Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach or its characters as they belong to Tite Kubo, but I do own my Original Character in this story, Kohana Hisakane.

The girl sighed. Was she dead? No. She could still feel her body and soul attached to each other. She felt like dying, though. Another sigh escaped her lips as she felt her heart. She realized she couldn't die yet. Someday she would die, but she did not want to die right now. A slight tear rolled down her face as she got up from the dirty streets of Northern Rukongai. The girl's bright pink and red hair flowed in gently in the breeze. It was messy, but it didn't matter. Her kimono was in pieces, her left sandal was broken, her hair was a mess, she wore no makeup, she hadn't slept in days and she hadn't eaten in forever. None of that mattered, though. Only one thing mattered:

"I will become a Shinigami."

Yes, that was the only thing that she could say as she walked forward on her brand new path. She no longer wanted to be that pathetic girl.

"I will become a Shinigami."

Ch. 1: Little Flower

"Ken-channn!"
"Ken-channnnnn!"
"KEN-CHAN!"

Zaraki Kenpachi, taichou of the eleventh division of the Gotei 13, finally awoke from his boredom induced slumber.

"Hey, brat, didn't I tell ya to keep your voice down when people are trying to sleep?"

The large captain glared at the small girl, his fukutaichou, Kusajishi Yachiru, although his glare had no effect.

"Uh-huh. I remember that! It's not like I'm gonna listen, silly!"

Yachiru grinned, making Kenpachi's face turn to a small smirk. It wasn't unusual or him to take a nice nap at his desk, instead of doing his paperwork. It was quite strange for him to do so, since he had to do both his and his lieutenant's paperwork, but he enjoyed being a rebel. Today had been a very good nap day, until his fukutaichou came bursting through.

"Did you forget, Ken-chan? Today we get new recruits!"

The small girl practically danced with glee at the thought of new recruits to torture---er, "Play with"---for hours and hours.

"Che."

That was the best response Kenpachi could muster up before being pulled away from his desk by his fukutaichou. She led him right outside the eleventh division's HQ. There was a line of what looked to be five people. He sighed. A loser, a nobody, a zero, a tough guy and a...girl?

"Interesting..."

Kenpachi's comment was late. Yachiru had already began "playing". He gave his creepiest grin possible and, not a surprise, three out of the five flinched at the sight, although the girl was not one of them. If first impressions were anything, then these new recruits probably thought they had been dragged into the worst squad ever. Kenpachi gave a small chuckle as he watched the pink-haired girl go through the line. She poked and prodded each recruit and gave each a rather stupid nickname. She figured that for every name, she would give a better nickname. Better? No. Stupid? Yes, but Kenpachi would never tell his fukutaichou that. He glanced over at the final recruit in the line, the girl.

"I'm Hisakane Kohana. Nice to meet you."

Now, if you said having a girl in the eleventh division was strange, you'd be right. Kenpachi didn't hate women. No, infact he liked women quite a lot, but women did not like division eleven. Women hated division eleven. Any girl assigned to division eleven was gone by the end of the week, tops. They were either fed up with Yachiru's "playing", complaining constantly of how the division's training was "inhuman" or completely offended and fed up of being either physically or verbally harassed by the other members. Women could not make it in division eleven and if you couldn't make it in division eleven, you definitely didn't get respect in Kenpachi's eyes. Women were weak on the battlefield, all women except for Yachiru, that is.

"Hmmm...Hana-chan! Yep! You're Hana-chan!"

The peculiar girl smiled. Yachiru and her looked almost identical in a way. The girl was older, but both had pink hair and red eyes! The girl's hair was messy and long. The bottom half of her hair was a blood red, while the top half was a bright pink. Her strange hair was not nearly as strange as her smile. It was half worried, half sincere. It could send shivers down any normal man's spine. Luckily for her, Kenpachi was no normal man.

"Hana-chan, huh? That's really creative, Kusajishi fukutaichou!"

"Yachiru, please! Call me Yachiru!"

The girl had lied immensely. Calling her "Hana-chan" was the same as calling her by her real name, Kohana. Both names meant "little flower".

"Ikkaku! Yumichika!"

Kenpachi finally yelled for his two most trusted men. He started to move to the side as the bald man and pretty man came out.

"Let me see how powerful these bastards are!"

Ikkaku and Yumichika turned around to look at the five new recruits, then back at their taichou. He had already sat far away, fukutaichou by his side. Ikakku and Yumichika knew this wouldn't be much of a challenge.

"Ya heard him! We're here to test your power! So, which one of you wants to go down first?"

"Get ready for ME!"

Not a big surprise, the first guy who wanted a fight was the tough guy.

"Ugh. What an ugly face! Why don't you handle this one, Ikkaku?"

Yumichika quickly walked over to join his taichou. He didn't really need to, though. The fight was over in a matter of minutes. Ikkaku and Yumichika let out sigh after sigh, each man alternating opponents back and forth. The tough guy, the zero, the nobody and the loser were no match to the two men. All that was left was the girl, Kohana.

"I can assure you I won't go down as easily as those four!"

"Finally! A pretty face!"

