Fanfiction || Treading Icy Waters 24
Title: Treading Icy Waters
Fandom: Bleach
Main Character: Hitsugaya Toushirou
Rating: PG-13
Genre: General/Action/Suspense
Warnings: Occasional language, violence, gore.
Timeline: This story follows the manga's timeline. It begins directly before the Hueco Mundo arc and diverges from there.
Summary: The board has been laid out. The pieces have been set and moved. The pawns are scattered across the floor, and Ichimaru’s fingers are wrapped around a stark white bishop. “That’s another check, little taichou.” The game has only begun.
Author's Note: I’ve had more than one person ask me this question, so I thought it best to answer it here in case there are more people who are confused. It's important in this chapter. The reason Urahara insisted that Orihime not heal Hitsugaya is the same reason that Unohana wouldn’t be able to help. Reiatsu, no matter whose it is, inflames Hitsugaya’s symptoms. In other words, if Orihime tried to heal him, he’d get worse before he got better because he’d be surrounded by a strong, penetrating reiatsu source. That’s also the reason Hitsugaya didn’t tell Ichigo about it. Ichigo has a large amount of reiatsu that he can’t or doesn’t hold back and therefore is a large part of the reason Hitsugaya’s two months was cut short.
~*~
“Thus are we wholly stripped of pride
In the pain that has but one close
Bearing it crushed and mystified”
-The Trial by Existence, Robert Frost
~*~
Chapter Twenty-Four
Back Stage Backtrack
~*~
He wasn’t supposed to be in Soul Society.
It took everything in Matsumoto Rangiku’s power to not explode in the face of every innocent passerby unfortunate enough to exist in her presence. But she refrained. She refrained for the sake of the fragile figure laying prone in the Fourth Division infirmary bed in front of her. She couldn’t afford to get into more trouble. It was only out of dumb luck that she and the others were allowed to stay in her Taichou’s room at all.
Kuchiki-taichou and Zaraki-taichou had arrived on the scene no more than a minute after Hitsugaya had collapsed. Zaraki had carried him with uncharacteristic gentleness, but it was clear that there would be violence if they didn’t cooperate with the two captains. Her Taichou was more of a hostage than anything else. Rangiku, Renji, Rukia, and Ichigo all followed them back to the Seireitei, and now they were under house arrest, not allowed to take even one step out of Unohana-taichou’s sight.
But Unohana-taichou was staying in Hitsugaya’s room, going so far as to have her division members report to her and receive assignments in the room so that she wouldn’t have to leave. And by extension, neither would they. Rangiku would have to buy her something very, very expensive very, very soon, but for the moment, she was too upset, too concerned, and too scared to give the healer proper thanks.
They hadn’t even had the chance to return to Urahara Shoten. Kuchiki-taichou had simply summoned a hell butterfly right where they’d met. Rangiku had seen how quickly Hitsugaya’s already pale features whitened the moment they returned to Seireitei. Cold sweat had mixed with blood, a liquid mahogany tainting his pores. But still, the young taichou hadn’t moved, hadn’t cried out, hadn’t so much as twitched a brow in his daze. Those teal-green eyes, half-lidded yet devoid of life, frightened Matsumoto Rangiku far more than she ever thought possible.
She’d been frantic when they first led him into the room, shouting more orders than Unohana-taichou herself, pushing aside anyone who tried to ask her questions. Ichigo, Rukia, and Renji had had to explain the situation in her stead, interrupting each other in attempts to fill the gaps and just generally not making much sense. If she’d been less consumed with her captain, she might have realized she was doing more harm than good, but she already had two captains down for the count on her record. Like hell she was going to add a third.
Zaraki-taichou had hightailed it out of there the moment Hitsugaya hit the bed, but Kuchiki-taichou had stayed. Rangiku still wasn’t sure whether that made her feel better or just pissed her off even more. She’d watched from Hitsugaya’s bedside as he joined Unohana-taichou and the others near the doorway. For him to look at her Taichou with that never-changing condescending air, only to turn to Rukia and Renji, explain their status in as few words as possible, and wash his hands of the matter in such a superior way...
“He brought it upon himself.”
Kuchiki-taichou had taken the time to give them the information they needed, to give Hitsugaya some sort of well wishes when so few of the captains wanted to or were able. But she just couldn’t accept the way he brushed her Taichou aside, as if his compatriot meant nothing more to him than the subtext of his most recent orders. Only Kuchiki-taichou’s rank kept her from shouting a piece of her mind.
“Chill, Rangiku.”
Kurosaki seemed to have abandoned the effort of informing Unohana-taichou, stepping up beside the buxom blonde as Kuchiki-taichou left. He was slouching a little, his voice surprisingly quiet and level. And Rangiku was forced to realize that everyone else was as bothered about this as she was, whether she wanted to see it or not.
