. . .
∙ the ∙ color ∙ of ∙ psychosis ∙
part ( ii )
. . .
Matsumoto Rangiku held it together. She did not faint. She did not cry. She was a grown woman, a lieutenant of the Gotei 13, and she would not break down like a little girl.
She held herself steady as they took down his body. Unlike Hinamori, she couldn't afford to clutch at his blood-stained robes and cry denial to the skies until they pried her away from his side. Instead, Matsumoto forced herself to breathe evenly and think shallowly, keeping her grief in check so that she could give orders. The compound needed to be made off-limits. The seated officers needed to be informed. Soifon-taicho needed her to give a coherent report of any relevant information she could think of – when she had seen him last, which squad members were in the area at the time, and whether or not Hitsugaya-taicho had ever behaved out of character or spoken to anyone out of the ordinary in the last couple of days.
She held onto her composure with a white-knuckled death grip. With Hitsugaya gone, who would hold the division together if she fell apart?
Still, there was no hiding the anguish in her eyes as they took his body away. She almost screamed then, as they lifted him deferentially onto a stretcher to be carried to the Fourth. Nearly burst into tears and fell to her knees, begging them not to take him away. But she didn't. In the end, Matsumoto only tightened her grip on Haineko, tight enough to hear the bones of her hand pop, and bit down on her scream until she tasted blood.
News spread like wildfire and soon the whole squad was up in arms. A captain was the core of a division, and the Tenth just had its heart ripped out brutally without any warning. They were angry, grieving and lost without their commander. She spent the rest of the night running damage control, giving them a beacon to follow and serving as a living reminder that they were still a division bound together by battles and blood. It would insult their captain's memory if they fell apart now.
Hours and hours of crisis control later, Matsumoto Rangiku still refused to crack. She held it together until their tears were shed and their grief abated, and she could finally retire to her rooms. She held it together as she slid the door of her quarters shut behind her, leaving her alone in the quiet darkness.
Then she heard a soft tinkle as something fell and shattered.
Her gaze flickered to the crystal chrysanthemum centerpiece on her tea table.
Quite possibly the most beautiful thing she owned, the flower had taken weeks and weeks of wheedling before her captain had grudgingly granted her plea for a pretty ice-sculpture. He rarely gave her anything – petty gifts were superfluous between a commanding officer and his subordinate, after all. And if they were anything more than just that, then that was a bond of unspoken, unshakeable trust that didn't need to be acknowledged with words and trinkets anyway.
Still, she treasured the few things her gruff little captain did give her. Like everything Hitsugaya Toushiro ever put effort into, the ice blossom was a work of art; each of the chrysanthemum's petals had been meticulously sculpted one by one, blooming elegantly as they caught the moonlight on a hundred glittering facets. It stayed pristine in even the hottest summers.
Now it was dying. The spirit force that had held it together and guarded it from harm was gone. It was melting, and its petals withering, falling away, even as she cupped it in her hands in a vain attempt to hold onto it for just a little longer.
The magic was gone.
And she thought, 'Gin never left me any keepsakes either.'
Only then, with no one around to see and no one left to be brave for, did Rangiku let herself break into gasping, ugly sobs, trembling as she knelt over the withering flower in her hands. When morning came, her face was still wet with tears, even though the last traces of ice cupped in her hands had finally turned into water and slipped away.
. . .
On some days, Renji wondered if he should just screw being a captain and retire to some distant corner of Rukongai where no one could ever find him again. He didn't even know if captains could retire, barring incapacitation.
Today was one of those days.
Between Matsumoto and Hinamori, he had more heartbroken females on his hands than he knew what to do with. Then there was the whole investigation mess that had everyone and their mother on the suspect list because, quite frankly, the evidence they had made no sense. How the hell had someone managed to kill a captain without anyone else noticing? The sick fuck responsible had probably purposefully set up the murder to look almost exactly like Aizen's too, just to make people panic and start slinging crazy accusations everywhere.
