Bleach: Daiguren
A secret santa exchange fic. This one goes out to Raikune at the IchiHitsu comm. Her prompts were 1. out of the blue and into the black, 2. you're too close, and 3. snowcone. I started with two, ended up with three, and then the fic turned into an amoeba and ate the one I was writing for Hitsugaya's birthday and managed to work prompt 1 in there along the way.
Hope you like it, Raikune.
Title: Daiguren
Warnings: Story was too long and LJ demanded I cut it into two posts. POV changes at the beginning and end and a bit of gore just before the end.
Italics is flashbacks, not always to the same time period. Normal setting is a post Winter War AU, Aizen's dead, Ichigo's dead (in the shinigami sense of the term), and some other stuff's happened along the way. The two songs Hyorinmaru sings are traditional Japanese songs, according to my research.
Pairings: Nothing besides the IchiHitsu.
Kuchiki had wanted to try them cause she'd been told it was flavored ice and because it was another 'exciting living world' confection. That was a common enough event, to be fair, but today she had managed to talk Matsumoto into joining her in the exploration. This inevitably meant Hitsugaya got dragged along, mostly because the keys to Inoue's apartment were sequestered in a part of Matsumoto's anatomy where he could NOT put his hands without looking like a pervert.
Obviously this had been an extensively planned and well executed trap.
Such was the prologue to him wasting time in a living world food and beverage shop while Kuchiki and Matsumoto pondered over their orders.
“Ne, Taicho, what flavor do you want?” Matsumoto questioned with a finger to her lips, not even turning around to address him.
“I rather not have any.” He muttered, which did get her to turn to him, though the proper respect she should have been showing was still missing.
“But Taicho, you have to. Everybody's getting some.” She whined.
“Just because everybody's getting some doesn't mean I need to.” He gruffed leaning back slightly as she leaned over him pitching her voice to that perfect frequency that could shatter glass, and his skull.
“But Taichoooo.”
“Alright fine, whatever flavor.” He turned away, resisting the urge to either cover his ears or rub at his temple...or do both.
“Vanilla then. Ichigo says just about everybody likes Vanilla.” Kuchiki piped into the conversation, saving him from further immediate vice-captain troubles.
“Oy, Renji, Ichigo, what do you want!” She then proceeded to shout across nearly half the shop to where Kurosaki was attempting to drag Abarai away from some machine. Hitsugaya flinched as the eyes of all the other customers turned to them making him hunch his shoulders and wish to just walk out right then. The urge only grew stronger as Kurosaki managed to drag the still struggling Abarai to the counter.
“I got that guy right in the head, stupid thing's a cheat.” Abarai would have kept on complaining if Kuchiki hadn't grabbed him by the vest and pulled him right into, not up but into, the counter.
“Which flavor do you want?” She questioned, perfectly innocent as Abarai rubbed at his side which had hit the thick wood none too gently.
“I don't care, whatever you're having.”
“Pickles it is then!” Kuchiki cheered, completely overriding Abarai's shocked “What!?” It was Kurosaki's turn to be 'accosted' next. “And what are you getting, Ichigo?”
“Blood Orange.” The answer was enough to cause even Matsumoto to stop her relaying their order to the very perturbed cashier as all eyes fell on Kurosaki. A short moment of silence passed as sever stares were directed at him before he finally gritted out, “Not a word.”
“Right, and one bloody orange!” Matsumoto cheerfully ordered, waving Kurosaki forward to stand by her. “And the orange top is paying.” She announced, also successfully managing to drown out the “What!?” that followed, this time from Kurosaki.
A few minutes later found them all exiting the store, Abarai stomaching his drink with a distinctly green expression while Matsumoto and Kuchiki took the lead chattering away happily.
“If I wanted I could have just made it myself.” Hitsugaya thought while swirling his own drink, trailing at the back of the group. He wasn't at all interested in consuming it but he was too frugal to just throw it away and waste that money.
Thinking of which.
“Oi, Kurosaki.” He picked up his pace to catch up to the teen, putting a hand in his pocket to pull out his wallet along the way. “Here.” He held out three 10,000 yen notes the site of which caused Kurosaki to suck in a breath and almost choke on his straw in the process.
“I can't take that!” Kurosaki tried to refuse but Hitsugaya simply frowned and then stuffed them into the teens pocket. “Think of the extra as payment for troubles.” He didn't bother to listen to Kurosaki's further protests, especially since it seemed some store display had caught Matsumoto's interest and she was apparently talking Kuchiki into the approaching chaos.
* * *
Voices drew him from his dreams and into the familiar cold setting of his inner world. He rose slowly to his hands and knees, trying to recall his most recent memories as he became immediately aware of the lack of Hyornimaru's weight on his back. His last recollections were of the battle against the arrancar, a natural one as almost all that were left from Aizen had been exterminated during that war or the battle for Hell's Gate. It had been a sand controlling scorpion, and he very distinctly recalled coming out victorious though not before being struck by the unfriendly end of its tail.
The hard packed snow underneath him was almost blindingly white from reflecting the light of a clear blue sky, an unusual sight in his inner world as was the lack of wind. Looking in the direction of the voices he saw Hyorinmaru, upper body held above the ground and speaking to someone or something that was hidden from his sight by the dragons coils. Both were too far away for him make out the conversation, but he could tell even from here that Hyorinmaru was being unusually.. respectful instead of overbearingly dominant and malicious as was normal for him.
Trying to stand Hitsugaya found his knees weak and shaky and breathing surprisingly difficult, as if only recently a great weight had been sitting on his chest. He took a second to recover and catch his strength before approaching Hyorinmaru. As he walked he moved at an angle, coming around to the dragon's front so that he could see who Hyorinmaru was showing such deference too.
To his surprise he saw only an older man standing before the dragon, one he'd never before met or even seen in passing. His hair was long and unkempt, hanging down limply around an unshaven face. His clothing was equally ragged, a black cloak that ended in torn edges. As he got closer the two cut off their conversation and the dark man turned to face him; a glint of sunlight revealing him to be wearing glasses.
Hitsugaya was about to demand who this person was that had invaded his inner world, and what was going on of course, but Hyorinmaru moved fast as a serpent. The great dragon slammed his tail down right in front of Hitsugaya, kicking snow up high into the air and burying the captain, as well as separating him from the stranger.
As he dug his way out of the snowdrift, sputtering and coughing, Hitsugaya caught the tail end of the conversation.
“Anything...” A voice like the low rumble of distant thunder identified Hyornimaru easily, and the chuckle that followed the word held a distinct tone of cruelty. “I approve of that. Very well, I accept his offer.”
Hitsugaya had just made it out of the drift and started shaking the snow out of his shihakusho as the man bowed shallowly to Hyorinmaru. “Then I shall return and inform them of your agreement.” And just like that he vanished, dispersing like black fog on the windless air.
“Hyorinmaru! What is going on here?!” Hitsugay yelled angrily. The dragon turned his head to him lazily, as if only just noticing that he had almost crushed his wielder. Blood red eyes looked coldly upon the shinigami as the dragon raised himself a little higher and puffed up a little larger, wings partially opening on either side. As a whole, Hyorinmaru moved to tower imposingly over Hitsugaya.
“Going on? Little master, you broke our contract.” The way the dragon emphasized on the word 'master' made the term more a mockery than a show of submission.
“What do you mean.” Hitsugaya growled, glaring up at the dragon and not at all budging to his intimidating posturing. Of course, his stubbornness only seemed to amuse Hyorinmaru.
“You used my wings long after the last petal had faded.” The tail that had been lying still beside Hitsguaya lashed and curled around him, leaving the shinigami with only a few feet of free space as the rest of the dragon's body moved to cut off any escapes from above.
Hitsugaya was stunned by the thought. He knew he'd been poisoned mid-battle, but he'd thought himself to still have had wits enough to dispel his bankai before the time limit was up. He held tightly to his self control and resisted the first instinct to bolt from the entrapping form. “I didn-”
“YOU DID!” The dragon roared, the low rumble of his voice suddenly becoming an explosion of sound above his head. “We made a deal. My wings, to do with as you please, within a span of time.” Hyorinmaru quieted and brought his head down, the tip of his nose only a few feet above Hitsugaya as he rumbled lowly. “You broke it.” The tail curled tighter about the shinigami, now starting to squeeze his body. “And you will pay for being false to me.”
Hitsugaya shivered at the feel of Hyorinmaru's frozen body constricting around him. His mouth was clenched tight while he kept a glare steady and fixed with the dragon's gaze. Thoughts were running a thousand miles an hour in his head, rushing back to the battle and the sudden cold weakness that had grasped him at the end of it. A weakness that he had blamed on the same poison that had distorted his senses.
There had to be a way out of this. If there wasn't, and if Hyorinmaru was dead set on crushing him, then the dragon would have done so already instead of prolonging things in this manner. The thought of a possible and imminent end to his life derailed his mind for a second to those that he cared for. Those that would be impacted by this sudden turn of events. Matsumoto and Kurosaki standing out most prominently among them.
“You're fortunate, though, master.” Hitsugaya refused to so much as blink at the statement, knowing full well that Hyorinmaru was looking for any bit of weakness.
“How so?” He questioned wearily, his voice steady even though he was still desperately trying to think of any method, technique, or new deal that could get him out of the current situation.
“Because someone else has already offered a new.. contract.” The dragon chuckled, the comment dripping with maliciousness. The tone, and the mention of somebody else were enough to startle Hitsugaya. His mind immediately jumped to the strange man as he blinked, for a second showing his confusion.
