Hey all! I had intended to get this done for Hitsukarin week, but it's like a month late... Oh well.

I really wanted to write this because it's kind of a prologue to one of my future stories (I haven't started writing it yet and it probably won't happen for a while, so don't hold your breath.) The current working title is the Hollow Child and you can read about it on my profile in the future stories section. The story won't focus on Toshiro and Karin, but they will play and important part. In addition, the events of this one-shot begin a universe that allows for a lot of Hitsukarin fluff even without the long story, so I want to post this and open up those opportunities.

Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach

Karin was running as fast as possible, faster than she could in her human body. A familiar red spirit ribbon was leading her way, but it was fading. The spirit energy, usually one of the strongest in the world, was gradually disappearing. Karin prayed that she wouldn't be too late.

She had felt it while eating dinner: a sudden clash of two incredibly powerful forces, one of which was startlingly familiar. His combatant was unfamiliar to her, but she made note of his spiritual signature so she would recognize him if she ever encountered them. This attacker had already disappeared and left the familiar soul fading on the cold asphalt.

Finally, when the spirit ribbon was to light-colored for Karin's comfort, she saw him. He was almost unrecognizable. Where there should have been the stark contrast of black and white in his uniform, almost all the fabric was colored a deep, dark red that pooled onto the ground. His zanpakuto had changed into a shape of a normal sword, something Karin had never seen before since it had a unique color and guard shape even when it wasn't released. He was lying face down in a display of powerlessness she had never thought him capable of.

"Toshiro!" She cried, running up to that frail form.

When Karin looked at him up close, her worst fears were confirmed. The crimson liquid was still gushing out of his wounds, the red puddle on the ground still expanding. A person could only loose a certain amount of blood before they passed away, and Toshiro was getting dangerously close to that point. His soul would probably fade away if something wasn't done soon.

Karin kneeled in the pooling blood, uncaring if it would stain her clothes. She pushed two fingers into the side of the white-haired Soul Reaper's throat. After a few minutes that felt like felt like an eternity, she felt a pulse: faint and fading fast, but still there. She breathed a sigh of relief. So long as he wasn't dead yet, there was still hope.

Karin looked down at the gaping wound in his back. Karin had seen a lot of wounds working in the clinic, but this one was particularly gruesome. Considering where the blood was coming from, it must have gone straight through his chest. If she didn't do somethings soon, he might bleed out.

Not bothering to worry about modesty, Karin moved the scraps of his Soul Reaper uniform out of the way. She ripped his sleeve off and pressed it onto the wound in order to stop the bleeding. She knew that it wasn't perfect, but she didn't have access to a full first-aid kit, so it was the best she could do.

It wasn't working. The red liquid continued to flow out of his body at a steady pace. Frustrated, Karin flipped him over so he was on his back and she could look at the other side of his wound. She treated it the same as the back, removing the fragments of his clothes and putting pressure on the wound. She put all her weight onto the wound, and eventually she noticed that the bleeding had stopped.

Now that the immediate danger had passed, Karin lifted one of her hands to get her soul phone. Her father had gotten it for her as soon as she decided to start fighting as a Soul Reaper and insisted that she carried it around at all times. Usually she would be annoyed about his overprotectiveness, but this time she was grateful. She quickly dialed one of the preprogramed numbers and held it up to her ear.

It rang. And rang again. For a moment, Karin was afraid that he wouldn't pick up, until she heard a click followed by an overly cheerful "Hello! You have reached Kurosaki clinic! How may we be of service?"

Karin opened her mouth to answer, but the only sound that escaped for a few moments was a choked sob. Karin was suddenly conscious of tears rolling down her face. She removed the phone from her ear for a moment in order to wipe them away. I mustn't cry, she thought, I'm stronger than this, and Toshiro needs me.

"Daddy?" she whispered when she put the phone back at her ear, "can you come help me? It's Toshiro, he's been hurt pretty badly…"

Isshin Kurosaki showed up quickly with Urahara in tow. As soon as they saw him, Isshin ran to check his vitals and Urahara pulled out some machines. From the look on her father's face, Karin could tell it wasn't good.

