Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach or any of its characters. Going Trick or Treating will not make me the owner, the only thing I'll get out of it will be candy.
Summary: On the day of the birth of Karin & Hitsugaya's child, news arrives that he's gone missing on a mission to Hueco Mundo when his zanpaktou and a letter are retrieved from Hueco Mundo. Karin though does not believe as such along with her family, but fights the rumours of Soul Society about Hitsugaya being considered a criminal and a traitor, and must face the fact that she would be raising their only child alone.
The Bridge Of Silence
+--+
+The Funeral of The Heart+
"What the hell are you staring at?" Karin arched her brow at Toshiro, who seemed to have gone out into space--rarely ever happening though.
"Nothing." He answered lamely, bored if one would stare at his expression as he looked at the book in front of him. "Human literature is not as fascinating as I would've thought." He mused, though it really pike his interest on the strange stories.
"British literature could do that to you, though I blame Ichi-nii for making me a freak over that." She laughed, as she finished writing her report for another class. "Besides, aren't child prodigies suppose to be all interested on that kind of shit?"
He scowled at her, but refrained himself from commenting at the moment--he noted to get back at her later if possible. What was so special about her? She was a plain girl, nothing really much about her would really make sense. Karin was a girl version of that oaf Kurosaki Ichigo--that damned man he still hated for never addressing him properly.
"'Tis but thy name that is my enemy; thou art thyself, though not a Montague. What's Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot, nor arm, nor face, nor any other part belonging to a man. O, be some other name!'" She quoted, trying hard to rack her brain as to recall something from that awful play. "'What's in a name? that which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet; so Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd, retain that dear perfection which he owes without that title. Rome, doff thy name, and for that name which is not part of thee take all myself.'".
"'I take thee at thy word: call me but love, and I'll be new baptized; henceforth I never will be Romeo.'" Toshiro smiled at her as he knew that awful play, after he had heard Ichigo spoke so highly of this play to Kuchiki Rukia one night.
"'What man art thou that thus bescreen'd in night so stumblest on my counsel?'" Karin stood up, pacing around her room, while keeping her gaze upon the white haired boy.
" 'By a name I know not how to tell thee who I am: My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself, because it is an enemy to thee; had I it written, I would tear the word.'" He stood there unable to keep his gaze away from her, which she too was his own Juliet. Karin stared at him silently, refusing to speak anymore if though afraid to hear more of those words.
"I should take a shower. You're pretty good." She smiled and stepped out of the room. He sighed deeply, why was it so hard to face her a lot of times? He could not help the times in which he sat there in class staring at her with longing, as if she was really the only sole focus of his life.
'So, staring at her. That's a classic sign of love my young Toshiro.' Hyorinmaru smirked inside of his head.
'Shut up, I do not like her.' Toshiro spat angrily, though it felt like he was going psychotic because he was talking to his head. 'Kurosaki is not even my type of girl--what the hell! I don't like her and I am not interested.'
'Oh, someone is in denial. Admit it little boy, you are in love with Kurosaki Karin. I think she really matches your personality well, if I must give my input on this.' The icy dragon commented. Toshiro sometimes hated the fact that he knew things that sometimes were slightly hard to figure out on his own. 'Its time to move on Shiro-chan, Hinamori is in the past and you never loved her. Open up to Karin before its too late.' Suddenly it felt empty, going back to reality sometimes did nothing at all.
"Admitted before its too late?" He voiced out just as Karin entered back in the room.
"Admit what?" She asked curiously, as she leaned against the door frame while drying her hair with the towel.
"Nothing, quit asking me that like I am a five year old." Toshiro stood up again from her bed, and made to step away, but only having him being blocked by the slim figure of the young girl in front of him.
"Whatever is troubling you will annoy me, you know that." It was a statement, nothing more. He looked at her dark eyes, she held a very unreadable expression, it would take many years to figure out what the hell that expression meant.
"I told you it was nothing. Quit bugging me about it, I am going now." He pushed his way out.
