FROZEN SKY
Part One: Waking to Frost
Even years later, looking back, he couldn't say exactly what had driven him to stand at the edge of Rukongai and make the final choice to step over, into the Seireitei.
Nonetheless, he always had an answer on hand for when the issue inevitably came up, as it had all too often especially in the early years. Most of the time it was the same answer, one that the nobility would happily overlook with condescension, and the rest would easily believe; Rukongai just wasn't enough for someone with ambition, he told them. But he supposed the exceptions to the standard answer were closer to the truth.
When Yamamoto-soutaichou had posed the question in the final stage of his Captain's exam, he had replied, with the air of cold solemnity he had by this point managed to perfect in order to deal with life at the academy, and then in the Gotei 13, that he had chosen to become Shinigami because the power within him left him no other choice; it was a call to duty he could not ignore.
Even then he was aware that such a claim from anyone else might have smacked too much of hubris. But credibility had to be leant, when it came from a genius. From the reincarnation of a heavenly guardian.
People liked to talk, he had learned. They liked to label things that intimidated them, box what made them uneasy into manageable packages. He let them. At least it kept them quiet.
Much later, when Matsumoto had asked him the question, far too early in their partnership to have earned an honest answer, he told her that even from the outside it was clear that the Shinigami in charge in the Seireitei couldn't tell their heads from their asses, and someone had to come in and sort things out. He hadn't used exactly those words, of course; Matsumoto had colored them in for herself. But the jist, at least, had initially been there.
Later in their partnership, when he might have been more honest, she knew better than to ask. Or maybe she no longer felt the need to wonder. He liked to think it was the latter.
And when Hinamori asked, he told her that he figured becoming Shinigami was the only way to ensure he had enough food to suit his appetite. He still wasn't sure whether or not to be irritated by the fact that she had accepted the answer at face value so readily. Of course she must also have seen in his motivation the memory of childhood nights spent together watching the stars, but even after achieving his captaincy she still persisted in asking him if he was eating enough to keep him growing.
They were none of them lies, really. Not quite. But none of them were truth, either.
And the only one who had never asked the question already knew the answer, though he had never given it in words. In that relationship, there was no need for words, no need for questioning.
He had followed Momo; he would never say it aloud, but he couldn't deny it. Nor had he wanted to be left alone in Rukongai, with hunger always gnawing at his insides, insatiable, larger than his body. He hadn't wanted to content himself with watching Jidanbou through eyes too sharp to miss inadequacies, and an instinct too sharp not to realize his own potential. He could not be content with simple days, no matter how peaceful, isolated by his own awareness of unused ability.
All of it true.
But in the end, he had stepped over the threshold into the Seireitei that day because the dragon coiling inside his chest would not let him rest, would not let him sleep, would not let a single night pass that was not filled with an echo of howling winds, and a roar like breaking ice chasing him through all of his dreams.
Hyourinmaru called him, and he came. In the end, it was as simple as that.
It took him several years after Hinamori's departure to come to his decision. Life in Jyunrinan, first district of west Rukongai, was not hard, and it was easy to let days slip by, to lose whole afternoons lying on his back in the grass, feet submerged at the edge of a tranquil pool or stream, watching the clouds gather and part above him, seeing in them fluid and serpentine shapes.
He sometimes wondered if his spirit power might not have awoken so soon if not for Hinamori's visits, and the way her power, as it increased through training, became more and more palpable every time she arrived, leaving a painfully sharpened awareness in her wake of something growing inside of him as well.
He fought it, for a while. Even after realizing what it was, and what it could mean. He wasn't at all certain that he wanted to go to Hinamori's beloved school; for the most part it sounded like a boring waste of time. He hadn't been able to understand why, if someone had the power necessary to be Shinigami, they wouldn't instinctively know how to use it.
Take Jidanbou, for one. Now there was a man who made a mockery of schooling. If that was the sort of education the Shinigami academy provided, he figured he could do without it. It had taken him a whole month to get Jidanbou to correctly remember a handful of common sense rules. He'd stopped at three, before moving on to equally important things like, when you're the size of a tall building, make sure you look to see who might be beneath you before sitting, or farting, or any other activity that might cause the unwary bodily harm. Despite the imminent importance of such considerations, three rules seemed about all Jidanbou could manage.
The integrity of a one-on-one duel had been the hardest lesson to impart, not least of which because he'd had to impart it through a split lip, a near broken nose, and a gash on his forehead that kept curtaining his vision with blood. Street fights weren't perhaps as common in Jyunrinan as they could be in the outer districts, but every place had its bullies, and Hinamori was the only person allowed to call him Shiro-chan without getting a fist to the face.
Jidanbou had nearly squashed the bullies flat before Hitsugaya could get a word out to stop him. Convincing the massive Shinigami to let him finish the fight alone had been hard enough, and trying afterwards to explain why had been even harder. It took the whole day and then some. But in the end, whether or not Jidanbou truly understood the point of honor, he had at least promised not to interfere should a similar situation arise again. After all, it would be a dark day indeed when Hitsugaya Toushiro needed help beating down a few bullies.
And when he finally did decide to follow in Momo's footsteps, Jidanbou nearly cried with happiness. It had been perhaps one of the most embarrassing moments of his life, and he had never wished more fervently for more height from which to stare the big oaf down.
"Oi," he'd said testily, crossing his arms, and trying to ignore the gathering spectators. "They can hear you all the way out in Zaraki, Jidanbou!"
There were supposed to be proper procedures in place for this sort of thing, of course. Enough people came out of Rukongai with strong spirit force to merit the establishment of appropriate steps, but the truth was that almost nobody followed them. Most residents of Rukongai were too intimidated to approach the Seireitei, and Shinigami candidates were typically identified by other Shinigami out on patrols. More often than not, the requisite testing of spirit power could be determined on the spot, with no need to call in someone from the academy proper.
But once he'd made his decision, he had no intention of waiting around for some Shinigami out on patrol to stumble across him. He intended to walk right up to the academy doors, and he doubted Jidanbou was about to raise any objections.
Unfortunately, the big man's lack of objections extended so far in the other direction that the gate guardian insisted on escorting him all the way to the academy.
"Are you supposed to leave your post, Jidanbou?" he'd asked desperately.
