Wow guys, thanks for your amazing reaction to the last chapter. I'm really glad you liked it. And yeah, I'm not so sure if Hitsugaya's reaction is ooc or not, but I felt like it was an appropriate reaction for the situation.
I apologize for my delay in posting, and I'm going to apologize again that my next post will also be late, but this week is insanely hectic for me and I don't have as much time to write as I would like :( Anyway, here's the next installment!
Karin stared after Hitsugaya in disbelief, still processing everything that had just happened. It was almost too much to take in all at once.
"Everything will be alright Karin," Ichigo said encouragingly. "We'll be back soon. With the kid." Karin nodded, too numb to do anything else as she watched her brother follow Hitsugaya through the gate to Hueco Mondo. It closed the second he went through, eliminating any possible hope of sneaking in behind them.
Karin fell to her knees. She felt such a mixture of emotions, she was afraid she couldn't handle it. Rage at Hitsugaya for saying those things to her, self-loathing for balking when the Arrancar showed up, and concern for Hoshi and the horrors that awaited him in Aizen's clutches, gnawed at her insides and made her feel almost ready to explode.
"Don't cry!" she commanded herself. "Don't cry!" But the tears started to form anyway.
"He's such a jerk!" she yelled, not caring if her father woke up and heard her. "Who does he think he is, treating me like that?" She shook her head. Now was not the time to wallow in her failure. It was her fault Hoshi had been taken to Hueco Mondo, so it was her responsibility to see that he got home safely. Not even bothering to change out of her pajamas, she grabbed her coat and boots and ran out of the house and into the blizzard.
She couldn't see a thing. Everything around her was a blur. The thick, rich darkness had abated, but the storm was still as brutal as ever, and it blotted out all her surroundings and clobbered her body with more force than snow ever should have. But Karin was immune to the pain and the arctic temperatures, since Hitsugaya's words hurt her more profoundly than the walloping snow or the stinging cold ever could.
Who said anything about wanting to protect you?! I just don't trust you anymore.
"I'll show him how trustworthy I can be!" Mustering up what remained of her reiatsu, she focused it on herself and illuded away the blizzard.
"Wow, this illusion stuff is really powerful!" she marveled, as she looked at the calm, clear night around her. Breaking into a run, Karin headed towards the one person she knew could help her.
ooooooooooooooo
"Urahara!" Karin shrieked, pounding on the door to his shop. "Urahara I know you're in there! Wake up or I'll…" but any potential threat was unfounded as the door slid open, revealing a very wide awake Urahara.
"I was wondering how long it would take you to get here Karin," he said jovially, as if she was simply late for tea and not breaking down his door in the dead of night, in the middle of a blizzard, panting like a dog, and developing a rather severe case of frostbite on her uncovered ears. He stood back and allowed her to collapse on his floor. Once she was inside, the precarious illusion she had herself under broke, and the blizzard returned to its former state of ferocity.
"You've developed quite a bit as an illusionist," Urahara commented, looking out at the snow briefly before closing the door. "You've already figured out that you can illude yourself if the need arises. I'm impressed."
"Well, you can impress me by telling me you already have a gate to Hueco Mondo open and…what?!" She sat up straight, exhaustion mostly gone. "How the hell did you know I was an illusionist?" Urahara smiled knowingly.
"Hitsugaya taicho may have been hiding his reiatsu, but you made no effort to hide yours. I recognized the change immediately. Plus, the bubble of snow-free air around you was a dead giveaway. You could have illuded away the cold too you know."
"You knew Toushiro was here?!" she asked, ignoring the slight in favor of being utterly flabbergasted. "How?"
"My dear, why on earth would you of all people need two universal gigais?" Urahara tapped himself proudly on the nose. "I've known that he was here with Aizen's kid since the beginning."
