A/N:I'm so, SO sorry for the INCREDIBLY late update! I don't really have any good excuses either, so feel free to throw random items at me! ^^;
Anyway, I just thought I'd finally reply to some reviews (I'm very sorry I haven't before!) Thank you all so much for giving me such wonderful reviews in the first place! I'm really flattered! / I'm glad you find it exciting; more is to come, I promise, so stay breathing, xTKx, and keep feeling sorry for the li'l captain, all of you!
Musicgirll123: IchiHitsu FTW indeed! But I'm sorry, this one isn't a pairing fic! ^^; I'm going for a brotherly love in this!
FMKeyblade: I'm glad you're bearing with me with the descriptions! I was trying to be as controversive as I could, calling him boy and man at the same time, but it ended up just sounding weird after all... xD
Shotgunserenade: I'm glad you're excited; here's more for you~!
Sorrick: Thanks A LOT for the reminder! I'd completely forgotten to set the rating to "M!"
Ichigo pat his investigative partner's back again; slowly, comfortingly, as she took slow breaths, hand on her pale forehead, knees drawn to her chest as she was seated in the long grass beside the house where they'd, together, been given the chance to imagine what the white haired captain had been through, from the beginning to the end. As they were hard to stop, the visions had come flowing, and knowing such situations and her captain as well as she did, Matsumoto had, after getting the whole story, felt the need to get out of there, sick to her stomach and pale as bed sheets.
The sun had almost finished its trip over the brilliant blue sky, and now, shadows loomed everywhere, taking up a greater part of the scenery than the sunshine did. In less than an hour, the fallen shinigami would paint the horizon with a blood red, macabre sunset to bid the sun good bye.
They'd already been sitting there for a couple of minutes in silence, and it was getting tenser by the second. Just to break it, Ichigo sighed, and opened his mouth.
"So that was what happened, huh."
Matsumoto considered opening her mouth to speak, but didn't, afraid that her lunch would show up rather than words. Instead, she made a tiny noise of agreement, sitting up with her eyes closed. Truthfully, Soul Society had minor enemies, and even though it was a rare event, people did get taken hostage from time to time. She'd been in that situation before, alongside her white haired captain, but if they became tired and wanted to give up, they'd look at each other with tired smiles, knowing that sooner or later, an opportunity would come, and they'd get out of it, back to their division and fellow captains.
Hitsugaya hadn't had any of that during his capture. No one to look at that would ensure you that everything would be alright in the end.
The strawberry-blonde woman took a deep breath. "Now we know, but what do we do?"
"We go find him."
"And?"
"And tell him we know. Tell him we just want to help him."
The lieutenant looked at him carefully, seeming to doubt that method, and he added; "trust me." Something in his eyes told her that, in fact, he knew more about the situation than he let on, and that he truly believed his method would gain them results. Slowly, she nodded, and got to her feet.
"Let's go find Captain. He'll be in his office... I know he will."
Ichigo barely had the time to agree before the two of them, again, were racing towards the tall walls of Seireitei.
Like they suspected, the tenth division was, at evening, so quiet that the sound of ink being applied to paper was fully audible from outside the captain's office's door. The door didn't creak when Matsumoto, without knocking, opened it, because it had been oiled well, but that didn't mean that the captain who produced the scribbling sounds hadn't noticed. On the contrary, Matsumoto was positive that her captain was fully aware of the two intruders, even if he hadn't spared them a split second's glance.
The soft 'click' coming from the door as it was locked by Ichigo, though, caught the captain's attention.
"It's too late to be up doing paperwork, Matsumoto, Kurosaki." The prodigy's eyes returned to the form he was filling out. "Go to the barracks."
Sharing a look, both equally concerned that Hitsugaya not only had advised against what he was currently doing, but also forgotten that neither of them slept in the squad member barracks, (Matsumoto had her own place, and Ichigo didn't even live in the Soul Society,) the bright-haired duo stepped closer to the worn desk.
"That's not why we're here, Toshirou."
The captain looked at them curiously, and neither of them were surprised that he hadn't noticed that he'd been addressed as informally as his given name, no suffix. After a moment's silence, he sighed, rubbing at his temples weakly. His frown wasn't as deep as it used to be.
"I've already told you, Matsumoto, that nothing is wrong. If the two of you are here to further ask me about the matter—"
"We know, Captain."
