OK. So here is the next chapter. Yup. Again! Crazy, eh?

Special thank you to Plastic Dragon again for taking time out to fix my mistakes, as well as Kana090; thank you for the review, and I'll keep your advice in mind. ;)

So…yeah! New chapter. I tried to make this one a bit longer for you guys after the rather short update last time. Enjoy!

Chapter 3: Rebirth

Third Division Headquarters

Third squad Lieutenant, Kuchiki Byakuya sat at his desk, working furiously as always.

He was already done with his paperwork when Shinkan Naito slowly stepped into the office.

"Hello taicho." Byakuya said in his typical emotionless voice, without looking up from the papers he was working on.

Byakuya had a good amount of respect for his captain. Naito's fighting skills weren't exactly extraordinary. In fact, Byakuya felt he had probably already surpassed him. But, he was quite young to be a captain and was one to always obey the rules. Byakuya always figured they weren't very different at all.

"Oh, hello Byakuya." Naito replied quietly.

Byakuya wondered for a moment if there was something wrong with his captain. True, Naito was rather shy, but there were exceptions. Namely himself and Ichimaru.

He still couldn't understand why his captain held such a liking for Ichimaru Gin…. He honestly didn't care too much about anything of the sort right now though; there was paperwork to do. If there's something wrong, let him say something.

"Tsuki-taicho died…." Naito uttered out of nowhere. That was the way he usually announced things however. No build up or anything like that, just straight to the point. Another thing Byakuya liked about the slightly younger man.

"Really now…." Byakuya said, attempting to have some more emotion in his voice, but failing miserably.

"Yeah." Was all Naito said, thinking of how to word what he was going to say next. Awkward silence was very common in the third division. It had been proclaimed by most to be "The most peaceful and quiet division in the Gotei 13." This made quite a few people want to join as well as making some people want to stay far away from such a boring place.

"They're thinking of replacing him with Gin someday, but…I think I'm going to see what I can do to make it more likely that the position can be held by you."

Byakuya's eyes widened a bit, and he finally looked up from his work. This was perfect. Although he always respected his captain, being a vice-captain was definitely not his fixation.

He wasn't too sure what to say to his captain. He almost wanted to hug him. Almost. Think he actually would do it? But, it was one of the closest timed he ever would hug some one; besides Hisana of course.

Naito simply walked up to Byakuya, put his hand on his shoulder and was somehow able to give him a look that said 'You don't have to say anything.'

Byakuya nodded and sat back down; going back to his work. "Thank you, taicho."

"Not a problem."

Fourth Division Headquarters

Retsu Unohana walked into the headquarters with her usual grace and decided to check up and see how things were going.

Things were quiet. Only a few patients with some minor injuries. Well, minor for a shinigami anyway.

She couldn't turn her mind off. She normally was like that anyway but she always used to be able to make peace with it. Now, she didn't like it at all. She thought about how she failed to save a captain, how she had no idea how to stop the toxin that had killed him, how she's going to have to learn to cooperate with him.

She had a feeling this was going to be a long day. This feeling was only reassured when Gin, Rangiku, Aizen, and an unconscious Ookami barged through the main door.

A crowd of fourth division members stormed toward them, taking the large Ookami off of Aizen's hands and placing him on a stretcher. Matsumoto and Gin followed them, but Aizen stayed back with Unohana.

"What happened?" She asked calmly as the two captains walked behind them.

"He was attacked by a hollow. One that I've never seen before." Unohana could sense a lot of urgency in his voice now.

"Describe to me what it looked like." She said sternly as she took out a paper with clipboard and a pen.

"Well, it was a rather small hollow. No larger than myself really. It had strange, blue triangular markings all along its neck. Particularly pale skin. That's all I remember, other than its speed. I've never seen a hollow move so fast."

Unohana wrote all of this down while he was talking and handed the clip board to a fourth squad member. "Search the database for a hollow of this description."

The young man didn't say anything. He just gave a quick nod and ran over to another room.

"This is good. At least this time we have some sort of description of the hollow."

"Do you think it's enough?" Aizen asked a bit worriedly.

Unohana gave a sigh. For once, she simply didn't know what to say. She figured that would be enough for him as the two walked into the room the tenth squad captain had been carried off to.

Outskirts of Rukongai 1st District

His eyes flickered open for a moment, only to realize they were still too heavy. He tried to stand up. Everything felt heavy.

But it was warm. No longer out in the cold to die, but now out in the warm to die. He hated when it was too warm. He would have preferred just dying in that blizzard.

After nearly half an hour, Hitsugaya gained the strength to finally stand up and look around.

All he could think to himself was 'Where am I?'

He couldn't remember anything that happened before he just woke up, besides that he had just been lost in a blizzard.

Any other details for now just drew up a blank. Understandably, this frustrated the very young Hitsugaya greatly.

"Why can't I think!?" He yelled out to no one, pounding his fist onto his head several times and his eyes began to water a little.

If some one were watching, they would without a doubt think the boy was completely out of his mind.

He was, really….

In fact, some one was watching. However, she didn't think he was crazy or out of his mind. He was just lost.

The old lady walked up to him, kneeled down slowly and asked in a sweet old voice. Much like a grandmother speaking to her one and only grandchild.

"Are you alright, honey?"

Well, that was a little longer, right? ;)

As always, reviews, questions, and criticisms are welcomed with open arms. Please stick around for the next update. 