Title: Children of the Seireitei
Summary: come 'round, children, and hear the stories of the children of some of our favorite characters...
Disclaimer: bleach belongs to kubo.
A/N: i have a weird obsession with giving ichigo shinigami friends that live in the human world for some reason or another. That seems to be the case, a lot of the time. I mean, urahara? The Visored? Isshin? Why does Karakura seem to get all these people? Well, anyway, any and all of these characters will be used in some fic somehow sometime soon. Depending on how much they're liked, anyway.
Chapter 1: Minoru Aizen
Minoru was six years old when he found out his daddy was a Bad Man. It was by accident, really. He'd just happened to overhear Gin-san talking with his daddy about people daddy didn't like. People that Minoru knew, like shinji-taicho and kisuke-san, and played with whenever his daddy brought him to visit. He couldn't really understand, but he knew what things like 'experiments' and 'framing' someone meant. He was a very clever six year old, after all. Just like his daddy.
A week after he'd listened in, teddy bear clutched in his hand, shinji-taicho, kisuke-san, and several other captains and lieutenants had been labeled 'exiles', a word Minoru didn't understand.
So he asked his dad.
Sousuke was very good with his son, but he never really noticed exactly how clever the boy was.
"where did you hear the word?" he asked, and minoru answered truthfully.
"at your captaincy ceremony. Shunsui-jii and jyuu-jii were talking."
"ah." sousuke leaned back in his chair and eyed his son with interest.
"to be an 'exile' means you aren't allowed to return to your... Home, i suppose would be a good word for it. They were talking about urahara-taicho and his friends."
"why- why is kisuke-san exiled?" minoru asked, horrified. "will they ever let him come back home?"
"i don't think so, minoru," sousuke told him gently. "he did some really horrible experiments on hirako-taicho and his friends."
And understanding, thick and agonizing, flowed through his brain, making his eyes go wet with misery and betrayal.
He looked down at his teddy.
"oh," the little boy said quietly, squeezing his bear tightly. "i understand."
"i'm sorry, minoru," sousuke told him gently, but the same way minoru had always known that his father lied about father christmas, he knew his daddy didn't mean it. "i know you'll miss them."
Minoru swallowed hard and nodded, getting up.
"i'm going to go play outside," he said, voice dull.
Sousuke nodded understandingly. "don't go too far from the house," he warned.
"i'll call you in for dinner, alright?"
The boy nodded, head hanging in a child's mockery of disappointment. "bye... Daddy." and with that he stepped out into the sun, into the trees of the small woodland that made up the Aizen Estate.
Sousuke was none the wiser.
Minoru stared into the water at his own reflection, hating everything about it.
Ever since he was born, people had always remarked on how like his father he looked, how sweet, how kind. He'd been proud of that fact, but now...
He didn't quite understand what his father had done, but he knew he had a hand in having kisuke-san es- esc- exiled. He couldn't imagine how shinji-taicho and everyone else was feeling (he knew kisuke-san would never abandon his friends)- how could anyone ever live with not being allowed to come home, after all?
Tears streaming freely down his cheeks, the little boy took a sharp stone- a piece of quartz, to be exact- and pressed it hard into his cheek, drawing blood as he ran it diagonally across one cheek, and then the other.
Don't look like daddy anymore.
You can't look like daddy.
You can't.
Shunsui was taking a leisurely walk by the river when he spied a small lump curled up on the banks, brown head buried in its arms.
Curious, the captain approached the lump, almost certain as to who it was.
"what an oddly shaped rock," he mused out loud, taking a seat beside the little boy. "it might do for my collection."
The child giggled and looked up, revealing a bloody face.
"what- mino-kun?"
"shunsui-jii, look!" minoru smiled widely up at the man, wincing slightly as his wounds pulled. "i don't look like my daddy anymore."
"what- you did this to yourself?" shunsui reached up to brush a finger across one of the three scratches on minoru's cheeks- two on the left, one on the right. "why?"
Suddenly the boy darkened.
"daddy's a Bad Man," minoru mumbled, looking down at the teddy in his arms. "i don't want to look like a Bad Man."
Shunsui's brow furrowed in confusion.
"what do you mean, mino-kun?" he asked, settling down more comfortably beside the boy.
"i-" minoru looked away. "i heard daddy talking a while ago... About things like 'experiments' and 'framing', and something about kisuke-san, but i didn't understand... And now shinji-taicho and kisuke-san and all their friends aren't allowed back in the seireitei, and i think it's all daddy's fault."
Oh. Oh, dear.
"mino-kun," shunsui started gently, reaching out wrap a thin arm around the boy. "what you just said- not that i don't trust your word- but no one will take anything you've just said seriously. It sounds like scraps, something that could be just a part of your imagination." he leaned forward, touching his forehead against the boy's. "but if you ever hear anything that you think might work to prove he's a Bad Man, you come and tell me, alright? And i'll make sure we stop him."
The brunette nodded and hid his face in shunsui's side. "okay."
"good. Now, come. We'll go and see if retsu-san will fix up your cuts."
"!" minoru looked up, alarmed. "no! I made them all by myself, and i want to keep them! I don't want to look like daddy!"
shunsui sighed. "what will you tell him, then?"
"that i don't want to look like a Bad Man."
The captain winced. "... But if you tell him you know that he's bad, he'll try extra hard to keep it hidden from you."
Minoru's face screwed up in confusion. "i don't understand."
"i..." shunsui paused, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.
"pretend you're in the stealth force- your father's told you about them, right?" at minoru's nod, he continued.
"well, sometimes, for missions, they have to go undercover and pretend they're someone else in order to collect information about the enemy. Pretend you're one them, and you have to act like every other little boy you know- silly, happy, not quite as smart as you- you get the idea?"
"so... I have to pretend to be someone else?" minoru looked uncertain.
"no, you can still be mino-kun," shunsui told him quickly. "just... Don't let anyone else ever see who you really are. Never let them know you're watching your daddy, or that you're as smart as you are. If you do, the bad guys will win."
A look of determination bloomed in the little boy's face, and he nods, chin pushed forward almost mulishly.
"okay, shunsui-jii," he said with a sharp nod. "stupid and silly, just the way you pretend."
Damn, that stung, but regardless, shunsui smiled at the boy's summary.
"good. So what are you going to tell your daddy about your scratches, since i'm not allowed to take you to retsu-san?"
"they're battle wounds!" minoru declared, jumping to his feet. "i fought two bigger boys with sticks and i won!"
"... And i happened to come in just in time to break up the fight," shunsui added with a chuckle. "Okay, then. Let's head back. I'm certain dinner's almost ready."
"okay!"
And as they headed back towards minoru's home, shunsui didn't notice the shadow lurking in the treeline, or the way it shunpoed after them, heading towards home as well.
And he never would.
When minoru was ten, he realized what his zanpakuto was for, and he hated it.
In fact, he hated it so much he told no one of its abilities, locking the knowledge as deeply within himself as he could. It went in a box labeled 'Minoru's: Do Not Touch', along with every other dark secret he found himself keeping over the last four years.
Being a genius fucking sucked, even if no one else knew about it.
The most painful part of minoru's whole... Game, was the fact that sousuke still seemed to be proud of him, still seemed supportive of him, even though he was in the bottom half of his class and lost nearly every public spar.
It made him ache inside, because he knew it was genuine, and he felt like a complete prick.
So he ran, leaving only a clever illusion in his wake.
He hoped no one would mourn him too much.