"Whoa, you guys have fought off an entire army!?" Sora looked between several of the Straw Hats with childlike wonder.
"Several times!" Chopper responded proudly.
"Seems like every island you guys went to was an adventure." Riku piped up. "Not unlike you Sora."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Sora turned to his best friend with a pout.
"Take it as a compliment." Toshiro said with a chuckle. "You two would probably get along great with the Straw Hats."
"Are you called that because of his hat?" Sora switched topics upon hearing the name, pointing to the Captain.
"Pretty much." Nami replied with a playful eye roll while Luffy just stood proud.
"And you guys are the Heart Pirates right?" The Keybearer turned to the group in boiler suits. "Why that name?"
"Because Captain is a doctor." Penguin responded.
"And his specialty is removing hearts." Shachi added on.
"O-oh…" Sora looked less inclined to mingle with them than the colorful Straw Hats. Law didn't bother correcting his crew on the meaning behind the name, he preferred this answer to intimidate others and frankly he didn't want another Luffy trying to be friends with him. Sora didn't seem quite as crazy, but no point trying to be friendly.
"Why do you have kids then?" Donald asked, looking between the four children – Daniel and the other crew members who had stayed behind had joined them after they had seen Hyorinmaru in his true form. "Wouldn't a pirate crew be unsafe for them?"
While some took a moment to try and figure out what was said, not familiar with Donald's quacking tone, Bepo was first to respond.
"Captain adopted them years ago from a super mean lady who made them steal things." The polar bear explained. "They're very good pirates."
"And Papa protects us from other, worse pirates!" Daniel added in while getting Bepo to lift him up onto his furry shoulders.
"He seems mean but Law protects those kids like any good daddy." Nami whispered to Sora, Donald and Goofy, Riku listening just a foot away.
Law scowled at her, not appreciating the soft touch they'd shoved onto his first impression.
"Well, he saved Toshiro too, so thanks!" Stepping up to the spot-wearing pirate, Sora held a friendly hand out to shake.
Law left it hanging.
So, Dextra took it instead.
"He helped us a lot too." The eagle child said with a smile. "Those Heartless would have caused a lot of trouble before we figured out how to beat them."
"Oi, is anybody listening?" Usopp's exasperated tone caught their attention. "I was just getting to how I defeated the most terrifying ghost on the ship full of zombies!"
"If I recall you beat her because her power was negativity and you were already the most negative person there." Toshiro smirked as he said this. The playful attitude was a bit unfamiliar to Sora and the others, but they welcomed it with snickers of their own as Usopp reeled back.
"Why does your memory have to be so good?" The sniper grumbled quickly.
"Nothing gets past the genius." Demyx patted Usopp's shoulder almost in sympathy, but was clearly trying not to laugh.
"I still haven't forgotten the time you and Rangiku showed up to training with hangovers so bad you had to crawl your way across the halls, sunglasses in front of your eyes and earmuffs over your ears still complaining it was too loud."
The Nobody laughed nervously and retreated away briefly, whereas Rangiku just coughed and smiled and pretended she didn't hear anything.
"Hitsugaya Toshiro."
The elderly voice brought their banter to a halt, all attention turning back to Yamamoto as the Head Captain stepped forward towards the person he had called.
"There is no time for wasting with idle chatter, we must bring you before the Central Forty-Six." Though firm as a leader's should be, Yamamoto's tone was calm and not at all hostile. He still fully believed rules must be followed, but a great many things had made him more lenient, and the more Toshiro discovered of his Heavenly Guardian history, the less the Soul Society could hope to actually hold over him.
So in a way, he half expected Toshiro's response, even if the others didn't.
"I don't think I will go back… sir." Force of habit made him add on the honorific, but Toshiro still made it clear he wasn't budging.
"Hitsugaya?" Ukitake looked quite startled. The pirates, Keybearers and friends also looked at the white-haired figure oddly.
"I know it doesn't forgive me of all the rules I've broken, but there's a lot I've learned here and even more questions I have on top of those still only half-answered. And Xehanort is still planning something, still after Kingdom Hearts. I don't think I should be hiding back in an office in the Soul Society."
