Tears of the Warrior
Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach, nor any of the characters depicted within. They all belong to Kubo Tite.
Warning: Spoilers for the anime viewers, as it is set in the near future of the manga. Also, character death – sort of.
Chapter 1: The Nameless
"Gooo Ken-chan!" Yachiru cheered, as Kenpachi threw off five of his strongest men in a wrestling match held inside the 11th Division's training dojo. Ikkaku and the others groaned as they picked their bruised bodies up from where they had landed.
"Come on, you lazy bums," Kenpachi rumbled at them. "Gimme a good workout. I'm not even sweating yet."
"You're just… too… strong, Captain," Yumichika gasped as he got up wearily. "I don't think anyone other than Ichigo or the some of the other captains can handle you."
"Yay! Ken-chan is the winner!" Yachiru shouted happily from the sidelines, where she was eating some candy. Kenpachi grinned at the little girl.
"All right, training over," he growled out. "Go get those wimps at the 4th Division to tidy up your useless corpses." Weak groans and mutters could be heard as the battered shinigami trailed out of the dojo in the general direction of Unohana's division.
"What are you going to do now, Ken-chan?" Yachiru inquired, jumping up to take her customary perch on top of his shoulder.
"Guess I'd better go and do all that paperwork, since I'm in a good mood after that morning exercise," Kenpachi mused aloud. "You want to run off and do something by yourself, Yachiru?"
"No, I wanna be with Ken-chan," Yachiru said.
"Nah, you go off and do something else," Kenpachi picked her off his shoulder and set her on the ground. "Go find out if Hitsugaya's learned anything new about the Arankaru for me."
"No fair!" Yachiru pouted. "I wanna stay with you, Ken-chan. Ken-chan never lets me be with him for any of the important stuff."
"You idiot," Kenpachi snorted. "What could be more important than fighting? Run along and see if Hitsugaya's picked up any strong opponents that may be worth fighting later."
"Ken-chan's so mean!" Yachiru stuck out her tongue at her captain as she sped off.
Zaraki Kenpachi sighed as finally put the last sheet on top of the massive pile of paper. His good mood earlier had been completely dissipated by four hours of continuous paperwork in the office. He hated paperwork. Next time he was going to foist it off on Yumichika to do. That wuss spent too much time preening in the mirror anyway. A good dose of filling out forms ought to straighten him out a bit.
BOOM!
A massive shockwave rippled through the foundations of the seireitei as a thunderous roar filled the air. Kenpachi rushed out of the office to find that great black holes were being ripped out of the sky of Soul Society, and the Menos were falling. Hundreds of them, speckled here and there with the smaller forms of more advanced hollows and arankaru, dropped onto the buildings of the 13 Court Guardian squads.
The first attack had begun.
"Captain! Captain!" Ikkaku rushed into the office, hastily strapping on his sword. Kenpachi was already fully armed and striding out.
"Ikkaku! Get the rest of the division organised and go to our assigned defensive post!" he shouted in passing to the bald-headed shinigami. "I'm going to go ahead and take on the first few!" Gleeful anticipation flickered at the heels of his sandals. It had been too long since he had been involved in a fight of this magnitude. He needed something to work out the kinks those four hours of paperwork had put into him. This fight would have plenty of strong opponents. He could hardly wait.
"Ken-chan! I'm going with you!" Yachiru shouted, jumping onto his back. Almost by instinct, he extended his arms back to form a saddle for her as he began to run. She slotted into position perfectly, as usual, and together they sped towards the horizon darkened by the landings of the enemy.
As they drew nearer to the army, enemy menos started to appear. Yachiru, using her roped sword like a whip, lashed out at them and destroyed them as Kenpachi sped past. These guys were too weak for him, so he just ignored them and let the little girl take them. She was bouncing happily in her makeshift seat on his back.
"Whee! This is fun, Ken-chan!" she cried out as her sword cut through another 20-foot-tall Menos Grande. "I like fighting with Ken-chan this way!"
Kenpachi grinned as they got closer to the source of the strong reiatsu he had been trying to track down. Resistance had slowly been stiffening as they approached the main bulk of the army. Kenpachi drew his sword and began to slash through the inconsequential flies bothering him in his search for that strong opponent. Yachiru also got off his back and sped alongside him, hacking away at the enemy.
They had cleared a path perhaps ten bodies deep into the army before they came face to face with who he had been looking for.
Aizen Sousuke.
He was standing in a little clearing in the midst of the surrounding forces. The lower-level hollows and arankaru had all pulled back at the sheer ferocity of Kenpachi's and Yachiru's attack on their flank. Kenpachi and Yachiru stood facing him as he smiled at them. Behind them, Kenpachi could hear the first of his division members joining the fray at the fringes of the army. No doubt they were enjoying themselves, just as he would be shortly.
"I've been wantin' to fight you for a long, long time, Aizen," Kenpachi could hardly keep a grin off his face at the prospect. "Looks like you're a lot stronger than you let on at first." Aizen looked calmly at the two figures slowly approaching him.
