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Fanfiction || Treading Icy Waters 05
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.
~*~
“I show you doubt, to prove that faith exists.”
-Robert Browning
~*~
Chapter Five
Sugar Skull
~*~
Hitsugaya cautiously surveyed the area he had stepped into. He was currently on top of a fairly tall building, in no way a sky scraper but at least a few stories up. Probably a hospital if that giant billboard portraying a busty woman in a nurse’s dress to his right had any correlation. Well, a hospital or a cosplay club. Hitsugaya decided to go with hospital.
The boy released a heavy sigh before turning to face the little butterfly that had taken him here. It would not do to have contact with Soul Society; they would just be forced to drag him right back. Procedures were procedures, after all. And if that meant he’d die in a waiting room, then so be it.
Hence the fact that he had left.
He reached out his hand once more, allowing the ebony insect to land. He then proceeded to kill it. Static erupted in his ear like a radio transmission hitting interference. Then silence.
“Gomen,” he muttered softly as he set the remains down on the roof top.
Now that that was over, he had other business to attend to. The white crowned boy closed his eyes and scoured the city for reiatsu signatures. The strongest signature was being emitted a fair distance behind him. But there were a few other large clusters he took note of for future reference. One, he was fairly sure was Kurosaki’s house. The red head had mentioned that nearly his entire family was spiritually aware. But the other … he wasn’t so sure about. Perhaps he’d check it out later. For now though, he dove from the building rooftop to another and another, making quick time toward the greatest cluster.
Whatever difference Ichimaru had been referring to between Soul Society and the living world was, thankfully, beginning to take hold. He was surprised to feel his fever die down and his pounding headaches dull themselves into nonexistence. He was even able to control his reiatsu to an extent, holding in just enough so that he was once again comfortable.
Comfortable; the word struck Hitsugaya as an awkward description of his current state, seeing as nothing had really changed. He was still trapped within a life threatening game of wit and luck. Wit, he could handle. Unfortunately, luck had never been quite as abundant. This was best illustrated by the fact that he was dead.
Pushing aside the unwelcome sarcasm seeping into his thoughts, he could only hope that this person could really help him. Otherwise…
No, he told himself harshly. There was no otherwise.
The large amount of reiatsu had been a ways away, but Hitsugaya came upon it quickly enough. He could sense quite a gathering inside, but he had no room in his mind at the moment to wonder why that might be. Instead, he was focused on the building itself, staring disbelievingly from across the street.
The infamous founder of Seireitei’s Research and Development Department and former head of the Twelfth Division now ran a sweets shop.
Urahara Shoten.
Hitsugaya just about gave up all hope then and there.
He didn’t know what else he could do though, so he did what he was best at. He steeled his resolve and focused on the facts.
He had heard plenty of rumors about what the man had done while still a part of Soul Society as well as what he done to help the ryoka follow after Kuchiki Rukia, and he knew very well that if he could qualify for headship of the Gotei 13, Urahara Kisuke had to be talented in some aspect at least. What finally pulled him from his inertia were not the rumors however, but what he had seen for himself the very first time he had laid eyes on the ex-shinigami. That man had single-handedly taken on the Tenth Espada without a serious injury to his name. He spoke and acted, as far as Hitsugaya had seen, like an egotistical moron, but if he possessed the skills and abilities Hitsugaya was sure he did, than perhaps he was one of the few men who actually lived up to that ego. Either way, Urahara really was his last hope.
A prominent grimace embedded into his lips, he pushed open the door and walked inside. The first thing he noticed was the vast amount of teeth-rotting, eye-gouging sweets and candies surrounding the walls of the store in a disturbingly colorful symmetrical alignment. The second thing he noticed was the teenage girl behind the counter, who was now staring intently at him. Or maybe just at his hair and shihakushou. He could never really be sure.
“This place is closed right now,” she grumbled, clearly annoyed but with something or someone other than him.
He was sure he had seen the girl somewhere before, though it took him a moment to place her. Her dark, boyishly styled hair and brown eyes warranted no particular reaction, not here in Japan. What finally brought him to recognize her was the high school blazer she wore, the very same one he had worn during his last stay in the living world. She was one of Kurosaki’s classmates. Arisawa Tatsuki, one of Kurosaki’s closer friends and one of the few who hadn’t exhibited any large scale spiritual awareness due to exposure to the shinigami representative’s perpetually spilling reiatsu.
Seeing as she was looking directly at him however, that apparently was no longer the case.
He groaned. “Just great. Another one of Kurosaki’s mutants.”
This caught the girl’s attention as Hitsugaya swore he saw her literally flare. “Hey, you punk! Just what the hell is that supposed to mean?!”
“It doesn’t mean anything,” he grunted resignedly, lifting his hand to cradle his forehead. “Listen. I know Urahara is here, and he knows I’m here. Just tell him I need to speak to him.”
Arisawa stared skeptically at him a moment longer, most likely attempting to assess why a middle school kid would bleach his hair white, wear traditional clothing, and walk into a closed sweets shop in order to call her a mutant. He would never be sure exactly how far she got with that particular train of thought, but none-the-less he decided he must have said something right when she stepped into a back room.