The small lapse in composure was more then enough. In the next instant the dragon reared back, opening his mouth and letting out a mighty roar. White wind exhaling from the jaws froze his tail and the shinigami it held imprisoned.
* * * * *
Ichigo let out a heavy sigh as he settled back into the bed after fetching new blankets to replace the dirtied ones. Satisfied contentment weighed him down as he pulled Toshiro into his arms, letting out another sigh as he adjusted the captain's head to rest against the base of his neck and closed his eyes. For a while quite and peace settled in his room, both alien but welcome things in the setting.
Then a small fist jabbed him sharply in the chest and completely ruined the moment. Ichigo grunted and tried to tighten his hold around Toshiro, but this only earned him another, slightly more painful, jab.
“You're too close.” He heard Toshiro mutter, causing his frown, which had for just a brief moment absented itself, to return full force. “And you stink.” was the next comment as he was jabbed again and Toshiro began to truly try to move out of his grasp.
With a grumble, Ichigo adjusted his hold and moved lower in the bed so that he was face to face with Toshiro. For a moment there was quiet and he dared to hope that the captain had nothing to complain about now, but then he felt the efforts to escape resume. “You're breathing into my face.” was the next complaint and finally Ichigo relented, letting Toshiro turn around and face away from him.
A third sigh, this one of defeat. At least now Toshiro would allow himself to be pulled close even if Ichigo would be greeted by nothing more than his lovers cold back in the morning, if that much.
* * *
When the odd sensation of being sucked through a wind-tunnel dissipated Ichigo opened his eyes on a world of cold. In the distance glacier topped mountains rose like talons to claw at a clear blue sky. More glaciers, some almost half the height of the mountains themselves, creped out of the valleys between the peaks. The bright unfiltered sunlight reflected off the unstained ground blindingly for the while it took for his eyes to adjust to the shine, forcing him to raise a hand to shade them.
For a moment he was disoriented by the simple fact that this inner world was right side up instead of.. skewed, as his was.
Strangely he was not at all surprised by the barren and icy plain that stretched before him and to the feet of the distant mountains. The monotony of the straight stretch was only broken by the frequent giant pillars and shards of ice that stood up all across expanse. It fit Toshiro, or some parts of him anyway.
A deep rumble behind Ichigo had him turning about sharply, the hand which had been shading his eyes reaching up and behind for Zangetsu only to find the blade absent. The lack of a weapon was especially dismaying when he saw Hyorinmaru, rising high above him with wings almost fully spread open and spines bristling. He'd been hoping against all prior knowledge that Hitsugaya's spirit would be something closer to what Zangetsu was like, except perhaps with more white and younger as well.
The giant dragon obviously wasn't. Ichigo could see its long body coil across the ice, the tail curled about a small dome of ice, and shifting in undulating waves as if to show of its form now that he had noticed it.
“Welcome to my realm...Vaizard.” Hyorinmaru growled, causing Ichigo to glower at the beast.
“How-” The dragon opened it's mouth wide letting out a bellowing laugh and cutting his question off.
“I'm a Zanpakuto, I know.” The dragon explained, continuing to chuckle as Ichigo glanced about the immediate area.
“Where's Toshiro?” He demanded to know and, as if a switch had been flipped, the dragon's good humor vanished. Hyorinmaru spread its wings wide and gave one great beat, kicking up a strong enough wind to knock Ichigo of his feet and send him rolling along the ground.
“That is no concern of yours. You are in no position to either ask or demand things of me!” Hyorinmaru roared, a large wave moving along its body culminating in his tail lashing out and slamming into the ground a short distance away, leaving a crater in the snow and ice.
Ichigo regained his footing, standing strong now against the wind the dragon continued beating up. “Damn it, he's been out for three days. I just-”
“SILENCE!” The roar was loud enough to shake the very ice they stood on. It did silence Ichigo, if for no other reason than the ringing in his ears. Slowly the dragon stilled its wings.
“Your Zanpakuto informed me you would do anything to bring him back..” Hyorinmaru growled and a blue tongue came out to lick at its icy chops. “Anything...” it repeated with a hiss.
Ichigo stood up straight, glaring at the beast, and nodded. “Yes anything.”
“Then I propose this.” Now the dragon wash chuckling, a low growl that undulated in waves that matched those traveling down it's serpentine lengths. “Take the same test that the little master took to earn my bankai. Pass and all will go back to the way it was before, fail and I will abandon Hitsugaya Toshiro and take all of his shinigami powers with me.”
“But-” Ichigo tried to interject but Hyorinmaru beat its wings again. This time, though, he was prepared and managed to keep his footing.
“Yes or no!” The dragon roared, stopping it's wings with an audible and vicious snap that emphasized its temper. For a while silence settled on the frozen world.
Ichigo frowned at the dragon, feeling as much as seeing the tension coil in its form. The wrong word now would have him immediately evicted from this world and that would be the end of everything. On the one hand he felt a desperate sense of relief. For the last three days Toshiro had been loosing his reiatsu which had drawn many people, including him, to believe that the captain was dieing despite the fact that his physical injuries had been healed and the poison removed.
He didn't know why the dragon was taking Toshiro's shinigami powers nor did he really care as long as he knew the young captain would live. But that also meant there was no need to have come this far, no need to take the dragon up on its offer. He'd come here prepared to face Toshiro's Zanpakuto the moment Unohana had stormed out of the intensive care room, grabbed the blade and shattered it. Ichigo had been ready for a battle as vicious as the one he'd had to face against his own inner hollow to save Toshiro's life when she had diagnosed that it was the blade itself which was stealing the reiatsu from his lover.
But Toshiro was safe and there was no need to go that far. Ichigo squared his shoulders determinedly and replied to Hyorinmaru.
“Yes.”
* * *
For very obvious reasons Ichigo had always imagined Toshiro's private quarters to be as spotless, ninety-degree rigid, as his office.
He did not in a thousand years expect to walk into the large building that seemed to be the source of every dustbunny in their quarter of Japan.
Piles of books of all kinds (thick leather-bound volumes, notebooks, manuscripts, magazines) covered just about every available corner. Blank papers and a miscellaneous collection of junk had invaded the spaces the books didn't occupy. Out of all the rooms in the just-small-enough-to-not-be-a-mansion quarters only the entry, kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom seemed to see regular use (and cleaning).
For a moment he was dumbfounded after peeking through one ajar doorway to what might have been a guest room if it wasn't inhabited by a collection of rocks and crystals in one half, books almost large enough to sleep on in the other, and the worlds biggest insect farm aquarium on a window shelf at its back.
No wonder Toshiro had threatened him with much pain and suffering if he ever spoke a word of the interior of the tenth division's captain's quarters. Everything was covered in a fine layer of dust, attesting to the fact that Toshiro did spend more time in the office than in his own 'home.' Considering all the possible health ramifications of living in a place like this that might not have been a bad thing though.
The sight of the mess that must have taken several of his own life times to amass made Ichigo's hands twitch. He wasn't a clean freak by any stretch of the imagination, but he did keep his own spaces orderly. Yuzu had pretty much trained it into him. Not on purpose, of course, but as he'd gotten older her intrusions into his room to clean it became less and less welcome.
With Toshiro at the office and only having given him the most threatening and grudging of permissions to see the space he had nothing better to do than explore the collections. Beside the aquarium room another held huge rolls of paper and a calligraphy brush twice Ichigo's size. Imagining Toshiro using the thing was almost too much for his mind. One room, which had obviously been built as a place for meditation, now ironically housed a collection of assorted weapons. In one corner of the same room were plant pots, some still with dried and dusty dirt in them. Ichigo guessed them to be the remains of a failed attempt at botany.
The bedroom was by far the cleanest. The obligatory books and manuscripts filled only a single corner of the room, and it was used enough for the dust invasion to not have overtaken it beyond 'normal' levels. A window that seemed to be semi-permanently open probably aided towards this. Said window and a tatami door opened onto the rear of the building and a garden there.
The garden also showed a lack of anything but the most basic tending. There was no plan for it, no pretty pond in one corner with aesthetic arrangements to bushes and flowers around it, and no signs of attracting wildlife like bird feeders. Not even a wind chime by the door. Instead whatever plantlife wished to grow there was allowed to do so, unhindered everywhere except at the garden's edges where it was pruned and cut to remain at least withing the confines of the compound's walls.
That said, the garden area was a good deal larger than the living quarters, and Ichigo could see signs that parts of the building had actually been removed to add more garden space. The back was large enough, in fact, to be called a very small wood, with thick trunked trees and well trodden paths between them. Ichigo wasn't too into the 'nature beauty' thing though, so soon enough he was back within the building.
It was strange. He had cajoled, annoyed, and forced his permission to enter the place, though now that he was here, and the initial shock had worn off, it all seemed rather.. underwhelming. It would have been more interesting if Toshiro hoarded precious jewels like the dragons in movies did.
He'd yet to find THAT back room. Though, when he did, Hitsugaya giving away 30,000 yen like so much dust maid a whole lot more sense.
* * *
Silence followed his statement, making his 'yes' echo strangely in the emptiness. Hyorinmaru gazed at him with blood red eyes. At first he felt a rumble at the barest edge of his range of hearing, a rumble that progressively grew and turned into a thundering laugh, different and much colder than the first one he'd heard, as the dragon threw its head back with its jaws wide opened to let out the near roars. The wings moved forward, the tips closing in front of Ichigo and momentarily hiding the beast from his sight.