No wonder so many of the other captains were insane. Renji let his head thud against the wall behind him and wondered if anyone would fault him for passing out for a few hours in his office just to get away from the madness.
Not that he could even get into his office at the moment. Abarai Renji was currently standing miserably outside, trying to muster up the courage to go inside, which was kind of pathetic no matter how he looked at it.
The problem was his good hearing. He could hear the soft sounds of a brush and ink as someone inside did the paperwork. Only, every so often, he would hear the quiet 'drip' as tears fell onto paper, a half-strangled sob, and then a crumple of paper as the person writing threw the now-ruined form into the trashcan.
He wished Hinamori had taken his advice and stayed home. He wished he hadn't been the one assigned to sort through Hitsugaya-taicho's possessions. He wished he hadn't found the letter that was palpably heavy with guilt in folds of his robes, because then he wouldn't have to decide if it would be better to hand it over to the investigation team, to give the letter to Hinamori, or to simply burn it before anyone had a chance to open it. Reading it wasn't an option – commanding officer or not, Abarai Renji was a loyal friend. Besides, it would be a violation of trust if he read Hitsugaya-taicho's last words while fully aware that they were meant for someone else's eyes.
"Argh, don't overthink it, you idiot," he chided himself and threw the office door open before he could change his mind.
"A-Abarai-taicho!" Hinamori jumped to attention behind her desk, hastily wiping her tears on her sleeve. She wasn't fooling anyone though; her eyes were swollen, her clothes were a mess, and her voice sounded like she had scraped it raw with sandpaper. She probably knew it too, considering how quickly she averted her gaze and croaked, "I'm sorry - I made a mess of the forms. I have to redo them."
"Don't worry about it. I told you to take the day off, didn't I?" Renji said. He regretted the words immediately when she flinched. Comforting girls wasn't his forte – he'd have to blunder through it and hope for the best. It was now or never.
The red-haired captain cleared his throat awkwardly and said, "Anyway, the men found something this morning that I thought you should have."
He took the letter out of the folds of his robe and saw Hinamori's eyes visibly widen as she recognized her name written across the front in familiar handwriting. Renji pretended not to see the tremble in her lip or the unsteadiness of her hands as she reached out to accept it. For a while, she just stood there, her gaze fixed on the letter in her hand with a kind of desperate emotion that Renji couldn't decipher. It became clear that no response was forthcoming.
"I'll – uh – I'll step outside if you want to read it alone," Renji muttered lamely. Hinamori gave him a tiny nod and he beat a hasty retreat.
As he slid the door to the office open again, he nearly bowled straight into Kira. The blonde lieutenant opened his mouth to utter his surprise, but Renji clamped a hand over his mouth and dragged them both out of view before Kira make a sound.
"Abarai? Is something the matter?" Kira asked, confused by the unprovoked attack. Belatedly, Renji noticed a now crumpled bouquet on Kira's hands. He also noticed how bedraggled the acting-captain of the Third Division looked, especially because Kira had woken up in an alley, hung-over and bereft of his wallet, before immediately being swept into the chaos that followed Hitsugaya's murder. Where he had even found the time to pick up a bouquet of flowers, Renji had no idea.
"Now's not a good time to visit Hinamori, Kira," Renji explained.
Kira looked down at the bouquet in his hands and back up at his red-haired friend. Almost contritely, he said, "I just thought, well, maybe, some flowers would cheer Hinamori-kun up a little?" The words came out sounding more like a question than a fact, and there was an implied apology in Kira's words, though he looked confused as to what he had done wrong.
"That's fine, no, actually, that's great. But she's reading a letter from Hitsugaya right now, and I'm pretty sure she doesn't want either of us in there right now," Renji said.
"Oh," Kira said. That explained everything. The two friends stood outside the Fifth Division office for a moment of awkward silence as they contemplated the third member of their trio on the other side of the door. Kira shifted his weight from foot to foot as Renji crossed his arms and directed his gaze at the sky, stubbornly trying not to think what might have been written in that letter. For some reason, a feeling of unease was spreading through Renji's stomach like spoiled milk, and he found himself more and more worried as he heard the shuffle of paper inside the office.