His head snapped up immediately, and he looked at the two redheads, bewildered.
"We know what happened to you in Hueco Mundo."
For a few seconds, the whole room fell silent, but Hitsugaya's venom-lathered voice broke the silence.
"Leave."
"Toshi—"
"Both of you. Now."
The prodigy had forgotten all about paperwork; the brush that was rolling over the sheet, staining it with thick ribbons of ink, was proof of that. His hands, curled into fists, rested on either side of the desk. His eyes seemed to get darker by the second.
When neither of the two visitors moved, Hitsugaya's thin patience seemed to end. He got up wordlessly, the chair screeching behind him loudly, and headed for the door, determined to throw out his guests: Apparently, he wasn't going to tell them twice.
As he passed his vice captain, she tried to stop him by putting a hand to his wrist, but as soon as her finger brushed against its way too cold skin, the hand flew to where Hyorinmaru usually was loyally peeking over his shoulder. Neither of them had missed the way he grabbed for the absent zanpakuto, even though the captain tried to play it off casually.
"I told you to leave; you have no business here." He walked towards the door again, this time reaching and unlocking it, but just as he opened it slightly, Ichigo pushed it shut.
"You need to talk about it, Toshiro! Don't go around pretending everything's fine!"
"Get out."
"This isn't the way to process what happened to you! You're just hurting everyone around you!"
The captain ignored the nagging teenager, wordlessly distancing himself from the fluctuating reiatsu of Ichigo and the pleading eyes of Rangiku. The always so strong vice captain seemed to be on the verge of crying.
"Ignoring us won't help! Tell us, Toshiro! Tell us how you feel!"
He squeezed his eyes shut, balled his fists.
"Toshiro!"
Hitsugaya whirled around, lip curled up in a feral snarl. "I feel like they ruined me!" he growled. "I feel like they crushed everything I believe in, made me doubt everything I know, broke me into pieces I don't know how to put together! Is that what you wanted to hear?"
The lieutenant and the strawberry both were taken aback at hearing the words directly from the man.
The white haired captain continued regardless of their silence, pointing an accusing finger out the window; at an imaginary Hueco Mundo. "I cannot talk of what they did there, because what I am now, is thousand times better than what I would be if I let it get to me now!" He had tears clinging to his eyelashes like dewdrops in the early morning; barely noticeable, but still there. "This time, Matsumoto, you tell me: How am I supposed to stand up in front of those who so supposedly admire me? What image am I to my men if I am broken?" The end of his sentence was nothing but a dry sob.
"Toshiro…"
"Get out."
"Captain, I—"
"I told you to get the hell out!"
Ichigo, though, wasn't known for taking orders, and merely stepped forward: Even though the boy said otherwise, 'letting it get to you' so you could let it out and share it was always the best option; the death of his mother taught him that. The action made Toshiro step back.
"Toshiro," he continued, "neither I nor Rangiku would tell anyone of anything you'd tell us, y'know?" He reached out for the captain, who he now was close enough to touch, but he evaded, squatting down and pulling his knees to his chest, curling into a little ball.
"No, get away!"
The strawberry turned to look at Matsumoto, whose eyes were as wide as ever. Toshiro had never before acted so childishly, at least not when anyone could come and see. Something was too wrong. He kneeled down, laying a warm hand on the small back. The reaction was instant.
"Don't touch me!"
Brown eyes went wide as well, and he swallowed. The words weren't nearly as commanding as they usually were, but the fright, the shear horror in them, was enough to make him pull away. He needed to know what happened, but this was obviously not how to do it.
"Toshiro—"
"Please don't… Please…"
The whispered words and broken sobs (Hitsugaya was definitely crying by now) made Ichigo kneel down again, this time very carefully putting an arm around the captain's shoulders. The tense body didn't loosen up a bit, and he pulled his legs tighter to his chest. It was obvious that he'd fallen back into Hueco Mundo; neither Rangiku nor Ichigo had a single clue of what he was talking about. He was obviously begging someone, whispering words like 'don't,' 'please,' 'stop' and 'no more' as tears soaked the fabric of his own hakamas' thighs. He got no reaction from Toshiro as he lifted him up into his arms, leaning him on his chest as he was unable to uncurl the boy. It broke his heart, having to listen to the whispers and whimpers, but he managed to agree with Matsumoto, who was crying herself, that the best place to take him would be to the fourth division. Any sleep, drug-induced or not, would be good for him.