What other answer could he have given? Despite all the complaints about paperwork and Matsumoto, being a captain was Toshiro's life. Ichigo could only too well empathize what it would be like to loose all shingami powers, to loose any ability to protect and fight. He couldn't just turn his back and leave Toshiro to such a fate.
The laughter faded as the wings opened again, revealing Hyorinmaru to have lowered it's head to the ground it's nose now just a few inches over a barrel that had materialized there. It was about three and a half feet high and filled to the brim with sesame seeds. There was still a dry growl coming from Hyorinmaru, a chuckle as the red eyes narrowed at him.
“Then let it be so.” the dragon spoke as Ichigo cautiously stepped forward and wearily gazed at the barrel. Zangetsu's test had been blatantly combat oriented, and he had been worried that the dragon would follow the same path. Fighting the beast without a weapon would have been a dreadful experience.
“What do I do?” He asked, as he watched the dragon settle down, letting it's long body lay across the ground while it continued to chuckle in its growling voice and watch him like a hawk.
“Take the seeds from that barrel and drop them in the pit.” Its tail flicked sharply to indicate the crater it had created earlier.
“That's it?” Ichigo asked, amazed at the simplicity of it.
Hyorinmaru snorted, a plume of snowflakes flying from its nose while the gleam in its eyes seemed to grow brighter. “One at a time, of course.” The dragon replied, causing Ichigo to frown disbelievingly at the quantity of seeds before him. Then, with a snort of his own, he pulled the sleeves on his shihakusho up and got to it. It'd take forever, it felt like, but if he could get through Zangetsu's test he could make it through this easy. He raised his hand to toss the seed but almost dropped it as Hyorinmaru roared behind him.
“No throwing. If you let go of a seed after picking it up anywhere other than above the assigned place you fail the task.” The dragon informed tauntingly, earning itself a glare from Ichigo, as it happily snorted another puff of snow at him.
The shadows of clouds scuttled along the ground as Ichigo made the first of what would be many many trips between the barrel and crater. It was a mindbogglingly dull task from the very beginning, back and forth, and what had looked like it would take forever quickly turned into an eternity after the first few trips.
Toshiro was going to owe him a lot after this. At least it wasn't too hard, even if Hyorinmaru's red eyes kept a constant watch on him. “Voyer.” Ichigo called it after a while, as the silence began to weigh on him. The dragon's eyes simply gleamed all the more as it purred.
“Why, thank you.”
“Wasn't a compliment.” He growled and let the quiet settle back in.
* * *
“I said you could look, not snoop about.” Toshiro complained as he found Ichigo turning the large and heavy pages of one of the giant books, this one about the structures of hell.
“I wasn't snooping, and that took a whole lot longer than half an hour.” Ichigo replied lazily, pulling and shoving heavily on the cover to lift it off the ground and close the book which had proven to be almost entirely illegible. The many disturbing illustrations that he'd seen, in just the few pages he'd taken a look at though, convinced him he probably didn't want to know what was written. How come Toshiro had a book like this anyway?
“Matsumoto didn't finish her work.” Toshiro offered by way of explanation, already having moved off from the doorway and towards the 'living' areas.
Ichigo, in his haste to catch up, let the cover of the book fall shut under its own weight. The impact kicked up a chocking cloud of dust right in his face. Coughing he staggered backwards to escape it only to step on a rock, which rolled out from under his feet, causing him to fall back against the large empty tank. Said tank teetered for a second before falling off its, now obviously, precarious perch, crashing onto Ichigo and the ground, and decorating the entire room with broken glass.
After a short stunned pause he reached a hand up to touch at the back of his head, feeling only a bruise there and no blood. Cursing as he shook the glass off his shihakusho he found that he'd thankfully avoided getting sliced by the shattering monstrosity.
“Amazing.” A cold deadpan voice stopped Ichigo's muttering. As the dust settled back down he could see Toshiro had come back to the doorway and was kicking the glass shards that had escaped into the hallway back into the room. “All that time alone here and now you break something?”
* * *
The clouds above grew thicker as time passed and Ichigo was finding it harder and harder to walk the distance between the barrel and crater. His feet hurt, not from lack of stamina on his part, but from the simple cold.
When he had entered this realm it had felt chilly, but since then the temperature had been steadily dropping and he was walking on ice and snow to begin with. Shunpo wasn't allowed, walking on air wasn't allowed, heck Hyorinmaru had threatened to end the task and banish him from the realm if he so much as dared to think of any other ways of completing the task with reiatsu. It was blatantly obvious to Ichigo that the dragon seemed to enjoy his mounting frustration.
Ichigo didn't usually let anyone or anything push him around, but he was making a valiant effort to stay composed now. On the one part, there was something.. distinct about Zanpakuto. Just as he naturally had never really stood up to Zangetsu, not counting achieving his bankai, he didn't feel like directly confronting the dragon. On the other part, Toshiro's future hung on the whims of this beast which seemed to change moods at random times.
Still, the dragon was aggravating with its mere presence.
With a curse Ichigo sat down beside the barrel and checked his feet. The sandals were soggy and the socks were getting moist as well. Wet clothing was no good in this cold, he knew, but neither was walking barefoot.
“If you sit around for too long I'll end this.” Hyorinmaru warned, blue tongue coming out long enough to curl up wards and lick at its ruby eyes.
“Sorry, didn't mean to deprive you of your entertainment.” Ichigo muttered. Deciding that his sandals could last a while longer he stood from the ground, patting at his rear to dislodge the clinging snow off his hakama. Just that small break had already started to numb his bottom, if he didn't know any better he would have said that the ice on the ground was getting colder.
A suspicious glance at the dragon had him second-guessing that thought. For all he knew such a thing could indeed be possible here in this realm. “Bah!” he snatched another seed out of the barrel and walked the few yards on the far too familiar path to the crater. Worrying about what the dragon could and couldn't do wouldn't get this done any faster. This was obviously a test on endurance and patience, that was easy enough to figure out from the simple but immense nature of it.
Too simple, which was where all his concern was stemming from.
It felt like he'd been walking for hours, though he couldn't really be sure. When he'd gone to his own inner world time outside himself seemed to stop, who knew what was happening outside now? Not to mention that time seemed to distort when performing monotonous tasks such as this.
He didn't appear to have had any impact on the number of seeds in the barrel at all either. Again he was suspicious of the dragon. It might literally be impossible to empty this barrel. But then, what would the point to this be? Hyorinmaru had said that this was the same test Toshiro did to gain his bankai but that didn't really tell him all that much.
Many more trips later and he was convinced that the ground really was getting colder. Each step grew progressively more difficult, and painful. When the bottom of his sandals began to freeze solid he took them off, there really was no longer any point to keeping them on in such a condition. Time, and seeds, passed as he kept going with just his socks, but those too eventually started to freeze.
With a heavy sigh he again sat down by the barrel and slowly removed the socks. The frozen souls crackled from the ice as he pulled them off. He considered the situation for a second, and the very cold ground, before putting the socks back on with the frozen soul on top and the still relatively dry half on the bottom.
Moving the seeds wasn't an exhausting task, not in a physical sense, but the silence and monotony were truly oppressive as he got back up and continued. Hyorinmaru wasn't any help either, its gaze was as heavy as the quiet, the only sound the dragon made now being the rustling movement of snow as it occasionally rearranged its body.
He didn't notice it at first, too focused on the cold of his feet while at the same time not thinking much at all, but a sharp gust finally caught his attention. A wind had begun to blow across the plain, it was barely there, a light breeze that occasionally spiked enough to stir the sleeves on his shihakusho. It was almost silent but once he noticed it he couldn't help but find the change ominous. Shaking the odd feeling off he set back to his task with only a cursory glare at the dragon after the pause.
Before long though the pain in his feet had him sitting by the barrel again and tugging the socks off with another crackle of ice. He'd hoped that he could flip them again, that the initial ice would have melted by now, but his luck didn't hold for that. The socks were both frozen solid, not solid enough to be rigid, but enough so that wearing them or not made no difference.
Tossing them aside he focused on his feet instead. They'd turned white from the cold, and the souls were thoroughly numb, only the edges continuing to pin and prickle with pain. Nothing had turned blue yet but considering that he was no where near emptying the barrel that was probably just a matter of time.
“Already disheartened boy?” He almost jumped at the dragons voice, Hyorinmaru had been silent for so long.
“As if. This is nothing.” Right, he could deal with a little frostbite. He'd faced hell itself and come out alive and Toshiro had passed this challenge as well. He could do this easy, being more than stubborn enough to stay at the task until the barrel really was empty. At least now he could see that indeed it was emptying and not being infinitely replenished.
He just hoped that none of the frostbite would carry over into the waking world. As he got up the wind seemed to suddenly pick up pace and the temperature drop by several degrees.
“That is good. The fun's only just begun after all.” The dragon seemed to purr.
“What do you mean?” Ichigo asked wearily, as he picked a seed out of the barrel.
Hyorinmaru's low purr grew to a full rumble. “You will see.”
He looked at the dragon for a little while longer before turning away to start his back and forth march again. Not knowing what to expect was one of the more difficult and troubling things in his experience, but he had more than enough patience to see this through.
As he continued to walk the wind slowly grew in strength, becoming an almost audible murmur across the frozen plains while the formerly white and wispy clouds grew heavy and dark above.
