Toushirou was nervous.
For the first time since he had accepted the position of captain, he was feeling a little edgy. He had been in the fourth division for four days now, not including the week he was unconscious, and was feeling perfectly fine; he got up and wandered the halls daily, getting tired of being confined to his room, but Unohana wouldn't let him leave. He still hadn't even seen the tenth division. His division.
And he was slightly nervous today because of an announcement Unohana had made that morning when she came in briefly to check on him (or perhaps to make sure that he hadn't escaped in the night). "Oh, and Captain Hitsugaya," she had said as she turned to leave the room—though she had been addressing him this way for the past four days, Toushirou still found the title odd when put next to his name—"your vice-captain said she'll drop by sometime today to meet you." And before Toushirou could say anything, she left the room.
Toushirou had heard his vice-captain's name from a younger fourth division member the previous day; Matsumoto Rangiku. But he didn't know anything about the woman other than her name. Once again, he wondered how she would react to him; he'd heard that the post of tenth division captain had been empty for at least a few years, so this woman must be used to running things on her own by now—would she be angry or jealous that there was suddenly someone to fill that post, someone to whom she had to report and respect? And surely she had heard that he was just an Academy graduate, not to mention how young he was. There was no way his vice-captain was younger than him. What would she say to the fact that her new superior was probably about half her age?
Toushirou was sitting on a straight-backed wooden chair, staring out the window in boredom when she arrived in the room. Thankfully, Unohana had given him shinigami robes—fit to his size from measurements taken before graduation—to wear instead of the white hospital robes he had woken in, as he was pretty much recovered. The only reason he didn't leave now was that the healer told him he needed to rest a while longer.
There was a soft knock on the doorframe, a quiet voice said "…Captain Hitsugaya?" and Toushirou turned to find… something unexpected.
His eyes widened at the sight of the woman: a very familiar sight. She had grown her hair out a bit longer, but it was still the same orange-blond; he recognized her eyes, her smile, and of course her rather immodest way of dressing. He gaped at her for a minute before stuttering out, "you… you're my vice-captain?"
She looked nervous and somewhat hurt at his words and took a tentative step forward into the room. "Well, yes… I mean, if—" but she trailed off as she looked at Toushirou, and after a moment, her eyes widened just as his had. "I know you!"
Toushirou smiled at her and gave a relieved laugh as she grinned: one of the only two people in the Gotei 13 that he actually knew—the other being Hinamori, whom he yet to track down—was his vice-captain. She laughed as well, but he stopped smiling after a second. Though Toushirou was relieved to see a familiar face, he still nevertheless felt a slight awkwardness. She had met him when he was still quite a weak child, when he couldn't even control his reiatsu, and she had told him he should become a shinigami; she acted like his mother in that instance and now he was her commanding officer.
"I didn't recognize you during your fight at all," she said, her eyes traveling over him. "You look older."
Toushirou looked up at her in surprise. "You saw that?"
"Yeah, I go to the graduations in place of a captain since I'm the highest-ranking member in the division, but I wasn't lined up to fight you. I'm glad I wasn't—you'd have torn me apart." She stopped laughing and looked thoughtful. "Or at least, I did go to the graduations—I guess now that we have a captain I won't do that anymore." There was a pause that seemed to last forever, in which Toushirou worried once more that she would hate him for taking away the responsibilities that she had had to take care of when there was no captain—but then, to Toushirou's relief, she laughed again and smiled at him. "It's a good thing they finally found us a captain, because the graduations were boring and sometimes I had to sit through these horribly long captain's meetings and the workload piles up when I'm trying to run the division by myself." She smiled even more broadly and gazed off into space as though daydreaming of what life would be like now that she had a captain. "I can finally relax again!"
"Ah, by dumping your workload into me. Great." Toushirou rolled his eyes. The woman reminded him of Kusaka, quite a contrast to his own serious personality, and he thought right away that she would probably make a good partner. They had, at least, immediately started off a conversation as though they were friends—most of the awkwardness had disappeared pretty quickly.
She looked thoughtfully down at him once more and stated, more quietly this time, "you know, I was kind of expecting this. Just maybe not quite so soon."
"What?" Toushirou asked, raising an eyebrow at her. She smiled at him like a proud mother.
