this chapter didn't want to agree with me and i still don't like it but eh. i'm tired and my motivation is like the tide. never said i was a good writer! i'm just writing 'cause i feel like it.

y'all who keep talkin' about hitsugaya seeming weak at the beginning... yeah. i mentioned that... that's purposeful... thats... been explained...

anyways,

hawkeyestratos1996: i mentioned it in the authors notes for chapter 6, but i'm not going for any pairings in the course of this fic. bleach & naruto ships don't really interest me at all. (edit: i fucked up. i said fics instead of ships. i'm a fool. a god damn coward.)

koreanjezuz: thats fair! i've got a plan for everything, but i know my fics definitely not going to be everyone's cup of tea. honestly, it only has to be mine, otherwise i wouldn't be writing it. thanks for your understanding!

bankai777: i mean, thats probably inevitably going to happen?

aergaia: glad you've been enjoying the fic so far. yep, ichigo's going to be in the fic! in fact he's in this chapter!

flex: an interesting idea! but also not one i'd personally write out as my writing bugs are very selective. why don't you take a crack at these ideas? you've got a whole lot of them! i chose to write this fic after i spent a good few months just adding little bits of scenes to it every day before deciding, hey, i might as well share this? so yeah. be the change you want to see in the world my guy!

j alvarez: i still suck at fight scenes, but here we go!

"Hollow."

Sakura felt the foul, malignant energy in the air before she ever saw what was causing it. The pressure seemed to be increasing by the second, and Hitsugaya cursed, looking down at himself. Pajamas? Really? Why did they even bother changing him? Why didn't he take the chance to change into his shihakusho? For the first time he missed having a gigai that he could just leave as the situation called for it and be in proper shinigami attire. Pajamas were no real outfit to fight in, but he had little choice or little time to react.

Hitsugaya moved quickly, swinging Hyorinmaru up from where it had been laid on the dresser and slipped the strap on over his shoulder. He threw open the window and jumped out, ignoring Sakura shouting after to wait up. With quick movements he arrived on the rooftop only to find, to his dismay, that the rest of his old friends were there as well, looking up to the horrific sight above them.

"What..." Tenten stammered out, her eyes wide, "What are those?"

Hitsugaya finally looked up as well, and his eyes widened as well. The number of incoming hollow was easily among the highest in sheer volume he'd ever encountered in his tenure as a captain. Not that cutting them down would be hard, but cutting them down and preventing them from getting to the village that was rapidly going into a panicked frenzy below would be an annoyance.

"Damn it," He snarled, drawing his zanpakuto. He looked to the group behind him. "You don't know how to fight hollows. This is what I've trained for. Go down into the village, tell every shinobi you see to stay out of my way, and evacuate the civilians!"

"You're not going to fight all those things by yourself–?" Ino gasped out, incredulous. Hitsugaya bared his teeth.

"I fought Pein on my own and I won. Just do it!" And with that, he lept into the air, using shunpo to rapidly close the gap.

"You died!" Sakura shouted after him. Hitsugaya elected to ignore the retort.

They were here because of him, they had to be. If everyone in this village could see hollow, and there had never been a hollow attack in his life, then it was exactly as he feared. His presence here had only endangered everyone, despite his attempt to keep a low profile while trying to go back. And so if they were here for him, then he'd give them exactly what they wanted.

"Soten ni zase," He growled, "Hyorinmaru!"

Now that he and Hyorinmaru were one again, and now that he was no longer concerned about the effect his power would have on this world, his power was in full effect. The sky above grew dark as clouds gathered as far as the eye could see, and thunder split harshly through the sky, illuminating the darkness. The pressure of his unrestrained reiatsu filled the air around him, frigid and biting. Around his skin glowed a white aura that gave him an almost ethereal look.

Snow began to fall almost mercilessly, and the village looked on in awe at the sheer power.

"This..." Shikamaru breathed, and Neji and Hinata both watched on, Byakugan active.

"This is his doing," Neji said.

"The amount of energy flowing through him, into that blade–" Hinata breathed. "I've never seen anything like this before."

Hitsugaya swung his blade into the air, ice crackling down the length of the steel and the dragon soared forth. It let out an ethereal shriek as it split apart into five heads that scored into the oncoming horde. The hollows froze and shattered into an icy mist, and Hitsugaya descended into the fray as the dragons followed his will. He moved with practiced speed and finesse, gouging into masks of any hollow that proved foolish enough to approach him, freezing them with a single stroke of his zanpakuto.

