Day 29: Courtyard

[deathbymidget]

Hiei easily grew sick of the same walls--not to mention the same idiots always within those walls--and while not perfect, the chance to go outside was better than lingering in the boundaries of that damned prison. So when the chance came, the demon was quick to leap on it, heading outside almost quick enough to make a nurse wonder if he was

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[whiteychan]

[waiting for Momo]

As the nurses called his companion away, Hitsugaya took the opportunity to lie back down on the bench and take a little nap. The air was nice and crisp and cool, and the chill relaxed him. It had been a while since he had the opportunity to truly relax, and perhaps this shift he might actually have the opportunity.

A sleeping boy is a growing boy, his grandmother had always told him.

[hajike_tobiume]

After her visit from Aizen, Momo had been taken to get the stitches she'd ripped replaced, fresh bandages and a new shirt. She did not resist the nurses at all. In fact, she didn't even seem to register their presence or what was being done to her. She just moved when they wanted her to and stayed still otherwise. Her coat had been discarded as the buttons had been popped off and the nurse tried to engage the shinigami in conversation as she refit a new sling on her right arm. Momo did not respond

[whiteychan]

He heard the nurse approaching long before she addressed him, and one eye opened in irritation at being disturbed from his nap. That was until he saw it was Momo, and saw that something didn't seem quite right about her. She seemed quieter than normal, her expression strangely distant and unlike the normal bright and cheerful shinigami

[hajike_tobiume]

Momo did not move upon hearing Hitsugaya's voice. She was hearing voices of familiar people again. Was she just manifesting thoughts of the people close to her as her mind coped with the dying of her body?

Her eyes moved a couple times from side to side, though her gaze was still unfocused and toward the ground. Maybe she was dead, just as she'd originally thought. They didn't know what happened between reincarnation and birth.

It was better she not contemplate these things.

[whiteychan]

His instincts were right...something was off with Hinamori. She wasn't angry with him, or else she would have protested with the nurse when she sat her down. She wasn't angry at anyone else, or she would have been complaining to him about it...even after the awkwardness of the bus, she would have found him to complain. Something was wrong, and it threw him off entirely.

He knelt down in the grass beside her and rested one hand on her shoulder gently so as not to injure her any further, a look of concern and even a little fear in his eyes. "Momo..." he repeated her name again, hoping with the physical contact she might at least react. Look at me, damnit!

[hajike_tobiume]

Someone was touching her. She blinked her eyes and shrunk back minutely from the contact. She didn't want to be touched now that she'd sat down and the one that had been there with her and him had gone away. She'd thought for a moment that maybe, just maybe, she'd be on her way to reincarnation.

But, she wondered, did she deserve reincarnation? She was dead and her death hadn't been anything more than an act of pity. No... no... no... She couldn't think about that. She didn't know what was real and what had been fabricated anymore.

It was safer inside. Safer.

[whiteychan]

This wasn't good at all. Something was wrong here, the way she seemed to ignore him entirely. He reached out and placed a hand on her cheek without thinking of how such an intimate move might appear and raised her face to his. If she could just look at him she...

He pulled his hand back in surprise at the sight of her face. "What the hell did those bastards do to you, Momo?" he asked through gritted teeth. He very much wished he had his zanpakuto right now...the things he would do to whomever had caused such damage to her pristine face. He'd make them pay.

[hajike_tobiume]

Momo slowly blinked her eyes as she was forced to look at someone, though it wasn't as if she'd resisted at all. It was easier to just let them do what they wanted to her body. Her body was inconsequential and her mind was hidden away, safe from the horrors of what had happened before she died and what would come.

She saw something white, and it was familiar, though she didn't actually focus on it. She couldn't make her left eye work properly when she tried and she gave up on both. Vaguely, she heard the question and shook her head a little. Her lips parted, as if she might say something, but then they closed, not a sound forthcoming.

She missed the constant warmth of her other half. She must be dead too.

[whiteychan]

Words seemed to rest for brief moments on her lips, but they were gone. Just say something, he protested in his head. ~anything~ at all.

