It was a cold day in the Soul Society. Unusually cold, in fact. Some might go as far as to say extremely cold. Considering that the summer solstice was only a week past, most of the shinigami were flummoxed as to why.
The answer, of course, was known to just one person. Toshiro Hitsugaya, for once mercifully free of paperwork, sat atop the roof of the tallest building in the Seireitai, the Senzaikyu, and brooded. His dark mood affected the standing hemisphere of spirit particles that collected under the sekki-sekki 'lid' the defensive walls created. Since that selfsame wall had been raised almost permanently to stop the entrance of Hollows into the sacred home of the shinigami, and more and more often those shinigami were training inside the wall's perimeter, all the spare, wasted and unused spirit energy rose above the city and gathered together. It formed clouds of undifferentiated power, far too high to be seen under normal conditions.
The effect of Toshiro's loosely contained power was to cool the massive, invisible energy cloud, causing it to descend onto the Seireitai. Normally, this time of year was dawn-to-dusk sunlight, not a cloud in the sky. Now, a glimpse of the sun was a rare thing, bitter winds biting at unprotected skin. No rain or snow fell – it was still as dry as normal summer – which may have alleviated the worst effects of the weather, but it was not to be.
Whether or not Toshiro was aware of this was debatable. Whether or not he cared was obvious – he was sitting in glorious sunshine, above the sub-zero cloud. Why should he care that he was freezing out the entire society? He was far too focused on his own worries to pay the slightest attention to anyone else's. Even now, he would talk to the only person who knew where he was with reluctance.
I'm a captain. I can't allow myself such distractions.
Sure you can. Look at Shun-
I am not Shunsui.
Fine. Look at Byakuya.
Married. No children, wife died and the man's morose forever.
You don't give an inch.
It was hard to tell, for Toshiro, what he could hear most in Hyorinmaru's ethereal voice – admiration for his stubbornness, or frustration at the same.