After dropping the man off, ensuring that nobody but Unohana saw them, the red-haired duo got themselves collected at Matsumoto's apartment. Ichigo was surprised to see that it was very close to the fourth division, and thus quite a distance away from the tenth, but he had to admit that looking out of the window from the third floor of the apartment building and being able to view several training grounds, some relaxing gardens and tens of rooftops was a good reason for such an odd placement. They had already spent half an hour walking back to the apartment (taking their time, of course,) and then Rangiku made them both a nicely decorated plate of sushi. Three whole hours of cooking, eating and minor house work went by, almost without a single exchange of words, but when she served them both tea, Ichigo felt like breaking the ear-deafening silence.
"What now?" he asked out into the room, though his words seemed to bounce off the walls and disappear, as if they hadn't made a difference. They probably didn't either, and the voluptuous, strawberry-blonde woman's sigh confirmed it.
"I don't know," she said, shaking her head sadly. She tapped her fingers on her thigh, clenched them into a fist and spread them repeatedly in a restless fashion. Her investigative companion noticed this, as she was seated on the kitchen counter, looking at Ichigo by the kitchen table nearby, but didn't ask.
"I thought he was ready."
Ichigo blinked. "Huh?"
Matsumoto's eyes closed. "Do you know how captain got into the Shinigami Academy?"
Humming in a fashion that clearly told the woman 'no, but go on,' he realized that he didn't know. Even though he knew every detail of the Kusaka incident, how Hitsugaya lost his closest friend, the story of the captain becoming a shinigami was still a mystery to him.
"I bumped into him at a store."
The strawberry disliked repeating himself, so instead of inquiring what that was supposed to mean, he waited for Matsumoto to go on, which she did.
"He probably didn't even feel his own reiatsu at the time, but I did. I was walking past the store by pure chance; I was on patrol through the rukongai, but when I felt such a powerful reiatsu flare, I really thought a fellow shinigami was in trouble, so I ran to that store. I didn't really pay attention to how he looked, but I noticed that he was being treated rudely by the shop clerk, so I pulled him away and told the shopkeeper off. Then I told him off for not standing up for himself, but when I realized he was just a kid, not a shinigami, not even from Seireitei, I paused long enough for him to get away."
She took a natural break in the story, as she seemed to be contemplating something. Ichigo didn't interrupt.
"I asked for permission to return to Junrinan a couple of days later, and I got it. When I first got there, finding his flaring reiatsu was easy; he was competing in some sort of spinning tops challenge, and by the looks of it, he was having a hard time winning, causing that cold reiatsu to whip around him like the wings of a bird. I decided that he was what I thought he was; a kid, and I was about to head away, but he won, and all of the other kids walked away immediately. Not a single one of them stayed behind with Captain. That was when I realized the mature look in his eyes. He truly looked like an adult. And so, I decided to confront him the next day."
"Confront him about what?"
Lean legs crossed, Matsumoto leaned forward to rest her elbows on them. If Ichigo knew a thing about body language, she was about to tell him something that made her uncomfortable.
"About becoming a shinigami." She sighed. "I stayed at an inn nearby. Well, it wasn't really an inn, but with the right amount of money, they let me stay there for the night. I thought I'd get a good night's sleep without having to get up early in the morning for any kind of training, but I was wrong."
Suddenly, Matsumoto got up and headed over to the open window, resting her cheek in her palm as she leaned on the windowsill. Ichigo almost chuckled; getting fidgety when uncomfortable was obviously a trait she shared with her captain. "A couple of hours before sunrise, I was awoken by a very strong wave of rushing reiatsu. At first, I checked downstairs, thinking that someone with a reiatsu had to be close by, but the people in the house were fast asleep, though shivering lightly under their thin blankets. Even you would have been able to tell whose reiatsu that was. I immediately headed over to Captain's house, and I found him awake. His grandmother was covered in a thin sheet of ice, and I realized that he'd had the same experience as when I first met Haineko. Well, we didn't meet as violently, if you could call it that, but nonetheless, I confronted him, asking him if he, too, had met his zanpakuto's spirit in his dreams. He had, so I told him that the best course of action if he didn't want to hurt his grandmother any longer was to join the Shinou Academy."
