Eheh. So you guys remember when I said I’d be back by December? Yeeeeeeeeeeeah...sorry! I didn’t mean to leave it so long, really!

My excuse is that real life is a bitch and also that I have no excuse. But I am hoping to get into regular updates again now! I definitely won’t leave it this long to update again, promise!

Anyway! After too many months to count, I give you chapter ten!

xXx

Orihime had been in the middle of chiding Ishida for some remark about Ichigo when her daughter fled the area. She cut herself off immediately, pushing her chair back and standing, about to go after the girl.

Momo bit her lip, watching the door Ryuu had run through slam shut behind her as Ishida placed a hand on his wife’s shoulder. She wanted to follow, but it wasn’t her place. She barely even knew the girl. She wasn’t even that close to Orihime, really.

“Don’t,” Ishida said softly.

“But—” The expression on Orihime’s face was imploring. The feeling in Momo’s chest that this wasn’t just child’s tantrum intensified.

“You can’t run after her every time she does this, Orihime.” Ishida’s voice was gentle and regretful, and Momo was struck once again at just how he had matured since the War. “Otherwise she’ll never get over it.”

“She always does that,” Sora huffed, crossing his arms over his chest. The butterfly had escaped in his surprise at Ryuu’s reaction. “Every time Kioshi’s over here. She’s so stupid sometimes.” Behind the annoyed look on his face was a faintly worried glint. “...did I make her leave like that?” he asked his mother, bewildered.

Orihime shook head, giving her son a bright smile, the worry for her daughter carefully hidden. “She’s just grumpy,” she told him lightly. “You know how she gets sometimes.”

Sora grinned in response. “Yeah, I know.” His arms fell to his sides, and it was only then that he seemed to notice the absence of his butterfly. The look of horror on his face was almost comical. “K-Kioshi! The butterfly escaped!” he cried, letting go of the matter of his sister as easily as he had the butterfly.

Momo watched as Orihime’s smile dimmed, wishing she could do something. This was something that Momo was pretty sure she couldn’t blame herself for, but that didn’t mean she didn’t want to help her friend.

“Ryuu’s still jealous of Kioshi, huh?” Tatsuki broke the silence among the adults as the sounds of Kioshi entertaining Sora again interrupted the quiet of the yard.

“I don’t think jealous is the right word for it,” Ishida sighed. “It’s gone deeper than that in the past few months.” He glanced at Orihime. “I think we should take her to see someone.”

See someone? As in – a therapist? Momo blinked. But – the girl was only ten years old. Did ten-year-olds need to see therapists? Maybe that wasn’t what he had meant.

Orihime’s head jerked up. “N-no!” A pause. “Ryuu-chan doesn’t like herself very much, Uryuu. You know that. I don’t want her thinking that there’s – that there’s something wrong with her.”

“What if there is?” Tatsuki asked bluntly. “If you’re that worried about her, Orihime, maybe you need to.”

Orihime shook her head stubbornly. “If she won’t talk to her family, she won’t talk to a stranger. You know how shy she is.”

Momo wasn’t sure this was a conversation she should have been sitting in on, but no one else seemed to be worried about her presence. She glanced at the house, and then back to her friends, wondering if she should tell them about her encounter with the girl. It wasn’t really any of her business, but...maybe it would help them. At the very least, she didn’t think it could hurt.

“Uhm.” Momo blushed very slightly as all four heads turned to look at her. She abruptly felt very young, as if she was the age she looked rather than over two centuries old. “This morning, Ryuu-chan, she...she asked me about the War. She wanted me to tell her about it.”

Silence. Then—

“Did you tell her about it?” Ishida asked. Momo flinched against the harsh tone to his voice. She could tell if it was accusatory or simply worried, but it was in her nature to assume the former.

“Uryuu!” Orihime cried. “Momo knows we wanted it kept a secret, she would never have told Ryuu!” The woman didn’t even glance at Momo to try and confirm this by her expression. When Ishida Orihime put her faith in you, it seemed it was an all or nothing thing.

“Why don’t we let Hinamori explain before we start jumping the gun, huh?” Tatsuki asked, giving her an evaluating look before she directed a level gaze at Ishida.

