The next morning, Toshiro woke up by 6:00, as usual, and got out of bed to change. After a few minutes, Karin's mental clock, which was also programed to wake her up early, allowed her to start blinking the sleep from her eyes and get up. She sat up in her bed and stretched, then joined her boyfriend in getting ready for the day.

"So, what does the beloved captain have on his schedule for today?" Karin asked as she pulled her hair up into a ponytail. After a second of debating, she decided to also add her red clip; hoping she would have time to practice with it later.

"I still need to be on alert and ready to come help if I receive word that one of the groups had encountered something, but I think I'll be able to spend some time working on more personal projects. If it's possible, I'll try to ask that girl, Sensai, to help me with something."

"Sensai is the girl who's pretty good at using kido to build things, right? We saw her on the bridge while we were all trying to fix the damage done to the King's realm?"

"Right. I'm going to ask her if she can use her abilities to fix up some houses in the lower districts of the Ryukongai. It would make the area much safer. I told the Soutaicho and he's giving me some 'paid leave' to work on this."

"Will you add any kido protections for them?"

"We'll see, I'm still going to be a bit busy so I might not have time. It seems likely I'll just end up doing that for the worst districts and then keep working on that when this whole situation has passed. Besides, the more time I spend fixing houses with kido the less we're going to actually get done."

"Sounds good."

Karin finished dressing and then joined Toshiro in the kitchen, where he had already prepared a simple breakfast for them. He refused to allow Karin to go into the kitchen to cook after an incident which resulted in her and Matsumoto destroying a room while trying to cook some rice (but it was not Karin's fault she ended up with none of her sister or brother's talent in cooking, she did not ask to be stuck with her father's ability). Though Toshiro's food was pretty good, so if she got that for free she would not complain.

"And what will you be doing today?" Toshiro asked as he handed her food over. "I know you have more patrol-" -Karin gave a long groan and a sigh- "-but you switch off with someone later. What will you do with that free time?"

"Hmm, I don't think I have anything planned so I might just join you. It'd be kinda cool to see houses being built and, if nothing else, I can help supply reiatsu."

"That would actually be great, I was planning on doing about the same thing, but I might get called away at any moment. Of course, you can be called away too, but it would be easier if you came."

Karin nodded with a smile. Sensai had the skill and technique to create the houses, but not the reiatsu that would be required for constructing something with that much mass out of reishi. The only way for that to not be a problem would be for someone else to supply her with the power she needed, in this case, Karin and Toshiro.

"Say, Shiro, do you know anything about if the second division has found a trail to the base. I mean, they've had a few months, so I'm sure they're much farther now."

"I was discussing with Soi-fon a short while ago and I believe they have crossed out almost every district as a possible hiding place. I highly doubt they will need much more time to find it."

"And then maybe this will all finally be over."

"Actually you might have to stay on patrol for a little while longer as we make sure that there are no remaining rebels we missed. I think we can all agree on doing a little more to ensure Soul Society is as safe as it can possibly be."

"...Are you going to say that purposefully?" Karin's question caused Toshiro to look at her in confusion, though, with his love of politics, she could not tell if it was genuine. "This whole thing reads like petty revenge or teasing. Just so we're clear, if I find out you made me go on patrol for longer than I actually had to I'm going to burn all your paperwork and give Matsumoto access to one of the Shiba sake cabinets."

She could not be sure with how white his skin already was, but it looked to Karin like Toshiro had paledat her threat.

"...I'll... keep that in mind."

Toshiro landed on the outskirts of a small Ryukongai village with a silent flash of shunpo. He was immediately followed by Sensai, who he had to catch to keep from tripping over her own feet as she landed.

"Did we... " gasp "... have to…" pant "... go so fast?"

"I apologize, but if we want to get enough done we need to move that fast. Would you prefer if I carried you when we leave? You'll already be low on reiatsu so it might be an idea worth considering."

The distance from the barrack to the village was fairly short, so Toshiro had not seen a need to assist Sensai in reaching it. A sudden realization that him spending so much time with just Karin had caused him to forget the strain certain actions would cause other shinigami. He briefly clenched his fists in determination; he could not forget again.

"I, I would… I think that, I, I would like that" gasp "sir."

