Author's note: This would have been up sooner, but I recently discovered a horde of games I've not played in nearly a decade. These have, naturally, taken up all my time. But enough excuses.

By the time Soi Fon reached the top of the building, dusk had fallen. She could tell because, for the last four meters of her climb, she could see the stars. The lip of the building presented the last minor challenge. By this point, the second division captain was so thoroughly irritated that it was all she could do not to blast it with the highest kido she could cast. Instead, she chose the safer, less destructive and less immediately satisfying option of leaping around the edge, using air for traction. She took a moment to calm herself down. She knew, at a bedrock level, that if she talked to anyone like this she would probably try to kill them.

Rested, she cast about of the one person whom she had deduced to be here. Toshiro Hitsugaya.

Lo and behold, there he is. Sleeping like a little...

Perhaps it was her bad mood from the climb, or perhaps it was the memory of Momo's face when they had been outside the Fifth. Either way, Soi Fon decided to give Toshiro the wake-up of his life. Literally and metaphorically.

It took several moments for Toshiro to wake up fully. He was tired, having had only a few minutes sleep in the last twelve hours, and the right side of his ribcage was throbbing with pain. He unclenched his eyes, hoping to be dreaming or something, and saw clouds. Before, he had always liked seeing clouds when he woke up. Just from the other side. Now, not five meters beneath him, was the random, swirly pattern of the very top of a cloud. Toshiro moaned once, very, very quietly.

"Listen up good, you. You have put me to a great deal of inconvenience today. I am therefore not in a charitable mood. Make me any angrier and you'll see those clouds from much, much closer. Understand?"

Toshiro, still rattled with fear, nodded.

"Good. Now, to start with you can tell me when a Lieutenant is 'meaningless'."

"What?"

"You heard."

"I don't know! When they're not doing their duties?"

"How about when they can't even see straight for crying?"

"What are you talking about?"

Today just seemed to be getting worse and worse of Toshiro. The ache in his side was resolving itself into what felt like a bruise the size of Kenpachi's hairdo, he was still looking down onto a terrifying vista of cloud-tops and he was being questioned to no apparent end by this mystery person, who he could never quite identify.

"I mean, Momo Hinamori is now sitting in her quarters crying, unable to do the slightest thing, because you rejected her like a blunt knife! My word, Hitsugaya... Here was me thinking that you always wanted the best for her, and now you leave her helpless as she was when Aizen left."

At that point, Soi Fon had to wonder if she had gone too far. Toshiro's spirit pressure exploded, nearly throwing her off his back and causing the clouds below to swirl and darken, as if reflecting Toshiro's mood. Lightning danced around below them, never reaching up above the level of the clouds.

Then Toshiro sighed.

"Perhaps I was too harsh on her... maybe I should go and see her... If, of course, you'll let me up, Captain Fon?"

"Fine. How did you guess?"

"How many captains can get up here, subdue me and talk without revealing anything about themselves through their voice? Plus, you're the only person in the whole of the Soul Society who doesn't call me Toshiro."

"Right. Need a lift down?"