"Why am I not surprised?" he said sardonically. "Somehow, I knew you would be the first to arrive, Zaraki. But you run a risk, being so far separated from your command." The traitor's eyebrow lifted fractionally and he nodded at the battle taking place at the far end of the courtyard.
"Ken-chan and I are enough to take you on!" Yachiru cried excitedly. "We're going to beat him, aren't we Ken-chan?"
"Nah, I wanna fight him myself," Kenpachi disagreed. "You go find another person to pick on, Yachiru." His eyes scanned the crowd of wary enemies ringing them and selected one at random. "Why don't you try that one?" he said, pointing with his sword at a human-like arankaru with a trail of bone-mask down one side of his face. "He looks strong enough to give a challenge."
"Oh, but I was having so much fun fighting with Ken-chan," Yachiru whined. "All right then," she huffed as she turned towards the arankaru Kenpachi had picked. "Come on, bony-hair. Yachiru wants to play!"
Kenpachi turned back to Aizen, who had been watching the little interplay with amused interest and who motioned the arankaru forward with a little wave. "Tell you what," Kenpachi offered. "Since I know you're pretty strong an' all, I'm gonna go all out this time. I'll even remove my eyepatch for ya."
With that, Kenpachi peeled off his energy-sucking eyepatch, and the resultant burst of reiatsu destroyed all of the lesser hollows nearby. Aizen was completely untouched.
"You are amusing, Zaraki Kenpachi, to think that you could fight me equally," he smiled. "Nevertheless, since you're so determined to have a one-on-one duel with me, I suppose I can spare you a few moments."
"Talkin' big now, aren't we?" Kenpachi licked his chops as he pointed his soul-slayer at Aizen. "Come on, you little traitor. Let's have a real fight!" Adrenaline rushed through his veins and the glee in his voice was unmistakable. This was truly an opponent worth fighting. At the corners of his mind, he could vaguely see that Yachiru and the nameless arankaru had already begun their combat, but he quickly dismissed them from his mind.
Anticipation quickened his heartbeat as Aizen lifted a hand glowing with dark energy. "For someone like you, Zaraki Kenpachi, I don't even need to draw my soul-slayer," the man said. "Kidou arts are more than enough."
"Feh," Kenpachi spat on the ground. "Kidou is for wimps. Let's see how long you can last against me!" With that, he leapt forward for the attack.
"Kidou arts #93: Reiatsu Leeches," was all he could hear before Kenpachi was suddenly covered with foot-long leeches. Kenpachi found his reiatsu suddenly flickering wildly as he struggled to maintain his balance. The leeches drained his power at an unimaginable speed, causing him to feel weaker and weaker with each movement. He tried to strip them off, cutting them away with his soul-slayer, but every time he lifted his arm it felt heavier and heavier. Soon, he could no longer stand and sunk to his knees, losing his grip on his soul-slayer.
"Foolish, foolish Captain," Aizen murmured, approaching the place where Kenpachi was weakly struggling. "Did you think that you could face me alone? You, who do not even know the name of your weapon? Alone, without the help of even your vice-captain?"
Distantly, Kenpachi could sense the flickerings of the battle being fought around him as the other division captains tried their best to reach him. Off to one side, Yachiru was veering erratically, being thrown off-guard by his sudden collapse and hard-pressed by her opponent.
"Foolish, foolish captain, heeding only the bloodlust within you," Aizen reiterated, taking his time to pace around Kenpachi, who had begun to experience dizziness in his efforts to get rid of the last few remaining leeches. Shouts could be heard as the prolonged battle began to shift closer to where Kenpachi was.
Aizen looked around him. "Well now, it appears that this first raid is about to end soon. The other division captains seem to be determined to assault me en masse." He snapped his fingers together at someone outside Kenpachi's range of vision, which was beginning to swim. "But before I go, I thought it would be best to leave a fitting reminder of our visit to Soul Society."
"Ken-chan!" Kenpachi heard Yachiru cry out as she struggled in the arms of the vastoorode arankaru that she had been fighting with. Suddenly, everything snapped clearly into focus again. Aizen smiled evilly at the trapped girl, and turned to Kenpachi, who was still lying on the ground too weak to move.
"Foolish, foolish captain," he said pityingly.
And with that, he drew his soul-slayer and stabbed Yachiru straight through her heart.
Kenpachi stared in shock as the little girl whom he had single-handedly raised from the time she was a little baby until the present day died at the hands of his enemies. The arankaru carelessly dropped her lifeless body onto the ground as Aizen and the rest turned their backs on him, preparing to leave.
A mighty torrent of grief and despair rushed through Kenpachi's stunned body, ripping through his throat in a hoarse cry:
"YACHIRU!"
To be continued...
Author's Notes: I know, I know. I had an awful, heart-wrenching time writing that first chapter. I love Yachiru. I really do. Something twisted in my guts when I wrote that part. But there's a reason for it, and if I am able to exercise my skills well enough to portray the vision I see in my soul, then hopefully the ending of the story will fully justify the beginning.