Author's Note: Aiyeeeh...!!! Sorry for the long wait. I was obsessed with killing Hinamori with my new Bleach: Shattered Blade XD Nevertheless, I promised an update, and here's an update!

A little warning…I might be too obsessed with it plus the piling holiday homework so expect late updates. Gomenasai…I'm trying the best I can!

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Chapter 5 – The One Being Trusted by the 13th Division

Hazelnut eyes opened to bore into two large and mesmerizing sparkling sapphire eyes. A high-pitched but so damn adoring voice squeaked, "Hinamori-oneechan?"

Hinamori resisted the urge to say 'awww' at Toushirou's innocent child-like voice, even though he was just so adorable and so yummy that she could just eat him! "Yes, Toushirou?" Hinamori asked, pulling the child closer to her.

"Where is Hyousetsu-oniichan?"

Hyousetsu-oniichan?

Hinamori blinked, then the memories flooded back into her mind. Hitsugaya had to live by a fake identity temporarily, and he made use of the name Hyousetsu Arare, therefore the whole of Soul Society had to refer to him by using the name Hyousetsu Arare. She paused, then answered, "Ah…He said that he'll come later. He's still in the 10th Division."

Toushirou yawned and rubbed his sleepy eyes. "Oh…ok…" Heavy eyelids closed and Toushirou succumbed to sleep once more. Hinamori patted his head as she stood up and prepared to fix breakfast for herself and Toushirou.

＜ブリーチ＞

"Hinamori?"

There was a pause in answering. "Ah, Arare-chan?" Hinamori slid the door open and Hitsugaya noticed a change in his childhood friend. Her hair was neatly tied up in her usual bun and there weren't any more bags under her eyes. She was smiling sweetly and no longer looked as pale as she did the previous day. Perhaps she had finally recovered from her shock? If so, that was really great news to hear. "You've come to pick Toushirou-chan up?" Hinamori's voice snapped Hitsugaya out of his daze.

"Ah," Hitsugaya simply replied, allowing himself to enter the 5th Division office. What he saw right in front of him nearly made him completely lose his mind over the utter cuteness, but on the exterior, his composure was no different and his usual frown was etched there on his face. As much as he was resisting the adorability, Hinamori noticed his trembling clenched fists at his sides, and stifled her giggles at Hitsugaya's poor attempt to prevent himself from ruffling Toushirou's hair and embracing him. He had to admit, though, Toushirou was just so cute when he was practically nibbling on the sushi like a hamster with its sunflower seed. It would make his lazy pig of a fukutaichou go crazy and drag her Shinigami Women Association friends over to squeal like the fangirls they were, except for the well-composed Soifon who stayed loyal to Yoruichi.

Looking away from the sight briefly, Hitsugaya closed his eyes to get the picture out of his mind and looked back at Toushirou, who was still nibbling on his cold breakfast. Clearing his throat to regain his composure, Hitsugaya spoke quite audibly, "Oi, Toushirou, are you done yet? I'm on soutaichou's orders to give you a tour around Soul Society, and we can't spend all our time on Hinamori's breakfast." In actual fact, he wanted to show Toushirou around because: one, it would do him some good to get Toushirou away from the stupid fukutaichou of his, and two, it gave him many opportunities to bribe Matsumoto into doing the paperwork for him.

It was pure genius.

Toushirou gulped the sushi down his throat and burped a little. "Ok, I'm done!"

"Good," Hitsugaya mumbled, trying to hide the crack in his voice due to his attempt to not show that he found Toushirou cute. He turned to face Hinamori who was busy giggling away and glared at her. "We'll be on our way now, Hinamori. You'd better get some decent sleep or I'll personally deal with you when I'm done with Toushirou."

Hinamori giggled again. "Just come visit again, Arare-chan!"

Hitsugaya twitched before making his way out of the office, not exactly bothering about expressing his thanks to Hinamori for taking care of Toushirou, since he figured she really didn't do much, and on the other hand…he just wasn't the kind who would pop up and say thanks all of a sudden. Toushirou skipped behind Hitsugaya and waved goodbye at Hinamori after saying a warm high-pitched 'thank you', and followed Hitsugaya on the snow. Hinamori waved back and re-entered her office with a smile on her face.

"Ne, Hyousetsu-oniichan, where are we going now?"

Hitsugaya gave Toushirou a quick glance before he answered, "The 13th Division."

"Oh, ok. Are we gonna play there?"

Hitsugaya nearly cringed at the thought of Ukitake flooding the both of them with his stockless stock of all things sweet and tempting, not to mention fattening and prone to getting cavities. Toushirou would certainly label that as fun…but Hitsugaya found it ridiculous. Every time he accepted the candy treat from the sickly white-haired taichou, he would get nightmares either about drowning in thick chocolate fudge or growing up toothless and living only on congee. Sometimes, when he finally gained the courage to have a small lick of the sweet temptation, this completely wrong image of him as a baby licking on a lollipop and crying for more candy would form in his mind. He'd shudder and immediately toss the sweet away, safely assuming that he did not get his candy-immune jab. His blood just couldn't handle high blood sugar levels at all; otherwise he might get hallucinations of every single shinigami in Seireitei having lollipops for faces. Oh, the swirly pink and yellow colors of horror!