"Wait, Captain, you're not saying that you're-" Looking a bit distressed, Rangiku's question was cut off as her Captain cut right to the point.
"I'm stepping down from my position as Squad Ten Captain of the Thirteen Court Guard Squads."
Multiple surprised gasps went up around him.
"But-!" Rangiku was definitely about to argue, and knowing this Toshiro cut her off again to explain his reasoning, a sympathetic expression on his face that didn't really make her feel any better.
"I know it seems bad, and it's as sudden for me as it is you… but I really do feel like I'll get more answers going with Sora and the others. I can't just sit around anymore knowing Xehanort is still in the shadows plotting, and I can't just end my search for answers about myself now after coming this far. But I know I'm going to just keep breaking Soul Society rules, just as I know I've already broken almost all of them already… so it's better if I just never go back."
"You're suggesting self-exile?" Yamamoto questioned, curious, and perhaps gaining a tiny bit of respect for the young soul's resolve and ambition.
"Well, I would like to go back eventually…" Toshiro responded a bit quietly. "I do still have many friends there… but I need to find the answers. I can't do that with the Central Forty-Six hovering over me."
"Hmm." Stroking his beard, the Head Captain thought long and hard about what new consequences such an action might lead to. Toshiro was essentially exiling himself from his own home… but it was more of a pilgrimage than an exile, a journey the Captain may be on for an indeterminate amount of time. That was why he wanted to step down; he never knew when he might return once he found the answers he needed… or if he even would.
"I accept your resignation, Hitsugaya Toshiro… as for how we deal with your actions from here on out, that is yet to be decided." The firm tone of a boss softened briefly as the old man leaned slightly closer, adopting a more fatherly expression. "However, I will see if there's a way for the Central Forty-Six to ignore this in favor of continuing to aid the Keybearers in their fight to stop the darkness."
"That would be much appreciated." Immensely relieved, Toshiro couldn't help a sigh and a light smile.
"Awesome! You're going to keep traveling with us!" Ever the excited one to know friends were sticking around, Sora looked ready to jump into another group hug, Donald and Goofy grinning happily as well and cheering.
"I'll definitely do my best to help you from home, Captain." Rangiku promised, a little more at ease knowing the Head Captain didn't want to see Toshiro punished either.
"You can call me by name now, Rangiku." Toshiro reminded her.
"Oh, force of habit is all." The Lieutenant giggled. "I'm just glad to see you've opened up to others."
"It's not an easy thing to do for sure."
"In that case, young Hitsugaya, I would like you to return to my tower with Sora and Riku, there is much the three of you must learn before we face Xehanort once more." Yen Sid was the one to speak up this time, stepping forward.
"Oh yeah, some kind of special training." Sora remembered the conversation about such a thing before they started their search for their missing friend.
"With the Keyblade I assume?" Toshiro asked of the wizard.
"Indeed. Your experience with the Keyblade is brand new, and so far Sora and Riku have only taught themselves their current skills, which while impressive is still lacking. There is much to know about the Keyblade beyond fighting with it, and not much time to learn."
"We'll do our best!" Sora gave a brief salute, excited to learn new skills. His two Keybearer companions nodded their agreement, showing they would do their best as well under Yen Sid's guidance.
"I guess that means you are leaving?" Dextra's voice caught Toshiro's attention.
He turned back to her and the other Heart Pirates. Glancing between them all, he did feel a pang in his gut about leaving them all behind. It had been a long few weeks of traveling with them and their allies, and while most of it had been fraught with danger and manipulation, he'd grown somewhat attached to the pirates. The children especially had welcomed him with open arms, sharing a kinship through dreadful pasts and hardships not meant for ones their age. Dextra especially had kept an eye out for him, ever helpful even when it put herself in danger, a loyal sibling and friend to any in her family. Her own story had been just as dark as his, but she still stuck a hand out to him to help him back to the light.
Reaching up he removed the snowflake pendant from around his neck and walked over to the Eagle Fruit user.
"Here, hold onto this if you ever need help, I'll come as fast as I can." He said while holding out the pendant to her.
