Stronger than ice

The juuban-tai taicho looked up to the sky. It was a nice day, not too sunny, but no rain either. All in all, it was the perfect day for a long and hard work out session. The white haired boy looked back to his squad and sighed. You would have thought that after many years as the squad's taicho, their sword skills would be better.

"Look here guys! Now I will demonstrate some sword techniques that I want you to learn." Hitsugaya said with a smirk. There was a slight pause, while the sub-ordinates looked at each other with horror. Whenever the taicho smirks like that they know he's going to drill them. And drill them hard.

"Matsumoto, come here and help me demonstrate!" The fukutaicho had tried to get away, and when she heard the taicho say here name, she stopped dead in her tracks, and laughed a nervous laugh. "Ahh…Ano… Taicho, I just remembered that I have a lot of paperwork to get done." The strawberry-blond woman suddenly disappeared. "MATSUMOTO!" The tensai yelled, with an annoyed vain pulsing on his forehead.

Ichigo POV

The orange-haired teenager looked around at the rows slowly retreating a few steps. Toshiro had just announced that he needed a volunteer to help him demonstrate some techniques.

Why do they do that? Toshiro just wanted a volunteer. His just a kid after all, how had could it be? Ichigo stepped forward and said, with a smirk: "I'll do it." All the others around him looked at him strangely. What the heck. They seem frozen. Is something wrong?

The substitute-shinigami stepped forward, and drew his sword, and looked at the little kid in front of him. Why does everybody seem so scared of this kid? "Well, taicho, let's get this over with." Toshiro only smirked, while he drew his sword and placed himself in a fighting position. Ichigo charged first, the sword pointing straight out from his right side. When he's in striking distance from the white-haired boy he lifted his sword and let it fly down over the short boy's head. The boy simply lifted his hand and stopped the sword dead in its tracks. Toshiro looked up for a short second before he gave a little push and the taller man's sword was thrown backwards. Ichigo griped around his sword and charged again, and again, and again, but every single time Toshiro managed to dodge it or block it. On the other hand he did nothing more either. Just made sure he's not hit, and gave a little charge every now and then. Is this really all the well-known tensai can manage? Mere blocks! This is not impressive at all, and kind of boring. I had hoped for something more.

Ichigo went in for another attack, but suddenly he felt his sword almost slipping out of his hands as it's forced to the grown. What the hell? He stopped my sword by just stepping on it? And how the heck did he get this close to me? He was just over there!

Hitsugaya Toshiro' POV

"That's it everybody! Nothing harder than that, now I would like you all to group up and try for yourselves. And remember to start slow." The young taicho stepped of the taller man's sword and placed his back to its resting place on his back. He sighs once more. Why can't they just do as told and practice harder. Then maybe… It's no use thinking like that…

"Yo, Toshiro" The tensai was pulled out of his thoughts "What?" And it is Hitsugaya-taicho to you. "I would have thought that a taicho would have a higher skill level than that. I mean, shouldn't you have been able to do more than just block me?" As the words slipped his mouth the tensai starts smirking, as he saw the reaction to his sub-ordinates. All the people in the garden stopped dead in their tracks as they looked horrified at the orange-haired man. While they were standing there they could hear the people around them whispering. "What did he just say?" "How can he say that?" "Poor guy, he's in for it now…"

Hitsugaya just smirked and says "So, you want me to go a 100%? Fine, we still have to go through the harder parts as well." He stepped back to the open area and drew his katana. "Shall we begin then? And one rule. No bankai, only technique!" the tensai took a step forward and suddenly disappeared. The next thing they knew, his katana's at Ichigo's throat.

