Not Mine Valentine
Bully

The fifth division remained quite as the sunlight began to come through the window to land on the desks. Shinji arrived in the division and stretched his arms. "Good morning everybody! Oh... no one else is here."

He then went and sat at his desk, putting his feet up and leaning back. He carefully counted the people as they came through the door to sit at the various desks they did their work at. Finally Momo came into the room after a couple of the division members had drifted in and he waved her over. "There is something we need to talk about."

"This wouldn't happen to be about Ichimaru Gin?"

"Yes... it is. But..."

"Good. Because I was hoping you could some how talk to the other captains and make it so he never comes anywhere near Soul Society again."

"Isn't that a but harsh."

"He shouldn't have been pardoned!"

"I'm going to ask why you feel that he shouldn't have been pardoned Hinamori."

"Because... he is a traitor and the other two didn't get pardoned." The girl's hands clutched together tightly at her sides.

"Yes... no, it's more like Aizen didn't get pardoned, but Tosen in fact did. Since he was dead the forty-six were able to deal out the pardon without much thought about the matter. Of course, since he was dead the information about him being pardoned didn't spread like it did."

"But he was a traitor!"

"I know that. If one looks at it he was even more of a traitor then Gin, so if they choose to pardon Tosen, they should parden Gin as well. Right?"

"But they shouldn't have! They killed many people!"

"Where is your proof!"

"He left with..." Momo suddenly paused. "They all left together. They were all in on it together."

"Really..." Shinji let out a deep sigh. "You do realize that Gin was taking on the role of double traitor from the very beginning."

"There is no proof of that! He wasn't ever given any order to take on such a role."

"Hinamori... let me ask you something. Let's say you suspected someone in the Gotei Thirteen of wrong doing. The person is in such a high status that you can't tell anyone of your suspicions, thus you can't get any kind of order to infiltrate and stop said person. What would you do?"

"I would leave well enough alone as it is none of my business and I would have waited until I got actual proof."

Shinji placed his hand over his face and peeked through his fingers at her. "Ob boy."

"Did I say something wrong?"

"No... yes. Look, I know this is going over your head here. How are you going to get the proof unless you infiltrate? Even if you get the proof you can't just take it to someone because the person has gained even more status and could say you fabricated the proof along with saying you are a liar."

"What does this have to do with anything?" Momo shook her head and began to fidget.

"What I'm trying to say is that Gin had to infiltrate into Aizen's inner circle to stop him. He had to do it without any order from a higher ranking individual."

"But he could have brought proof, I mean..." A quick raise of the eyebrow caused the fukutaicho of the fifth division to swallow.

"I'll remind you that Aizen had the ability to create illusions. Any evidence Gin got Aizen could manipulate."

"Oh... well, he didn't have to kill people and do bad stuff."

"He had to gain Aizen's trust."

"But he... well, did he have to continue with it? I mean, once he gained the man's trust he could just stop being bad."

"Yeah... no. Hinamori... it's not as simple as that. You have to keep doing bad stuff in front of the person because if you don't you'll lose said trust. You have to maintain that image. It's as simple as that.'

"It isn't that simple!"

"I guess not... anyways..." Shinji took a deep breath. "What I want to talk to you about is that I'm thinking of placing Gin into the fukutaicho position once he gets out."

"Taicho! You're a bully! That's just plain cruel, doing that or saying that you would do that."

"And why is that?"

"Because he's a traitor, a bad guy and doesn't deserve the position. I... I may not have the same skills as him, but I have worked hard for this position."

"No you haven't." Shinji watched as the girl's face paled. "You can do the paper work that is expected of a fukutaicho, but honestly that's about it."

Momo placed her two fingers together. "I'm sorry I'm not up to speed with how I used to be."

"Used to be? I'm quite sure this is your actual skill level Hinamori." The man felt his patience begin to be tried.

"Yes... but..." The girl's cheeks suddenly puffed out. "How can you be sure of that when you don't know how I used to be before everything happened?"

"Hinamori... you've had quite a few months to get back to normal. A year to be exact, so it is safe to assume you never had the skills to be a fukutaicho in the first place."

"But Aizen Taicho picked me because I had the skills!"

"Aizen picked you because he could use your nativity. Records show that he was good at keeping you close as well as making sure you were rarely if ever given a duty away from him that would have shown your lack of skill. On top of this he very well could do all of those duties himself, the ones you aren't able to do."

"You can't be sure of that! I am quite good at a lot of things?"

"Your hand to hand combat sucks. As does your sword ability. Your flash step is all right."

"I'm good at kido!"

"Hinamori... what is the highest level of kido you can preform?"

"I can combine multiple kido at the same time! The other fukutaicho can't do that!"

"Many shinigami can't do that."

"So that proves that I am fukutaicho material, right?"

"Nope."

"What!"

"Your kido sucks compared to the other fukutaicho. Well, it is better then a few of them whose weak point is kido, but not the others. Answer the question I asked before. What is the highest level of kido you can preform."

"I can preform up into the twenties and thirties, but the only reason I can't pull off the higher kido is because I don't have the energy. It's not because I couldn't do it. If I had a high enough reiatsu level I could pull it off!"

"Now you're just making excuses for yourself. The fact you can't preform the higher level kido indicates you aren't fukutaicho material."

"Well it's not my fault I can't perform kido captain's are expected to be able to perform. I'm not a captain am I?"

"Hinamori... about the fukutaicho position. Honestly the only difference between the fukutaicho and captain's position is that the captains can perform Bankai. Most of the fukutaicho despite not having learned Bankai are on captain level and could possibly eventually become a captain if they put enough work in. You on the other hand have to put in honest work into becoming that level still"

"I saved Matsumoto Rangiku, so I am..."

"No you didn't."

"Excuse me."

"You're referring to the incident with the Arrancar."

"Well, yes."

"Actually... from the written reports other then your own Matsumoto Rangiku very much had the situation under control. You then showed up, made the Arrancar angry and made the situation worse. You then made it so that not one fukutaicho, but four were taken out of battle. Three from injury including yourself and one to heal the three of you. You also made it so Yamamotto had to enter the battle."

"But..."

"On the flip side Gin's already at captain level as he has Bankai an I know he can do the work."

"But he's a monster!"

"Technically so are you."

"I am not! He goes around killing people. I... I..."

"Have some major issues you're still dealing with."

"But you've worked with me. We work well together."

"I've also worked with Gin a lot more then you." Shinji watched as shock spread across her face. "Yamamotto sent our records to our divisions when we came back so people would know us better. Didn't you read it?"

"I shredded it."

"That would explain why I couldn't find the file. Ichimaru Gin used to be my third seat for ten years."

Momo's cheeks puffed up. "Know what. I'll prove to you I can do the job."

"All right. After today you'll have twenty-three days until he is released. What you do up until then will help me make my final decision."

"So if I do well you won't make Gin your fukutaicho."

"No... he is going to be my fukutaicho. This will help me decide whether or not to keep you at the fukutaicho rank or demote you to a more appropriate rank." Shinji watched as the girl's eyes went wide before she stormed off. "I think I could have handled that better. Still..."

Author's note – Momo's character... you want her to do one thing, but she ends up doing another because her personality won't allow you to do what you want her to do. For example, I wanted her to handle Shinji telling her a whole lot more calmly... but well, you see the result. If she was calm, she wouldn't have been in character.