"We're going to have to move quickly," Isshin explained hurriedly, "I don't think he'll be able to maintain this form for much longer. Do you have a Gigai ready at your place?"

Urahara looked at his machine, which Karin assumed was scanning Toshiro. "I do, but I'm not sure a normal gigai would help. He's fading fast, and I don't think he'd be able to maintain enough spirit energy to keep himself together even with the help of a gigai."

"Wait, are you saying you can't do anything?" Karin cried. "He's our friend, we have to be able to do something!"

"I didn't say that," Urahara interjected. "Trust me, I don't want to see Captain Hitsugaya die either. I said a normal gigai wouldn't be able to help him. A specially modified gigai made by yours truly, on the other hand, might work."

"Please!" Karin ran up to and grabbed the shopkeeper. "Please, you have to make him better! No matter what it is, you have to try it!" Her vision was starting to become blurry, and Karin realized that she was tearing up again.

Urahara looked down and the fallen captain again. "First, we need to move him to my shop. Tessai will be able to make a barrier that will stabilize him while I finish making the gigai. While that's happening, I'll explain all the side effects and potential consequences. Trust me, if this wasn't the only way I wouldn't be suggesting it."

Karin sat outside the glowing dome surrounding Toshiro. Tessai had put up the barrier to keep Toshiro from losing to much spirit energy, and now all they could do was wait until Urahara came in with the gigai. It was frustrating to be unable to do anything, but Karin couldn't help it. She didn't know enough kido to help Tessai with the barrier. Although she did know a lot of first aid, it was better to let her dad work on Toshiro right now. And she certainly didn't know enough about gigai technology to help Urahara. The only other people in the shop were Toshiro, Jinta, and Ururu. The latter two were trying to stay busy sweeping the front of the shop, but were often sneaking worried glances at Karin and Toshiro.

Karin pulled her knees closer to her chest. Damn it, why am I so useless? I try to be mostly self-sufficient and not worry anyone, but when it really counts, all I'm able to do is ask others for help. And I can't do anything in return…

Karin's inner musings were interrupted but Urahara opened the door, pulling a humanoid object with him. He looked strained, which wasn't that surprising, but still worried Karin.

"Is that the gigai?" she asked.

"Yes," he replied. Tessai opened a hole in the barrier for Urahara to go through and the shopkeeper walked up to the sleeping captain. He gently placed the gigai next to its future occupant.

Urahara looked up at Karin. "Before we do this, I want to explain to you how exactly this special gigai is going to work. It's a really complicated science and you wouldn't be able to understand all the details, but I'll try to give you the simplified version."

Karin grit her teeth. "I'd appreciate it. Would you mind hurrying up? Toshiro could be dying."

Urahara pulled his fan out. "Of course. Though, as I explained earlier, as long as the barrier is in place Captain Hitsugaya isn't in any immediate danger."

The shopkeeper took a deep breath. "This gigai utilizes several technologies I've developed over the years to achieve one goal: heal the soul inside at any cost. You may know about the gigais I made for the first visards in order to stabilize their hollowification. I used a similar concept in this new model. However, Captain Hitsugaya needs something a lot more powerful than what the visards needed. Rather than help his soul adjust to a new modification, he needs to rebuild his strength and avoid dying. In order to do this, I added in some technology that I used on your father's gigai," he gestured to Isshin Kurosaki, who was sitting beside him, "Rather than link your parents' souls together, I linked the wearer's soul to the gigai."

"Wait, what?" Karin interrupted. "What's the point of that? I thought the gigai and the soul were already connected?"

"That's true," Urahara agreed, "but I needed to strengthen the bond. It is necessary to transfer energy between the two. The gigai itself can't store the amount of energy it needs to heal Toshiro, so it's going to have to borrow from his soul."

Karin frowned. "I see… I think. If it's feeding off his energy, does this mean Toshiro is going to have to eat more and sleep more?"

