Wow, I'm flattered. I didn't think others had considered the whole issues surrounding former exiles becoming captains again while still afflicted with the condition that got them exiled in the first place. Here we go again!

Hinamori Momo is more than a little bit startled when a man comes walking into the meeting hall wearing Captain Aizen's haori. She nearly goes over to him to demand that he take it off, but reconsiders when she remembers that Captain Aizen isn't a captain anymore, that he betrayed Soul Society and forced Shiro-chan and the other captains to hurt her. The many therapy sessions she was forced to go to all focused on that fact, and the meek lieutenant is just starting to let herself accept it.

Of course, she's outright horrified when Sui Feng reveals that the blond and his friends are part-Hollow. They look like Shinigami, but as soon as the diminutive captain says it, Hinamori's sense of reiatsu confirms it. Their power feels hybridized, as if beneath the Shinigami aspect there lies a cold-blooded thing, and somewhere in between the two they start to blend.

And when Hirako Shinji- that's his name, she discovers- gives Captain Kuchiki the most direct telling-off anyone's probably ever dared to in the noble's lifetime, Momo turns a few shades paler, because Captain Aizen- no, he's Aizen, just Aizen- did this to him. Aizen transformed this man and the two with him into abominations, walking rejections of the natural order of life. Shinigami hunt Hollows, that's how it is. No one should ever be a mixture of Shinigami and Hollow. It's wrong, evoking a visceral disgust in her just as a pure Hollow does.

Hinamori feels a little bit of her dedication to Aizen slip away, replaced by an instinctive fear of Shinji. She spends the rest of the meeting staring at the back of her new captain's head, as if trying to see the Hollow mask that isn't there but could be in a second. A second is all it would take for this stranger and his friends to put on Hollow masks and slaughter everyone in the room, save perhaps for Unohana and Yamamoto.

She files out with the rest of the people there in a sort of daze, which is why it surprises her so much when she nearly walks into someone.

That someone happens to be Shinji, who bends down a little bit to look Momo in the eye and stick his hand out. The slender lieutenant stares at it for a second, taking a step back with a squeak before her body remembers what she's supposed to do here and shakes his hand. Surprisingly, when he releases it and she drops her hand back to her side, Momo doesn't feel repulsed. She's a little bit disturbed by the fact that she isn't disturbed, that her skin isn't crawling.

"Nice to meet 'cha. Hinamori, right? Can I call you Hinamori-chan?" The blond asks, grinning all the while. "Or do ya go by somethin' else?"

"Hi-Hinamori-san, if you don't mind." The girl in question stammers, thanking whatever spirits are watching out for her that she can remember proper social behavior. Anything besides Hinamori-kun would be okay with her, really, but there are rules about being so informal. Rules that he apparently likes to trample over.

Shinji somehow manages to straighten and slouch at the same time. "Hinamori-san it is, then. I'm Hirako Shinji. Most people just call me Hirako-san, and I imagine some people'll insist on Captain Hirako, but a pretty girl like you can call me anythin' ya want."

"I-I know." She says, realizing her mistake a second later and trying to correct it. "I mean I know you're Hirako Shinji! Not, you know..." Momo trails off, glancing away and blushing.

He laughs. "I like you, Hinamori-san. Much as I'd love to catch up with everyone here- it's been a while since we actually talked, y'know, that fight with Aizen and his Espada doesn't count- I think my time'd be better spent back at the Fifth Division. How 'bout you an' I go and get me introduced to everybody?"

Hinamori finds herself nodding. Right, just ignore the fact that he's a self-proclaimed monster and make it your duty, Momo. You can do this. "Okay, C-Captain Hirako." She stumbles over the words, mouth hesitant to call him by the title even though her mind understands that Shinji's her captain now.

She leads him through the streets, stopping every so often when he does to see a faintly grim and wistful expression on Shinji's face as he looks around. Soon enough the hybrid snaps out of it and motions for her to lead on- though Momo suspects that he remembers the way, that he's walked this way a thousand times in his dreams.

