Author's Note: I'm just going to give up on trying to estimate how many chapters this thing is going to be. I sat on this chapter for two weeks, trying to write follow-up scenes in a way that worked and still flowed with the action, because I had told myself that chapter four had to reach a certain point. Well, I give up. It will be what it chooses to be. At this rate, it will never end, and Matsumoto is going to barge into my house and start whining about her non-existent screentime any day now. Ah well.

FROZEN SKY

Part Four: Winter Dragon

The headache which had begun on the night of his mortal world mission refused to die. Days later, it pounded through his temples mercilessly, and he was about ready to snap.

It was not, all things considered, the best condition in which to be overseeing the training of the division's newest members.

Especially not when Komamura was doing one of his rare observations.

Hitsugaya ground his teeth – an expression of the frustration that was his new closest companion, and the habit no doubt responsible for his continuing headache in the first place. But he couldn't seem to stop himself.

On the opposite side of the training yard, Komamura stood like a giant statue, his helmet fixed – as unmoving as his limbs – on the men and women training before him. Imada had broken away from him to take a direct hand in the afternoon's training, an unusual choice that gave Hitsugaya reason to be grateful, as it was allowing him to stay on the sidelines.

Watari came up beside him now, giving him a frown. "You don't look well," he said.

"No need to comment on it."

"You don't sound well either," he replied, unflappable as always.

"Watari. I really don't feel like talking right now."

"Ah."

There was a pause, and though he would have preferred standing here alone at least silent company was tolerable.

But then Watari added, "Unfortunately, I don't think you're going to have a choice about that."

"What?"

"The Captain is beckoning for you."

Watari was right, and just to make matters more difficult, Komamura was no longer alone. The rank of the man standing beside him was betrayed by white fabric, and even unable to see the division insignia Hitsugaya recognized the 13th Division's Captain.

He had never formally met the man, or even seen him near any of the seated officer meetings he had been forced to attend over the last few years. Though he had spoken directly to very few of the Captains in the Gotei 13, he had at least seen most of them in passing at one time or another. Ukitake Jyuushiro, however, was known to suffer from illness, and so managed to avoid meetings that even the other Captains could not entirely ignore. Hitsugaya was not familiar with the man's face, but there was no way the person standing beside Komamura now could be anyone else. He tried to ignore rumors as a rule, but not when they came to Captains, and there weren't quite enough white-haired Shinigami about to avoid comment. Hitsugaya knew that very well.

He had no idea what Ukitake was doing here, or why Komamura should be beckoning him over, but there was nothing he could do save to obey, and so he moved along the edges of the training yard, trying not to draw attention to himself as he approached the two Captains. He bowed on reaching them, stiff but proper.

"Komamura-taichou. Ukitake-taichou."

"Hitsugaya," Komamura said. "Ukitake wishes to ask you some questions."

Hitsugaya turned to the 13th's Captain, his eyebrows raised, and waited.

Ukitake laughed sheepishly, raising a hand briefly to his temple. "Well, not a question exactly. Not an interrogation, at least. I was just speaking to a subordinate of mine the other day, whose zanpakutou is of the ice elemental family, and naturally word of your own zanpakutou arose in the discussion. I've heard quite a bit about it."

His first instinct was to reply with something dismissive that might put an end to the conversation as quickly as possible. But this was a Captain. A neutral, "I see," was the best he could manage on the spot.

Ukitake seemed unfazed. If anything, his cheerful demeanor, though still touched by a hint of sheepishness, intensified. It was hard to imagine the man as sickly. How could anyone that ill put so much energy into smiling?

"I have to confess that I'm curious. I too often am, they tell me. Gets me into all sorts of trouble. I was hoping that I might get to see your zanpakutou in action during your division's training exercises today."

"I don't release my zanpakutou in division training exercises," Hitsugaya replied flatly.

"Is that so?"

"Yes," Komamura interjected. "I believe he has made the correct choice. Newer recruits training at this level do not benefit from being overwhelmed."

"Ah, I see." Ukitake's eyebrows rose, and he fixed Hitsugaya with an appraising look. "I have to admit that only makes me more curious. What have you heard, Hitsugaya-kun, about - "

But a loud exclamation from the rear of the yard snapped Ukitake's head around in mid-sentence, as it did Komamura's, and nearly everyone else within hearing who was not engaged in blocking a descending sword in spar.

"What?"

Hitsugaya tracked the sound, pinpointing the disturbance easily. A cluster of people were already gathered around a young man who was standing bent over with his hands on his knees, as though to catch his breath from a long run. Imada and Watari were already cutting through the crowd to reach him.

"Are you sure?" someone was asking loudly, while another voice said, "It can't be true!"

