Isane's appointment with Hitsugaya-taicho - his annual check-up - brings up the usual concerns about the boy's health... and specifically his very slow growth.

tags: Kotetsu Isane, Hitsugaya Toshiro, Ukitake Jushiro (mentioned), Muguruma Kensei (mentioned), Ichimaru Gin (mentioned), medical appointment, aging, stunted growth

The first half of this OS leans on the notion that everyone in Soul Society who has white hair as their "natural" (not from growing old, and Ukitake is an exception too) hair color either was a quincy in the Living World or is descended from a quincy. They call themselves the Vergessenen and keep quiet about it. More details are in my OS "A Jaunt through the Towns of drifting spirits" (featuring Masaki in Rukongai).

I've already touched on the aging mechanics of Soul Society in "How the years take hold" (Shunsui after the last arc, after Yamamoto, Unohana and Jushiro's deaths).

A Study in Growth

Kotetsu Isane was in charge, generally, of all check-ups involving top officers. Captains and vice-captains, and she did see most third and fourth seats when she had the time – unless the problem was too grave, Unohana-taicho wasn't required to do the check-ups herself. The captain did sit in occasionally, but Isane knew she was trusted.

Today, it was Hitsugaya-taicho's scheduled check-up.

Those were normally every five years, but Hitsugaya-taicho's body wasn't yet an adult's, and therefore Unohana-taicho insisted on seeing the young captain every year. Others, such as the recently returned Visoreds, were expected to come more often too, at least until the fourth division could claim a good understanding of their baseline health – and Isane was both fascinated and terrified by the readings they'd gotten so far.

Ukitake-taicho, unsurprisingly, stopped by every three months.

Watching the man and his coughing fits, Isane couldn't help but feel sorry for him – she knew exactly how it felt, had gone through it in her early years too.

She, however, had had the chance of a cure, something Ukitake-taicho couldn't claim – his strain of the disease, what the fourth division called makkana hai no namida, "crimson lung tears", was much worse than atemdieb, the "breath thief", the illness vergessene people like Isane had to live through early on. The vice-captain of the fourth division did think someone like her had had a hand in Ukitake-taicho's current medication, because it had a lot in common with the cure for atemdieb... but it wasn't enough to truly eradicate his strain of the disease.

"Kotetsu-fukutaicho."

The vice-captain started, only to find that Hitsugaya-taicho – white hair too, but he didn't seem to share the silent acknowledgment that ran within the Vergessenen, and that made no sense because he couldn't have survived atemdieb without the cure and only other vergessenen knew about that, so they should have told him even if he'd died too young in the Living World to understand that they used to be quincies – standing by a few feet to her left.

Even Muguruma-taicho – one of the returning officers who had been experimented upon by Aizen a century ago – had made it obvious that he knew when he'd first been introduced to Isane. White hair in someone so young only meant one thing.

The new/former captain of the ninth division had looked at her, at her hair as pale as his, and something angry had crossed his gaze – but he hadn't said a thing or been hostile towards her, and Isane had decided not to pry.

Ichimaru Gin had reacted, too, with raised eyebrows and a smirk, and then had made it clear he didn't give a damn about the Vergessenen – which, considering everything that had happened since that first encounter, didn't really surprise Isane. While she couldn't pretend she understood what had been going on in the traitor's mind – why he'd betrayed them for Aizen, why he'd turned back on Aizen, why he'd died without ever explaining anything to anyone – it seemed obvious enough that he hadn't been one for community and bonding.

There were a handful of other vergessenen within the Gotei – a dozen and a half, perhaps? – and about as many non-vergessene relatives. From time to time, they gathered discreetly on their days off, somewhere in the first crown of Rukongai, usually where some other vergessenen lived – Isane had never told Kiyone about it, and sometimes her adoptive sister would ask joke that she was nowhere to be found on her days off. It, to be honest, was simply to be able to talk about the things they'd rather not mention out loud within Seireitei. Ichimaru had never come, and Isane didn't expect Muguruma-taicho to show up either.

Hitsugaya-taicho hadn't even seemed to know what had been hinted at when Isane had tried telling him about it.

"Oh, Hitsugaya-taicho! I didn't see you get in."

"...I'd noticed."

Isane almost felt embarrassed – then she reminded herself that despite his appearance, Hitsugaya-taicho was in his fifties and was a captain.

There was no shame in being surprised by a captain's approach.

"Well, then, sit down! You're familiar with the proceedings, by now."

The next twenty minutes went fast enough as they circled through everything that had to be checked: Hitsugaya-taicho was fine and healthy. His wound from Aizen's zanpakuto had finally disappeared – it had remained as a scar for several months, but now it was barely visible at all, and that only if you knew to look for it. He hadn't gotten sick once since the last check-up. He slept well and soundly. His powers were under control.

