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Title: Treading Icy Waters
Author: windlily

Category: Bleach
Genre: Suspense/Adventure
Status: In Progress
Rating: T; Rated for some language, a bit of angst, a taste of violence, plenty of spoilers, and lots of unnecessary pain.

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Bleach characters or settings; they belong to Kubo Tite.
Summary: The board has been laid out. The pieces have been set and moved. The pawns are scattered across the floor, and Ichimaru’s fingers are wrapped around a stark white bishop. “That’s another check, little taichou.” The game has only begun.

Setting: This story follows the manga's timeline, disregarding the Bounto Arc completely. It begins directly before the Hueco Mundo arc. And now it's divergent, seeing as I'm taking so long to continue and all of the shinigami have run off to Hueco Mundo without my permission.

Story Teaser:

A sideswipe, a frontal thrust, a jump into the air punctuated by a clean cut through a bleached mask before a soft landing in yet another tree. That was three more down, but they just kept multiplying. Hitsugaya wasn’t sure how long he had been doing this. It felt like ages, but it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes. This was grunt work. It only took a single swipe to finish them two, three at a time.

Then, as if to mock his very thoughts, one of them, a particularly ugly thing with a flat head composed of almost nothing but mouth, jumped onto his back, clawing at his haori. Angry at his lack of attention, he hastily tore off the traditional clothing, hollow and all, and tossed it out of the tree. The hollow immediately let go, looking for something to break its fall. With an indifferent grunt, Hitsugaya launched himself after it, thrusting Hyourinmaru into its skull in midair before landing.

He landed well enough as any skilled shinigami could. It was not the landing that was the problem. The problem was what landed on him.

“Miss me, cutie?”

He felt the sudden pressure on his shoulders right as his face met dirt. Apparently not as up to wasting time as she had been before, the female Arrancar was just able to thrust something sharp and painful into his back before he could force her off. She landed lightly to his left as he stood up straight, wincing slightly.

He had no doubts that the scorpion-like tail protruding from just above her posterior was the released state of her zanpakutou.

“What was that?” he breathed, teeth clenched.

There was that awful chuckle again. “A gift.”

Hitsugaya felt his throat constrict. It wasn’t from his wounds. “From who?”

“From Tatsujin-sama, of course.” Her widening grin only served to confirm what he already knew to be true. “From Gin-sama.”

He had already figured it out from the message. He had already known. But actually hearing the name finally sparked the match he had been so meticulously keeping under lock and key. There was no turning back now. The match was aflame.

“Bankai!”

He flew forward, aiming Hyourinmaru directly at the Arrancar’s stomach. But if he had been expecting any reaction from her, it was most definitely not what he received.

As he closed in, inches from her stomach, she was laughing.

She was laughing.

“Ryuusenka!”

Blood spewed from the wound as her upper body lunged forward from the pain he knew her to be experiencing. A pain he intended for her to experience. The unrelenting, unforgiving ice flowed from Hyourinmaru, instantly encasing her before she shattered into a thousand frozen shards before him.

Slowly, stiffly, he released his bankai and sheathed Hyourinmaru. In the same steady fashion he bent down to pick up his haori. He winced at the slight rush of pain that shot through his backside as he did so, but caught himself before he did it again when he stood back up.

He looked over at the spot where the Arrancar had been obliterated, still littered with the bloody fragments. He felt the unrealness of the entire situation wash over him like a wave. The Tenth Division head sat down rigidly, still staring unseeing at the vacant spot before him.

She was laughing.