permafrost.

“My kind of rebirth tasted like blood.”

@hyouten​

Living on these streets, one would think he’d know them like the back of his hand. Still, Kenpachi manages to end up lost no matter where he goes, as he is now, aimlessly traversing the alleyways and derelict buildings. This place must be pretty far out from the Seireitei. Maybe he’ll have to sleep out in the woods tonight. His stomach grumbles, and he sighs. Reaching down, he pulls a strip of salted meat from his robes, devouring it whole.

The sound of a footstep reaches his ear, and he turns towards it. Seems that someone’s caught the scent of his food… Tilting his head at the man approaching, Kenpachi blinks once, twice. This man’s words and deeds will determine whether the hand at his side goes for the snack, or for the sword.

“you hungry too, then?”

To find a captain of all things all the way out here was, to him, an unexpected thing. Unwelcome too for despite the reform it was still a system Kusaka cared so very little for and he, ever paranoid, simply did not trust them. And perhaps he was painting them all (all but one) with the same brush, putting the sins of a few who were long dead on the shoulders of others, but inevitably he found he didn’t care.

That didn’t quell his surprise as other opened his mouth though, giving Kusaka paused as he blinked in turn, near baffled that food seemed to be the matter most pressing to the other.

       winter had always been a prelude to death, the frore end phase that paved the way towards renewal. those born of winter are tired, wise, and worn, having endured seasons past — a brilliant life. perhaps, as souls — spirits that had never known a human life — they knew most of such cornerstones ; it didn’t mean that death was the end, didn’t mean that all had been laid to waste by those who so carelessly declared it as such. an impossible second-chance was given, he only need the desire to embrace it fully. at the serac they should meet, and where hyorinmaru awaits.

       toshiro hitsugaya found happiness in winter, a pleasant stillness in the way everything seemed to freeze in a picturesque lambency. it’s not the end, he thinks, just the dawn of another beginning. in winter they had made their promise, sealing their fates together. they shared a frozen soul, but kusaka, in that moment, had been the bright wintry sun, a comfortable smile no one had given him before. and even, still, despite that half-century memory, he still rang true. a part of himself had died with him, and now it’d return. there’s no use reforging the past, only to keep moving forward, forever forward.

        “ we never wanted a memory of you, kusaka, ”   he offers candidly,  “ only you as you are now. ”   a dangerous statement that anyone with sense would know why that was tetchy to announce. kusaka was a threat, full of violent edges and a whiplash defiance that had turned on creation itself, reforged as aculeiform and stalacite. despite the closed-off walls often presented, so imposing most didn’t bother beyond a glance, hitsugaya wanted to badly to love entirely. to give himself recklessly to someone else and experience the happiness (wholeness) that accompanied. he’s given it to a small handful of others, could count them on one hand, and had been so badly hurt. yet he persisted, recompensed, and resumed. 

      their hearts had been syncopated once, rhythm still out of sorts, but it’d get there, he hoped. kusaka spoke of the past as though he desired to return to that state of innocence, that it’d been the extent of himself, now rendered derelict. what did they want from him? wasn’t the answer so simple? great crystalline head bowed, glowing in brilliant light before dissipating in the wind and retreating into his sword, leaving behind familiar brume. only the sound of their colloquy filled the space, the sound of hitsugaya’s heart beating on his sleeve. it thrums thunderously, loudly, finding its way in the dark expanse. bifid they had been rent, and now it was time to heal.

      hand that did not hold the other’s grasp let go of the hilt and reached to caress his cheek. huffing breath leaves as a tepid laugh. his fingers are cold, they’d always been, a mark that had rendered him an outcast that the other could only appreciate, brushing across the line of his jaw before settling to bear the weight of his brooding mind. it held there. kusaka’s fingers tremble and it breaks his heart. to quell his uncertainty.. he wish he had the power.  “ well, i found you already. it’s just time to look for yourself again. whatever form that may take, we’ll be besides you. ”   wistfulness morphs to acceptance, bittersweet in the manner his smile widens and eyes hood. palm slides to his nape to pull him close, foreheads adjoined.

       let us re-write this aubade.    shine brilliantly, like fireworks.