Seconds later he heard a loud, crashing sound followed by Arisawa’s screaming vocals. “Oi! Urahara! Bakajii! There’s a little, white haired delinquent up here wearing the same clothes as Ichigo who says he wants to talk to you!”
Hitsugaya felt a vein in his forehead spasm painfully. Oh yeah. She was definitely one of Kurosaki’s.
~*~
Urahara had indeed sensed Hitsugaya’s reiatsu long before he had entered the shop. His reiatsu had felt a little strange, but it was undeniable who its owner was. The situation had intrigued him immensely, and so, naturally, he had run off to leave Tatsuki to deal with it all alone. All in all, he found the whole thing to be incredibly amusing.
But as the conversation wore on his interest began to grow slightly more serious, so when Tatsuki threw an unidentified, blunt object at his face before yelling angrily down at him, he figured it was time to make his appearance.
“Little delinquent, ne?” he grinned innocently, patting his hat as he sheepishly stepped out from his hiding place below and into the Rainbow Brite © shop to meet Hitsugaya’s glaring frown. “It fits.”
He could tell the Tenth Division head was trying very hard to keep calm. And he was doing fairly well, considering. “I need … your help,” he managed through clenched teeth, refusing to look Urahara in the eye.
“How adorable! Chibi tensai-taichou is back from Soul Society to visit me! I’ve heard so much about you!” he prolonged the charade. He knew from past experience that when you wanted to understand how serious a situation really was, then you should never take it seriously.
The white crowned boy shut his eyes tightly, biting his lip so hard that it actually began to bleed. “It’s not … taichou … anymore.”
Urahara felt his eyes widen considerably. Okay. So it was that serious. “Now, why would you say something like that?” he questioned, his tone no longer playful.
“I need your help,” Hitsugaya repeated, more forcefully this time.
“So I must first agree to help you, and then you’ll tell me what I’ve agreed to help you with? Sounds kinda backward, if you ask me.”
He received only a grimace as Hitsugaya’s weary eyes pointed purposefully toward a crack in the door behind them through which Tatsuki was listening to their every word. His mischievous grin returned. He already knew his answer; even he couldn’t ignore something this big. But he wasn’t about to simply agree to the boy’s terms without giving him a bit of grief first.
“Aw, you’re worried about her? But she’s harmless.”
“What is she doing here?”
“Hey, why should I answer your questions if you won’t answer mine?”
A single, white eyebrow quirked in its annoyance. “I guess I’ll just have to hunt down Kurotsuchi-taichou instead,” he replied flatly, turning to leave. But Urahara called his bluff and held out an arm to stop him.
“Now, now. We both know that if you could track him down, you never would have come here,” the man drawled playfully. “So here. Let’s strike a deal. I agree to help you to the best of my abilities, and in return you answer any questions I may ask you whether they seem relevant to your problem or not. How about it?”
Hitsugaya was silent for a long time. Urahara knew very well the boy had no choice but to accept, but he let him pretend to consider. Anyone from Seireitei who would actually place himself at his mercy deserved at least a little sympathy. Finally, he sighed his consent. “Very well. On one condition.”
“And what condition would that be?” Urahara asked in a nauseatingly sweet voice.
“Tell me what in the name of all that is sane, if there is still anything sane left in this world, she is doing here.”
Urahara looked blankly at his guest for a second before he laughed outright. “Alright, I accept your condition!” he grinned, suddenly yanking the door wide open with his cane and causing an indignant Arisawa Tatsuki to tumble to the ground between them. “Ichigo was being his usual stupid self and decided to forego all common sense and stealth in order to let his friends follow him here, even when he so obviously didn’t want them to get involved. So, naturally, I told them I’d explain everything after school let out today, but a certain someone got impatient and thought it would be a good idea to barge into my shop and declare it closed until I answered her questions. Isn’t that right, Tat-chan?”
“Don’t you dare call me that!” she thundered, somehow managing to sound threatening even from her spot on the floor. “You send Ichigo and Ishida and Sado off to who knows where, chatter on about how they’re just going to some alternate universe with a few shinigami to save Orihime, and then you shove us out the door and tell us to come back again tomorrow so you can catch up on your beauty sleep?! Is it really so wrong to want to know why all of my friends have suddenly run off to join some dimension-hopping cult of black-robed lunatics?! And what the hell difference does it make if you tell me now or later anyway?!”
“Well, to be honest, I was only messing with you before,” he replied without skipping a beat, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, “but now I’ve got a guest and you’ve got school. So bring along your two boyfriends later, and I’ll explain, ‘kay?”
The high school student offered Urahara’s new “guest” a glare that clearly said she blamed him for wasting precious interrogation time before turning back to the traditionally garbed blonde. “You had better,” she gritted through her teeth, her voice sounding for all the world like death itself.
The salesman was not to be swayed however, and so she marched angrily out of the shop, punching the door on her way. When Urahara turned to Hitsugaya once again, he found the white haired shinigami staring at him critically, a single brow raised in ironic amusement. “Kurosaki doesn’t want them involved, and so, without a second thought, you immediately get them involved,” he mused dryly, an accusing edge in the background of his tone.
“Just doing my part,” he replied innocently. “Besides, they’ve been involved from the very beginning, whether Ichigo admits it or not.”
Hitsugaya only snorted.
“So, a drink then?” Urahara grinned as he went into the back of the store once again, happily beckoning the boy to follow.