With a casual wave in her direction, Toshiro lowered the temperature of the air around Sensai, causing her to relax and begin fanning herself with her hand. Then, pulling out his soul phone, Toshiro checked the time and saw they still had an hour or so before Karin would be able to arrive. An irrational flash of longing for her appeared and he remembered the kiss they shared before they left for their specific tasks that morning.

Honestly, it was only a few hours, was he so reliant on her presence he could not even last that long? Luckily, his thoughts had taken just enough time for Sensai to rejuvenate. It was less time than he had expected, but he knew the cooler air was coated with his reishi, making it even easier for her to recover than normal. (1)

"Ready?"

"Yes." The two of them began walking to one of the most destroyed houses, attracting quite a few odd looks on the way. It confused Toshiro slightly that the townspeople seemed to think they could watch the shinigami without being noticed from behind objects, but he assumed they forgot shinigami could sense reiatsu.

Sensai stood in front of the building and mentally reviewed the instructions Toshiro had given her before they left. Use her kido to create the materials needed. Form them over the pieces of the building. Start from the ground up to keep it from falling. Let Toshiro use kido to put reiatsu in her body whenever she got tired. She took a deep breath, she could do this.

Placing her hands in front of her, she briefly flooded the air with reishi before taking control and guiding it to the shape she wanted over the pitiful piece of wood which served as the shack's front door. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed with slight discomfort that the citizens flinched away from her power despite her only using it on an abandoned shed.

Soon, the piece she wanted was complete and she allowed her reiatsu to harden into a solid object. For this house, she chose a form of wood as the material for her reishi for turn into.(2)

Despite not having used that much power- she was so practiced in this she could practically do it in her sleep- Sensai let out a sigh of relief when she finished re-creating and strengthening the wall. It was the first sign she had- other than Toshiro's assurance- that she would actually be able to do this.

With a slight smile on her face, Sensai began covering, solidifying and strengthening the other three walls of the shed before going to the roof and fixing that. The large number of holes she found gave an explanation to the large puddles of water she had seen inside the shed.

She sucked in a large gasp of air as she finished, pride resonating through her being. Taking in a full look at her accomplishment, she beamed with joy encompassing her every action. Suddenly, she noticed Toshiro re-filling her reishi storage with his own power and that sense of sugar-high elation increased.

Then, Toshiro turned to the surrounding crowd, who had started to come out of their hiding spaces from behind the walls. "I am Toshiro Hitsugaya, captain of squad ten. We are here to provide assistance by fixing the construction, does anyone have a building they believe needs to be fixed due to being a danger to those living inside of it? I apologize, but we are not interested in houses that are simply uncomfortable. Do you have any that are an actual danger?"

"U-um…" a small girl walked up, clutching her ripped and beaten teddy bear. "I have a house… it, I, it… the roof has started falling in chunks and it sways when there's too much wind."

Toshiro knelt down next to the girl, his face dawning a relaxed smile Sensai had never seen on him before. He waved his hand, muttering kido and fixed the largest rip in the stuffed animal the girl held.

"We'd be happy to if you could just show us the way."

Relaxing, the little girl brightened, running back to a boy who seemed to be her brother and guiding them to a barely-standing house. There were several other children inside, and Toshiro set to work clearing them out so she could start.

Seeing the apprehensive hope in their expressions, Sensai felt a sudden wave of gratitude spread through her. Walking up to Toshiro- the so-called ice captain who she had both been terrified of and respected but had believed in all the same- she leaned over and whispered, "Thank you. For giving me a chance to do this. I- this is… thank you for believing in me and letting me help these kids." For believing I could make a difference when no one else did, she thought but did not say.

He glanced over, the usual self-assured and confident look from his time as a captain shining in his eyes. "It's no problem. Really. You're doing most of the work in the first place, and I chose you because, from what I've seen so far, you're the best. Then again, this is only the first house in the first village, we have a long way to go."

The fact that Toshiro Hitsugaya, the famous prodigy and youngest captain in the history of the Court Guard Squads, was the one telling her this made Sensai have a bit of trouble believing it- the idea that she was the best could not really be proven- but it made her smile all the same.