     “ to live, kusaka. to live. and maybe you’ll be happy again on the other side. ”

A memory would be safer, he nearly says. A memory would not have cut deep with sword that bound them, would not have hurt he who Kusaka had cared for most, above everything. Once, so long ago, he had been willing to shift everything he had striven towards for a snowy haired boy that had completed him. Had changed his dream so easily, so easily, until very nature of it had become something new and better.

That person was a better offer than the one he was now he knows, something terribly broken and far from whole. Too many missing parts, too many sharp edges ready to cut at the slightest move against. To dull those edges, to fill those parts-- could he? Likely not he knows and to try would be foolish, but perhaps those parts could be realigned. Not into a new picture, but into one which was at very least more comfortable and if not happier then at very least less intolerant of world around him. Piece by piece he might try, a complicated puzzle to spend rest of his life toiling through.

But not alone. Not alone with fingers seeking him, cool yet warm all at once in gentle caress that soothes brittle upset so surely, so deftly, with scarcely any effort at all. There is an ache in his heart, in his soul, in places filled by Toshiro and Hyorinmaru both, and for a life that has been wrought in pain and misery this is an alleviation of it. A gentle wash against, licking at frigid shores, at wounds long inflicted.

There is comfort in touch, in way foreheads brush and they find union though it is not enough, never enough as Kusaka reaches in earnest to draw younger near to chest in tight embrace, fingers curling into cloth that framed Toshiro in loose folds.

His heart had once been worn freely, openly, and kindly against all until it had clamped shut, a bitter vice to all say for he who had already long ago made home in it. It was an ugly thing no doubt, but one long since claimed.

         they had a life together, once. a whole future laid out before them, starry-eyed and perhaps naive. then fate had bisected the paths into a decisive fork, never to join again. it took forcing back into place to defy that cruel fate.  “ ‘getting by’ … that’s not living, and you know it. ”

        “ i know what he is to me, yes. ”   he replies quietly,   “ it’s something you don’t need to answer to me. only to yourself. ”   hitsugaya had already wrangled with his soul and resolve, grasping his future firmly, enough to reign the might of the king of beasts / it took the power of heaven itself to protect those he loved most. at the end of the day, he figured the secret to bankai was not in how powerful one had become, or what skills they needed to know beforehand, but rather if the soul decided : who are you and what will you do with this power? how will it grow? how will you grow?

        who do you want to be, sojiro kusaka? the draconic voice echos into the depths of the other’s heart. the theory would be that the final evolution would be a step towards a type of inner peace, to alleviate the wounds between three souls. from the ashes of what he’d once been ( extinguished so violently ), what would he build here, now? questions easier to ask than to answer, requiring the world from someone still holding on to his despair. hitsugaya can’t answer that, won’t answer that. however, he wants him to try — wants better for him.

       “ it won’t take a day. it’ll take as long as it must. ”   it’d labored him years when given a peacetime environment’s tranquil pace. it’s possible kusaka didn’t need that time as it’d been possible in others recently. he kneels and grabs the hilt of his blade and gestures for kusaka to do the same; the intent was to share his reiatsu with him and share a memory of when his bankai first awakened ( harnessing power on behalf of everyone, kusaka included / the haori he wore on behalf of all, a the honor shared ).  “ but i want you to walk this path with me. that was my dream, too. just like it’d been yours. ”

       sad smile forms upon thin lips, free hand covered the other’s in their joint hold of hitsugaya’s blade. a firm hold, yet soft ( ‘i’m here,’ as a fact, as fundamental as the elements, as unshakable ). for all such jade hues may appear forlorn, it was wistful, pleading — not for his sake, but for the sake of another’s happiness.   “ things may have changed, yet a promise is a promise. it was about going where the other could follow, right? ”   to gallantly traverse the sky together.   “ let hyorinmaru be the wings that get us there. ”

       what do you want, most of all? words bellow and reverberate. ice blooms from the four-point guard into a floral array. That justice you fought so hard for?

