Sentinel
Two Weeks of Hitsuhina 2024 - Day 7: Your Courageous Back / This Light I See
Rating: K/General with mild themes and mentions of injuries.
Setting: end of the Thousand Year Blood War arc.
Synopsis: In the immediate aftermath of Yhwach’s defeat, Momo reflects on Toshiro's strength and the lengths he's gone to to obtain it.
AN: I decided to listen to both This Light I See and Momoiro no Hana to see if either gave me an idea for this day, but in the end, they both inspired me, so I’m writing for both themes. And would you look, it’s yet another ‘Momo reacts to Toshiro’s Completed Form’ fic! How original XD In this case, I wanted to take it in a slightly unexpected direction.
This one ended up being a bit of a mess, but hopefully it's an enjoyable one!
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The air is still and silent, but thick with the smell of broken concrete. This isn't what makes Momo raise her head and focus on it. A thrum runs through it, one she and most Shinigami only experience when a battle has come to an end. One that said the battle was over. Sometimes, especially in times like this, that sense can be wrong, that there's another threat lurking beneath that needs to be dealt with.
She's drawn away by the faint coppery scent of dried blood.
She glances at her unconscious captain, checking one of his wounds hadn’t reopened in the last twenty minutes. The fresh bandages she’d wrapped around him are still clean. She brushes the hair that’d fallen across his face to make sure the gash on his forehead and the cut on his cheek hasn’t opened either. It’s of little comfort to discover no blood. She wishes he were awake.
Still, it could be far worse for the two of them. Momo grimaces thinking about the others buried beneath the debris. She can sense their reiatsu, all faint and flickering from injuries.
She turns her gaze to Toshiro. She has to stop herself from doing another double take at the sight of him. He stands a short distance away, back turned, Hyoruinmaru drawn at his side, and somehow a fully grown adult.
She bites the inside of her cheek remembering her initial reaction, how she’d gaped at him after he’d landed in front of her and tried to instruct her move further from the battlefield. The giant Quincy was distracted by Byakuya, and she was caught off guard by the sudden new appearance of his childhood friend; so much so she kept staring at him as he led her to safety and she nearly dropped her captain while carrying him away.
The building he’d taken her to had one side completely caved in while a lone wall remained, facing the battle taking place in the far distance. Until Toshiro had returned, she’d gone between looking around the wall to watch the battle from here and keeping her captain propped up against the wall to continue tending to his injuries.
“Kuchiki is searching the area,” Toshiro had informed her. “He knows I’m here, he’ll come to us when he’s confirmed there’s no further threats.”
“You didn’t want to check with him?” she’d asked. In hindsight, she wonders if she'd sounded ungrateful; it certainly hadn't been her intention.
He hadn’t answered right away. “I checked the area on my way here, it was safe. Aside from you, Kuchiki, and I, there’s no active Shinigami in the immediate area.” He’d gestured to Shinji. “How’s Hirako?”
“He’s all right, I’m almost done healing him.”
He’d turned away. “Keep going then. I’ll keep watch.”
And that’s how it’s been for the past hour. Not another word has been spoken since, and she’d wrapped the last bandage around her captain's arm twenty minutes ago. In all that time she’d wanted ask how he came to be like this, but she’d held back.
She takes stock of herself. The weariness and razor-edged anxiety she knows comes from being in quiet battlefield. The dread in the pit of her stomach is from the war itself, that their enemies had powers beyond anyone’s imagination, and that they were leaving the fate of all the worlds to a Human far too young to be in a battle like this.
The daring hope and meagre relief -- hampered by the other emotions and sensation running through her -- that clamber through her chest is from Toshiro’s survival against the giant Quincy, but it’s paired up with an uneasiness. She wants to chalk it up to his sudden change in appearance – it had been jarring afterall to see him suddenly not look as she’s always known him – but it feels like only a part of the reason.
She checks her captain over one last time before standing up. She winces at the stiffness in her leg, taking a moment to stretch them. Toshiro turns his head a fraction, a corner of his lips and his lashes coming into view. After a beat, he returns his gaze to straight ahead.
Perhaps that’s what bothers her. He hasn’t said a word or looked her way for the past hour. This war might still be going on in other parts of the palace, and there might be battle still to come. They both need to be vigilant until they see or hear otherwise.
Yet, she’s still bothered by his silence and refusal to away from what’s ahead.
