Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach or the characters. They are Tite Kubo's no matter how much I wish they were mine. This is, of course, with the exception of my OCs.

Please see A/N at the end of the Chapter for details or information.

Chapter 1: Winter Valley

20th of December, 1901

It was the coldest day of the year so far and a storm of snow and hail swept over a barren forest of spruce, pine and birch. The wintery storm brought with it winds of biting cold and black clouds bearing warnings of an even stronger storm to come. Thunder cracked and rolled in the distance when what little was visible of the clouds was cracked by flashes of lightning, the snowy white of the dark December night illuminated for a split second before the light was drowned by a wild flurry of snow. Animals; birds, prey and predators alike, desperately sought cover from the merciless hands of icy death, but many were not quick enough to escape its grasp.

Within the heart of the storm there was a tiny village; the lanterns attached to the wooden outer walls of the thirty cabin-sized houses violently ripped from side to side by the wind like an out of control pendulum. The houses screamed and moaned beneath the pressure of the storm's whip, and garden fences were ripped from the soil and torn asunder. There was no light at all within the village, for all the fires had been snuffed out by the cold. Ice and snow lined the windows, and the doors was blocked shut by mountains of white. Only one house that stood at the edge of the village remained free and clear of snow, the wind with its swirls of white circling around the house, forming a cyclone of pure winter.

A scream of pure agony resounded from the house, swallowed by the white cyclone and never reaching the ears of the village's residents. The outcry came from the house's sole dweller; a young woman in her early twenties laying on a red stained mat on the floor. She was a beautiful woman, her skin the color of light cocoa beans and her eyes a warm milky brown; their beauty accented by long, thick lashes. Sweat poured from her forehead and her dark hair hung in sweaty clumps, but she was still beautiful, like a queen.

She let out a pained cry, her hands gripping the grayed sheet of the mat till her knuckles turned white. It was covered in red blood from her spread out legs and it soaked into the floorboards beneath. Yet another cry came from her, but this time there were words.

"Manabu!" she cried as her body jerked, tears streaming down her face, "Where are you?" The cyclone around the house swirled faster and the wind grew in strength. The house began to rattle as the storms reach for the first time began tearing at the house.

The woman kept screaming and panting, and as she did, the storm grew stronger and stronger. Soon the hatches on the window started to slam open and close in tandem with her cries, and outside, the storm raged with more and more vigor. Trees and house roofs were taken by the wind, and the wails of villagers who lost their houses sounded through the night. The woman heard none of it though. All she heard was a silent thud and a baby's cry.

She let out a sob of relief, pushed herself up from the floor with her elbows and leaned down to pick up the red-faced, blood-soaked babe now quietly lying between her legs. As soon as she brought it to her face and looked at it, she screamed in shock and dropped it to the floor. It immediately began crying, its body twitching as its hands and feet flailed in the air in desperate search for its mother.

"No, it can't be! Not my baby!" the woman screamed, her hands gripping and tearing at her hair, the beauty that was her face as red as the blood covering the sheets. "Not my baby!" she cried, the wind, momentarily having ceased its raging attack on the world as the baby breathed air for the first time, now resuming its assault with a force that dwarfed what it had once been. It tore open the window hatches and a wild eddy of white burst into the house.

The woman's hair was thrown about and she screamed in utter fear as the chilly winter took hold of her body. She scrambled to her feet, slipping on the blood and almost squashing the baby as she fell to the floor with a loud thud. It screamed and wailed, the wind swirling around and under it, as if it wanted to pick it up and carry it away. The woman looked around frantically, eyes falling upon the baby and the wind and snow swirling around it. Her eyes, alight with fear and panic, turned hard and cold like the ice that crept across the floor.

She grabbed the baby and pressed it to her chest as she clambered to her feet, scooping the sheet from the floor as she ran to the door. The wind followed her as she tore it open and stumbled out into the snow; her bare legs instantly froze cold and her lips turned blue within a second, but in her crazed frenzy she did not stop or notice it. She simply ran, stumbling and swaying, as she made her way to the forest just by her house. The baby cried and wailed, she ignored it and simply wrapped it up in the blood soaked sheet, quelling its cries when she stuffed its mouth.