Then again, he had a point. It was a bit early to be giving 'thank you's when she had only just started. Briefly stretching her arms, Sensai moved with an unusual amount of confidence toward the house.

"Wonderful job." Toshiro complimented her as they finished the last dangerous house in the village. Sensai knew she would not have been able to without the reiatsu Toshiro had supplied her, but found the captain still looked as relaxed as ever. Had she really taken such a small part of his power?

"Yup, I'm kinda impressed you guys were able to do this so well. Nice work." Sensai gave a small jump of surprise and she turned around to find Karin staring at the last house they worked on. Toshiro- who had not even reacted, of course he knew she was there- smiled at her and walked closer giving her a quick kiss.

"You're finished?"

"No, I'm just skipping patrol because it bored me and this seemed more interesting."

The temperature gave a sudden drop and Sensai shivered as she saw her breath leave her mouth.

"Oh my god Shiro. Yes, obviously I'm done. Chill."

"That's not funny."

"Oh, it totally is."

Toshiro rolled his eyes, but there was no doubting the affecting Sensai could see in them. As he pulled out his soul phone Karin leaned her head on his shoulder, staring at the map which appeared. Toshiro scrolled through for a moment as Sensai tried to look at the screen without being as openly forward as Karin.

"We have a few more houses we can work on from what I've seen of this village, but I don't think there are any nearby villages in quite as bad of a state. It seems there were quite a few attack from hollows in this specific area about fifteen years ago. The other villages are fine, so we might go back after we're done here."

Sensai could- to her slight surprise- see the annoyance that appeared for a second on the captain's face when he said 'fifteen years ago'. She supposed it seemed bad, but in all honesty she was pretty sure that even just fifteen years ago the Seireitei would not have cared about one small village beyond 'have we dealt with all the hollows?' so it made sense that it took so long for someone to come along and try to fix the place.

"Actually, it might be a good idea for us to stop here first," Karin disagreed as she pointed towards a spot on the map. "I heard some souls gather around there and form a sort of market which has a few buildings people go into for trade or to store stuff. It's far enough away that it seems unlikely a shinigami would've noticed if it had been attacked."

Toshiro nodded and then turned to Sensai, who had been standing on her tiptoes in front of him trying to see over the screen. She blushed and immediately stepped back, staring at the ground with the hopes of not meeting either shinigami's eyes. Said shinigami turned toward each other with a smile (Toshiro) and a smirk of amusement (Karin).

When she saw something move in front of her Sensai lifted her head up to see Toshiro's phone being displayed so she could see. He moved the map around as he began to explain his mindset.

"These two villages are shopped at by nobles occasionally, so any damages would have been reported- for the safety of the heads, if nothing else. This one here is used by the second division for hiding supplies-" "-don't ask how or where, we have no idea either-" "-Thank you Karin. As I was saying, the second division uses this area, and I know they deal with most hollows which come that way too. No damage has been reported, so we know it's fine."

"And what about the marketplace we're going to?"

Here, Karin answered as she stepped beside Sensai and began directing the screen to show the area she wanted. "To be honest, it's not really a market place. I think it used to be a village, but then after a natural disaster or hollow attack or something it was abandoned. Then, two people agreed to meet there for trade every Sunday and more people started coming for trade and to buy things, turning it into a market. It's just… there's no actual building owned by anyone and no noble that's sponsoring the event by guarding it."

Sensai nodded, knowing a place that was a bit like that near where she had grown up. If there was something she could do to fix the place up she would be more than happy to.

"You know a lot about it for it just being a place you 'heard about'," Toshiro commented, raising an eyebrow in Karin's direction. She smirked and gave her shoulders a careless shrug.

"I 'heard about it' from Rangiku."

"Ah."

Sensai was still a little confused what the Lieutenant of the tenth division had to do with Karin's knowledge, but she was content just knowing she would be able to help out the marketplace so she wrote the thought off.

Toshiro put his phone away and moved to pick Sensai up- their previous journey together having taught him the limits of her stamina- when Karin stopped him.

"Let me do that, you're probably still tired from helping her by giving up your reiatsu. We're just carrying her to the next stop so she doesn't run out of power, right?"