“You’re not going to make this easy, are you?”
The tone with which the ex-shinigami replied was a far cry from the innocent smile playing wickedly across his lips.
“I never do.”
~*~
Four glasses of cola later (the boy seemed to have taken a liking to the stuff), Hitsugaya had finally finished the much needed explanation. He had consistently tried to shrink the tale to a more manageable size, but Urahara was determined to hear every single minute detail. He had even gone so far as to inquire about the relationships Hitsugaya had had with each of the three defectors before they, well … defected.
“So,” Urahara concluded with an air of finality, “you screwed up, and now you want me to fix everything for you.”
Hitsugaya in turn offered him one of his trademark glares. He had been doing that quite a lot since he had arrived here. Finally, he haltingly clarified, “Yes. I ‘screwed up’. But I have no intentions of leaving the clean up to you; I merely need help while I do so myself. I am not so pathetic that I would dump my own problems on another.” His words were mechanical but firm and sharp. His tone lightened to biting sarcasm, however, when he added under his breath, “Nor would I manipulate others into choosing to take them on of their own wills, unlike a certain person I know.”
“That hurts,” the salesman mocked, lifting a hand to his chest to emphasize his abundant sarcasm. That was perhaps the one thing the two had in common.
Hitsugaya promptly “Tch!”ed and stood up, grasping his empty glass tightly. “I’m getting another,” he grumbled before disappearing from the room.
Urahara had to admit he was enjoying this much more than he should have been. A poison, distributed through the Arrancar, which was both untraceable and fueled by its host’s reiatsu. It was more like a parasite than a poison, when he thought about it. But that wasn’t all that thrilled him. Perhaps, he could use his short companion’s problems to his advantage…
The thought made him laugh gleefully as he realized he was doing exactly what Hitsugaya had accused him of moments before.
Vaguely he wondered whether he should alert Yoruichi to the young taichou’s situation but decided against it. He’d wait for something really big to contact her. Like when Ichigo and his little fan club returned from Hueco Mundo. She’d enjoy that, he grinned slyly. And if he just happened to get a snap shot of her face as the little guy suddenly walked in on her, it would simply be a bonus.
Well, he reasoned, Hitsugaya had done his part for the moment, though Urahara was in no way finished with his questions. Now it was his turn to fulfill his own end of the deal. As soon as the white crowned boy returned, he grabbed him by the wrist and bodily dragged him (very nearly kicking and screaming) down a hall and into another room, where a muscular man wearing an apron was currently sorting through a large closet.
~*~
For the second time in so many hours, Hitsugaya was ready to bolt.
“Well? Tessai?” Urahara asked simply, and the man called Tessai bowed and pointed toward a gigai propped up in the corner of the room.
As soon as Hitsugaya was settled comfortably in the gigai which Urahara had promised was nothing like the insane contraption he had stuck Kuchiki with (not that Hitsugaya had been given any reason to trust said promise), the exuberant salesman pushed the half-naked boy toward the man in the apron. He then proceeded to search through a large pile of clothing Tessai had chosen from the wardrobe. Hitsugaya’s uneasiness only continued to increase as Urahara chose varying pieces of clothing including an assortment of fishnet, belts, and ripped fabrics from the pile. He could feel his jaw tense whenever the man’s hand wandered over a dress or any of the many disturbing pieces lined with lace, but luckily, Urahara seemed well aware of his gender for the moment. He was unsure of whether that could change or not with the man’s moods.
Finally Urahara presented him with an ensemble consisting of a skin tight shirt ripped at the elbows, pants laced with zippers, tags, and various other intricacies Hitsugaya could not fathom, a slightly lopsided hat, lace-up combat boots, and so many useless belts, knobs, and chains that the white crowned boy could only stare in disbelief. “What the hell is that?”
“Unless you want to walk around like that,” the man replied with a wicked grin, looking pointedly at the boxers Hitsugaya was currently wearing, “then I suggest you get used to it. After all, it’s not as if you can really be picky in this situation, ne?”
Grudgingly, he accepted the preposterous outfit, mostly because he didn’t want to know what else the man might come up with if he refused, and donned it as dignified as anyone in his position could. “I feel like a clown,” he grunted as he grimaced at his reflection. Then, as an afterthought, he added, “Or Abarai…”
“Good!” Urahara nodded teasingly, patting him on the head with a rolled-up magazine before handing it to him. “Now you match your hairstyle.” The boy looked at Urahara quizzically before he began rifling through the magazine’s contents. It depicted many young men and women doing disturbing things to each other in outlandish outfits much like his but showing much more skin and in all the wrong places. Hitsugaya immediately dropped it, a scarlet blush engrossing his cheeks. Urahara’s mischievous grin was wider than ever as he seemed to materialize a paper fan out of nowhere and set it gleefully against his chin. “Don’t drop it like that. I paid lots of money for it.”
“W-Why would you pay money for s-something like that?!”
“You need something to read while minding the shop, don’t you? I may have agreed to help you out, but if you’re going to stick around here you’re going to need to pull your own weight.”
It was official. Hitsugaya should have just stayed in Soul Society, plopped down on the ground, and shouted, “Take me already!” It would have been less futile than this.