"Um, Ukitake-taichou has fallen ill so we're going there to pay him a visit, not to play," Hitsugaya half lied to Toushirou. It was true that Ukitake was sick…with daily tuberculosis. In fact, he was perfectly fine except for a few fits of bloody coughing and incessant vomiting that morning. Yup, he was totally fine. "When we get there, I expect you to control your…hyperness."

Toushirou put a finger to his mouth and tilted his head to one side in confusion. "Is there such a word?"

Hitsugaya nearly glared at the child, but prevented himself from doing so lest he scared the wits outta him. "…Never mind."

＜ブリーチ＞

"Ukitake-taichou!"

"Ukitake-taichou!"

The sickly tuberculosis sufferer sat up and smiled warmly at his third seats, watching them bicker about their importance to him once more. After a moment or two, Kiyone finally discovered Ukitake staring at them and blushed before she bowed. "Um…Ukitake-taichou, you have a visitor and-"

"It's two visitors, you ditz!" Sentarou exclaimed, trying to gain the glory.

"Settle down, settle down," Ukitake sighed light-heartedly. Really…if it were any other captain, these two would drive him to his grave. "So, who are these two visitors who have been so kind to visit me this early in the morning?"

"That would be Hitsugaya-taichou and…"

Before Sentarou could continue, Kiyone cut in, "Hyousetsu-taichou, you nincompoop, and the boy he's taking care of."

At that, Ukitake brightened up and his smile widened. Finally, he had the perfect opportunity to give those two kids a little treat or two. "Send them in, Kiyone."

"Hai, Ukitake-taichou!" Kiyone replied with a salute before rushing out of the 13th Division office with an angry and jealous Sentarou chasing after her.

Chuckling, Ukitake lied back down on the mattress on the floor and took deep breaths, trying to replenish his oxygen level to prevent himself from getting a relapse. Deep hazel eyes staring at the ceiling, Ukitake waited patiently for his guests to arrive. He looked over at the drawer of his desk and crawled over slowly to open it up and check for the stock of candy inside. Everything was nicely packed together. Good. Closing it, Ukitake went back and lied down once more, sighing contentedly. Any moment now, and he would be able to enjoy looking at the cute little faces of the two Toushirous munching nosily on the chocolate he specially got from Matsumoto the last time she went to the material world.

A knock on the door, and Ukitake called for whoever it was to open and enter. Hitsugaya slid the door open to let Toushirou hop in first before he entered the room and slid the door back. Concernedly, but not showing it, Hitsugaya sat down in front of Ukitake and asked, "So how are you, Ukitake?"

Smiling but not sitting up, Ukitake replied, "Much better. Thank you, Hyousetsu-taichou."

"Hn."

Toushirou leapt into Hitsugaya's lap, causing the latter to wince a little from the sudden weight, and to make it worse, Toushirou was jumping up and down excitedly. "Ne, ne, Juushirou-oniichan, do you have any candy? I'm hungry, I'm hungry!"

Closing one eye shut in pain, Hitsugaya slightly glared at the pain-inflicting Toushirou with his opened teal eye. "Toushirou..." he muttered out, his voice clearly showing anger and pain. "You just ate at Hinamori's and at the rate you're going…you're going to kill my legs."

Toushirou stopped jumping and giggled sheepishly before blushing and scratching the back of his head. "Oops…Sorry."

Rubbing his sore legs, Hitsugaya mumbled an incoherent sentence under his breath. Ukitake smiled widely at the sight. It was just so adorable. No, scratch that. Toushirou was so adorable with that child-like innocence and cheerfulness that Hitsugaya completely lacked for a young captain like him. "Well," Ukitake began as he opened the drawer and fished out a packet of milk chocolates. "As a matter of fact, I have some candy here, Toushirou. Would you like to have them?"

Toushirou's eyes sparkled and jumped up and down once more, not realizing that he was still on Hitsugaya's lap. "Yay! Yay! Arigatou, Juushirou-oniichan!"

Ukitake chuckled at both Toushirou's adorability and Hitsugaya's winces. "All right, all right, just settle down lest Hyousetsu-taichou loses his legs."

Toushirou jumped out of Hitsugaya's lap and gasped. "…Oops." Sweat dropping anime-style, Toushirou chuckled sheepishly again. "Eh, heh heh…Sorry, Hyousetsu-oniichan."

"…Hn."

Grabbing the chance, Ukitake walked over to the closet and pulled out a huge plastic bag about a head larger than he was. Toushirou was clapping his hands excitedly and jumping up and down again, while Hitsugaya could only gape with his silvery white eyebrows twitching simultaneously. Grinning from ear to ear, Ukitake pushed the bag closer to the two Shirous and stretched out his hand as if he were showing tourists an ancient artifact in a history museum. "Here, Hyousetsu-taichou, you may have all these delicious candy! Don't worry, I know you don't like sweet things, so I got candy that have low sugar level!" Hitsugaya resisted the urge to heave a sigh of relief, but Ukitake's next sentence shattered his sugarless dream. "Although, I must say, it says here that the candy is 99.9 percent full of calories…"

Hitsugaya Toushirou nearly passed out.

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A/N: I'm so sorry if it's short. I know Rukia's part of the 13th Division, but the reason why I didn't include her is because I'm mainly focusing on the captains and/or vice-captains instead, so that's why I didn't include Rukia. Like, for example, in the 4th Division-centric chapter coming up later (but not the next chapter), I'll only include Unohana and not Hanatarou. It's something like that.

Please review while I go kill Hinamori again. (grins evilly)