Shinigami live a long time, we know from canon. I thought that perhaps some other physiological processes would take more time as well. Not all of them, though.
The pairing here may surprise you. Too soon to tell if it's possible.
Tite Kubo's, not mine, not for profit either.
Kenpachi Zaraki paced back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Sweating. His status in the Sereitei was changing, and he wasn't sure he liked that. At all.
Finally, Retsu Unohana took pity on him. "Come and sit down, Ken-chan. Tea and dim sum are coming. You'll eat." That was an order. "In the meantime, let me tell you how this is going to go."
He was white-faced. "I ain't sure I want to be this and th' kenpachi at th' same time."
Unohana smiled. "It's not like we can decide to postpone it, Ken-chan."
He scowled. "Can't you do somethin'?"
"No. There's no need."
He wasn't reassured. "If you say so. How much longer?"
Retsu hesitated. "It's hard to estimate the first time, but I think we'll get there before dinner."
A blood-curdling yowl sounded from the open door down the hall. Kenpachi looked at her helplessly.
She shrugged.
"It's ten o'clock in the freakin' morning! Eight more hours?" He got up and began pacing again.
The food arrived. He ate, and probably tasted none of it, pushing the plate away absently.
"Kenny." Yachiru's voice floated down the corridor. Kenpachi Zaraki did not so much as glance at Retsu Unohana before he obeyed the call.
She smiled. She was used to nerves, but Zaraki as ever exceeded expectations.
"Hey." Zaraki came to a halt beside Yachiru's hospital bed. She was playing cards with Ikkaku Madarame, who looked at his captain with the same helplessness that Kenpachi felt. She hurts, and I can't fix it.
She reached out and took one of his big hands. "Kenny, I can't have ya killing Shuuhei. It took both a' us ta get me inta this fix, ya know."
Kenpachi growled. Ikkaku scowled.
"Kenny. Ikky." She smiled at them, a little pink-haired imp who had grown up to be the improbably beautiful big-bellied pregnant woman in the hospital bed before them. "Ya can't kill Shuuhei."
Both of them growled. You ain't in a position to enforce that at the moment, woman.
Yachiru said to the man who raised her, "Remember when ya rescued Bya-hime, ya got hurt, and ya tol' me I should be mad at you, not him, for that? You haveta be mad at me too, Kenny."
"No, I don't. I'm the freakin' kenpachi. I can be mad at anybody I want to."
Ikkaku made a noise like a strangled coyote. Kenpachi glowered at him.
Yachiru crinkled up her nose to laugh, and then her focus changed abruptly to her belly. "Hang on ta me, Kenny. It's gonna hurt for a minute."
He had never before been in the presence of a laboring woman. He gave her both his hands, and winced at the strength of her grip.
Unohana came to stand beside him, and said calmly, "Open your eyes, Yachiru. Focus on Ikkaku. Breathe in very quickly, out, out, out, out. In fast, out, out, out. In slowly, slowly, out. Keep up that rhythm." She put a hand very lightly on Yachiru's abdomen, kept her eyes on the clock on the wall.
The distended belly of late pregnancy rippled as Yachiru's womb contracted, taking her baby's cue that it was time to be born. "Out, loooong breath out, Yachiru. Now a very long, shallow breath in ... don't gasp ... keep it coming. There. About ten minutes apart now. You're doing great." Unohana wrung out a washcloth, laid it on Yachiru's brow as she fell back to her pillow, gasping.
Kenpachi kissed the back of her hands, desperately. Ikkaku got out his handkerchief and blew his nose, so that nobody would dare to accuse him of crying.
Shuuhei Hisagi arrived in a whirlwind of dust and dry leaves. "'Chiru!" he said.
Zaraki's clenched fist came up, but Unohana stepped between the Captain of the Ninth Division and his wife's father. "You go shower and change before you touch her!" the Fourth Division Captain said.
Shuuhei grinned at her, disobeyed her long enough to clasp and kiss the hand his wife reached out to him, and hit the shower in the room. "You can kill me when I come back, Kenpachi!" he shouted out after himself.
"I get ta kill 'im when yer done," Ikkaku growled.
"It'll take ya a long time ta find th' pieces," Zaraki growled back.