A few words from Watari, too quiet to overhear at a distance, scattered part of the gathering crowd; Imada's broad shoulders took care of the rest. They reached the exhausted young man and he immediately tried to stand straighter, turning to face his Vice Captain. Hitsugaya watched curiously, but he was too far away to clearly make out the movements of the young man's lips. Yet even at a distance, the color draining from Imada's face was plain to see.

Komamura began walking toward him then, and Hitsugaya followed. Ukitake came behind, and perhaps concern put a spike into his reiatsu, because Hitsugaya was suddenly aware of its increased pressure at his back, and in a flash he remembered a night two years ago when a powerful reiatsu had hovered outside the room in which Unohana had examined him. He had not known the person's identity then; it was revealed to him now.

But it didn't matter. There were other things to think about at the moment.

"Imada," Komamura said, his shadow falling over Vice Captain and weary young Shinigami both as he stopped beside them. "What is going on?"

Imada opened his mouth as though to reply, then shut it again, shaking his head, and looked to the younger man. "Tell all that you know, Takahashi," he instructed.

Takahashi swallowed, pushing his hair back from a sweat-dampened forehead to meet his Captain's gaze. "Taichou. I was just passing by the medical center when I saw… when I heard… they say that there was an incident… an arrest of some rogue Shinigami… and that Akita Sachio was k-killed, sir."

"Akita," Komamura echoed, not quite a question.

Hitsugaya, standing level with Komamura's huge hands, noticed a very slight closing of those gauntleted fingers.

His own hands, he realized suddenly, had closed into full fists.

He hadn't heard anything about recent troubles with rogue Shinigami.

He hadn't heard anything about recent troubles great enough to kill a Vice Captain.

"Are you sure of this rumor?" Ukitake asked, and all hints of cheer or sheepishness were gone now, his voice somber, his expression cool and refined.

"Yes, taichou," Takahashi replied, then stammered, "At least, I'm sure of what I heard. But there were so many 6th Division members there, and some of them had just been released from treatment, and they said they were there when it happened."

"Was Kuchiki-taichou there?" Ukitake asked.

Takahashi's expression hardened, and he seemed for a moment to forget both weariness and the presence of two Captains. "No. They said that he refused to come."

Hitsugaya frowned, his hands clenched tight, and wanted to snap at the man to speak more clearly. Refused to come to the hospital, or to the battle?

But somehow he had ended up standing between Komamura and Ukitake, and was acutely aware of the swift glance exchanged at that moment just over his head; it silenced any words he might have spoken. Komamura's expression was hidden as always behind his helmet, but the slight motion of his head betrayed the exchange. Ukitake's gaze, though his expression remained calm, had a knowing light to it, and there was a tightness – almost a sadness – around his eyes. Hitsugaya's senses fairly burned with awareness of the sharpening edge of Captain level reiatsu around him.

And even amidst all his other thoughts, he couldn't help but notice that his headache had vanished.

He recalled with sudden clarity how a similar pain had once been swept away by the awakening, at last, of his zanpakutou. And thinking it he realized just as suddenly that the shock of hearing that Akita was dead had snapped his usual discipline, and he had completely released control of his reiatsu.

His headache was gone.

And not all of the sharp taste of power in the air belonged to the men beside him.

"Takahashi," Komamura said. "Calm yourself. Go inside with Imada, and tell him all you heard. Watari."

"Yes, taichou?"

"See to it that the men resume their training."

"Yes, taichou."

"Ukitake."

"Yes," Ukitake nodded. "Let's go."

Komamura set off, and his subordinates parted to let him pass like water moving around a rock. Ukitake fell into step beside him, matching Komamura's longer strides with an ease befitting a Captain. But he glanced back once as he went, and Hitsugaya caught his thoughtful gaze.

Then they were gone, and Hitsugaya found himself standing motionless as those around him scattered – back to training under Watari's orders, or to pass the word on in murmurs, or to trail after Imada and Takahashi as they left the courtyard.

He was acutely conscious of the fact that Komamura had not given him an order, had not instructed him in any way to assist in calming the division. Ukitake had clearly noticed it as well. Hitsugaya was not yet sure what to make of it.

At the moment he wanted nothing more than the freedom to go with the two Captains who were, he was certain, on their way to 4th Division's compound, where they would not have to rely on rumor, where they could seek the answer to whatever question or suspicion had passed wordlessly between them when Kuchiki's name was spoken.

Akita was dead, and Hitsugaya wanted those answers for himself.

He had seen subordinates killed in the field already, had compiled lists of casualties from squads he himself had trained. But this was the first time death had claimed someone who he had, he realized now, only after the fact, truly considered a peer.

You give your life to your Captain, Akita had said, speaking in a changed voice, smiling in a new way, and Hitsugaya wondered now if he had done just that.

