Disclaimer:
I don't own Bleach or any ideas/characters. I only own references and images for my OC.
Chapter 19
Kimura POV
I stirred awake hearing the rain against the window, and feeling the temperature drop. I instinctively knew that Toshiro was not laying next me. I lifted my self up, closing my eyes feeling for his spiritual pressure. I felt it just outside the back door. I stood up, wrapping the sheet around my body as I walked outside. I saw he was dressed in his short-sleeved yukata, which was left open and his pants, leaning against one of the pillars, watching the rain. The sight of him there watching the rain was something I could get lost in.
I tightened the sheet around my chest under my arms, picking it up so it was easier to walk outside. I watched as he turned his head to look at me, laughing as I walked outside as I was, once I reached him, I adjusted the sheet so I could straddle his hips. I felt his hands slip underneath the sheet, settling just above the curve of my butt, gripping it slightly.
I kissed his neck before leaning back to look at him. There was something clouding his eyes as he watched the rain. I shifted so I could run my index finger down his face.
"Tell me what I can do for you…." I whispered, his eyes shifted to me as his hands slid higher to my lower back, teasing circles.
"You already do more than enough for me."
I held his gaze for a long silent moment. I rested my forehead against his and sighed before moving to rest my head against his neck. I felt his fingers caress my back, feeling that he was contemplating something.
"I grew up in District one of the West Rukon with my grandmother," I heard him start to say as his fingers dragged against my back. "I was shunned as a child because of my hair and eyes, it made making friends very difficult, and life hard. There was one person who wasn't bothered by my appearance, she lived with us and became family to my grandmother and I."
My felt my eyes widen as he started to speak, keeping my spot nuzzling his neck and shoulder.
"She must have thought I was so rude at the time, but she ended up being my best friend. She looked after me, even though I felt that I should have been the one protecting her. A few years later she joined the Academy, leaving my grandmother and I behind."
"Despite this, she continued to come and visit from time to time. I didn't know it at the time, but she was someone I grew to truly care for – more than a friend."
"When I was found by Rangiku, and she convinced me to become a Soul Reaper, I leaped at the opportunity. I was still younger for everything I was capable of. I watched her from a far, knowing that now I would have the power to protect her, the girl who had looked out for me."
Toshiro paused for a moment, I could feel him restraining himself and his spiritual powers. I was awed and shocked at him sharing so much with me, he only shared some details of his past with me, but they were always vague and never elaborated on.
"Once Aizen began enacting his plot everything changed. He manipulated her, warped her mind. He used her to control me, convincing her that I had been the mastermind behind it all." His skin grew ice cold against mine as his emotions flared, causing me to shiver against him. He must have noticed his reaction because he swallowed his spirit energy, willing his body to grow warm again. I let his head lean against the pillar behind him with a sigh continuing to look out at the rain.
I lifted my head from his neck when he didn't say anything else. I shifted, in my straddled position on him, to move closer. I pulled his head with my hand to turn him towards me.
"Don't hide from me." I gently whispered to him. "I accept you and whatever your past may hold. I let you in to see the darkest parts of me, let me in also."
"You don't know what I did…" he said, his eyes appearing to glow with how he was suppressing his spirit energy within him.
"Then tell me, trust me as I trusted you with my past." I cooed as I leaned into him, resting my forehead against his. "And stop suppressing yourself."
"If I stop, I'll hurt you." He pointed out clenching his hands which now sat at my hips.
I shook my head against his. "No, you won't, I promise you. I can handle your spirit energy, trust me."
I watched as he raised an eyebrow at me. "You think so?" he asked amused.
"I know so." I said with such confidence, that he relaxed one of his clenched fists and placed it on my hip before continuing.
"I almost killed her." He said bluntly, his expression going dark, and the unclenched hand on my hip grew cold, I cold feel the ice forming, I watched as his eyes became worried, when I released some of my spirit energy concentrating at my hip, it warmed, and I felt the ice melting and start to trickle down across my leg. I kept my eyes on him but pushed my head against his to encourage him to continue.
"During our battle, I struck a blow that was supposed to kill Aizen. I sank Hyorinmaru down to his hilt through Aizen's back and forced ice into his body. I put everything ounce of my energy into that blow.
"On Aizen, the blow went through his mid back but…"
"I remember Aizen's ability was complete hypnosis" I slowly said, he nodded at my words.
"On her, I pierced her straight through her chest. I should have killed her. Once I realized what had happened, I lost myself to the rage, when I should have tried to save her, I left her, just to be cut down."
Toshiro went quiet, becoming lost in his memory. I stayed still keeping my head against his, he was finally opening up to me, and sharing his demons with me. I understood why he was so closed off to everyone and kept everyone at a distance.
"She couldn't get past it, could she?"
"No. She couldn't. Squad twelve kept her alive until her body could heal the damage I caused. She spent a year there wondering why I had done that to her." He pulled his head back slightly to rest against the pillar again. His other hand that was clenched relaxed and placed itself on my hip like his other.
