Chapter Text
The cold and a throbbing pain in his head — not sharp, but persistent, the kind that makes it impossible to focus. Toshiro opened his eyes. Above him was the sky. Beneath him, stone. Around him, the heavy silence of the living world.
He lay there for about five minutes, feeling Hyorinmaru’s strange behavior within him. He stood up without haste, checking his body. Everything was in place. His spiritual pressure — reiatsu — was stable. His control, absolute. Toshiro touched his head and looked at his hand, which was covered in blood.
"Where is that Hollow?" he muttered under his breath. "Did it escape with its lackeys?"
Toshiro slowly pulled out his Soul Phone, scanning his surroundings in hopes of catching even a glimpse of something that could pinpoint the creature's location.
"Seireitei, this is Taicho Hitsugaya. I need a location update on the Hollow," he spoke calmly into the receiver. "Seireitei?"
"It's broken," Hyorinmaru's voice rang out. "And right now, you look like an old man talking to a brick."
"I can see it's broken," Toshiro replied, lowering the device. "I was just hoping it still worked. With all our technological advancements, how can we still not manage a decent communication network? I need to get in touch... How did we even end up here?" he asked Hyorinmaru, gesturing to the unfamiliar surroundings.
"We are not 'there,'" the zanpakuto answered. The voice was calm, but lacked its usual confidence.
"I know," Toshiro said. "I noticed we're on the other side of the city. What was that? It felt like some kind of small Garganta. It devoured that minor Hollow, and then we were here."
"By 'not there,' I mean we are not where we used to be, in every sense. Master, the reiatsu here is different... everything feels entirely different."
"Yes, I understand you. Then, I suppose, we head to Urahara? He might be able to establish contact and check where that monster went."
"You aren't listening to me," the spirit of the blade grumbled, and Toshiro felt a slow, uneasy stirring in his mind.
"I am listening to you," Toshiro nodded and instantly vanished into shunpo.
He leaped from rooftop to rooftop, fighting off a wave of mild nausea brought on by his head injury. All the while, the dragon kept up a quiet, rhythmic grumbling about overly proud taicho who refused to take advice from wise, ancient entities.
Reaching Urahara’s shop and dropping down to the ground, Toshiro immediately spotted two very familiar children sweeping the entrance and bickering with each other.
"Is Urahara-san in?" Toshiro asked as he walked past them.
"Ye-eah..." the kids replied hesitantly, lowering their brooms to stare at him.
"Good," he nodded, heading inside. Yet, a single thought lingered in his mind: Those kids are strange. One moment they're grown up, the next they're hitting each other with brooms again.
Stepping into the shop, Toshiro looked around with a fresh wave of confusion. When had Kisuke found the time to rearrange everything? Did the man truly have nothing better to do? As he looked around, he noticed a black cat watching him with an inquisitive expression.
"Yoruichi-san," Toshiro said, offering a slight, respectful bow.
"Look what the tide washed in during midday rest."
The voice was familiar. All too familiar. Urahara Kisuke stepped out from his back room and took his place behind the counter, snaps-unfurling his striped paper fan. He regarded his guest with genuine curiosity.
"Urahara, my phone is broken, and I can't contact the Seireitei. I need to track down a Hollow. More precisely, I need to check if it's still here or if it already fled back to Hueco Mundo," Toshiro began.
"Pardon me..." Kisuke drawn out, tilting his hat. "But who exactly are you?"
Toshiro stopped, locking his gaze onto the man. He didn't tense. He didn't react sharply. He just stared.
"You're mocking me," Toshiro said evenly, shifting his gaze from Urahara to Shihoin, who was slowly rising from her spot to move toward the counter.
"No," Urahara replied, shaking his head. His casual smile vanished instantly, replaced by a deadly serious expression. "Absolutely not."
They stared at each other in total silence until Hyorinmaru finally decided to break the vacuum.
"Master," he spoke softly. "Have you been listening to me at all? Was I wasting my breath? Something is wrong here. Completely wrong."
