So Wednesdays aren't working out for me. They're a day when I'm out of the house by 7 in the morning, and I'm lucky if I'm home by 6. Add onto that a project I've started conducting with a couple of friends, and I'm not free to do anything in particular until about 10 at night. Until I can get this schedule thing worked out with all of my projects, expect this update to come on either Tuesdays or Thursdays (like today). I will, however, as previously stated be updating regularly. Once a week, I promise you that you will see a new chapter up on this piece. I hope that this will make up for my dismal updating schedule pretty much through the entire lifespan of the project.

That said, the decay continues to cause problems. Let's look into it, shall we?

Enjoy.

"Do you understand what I'm suggesting?"

Hinamori Momo felt like she was meeting her childhood friend for the first time. This was the boy she'd thought of as a baby brother since their shared childhood in Rukongai. She remembered when he'd first entered Soul Society as little more than a toddler, barely able to speak for his crippling shyness. She remembered when he'd been taken in by the woman he called his grandmother, remembered the first time he called her, "Bed-Wetter Momo."

She remembered the first day he'd entered the academy. She remembered the day Hyourinmaru had finally answered him. The day he'd joined the Tenth Division; the day he'd taken on the mantle of leading the Tenth Division.

But none of that seemed to make any difference anymore. None of that seemed to mean anything. Now, as she looked at him, standing in her captain's office in front of her captain's desk—looking at her with the same innately protective look he'd always had, but with some undercurrent that made everything…distant—she realized fundamentally that Hitsugaya Toushirou was not, in any stretch of the term, "Shiro-chan," anymore. She'd thought she'd understood it before, but she didn't. Now she did.

This was Hitsugaya-taichou, head of the Tenth Division.

And she was Hinamori-fukutaichou, second-in-command and (currently) acting head of the Fifth. By the letter of the law, while Madarame-taichou was incapacitated, they were equals. But Hinamori saw something in Hitsugaya's light green eyes that told her: no. Never. She had been a shinigami longer than he had. But he had seniority. He had authority.

And it was a pang; it hurt.

But just the same, it was a relief.

She nodded, and didn't let any of this out, because now wasn't the time to talk about it. She said, "I understand. You're right, of course. We can't let the Gotei 13 go to pieces. Not when it's just getting back on its feet."

"Madarame isn't interested in paperwork," Hitsugaya said, "and right now he's in no shape to be putting any of this together." Madarame Ikkaku was barely coherent anymore, and what words he did manage to string together were sharp, short, and bitter. He was not a leader, not now, and neither Unohana nor Kurotsuchi could figure out—yet—what it was about him, and all of them, that had sapped from them not only their strength, but their ability to function.

"I know," said Hinamori dejectedly, tightening her sash for no better reason than it gave her something to do with her hands. "His old comrades from the Eleventh Division tried to talk to him, but they said they're having no better luck with Madarame-taichou than they did with Zaraki-taichou."

Hitsugaya nodded. "In light of that, I've had some of the newer recruits go over the training manuals and put together a list of the vital functions a captain must perform. The manuals are in the captains' quarters, though I'm not sure if Madarame ever bothered to look at them, or even if he kept them. Look for them. If you can't find them, let me know. I'll have copies made for you. We need to ensure that as many people down the chain of command know how to run each division. We don't know how this…infection spreads."

"Do you really think it might…come to that?"

The anger, the uncertainty, left Hitsugaya's face. He turned his head and stared at the wall for a moment, crossing his arms over his chest and rolling his shoulders, and said, "I think that if we don't prepare for the worst…this could end us."

That seemed to be the end of the discussion. The boy captain stepped toward the exit, idly brushing something off the desk and onto the floor; dust, maybe. He adjusted his cloak, set his sword right on his back, and nodded to Hinamori in a silent farewell.

Hinamori watched him leave, and suddenly couldn't stand to see it. She said, impulsively, "How's Rangiku-san?" in a desparate attempt to keep him in the room. As if he might take over the job she was now being expected to perform. The job Madarame Ikkaku took great pains to avoid. The job Aizen Sousuke had abandoned.

Hitsugaya looked back at her, and there was something new in his eyes.

Something soft.

Something…warm.

And he said, "She'll manage."

"How are you feeling, Shuuhei?"

Hisagi was more coherent than his counterparts, but he was weak. Too weak to sit up. He turned his head, staring up at Matsumoto like he wasn't sure what she was, much less who. He offered a slight twitch that might have been a shrug and said, "…Like I'm not here."

His voice was slurred, a drunken croak.

"Have Unohana-taichou or Kurotsuchi-taichou made any headway about a cure?" Matsumoto asked, crossing her arms and trying to pretend like she was nonchalant. She figured if the acting captain of the Ninth Division were in his right mind, he would have no trouble seeing right through it. But he wasn't, and the frightening part was that no one seemed sure if he ever would be again.

Don't think like that, you idiot, Matsumoto berated herself. The last thing we need is pessimism.

"We were supposed to go drinking tonight," she said. "What say I drag Kira down here, and we bring the party to you?" She gave a wink, offering a playful expression that felt hopelessly fake. But Hisagi smiled a little—just barely—and seemed to be trying to lift his hand.

