Chapter Text
This is a terrible plan.
Well, ‘plan’ seems like a misrepresentation if Toshiro is allowed to be frank. ‘Sham’ is the more appropriate term. ‘Punishment’, even, if he’s being vindictive. Captain-Commander Kyouraku must have it out for him. Or maybe he’s in too good a mood and wants some extra entertainment with his sake. Toshiro’s sure he’s watching him now through one of the 12th’s holo-flies, making bets on his downfall. He hopes Matsumoto bets three hundred koban on Toshiro eventually going insane and flash freezing the First the minute he’s allowed to set foot back in Seireitei. He hopes she wins that bet fifty-fold so Hirako’s stupid grin falls flat and he pouts all the rest of the week.
He wishes every single one of his colleagues watching him suffer from their gilded seats back home nothing but the worst in all their future endeavours. If he weren’t already dead, surely he’d be a vicious curse haunting them to their own grisly, frigid ends. Because while they are there, he is here. In the Living World. In a gigai. Pretending to be a fresh-faced high-schooler on a long term undercover mission with Kurosaki of all people.
The Captain-Commander will have perpetually cold tea and spontaneous blizzards haunting him and specifically him for months once this stupid assignment is finished. Toshiro will make him beg for clemency.
“Ease up on the pressure, Toshiro, you’re making clouds.”
Speaking of Kurosaki—
He is relaxed, non-plussed about being fifteen again with his hands in his pockets and his trademark frown etched on his face. Toshiro supposes it’s to be expected - Kurosaki’s in his element in the Living World, having taken up permanent residence with that fiend he calls a partner in the shoten and probably immune to bullshit on account of having voluntarily put up with Urahara for the last couple decades. He hadn’t even seemed annoyed when the Captain-Commander requested his help in this mission, just irritated that Soul Society had let things escalate to such a point where he was needed again.
Which - Toshiro won’t say is unjustified. He can only imagine how frustrating it must be for Kurosaki to constantly be called on to clean up the messes of an organisation he’s only loosely affiliated with. No rest for the powerful, in life or in death. And the ugly truth? Their own no-interference policy is what caused the oversight. Kurosaki had warned them in no uncertain terms to keep an eye on the development of Quirks when it became clear that powers such as longevity and mind manipulation were not only possible but adaptable. Like they had so many times before, the Gotei simply lost track of the years, ‘til suddenly it seemed like human souls were going missing all at once and no one had any answers for where and why they were gone.
On that account, on the failure of the Gotei 13 to do their due diligence, Toshiro doesn’t much mind being a part of rectifying their mistakes.
A green haired child practically blurs past them, his body a tangle of souls all resting dormant in his spirit. He slips on a bit of ice not quite melted from Toshiro’s sulking. A mousy girl stops him from eating concrete by altering his body weight so he floats gently above the walkway instead.
One of their marks. Clumsy, sweaty, so nervous and novice-like that Toshiro can practically smell his anxiety. A child.
He’s going to freeze all of Kyouraku’s socks so they stand up straight in his linen drawers.
There’s a certain art to play-pretending human adolescence. A certain moodiness, a certain recklessness, a certain penchant for spontaneity.
Kurosaki has it naturally, never really grew out of it. Sure, he’s become calmer with age, more measured, less prone to swinging first and asking questions never, but he’s never lost the fire he had all those years ago. The same instinct that drove a truly teenaged Kurosaki to storm the armoured heart of Seireitei for the sake of one girl still lives and breathes just under the surface of all that calm and measure. It inhales each time the Central 46 try to shackle him with a Captain’s haori. It exhales each time the Captain-Commander reminds them how unintelligent it is to force Kurosaki to do anything.
It’s a stubbornness Toshiro killed in himself when he was still very young - barely past his sixtieth year but bearing the shackle and collar of a Captain’s haori all the same. It’s a heedlessness he’s never had the luxury to cultivate when the weight of hundreds of lives lay in the palm of his hand. When the wrong stroke of a brush could sentence his men to their untimely, horrific end.