Then, quite softly, he heard Hinamori's plaintive voice: "Shiro-chan, you liar."
There was an explosion of lieutenant-class spirit pressure that blasted the Fifth Division office door right out of its frame.
Only his own captain-class reflexes let him catch Hinamori mid-shunpo as she flash-stepped out of the office, her face twisted in grief and agony. 'What the hell was written in there?' Renji wondered in bewilderment as Hinamori thrashed in his arms.
"You liar!" Hinamori repeated, her eyes darting from side to side as if she were looking for someone. Her voice steadily increased from a cry to a scream as she asked the empty air, "Do you just want me out of the way? How could you? Tell me why, Shiro-chan!"
"Hinamori, stop, calm down." Renji fought to keep her restrained. All he got for his trouble was another fist to the face. Patience running thin, he raised his voice, shouting to get through to her, "He's not here, Hinamori! Get a hold of yourself – urk – goddammit!"
She had elbowed him in the throat and ignored his words completely. Holy shit, for someone so small, she was freakishly strong.
"I won't be fooled, not again! Do you think I'll fall for the same trap twice? Did you think you can lie to me? Come out, come out now! Hitsugaya Toushiro!" she screamed. Renji had never heard her use Hitsugaya's full name before. Her gaze held a not-quite-sane light as tears streamed down her face unchecked, and she was straining against him so fiercely that he was seriously scared she would snap a bone, more likely one of her own than one of his.
"Hinamori-kun, please! No one is hiding anything from you!" Kira shouted over her cries.
Nothing either of them said was getting through to her. Renji actually saw bruises forming around her wrists where he was holding them. That was when he decided it was time to throw all semblance of tact out the window.
"He's dead! Hitsugaya is dead, Hinamori!" he bellowed at the top of his lungs.
Everyone in Fifth Division compound probably heard their captain's roar and stopped in their tracks.
Hinamori looked as if someone had just slapped her.
'Okay, guilt kicking in about...now,' Renji thought. Still, it had done the job; the fight had bled right out of Hinamori, and she collapsed slowly on her knees as her wrath-born strength dwindled away.
"No," she whispered. "He can't be." She looked away from him, searching the distance with a look of utterly broken hope in her eyes as she choked, "I...I don't even care anymore, Shiro-chan. Please come out. I'll forgive anything, everything. J-just please...not like this. Not like Aizen-taicho. Please...please don't leave me behind."
Then she dissolved, shaking as she cried quietly into the front of his robes, and Renji didn't know what he could do except hold onto her, feeling like the worst friend in the world. Swallowing the lump in his throat, he remembered that he was supposed to be a captain, and that meant he was supposed to be composed and in control of the situation. Goddammit, how had Byakuya made it look so easy? Shifting Hinamori's weight awkwardly, Renji turned to give Kira an imploring look.
"Could you get her to the Fourth? Unohana...Unohana-taicho will know what to do," Renji said. That's right - foist off the over-emotional female on someone who actually knew how to deal with one. Basically, anyone other than himself. Maybe it was the coward's way out, but it was the best Renji could come up with in a pinch.
Kira nodded mutely, and Renji gingerly transferred the crying girl over to his arms. He heard the blonde lieutenant murmur something softly to Hinamori before the two disappeared with a gentle shunpo.
Rubbing his throat, Renji stepped over the fallen door into his office. Lying innocently in the middle of the floor was the letter, barely two pages of Hitsugaya-taicho's neat, perfectly legible handwriting. How had a few paragraphs caused that much damage?
He picked it up and started reading with a twinge of guilt. As Hinamori's commanding officer, it was his duty to look after her welfare, both mental and physical, and he had to read the letter to figure out what was wrong. How bad could it be? At worst, Renji rationalized, he might be reading a posthumous love confession or something equally private. He offered a small prayer of apology to Hitsugaya-taicho's ghost and turned the first page.