"I will know if someone attempts to pass through my Gate," Jidanbou had said, with an unusual air of gravity, and Hitsugaya had to take him at his word. "This is a special day. I, Ikkanzaka Jidanbou, Seireimon Guardian, should take Shiro-chan to the school myself."
And then, some people's faces were just too far away to hit properly.
"Oi. Jidanbou. I told you not to call me that."
But Jidanbou just sniffled happily, wiping at his eyes, and then attempted to pat his small friend on the head, only to find his target had neatly sidestepped and skipped safely to the other side of him before a single strand of white hair could be moved from its unruly state.
"They'll be as happy as I am to know that you'll be Shinigami," Jidanbou rumbled on. "I can't wait to see their faces."
Hitsugaya doubted that, of course. Even on that first day, he'd had a pretty good idea of the treatment he should expect. Jidanbou's simple-mindedness gave him a sort of clarity of vision; he had long ago sensed power in his young friend where even Hinamori had not. Hitsugaya did not expect others to accept the presence of that power as easily.
He was right, of course.
And as the hours dragged painfully on – amused student face after amused student face, flummoxed instructor after flummoxed instructor, until finally someone wise enough to be in a position of real authority was summoned to sense the truth of the matter – he had to fight down the urge to throw back his head and let loose the dragon's roar building in the back of his mind, writhing in response to so much spirit pressure surrounding him like a physical force, a pounding tide. It was the first time in his life that he had felt it like this.
But not the last.
And he was a fast learner. He had to be.
He learned, that very first day, that a dragon could be more than fury and force. It could be chilled patience, too.
And when, at the end of that day, the procession of progressively more and more bemused officials had finally brought him – special case, they said – unique – to the ultimate authority in the academy, the founder, the one whose final judgment could not be gainsaid where such a strange young petitioner was concerned, Hitsugaya Toushiro was able to look the old man in the eye, and meet banked fire with passionless ice.
A dragon knew how to recognize power. It knew when to fear, knew when to offer appropriate deference.
But it could never learn to abandon pride.
In most ways, he'd been entirely wrong in his skepticism of the training received at the Shinigami Institute. True, there were more than a few extremely tedious exercises in the obvious, but in the privacy of his own thoughts he could acknowledge that for the most part he found the training exciting. He had understood that there was a power growing inside of him that needed release, but he hadn't anticipated just how good that would feel.
Almost as soon as he began his training, the restless dreams ceased. Learning just what his body could do and what his will could summon gave him an entirely new understanding of the expressions Hinamori had worn when she came to visit, aglow with pleasure and the aftermath of hard work. He thought he might even have dropped haughty pretense long enough to tell her so, if she'd been there to talk to.
But of course she wasn't. Not anymore. He might have followed at last, but he'd come too late. Word of his acceptance to the academy spread, and she had come swiftly to see him, shining with joy and pride – but she'd left again with just as much haste.
"I'm a seated officer in Aizen-taichou's squad now after all, Shiro-chan. He needs me. There's always so much work to do."
He wondered sometimes if he would have pushed himself so hard if she had been there at the academy still, training beside him, even as his senior. And he could never quite decide if he had pushed himself as he did in order to be free to associate with her as a full Shinigami outside of the academy walls, or if he'd done so merely to escape the whispers and jibes and antagonism that surrounded him from his first day to his last as a student there.
Because while he had been wrong about the quality and rewards of the training itself, he had been perfectly right in his expectations of the reaction his presence would engender.
After it was known that his acceptance into the academy had been mandated by Yamamoto Genryuusai himself – and it was known in every hall and classroom with astonishing speed – no one questioned his right to be there. But they tested him every day, pushed him, demanded by force of competition or expectation that he prove himself worthy of such an unprecedented commendation. So while in other circumstances he might have allowed himself to linger, to spend time savoring his training, to explore the mysteries of kidou in more depth or to put the perfecting touches on shunpo that only years of training could really provide, the pressure to be done and gone was too much to endure for long.
And because they would have dismissed him as childish if he had lashed out with the anger or impatience he was truly feeling, he learned to be cold. It came to him easily. The dragon inside of him helped.
Hyourinmaru.
He would always remember clearly the exact moment when all of the doubting whispers stopped, and when the murmurs overheard in passing changed from skepticism to envy. The day he first held Hyourinmaru in his hands.
No student accepted to the academy was too weak to summon a zanpakutou, but some could never take it beyond that stage, their blades never waking with life, never finding a voice with which they might speak to their wielders. A Shinigami wielding an asauchi would never find a position in the Gotei 13, and rarely ever in the Onmitsukidou's special operations brigades - though some who could still excel in demon magic might make it into the Demon Arts Corps. Yet regardless of any other strengths they might possess, the inability to awaken a spirit within their zanpakutou was inevitably considered a weakness.
He would have been lying had he said there wasn't a fear in the back of his mind that he might fail to summon a worthy blade, but there had been no one around to lie to anyway.
As soon as his hands closed around the tsuka of the sword before him, however, all doubts were blown away by the gust of cold wind that seemed to tear through his body. He barely noticed the shimmer of air surrounding the sword as the tsuba began to alter its shape at his touch; the curves of the plain oval guard melted and stretched, crystallizing at last into the four points he would find himself tracing with his fingers in the privacy of his own room for many weeks afterwards. But at that moment the physical transformation went unnoticed, drowned by the roaring in his ears and the icy film that seemed to slip over his vision.
The dragon had waited a long time for this moment.
Even that day, he had sensed there was a name, a vital name, on the tip of his tongue, ready to be spoken. Yet as eager as he might have been to speak it – and Hyourinmaru to hear it – it evaded him for many frustrating months.
Which did not, of course, do anything to change the wide-eyed expressions he'd seen on the faces of the other students around him that day as they watched his zanpakutou – the only one in the courtyard to do so – twist with life at his first touch. The first of many.
It was a day for firsts that would later bear much repeating.
That evening, as he walked back to his sleeping quarters with his sword through his obi for the first time, was also the first time he heard the word murmured behind his back.
Tensai.
Genius.
It would come to be used as an insult as often as it was used for praise, and because of that he never knew quite how he felt about it. There had been some pride, at first. And later, irritation. Eventually came the weariness.
How could he ever explain to them that it wasn't a matter of genius, but simply a matter of need? There was a dragon inside of him, and if he didn't do something to set it free then it was going to tear him open.