Why couldn't he admit the truth? It was revolting to be in love with a human girl, let alone a Kurosaki girl--that thought was even worse to even go into at all. He hated himself, but it was all Matsumoto's fault for always making him think about her.
"Fuck!" He groaned. "I fucking love her."
'Finally, though I think you got it on the wrong time.' Hyorinmaru poked fun of him.
'Piss off.' Toshiro grumbled and kicked a rock.
+--+
Stunned. Shock. No words seemed fitting to describe the feeling at the moment, the tension growing thicker with each ticking of the clock. Ichigo suddenly felt like everything came crashing down, far more worse then losing a lot of shinigamis during the Winter War--this didn't even compare to that.
"He--he can't possibly--be." He was out of words, everything closing in on him like a cage. Why did it feel so wrong? No, Hitsugaya Toshiro couldn't possibly be dead at all. When were the curtains going to be pull up on this little joke? He couldn't be giving up now.
There was so much that he needed to do, swearing to protect his sister and now he had a child awaiting for him to return. What would happen if he were to--no that was impossible and he wasn't going to accept it at all.
"You better not die Toshiro." Ichigo muttered, while Rukia stood besides him holding his hand tightly.
Inside, Karin was stuck between wanting to kill herself or hoping for an obvious miracle at the moment. The void was growing darker, stronger that it would be impossible to let go. She could feel it just like everyone else could, the signal was very faint that those who were not close to him could not feel it. Karin hoped for so much, she wanted him here with her and getting ready to be married. What now? If he were to--that thought was repulsive like a bloody joke that made no sense.
She couldn't do anything, couldn't pull him out with a kick as often she would have to do when he was stuck on his own void. Karin needed him, he was the flame in her life that managed to make her believe in something more. He changed her, made her into a person that was deemed enough to have a better life without pain or anything like it had been in the past. He knew about her dead mother, her problems with the fact she couldn't make friends.
All of those moments in life that which she was a possessor of had been shared with him, he listened to her carefully while studying her profile from the distance. Now, the only thing that she could do was to stare at his almost lifeless body fighting to keep alive. Tears began to cascade down her pallid face again, her dark eyes dilated as she screamed. The scream itself sounded painful, filled with the tainted sorrow in which one would feel when on the verge of losing someone.
Holding closely into the sanity wasn't enough to keep together, it was the thought of losing everything in only a few seconds that scared Karin the most. What would happen if it was her instead of him? What about Ichigo? Her annoying father? Yuzu? Him--it was too scary.
"Toshiro!" She cried, as she was hauled out of the room because it was not helping the situation.
"Kurosaki-sama, please stay back." One of the shinigamis tried to pry her hand from the door.
"No, let me go you bastard. He needs me, can't you see? Get your fucking hands away from me!" She shrieked. How could someone try to pry her away from him at this moment?
Toshiro was inside fighting to keep himself alive for her, why people couldn't understand anything at all. She screamed again in frustration, anger--everything was just pilling down on her like a ton of rocks and it was not a good feeling at all.
"Let my sister go." Ichigo's voice was filled with anger and fear. He felt like he was shaking as he put a hand on her shoulder, it was a sensation that travel into her as well. "Allow her to go inside, she needs to be there for him. Toshiro needs her just as much as she needs him to wake up." It was unusual for him to be rather sensitive, but she couldn't think or anything else because it seemed that he too--was hurting as well.
"Ichigo." Rukia mouthed, looking at how strange he was acting. He had been a little hostile at the fact that Toshiro had been weak, unable to defend himself back in Hueco Mundo when he had been capture.
Somehow she understood now, she understood that her husband wanted for Hitsugaya-taichou to be alive because he had a duty to take care of Karin, and a child as well.
Karin was frozen in silence, it was like the words never failed to carve inside of her at all--he knew all along how it felt to be so close to someone. She wanted to hug him, tell him that he was the best brother in the world because of that, but at the moment it was improper. She mouthed a 'thank you' as she walked back inside, feeling slightly calmer.
Unohana-taichou was instructing something to the other shinigamis, as all of them were suddenly packing things. Karin looked around in fear, it couldn't be something really or could it?