As they moved through the forest, the storm followed them. It grew in intensity until the wind had become a roar and the snow obscured everything from view. The world became nothing but a sheen of white and biting cold wind. She ran and stumbled blindly forward, the red-stained white gown she wore haphazardly around her body whipped about like a rag doll. There was no way to know where she was headed, the trees she stormed past only visible for a split second as she rushed past them an inch away, but even so she moved with purpose, her voice calling out, forming a word and a cry for Manabu.

Minutes turned to an hour and the wind was now so strong that it could lift her up from the ground. Her panicked run had slowed to an agonizingly slow stumble and she was now trudging through the snow, her legs blue from the cold. She was so weak from labor and running, that she could do nothing to brace herself for the gust of wind that hit her like a crackling whip. It ripped the rocks and the trees from the ground, roots and all, and sent her flying through the air. She crashed into the snow, the breath knocked straight from her, and tumbled down a hill, snow and wind pushing her further down until she was stopped by a fall into an icy cold river.

Soaked from tip to toe, shivering and blue, she rose shakily to her feet. In her arms, still wrapped in the sheet but no longer with its mouth stuffed, the baby cried and wailed. Its lips were blue and it was completely soaked, water and snow packed in between the layers of the sheet. The woman stared at the baby, hate and disgust turning her once beautiful face ugly and primal.

"This is all your fault you wretched thing!" she shouted at it, causing it to cry even louder, the wind picking up as it did. Squeezing the baby with her trembling hands, she let out a roar of pain and rage, and threw the little thing away from her. It landed by the riverbank, its lower body in the water and the rest of it in the snow. The woman didn't remain to see it though, for as soon as she threw it, she turned and ran the same way she had come; up the hill.

She ran faster than before with seemingly renewed strength. For each step she took, she cried and wailed for Manabu. "Manabu!" she screamed, her face covered in tears and completely red, "Manabu!". She ran and ran until she stumbled out into a clearing and crashed into something soft yet simultaneously hard. It was a man clad in a thick fur cloak carrying a backpack and holding a walking stick. "Manabu! Oh thank God!" the woman collapsed into the man's arms and started crying like mad.

"Aimi, what's wrong?" the man dragged her to her feet, fear and worry lacing his every syllable. "What are you doing out here? The labor...you shouldn't...The baby! What about the baby? You're covered in blood, what happened?" Manabu's voice grew in volume and pitch, his eyes and hands frantically scanning over his wife's blue and beaten body.

"Not my baby!" Aimi cried, "It's hair! It's eyes!" she sobbed and buried her face in Manabu's fur coat. "The Jinx! It was the Jinx! A demon, a curse!" She wailed and frantically shook her head, "Not my baby! Not ours! A demon, I say, a demon!"

Manabu's breath hitched and he stared at her face, disbelief evident on his rugged face. "I-you-it… We can't stay here!" he dropped the walking stick and scooped up Aimi in his arms, "You'll die if you stay out any longer! We have to get back to the house!"

He started walking all the while Aimi wailed and screamed, "Not my baby! Not my baby!". Again and again she screamed, the words carried by the now calming winds like an echo through the forest, reaching all the way to where the tiny little baby lay in the snow, all alone.

The storm had calmed to a shadow of its former self and the baby was now at the center of it. All around it,the wind gently flowed and the snow fell on top of it like a blanket, never obscuring its face. It was silent and quiet, its breath coming out slower and slower, its body turning more and more blue. A mist began to form around it and the river it lay in, and a gust of wind lightly shoved the baby's lower body out of the water. It let out a slight whimper at the motion, but it was so quiet it could hardly be heard.

Slowly but surely, the mist thickened and the water in the river rose up, forming a bubble of water that split from the stream and froze into solid ice. Flakes of snow swirled around it and solidified into ice, even the moisture in the very air hardened, and slowly the ball of ice began to take shape. It became elongated and serpentine, the ice forming a large head with a long snout, sharp teeth and majestic ridges on its head. Gigantic wings stretched out from its back, so large and long that one couldn't see where they ended. Its body too seemed to stretch into infinity.

Made of ice as it was, it bore the color of frozen water; its icy blue form intricately detailed with scales and spikes along its back. It was strikingly majestic and utterly beautiful to behold; its contrasting ruby red eyes shining so strongly, just as the rest of its body glistened. The little baby looked like an ant in comparison to the mighty dragon that now looked down upon it.