He wanted to tell Momo about it, to lay down on a rooftop somewhere, or on the banks of a stream surrounded by tall grasses, and watch the stars wink at them while he tried to put his feelings into speech, as he had so rarely tried to do in their childhood years together.
But she wasn't there, and so he never strained himself to find the words.
It was Oounabara-sensei who first began to speak to him as something more than an oddity to be treated with indulgence or caution. All of the instructors had been uncompromising in their demands on him, making no exceptions for his age where performance was concerned. But even so, when sparring was done and the echoes of incantations faded, they couldn't seem to stop themselves from speaking to him as they would to a lost child.
It was a minor miracle, really, that no one at the academy ever thought to call him Shiro-chan. There was perhaps at least one positive side to Hinamori's absence.
But after the day in the courtyard with his zanpakutou, Oounabara-sensei would stop to speak to him every time they passed in the hallway.
"Hitsugaya-san," he would say – and it was san now, not kun, not chan, and though he wished he were strong enough not to care, Hitsugaya soaked it in almost desperately, even if he never allowed the need to show. "Hitsugaya-san, how has your kidou training been progressing? Sparring? Hakuda? You performed well on the exam yesterday. Your name has been mentioned many times at staff meetings this week. It is good weather for terrain training, wouldn't you agree?"
It was Oounabara-sensei who first told him about Shiba Kaien.
"He was the first person to have advanced through the curriculum so quickly. Others have cut years from their training, but only Shiba Kaien was able to reduce all six years to one." A solemn look, then; an almost proud one. "I believe, however, that one stands before me now who will match that record, if not surpass it. Work hard, Hitsugaya Toushiro. You will not regret your efforts."
After that, he often found himself wondering how Shiba Kaien had performed in a certain examination, how swiftly Shiba Kaien might have attained mastery of the sixties level hadou, and how swiftly he, Hitsugaya Toushiro, might pass that record.
He had no real way of knowing the details of Shiba Kaien's accomplishments in training, but he always imagined them at the highest level possible, and strove to surpass that goal. It helped to have an equal against whom he might compete, even if only in his mind. And Shiba, he told himself, had once been a noble house; power ran in their veins, disgraced or not. Greatness was almost to be expected. If he could meet that challenge with only the dirt of Rukongai in his blood, then that was something he would allow himself to be proud of.
Hinamori had done it; she had climbed her way to the top of the academy by sheer will. He swore to himself that he would do no less. Otherwise he really wouldn't be worthy of any name other than Shiro-chan.
And he began to want to be worthy for more reasons than just Momo.
After all, he saw her less now than even when she'd been a busy student and he trapped in Rukongai. He found that he missed her now far more than he ever had, though with each passing day he felt less and less certain that he would even know what to say to her should she visit again. Now that she had a Captain to serve, a Captain she so clearly and painfully adored, time free of her duties seemed to have vanished.
Hitsugaya tried to be happy for her.
It was harder by far than anything they asked him to do at the academy.
Acknowledging, even just to himself, how much he missed her came as something of a new experience to him. His time alone at the academy was changing him in ways more profound than the honing of his power.
He had been distantly aware of the changes working on him, but had not truly given them much thought until a conversation one afternoon found him lying on his back in the sun, sword beside him, visiting with Jidanbou. The smooth paving stones at the Seireitei's edge were cool beneath him, and the dirt of Rukongai an arm's length away.
"Hitsugaya-kun looks like he's grown," Jidanbou said.
Jidanbou, at least, had stopped calling him Shiro-chan as soon as his friend had returned for his first visit wearing the blue hakama and striped kimono of a Shinigami student proper.
"You're imagining things, Jidanbou."
He would have liked very much to have claimed a gain in height equal to his gain in power, but sadly knew it was not the case.
"No. Your reiatsu makes you tall. Soon you'll be as tall as me maybe." Jidanbou grinned broadly, the tassel on that ridiculous hat of his flapping down into his face as he leaned over his supine companion.
Hitsugaya opened his eyes, safe from the sun in Jidanbou's shadow, and made a dismissive noise. "Size has nothing to do with power."
He was so used to saying the words – or at least thinking them – in response to every doubting look shot his way, that they slipped out before he could remind himself who he was speaking to, and how insulting the comment might seem considering their respective sizes. He had too few friends these days to indulge in casual rudeness anymore.
"Eh? Size matters!" Jidanbou boomed, leaning in so close that Hitsugaya winced at the echoes in his ears. "You think just anyone can lift this Gate should the need arise? No! But!" He leaned in even closer, grinning again. "Not everyone is smart enough to know the rules of the city and civilized behavior. Your reiatsu makes you tall, but it is your mind that will make you a great Shinigami!"
He reached out to tap Hitsugaya meaningfully on the head with one mammoth finger – and blinked in surprise when his fingertip hit stone. Hitsugaya pushed off Jidanbou's shoulder with one foot, sending his leap higher, and flipped down to the ground behind the giant's back.
"Or maybe good reflexes," he said blandly as he alighted, shaking out his sleeve and sliding his sword back into his obi.
Jidanbou just laughed.
But as he walked slowly back to the academy that afternoon, his brow furrowed in a thoughtful frown, Hitsugaya wondered how much his inner self might have begun to reflect the outer self he had been forced to wear since entering his training.
In the past, with Momo or anyone else, he had never felt the need to ponder what he would say or do next, and so never stopped to truly weigh the merits of his own choices. He just did what he did, what seemed right, what felt good. But now that every action and word had to be carefully scrutinized and measured before he put it out for others' criticism, it was becoming increasingly obvious that not everyone saw the world the way he did.
What was painfully simple to him was often insurmountably difficult for others to comprehend. Problems broke themselves down around him like pieces of ice shattering, chipping away and melting beneath his gaze to reveal the simple truths once hidden by their frozen facets. Everything could be seen and understood clearly, if only enough thought and effort was bent to it, yet sometimes it seemed he was the only one putting forth the effort required.
Could it really be just a matter of genius? Could one word explain the difference?
He often thought, especially after that afternoon with Jidanbou, that it would have been nice to sit down and have a conversation with Shiba Kaien. How often, he wanted to ask, did you find yourself becoming what they expected you to be? How often did you change to make them more comfortable? Did you ever find the patience to endure it all?
But by the time he was in a position to truly inquire after Shiba Kaien's possible opinion on such matters, he had long since given up on asking the questions.
Change, after all, came quickly to one with the willingness to embrace it.