Her footsteps scrap along the ground, coming over small bits of rubble and the remains of the tiled floor. He doesn’t give any indication that he’s aware of her approach. Funny, it’s usually him who sneaks up on her.
“Captain Hitsugaya,” she tries, but still he doesn’t move. “Is everything all right?” He must be in deep thought; he has no other reason to not look her way.
The closer she gets, the more he fills her view. There's something about his stance. It’s strong, solid, a typical posture for any alert Shinigami. The uniform he wears is mostly ruined. She notices the patches of dirt and rips in the white fabric and black fur lining. The ice trimming on the ends and encasing his shoulders, forearms, and shins glimmers in the light. Hyourinmaru shines, and she shudders at the freezing waves emanating off the blade and brushing over her.
His back is straight, strong, not a hint of weariness or weakness from injuries. His shoulders at wide, and she suspects they would still look that way even without the ice that encases them.
It all inspires a her a strange confidence - no, reassurance – within her. He’s like a sentinel, watching out for her and Shinji, ready to eliminate any threat that comes their way. This is the strongest she's ever seen him, and judging from how his reiatsu dispurses across the area like a cold wind, it might even be close to his full potential as a Shinigami. Whatever he had done to become like this, she never thought anything would lead to him achieving the milestones of Shinigami before he even graduated, let alone whatever made him turn into an adult.
Caught up in these thoughts, she reaches out and touches a hand to his back. Before he reacts, the jolt of cold racing up her arm makes her realise what she’s done. She expects him to startle and spin around to confront her. She has an apology ready on her lips, but not an explanation.
She blinks when none of that happens. His posture stiffens and he lets out a surprised grunt, even lifts Hyourinmaru a fraction, but he otherwise remains motionless.
“What’re you doing?” he asks without looking back. His bewilderment is evident in his tone, but there’s also a tightness in his voice.
She flinches her hand away, even locking her opposite one around it and bringing it to her chest for good measure. “I, uh – I’m sorry! I don’t know why I did that.”
“…You don’t know why you did it?”
How lame, she thinks. “No, I…”
His head lowers, then turns, enough for her to see his eyes over his shoulder through his bangs. “I wouldn’t do that again without saying something. While I’m like this, I can control what I freeze if it touches me. It might slip if it’s something unexpected.”
That explains the sudden cold. She thinks to step around and speak to him face to face, but again she doesn’t. She stands behind him, his shadow casting off to the side, beside her. “I called out but you obviously didn’t hear me.”
He says nothing, which only makes her the furrow in her brow deepen.
“What is this? Why are you like this?” she finally asks.
He inclines his head away. “It’s Hyourinmaru’s Completed Form, an extension of my bankai.”
She gasps. “You mean this is the next stage of it?”
“Something like that.” He raises Hyourinmaru out to the side, his arm at the level of his shoulder. “I couldn’t fully access Hyourinmaru’s abilities as I am, so I needed to age up into this. form”
A pang runs through her heart. “What?”
His arm slackens, half bringing the blade back to his side. “It’s not permanent, if you’re worried about that.”
“Oh, no, that’s not – even if it were, we’d --” She shakes her head. “I just can’t believe something like this is possible, that’s all." She takes him in from head to toe again. To think something like this could come from Hyourinmaru. "How did you, uh, discover it?"
“It's a result of my training in the caves.”
She remembers those days. After they’d reconciled, she’d learned about his excursions to the caves in the Rukongai, even came to visit him a few times with snacks for him. He never really gave a reason for why he was so focused on training. A Shinigami is expected to train often to maintain or improve on their skills, but she always felt his was excessive during that time.
“It took a lot,” he continues. “To tell you the truth, I don't like it. It feels..." He jerks his head up. "But it’s proven to be essential in this fight. Still, that Quincy showed me I still have much to learn.” His grip on his zanpakuto tightens. “ I’ll get better, until it’s truly perfected.”
Another pang runs through her. This time it shows on her face too. She wonders if he saw her he’d take his words back. “Captain Hirako made me realise everyone has their limits, and that’s okay. We should always aim to get stronger, but there comes a point where we can't go any further."
"I'm not at my limit," he says, adamant. "I know I can still get stronger. Just watch me."
She cringes. Her words were meant to to be a reassurance, but it seems to have had the opposite effect. She lets out a quiet, tremulous sigh. "But you've always been strong, Hitsugaya-kun."