* * *
The night was crisp but the cold of winter still late in coming to Seireitei. Even now there was green hung onto many of the trees that should have lost all their leaves more than a month ago. A waning crescent moon swam in a cloudless sky, providing only a minimum of illumination for the backstreets he had to take through the tenth division's headquarters to reach his destination.
No one could tell him now that he couldn't be stealthy. He'd managed to make it all the way to the back wall of the captain's quarters without setting off a single alarm. If Matsumoto had succeeded in her task Toshiro should be in there right now, making the task of sneaking in doubly difficult. But it was all worth it, or would be once the element of surprise was complete.
Checking up and down the backstreet, and on the large parcel slung over his shoulder, one last time he hopped to the top of the wall and crouched there looking through the garden cautiously. Edging forward as quietly as he could he was just about to jump down when-
“Kurosaki?”
-a voice startled him and caused him to loose his footing. That seemed to happen a lot around this area. Twisting mid-air as he fell into the garden but managed to land on his feet and almost make the whole accident look purposeful.
“Toshiro?”
So much for the surprise. The captain stood in the darker shadows of one of the trees, the looming branches hiding him from being seem from above. Strangely enough he held a torn loaf of bread in his hands.
“You really shouldn't stand there...” There was a half amused smirk on Toshiro's face which immediately set all of Ichigo's alarms off but he didn't have time to ponder at the perplexity of it because a noise from below drew his gaze down.
All around him the ground seemed to be alive with scuttling movements, insects he realized quickly as he lifted a foot to notice he'd squished a few of the things during his landing. He was about to take a cautious step out of the mass when all the insects suddenly stopped moving. He froze with them, staring wearily down at what he could now distinguish, in their stillness, were ants.
Ants the size of mice and rats.
His foot had just passed over a particularly large one that was waving its feelers and giant mandibles directly at him, or the remains of it's comrade on the bottom of his feet.
Then, en-mass once more, the critters stood up on their hind legs and hissed at him. Hissed like puffing snakes, or Yoruichi-san on a wet day, and charged. With a yelp he began to dance around trying to get the bugs off. The small ones were one thing, but the larger ones had mandibles the size of his fingers and they hurt.
Of course hopping about to escape the swarm led to him stepping on more of them which incensed the creatures all the more and seemed to randomly generate extra hundreds out of thin air.
“Get to the deck, they won't come up there.” He heard Toshiro call from some place, he didn't bother to check, in fact the captain had barely gotten halfway through the statement before a shunpo had carried Ichigo out of immediate danger. He'd just stepped in a random direction to escape the attack, and quickly used another shunpo to make it to the back deck of Toshiro's quarters.
True to the captain's words, as soon as he touched down on the wood, the remaining ants that were clinging to him seemed to loose the will to fight, falling off him and scuttling frantically to get off the deck. He spent a minute patting at his hakama just to make sure they were all gone, the feeling of the prickling legs seeming to have burned itself into his skin.
“You're an idiot, aren't you?” was the statement that announced Toshiro's arrival, loaf of bread suspiciously absent. The captain had a look of amazement on his face, similar to the one Rukia had had when she'd first discovered carbonated drinks.
“How was I supposed to-. I was trying-. WHAT THE HELL WERE THOSE THINGS!?”
Toshiro's expression changed from bafflement to blatant amusement. “Guards?”
“They hissed at me! They stood up like little midgets and HISSED at me!” Ichigo felt like he'd just been assaulted by a phylogenic tree. Hollows could look beastly and attack, but insects did not stand up and-
“Yeah, they tend to do that.” Toshiro was blatantly snickering now, which completely passed over Ichigo's head as he was far too preoccupied at being assaulted by the bottom of the food chain.
“Ants!?” Could Toshiro not see how absolutely wrong this was?
Apparently not, because that one word had the captain literally laughing. That was enough to knock Ichigo out of being stunned by angry insects to being stunned at the unusualness of it all. “Did you think, you could just sneak into a captain's quarters, like that?” Toshiro asked between laughs.
“Well...but..ants?” Ichigo whined, deflating as Toshiro calmed his laughter. Really, what could he do in the face of that? He just wished making the captain laugh like that didn't usually involve a humiliating event such as this one.
“You think those are frightening, you should see Kurotsuchis camel spiders. Even Madarame screams like a woman when those things get out.” Ichigo just stared at his lover. Toshiro was laughing, Toshiro was laughing and telling mocking jokes...
“Are you drunk?” Ichigo asked, which wasn't impossible considering the date and Matsumoto's talents when she focused on her goals. The humor almost completely vanished, Toshiro's frown returning though a smirk still lingered on his lips.
“No. You just never cease to surprise.” Ichigo raised his free hand to scratch the back of his head with embarrassment unsure of whether to take that as an insult or a compliment, though he'd heard pretty much the same thing from others. “What's that?” Toshiro asked right after, pointing at the package still slung over Ichigo's shoulder.
“Oh yeah. It's your birthday present.” Ichigo took it off his shoulder and held it out for Toshiro. It was a large oval shape, wrapped in simple brown paper, and held in a small net for carrying. Toshiro took it and pulled the netting and paper away to reveal a fresh watermellon.
“How did you get this? It's winter.” the captain questioned, looking at Ichigo with curiosity.
“Over in the real world, modern greenhouses can grow some things year-round. I'm guessing it's not going to be as good as an in-season one... but Rangiku-san said you liked them and I couldn't think of anything else to get and...” Ichigo let his speech trail off.
“Sit.” Toshiro commanded, placing the watermelon on the wooden floor and retreating inside the compound. To fetch utensils Ichigo guessed.
With a heavy sigh Ichigo let himself drop onto the floor as well, sitting with his legs crossed and lightly tapping a fist against his forehead. Before long Toshiro returned with a large plate and knife, placed them on the ground, and began cutting the watermelon.
“You know, I had this all planned out.” Ichigo stated as he watched Toshiro cut the fruit without really seeing any of it.
“It's pretty dry.” Toshiro commented on the watermelon, holding a piece out to Ichigo and taking one for himself before asking. “How did you plan things to go?”
Ichigo accepted the slice, balancing the outside of it in his palm and letting it rock back and forth there. “Well, for one I was supposed to surprise you. Then you'd be happy to see me, I'd give you your present, maybe get at least a hug for all my efforts. Not even Rukia noticed me enter Seireitei, I'm getting good at sneaking.”
“Well I am happy, though that's more for the entertainment you provide. And I knew you were there so you're not THAT good yet.”
This earned Toshiro a glare from Ichigo. “You knew?”
Toshiro nodded and the smirk was back on his face. “That's why I went out to feed the ants.”
“Tha.. You little..” for a moment there was silence as Ichigo mulled this over. “That hurt, you know.”
“But well worth watching the little dance.” Toshiro commented with dry humor.
“Che, where'd you get such nasty things anyway?” Ichigo questioned, noticing with interest that despite his comment on the watermelon's lack of adequacy Toshiro was already moving onto his second piece.
“Bred them. Was a combined project between the second and twelfth divisions. Tenth was supposed to be the 'neutral' party that would test the experiment and report results without bias. They were supposed to be a more secure and covert form of getting sensitive messages through Seireitei than either the hell butterflies or messengers. Well they weren't too good at communication, but they make excellent guards.”
“And I didn't notice them earlier because..?” Ichigo questioned, finally starting on his own piece of watermelon.
“They're nests are almost entirely underground, and I keep 'em restricted to along the outer walls. I doubt you have ever stepped into them before. They can be quite annoying if not taken care off. Feed them too much and they won't come out even if a mob were to run over them, don't feed them enough and they'll escape the compound and get everywhere and into everything looking for food.”
“Sounds fun.” Ichigo commented, thinking back now to the large aquarium that had almost crushed him.
“It is. My neighbors love me, and help me keep 'em fed. Not often you see communities pull together like that.” Toshiro's grin was quite wicked at this comment as he looked out into the dark shadows of the trees. His neighbors, of course, were the vice-captain's building, and the apartments for the seated officers. Really, this just went on to reinforce in Ichigo's mind the fact that, even though the tenth was one of the more 'sane' divisions in Seireitei, it still had its own brand of tomfoolery.
“Right, cause everybody just loves walking into their kitchen to be hissed at by demon ants.” Ichigo shook his head. There was no point in asking why Toshiro would do such a thing, he already knew that more than likely the situation hadn't been planned but simply developed on its own. Everything in the tenth captain's home seemed to go at it's own pace. As much control as Toshiro kept on the rest of his division, here in his home he allowed things to simply happen at their own course.
“But they make excellent pest control.” the captain pointed out. Half the watermelon was already gone, and Toshiro began to cut the remaining half into slices. By the time he was done with that Ichigo was only just finishing with his first piece and placing the crust back on the plate. “Kurosaki..”
“Hm?” Ichigo watched curiously as Toshiro put the knife down and then crawled forward until he was close enough to put his arms around the other's shoulders. Ichigo was startle for a second before he returned the gesture, wrapping one of his own arms around Toshiro's lower waist. “Well, I do still deserve at least this.” he chuckled quietly and he could hear Toshiro snort lightly at his ear.
“Just as planned, huh?” Toshiro questioned, brushing his lips lightly against Ichigo's neck as he pulled back. “And just a hug?” A raised eyebrow and the familiar smirk, at least for tonight, added weight to the innuendo of the last line.
“Heh, well if I had said anything else, you'd have hit me or kicked me out.” Ichigo shrugged, pleased when Toshiro stayed beside him instead of returning to his earlier seat.
“That's true.” the captain agreed, taking another slice of the watermelon. “Your teaching internship starts after your holiday's?” he asked, casually.