"I waited for her for years to overcome those events before I approached her. When I finally did, she was happy, it began our relationship, that would only last moments." He said, ice forming at his hands again, my energy reacted again and started to melt it away.
"I had been with other women before her, but they hadn't been what I was searching for. I had convinced myself that she was the one I had been waiting for. I was so enthralled in the fantasy I created in my head, that I didn't notice how she shied away or grew stiff at my touch. I told myself that she was just reserved, because it was so easy for us to talk and become closer."
"I didn't see it at the time, or just chose to ignore it, but she was afraid of me, terrified is the better word. She didn't tell me until to all boiled over and she lost it. I had traumatized her so badly that just being in my presence with my spirit energy dragged her back to that moment, she utterly rejected me from having type of future with her, even friendship."
We sat in silence once he finished speaking, the air around us growing colder by the moment. I felt the ice trying to form from his body, but with how close I was leaning into him, my spiritual pressure would flare at the feeling and causing it to melt away into water.
"It wasn't your fault." I finally said to him. "I know the power that that Aizen had, and I am sure I was also under his hypnosis until I left. You were no exception, no matter how strong you are."
His eyes slowly came back to mine, hold me in place, becoming his hard intimidating mask. I held my ground, and his gaze not wavering. His spirit energy flaring again, causing ice to form, only to be melted away when I met him head on with mine.
"Could you have forgiven me, if it had, been you?" He asked me, his body growing cold with ice, so I moved closer to him, making sure my spirit energy flared, to warm his body.
"I would have understood the circumstances, especially feeling what I feel for you." I said softly. His gaze softened, losing the threatening edge it had held a moment ago. His hands slid down to from my hips to hold and grip my thighs under the sheet I had wrapped around me.
"I blamed myself for the next fifteen years. I was the one who ruined any chance at happiness. I couldn't let myself do it again, so I distanced myself from anyone I could care about. Rangiku was too stubborn to leave me alone. It wasn't until you arrived, and somehow cracked my barrier that I had encased myself in. The more I spent time with you and learned about you, I couldn't understand how, for all the people that you could have been made for, it was for a man who had utterly failed the only person he cared about."
His right hand slid behind my back to try and pull me closer to him. "I had been going through life performing my duties, and not caring for anything more than that. When you opened yourself up to me, and told me your past, and let me in that was the final crack in my barrier. The moment I gave into my desires and kissed you, I was shocked that you could believe that you were unworthy of me."
"When you gave me your tirade of words, running from me, not because I scared you but because you thought I rejected you. I knew I had to make you understand, that I was the one that was unworthy of you. I was shocked and couldn't understand how you wanted me, of all people."
I felt my eyes start to water at his words. I had no idea he had been harboring these feelings, nor how I had somehow managed to crack his walls. He rubbed his nose against mine, "After I chased you down, made you say my name like I was trying to find water in a desert, I knew I could never let you go. I needed you, craved you. You are the reason I can feel again, without you I am a shell, nothing. When you were unconscious, I reverted back to that state."
His lips ghosted mine, barely grazing before moving to my cheek to catch the tears that had escaped from my eyes. Once he had collected them all he pulled back to look me in the eyes.
"You want to ask me something…" he said, before shifting his eyes to watch one of his hands come up and run through my hair.
"Who was she?" I asked bluntly, yet softly, keeping my gaze on his face.
"Momo…. Hinamori." He said her name like it still hurt him to say it. Suddenly everything clicked in my head, the reason he was so uncomfortable when we had to go to the Rukon district with squad five, why he never actually looked at her and kept his distance when she was around.
I brought my hands up to grasp his and slid my fingers through his so I could hold his hands between our bodies. "I can see that you still carry the hurt and pain with you, but hear me now Toshiro Hitsugaya, you have found your way into my very being and soul. It is going to take more than that for you to get rid of me. I have shared my dark history with you, carry your spiritual pressure within and just now proved to you that you can release your restraint with me, and you won't hurt me. Unless you tell me to go, and even then, I will fight you, you cannot get rid of me, do you know why?"
I watched as Toshiro's eyes glistened with unshed tears as he swallowed.
"Why?" He asked quietly.
"Because I love you, you idiot." I laughed at him shaking my head, trying to understand how he couldn't see that with all his skills and powers. I heard him gasp and look at me with his mouth gaped open, he finally let go and let some of the tears in his eyes fall down his cheeks. I leaned forward mimicking what he had down to me earlier, kissing the tears away from his cheeks as they fell.
When I didn't hear anything from him, I pulled back to look at his face. After a few moments he brought his face to mine, claiming my lips in a fierce and hungry flurry. His arms wrapped around me trying to get me closer to him. His hands started moving across my body under my sheet, trying to touch every inch of me.
I pulled back from him to gasp for breath, panting.
"I won't survive without you." I heard him whisper before turning to stand, causing me to wrap my legs around him, so I wouldn't fall, taking me with him back into his bedroom.