She looked at it for a moment. The dark blue color she'd gotten used to seeing it in as the safe color was now a brilliant sparkling blue, like the sky on a perfect sunny day, almost glowing as if it held within it a sun of its own. It was not a familiar color, but it was a friendly one, and more comforting than the dark blue of a sea too deep to see in.
"I thought this just helped us know when you were losing control of the darkness?" She asked, still taking the offering but not sure how this would let him know when she needed help.
"Well, I don't need it for that anymore, and it's still connected to me. You've been a great help, so I want you to have it."
Beaming, Dextra quickly put the pendant over her head to rest around her neck, wearing it proudly.
"We'll miss you kid." Jean Bart waved to the much smaller figure.
"I'm still older than all of you." The soul pouted.
"But you're still a kid." Shachi snickered, reaching over to ruffle Toshiro's hair.
"I will ice that."
The engineer pulled his hand away, not risking it.
"Glad to see some things haven't changed." Law smirked. "You've given me some new skill sets to practice with, so I'm grateful to have met you."
"While I don't like the sound of that I'm glad that skill set was used to bring me back to normal, so thank you." Toshiro responded, bowing his head slightly.
"Hey Toshiro, you better come see us too if you come back!" Nami called over from where she stood with her crew, smiling.
"And bring your lovely officer with you~." Sanji added, hearts in his eyes as he twirled over to Rangiku.
"She's not MY officer anymore, so that's up to her." Toshiro deadpanned, wondering if his former Lieutenant was going to beat the poor cook to death. She held her figure confidently, but she was ready and willing to put perverts in their place.
"It might be fun." Rangiku said with a smile while choosing to just shove the blonde away. Sanji didn't return, content to lay on the ground babbling about something romantic that everyone just ignored.
"You just don't want to do paperwork."
The strawberry-blonde didn't answer, smiling innocently while picking up her former boss in a hug – Sanji began to seethe but didn't approach. She was happy to have him back, to know he was safe, if only for the moment.
"Well then, Demyx, if you would be so kind as to assist us back home." Yamamoto spoke above the rising chaos of voices that were the pirates. "I have a meeting to attend."
"Yes sir." Demyx saluted at first, as he'd become accustomed to it, before switching quickly to a bow. It would take some time before he got used to regular Soul Society customs again, and he'd never learned much of them anyway being a bit of a slacker.
Nervously moving on from the mix up, Demyx created a portal of darkness with a flick of his wrist.
"Whoa, where does that go?" Ever curious, Luffy looked ready to launch right inside but stopped just before the swirling black tendrils.
"Through the Realm of Darkness and I assume back to Soul Society, so if you don't want to get trapped in either I suggest you stay put young man." Kyoraku chuckled at the vibrant curiosity of the human. "It'd be a shame if you ended up dying because you went to the land of the dead before your time, best you stick with your crew. They need you."
"Ah, before I go, I was saving this for Yachiru but seeing as there's children I don't mind lending it out." With the smile of a kindly uncle, Ukitake pulled several varieties of candy packs from his uniform and held them out to the Heart Pirate children. Law was the only one who gave the stash disapproving looks, but his children were quick for grabs, trusting the white-haired man. "You too, Hitsugaya."
"I don't like candy." Toshiro felt like he'd said this over a hundred times, and as expected the senior Soul Reaper didn't listen, handing over a few packs anyway. Feeling proud that he put smiles on children's faces, Ukitake walked away confidently and through the portal with Kyoraku, Yoruichi and Harribel, Yamamoto leading the way. "Every time…"
"I'm going to guess he always does that?" Penguin asked of the remaining Reaper.
"He's very fond of children, would never dream of causing them any harm, and always has snacks for them. He gives me a lot because we're both 'Shiro' or something… his name is Ukitake Jushiro, and we both have white hair. I usually end up just giving it to the Squad Eleven Lieutenant, Kusajishi Yachiru, who is an actual child and devours pretty much anything sweet."
"I'll take it this time!" Chopper volunteered and Toshiro didn't hesitate to hand it over, the reindeer-human elated to have them.