"Oh…wait, WHAT?! Aizen's kid?!" Karin didn't think she could take any more surprises at the moment. Her heart was so tortured as it was. "You mean Hoshi is…"
"Whatever Hitsugaya taicho told that idiot brother of yours, there is absolutely no reason why Aizen would have any interest in a child that was not his own. Therefore, the only reason to go on a secret mission solely in order to hide a baby is if the baby is actually Aizen's offspring. As to the mother, my money would be on his fukutaicho, Hinamori, but one never can tell with a popular taicho like that one." Karin felt like her head was spinning.
"How do you know so much?" she groaned. "Isn't there anything that can be kept a secret from you?"
"Oh yes," he said seriously. "For example, I have no idea what affect that magneto had on you and Hitsugaya taicho."
"Magneto?" Karin asked curiously. "What's that?" But before Urahara could answer, a redheaded shinigami appeared and whacked him on the top of the head.
"Don't pass off information I've given you as your own personal reasoning skills!" she reprimanded. "You knew nothing about the baby's true parents. I told you that, you pathetic show off. Oh, hello Karin-chan! Nice to see you again." She flashed Karin a winning smile. Karin recognized her.
"You're…" Karin began, but the woman cut her off.
"10th squad fukutaicho, Matsumoto Rangiku!" she said brightly.
"But…what are you doing here?" Karin asked confused. "How did you even know Toushiro was here? Wasn't this mission top secret?"
"It was," Matsumoto replied. "But things changed when the Espada showed up. I was called in for an emergency meeting with Yamamoto soutaicho who explained the entire situation to me and sent me to assist my taicho. Unfortunately, he had apparently already left for Hueco Mondo by the time I arrived. So I intend to follow him there."
"I'm coming with you!" Karin insisted. "It's my fault that Hoshi was kidnapped. I couldn't protect him. Plus, I owe it to Toushiro. He trained me and I failed him. I won't let it happen again." Matsumoto smiled warmly at her.
"Anyone that has the guts to call my taicho Toushiro and not get frozen for it must be a pretty special person. But Hueco Mondo is not somewhere to be entered lightly. Are you sure you're ready?"
"Yes," Karin stated firmly. "That's what I've been training for."
"Well then, I wouldn't leave you behind even if you wanted to stay," Matsumoto said cheerily. Karin grinned.
"Thanks Matsumoto-san," she said gratefully.
"Oh, please call me Rangiku."
"Um, I hate to be the buzz kill," Urahara interjected, "but I'm afraid I cannot allow you to go Karin."
"What!?" Karin cried. "Why?"
"I fear that your brother might have my head if I sent you somewhere as dangerous as Hueco Mondo," he replied. "And I quite like my head where it is." Karin swelled with anger.
"Don't tell me you're really afraid of that idiot!" she screamed at the top of her lungs. "How can he have any control over what I do? Or what you do for that matter? I've been training my butt off so that I could protect Hoshi, and I'm not about to let your little fear of death get in my way! I messed up once, but I will not do it again! They won't catch me off guard this time. I've learned my lesson and I'm more than ready to fight. I'm going to Hueco Mondo whether you like it or not!" Urahara smiled calculatingly.
"That's just what I'd expect from you," he praised. "You're just as stubborn as your brother, albeit a bit more eloquent."
"That's not a compliment," Karin grumbled. Urahara chuckled.
"Well," he continued, "I see that I have no choice. Let the record say I was coerced into this. Matsumoto-san, you're my witness. Now, perhaps we should see about opening that gate."
"Wait," Karin stopped him. "You never told me what a magneto was." Urahara's eyes opened wide in surprise.
"Surely you, a talented illusionist felt it," he said, hiding his broad smile behind a white fan that materialized out of nowhere. "If you think you are strong enough to go into Hueco Mondo, than you should be able to recognize it for what it was. Magneto is an illusionist's technique designed to draw people together, no matter what the distance is. Anyone capable of performing illusions can create one, but it requires a responding party who can also make illusions to have any effect. Its main purpose is to find people that are lost. It is the technique that Aizen used to find his son, despite his rather effective hiding place. The initiator of the magneto sends out a signal, directed at whomever he wishes to find, and, if the recipient senses it, he responds with his own magneto, bringing the two parties together like a magnet. Hence, 'magneto.' It would appear that your little charge is an illusionist himself, and responded to his father's magneto. Of course, there are side effects. The magneto creates a rather heavy atmosphere within a small radius around the two users and it tends to captivate those caught in it, generating within them a strong need to be close to each other." Karin gasped. She understood exactly the effect Urahara was talking about.