~*~
Arisawa Tatsuki, Asano Keigo, and Kojima Mizuiro barged in several hours later, the latter two looking rather out of breath while Arisawa looked ready to kill. The sign outside the shop still stated that it was closed, but it was obvious they were not about to succumb to civilities at the moment. When they saw who was behind the counter, however, Arisawa paused. The other two took advantage of this to catch their breath.
“You again?” she asked, expression skewed as she looked up and down Hitsugaya’s new outfit. He had managed to tear off a few belts and had removed the excessive footwear, but Urahara had insisted he keep the hat, if only to hide his outlandish hairstyle just the slightest bit. He had suggested dying the boy’s hair but had quickly found himself dodging a well-aimed kick to his groin. Urahara had not brought up the subject since. Hitsugaya had survived in the living world once with his unique hairstyle, and he could certainly do it again, thank you very much.
He did his best to ignore her as he grumbled his reply. “The idiot ran away as soon as he felt your reiatsu. He’s hiding behind the giant stuffed duck in the back room.”
“There’s a giant stuffed duck in the back room?” she guffawed, seeming to forget all about Hitsugaya’s attire.
“Don’t ask.”
“HEY!”
Hitsugaya had to wince from the sheer volume before he turned to see one the boys, Asano, pointing at him and gaping. He could place this one much quicker than Tatsuki because he was the one Madarame and Ayasegawa had pointed out as their host. He knew some sort of blackmail had been involved, but neither of the Eleventh Division shinigami had gone into detail.
“You’re that shorty that Ikkaku was talking about! The kid who always hung out with Matsumoto-san up on the roof!” Hitsugaya glowered at him. Not only did this person remember that the shinigami had gone to Karakura High, but he had used two forbidden words in a single breath. Madarame had better hope he did not come back from this alive. “I tried to convince myself it had all been a bad dream! Just one, big nightmare! You guys just disappeared! I thought I was home free! Does that mean those two lunatics are here too?! Oh, why?! Why must the world be so cruel?!”
A white brow twitched irritably as Asano broke down into over-dramatic sobs. The other two high school students, in contrast, seemed completely unaffected. Apparently, it was a fairly usual occurrence.
“Oi,” the girl’s voice spoke up, volume controlled so that it was masked by Asano’s whining, and Hitsugaya returned his gaze to her once more. Her annoyed expression had now been worn into something more haggard. It was painfully familiar. “You’re … a shinigami, right? Those clothes and that weapon you had on your back earlier…”
Hitsugaya was fairly surprised that she recognized the term “shinigami.” So she had managed to yank at least some information from Urahara that morning. It was more than he had succeeded in doing. He nodded, knowing the information would come out eventually anyway if they were going to be interacting with the insane salesman.
“Then, Ichigo…” she practically whispered, her pace quickening with every word. “If you were here, you know what he’s been doing. You know what happened to Orihime. You disappeared right before he ran off. You knew this was going to happen. Tell me. Please. What is going on? Where the hell is Orihime?”
The white crowned shinigami could only stare blankly into those dark and desperate eyes. He wished he could come up with an apathetic or dismissing reply that would once again set her into angered hysterics or even goad her into following after Urahara, anything to get that expression out of his line of vision. But his voice was being thoroughly uncooperative. He was not used to this sort of thing happening, being utterly speechless. He always had some sort of retort. But not now. Not with those deep brown eyes staring expectantly into his own. He couldn't do a thing.
It was that expression.
That damned expression. It was too damned familiar. It was too damned much. Dammit.
“Hey now, Tat-chan! Don’t take your frustrations out on little Hitsugaya-kun, ne? I’m the one who promised you an explanation, right? I even went to all the trouble to hide so that you could come find me.” Hitsugaya was literally blown from his thoughts when Urahara suddenly appeared behind Arisawa, tapping her head with his fan.
Asano had stopped crying by now and was standing by Kojima, watching Urahara grin as Arisawa seethed. “I told you not to call me that!”
“Nonsense, Tat-chan! You only say that because you think I’m annoying. Anyway, I suggest we settle down and get a few drinks ready. This is going to take a very, very long time to explain. Ne, Hitsugaya-kun? Would you mind getting some more drinks?”
Arisawa was already readying herself to punch the man square in the nose before he had even finished. Kojima held her back as she continued to fume, seeing as Urahara was no longer even looking in her direction. Hitsugaya did his best to hold in his temper, but his voice still sounded more like a growl than anything else. “Not. A. Chance.”
“Honestly. You’re no fun at all.” And he was out the door, the three high school students in tow, leaving Hitsugaya alone in the shop once more.
Absently, a hand reached out to grab a bag from one of the racks, and he began popping the artificial flavors into his mouth, chewing furiously.
Urahara had indeed proven to be the skilled man Hitsugaya had tried to convince himself the man was earlier. He had read Hitsugaya like a book as the boy had been telling his story; he could tell by the way the man’s brow would quirk just the slightest bit or how he’d try to hide a smile behind his glass of iced tea. Even just then. The timing with which the be-hatted man had interrupted was far too convenient. Oh yes, he was skilled alright. Hitsugaya just wished the man didn’t have to be so erratic about it all.
Pausing in his frustrated chewing, he allowed himself a glance out the window and into the afternoon sky. He swallowed, sinking deeper into the counter top.
