This fic would not have been possible if it wasn't for my absolutely fabulous beta reader, EternalDream!
As always, standard disclaimers apply...
The Ties That Binds
Chapter 8
With the information provided by the scroll ready at hand, Renji sought out Momo Hinamori the following day. He hadn't seen his friend
in some time, and he was eager to find out her learnings as well as show her the scroll. The corridors of the 5th division were practically
empty, his wooden sandals making a slight rhythmic sound as he walked to her office.
"Hinamori?" Renji called out as he knocked. Hearing no response after his third try, he was about to turn around and leave when he saw
his old classmate walking towards him with Shuuhei.
"Hinamori," he waved his hand in greeting at the young woman, and nodded his head at the male fukotaichou. "Hisagi."
"Abarai." Shuuhei greeted in kind, and Momo smiled at Renji before looking up at the man she'd been walking with.
"Thank you for accompanying me to Rukongai, Hisagi-sempai."
Renji gave a curious look to his female friend who returned his gaze calmly. Shuuhei broke the staring contest by asking Renji a question.
"Did Urahara-san give you any useful information last night?"
Before he could answer, Momo slid the door open and ushered the two men insider her office so they could speak of these matters
privately.
"I have some news as well," she said softly, and walked ahead to her desk to pull out the pieces from a broken disc.
"The spells on the other side of this are spells similar to ours. Nothing more dangerous than the kidou we use."
Renji regarded the disc curiously. "Our visitor from the future said that on the other side of the disc is a drawing of a red butterfly.
Urahara said it was the symbol of the clan that was banished from Soul Society after a failed assassination attempt on the next Spirit
King successor. Kakei called them the Taira clan."
Momo nodded. "It certainly looks like it, but it's not actually a drawing. The closer you look, the more that you'll notice that the butterfly
itself is a kidou. It's almost a riddle, the way it was devised. With only half of the disc, I can't really tell what it can do. Has Kakei-san
mentioned anything else?"
Renji tried to relay as much information as possible from what the Karakura group had discussed, including the soul poison used by the
Taira clan.
"Soul poison?"
Renji scratched the back of his head. "I don't know exactly what it's called, to be honest. But Kakei and Urahara said it destroys the soul
in such a way that it prevents the soul from being reborn, which was how the original Taira clan head tried to kill his enemy."
There was a vacant look in Momo' eyes, and both Renji and Shuuhei looked at each other in worry. After her recovery from Toshiou's attack,
the young fukotaichou had looked more like glass that would shatter under a gentle breeze than ever before. The white-haired taichou had
never forgiven himself for falling into Aizen's illusion and nearly killing his best friend, and he mourned the loss of her vitality and youthful
happiness more than any other person in Soul Society.
"I'd heard of something similar years ago—of a kidou designed to break the soul in such a way it can never reform," Momo said softly after
a moment. Her hands shook as she sat down.
"Hinamori...you all right?" Renji questioned gently, concern for his former classmate written all over his face.
Momo nodded slightly as she looked at her two friends. "Aizen-tai…" She stopped before she could complete Sousuke Aizen's former title.
She unconsciously bit her lip as she looked at the men before her, almost as if she was waiting for them to admonish her for nearly adding
the honorific to Aizen's name even after everything that he'd done.
Shuuhei walked closer to Momo and knelt down to look at her. "Aizen had mentioned something to you?" he guessed.
Momo nodded. "He...he mentioned it once, almost in passing just before he gave me a book. He was always given me the best books to read,"
she responded reminiscently. It would have sounded almost wistful if her voice hadn't been shaking and she hadn't had to close her eyes. "It's
a book that he'd given me as a gift for my promotion to fukotaichou."
As gently as his voice would allow, Renji spoke. "Did this book mention anything about the Taira clan?"
Momo shook her head before she opened her eyes to peek up at Renji.
"Abarai-kun...it's the black book with a red, golden script on the spine. Can you get it for me, please?"