"How small we are now." The dragon spoke, its voice echoing and brimming with untold power. It cocked its head at the baby and let out a puff of breath that turned into a gust of wind sending the snow swirling. The baby's tiny, chubby hands were stretched upward toward the dragon, and it opened and closed its mouth, as if it wanted to speak, though it made no sound.

"Not yet little one, not yet." The dragon lifted its head toward the black clouds, its eyes momentarily glowing, and parted its mouth to let out a steamy breath. Vapor rose from its nostrils and its wings flexed ever so slightly, the clouds above opening a tiny bit as the dragon moved.

A single stream of sunlight fell from the sky and landed upon the baby for a second, before the dragon's head blocked it. "It's time for the heavenly guardian to return to where it belongs." It bowed its head so that it was inches from the baby's face, its small hands reaching and touching the dragon's snout. As they touched, the dragon exploded into a million pieces of glistening snow that completely covered the baby. When the final speck of snow landed upon it, the storm disappeared as if it had never been and in the very same instant, the babe drew its last breath.

Soul Society, Junrinan, First District of West Rukongai

Each and every breath she took turned to vapor in the chill air and she pulled her cloak tighter around herself. She had known going to the village had been a less than stellar idea, but little Momo had caught a cold and they were all out of medicine, so she hadn't had much of a choice. Not that she complained as it allowed her to talk and meet the other villagers. She could do without the cold though. It made her frail bones ache and turned her lips a slight shade of blue.

It was the coldest day in years that she could remember. There was no snow or wind, just an icy chill that not even the thickest of clothes could defend against. The thin layer of powdery snow that covered the landscape had frozen into solid ice and everything was incredibly slippery. One ran the risk of slipping just by taking a step, something she had experienced several times already. So far, she had fallen six times and that was not good for her old body.

Granny was older than most of the souls in Soul Society, so old was she that no one but herself could remember her name. She kept it to herself though. It gave her an air of mystery that she enjoyed and it kept people, especially children, coming to her tiny cabin. They felt close to her because she was almost like a grandmother to them, in no small part due to the name Granny that they called her by from the moment they could speak. She didn't care much for her real name either and doubted anyone else did. It was an identity she no longer cared to carry.

Pausing a bit to lean against a frozen tree and catch her breath, she readjusted her grip on the basket that she held in her hands so that it wouldn't slip from her increasingly numb fingers. She would be lying if she said the weather didn't worry her. The clouds looked ominous and she could tell that, even though they did not look stormy, strong winds carrying snow and hail was approaching. Such bad weather was rare in Rukongai, at least so close to the gates of the Seireitei, and she feared that the villagers would not be prepared for it. No, she knew they weren't.

She sighed and was just about to resume walking when a chill so deep pierced her body and made her stop in her tracks. Her body tingled as if it was being pricked by needles and pressure built in her stomach until it became so heavy it was like she had swallowed a rock. It all happened within a second, but she knew what it was: Reiryoku. Vast, strong Reiryoku, and it was coming from someplace very close.

"Ma'am," a sudden wind tore at her clothes and she shad to grip the tree with both hands to not fall. "Help us," the wind disappeared with the words they carried and were little more than bursts of force, but she quickly realized that the words themselves was the wind or the cause of it.

She let her eyes sweep in a circle around in search of the speaker and for a split second she thought she saw something. Greenish hair and a blue kimono disappearing amongst the trees at the side of the road a few feet in front of her. It was so quick she didn't know if she had actually seen it, but she couldn't in good conscience ignore it. Someone had called for help and she would extend her hand.

Granny parted the branches of the trees and gazed into a dark forest. Within, there was frozen bushes and berries, a sheen of sparkling frost covering them. A chill much colder than the one on the road emanated from the depths and sent shivers running down her spine. It made her hands shake and she dropped the basket, brought her hands to her mouth and blew on them, her warm and steamy breath doing very little to make her feel. The forest was so cold that she took several steps back, not wanting to enter. Then she saw it again.

Green hair, a blue kimono and a tall figure in the distance. It was definitely a person, but no matter how hard she squinted, she couldn't make out any features. A seemingly perpetual mist surrounded the figure, obscuring it. It seemed to disappear in and out of focus, as if it was translucent, like a ghost or a mirage of some kind, a hallucination. She couldn't focus on it, as a matter of fact she could hardly see it. She would have thought that it was nothing but a figment of her imagination, but the voice that seemed to echo from all around her was very much real.