Finally.

He could feel Hyorinmaru's spirit humming alongside him as they fought in perfect synergy, effortlessly dispatching of the threat. The feeling that surged through him was overwhelming and he felt a strange elation and freedom in being able to cut loose, even if it would be a woefully short fight. He slid the blade forward, blocking a strike from a snake hollow before overpowering it's struggle against him and slicing its head clean off.

But it seemed that the hollow were getting the picture, too. Some began to split off from the group and Hitsugaya growled, sending off a few more ice dragons as he split off to cut the advance off.

"I won't let you!" He snapped, landing on the shoulders of a gorilla hollow and driving his blade through its head. He caught movement in his periphery, and swore as he saw Shikaku, Inoichi and Choza attempting to engage a hollow that had landed on the roof they were on heavily enough to crack the concrete beneath it. He saw Shikaku immobilize it and Choza punch it in the mask. Even with their combination attack, the hollow quickly snapped free of the shadow control, it's mask barely even scuffed by the punch. A second hollow landed by them, reaching for Inoichi, and even though Inoichi attempted the Mind Body Disturbance jutsu, the hollow showed no reaction to it, grabbing the Yamanaka clan head and squeezing him tightly.

"Don't interfere!" Hitsugaya shouted as he dropped down, landing with an equally powerful impact that sprayed ice behind him as he slashed through the hollow's arm like butter. Inoichi dropped down with a wheeze, and Choza and Shikaku both looked to him.

"Naruto?" Shikaku asked after a moment.

"Used to be," Hitsugaya snapped, slicing through the second hollow. "Fall back and evacuate! I told your children to tell you, do you not listen?"

"You're at a disadvantage," Choza argued, and Hitsugaya swung his blade out, sending yet another barrage of ice to slash an incoming bat hollow in half. He turned and glared at the three.

"No I'm not," Hitsugaya hissed. "This battle is the purpose of my afterlife. The living cannot purify hollow like shinigami can, and you don't know how to effectively fight them. Listen to me for once in your lives! I can't afford to worry about baby-sitting you."

As the three looked to each other, they realized that Hitsugaya was right. Shikaku inclined his head.

"You be careful."

"I don't need to be careful," Hitsugaya said in a scoff, "Not against these hollow." And with that, he took to the air once again, seeing that, in his attempt to ward off the clan heads that were engaging in battle, he'd let more hollows slip by. Considering that he had no backup, getting to all of these damn hollow without encroaching on physical exertion was...

Hold on.

He had chakra again. The henge wouldn't have worked otherwise. The paper wouldn't have torn otherwise.

He wondered, then, just how much he had. Moving his hands up in the appropriate seal as best he could while still holding a sword, Hitsugaya focused on the feeling of the chakra that was hiding within him. He let out a growl as it slowly built up before encasing him in a dome of blue, whipping around him like a gale.

Oh yes, he could work with this.

Taiju kage bunshin no jutsu!

And just like that, the village knew just who Hitsugaya was.

A hundred clones stood, easy. Hitsugaya took a breath, feeling a slight strain from spreading his power out so much for the first time in a long time. Still, it was managable enogh, and he wondered exactly how he'd managed to go without. The clones spread out, and Hitsugaya moved forward, steeled by a surge of determination to see that the village below wasn't destroyed ever again.

Following the beginning of Hitsugaya's countermove against the hollow invasion, Shikamaru snapped into action. He turned to the rest of his friends, his gaze stern. "Alright. You heard him, we've got work to do. Don't engage, just evacuate everyone we can."

"Are you serious?" Ino asked incredulously, looking at Shikamaru. "You're going to just– just do what he said? And let him fight all those things, alone?"

"He seems to have it under control," Shino said, looking up at the sky. The rain of ice-mist that was falling below with each fallen hollow spoke the truth of exactly how skilled Hitsugaya really was.

"Alright," Sakura said, her expression set with determination. "Ino. Let's go and see if anyone's been injured. We're some of the best damn iryoninja in this village and we might as well make that clear."

"Y-yeah!" Ino said, stiffening up her shoulders before following after Sakura. Hinata and Neji looked to each other, and then looked to the group.

