Waiting was an odd game.
An odd, but familiar game.
It seemed to Unohana that her entire life was comprised of waiting.
As a rukongai rat, she waited for her day of glory. For her chance to grind in to dust all the rich, old bastards who looked down upon her. Who spit on her untamed fire.
(Yachiru's body was bruised and cut and never seemed to heal. Sweets her aunt gave her seemed to be the only reprieve to the hurt. She loved it; the candy. Especially when she shoved it down the bastard's throat until his mouth foamed with pastels. Yachiru's mother held her and cried and then left her.)
While studying to be a shinigami, Yachiru waited for recognition. For the filthy fiends who sat high above her on thrones of money to beckon her forth. She wanted nothing more than to make them swallow their superiority and bow to her unquestionable strength.
(Yachiru, took her respect and cultured it with fear as she cut down the former captain of the 11th division and claimed his coat as her own.)
When commanding the 11th division of the 13 Gotei, Yachiru waited for an opponent. She waited for strength as wild as her own, for a fire as untamed, unchecked as her own. Piles of worthless bodies and quivering hands of unworthy subordinates testified to that. Blood was the price of her waiting, then. Lives were the cost of her wasted time.
(A wild boy, wielding a stolen sword, proved her unworthy in a barrage of clumsy blows. An untamed smile twitched on Yachiru's face as she bled; as she gazed at wounds crafted by a vicious rukongai rat.)
Years later, with a thick braid stretching down her front and gentle hands healing weak bodies, Unohana Retsu waited patiently and calmly and gracefully. No amount of sharp smiles or condescending 'tsks' shook her from her waiting. Not a single coaxing by her candy-loving name sake tempted her to look his way. It was best, she had decided, to wait. To wait until he was stronger. Until he was wild again.
(Blood spattered her coat, as she clumsily attempted to keep her sword in hand. Wild eyes and vicious hands and a tattered smile flickered in and out of her vision. Retsu Unohana, for she no longer deserved the name Kenpachi, had been a fool. She had been his weakness. His block. The reason he was tamed. The reason he was lacking. The reason he was weak. And, it made her smile.)
Unohana waited to die. Waited in rough, unforgiving arms to pass away. Only one of them could live, she knew. Only one of them could be Kenpachi. And, she felt so joyful and full of unspeakable fires. Unohana was free and fulfilled. Her underling now her equal. No, her superior. Unohana Retsu was unspeakably relieved that what she had started had found it's end.
(Except, that wasn't right. She wanted to see his fire burn to its flickering heights. Wanted to see the stunted child grow to be a fierce man. She wished to see her lieutenant smile. She wanted to stroll down her wooden healing palace. Wanted more than anything to continue to fight. Unohana wanted to live.
But, waiting was an odd game
An odd, familiar game
And, like any game
It came to an end
When the dice struck death
When Yachiru Kenpachi gasped her last breath
When Kenpachi Zaraki gasped his first breath)