The dreams started again a few weeks after he first touched Hyourinmaru's blade.
After half a year of intensive and advanced training and lectures, he knew enough to realize that the presence he had always felt surrounding him in those dreams was most likely his zanpakutou trying to make itself known to him. He told no one about the dreams, though it was clear that most of the instructors at the academy already believed him to have begun some sort of communication with his zanpakutou – that much was obvious from the way their eyes strayed to him whenever they lectured about the importance of forming a bond with your sword.
Only Oounabara-sensei spoke to him openly about it, but Hitsugaya knew instinctively that it was not advice he wished to follow.
"You have time, Hitsugaya-san. Sometimes the deepest understanding can only be forged through patience."
He had time to spare, they said, because he was still young. Still a child. But aging was slow in Soul Society, especially for those strong in spiritual power, and if he waited until he seemed old enough to others that they deemed it the proper time, it could be years. Decades. He couldn't wait that long. The dragon wouldn't wait that long.
Yet despite all need, the dragon's name itself remained frustratingly elusive for many months.
In his dreams, he would walk through fields of grass turned cold and sharp by midnight chill, the stars flashing above him – far, and yet somehow close enough that he knew he could reach out and close his fingers around them if only he could summon the wings to fly – and all the while an icy wind whipped around him, pulling the sleeves of his kimono back, lashing the ends of his hair into his face.
And in the wind there was a voice, a howling, a roar that would build in intensity until it seemed to move inside his body and through his veins. It wanted out. It wanted him to listen, to understand, but no matter how hard he tried, he could not make out a voice or words in that roar.
There was something missing. Something inside of himself. He couldn't help but view it as a failing in his training, in his ability - a weakness. And he hated weakness. Hated showing it, hated feeling it.
If his zanpakutou couldn't speak to him, what good was genius?
When Oounabara-sensei approached him, ten months into his training, and requested his presence for a special field exercise, Hitsugaya was certain there was more to the event than the instructors were admitting. All of the other students recruited for the exercise were in their final year of training, and for most that meant completing the curriculum at three or four years rather than the usual six. He was the only one among them to be in his final stages at less than a year, and Hitsugaya suspected that he had already earned graduation marks, and only the instructors' insecurities about his age stood in the way of his elevation to full Shinigami.
Better even than Shiba Kaien's record, and he was proud of it, though it wasn't a pride he would ever admit to feeling.
So when the "special field exercise" was mentioned, he seized the chance eagerly.
It would not be his first time engaging in combat, but until now he had only fought against dummy Hollows in controlled exercises. He had secretly hoped for a surprise attack on some soul burial training excursion, like the one Hinamori had once told him about, but all had gone smoothly; past lessons had been taken to heart, and now full ranked Shinigami served as guard and escort for every student exercise.
But this time, a group of ten would be sent into the wildest regions outside Rukongai's borders in pursuit of real Hollows, with only two Shinigami as guides. This would not be just an exercise, Hitsugaya was sure. This was a test, though the rules and the reward were uncertain. Fortunately, he had never been one to worry about rules. Rules would have stopped him entering the Seireitei, stopped him entering the academy, stopped him reaching his full potential. The most important thing about rules, he felt, was to know when it was necessary to break them, though this was not something he had decided to tell Jidanbou where the importance of leaving food on the floor once it had been stepped on was concerned.
And this test, he swore to himself, was a test he would not fail, no matter what the rules might prove to be.
The night before the exercise he sat awake, kneeling in a beam of moonlight under his window, his sword at his side waiting to be touched.
While its wielder waited for a visit that would not come.
He hadn't sent word to Hinamori. He knew it was irrational, and probably childish indeed, but part of him wanted to think that she paid enough attention to word of his training that she would already know how important the next day might prove for him. That she would know, would tear herself away from her duties to division and Captain, and that she would come to see him of her own free will. He didn't want to have to send her a message, to seek her out.
Maybe it was selfish. Maybe he shouldn't expect her to come visit him anymore, ignoring all of his haughty protests as she once had. Maybe it was too late. Maybe he'd squandered all the visits he was to be allowed.
He knew he ought to be sleeping in preparation for the trial to come, but he doubted the dreams would give him much rest. And as long as he was awake, then there was still a hope that Momo might come, and that he'd be able to tell her, "After tomorrow, you won't be able to call me Shiro-chan anymore."
But she never came.
He knew it was irrational. He knew it was selfish. Childish.
And yet, there it was. The sense of abandonment.
After that night, his knees cold against the floor mats, he never spent a night waiting for Hinamori to visit again.
"This is one hell of a walk."
"You're telling me. Try doing it with these shorter legs."
"Try it with Hitsugaya's."
Ignoring overheard comments of the sort had long since become ingrained habit; not even a twitch in his frown betrayed the fact that he had heard. Though of course they were certain he had. He felt more inclined to forgive it, however, tonight of all nights, when there were more important things to be thinking about. And it helped that those with him tonight had at least some skill of their own on which to base boasting or jibes.
"Maybe you wouldn't have such a hard time with the walk, Tanizaki, if you didn't waste your breath with your attempts at ill-planned humor."
That was Kentaro Yumiko, of course, in all her sharp and uncompromising fervor. Hitsugaya couldn't say that he actually liked her, but he appreciated that she made no effort to hide her thoughts or feelings at any given moment; she was easy to read, and therefore easier to deal with. As far as she was concerned, so long as he was able to use a sword well enough to watch her back it didn't matter how young – or how short – he was.
When the ten selected students had been called together in preparation for the exercise, she had been the only one to merely nod as though satisfied on noting his presence.
The others had looked at him with varying expressions of uneasiness or judgment, but at least no one had spoken against his being there. They were the ten best students currently at the academy, and had seen enough of his training to know better. But several hours trekking through the night-dark forests, waiting for a Hollow to emerge from behind every tree, had unfortunately loosened most tongues.
It had not, however, loosened the tongue of their Shinigami escort.
Hitsugaya had spent the last hour watching Ise Nanao's back more closely than the forests around him. He was confident that he would sense a Hollow long before being able to see it, and since discovering that their guide on this exercise was not just a seated Shinigami but a Vice Captain, he had decided that the opportunity to watch and analyze her actions was not one to be missed.