Yachiru grinned at them both. "Will you two stop it? I get ta kill 'im if anyone does, and I don't want ta. This baby's gotta have a father. –Where the hell's Yumi?"
"I'm here, right here!" called out what appeared to be the world's largest mobile arrangement of yellow roses.
"Where. The Hell. Did You Get. Those," said Kenpachi, who knew very well what purpose every square foot of ground in the Eleventh Division served, and that none of it grew roses.
"Living world," Yumichika Ayasegawa said carelessly, setting them on the bedside table, and Kenpachi knew that they'd show up as "Recreational Expenses." "How you manage to do this and still be lovely is beyond me," the fifth seat said to Yachiru, and kissed her cheek, then both her hands.
She laughed. "Yumi, they're beautiful!" And then her hands tightened on his, and she lost her focus on his face.
Yumichika held on tight, and said, in the same measured tones Unohana had used, "Open your eyes, Yachiru. Focus on Ikkaku. Breathe in very quickly, out, out, out, out. In fast, out, out, out. In fast, then slowly, slowly, out. Keep up that rhythm. Out, loooong breath out, Yachiru. Now a very long, shallow breath in ... don't gasp ... keep it coming. There. You're doing great."
His role as a labor coach, and a good one, might have surprised people who did not know Yumichika.
But Yachiru did. She gasped, "It doesn't feel like I'm doing it right," falling back on her pillows. "It just hurts worse each time."
All three of her fathers went pale. Her husband stroked the sweaty hair away from her face, and said, "Babe."
Unohana said, "That's not failure, Yachiru. That's this baby getting born."
Yumichika put his hand against her cheek. Ikkaku looked down and away, to hide the shine of tears, and gathered up his cards. Kenpachi got busy rubbing her feet. You do what you can do.
Kenpachi remembered the night, eighty-four years ago was it now?, when Yachiru had invited them to a meal out, "Because I wanna talk ta alla ya at the same time," she'd said.
Kenpachi had been surprised at the restaurant she chose. It wasn't all-you-can-scarf, it was one of the better places in the Rukongai. Knowing himself to be an expensive man to feed, he'd had about half his usual dinner beforehand.
Yachiru had been managing her own funds for a time then. Still, even on a lieutenant's salary, the meal they ate in a private dining room in the Fuji must have cost her the best part of a month's pay.
They all sat down and she, as hostess, poured out tea and saké. They didn't have to order, she'd planned this meal to within an inch of its life.
Kenpachi's one-of-everything, Yumichika's Four Views of Octopus, Ikkaku's temporary favorite, something new for Yachiru because she was too nervous to eat, and if she didn't like it that wouldn't matter.
The men ate comfortably. The meal complete, Yachiru filled up their sake bowls, and then said, "I'm gonna start goin' out with somebody."
"Who?" said the kenpachi, his eyes glittering.
"I ain't gonna tell ya until ya all promise not ta kill 'im."
"Maybe," said the kenpachi, a man of his word, fearsome eyes locked on his daughter.
"Depends on who it is," Ikkaku added, "and whether or not he needs ta die."
"And how long it should take him," Yumichika put in.
"Won't tell ya till ya promise." Yachiru calmly drank saké, holding Kenpachi's eyes.
Kenpachi looked at her searchingly, really seeing the young woman who had grown up under his tutelage for the first time in several years. He knew she had matured; he was the man who had terrorized lingerie shops buying that first brassiere, had braved fluffy little places to find cherry-flavored lipsticks, and once upon a horrible time after she was wounded pretty badly for the first time ever, had been forced to buy tampons, Retsu bein' in the real world at the time. He'd been wearin' his captain's haori to run that errand, if memory served.
Calm eyes looked back at him now from under strawberry-blond hair. She wore it up, which accented her eyes, her cheekbones, and the line of her jaw.
She wasn't a little girl anymore. She was a woman. He hadda accept that. "I won't promise not ta scare 'im off if I think he's a bad guy," he said gruffly.
Yachiru smiled at him. "I don't think ya will," she said, "an' I'm okay with ya runnin' him off if I'm wrong. But do ya all promise not ta kill 'im?"
