Spoiler warnings, particularly on chapters 169-170
Glazed
by Melpomene Melancholica
Hell froze over.
That was an expression the living used. It meant something usually perceived impossible has come to pass. Of course, his use of the cliche was somewhat literal as well. He was a monstrously powerful devil that way, able to freeze hells over with a fierce yell of absolute authority.
Also in the folklore of mortals, serenely smiling angels were meant to smite down smirking devils like him. Ironically, such was his fate. With minimal violence, the angel miraculously appeared and singlehandedly reduced the impossibly frozen hell into mere shards of ice.
Guren Hyourinmarou, Ban Kai of the most powerful ice element soul cutter, was defeated in seconds by a single slash. He who was called a genius, he the prodigy was stuck down before the fight even started.
Past the sluggish disbelief flashed the jagged pieces of related events. They fit perfectly like an intricate crystal sculpture sledge-hammered and magically restored back to its scarred but whole self. No, the earthshaking climax was not impossible. No, the fight did not start here: he had been losing all along.
I will kill you.
He's right. Strong words made him look weak. Those words proved it, attested to it. In those words, his doom was wrapped, packaged prettily and succinctly, a present he himself offered to his enemies. Caught by his own arrogance, he had fallen.
Genius. The word was clandestinely brandished about the halls and streets of the Sereitai whenever he passed. Inevitably, it would must invaded his skull and rotted his brain. The simple confidence of knowing ones potential and capacity, knowing ones power, knowing ones limits, kept a man standing straight as he should. Genius addled ones defenses, insidiously nudged one into a precarious assurance.
Always, always, he managed to forget. People saw, people knew. Lightning struck pinnacles, not pebbles. During thunderstorms, it was the centenarian giant that bursts into flames, not the weeds barely subsisting at its convoluted roots. He stood out too much, as always he did, and the heavens chose to annihilate his tree.
Under his shade happened to be Hinamori Momo, the reason why a down-trodden stone spat out by Fate unto the Flowing streets of Soul Society bravely grew into a resplendent fruit tree, too showy for its own good. They used her to get him, as the woman was used to tempt the man into tasting the forbidden fruit, as what always happened in the myths and tales of the humans.
He thought they didn't know because he thought, he knew, he was too good at hiding. He wasn't so grandiose to think that noone better than him existed. He merely knew and accepted himself, what they say he was. Alone, he suffered the irony of standing out like a hideous crag despite his short stature. He fooled himself well—she was just Bedwetter Momo, that unreasonably naive girl who babied everybody and had to be protected always from the bastards who dared take advantage of her inherent goodness—and of course, nobody could possibly know him better than himself. Hitsugaya Toushirou, telling everybody he'd kill them... Such a dangerous man, wasn't he?
And they say the just were predictable.
Kuchiki Rukia was a just a catalyst. Aizen clearly anticipated the actions of the important pieces in his board, knew of the weaknesses of souls behind the authoritative facades of the captains, knew the tenuous civility that strung the Gotei 13 together, the flowing undercurrents that were carved deep in time. The captains of the Gotei 13 each had their passions, their codes, no matter how cold, punitive, laid-back, dogmatic, whatever, they appeared. They have been around for years, have been scarred and molded by their duties, their life experiences, joy and sorrow and everything in between.
Not Hitsugaya Toushirou the prodigy. He was young and new, cynical and passionless, unencumbered by the mounting disappointments of years. Without a reason to fight for or against the directives of Soul Society, he had no place in the upheaval caused by the execution of Kuchiki Rukia except as a spectator. He would try to investigate, of course, break the mystery, uncover the conspiracy if one existed, single-handedly save the world with his genius. And they knew he would act thus, knew he would be too unpredictable if let loose to uncover by chance and by himself what he could have. Obviously, Aizen and Ichimaru set all this up. They left him morsels to lure him to where they wanted him and, true to his street urchin instincts, he gobbled them up like a starving mongrel.
And Hinamori Momo was dead.
It was the same tactic they used to get her. Grief and its intertwined aspects—anger, disbelief, sorrow—served well to unhinge the 5th division vice captain, to drive the young woman into a madness that sought vindication for nonexistent loss, undeserved pain. Despite the difference in manifestation, his grief killed him. Aizen understood, of course. He understood Hinamori better than he, Hitsugaya, did. He understood Hitsugaya himself better, in all his humanity and all the weakness it afforded him.
It was all planned to get him!
No. That was arrogance talking again. Like Hinamori, he was just a piece here. His history with her was incidental; the method of his downfall was a convenient outgrowth of her usefulness. As Aizen said, dispersing the enemy was a basic tactic. Perhaps, at that very moment, as his lifeblood gushed out and formed exquisite little pink doilies on ice, the others of the Gotei 13 were sundered between aiding and suppressing the drifters who have come to rescue Kuchiki Rukia. Perhaps, even all that was a mere ripple heralding the coming of a tsunami. Who was Kuchiki Rukia? Who were those drifters?
That such a conspiracy was orchestrated under all their noses. That he, Hitsugaya Toushirou, was dying. That hell had frozen over. All impossible.
But why did anything matter?
Hinamori Momo was dead.
So beautifully, hell remained frozen, the truth glazed over with sparkling sugar and pink syrup.
Impossible was done.
17:19 032005
Ah, Midnightcrow, I said I wouldn't write one of these. Pasensiya na.
Just something I couldn't get out of my head. Hu hu hu. I still think though, that neither of them's necessarily dead, considering who's with them there in 171.
Comments, complaints, constructive criticism... all very welcome.