It feels like a trial, one where his heart and soul each personified by respective parts turned judge and jury both upon him and he, witless and distrustful, waited for the executioner to rear head too as it had before. As it had tried to do so, so many days since only to fail each and every time.

Executioner does not come though, death’s scythe failing to seek his neck this day. Even so it feels no less like interrogation. 

They ask him questions he cannot answer, questions to which he has no words to offer in return and he thinks they must know this. At the very least frozen dragon must bound as he was to Kusaka’s soul, another part wrought and so, tiredly, he wondered what they wanted? Answers he could not give of course of the words were unformed, stuck, lodged like wraiths in turmoil that wrecked him piece by piece, inch by inch until cracks, deep and true, spiraled through the ice. Thoughts then no more than disorder, than upset knells of chaos as he pulls at threads and searches for order, as he takes words of others and hopes to find something in them.

He does, and he does not.

His blink is slow, tired, watching, listening, following suit as Toshiro kneels, as Kusaka stares for perhaps a beat too long. “That person is dead.” Because, in all the ways that matter, he was. The boy he had once been had been murdered then, and for all the Oin had resurrected something the Kusaka that remained was little more than broken parts put together so poorly that fractious edges caught and hurt with each shift. Toshiro had been right for what he was doing in so many ways what he was doing was not living, was instead merely the act of surviving.

For so long there had been nothing else but surviving, yet he sees in sad smile as he kneels to join, to settle hand also upon blade-- as he feels to the chilled grip against him, secure in a way nothing else in world really was anymore-- that there is this. That there is him, and thought was crushing for all it was not new, the weight of it set within his soul.

The longing in Toshiro’s eyes perhaps more so, that desire for something better is a burden even heavier as he searches in Kusaka for those things. As if he is somehow an answer. As if he, somehow, is the balm for all Kusaka knows he is surely the ailment.

“It’s too late for that, things are too different.” For Kusaka could no more follow Toshiro’s path than Toshiro could his, and in the end he thinks it is almost better that way-- or perhaps, with quiet sadness, he is simply glad it was his path that had deviated so violently rather than the alternative.

Such was the cascade of icy majesty though, boom of words, echo that resonated deep to core. And it asks, as it has been asking for so long-- what did he want? Who did he wish to be?

       deep in a cave at the outskirts of a countryside, there lay a crystalline beast, boreal sovereign, the mightiest of all. he remained dormant, awaiting its master’s call. in this cave, where its frosted head should rise and unfold wings of winter gales. winter’s son unsheathes its blade, pointing forth, and emanating essence outwards. brisk winds conjure, swirling around his stance as his power gathered, dancing with his feet and coattails.

      “ this is … ”

       overflowing waters crash upon the shoreline, raging storms swirling and swallowing whole. there is a way to command fundamental forces, so powerful and absolute, essential and eternal. as ancient as the world which exists, as life and death. raw, forbidding, unleashed. Ii forms as draconic armor, forged of ice, with a lotus woven crown. it forms in the blistering cold that punishes the unwitting. it condemns from an frozen throne high above. in their hands they reign over this tempest of a sword — of a soul — in equal measure.

       their shared serpent of winter manifests, in an outward surge of frigid reiatsu, raising his head above them both in a fantastic roar and frostbitten breath. stalagmites of the cave freeze over with chilled coating, blizzard winds whipping about dust and snow, cracking thin sheets of moisture that had covered the mouth of the cave. this was not their inner-world. no, this was reality, and hyorinmaru brought forth in real time.