“He didn’t mean it like it sounded,” the teenager continued as he lifted a hand to scratch the back of his neck. “It’s just ... Toushirou would rather have it be his choice, right? Nobody else made him do it.”
“That’s not-”
“So all he has to do now is get himself out of it.”
Her overflowing adrenaline had already begun fading once Hitsugaya had been placed in that bed, and at those words it evaporated completely out of her reach. She slumped into the closest chair, ample assets pressing against the rise of the seat as her arms wrapped around the top.
“You guys are no fair. None of you. How do you always get away with this crap?”
The sheepish grin Ichigo offered her only seemed to put her less at ease. “Tell you what, next time you two can trade places.” Idiot. He was trying way too hard.
She waved her hand in his direction before dropping it back onto the chair, and when she spoke next her tone was nonchalant and uninterested. She could do this, and she didn’t need a kid babysitting her while she did. “I’d have to be dead drunk before I could suffer the paperwork hell I’d get for that. I’ll be fine. Go on back to your comedy duo. They’ll need someone to remind them to stop finishing each other’s sentences before Unohana-taichou tells them herself.”
“Actually, you’re the only one she still wants to talk to, Rangiku-chan.”
Ichigo and Rangiku both jumped at the unexpected voice, but before Rangiku could turn to meet it, two firm hands planted themselves atop her shoulders. Ukitake Jyuushirou smiled warmly down at her as she leaned her head back to see him. It wasn’t a big smile, but it wasn’t any less compassionate for it.
“It’s been a long time.”
Rangiku nodded, tried to return the smile. It didn’t work out very well.
“Go on,” Ukitake encouraged, pulling lightly at her shoulders until she was standing again. “I’ll watch over him for a bit. I’d like to speak privately to him anyway.”
She could only sigh, energy depleted as she looked to the make-shift paper divider blocking her vision of the corner of the room that Unohana-taichou had claimed as her own.
Captains and lieutenants were almost always treated to larger suits in the Fourth Division, not only because of their rank but because it made them less likely to walk out the door and leave right away. Not that Hitsugaya Toushirou could do anything of the sort as he was now, let alone appreciate the expanse of space.
Rangiku was quick to pass through the thin material separating the room into two sections, not bothering to close it behind her, and plopped down into a seat once more. Ichigo leaned against the back of the chair, only half paying attention, constantly letting his gaze wander back to Ukitake-taichou and Hitsugaya. Contrary to how she’d described them earlier, however, Rukia and Renji were the epitome of focus. Renji was to her left and Rukia to her right, both waiting for her to fill the gaps in their story with even more eagerness than Unohana-taichou.
“Matsumoto-fukutaichou,” the captain of the healing division began, but Rangiku interrupted before she could say another word.
“I know what you want to ask. Taichou told me just today. During the fight with the Raptores, he condensed his reiatsu into two parts. He released one on the Raptor, and kept the other condensed within his body to ward off the end-stage symptoms as long as possible. When he expanded his reiatsu, the symptoms hit him all at once.”
Rangiku’s straight-forward report brought a small smile to Unohana’s lips, in great contrast to the room’s other occupants. “Matsumoto-fukutaichou, I knew that much. What I wanted to ask you was whether he told you of Ichimaru’s intentions.”
The Tenth Division fukutaichou was stumped for all of thirty seconds before that small smile grew a notch and she realized she had better get moving or else. “He didn’t know what Ichimaru wanted out of it. Just that ... Ichimaru said they wouldn’t face off until the end,” she relayed, anxiety apparent. “Apparently, Ichimaru’s already lied to him about it though.”
Unohana Retsu nodded knowingly. “I’m afraid there is not a great deal I can do for him. I don’t believe Ichimaru was lying about the way he intends to end it however. Wherever Hitsugaya-taichou’s mind is, it is not in his head.” At the horrified look on Rangiku’s face, the healer raised a hand and clarified. “He’s not completely gone. I only mean that he’s not sleeping, but he’s not in Hyourinmaru’s inner world either. Rather, I’m worried he may not be able to reach Hyourinmaru’s inner world. I cannot feel that connection between them; I haven’t been able to since he was brought in.”
That did not sound good at all. But when Matsumoto thought back on it, it made disturbing sense. Renji, however, and not Rangiku was the first one to voice those sentiments out loud. “Come to think of it, I never saw him talk to Hyourinmaru while he was there.”