"Ma'am, help us."

Before she had the time to think she found herself walking through the forest, following a ghost of a person that slipped in and out of view, disappearing for lengths at a time, and leading her somewhere. She hadn't registered that she moved and was surprised to find that she actually was. It was almost as if her body moved on its own, spurred forth by some unknown, powerful force. It took several minutes before Granny realized they were walking down a familiar path heading toward the river. Perplexed and ever so slightly frightened, she picked up her pace all the while a part of her warned her to turn back. She didn't heed her own warnings though and in the years to come, she would be very glad she ignored them.

The river was blanketed by a thick fog and a small sprinkle of soft, powdery snow fell from the grayish looking clouds just barely visible. A thin layer of ice covered parts of the large, flowing river, but in many places it ran free, splashing against tiny rocks and sending droplets flying onto the snow, hardening it and making it much more slippery. The figure, however, seemed completely unperturbed, gliding an inch above the ground with such an otherworldly grace that it snatched Granny's breath away. It moved smoothly, the mist following it and seemingly converging at its destination.

On top of a slight hill by the river, there was a large wisteria tree, its branches so long that it hung over the water, the petals gone with the winter and replaced with bright blue icicles. It looked almost skeletal and there was an ethereal quality to it. The mist that surrounded it made it look distorted, just like the figure, and the ice and frost that crept up its bark made it shimmer, almost as if there was a million stars trapped within the ice. It was so large and tall, that even from where she stood at the base of the hill, she could see the thick roots enfolded in frost, and it was right there, beneath the canopy of icicles, that the mist converged and the figure stopped.

Slowly, gracefully, the figure turned and the wind, who had all but disappeared, instantly reappeared with a violent roar, "Help us!" It thrust her forward and sent her flying toward the tree. The figure lifted one of its hands and a cushion of wind pressed against her body, slowing her down so that she didn't crash into the tree, but instead fell onto the ground right at the figure's feet. It exploded into a million flakes of snow just as she hit the ground, and rained down in between two large roots, the ice covering them becoming ever thicker and more widespread for each flake that floated past.

Granny, shocked and heaving to catch her breath, just lay there on her hands and knees for several seconds, processing and trying to understand what had just happened. Her body ached, her clothes was wet and she was now colder than she could remember being in ages. All of her discomfort, however, faded into nothing within a split second.

A small whimper reached her ears, soft and high-pitched, yet so faint and distant it could have been the wind. But Granny knew what it was, she had heard that sound many times and it was not the wind. She pushed herself up, not bothering to brush off the snow from her cloak, and leaned down between the roots. There was a pile of white snow, coated with a light dusting of the glistening flakes, that reached to just below her kneecap. It rested against the bark of the wisteria tree and upon further observation she realized that it was sunken and concave, like a bowl. What she had thought was the middle of the pile was in fact something very different.

She leaned down and picked up the bundled sheet, her eyes fixed, wide-eyed, at the contents within. It was a tiny little baby, no more than a few hours old, completely wrapped up in the wet, red-stained sheet. A flake of snow rested upon its nose and there were several more on the sheet and on its face that, considering its age, should be red, but that was instead the color of glossy, polished porcelain. That wasn't what made her stare though. No, it was the baby's hair. It was a stark white, purer and clearer than any old man's, and looked just like the snow that the baby had been submerged in. There was no wonder she hadn't seen it at first glance.; it blended with the snow and ice as if it was made from it.

Any concern or fear that she might have felt for herself were whisked away and all that remained was a need to protect the baby and ensure its safety. Granny's ever present, motherly instincts kicked in and she pressed the baby close to her chest to warm it. She wrapped her coat around it and ran as fast as she could down the hill without slipping. When she came to the road that she had left not an hour before, she put the baby in the basket that she had all but forgotten to pick up and sprinted toward her house.

It took Granny ten minutes to get home even when she ran as fast as she could. The wind picked up as she ran and snow began to fall, but the current was never so strong that it pushed her off her feet. She flung open the door, a swirl of snow following her and settling on the floor, only to melt seconds later as she closed it and the warmth from the fireplace killed it. Momo came running, bare-footed, into the living room, dressed in a flower patterned, black and orange jinbei. Her short, dark hair stuck out whichever which way and her brown eyes was filled with sleep.