Finally, just as the young Kido master is about to faint because his presence makes her so nervous, the duo arrives at the headquarters of the Fifth Division, where the captain's and lieutenant's quarters are located- a change made to all the headquarters after Kenpachi kept getting lost on the way from his bedroom to work each day, when he actually slept in it at all. A small crowd of Shinigami is bustling around, a buzz of chatter rising up from them.

A pair crossing the square reflexively glance over to greet their lieutenant and are, to put it mildly, startled to see someone accompanying her.

"Lieutenant Hinamori! Good morning! Who's this?" The braver man asks curiously, tilting his head like a bird at Shinji.

Hinamori puts on her 'commanding lieutenant' face. "I'll tell you in just a second, but" -she racks her brain for their names- "I need you, Aono-san and Toriyama-san, to get the division members together, okay? It's important."

The two men blink, but rush off to do as they're told. Shinji turns to her bemusedly.

"I'm pretty sure you coulda just told 'em right there, but you're the expert in dealin' with these people, so I'll just follow your lead." He says, brushing a strand of pale gold hair out of his face.

Once everyone's assembled- just like they used to assemble when Aizen needed to give full-division directions, Momo remembers, heart aching-, Shinji and his new lieutenant stand in front of them, neither exactly sure what to say.

Finally the former exile figures it out and takes a little step forward.

"Nice to meet you all. I'm Hirako Shinji, the guy who's gonna be your captain from here on out, so I get to set a few ground rules." He clasps his hands. "Rule number one: Only listen to me if I make sense. If I don't, go ask Hinamori-san and she'll tell you what to do. Rule number two: Don't expect things to get done the way Aizen did them. I used to tell Aizen what to do, so I know what that slimeball's like, and I'm not really like that. I'm not gonna lie to you and make you my chess pawns like he did. Rule number three, hmm...Got it! Rule number three is that if any weirdos come 'round here that you don't know, 'specially a blonde midget girl with pigtails, send 'em my way. They're prob'ly lookin' for me."

Shinji grins and claps his hands, making everyone blink. "So, questions? I might have answers!" He sounds ridiculously upbeat for someone who hasn't been around here for a century, Momo thinks. If she was in his position, she'd be sad remembering how things used to be.

A tall woman rises from her kneeling position and asks, "Excuse me, Captain Hirako, sir, but you said you commanded Aizen? Why're you back if you retired?"

He sighs, scratching at his right elbow. "'Cause I didn't retire, that's why. He forced me out 'cause of this." Without warning, the blond reaches up to his face and makes a downwards sliding motion. Hinamori barely manages to stifle a scream by biting her lip until it bleeds as white spirit particles coalesce beneath his fingers into a Hollow mask. Others aren't so self-controlled, or maybe Hinamori's just too scared to move, and a good six people faint on the spot, others going white or screaming. Not everyone's battle-hardened enough to fight the instinctive fear that Hollows induce.

Hinamori can't look away, as terrified as she is. Shinji looks absolutely inhuman, despite his mask resembling an Egyptian pharaoh. His eyes are barely visible, shadowed by the mask, which doesn't help matters at all. You can't tell where he's looking. A weirdly calm part of Hinamori's mind thinks that it would be a great way to keep people from knowing if you're sleeping or not.

He only wears the mask for a second before it turns into yellow reiatsu and dissipates into the air, the crushing, predatory spirit pressure surrounding him vanishing instantly.

"Sheesh, it's your job to deal with Hollows. If you can't stand up to that, you don't have what it takes to be Shinigami." Shinji scoffs. "Alright, maybe a demonstration wasn't the best idea I've ever had," he concedes, "but you're going to have to get used to it. Long story short, when Aizen was my lieutenant, he lured me and a bunch of my friends out to the Rukongai and gave us Hollow powers and blamed Urahara Kisuke for it, so Soul Society exiled us for a while. No worries, I'm not gonna eat you or anythin' like that." His grin's returned, though it seems a little shaky. "Yama-jii wouldn't have let me back if I wasn't the one in control." Exactly what would be in control is left unspoken, hanging in the air.