“Not even when he was helping me with Haineko,” Rangiku confirmed, biting her lip. She shifted in her seat. Hitsugaya probably hadn’t been trying to hide it, or he would have done a better job. He may not have even tried to enter his inner world if he thought Hyourinmaru was the one who didn’t want to communicate. “But what does that have to do with what’s happening now?”
“If only Hitsugaya-taichou himself was not able to control his reiatsu, Hyourinmaru might have been able to help. Ichimaru Gin must have been covering his tracks. Severing that link left Hitsugaya-taichou still able to use his reiatsu and to feel Hyourinmaru’s presence but cut off the connection between the two elements,” Unohana Retsu clarified, a thin frown growing across her face. “But from what I’ve heard, it sounds as if Hitsugaya-taichou should have lost his ability to perform either feet by now.”
Rangiku nodded. “Taichou said that any reiatsu made the symptoms worse, and he had almost no control over his own. That was why Kisuke-jii gave him the collar.”
“That makes no sense! He had to have had perfect control over his reiatsu in order to win that battle against the Raptor!” Rukia hastily interrupted. “Let alone to reign his reiatsu in after the fight.”
Ichigo was grinning. “So he beat the system. He’s a tough kid.”
“Ichigo! You don’t understand!” By this point, the petite shinigami was on her feet, nearly ready to throttle the teenager, and he was fully prepared to counter her.
“Hitsugaya-taichou had no control over his reiatsu until that battle. In other words, he found a way to regain a sense of which he had lost control,” Unohana spoke up then. Her frigid smile had both Rukia and Ichigo behaving again in seconds. It also had everyone taking a moment to truly digest those words.
“What’re you trying to say?” Renji yet again broke the silence.
“She’s saying Hitsugaya-taichou may have found a way around Aizen’s hypnosis.”
Rukia’s answer had even Ichigo surprised, but Matsumoto Rangiku was not impressed. How had the topic changed so quickly? How had the focus been so abruptly sidetracked? “That won’t do us any good if he dies before Aizen’s next strike,” the woman hissed, glaring at the others as if her friends had suddenly become the monsters they all strove to fight together.
The guilty, uncomfortable looks on their faces did nothing to sway her. This was her Taichou. Aizen could wait. Ichimaru could wait. Everyone else in all the worlds could wait. Her Taichou was in trouble. She didn’t even know if he’d wake up. She may never hear that frustrated scolding again, or those few and far between compliments when she exceeded expectations, or even those all-purpose grunts and groans that he saved just for her. She may never see that expectant glare or that haughty blush.
“Before we can ask anything of Taichou, we have to help him.”
From there the conversation grew much more subdued. Ichigo drifted away from it gradually, while Ukitake-taichou had left Hitsugaya’s side and joined in for a short while. Like Kuchiki-taichou though, he had to leave. Kyouraku-taichou had taken over his duties temporarily, which meant he had to return to them before Nanao worked herself to death.
There would be a captain’s meeting in a few hours.
Just the thought caused goosebumps to ride their way up Rangiku’s arms.
In the end, they got nowhere. Unohana-taichou nor anyone in her division could perform a healing. None of them could know what Hitsugaya-taichou might need without asking him. Unohana-taichou could only guess where Hitsugaya’s mind was and seemed to be of the opinion that he was simply in limbo, nowhere at all. They could only rehash the same facts and figures and try to connect them in a way that made some semblance of sense.
Once she hit that roadblock, Unohana-taichou had promptly told her to just stop thinking.
It was then, when Rangiku was at her lowest point - hoping less for a good outcome and more for something that was just different, anything different - that Ichigo’s voice penetrated the melancholy with a booming exclamation.
“Oi, Toushirou! Great! I thought you might’ve died!”
“It’s Hitsugaya-taichou!”
The moment she heard that tired correction - just as loud and twice as demanding as Ichigo - Rangiku leaped to her feet, following him to the boy captain’s bedside.
And there she stopped dead.
Hitsugaya was already hauling himself out of the bed, and the moment he stood up, all of Rangiku’s hopes were instantly dashed. When just a second ago, he’d seemed back to his old self, now he was clutching his head, mouth open in a silent scream of pain. He should have known better! She should have known better!
“What is he doing on his feet? He could kill himself!”
Unohana-taichou was rushing forward now, followed by the other occupants of the room, even two attendants who’d been passing by. Rangiku and Ichigo were the closest by far, and without even a thought, they each grabbed one arm.
Skin grasped skin, and that silent scream became a very, very loud one.
They wrestled him back into the bed as he kicked and hollered, and she swore she was going to cry because he looked like he was in so much pain, and then Unohana was in between them, and Ichigo was pulling her away, and her Taichou kept screaming and screaming and screaming, until he just stopped, and she didn’t even realize she had vomit on her shihakushou until Rukia tried to clean it off.