It would have been impossible to avoid rumors during the following week even if he'd wanted to, and for the first time in his life Hitsugaya did not want to. Word moved swiftly through 7th Division, where the memory of Akita's presence was still fresh. Old friends were grieving his loss.

And because they were grieving, even Imada said that a certain amount of deafness could be employed on the part of the division's seated officers in regards to commentary on a Gotei 13 Captain. At least for a few days. Only for a few days.

Years later, Hitsugaya would come to understand a great many things more clearly. About Kuchiki Byakuya. About a Captain's duty, and a Captain's prerogatives.

But in the days following Akita's death, the whispers he was hearing had an affect on him like knives shearing off the rough borders of his private doubts and feelings, leaving behind edges sharp and smooth – honing the edge of a new resolve.

They said that 6th Division had been working with the Keigun Brigade to hunt a dangerous pair of rogue Shinigami for months. Some said that the criminals had been attempting to train a private cabal of souls from Rukongai with high spirit levels, but no one could speak to that part of the rumor with certainty. They said that a plan had gone unexpectedly wrong, and when the emergency call came Akita responded, against the plan, against his orders.

They said that when Kuchiki Byakuya heard his Vice Captain had gone, he had refused to follow.

He chose his failure, were the words Kuchiki was rumored to have spoken.

He's my Captain, Akita had said.

Though people were gathering in pairs or small groups all over the division compound to discuss rumors or memories, the only time someone came to Hitsugaya for a private conversation on the issue was when Imada pulled him aside to discuss how they intended to handle any delinquent behavior that might result in the division.

Perhaps this would not have bothered him, if Hyourinmaru's words were not still as fresh in his mind as anything Akita had said.

I am not a friend.

Hitsugaya knew he could speak his thoughts to Hyourinmaru if he truly needed the release, but the memory of those words stopped him every time. Hyourinmaru would listen, but what did the dragon care for doubts or regrets that had nothing to do with the bond they shared? Hyourinmaru was his will to fight and his power to destroy made manifest. Not a friend.

And yet who else was there?

He thought of going to visit Jidanbou, but decided against it. He could hardly understand his own feelings, let alone put them into the carefully chosen words that explanations to Jidanbou too often required. Jidanbou had been a friend to the boy in Rukongai, but Hitsugaya was no longer that boy, and he needed something now that Jidanbou's uncomplicated company could not provide.

He did not seek out Hinamori, and it had been years now since he'd stopped waiting for her to come to him.

But that did not change the nature of hope. It did not make the irrational any easier to overcome.

So when he saw her on the street a few days after Akita's death, he stopped at her gesture and waited, despite the fact that she was breaking away from the 3rd and 4th Division Vice Captains to do so, and that they were both giving him strange looks because of it. But he remained on his side of the street and waited for her, his hand closing tighter around the small parcel containing new ink sticks and brushes that he'd just purchased, and told himself that he wasn't angry about the fact that they couldn't even talk to each other anymore without attracting attention. Or about the fact that they only ever talked when chance happened to throw them together. Or about the choices they had both made to put them in that position.

"Hitsugaya-kun," she said, unusually subdued. "I'm sure you've heard all about it. How are you?"

"How am I?" he echoed, frowning. "Why wouldn't I be fine? Akita wasn't my friend."

It was only when she shook her head sadly, undeceived by his words, that he realized he had expected her – even her – to recoil a bit. It only proved that their time apart was changing them. Or at least it was changing him. He should have known better; Hinamori knew him too well.

"He liked you, Hitsugaya-kun. And he was a good man. Everyone's upset. He and Kira-kun and I all passed the exam together, and so the three of us were helping each other as much as we could. But now… I guess I shouldn't be surprised, right? A Vice Captain's duty is dangerous."

"Yeah it is," Hitsugaya said, fixing her with an intent gaze. He wanted to tell her to be careful, but he shouldn't have to.

And maybe he didn't have a right to.

Calling her bed-wetter Momo had been easy. Warning her, advising her, telling her to be cautious as though a Vice Captain in the Gotei 13 was not powerful enough to protect herself… that required an authority not even friendship could grant him.

Or maybe it was just the changes in his own perceptions of the world that made him feel that way.

"I'm worried about Abarai-kun," she went on, glancing back to Kira and Kotetsu, who were now deep in their own conversation. "He spends so much time watching 6th Division… it can't be good, especially now. I know he liked Akita. He's said… he's said some awfully cold things about Kuchiki-taichou."

"What did he say?" Hitsugaya asked, glad that her frustrating deviation into Abarai's life was at least yielding information he couldn't get elsewhere.

"He says that he's not surprised, and that Kuchiki-taichou doesn't really care about his subordinates. But that can't be true. Otherwise why would Abarai-kun want to emulate him so badly? He says this has only made him more determined than ever to advance."

