"Hayashi Natsumi."

A tall but quick girl that Toushirou had sparred with a few times disappeared through the door to the training grounds.

I'm next, Toushirou thought, remembering his name being after hers on the class lists. He took a deep breath and concentrated on reaching into his mind. Hyourinmaru helped calm his nerves, as always. He considered going over battle strategies and incantations for kidou in his mind, but decided it was pointless; that would just make him more nervous. In a true fight, one felt what to do partly on instinct. There was no way he could plan this out, so he would just have to trust that he and Hyourinamru could do it.

Of course we can. We always have before.

It had seemed to take no time at all for the first student to be called, but Toushirou felt that an eternity had passed since Natsumi had gone. He knew that was just nerves; it couldn't have realistically been any more than five minutes. That was how long each spar was supposed to last.

Finally, the door opened once again. Toushirou stiffened and placed a hand on the hilt of his zanpakutou. This is it.

"Ishikawa Ataro."

The world seemed to fall through the floor momentarily. They hadn't called him. What could have gone wrong? Had he perhaps been mistaken, had he not been good enough to graduate? That was ridiculous, he was at the top of his class.

There has to have been a mistake. They'll call me next.

He glanced around, but it seemed that no one but him had memorized the order of the graduates. Not a single one of his classmates seemed to notice or care that they had been called in the wrong order.

Calm down.

He focused his mind around Hyourinmaru again, calming himself. It really didn't matter what order they went in, after all. The fight would still be the same. He couldn't allow something that was beyond his control to upset him, to throw off his fight. Still, there was a slight nagging worry at the back of his mind.

That worry only increased when they called three more students ahead of him. He began to pace the courtyard where they were waiting, trying to convince himself that it was going to be fine, that perhaps they had forgotten to put him on the list of graduates, and that they would simply call him at the end. No one looked around at his pacing; after all, a few of the other students had taken to doing the same thing in preparation for their spar.

By the time there was only one other person remaining, Toushirou had stopped pacing and was sitting cross-legged on the ground with his sword in his lap. He thought he saw the last student, a short but muscular blond boy, throw him a slightly curious glance as he was called to his own spar.

Toushirou took a deep breath when the door had closed behind the boy. Now, they would surely realize their mistake and call him out after this last fight was over. However, he was sure he waited more than ten minutes, and nothing happened. He was beginning to think they had forgotten him completely, when one of the trainers finally emerged from the door to the training area.

Relieved, Toushirou got to his feet and walked over to the door. The trainer watched him with a very strange expression. When Toushirou had gotten close, he stopped and said, "sir, what…?"

The trainer continued to look curiously down at Toushirou. "It'll be a few minutes more. The captains have to have a… special talk about you."

Dread filled Toushirou at his words. What could they possibly need to talk about? Had they decided that, despite his skills, he was too young to graduate? His heart sank. That must be it. They didn't think he could handle being a full shinigami yet. He was going to have to go back, for another horrible, torturous year at—

"Hitsugaya, you can go now."

The trainer startled Toushirou out of his sudden bitter thoughts. "I… can go in?" he said, immediately cursing himself for looking so childish, and for his mental outburst.

"Yes."

Toushirou squared his shoulders and attempted to appear as calm as possible as he finally made the walk through the door. This was it. The delay didn't matter. None of it did. It would still be the same. He was going to move on, continue working hard…

He stopped dead at the edge of the sparring area.

He had expected the captains to be lined up on either side of the training grounds, watching from the shadows, and the trainer he would face to be standing there, waiting for him. Instead, the captains seemed to be lined up at one end of the area, all watching with very serious expressions. In the middle was one of them—an old, bald man with a long white beard, whose mere presence gave off an immeasurable sense of power.

What's going on?

Hyourinmaru stirred in the back of his mind, and Toushirou felt a slight confusion from the dragon. This unsettled him; Hyourinmaru rarely seemed to express any sort of concern. He walked silently up to the man standing in the middle of the grounds, suddenly quite aware of just how short he was.

Just as he stopped a few feet in front of him, the old man spoke. "Hitsugaya Toushirou," he rumbled, and Toushirou's eyes snapped to his face. "You have come today, presenting to us unique circumstances. To solve for this we have been forced to devise an equally unique solution." Toushirou had the impression that the man was speaking to the captains behind him as much as to Toushirou himself, as some of the captains didn't appear to wholly agree with whatever was happening; particularly a gentle-looking woman with dark hair braided down her front and a tall man whose long white hair fell across his face, who were both giving the old man less-than-happy looks. The man continued. "You will be having a slightly altered duel today. You will fight whoever steps forward to fight you. Do not hold back, do not worry for your opponent's sake. Treat this as a real battle. There is no time limit to this fight."

Toushirou looked on in confusion. What was going on? What was the purpose of removing the time limit? And why did that man—who Toushirou now recognized from a picture in the Academy as the Head Captain of the Gotei 13—have to tell him personally that the circumstances of this duel were changed? He had not missed that the Head Captain had called this a "duel" and not a "spar." They apparently wanted to see him fight as hard as he could, to treat this like he was really being attacked.

Did my teachers tell them that I don't seem to try my hardest in training?

And who did they expect him to fight? All of the trainers seemed to have left the grounds. Was he maybe going to duel with another student? The Head Captain had turned around and was heading back to the edge where the captains stood, attentive, expectant…

No way. Absolutely no way.

Realization started to dawn on Toushirou, and he actually felt truly nervous for the first time. There was no way they could possibly be expecting—

"Ichimaru, you may begin." The old man's voice seemed to reach Toushirou through a long tunnel of shock as a tall, silver-haired captain with a disconcerting smile stepped forward and drew his sword.