EDITED 2011-07-16

The news of his mission had arrived via letter and was handed to him by Matsumoto. The other Shinigami in question quickly rushed from the room like a bat from hell as soon as she'd handed it over.

Hitsugaya quirked an eyebrow at his subordinate's antics, but quickly dismissed them to focus on the matters at hand. She was always acting oddly, that tended to happen when you drank over five bottles of sake every night. Brain cells were probably in short supply by now.

As he opened the envelope he pulled several pages that seemed to have been ripped out from a book. Apparently, someone had been to lazy to just recopy it. Idiots. He was working with idiots.

The title of the passages caught his eye. "Dementors...hm." The text said they looked similar to how humans portrayed the Grim Reaper. Since essentially Shinigami were the 'Grim Reapers' many people were always extremely insulted by this seeing as the Grim Reaper was generally a skeletal being with a rather fearful face. Actually in the case of Kurotsuchi-taicho it wasn't too far off the mark. But who really wanted to be placed in the same category as him?

The creatures had the unfortunate effect of draining all of the happiness from their surrounding area along with the ability to eat souls-

"Wait, eat them?"

Hitsugaya quickly reread the last few sentences to ensure he hadn't been mistaken. But there was no mistake; they ate the living humans', along with stray souls that had yet to make it to Soul Society.

For centuries souls had gone unaccounted for, as if they'd disappeared, even when no Hollows had been detected in the area. Hundreds of them, simply gone. Yet, really they were being eaten by these sorts of Hollow mutations. They would have to be destroyed. He continued reading through the passage with a frown on his face as he tried to think of a plan to eradicate the creatures swiftly.

'Dementors are used as the guards of the famous wizard prison Azkaban.'

Toshiro stopped short, teal eyes straying from the page in front of him. Wizards? Guards? He looked back down and once again reread the sentence. Was this the reason for Matsumoto's behaviour? The small taicho sighed with annoyance as he realized the busty woman was playing a joke on him. He was about to crumple of the papers when he hesitated, noting that the envelope had had the Soutaicho's seal, and there was no way someone even as crafty as Matsumoto could gain access to it, or forge it in any way. Although, he wouldn't put it past her to try.

In short- oh how he loathed the word- according to this, wizards…were real. He let his mind absorb the fact for a moment, a deep crease forming between his brows as he practically glared out into space. Wizards. Right. It was going to be a long day.

When he finally managed to gather his thoughts he went back to reading and the text went on to say that the only way to get rid of a Dementor was to use the Expecto Patronum charm and apparently that didn't even kill them.

"Who comes up with these names?" The small taicho wondered aloud as he looked over the information.

A simple konso to release all of the souls the creatures had absorbed would most likely destroy them. It all seemed easy enough. But, apparently these creatures were under the control of some Ministry, with their powers being used to subdue dangerous criminals.

Hitsugaya disagreed greatly with the so called 'wizards'' choice. If the information was accurate no one, not even a convicted criminal deserved to suffer the effects of the Dementors' powers. To have all of their hope and happy memories taken from them; when they were often the only thing they had left. It was borderline torture.

By some records he could tell these things were hard to control; often attacking innocent people. Apparently they were becoming more resilient and would soon most likely become uncontrollable. These people were walking on the razor's edge by working with the Dementors. If they thought the creatures were still completely under their control then they were a bunch of pompous idiots. That seemed to be the theme in most human governments.

The leader of the wizard's government, or Ministry as they called it was a man by the name of Cornelius Fudge. He'd never liked fudge. Too much of it could rot anyone's teeth, and it seemed this man was rotting the Ministry from the inside out. A letter from him to someone named Dumbledore was also included within the contents of the envelope. A brief skim through it told him that some of the Dementors would be stationed at a school called Hogwarts while they were working to find and consume the soul of a convict named Sirius Black. Toshiro didn't envy the man. It was one thing to be eaten by a Hollow, but to have your soul sucked from your body then be left to rot? That was another matter entirely.

This Fudge character was clearly not fit to be the wizards' leader if he believed for a second that the students of the school would be safe with those monsters roaming through the area. If they were anything like Hollows, then they would be drawn to the school due to the massive amount of people.

Toshiro continued to flip through the pages. It was all straight forward enough but what did it all have to do with him? A pair of seated or even several unseated offices could take care of the creatures, though a mass eradication would have to be planned eventually.

He stopped when he reached the page he'd been looking for: a signed letter containing his orders from Yamamoto.

Hitsugaya-kun,

Regarding the information collected on the creatures known as Dementors, we have carefully considered it and have decided that while they remain under control we shall not take any action against them.

However, we believe the situation warrants monitoring to ensure the safety of the living while they are loose searching for the criminal whose name was stated previously. Therefore your orders are to...

Matsumoto sat on a bench a few halls away from her taicho's office. She didn't want to be anywhere near there when he read of his orders. Damn, she would miss her snowy little friend. A whole ten months away...which meant she was being left in charge of the Division...which meant all of the paperwork!

'Maybe taicho will take it with him,' she thought wishfully as the temperature suddenly dropped.

"Looks like he knows," she sighed, her breathe coming in a whirl of white.

Several officers who had been walking down the hall slipped on the now ice covered floor.

"Man if this is what this hallway looks like imagine the one outside of taicho's office," one of them said through rattling teeth as he held onto the wall to stop himself for slipping again.

If the walls hadn't been covered in frost, it might have worked.

But it seemed it just wasn't the man's day as he quickly fell, dragging several others with him until they all lay in a giant pile of bodies on the floor.

"Ow."

Matsumoto sighed, "It sure will be boring around here without taicho."

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ForeverFalling.