Title: 10 Secrets Yachiru Keeps
Pairing: IkkYumi, KenIchi
Rating: PG
Notes: I wanted to do 20; Yachiru doesn't have that long of an attention span.
Disclaimer: Basic
Summary: Yachiru is good at keeping secrets.
1. Her name used to be Mamori.
She remembers a quiet voice humming it into her hair as she was held in a pair of soft, warm arms. The sound fills any memory that doesn’t have Ken-chan (which are admittedly few), and she knows that his voice is nothing like the nice lady, but it’s still a good voice. Because both are safe. Secure. And Mamori wasn’t her name before Rokungai, anyway, so Yachiru has no guilt over letting it go because she gets to hear her new name every morning and every night while her dreams whisper the old one in her sleep.
Ken-chan needed to make her his just like the dead lady wanted to make her hers, and Yachiru figures that names aren’t as important to the wearer as they are to the speaker. No matter what her silly Ken-chan says.
2. Ken-ken got those bells for her and her alone.
Before they left the bloody field where she’d found him, he’d fashioned a sling for her to ride in until she learned to cling to his back. She liked to curl her fingers into the ends of his hair as it swayed above her face. He pulled it up with a stolen thread within hours. She had the thread twisted into snarled knots of hair in minutes. It took him another hour in front of that night’s fire before he could slide his fingers through the long strands. He left it in her hands for the next week, suffering tugs and drool and split ends. When a stall of wind chimes caught her attention long enough for him to notice the absence of pain, he promptly bought a few pieces of smoothed glass, worn wood, and three silver bells. Twenty minutes later, his hair was weighted down with the clattering pieces. One look at her shining eyes, and Ken-chan had reinforced the fastenings with his reiatsu.
She was teething, after all.
3. Yachiru rarely watches Ken-chan’s fights.
She can’t figure out why everyone’s so surprised that she can sleep through his fights. He moves as smoothly as ever, and he always makes sure she’s shielded from weapon and reiatsu alike. In the early years, people hardly ever knew she was under the long hair. Freaky Brow made the funniest sound as they were walking away from Baldie. Yachiru had woken up some time after the typical banter and before the wide-spread blood spurt. It had been a very nice splatter, and she’d dangled farther out of the sling than usual. She wondered if Freaky Brow had been planning something with the sudden relaxation of the tingly reiatsu. Freaky Brow had blinked back at her for a long moment before chuckling and dragging the whining Shiny Head off to the side of the road.
Yachiru remembers seeing the two following her and Ken-chan the next week.
4. Ken-chan didn’t pick the Eleventh company for any particular reason.
Before he made the challenge, he dragged Yachiru, Freaky Brow, and Baldie out to Rokungai for a bit of privacy. Ken-ken figured he’d be bored in Divisions 2, 4, and 12. Yachiru declared her dislike of numbers 1 and 7. Freaky Brow lamented the disharmony of the numbers 5 and 13 while Baldie snarled something about 3 and 9 (Yachiru still giggles now that they’re 5th and 3rd seats). Ken-chan had tossed out Division 10 because he didn’t feel like beating on a kid (though he complained that Whitey’s reiatsu wasn’t worth bothering). Freaky Brow was pinned with a piece of paper bearing a purple 6, Ken-chan took 8, and Baldie scowled when she scrawled 11 on his head in bold black ink. Yachiru was then spun like a top until the ground and sky were swirling back and around, and she staggered into Baldie’s knees. Ken-chan had gruffly declared that Eleventh Division would be their new home.
Yachiru threw up on Baldie’s shoes.
5. She’s not a vice-captain just because Ken-chan likes her.
Vice captains have to apply and qualify for the position same as captains. Well, mostly. The vice-captain of the Eleventh Division had stepped forward with a menacing surge of reiatsu while Ken-chan stalked away from the disappointing fight. Yachiru was frowning down at the dead captain, wondering why he’d been so weak, when some small scuffle brought Ken-ken back. He eyed the vice-captain, wrapped Yachiru’s hands around his sword hilt, and pushed her forward. Most of the crowd had dispersed (run away), and she blinked up at the confused man. She smiled, and his blood was dripping from Ken-ken’s blade before he’d been able to decide how to respond.
They had a lot of work ahead of them.
6. Eleventh Division likes Fourth Division.
Ken-chan’s not quite sure how it happened, but for all of eleventh division’s complaints about and bickering with the soft-spoken, timid fourth division, they like the healers of Seireitei. Yachiru knows that it has to do with the sudden spines the fourth division grows in the face of injuries. Especially injuries that have made other, lesser divisions nauseous and faint. Yachiru thinks that Ken-chan’s division tries to get out of the fourth’s medical halls so that the lamb-skinned tigers can terrorize the supposed wolves of Soul Society.
Yachiru likes that fourth division Shinigami will play games with her.
7. Freaky Brow likes Baldie.
Certainly not a secret, but she’s beginning to see a difference in the quiet moments when dark eyes sparkle and linger on Baldie. She’s been around long enough to see the small changes in teasing and slow gravitation to stand closer, talk softer, stay together. They’ve been together nearly as long as she’s been with Ken-chan, and she knows they’re attuned to subtle shifts from the other. It’s a funny thing to see the two more uncomfortable apart even when they don’t acknowledge the other’s presence when they’re together.
She thinks the oddities of her division should infect the rest of the Gotei-13.
8. Baldie doesn’t know what love is.
But he’s loved Freaky Brow since before they all met in the back waters of Rokungai. She’s not quite sure if he’s waiting for something glaringly melodramatic or not, but Baldie’s waiting for Freaky Brow. Which is probably why he’s been wound so tight now that Freaky Brow isn’t actively searching out other attentions like he did before Seireitei.
Her idiots are so adorably clueless sometimes.
9. Her Ken-chan’s in love with Strawberry.
Yachiru couldn’t miss that fight. Ken-ken’s reiatsu was bubbling happily as he sliced into the ryoka, and they’d both been quite disappointed when Strawberry collapsed. The mounting, roaring reiatsu that swarmed up as the bloody redhead stood up made Ken-chan’s reiatsu ring and chime in her blood, and she felt a surge of affection for both stupidly strong men as they slammed into each other. There was a shift in Ken-chan’s power as he began to realize the relationship of fighter and sword. Respect was a rare thing for Ken-ken to award someone, but Ichi won. And Ken-chan seemed proud that there was someone else equal to him in existence.
She thinks their rematch will have a vastly different ending.
10. She knows the name of Ken-chan’s zanpakutou.
It’s still a secret for right now, but a lot of her secrets seem to have slipped out over the years. People are starting to suss out that she really is a vice-captain (even if she does file reports by ‘stupid head’, ‘extra icky’, and ‘wimp’), most of Eleventh Division understands Ken-chan’s need for names (even if he doesn’t always use them), the other divisions are starting to recognize the bond that holds Ken-chan’s division strong against whatever they crash into (she’s always wondered why the other divisions fall apart when something goes wrong), and Freaky Brow seems to be picking up Baldie’s not-so-subtle hints. Finally. Ken-chan is even starting to notice his preoccupation with hunting down Strawberry every time the redhead in Seireitei. So she’s sure that eventually Ken-chan will be ready to learn his blade’s name, and then all of her secrets will be his.
His zanpakutou is called Yachiru, after all.
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