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Ice crumbles from his bankai, chipped away by the air of defeat, chilling and bitter around him. Hyorinmaru is cold in his grasp, a rumble of strength in his soul, but as Tōshirō descends upon the rooftop with a bloodied shadow and an exhausted, weary sigh, he doesn’t feel particularly powerful. The death of the Arrancar – Shawlong Kūfang, the eleventh – is undebatable, but Tōshirō’s success is another matter entirely. His lieutenant is well and Orihime Inoue is unharmed, but the battle had persevered for too long – a testament of Tōshirō’s abilities, or the lack thereof.
Summoning Hyorinmaru’s bankai should not have been necessary. Despite the weight of its icy magnificence on his back, Tōshirō feels none of his usual pride. His wings are drooped, icebergs melting, and his tail is a slushy trace of sully behind him. There is only disgrace in his victory, although he knows many would argue otherwise. He has survived, and for now, and that is what matters.
Tomorrow, he will become stronger.
Tonight – well. He has some of the Seireitei’s most promising shinigami to ensure the safety of, and he cannot do that while wallowing in misery.
A flash of orange burns in his peripheral, and for a moment Tōshirō dismisses it – Inoue’s astonishing ability is a golden prayer, and though he is not entirely used to her forwardness in healing, it will have to be something to adapt to. Yet, when he turns through the night, footsteps trailing through watery puddles of blood to address his lieutenant, Tōshirō spots the young human climbing onto the roof, her hairclips intact and not one glimmer of her power to be seen.
Matsumoto’s sharp cry only emphasises his confusion, but the explosion of fire just off in the distance – smoke and ash and a burning, erupting reiatsu – tears through the aftermath silence like a shockwave, a sun dawning blood over the horizon. Tōshirō startles, broken ice snapping in preparation for assault, and Inoue almost slips over the gory remnants of his battle in her haste to reach his side.
“Hitsugaya-san –” she begins, an uncharacteristic nerviness to her approach, but the rolling smog of reiatsu stops her, a fire igniting a volcanic power over the town. The sky starts to burn brighter over the rooftops, like a gigantic star or the sun heaving itself up through the night, and Tōshirō coils the last of his exhausted defence about him, feeling the unfamiliar reiatsu slam heat against his own.
No – there is something familiar about it, but through the sluggish weight of fatigue resting heavy on his mind, Tōshirō cannot quite place where he has experienced such an untamed, wildfire of a spirit before. It doesn’t belong to any of the lieutenants, that’s for sure, and while it’s definitely powerful enough to rival a captain’s –
“Oh,” he says, an unintentional mutter of comprehension lost to the sound of Inoue squeaking about Kurosaki-kun’s reiatsu, and, wasn’t he fighting near Sado-kun’s house? It is Kurosaki’s reiatsu, Tōshirō realises, but he has never known it to explode in such a way before. Concerned, for the Gotei Thirteen has clearly underestimated their enemy, and though human, Kurosaki is now a part of Tōshirō’s team and thus under his protection, the Tenth Division captain makes up his mind. Inoue is correct in saying that the location of Kurosaki’s reiatsu is in an odd place for his battle – as far as Tōshirō is aware, Yasutora’s house is on the other side of town – so the captain resigns himself to another bout of combat.
In his soul, Hyorinmaru rumbles and stretches his wings. He is a beast awoken from hibernation, winter’s energy stored for the spring, and resolution pushes his serpentine greatness through the snow.
Your time is limited, utters the dragon with a blizzardy grumble, but time there is before they must rest, and Tōshirō murmurs thanks to his other half.
“Matsumoto,” he says then, turning to his lieutenant. With Hyorinmaru’s perseverance, his bankai will hold for a while longer, but since the last petal is already beginning to splinter, there is little time to spare if he is going to involve himself in keeping Kurosaki safe. “Can you –?”
“Captain,” she says, interrupting his command. Her gaze is fixed upon the fire, sky blue eyes flickering in the light, and her voice is firm – firm enough to snap Tōshirō to attention despite the superiority hierarchy between them. “Isn’t Kurosaki-san’s home in that direction?”
She says something else, a warning or a confirmation perhaps, but Tōshirō has already reacted, wings spread afar and great, daggered claws scraping against the concrete. In the next wintry breath, a dragon takes flight with a February gale howling over the town; ice cracks and creaks and melts with blood, and in the distance, the Kurosaki Clinic responds in kind, embers splintering into the night.
Winter descends, but it is already too late to save the house. Blackened mouths of smoke consume the building, swallowing the livelihood of the family. The windows spew fire, the ceiling cries ashes, and in the street the clinic’s sign is lying, white writing blistered red and torn away from the wall. Rubble and brick are scattered around it, remnants of the roof collapsing into itself. Some streets away, sirens scream into the evening hour, but Tōshirō knows there is little to be done.
Hyorinmaru’s sleek blade twists through the scorching night, the dragon’s breath carrying away the smoke. The flames continue to singe, reaching fiery hands towards the shinigami, but with his power battling the smog, Tōshirō manages to inch a little closer, his arctic form a shield against the blustering flames. Fear trickles up his skin like tiny embers, but the unknown welfare of Kurosaki’s family urges him on, tightening his bankai around him.