"No!" she thought. "It can't be right! I kissed him because I wanted to, not because of some stupid magneto technique!" But she wasn't even sure that was true anymore. She had definitely felt a change in her desire for him tonight. Like her emotions were on hyper-drive and all her boundaries had dissolved, leaving nothing but passion in their wake. If that had all been an illusion, then she had quite enjoyed it. Then she remembered that Hitsugaya was furious at her, which in turn made her furious at him.
"You're blushing," Urahara teased.
"I am not!" Karin snapped. "I'm just red from the cold. Now take us to Hueco Mondo!"
"Hai hai, right this way," Urahara sang. Karin rolled her eyes and she and Matsumoto followed Urahara down into the basement, where he began preparations to open the gate.
"Rangiku," Karin said as they waited. "I'd like to avoid engaging in unnecessary fights. We're going to get Hoshi back and help Toushiro and Ichi-nii. There's no reason to do anything else. I can make us invisible with my illusions. If you'll just hide your reiatsu, we can sneak around anywhere we want to go. It'll give us the element of surprise."
"Your illusion skills have advanced that far?" Matsumoto marveled.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, usually illusioning something into reality is much easier than illusioning something out of it. In other words, using illusions to create a false landscape or object is much less complex than making something disappear. It's even more difficult to combine the two." Karin thought back to the dresser-lifting exercise Hitsugaya had her repeat over and over. So that's what he was doing; making her combine creation and elimination into a single technique.
"Toushiro was a good teacher," she said simply. Matsumoto saw the distant look in Karin's eyes and smiled.
"You care for him don't you?" Karin scoffed.
"No," she said darkly. "He's a jerk. The first thing I'm going to do when I see him is punch his lights out." Matsumoto laughed heartily.
"I'm sure he'll appreciate that in the middle of a fight." Karin grinned.
"Ready ladies?" Urahara asked. "I'm going to open the gate now."
"Ready!" Matsumoto chimed.
"Ready," Karin agreed. Urahara clapped his hands together and the giant mouth-like gate opened. Karin and Matsumoto jumped in as one, and were swallowed up into the darkness leading to Hueco Mondo.
"I'm coming Hoshi!" Karin thought. "Whether Toushiro wants me to or not!"
oooooooooooooooo
Hitsugaya was halfway to Hueco Mondo when the guilt hit. Hard.
"What did I do?!" he derided himself. "I'm such a fool! It was her first real fight, she's never even used illusions to fight a simple hollow, but she volunteered to go up against a fully fledged Arrancar. Sure she lost, but it wasn't her fault really. It was mine for allowing her to fight an enemy I knew she wasn't ready to face. I shouldn't have said those things to her." He felt terrible.
He remembered the moment they had shared just before the Espada had shown up; the darkness, the passion, the electricity that had flowed through them. Hitsugaya had never felt that way before. He realized now that it had probably occurred as a result of the magneto Aizen was using to find Hoshi, but that didn't make his feelings for her any less real. Magneto attraction couldn't force people to do things they wouldn't do otherwise. It simply created such a need for closeness that it tended to remove inhibitions that otherwise would prevent certain actions from occurring. Karin's desire to kiss him and his desire to kiss back had been honest manifestations of their emotions.
"I love her, don't I?" he realized. "But I messed up. I was an idiot and I said something horrible. And now she'll probably never forgive me." The thought made his heart hurt.
See, Toushiro is finally feeling significantly guilty. You knew it was coming, I couldn't keep him a jerk for too long. And I hope the darkness thing is fully explained now, although it will continue to be important, so don't think it's going away just yet :P