Yumichika stared in awe at the only other pretty face around. Kohana gave a small laugh, pulling her Zanpaktou out.

"Sorry, Yumichika, but I get this on, right?"

Ikkaku gave a small smirk. The pretty man sighed. It was sadly true. Him and Ikkaku had been alternating opponents so the bald man and pink-haired woman were set to fight each other. Yumichika moped over to his taichou again, mumbling something about a lack of pretty faces, but still having absolute faith that the other man could handle her.

"Let's see what ya got!"

"Oh, you'll see..."

The girl raised her Zanpaktou in a fighting pose. Ikkaku quickly drew his own out in response.

"This will be super fun!"

"Your arrogance will be the death of you."

Kohana gave a small giggle as she took a fierce run towards Ikkaku. Both sealed Zanpaktous locked for a moment before Ikkaku managed to push her back.

"Damn. Ya actually got some power behind that Zanpaktou of yours. I might actually have to get serious on ya."

She looked up at the man as they both regained their footing.

"Aw? You weren't serious to begin with?"

Her smile turned into a smirk.

"Well, I wasn't serious either!"

Ikkaku glared at her. He shouldn't have to stand there and take her arrogance! He took his sheath and quickly stuffed his Zanpaktou's hilt into it.

"Grow, Hozukimaru!"

His shikai turned his normal blade into a fierce, spear-like weapon. Kohana's eyes widened with excitement as she stared down Hozukimaru and the man behind the weapon.

"Wow! Hozukimaru looks quite strong, but..."

She paused, tightly gripping the hilt of her Zanpaktou.

"Goodbye...Yasashika!"

Her blade grew larger and wider at those words. The faces around were amazed. No other new recruit was able to pull off their shikai and not many could even imagine a small woman picking up a giant of a sword like that! Kohana smiled, lifting Yasashika as if it weighed nothing at all. She quickly shunpo-ed her way to Ikakku, waiting to get a good hit on him when she was met with a surprise of her own. As Ikkaku attacked her, Hozukimaru transformed into a three-part staff.

"Ugh. What the hell was that?!"

Kohana barely dodged his last attack. This was getting tough. She thought for a moment about the tricks up her sleeve and which one she should use. Kohana sighed as she thought of the perfect attack. It was cheap, but she could win. She didn't want to show anyone that attack yet, but there had to be a price to proving herself in her division.

"Too bad this fight's going to end so soon. I was really enjoying it."

The half worried, half sincere smile she was fond of wearing formed on her face as she ran with an even quicker intensity than before, her blade dragging behind herself. As she came in close contact with Ikkaku, she picked up Yasashika. It was far from an easy task for when she was picking up her sword, she also had to doge thrust after thrust of Hozukimaru.

"May the devil drag him down, Yasashika!"

Her blade grew red and with a quick slash in the air, the ground below Ikkaku started to crumble. He was literally and metaphorically being dragged down to hell.

"Wh-What the hell is this?!" Ikkaku yelled.

Kohana laughed at the man.. Before he knew it, he was almost completely underground. The only thing she took mercy upon leaving above ground was his very bald head.

"Ooh, Baldy looks like a mole!"

Yachiru ran up to Ikkaku, giving him a gentle kick in the head.

"That was an excellent fight! If I had been having a bad day, I might've lost!"

The woman laughed as she basked in her glory. Kenpachi grinned at the sight of actually seeing a strong, grown-up female. He walked over to the newly formed crowd. Everyone was in an uproar over Ikakku's defeat, though cheap defeat was a better term for it. Then again, cheap or not, defeat was defeat and that's the only thing that matters when fighting for your life.

"That was awesome! Right, Ken-chan?"

"You know it, Brat."

Kohana overheard her taichou's words, smiling big and brightly at him. It only confused the hell out of the latter.

"That was awesome, Hana-chan!"

"Think so, Yachiru?"

The two girls grinned and smiled as they returned laughs back and forth. Kenpachi's gaze turned towards Ikkaku who was being helped out of the ground by Yumichika and the four other new recruits. Kenpachi gave a small inward chuckle as he turned back to Kohana and Yachiru. Could this girl really make it in the eleventh division? Maybe...

"Hey, Hana-chan? Wanna go get ice cream?"

Then again, Maybe not...

-end ch. 1-

A/N: So, here's chapter one! I hope you enjoyed reading it! (This will probably be my longest Author's note, BTW) This fanfic was inspired by the mysteries around division 11 and takes place a little bit before the Bleach storyline. I wanted a character that would be a good motherly, yet also very sisterly figure to Yachiru. I wanted a character to explain why division 11 has no 4th seat or why they never show their 4th seat. I also wanted Kenpachi to get some love, if you know what I mean. (Hehe.) So yeah, Kohana was born! I'm enjoying writing her development. I will be keeping the theme of Flowers and so each chapter will have the word "Flower" in it. Pay attention to the scene before the chapter name. It's important. Oh, BTW, I personally think I suck at writing fight scenes. I'm much better at writing romance scenes. Yet, I did do research into a lot of Bleach things, so the fights wouldn't be excruciatingly bad. Anyways, Read and Review or the wonderful SetoBatman will be sad, very sad indeed. D: