Winter's Sons

Summary: When a body turns up at the Eastern Wall, run through with a zanpakuto and a sword of ice, all evidence points to Hitsugaya Toshiro. But this is only the first in a string of killings. With Central Forty-Six having issued an order for his execution, Hitsugaya must work against time to clear his name and find a killer strong enough to take on a captain. The past is never dead…

XI: MEMORY AND DESIRE

"It was the Seal," Hitsugaya said, after he had shrugged back into his shihakusho, and then slipped on his haori. Matsumoto's hands were bandaged from kido backlash; while Hitsugaya had subsequently discovered wounds he didn't remember sustaining back then. "Unohana discovered that the only thing that had stopped Kusaka's blade from penetrating deeper was the Seal."

"The Seal's powers?" Matsumoto asked, curious.

"No," Hitsugaya said. "The Seal itself stopped the blade." Fortunately, Hyorinmaru hadn't cut through the Seal. Hitsugaya shivered to think of the fit Central Forty-Six would have thrown if the Seal had been broken in any way. What impact did a broken Seal have, anyway? Perhaps they would never know. Hitsugaya, for one, was thankful for that.

Matsumoto let out a low whistle, inadvertently echoing the direction of Hitsugaya's thoughts. "Wow. Luckily, Kusaka's zanpakuto didn't cut the Seal or we'd both be in for it, Taicho!"

"Yes," he said. A close enough call.

Kusaka was dead, given a nameless grave at the order of Central Forty-Six, the only end allowed all traitors to Soul Society. Considering even Ichimaru Gin had finally merited a grave among the Third Division, Hitsugaya wasn't certain what to think of that. In the process, Hitsugaya's name was cleared to everyone's satisfaction, and the ancient law upheld.

He had, after all, killed Kusaka with his own hands. Again.

"Taicho?" Matsumoto asked.

Hitsugaya blinked, and snapped out of his thought. "Yes, Matsumoto?"

"You seemed…lost in thought." It was a bright and clear day, Hitsugaya thought, even as the autumnal sky was a sharp, delicate shade of blue. The leaves crunched underfoot as they walked back to their Division. There was no grave to visit. By giving Kusaka a nameless grave, Central Forty-Six had made sure of that. The purge was complete, now, as it had been before. Only the Archives witnessed, and spoke. Hitsugaya wondered what Kyoraku had written, what Kyoraku was surely writing.

"I'm fine."

"I didn't say you weren't."

He changed the subject. "How did you know to wait in the ventilation shaft? The letter?"

Matsumoto looked faintly surprised. "Yes," she said. "You told me to do so in the letter. To post Tenth Division squads at the entrances and exits, and to wait in the ventilation shaft above the main tunnel. You ordered me to join the fight only after Kusaka had thrown away the ice clone. To speak to Captain Ukitake if you had died, rather than to engage Kusaka."

Hitsugaya frowned. He didn't remember writing the letter. But the letter in his own handwriting had said, trust me. All will be revealed in due time.

And so he had. And now Kusaka was dead.

Hitsugaya felt…tired. Empty. Was it supposed to end like this? Was this the best ending that they could have written, no matter what? Almost reflexively, his hand went to where the King's Seal still sat, tucked inside his shihakusho. The vault had to be cleaned up before the Seal could be returned, and protocol called for the security of the vault to be inspected. In the meantime, Hitsugaya supposed he was supposed to hang on to the Seal.

"The ice was different," Matsumoto said, suddenly.

"What?"

"It was purple," Matsumoto said, thoughtfully. "A deep, dark purple—not like the ice I've seen Hyorinmaru create. I wonder what happened."

The Seal, Hitsugaya thought. It had to be. In the moments that Kusaka had taken the Seal…Hitsugaya didn't know how to describe it, the blur of images. It was as if they stood in the eye of a hurricane of worlds, and the only thing that had kept reality from falling apart as reality bent and skewed in every possible direction imaginable was his managing to retrieve the Seal from Kusaka. The ice created by Kusaka had a purple glint to the dragon's eyes, the strange corruption, because Kusaka had been brought back by the Seal. It had only deepened after Kusaka had touched the Seal, had tried to wield it.

And what had Kusaka tried to do, in the moments he had held almost absolute power in his hand?

A hell butterfly fluttered down, to hover before him. Hitsugaya held out his hand for the butterfly to alight. "Captain Hitsugaya Toshiro. You are requested to report to the office of the Captain-Commander for a debriefing."

Matsumoto shot him a worried glance; Hitsugaya said, "Go back to the Division, Matsumoto. I'll return once the Captain-Commander is done with me."

He set off, feeling the light breeze that moved through the space, swirling around his clothing and stirring it in a shiver of pleasant cold, before it was gone.