"Yes, but I'm really perfectly fine. It wasn't much power-"

"Let. Me. Do. This."

"I, well, if you don't mind then… I suppose it's fine."

Karin smirked and picked Sensai up princess style, surprising the later slightly at her strength. In the next second, Sensai blushed, realizing how embarrassing it would have been to have the captain hold her like this. She silently thanked Karin's foresight as they began moving to the marketplace.

As Sensai looked around the area they landed she was filled with a strong sensation of wonder. Most of Soul Society- especially the Seireitei- was annoyingly dry; with dust, dirt paths and a few trees sprinkled around in groves. It was nice enough that she would never accept another place as home, but it could get slightly annoying.

Here, however, there was water constantly being sprayed into the air by the wind from a nearby lake. The forest here was thicker than almost every other place she had seen in Soul Society. It felt… more alive than the rest of the place (despite also being part of the afterlife. It was annoying how everyone still used phrases from when they were human here, it made everything so confusing) and Sensai loved it.

It was perfect… except for several small sheds which had been used to store goods lying broken on the ground. There were tracks and footprints from the hollows who- presumably- attacked the area and several of the trees had been knocked down. Sensai was just glad there were no traces of blood, even if any blood that was there would have long since dissolved into reishi.

"We should probably start by fixing the closest sheds and moving around to the outer ones. Would that be okay?" She was so lost in thought it took Sensai a moment to process what Toshiro had just asked her. Then she looked over and realized she had paused for too long as he stood waiting for her answer.

"Hm? Oh, ye- of cour- yes, sir! I mean- there's no problem. I'd be happy to do that." Third seat Karin Kurosaki looked way too amused by her stuttering for Sensai to feel comfortable.

"Why don't I supply her with reiatsu now?" Karin suggested, "We can switch off for each shed she makes. It'll probably make us last longer, especially if we're not that tired when we take a break to regain energy."

"That sounds good, I'll go see how far the market lasts. Call me if you need anything."

"I got it, don't worry. Though I promise if something really goes wrong I'll scream and you can come save me like a knight in shining armor… Is that what you wanted to hear, captain?"

Toshiro rolled his eyes, but waved them off as he turned and began walking in the opposite direction. Karin turned to Sensai as she led the other girl towards the closest shed.

"So, I'm not anywhere near as good as Shiro is at kido, but I'm pretty sure I'm good enough at reiatsu manipulation to do this with no problems. Just tell me if I'm sending you too much power at once, okay?"

Sensai nodded and got into position. Karin placed a hand on her back and waited for her to start reconstructing the shed which lay broken in front of her.

With a deep breath Sensai began, molding her reiatsu into the kind of shape and structure she wanted the building to be. Shortly after she began she felt Karin begin to send reishi into her and had to hold back a gasp. The only reason she succeeded was because she had already felt Toshiro's.

Where Toshiro had been a blizzard- his icy reiatsu causing her to shiver as she felt his unstoppable power rage like endless winds and suffocating her like an avalanche- Karin's was like a forest fire- raging, burning, spreading, growing, yet just as fierce as the blizzard had been. Their powers were both unrestrained and free. Toshiro's control meant he never allowed anyone to feel that uncontrollable nature unless he wanted them to; not that it was not there.

Feeling it was… almost exhilarating.

Shaking those thoughts from her head, Sensai continued to work on reconstructing the house. The more she practiced working on the larger buildings the easier and faster it became, though that might just be because she was getting used to having reiatsu supplied to her on demand.

This time it took her only around forty five minutes to finish the building and she stepped back to admire her work. Karin and Toshiro both seemed to be happy with their progress, so they moved to the next house and continued. After several hours and a dozen more buildings the group decided the market was pretty much perfect.

Toshiro then told them to take a small break.

As Sensai was walking around the desolate market she saw a flash of bright red hidden behind a shed she had worked on. She immediately walked towards it and realized it was a ball that must have been left one of the days the market was open. She reached down and picked it up.

Karin, who had noticed her suddenly vere off track, walked up to her to see what she had found. When the third seat realized it was a ball her expression turned pleased.

"Where'd you find that?"

"It was behind the shed. What do you think we should do with it, we can't just leave it. That would be littering…" Sensai shifted back and forth between her feet as she debated what could be done.