The only thing that was left...

"Let's see, here, can you please hold still, Hitsugaya-taicho? You know the scanner doesn't work well if you move too much, we'd need to do it again."

The boy frowned but did settle on the chair as a ring of blue light traveled from the metallic circle on the floor and up across his body.

Isane waited for the light to turn white – scan complete – and nodded at Hitsugaya-taicho.

"It's finished."

The boy relaxed – slightly.

They'd measured his height beforehand, and he'd winced when it had come out that he'd barely gained one centimeter since last year. They both knew not much would have changed, but the boy did seem to really want to grow up – which was understandable, he was well past the age at which the average soul reached bodily adulthood.

On top of that, staying a child for so long did tend to mess up your maturity level. No matter what he looked like, Hitsugaya-taicho still had more than fifty years of experience behind him, forty-seven of which had been spent as a shinigami – but at the same time, his body still operated on the hormonal balance of a pre-teen.

...Isane wouldn't envy the tenth division when their captain finally entered puberty.

The box next to the scanner spat out the results – the age of a soul's body could be identified, which was extremely useful in adjusting treatment, especially for injuries and long-lasting illnesses– which Isane perused quickly before handing them over.

Hitsugaya-taicho's eyes narrowed at the small scroll's summary of his readings.

"Tss, still twelve years old."

Isane shook her head with an understanding smile.

"Twelve years, seven months, and six days, actually. Last year, it was twelve and three months."

The boy almost glared at her.

"At this rate, I'll be grown-up around the time the Captain-Commander retires."

The vice-captain of the fourth let out a startled – a bit guilty, too – laugh.

"Oh, come on, Hitsugaya-taicho, don't say that! You do age slowly, that's true, but you have grown a bit over the years."

She looked through his file – Isane had only been a fourteenth seat when Hitsugaya Toshiro had entered Shin'o Academy, so she didn't know that from experience:

"See, your body was eight years and two months old when you passed your first check-up. It has aged four years and five months since then. You do grow up."

"I average just over one month per year, you mean. Forty-seven years, fifty-three months. That's not normal! When I joined Shin'o, I was eight years old, not only my body! But since then..."

Isane sighed and put down the captain's medical file.

"Hitsugaya-taicho."

She'd have to point out the obvious.

"You know why you age so slowly. Of course, part of it is because of your high reiryoku, it does tend to slow down maturity once it manifests, but even then... Well. I know Ukitake-taicho only reached bodily adulthood by the time he was forty-two, for example, but the way you are going, you might double that time, maybe triple it."

The boy grumbled something under his breath.

Isane only stared at him.

"Hitsugaya-taicho, if you want to grow up at a more normal pace, you have to calm down with the training. You exert way too much and it literally stunts your growth. It's not the first time we've talked about it, either. When you were younger and had to make sure you survived the next assignment, it was one thing, but now you've made captain. You are already stronger than anyone else in your division, you can lay back."

Two very different feelings seemed to battle over the boy's face, showing themselves in both a frown and a wince.

Eventually Hitsugaya-taicho's lower jaw settled into a stubborn arc.

"My duties as a captain..."

Isane cut him off before she could lose her nerve – she did need to work on that, she was so far from Unohana-taicho's poise...

"I didn't say you shouldn't train at all, or neglect your duties. I said you have to do less. I know you do jinzen several times a week, that you summon your bankai on the training grounds almost as often, and that you personally supervise the kido training of both your officers and unranked soldiers. It's too much and your body doesn't have any energy left to spare for growth."

The captain's voice was clipped as he retorted:

"It wasn't enough."

Isane almost asked what he meant by that – but she knew, of course she did.

Aizen, Hinamori-san, Aizen again and Hinamori-san again. His old captain, before that – and now they knew, now it was, if not common knowledge, at least shared amongst the top officers that Shiba Isshin had had an incident involving losing his powers while in the Living World, most likely because of Aizen once again, but the man was fine and also the father of Kurosaki Ichigo and had been present during the wrongly-named Winter War, but at the time...

She did get why the boy couldn't let himself get comfortable – not yet.

But it didn't change the fact that it was stunting his growth.

"There isn't another solution, though, Hitsugaya-taicho. If you do want to grow up..."

The captain stood up from his seat and bowed before she could finish.

"Thank you, Kotetsu-fukutaicho. I'll be sure to better watch my sleeping schedule."

And he left without another word.

Isane sighed and filed away the results of Hitsugaya Toshiro's last check-up.

If sleeping badly was the root of the boy's stunted growth, he'd have reached body maturity a decade back or so – he'd started swearing by the saying "children who sleep well, grow well" since not long after Shiba Isshin's disappearance, twenty-four years ago.

It hadn't helped much.