It wasn't a love confession.
It was formal and somewhat detached, which wasn't quite like a letter that was supposedly addressed to a close friend. Then again, Hitsugaya Toushiro had always been somewhat cold and standoffish, so it was almost expected. The content, however, was not what he expected at all. By time Renji finished the letter, his hands were trembling.
It said:
'Hinamori,
If you are reading this, then I am probably no longer alive.
I know there are a lot of things that I haven't been able to say to you, and I know it's too late to say them now. So I will say just this. For everything I've done, I am sorry. Until now, I have never spoken to you of my suspicions and doubts. I didn't want you to get involved. For not trusting you, I am sorry.
Forgive me. I still don't want you to get involved. However, if my worst fears are true, there may not be any other choice.
I can't protect you anymore. So I will tell you what I can, so that you can at least protect yourself.
There have been stirrings in both the Living World and Rukongai: strange movements of souls, minor uprisings, sporadic reports that don't make sense. Hueco Mundo has gone silent. There are signs that a greater power is moving behind the scenes, coordinating alliances in both Hueco Mundo and Rukongai to amass an army of which the likes has never before been seen. They plan to overthrow the Shinigami, Seireitei, and maybe even the Soul King himself.
I have been searching for the person behind this. Every clue and confession has pointed to one man. I have reconsidered every possibility, revalidated every piece of evidence, but I can draw no other conclusion.
The man behind this is Kurosaki Ichigo.
Tonight, I have arranged to meet him in person. I will give him one chance to explain himself or defend his innocence. If we cannot come to an accord, I am prepared to cross blades. However, if I should die, I would make one last request of you, Momo.
Leave Seireitei. This is not your war. Take Granny with you and flee until you pass the outer reaches of Rukongai. Don't look back. Kurosaki is not an enemy you can hope to defeat.
This is my final wish. Not as the captain of the Tenth Division, but as the friend you once considered me to be.
Sincerely,
Hitsugaya Toushiro'
The letter fell from Renji's nerveless fingers and fluttered slowly to the floor.
. . .
"Someone must have messed with it beforehand! There's no way Ichigo would do this!" Renji shouted.
"But this is indeed Hitsugaya-taicho's handwriting. His spirit presence still lingers on the ink. That, at least, cannot be forged," spoke Ukitake sadly. His eyes were dark with grief as they scanned over the letter, and the sleep deprivation in conjunction with the anguish in his kind heart had hardly done his health any favors.
"A single letter has no significance no matter by whose hand it was written," Kuchiki Byakuya said.
"It is hardly just a single letter. We found months' worth of notes on his investigation in his quarters. Everything from compiled statistics to eyewitness accounts to notable disappearances," Soifon said with narrowed eyes. "I found it odd how someone as thorough as Hitsugaya Toushiro would actively avoid naming the suspect he was investigating. This explains it quite neatly."
"Yare, yare, let's not jump to conclusions too fast now," Kyoraku Shunsui murmured.
"We know for certain that Hitsugaya-taicho was found last night, suspended in front of the Tenth Division's administrative office by his own zanpakuto. The time of death occurred between 1800 hours, when the squads were dismissed, and 2100 hours, when the body was discovered. All captains and lieutenants were accounted for during that period of time," acting-captain Hisagi Shuuhei recapped. For a man nursing a splitting hangover followed by a sleepless night, he conducted himself admirably well.
"But how?" asked Ukitake, his kind face pale and drawn. "Surely, someone would have sensed something."
"I found no injuries besides the most obvious. The attack was most likely unexpected and instantaneous," Unohana said quietly. There was a definite shadow of weariness around the corners of her eyes. She had been the busiest of all the captains; the lingering scent of blood and antiseptic still clung to her. Her face was schooled into an expression of serenity, however, and it masked any sorrow she may have felt.
"Only a complete and utter imbecile would be taken by surprise with his own sword," Kurotsuchi Mayuri spat, clearly irritated that he had been pulled away from a highly important experiment.