He’s reminded of that lack as he stares down at the exam paper in front of him, barrel of a ballpoint pen unfamiliar as ever in his hand.
The written portion of UA’s entrance exam is very odd. It’s a chimera of multiple choice, short form and essay sections, each pulling from a wide pool of subjects like Law and Legislation, History and the Arts, Language and even Physics. Among these, the only question that has given Toshiro pause is the final essay question worth eighty total marks and therefore more points than the sum of the rest of the paper. In theory, one could ignore the whole exam and only fill this one question.
In practice, the question is marked with a bright red [OPTIONAL] and explicit instructions stating that failure to receive a mark of forty or higher will result in an automatic zero. Not just on the essay, but on the entire written exam.
It’s a sieve of sorts - a way to sort the arrogant and the illiterate from the cautious and intelligent. It’s also a perfect way to detect true prodigies and stand-outs from the horde of hopefuls.
So Toshiro sits and he considers.
What kind of human adolescent does he want to be?
As the Captain of the Tenth, Toshiro lets logic and rationality guide but never rule him. Captain Shiba was an emotional man; vibrant, full of love, always acting with his heart on his sleeve. That emotion consumed him in the end. Stole him away from Seireitei, from Toshiro and Matsumoto and everyone else that relied on him. When Toshiro inherited the haori, he swore to be prudent where Shiba had been carefree, calculating where he had been accepting.
In the end, the Tenth will always be the Tenth. Logic could never kill the love Toshiro bears in his heart. His soul is a dragon - frigid and fierce and jealously protective of all that falls within the span of his wings. He fights and bleeds and knows every sacrifice is in the service of a greater, unseeable aim.
But, Toshiro is not so far up the mountain that he’s forgotten his roots. Before he was a dragon, before he was even a dragonet, young and fledgling and without claws or wings, he was a child. Lonely, ostracised, suffocating all he loved with power he did not know he had. And it was painful. And he had prayed many nights for a miracle, a saviour.
A hero.
So Toshiro looks at the question, ballpoint pen a fraction of the weight of three yen coins.
Question 40. [OPTIONAL] In 800 words or less, describe what it means to be a hero. [80 marks]
What does it mean to be a hero… What was the shape of the miracle that saved Toshiro from his life of solitude and slow-crawling despair?
He casts his eyes up to Kurosaki’s bent back in front of him, shoulder working studiously away as he writes his answers without pause. He thinks of Matsumoto’s troubled face and the way she held him by his collar. The way she smiles and complains and drinks and always gives it her all no matter the crisis or circumstance.
He fixes the ballpoint pen in his grip and knows what he must write.
He and Kurosaki are in different groups for the practical exam.
Some part of him is relieved at this — Kurosaki has been taking this whole ‘entrance exam’ thing shockingly seriously for someone who has never gone through Shinn’o, and Toshiro would hate to have him as an opponent in what is, in essence, a ‘blow-things-up’ contest — but most of him is annoyed that he will be among unfamiliar, super-powered, human children deadset on victory.
The gigai itches. Something about the process to convert reiatsu is terribly akin to being covered head to toe in goatskin. Toshiro doesn’t need much power to get enough points to pass. He casts an eye to his group and amends that thought. Undoubtedly, even without much exertion, he won’t need much power to win.
Instead, he decides to continue with his plan.
Kurosaki is in the group with their target - no doubt he’ll be doing something flashy and insane in his own right to distinguish himself from the others. Which means, naturally, that Toshiro can’t lose to him, that the shape of their relationship while at school is already taking shape should Toshiro care to meet him halfway. Kurosaki doesn’t sneak about or obfuscate. He doesn’t lie, cheat or hesitate. He simply takes one’s beliefs and redefines them, beats speculation, anger, distrust out of all who cross him with nothing but sheer, unyielding power. This has never changed, nor does Toshiro wish for it to change.
