I've read a few one-shots about Zaraki Kenpachi asking for the name of his zanpakuto, but none of them have looked at why he didn't think to do so before. Anyways, enjoy.

Zaraki Kenpachi looked at his sword. His zanpakuto, he thought, mentally recategorising the weapon. He'd rarely, if ever, considered the fact that the two terms were different: to a warrior from the savagery of the Rukongai slums, a weapon was a weapon and names were a pretension and a luxury the fighter couldn't afford. The pansy shinigami made themselves and their job look important, so what? Zaraki, who hadn't even been able to afford a name for himself for the longest time, scorned the idea that the shinigami needed to name weapons and mess around with ceremony in something that was simple: fighting. That was weakness, or it had always seemed that way to a man who'd fought his way to greatness with his own strength.

Why bother?, he thought, once he'd become a captain and donned the uniform, still not all too impressed with the Court and its glories. Names were insignificant unless the person – or object – named was worth noticing. Kenpachi had come to the Gotei Thirteen as a person that demanded notice and acknowledgement, naming himself after the greatest of warriors. He'd made sure his name would be remembered; he had paid only cursory attention to any of his opponents' names or titles, be they sword or swordsman, because unless they fought him well, unless they affected him, he would have no reason to remember them.

The shinigami are hardly worth listening to, believed the Zaraki Kenpachi that cut his way into captaincy; even as he'd arrived in Seireitei, he'd been stronger than all of the so-called Death Gods. They'd had nothing to teach him, he'd had nothing to challenge him. He'd scorned the names and abilities of their weapons of choice; he had no reason to gain their kind of strength. Not until he met Kurosaki Ichigo.

Before the fight with the ryoka, the outsider kid, he'd never fought an opponent who could demand his respect by managing to cut him, by fighting back and facing him with self-conviction. He'd found a worthy opponent. Battling Kurosaki Ichigo was fun, and it had been a challenge like he could never remember facing before. But the fight had also been novel on another level, too: Kurosaki challenged his very way of fighting. Kurosaki had forced Kenpachi to respect him and forced him to accept the fact that he'd been defeated by someone who not only named his sword but talked like it was his equal. Kenpachi respected the strong; he was never going to be a coward and disregard words heard in the sincerity of battle.

He'd give Kurosaki that respect by not dismissing the kid's speech about zanpakuto names as the pretentious crap he'd always thought it was.

He'd face up to things, he wouldn't run away. He'd not back out by agreeing with Yachiru on the unfairness of the fight (though he couldn't help but enjoy the way she stood by him so loyally, saying he hadn't lost); he'd pay attention to what he'd done. It wasn't easy for Zaraki Kenpachi to say sorry to anyone or anything, but it was obvious he needed to now Kurosaki had bought the matter up. He'd done wrong, he who'd been denied a name had in turn denied one to someone – something? - else.

He wasn't sure how to go about this matter. He contemplated his sword – was the thing even a zanpakuto? He couldn't remember when he'd got the sword he'd wielded for years, but arriving to Soul Society he'd knew sure as fucking hell known he wouldn't give it up even if it wasn't the weapon of a shinigami, and no-one had suggested otherwise. It killed things, including Hollows, and he'd thought that was all that had mattered. No, he killed things with it and sent things to the afterlife, the latter was important too.

He wasn't going to chicken out of this by thinking about technicalities; the sword may not have been issued by the Shinigami Academy, but it had proved an equal to those that had been. He wasn't going to believe his sword didn't have a name, because broken though it might now be, it was his and he was sure that was what mattered when it came to this personalised sword crap. It was his sword that was nameless, and that he owed a name to. No getting out of the matter by faffing about technicalities.

He couldn't just make up a name for it like he had him and Yachiru. He knew that much, not that he'd listened much when people talked about the nature of a zanpakuto. Asking a name had failed the first time, but he'd keep at it. He had to prove he was sorry somehow, to atone.

With Yachiru, the only being he'd ever, ever felt a need to apologise too before now, sorry was easy – buy her candy, let her beat weak guys up. He hadn't a fucking clue how to apologise to something that he'd never seen as anything other than an inanimate object. Talking hadn't seemed to work; meditating was not something that came easy to him and his attempts at it had failed. (Yachiru jumping on his head hadn't helped that endeavour, to be fair. Maybe he'd try again later.)

But.. He wouldn't ask for help, though.

This was for him to work out.

He'd do this and get stronger.

(Yachiru watches Zaraki Kenpachi with serious eyes, but she doesn't know how to express the truth she knows. And she somehow understands that this is Ken-chan's business, and until Ken-chan learns what to ask and how to ask it, she'll have to leave his inner struggle to himself. She doesn't tell him anything she knows.)

Next up (methinks,) Tatsuki on being left behind.

I'm up to date with the manga and the anime, though, so if you want to request drabbles then you're welcome to, as long as they're not Ishida-centric. I don't like him.