His jaw tightened slightly, looking as though he was just barely restraining himself from shooting something back. Tatsuki merely raised an eyebrow at him, leaning against her husband’s shoulder. Sado, Momo noticed, had shifted his attention from the occupants of the garden table to the children playing at the other side of the yard. This was not, she presumed, a conversation anyone wanted being overheard.

Ishida had just opened his mouth to say something when Orihime laid a gentle hand on his wrist. There were no words between the two of them; there didn’t need to be. They didn’t even exchange a glance. Nonetheless, after a moment’s pause, Ishida subtly relaxed, shoulders slumping slightly as he pushed up his glasses. The faint flash they gave off highlighted blue eyes for a second, eyes that both of his children possessed. They were tired and drawn-looking, however, and it didn’t look like a recent development.

“I’m sorry, Hinamori,” he said quietly. “Would you mind explaining what it was, exactly, that Ryuu asked you?”

Momo shook her head. “N-no! It’s fine, I understand. You’re just looking out for your daughter.” She gave him what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “I...she was in my room when I woke up. She asked me about the War, and I was still half asleep, so I said ‘what war?’.” Half asleep and stuck in the past, that is. “And then she yelled something like ‘they got to you too!’ at me, and ran out of the room.” Momo frowned. “Actually, she wanted people to stop treating her like a child. I tried to tell her that she was a child before she ran out.”

Orihime’s face was twisted into an expression that Momo had never imagined the usually light-hearted woman could wear. “How did she find out?” she whispered. “We were so careful...maybe someone slipped up? Accidents happen...”

Momo knew the look well, she wore it often enough, so when a flicker guilt crossed Ishida’s otherwise impassive face, she recognised it for what it was.

What is going on there? she wondered, although she didn’t say anything. That was definitely none of her business.

“Would it be so bad, Orihime?” Tatsuki asked her friend. “If Ryuu knew? She’s a smart girl, she’s obviously pieced some things together, however it happened. I’d bet my other arm that she’s figured out I didn’t lose this one in a car accident.” She waved the stump of her arm casually. “And you know we’ve already told Kioshi.”

Orihime shook her head. “Ryuu isn’t Kioshi-kun. She’s not – she’s only ten,” she finished helplessly.

Tatsuki’s gaze softened. “Orihime. You can’t keep her innocent forever. She’s already—”

The other woman looked down at her hands. “She’s my daughter, Tatsuki. I’ll keep her innocent for as long as I can. Ten-year-old girls are not meant to be worrying about whether or not their brother is going to be eaten the next time he goes to the park!” She still hadn’t looked up from her hand, but there was a certain tone, a strength to her voice that Momo recognised from listening to the other mothers in her acquaintance talking about their children. “She’s not one of us. Even if the world did need saving again, we’re still here to do it.”

Momo was abruptly overcome with the need to escape. She did not belong with these people, who had fought and lost so much in the War while she had been – not-fighting. Shakily, she got to her feet. “I – I’m sorry.” She stumbled over her words as they all looked at her again. “I don’t mean to leave so suddenly, but I really have to see Shuuhei. He – his bankai. It’s really the reason we came here together, and. It’s not fair that he takes so many shifts. But thank you very much for letting me stay!” Without waiting for a response, she made a quick exit. She almost went to flash-step, before remembering that she was in a gigai and therefore unable to do so.

It had been a long time since she had felt so actively guilty about the War. Usually it was just something she lived with, something she knew that she would probably never forgive herself for. But faced with those people who, as teenagers, had given their all to a war that wasn’t even theirs in the first place...

Momo couldn’t help but feel incredibly unworthy.

She stumbled her way to the guest bedroom that had been termed hers for her stay in the real world. Shucking the gigai and placing it on the bed, she leaned against the wall, door still open, and closed her eyes with one hand placed on the comforting familiarity of Tobiume’s hilt.

A sigh from the spirit of her zanpakutō. :Again, Momo?: Branches shifted in their inner world, shaking off some of the wet from the sudden downpour. :I’m going to drown,: he announced.

“You are not going to drown,” she said aloud, touching a hand to her cheek in surprise. It was wet.

:I will,: he insisted. :Just to spite you and this incessant need to be guilty all the time.:

“It’s not a need!” she protested, eyes flying open. Her vision was oddly layered, the simple set up of the guest room overlaid with the stark grey of their inner world, a large tree planted sullenly in the corner of the room as rain fell from the ceiling and water swirled around its roots.