It is this exact unyieldingness that saved Soul Society, after all.
So when the gates open and the master of ceremonies announces their ‘blow-things-up’ contest open, Toshiro ignores the itching and instead focuses on the moisture in the air.
Most of the children in his group rush off to destroy as many of the robots as possible. There is one particularly violent mass literally blowing the adversaries apart but aside from him, there are no other variables in the area Toshiro ought to be wary of. Good.
Toshiro exhales. His breath mists out. In this body, he can muster about twenty percent of his power at Shikai, but Toshiro has never needed to release Hyourinmaru to subjugate the heavens. It’s a good thing indeed that Urahara set such a hard limit on their bodies. This way Toshiro doesn’t have to worry overmuch about his ice affecting the other exams.
The snow begins to fall, little lotuses of ice blooming in cracks and crevices of the buildings as Toshiro walks through the streets. The children continue fighting, but soon the temperature begins getting to them. Toshiro’s not irresponsible. Those he can warn, he cautions to retreat back to the entrance of the fake city before the temperature falls even further. Those who do not listen, he herds with ice walls and blockades and unnamed flowers nipping at their exposed calves and fingers.
By the time the zero pointer makes its debut - huge, hulking, threatening enough that any intelligent child recognises ‘flight’ as the superior option to ‘fight’ - it is Toshiro and the explosion child and no one else in the frozen over city. There’s roughly a minute left on the clock, and though the child’s focus is on acquiring more points, hunting robots and blowing whatever escapes the clutches of Toshiro’s ice to smithereens, it’s clear the cold is getting to him too.
Forty-five seconds. Their eyes meet. The child sneers, crackling fire sparking to life in the palm of his hands. It’s different to any flame Toshiro knows - not Engetsu’s comforting warmth, nor Ryujin Jakka’s desolate scorch. These are barely embers, more like sparks, burning fuel then withering like fireworks over the Seireitei. He’s shivering. He needs to leave.
“What the hell do you think you’re doin’ here, extra? This is my fight!”
Forty-two seconds. Toshiro ignores his words, focus instead on the zero pointer as it crashes through his walls. They aren’t particularly enforced and he certainly isn’t putting energy into maintaining them, but his pride stings all the same when they shatter like glass under the robot’s weight. Snow falls in sheets now, wind beginning to whip the more Toshiro’s power saturates the air. Perhaps he can stop it at a distance… The child straightens up like he’s been struck, glaring red eyes like knives before he cocks a fist back and tries to hit Toshiro. It breaks his meagre focus.
“Knock it off with the fuckin’ snow, asshole. You tryin’ to show me up?”
Thirty-eight seconds. The child is visibly shaking now. Whether with rage or from the cold, Toshiro can’t tell. Can’t dissuade him, can’t put him in more danger by ignoring him. Indiscriminate enemy rapidly approaching despite Toshiro’s efforts to slow its steps with ice lotuses blooming at its feet. Instead, he sighs, breath sparkling with ice before falling away. “Not show you up, slow it down.”
The boy grits his teeth. In the almost silence of the quickly growing snowscape, Toshiro can hear it, loud like creased leather. “I don’t need your stupid fuckin’ handouts — “
Thirty seconds. “You’re wasting time. You want more points, right?” That snaps his jaw shut, a passing breeze makes him snap those fire-flowers of his to life again. “You won’t get any here. Come on.”
Twenty-eight seconds. When Toshiro stalks down the eastern street, towards a makeshift corral where he’s got about ten more robots blocked off with ice and frozen to the asphalt, the child hesitates for half a second before following along, kicking shrapnel and ice-bitten robot parts aside like he’s relieving tension. Good. At least he has good instincts.
Twenty-two seconds. Toshiro opens the ice pen, revealing the cache of robots he’d stored away for himself. He’s on something like sixty-three points right now, but he doesn’t mind not winning if it means no unnecessary casualties. Speaking of — he pulls off his jacket and gives it to the child too, daring him to refuse it when he’s shivering so intensely that his knees are starting to clack together. He has good fortitude, all things considered. Hyourinmaru likes that he’s still fighting.