Perhaps because of the uniqueness of his situation and the accelerated progress of his training, he had not had any opportunity to witness visits to the academy. Ever since Momo had babbled to him about seeing a Captain at the school and how amazing the man had been, Hitsugaya had half-expected to find Captains ghosting down the corridors on a regular basis. He knew better now of course, knew that Captains rarely visited the academy, and Vice Captains almost as infrequently. He had to admit he had been slightly disappointed at first. Now he thought he understood better. There came a point in the accumulation of skill when you saw the world through a different lens, and certain things became invisible. Shifting your focus back to something already left behind was pointless.
Surely it was pointless.
A Captain, Hitsugaya had decided, was someone you climbed to meet. You didn't expect them to come down to meet you.
Ise Nanao must have climbed. He of all people knew better than to judge by appearances. Slender, glasses carefully perched, hair carefully pulled back and folded upward, she seemed at first glance as unintimidating as she was clearly well-collected. He was certain the first glance was misleading. No one could have reached a Vice Captain's rank without the skills to merit it.
He was watching her gait, trying to see the first hints of shunpo technique in it, or the subconscious twisting of a wrist that might betray a favored hakuda style, but either she had learned to school her movements too well to let such hints slip, or her strength was not in the physical arts. He couldn't even see where she was carrying her zanpakutou. Perhaps her expertise was in kidou, for there was at least no denying her reiatsu, carefully controlled though it was.
"I wonder how the others are doing," Akagi Kohana said, peering into the trees to the west of the path as though she could see through the darkness and the miles separating them from the other students. They had been split into groups of five, each in pursuit of a different Hollow sighting rumor. The others had gone with the fourth seat of 2nd Division, and Hitsugaya doubted the split had been coincidental after noting that all five in the other group had strengths he considered much better suited to the Onmitsukidou than the Gotei 13. That fourth seat would undoubtedly be reporting directly to Captain Soi Fong.
Which begged the question, of course, of who Ise Nanao would be reporting to. What little he'd heard of Captain Kyouraku's reputation didn't paint the picture of a man who would be particularly interested in the accomplishments of the academy's newest students. It had been a very long time since Kyouraku Shunsui had been a student in those halls.
Tanizaki patted Akagi consolingly, his hand looking even larger than usual on her small shoulder. "I'm sure they're fine. Don't worry, my little flower."
Kohana just laughed, undoubtedly accustomed to enduring jokes at her name's expense.
For some reason, however, Tanizaki's comment seemed the last straw for their guide, and Vice Captain Ise turned an irritated look back on her charges.
"Though perhaps you will not bothered if your mindless chatter warns Hollows to stay clear of our approach, I will regret the wasted night."
Tanizaki fell sheepishly silent under her gaze. Kohana blushed so deeply it was clear even in the shadows. Omura Yukio, trailing last in their small group, snickered quietly while smirking at Tanizaki's broad back, but when Vice Captain Ise's gaze fell on him, her glasses glinting faintly in the leaf-filtered moonlight, he too fell silent.
Hitsugaya fought the urge to sigh.
This was not how he had hoped the night would go.
He glanced up at the stars, hoping to gauge how much of the night had now crept by them; long nights of star-gazing in the gardens of the orphanage where so many of the children in Jyunrinan eventually gathered had taught him a familiarity with the night sky that would serve him all of his life. At best he now guessed that they had no more than three or four hours before dawn. The thought of passing the whole night without encountering a single Hollow was beginning to give him a headache.
"Hitsugaya."
He snapped his gaze away from the tree-tops and back to Ise Nanao. She had spoken quietly, and behind them Kohana was whispering something unintelligible to Tanizaki, so that he hoped no one else had heard the Vice Captain. Her face was angled back toward him just slightly, so that he could see her regarding him out of the corner of her eye.
"Yes, fukutaichou?"
"You are frustrated," she said simply. "It is affecting your reiatsu. Please try to rein it in."
"Yes," he said quickly, nodding. And of course the others had quieted enough by now to overhear every word, and he half-expected another weak joke at his expense as he frowned, trying to sense the unintended expansion in his reiatsu and to bring it under control. But to his surprise, no joke or comment came. An unusual, almost uncomfortable silence followed behind him, and he stubbornly refused even to glance back for a peek at their expressions.
At least another hour passed, during which the trees began to thin and his headache to grow worse. Omura Yukio trotted forward to the front of the group, his hand eagerly on his sword as always, to ask Vice Captain Ise how far out they would go before turning back, and if it was likely that a Hollow would emerge to attack them after the sun had risen. She rewarded him with a curt warning to fall back into rear-guard where he had been assigned, and then proceeded to deliver a low-voiced, clipped lecture on the basics of Hollow behavior which, she reminded them, they ought to have learned in their first year.
Hitsugaya barely listened, though normally he would carefully absorb every word of a lecture given in his presence. The pain in his temples was increasing, building to a throb that seemed to pulse with his heartbeat. The skin of his face itched. It grew worse until he was convinced that this was more than just his own anxiety, that something must be wrong in the air around them, and he was about to say something to the Vice Captain when she stopped abruptly in her tracks and raised a hand in silent warning.
After standing in perfect stillness for several moments, she lowered her hand and turned to them. "A Hollow has passed through here recently. It is still nearby. We will find positions in this area and prepare an ambush."
At last.
His headache seemed to ease at the very thought, and he nodded his understanding with grim eagerness.
Vice Captain Ise led them off the meager path they had been following and into the trees. Within a few minutes they came upon a small clearing. Ise crouched to one knee at the clearing's center, the fingertips of her pale hand pressed against the earth, and bowed her head, eyes closed in obvious concentration. Hitsugaya assumed she was stretching her spirit sense to be sure of the Hollow's taint, but now that he realized that what he had been sensing was a Hollow's nearness he wondered why she should need to concentrate at all. Wasn't it painfully obvious? The vague itching sensation which had prickled across his skin seemed to have crept into his throat, leaving behind a foul taste. He tried to breathe more shallowly, hoping that would lessen the impact of the spiritual scent.
When the Vice Captain stood again, apparently satisfied, she motioned them to retreat into the trees once more. Omura's grin was like a flash in the darkness, and with a tiny skip and then a blur of shunpo, he was up in the middle branches of a tree at the clearing's edge. The Vice Captain frowned up at him for a moment, then shook her head as though to let it pass, and gestured for the others to spread out. Tanizaki and Akagi moved off eastward, to take up positions in the lee of two of the larger tree trunks. The technique worked well for Akagi, who was small and slender enough to vanish into the tree's darker shadow, but Tanizaki would need a whole building to use that sort of camouflage effectively, even at night. There were disadvantages to greater size, Hitsugaya had always felt. Jidanbou was considered a giant among Shinigami for more than just his size, but there was no denying that in matters of stealth or speed he was sorely lacking.