"Granny, where have you been?" she said with a yawn and rubbed her eyes, blinking up at her with a questioning look. Granny didn't answer immediately, instead she put the basket on the living room table and lifted up the baby and the medicine lying beneath it.

"Momo, sweetie, get a dry sheet or blanket from the bedroom, please." She didn't look at Momo when she spoke, too busy unwrapping the baby from the large sheet. It was completely covered and she could hardly see its face. The small , six-year old looking girl answered her with a soft and slightly confused 'okay' and she heard the quick and light pitter patter of her small feet as she ran toward their bedroom.

Not a minute later she returned with a blue blanket and stretched out her hand for Granny to take it. "What's going-" her sentence was cut short when Granny took the blanket, unwrapped the sheet and Momo spotted the little baby. "A baby!" she squealed and jumped up on one of the stools, "Wow, Granny, where did you find it?"

Granny glanced at her and gave a small smile; Momo was such a happy little girl. "Out in the woods, in the snow," she said and turned her attention back to the baby. Now that she could see the entire baby, she saw that it was a boy. She also saw that it was unusually small, no more than 20 centimeters. It was also very wet.

Momo, upon hearing where Granny had found the boy, let out a surprised yelp and started ranting about how mean the people that left him were. She seemed to have forgotten all about her own tiredness and jumped about the room while Granny dried the now screaming baby and wrapped it up in the blue blanket. The baby kept crying and was clearly not happy. Granny tried to calm him down and warm him further by pressing him against her and stroking his back, all the while softly humming. It didn't work and he only screamed louder. He screamed so loudly that Momo's words were drowned out and she stopped talking, only to, a few seconds later, yell questions at Granny about why he was so sad.

After two minutes of this Granny had a thorough headache and she was just about to, as kindly as she could, tell Momo to be quiet at least for a minute, when a strong wind tore open the hatches on the living room windows. Momo let out a shocked scream and shielded herself against the strong wind and Granny turned her back and face away from it to protect the baby. When the wind stopped after a few seconds, she noticed that he had stopped crying. Sighing in relief, she told Momo to close the windows again. A few seconds later the baby started crying, his face turning progressively more red. Yet another wind tore open the windows; the baby stopped crying but began once more as soon as the window hatches closed. It didn't take long for Granny to realize that the baby liked the cold and wanted them to be open. The implications brought a tingle of worry and fear to her, but she decided not to think too much about it. Instead she, much to her discomfort, went over to the open windows, the baby in hand, and stood there, allowing the cold wind and flakes of wind to envelope the two of them.

Poor Momo was very confused and frightened by the whole thing, and when Granny told her to take the medicine and go to bed, she complied without complaints. Granny let out a sigh of exhaustion and shivered in the cold, chilly wind. The boy, however, seemed positively joyful, his chubby hands waving in the air and grabbing at the snow. She lifted him up so that he was at eye level with her and held him at arm's length. The white of his soft, dune like hair blended with the white background and he seemed to melt into the picturesque winter backdrop. She hadn't noticed his eyes before, but now she saw, to her amazement and shock, that they looked just like the frozen river. A bright, mesmerizing turquoise, cold like ice and just as beautiful as glass. She could see her reflection in them just like she could in still water and they were almost impossible to look away from.

"What beautiful eyes you have…" she whispered and he cocked his head at her. At the back of her mind she was amazed at the boy's seeming understanding of her words. He was not a day old but his eyes looked so ancient, much more so than she was. "I'll have to give you a name little one," the strangeness of it all was nothing but an afterthought and she would rather keep it that way for she knew if she thought too much about it, she would go mad. "You are a child of winter, white as snow, and I found you by a river in a valley," she mused, speaking aloud to no one in particular. "Winter valley…" she raised the boy up so that he was now looking down at her, wind and flakes of snow swirling around him. "It's decided," she said with a smile as he blinked at her, "your name is Hitsugaya Toshiro."

A/N: This is my first ever fic, so I'd appreciate any and all feedback. Thanks so much for taking the time to read this and I really hope you enojoyed!