The boy bats his jacket away. It falls onto the frozen street. “Get that shit out of here. I told you, I don’t need your handouts.”
There’s no time to argue. Toshiro shrugs it back on. “It’ll only get colder. I can see you struggling.”
It’s the wrong thing to say. The boy’s fire-flowers explode to life, crackling and filling the still air with its loud bangs. “I’ll show you struggle, you dick!”
Toshiro valiantly does not seal the entrance to the pen. Instead, he slips out of the makeshift door, putting a hand to the ground to feel out the location of the remaining robots.
Fifteen seconds. Minus the zero pointer, and the ten the child is currently destroying, there are thirty remnant robots scattered about the city. Explosions start going off behind him. Toshiro exhales. The world falls silent.
Fourteen seconds. Moisture, water, is always more troublesome to detect when Toshiro has to dig for it. Past the armoured hulls, the springs and wires and circuits, there are cooling systems in these robots. Coolant fluid to quench sawblades after prolonged spinning. Oil and fuel to keep the engines running.
Twelve seconds. There are perks to being so accustomed to fighting with limiters and seals. Fine control gets refined, lack of raw power necessitates the birth of precision and grace. Hyourinmaru grumbles in his ear, wants to consume the city whole, to establish himself and his power. Wants to win. Toshiro inhales, redirects that desire, sends it pulsing through the streets, the air, the skies.
Ten seconds. The temperature drops sharply. The blizzard expands. Not only above Toshiro’s testing site, but site C and E too. The child pauses in his decimation, indignant, cold. Rushes out of the makeshift slaughterhouse to yell, “What the fuck do you think you’re doi— “
And he falls silent. Everything is silent.
Eight seconds. Flowers of ice bloom above the city, Hyourinmaru’s crest. Frigid, like spires, freezing the surrounding streets and buildings ‘til all the city has become a frozen monument to his skill. Toshiro exhales. His breath mists. He lets go of his power, lets it fade away like chaff on a spring breeze.
Beat that, Kurosaki.
Aizawa Shouta really, truly, wants a cigarette.
Granted, he doesn’t have any. He quit something like six years ago and doesn’t particularly want to pick the habit back up again, but if, hypothetically, he could have a cigarette, he’d take it immediately.
Since he doesn’t have the luxury of daydreams and fantasies, he stands in the corner of the observation room, head supported by the wall as he puts his drops in his eyes. He hadn’t been able to tear his eyes away from the screens the past three or so minutes. None of them had. More than drive, more than power, more than potential, this year’s crop of first years were monsters. Logistical, economical, physical — god, Shouta can see the stacks of paperwork now. He’s not going to see daylight until he’s thirty-three and free of them. Hizashi’s going to have to go on dates with his shrivelled up corpse.
Speaking of Hizashi, they’re watching him stalk back to the observation room now. He’s got a slight tremble in his limbs from the cold Hitsugaya inflicted on his training field. Shouta sighs, peels himself off the wall and goes rooting around in one of the overhead cabinets for a spare blanket, a towel and a change of clothes. It’ll be a disaster if he gets sick from staying in those wet ones. The new semester’s only two weeks away.
“Aizawa.” He hums, still rooting around for a spare UA gym uniform in Hizashi’s size. Kan knows better than to demand his full attention, Shouta’s not going to bother pretending he cares about anything in this room now that preliminaries are over. “You’ve got your hands full with this bunch this year.”
This year and every other year, infinitely, until he dies or retires. That’s the job he (didn’t) signed up for. Frankly, sometimes, it’s the only job he wants. Funny how that works.
“Is there a point here, Kan?”
Kan fidgets behind him. Shouta pulls down the uniform and bundles it in the blanket. Hizashi will tease him for waiting at the door like a guard dog but Shouta’ll survive. Better he tease him while warming up than grumbling with a sore throat after the cold’s seeped too deeply into his skin.