"We'll keep watch over evacuating civilians," Neji began, and Hinata was glad that she and Neji both had the same idea.

"And we'll divert people as needed," Hinata ended.

"Go," Shikamaru said, and the two went off, quickly diving into the chaos of panicking civilians and helping divert people effectively to escape the encroaching hollows. Lee, Tenten, Shino, Sai and Kiba quickly went after them to help with the effort, and Choji looked to Shikamaru.

"What are you going to do?"

Shikamaru leveled a firm gaze to Choji. "Everything I can to make sure the future of Konoha is protected."

And Choji nodded. "So will I."

So the two descended into the madness below with a mission, spotting stragglers and helping them to get moving. The people were mostly frantic, though some recognized the power that Hitsugaya commanded and were hopeful of Naruto's return; some even seemed outright close to reverence with how they kept stopping amidst the frenzy to watch the battle being waged above. Shikamaru had to admit that he did spare more than a few glances above, watching the almost effortless way that Hitsugaya moved, and the way that the ice followed every move and heeded his every command. Honestly, he had had his reservations about obeying Hitsugaya's demand to be left to fight alone considering the end that he had originally faced, but it was clear that his battle prowess had only sharpened in death.

He heard a scream. A woman. The sound snapped him from his reverie, and he looked around before he spotted a smashed in building. Shikamaru cursed and moved forward, hoping to whatever higher power there was that he'd get there before anything happened. Choji was hot on his tail. A young woman was holding a crying child and cowering as a giant six armed beast grabbed some debris and chucked it away, working its way into the ruined building while reaching out to grab her. Shikamaru immediately flipped through the seals to activate his Shadow Imitation jutsu, thankful that he grabbed it just before it managed to grab her.

Immediately, he realized why Hitsugaya told them not to fight the hollows. He was straining just to hold it in place for long enough, and its brute strength was making the act of holding it still unsustainable. "Run!" Shikamaru yelled. "Choji, get them out and go!"

Choji nodded and, with a Partial Expansion jutsu, he reached an enlarged hand to grab the girl and the child and beat a quick escape. It was only once Choji was gone that Shikamaru began to think about how he'd get out of this. He had to time everything carefully. Gritting his teeth, he reached into his pocket and grabbed a kunai and an explosive tag. Wrapping the tag, he dropped his jutsu and, as the beast whirled around to charge at him, he threw the kunai, detonating the tag as soon as it stuck into the mask.

In the smoke cover of the explosion, Shikamaru jumped from the building, landing with a roll onto the next building. He panted, feeling as though he'd just escaped by the skin of his teeth.

And he sure had. He lurched back, his eyes going wide as the hollow landed right behind him, and he froze in place. It's mask was cracking away and there was... a face.

Shikamaru felt sick. What were these things?

His thought immediately went out the window as a fist wrapped around his torso. The hollow's mouth stretched open as it hauled him into the air, and his eyes widened as three more landed around it, reaching hands to try and grab at him. He tried to wiggle his fingers to pull out the explosive tags that were in his satchel, but everything was moving too fast.

Then, he heard it–

"Getsuga Tensho!"

And saw a white slash of energy carve through the group of hollow that had almost gotten to him, narrowly missing him. Shikamaru fell onto his back when the hollow holding him disintegrated, gulping as he took a few moments to calm himself down. He took a deep breath and looked to the sky, seeing a tall figure with orange hair, dressed in the very same garbs that Hitsugaya favoured.

Who the hell was that?

Somehow, there was no damn end to these things. Every time Hitsugaya cleared one batch, another garganta would open and another batch would take its place. It was starting to get downright annoying as hell, especially since his kage bunshins were shaky at best due to only recently having regained his chakra. Still, he was keeping the situation under control. Through some of his clone's memories, he realized he had completely blown his cover of obscurity and was now recognized for who he'd been, which was not ideal to say the least.

Still, he had other things to focus on right now, and that was securing the village.

"Oi, Toshiro! That better be the real you and not these weird clone things!"

Hitsugaya twitched.