Hinamori seemed truly not to understand what could drive a man so, or at least her concern for Abarai was clouding her thoughts. But for the first time in all of the stories he had heard about Abarai, Hitsugaya thought he could understand the man perfectly well. He knew how it felt to have something to prove. And proving something to oneself was always the greatest challenge of all. What spurred that need didn't really matter.

Hinamori of all people should understand that, he thought, puzzled, and stung by an old envy. What else had driven her to walk at Aizen's side?

"Hitsugaya-kun," she said again, her voice dropping even lower, her eyes sad as they fixed on him. "It's a funny thing, and I don't want you to be upset, but I regret saying that you should train to take the Vice Captain's exam. It would be terrible if… I just wouldn't want you put in a position like Akita-kun's."

Hitsugaya merely stared at her in silence for several moments, taking in the earnestness of her expression, the concern in her eyes, the pallor of her skin.

I am not a friend, Hyourinmaru had told him, speaking words to tear apart his misconceptions and his foolish hopes.

And Hinamori, though she did not know it, and would probably never know it, had now done the same.

She knew him too well, he had thought. In some ways perhaps that was true. But in others, she did not know him at all. She did not understand what he had become, who he was becoming.

She was worried about him? About his safety?

He had thought he was not in a position to caution her, but she clearly had no such qualms. Perhaps it should have comforted him, that she thought there was still enough of an intimacy between them to allow this. But instead he couldn't help seeing it as further proof of the widening gap between them. He felt at that moment, watching the concern and uncertainty at work in her pale expression, that time had flowed differently for them in the years since she had left Rukongai.

They had never known the precise number of years that existed between their ages, but somehow that had never mattered, even though those around them always commented on how strange it was that such an old girl should want a young boy for company, and such a young boy should feel content with the company of a girl more woman than child. People wondered, and commented, but it had never mattered. There were some things one simply didn't question.

But she had left, and time had passed, and now Hitsugaya felt as though he were older, that he had grown and she had not, no matter the remaining difference in their heights, no matter what she might call him.

"Hinamori," he said quietly. "I think your friends are waiting for you."

"Please don't be angry," she said quickly, her hands reaching for him. But she stopped the motion, lacing her fingers together anxiously instead.

"I'm not angry," he said, and meant it. He wasn't. He didn't want to examine too closely what he was. "I understand. But I need to go back to my division. It's as much of a mess there as it probably is in the 6th right now."

"Yes… I'm sure it is. I should get back to my division too. Aizen-taichou said… well, there's a lot of work to be done. Please be careful, Shiro-chan. I don't know what I'd do if anything happened to you."

And with that she gave him one last sad look, biting her lip, then turned and dashed back across the street, to where her fellow Vice Captains were waiting for her before continuing on their way.

Hitsugaya wanted to stand there and watch her go, and for once he didn't care what Kira or Kotetsu or anyone else would think.

But this time, when she went, she would be taking something with her, taking it away from him, more completely than she had even when she left Rukongai, or became Aizen's Vice Captain. This time she was taking away childish dreams and the hope that memory kept alive, the hope that eventually circumstances would change and he would know again how it felt to have someone beside you who never questioned, who never doubted, who always saw through your cold veneer and the masks you wore and knew what you meant to say.

Little by little that hope had been stripped away over the years, and he'd told himself with each bit of it gone that he was foolish to have wanted to hold on to it in the first place.

He'd wanted to blame Hinamori for it. Part of him still did.

But it wasn't Hinamori who had changed. She had merely found a new place to put her heart, in the same way she always had.

And so he had a choice, a choice he had made already, though he hadn't realized it at the time. Had made it over and over again as the years went by.

If he watched her go now, he would never be able to walk his own path without looking back – looking back over his shoulder, looking back into memory, hoping to see her there, hoping that the path he walked wouldn't be empty, wouldn't be his alone.

But if he kept looking back, he would never know how far the path ahead might take him.

So he did not turn his head to watch her leave, he did not wait for the sound of her running footsteps to stop, or for her companions to rejoin her. He kept his gaze fixed ahead, and walked on. The small box in his hand had cracked along the hinges, but he did not loosen his grip. He was already turning the corner of the street before the sound of Hinamori's voice, apologizing to her companions for delaying them, had fully faded.

He chose his failure, Kuchiki had said, and Hitsugaya did not understand how a Captain could dismiss a subordinate's life so easily, but he did understand about choice.

He's my Captain, Akita had said, and he had never felt that sort of attachment to a superior before, but he understood about devotion.

I don't know what I'd do if anything happened to you, Hinamori said, and he wanted to feel touched by her concern, but all he could feel was a painful sort of emptiness in his chest where what had always been true about their relationship was shifting at last into new shape.