Hahah.
Wasn’t that how this whole thing had started?
Vomit on her shihakushou.
“Matsumoto-fukutaichou!”
“Oi, Rangiku!”
And after he puked all over her, he’d go talk to Ichimaru.
“C’mon! We can’t have you zoning out on us too!”
“Wherever Hitsugaya-taichou’s mind is, it is not in his head.”
“Rangi-!”
She grabbed Renji’s shoulders, eyes wide in realization as she met the redhead’s surprised stare.
“Ichimaru’s inner world! That’s how Ichimaru talks to him, how he keeps him out of Hyourinmaru’s dimension! He’s in Ichimaru’s inner world!”
“Then what the hell are we supposed to do about it?”
“Move.”
Rangiku and Renji instantly did as instructed, and Unohana Retsu pushed her way past them with a tub of water. The sight was unexpected. Unohana-taichou didn’t do that sort of thing; that was a task for shinigami of much lower rank. Apparently, at some point while she’d been zoning out the other Fourth Division shinigami had been ushered out of the room (because they couldn’t hide their reiatsu like captains could?). The woman healer set the tub down on the ground, pulled a cloth out of it, wrung it, set it on his forehead, and proceeded to release her reiatsu into his body.
The entire room went deathly quiet for all of a second. Then all hell broke loose.
“What the hell are you-?”
“Are you trying to kill him?!”
“Unohana-tai-!”
“Be quiet.”
She was obeyed.
Her hands moved with expert ease over the boy captain’s still frame even as she spoke. “What did Ichimaru Gin say about how this would end?”
Rangiku gulped. “A fight. He said they wouldn’t fight until the end.”
“If Hitsugaya-taichou has already been taken to Ichimaru’s inner world, we must sever the connection between his mind and his body as quickly as possible. That is probably what Hyourinmaru has been trying to do all along. The fastest way to do that is to put the body in a different state than the mind.”
“Why?” Ichigo demanded as he took a defiant step forward, not quite as thoroughly trained as everyone else in the room to hang off of Unohana Retsu’s every word as if it were the sole truth of the universe.
“Kurosaki,” she said sweetly, “if Hitsugaya-taichou is injured within his mind, what do you think will happen to his body?”
“You’re ... going to kill him in order to keep him alive?”
“Yes, I am.”
Silence.
Then: “I’ll replace the cold water.”
~*~
It was hard to breathe. It was hard to do much of anything. He wasn’t even sure he was standing. His legs felt like just holding up the weight of his body was turning them numb with exertion.
It was too abrupt a change, to switch from that excruciating pain to this overwhelming numbness.
He didn’t even notice Ichimaru Gin’s approach, too absorbed in making sure he kept breathing, kept standing, kept calm. Oh please, please, stay calm. He couldn’t afford to panic. Not when he could barely feel his legs.
“Miss me?”
Finally, he focused his vision, slowly letting his line of vision move upward. He met Ichimaru’s gaze head on, those slitted neon orbs dripping with anticipation. He didn’t answer. Instead, he narrowed his own eyes, grinding his teeth in frustration. Stay calm, stay calm. So long as he didn’t move too much, he could keep his balance. So long as he didn’t look away from that piercing stare, he would know exactly where Ichimaru was.
“Ya never do. Ya know, little taichou, that’s always been a problem fer ya.” The sinister smirk opened wider. “Ya always had a way with makin’ people feel unwanted.”
He took another step closer; Hitsugaya didn’t move. He waited for an answer; Hitsugaya refused to give him the satisfaction. He drew Shinsou from his waste; Hitsugaya had nothing with which to counter him.
“Now this is just bad form. Not even one lil’ insult?”
“You said you wouldn’t touch her,” rumbled the low, coarse reply. His voice wasn’t much louder than a whisper, but in the echoing nothingness it traveled well.
“I didn’ lay a finger on her. Why touch her when Shinsou has a longer reach?” Ichimau countered easily, taking another step forward over the nonexistent floor.
Hitsugaya Toushirou, former captain of the Tenth Division, slowly raised his arms, stretching them out in front of himself and creating a diamond shape with his thumbs an pointer fingers. Ichimaru’s chest was in the very center of the diamond, though he didn’t seem to care. At this point, Hitsugaya didn’t care about what Ichimaru cared about.
This was the end, wasn’t it? He didn’t know what Ichimau planned to gain, what he wanted to do, why he wanted to do any of it. He didn’t know, and he didn’t care. In this situation, there was only one thing he had to do.
Survive.
That was all that mattered.
“I won’t touch you either,” Hitsugaya asserted through a pained grimace. “Hadou #33: Soukatsui!”
When nothing happened, Ichimaru laughed.