Ikkaku and Yumichika exchanged glances with each other, and then with Kenpachi, and then with Yachiru. Ikkaku said finally, "We'll trust ya ta choose well. But like Cap says, if we don't like 'im, we'll run 'im off."
"I don't think you'll run 'im off. First of all, he don't know yet."
They all nodded. This was sensible of Yachiru, to check out her fathers' reaction before sayin' anything to the guy.
"It's Shuuhei Hisagi."
Absolute dead silence fell on their table.
Yachiru laughed. "Come on, guys. He ain't that bad."
He was, in fact, very close to being Kenpachi's best friend. To celebrate, Kenpachi knocked back enough saké to float a small boat. "No. You coulda done a lot worse, Yachiru."
"Yeah, you coulda." From Ikkaku, this was high praise.
Yumichika didn't say anything. He remembered the taste of Hisagi's reiatsu when he faced the Ninth Division's then-Lieutenant down during Aizen's defection, and smiled.
"You can beat the pants off 'im anytime ya want when yer sparrin'," Kenpachi said slowly, pouring more sake for all of them. "So why him?"
"'Cause I realized I wanna do a different kinda sparrin' with him," Yachiru said economically, which left all of them speechless, and Ikkaku bright red, and poured her father some sake. In Japan it is impolite to pour your own. Even Zaraki knew that much.
Kenpachi glowered at the author of his little girl's present trouble. "How longa you guys been married now?"
"Twenty-eight years," Shuuhei said. "Here comes another one. They're getting closer together."
He climbed into the hospital bed and sat behind his wife, taking the weight of her body into his arms. "'S okay, Yachiru. Breathe. Look at Ikkaku ... "
When it was over, "They're four minutes apart, Yachiru. If you want pain med, now's the time to tell me so," Unohana said. "I'd say you have a twenty-minute window to decide."
The laboring woman relaxed into her husband's arms. "No. We talked about it, and I don't wanna."
"Okay. I'll ask once more to be sure before the window closes." The doctor looked at her patient's support group. "It's time for you to get ready to rock. This is going a little faster than I thought it would. There are scrubs for all of you in the changing room outside this one. Go change, get back in here."
Yachiru said, "Madarame, ya owe me two months' salary."
"Yer losin' track," Ikkaku said. "You owe me four, down from six."
In the changing room, Ikkaku said to Yumichika, "You remember when she told us she was gettin' married?"
Yachiru invited them all into her quarters, where eight sake bottles were supported in candle-warmer holders, and another sixteen lined up in orderly rows across the table.
The walls were pink. The curtains were pink. The bedspread was pink. The carpet was pink. They seldom came into this room voluntarily, because it was so ... pink.
But Yachiru had asked nicely. Nobody in his right mind said "no" to Yachiru when she asked nicely; and, as well as being in their right minds, they didn't want to tell her no. They were her fathers. They came.
"I got somethin' important ta tell ya," she said. "And then we'll have a celebration!"
Kenpachi relaxed. He was afraid that one o' these days, Yachiru would tell him she was pregnant. Then what? For one thing, he'd haveta get a temporary lieutenant. But he was pretty sure she wouldn't spring that on 'im, and call it a "celebration."
First they drank to be polite. Then they drank because they were drunk. Then they drank because they were very drunk. Then they drank because they were too-drunk-to-do-anything-but-drink drunk.
And at that point, Yachiru, who hadn't drunk much at all, had smiled at Kenpachi, and said, "Shuuhei and I are gonna get married."
A long time later, or so he thought, she had gone around to them, picked their heads up off the floor by their hair, in Ikkaku's case his ear because she was drunk too, and told them each again.
In the morning, when all four woke up stiff and sore from sleeping on the floor, and monumentally hung over ... at least they woke up on the floor, stiff, sore, and monumentally hung over together, one last time.
She moved in with Shuuhei the next week.
"Of course I remember. My hair still hurts there when the wind blows right." Yumichika stuck his sleek head through the v-neck of the scrubs. "When she did get married, I thought the two of you were quite - elegant."
"You'd'a said 'beautiful' I'd'a killed ya," said Kenpachi. The largest scrubs they had were a little tight on him, and he wriggled.