Toshiro sighed internally. What could be wrong? He's just messing with me. Meanwhile, Urahara continued to study him with an intensely intrigued, puzzled look.
"No, it's something else. Change your form," the dragon added. "Now. Back to your old one."
"I won't. I hate that look," Toshiro snapped back mentally.
"You do, but someone else absolutely adores it," Hyorinmaru countered.
"Hyorinmaru!" Toshiro growled in his mind.
"Oh, stop it. You're a grown man, not a child," the dragon chuckled, but his tone instantly sharpened again. "Change your form, and you'll finally begin to understand what I've been trying to tell you."
Toshiro closed his eyes for a fraction of a second — and let his power contract. His form shifted. Shorter stature. The long-forgotten sensation of a body that the world had always perceived differently than he did himself.
Urahara blinked. Then, his smile widened significantly.
"Ah... well, now it makes sense," he murmured. "Taicho Hitsugaya. I recognized you by your reiatsu, I just couldn't make the pieces fit. Neat trick," Urahara said, clapping his hands together and glancing at Yoruichi as if to say, Did you see that?
Toshiro looked at him coldly.
"You didn't know I could do that? Is this a joke?"
"No, I didn't," Urahara waved his fan again. "And that raises a much more interesting question: if I don't know, does the Gotei 13?"
Hyorinmaru didn't hesitate:
"Lie. Because nothing here is right."
Toshiro lowered his eyes to his sandals, then to the wooden floorboards.
"No," he said quietly. "No one knows. It’s... my secret."
Urahara stared at him a few seconds longer than necessary, evaluating the captain's state.
"Hmm," he drawn out. "I see."
But his eyes betrayed him: he didn't see or understand a single thing.
"So, shall we start from the moment you arrived at my humble shop?" Kisuke folded his fan and retrieved a laptop from beneath the counter. "First, restore communications and find the Hollow?"
"No. It has probably already returned to Hueco Mundo while we were sorting things out."
"Yes, looks like it. I don't see any other Hollows within a two-kilometer radius," Urahara murmured, checking his radar, his fingers clicking rapidly across the keyboard. "Oh, wait, there's one. Faint, standard... And it's gone. According to the radar, Kurosaki and his crew are handling it. Anything else? I can fix your connection now if needed, I have a spare phone."
"No, I'm returning to the Seireitei," Toshiro said, stepping away from the counter. "Thank you for your help, Urahara-san. Yoruichi-sama," he bowed slightly and turned toward the exit, muttering under his breath: "There will be answers there. Or just more questions."
"I don't like this," Hyorinmaru voiced. "But we have no choice."
Toshiro placed his hand on the hilt of his sword.
"Senkaimon, open."
A rush of cold air. A sharp flash of pain in his head. A perfect, far too clean silence.
Toshiro stepped onto the white tiles, each footstep echoing in his temples with a heavy, steady rhythm. Everything looked exactly where it was supposed to be. And at the same time — it didn't. The building to his left seemed lower... it stood alone, lacking the additional wings built for the expanded divisions. The markings on the pavement were older; the walkways, wider. Unnecessary grandeur instead of military efficiency.
The air lacked that dense, suffocating weight of spiritual activity he had grown accustomed to over the last few decades. Yet, Toshiro’s face remained as it always was: cold, level, controlled.
"Steady," Hyorinmaru whispered softly. "I see the anomalies too. But this world is still... similar. On the surface, at least."
"Similar? It's entirely different! Where are the other buildings, the barracks, Central 46? Why is it even here? It was supposed to be relocated..." Toshiro caught himself, silencing his thoughts for a moment. "Now I understand what you meant. We need to observe further."
"Oh, look who it is!" a familiar, breezy voice suddenly called out. "Hitsugaya-kun, you look like you were dropped headfirst from a bell tower today. Ooh, new robes? Aren't they a bit too big for you?"
Kyoraku Shunsui. In his unmistakable pink-and-black haori. Both eyes intact. No scars. No shadow of a brutal war clinging to him. Lighthearted. Far too lighthearted for a man who, in Toshiro's future, held the entire Gotei together.
