A/N – More shorts, rejoice! Pairings are to be determined, depends on how I feel as they go. Also, Hitsugaya will be a constant throughout; other characters will come and go – that's more as a challenge to myself – keeping him involved.
Thanks to those of you who pointed me in my current direction by refreshing my mind on who the previous Captain of the Tenth was. Cymru na Alethaira, xTKx, and skylark dragonstar get mad props and cookies.
I own nothing, blahblah. Prompts come from SilverEmerald-DAS on DA.
Also – spewing out as many words as I can for NaNoWriMo.
Lord
Kuchiki Byakuya.
Captain of the fabled Sixth Division.
Heir of the noblest of the four noble houses of the Soul Society.
Prestigious to the max.
To say Toshiro hated him was inaccurate.
He certainly respected the man for his accomplishments and position.
It was his attitude that Toshiro found grating.
Kuchiki and he couldn't have been raised in more different ways. He had been born and raised a clan brat, with family and heritage to spare. He had grown up wanting nothing, knowing he had a place secured in both the Academy and certainly as a seated officer. He had never gone to bed hungry, or soiled his hands doing mundane chores.
Toshiro certainly had known all of those things. He had been adopted by the woman he knew only as his Granny, who had found him crying and hungry, hiding in an alley deep in the Rukon districts. Heritage? Sure, he had it. No idea what it was, though there had been some not-so-idle speculation that some relationship between Ichimaru and him existed.
Granny had done her best to keep him and Momo fed and cared for, but there had been a more than a few nights they had gone to be hungry. Only after Matsumoto's intervention had he considered the Academy. Natural intelligence had certainly helped him, but hours spent holed up in the library had certainly played their part. It was those hours of studying that had placed him at the top of his graduating class and had landed him an officer's seat.
He had no family connections to call on, not anymore. Momo… Lieutenant Hinamori… had shut him out entirely now. Granny, she barely remembered his name anymore, her senility was so deeply entrenched.
He snorted at himself, dropping the brush he hadn't been doing anything with and dumping his paperwork onto the "done" stack.
Even the way Kuchiki carried himself screamed of class-differentiation. Matsumoto had once called him a "stuffed shirt prick" and he couldn't find it in himself to disagree. He might be an ice-wielder and cold to most, but he had more personality in a hangnail than his fellow Captain had in his entire body.
He had friends he could call on if he needed. Rangiku, Ichigo, Ikkaku, Shuuhei and a handful of others were always there for him, even when he was being pigheaded. He honestly didn't believe the Kuchiki heir had that.
Perhaps Kuchiki Byakuya wasn't as lucky as he had first supposed.
