Er, hello! This is my first fanfiction, so I am releasing this chapter as a sort of "pilot". I thought it was necessary to use this chapter to introduce not only the story but Hitsugaya-taicho as he is presented here. I had originally planned to incorporate dialogue and action but when I got to the point that you'll see at the end I realized it just didn't quite fit, but rest assured the next chapters will be more eventful. This is set a bit after the Quincy war and Hitsugaya-taicho is not handling his "zombification" all that well. Kubo Tite wasn't able to grace us with our favorite prodigy's thoughts on the matter so I thought I might want to try to dive into his mind and see what he would've thought myself. Enjoy! (I hope)
Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach. (Thank goodness)
As Hitsugaya Toshiro walked from Urahara's shop clad in a gigai and clothes appropriate for the winter season, he pretended he didn't see the knowing expression on the man's face when he explained that he wasn't sent there officially. The former Twelth Division captian was far too intelligent for his liking; it made him feel as if the decades he spent perfecting the cool mask he wore daily were for nothing. He wandered aimlessly for a while after he dropped his few items off at one of the houses Soul Society finally decided to buy for visiting Shinigami. Soon he found himself at the edge of town, and saw that he was near a forest covered in snow. With nothing better to do, he made his way towards the trees.
Toshiro sighed, watching his breath leave him in little white swirls. Today should've been a good day. Six inches of snow covered the ground, soft and untouched and pure white. Matsumoto was surely suffering by now; no doubt having discovered that her taicho had left her alone with the paperwork. Yet despite this he couldn't bring himself to enjoy the satisfaction of playful revenge nor the tranquil beauty of the forest he walked through. He hadn't come to the World of the Living for either of those reasons, anyway. Here, alone, he could admit to himself the true purpose of this visit.
Toshiro was a man who enjoyed a large measure of control in his life, and when some of that control was taken away he far too easily lost his temper. Years of, "Come back here, Matsumoto!" and, "That's Hitsugaya-taicho to you!" attested to that. So, when one sadistic Quincy took control of everything; took control of his mind, his body, his loyalty, his honor, his clothes, his life, he was left shaken and scarred and more vulnerable than he'd ever felt. He couldn't bring himself to look at Soul Society the same way, not after he betrayed it and the people inside he cared about. It didn't matter if it wasn't his fault, and he was intelligent enough to acknowledge that. He felt violated. He knew Matsumoto went through the same thing, but their personalities were too different for her to experience and understand what he was going through. While she was more than capable of being perfectly serious when she needed to be, she was undoubtedly a quirky, bubbly, frivolous woman. She was subdued for a couple weeks, but soon she was back to her old self. He didn't begrudge her this at all. If anything, he was relieved. He didn't want anyone to feel this way, except perhaps Giselle herself. At least she was dead. But the pain didn't go away or even lessen.
Toshiro's eyebrows furrowed as he contemplated this. The prodigy had yet to find a problem that couldn't be solved when given enough time to think, but he was sure that he must be biased. He knew what he truly needed: he needed someone who could understand him. However much he wanted it, though, he couldn't deny that no one like that existed among the Gotei 13, which left him feeling overwhelmed and disheartened. He couldn't deal with this alone, but he was left alone nonetheless, which was something that seemed to happen a lot. Only, this time, something was different. Whether it was due to the severity of what happened, the acutely personal nature of it, the way that this conflict piled on top of an impossibly tall mass of other problems, or a combination of the three, he didn't know. But what he did know was that this time he truly doubted his ability to get past this, and that scared him more than anything.
The white-haired captain was jolted out of his thoughts by an unexpected change in the scenery he was barely paying attention to. Allowing his eyes to focus, he saw a bundle of black interrupting the white throughout the forest. He stopped, looking closer, and found that the "bundle" was a human sitting against one of the trees. Further inspection revealed the human to be a girl, with chin-length black hair, pale skin, and dressed entirely in black. His eyes roamed over torn jeans, combat boots, and a long but simple coat. Her knees were drawn to her chest and her head was buried in her arms on them, preventing him from seeing her face. Then, she looked up and Toshiro found himself hiding behind the nearest tree for reasons unknown to him. Shouldn't he just walk up to her? Yet something kept him from approaching and he watched, eyes widening, as she moved to take off her coat and fold it with oddly steady hands, laying it aside to reveal nothing but a thin t-shirt. What is she doing?! He thought incredulously, She must know she'll fr- oh. Is that it? As it suddenly dawned on him what she was doing, he panicked.
He ran towards her and put his hand on her shoulders to look at her, and noticed several disturbing things in the span of a moment. First, she wasn't shivering. Second, her lips were all but blue. Third, while her eyes were open they were glazed over, not reacting to him even though he was only inches away from her. Reacting without pausing to think, he quickly withdrew his soul candy dispenser and popped one in his mouth, almost yelling at the artificial soul to catch up to him at his house as he gathered her in his arms and shunpoed away, vaguely wondering why he was so upset about this.