Even so, he would have given a great deal to have Jidanbou at his side tonight instead of these relative strangers.
But now was not the time for sentimentality. He gave his head a small, quick shake to clear both inappropriate thoughts and the lingering tightness of his headache. He picked a tree whose bark was smooth enough not to catch on his clothes, but with branches spaced adequately to allow easy climbing, and set his back against it. He faced westward, with the clearing in the periphery of his vision rather than directly before him. Spiritual sense was more effective than sight in hunting Hollows, or so they had been taught, but he didn't want to take the chance that this might be a Hollow with better control over its reiatsu than most, and if it sensed them before they sensed it then the creature might try to approach them by stealth. Which meant it would likely approach the clearing by keeping to the cover of the surrounding trees, as they had.
Vice Captain Ise moved in perfect silence through the tree boles, inspecting their positions and the area. She passed by Kentaro Yumiko – who had folded her tall and narrow frame into a crouch between two lichen-covered boulders – without a word but also without a frown. When she came to Hitsugaya, she paused briefly, turned to look in the direction he had positioned himself to face, and nodded.
He knew he ought to feel pleased by her silent approval, but it seemed such an obvious choice to have made that he could hardly be proud of having made it. His headache was also growing worse again.
He folded his arms, and his elbow and forearm bumped against the tsuka rising from his obi. That happened all the time. It was no good. He would have to do something about it sooner or later.
For now, he merely shifted position just enough for the end of his saya to extend around the side of the trunk behind him, allowing him to keep his back in contact with the tree, and adjusted the fold of his arms to rest more comfortably over his sword.
His sword. His sword. His unnamed sword.
What am I doing wrong? he wanted to ask it. What words should I use to speak to you so that you'll answer?
A chill breeze picked up, winding its way through the trees in a soft rustle of leaves. These hours before dawn were always coldest, but the cold had never bothered him. He remembered sitting up late some nights with Momo, talking or merely watching the moon sail by, and she would shiver, sitting stubbornly beside him, enduring the cold, until he would order her testily to go fetch herself a blanket, or brought one for her himself. But even shivering till her teeth chattered, she never moved until he did.
Not until she moved away completely, changing both of their lives forever.
He closed his eyes briefly, letting the cool breeze ease the tingling warmth on his skin. He drew a deep, slow breath, forcing himself not to fight the taste of the Hollow's taint, but rather to take it in, to familiarize himself with it. Then he opened his eyes, let his gaze unfocus just enough to make sense of the shadows in the trees around him, and waited. Cleared his mind.
Somewhere out there, a Hollow was stalking the night. And somewhere inside of him, his zanpakutou was waiting for him to call out its name.
No one knew what form their zanpakutou might take - that was the first thing they told you in training. Every zanpakutou was different, and for every zanpakutou there was a different theory as to why the swords – blade and manifestation both – took the forms they did. Some argued the zanpakutou's form reflected the inner characteristics of their wielders. Some argued the reverse, that the Shinigami's personality was unknowingly shaped over the course of their lives by the zanpakutou that would eventually become their destiny. Some argued a synthesis of the two, and still others argued that zanpakutou and wielder could be at total odds with one another, that their true destiny was merely to find a truce, to make a pact that would allow them to fight a common enemy together.
At first, Hitsugaya had been interested in all the arguments, had studied them, had even spent days in the libraries reading every scroll on the subject he could get his hands on. But now, he no longer cared which theory might be most true. He merely wanted the dreams to end.
Tonight is the night, he thought to himself, and willed the thought to travel inward, to reach the spirit within his sword. If he could not speak to it in dreams, then he would simply have to find a way to speak to it in waking. If I cannot hear you tonight, with a Hollow before us, then I will never hear you. Never mind that it took most Shinigami years to learn their zanpakutou's name, that many even in the Gotei 13 who were not seated officers never learned to call on the full extent of their sword's true power. A Shinigami could compensate for that, in a battle against Hollows, by excelling in other applications of their training. But it would never be enough, if one wished to be more than a rank and file Shinigami.
And he wanted more. He needed more.
And so.
I want to know your name. I know you want to tell me. Help me hear you.
The breeze was picking up now, whistling through branch and leaf, offering perfect cover of sound for an enemy to approach unheard. Hitsugaya kept his gaze soft, watching the shadows and not the trees.
As far as he knew, none of the others here tonight – excepting the Vice Captain, of course – had yet managed to fully awaken their swords either. Though they must all be close to doing so, or they would not have been sent on this mission. This was a test. He had known that from the beginning. Perhaps it was merely a test meant to see if they could survive a true Hollow, and perform well in the doing, but he decided at that moment – no, he had decided the moment they told him about the exercise – that the true test, his test, would be decided by the waking of his sword. In that test, there was only one judge.
If I must prove my worth to you, then bear witness this night, and reward what you see.
The breeze grew even more chill; it crept through his hair like cold fingers trailing across his scalp. The back of his neck tingled.
I will show you who I am.
But suddenly he was struck by the absurdity of that thought. Had he ever been other than he was? Had he ever pretended to be otherwise, for anyone's sake? Would someone watching him, especially over the last year as he trained, have doubted his determination or his ability? No. No, surely they couldn't.
But what, he wondered now, would it all have looked like from within, rather than without? What had he seen, looking out from his own eyes? What sort of mirror had he offered himself? Or the spirit within his sword?
The wind was blowing clouds in overhead with astonishing speed. The moon, covered and uncovered by white wisps, was casting moving shadows all through the trees. Catching sight of a body's movement in them now would be almost impossible.
Is that where I've failed? Is it really that simple?
The pain in his temples was intense now. His breath was coming to him in shortening gasps, but he couldn't tell if it was because of the Hollow's taint twisting his senses or because of the pressure building in his chest, struggling for release.
Then forgive me. I will tell you who I am.
To give his zanpakutou eyes with which to see him, he would have to see himself.
I am Hitsugaya Toushiro.
The pressure in his chest seemed to move, like coils unwinding. The tree behind him seemed to vibrate with the tossing of its branches in the wind.
