, but, well—it would do.
"Tug on it once if everything's going well," Matsumoto told her. "Tug twice if you want to be pulled out."
"Alright." Rukia looked up at the serious faces around her and thought she should be a little bit more concerned for her own safety than she was, but she found it hard. It seemed ridiculous for her to be afraid of the cold, even if it was Captain Hitsugaya's.
Yamamoto cleared a small gap in the ring of his fire for her to enter. Immediately the ice leapt forward, crystals blossoming up from the ground.
Scary, Rukia thought, and immediately used shunpo to reach the frosted over doorway. She stood for a minute there, feeling the blast of cold emanated from within, and gave an assured tug on the rope before going inside.
Captain Unohana would have to be very forgiving to tolerate what Captain Hitsugaya had done to her building, Rukia thought, pausing for a moment to survey the damage around her. The ice had covered everything. The layer on the floor that Rukia was standing on was a few inches thick and spread up the walls and ceiling. The wooden chairs and other furniture were stuck fast to the floor, warped out of shape by contraction in the cold. Even the sheets of paper on the desks and tables were frozen over; they were pretty much useless now, given that they would be a soggy mess when all of the ice melted. All the lights had been blown out and the windows were covered by cloudy ice sheets, given the room a darkened, eerie glow and muffled quiet. Rukia's breath formed a nice puff of warm air in front of her face but her nose and toes were starting to prickle.
She moved forward carefully over the ice. She could tell exactly where Hitsugaya was—the force of his reiatsu became more concentrated around him and so did the ice and cold. Thermodynamics or something, Ichigo had rambled on about once.
The doorway of Hitsugaya's room was completely impassable, a block of solid ice growing from within and spreading outward. Rukia really hoped it was just the door and that the whole room wasn't just one huge ice cube. She wasn't sure if Hitsugaya could survive that but he was clearly still very alive. Briefly, she wondered how Captain Unohana and the others allowed it to get this bad.
She unsheathed her zanpakuto and swung it over her fingers, grasping the handle hilt-forward. Then she began to pick away at the ice wall. Small bits fell away at first and when she had created a large enough hole to hook the hilt through she began to pull off chunks of it. It fell and shattered at her feet like glass and was quite pretty. Eventually, she could duck under it—ah, the advantages of being small were few but useful—and enter the room.
She gave a tug at the rope for good measure and walked inside.
The ice wall at the door, Rukia realized slowly, might have been some unconscious attempt at protecting rather keeping people out. The pressure inside the room was something else, never mind the cold. Rukia felt like the moisture at the corners of her eyes were freezing and there was definitely frost on her eyelashes and probably all over her. Her body did not want to move forward, it wanted to fall to the floor and kneel, like there was an enormous hand pressing down on her shoulders.
Rukia had been in the presence of several captains in their unreleased state before but she had never felt anything like this. Captain Hitsugaya sure was something.
Nevertheless, she tugged once on the rope and then proceeded to drag her feet across the room. He was lying on a cot in the middle of the room, dressed in plain white robes, body prone but relaxed. He looked like he was just taking a nap. The fine medical instruments in the room had all been shattered to pieces but the bed remained remarkably unscathed. As she approached, the pressure became all the more terrible but she managed to sidle up to his bedside. It felt like half of her body was no longer working but she lifted a hand, holding onto that slip of red paper, and reached for his face.
Or, she tried.
Once, while Ichigo had been doing homework and she had been bored and he had wanted to shut her up and distract her, he had given her a pair of magnets. Rukia was a simple person, and those two magnets had entertained her for a long time. This feeling now, trying to reach forward and touch Captain Hitsugaya, reminded her of the resistance she'd felt when she'd tried to get two ends of the magnets to snap together.
"It won't work," Ichigo had told her.
"Why?" she'd whined. "If I do it the other way it does."
"Because the poles are the same," was all he'd said simply.
"Of course," she'd replied flatly.
Rukia was smart enough to know that this and that weren't exactly the same, but in a funny way, it did make sense—the poles are the same, after all.
She had tried for a long time, but, though she hated to admit that Ichigo was right, she never did get those ends together.
Rukia could feel herself freezing. She'd pretty much lost almost all the feeling in her legs and her nose and lips were so chapped and dry she was sure they would bleed if it weren't for the fact that her blood was probably also frozen.
Gathering herself, she wrapped a hand firmly around her end of the rope, ready to shake it like crazy as soon as she was done, and tried to concentrate all of her energy into her hand holding the piece of paper. She lifted it over her head, took a breath and then swung it down with as much force as her little body was capable of producing under the standard laws of physics.
And it worked. A little too well.
She hit him square in the centre of his forehead, palm flat against his skin, the thin piece of paper between them, with a loud smack. Hitsugaya, bless his heart, didn't react.
There were many things Rukia wanted to do in that moment: widen her eyes, gasp, recoil in horror, profusely apologise.
She didn't get the chance.
