There were not many instances in which Captain Hitsugaya found himself speechless, but it was on a slow afternoon one fine day that words evaded him.

It had been a perfectly normal day; he was seated at his desk, dealing with the division's paperwork. Matsumoto had reported in late and proceeded to complain about the workload piling up in the office. The sun was high in the cloudless sky, he had been here for nearly six hours, and his fingers were beginning to cramp around his favourite brush and his legs were starting to feel a little numb.

The only warning he received was a distant rumbling down the corridor outside the office before the door was thrown open with a loud bang, revealing a dishevelled and frazzled orange-haired teenager. Kurosaki Ichigo hung on to the doorframe as he caught his breath, his eyes darting around nervously.

If Hitsugaya had known that this was the moment his peaceful, normal afternoon was about to be ripped into shreds, he would have leapt out the window and fled for the hills. He did not.

'Hey! Toshiro! Could I borrow your, uh...' Ichigo cast a desperate glance around the room, as if only just noticing where exactly he was. 'Your, uh, bathroom! Yes. Bathroom.'

Hitsugaya stared as he tried to wrap his mind around the situation, his brush gripped tightly in his right hand and his gaze flickering from the substitute to the paperwork, to the bathroom door, and back to the substitute.

Ichigo appeared to take his appalled silence as an invitation to do as he pleased, because he slammed the door loudly behind him and bolted straight to the bathroom.

From one end of the couch, under a pile of neglected paperwork, Matsumoto gave her captain a nonplussed shrug. 'Bad diarrhoea?' she suggested with a twinkle in her eye, as if this was the best drama ever for such a slow afternoon.

Hitsugaya hadn't had a chance to berate her for taking pleasure in others' digestive troubles when he felt the entire building begin to shake from its very foundations.

'I saw him go thataway!' someone roared from outside.

'The Tenth?'

'Don't let him get away!'

'Come out and fight us like a man, Ichigo!'

Hitsugaya whipped around to see at least twenty members of the Eleventh Division thunder past his window, each of them brandishing some kind of makeshift weapon. Matsumoto was now propped up on her elbows, watching with great interest as the immense cloud of dust that had been kicked up on the Tenth's front lawn slowly settled.

It was then that the bathroom door cracked open a fraction, and Kurosaki peered into the office with great trepidation.

'Are they gone?' he whispered.

'As gone as they'll be, I think,' Matsumoto said flippantly, to which the substitute heaved a sigh of relief and eased himself into the room.

'I'll just let myself out the window, if you don't mind,' Ichigo said witheringly, and made his way to the window facing the rear garden behind Hitsugaya's desk.

The teenager was just fiddling with the latch on the window when a pattering of feet came to a halt outside the office door. As the wooden door clattered open, the substitute abandoned the window and dove under the desk, all the while swearing incessantly under his breath. He crouched under the drawers, fixing a most beseeching look on Hitsugaya. 'I'm super, super, super sorry,' he mouthed.

Three members of the Eleventh Division stood in the doorway, clutching mops and brooms. 'Captain, Lieutenant, you happen to see Ichigo anywhere today?'

Hitsugaya glanced under his desk to see Kurosaki looking like he'd eaten a goldfish, shaking his head vehemently.

He looked back at the three men waiting expectantly. 'No,' he choked out. 'Definitely not in here, if that's what you were thinking. Why?'

Matsumoto stifled a fit of giggles and turned bright red. She looked like she was going to explode, he observed.

'The Captain's looking for him, of course! Spoilin' for a good fight, he is!'

'Let us know if you see him, sir!'

And with that, the door slammed shut and Hitsugaya thought for a moment that peace would be restored, but the notion was short-lived when the door was once again yanked open. This time, it was Third-seat Madarame, looking moderately furious.

'Where's Lieutenant Matsumoto?' he demanded.

Matsumoto was only spared because the back of the couch faced the door. She squeaked, almost inaudibly, and dove under Hitsugaya's desk as well.

Madarame looked around the office and turned his attention to who appeared to be its only occupant. 'Captain Hitsugaya,' he said between deep breaths, 'Have you seen Lieutenant Matsumoto? She promised to meet me at the bar, said she'd set me up for a round of drinks and a good spar with Ichigo since he's visiting.'

With Matsumoto and Kurosaki crouched on either side of his legs, Hitsugaya was astounded by the sheer stupidity of the situation. Kurosaki was giving Matsumoto the most incredulous look of bewilderment and betrayal he could muster, and in turn she was gesturing wildly, waving her hands around in denial.

'I did no such thing!' Matsumoto whispered fiercely. 'He was dead drunk last night, I only said it so he would get up and leave! How was I supposed to know he would remember?'

'Captain Hitsugaya?'

Hitsugaya finally set down his brush and looked up. 'No, I haven't seen her all day. Do tell me if you find her,' he managed to say coolly.

Madarame stared with a look of great suspicion, but did not pursue the matter any further. 'Right. I mean, yes, sir. By the way, Captain Zaraki's looking for Ichigo. If, by any chance, have you...?'

At that moment, Hitsugaya considered turfing out the pair of criminals he was harbouring under his desk, but realised that if he did, a round of drinks would be quickly set up in his office, and his front lawn torn up in a vicious brawl. With a sigh of defeat, he rested his chin on his hand. 'No,' he lied once again.

'Right. If I were you,' the bald man said in a low voice, 'I wouldn't get on the Captain's wrong side if he comes over. He's in a right mood today. Good day, sir.' And he left on that rather ominous note, rushing off in a flurry of angry muttering.

Hitsugaya decided to take the opportunity to turn his growing rage on the two people hiding under desk.

'What on earth have the two of you been doing? Why is the entire Eleventh Division collectively after your blood?'

'Well-' Matsumoto began in protest, and Ichigo simultaneously opened his mouth to defend himself, but neither got another word out because the building was once again beginning to shake.

'Ay, pipsqueak!' the unmistakeable voice of Zaraki echoed down the hall, dangerously close to the office. Hitsugaya froze as the enormous man continued to yell. 'You good at this reiatsu stuff right? We're tracking Ichigo down!'

With an undignified clatter, Hitsugaya found himself being pulled off his chair and squashed into the remaining space under his desk just as his office door flew open violently for the fourth time that afternoon. For the second time, Kurosaki whispered, 'I'm super, super, super sorry. Please don't turn me in.'

'Nobody in, huh?' Zaraki complained disappointedly from the doorway as the three of them held their breaths. 'Ugh,' he grumbled, and shut the door behind him.

Matsumoto and Ichigo had not yet finished breathing immense sighs of relief when someone else who, up to that point in time, had not been in the room stepped around the corner of the desk and peered in with a giggle.

'Who're we all hiding from?' Yachiru asked, very innocently, very loudly.

Not for the first time that afternoon, words failed him and Hitsugaya buried his face in his hands.

A/N: Hi guys. This is me, trying to convince me that I can still write. Don't think I've ever done such fast-paced, spiralling chaos before. At least it was fun?