That damned expression.
Dammit.
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.
“I show you doubt, to prove that faith exists.”
-Robert Browning
~*~
Chapter Five
Sugar Skull
~*~
Hitsugaya cautiously surveyed the area he had stepped into. He was currently on top of a fairly tall building, in no way a sky scraper but at least a few stories up. Probably a hospital if that giant billboard portraying a busty woman in a nurse’s dress to his right had any correlation. Well, a hospital or a cosplay club. Hitsugaya decided to go with hospital.
The boy released a heavy sigh before turning to face the little butterfly that had taken him here. It would not do to have contact with Soul Society; they would just be forced to drag him right back. Procedures were procedures, after all. And if that meant he’d die in a waiting room, then so be it.
Hence the fact that he had left.
He reached out his hand once more, allowing the ebony insect to land. He then proceeded to kill it. Static erupted in his ear like a radio transmission hitting interference. Then silence.
“Gomen,” he muttered softly as he set the remains down on the roof top.
Now that that was over, he had other business to attend to. The white crowned boy closed his eyes and scoured the city for reiatsu signatures. The strongest signature was being emitted a fair distance behind him. But there were a few other large clusters he took note of for future reference. One, he was fairly sure was Kurosaki’s house. The red head had mentioned that nearly his entire family was spiritually aware. But the other … he wasn’t so sure about. Perhaps he’d check it out later. For now though, he dove from the building rooftop to another and another, making quick time toward the greatest cluster.
Whatever difference Ichimaru had been referring to between Soul Society and the living world was, thankfully, beginning to take hold. He was surprised to feel his fever die down and his pounding headaches dull themselves into nonexistence. He was even able to control his reiatsu to an extent, holding in just enough so that he was once again comfortable.
Comfortable; the word struck Hitsugaya as an awkward description of his current state, seeing as nothing had really changed. He was still trapped within a life threatening game of wit and luck. Wit, he could handle. Unfortunately, luck had never been quite as abundant. This was best illustrated by the fact that he was dead.
Pushing aside the unwelcome sarcasm seeping into his thoughts, he could only hope that this person could really help him. Otherwise…
No, he told himself harshly. There was no otherwise.
The large amount of reiatsu had been a ways away, but Hitsugaya came upon it quickly enough. He could sense quite a gathering inside, but he had no room in his mind at the moment to wonder why that might be. Instead, he was focused on the building itself, staring disbelievingly from across the street.
The infamous founder of Seireitei’s Research and Development Department and former head of the Twelfth Division now ran a sweets shop.
Urahara Shoten.
Hitsugaya just about gave up all hope then and there.
He didn’t know what else he could do though, so he did what he was best at. He steeled his resolve and focused on the facts.
He had heard plenty of rumors about what the man had done while still a part of Soul Society as well as what he done to help the ryoka follow after Kuchiki Rukia, and he knew very well that if he could qualify for headship of the Gotei 13, Urahara Kisuke had to be talented in some aspect at least. What finally pulled him from his inertia were not the rumors however, but what he had seen for himself the very first time he had laid eyes on the ex-shinigami. That man had single-handedly taken on the Tenth Espada without a serious injury to his name. He spoke and acted, as far as Hitsugaya had seen, like an egotistical moron, but if he possessed the skills and abilities Hitsugaya was sure he did, than perhaps he was one of the few men who actually lived up to that ego. Either way, Urahara really was his last hope.
A prominent grimace embedded into his lips, he pushed open the door and walked inside. The first thing he noticed was the vast amount of teeth-rotting, eye-gouging sweets and candies surrounding the walls of the store in a disturbingly colorful symmetrical alignment. The second thing he noticed was the teenage girl behind the counter, who was now staring intently at him. Or maybe just at his hair and shihakushou. He could never really be sure.
“This place is closed right now,” she grumbled, clearly annoyed but with something or someone other than him.
He was sure he had seen the girl somewhere before, though it took him a moment to place her. Her dark, boyishly styled hair and brown eyes warranted no particular reaction, not here in Japan. What finally brought him to recognize her was the high school blazer she wore, the very same one he had worn during his last stay in the living world. She was one of Kurosaki’s classmates. Arisawa Tatsuki, one of Kurosaki’s closer friends and one of the few who hadn’t exhibited any large scale spiritual awareness due to exposure to the shinigami representative’s perpetually spilling reiatsu.
Seeing as she was looking directly at him however, that apparently was no longer the case.
He groaned. “Just great. Another one of Kurosaki’s mutants.”
This caught the girl’s attention as Hitsugaya swore he saw her literally flare. “Hey, you punk! Just what the hell is that supposed to mean?!”
“It doesn’t mean anything,” he grunted resignedly, lifting his hand to cradle his forehead. “Listen. I know Urahara is here, and he knows I’m here. Just tell him I need to speak to him.”
Arisawa stared skeptically at him a moment longer, most likely attempting to assess why a middle school kid would bleach his hair white, wear traditional clothing, and walk into a closed sweets shop in order to call her a mutant. He would never be sure exactly how far she got with that particular train of thought, but none-the-less he decided he must have said something right when she stepped into a back room.