Ichigo nodded. It sounded reasonable to him. But Matsumoto didn't seem pleased.
"I should never have done that. Ever since I saw that mature look, I thought he was ready. As you know, age isn't really much to go by here in Soul Society, and neither is physical looks, so I couldn't possibly know that he'd never really been a kid. Momo-chan told me, when I got to know about her and Captain's tight relationship, that he had never really had a childhood. All the other kids, even her friends, would shun him, so all that was left to do for him was to care for the house, his grandmother, Momo and himself."
She buried her face in his arms. "He'd never had a childhood, and I just threw him into the adult life. Things didn't really change for him, at least not before he met Kusaka, but you know what happened after that." Matsumoto shifted uncomfortably. "I stole his whole childhood away. Ever since he joined the academy, all his experiences have been bad ones."
No way. Ichigo's jaw dropped. Matsumoto was blaming herself!
"If I hadn't put him into the academy, he would've been able to get his childhood emotions out. He would've been able to turn into a fine adult. He is already mature, but he's not an adult."
She sighed.
"My captain is still a boy. He doesn't know how to feel about trust and betrayal. He was never taught about it in his childhood. That's why he has such difficulties trusting people, but when he does, he trusts them with his life. Neither of the two is healthy. He trusts all of the captains left in seireitei, just as much as he trusted Aizen. If anyone else betrays him now..."
Her words faded into an uncomfortable silence.
"...The arrancar would have found him."
Matsumoto turned to the male who joined her by the windowsill. "What?"
"If what you say is true, if he did have such a high reiatsu, the arrancar would have found him when Aizen betrayed Soul Society." The redhead smirked at the woman. "You saved him, Matsumoto."
"..." The grey eyes fell, and a smile pulled the corners of her lips into a smile. At least that much was true.
Ichigo turned around, yawning, and the mood changed immediately. "I don't know about you, Rangiku, but I'm beat!" He eyed the living room through the open door on the opposite wall; namely the comfy-looking couch. Considering the situation they were in, he knew he probably didn't even have to ask, but still he waited for the woman to catch onto him. She did, quickly.
"If you want to, you can stay here overnight." Rangiku walked into the living room instead, pulling out a well-worn pillow and a blanket; she'd crashed on the couch after a night of drinking enough times to be well prepared. "I'll try to catch some sleep myself now."
The teenager nodded, and finished off his tea. "I bet your captain's sleeping by now as well."
Smiling, the woman opened the door to her bedroom, intending to jump into bed as soon as possible, but paused in the doorway. "Thank you, Ichigo," she said softly.
Ichigo, crashing on the couch for the evening, smiled as well. "Always."
The following morning, Ichigo woke with a grunt. He felt like he'd had an extremely weird dream, but couldn't really remember what. The only detail that still clung to his foggy mind was a knocking noise, which he was sure was what had woken him.
Knock knock.
So that hadn't been just a dream.
Sighing, the substitute shinigami sat up and took in his surroundings, memories of the past day coming to him quickly. Whenever he had to save one of his friends, a shinigami or even a stranger, he'd always just wave his sword around and tear down walls until he found who he was looking for, and that tactic worked well for him, but this time, he had to save someone from their own mind, which was something he'd never even thought of doing before. This was a wholly different fight, and with the last remains of sleepiness clouding up his mind, he was starting to doubt if he could really make a difference after all.
The resolve to save his friend, though, was stronger than any doubt his mind could master up against him.
Knock knock.
Right.
When his mind finally realized what the knocking meant, Ichigo was already off the couch, but the house's owner beat him to the door, already in her shinigami attire with the trustful, if not a bit too lazy, Haineko by her hip. Even though Rangiku was standing in his line of sight, Ichigo recognized Vice-Captain Kotetsu Isane by her pale hair and tall body. He didn't miss the short shadow cast by a high sun either, meaning he'd been asleep for quite some time.
What he was intending to miss was the two women's chattering, but not even that escaped his ears that morning.
"Ichigo, Rangiku, I need you to come with me to the fourth division." The nervous-by-nature woman squirmed uncomfortably, making the two redheads nervous as well. "Captain Hitsugaya is…"