"Why don't we play with it? We can add kido to it for whatever game we're playing and then eventually the reishi will disintegrate if we add too much power."

"It will?" Sensai asked. While she did not have much power, she did practice with kido quite often and was surprised she had never heard of such a thing before. Then Karin's expression turned slightly embarrassed and Sensai realized Karin might have seen it happen to her more than once.

"I mean sure, sounds like fun. What do you want to play?"

Soon they delved into a game of shooting the ball at each other using kido and waiting for it to disintegrate. Sensai's biggest worry was that Karin would cause it to blow up, but for the time being that did not seem to be a problem.

Toshiro was looking at the map and checking out the areas they could legally fix for the time being. He would have to talk to Yoruichi Shihoin (and her brother) and Byakuya Kuchiki soon. The only reason it was fine for him to work on this area was actually because it was Shiba territory and thus it had been easy to get permission. While the progress they had made today would certainly make it easier, it would be difficult to not accidentally offend the nobles.

Actually, Karin was fairly good at negotiating with the Shihouin clan after meeting, and then instantly bonding with, both the head of the clan and his older sister.

"Karin!" Said girl, who was still working on her game, caught the ball and looked over.

"Yeah?"

"Do you think you'd be able to get the Shihoin clan to agree to letting us repair the houses in their territories? You're much closer to them than I am."

"Sure, that'd be easy. Now come over here."

Toshiro did a double take as he looked up from his papers with a hopelessly lost expression. "I'm sorry?"

"You can't spend all your time working. Come on, it'll be fun. Besides, I think I'm slacking on my 'let's get Toshiro to not work too much' plan so I need to get back on top of that."

"But-"

"You do realize if you overwork yourself and burn out you're not going to be able to get any work done, right?" Wow. That sealed the deal. Sensai had trouble believing Toshiro would argue with that. And, judging by the glare he sent towards Karin, he had also just realized that. Karin's smirk did not help either.

With a sigh and a mutter of, "This is completely stupid. I'm a captain, I shouldn't be playing…" Toshiro walked over to them and joined in their game. Unluckily for them, in terms of kido he had the power Sensai lacked and the control Karin lacked so the two of them ended up coming to a silent truce in their war against the captain.

Just as Sensai and Karin's alliance was finally starting to ensure their victory against the white-haired captain a hell butterfly arrived with a message for Toshiro. He reached his finger out and listened to the message, the tension which had disappeared during their game returning to his face.

"Shiro?"

"There's been another attack. It's far enough away we were not told to respond to it, but they want us to be on high alert. A half dozen souls were destroyed."

With those words the good mood instantly changed to a more somber tone. Where Karin was filled with anger, Toshiro was filled with guilt while Sensai felt both sorrow and fear. A minute of upset silence passed before Karin took a deep breath and forced herself to calm down.

"...Alright. Alright… were there any other instructions?"

"Just that we're still on leave for this, but they're requesting we keep our eyes open."

"Right… Well, it feels kinda bad to keep playing now, but we could take a walk together." Sensai relaxed slightly at hearing that; if Karin was not scared it would not help her to be. She nodded and followed the couple as they began to walk, gradually becoming more relaxed as time went on.

Sensai turned around and looked at the market. If she was going to die during this, at least she was able to do something special for people no other soul had done yet. She shook the thought from her mind, thinking like that was bad luck.

Still, she was proud of what they had been able to do and nothing would change that.

1) So I'm, once again, not completely sure about this. I feel like they mentioned once that, while Karakura town is mostly okay, the rest of the human world is stifling for shinigami in their gigais. They feel like they have trouble breathing because they're used to the reishi-rich environment of the seireitei. If that's the case, then surely Toshiro making the air cooler would add some of his reiatsu in would make it even more reishi dense and make it easier for Sensai to breathe. I don't know; maybe I missed something or it's just me.

2) I'll admit that part of the reason I'm doing this is because I've always been curious on how the souls could have a world with buildings when it's supposedly "made entirely of reishi". I guess it could work just like the real world, where they just wait for trees to grow and use that, but I like this idea better. If it was confusing she was sort of creating a better, thicker wall on top of the already existing thin one.