Disclaimer: Bleach belongs to Tite Kubo, who is not me.
Names
At first, she didn't have a name.
She was just another lost soul in the outermost depths of Rukongai.
She was too young to comprehend this lacking, too young to understand what she was missing.
And then he came along.
And gave her what she had been missing without realizing.
A name. Her name.
And suddenly, she realized just what a loss it had been, to not have a name. What a gift it was to receive one.
And so she decided. Never, would she allow someone to feel the loss of not having a name; the emptiness inside of them where their name should be. She made this promise to herself without even realizing it - she simply acted without wondering why she needed to. She started her new campaign immediately - dubbing the man who gave her the name she already treasured above all else "Ken-chan".
As time went on and their location changed, she named everyone she came across - because surely they would love this new possession, new identity as she did. Surely everyone started out nameless and needed to meet someone who would give them their name.
Right?
She was aware that many of them already had names - but hers were clearly the correct ones. The ones they had been using before were just replicas, meant to keep them from feeling that all encompassing emptiness that came with being nameless.
Right?
Because clearly "Ichi" was better than "Ichigo", and "Ruki-Ruki" superior to "Rukia".
Obviously "Jiggles" beat "Orihime" hands down, and... whatever she called him beat "Maki Maki"... That was what the name he "started with" was... right?
And even if they pretended to hate their new names ("nicknames" someone had called them) she knew that they really appreciated the gesture, realized just how much it meant for her to give them something that meant the world to her.
After all, her world gave her the name "Yachiru", so clearly everyone else needed her to give them a new name, that way they would learn that they needed to find their world - the person they couldn't live without, who meant more to them than even their own life
And receive their real name.
Lunar: So… I have no idea where this came from. I wrote it in, like, 10-20 minutes. I started rewatching Bleach not too long ago (cuz I ditched in the Bount arc on my first attempt to watch the series), and I got to the episode where Yachiru has her little flashback to Kenpachi naming her, and this thought hit me.
Holy crap what if Yachiru is a deeper character than most people realize and nicknames people because she thinks giving names is the best thing that can ever happen and is actually more mature than people think and Kenpachi center of world I MUST TYPE THIS NOW BEFORE I FORGET
Yes I think in run-on sentences with little to no punctuation or grammar, shut up you know you do too.
I'm taking a little break from Rippling Barriers for the moment (obsession with DeSu2 and Bleach is making it hard for me to remember my own name, let alone X number of characters') I'll come back to it soon, just not right now because SHIRO-CHAN AND UGUUSAGI NEED ME!
Peace! LH =3