Rangiku stopped in the hallway just outside Toshiro's room. The boy was sitting on the floor shoving books into an enormous pack she'd noticed him carrying around recently. Spread around him on the floor were some neat piles of paper, writing supplies, a bento box, and even a wooden practice sword all waiting to be packed into the already half full bag.

"What are you doing?" she asked, realizing that for the first time in his life she really had no idea what Toshiro was up to. She took a deep breath and pushed away the guilt that realization brought with it. It had been a horrible year and her family had certainly suffered because she hadn't been there for them like she should have been, but that happened sometimes. People got depressed, and blaming herself for it wasn't going to make anything better. She was better now, and she was going to be here for Shiro-chan, and Kin-chan, and Gin just like she always wanted to be.

Toshiro glanced up at Rangiku and then back at his things, wondering for a second if she'd noticed the topics of his books-they were all about training bankai-before he answered. "I'm taking stuff to my secret base."

He figured secret base sounded juvenile enough that no one would question it. There was actually a small area of the Third Division garden, way back in the bamboo thickets where no one went, that he and his father had placed a couple barriers on to prevent spying so he could practice with Hyorinmaru in peace.

Rangiku smiled. She was glad Toshiro could still play silly games like any normal boy. "Does Daddy know? I thought you were going to the division morning exercises with him every day."

"He helped me make it," Toshiro answered honestly. "I can't do much with the division so I go by myself sometimes and work on my own stuff."

"What sort of stuff?"

He ran through his various projects in his head, quickly choosing one he could talk to his mother about. He wasn't like his father; he wasn't just going to make up some lie because it was easier. Not telling her about Hyorinmaru was to protect her, but that didn't make it ok to lie and lie and lie some more. "I've been reading early histories of Soul Society, looking for people like me, who can influence elements without their zanpakuto," he told her.

"Yeah?" Rangiku said. That did sound interesting. "You find anyone?"

"Maybe, maybe even Yama-ji."

"Don't call General Yamamoto Yama-ji," Rangiku said.

"Dad does."

"And when have you ever wanted to be anything like your father?" she demanded. "If you are going to emulate him how about starting with his good habits instead of his bad ones."

"What good habits?" Toshiro wanted to know.

Rangiku opened her mouth and paused. That wasn't a fair question. For one thing, Toshiro had inherited nearly every one of his father's good qualities. He was brilliant and gifted and hardworking, and determined and confident and even patient and tidy, all very much like his father, but she couldn't exactly tell him to start being what he already was. She laughed abruptly at that realization. "If you were any more like Daddy you'd have to start grinning twenty-four, seven!"

"I'm nothing like him," Toshiro answered with a glare.

"Alright, you could still use a sense of humor, but you are so like him! A very short, uptight Gin with no sense of humor; that's what you are!" she teased.

"Take that back!" Toshiro shouted after her as she left his doorway, still laughing.

She poked her head back in and smiled. "I will if even one of the books you've packed in there isn't Daddy's."

Toshiro glared at her. Of course the books he was studying were from his father. Where else was he going to get books to study from?

"You didn't pack a single manga, did you?" she said. "You're going off all by yourself, and you could do anything you want, but you're going to study. You are exactly like him!"

With that parting shot she vanished.

Toshiro picked up the heavy pack and swung it over his shoulder. "I'm nothing like Ichimaru Gin," he told himself forcefully.