"It's Hitsugaya-taichou!" He snapped instinctively, only to pause for a moment as the battle fervour eased enough for him to realize exactly what had happened. Another three clones poofed away and he was hit with the memories of Ichigo's Getsuga Tensho that had cut down a fresh wave of hollows that he was too distracted with his own fight to circumvent. "Kurosaki? How– I've been trying to reach Soul Society for–"

"A week, right?" Ichigo pulled out a small badge from his shihakusho and sending a pulse of reiryoku into it. "We've been looking for you, too. What the hell happened, you had everyone worried!" Ichigo looked Hitsugaya over proper, then, and couldn't help the small snicker that slipped out. "Why... why are you wearing pajamas?"

Hitsugaya raised both eyebrows. "I'm touched, truly, by your concern," He deadpanned, "But that is irrelevant. If you say anything about the pajamas, I will end you." He frowned, then. "Though I find it hard to believe that it's just you that came to find me."

"Well, yeah, of course it's not just me," Ichigo said, disappearing with a shunpo and reappearing to cleave a hollow in half. "I'm just the test."

"Test?" Hitsugaya asked, squinting.

Ichigo looked at him as though he was crazy. "Do you even know where you are, Toshiro?"

Hitsugaya scowled, slicing into another hollow. "Hitsugaya-taichou. And yes, I do, actually. What I don't realize is why I couldn't get back." It was nice, actually, to have company that didn't look at him and see someone he no longer was. He'd never tell Ichigo that, of course.

"The senkaimons didn't have this dimension keyed in, or something." Ichigo paused in his explanation as he stabbed one hollow and immediately swung his blade through it to Getsuga Tensho another. "Geta-boshi's explanation didn't really make too much sense to me and that creepy Kurotsuchi guy didn't help at all. You know? It's been seven years or something, and I still don't like him."

Hitsugaya sent out another ice dragon, landing on his feet neatly next to Ichigo as he took another appraisal of the battlefield. "Hm." That did make him feel slightly better about his inability to properly connect with the afterlife.

"Anyways," Ichigo continued, lurching back as he caught an attempted attack against the blade, "We needed to see that the senkaimon was set up right, but we also didn't want to send someone through that wouldn't be prepared to handle themselves."

"So you volunteered like the impulsive idiot you have an unfortunate tendency to be," Hitsugaya finished, a slight twist of amusement rising to his lip.

Ichigo's brow and lip both twitched in agitation, an annoyed grin on his face. "Oi!" He slashed a trio of hollow through. "I just know that I'm more than strong enough to handle myself. Matsumoto's heading our mission to get you back."

"Oh, good. Exactly what I needed. Matsumoto coming here and meeting Lady Hokage." He shuddered. That was, actually, something he had been hoping to never have happen. Clearly, something was conspiring against him.

"Lady Hokage...?" Ichigo asked. Hitsugaya shook his head.

"I'll explain later. Look alive, Kurosaki, more are coming."

Unfortunately for him, there was another interested party that took the distraction as an opportunity. Hitsugaya let out a choked sound as the Kyuubi's chakra surged forward, and he lost his footing, falling down and landing with a thud on the roof below them, displacing some tiles as he slid down to the next roof below. The pain of the impact radiated up his body in a dull ache, but more painful was the forceful, burning edge of the cloak that struggled to take over him. His teeth sharpened, nails sharpened into claws, and his whiskers grew wild.

"Toshiro!" Ichigo quickly descended, landing more neatly by the captain. He knelt down, eyes widening at the sight of the vicious red energy that started to clump up around Hitsugaya's form.

"Damn it," Hitsugaya snarled, moving a hand to his face, ignoring the accelerated return of clone memories in favour of trying to suppress the Kyuubi's influence. "Damn it! Disappear! I won't– let you–"

"Taichou!"

Fuck.

Hitsugaya looked up, wincing. Rukia, Renji, Matsumoto, Hinamori, Ikkaku and Yumichika, was it? An interesting choice on Matsumoto's part. Wait–

"Urahara?" He rasped out.

"Oh, don't mind me Hitsugaya-taichou, I just came out of curiosity," Urahara said, waving his fan dismissively with a bright smile on his face. "What an interesting place this is! Is this where you were born?"

Hitsugaya opened his mouth to say something, but was quickly interrupted.

"Naruto!" Sakura called as she and Teams 8, 9, and 10 landed with her. "Are you okay?"

"Who the hell are you guys?" Ikkaku drawled, drawing his blade. "Back off. This doesn't concern humans."

"Considering that you're invaders in our village," Neji snapped in reply, prepared to attack, "We should be asking that question first."