Urahara closed his fan, looking uneasy. "This is where things get uncomfortable. The healing function of the gigai actually can't access that kind of energy, it's reserved for normal bodily functions. The energy that is used in the healing process is gathered by an untested piece of technology I haven't gotten a chance to test fully yet. Rather than feeding off stored chemical energy from food, it converts part of the soul's life force to energy and uses that. It may be slow, but it should be effective, and won't limit the wearer's ability to function in human society. There is one major side effect though: He'll age considerably faster."

Karin's eyes grew wide. "When you say he ages faster… do you mean he'll become an old man overnight?" That would just be too weird.

Urahara touched his chin with his fan. "It depends on how I configure the gigai. That's actually something I wanted to talk with you about, Isshin." He turned to face the doctor. "Right now I have it configured such that he should age at the same rate as a normal living human, but the healing process would be slow. I could change it such that he can heal overnight, but it's very likely that he'll lose more life force than necessary. I don't have a way to make the life force conversion process automatically stop, and with the extra soul bonding we can't remove him until he's recovered most of his spirit energy. What do you think?

Karin's father rubbed his chin, contemplating his options. "I'm worried that there might be some other unknown side effects to losing his life force, so I don't want to do that more than necessary. I say we keep it configured to age normally so we have a larger window to see if somethings going wrong and fix it."

Urahara nodded. "Alright then. Let's put him in."

It took several days before Toshiro woke up. According to Urahara, his soul was still adjusting to its new body. Normally adjusting to a new gigai was instantaneous, but because of Toshiro's condition and the complexity of his gigai, it took longer. During this time Urahara tried to contact the soul society and let them know what happened, but something was blocking the signals. When they finally got through, someone had already reported that Toshiro was dead, and they were in the process of selecting a new Captain for Squad 10.

"It's more than a little fishy if you ask me." Ichigo, the current Captain of Squad 8, explained over the television screen Urahara had set up. "Supposedly there's irrefutable evidence, but Central 46 isn't sharing it. Plus, they're already trying to find a replacement. Karin, you said you felt the spirit energy of another Soul Reaper clash with Toshiro's?"

Karin nodded.

Urahara hid his face behind his fan. "It looks like someone wanted Captain Hitsugaya to die and decided to make it happen. It looks like someone is going to benefit from Hitsugaya's disappearance, and either they or someone they are connected to are most likely Toshiro's attacker." He closed the fan again. "Ichigo, do you think you could pretend like Toshiro is really dead?"

Ichigo frowned. "What are you thinking, Urahara?"

"The fact is, Captain Hitsugaya won't be able to return to his Soul Reaper duties any time soon. Rather than tell everyone that he's still alive and give his attacker another chance to go at him, why don't we let him recover in peace while sniffing out the culprit?" Urahara had that odd glint in his eye that Karin associated with a mad scientist.

Ichigo scratched his forehead. "I suppose I could do that… although it will be hard keeping it from Rangiku. I really hope we can catch this guy soon though. When he wakes up, let him know I'm rooting for him."

And so, Captain Toshiro Hitsuguya of Squad 10 was declared dead by the Soul Society.

"You really didn't see anything?" Karin asked

"I told you already, he snuck up behind me. I was focusing on how many hollows were in the area and didn't feel his spirit energy until it was too late." Toshiro replied, a little unhappy that he was still getting bugged about this.

"But you did feel his spirit energy?" Karin inquired.

Toshiro moved to glare at her. "Yeah, but it was only for a moment, so I wouldn't be able to recognize it. My memory of his attack is hazy."

Karin sighed. "Sorry. I just want to figure out who did this to you and beat the crap out of them."

She laid back on the bed in Urahara's that Toshiro had been sleeping on since he'd been placed in the gigai. It had been a hard 5 days, but finally he'd woken up. According to Urahara he should be able to move around by tomorrow, but until then he had to stay bed-ridden.

Toshiro snorted. "Karin, this guy was able to get one over me. No offence, be if he was able to defeat a Captain of the 13 Court Guard Squads, a substitute Soul Reaper like yourself doesn't stand a chance."

"Oh?" Karin smirked. "So you admit that he got one over on you? And here I thought you were insisting that the only reason he wounded you was because he snuck up on you." She teased.

Toshiro's face grew red. "Of course that's the only reason! I'm not so weak that someone would be able to wound me that badly without using some kind of dirty trick!" He picked up one of the pillows on the bed and started hitting her with it. "Let me show you how strong I am!"

Karin laughed and grabbed the other pillow. "If that's how you want to play… Pillow fight!" She started hitting him with her own pillow. Since they only had one pillow each and it was only the two of them it didn't feel like a real pillow fight, but it still relieved a lot of the tension Karin had accumulated over the past several days. That is until Toshiro froze.

Karin frowned when she realized her opponent wasn't fighting back. "Toshiro? What's wrong?"

Toshiro looked down at his hands. "It feels weird. My spiritual pressure is almost entirely gone. Even before I knew what it was, it was still always there. I can still talk to Hyorinmaru, but it's hard. I know I wouldn't be able to use him in battle. I can't even summon the kind of energy needed to form a simple kido. I've always been able to do at least that, but now…." He look up at Karin. He looked so vulnerable, and there almost seemed to be tears in his eyes. "Being a Soul Reaper is all I know. What am I supposed to do now that I can't do that?"

Karin shook her head. "Come on, surely you've got to have something you're interested in other than Soul Reaper stuff. I mean, didn't you have a life before you went to the academy?"

Toshiro looked at her out of the corner of his eye. "Before I went to the academy I lived with my Granny in the Rukon District. Everyone treated me like a freak; the only other friend I had was Momo." His voice was even, but it seemed that Toshiro was deliberately keeping it so.

Seriously? No wonder he acted so weird when we first met and I wanted him to help my soccer team, Karin realized.

Toshiro pulled his knees up to his chest, trying to seem as small as possible.

Karin stood up. "In that case, think of this as your fresh start!" she exclaimed. "Now you can be a normal kid, and nobody besides myself and a few others will know about your past. I know all those guys from my soccer team already think you're pretty cool, and if you go to school you'll be able to get a whole lot of new friends!"

Toshiro blinked. After a couple of moments, Karin's words sunk in and he smiled. "Yeah, I guess this won't be that bad after all. I guess it will be nice to act like a normal kid for once… especially since I'm not a captain anymore." He looked around for the phone. "Before I forget, I should probably call Orihime."

"Why?" Karin asked.

"I need to see if she'll let me stay at her place. I'd rather not mooch off Urahara more than necessary." He finally found his soul phone and started looking through the contacts.

Karin bit her lip. "Well… if you need a place to stay, how about my place?"

Toshiro looked up. "What?"

"Well, I mean…" Karin fidgeted, picking at some imaginary speck on her clothes. "We never got around to getting all of Ichi-nii's stuff out of his room, so there's a free room with a bed and desk and stuff, so long as you don't mind Kon coming in and bugging you every so often, though you could probably get him to lay off by threatening to give him to Yuzu..."

"Karin, do you really want me to stay with you and your family? I mean, do you think your sister and Dad would be okay with it?"

Karin snorted. "Yuzu is convinced that you and I are dating. She's basically decided that you're her future brother-in-law. She'll be fine. And Dad told me he thought of you as his own son long before any of us were ever born. He'll probably be bouncing up the walls in ecstasy."

Toshiro smirked. "I guess you're right. I guess we're going to be staying together for a while."

"Really? That's great!" Karin sat down next to Toshiro again.

"Hey, Karin?"

"Yeah?"

"I don't think I've thanked you yet for saving me. If you hadn't found me, I probably would be dead right now."

"Hey, what are friends for?"

I apologize if that last part seemed a little weird, it's been a while since I watched Bleach and it was 3 am when I finished this.

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