"T-Thanks," he said, "but I'm…not sure that would be a good idea." He grimaced. "Kurotsuchi has some…thing lurching around inside me…trying to find the source. It looked like a pill. Probably wasn't." He scratched just above his right hip, and closed his eyes again. "Alcohol might…cause issues. And I'd…just as soon not make Kurotsuchi homicidal." He gave his little almost-smile again and added, "More homicidal than…usual."

"Ah, well…maybe we'll bring you tea. We'll use a saucer, pour it from a sake jug so you can pretend like it's working." She winked again. "And shape up. This'll blow over soon. Toushirou had a bout with something a while back. He was on his back for a few days, but after that, he was up and yelling and throwing things at me just like normal."

Hisagi opened his eyes again. "…It's still strange…hearing you call Hitsugaya-taichou by that name…"

Matsumoto shrugged. "He never complained when I started, so I just…kept at it. That's kind of how it works with him. If he doesn't complain, you're pretty much golden. 'Cuz he…definitely lets you know when he's not happy with you." She scratched the side of her head. "Usually involves crockery or stray rocks."

"So I guess…there's no point in hoping…you two are official."

Matsumoto raised an eyebrow. "What's that?"

Hisagi chuckled, which turned into a cough. He forced it down. "This feels like such a cliché…like I'm a character in some romance novel written by a thirteen-year-old girl. But…fuck it. You probably knew already. You seem to make a living out of…enticing every creature with a Y chromosome. Like it's a game. You're beautiful, and you know it, and you use it." He looked like he was trying to lift his hands again. "Not that that's…a bad thing. And if I'm…insulting you…chalk it up to the medication. Who knows what's in that…? Well, anyway. I suppose I was hoping…you know…if I worked at things hard enough…if I proved myself strong enough and capable enough…"

"Are you…? You're not…? Oh, God, Shuuhei, don't even start."

"Don't worry," Hisagi said. Matsumoto felt something like a ball of lead sinking in her stomach. "It's nothing. Well, now it is. I can tell you're happy with him. And he with you." Another chuckle, this one a touch bitter. "Someone in this cesspool should have the chance to be happy, at least. I'm glad it was you two. You deserve it."

"You talk like you're expecting to die," Matsumoto said, sharper than she'd meant.

Hisagi looked at her, and for a moment their eyes locked, and she could see the gut-wrenching pain behind them. Not depression, or grief, or even guilt. Just plain, unfiltered, physical pain. He said, "Every morning I wake up, I expect to die. That's what…that's what Tousen-taichou…taught me. To fear your weapon, to loathe combat, and to…expect to die. That is the life of a soldier. And every day that you continue to live…is a gift."

Matsumoto had no answer to that. And so she excused herself, and left the infirmary as quickly as possible, and she couldn't for the life of her figure out what she was supposed to be thinking right now.

That night was a late one. Matsumoto sat at her desk, reading reports and manuals and God only knew what else by candlelight, fearful and irate and strung out and why the hell wasn't the alcohol doing its job? She lowered her head onto her desk and groaned, thinking that if she were in any sense a well-adjusted person she would be passed out right now.

But she'd tried to sleep.

She couldn't.

She threw herself back onto her chair and stared up at the ceiling. "This is some kind of cosmic joke," she muttered. "Is this Aizen's plan? If it is, it's perfect. Take them out without even fighting. How perfect. How simple."

She heard a distant, tiny little sniffle from Hitsugaya's desk, where the kitten was sleeping, almost like it was responding to her. Like the animal was telling her to suck it up and deal with it. Or maybe that was her. It didn't matter. All it meant was that she was going crazy, talking to herself and answering herself. And wouldn't that just be perfect?

"Hey, Sugimura," she heard herself saying, calling in their Third Seat one morning, "here's the thing. Our captain is being eaten from the inside out by some disease we've never heard of, and I'm just about batshit crazy. So congratulations! You win! Sad part is, all we have to offer as a prize is...what's left of us."

Of course…that was stupid.

Hitsugaya wasn't even sick.

…Yet.

She supposed it was that fear, that paranoia, that sent her rocketing over her desk when she heard it. She snatched up her sword—as though she might fight the illness—and ran full tilt out of the room and toward the simple, unadorned, monk's-sanctuary/broom-closet that served her captain for a bedroom looking two seconds away from leaping headlong into psychosis.

Hitsugaya Toushirou was lying on his side, clutching his sheets and shivering. The noise came again; not a cry, or a whimper, but more an angry grunt; and just the same, there was something about it that was…fear.

A nightmare?

Another nightmare?

Matsumoto almost sank to the floor in relief, and berated herself immediately afterward as she watched him sleep. Wherever he was, whatever prison in which his mind was currently confined, it was the precise opposite of pleasant. He was paler than usual, and curled like he was, half in the fetal position, he looked so much smaller than usual as well.

Matsumoto stood up, creeped over to his cot, and sat down.

She leaned against the wall and put a hand on his shoulder. He was cold.

She said, "…Don't you get sick next, you son of a bitch. You hear me? Don't you do it."

In came the kitten, padding into the room as silent as Soi Fong's boys, and hopped up onto the cot, settling itself on its favorite perch: Hitsugaya's head. Matsumoto found a chuckle. She scratched behind the little tufts of its ears.

"You'll protect Daddy from the big bad plague, won't you?" she asked, in a feeble little voice.

Mew.

Sniffle.

"Hear that, Toushirou?" Matsumoto asked. "You're safe. No need to worry."

She felt like she wanted to cry.

Or maybe she felt like she should want to cry.

Or…