Bleach Fan Fiction ❯ Utter Chaos ❯ Or the Present? ( Chapter 8 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

“What happened?” Matsumoto-fukutaichou’s voice croaked. Her whole body ached, every muscle clenching with simple flexing and unflexing. Her throat was dry, contributing to the extreme scratchiness of her words. Her memory also seemed a bit fuzzy around the edges as she realized she was laying in a white bed somewhere in the fourth division.

Unohana was sitting in a chair directly next to the bed, looking both weary and at her wits’ end. “Matsumoto-fukutaichou. You’re awake.” She automatically stood, leaning over the blonde vice-captain and stretching her hands to perform a kidou examination.

“Unohana-Taichou?” She looked seriously at the healer for a moment. “I don’t think I succeeded.” She frowned.

Unohana nodded. She had expected that. “Yes, I myself was unable to break through to Hitsugaya-Taichou. But still, tell me what you saw.” Apparently satisfied with the examination, she sat down once more and gave Matsumoto her full attention.

Matsumoto’s frown intensified as she struggled to remember precisely how it had felt, reliving the experience as closely as possible. The incantation, the spell, the kidou and then….

It was as if her mind had wrenched itself forward. Positioned like a spear, it dove towards Hitsugaya-Taichou’s own mind before shattering against a wall. She felt out of her own soul. She saw glimpses of things, fragments of memories or images she didn’t know how to interpret.

A young Taichou, shivering in the dark and bleeding…

A Hitsugaya wearing human’s clothes, standing in an empty kitchen. Everything was desperately clean and perfectly immaculate, but the look of terror in his eyes…

Flashes of Hinamori-fukutaichou were everywhere and of every age. She smiled, she cried, she laughed, she bled…

Hinamori dead on the ground and Aizen’s mocking face…

But more than anything else, a physical pain that had fused into an emotional anguish to form an impenetrable wall of suffering. And then everything had gone cold and black as that pain attacked, latching on to her own body…

“It was all incoherent flashes… I saw what seemed to be memories and what couldn’t be memories. And there was so much pain, it was hard to remember anything at all…”

She trailed off and Unohana was silent as she contemplated this.

“Well, it seems as if you did manage to progress further than I did. Thank you, Matsumoto-fukutaichou.”

“Tell me, will it help him? What I saw, can it help save him?”

“If I can, I want to try one more thing. Then, then we will see.”

****************************************************** **************************

Ukitake would have been lying if he said he wasn’t surprised upon stepping into Hinamori Momo’s room.

Before her unofficial incarceration into the room, it had been large enough to hold eight patients and had been fully equipped with beds for each, dressers and scattered chairs for comfort.

Now it was empty. There was no furniture, no paintings on the walls, nothing but the Fifth Division’s fukutaichou, huddling in a corner and dressed all in black.

She looked up immediately when Ukitake entered, muttering to herself and eyes a bit wild.

“All white, all white. Black in a world of white…” A hysterical bubble of laughter escaped her lips as Ukitake carefully closed the door behind him.

“Hinamori-fukutaichou?”

“Ukitake-T aichou.” For a moment, the sanity seemed to return as she recognized a fellow soul reaper. Then they glazed back over, slipping away. “Ukitake-Taichou dressed in white. Nothing but a stain…” She looked down at her own clothes and that same, pathetic laugh emerged.

“How long have you been in here alone?” he asked, shocked and more than a bit worried.

“Alone…” she whispered. “What is time? What is energy? What is alone? Nothing but perfect white means nothing but darkness.” Her voice was a hiss by the end.

With every word she uttered, Ukitake was growing more and more concerned. Unohana wanted to count on her to penetrate Hitsugaya’s mind? It seemed as if her time here had only served to unhinge her more, rather than prepare her for a return to the ranks of the Gotei 13.

“Where is Toushirou-kun?” she suddenly barked at him. “What have you done with him?! I know he wouldn’t leave me be this long, especially when I needed him! Have you murdered him the same way you murdered Aizen-Taichou?!” Her eyes were flashing and her voice rose with every precarious word.

Ukitake resisted the urge to sigh. They really had made a mistake by not caring for her immediately.

“Actually, that’s why I’m here Hinamori-fukutaichou. Toushirou-kun needs your help.”

“What? Toushirou needs my help?” The mists were clearing from her eyes and she gripped Ukitake’s wrists, moving closer. “What happened? Where is he?”

“He was injured–” Ukitake wisely refrained from mentioning by whom “–and hasn’t regained consciousness yet.”

“Why not? Tell me!”

Ukitake could tell that, for some reason, the worry for her best friend was slowly returning her mind. Though it might be that contact with another konpaku helped also.

“We don’t know. But while he’s unconscious, he has these… fits that prevent him from healing properly. He starts screaming, and shaking, as if he’s having a seizure, and his wounds reopen.”

She stared at him. “Shiro-chan…” she murmured. “But how can I help?” Her eyes flashed again. “And why should I? What if he’s one of the ones who took Aizen-Taichou from me? Like you! How do I know you’re not lying?!”

“How can you know without asking him, Hinamori-fukutaichou?” The expression on his face was carefully masked to appear indifferent. He knew she must be handled carefully if he was to get her to agree.

“And how can I trust you?” She crossed her arms, leaning back against the wall.

He smiled at her gently–a very Ukitake-like smile in its friendliness–before answering. “What exactly do you have to lose?”

Hinamori had to stop to consider that.

“All right. We’ll see how it goes, then. Take me to him.”