“Ye-.. Where'd you hear that!”
“Those poor children.”
“Who did you bribe that out off!? Rukia? Renji?”
On to part two.
Hope you like it, Raikune.
Title: Daiguren
Warnings: Story was too long and LJ demanded I cut it into two posts. POV changes at the beginning and end and a bit of gore just before the end.
Italics is flashbacks, not always to the same time period. Normal setting is a post Winter War AU, Aizen's dead, Ichigo's dead (in the shinigami sense of the term), and some other stuff's happened along the way. The two songs Hyorinmaru sings are traditional Japanese songs, according to my research.
Pairings: Nothing besides the IchiHitsu.
Kuchiki had wanted to try them cause she'd been told it was flavored ice and because it was another 'exciting living world' confection. That was a common enough event, to be fair, but today she had managed to talk Matsumoto into joining her in the exploration. This inevitably meant Hitsugaya got dragged along, mostly because the keys to Inoue's apartment were sequestered in a part of Matsumoto's anatomy where he could NOT put his hands without looking like a pervert.
Obviously this had been an extensively planned and well executed trap.
Such was the prologue to him wasting time in a living world food and beverage shop while Kuchiki and Matsumoto pondered over their orders.
“Ne, Taicho, what flavor do you want?” Matsumoto questioned with a finger to her lips, not even turning around to address him.
“I rather not have any.” He muttered, which did get her to turn to him, though the proper respect she should have been showing was still missing.
“But Taicho, you have to. Everybody's getting some.” She whined.
“Just because everybody's getting some doesn't mean I need to.” He gruffed leaning back slightly as she leaned over him pitching her voice to that perfect frequency that could shatter glass, and his skull.
“But Taichoooo.”
“Alright fine, whatever flavor.” He turned away, resisting the urge to either cover his ears or rub at his temple...or do both.
“Vanilla then. Ichigo says just about everybody likes Vanilla.” Kuchiki piped into the conversation, saving him from further immediate vice-captain troubles.
“Oy, Renji, Ichigo, what do you want!” She then proceeded to shout across nearly half the shop to where Kurosaki was attempting to drag Abarai away from some machine. Hitsugaya flinched as the eyes of all the other customers turned to them making him hunch his shoulders and wish to just walk out right then. The urge only grew stronger as Kurosaki managed to drag the still struggling Abarai to the counter.
“I got that guy right in the head, stupid thing's a cheat.” Abarai would have kept on complaining if Kuchiki hadn't grabbed him by the vest and pulled him right into, not up but into, the counter.
“Which flavor do you want?” She questioned, perfectly innocent as Abarai rubbed at his side which had hit the thick wood none too gently.
“I don't care, whatever you're having.”
“Pickles it is then!” Kuchiki cheered, completely overriding Abarai's shocked “What!?” It was Kurosaki's turn to be 'accosted' next. “And what are you getting, Ichigo?”
“Blood Orange.” The answer was enough to cause even Matsumoto to stop her relaying their order to the very perturbed cashier as all eyes fell on Kurosaki. A short moment of silence passed as sever stares were directed at him before he finally gritted out, “Not a word.”
“Right, and one bloody orange!” Matsumoto cheerfully ordered, waving Kurosaki forward to stand by her. “And the orange top is paying.” She announced, also successfully managing to drown out the “What!?” that followed, this time from Kurosaki.
A few minutes later found them all exiting the store, Abarai stomaching his drink with a distinctly green expression while Matsumoto and Kuchiki took the lead chattering away happily.
“If I wanted I could have just made it myself.” Hitsugaya thought while swirling his own drink, trailing at the back of the group. He wasn't at all interested in consuming it but he was too frugal to just throw it away and waste that money.
Thinking of which.
“Oi, Kurosaki.” He picked up his pace to catch up to the teen, putting a hand in his pocket to pull out his wallet along the way. “Here.” He held out three 10,000 yen notes the site of which caused Kurosaki to suck in a breath and almost choke on his straw in the process.
“I can't take that!” Kurosaki tried to refuse but Hitsugaya simply frowned and then stuffed them into the teens pocket. “Think of the extra as payment for troubles.” He didn't bother to listen to Kurosaki's further protests, especially since it seemed some store display had caught Matsumoto's interest and she was apparently talking Kuchiki into the approaching chaos.
* * *
Voices drew him from his dreams and into the familiar cold setting of his inner world. He rose slowly to his hands and knees, trying to recall his most recent memories as he became immediately aware of the lack of Hyornimaru's weight on his back. His last recollections were of the battle against the arrancar, a natural one as almost all that were left from Aizen had been exterminated during that war or the battle for Hell's Gate. It had been a sand controlling scorpion, and he very distinctly recalled coming out victorious though not before being struck by the unfriendly end of its tail.
The hard packed snow underneath him was almost blindingly white from reflecting the light of a clear blue sky, an unusual sight in his inner world as was the lack of wind. Looking in the direction of the voices he saw Hyorinmaru, upper body held above the ground and speaking to someone or something that was hidden from his sight by the dragons coils. Both were too far away for him make out the conversation, but he could tell even from here that Hyorinmaru was being unusually.. respectful instead of overbearingly dominant and malicious as was normal for him.
Trying to stand Hitsugaya found his knees weak and shaky and breathing surprisingly difficult, as if only recently a great weight had been sitting on his chest. He took a second to recover and catch his strength before approaching Hyorinmaru. As he walked he moved at an angle, coming around to the dragon's front so that he could see who Hyorinmaru was showing such deference too.
To his surprise he saw only an older man standing before the dragon, one he'd never before met or even seen in passing. His hair was long and unkempt, hanging down limply around an unshaven face. His clothing was equally ragged, a black cloak that ended in torn edges. As he got closer the two cut off their conversation and the dark man turned to face him; a glint of sunlight revealing him to be wearing glasses.
Hitsugaya was about to demand who this person was that had invaded his inner world, and what was going on of course, but Hyorinmaru moved fast as a serpent. The great dragon slammed his tail down right in front of Hitsugaya, kicking snow up high into the air and burying the captain, as well as separating him from the stranger.
As he dug his way out of the snowdrift, sputtering and coughing, Hitsugaya caught the tail end of the conversation.
“Anything...” A voice like the low rumble of distant thunder identified Hyornimaru easily, and the chuckle that followed the word held a distinct tone of cruelty. “I approve of that. Very well, I accept his offer.”
Hitsugaya had just made it out of the drift and started shaking the snow out of his shihakusho as the man bowed shallowly to Hyorinmaru. “Then I shall return and inform them of your agreement.” And just like that he vanished, dispersing like black fog on the windless air.
“Hyorinmaru! What is going on here?!” Hitsugay yelled angrily. The dragon turned his head to him lazily, as if only just noticing that he had almost crushed his wielder. Blood red eyes looked coldly upon the shinigami as the dragon raised himself a little higher and puffed up a little larger, wings partially opening on either side. As a whole, Hyorinmaru moved to tower imposingly over Hitsugaya.
“Going on? Little master, you broke our contract.” The way the dragon emphasized on the word 'master' made the term more a mockery than a show of submission.
“What do you mean.” Hitsugaya growled, glaring up at the dragon and not at all budging to his intimidating posturing. Of course, his stubbornness only seemed to amuse Hyorinmaru.
“You used my wings long after the last petal had faded.” The tail that had been lying still beside Hitsguaya lashed and curled around him, leaving the shinigami with only a few feet of free space as the rest of the dragon's body moved to cut off any escapes from above.
Hitsugaya was stunned by the thought. He knew he'd been poisoned mid-battle, but he'd thought himself to still have had wits enough to dispel his bankai before the time limit was up. He held tightly to his self control and resisted the first instinct to bolt from the entrapping form. “I didn-”
“YOU DID!” The dragon roared, the low rumble of his voice suddenly becoming an explosion of sound above his head. “We made a deal. My wings, to do with as you please, within a span of time.” Hyorinmaru quieted and brought his head down, the tip of his nose only a few feet above Hitsugaya as he rumbled lowly. “You broke it.” The tail curled tighter about the shinigami, now starting to squeeze his body. “And you will pay for being false to me.”
Hitsugaya shivered at the feel of Hyorinmaru's frozen body constricting around him. His mouth was clenched tight while he kept a glare steady and fixed with the dragon's gaze. Thoughts were running a thousand miles an hour in his head, rushing back to the battle and the sudden cold weakness that had grasped him at the end of it. A weakness that he had blamed on the same poison that had distorted his senses.
There had to be a way out of this. If there wasn't, and if Hyorinmaru was dead set on crushing him, then the dragon would have done so already instead of prolonging things in this manner. The thought of a possible and imminent end to his life derailed his mind for a second to those that he cared for. Those that would be impacted by this sudden turn of events. Matsumoto and Kurosaki standing out most prominently among them.
“You're fortunate, though, master.” Hitsugaya refused to so much as blink at the statement, knowing full well that Hyorinmaru was looking for any bit of weakness.
“How so?” He questioned wearily, his voice steady even though he was still desperately trying to think of any method, technique, or new deal that could get him out of the current situation.
“Because someone else has already offered a new.. contract.” The dragon chuckled, the comment dripping with maliciousness. The tone, and the mention of somebody else were enough to startle Hitsugaya. His mind immediately jumped to the strange man as he blinked, for a second showing his confusion.
The small lapse in composure was more then enough. In the next instant the dragon reared back, opening his mouth and letting out a mighty roar. White wind exhaling from the jaws froze his tail and the shinigami it held imprisoned.