"You. From the minute I met you, I could tell you were a powerful kid; that's why I told you to join the shinigami. And I had a feeling you would advance quickly. I wasn't vice-captain yet at that point, but even then, I figured you'd end up being my superior someday."
"Really?" Toushirou couldn't imagine her seeing that in him as a kid.
"You just seemed to have it in you, you know?"
"You just have a 'captain' feel to you."
"You have no idea what you're talking about."
"No, I'm serious! See, one day you'll be a captain and you'll look back and say 'you were right, Kusaka, I had it in me all along.'"
Once again, Matsumoto reminded Toushirou forcibly of his friend. He wondered what it was they saw in him that made them so sure he could achieve something like this. As far as he could tell, he didn't really have any special qualities that indicated he should be a captain; he had achieved the position simply by hard work and a bit of luck. It's not like it was something he was just 'born' to do.
"Well," Matsumoto was saying as Toushirou once again snapped back to reality from the depths of thought, "when you come by I'll show you the office and where your room is and all that—they gave me your personal stuff about a week ago and I dropped it off in your room, and Captain Unohana gave me your zanpakutou yesterday so that's there too…"
Toushirou fidgeted slightly and crossed his arms. "I'll see it all if Unohana ever decides to let me out of here. I don't see why she insists on keeping me here. I'm fine already."
Matsumoto laughed at him and poked his arm. "So there is an impatient kid in there!" Toushirou blushed.
There was a second of silence and then Matsumoto said, "she has perfectly good reasons."
Toushirou looked up at her, uncrossing his arms. "What do you mean?"
"Well, for one thing," she said, poking him again, "I can sense your reiatsu, which in itself means you're not totally recovered yet, because you were hiding it pretty well when you came in for that fight. Not to mention that it's not as strong yet as it was before."
"And?"
"And, she's trying to wait just the right amount of time," stated Matsumoto as though this was obvious.
"What?"
"Well," Matsumoto said, and she looked somewhat sheepish as she regarded Toushirou, "it partly has to do with you being so young, and just an Academy graduate." Toushirou blushed again and she said hastily, "but mostly it's just because they suddenly appointed a new captain. Unohana's trying to keep you here for enough time that the news can spread, so it's not like a giant shock to anyone, but yet not keep you here long enough for rumors to start spreading. It's kind of a fine line. Well," she mused, "more like nonexistent."
Toushirou laughed grimly, and Matsumoto stood up. "Well, if I stay in here too long Hisagi will probably bite my head off, I told him he should come shopping with me today and he's been waiting for like half an hour now… or has it been an hour? Anyway, I'll see you, Captain!" And with that, she smiled and flounced from the room, leaving Toushirou slightly stunned. He wondered if all of the high-ranking officers were this carefree.
Two days later, to Toushirou's great relief, Unohana released him from the fourth division. The tall, white-haired captain he had seen at his duel came to escort him out—it was a rule that everyone had to leave the hospital accompanied—and to show him around the Seireitei. His name was Ukitake, Toushirou learned, and he was the thirteenth division captain. He smiled a lot and seemed generally very calm and relaxed as he led Toushirou around, pointing out the different buildings and where each division was, as well as where the captains held meetings, where the general breakfast and dinner halls were, and many other things; in fact, Toushirou got the distinct impression that this captain was often very cheery and talkative, and for some unknown reason he seemed to particularly like Toushirou.
They stopped at the official Gotei 13 tailor, where shinigami got their division's robes, and where the measurements for each graduate were sent so that new shinigami could recieve theirs. Toushirou was surprised to find that they had already crafted him one of the white haori that denoted his rank as captain; he took it feeling somewhat overwhelmed. It was made of a soft but heavy white fabric, with the same alternating pattern of black diamonds and circles along the bottom edge that he had seen on the other captains' cloaks, as well as the cross-like kanji for ten on the back, inside the symbol denoting the Gotei 13. His was sleeveless, unlike Ukitake's long-sleeved haori, and had a dark green lining. Toushirou slipped it on; he wasn't used to the heavy material and felt sort of odd seeing that much white on him, as the normal shinigami robes were all black, but it was fairly comfortable and Toushirou rather liked it.