"Hinamori," he whispered, safe beyond sight of her and beyond her hearing, alone in the night-dark street. "I guess it's my turn now to worry."

Claim me, Hyourinmaru had said. And together we can fight anything that might threaten you with loss.

Hyourinmaru could give him power, but the dragon could not teach him what it meant to be a Captain, to be the one who could condemn choice, who could earn devotion, who could protect.

They both knew there was only one way to discover what sort of Captain he could be.

Seven days after Akita's death, Hitsugaya sought out Komamura for a private meeting.

"I would like to request a short leave from my duties."

"For what purpose?"

"Training."

"I see," Komamura said, and Hitsugaya was certain that he saw very clearly indeed. They both knew the reason. "Very well. You have a month. Afterwards, when you have returned to your duties for a time, you may take a month again."

"I'll only need the one."

Komamura said nothing, but Hitsugaya would have been willing to bet that the expression behind the helmet had been skeptical.

At the end of the month, it must have been something else entirely.

He only needed the one.

It was a long month.

He slept only a handful of nights, all of them cold, with his back to a tree or a rock, bark and dirt scratching against strips of bare skin where the fabric of his clothing had been torn away by a dragon's icy teeth.

It had not begun as an open battle between them. Submission was key, but harmonization was just as important, and training together had comprised most of their years until now – even if the backlash of Hyourinmaru's power in that training had occasionally earned him more than a few bruises. But the last few days had evolved into something far less forgiving than any previous training exercise.

Submission was required, but it was not the key to manifestation. Manifestation traditionally came first.

Hyourinmaru didn't seem to care much about tradition.

Hyourinmaru wanted him to prove something.

Hitsugaya only wished he knew what it was.

Two days before he was due to return to the Seireitei, he watched the sun rise from his seat at the edge of a high bluff, whose nearly sheer eastern side sloped down to a river far below. Grasses rippled in a chill dawn breeze, and the soft whisper of their rustling mingled with the sound of flowing water, a soothing hum which had lulled Hitsugaya into his first sleep in days. Sleep hadn't done much to refresh him, but exhausted or not, a new dawn meant it was time for another try.

He was starving. He'd eaten the last of his food two weeks ago. Even trained Shinigami could not push themselves forever before spirit hunger did them in.

But it didn't matter now. It couldn't.

Hitsugaya closed stiff and bloodied fingers around the sword on the ground beside him and climbed wearily to his feet.

"All right," he said, his voice hoarse with a swift awakening from too little sleep. "If you want this to go on, it's about time we took it seriously. I'll be damned if I'll be beat by anything but your real presence."

You are not lacking in conviction.

"You bet I'm not."

You are merely lacking in understanding.

"If you say that one more time…" he snarled, beyond caring about dignity or self restraint.

I will say it until you hear it properly.

Hitsugaya growled, flipped his grip on the sword with one swift movement, and slammed the blade's tip into the earth. Then he let it go, leaving it upright and quivering faintly, and turned his back on it.

"I'm sick of using you to fight myself."

The dragon said nothing.

Hitsugaya crossed his arms and stared out over the river, glaring at the paling horizon.

"If you want to teach me something, find another way. Otherwise, it's my turn to set the rules."

The first sliver of the sun slipped into view, almost white in the cold and cloudy sky.

It was winter.

An appropriate season.

Yes, the dragon said.

Hitsugaya narrowed his eyes, but did not turn back to the sword. He didn't need to. For the first time in a month, the ghostly form of Hyourinmaru's partial manifestation drifted into view like mist carried on the breeze, swirling into a dragon's shape. It swam through the air in graceful loops until it filled the air before him, hovering over the river below.

What rules will you set?

Hitsugaya scowled. From someone else he would have read mockery in those words, but this was Hyourinmaru. The zanpakutou had no need for mockery.

"Are you telling me," he said, his voice emerging too much like a rasp for his comfort, "that all this time you've just been waiting for me to set my own rules?"

Just?

The dragon spirit wove itself through a full sinuous loop before speaking again.

You thought to force my submission by letting me choose the course of the battle?

Another serpentine loop, and this time the dragon's head shot toward him, teeth snapping shut less than a sword's length from his face, but Hitsugaya did not flinch. He was too tired to move unless his bodily health depended on it, and he had learned by now to read the dragon's attacks, whether the dragon was shaped of ice or illusion.

What am I, Hitsugaya Toushiro?

Hitsugaya did not answer. This was the most talkative Hyourinmaru had been all month, and the significance of this change was not lost on him. He was not about to ruin the opportunity with hasty words, no matter how weary and irritated he was.

Am I a creature of earth, willing to move on my belly, to walk on legs?

A cold spike of power picked up like a wind at his back – from the sword. Even though the dragon's spirit shape still hovered before him, the menace came from behind. But Hitsugaya did not turn. He waited, hoping to hear in Hyourinmaru's anger the final key to understanding.