* * * * *
Ichigo let out a heavy sigh as he settled back into the bed after fetching new blankets to replace the dirtied ones. Satisfied contentment weighed him down as he pulled Toshiro into his arms, letting out another sigh as he adjusted the captain's head to rest against the base of his neck and closed his eyes. For a while quite and peace settled in his room, both alien but welcome things in the setting.
Then a small fist jabbed him sharply in the chest and completely ruined the moment. Ichigo grunted and tried to tighten his hold around Toshiro, but this only earned him another, slightly more painful, jab.
“You're too close.” He heard Toshiro mutter, causing his frown, which had for just a brief moment absented itself, to return full force. “And you stink.” was the next comment as he was jabbed again and Toshiro began to truly try to move out of his grasp.
With a grumble, Ichigo adjusted his hold and moved lower in the bed so that he was face to face with Toshiro. For a moment there was quiet and he dared to hope that the captain had nothing to complain about now, but then he felt the efforts to escape resume. “You're breathing into my face.” was the next complaint and finally Ichigo relented, letting Toshiro turn around and face away from him.
A third sigh, this one of defeat. At least now Toshiro would allow himself to be pulled close even if Ichigo would be greeted by nothing more than his lovers cold back in the morning, if that much.
* * *
When the odd sensation of being sucked through a wind-tunnel dissipated Ichigo opened his eyes on a world of cold. In the distance glacier topped mountains rose like talons to claw at a clear blue sky. More glaciers, some almost half the height of the mountains themselves, creped out of the valleys between the peaks. The bright unfiltered sunlight reflected off the unstained ground blindingly for the while it took for his eyes to adjust to the shine, forcing him to raise a hand to shade them.
For a moment he was disoriented by the simple fact that this inner world was right side up instead of.. skewed, as his was.
Strangely he was not at all surprised by the barren and icy plain that stretched before him and to the feet of the distant mountains. The monotony of the straight stretch was only broken by the frequent giant pillars and shards of ice that stood up all across expanse. It fit Toshiro, or some parts of him anyway.
A deep rumble behind Ichigo had him turning about sharply, the hand which had been shading his eyes reaching up and behind for Zangetsu only to find the blade absent. The lack of a weapon was especially dismaying when he saw Hyorinmaru, rising high above him with wings almost fully spread open and spines bristling. He'd been hoping against all prior knowledge that Hitsugaya's spirit would be something closer to what Zangetsu was like, except perhaps with more white and younger as well.
The giant dragon obviously wasn't. Ichigo could see its long body coil across the ice, the tail curled about a small dome of ice, and shifting in undulating waves as if to show of its form now that he had noticed it.
“Welcome to my realm...Vaizard.” Hyorinmaru growled, causing Ichigo to glower at the beast.
“How-” The dragon opened it's mouth wide letting out a bellowing laugh and cutting his question off.
“I'm a Zanpakuto, I know.” The dragon explained, continuing to chuckle as Ichigo glanced about the immediate area.
“Where's Toshiro?” He demanded to know and, as if a switch had been flipped, the dragon's good humor vanished. Hyorinmaru spread its wings wide and gave one great beat, kicking up a strong enough wind to knock Ichigo of his feet and send him rolling along the ground.
“That is no concern of yours. You are in no position to either ask or demand things of me!” Hyorinmaru roared, a large wave moving along its body culminating in his tail lashing out and slamming into the ground a short distance away, leaving a crater in the snow and ice.
Ichigo regained his footing, standing strong now against the wind the dragon continued beating up. “Damn it, he's been out for three days. I just-”
“SILENCE!” The roar was loud enough to shake the very ice they stood on. It did silence Ichigo, if for no other reason than the ringing in his ears. Slowly the dragon stilled its wings.
“Your Zanpakuto informed me you would do anything to bring him back..” Hyorinmaru growled and a blue tongue came out to lick at its icy chops. “Anything...” it repeated with a hiss.
Ichigo stood up straight, glaring at the beast, and nodded. “Yes anything.”
“Then I propose this.” Now the dragon wash chuckling, a low growl that undulated in waves that matched those traveling down it's serpentine lengths. “Take the same test that the little master took to earn my bankai. Pass and all will go back to the way it was before, fail and I will abandon Hitsugaya Toshiro and take all of his shinigami powers with me.”
“But-” Ichigo tried to interject but Hyorinmaru beat its wings again. This time, though, he was prepared and managed to keep his footing.
“Yes or no!” The dragon roared, stopping it's wings with an audible and vicious snap that emphasized its temper. For a while silence settled on the frozen world.
Ichigo frowned at the dragon, feeling as much as seeing the tension coil in its form. The wrong word now would have him immediately evicted from this world and that would be the end of everything. On the one hand he felt a desperate sense of relief. For the last three days Toshiro had been loosing his reiatsu which had drawn many people, including him, to believe that the captain was dieing despite the fact that his physical injuries had been healed and the poison removed.
He didn't know why the dragon was taking Toshiro's shinigami powers nor did he really care as long as he knew the young captain would live. But that also meant there was no need to have come this far, no need to take the dragon up on its offer. He'd come here prepared to face Toshiro's Zanpakuto the moment Unohana had stormed out of the intensive care room, grabbed the blade and shattered it. Ichigo had been ready for a battle as vicious as the one he'd had to face against his own inner hollow to save Toshiro's life when she had diagnosed that it was the blade itself which was stealing the reiatsu from his lover.
But Toshiro was safe and there was no need to go that far. Ichigo squared his shoulders determinedly and replied to Hyorinmaru.
“Yes.”
* * *
For very obvious reasons Ichigo had always imagined Toshiro's private quarters to be as spotless, ninety-degree rigid, as his office.
He did not in a thousand years expect to walk into the large building that seemed to be the source of every dustbunny in their quarter of Japan.
Piles of books of all kinds (thick leather-bound volumes, notebooks, manuscripts, magazines) covered just about every available corner. Blank papers and a miscellaneous collection of junk had invaded the spaces the books didn't occupy. Out of all the rooms in the just-small-enough-to-not-be-a-mansion quarters only the entry, kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom seemed to see regular use (and cleaning).
For a moment he was dumbfounded after peeking through one ajar doorway to what might have been a guest room if it wasn't inhabited by a collection of rocks and crystals in one half, books almost large enough to sleep on in the other, and the worlds biggest insect farm aquarium on a window shelf at its back.
No wonder Toshiro had threatened him with much pain and suffering if he ever spoke a word of the interior of the tenth division's captain's quarters. Everything was covered in a fine layer of dust, attesting to the fact that Toshiro did spend more time in the office than in his own 'home.' Considering all the possible health ramifications of living in a place like this that might not have been a bad thing though.
The sight of the mess that must have taken several of his own life times to amass made Ichigo's hands twitch. He wasn't a clean freak by any stretch of the imagination, but he did keep his own spaces orderly. Yuzu had pretty much trained it into him. Not on purpose, of course, but as he'd gotten older her intrusions into his room to clean it became less and less welcome.
With Toshiro at the office and only having given him the most threatening and grudging of permissions to see the space he had nothing better to do than explore the collections. Beside the aquarium room another held huge rolls of paper and a calligraphy brush twice Ichigo's size. Imagining Toshiro using the thing was almost too much for his mind. One room, which had obviously been built as a place for meditation, now ironically housed a collection of assorted weapons. In one corner of the same room were plant pots, some still with dried and dusty dirt in them. Ichigo guessed them to be the remains of a failed attempt at botany.
The bedroom was by far the cleanest. The obligatory books and manuscripts filled only a single corner of the room, and it was used enough for the dust invasion to not have overtaken it beyond 'normal' levels. A window that seemed to be semi-permanently open probably aided towards this. Said window and a tatami door opened onto the rear of the building and a garden there.
The garden also showed a lack of anything but the most basic tending. There was no plan for it, no pretty pond in one corner with aesthetic arrangements to bushes and flowers around it, and no signs of attracting wildlife like bird feeders. Not even a wind chime by the door. Instead whatever plantlife wished to grow there was allowed to do so, unhindered everywhere except at the garden's edges where it was pruned and cut to remain at least withing the confines of the compound's walls.
That said, the garden area was a good deal larger than the living quarters, and Ichigo could see signs that parts of the building had actually been removed to add more garden space. The back was large enough, in fact, to be called a very small wood, with thick trunked trees and well trodden paths between them. Ichigo wasn't too into the 'nature beauty' thing though, so soon enough he was back within the building.
It was strange. He had cajoled, annoyed, and forced his permission to enter the place, though now that he was here, and the initial shock had worn off, it all seemed rather.. underwhelming. It would have been more interesting if Toshiro hoarded precious jewels like the dragons in movies did.
He'd yet to find THAT back room. Though, when he did, Hitsugaya giving away 30,000 yen like so much dust maid a whole lot more sense.
* * *
Silence followed his statement, making his 'yes' echo strangely in the emptiness. Hyorinmaru gazed at him with blood red eyes. At first he felt a rumble at the barest edge of his range of hearing, a rumble that progressively grew and turned into a thundering laugh, different and much colder than the first one he'd heard, as the dragon threw its head back with its jaws wide opened to let out the near roars. The wings moved forward, the tips closing in front of Ichigo and momentarily hiding the beast from his sight.
What other answer could he have given? Despite all the complaints about paperwork and Matsumoto, being a captain was Toshiro's life. Ichigo could only too well empathize what it would be like to loose all shingami powers, to loose any ability to protect and fight. He couldn't just turn his back and leave Toshiro to such a fate.