Yamamoto Genryusai Shigekuni was one of the pillars of Soul Society, it was said. Stark and unyielding, the formidable old man had a presence that towered over the Gotei Thirteen like a mountain. Hitsugaya knocked lightly on the office door and waited, before pushing it open.

"Hitsugaya-taicho," the old man said, staring at him. Hitsugaya stared right back for the count of three heartbeats before he looked down at the ground. "Your report states that you engaged and killed Kusaka Sojiro in the vault underneath the Central Forty-Six."

"Yes," Hitsugaya said. "He planned to steal the King's Seal."

"I see," Yamamoto said. His hands shifted on the broad, knotted top of his staff, only it wasn't a staff. Not all the Captains knew this, but Hitsugaya had learned that Yamamoto's staff, which he was never seen without, was really the old man's zanpakuto, Ryujin Jakka. The oldest and most powerful fire-type zanpakuto in Soul Society, Ryujin Jakka was an opponent not to be taken lightly, and neither was Yamamoto. The old man had a reputation for being uncompromising, tough-as-nails, and for building a stable era of peace in which Soul Society had turned from a ragtag collection of killers into something they could be proud of.

Something worth defending.

"And the murders?"

"Revenge," Hitsugaya said. "And opportunity." His hand moved—almost of its own volition—to where the King's Seal nestled in the inner pocket of his shihakusho. If Yamamoto noticed, the old man said nothing. "I suspect that they played a role in helping Kusaka gain access to the vault. Our attention was preoccupied with the murders, rather than the protection of the King's Seal."

"Good," Yamamoto said, shortly.

Something occurred to Hitsugaya. Yamamoto was too removed, as if the only thing concerning him was the how, rather than the why, or even the who. Call it instinct, but something twinged, at that moment. He thought about how swift the Gotei Thirteen had been to sign off his arrest warrant, and spoke before he could convince himself to remain silent. "You could just have pointed me at the murders. Sir."

Yamamoto's eyes narrowed. "Explain yourself, Hitsugaya-taicho!" The sternness in his tone would have sent Hitsugaya running for the hills when he'd first taken on the Captain's job. Now. he drew on the glacial calm and stubborn pride of the dragon, bending before the flare of the Captain-Commander's reiatsu, bent but unbroken. A reed in the path of the wind.

"You arranged this," Hitsugaya said, and as he spoke, it all made sense to him. "You went with Central Forty-Six, in signing off on the capture and suspension orders. You wanted me to seek out the murderer who was killing everyone and to stop him. I think you even knew it was Kusaka. You just wanted me to solve the problem. Sir."

Yamamoto went very silent and very still. The sense of reiatsu redoubled, and redoubled again until it was all Hitsugaya could do to keep breathing, not to fall to his knees. Be careful when you speak to Yama-ji, Kyoraku had told him, and now his warning repeated again and again in Hitsugaya's mind as Hitsugaya wondered if he had gone too far.

"Kusaka Sojiro was never a member of the Gotei Thirteen," Yamamoto finally said. "There were political considerations to consider. As you know, since Aizen, the Central Forty-Six and the nobles have been cautious of the Gotei Thirteen's increased independence. It would not have suited either of them to admit to the purge in a public investigation." It was the closest, Hitsugaya realised, that he was ever going to get to an admission. "You are forbidden to speak of the Kusaka Sojiro incident to any member of the Gotei Thirteen. This incident is now classified."

Hitsugaya was too tired to argue. And no Captain argued with the Captain-Commander, anyway.

He bowed in acknowledgement of the order. "May I go?" he asked, though it bothered on the edge of rudeness. "Are you done with me, Captain-Commander?"

"You are dismissed," Yamamoto said, and that allowance for what was normally a breach in etiquette, too, was probably the most leeway he was ever going to get from Yamamoto on this issue.

Hitsugaya left.

He suppressed his annoyance, but it still tinged his reiatsu, spilled out and gave the cold air around him extra bite today. The walk back to the Tenth Division was long, and Hitsugaya didn't bother to employ flash-steps. He'd spent most of the past week running around Soul Society, and it felt good to be taking a long, slow walk for once.

In any case, the frustration seethed inside him, but by the time Hitsugaya returned to the Tenth Division, he was beginning to feel a little more human again. When he saw Ukitake waiting for him in his office, he startled before remembering his manners. "Ukitake," he greeted.

"Hitsugaya-taicho," Ukitake smiled. He was holding a folded missive, Hitsugaya noticed, and a massive hamper of candy. He managed to hide that inward groan. "I brought you some candy! Congratulations on a task well done!"

Already, the trappings of normality were beginning to steal back into his life, even though Hitsugaya felt things couldn't possibly be the same again. Life went on. "Yes," he said wearily, pinching the bridge of his nose and wondering how much he could fob off on Yachiru. He could visit the Eleventh Division and shove the entire hamper into her arms as a gesture of goodwill, he thought. "Thank you, Ukitake."