      “ … bankai. ”

       to fully become one with the zanpakuto, unleashing all the night one had at once. it’s taught on paper that it exists. however, to unlock it was an entirely different matter. hitsugaya has been a genius, but even then it’d taken years to unleash, let alone master. to this day, hyorinmaru was only ever restraining itself for the sake of its partner. and here kusaka was at last, after so many decades, joining them at the pinnacle. there was no way he wasn’t able to learn this power as they were so equal in potential.

      “ bringing him out is the first step, but i’ve just done it. that’s the easy part. the true test comes in training with him. ”   a pause.   “ honestly, i don’t know how it’ll express itself in you. to tell the truth, my bankai isn’t its complete form … ”   there’s a tinge of embarrassment there, but it’s candid enough.   “ and with everything going on, you should know it. it’s your right to know. ”   he thinks once upon a time, during a different life, the other would have known the skill by now, have mastered it too. and so it was his right, not as someone who once aspired to be a soul reaper, but as someone with a right to wield this enormous power against what had once been declared against him. the power that had always been his own.

     “ think back to when you first reached out to him and learned his name and what that meant for you. ”    he flipped his sword and stabbed it into the ground.    “ what is he to you? ”

@hyouten​ ❄️ closed starter.

He had agreed to accompany because inevitably winter’s lion is hard to deny, because there was little else to do in the monotony of his life, because against those eyes so many saw as cold Kusaka was helpless really. Toshiro looked for hope where the world had been unkind, searched for his own peace and would carve it carefully, thoughtfully, until his bones might settle into it contentedly. He looked at Kusaka too in hope, in something Kusaka was ill suited to truly know, and something fundamental in him thawed each and every time.

Toshiro deserves better he knows. Better than everything Kusaka has done, everything he might yet do if world proves itself too unjust once more, but as he knows so too does he relent against those eyes once more. Too hard to deny. Too impossible to ignore other half of him wrought of frost and duty.

So he had obliged quietly, without fuss, had followed and watched as blade to match his own was drawn, as air chilled until even his skin prickled with it, head turning so good eye might witness in full the summoning of he who tied them both in way more fundamental than any other.

Hyorinmaru was the tether that bound their souls, that brought together two halves to make one whole-- or perhaps he had tried once, so long ago. Tried, until blade had slipped within Kusaka’s breast as if to severe that very thing until cycle might have began anew many lifetimes away. Fate had done as it had wont though, had tipped scales until they stood here, now, the three of them. Together for all odds had never been in their favour, perhaps never would be. And he should be glad he knows, should be glad they are here at all when once that had been denied, but as great dragon watched gaze averted, falling to Toshiro as he spoke.

A quiet evasion, one that echoed a dull sadness from his soul that he knows was not his own for all it was so familiar-- more familiar than anything else of course, for as Hyornimaru was of Toshiro so was he of Kusaka.

“I’ve always gotten by.” More than, because he knows as well as Toshiro that had he had this then he would have won. He would have won, and of that there could be no denying when he had come so very, very close without it.

But this too is evasion, and Toshiro was a dogged sort when he got a bone in his mouth. Asking difficult questions Kusaka did not wish to answer, did not know how in the end for nagging fear of rejection crawled against the confines of his ribs, scraping its mark against the rest of the tally hraboured within his bones.

@hyouten​ / random.

“Oh hey, it’s been a minute.”

“How have you been?”

Distrust, as ever, sat heavy within breast. A cold snap of winter licking at heels, ever present reminder that no one could be trusted-- that all of them, every last one, would set themselves to him if only given the opportunity.

Yet had she not proved different each opportunity? Had she not, impossibly, slipped by softly and deftly through crack of icy wall to make something of herself present where but one had managed before so very, very long ago? She was an anomaly, a frustrating one, and to any other he might have been little more than ignorant at best but instead he meets her with only quiet deflation.

This angry kid came out of Hueco Mundo, without any training beyond the academy, and is like. Toting around what’s noted to be a captain level strength. Without a bankai.