"W-what's happening?" Her voice croaked as she fought the choking tears. Their actions were strange, and she wanted to know what was happening.
The older shinigami turned around and removed the rubber gloves from her hands.
"Kurosaki-san, I think that he'll be fine now." Unohana expressed, as the other shinigamis were walking out of the room. "It seemed that there was there was a virus spreading on his wound that was slightly eating his reiatsu away, but he'll make it."
The dark haired young woman smiled, tears welding up in her eyes as she threw her arms around the woman captain. "Thank you! Thank you Unohana-taichou for everything you have done."
"It will be fine, just try to hold onto that faith." The motherly shinigami patted her in the back, and then parting from her. "Now, stay close. He is currently still sleeping, but I think he'll hear you just fine."
Karin smiled simply and watched the older shinigami disappear out of the doors, hopefully she would inform everyone that her fiancé was going to make it. It was so crazy how things worked out, one minute it felt like the entire world would collapse and everything, but suddenly everything seemed to be back to normal.
She turned to look at him, his peaceful face still slightly pallid, but he was breathing just fine on his own at least. Karin cried again as she buried his face on his chest again--allowing the returning warmth to comfort her once again like it always had. He was there, he was going to live--she wanted for Tatsuya to be there so he could see his father.
"Everyone is waiting out there for you Toshiro." She murmured while stroking his snowy white locks and tracing his jaw line with her finger. The silence feeling heavy but peaceful, the machines beeping only suffocating the silence. "I need you here, that is why I don't want you to leave me. I've missed you…" Her voice quiver as she begun to cry again.
The pain was still there, the fear of losing him never leaving her for a moment--but she was exceptionally glad that he was going to be fine at least.
+--+
Tatsuki stared out the window, the signal had gone off for a moment, but suddenly she felt the reiatsu growing back again to normal. She smiled as she sauntered back inside the large office, the silence filling it with every drop it had in it while Kuchiki Byakuya sat there returning back to his task.
"Kuchiki-taichou?" She looked at the man, while taking a seat on the chair because her feet were growing tired.
"Yes?" He replied dryly as always, without bothering to look up at her at all.
"Everyone seemed so alarm, why didn't you?" She was curious to know why the sixth squad captain didn't even react in any way at all.
He didn't need to think for some fascinating answer, or something that would only render the senses at all. It was so simple. "He was still alive, only his level of reiatsu was lowering in strength."
Tatsuki smiled and nodded her head in understanding about that. It was so strange how things returned to normal, but somehow there was something still being hidden behind all that silencing façade that was getting tiring, then again it was always this strange every time something bad were to happen.
"Kuchiki-taichou!" Renji suddenly burst inside the office and was panting.
"What is it Abarai?" He questioned, still avoiding eye contact with him or reacting any differently.
"There's a meeting. Yamamoto-soutaichou said it's a very classified."
The long haired captain stood up and disappear in sight, leaving the two shinigamis in a confusion state because it was really strange. No one would have a meeting this quickly, and Renji knew there was something wrong going on that he wasn't liking at all.
"What's the matter?" Tatsuki asked as she waved her hand around his face.
"I feel that there's something wrong going on here. And I am not liking this at all." The red headed man expressed, while grabbing his wife's hand. "I have to go see Ichigo. Go straight home and don't talk to anyone."
She looked at him curiously, studying the way he looked as though there was something suspicious going on, but did not question.
"Alright, but bring me something good to eat this time." She smiled.
"If I must." That earn the red head a kick in the shin as he disappeared using shunpou.
His thoughts weighing up and down while his head felt fuzzy, it couldn't be possible for something bad to happen once Hitsugaya-taichou would wake up. Renji just knew there was something strange with that, no one suddenly going off to Hueco Mundo to investigate at the fact that the white haired captain was kidnap for so long.