"At least I can trust they're not poisoned." Though still looking grumpy about it as the crew doctor, Law didn't say they couldn't. Plus, the four of them had already started munching away, so it was a bit too late for that. Daniel shared some of his with Bepo, the polar bear Mink happy as could be. Some of his crew looked at him jealously. The foreign candy was apparently pretty good.
"I'm going to go back to the Soul Society, I assume you guys are heading off by ship?" Demyx called over, reminding them once more that it was time to leave, his portal still open.
"Yup!" Goofy responded with a thumbs up, the Gummi ship descending back down to the island as they spoke.
Once he had that answer, Demyx hurried through the portal and the tendrils faded away, leaving no sign of it, not even disturbing the snow upon the ground.
"A real life space ship, this is the SUPER ship of my dreams!" Franky admired the vehicle with manly tears in his eyes as the colorful Gummi Ship settled in the snow, ready for its passengers.
"Wait until you hear what it runs on." Lea spoke up.
"What does it run on?" Usopp asked.
"Happy faces!" Sora responded, putting on his biggest smile.
"…You're joking." Shachi deadpanned.
"Sadly no." Toshiro countered with a shake of his head. "It really does run on positive emotions."
"That's a pretty good idea, I've got the Thousand Sunny running pretty well on cola!" Franky was the only one unfazed by the fuel of choice for a space ship.
"Really?" Donald looked baffled by what the pirates used for fuel, which seemed silly considering what their ship ran on.
"It was quite pleasant meeting all of you, but I'm afraid I must insist we take our leave. Good luck to all of you in your adventures." Yen Sid spoke as he approached the ship, planning to just travel with them back to his home world.
"Oh, I guess that's our cue. Nice to meet all of you." Waving to them along with his animal companions, Sora headed for the ship as well, Riku just giving a small wave and boarding behind them. Lea hurried on, leaving only Toshiro standing in the snow with the pirates.
"Hopefully you're allowed to come visit, we'd love to have you sail with us again." Robin said her goodbyes with a smile, glad their new friend had found his own crew, finally breaking free from his own chains and finding himself.
"In fact, you better come see us!" Book shouted from the Heart Pirate crew playfully.
"I don't want to make a promise I can't keep, but… I promise to try my best to come back." Toshiro replied to both crews, his expression happy and full of life, something they never got to see before. His heart returned, he was a whole new person, and with the darkness no longer plaguing his mind they all agreed it was for the better. They definitely wanted a chance to travel with him and get to know the real version of himself. "Worst case, look for one of these."
Lifting a hand up they saw a black butterfly alight on his finger.
"Now that I'm back to normal, I can use the Hell Butterflies again. They're our messengers, so hopefully I can keep in touch." He smiled, letting the butterfly take flight and vanish.
"Tell us all about the adventures you have!" Luffy called out with a grin, waving as the tiny soul turned away towards the ship.
Toshiro just waved back before his figure vanished into the Gummi Ship and the vehicle began to lift up into the air. The pirates watched it take off into the sky until it was nothing but a light shooting across the stars, twinkling out of sight. With his leave, the bright azure heart in the sky vanished back into the clouds, its presence vanishing back to wherever it hid when not summoned.
"Well… back to our own adventures then?" Brook asked his crew. Agreeing the two groups headed back to shore to their own ships. They would never forget their magical friend, and they wished him the best of luck in defeating his enemies.
As the Gummi ship made its way through space to the magical tower that belonged to Yen Sid, the screen lit up with Yamamoto and Yoruichi on screen.
"Before you are roped into your new training regime, Hitsugaya Toshiro, there's something interesting that Shihoin Yoruichi has just reported to me." The aging reaper spoke. With a confused tilt of his head, Toshiro listened. "She says that Aizen no longer has the Hogyoku. Is this true?"
"He-what?" Toshiro's startled response told Yamamoto that the other had no knowledge of such a thing.
"Thought so, you were already captured when we got there, and he'd already lost it when Harribel and I went to fight him, I was hoping maybe you saw it happen." Yoruichi mused aloud.