Tobiume huffed. :If you say so.:

“I do say so,” Momo replied. It was not a need. It was what she deserved. It was. “Now, we’re going to see Shuuhei.” The rain lessened slightly, although she didn’t notice. “Seeing as that really is why he came here.”

:Yay, Tora,: the tree-spirit replied dryly.

“I could always just leave you behind?” she suggested, stepping over her gigai on the bed to get to the window and push it open. It was the simplest method of escape.

:I could always just not cut things?: he replied, mimicking her tone nearly exactly. They set to bickering, and by the time she got to the area of town the commander of the Karakura Guard typically staked out, she had almost forgotten what it was that had made her leave so fast.

Of course, that left room for other things to creep into her head. Like the fact that the last time she had seen Shuuhei, she had been angry at him. Something about him being overbearing and rude. And cynical.

:And right.:

“You’re a cynic too,” she accused Tobiume as familiar reiatsu approached.

:And I’m you, so what does that tell you?:

“That clearly, repression has been working wonders,” she sniffed, only half joking. The dream about Aizen flitted through her mind before she slammed it to the back again.

“Don’t let Isane hear you say that.” That familiar reiatsu she’d felt before washed over her, steady and calm. Momo turned around to see Shuuhei standing out in midair, next to her rooftop. “Ever since that whole thing with Kurosaki Karin and the Random Memory Regeneration, she’s been diversifying.”

Momo shook her head, giving him a welcoming smile. “I’m not good enough at repressing to warrant a case of RMR,” she told him. “I’m also not an echo.”

“Thankfully,” Shuuhei added, before pausing. “About yesterday—”

“And hello to you too!” Momo added hastily, not wanting him to say in words the apology that was clearly written across his face. “Honestly, Shuuhei, basic manners,” she teased. “Now, are you ready for your training?”

He raised an eyebrow at her, thus informing her that her subtlety still required some work. “In the middle of patrol?” he asked her.

“The middle of patrol is the best time to do it,” Momo affirmed. “It’s killing two birds with one stone. Literally.”

The other eyebrow rose. She got the feeling he was making fun of her.

“I’m serious!” she protested, a smile tugging at her lips anyway. “You need to commune with Tora, and meditation isn’t going to work just yet. What she really needs is a proper workout. Something mindless that neither of you will have to concentrate on too much, and where there’s no pressure to win. Once she’s got the bloodlust out of her system, she should be easier to deal with.”

Momo actually wasn’t pulling this from thin air. Using her own relationship with her zanpakutō as a case study, she had personally developed a training method that helped shinigami form a closer bond with the spirit of their swords. She had tested it with Rangiku before the other vice-captain had been required to take over Tenth, and had implemented it in Fifth while she was still Acting Captain. As a result, her Division had one of the highest rates of shinigami with shikai in the Gotei 13.

“So we’re going to kill Hollows?” Shuuhei clarified.

“No. You’re going to kill Hollows. I’m here to tell you when to stop.”

“...I don’t stop when we run out of Hollows?”

The smile developed into a full grin, and an emotion she couldn’t quite decipher flickered behind his eyes. Her worry of Ryuu and her general guilt were quickly melting away now that she was sure Shuuhei wasn’t about to go all cynical on her again, and while it would no doubt return later, for now it was nice simply to enjoy his company. “No. Tobiume will keep an eye on Tora, and he’ll let me know when to let you know when to stop. Then we move on to step two. Got it?”

There was a weird expression on his face as he replied. “I get it.” A pause. “So the student become the teacher, huh?”

Momo laughed, shaking her head in denial again. “I’m not a teacher. I’m just – helping you out.”

“You’re not a teacher yet,” he corrected.

She smiled at his remembered. “Not a teacher yet,” she agreed. “But wanting to be one still doesn’t make me one, and I was never really your student anyway. Now, are you ready to go?”

“Hai, sensei,” he replied, face perfectly straight.

She hit him in the shoulder anyway, laughing. “Come on then. Let’s go.”

xXx

All right! I doubt that was worth so long a wait, but I at least hope you liked it ^_^ A little more on Ryuu and the Ishida family, and a little more Momo/Shuuhei interaction.

THINGS WILL START HAPPENING SOON, I PROMISE!