Ukitake held out the letter, and now Hitsugaya noticed the characters on the front of the letter spelled out his name. More significantly, he recognised his own handwriting. "This was left for you," he said, "And I supposed now was as good a time as any other to give you the letter."

Hitsugaya took the letter, slipped it into a pocket of his shihakusho. "Thank you." He would read it later, after Ukitake left.

Ukitake coughed. "Well, that was it, really. I did want to tell you…not to be too hard on the old man. Shunsui's words. He makes the decisions that he thinks are best for Soul Society first, and then the Gotei Thirteen second. People, subordinates…they don't enter into it at all."

"But you didn't agree with him," Hitsugaya said. "You and Kyoraku fought him at Kuchiki Rukia's execution."

"Well, yes," Ukitake said, awkwardly. He laid a hand on Hitsugaya's shoulder for a moment. "A Captain's perogative, Hitsugaya-taicho. To balance what the law tells you you must do with what you feel you must do. But no doubt you already know this, working with Lieutenant Matsumoto."

"Yes. Yes, I do."

"Yamamoto-sotaicho…doesn't have the luxury of such thinking," he finally said. "Perhaps it is a good thing. But I think more simply, it is what it is." A long silence fell between them, for a time. "Well, then," Ukitake said, "I should leave you to your letter. Please enjoy the candy, Hitsugaya-taicho, and feel free to pay me a visit for more candy."

He let himself out, and Hitsugaya took out the letter and unfolded it.

Hitsugaya Toshiro—, it began,

You remember approaching Ukitake for help. You woke up after taking a short nap in the Ugendo pavilion, and then read a letter you had written to yourself. In it, I asked you to trust me. Well, if Ukitake has given you this letter, then you did what you had to do. Kusaka is dead.

You approached Ukitake because you guessed that only three Captains in Soul Society had the experience and the knowledge you needed. Kyoraku was out of commission, and approaching Unohana was too dangerous. So you approached Ukitake. You suspected that Kusaka might read your intentions from your mind, as he was your manifestation. (He was also your friend.) And so you devised a plan, with Ukitake's help, and then wrote three letters: one to Matsumoto, in order to lay a trap for Kusaka. You deduced he was attempting to go after the King's Seal. The second was to yourself, stressing that it was important that you did not read Matsumoto's letter, and that you follow only the instructions written in the letter.

In that letter, you said you had to wait in the vault, on the day the Seal was returned to Central Forty-Six. Matsumoto was not to know about this. You would lie in wait and ambush Kusaka as he attempted to steal the Seal. This was only partially correct. You had planned for the Seal to be the bait. You would be the anvil, but a trap is useless without a hammer. That was the role you assigned Matsumoto and the members of your Division.

This is the third letter. You may be wondering how Matsumoto knew to turn up. This is why. You know that there are forbidden kido, spells that a shinigami can cast only on pain of punishment. Nevertheless, many of the forbidden spells were, once before, not proscribed. The spell to erase a shinigami's memory has often been misused and used under the most ambiguous of circumstances. You asked Ukitake to remove the memory of your planning, so that Kusaka could not use the knowledge against you. You woke up in the Ugendo pavilion and likely simply assumed that you fell asleep shortly after.

The memories will never return. You knew this. You felt it had to be done, that it had to be the price you would pay to stop Kusaka.

—Hitsugaya Toshiro.

Kusaka had died, Hitsugaya thought, as he crumpled the letter. But so had Kahei. When he thought about it, the scales seemed balanced, even though it seemed terribly unfair. The Captain's perogative, Ukitake had said. Kyoraku called that making the best out of a bad lot of sake. Many decisions that a Captain had to make were never easy. More often than not, they seemed mired in so many wrongs, so much that wasn't fair.

Life isn't fair, Arai would counter, unperturbed when his students complained about his uncompromisingly high standards. That's your job.

To make it fair.

Kusaka had wanted that, once. What did it mean for him?

Hitsugaya took out the King's Seal, and laid it on the table.

He looked at it for a very long time.

"Ken-chan! Whitey-chan is here!" Yachiru chirped, flinging herself down onto the broad shoulders of Zaraki Kenpachi. The Captain of the Eleventh Division grunted.

"What does that pip-squeak want, anyway?"

He thought it was a bleeding shame that the runt had gone and killed himself some long-dead shinigami, or so the word went. He hadn't been paying very much attention to anything except that he'd lost the chance to have what must have been a pretty damn good fight. Bloody pip-squeak beat him to it. If he wasn't strictly banned from challenging Captains to formal duels within the bounds of the Seireitei, spelled out in terms that even Zaraki Kenpachi would follow…

Well.