They passed the thirteenth division again as the sun was starting to set; Ukitake waved goodbye to Toushirou and was greeted at the gate to his division by a girl and boy, who appeared to be arguing with each other. Toushirou headed off to the tenth division, marveling at how… normal life there seemed. Though it was an absurd thought, Toushirou had somehow expected that the entire world would have changed when he graduated and so suddenly found himself a captain, and it felt odd to see people acting like everything was normal: bickering or laughing, just walking around, talking with friends or sparring in the small training areas he passed.
He passed a few shinigami he didn't know, who gave him odd looks, but bowed formally and addressed him as "Captain." He saw them, out of the corner of his eye, throwing glances at his back as he walked past, possibly looking at the kanji on his haori to confirm that he was, in fact, the new tenth division captain they had heard about.
The walk back to the tenth division from where Ukitake had left him at the thirteenth was fairly short, and Toushirou found the captain's quarters right near the front once he passed inside the gate. He pushed the door open tentatively and peered inside; there was one lamp lit in the corner, but no one was there. Toushirou entered and closed the door behind him.
The place was a lot bigger than he was used to; Academy students shared two or three to a room in a sort of dorm, and though each full shinigami got their own room, they were adjoined in the barracks and rather small. But of course, captains and vice-captains had large quarters all on their own. The slightly smaller building across the yard that he had seen when he entered the tenth division must be where Matsumoto stayed. He looked around; the main room was spacious, and held a large bed, some comfortable-looking chairs and couches, two tall cabinets, and a few large, empty bookshelves, as well as a large desk. There were two smaller rooms off of this one: a little mini-kitchen with a table and a few chairs, and ample counter space for making a meal if he ever wanted to eat in the quiet of his own room; and a bathroom with both a shower and tub that were entirely his.
The entire place felt very empty, and Toushirou felt somewhat out of place; he wasn't used to having space to spread out. The bag that contained his personal possessions from the Academy, which were few, was laying on the edge of the bed. He walked over to it, and saw that next to it was a stack of books he had never seen; the titles inscribed in gold along the side said "A History of the Seireitei." There was a short handwritten note on top: Toushirou picked it up and read, Captain, I heard you love reading, even if it's boring stuff like this, so I got you something to help fill the space on your bookshelves. –Rangiku.
He chuckled at the message and silently thanked his vice-captain. He looked to the other side of his personal bag: Hyourinmaru lay on the bed, along with something made of an odd green material. Toushirou picked up the sword and felt the dragon growl happily in his mind. He enjoyed the reunion with his partner for a few moments before returning his gaze to the thing that had been laying on the bed; he picked it up and examined it. It was a sash that went over the shoulder, dark green to match the lining of his haori, held together with a small but intricately carved round clip. There was a note with this too. Though this one was not signed, it had the same curly but neat handwriting as the one accompanying the books. –For your zanpakutou. P.S. is it always that cold?
Toushirou smiled—Hyourinmaru was always much cooler than room temperature: even if the sword had been sitting out on the sun for hours, it would still feel almost icy to the touch.
Toushirou placed his things where they belonged in the room and looked around once more—it still seemed very empty. It was dark outside the window; night had fallen. Making a mental note to get some more stuff to fill the room, Toushirou took off his captain's haori and changed into nightclothes. He then spent a while looking at the back of his neatly folded haori.
The kanji for ten on the back of his haori was also painted onto the wall above his head, as well as on the gates to his division. He wondered what his fellow graduates felt about the kanji that represented their divisions now. He knew a significant number of them would not stay in the same division for their entire time as shinigami and wondered how much their current division meant to them. Would it really define them each as a person, or was their division just the place they were staying, just their formal title, and didn't really matter, because they could change it at some point anyway?
The cross-symbol for ten now defined Toushirou's life. He was captain of the tenth division; he was their representative, and he defined the division as much as it defined him. Most of those who had graduated along with him so recently would never attain the status he had now. They would never have to worry about upholding their division, or fret that they had to conform to an image already formed by the previous representatives of their divisions. The kanji that represented them did not have nearly the meaning that it did for Toushirou now.
Toushirou lay back on the bed, head filled with thoughts of traditions and symbols and responsibility, and drifted off, to the first night spent in what would now be his home for nearly the rest of his life.