Seconds later he heard a loud, crashing sound followed by Arisawa’s screaming vocals. “Oi! Urahara! Bakajii! There’s a little, white haired delinquent up here wearing the same clothes as Ichigo who says he wants to talk to you!”
Hitsugaya felt a vein in his forehead spasm painfully. Oh yeah. She was definitely one of Kurosaki’s.
Urahara had indeed sensed Hitsugaya’s reiatsu long before he had entered the shop. His reiatsu had felt a little strange, but it was undeniable who its owner was. The situation had intrigued him immensely, and so, naturally, he had run off to leave Tatsuki to deal with it all alone. All in all, he found the whole thing to be incredibly amusing.
But as the conversation wore on his interest began to grow slightly more serious, so when Tatsuki threw an unidentified, blunt object at his face before yelling angrily down at him, he figured it was time to make his appearance.
“Little delinquent, ne?” he grinned innocently, patting his hat as he sheepishly stepped out from his hiding place below and into the Rainbow Brite © shop to meet Hitsugaya’s glaring frown. “It fits.”
He could tell the Tenth Division head was trying very hard to keep calm. And he was doing fairly well, considering. “I need … your help,” he managed through clenched teeth, refusing to look Urahara in the eye.
“How adorable! Chibi tensai-taichou is back from Soul Society to visit me! I’ve heard so much about you!” he prolonged the charade. He knew from past experience that when you wanted to understand how serious a situation really was, then you should never take it seriously.
The white crowned boy shut his eyes tightly, biting his lip so hard that it actually began to bleed. “It’s not … taichou … anymore.”
Urahara felt his eyes widen considerably. Okay. So it was that serious. “Now, why would you say something like that?” he questioned, his tone no longer playful.
“I need your help,” Hitsugaya repeated, more forcefully this time.
“So I must first agree to help you, and then you’ll tell me what I’ve agreed to help you with? Sounds kinda backward, if you ask me.”
He received only a grimace as Hitsugaya’s weary eyes pointed purposefully toward a crack in the door behind them through which Tatsuki was listening to their every word. His mischievous grin returned. He already knew his answer; even he couldn’t ignore something this big. But he wasn’t about to simply agree to the boy’s terms without giving him a bit of grief first.
“Aw, you’re worried about her? But she’s harmless.”
“What is she doing here?”
“Hey, why should I answer your questions if you won’t answer mine?”
A single, white eyebrow quirked in its annoyance. “I guess I’ll just have to hunt down Kurotsuchi-taichou instead,” he replied flatly, turning to leave. But Urahara called his bluff and held out an arm to stop him.
“Now, now. We both know that if you could track him down, you never would have come here,” the man drawled playfully. “So here. Let’s strike a deal. I agree to help you to the best of my abilities, and in return you answer any questions I may ask you whether they seem relevant to your problem or not. How about it?”
Hitsugaya was silent for a long time. Urahara knew very well the boy had no choice but to accept, but he let him pretend to consider. Anyone from Seireitei who would actually place himself at his mercy deserved at least a little sympathy. Finally, he sighed his consent. “Very well. On one condition.”
“And what condition would that be?” Urahara asked in a nauseatingly sweet voice.
“Tell me what in the name of all that is sane, if there is still anything sane left in this world, she is doing here.”
Urahara looked blankly at his guest for a second before he laughed outright. “Alright, I accept your condition!” he grinned, suddenly yanking the door wide open with his cane and causing an indignant Arisawa Tatsuki to tumble to the ground between them. “Ichigo was being his usual stupid self and decided to forego all common sense and stealth in order to let his friends follow him here, even when he so obviously didn’t want them to get involved. So, naturally, I told them I’d explain everything after school let out today, but a certain someone got impatient and thought it would be a good idea to barge into my shop and declare it closed until I answered her questions. Isn’t that right, Tat-chan?”
“Don’t you dare call me that!” she thundered, somehow managing to sound threatening even from her spot on the floor. “You send Ichigo and Ishida and Sado off to who knows where, chatter on about how they’re just going to some alternate universe with a few shinigami to save Orihime, and then you shove us out the door and tell us to come back again tomorrow so you can catch up on your beauty sleep?! Is it really so wrong to want to know why all of my friends have suddenly run off to join some dimension-hopping cult of black-robed lunatics?! And what the hell difference does it make if you tell me now or later anyway?!”
“Well, to be honest, I was only messing with you before,” he replied without skipping a beat, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, “but now I’ve got a guest and you’ve got school. So bring along your two boyfriends later, and I’ll explain, ‘kay?”
The high school student offered Urahara’s new “guest” a glare that clearly said she blamed him for wasting precious interrogation time before turning back to the traditionally garbed blonde. “You had better,” she gritted through her teeth, her voice sounding for all the world like death itself.
The salesman was not to be swayed however, and so she marched angrily out of the shop, punching the door on her way. When Urahara turned to Hitsugaya once again, he found the white haired shinigami staring at him critically, a single brow raised in ironic amusement. “Kurosaki doesn’t want them involved, and so, without a second thought, you immediately get them involved,” he mused dryly, an accusing edge in the background of his tone.
“Just doing my part,” he replied innocently. “Besides, they’ve been involved from the very beginning, whether Ichigo admits it or not.”
Hitsugaya only snorted.
“So, a drink then?” Urahara grinned as he went into the back of the store once again, happily beckoning the boy to follow.