I am not a genius. I am not Shinigami.
Not in his heart. Not yet. Not in any way that it might matter to the presence inside of him, listening now, palpably listening.
I am not alone.
No, he wasn't. He realized now that he never had been. Not before Momo, not after her, not in the street, not in the orphanage, not wandering the academy halls. Not ever, no matter how isolated he might have allowed himself to feel. Trained himself to feel.
I am not alone, because I am waiting for you.
The wind bit through the fabric of his clothing to get at his skin. Cold, and welcome. Familiar. The clouds above were roiling.
I am waiting for you to give me wings.
A monstrous clap of thunder broke the night, and the clouds split as though a blade of moonlight cleaved through them, opening a sudden path to the stars.
Hitsugaya looked up, tasting snow on the breath he sucked into his lungs in wonder, and watched the dragon descend.
I can only give you wings, it said, and its voice filled the night like the roar of suddenly pounding rain, if first you teach me how to fly.
There was another clap of thunder, and something struck him on the shoulder.
"Hitsugaya!"
The shape in the sky vanished, and the echo of fading thunder in his ears was suddenly overwhelmed by the sound of battle cries, and a roar that could never be mistaken for a dragon's. This roar was monstrous, and the taste of the air went from frozen clean to foul so quickly that he gagged.
Akagi Kohana stood before him, her sword drawn, her eyes wide, her face pale in the moonlight.
"What is wrong with you?" she cried. "It's here! They need our help!"
Her words spurred him into movement before his thoughts could catch up, still lost in the vision so quickly taken from him, the communion that had so blinded his senses. He needed to get it back! But there was no time now to stand here striving to recapture it.
The wind blew sharp in his face now as he moved – two flash steps – and he was in the clearing, facing a creature as tall as the trees, its body black, its underbelly white like an insect's, a green saliva dripping from the fangs of a mask that even now was turning on Omura Yukio and his drawn sword.
Omura, nimble as ever, leapt back, touched one foot on a rock, and launched himself into the air, his sword high. The Hollow anticipated his attack, and a long thick tail whipped around to slam into Omura's side, sending him flying across the clearing. He tried to twist in midair, probably hoping to impact the tree toward which he was hurtling with his feet and push off again, but could not make the turn fast enough. His body struck the tree trunk with a dull cracking of bone, and he fell limp to the ground.
With a roar, Tanizaki barreled into the Hollow's flank, plunging his sword in deep. The Hollow responded with a roar of its own, and twisted its head around almost as fluidly as it had moved its tail. White teeth sunk into Tanizaki's shoulder, barely missing his head.
Yumiko's voice was raised now in a kidou chant, and Kohana moved in just as the other woman finished the incantation.
"Hadou Thirty-One! Shakkahou!"
Red flame shot across the clearing, leaving a phantom line of light hanging briefly in the air, and in the shadow it cast Kohana moved, lightning quick, to slash at the Hollow's mask in passing. Her zanpakutou cut a perfect line across it, but too shallow. Fine cracks began to spread over the Hollow's mask as it threw back its head in a howl of frustration – but it was still very much intact.
Vice Captain Ise was nowhere in sight.
But then of course, this was a test.
And the wind was still blowing.
Hitsugaya froze, his sword halfway drawn from the saya, and the world seemed to go equally still around him. Everything but the wind.
The wind was still blowing. It was real. It had not been a part of his vision.
He looked up, every movement painfully slow as though it were breaking through a casing of ice. The clouds above were twisting, coiling, begging to be given shape.
Waiting to be taught how to fly.
To summon the dragon without –
Hitsugaya drew his sword fully. It caught a shaft of moonlight breaking briefly through the moving clouds, and gleamed like a sliver of mirroring ice.
You must first acknowledge the dragon within.
He lifted his sword to the side, edge outward, blade parallel to the earth. Giving it room to sing.
You are the dragon. Be it without doubt. In the face of others' fear, in the face of destiny. Know what you are. Only then can we meet as equals. As kin. Only then can you soar –
"Soar," he said calmly, confident now, and his words turned to mist in the icy air.
– with me –
" – in the frozen sky."
He had never before seen his own reiatsu made manifest, but now it shone, brighter than the moonlight, bluer than the brightest of stars, and it filled the entire clearing with its light.
The sword in his hand burned with cold. Everything around him seemed still to be moving in slow motion, but he could see them all turning toward him now – Tanizaki, clutching his wounded shoulder; Akagi, her sword drooping; Yumiko, her hands lifting for another kidou incantation.
And the Hollow. A yellow light kindled in its eyes as it ignored all the rest now as insignificant.
Hitsugaya raised his head to meet the Hollow's gaze, pulled in a deep breath through his clenched teeth, and shouted the name that he had always known –
"Hyourinmaru!"
The dragon came, and this time there was no mistaking it for a vision. He felt the air surrounding him turn liquid, sliding over his skin like cold silk; it sheened the blade of his sword and flowed on, lashing out into a serpentine shape that grew, and grew, and grew as he moved the tip over his head and brought his other hand to the hilt. The dragon swirled around him, dripping water that turned to ice in mid-motion. Shards of it burst all around him like tiny stars.
He knew in that moment, with Hyourinmaru's roar of triumph moving through him, that the Hollow didn't stand a chance. It was nothing to the power of this storm.
Adding his voice to the dragon's, Hitsugaya bent his knees, gathered his power, and leapt into the sky.
He brought the blade around for a swing, and was not surprised - sudden and new though it was - to see the movement trailed by a chain of links shimmering almost white with frost. A crescent moon dangled at the chain's end, reflecting the light of the moon above, now embroiled in gathering storm clouds.
Air offered him purchase in a way it had never done before, even in his most intensive training. His feet pushed off it like bounds up a set of invisible stairs, propelled higher every time by swelling spirit force, and though the Hollow reared up, stretching its body to full height, it could not get higher than the dragon, could not match a dragon's speed.
Might as well try to catch the wind, Hitsugaya thought, and he would have smiled if his battle cry would have allowed it. His breath was vapor in the frozen air, but the cold only served to invigorate him. He was in his element. Truly and totally at last.