Then, he moved.
Fandom: Bleach
Main Character: Hitsugaya Toushirou
Rating: PG-13
Genre: General/Action/Suspense
Warnings: Occasional language, violence, gore.
Timeline: This story follows the manga's timeline. It begins directly before the Hueco Mundo arc and diverges from there.
Summary: The board has been laid out. The pieces have been set and moved. The pawns are scattered across the floor, and Ichimaru’s fingers are wrapped around a stark white bishop. “That’s another check, little taichou.” The game has only begun.
Author's Note: I’ve had more than one person ask me this question, so I thought it best to answer it here in case there are more people who are confused. It's important in this chapter. The reason Urahara insisted that Orihime not heal Hitsugaya is the same reason that Unohana wouldn’t be able to help. Reiatsu, no matter whose it is, inflames Hitsugaya’s symptoms. In other words, if Orihime tried to heal him, he’d get worse before he got better because he’d be surrounded by a strong, penetrating reiatsu source. That’s also the reason Hitsugaya didn’t tell Ichigo about it. Ichigo has a large amount of reiatsu that he can’t or doesn’t hold back and therefore is a large part of the reason Hitsugaya’s two months was cut short.
~*~
“Thus are we wholly stripped of pride
In the pain that has but one close
Bearing it crushed and mystified”
-The Trial by Existence, Robert Frost
~*~
Chapter Twenty-Four
Back Stage Backtrack
~*~
He wasn’t supposed to be in Soul Society.
It took everything in Matsumoto Rangiku’s power to not explode in the face of every innocent passerby unfortunate enough to exist in her presence. But she refrained. She refrained for the sake of the fragile figure laying prone in the Fourth Division infirmary bed in front of her. She couldn’t afford to get into more trouble. It was only out of dumb luck that she and the others were allowed to stay in her Taichou’s room at all.
Kuchiki-taichou and Zaraki-taichou had arrived on the scene no more than a minute after Hitsugaya had collapsed. Zaraki had carried him with uncharacteristic gentleness, but it was clear that there would be violence if they didn’t cooperate with the two captains. Her Taichou was more of a hostage than anything else. Rangiku, Renji, Rukia, and Ichigo all followed them back to the Seireitei, and now they were under house arrest, not allowed to take even one step out of Unohana-taichou’s sight.
But Unohana-taichou was staying in Hitsugaya’s room, going so far as to have her division members report to her and receive assignments in the room so that she wouldn’t have to leave. And by extension, neither would they. Rangiku would have to buy her something very, very expensive very, very soon, but for the moment, she was too upset, too concerned, and too scared to give the healer proper thanks.
They hadn’t even had the chance to return to Urahara Shoten. Kuchiki-taichou had simply summoned a hell butterfly right where they’d met. Rangiku had seen how quickly Hitsugaya’s already pale features whitened the moment they returned to Seireitei. Cold sweat had mixed with blood, a liquid mahogany tainting his pores. But still, the young taichou hadn’t moved, hadn’t cried out, hadn’t so much as twitched a brow in his daze. Those teal-green eyes, half-lidded yet devoid of life, frightened Matsumoto Rangiku far more than she ever thought possible.
She’d been frantic when they first led him into the room, shouting more orders than Unohana-taichou herself, pushing aside anyone who tried to ask her questions. Ichigo, Rukia, and Renji had had to explain the situation in her stead, interrupting each other in attempts to fill the gaps and just generally not making much sense. If she’d been less consumed with her captain, she might have realized she was doing more harm than good, but she already had two captains down for the count on her record. Like hell she was going to add a third.
Zaraki-taichou had hightailed it out of there the moment Hitsugaya hit the bed, but Kuchiki-taichou had stayed. Rangiku still wasn’t sure whether that made her feel better or just pissed her off even more. She’d watched from Hitsugaya’s bedside as he joined Unohana-taichou and the others near the doorway. For him to look at her Taichou with that never-changing condescending air, only to turn to Rukia and Renji, explain their status in as few words as possible, and wash his hands of the matter in such a superior way...
“He brought it upon himself.”
Kuchiki-taichou had taken the time to give them the information they needed, to give Hitsugaya some sort of well wishes when so few of the captains wanted to or were able. But she just couldn’t accept the way he brushed her Taichou aside, as if his compatriot meant nothing more to him than the subtext of his most recent orders. Only Kuchiki-taichou’s rank kept her from shouting a piece of her mind.
“Chill, Rangiku.”
Kurosaki seemed to have abandoned the effort of informing Unohana-taichou, stepping up beside the buxom blonde as Kuchiki-taichou left. He was slouching a little, his voice surprisingly quiet and level. And Rangiku was forced to realize that everyone else was as bothered about this as she was, whether she wanted to see it or not.