“You’re not going to make this easy, are you?”
The tone with which the ex-shinigami replied was a far cry from the innocent smile playing wickedly across his lips.
“I never do.”
Four glasses of cola later (the boy seemed to have taken a liking to the stuff), Hitsugaya had finally finished the much needed explanation. He had consistently tried to shrink the tale to a more manageable size, but Urahara was determined to hear every single minute detail. He had even gone so far as to inquire about the relationships Hitsugaya had had with each of the three defectors before they, well … defected.
“So,” Urahara concluded with an air of finality, “you screwed up, and now you want me to fix everything for you.”
Hitsugaya in turn offered him one of his trademark glares. He had been doing that quite a lot since he had arrived here. Finally, he haltingly clarified, “Yes. I ‘screwed up’. But I have no intentions of leaving the clean up to you; I merely need help while I do so myself. I am not so pathetic that I would dump my own problems on another.” His words were mechanical but firm and sharp. His tone lightened to biting sarcasm, however, when he added under his breath, “Nor would I manipulate others into choosing to take them on of their own wills, unlike a certain person I know.”
“That hurts,” the salesman mocked, lifting a hand to his chest to emphasize his abundant sarcasm. That was perhaps the one thing the two had in common.
Hitsugaya promptly “Tch!”ed and stood up, grasping his empty glass tightly. “I’m getting another,” he grumbled before disappearing from the room.
Urahara had to admit he was enjoying this much more than he should have been. A poison, distributed through the Arrancar, which was both untraceable and fueled by its host’s reiatsu. It was more like a parasite than a poison, when he thought about it. But that wasn’t all that thrilled him. Perhaps, he could use his short companion’s problems to his advantage…
The thought made him laugh gleefully as he realized he was doing exactly what Hitsugaya had accused him of moments before.
Vaguely he wondered whether he should alert Yoruichi to the young taichou’s situation but decided against it. He’d wait for something really big to contact her. Like when Ichigo and his little fan club returned from Hueco Mundo. She’d enjoy that, he grinned slyly. And if he just happened to get a snap shot of her face as the little guy suddenly walked in on her, it would simply be a bonus.
Well, he reasoned, Hitsugaya had done his part for the moment, though Urahara was in no way finished with his questions. Now it was his turn to fulfill his own end of the deal. As soon as the white crowned boy returned, he grabbed him by the wrist and bodily dragged him (very nearly kicking and screaming) down a hall and into another room, where a muscular man wearing an apron was currently sorting through a large closet.
For the second time in so many hours, Hitsugaya was ready to bolt.
“Well? Tessai?” Urahara asked simply, and the man called Tessai bowed and pointed toward a gigai propped up in the corner of the room.
As soon as Hitsugaya was settled comfortably in the gigai which Urahara had promised was nothing like the insane contraption he had stuck Kuchiki with (not that Hitsugaya had been given any reason to trust said promise), the exuberant salesman pushed the half-naked boy toward the man in the apron. He then proceeded to search through a large pile of clothing Tessai had chosen from the wardrobe. Hitsugaya’s uneasiness only continued to increase as Urahara chose varying pieces of clothing including an assortment of fishnet, belts, and ripped fabrics from the pile. He could feel his jaw tense whenever the man’s hand wandered over a dress or any of the many disturbing pieces lined with lace, but luckily, Urahara seemed well aware of his gender for the moment. He was unsure of whether that could change or not with the man’s moods.
Finally Urahara presented him with an ensemble consisting of a skin tight shirt ripped at the elbows, pants laced with zippers, tags, and various other intricacies Hitsugaya could not fathom, a slightly lopsided hat, lace-up combat boots, and so many useless belts, knobs, and chains that the white crowned boy could only stare in disbelief. “What the hell is that?”
“Unless you want to walk around like that,” the man replied with a wicked grin, looking pointedly at the boxers Hitsugaya was currently wearing, “then I suggest you get used to it. After all, it’s not as if you can really be picky in this situation, ne?”
Grudgingly, he accepted the preposterous outfit, mostly because he didn’t want to know what else the man might come up with if he refused, and donned it as dignified as anyone in his position could. “I feel like a clown,” he grunted as he grimaced at his reflection. Then, as an afterthought, he added, “Or Abarai…”
“Good!” Urahara nodded teasingly, patting him on the head with a rolled-up magazine before handing it to him. “Now you match your hairstyle.” The boy looked at Urahara quizzically before he began rifling through the magazine’s contents. It depicted many young men and women doing disturbing things to each other in outlandish outfits much like his but showing much more skin and in all the wrong places. Hitsugaya immediately dropped it, a scarlet blush engrossing his cheeks. Urahara’s mischievous grin was wider than ever as he seemed to materialize a paper fan out of nowhere and set it gleefully against his chin. “Don’t drop it like that. I paid lots of money for it.”
“W-Why would you pay money for s-something like that?!”
“You need something to read while minding the shop, don’t you? I may have agreed to help you out, but if you’re going to stick around here you’re going to need to pull your own weight.”
It was official. Hitsugaya should have just stayed in Soul Society, plopped down on the ground, and shouted, “Take me already!” It would have been less futile than this.