"I do not think the original attack was made with Hyorinmaru," Unohana clarified, "I believe that the attacker used his own blade, and made the same wound with Hyorinmaru after the fact. There were signs that Hitsugaya-taicho was pierced twice – once from behind, and once from the front. The first blow may have been struck with a different blade."
"It does not matter which sword was used. Only the skill with which the blow was struck." Komamura finally spoke, as solemn and serious as ever.
"Now that's a scary thought. Someone who can pull one over Hitsugaya-kun," Kyoraku said.
Kenpachi growled, "So he got back-stabbed by some random idiot? And I thought the brat would have at least put up a decent fight. What a fucking lame way to go."
"A captain will not fall to an unskilled opponent, dishonorable tactics or no," Byakuya gave his level judgment of the situation. His eyes closed momentarily, though it was impossible to tell if he was annoyed or worried by the proceedings. Any anger he might have felt was swept beneath a mask of perfect calm. Then, to Renji's surprise, his former captain frowned and added, "However, I do not think Kurosaki Ichigo is responsible for this."
"The kid's too damn honest to pull something like this," Kenpachi agreed. "Besides, he's not some kind of pansy who has to sneak around behind our backs. If he's got a problem with one of us, he'll come bustin' through the front gate."
"A fair assessment of Kurosaki Ichigo at fifteen, perhaps. But he is no longer a child. Ten years is more than enough time to twist a mortal's personality beyond recognition," Komamura pointed out.
"What do you think, Juushiro? Think Rukia-chan can shed some light on this?" Kyoraku asked Ukitake.
"As if that child could be trusted to be objective. Clearly the red-headed baboon has already thoroughly demonstrated how objective their opinions will be," Kurotsuchi drawled.
Renji bit back a snarl as his hand twitched instinctively towards Zabimaru, but Ukitake cut in gently before it could come to blows, "If possible, I'd like to keep Rukia-kun as uninvolved as possible. She has not spoken to him in years; the information she can offer may no longer be relevant. I must admit...I am personally reluctant to suspect Kurosaki Ichigo of this kind of treachery at all, considering how much he has done for us. He has always proven worthy of our trust in the past."
There was a brief murmur of agreement, but it was an uneasy admission. Hisagi was the one to verbalize what they were all thinking aloud.
"We once thought the same of Aizen and Tosen too," he said slowly and painfully.
Then Soifon said, "We have records that a gate between the Living World and Soul Society opened up at 1830 hours. The entrance from the Living World was traced back to the basement of the Urahara Shop."
"Do we know the current locations of Urahara and Yoruichi?" Ukitake asked.
"No," Soifon said tersely, clearly unhappy with Yoruichi's possible implication in affairs. "Both of them have been missing and incommunicado for the past six months. Likewise for the Vizard. Their disappearances are not an uncommon occurrence though, so we took no note of it at the time. However, there was a report from the patrolling shinigami of an individual who entered the shop during our suspected timeframe."
She finished, "Substitute shinigami Kurosaki Ichigo."
"No. I call bullshit," Renji growled. "Someone is trying to frame Kurosaki."
"Then what, exactly, would you have us believe?" Soifon asked. "Kurosaki has a spirit pressure so large that, at its peak, can't be detected through conventional means. He is currently the only individual in Karakura Town with high enough spirit pressure to be a suspect. His bankai is visually unobtrusive and highly suited to swift surprise attacks. And even with a surprise attack, do you honestly think Hitsugaya Toushiro could be defeated without even a flicker of spirit pressure, unless his opponent had some other way of catching him off guard?"
"The last time this happened, Aizen had us all chasing after Kurosaki like idiots. What's to say it's not the same this time too?" Renji staunchly defended.
"Aizen Sosuke is no longer a factor," Yamamoto spoke for the first time during the entire meeting. "Several observers that have never come in contact with Kyoka Suigetsu have confirmed his continued imprisonment. Hitsugaya Toushiro does not have the means to duplicate such a feat, nor a motive to do so."