"Of course!" Renji replied enthusiastically to break the pensive mood. He spotted the book in the shelf quite easily and handed it to Momo.
Without saying anything, she opened the book to a specific page and held it out so the guys could see what she was referencing. They drew
close and she began to reveal what she could remember, her voice becoming stronger as she talked in light of putting on a professional front.
"The book is a history of all the kidou used by Soul Society. Some we still use, others have been banned for good reason. Very dangerous. There's
no incantations in these books, just the names of the spells and what they can do. The ones that have been banned have been blackened out
by a kidou," Hinamori explained and showed them a blacked out page. "This is the one that you could be talking about."
"There's no mention on how it is applied?"
Hinamori shook her head. "No, unfortunately. But I'll try to see if I can unlock the kidou. It might give us more information, at the very least."
"I'll let the others know. Are you going to be okay, Hinamori?"
Hinamori gave a small, self-deprecating smile. "I am. I just need to rest, that's all."
Shuuhei and Renji just looked at each other before the brown-haired man spoke. "Please don't hesitate to call us if you need anything, fukotaichou."
"I will. Thank you again, Hisagi-sempai."
The two men bowed and the moment they left, Renji gave his friend a look. "You went with her to Rukongai?"
"She wanted to visit her grandfather as well as Hitsugaya-taichou's grandmother. I usually see you or Kira by her side if the Hitsugaya-taichou
is away, but neither of you were around, so I thought it was best that she didn't go alone."
Renji nodded in agreement. After some low-level Shinigami had been stupid enough to question her loyalty to Soul Society within Izuru Kira's
earshot, the unfortunate fool had spent the next week under the care of the 4th Division. Since then, it'd been an unspoken agreement that
Momo should always be escorted by him or Kira to prevent assholes like that from making false and hurtful comments to or about their friend
within hearing range.
"Plus, I still owe her." Renji glanced at Shuuhei in surprise, so he explained, "Do you remember when the three of you started to hang out
together? I though all of you were going to be the death of me, especially during that hollow incident."
Renji smirked as his mind drifted to a much, much happier version of Momo Hinamori, who, despite being the most innocent-looking of the three,
was also the cheekiest and bravest.
"She ran back to where you were despite your orders."
Hisagi nodded and laughed a little at the memory. "I don't know what I would've done if she hadn't turned back. Or you and Kira."
Renji put a hand on his friend's shoulder and chuckled with him. "Most of it was Hinamori. She is truly gifted with kidou. I don't think Kira and I
would've done that well in school if it wasn't for her."
Hisagi grinned full out as the two men continued to walk away, each of them trying to remember the warm, happy fukotaichou they once knew.
-0-0-0-0-
Alone in her room, Momo Hinamori dreamed. Curled into a ball, her mind tormented her with images of a kind Aizen Sosuke who handed her the
book. Her mind replayed the day Aizen gave it to her.
She eagerly accepted the book with a blush as she looked at the man she had admired for so long. As she held the book in her hands, Aizen-taichou
placed his hands on her shoulders and smiled."You failed to unlock the secrets of that book, Hinamori. It seems I have not taught you well enough..."
Startled, she looked up at him with worry. And Aizen-taichou's smile grew cold…
…and Momo woke up with a scream after Aizen stabbed her through the heart.
Her body started to shake as she covered her mouth with her hands. It'd been months since she had dreamed of her former captain. She stayed
in her futon trembling when she heard a knock on the door.
"Hinamori-fukotaichou?" Shinji Hirako opened the shoji a fraction. "Are you alright?"
"I'm sorry to have disturbed you, taichou. It was just a dream."
Shinji shook his head. "I asked if you were all right. May I come in?"
Momo was unsure of how she should act around her taichou now that he'd seen something so embarrassing, but she didn't feel that she could
properly deny him entrance when he was being so kind to her. "Yes..." She watched Shinji walked in and kept her head down. The blond Vizard
knelt next to her futon and waited for her to speak.