Arisawa Tatsuki, Asano Keigo, and Kojima Mizuiro barged in several hours later, the latter two looking rather out of breath while Arisawa looked ready to kill. The sign outside the shop still stated that it was closed, but it was obvious they were not about to succumb to civilities at the moment. When they saw who was behind the counter, however, Arisawa paused. The other two took advantage of this to catch their breath.
“You again?” she asked, expression skewed as she looked up and down Hitsugaya’s new outfit. He had managed to tear off a few belts and had removed the excessive footwear, but Urahara had insisted he keep the hat, if only to hide his outlandish hairstyle just the slightest bit. He had suggested dying the boy’s hair but had quickly found himself dodging a well-aimed kick to his groin. Urahara had not brought up the subject since. Hitsugaya had survived in the living world once with his unique hairstyle, and he could certainly do it again, thank you very much.
He did his best to ignore her as he grumbled his reply. “The idiot ran away as soon as he felt your reiatsu. He’s hiding behind the giant stuffed duck in the back room.”
“There’s a giant stuffed duck in the back room?” she guffawed, seeming to forget all about Hitsugaya’s attire.
“Don’t ask.”
“HEY!”
Hitsugaya had to wince from the sheer volume before he turned to see one the boys, Asano, pointing at him and gaping. He could place this one much quicker than Tatsuki because he was the one Madarame and Ayasegawa had pointed out as their host. He knew some sort of blackmail had been involved, but neither of the Eleventh Division shinigami had gone into detail.
“You’re that shorty that Ikkaku was talking about! The kid who always hung out with Matsumoto-san up on the roof!” Hitsugaya glowered at him. Not only did this person remember that the shinigami had gone to Karakura High, but he had used two forbidden words in a single breath. Madarame had better hope he did not come back from this alive. “I tried to convince myself it had all been a bad dream! Just one, big nightmare! You guys just disappeared! I thought I was home free! Does that mean those two lunatics are here too?! Oh, why?! Why must the world be so cruel?!”
A white brow twitched irritably as Asano broke down into over-dramatic sobs. The other two high school students, in contrast, seemed completely unaffected. Apparently, it was a fairly usual occurrence.
“Oi,” the girl’s voice spoke up, volume controlled so that it was masked by Asano’s whining, and Hitsugaya returned his gaze to her once more. Her annoyed expression had now been worn into something more haggard. It was painfully familiar. “You’re … a shinigami, right? Those clothes and that weapon you had on your back earlier…”
Hitsugaya was fairly surprised that she recognized the term “shinigami.” So she had managed to yank at least some information from Urahara that morning. It was more than he had succeeded in doing. He nodded, knowing the information would come out eventually anyway if they were going to be interacting with the insane salesman.
“Then, Ichigo…” she practically whispered, her pace quickening with every word. “If you were here, you know what he’s been doing. You know what happened to Orihime. You disappeared right before he ran off. You knew this was going to happen. Tell me. Please. What is going on? Where the hell is Orihime?”
The white crowned shinigami could only stare blankly into those dark and desperate eyes. He wished he could come up with an apathetic or dismissing reply that would once again set her into angered hysterics or even goad her into following after Urahara, anything to get that expression out of his line of vision. But his voice was being thoroughly uncooperative. He was not used to this sort of thing happening, being utterly speechless. He always had some sort of retort. But not now. Not with those deep brown eyes staring expectantly into his own. He couldn't do a thing.
It was that expression.
That damned expression. It was too damned familiar. It was too damned much. Dammit.
“Hey now, Tat-chan! Don’t take your frustrations out on little Hitsugaya-kun, ne? I’m the one who promised you an explanation, right? I even went to all the trouble to hide so that you could come find me.” Hitsugaya was literally blown from his thoughts when Urahara suddenly appeared behind Arisawa, tapping her head with his fan.
Asano had stopped crying by now and was standing by Kojima, watching Urahara grin as Arisawa seethed. “I told you not to call me that!”
“Nonsense, Tat-chan! You only say that because you think I’m annoying. Anyway, I suggest we settle down and get a few drinks ready. This is going to take a very, very long time to explain. Ne, Hitsugaya-kun? Would you mind getting some more drinks?”
Arisawa was already readying herself to punch the man square in the nose before he had even finished. Kojima held her back as she continued to fume, seeing as Urahara was no longer even looking in her direction. Hitsugaya did his best to hold in his temper, but his voice still sounded more like a growl than anything else. “Not. A. Chance.”
“Honestly. You’re no fun at all.” And he was out the door, the three high school students in tow, leaving Hitsugaya alone in the shop once more.
Absently, a hand reached out to grab a bag from one of the racks, and he began popping the artificial flavors into his mouth, chewing furiously.
Urahara had indeed proven to be the skilled man Hitsugaya had tried to convince himself the man was earlier. He had read Hitsugaya like a book as the boy had been telling his story; he could tell by the way the man’s brow would quirk just the slightest bit or how he’d try to hide a smile behind his glass of iced tea. Even just then. The timing with which the be-hatted man had interrupted was far too convenient. Oh yes, he was skilled alright. Hitsugaya just wished the man didn’t have to be so erratic about it all.
Pausing in his frustrated chewing, he allowed himself a glance out the window and into the afternoon sky. He swallowed, sinking deeper into the counter top.
That damned expression.
Dammit.