The moment her skin touched his, she felt like she was falling uncontrollably forward, like something had violently pulled her. For a moment she wondered if the others had pulled on the rope. But this felt like something was tied around her bones, not her body. She felt like she was flailing around, instinctively reaching forward to break her fall and hoping not to crash into Hitsugaya's unconscious body. Her eyes screwed shut and she braced herself for…whatever.
Her hands sunk into something wet and slippery that gave way easily under her. By the time she opened her eyes half of her body had sunk into it. Snow, she realized belatedly. Very white, very cold snow.
Hesitantly, Rukia pulled herself up and looked around. She was sitting on a vast snowy hillside. A ferocious storm seemed to be happening around her, fierce wind and hail sweeping over her. Miraculously, she wasn't harmed by this. It was very cold, but the wind and balls of ice just seemed to pass through her. Through the haze, she could see faint grey mountains in the distance but she could tell that they were very far away. Above her rolled large angry grey clouds so tightly packed together she couldn't see the sky underneath.
What a cold and desolate place, she thought, whose vastness she could only compare to Hueco Mundo.
Slowly, Rukia got to her feet. She had a very bad feeling about this.
She didn't know what was currently going on back in the real world—if the reiastu suppressant had worked and if she had been pulled out by the others, but she decided she would much rather be back in that cold hospital room, slowly freezing to death, than where she was now.
She started to walk in no particular direction. At some point, she realized she didn't know what she was doing and sat back down.
For a while, Rukia was at a complete loss as to what to do. But then she realized that Captain Hitsugaya must be in here somewhere, right? She wasn't sure if seeing him was the best thing right now, given that she was intruding in the most intimate part of his soul.
But.
He would probably know about it regardless and perhaps already did. And it's not like she asked to be here, oh no, there was something else at work here that she was not responsible for.
So she sent out a small, very minuscule, pulse of her reiatsu, looking for him. Unfortunately, this entire place was drenched in his reiatsu—it actually tickled her nose a bit, and so it was a fruitless endeavour. But while Hitsugaya's reiatsu didn't stand out in this world, hers certainly did, and it didn't take long before Rukia began to notice that the storm was dying down around her.
That bad feeling she'd had earlier came back but doubled its effort to make her heart clench in uncertainty.
She looked around warily but of course, it was from behind her that she felt a new presence, a soft rustle of robes, footsteps treading snow.
Rukia got up and turned around.
A man was standing there and it was definitely not Captain Hitsugaya.
Well, for one thing, he was much taller than the young captain.
His robes were blue and gaped open at the chest, revealing dark blue plated armour of some kind. Bright teal hair, somewhat messy, wafted down his back and blew gently in the wind. There was a large pale X right in the centre of the bridge of his nose that spread over his cheeks down to his jaw and over his eyebrows into his hair. A bright green obi was tried around his waist, from which hung Hitsugaya's sealed zanpakuto. His hands and feet, which were all bare, did not look like hands and feet at all, and instead looked like thin claws made of ice. He was watching Rukia with a face devoid of expression.
Rukia inhaled a steady breath and opened her mouth to say something, realized she didn't know what to say, and closed it. She watched this man wearily and somewhere in the distance she began to hear the familiar sounds of a fight, of sharp blade meeting sharp blade. Her eyes fell to the sword secured at the man's waist and she reached for the hilt of her own zanpakuto, only to find it wasn't there, because of course it wasn't.
The man followed her movements with impassive blue eyes.
Just when Rukia felt like she knew what she should say, the man spoke:
"What's your name?"
Rukia missed a beat. "Rukia," she blurted. "Kuchiki Rukia." And then, "I mean no harm."
Not that Rukia thought she could harm anyone here if she wanted to, but she felt she ought to say it, regardless.
"Why are you here?" he asked next and she was a bit amazed at how little his body moved, even to speak. He was like Nii-sama, she mused, just…less human.
Rukia inhaled a cold breath. "I don't know," she admitted. "I kind of just…fell in."
It sounded weak to her own ears and even in her head before she had said it, but the man didn't react. He continued to observe Rukia and although it was hard to tell, she got the feeling he was scrutinizing her face in particular. The silence stretched between them until Rukia felt like she should get to the point.
"Captain Hitsugaya is…he won't wake up," she said hesitantly. "I'm not sure how I'm supposed to leave here."
The man looked away from her, looking toward the crest of the snowy hill they were on, in the direction of where the sound of fighting seemed to be coming from. Slowly, he walked over. After a moment, Rukia followed him. He stopped at the peak of the hill and Rukia came up beside him. Below them was a valley surrounded by mountains on all sides. Rukia guessed that it must have actually been a lake because the surface was just frozen ice. There on the ice was Captain Hitsugaya. The blade of his zanpakuto had been thrust into the ice and he was leaning heavily on the hilt. His robes were, for the most part, tattered and hanging off his bloodied body.
On the other side of the lake was also Captain Hitsugaya, or rather, another Captain Hitsugaya, who appeared much the same and didn't seem to be in any better or worse condition.
"You can leave when he defeats himself," the man said.
Rukia considered this statement. The two Hitsugayas had begun to fight again.
"Which one is the real Captain Hitsugaya," she asked, unthinkingly.