He had, actually, gotten through her marriage ceremony without killin' anybody.
It was probably the strangest wedding party in the history of the Sereitei. Kenpachi, father of the bride, had shed his usual chest wrap for a more formal kimono, and left off the damned bells for once. Yachiru told him he looked great, and it was true he looked much less frightening with the hair down. Still ugly, just ... less fearsome.
There hadn't been time, anyway, to put his hair into its bells.
Kenpachi, arriving only a little behind schedule, glowered-and-snarled at the usher and stalked up the aisle unaccompanied, sat down in the front row, bride's side, beside Retsu Unohana, and wound his hand into one of hers.
Two weeks prior, his daughter had explained to him in detail that she wished to remain his, and not be given away. That would deprive him of the opportunity to walk her down the aisle. Could he deal with that? He could.
But, if he had not been such a big strong fierce guy, he would have cried. Right then, and not in his quarters on Retsu Unohana's soft shoulder later that night, when no one else could hear.
When the "Wedding March" sounded, Yumichika was first up the aisle as flower (and feather) bearer. His kimono was purple, and the wrap of his zanupakuto matched it.
Then Ikkaku scowled into church as badass of honor, wearing a kimono to match his eyebrow markings, and bearing a bouquet that quite likely contained hidden weapons. Yachiru, who could have insisted on inspecting it, had forborne to do so. She knew exactly how far she could push Ikkaku, and the freakin' flowers were almost too much. Let 'im have his fun.
Yachiru herself walked in like she owned the place, locked eyes with Hisagi, and never looked away. She wore pink kimono, the hell with this white nonsense.
How Yumichika had found a purple, a red, and a pink that didn't swear at each other was a miracle, and something discussed in the Shinigami Women's Association for many months after, usually with reference to the wedding photographs.
Shuuhei Hisagi couldn't take his eyes off her, although he was nervously clenching and unclenching his hands. His groomsmen were Izuru Kira, who for once was smiling, and Renji Abarai, who looked like he would rather be anywhere else, but had taken particular care with his hair that day.
Both Yumichika and Ikkaku fixed the groom with death-glares throughout the ceremony. The father of the bride did so as well, although being at a greater distance he suffered the attentions of the inverse-square law, and lost a lot of power. It was probably all that saved Shuuhei from bursting into flame.
Byakuya Kuchiki danced with the bride, gave the groom a check that made his eyes dilate, and said, "I'll double this if you can keep her out of my study."
"Before they come back," Unohana said to Shuuhei, "I'm going to check things out here, just for a minute." To her patient, she said, "That okay with you?"
It meant the gynecological stirrups. "Oh, that feels wonderful," Yachiru said, when her legs were supported. Shuuhei dropped a kiss on her cheek.
"That's good. We're pretty close now."
There comes a time in labor when the pain is not so much overwhelming as the identity and whole purpose of being for the woman who is undergoing it. Yachiru had almost reached that point, but she had one last thing to do. "Yumi, Ikkaku, you get up here, one on each side'a me. I need your hands to hold. Kenpachi, you're my focus." (His bruised heart expanded a bit.) "Stand behind Yumi. Put your hand on my knee so I can feel you there. You gotta keep me breathing right. You guys all ready? We rehearsed this. We're good. Here we go." She lay back into her husband's support.
"Last chance for pain meds, Yachiru!" Unohana sounded a little sharp. It had been a while since she delivered a baby.
"No ... no." Yachiru clutched the hands that held hers, and fastened her fierce gaze on her father's face. "Kenpachi," she said, "count for me."
He counted for her like his life depended on it. She watched him like hers did. The worst times for him were the moments when pain unhinged her focus; she stared at him, not seeing him. He kept counting for her anyway. He wished he could hold her hands.
Twenty minutes. Forty minutes. Suddenly, from Unohana, "Don't push yet, Yachiru!"
"Trying!"
"I know - it's hard - just pant!"
"Relax, baby girl," said her husband. "Pant. Come on, I'll pant with you."
"Easy, take it easy," said the largest one of her fathers, glowering at his son-in-law for having stolen "baby girl" - both the term and the woman.