“He didn’t mean it like it sounded,” the teenager continued as he lifted a hand to scratch the back of his neck. “It’s just ... Toushirou would rather have it be his choice, right? Nobody else made him do it.”
“That’s not-”
“So all he has to do now is get himself out of it.”
Her overflowing adrenaline had already begun fading once Hitsugaya had been placed in that bed, and at those words it evaporated completely out of her reach. She slumped into the closest chair, ample assets pressing against the rise of the seat as her arms wrapped around the top.
“You guys are no fair. None of you. How do you always get away with this crap?”
The sheepish grin Ichigo offered her only seemed to put her less at ease. “Tell you what, next time you two can trade places.” Idiot. He was trying way too hard.
She waved her hand in his direction before dropping it back onto the chair, and when she spoke next her tone was nonchalant and uninterested. She could do this, and she didn’t need a kid babysitting her while she did. “I’d have to be dead drunk before I could suffer the paperwork hell I’d get for that. I’ll be fine. Go on back to your comedy duo. They’ll need someone to remind them to stop finishing each other’s sentences before Unohana-taichou tells them herself.”
“Actually, you’re the only one she still wants to talk to, Rangiku-chan.”
Ichigo and Rangiku both jumped at the unexpected voice, but before Rangiku could turn to meet it, two firm hands planted themselves atop her shoulders. Ukitake Jyuushirou smiled warmly down at her as she leaned her head back to see him. It wasn’t a big smile, but it wasn’t any less compassionate for it.
“It’s been a long time.”
Rangiku nodded, tried to return the smile. It didn’t work out very well.
“Go on,” Ukitake encouraged, pulling lightly at her shoulders until she was standing again. “I’ll watch over him for a bit. I’d like to speak privately to him anyway.”
She could only sigh, energy depleted as she looked to the make-shift paper divider blocking her vision of the corner of the room that Unohana-taichou had claimed as her own.
Captains and lieutenants were almost always treated to larger suits in the Fourth Division, not only because of their rank but because it made them less likely to walk out the door and leave right away. Not that Hitsugaya Toushirou could do anything of the sort as he was now, let alone appreciate the expanse of space.
Rangiku was quick to pass through the thin material separating the room into two sections, not bothering to close it behind her, and plopped down into a seat once more. Ichigo leaned against the back of the chair, only half paying attention, constantly letting his gaze wander back to Ukitake-taichou and Hitsugaya. Contrary to how she’d described them earlier, however, Rukia and Renji were the epitome of focus. Renji was to her left and Rukia to her right, both waiting for her to fill the gaps in their story with even more eagerness than Unohana-taichou.
“Matsumoto-fukutaichou,” the captain of the healing division began, but Rangiku interrupted before she could say another word.
“I know what you want to ask. Taichou told me just today. During the fight with the Raptores, he condensed his reiatsu into two parts. He released one on the Raptor, and kept the other condensed within his body to ward off the end-stage symptoms as long as possible. When he expanded his reiatsu, the symptoms hit him all at once.”
Rangiku’s straight-forward report brought a small smile to Unohana’s lips, in great contrast to the room’s other occupants. “Matsumoto-fukutaichou, I knew that much. What I wanted to ask you was whether he told you of Ichimaru’s intentions.”
The Tenth Division fukutaichou was stumped for all of thirty seconds before that small smile grew a notch and she realized she had better get moving or else. “He didn’t know what Ichimaru wanted out of it. Just that ... Ichimaru said they wouldn’t face off until the end,” she relayed, anxiety apparent. “Apparently, Ichimaru’s already lied to him about it though.”
Unohana Retsu nodded knowingly. “I’m afraid there is not a great deal I can do for him. I don’t believe Ichimaru was lying about the way he intends to end it however. Wherever Hitsugaya-taichou’s mind is, it is not in his head.” At the horrified look on Rangiku’s face, the healer raised a hand and clarified. “He’s not completely gone. I only mean that he’s not sleeping, but he’s not in Hyourinmaru’s inner world either. Rather, I’m worried he may not be able to reach Hyourinmaru’s inner world. I cannot feel that connection between them; I haven’t been able to since he was brought in.”
That did not sound good at all. But when Matsumoto thought back on it, it made disturbing sense. Renji, however, and not Rangiku was the first one to voice those sentiments out loud. “Come to think of it, I never saw him talk to Hyourinmaru while he was there.”
“Not even when he was helping me with Haineko,” Rangiku confirmed, biting her lip. She shifted in her seat. Hitsugaya probably hadn’t been trying to hide it, or he would have done a better job. He may not have even tried to enter his inner world if he thought Hyourinmaru was the one who didn’t want to communicate. “But what does that have to do with what’s happening now?”