Hinamori doesn't know what possesses her to do it, but she takes a step forward so she's just ahead of her captain, holding her hands up in front of herself pleadingly. "E-everyone, I can't say Captain Hirako's nature doesn't scare me. But I was at the battle with Aizen-san and the Espada and we would never have won if he and his friends hadn't come to help. I'm not saying that we should trust him blindly, but I want everyone to listen to him, okay?" She swallows hard, trying to remember what Shinji said during the meeting.

"K-Kurosaki-san, he saved us all, and before he gave up his powers, he was part-Hollow too, and I think he was friends with Captain Hirako. We can't just reject Captain Hirako if we don't do the same to Kurosaki-san. The Captain-Commander himself decided to bring Captain Hirako and his friends back from exile, and I think I like them, s-so if you have a problem with them, you have a problem with me and Yamamoto-sama too."

A firm, long-fingered hand rests on her shoulder suddenly. "Thanks, Hinamori-san. It means more than you know." He murmurs. As soon as the lazy drawl's vanished from his voice, it returns. "I'm not askin' ya to trust me or Rose or Kensei. After what you went through with Aizen, I'd say don't trust anyone in authority again. I sure don't. Just take your orders and follow 'em if you think they're right. There ain't a single captain who's not dangerous, even Unohana, so don't go thinkin' we're worse than anyone else just cause it's more obvious. So I expect ya to listen when I tell ya to do somethin', hear? Dismissed!" Shinji barks the last word with the authority of a drill sergeant. It couldn't be more clear that he's been a captain before and still knows how to be one.

The blond turns and simply walks off, haori swishing behind him as he does. Hinamori stays a bit longer to make sure that her subordinates are okay, murmuring reassurances and giving soft smiles here and there. Damage control, and the irreverent part of her rolls its eyes at Shinji's stunt. As effective as it was, there had to have been a better way to manage things. Such as not telling Shinigami that you could transform into a Hollow.

As soon as she's done, though, the shy lieutenant goes looking for her captain. She finds him in the room set aside for the captain of the division, door open with his haori lying crumpled on the threshold.

"Captain Hirako, I'm sure they'll warm up to you." Momo says hesitantly. "We're just...wary."

"I know." The hybrid replies distantly, not turning to face her. "That's how it went when I got made captain the first time." He turns suddenly, brown eyes bright with an emotion she can't name. "I thought I'd make things right this time, y'know? I mean, I knew people wouldn't like having a Visored captain, but I thought with Aizen gone there was no way I could screw up. Everyone'd just magically be okay again." Shinji releases a shuddering sigh. "It doesn't work like that, huh? No one's going to be okay for a while. I'm not okay. You aren't okay."

Momo laughs nervously, fiddling with the sleeves of her shihakusho. "I-I'm fine, really! They'll be fine too as soon as they get over your mask. It was a little sudden and all. Um, no disrespect, Captain Hirako, but maybe you could've just not told them? Most people wouldn't notice if they weren't trying to sense you."

He crosses the distance between them and looks her dead in the eye. "Maybe. I just didn't want to be hidin' stuff like Aizen did, y'know? Last time I tried keepin' secrets, my lieutenant backstabbed me an' seven of my friends and the only other people who knew got exiled too. They woulda found out anyway, I bet. Matsumoto-chan and that buffoon Sui Feng has for a lieutenant aren't the type to keep their traps shut."

Hinamori smiles genuinely at that. "Matsumoto-san and Omaeda-san aren't so bad, Captain."

Shinji grins. "I dunno about Omaeda, but Matsumoto-chan isn't bad at all." His meaning is clear, and Hinamori turns faintly pink.

Suddenly, she finds a hand on her head, ruffling her hair. "I said when I first met 'cha that I liked ya, Hinamori-san. I think my first impression was right for once. Go to bed, Peach Girl. Your bed. I won't have you tryin' to stay over with Matsumoto-chan or someone like that and gettin' kicked out by accident when the party gets outta control." Shinji releases her, gently pushing her outside and retrieving his haori before sliding the door shut. Somehow it doesn't feel like a dismissal.

Hinamori Momo isn't exactly sure if she's scared of Hirako Shinji or not. But she knows right there that she trusts him.