He landed on the ground of the 4th squad barracks, some low seated shinigamis bowing at him as he passed and walked inside to find the 9th squad captain. The feeling from the hospital scene made it feel slightly creepy, the smell of death and such mixing together to make one frightening feeling. It was ironic in a sense because in a hospital life and death were involved, a lot were born and a lot died there. He shook his head at the sickening thought, then again his wife was going to have a child soon.
"Renji?" Ichigo appeared as he was followed by Rukia and their children.
"Renji-nii!" Amaya looked at the tall man and smiled.
"Uncle Renji, what are you doing here?" Kazuki looked at him with a questioning expression, except that the scowl was slightly throwing the expression into another description in a sense.
"Sorry guys, but I need to talk to Ichigo. You don't mind do you?" He looked at the orange haired man, who gave him a nod.
"Amaya I'll play tea with you tonight okay. Kazuki, you should return back to school before missing more classes." He looked over at his kids.
"Hai Otousan!" They chorused as they walked off together while playing around.
Ichigo turned back to look at his friend, something told him that whatever he had to say wasn't going to sound good at all. The confusion never failed to bother him at all, everything was slightly going into the weird direction, which he did not like at all.
"I should be going to Ukitake-taichou. He said I should tell him about the news as soon as possible. See you at home." Rukia gave him a quick hug and disappear from sight.
"What is it that you need to talk to me about?" Ichigo asked, as the two begun to walk away from any hearing distance.
Renji looked around both sides, carefully trying not to allow his suspicions to be heard by anyone else.
"There's something I don't think is right around here." He stated as he thought carefully as to how to explain it. "Hitsugaya-taichou was captured, which obviously was a mistake on the part for Hueco Mundo since now they have broken the agreement. I feel that there's something more to it, as if whoever is doing this is actually doing it on purpose."
Ichigo was not quick on agreeing, sure the signs were obvious like the ones back ten years before the Winter War had begun against Aizen. There was nothing that bastard would do to get his hands on that key, and become the sole ruler of Soul Society and such. What bother him was that it was like that, was it a trap? Going to the lengths of capturing a captain, well he did think that anyone would go beyond the regular bad guy thing.
"You might be right to say that, but we don't have evidence." Ichigo said, as they took a turn down an empty passage in the 9th squad. "Nel said to me that they plan on making something like Inoue's power, but something that goes into the realms of awakening the dead. Toshiro might know something since he was there, but are they trying to make us think that he would tell us? No, they would expect him to release everything that he holds in memory during all of those months he spent locked up. So, they want us to know what they are up to."
"Hold on, they want us to know? What the hell…last time we thought that we knew what it was that Aizen wanted." Renji argued as he remembered the day exactly in his head. "It might be a trap again, make us go there again and get killed. I don't fucking want to be lied again, not after nearly being killed in battle by that Szayel bastard."
Ichigo shook his head, remembering the fact that he too almost died by the hands of Aizen and Ichimaru. Watching everyone being torn to pieces like a rag doll, then having being abandoned by Inoue was surely not something he liked to go back to again. There was the possibility that someone knew everything about all shinigamis, their powers, strength, weakness--all of that.
"Come on, I think we need to dig up more records." Ichigo motioned for Renji to follow him. There was something going on and he was going to find out.
+--+
"What do you think Isshin?" Urahara questioned, as the two older men sat there drinking tea accompanied by Ishida Ryuuken.
"Absurd theories like that fail to really come to me at the moment." The Quincy commented coolly as he blew smoke into the night air.
"You have to think into it though. There is evidence to know that there's something that someone is planning in Hueco Mundo. Think back to all of the vital information we gathered after the war against Aizen." Isshin pointed out, as he too believed in the same thing as Ryuuken. "I can't agree with everything you say old friend, but the signs are there. Tell me, do you think it could be possible for that Inoue girl to be working along that plan?"
The stripped hat man leaned against the table, propping his chin on his hand and thinking carefully into that assumption alone. Having being betrayed by her surely made a lot of relationships to stray, it was a hurtful thing for everyone.
"There's the possibility knowing that she could be working along with this plan. After all, that's what the arrancars and all of them are trying to do at the moment." He informed. "Inoue-san would be the only one to know about Hitsugaya-kun's weaknesses along with the rest of the seated members of the Gotei 13. I say it would be hard to give all the information."