Toshiro stopped, showing neither surprise nor pain. Kyoraku, meanwhile, carelessly joked about a meeting, mentioning that Yamamoto had gathered everyone again due to some unforeseen events.
A sharp ache spiked through Toshiro's head. Remembering his last conversation with this man, Toshiro automatically replied:
"Yes, Shunsui. I remember. We'll be there. Just let my head clear first."
Shunsui stopped dead in his tracks. He stared at him much more intently from beneath the brim of his straw hat.
"'Shunsui,' is it? Toshiro... did you finally decide to call me by my name? And where exactly is it that 'we' are going together?"
The tone was innocent, but a cold click echoed in Toshiro's mind. He felt his dragon's warning.
"Concussion," Toshiro corrected quickly, covering his slip. "I might talk nonsense. Don't mind me."
Kyoraku laughed — genuinely, without a shred of suspicion.
"Ah, well, that's alright then. Let's go, Yamamoto-san is waiting."
He strode forward. Yamamoto? Toshiro questioned internally.
"It's not him. Or rather, it is him, but a different version. Are we in the past? Is that even possible?" Hyorinmaru whispered.
Toshiro didn't even let out a sigh. He knew that above all, he needed to report to his own squad. A meeting called by Yamamoto... how long had it been since he attended one of those? Ghosts of a bygone time — that was what he saw around him as he walked toward the Tenth Division.
Toshiro moved slowly, weighing every pro and con. The division headquarters was significantly smaller than he remembered. The atmosphere, quieter. There were far fewer people. Everything looked as though it had rolled back decades.
He entered his office almost soundlessly. Toshiro scanned his "not-quite-his" office until his eyes landed on her.
Matsumoto Rangiku. She was sitting over a stack of documents. Serious, disciplined. Her hands were neatly folded on the desk.
"Taicho, I’ve finished the paperwork. May I be excused? I need to leave a bit early today," she spoke, not even lifting her eyes from the reports.
Toshiro froze near the threshold, at a complete loss for words. His face remained a mask of calm, but his soul was in a state of sheer panic.
"Matsu... moto?" he called out cautiously.
She snapped her gaze up, and her eyes widened instantly in alarm.
"T-Taicho?! You're... hurt! There's blood on your head! And... your uniform?!"
She stood up abruptly, ready to rush forward and support him. He lifted a hand — a quiet but definitive gesture. She obeyed, stopping in her tracks. Her movements became overly cautious, like someone afraid of accidentally shattering a fragile object.
"It's fine, Matsumoto," he said evenly. "Just a concussion. Nothing serious."
She tilted her head slightly, inhaling the air. Only now did she notice the subtle shifts: his gaze was far deeper, his voice more leveled. He held his distance not with harshness, but with a strange, gentle softness. There was much less irritation in his silence than usual. It baffled her, but only for a moment. She merely added softly:
"Are you truly alright, Taicho? You... sound a bit different today. It must hurt terribly, doesn't it?"
She offered a faint smile — that quiet, weary smile Toshiro hadn't seen on her face in many years.
"She's strange here," Hyorinmaru noted.
"Tell me about it. Did you see how she jumped, and then stopped as if she hit a wall? You say this is the past, but which one? I don't ever remember her working like this without me standing over her soul," Toshiro answered the dragon mentally.
"You should see Taicho Unohana. And... Yamamoto-Genryusai has called you to a captain's meeting. The others have already left for the First Division," Matsumoto said, interrupting his internal dialogue.
"Right," he replied curtly. "I'm going."
He walked past her. She watched him leave — intently, anxiously, but absolutely convinced that the boy before her was her captain, merely injured and exhausted.
Toshiro didn't look back.
"Steady," Hyorinmaru said in a quiet, warm tone. "We will figure this out."
Toshiro tightened his grip on the hilt of his sword and stepped out into the corridor. The world around him was familiar. Far too familiar. And at the same time — entirely foreign.