“Just…” another moment of hesitation. Shouta can hear Hizashi speaking with one of the examinees - a girl. Based on the content of their conversation, Uraraka Ochaco. “If you need an extra one, door’s always gonna be open.”
That’s… pleasant. He and Kan may not always see eye to eye on a pedagogical level, but he’s reliable. Stronger than Shouta too. More capable of bringing the truly rambunctious to heel with a swift punch to the stomach. Usually, Shouta files his offers to help in a far off corner of his mind, but then, usually, Shouta isn’t dealing with fifteen year olds that can call down hailstorms or decimate city blocks with the flick of a hand.
He keeps his eyes on the door, waving Kan off with a limp curl of his wrist, “I’ll keep it in mind.”
Nezu’s next to speak up, gleeful laughter filling the room as the assembled staff slide out of their chairs to stretch and process what just happened. “Kan-san, you may want to refrain from making promises you can’t keep — based on today’s results, the new year will be livelier than ever!”
“I feel a bit bad,” Kurose says, “quite a few students who normally would’ve been cinches for Heroics won’t even be considered.”
The door bangs open, Hizashi stepping in, tremors running down his arms, leather pants already damp to his legs, “Cool, cool, cold — sheesh, those kids sure know how to put on a show!” Shouta’s at his side immediately, wordlessly helping him pull off his jacket and checking for any signs of frostnip. Hizashi’s smile curls warm, a bit teasing, “Ah? Were you worried, listener? Present Mic’s burning up from this warm reception.”
If Shouta pinches his thigh while wrenching the wet leather off his legs, that’s between him and Hizashi. “What’s your report, Mic?”
The scattered small talk halts immediately, all eyes focused on Hizashi as he slips the UA gym shirt on. He’s silent for a long minute, gathering his thoughts. Shouta’s already got some theories of his own but it’s not his place to speak. He helps him into the pants, then helps him stand too. Hizashi’s flesh is cold to the touch, but not dangerously so. He’ll be fine. Still, Shouta pushes the blanket into his side before giving him some space, settles just out of arm's length against the wall while he waits for Hizashi’s assessment.
“It’s funny,” His tone is deadly serious, green eyes concealed behind the yellow glare of his sunglasses. In the lowlight of the observation room, Hizashi looks almost lethal. Splendid. The way he always shines when that mind of his is on full display, “I keep wracking my brain, but no matter how I look at it, messin’ with the weather’s gotta be a composite Quirk.”
Composite? So—
“Two Quirks?” Kan frowns, “It’s rare but not unheard of.”
Todoroki Shoto - Endeavour’s kid - has two Quirks. Based on the reports, Shouta’s pretty sure it doesn’t work even remotely like this. Two Quirks mean they work independently of each other - that the user has to consciously uphold and balance them when using both synchronistically. Weather control wouldn’t be the basic form of such a situation. It would be its zenith.
Hizashi makes a so-so motion with his hand, wrapping the blanket around his shoulders while he speaks, “See, I thought of multiple Quirks too, but that doesn’t quite cover it either. He changed the weather first, yo! More than ice or snow, my bet’s that Hitsugaya’s got a scary strong water Quirk.”
Shouta thinks of the way he remotely flash-froze the robots, the way the ice seemed unaffected by the heat or impact of Bakugou’s explosions. Insane. Absolutely insane. That’s what? Control of moisture on a molecular level? Is it possible for such a Quirk to even manifest norma—
Oh. Of course. Composite.
Ugh. Problems, issues and paperwork. Each and every one of them.
Kurose makes a questioning sound, the implication heavy in the air, “Are Quirk Marriages still allowed? I thought they were outdated.”
Shouta huffs, “Outdated doesn’t mean illegal. It’s mostly practiced among high status personnel now.” Or people with nothing to offer except their Quirks in exchange for survival. But he’s not going to focus on that right now. Both Hitsugaya and Kurosaki are high-born, Kurosaki especially has a lineage more than three hundred years old. No doubt his monstrous strength is the result of a long, storied history of Quirk breeding.