Wounds of the flesh he could deal with. Her injuries he could heal if he had to. Whatever was causing this wasn't on account of the wounds, though. "Please," he said, feeling uncomfortable just uttering the words. "Please...just...tell me what's wrong. Tell me anything. It's me. Shiro-chan." He hated that nickname, but if she was going to recognize anything, it would be that. "Your friend."

[hajike_tobiume]

She blinked slowly again, something in his words causing her to actually shift her gaze up from just in his direction to his actual eyes. Her own still wouldn't focus, but she saw the green. She looked for a long moment before her gaze drifted back down again.

"Ai...zen...sama," came the ghostly whisper from her lips.

[whiteychan]

Hitsugaya turned pale as the words escaped her lips. Had his original hypothesis been correct, that he was somehow involved in all of this, and was Momo an unfortunate victim in his schemes yet again? "He's here?" the captain asked, feeling sick to his stomach. Even at full power, Hitsugaya hadn't been able to even cut Aizen. Now, as weakened as he was and without his zanpakuto, there was nothing he could do to protect her from the man

[hajike_tobiume]

"No more," she said, her voice not changing. "Visitor to see... Jehna... not well. World of Dead..." Her brow furrowed a little. "Not real... or too real?"

Lethargically, she raised her hand from her lap to rest upon her breast, over her heart. "Never to be told."

[whiteychan]

The visitors...Aizen had come as one of the visitors that Martin had talked about on the intercom. The bastard...

"You're not Jehna," Hitsugaya said insistently, taking her other hand into his and placing his free hand on her good shoulder. "Don't let anyone tell you otherwise, not even Aizen. You're Hinamori Momo, lieutenant of the 5th division of the Gotei 13. I know this because we grew up together. I've known you longer than I've known just about anyone...I should know who you are a hell of a lot better than Aizen."

He hated saying these words, hated trying to reach her by opening up himself...but he was willing to do just about anything for her.

[hajike_tobiume]

Focusing on his words was hard. Her mind wanted to stay hidden, stay where it was protected, but the voice talking to her could find it's way painstakingly through the barriers and obstacles if only its bearer had the patience and will to do so. Forming words was even harder.

"Not Jehna... not her, but no... missing. Rest missing." She blinked her eyes and looked up at Hitsugaya, momentarily recognizing him. A tear formed at the corner of her good eye. "Vice captain or just... a doll? W-who... what is she?" Her brow furrowed again. "No... no... already know. Gone. No more left."

"So sorry," she whispered as that tear finally slipped down her face.

[whiteychan]

"You're not a doll, Momo," he said quietly, hating still having to do this every step of the way, but all the while knowing that he had to. "You worked damn hard to become a shinigami, to become a vice captain. You're not just some tool of Aizen's. You've got more to you than that." He lowered his eyes to avoid looking at the tear as it slipped down. "Don't go apologizing to me, either. I'm not going to abandon you here, and I'm not going to let you lose yourself. You mean too much to me, damnit."

And there it was. The words he never bothered to say to anyone...it was shocking that he let something like that out, something be never wanted to even think about. But he wasn't going to let anything harm her. Not even herself if he could help it, and certainly not Aizen.

[hajike_tobiume]

Momo didn't know if she was alive and trapped as a prisoner of a powerful madman or dead and trapped as a prisoner of her own mind. What she did know, was that if this was a prison of her mind, she wasn't going to let her own mind keep her from the one person who meant more to her than she ever admitted to, one that hadn't betrayed her - one that cared for her.

The shinigami lethargically moved her hand from over her heart to Hitsugaya's cheek. She tried to focus on his eyes when they were visible again, a small amount of life returning to them. "Shiro-chan," she whispered and then folded into him, her face pressed against his neck. "Shiro-chan..."

The tears came then, all of them, hot and wet as she cried against him. Her hand slipped from his cheek to his shoulder, clutching at his shirt. It was a pathetic sight to see, really, but she needed to cry all the tears out. Hitsugaya was the only one she wanted there to hold her. Maybe, just maybe, he'd be strong enough not to get cut on the broken pieces.