From his flight in the sky, staring down at his enemy, he brought his sword around in an arc and the dragon flew toward its target, red eyes blazing. The Hollow lashed out again with its tail, and where it hit, shards of ice broke off and filled the air. But the dragon moved on, undeterred, recomposing its form as it flew, liquid turning to ice in minute fractions of time. It struck the Hollow directly in the mask and pushed on, lifting the monster's huge body entirely from the ground. Trapped in frozen jaws, the Hollow writhed but could not break free, and the dragon ploughed it straight into the forest, snapping tree trunks like twigs.
Hitsugaya fell back toward the earth, pulling the dragon back with another swing of his sword. It returned, swirling around him, gathering cold and speed.
The Hollow shrieked as it staggered back to all four of its feet, a pair of extra claws scrabbling at the broken trees to help it stand. The mask was cracked now in many places; deep furrows of shadow criss-crossing each other over the blood-red markings. Several of the teeth were missing. The saliva dripping from its jaws had been frozen into icicles like panting tongues. Enraged and hateful to the last, the Hollow lurched forward once again.
Hitsugaya gave it a moment to pick up speed, to put the force into its charge that would prove its own destruction. Then he whipped Hyourinmaru around again, this time sending the dragon straight up toward the sky; the speed of its passage left a curtain of water in its wake, and through it he could see the Hollow bearing down on him. At the final snap-stop of his upward swing, his sword held high above him, the chain snapped forward. It passed through the curtain, and water sheathed it like a skin – turned instantly to ice, further sharpening the crescent blade's edge. When the crescent's point hit the mask, the Hollow's motion provided all the strength needed. White-sheened metal passed through the mask as though through mist, and the cracks exploded open at last. The mask fell apart in many pieces as the chain whipped back to Hitsugaya's side.
The Hollow's dying cry lingered in the air as its body dissolved, and for a moment Hitsugaya wished that it would recompose itself as his dragon had done, or that it would prove to have friends lurking in the forest that would swarm out now and attack.
He did not want to fold his newfound wings so soon.
Another flick of his sword tip brought the dragon coiling around him again, iridescent and loud with the voice of cracking ice.
Vaguely, through the haze of freezing air and the glow of his own reiatsu, he could see his fellow Shinigami picking themselves up off the floor, staring at him with mouths open.
He would have to release the dragon. Silence the roar. Shut it up inside of him again. He could see his future with sudden clarity, and knew exactly what would be required of him from this point on. For even those who had enough power of their own to know no fear of dragons would expect other things.
"I'm sorry, Hyourinmaru," he said softly. "We're both going to have to learn to keep the dragon quiet, sometimes."
Perhaps.
The voice came clearly now from above him, not from within, and he looked up – to see a serpentine shape there, far greater than the one summoned into being from cold and spirit force swirling around him.
Hyourinmaru rode the sky, invisible to all eyes save his, and ice was nothing to the sheen of his scales. The stars shone through him like white fires magnified through water.
But the dragon cannot lie. It will always be what it is, and those with eyes to see will always know him. Just as in time, you and I will come to know each other.
"Yes."
Soon we shall fly again?
This time he did smile; a tiny turn of his lips, a slow smoothing of his brow. "Soon. I promise."
Good.
Releasing his breath slowly, watching it mist before him, he began to dampen his reiatsu. The ice dragon dissolved around him in bursts, hissing swiftly into vapor, and within moments nothing remained. The sword burned cold in his grip, but no hint of water or ice sheened its metal.
"To – Toushiro!"
Hitsugaya ignored Kohana's awestruck voice. He didn't want to have to struggle to find the words to speak with her right now.
He looked up again, but Hyourinmaru was gone. Only the night sky, still tossed with darkening clouds, remained.
A presence entered the clearing behind him, and he recognized Vice Captain Ise's reiatsu immediately. It was keener now, strong and sharp, but not unpleasant in his senses. Either she had been keeping it deeply in check all night prior to this moment, or his ability to perceive it had multiplied since Hyourinmaru's waking. Perhaps both.
"Hitsugaya Toushiro," she said, her voice steady and cool. "Well done."
He just nodded, face turned still to the sky. There was a clap of thunder – a true one this time – and the rain began to fall. It streaked down his face, caught in his eyelashes, plastered unruly hair to his temples. And this too was his, he knew.
Maybe dragons flew best on the wings of storms.
Two days later, he was handed a scroll declaring him a graduate of the Shinigami
Central Spirit Technique Institute, and a representative of the 7th Division of the Gotei 13 met him at the academy gates.
"I am Watari Kazuo, fourth seat to Komamura-taichou. It is an honor to make your acquaintance."
"Hitsugaya Toushiro," he said, returning the taller man's bow, trying to keep his face as expressionless as possible. No pride, no relief. No disappointment. After all, he had to go where there were openings, not where friends might be waiting. "The honor is mine."
"We've heard a great deal about you, Hitsugaya."
"Yes," he said, fighting the urge to sigh, and unaware that he was taking the first step on a path that would define the way others viewed him for many years to come – cool, unapologetic, honest as a reflection in ice. "I'm sure you have. I will do my best to be true to it."
And deep inside his chest, the dragon turned, coiled, settled in to wait – comfortable and content at last.
Author's Notes: Like most Bleach fans, I'm sure I've watched at least three different fansub versions of every episode, and read at least two versions of every scanlated manga chapter. As a result, my Bleach vocabulary is a mish-mash of different translated interpretations. I took the terms that felt most natural to me, or that seemed the most lyrically appealing, and I hope they all made some sense.
Also, though obviously I made up every detail of this, and undoubtedly Kubo Tite-sensei will make all of it null and void by someday providing us with the true details of Hitsugaya's past (or we have to hope he will!), at least the bit about Hitsugaya living in Jyunrinan, being friends with Jidanbou, and teaching him the city rules is supposedly straight from Kubo Tite's mouth, as recorded in an interview in 2004 issue 42 of Shonen Jump. Just that little tidbit of information really brought a lot of the inner workings of Hitsugaya's mind to life for me. Anyone who could be patient friends with Jidanbou at such a young age has got lots of interesting cogs turning under that cool Captain exterior.
Part Two will come… eventually. I'm a VERY slow writer, but I'm enjoying this, so hopefully it won't be more than, oh, a month? Alas. But Part Two of three will be titled: In The Eye of the Storm. It's very likely, however, that a companion piece to this chapter, seeing this last battle from a different point of view, will come along before Part Two. And Matsumoto is making noises like she wants a story of her own to mirror this one, so I don't know… persistent, isn't she?