All four of them demonstrated panting for her, and looked ridiculous. Unohana spared a thought for wishing she had a camera, but then matters came to a head. Literally.
"Okay, Yachiru, push with the next one! Don't waste the contraction! Push hard!"
Shuuhei, behind her, was tense. She could feel his body, moving with hers - oh, kami, again! She let her body do the work, put herself behind it, felt a roar torn from her throat ... was submerged into the pain, submerged by the pain, made an unwilling one with it ...
A thin wail scored the air of the room. She fell back, panting, into Shuuhei's warmth ...
"It's not over, Yachiru! A couple more pushes!"
And then it was done. Shuuhei's head was down in the curve between his wife's neck and shoulder, and she felt the heat of his tears on her skin. Yachiru turned her head to kiss his cheek.
She squeezed Yumichika's hand once, and he kissed hers before he let it go. Ikkaku let her touch his cheek. And then she held out both hands to the kenpachi, who took them, and held them to his chest like he would never let them go.
Unohana handed the baby off to the nurse, who took him out to clean him up before he met his public. –She said nothing, doing what doctors do after a birth.
Yumichika was in tears. Ikkaku went to the smaller man, wrapped his arms around Yumi, and let him cry on his shirt. Maybe that way nobody would see that he was a freakin' waterworks too.
Yachiru put her arms around Shuuhei's head, and nobody but themselves heard what they said to each other.
The kenpachi availed himself of a neatly folded handkerchief he tucked back into the top of his chest wrap. His daughter, letting go her husband, laughed. "When didja start carryin' a hanky?"
"Put it in there today," the kenpachi growled.
Yachiru held her arms out for him. He came into them, and even managed to pat Shuuhei on the back a couple of times. Shuuhei so far forgot himself as to kiss his father-in-law on the forehead, and collected a pretty good glower for it.
Surviving, he grinned.
The reiatsu in the room settled down a little bit. Unohana, finishing, began to breathe more easily, made the notes. Went out to check the baby's Apgar scores. Good news all around.
She brought Zaraki Ikkaku Yumichika Hisagi out to meet his fan club (the order of his names had been determined by random drawing, Yachiru understanding very well that only that would stop civil war from claiming the 11th in its entirety). His small fists were clutched up beside his face. –You guys aren't gonna do that to me again, are ya?
"Oh, baby," Yachiru said, in a tone not one of them had ever heard from her before. "Welcome." She watched him while he watched her right back, and then when he looked away from her she gently kissed his cheek. "Here," she said to Shuuhei. "Here's your son."
Shuuhei looked like the world had lit up behind his eyes, and he and the baby watched each other for a while. –So far, so good, they haven't shoved me back through that tunnel.
And then Shuuhei said, "Kenpachi," and placed the precious burden in his father-in-law's arms.
Kenpachi had never held a baby so small. "This way," Unohana said. "A hand under the little head."
"You was bigger'n' this when I found ya," he said to his daughter, astonished.
"You said I was crawlin' too."
"Yeah, you was."
"It'll be eight or nine months before he does that," Unohana said.
Everyone in the room watched the most powerful shinigami among the Captains of the Gotei 13 fall completely, helplessly, hopelessly in love. The little boy looked into his eyes, turned his head toward the enormous broad chest, and snuggled in. This is more like it. This guy ain't inta shovin' people through tunnels.
Yumichika, handed the baby, made Ikkaku's heart contract. Yer weird, but yer kinda cute. And ya like me. I'll keep ya.
Ikkaku's turn came and he was afraid he would break this tiny little one, standing rigid in the center of the room with tears that no one ever mentioned again (if they wanted to live) creeping down his cheeks. Got this one wrapped around m'little finger. –Ain't there any challenges in this room?
Yachiru got him back after everyone had fallen under his spell. Oh, you guys again. The baby yawned, and all the adults laughed. My work here is done.
Unohana's was too. She shook Shuuhei's hand, then Kenpachi's, hugged Yumi, got a glower from Ikkaku, and kissed Yachiru's cheek. "You did great, all of you. Take care."
At the door to the room, she knew she wouldn't be able to resist. She put her head back in, made eye contact with Kenpachi, and said, "Congratulations ... grandpa."