Willing to be humble?

He opened and closed his hands slowly, loosening muscles stiffened by exhaustion. Too familiar with a sword's grip. He had set the sword aside out of frustration, but he realized now that he would not be able to take it up again.

Not until this was done.

Do you think I would have answered the call of a soul who could not meet me as an equal, as a creature of the same blood?

This time the dragon ceased its coiling, its phantom body shimmering in a motionless spiral, and its glowing eyes stared fixedly into his own.

Do you think I would give myself to one who could not rule the sky?

"No," Hitsugaya said at last, meeting the gaze steadily. "I wouldn't want you to."

And I will not. As you are different from other Shinigami, so I am different from other zanpakutou. Do not rely on what you have seen, on what you have read. What do I care for the desires and methods of others?

And just like that, all his years spent in study and research seemed meaningless to this struggle. They had given him knowledge and insight into the power and history of others, true. They had taught him of the legacy he had inherited as Shinigami. He could not have succeeded in the Gotei 13 without them.

But what could they have taught him about Hyourinmaru?

What do I care for anyone but dragons?

And at last, as though this had not been a question hovering unanswered in his mind for years, the answer was there. The memory.

On that night when Hyourinmaru had finally awakened, when he had learned the dragon's name, when a lifetime of dreams of ice and wind had finally been explained, his zanpakutou had told him the only thing that mattered.

You are the dragon, it had said.

As though Hyourinmaru could sense his dawning understanding, the cold power at his back intensified, and the translucent serpent shape before him began again to move. Readying itself.

Stop holding yourself back.

Be it without doubt, it had said.

You will never be able to claim me if you cannot first be honest with yourself.

Know what you are, it had said.

Every time we enter battle, we fly together.

Only then can we met as equals, it had said.

But I am hampered by you, if you cannot fly alone. Do you understand at last?

"Yes," he said, and let his hands fall loose completely. No more fists. Tension left his body like water rolling off glass.

At last, he did understand.

Hyourinmaru had been right, that night in the mortal world.

It all came down to fear.

Show me what you are.

Hitsugaya closed his eyes and drew in a deep, steady breath. The cold at his back was no longer merely an impression of power; the soft tinkling and creak of ice forming was loud now in his ears. Already it was creeping up on his heels.

Show me what you are, Hyourinmaru said again, and this time the voice was like a roar, shaking the dawn air. Prove to me that you are worthy of the wings I can give you.

He bent his knees just a fraction; shifted his weight.

Prove to me that when you summoned me from the night, I answered the call of a dragon.

Opening his eyes, baring his teeth, Hitsugaya launched himself forward – three long steps – a leap – and he was moving through open air, over the river below, his outstretched hand – the only weapon he could allow himself for this battle in order to win it – reaching for Hyourinmaru's ghostly form.

His fingers scraped along scales like steel.

One leap, one roar, a single choice made to finally cast off the fear of his own power, of the depth and threat of it, and of how it would change him – only that choice, and Hyourinmaru had manifested at last.

The phantom dragon which had grown so familiar to him over the years had been a pale shadow of the truth all along. There was nothing translucent about this dragon, nothing of mist or illusion. What had previously been a quicksilver shape like moving cloud was now a massive creature of glass and steel, each scale outlined with a filigree of white frost, each spine on the head and body jagged like ice and tipped in a crimson that matched the glow of its black-pupiled eyes.

With a roar so loud that its vibration in the air sent stars of dizziness spinning across Hitsugaya's vision, the dragon was suddenly all around him, coils closing in, the tip of its tail – trailing a mist of hissing snow like a comet – whistling straight for his head. He curled in on himself, ducking his head just in time, and threw a shoulder forcefully back to give his body enough of a rotation in mid-air to avoid the tail's final lash. There was no time to use the spirit particles in the air to give him purchase for fighting; all he could do for the moment was try to avoid being broken.

But less than a heartbeat later, a lightning-quick snap of the dragon's body brought down a wall of frozen scales on him, numbing his entire left side with ice and impact, accelerating his fall straight down to the waiting river – and he understood that Hyourinmaru was not going to let him play a game of avoidance and defense.

As ludicrous as the thought might have seemed only a few moments ago, he was no longer at all certain that the dragon wouldn't kill him if he failed to meet this challenge. A few moments ago, he would have wondered what a zanpakutou could be without a Shinigami to call it forth, what it could hope to gain by breaking the hand that wielded it.

But he had called forth a dragon, and a dragon had its own desires.