He says nothing. He needs to hear more.
Slowly, her hand returns. Just as she expects, there’s no cold racing up her arm. Something about that relaxes her, makes her lower her guard and lean forward until her forehead presses into his back as well. He doesn't tell her off, doesn't even make a sound.
“You’ve always had to carry so much on your shoulders," she says. "Did you become this strong to carry it all?”
She feels through his back before she hears the hitch of breath. “What’re you saying?”
“Even before you became an unseated officer, you had so much put on to you," she says. "You achieved milestones that most Shinigami don't achieve until they're nearly a century into the role. Some don't even achieve Shikai before their service comes to an end. And there you were, a child with bankai before you were even an unseated officer." She lets out a huff. "It's incredible, you're once in a generation really...but it must have come with a lot, right?"
Still he says nothing, but senses something change in him. It's in the longer breaths in and out, and how his free hand curls into a loose fist.
She doesn't understand why she's bringing this up now of all times. It comes pouring out of her, locked away for decades. She'd watched him afar, seeing him grow and becoming more powerful as the years went on. Many senior figures had high expectations of him, and the whispers among many Shinigami spoke of him as a prodigy, some even going as far as to claim he was a reincarnation of a legendary heavenly guardian that was born into the Soul Society every few centuries.
She hadn't stopped to think about the effect such things would have on him until after Aizen's betrayal. He was always up to the task, to show others he was indeed a prodigy and giving more weight to the reincarnation myth with every milestone he achieved, but that didn't mean he needed to That didn't mean it affected him in other ways. Did it make him feel he needed to be a sentinel for her and the others? To always put himself in harms way to protect everyone?
She thinks back on his training. Why had he trained? She always had her own ideas, but maybe one of them was true. The one where she thought he didn't think he was strong enough. Perhaps some would say he wasn't, but it's not the sort of strength he needs. The one he did need he already has. It's the one that she wished more would recognise in him.
"You’ve been strong for so long," she says softly. "It’s okay to rely on me and others too."
“What?” His head comes over his shoulder. “I know I can. Don't discount your own strength.”
She can’t help but smile. “I know that too, but you often try to do these sort of things by yourself. You don’t want to burden anyone else or you fear they’ll get hurt.” Her grip on on his jacket tightens. “If an enemy shows up, we can fight them together. If you sensed it before too, and the battle here is really over, then...you can rest. You don't have to be like this anymore. I don’t need you to protect Captain Hirako and I right now."
She frowns at the shudder that runs through him. She lists her head upwards, but his face is gone, head bowed. Is he overcome? “Hitsugaya-kun?”
He murmurs something, and she must have misheard. "What is it?"
His shoulder stiffen, as if realising he said something he wasn't meant to. “I’m fine, just…tired.” The hoarseness of his voice says otherwise.
She listens to his heartbeat through his back while be collects himself. Then, to her surprise, he begins to turn. She quickly leans back and comes face to face with him. She would’ve smiled and perhaps even joked she’s not used to having to crane her neck to speak with him, but his gaze stops her short.
It's soft and warm, and his usual frown his gone, replaced by a pained pinch in his brow. She's never seen him so vulnerable, it makes her want to envelope him in a hug. She resist the urge, settling for holding his free hand instead. The gesture makes him swallow and close his eyes.
She isn't blind; he's quite handsome like this. It's him, years into the future in a strange way. She can even feel a faint heat beneath her cheeks with how he gazes at her with such a face. But it's not him as he is now.
She smiles. "I'm here."
That makes him open his eyes again. His lips part, about to speak, when the reiatsu comes to both of their senses. Toshiro snaps to attention, and Momo looks back him. In the far distance, a figure sprints and jumps over the ruins.
"It's Captain Kuchiki," she says.
When she looks back to Toshiro, that softened look is mostly gone. There's remnants of it in his eyes, like the glowing embers of a dying campfire.
"Thank you, Hinamori," he says hoarsely, before turning away from her. Her smile remains, albeit a bit diminished. She'd hoped to speak with him more, to hear what he had to sya just now. Maybe he'll tell her later.
For now, watching him take several steps ahead to meeting Byakuya, she remembers what she thought he's murmured earlier. She keeps telling herself she misheard, and yet, her heart hopes for the opposite.
It's always been for you.