All things considered, Hitsugaya thought the defensive posturing between the two groups was rather ridiculous, and he snarled as he saw the remains of the horde grow too close for comfort.

"Enough," Hitsugaya hissed. He glared over at the shinigami reinforcements. "Instead of antagonizing the living, would you care of the damn hollow?" He had other problems to worry about.

"Indeed! Ikkaku, Yumichika," Urahara said brightly, kneeling down, "Take care of the last of them them, would you?" Ikkaku spared the group another glare before lowering his blade with a scoff, and Yumichika sighed.

"We'll help too," Rukia said as she grabbed Renji's arm. Renji looked to her sharply, but upon looking at Hitsugaya again he nodded. So the four leapt away to clean up the mess, and Urahara placed both hands on his knees.

"This must be the energy signature we've been picking up with your reiatsu signature," Urahara said, scrubbing his chin. "It feels quite gloomy!"

Matsumoto ignored Urahara's contemplation, instead focused on how harrowed and tense Hitsugaya looked. "What happened, taichou?" She asked gently.

"Especially to do this to you? Hitsugaya-kun, you look awful," Hinamori breathed, expression distressed as she kneeled and reached out in an attempt to comfort him. Hitsugaya hissed.

"Don't touch me," He snapped, and Hinamori flinched back, her eyes wide. "The cloak is caustic. I'm fine."

"Curious!" Urahara sang, smiling as he pulled his fan up and snapped it open, fluttering it in front of his face. "And you all are very curious as well. Nice to meet you all! You must be the people he grew up with, right?"

Ichigo froze, blinking in surprise. "Really?"

"Yes," Sakura said first, looking more than a little confused at Urahara's eccentric nature. "But who are you?"

"Hitsugaya-taichou's associate!" Urahara smiled wider as he looked to Hitsugaya. "But that is unimportant. You remember your life, don't you, Hitsugaya-taichou?"

"Yes. Five years, now," Hitsugaya replied, sagging as the last of the cloak faded away, his eyes returning to their normal blue. He closed his eyes, taking a few moments to breathe. "Damn it. This is becoming... inconvenient." Matsumoto opened her mouth to say something, but Shikamaru spoke first.

"Hitsugaya," He said, and Hitsugaya looked over tiredly. He saw something haunted in Shikamaru's eyes, and frowned. "Those hollow... under their masks..."

Ichigo's face fell, and Matsumoto looked away. Hitsugaya sighed, knowing exactly what Shikamaru had experienced. "Ah. You saw under the mask, didn't you."

Shikamaru nodded. "Were those things humans?"

"They aren't human anymore," Ichigo said softly, looking almost haunted. "There's no coming back from being a hollow."

"Our job," Matsumoto said, her expression serious, "Is to protect the living and the balance of life and death. This includes taking care of hollows."

"We purify them with our zanpakuto," Hinamori continued from where she knelt, "Which allows them passage into Soul Society."

"I see you've been holding back information," Urahara said, giving Hitsugaya an rather reproachful look. "Considering that I suspect you're going to be sticking around, you should really be forthwidth with what you know, Hitsugaya-taichou!"

"What?" Matsumoto asked, sharply, looking straight to Hitsugaya. Hitsugaya could only sigh, hanging his head.

"I will explain my reasons, but Urahara is correct. Until I resolve my business here, I will be staying."

"You're staying?" Lee asked, his expression hopeful. Hitsugaya looked over to them with a huff as he climbed to his feet, dusting his pajamas off.

"Until I can effectively prevent any more attempts of Edo Tensei to bring me back here? Yes, I will be staying." Lee's eyes shone so brightly that Hitsugaya was leery about what was going to happen next. He managed to sidestep the first attempt at a hug, but Lee was not deterred and managed to grab him on the second try. "Oi!"

"Naruto-kun! We have you back, and you are staying! We all have so many things to catch up on!"

"Ah, I don't mean to be rude and cut things short here," Urahara chirped, catching Lee's attention. Hitsugaya took the opportunity to pull himself away, dusting himself off with a grumble. "But we do need to establish a point of contact with Seireitei as per our orders." He looked to Hitsugaya, smiling as he fluttered his fan. "Do you happen to have a place in mind for where we can do this?"

Hitsugaya groaned. His apartment was going to be cramped as hell.