His lone petal crumbles away the racing time.
“Kurosaki!” he roars, wondering if he should dare to perch on the roof over the teenager’s room. There is a gaping hole in the tiles through which he could probably squeeze, but the blaze pours from the bedroom, warning him away. Hyorinmaru is strong, but Tōshirō doubts he will come away unscathed if he were to take such a risk. That he cannot pinpoint Kurosaki’s reiatsu worries him, but charging unheeding into the forsaken home will only cause more damage, potentially wrecking any last hope.
Cursing, the captain breezes over the rooftops, evermore aware of the rising temperature; the heat of hopelessness against his skin. He cannot hear anything to suggest the perils of death, but that does little to comfort him. For all he knows, Kurosaki and his family could be dead, their souls entrapped in a nightmare. Perhaps an Arrancar has already consumed them, fulfilling Aizen’s terrible schemes.
“Kurosaki!” he shouts again, refusing to believe that the teenager would fall so easily. “Kurosaki, for god’s sake –!”
His bankai snaps, one of the wings fissuring above him. Tōshirō stumbles as the ice breaks away, hefty shards smashing through the building below. The flames gobble up his slushy power and yearn for more, and he has to throw himself to the side to avoid falling through the roof. Fire blisters across his unprotected torso, but Hyorinmaru’s power withstands the heat until he has half-crashed onto the pavement. He loses his tail on the tumble down, and the other wing rains sleet down upon his sweltering skin, but Tōshirō escapes the scarlet flames with his life intact and swears high and mighty at his juvenile endurance.
Wailing sirens ring alongside his cursing. A large, painfully red truck skids to a stop just a few metres from where Tōshirō has fallen; road kill, almost, but the humans that burst from the vehicle pay his invisible form no mind. They shout at each other, dressed in strange, obtrusive clothing, but all Tōshirō feels is horror at the sight of them; what their hasty determination represents.
(His uselessness).
The clinic spits fire. Smoke descends over the home, Hyorinmaru’s breath exhausted.
Tōshirō vomits blood onto the sidewalk, his defence crumbling away to expose his wounds to the scorching air. He had completely forgotten about his battle with the Arrancar, but now there is nothing left to protect him from his failures, his injuries weep crimson tears onto the ground. The dazzling white of his haori is smudged with ashes and ripped with holes, and beneath his waning dignity, his skin aches with sizzling bruises, pulsing waves of fire through his side.
His chest heaves, lungs boiling. His eyes blur with smoke.
When he blinks, the ground is further away, and Hyorinmaru is lying on his chest, bouncing with the rhythm of motion. Darkness obscures his lucidity; something soft presses against his face, and he blinks again, trying to see –
“– until Inoue-san gets here,” someone is drawling, accent thick and expression merely a blob of strikingly blond hair in Tōshirō’s eyes. The person smiles, or scowls, and somebody else grumbles with a familiar tone, but one unusually far away –
He’s on his side. The pain has lessened, barely a tingle of its previous burn, and Tōshirō coughs the last of the smoke from his lungs as the world rights itself. Grass stretches out in all directions, cold against the ruby flush to his skin, and it’s an odd sensation for one who walks in winter and commands the frozen skies. Silver eyebrows crease in confusion, and above him somebody laughs, fabric swishing closer.
“Trust you to scowl the second you wake up,” says Kurosaki, sounding more amused than he has any right to given the current havoc of the evening. “Don’t move – Inoue’s on her way. You almost got yourself killed.”
Tōshirō grumbles into the grass but stays put, only moving so far as to scan the teenager for any signs of injury. Kurosaki lifts an eyebrow at the inspection but doesn’t complain, instead offering his hands as if that is enough to appease the captain of his good health.
“Relax Tōshirō,” Kurosaki says, rolling his eyes. “I’m alright. You’re the one who nearly burnt to death. I saw your ice-wings thing collapse – if you’d gone through the roof, I dunno if I would have been able to reach you.”
Bizarrely, he does seem to be okay, and Tōshirō is too relieved to make a comment about his name. The uncharacteristic silence must stir something in the teenager, for Kurosaki’s expression loses its teasing edge, and he rubs the back of his neck with a soft edge to his demeanour – gratitude, perhaps, but the captain is too dazed to comprehend the details.
“The house is ruined,” Kurosaki explains, shrugging. “But my family are okay, so…”
“So I almost burnt to a crisp for nothing, then,” Tōshirō croaks. Clearly, his fear had been senseless, and he feels humiliation crawl up his blistering throat at his thoughtless actions. If he had just taken the time to rationalise the situation –
Laughter interrupts him. “Hey, I wouldn’t call it nothing. What if my family had still been in there? Or what if I hadn’t noticed? Or been further away? Don’t feel stupid, I owe you thanks.”
He flicks Tōshirō on the forehead. The manner is probably supposed to be friendly, but the captain is unable to hold back a squawk of outrage at having his vulnerability taken advantage of in such a childish way, and Kurosaki explodes into laughter.
“Shut up,” Tōshirō hisses, appalled at his embarrassment.
Kurosaki doesn’t, but that’s not really a surprise.