"No, I didn't, when they put the collar on again he was fine, and I thought I had killed everyone… it happened after I was summoning Kingdom Hearts and before everyone showed up. It must have been Trafalgar Law."
"The man that returned you to normal?" Yamamoto questioned, curious.
"He said there was a possibility he could do it, his skillset allows him to manipulate anything within the body within a Room he puts up, and in his efforts to fix Hyorinmaru and I he learned how to manipulate the spiritual level as well. I wasn't sure he could get close enough… but he must have set things up just right, kept the element of surprise long enough to get around Aizen and remove the Hogyoku."
"We didn't sense it anywhere when we arrived though, would the pirates have hidden it somewhere?" Yoruichi asked.
"I… I'm not sure, I didn't sense it either when I regained conscious." Toshiro wondered. "Perhaps… it was destroyed?"
"No way." The were-cat frowned, not thinking such a thing could be possible.
"That world had a great many powers that could rival our own, someone there might have been able to do what we never could once Trafalgar removed it from its host."
"Then we will look into such a thing, as well as search for where Aizen took off to." Yamamoto promised. "Now that you are no longer part of the Thirteen Court Guard Squads, you should focus on finding your answers and training as a Keybearer. We will deal with these matters as our responsibility."
"But if he's working with Xehanort to get Toshiro, he's still our problem too, right?" Sora spoke up with a frown.
"Indeed, but he should not be your main concern. Leave such things to us."
"I agree with the Head Captain; I need you three to focus on your training." Yen Sid raised his voice into the conversation, looking between the trio that held Keyblades. "If he appears, we will deal with it, but until then, leave it to the Soul Society."
"That's fine with me, I'll be happy to never see his face again." Toshiro responded with a scowl. Hogyoku or not, the man had caused enough damage that the icy swordsman just wanted to avoid dealing with Aizen ever again. Revenge was not a motivator for him, he simply wanted to figure out who he was and get stronger, so that no one else could hurt him or his close friends again. "Besides, we have a lot to catch up on."
Conversation over, the video went dark as the signal disconnected, and Sora happily shared their adventures searching through the stars for him, including how they managed to bring Lea back to his human self, an odd enemy of sentient armor that almost killed them, yet they found themselves growing stronger against, and what they had learned so far about the Keyblade War. Toshiro had more information for them there, sharing what he had learned from the fragments of memory he found in the Grand Line about his past self, as well as the tidbits he'd gotten from Maleficent and Xehanort about what may come to pass and what the Heartless became capable of on the various islands. The Heartless that created the Stigma, forever stuck with the name Bugshroom, was quite a frightening tale for them, even Yen Sid didn't think the creatures were capable of such intelligence and horrible plagues. They were intrigued about the special music box Toshiro told them about as well, along with its connection to the past, and were sad to hear it was destroyed by Maleficent, further distraught by the pain their friend had to go through as the dark fairy tortured him with nightmares.
But that was all over now, and Toshiro expressed his gratitude for being able to travel with them again, whole and normal again, and on track to finding out what it meant to be a Heavenly Guardian. Perhaps through their training they would learn more.
They could only hope they got strong enough to defeat Xehanort, excitement in their chests as the Mysterious Tower that was Yen Sid's home came into view.
The training would soon begin.
And that ends the tale of the Grand Line. Toshiro has returned to normal and gained new purpose, no longer limiting himself to play the role of a Captain and follow rules that shunned who he was, he welcomes his friends with open arms.
I know KH3 is coming out soon, but naturally the next thing to do is Dream Drop Distance, and perhaps I might figure out how to add Aqua's story from the prologue into it, though I guess they don't really interact with her, Mickey just tells Riku the story, right? I never actually played it, could only watch videos. Whatever the case, i'll need to sit down with the lore currently available to me and maybe replay Dream Drop Distance (or probably just watch videos for easier info gathering) to figure out where Toshiro is going next, and with KH3 almost out, I should be able to get more lore to piece things together as I write. It may be a while, research always takes time, but I hope this journey through One Piece as Toshiro rediscovers himself was enjoyable. There is no planned epilogue, but once I figure out my goal for the next installment I may add one as a sort of teaser. Thank you all so much for sticking around.