“If only Hitsugaya-taichou himself was not able to control his reiatsu, Hyourinmaru might have been able to help. Ichimaru Gin must have been covering his tracks. Severing that link left Hitsugaya-taichou still able to use his reiatsu and to feel Hyourinmaru’s presence but cut off the connection between the two elements,” Unohana Retsu clarified, a thin frown growing across her face. “But from what I’ve heard, it sounds as if Hitsugaya-taichou should have lost his ability to perform either feet by now.”
Rangiku nodded. “Taichou said that any reiatsu made the symptoms worse, and he had almost no control over his own. That was why Kisuke-jii gave him the collar.”
“That makes no sense! He had to have had perfect control over his reiatsu in order to win that battle against the Raptor!” Rukia hastily interrupted. “Let alone to reign his reiatsu in after the fight.”
Ichigo was grinning. “So he beat the system. He’s a tough kid.”
“Ichigo! You don’t understand!” By this point, the petite shinigami was on her feet, nearly ready to throttle the teenager, and he was fully prepared to counter her.
“Hitsugaya-taichou had no control over his reiatsu until that battle. In other words, he found a way to regain a sense of which he had lost control,” Unohana spoke up then. Her frigid smile had both Rukia and Ichigo behaving again in seconds. It also had everyone taking a moment to truly digest those words.
“What’re you trying to say?” Renji yet again broke the silence.
“She’s saying Hitsugaya-taichou may have found a way around Aizen’s hypnosis.”
Rukia’s answer had even Ichigo surprised, but Matsumoto Rangiku was not impressed. How had the topic changed so quickly? How had the focus been so abruptly sidetracked? “That won’t do us any good if he dies before Aizen’s next strike,” the woman hissed, glaring at the others as if her friends had suddenly become the monsters they all strove to fight together.
The guilty, uncomfortable looks on their faces did nothing to sway her. This was her Taichou. Aizen could wait. Ichimaru could wait. Everyone else in all the worlds could wait. Her Taichou was in trouble. She didn’t even know if he’d wake up. She may never hear that frustrated scolding again, or those few and far between compliments when she exceeded expectations, or even those all-purpose grunts and groans that he saved just for her. She may never see that expectant glare or that haughty blush.
“Before we can ask anything of Taichou, we have to help him.”
From there the conversation grew much more subdued. Ichigo drifted away from it gradually, while Ukitake-taichou had left Hitsugaya’s side and joined in for a short while. Like Kuchiki-taichou though, he had to leave. Kyouraku-taichou had taken over his duties temporarily, which meant he had to return to them before Nanao worked herself to death.
There would be a captain’s meeting in a few hours.
Just the thought caused goosebumps to ride their way up Rangiku’s arms.
In the end, they got nowhere. Unohana-taichou nor anyone in her division could perform a healing. None of them could know what Hitsugaya-taichou might need without asking him. Unohana-taichou could only guess where Hitsugaya’s mind was and seemed to be of the opinion that he was simply in limbo, nowhere at all. They could only rehash the same facts and figures and try to connect them in a way that made some semblance of sense.
Once she hit that roadblock, Unohana-taichou had promptly told her to just stop thinking.
It was then, when Rangiku was at her lowest point - hoping less for a good outcome and more for something that was just different, anything different - that Ichigo’s voice penetrated the melancholy with a booming exclamation.
“Oi, Toushirou! Great! I thought you might’ve died!”
“It’s Hitsugaya-taichou!”
The moment she heard that tired correction - just as loud and twice as demanding as Ichigo - Rangiku leaped to her feet, following him to the boy captain’s bedside.
And there she stopped dead.
Hitsugaya was already hauling himself out of the bed, and the moment he stood up, all of Rangiku’s hopes were instantly dashed. When just a second ago, he’d seemed back to his old self, now he was clutching his head, mouth open in a silent scream of pain. He should have known better! She should have known better!
“What is he doing on his feet? He could kill himself!”
Unohana-taichou was rushing forward now, followed by the other occupants of the room, even two attendants who’d been passing by. Rangiku and Ichigo were the closest by far, and without even a thought, they each grabbed one arm.
Skin grasped skin, and that silent scream became a very, very loud one.
They wrestled him back into the bed as he kicked and hollered, and she swore she was going to cry because he looked like he was in so much pain, and then Unohana was in between them, and Ichigo was pulling her away, and her Taichou kept screaming and screaming and screaming, until he just stopped, and she didn’t even realize she had vomit on her shihakushou until Rukia tried to clean it off.
Hahah.