The laughter faded as the wings opened again, revealing Hyorinmaru to have lowered it's head to the ground it's nose now just a few inches over a barrel that had materialized there. It was about three and a half feet high and filled to the brim with sesame seeds. There was still a dry growl coming from Hyorinmaru, a chuckle as the red eyes narrowed at him.
“Then let it be so.” the dragon spoke as Ichigo cautiously stepped forward and wearily gazed at the barrel. Zangetsu's test had been blatantly combat oriented, and he had been worried that the dragon would follow the same path. Fighting the beast without a weapon would have been a dreadful experience.
“What do I do?” He asked, as he watched the dragon settle down, letting it's long body lay across the ground while it continued to chuckle in its growling voice and watch him like a hawk.
“Take the seeds from that barrel and drop them in the pit.” Its tail flicked sharply to indicate the crater it had created earlier.
“That's it?” Ichigo asked, amazed at the simplicity of it.
Hyorinmaru snorted, a plume of snowflakes flying from its nose while the gleam in its eyes seemed to grow brighter. “One at a time, of course.” The dragon replied, causing Ichigo to frown disbelievingly at the quantity of seeds before him. Then, with a snort of his own, he pulled the sleeves on his shihakusho up and got to it. It'd take forever, it felt like, but if he could get through Zangetsu's test he could make it through this easy. He raised his hand to toss the seed but almost dropped it as Hyorinmaru roared behind him.
“No throwing. If you let go of a seed after picking it up anywhere other than above the assigned place you fail the task.” The dragon informed tauntingly, earning itself a glare from Ichigo, as it happily snorted another puff of snow at him.
The shadows of clouds scuttled along the ground as Ichigo made the first of what would be many many trips between the barrel and crater. It was a mindbogglingly dull task from the very beginning, back and forth, and what had looked like it would take forever quickly turned into an eternity after the first few trips.
Toshiro was going to owe him a lot after this. At least it wasn't too hard, even if Hyorinmaru's red eyes kept a constant watch on him. “Voyer.” Ichigo called it after a while, as the silence began to weigh on him. The dragon's eyes simply gleamed all the more as it purred.
“Why, thank you.”
“Wasn't a compliment.” He growled and let the quiet settle back in.
* * *
“I said you could look, not snoop about.” Toshiro complained as he found Ichigo turning the large and heavy pages of one of the giant books, this one about the structures of hell.
“I wasn't snooping, and that took a whole lot longer than half an hour.” Ichigo replied lazily, pulling and shoving heavily on the cover to lift it off the ground and close the book which had proven to be almost entirely illegible. The many disturbing illustrations that he'd seen, in just the few pages he'd taken a look at though, convinced him he probably didn't want to know what was written. How come Toshiro had a book like this anyway?
“Matsumoto didn't finish her work.” Toshiro offered by way of explanation, already having moved off from the doorway and towards the 'living' areas.
Ichigo, in his haste to catch up, let the cover of the book fall shut under its own weight. The impact kicked up a chocking cloud of dust right in his face. Coughing he staggered backwards to escape it only to step on a rock, which rolled out from under his feet, causing him to fall back against the large empty tank. Said tank teetered for a second before falling off its, now obviously, precarious perch, crashing onto Ichigo and the ground, and decorating the entire room with broken glass.
After a short stunned pause he reached a hand up to touch at the back of his head, feeling only a bruise there and no blood. Cursing as he shook the glass off his shihakusho he found that he'd thankfully avoided getting sliced by the shattering monstrosity.
“Amazing.” A cold deadpan voice stopped Ichigo's muttering. As the dust settled back down he could see Toshiro had come back to the doorway and was kicking the glass shards that had escaped into the hallway back into the room. “All that time alone here and now you break something?”
* * *
The clouds above grew thicker as time passed and Ichigo was finding it harder and harder to walk the distance between the barrel and crater. His feet hurt, not from lack of stamina on his part, but from the simple cold.
When he had entered this realm it had felt chilly, but since then the temperature had been steadily dropping and he was walking on ice and snow to begin with. Shunpo wasn't allowed, walking on air wasn't allowed, heck Hyorinmaru had threatened to end the task and banish him from the realm if he so much as dared to think of any other ways of completing the task with reiatsu. It was blatantly obvious to Ichigo that the dragon seemed to enjoy his mounting frustration.
Ichigo didn't usually let anyone or anything push him around, but he was making a valiant effort to stay composed now. On the one part, there was something.. distinct about Zanpakuto. Just as he naturally had never really stood up to Zangetsu, not counting achieving his bankai, he didn't feel like directly confronting the dragon. On the other part, Toshiro's future hung on the whims of this beast which seemed to change moods at random times.
Still, the dragon was aggravating with its mere presence.
With a curse Ichigo sat down beside the barrel and checked his feet. The sandals were soggy and the socks were getting moist as well. Wet clothing was no good in this cold, he knew, but neither was walking barefoot.
“If you sit around for too long I'll end this.” Hyorinmaru warned, blue tongue coming out long enough to curl up wards and lick at its ruby eyes.
“Sorry, didn't mean to deprive you of your entertainment.” Ichigo muttered. Deciding that his sandals could last a while longer he stood from the ground, patting at his rear to dislodge the clinging snow off his hakama. Just that small break had already started to numb his bottom, if he didn't know any better he would have said that the ice on the ground was getting colder.
A suspicious glance at the dragon had him second-guessing that thought. For all he knew such a thing could indeed be possible here in this realm. “Bah!” he snatched another seed out of the barrel and walked the few yards on the far too familiar path to the crater. Worrying about what the dragon could and couldn't do wouldn't get this done any faster. This was obviously a test on endurance and patience, that was easy enough to figure out from the simple but immense nature of it.
Too simple, which was where all his concern was stemming from.
It felt like he'd been walking for hours, though he couldn't really be sure. When he'd gone to his own inner world time outside himself seemed to stop, who knew what was happening outside now? Not to mention that time seemed to distort when performing monotonous tasks such as this.
He didn't appear to have had any impact on the number of seeds in the barrel at all either. Again he was suspicious of the dragon. It might literally be impossible to empty this barrel. But then, what would the point to this be? Hyorinmaru had said that this was the same test Toshiro did to gain his bankai but that didn't really tell him all that much.
Many more trips later and he was convinced that the ground really was getting colder. Each step grew progressively more difficult, and painful. When the bottom of his sandals began to freeze solid he took them off, there really was no longer any point to keeping them on in such a condition. Time, and seeds, passed as he kept going with just his socks, but those too eventually started to freeze.
With a heavy sigh he again sat down by the barrel and slowly removed the socks. The frozen souls crackled from the ice as he pulled them off. He considered the situation for a second, and the very cold ground, before putting the socks back on with the frozen soul on top and the still relatively dry half on the bottom.
Moving the seeds wasn't an exhausting task, not in a physical sense, but the silence and monotony were truly oppressive as he got back up and continued. Hyorinmaru wasn't any help either, its gaze was as heavy as the quiet, the only sound the dragon made now being the rustling movement of snow as it occasionally rearranged its body.
He didn't notice it at first, too focused on the cold of his feet while at the same time not thinking much at all, but a sharp gust finally caught his attention. A wind had begun to blow across the plain, it was barely there, a light breeze that occasionally spiked enough to stir the sleeves on his shihakusho. It was almost silent but once he noticed it he couldn't help but find the change ominous. Shaking the odd feeling off he set back to his task with only a cursory glare at the dragon after the pause.
Before long though the pain in his feet had him sitting by the barrel again and tugging the socks off with another crackle of ice. He'd hoped that he could flip them again, that the initial ice would have melted by now, but his luck didn't hold for that. The socks were both frozen solid, not solid enough to be rigid, but enough so that wearing them or not made no difference.
Tossing them aside he focused on his feet instead. They'd turned white from the cold, and the souls were thoroughly numb, only the edges continuing to pin and prickle with pain. Nothing had turned blue yet but considering that he was no where near emptying the barrel that was probably just a matter of time.
“Already disheartened boy?” He almost jumped at the dragons voice, Hyorinmaru had been silent for so long.
“As if. This is nothing.” Right, he could deal with a little frostbite. He'd faced hell itself and come out alive and Toshiro had passed this challenge as well. He could do this easy, being more than stubborn enough to stay at the task until the barrel really was empty. At least now he could see that indeed it was emptying and not being infinitely replenished.
He just hoped that none of the frostbite would carry over into the waking world. As he got up the wind seemed to suddenly pick up pace and the temperature drop by several degrees.
“That is good. The fun's only just begun after all.” The dragon seemed to purr.
“What do you mean?” Ichigo asked wearily, as he picked a seed out of the barrel.
Hyorinmaru's low purr grew to a full rumble. “You will see.”
He looked at the dragon for a little while longer before turning away to start his back and forth march again. Not knowing what to expect was one of the more difficult and troubling things in his experience, but he had more than enough patience to see this through.
As he continued to walk the wind slowly grew in strength, becoming an almost audible murmur across the frozen plains while the formerly white and wispy clouds grew heavy and dark above.
* * *
The night was crisp but the cold of winter still late in coming to Seireitei. Even now there was green hung onto many of the trees that should have lost all their leaves more than a month ago. A waning crescent moon swam in a cloudless sky, providing only a minimum of illumination for the backstreets he had to take through the tenth division's headquarters to reach his destination.