The impact from Hyourinmaru's body knocked the breath from him, and he hit the water already disoriented. The river closed in around him, warm in comparison to the ice sheeting his arm where the dragon had struck, and his lungs spasmed, trying to pull in air against his will. The current was not swift, and his fall shot him straight down toward to the riverbed, where he groped for a submerged boulder to steady himself against the seizures of his water-logged lungs.

He knew the dragon would be waiting above, but he didn't have any choice about the matter, and so only tried to push himself toward the riverbank before breaking the surface. He'd barely managed to cough up the water he'd swallowed and suck in another breath when the shadow fell on him, and a soft whistle like snow sleeting through the air announced the dragon's approach.

Hitsugaya planted one foot on the submerged slope of the rock beneath him and launched himself upward. The dragon's tail lashed through the air beneath his leap, and the rock shattered at the impact; drops of river water from the splash exploded upward, instantly frozen, and whistled up past his face, cutting into his cheek.

They gave him an idea.

This time when he hit the water Hitsugaya was ready for the fall. He focused his reiatsu, seized on the spirit particles around him, and shaped just enough resistance to give his feet something momentarily solid to hit on as they struck the surface of the river. Leaping more than running he moved over the water, and the dragon came behind him.

Space. He only needed space. Space to attack, because this wasn't a retreat. He had never run away from anything in his life. Not challenge, not anger, not loneliness.

He had never run from anything, except for the truths of his own heart.

Some things couldn't be changed with just one choice. He knew that. He had no illusions about the sort of person he was, or of how his life would go on if he could manage to leave this river in one piece and return to the Seireitei.

But there was one thing that could change. One thing that would change.

No more pretending that he was anything less than he was. No more denial.

Do you think I would give myself to one who could not rule the sky?

No. No more letting himself be infected by the preconceptions of others who looked at him and thought, too young. No more letting himself be convinced that patience would serve him better, no more nights spent thinking, too soon. No more simply wondering about what sort of Captain he could be. No more wondering if ice should be less cold, or if life would be simpler if he just kept it all in check, kept the edges softened, kept the roar inside.

Hyourinmaru was right. It was time to choose.

It was time to claim the sky.

The dragon was coming behind, but his determination gave him speed, and at last he had put enough space between them to give him room to stop. A spray of water marked the spot where he ground his foot against the river's surface and turned, dropping to one knee in the same motion, bringing his right hand down to meet the water in a strike with all of the reiatsu he could summon behind it.

He had never tried to release his reiatsu like this. To use it like this. There had been times when he had let it slip, times when he had taken even himself by surprise, times when he had been able to see it manifest visually. He knew what it said about his power, but he had never tried to shape and hone it in this manner. Kidou was not the same. Kidou wouldn't help him now. He couldn't call on the power of his zanpakutou anymore, but he knew, nonetheless, what he wanted. What he needed. Maybe what he was.

He needed ice.

His open palm hit the water, fingers spread wide and wreathed in blue glow, and with a wordless cry he poured every dream of snow he'd ever had into a focused explosion of reiatsu.

The river erupted before him, water sheeting up, leaving a whirlpool vacuum under the impact of his hand. Ice bloomed, crackling up the wall of water in less than a heartbeat, and through the nearly opaque barrier of white crystal shapes that now separated Hitsugaya from the advancing dragon, he could see the red glow of Hyourinmaru's eyes.

He was already sinking again; no more running meant he could no longer stay on the river's surface. He focused, this time using shunpo to help form resistance, and flashed back far enough, and just in time, to avoid being caught in the collision when Hyourinmaru burst, roaring, through the frozen wall. Spears and sheets of ice shattered and spiraled through the air, flashing in the pale light of a winter dawn.

Just as he'd hoped they would.

Another shunpo, pushing the limits of the speed he had so far learned to master, and he was in the air, moving forward again to meet the dragon. He reached out, and closed his hand around a shaft of jagged ice.

He was good at shunpo. He was good at kidou. Hakuda was his weakness.

Sword was his strength.

And if he couldn't use his zanpakutou, then he would just have to use something else.

Hyourinmaru came at him, mouth open, teeth nearly as long as his body preparing to catch him, should he fail to time this perfectly. Should he hesitate to take the necessary risk.

He did not hesitate.

His hands burned with the cold of holding skin to ice, but he kept his grip steady, and brought the frozen blade up, angled in a block that would have stopped any descending sword. He did not expect it to stop a dragon. But it was enough to keep teeth from piercing him, and the pressure of moving air against his back as Hyourinmaru flew on kept him pressed almost completely against the dragon's bared fangs.

Hyourinmaru's head tilted – as he'd expected – trying to throw him off.

He removed one hand from the ice spear, leaving pieces of his skin behind, and slapped his palm against the dragon's snout, closing his fingers around the raised ridge of frost-rimmed scales beside one massive nostril. When Hyourinmaru rotated in mid-air he let his body swing out, used the momentum to pick up rotation, and flipped up – anchored by his bleeding hand clutching at the dragon's serrated scales – to plant both feet squarely between the glowing crimson eyes.

