I always kind of intended this to be a minor thing, all told, and compared to Bleach's primary villains, Mister West / Nishi definitely is minor. But I still wanted to make sure there was something unnerving, something dangerous, about him.

I think I hit a decent balance.

.

"Mister Captain? I, um. I hads a dream."

Hitsugaya eyed Hibiki carefully, wondering what he should say. The closest he'd come to proper experience with children was whenever he dealt with Ichigo Kurosaki's sisters; while these two were twins, just like Yuzu and Karin, they had not prepared Hitsugaya for anything like this. Izumi was holding her brother's hand and looking quite grim, like she was trying to work out if she'd have to eat Hitsugaya. How he responded to whatever Hibiki had to say was going to be the deciding factor.

Hitsugaya's brow furrowed. "What kind of dream did you have, Hibiki?"

"We was walking, me and Zu," the boy announced, "in the street place where we founds you."

"Mm-hm," said Hitsugaya, "and did something happen there?"

"Uh-huh, uh-huh." Hibiki fidgeted with his sash. "There's was a pool, like befores," he went on, eventually, "but it wasn't waters. It was black." Hibiki pointed to the inkpot on Hitsugaya's desk. "Like that."

"Ink," Izumi murmured. "It was all thick, and vicious."

"Viscous?" Hitsugaya asked.

Izumi nodded. "Yeah. Vicious."

"Yeah." Hibiki nodded. "Uh-huh."

Hitsugaya tilted his head to one side. He thought about trying to correct them again, but quickly decided it didn't matter. They probably didn't have time. "All right," he said instead. "So, you were back in Rukongai, and you found spilled ink. What happened next?"

Hitsugaya thought about the pools of blood he and Matsumoto had seen, before meeting the twins and their . . . handler. This didn't seem like it could be a coincidence. It felt the same, even if it was just a coincidence.

Did Hitsugaya even believe in coincidences anymore?

"And, and, and . . . so's we was looking at the . . . ink. Theres was whole lots of it. Like, you could writes whole bunches of stuffs. All the paper you gots, and more."

"That's a lot of ink."

"We falled in," Hibiki said gravely. "And, and, there's was a voice in there."

Hitsugaya tapped the fingers of one hand on his desk. "Was it Mister West?" he asked.

"Uh-huh, uh-huh. It was."

"Do you remember what he said to you?"

"He said, Mister West, he said. He said. He said."

When Hibiki clearly couldn't say it, Izumi said it for him: "'You cannot escape me.'"

Hitsugaya raised an eyebrow. "Did you both have this dream?" he asked.

Izumi nodded. "Yeah," she said. "I was there, too. We woked up at the same time. He says it to both of us. He wanted to make sure we both knows. It's 'portant. Does he wants moneys? We can't gets moneys. Mister Captain, we can't. All the souls reapers says so."

"I know." Hitsugaya nodded. "I know."

"Is he gonna takes us?" Hibiki asked.

Hitsugaya closed his eyes and drew in a deep, steadying breath. If protecting children broke Soul Society, then it deserved to break. "No, Hibiki," he said. "No one is going to take you. You're safe here. I'm going to make sure of that, no matter what I have to do."

"That's nice, Mister Captain," Izumi said, "but I don't knows if you can. I don't thinks we gots time no more."

"Why is that, Izumi?"

The girl pointed to the floor. "He stoled them, Mister Captain."

Hitsugaya looked.

Then he looked again.

Neither Izumi nor her brother had shadows.