"Neither does Ichigo! There's no possible reason he would do this," Renji said.
Yamamoto made no reply. To Renji's shock, Ukitake looked away and Unohana closed her eyes, as if in pain. Kyoraku made a soft 'hmm' and tilted his hat to hide his eyes. Sui-Feng's expression went cold like ice. Renji's heart missed a beat as realization clicked quietly into place.
'They think there's a reason that might make Ichigo would do this,' Renji realized with growing alarm. 'They know something that none of the other captains have been authorized to know. What the hell have they done? What could possibly be so bad that would make Ichigo do something like this?'
"There is still the possibility that Hitsugaya Toushiro has betrayed us despite his death, or that things are not as they seem," Komamura said. "What reason did he have to keep such a thing secret? Why insist on handling this alone?"
"To that, I have a confession to make," Unohana spoke up quietly. Her usual serenity had given way to a soul-deep sense of sorrow. "Hitsugaya-taicho spoke to me several times in confidence. He refused, however, to name who he suspected and requested that I keep his investigation secret until he had confirmed his suspicions, one way or another. I assented to his request. Even at the time, it was quite obvious he was protecting a friend who might be involved, though I did not know who. He had faith in that individual above any evidence he uncovered. I think...Hitsugaya-taicho believed in Kurosaki Ichigo's innocence, to the very end."
The room went quiet enough to hear a pin drop.
"Then I believe we know what we must do," Yamamoto finished.
. . .
"Ukitake-taicho...did the meeting go well?" Rukia asked as she jogged up to her captain's side, her mirror-like eyes filled with concern. The white-haired captain – the only white-haired captain now – had looked quite ill going into the meeting. He came out looking like he had just climbed off his deathbed.
Still, the man managed a smile, strained and fleeting though it was.
"It went as well as could be expected, I suppose." Ukitake answered.
"Ah. Quite badly then," Rukia noted.
Ukitake chuckled and said nothing else, so Rukia fell in stride a few steps behind her captain as any dutiful lieutenant should. Perhaps a little closer than usual, because Ukitake-taicho looked distinctly unsteady on his feet. A pensive frown spread over her face. Something was wrong, very wrong. Even idiot Renji had walked out of the meeting hall looking like he had just gone through a torture session. Before she could slap some answers out of him, though, he had vanished with shunpo, and there was no way she could have chased after him with her captain looking like he was about to keel over.
She was so deep in thought that, when Ukitake suddenly stopped, she nearly smacked right into his back and knocked him over herself. Only combat reflexes let her check her movement in time.
"Rukia-kun. Would you say that Kurosaki Ichigo was friends with Hitsugaya-taicho?"
Rukia blinked. "I suppose so. They had a mutual understanding of sorts, I think." A question bubbled up on her lips – what did Ichigo have to do with anything – but her deeply ingrained respect for her captain forestalled it before the words made it out of her mouth.
"I see. In that case, I have a mission for you," Ukitake said.
Rukia straightened, snapping to attention.
Ukitake kept his back turned to her as he said softly, "Go to the living world and ask Kurosaki-kun if he would be willing to come to Soul Society for Hitsugaya-taicho's funeral."
"Yes sir," Rukia answered with a bow. The rest of the long, long walk back to the Thirteenth Division headquarters was spent without another word passing between captain and lieutenant. Ukitake seemed content with silence, and Rukia made no motion to break it. If her captain didn't feel the need to elaborate on the details of the meeting as he usually did, then it wasn't her place to ask.
Only much, much later did she realize that not once had Ukitake looked her in the eye.
. . .
Author's Note:
First of all, special thanks to Kasimir for being a spectacularly awesome beta-reader.
And so the downhill tumble beings! And what long, long downhill roll it's going to be. This chapter is still setting up the scene and laying out the foundations of the various secrets and plots going on in the background. The next chapter will have actual action scenes instead of just people standing around talking, I promise!
Here's a free hint for those of you who like guessing future plot developments – did anyone notice parallels between Hitsugaya's letter and another letter that we see in canon?