Nodding, Ukitake stood and strode to the door.

************************************************************ ********************

Unohana was already there and waiting for Ukitake’s and Hinamori’s approach. Ukitake had sent her a butterfly as they left so that she’d know to prepare both Hitsugaya and the room for the unstable fukutaichou.

She had cleared out all of the other division members from his room, instructing them to stay close, just in case an emergency did arise. She had striven to clean the room to some degree, but knew it was mostly useless and that the blood would only accumulate again during the next fit. She had to admit to being a bit worried about how Hinamori would react. Would she even be able to help?

Steps clipped and echoed down the hallway. Hinamori and Ukitake entered the room together, sliding the fusuma shut behind them.

“Toushirou!” Hinamori exclaimed, rushing immediately to his side.

Unohana had to admit to herself that he didn’t look that good lying there. He had grown much thinner in the weeks that had passed and he was covered in bandages and dried blood.

After slipping a hand in Hitsugaya’s, Hinamori turned back to Unohana. “What happened to him? What happened to my Shiro-chan?”

Unohana sat down opposite the girl who seemed both fierce and on the verge of tears simultaneously. “He was stabbed.” She didn’t bother mentioning by whom. She didn’t think she had the time for that sort of argument. “I don’t know why he’s not waking up or why these fits are happening. Actually, Hinamori-fukutaichou, that’s why we need you.”

Hinamori sat up a bit straighter in response, listening carefully.

“We need you to perform a new, highly experimental diagnosis kidou to try and determine what’s wrong with Hitsugaya-Taichou.”

She stood up abruptly, dropping the younger captain’s hand. “And why should I help you? Why should I help him? You’re all just keeping Aizen-Taichou from me! He wouldn’t leave me this way, you did something! How do I know he’s not in it with you?!”

Unohana leaned forward, almost hating herself for what she knew she had to do. “Don’t you think Hitsugaya-Taichou would be the one with those answers? How would you ever know unless he was awake to answer your questions?”

“I want Aizen-Taichou first. Let me see him and I’ll help you.”

“But what about Toushirou?” Unohana purposefully looked back at the body breathing raggedly on the bed as she spoke, drawing Hinamori’s attention to him. “He needs help as soon as possible. Isn’t he Shiro-chan, your best friend?”

“I would do anything for him,” she whispered, eyes watering. “I’ve already wronged him so much.”

“Then what we do is very simple. I will teach you this kidou and you must use it and then tell me what you see.”

“And it will help him?”

“Yes.”

Hinamori chewed on her bottom lip, clearly struggling with the decision. Her mind was constantly vacillating, ever changing between betrayal and truth and uncertain as to which reality was real.

Unohana supposed it was only fortunate that both choices favored saving Hitsugaya.

“I’ll do it.” She whirled around to face Unohana once more. “But then you’ll give me my answers and Aizen-Taichou, understand?”

Unohana resisted the urge to roll her eyes, but only just. After all, this was important. “Very well, Hinamori-fukutaichou. Then allow me to teach you the kidou.”

**************************************************** ****************************

Hinamori stood calmly before Hitsugaya’s body. She wasn’t nervous. She was sweating, but from tension, not nerves. Hinamori Momo did not stress over performing kidou. It had always been her area of expertise and it was no different now. Rather, she worried for the outcome. Would she finally have her answers?

Who was right?

Could she even bear the truth if she did find out?

Not Aizen-Taichou, her anguished mind cried.

She stifled the train of thought quickly. She needed all her focus to perform the spell. She began the chant, lifting her hands and twisting her fingers gracefully in the proper motions. It was one of the most complex chants she’d ever learned, but her mouth followed the words impeccably. She felt the reiatsu rise and lift around her, flowing as it hadn’t been able to for days. She might have smiled if she hadn’t thought it would disrupt her concentration.

Time stretched on immeasurably, but she was used to that, endlessly repeating the necessary words and actions until she reached the final instruction. She shouted the last of it and literally felt the jolt as her mind suddenly thrust forward towards the prone captain.

Her spirit crashed against a blank wall, images flashing so quickly before her eyes she could barely distinguish one from another. Then the pain smashed into her, simultaneously amplifying and diminishing the scenes springing up around her.

Blood. Blood everywhere and all over his hands. A Toushirou younger than she’d ever seen with crimson up to his elbows and a lifeless neck in his firm grip…

Herself, slapping a shocked Toushirou, who collapsed…

Her and Toushirou as children…

A beautiful kitchen, a look of terror and red splattered all over it…

The pain shoved back at her, pushing and writhing. It swallowed, enveloping her whole and she was certain she screamed. Over and over as endless needles drove into her skin, pierced her flesh. Her heart broke and time stopped as only agony existed. It rose around her in a swelling crest as she squeezed her eyes tight against it, screaming and screaming.

Until suddenly, it was gone. No more flashes, no more pain.

Hinamori held perfectly still, afraid to move lest it assault her again. A light breeze ruffled her skin and she puzzled over where it had come from. She could have sworn that sunlight was shifting over her closed eyelids, despite her being indoors. Yet she refrained from movement, waiting for anything, keeping her eyes tightly closed.

Slowly, ever so slowly, she began opening one eye.

Nothing happened.

She opened both eyes.

And stared.

She had been here precious few times in her life as a konpaku. Actually, she could count the number on one hand. And she could have sworn that she had just been in one of the Fourth Division’s rooms. But there was no mistaking her surroundings.

She knew exactly where she was. The part that baffled her was how she had gotten there in the first place.

It was Karakura.