As it was, he sucked on the inside of his cheek as he picked up his zanpakuto and strode out to see what the pip-squeak wanted.

Hitsugaya Toshiro stood in the training yards of the Eleventh Division, watching as pairs of recruits charged recklessly at Madarame Ikakku. That Madarame hadn't even drawn his sword didn't seem to matter to them as they charged him with their zanpakuto. Madarame was skilled, that much was clear, as he smashed aside defenses and thrust his sheathed zanpakuto into gaps in their attacks. "You and you," Ayasegawa Yumichika commented, presiding over the madhouse that passed for training sessions in the Eleventh Division. "An ugly defense. You're dead. You. You just lost your legs. Please kneel down so the fight can continue in a more beautiful fashion."

At least, Hitsugaya thought, he couldn't make out the two low-ranking officers that he had provoked into a fight.

"There you are, pip-squeak!" Zaraki bellowed, ploughing straight through the chaos. "What do you want?"

"Whitey-chan!" Yachiru squealed, sliding down from Zaraki's back. "You never come around to play!"

Hitsugaya gritted his teeth, and almost regretted his decision. "Here," he said, shoving the hamper at her. "Ukitake sends his regards."

"Candy!" Yachiru exclaimed, excited. "Thank you, Whitey-chan! Ukkii always gives out tasty-looking candy!"

"Yo pip-squeak," Zaraki said, looming over his little hyperactive terror. "Why are you running errands for Ukitake, eh?" He bent down and lifted Yachiru and the hamper back onto his shoulders. In that moment, Hitsugaya saw: the hilts of Yachiru's zanpakuto and Zaraki's zanpakuto were different.

Of course they were, he told himself. Zaraki's zanpakuto was permanently released. Yachiru's was sealed. Even then….

Of course they were.

"Things to do," Hitsugaya said shortly. "I don't ask you what you do with your spare time, do I?"

Zaraki chuckled. "S'pose not," he said grudgingly. "So what is this I hear about this imaginary shinigami running around Soul Society killing things, eh?"

"Hardly," Hitsugaya responded. Looking from Yachiru as she perched on Zaraki's shoulders and tore open the hamper and stuffed candy into her mouth with utter delight, to how obviously comfortable they were around each other… "He was real enough." More to himself, than to Zaraki. He repeated, "He was real."

"Whatcha lookin' at, pip-squeak?"

"Nothing," Hitsugaya said. The moment passed, and he decided not to say it. He looked once more, at the tall, intimidating figure that was Zaraki Kenpachi and the little girl he regarded with kindness and protected. No, he thought. There was nothing to be said here. He turned and walked away.

He found Matsumoto, very cheerfully drunk in the administrative office as she saluted him with a half-drunk bottle of sake. "Taicho!" she exclaimed. "Welcome back!"

"Matsumoto," Hitsugaya said. "Are you drinking in the office?"

"Yes!"

"Matsumoto," Hitsugaya repeated. "The administrative office is not somewhere you can…party in!" He threw up his hands in frustration.

"Why not?" she pouted, which meant she was thoroughly on the way to getting drunk. "Taicho, if you don't celebrate the good moments in life, what else is there left?"

Hitsugaya took a few deep breaths. "Celebrate somewhere else," he suggested, almost begged. So much for his hopes for some peace and quiet.

"Nope!" She managed to grab at his sleeve and drag him over. "C'mon Taicho, at least drink a few sips of sake!"

"Matsumoto, sharing a bottle is hardly—ulp!" Sake spilled on his shihakusho, and down his throat, burning as it went down. "Matsumoto!"

He could try to hide away all he wanted, but life went on, and the only thing he could do was to go on living. It hurt to do so, and he felt weary, but a measure of life was pain and all the ragged messy things and problematic decisions that came with it. A measure of justice had been found for the dead, Hitsugaya thought, but justice, fairness—it was just as much for the living; for him, for Matsumoto, and for a Captain with a ragged haori and an eyepatch and his hyperactive little pink menace. For a couple who had or had not lived in the fifth district of Rukongai.

They owed just as much to the living as to the dead.

Sake wasn't a cure to those aches, but the company of friends, people he knew and trusted with his life, was.

His reiatsu welled up; for a few moments, the spilled sake froze over, where it puddled on his clothing and on the floor, and then the ice crumbled, flaking away, glittering like tears, like diamonds, and then underfoot like so much dust.

For a few moments, in the sunlight, the ice glittered a pale icy blue, but in its depths—

—perhaps it was a trick of the light, but violet fire danced in the facets of the ice, and then in a flash, it was all gone.

A/N: And that's that. Winter's Sons is concluded. Thanks to all who followed this story in one way or another, and those who reviewed.