There was no human emotion in them. No way he could read expression in the dilation of those black pupils, each the size of his fist.

But even so, he knew what the dragon was thinking. He knew what it wanted, now. They were the same.

All the dragon wanted was for him to claim his own identity.

He yelled – roared – to match the dragon's own voice, and before Hyourinmaru could turn again to dislodge him he brought his sword of ice around, gripped in both hands, and sunk it as far into the silver-blue of the head beneath him as he could.

Only much later, thinking back, would it occur to him to wonder how much damage he might actually have been able to inflict on his zanpakutou's spirit.

But in the air, blood on his hands, his throat already raw with a roar too large for his small, human-sized body, he was beyond the point of such rational thought.

The spar of ice penetrated the scales, perhaps only as ice could have. Hyourinmaru's scream of defiance sent pain shooting through Hitsugaya's temples, but he held steady and threw all the strength of his body into pushing the weapon in further. This time when Hyourinmaru spun, he had a tight grip with both hands and managed to keep even his feet firmly in place. The dragon righted itself again, and without warning shot straight up into the sky like a launching arrow. Hitsugaya's feet slipped, and just as his hands – unable to generate a strength that could compensate for the dragon's speed – slid from the ice, Hyourinmaru snapped to an even swifter stop, lashing its body into a swiftly moving spiral.

Hitsugaya abandoned his makeshift weapon completely and caught himself in mid-fall by one of the red-tipped spines running the length of the dragon's back.

He was not going to fall.

He was not going to be struck down to earth again.

He was not going to be denied his place in the sky, not even by Hyourinmaru.

When the sinuous body beneath him arched to fling him away, he pushed off of it instead; closed bloody fingers around another spine; swung himself around. The tail whistled toward him again, and he threw himself flat against iridiscent scales so that only his hair was ruffled by its passage.

Hyourinmaru spun, and so he ran, using the dragon's snaking body itself as a means to climb higher.

This close, he thought, you cannot strike me without striking yourself.

Higher. Higher. He caught another spine at the back of the dragon's massive head, and planted his foot – pushed off –

This close, we are one.

And even as the dragon roared, snapping at him with its massive teeth one last time as he sailed up and past, Hitsugaya could hear Hyourinmaru's voice again clearly in his mind.

Yes. You are the dragon. I am merely the shadow. Remember this. You cannot escape your destiny.

A breath like a snowstorm's wind struck him with the last of Hyourinmaru's roar, and at last he was forced to close his eyes or be blinded, one hand rising reflexively to cover his face.

Something narrow and hard struck his palm, and he closed his fingers around it on instinct, because he would know the feel of Hyourinmaru's sword grip anywhere.

He was colder, suddenly, than he had ever felt before in his life, and yet he had never felt more alive.

When he opened his eyes, the dragon was gone. He was not surprised. He did not need to see it to know that it was inside of him.

Choose what you will guard, Hitsugaya Toushiro. Choose, and we will fight as one. But do not forget your nature. Remember my words. A dragon, once wakened, is not easily put to sleep again. The day may come when you fly so high that you will not remember how to return to ground. That is the price of the bankai I give you. To fully be the dragon, you must sacrifice all else.

Far below him, the river glinted silver in the gray dawn. He was steady in mid-air, and his breath was turned to puffs of cloud by the feather-like daggers of ice creeping over his shoulders. He lifted his left hand, unsurprised to see the coating of ice that made claws of his fingers, but fascinated by it all the same. He was aware of every change to his body as though he had always known what those changes would be. Frozen fingers, ice over arm and sword, a tail that would crush enemies as surely as Hyourinmaru's had tried to crush him only moments ago.

But not all of our battles together will require a price to be paid, Hyourinmaru added, and the voice was somehow gentler than it had ever been.

The dragon was pleased.

I told you once that only at this point would we be able to truly begin.

"Yes," Hitsugaya said, his voice scraped raw. But he couldn't have cared less about the pain now.

So let us begin. Even a dragon must learn how to fly.

Hitsugaya closed his eyes briefly, breathing deeply of the winter air, and smiled.

Only in his dreams had he believed that Hyourinmaru's promise of flight might mean he would actually be given wings.

For the first time in his life, he was happy to be proven wrong.

Author's Note: Needless to say, I think that Shawlong was totally wrong in his assessment of Hitsugaya's bankai. I also think that Ichimaru's reference to heavenly guardian reincarnation was not a random throw-away comment - but then, that is probably just my obsession talking. :) Needless to say, I'm looking forward to seeing the truth of Hitsugaya's bankai fully revealed. In the meantime, I will continue in my obsessed speculations…