Both, shinigami and Quincy agreed on the matter because that was a possibility.
"Also add the fact that she did betray us for something she thought we were doing wrong." Ishida Uryuu appeared from behind the closed door followed by Yourichi. "Inoue believed that we were wrong on judging them, put all the blame for all the things that were happening and she thought of us as being self-righteous beings. She grew compassionate about that Espada Ulquiorra, which I still fail to see any reason to it at all."
Everyone in the room grew silent, there were so many things to say on that matter, but hopefully they all hoped for Hitsugaya to wake up and inform them about whatever he had seen in Hueco Mundo. It would be a horrible experience to relieve it, but they had to know every single detail of the newly form nemesis that would soon plan something bad for Soul Society, perhaps using the icy captain as a tool of some sort.
"Tch, I'll have to go back up there again to see if I can find anything along with Nel." The tanned woman expressed. "She says that there's some ruins we should look into, but maybe we could get Ichigo's help on getting information from that demented Mayuri or records allowing us to see everything collected from Las Noches."
The four men nodded their heads in agreement at her own statement, there was enough reasoning in it as well. Despite the fact that the older Quincy was still awry about helping the shinigamis and Soul Society, but if that world was to be messed with then the balance would be disrupted. Causing calamity wasn't something that Karakura could endure again after almost ten years, or other type of crisis because then maybe it would be the end to the town for good.
"Going to Soul Society is going to be interesting." Uryuu pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, and grinned a little bit. "I have a score to settle with Abarai-san."
"That's my boy!" Isshin slapped him in the back, nearly knocking him down.
"What the hell! I am not you boy nor are you my father!" The dark haired man shouted at him, and punched him in the gut. "No wonder Kurosaki hates you most of the time. I am going home, I have an early shift tomorrow at the hospital."
"That boy is still as miserable and insufferable as always." His own father commented, as he too made his exit out of the store.
+--+
This is chapter six everyone, thanks for still sticking around. I'll like to thank Toushi-chan, Tsukihime nee, Sonata Ann, and kwisy for commenting on the previous chapter. I am content with the feedback I get back, so thanks everyone and if I could give you a large piece of cake I would--trust me. Well, yesterday was my birthday and I didn't really work much on this chapter until late at night. So, sorry if there's some things that are unexplained well and such--but feel free to send me a PM if you have questions. I wasn't going to post it today because I feel that there's stuff that needs to be more detailed, but then I kept thinking; in the end I just simply said 'what the hell, give them the chapter', so that's it. Oh, and I don't even know why in the hell I put the bloody 'Romeo and Juliet' stuff here, somehow I just wanted to use that to convey the slight attraction between Hitsugaya and Karin on the little flashbacks. At some point they'll stop though, but I can't promise anything at all.
The action so far, I know that everyone was like 'Toshiro isn't dead, right?' and worried, but no. Come on, I couldn't bring myself to kill him like that because I would be really upset with myself mainly. So, he's still alive as you could read of course, and he'll stay that way. Hopefully it was not an awkward scene or anything at the beginning, but I had a hard time deciding on the events really--so after much typing and deleting that's what you got. And, I really wanted to get out of the depressing scenes as well--so I just begun to add some slightly changes to the original plot, which is still in my brain and is not willing to come out. Those Orihime fans, you'll hate me for making her a traitor, but I just despise the character so badly. No, there is no Ori/Ulqui going on here, and as the story goes on it would be revealed as to the real reason why she and Ulquiorra disappeared. Sighs, this is going to be a long Author's Note here. What is actually going on that no one is telling? Why was there a meeting suddenly called? Why is no one investigating? So many questions, I know, I know it would be confusing at some point but bare with me. I am going to start to pick up more lighter scenes 'cos I am over with the depressing stuff and I think I made a few of you cry--which I do apologize but it was simply part of my story here. Anyways, I am dragging this long enough so I am out! Like it? Review it. Hate it? That's alright.