No one could tell him now that he couldn't be stealthy. He'd managed to make it all the way to the back wall of the captain's quarters without setting off a single alarm. If Matsumoto had succeeded in her task Toshiro should be in there right now, making the task of sneaking in doubly difficult. But it was all worth it, or would be once the element of surprise was complete.
Checking up and down the backstreet, and on the large parcel slung over his shoulder, one last time he hopped to the top of the wall and crouched there looking through the garden cautiously. Edging forward as quietly as he could he was just about to jump down when-
“Kurosaki?”
-a voice startled him and caused him to loose his footing. That seemed to happen a lot around this area. Twisting mid-air as he fell into the garden but managed to land on his feet and almost make the whole accident look purposeful.
“Toshiro?”
So much for the surprise. The captain stood in the darker shadows of one of the trees, the looming branches hiding him from being seem from above. Strangely enough he held a torn loaf of bread in his hands.
“You really shouldn't stand there...” There was a half amused smirk on Toshiro's face which immediately set all of Ichigo's alarms off but he didn't have time to ponder at the perplexity of it because a noise from below drew his gaze down.
All around him the ground seemed to be alive with scuttling movements, insects he realized quickly as he lifted a foot to notice he'd squished a few of the things during his landing. He was about to take a cautious step out of the mass when all the insects suddenly stopped moving. He froze with them, staring wearily down at what he could now distinguish, in their stillness, were ants.
Ants the size of mice and rats.
His foot had just passed over a particularly large one that was waving its feelers and giant mandibles directly at him, or the remains of it's comrade on the bottom of his feet.
Then, en-mass once more, the critters stood up on their hind legs and hissed at him. Hissed like puffing snakes, or Yoruichi-san on a wet day, and charged. With a yelp he began to dance around trying to get the bugs off. The small ones were one thing, but the larger ones had mandibles the size of his fingers and they hurt.
Of course hopping about to escape the swarm led to him stepping on more of them which incensed the creatures all the more and seemed to randomly generate extra hundreds out of thin air.
“Get to the deck, they won't come up there.” He heard Toshiro call from some place, he didn't bother to check, in fact the captain had barely gotten halfway through the statement before a shunpo had carried Ichigo out of immediate danger. He'd just stepped in a random direction to escape the attack, and quickly used another shunpo to make it to the back deck of Toshiro's quarters.
True to the captain's words, as soon as he touched down on the wood, the remaining ants that were clinging to him seemed to loose the will to fight, falling off him and scuttling frantically to get off the deck. He spent a minute patting at his hakama just to make sure they were all gone, the feeling of the prickling legs seeming to have burned itself into his skin.
“You're an idiot, aren't you?” was the statement that announced Toshiro's arrival, loaf of bread suspiciously absent. The captain had a look of amazement on his face, similar to the one Rukia had had when she'd first discovered carbonated drinks.
“How was I supposed to-. I was trying-. WHAT THE HELL WERE THOSE THINGS!?”
Toshiro's expression changed from bafflement to blatant amusement. “Guards?”
“They hissed at me! They stood up like little midgets and HISSED at me!” Ichigo felt like he'd just been assaulted by a phylogenic tree. Hollows could look beastly and attack, but insects did not stand up and-
“Yeah, they tend to do that.” Toshiro was blatantly snickering now, which completely passed over Ichigo's head as he was far too preoccupied at being assaulted by the bottom of the food chain.
“Ants!?” Could Toshiro not see how absolutely wrong this was?
Apparently not, because that one word had the captain literally laughing. That was enough to knock Ichigo out of being stunned by angry insects to being stunned at the unusualness of it all. “Did you think, you could just sneak into a captain's quarters, like that?” Toshiro asked between laughs.
“Well...but..ants?” Ichigo whined, deflating as Toshiro calmed his laughter. Really, what could he do in the face of that? He just wished making the captain laugh like that didn't usually involve a humiliating event such as this one.
“You think those are frightening, you should see Kurotsuchis camel spiders. Even Madarame screams like a woman when those things get out.” Ichigo just stared at his lover. Toshiro was laughing, Toshiro was laughing and telling mocking jokes...
“Are you drunk?” Ichigo asked, which wasn't impossible considering the date and Matsumoto's talents when she focused on her goals. The humor almost completely vanished, Toshiro's frown returning though a smirk still lingered on his lips.
“No. You just never cease to surprise.” Ichigo raised his free hand to scratch the back of his head with embarrassment unsure of whether to take that as an insult or a compliment, though he'd heard pretty much the same thing from others. “What's that?” Toshiro asked right after, pointing at the package still slung over Ichigo's shoulder.
“Oh yeah. It's your birthday present.” Ichigo took it off his shoulder and held it out for Toshiro. It was a large oval shape, wrapped in simple brown paper, and held in a small net for carrying. Toshiro took it and pulled the netting and paper away to reveal a fresh watermellon.
“How did you get this? It's winter.” the captain questioned, looking at Ichigo with curiosity.
“Over in the real world, modern greenhouses can grow some things year-round. I'm guessing it's not going to be as good as an in-season one... but Rangiku-san said you liked them and I couldn't think of anything else to get and...” Ichigo let his speech trail off.
“Sit.” Toshiro commanded, placing the watermelon on the wooden floor and retreating inside the compound. To fetch utensils Ichigo guessed.
With a heavy sigh Ichigo let himself drop onto the floor as well, sitting with his legs crossed and lightly tapping a fist against his forehead. Before long Toshiro returned with a large plate and knife, placed them on the ground, and began cutting the watermelon.
“You know, I had this all planned out.” Ichigo stated as he watched Toshiro cut the fruit without really seeing any of it.
“It's pretty dry.” Toshiro commented on the watermelon, holding a piece out to Ichigo and taking one for himself before asking. “How did you plan things to go?”
Ichigo accepted the slice, balancing the outside of it in his palm and letting it rock back and forth there. “Well, for one I was supposed to surprise you. Then you'd be happy to see me, I'd give you your present, maybe get at least a hug for all my efforts. Not even Rukia noticed me enter Seireitei, I'm getting good at sneaking.”
“Well I am happy, though that's more for the entertainment you provide. And I knew you were there so you're not THAT good yet.”
This earned Toshiro a glare from Ichigo. “You knew?”
Toshiro nodded and the smirk was back on his face. “That's why I went out to feed the ants.”
“Tha.. You little..” for a moment there was silence as Ichigo mulled this over. “That hurt, you know.”
“But well worth watching the little dance.” Toshiro commented with dry humor.
“Che, where'd you get such nasty things anyway?” Ichigo questioned, noticing with interest that despite his comment on the watermelon's lack of adequacy Toshiro was already moving onto his second piece.
“Bred them. Was a combined project between the second and twelfth divisions. Tenth was supposed to be the 'neutral' party that would test the experiment and report results without bias. They were supposed to be a more secure and covert form of getting sensitive messages through Seireitei than either the hell butterflies or messengers. Well they weren't too good at communication, but they make excellent guards.”
“And I didn't notice them earlier because..?” Ichigo questioned, finally starting on his own piece of watermelon.
“They're nests are almost entirely underground, and I keep 'em restricted to along the outer walls. I doubt you have ever stepped into them before. They can be quite annoying if not taken care off. Feed them too much and they won't come out even if a mob were to run over them, don't feed them enough and they'll escape the compound and get everywhere and into everything looking for food.”
“Sounds fun.” Ichigo commented, thinking back now to the large aquarium that had almost crushed him.
“It is. My neighbors love me, and help me keep 'em fed. Not often you see communities pull together like that.” Toshiro's grin was quite wicked at this comment as he looked out into the dark shadows of the trees. His neighbors, of course, were the vice-captain's building, and the apartments for the seated officers. Really, this just went on to reinforce in Ichigo's mind the fact that, even though the tenth was one of the more 'sane' divisions in Seireitei, it still had its own brand of tomfoolery.
“Right, cause everybody just loves walking into their kitchen to be hissed at by demon ants.” Ichigo shook his head. There was no point in asking why Toshiro would do such a thing, he already knew that more than likely the situation hadn't been planned but simply developed on its own. Everything in the tenth captain's home seemed to go at it's own pace. As much control as Toshiro kept on the rest of his division, here in his home he allowed things to simply happen at their own course.
“But they make excellent pest control.” the captain pointed out. Half the watermelon was already gone, and Toshiro began to cut the remaining half into slices. By the time he was done with that Ichigo was only just finishing with his first piece and placing the crust back on the plate. “Kurosaki..”
“Hm?” Ichigo watched curiously as Toshiro put the knife down and then crawled forward until he was close enough to put his arms around the other's shoulders. Ichigo was startle for a second before he returned the gesture, wrapping one of his own arms around Toshiro's lower waist. “Well, I do still deserve at least this.” he chuckled quietly and he could hear Toshiro snort lightly at his ear.
“Just as planned, huh?” Toshiro questioned, brushing his lips lightly against Ichigo's neck as he pulled back. “And just a hug?” A raised eyebrow and the familiar smirk, at least for tonight, added weight to the innuendo of the last line.
“Heh, well if I had said anything else, you'd have hit me or kicked me out.” Ichigo shrugged, pleased when Toshiro stayed beside him instead of returning to his earlier seat.
“That's true.” the captain agreed, taking another slice of the watermelon. “Your teaching internship starts after your holiday's?” he asked, casually.
“Ye-.. Where'd you hear that!”
“Those poor children.”
“Who did you bribe that out off!? Rukia? Renji?”
On to part two.