Ectoplasm speaks, voicing the thoughts each of them are no doubt thinking, “Isn’t it a problem if this many high-class families are getting involved? These people aren’t exactly known for being hands-off with their heirs.”
“Come now, teachers,” Nezu claps his paws together, jumping down from his chair, nose twitching, “Such talk is unlike you! Many prestigious families send their offspring to study at UA! And many of your own students have been the progeny of politicians, nobles and wealthy businessmen. Our duty as teachers remains the same; to guide our students, regardless of their backgrounds, to become Heroes!”
Except most prestigious families don’t bother with entrance exams. They get recommendations or private audits so there’s no chance for their children to get lost in chaos. Even without taking Kurosaki and Hitsugaya’s family situations into consideration, that still leaves students like Bakugou, Fumizaki, even Iida’s kid brother. It’s all a mess, and it’s going to be Shouta’s responsibility to sort through the rubble and make it work.
Hizashi sneezes, breaking the troubled tension that’s settled in the room. Shouta sighs, pushing himself off the wall and taking him by the wrist, “I’m taking a break to clear my head. I’ll be back in fifteen.”
Nezu gives a subtle nod when Shouta meets his eyes. It’s all the permission he needs. Kurose waves a hand to get his attention, “If you’re going to make him something warm, bring me back a coffee? Please?”
Shouta doesn’t dignify her with a response, closing the door as she makes a put upon sound. Hizashi snickers under his breath, hitching the blanket further up his neck to better insulate himself. It puffs out awkwardly because of his directional speaker. Shouta clicks his tongue, “You should take that off, the cold metal against your skin can’t be good for your throat.”
“Aww, is Shou-chan worried about me?”
‘Shou-chan’ doesn’t want to baby him better if he gets sick from trying to seem tough. Shouta slips his hands behind Hizashi’s neck, pulling his head down so he can unclasp the speaker. “Don’t be stubborn, Yamada,” The latch snaps. Shouta has to peel the equipment off where parts of the metal had still been stuck to his skin. Sure enough, Hizashi’s neck is red and tender-looking. There’re still little shards of ice stuck on the edges of the speaker, too. What a monstrously powerful Quirk. “There. Do you need to see Recovery Girl?”
“Nah, I’m all good,” Still, he leans further into Shouta’s shoulder, slumping down ‘til his head’s snug against Shouta’s neck, crumpling up his capture weapon with his weight. “Just let me mooch off of your warmth for a second, yeah?”
What an idiot.
Their acceptance letters come in the afternoon, three days after the entrance exam.
Kurosaki is out on a prowl with the Shihouin Princess, searching for any signs of their other target. It means Toshiro is stuck in the shoten with Urahara, looking over files about Quirks and Quirk Development in the past fifty years while the ex-captain tends to his shop.
Ururu hands him the letters. Over the past century and a half, she’s grown into her power much like Toshiro has. Still, she’s nervous as she ducks into the room, convinced she’s disrupting serious work when all Toshiro’s doing is reading and talking to Hyourinmaru. He breaks the seals on both, reading the requirement list for their uniforms, registrations and the instructions for updating their places of education and Quirk information. He watches both their videos.
Kurosaki beat him in the practicals - beat everyone in the practicals - to set a new record of one hundred and forty-eight battle points and one hundred and fifty rescue points. Toshiro was right on his heels with ninety-six battle points and one hundred and ten rescue points. It doesn’t matter, certainly it has no bearing on the shape of their mission, or even their covers as students at the school, but Toshiro can’t help but feel victorious when he realises the overall win is his. Kurosaki got a ninety-three on the written exam. Toshiro got a perfect score.
There will be time for seriousness later. For now, Toshiro looks at their letters, their first real step towards fixing this mess, and celebrates.