"Abarai-kun had news about the Taira clan this morning. What he said reminded me of a book I was given by Aizen…"
She didn't need to say anymore for Shinji to understand. He looked at the black book lying next to the futon. "May I?"
At Momo's nod of consent, Shinji flicked through the pages of the book, his features impassive as he noticed the blacked out pages. What had
Aizen hoped to achieve by handing her a book with hardly any information?
"Are you planning on unlocking secrets from this book, Hinamori-fukotaichou?"
"I am. It may lead us to an answer on how we can protect or reverse the effects of the Taira clan's soul poison in the future."
As Momo explained to her captain what the soul poison was, Shinji's mind tried to recall something that had made him suspicious of Aizen
before he was hollowfied.
"Well then, you'd better get some rest. I wouldn't want my cute little first love to turn into a grumpy frump like Hiyori..."
"I HEARD THAT!"
Shinji just grinned as he caught the sandal thrown at his head by Hiyori, who also hurled obscenities at the fifth division captain.
Momo offered a small smile as she watched Shinji walk out, only to be kicked by Hiyori from behind—a surprise attack. She knew to take his
"first love" comment with a grain of salt. He said it to every pretty girl he met, always making sure to say it when Hiyori was around to get a
rise out of her.
As soon as their voices faded, Momo stared at the wall, her smile already faded. Her mind drifted back to the day Aizen found her in his library.
After giving her permission to read all the books that he owned, Momo made it a point to visit the library every free chance she had.
One memory stood out in particular.
She remembered looking at the shelves, all filled with interesting books about Soul Society and the human world, when one book caught her eye. It was
graying, and the spine of the book looked like it'd been opened too many times. She eagerly grabbed it from the shelf and noticed a red butterfly drawn
on front cover; she traced it gently and jerked her hand back in surprise when the book began to feel warm. Curious as to what could've caused the
sensation; Momo opened the pages and squinted her eyes in the dim light as she eagerly read the pages. The book looked like an old fable, but there
was something else…something that almost shimmered under the words about the tale of a bamboo cutter.
"Ah, I see you've found my favorite book."
"Aizen-taichou!"Aizen smiled warmly as he held his hands out, and Momo obediently handed him the book without a word.
"Did you read anything interesting?"
She could only blush shyly. Her mind seemed to have shut down in his presence, leaving her unable to tell her captain what she noticed about
the book.
As Momo drifted back to the present, her mind filled with shock and wonder at the memory, her hands quickly grabbed the book next to her futon,
and her fingers traced a random pattern in the book. It was a pattern she had never paid too much attention to in the past. She could feel her
heart beating against her chest as she stood up and walked out of her room and headed straight to her office. Once inside, she looked at the
broken disc that Shuuhei had handed her. As she traced her fingers along the pattern on the disc, her mouth began to chant the kidou that was
etched on the butterfly. She felt a small spike of power in the book, and as Momo quickly opened to a page, her eyes locked onto a passage that
was once blackened out and now clear for her to see. But before she could read more than a few lines, the passage darkened once more.
Momo sat down, the full weight of her discovery sinking in. This book may not contain the actual spells used by the Taira clan, but Aizen's books
had always had a purpose. An old book about fables and fairy tales would not be significant unless it held a deeper secret.
"Did you read anything interesting?"
Her fists clenched, and she realized there must be another book of spells amongst Aizen's collection. The red butterfly was the key to unlocking
them. She grabbed the book and the scroll and quickly made her way to Shinji Hirako's quarters.
End Chapter.
A big thank you to heatherXD, EternalDream (of course!), nypsy... there will be more IchiHime scenes later on, and hope you like what I planned for Mamoru and Yuzu! Sunflowerspot, Xtremefairy, DeathBerryLover1995: I'll try, though I can't promise long chapters! Ichihime supporter and Child of the Ashes. Thank you again!
Comments and reviews will be appreciated!