"Which do you think?"
Rukia wanted to believe that Captain Hitsugaya was the one that seemed in better shape, but from what she could see, their injuries and fatigue seemed to be equal. Then she wanted to believe that the real Captain Hitsugaya evaded more often, or put more force behind his blows, but there didn't seem to be a difference there either.
Rukia tilted her head back to look up at the man.
"You're Hyorinmaru," she said, and it felt weird, rolling off her tongue. She didn't think she'd ever said that name before.
His eyes flickered down to hers briefly. "Yes."
Rukia watched them fight for a while. Honestly, she wasn't particularly interested in the fight. Sure, she wanted Captain Hitsugaya to defeat himself or whatever so she could leave, but it wasn't just so she could leave. They were comrades after all, so she'd want him to win regardless, but there was nothing she could do anyway and the intricacies of whatever trial a captain like Hitsugaya had to pass was probably beyond her understanding.
So she sat down in the snow and watched a little. Beside her, Hyorinmaru didn't move.
Rukia figured she'd gotten there quite late in the battle, given the state of the two Hitsugayas, but they didn't seem like they would stop anytime soon. No matter how bloody, or tired, or how many obviously broken bones they accumulated, they still got up and swung their blade forward. Rukia was a little astonished at the sheer determination and power it seemed to take every time.
Eventually, she recalled something and patted her robes curiously and yep, for some reason, it was still there. Quietly, she pulled out a ball of blue yarn and two knitting needles. She felt some eyes flicker to her. A part of Rukia wanted to hold up the ball of yarn and find out which blue it most closely resembled on the man standing next to her but she refrained.
She must have looked quite ridiculous, sitting there, knitting away, occasionally looking over at the fight below. But the only person to witness this ridiculousness was standing right next to her, and Rukia couldn't imagine who he could pass on the information to. As for Captain Hitsugaya, all things considered, this was the part of the entire situation that should least concern him.
At some point, she thought to ask, "Does he know I'm here?"
Hyorinmaru curiously didn't answer her immediately. He seemed to think about it.
"Not yet," he said at length. "He doesn't need the distraction."
Which Rukia agreed with and thought made sense. She assumed that the zanpakuto spirit beside her had done something to mask her presence. Which was absolutely fine with her. There was going to be some fallout to all of this, Rukia was sure, and she was not looking forward to it.
"Cherry blossom."
Rukia looked up, confused. The zanpakuto spirit was looking down at her, or rather, at a spot on her head. Rukia ran a hand through her hair. A single frosted cherry blossom fell into her lap. They were currently blooming in the Kuchiki compound and she'd had a walk through them this morning. Rukia looked at the withering flower and marvelled at how it had survived all the things she'd done that day.
Below them, there was a loud sound of something shattering. The ice over the lake had broken—Rukia was impressed it had held up for so long—and large chunks were quickly separating and melting away into the water. Soon the Hitsugayas would have nothing to stand on.
The Hitsugaya closest to her was kneeling on one of the last chunks of ice, breathing laboured. Rukia could barely see his face or any of his white hair under all of the blood. The other Hitsugaya was standing, barely, on a floating piece of ice that was drifting closer. His grip on the hilt of his zanpakuto tightened and Rukia could clearly see him calling on the last reserves of his energy, preparing himself to deliver the last blow.
She looked over the two of them carefully and then raised her hand, blunt knitting needle pointing assuredly. "Him," she said. "The real Captain Hitsugaya."
Hyorinmaru's eyes flickered over to her. His face didn't show any surprise. His face didn't show anything, really.
What happened next was a blur to Rukia. She didn't see much of what happened; for being so broken and bloodied, the two Hitsugayas sure moved fast. She could, however, hear the sound of a zanpakuto blade piercing through flesh and then bone and then coming out of the other side. She'd heard it many times before. Immediately, the icescape around her started to crumble. The mountains shook as large sections broke off and slid downward. The very snow beneath her was also giving way.
In the back of her mind, Rukia had been thinking that this was just how Captain Hitsugaya's inner world looked but perhaps she had assumed wrong.
Alarmed, Rukia tried to get up but it was already too late. Beside her, but sounding very far away, she heard, "Goodbye, Kuchiki Rukia."
Like when she'd fell in, she felt something pulling her back this time, like it was wrapped around the bones of her spine and yanking her backwards. She blinked and found herself staring at her own pale hands, flat on the hospital room floor under a good foot or so of ice-cold water.
Her hearing was the last thing to come back and she heard her name, Kuchiki-san, followed immediately by a gentle but firm tug on her arm. She looked up into Isane's concerned face, watched the relief wash over her features and then looked around.
She was on her hands and knees on the floor—so she had literally fallen over after all—sodding wet. There were other people in the room but her mind was not in a state to process any of them. She did catch on to one person's reiatsu, though, because she'd just spent what felt like hours ensconced in it and she knew exactly what it felt like. It was there, it was alive, and it was the normal, reasonable amount.
Rukia breathed a sigh of relief, thinking it was a sure sign this little mission was a success, then promptly keeled over and passed out in Isane's arms.