Ichigo's POV

"Wha..What the hell?" Ichigo's eyes were wide in shock. How the hell did he manage to attack so quikly? "You can stop for a second and watch us. These techniques most of you have yet to learn, but you should watch none the less. When this is done you will go back to your training. Understood?" Every single one of the people present said "Hai", they could even hear the voice of a certain strawberry-blond, and a slight hai from the peach girl. "Shall we start Kurosaki?" Ichigo, still in amazement, managed to nod. This will defiantly get harder. Toshiro took a step back and swung Hyorinmaru to a resting place with the tip slightly pointing downwards in front of him. Ichigo just drew his sword and held it out to the side once more. Okay, Toshiro let me see what you got…

He never managed to end his thought. The second Toshiro saw that Ichigo was ready he charged at him, given Ichigo barely enough time to raise his sword to protect himself. He tried to take a step back to stabilize himself, but to no use. The power of the strike from the white-haired boy pushed him several meters backwards. When he stopped, Ichigo looked at the other male in front of him. At least he isn't charging for the moment. This means that it's my turn. Ichigo preceded, his sword swung in a half circle from his side to the front. He knew that the katana would hit some part of the target, weather Toshiro blocked or not. A fraction of a second, before it would have made contact Toshiro disappeared. The next second Ichigo could see a white and black figure on the top of his katana. Ichigo froze and looked at the taicho squatting on his sword. Huh? Toshiro had Hyorinmaru pointed at the taller man's throat. "You wanted to go all out. Did you not?" "uhm.." Ichigo was still baffled after the bold move and could not form a sentence. Not before long Toshiro moved again. He lightly pushed away from the katana, took a little flip, and ended up behind Ichigo with his katana at the other man's back. "Should we say that we are done for today? I need to get my men back to training." Toshiro placed Hyorinmaru on his back and turned to his sub-ordinates, while Ichigo still stood still and tried to figure out what had just happened. How the hell did he managed that? Just a little while ago he barley charged at all, and now he controlled the whole fight. "You want me to go a 100%?" that's what he said but…

"Toshiro. You said you would go a 100%, but did you?" The young taicho turned around, with a little smirk on his face. "Of course not, do you think I would have done that to you?" His face changed and became serious. "You might be incredibly strong; Kurosaki, but you have little control, and very little technique. There's no way I would go all out on you, not while your sword skills are like this." Ichigo listened baffled. "What the…" Toshiro hurried to continue. "All I'm saying is that your fighting would be a lot better if you learned how to do it." Guess he's right. My technique is not all that much.

Hitsugaya Toshiro's POV

The tensai had just turned to his group again, and noticed someone who was not supposed to be there. "You can come and talk to me, Hinamori," he said, and the raven-haired girl stepped up shyly. "How long have you known that I have been here, Shiro-chan?" she asked. "Baka, since you answered the question before my last fight with Kurosaki. You do realize that I can make your voice out, no matter how many other noises there are?" He stared at her for a while, and realized she was blushing. Why is she blushing? I just told her that I would recognize her any whe…. Ohhh, baka, makes me blush as well. And that was just what he did as well. He dropped his head to make sure no one would see it. Just as his head dropped he noticed a certain busty woman coming their way. Kuso, if Matsumoto sees us now, blushing and all, she will definitely never let me forget it. What should I do to keep her away? The young taicho thought hard, and just when his fukutaicho came he got an idea. "Hey guys what are you doing?" Without lifting his head he replied, before Hinamori could make it any worse. "Have you finished all your work for the day, Matsumoto?" He did not get an answer right away so he continued. "If I find out that you came here to slack off without being done with today's work, I will remove all the sake from the office and your room. And you will find my unfinished documents on your desk." You could see all the color escape from the strawberry-blond haired woman as she started to back away. "I just remembered that I have something to do. Sayonara!" With that she turned and ran away.

After a little time they could both look up again and looked at each other for a little way. They had talked a bit, but did not come back to what had happened just a few minutes ago. Suddenly they were cut short by a hell moth flying into the garden and to the terrace. What? A hell moth? There is not supposed to be any meetings in a while. What can this be? "Sumimasen Hinamori, looks like I have to go. Talk to you later. The next second he was sprinting to the meeting room. What may have happened? Why are we in need of an emergency meeting now?