Wasn’t that how this whole thing had started?
Vomit on her shihakushou.
“Matsumoto-fukutaichou!”
“Oi, Rangiku!”
And after he puked all over her, he’d go talk to Ichimaru.
“C’mon! We can’t have you zoning out on us too!”
“Wherever Hitsugaya-taichou’s mind is, it is not in his head.”
“Rangi-!”
She grabbed Renji’s shoulders, eyes wide in realization as she met the redhead’s surprised stare.
“Ichimaru’s inner world! That’s how Ichimaru talks to him, how he keeps him out of Hyourinmaru’s dimension! He’s in Ichimaru’s inner world!”
“Then what the hell are we supposed to do about it?”
“Move.”
Rangiku and Renji instantly did as instructed, and Unohana Retsu pushed her way past them with a tub of water. The sight was unexpected. Unohana-taichou didn’t do that sort of thing; that was a task for shinigami of much lower rank. Apparently, at some point while she’d been zoning out the other Fourth Division shinigami had been ushered out of the room (because they couldn’t hide their reiatsu like captains could?). The woman healer set the tub down on the ground, pulled a cloth out of it, wrung it, set it on his forehead, and proceeded to release her reiatsu into his body.
The entire room went deathly quiet for all of a second. Then all hell broke loose.
“What the hell are you-?”
“Are you trying to kill him?!”
“Unohana-tai-!”
“Be quiet.”
She was obeyed.
Her hands moved with expert ease over the boy captain’s still frame even as she spoke. “What did Ichimaru Gin say about how this would end?”
Rangiku gulped. “A fight. He said they wouldn’t fight until the end.”
“If Hitsugaya-taichou has already been taken to Ichimaru’s inner world, we must sever the connection between his mind and his body as quickly as possible. That is probably what Hyourinmaru has been trying to do all along. The fastest way to do that is to put the body in a different state than the mind.”
“Why?” Ichigo demanded as he took a defiant step forward, not quite as thoroughly trained as everyone else in the room to hang off of Unohana Retsu’s every word as if it were the sole truth of the universe.
“Kurosaki,” she said sweetly, “if Hitsugaya-taichou is injured within his mind, what do you think will happen to his body?”
“You’re ... going to kill him in order to keep him alive?”
“Yes, I am.”
Silence.
Then: “I’ll replace the cold water.”
~*~
It was hard to breathe. It was hard to do much of anything. He wasn’t even sure he was standing. His legs felt like just holding up the weight of his body was turning them numb with exertion.
It was too abrupt a change, to switch from that excruciating pain to this overwhelming numbness.
He didn’t even notice Ichimaru Gin’s approach, too absorbed in making sure he kept breathing, kept standing, kept calm. Oh please, please, stay calm. He couldn’t afford to panic. Not when he could barely feel his legs.
“Miss me?”
Finally, he focused his vision, slowly letting his line of vision move upward. He met Ichimaru’s gaze head on, those slitted neon orbs dripping with anticipation. He didn’t answer. Instead, he narrowed his own eyes, grinding his teeth in frustration. Stay calm, stay calm. So long as he didn’t move too much, he could keep his balance. So long as he didn’t look away from that piercing stare, he would know exactly where Ichimaru was.
“Ya never do. Ya know, little taichou, that’s always been a problem fer ya.” The sinister smirk opened wider. “Ya always had a way with makin’ people feel unwanted.”
He took another step closer; Hitsugaya didn’t move. He waited for an answer; Hitsugaya refused to give him the satisfaction. He drew Shinsou from his waste; Hitsugaya had nothing with which to counter him.
“Now this is just bad form. Not even one lil’ insult?”
“You said you wouldn’t touch her,” rumbled the low, coarse reply. His voice wasn’t much louder than a whisper, but in the echoing nothingness it traveled well.
“I didn’ lay a finger on her. Why touch her when Shinsou has a longer reach?” Ichimau countered easily, taking another step forward over the nonexistent floor.
Hitsugaya Toushirou, former captain of the Tenth Division, slowly raised his arms, stretching them out in front of himself and creating a diamond shape with his thumbs an pointer fingers. Ichimaru’s chest was in the very center of the diamond, though he didn’t seem to care. At this point, Hitsugaya didn’t care about what Ichimaru cared about.
This was the end, wasn’t it? He didn’t know what Ichimau planned to gain, what he wanted to do, why he wanted to do any of it. He didn’t know, and he didn’t care. In this situation, there was only one thing he had to do.
Survive.
That was all that mattered.
“I won’t touch you either,” Hitsugaya asserted through a pained grimace. “Hadou #33: Soukatsui!”
When nothing happened, Ichimaru laughed.
Then, he moved.