This comes to you out of sheer procrastination. I'm warning you, this contains an original character, so don't bite my head off.
In other news, My computer crashed and I lost all my files, including the original prompts, so I'm going to have to make up some 50 or so new ones, which isn't so bad, they'll just be easier to work with. Recent Bleach Chapters have re-enforced my belief that Ikkaku and Yumichika are so gay for each other and it's all so tempting to put Yaoi in these prompts but...must...resist...temptation.
Frostbite
Kenpachi found winter irritating. Most people had settled down into their homes, where it was warm and quiet and not many people were out looking for a fight. Usually there were some brave, dangerous idiots that kept boredom at bay, but with Yachiru on board for their first winter together, he might have to do something unthinkable for him and find a winter home.
"Ken-chan, I'm cold." Yachiru shivered into his cloak. The pink-haired brat had grown stronger in the first few months together and also had somewhat of a growth spurt, but Kenpachi doubted she could survive in the open for one winter.
"Yeah, yeah, I know." He agreed, feeling the wind penetrating even the most protected of places. They had come to a depopulated region of outer Rukongai where the houses were abandoned for the most part. Kenpachi was currently tearing down the boarded-up door of one shabby, but intact, house. A rush of stale air greeted them as he slid the free doors open, that and the stench of something long dead.
"Dead fox." Yachiru pointed at the near-mummified remains near the door. Kenpachi grabbed one of the planks of wood he'd torn off, scraping the corpse up and flinging it away out the door. Yachiru slid off his back in a controlled fall, landing somewhat heavily on the floorboards, sending up a flurry of dust.
Kenpachi sneezed, "I guess no one's lived here for a while. Lessee if there's any futons or shit like that." He found them, but there was someone else occupying them. A corpse of an elderly man lay there, partially eaten, possibly by the dead fox, "Da-amn, looks like he died in his sleep." He said to no-one in particular, grabbing the edges of the futon, dragging out the door and out into the rapidly gathering night. He'd have to burn the man later, it could be diseased, Kenpachi thought. Light snow began to fall as he walked back into the house. Inside, Yachiru had left hundreds of tiny footprints in the dust while she explored, her feet now black. Kenpachi wasn't the domestic type, but he knew he had to clean the floors soon.
"Ken-chan, I'm still cold." Yachiru complained, hugging herself.
"Ah, yeah, I'll make a fire." He said. The previous occupant was well-stocked with firewood and matches and a fire was roaring in no time. Yachiru had found pots and a store of well-preserved rice and pickles, so they ate very well despite the rice tasting a couple of decades old.
After a few hours, Yachiru had fallen asleep in Kenpachi's giant coat and the man had settled down against the wall, sword at his side, thinking. He wasn't thinking for the pleasure of it, he was thinking because he needed to.
He was thinking about the future, mulling over the fact he had to stay in the same house for the next couple of months until the weather got warmer and he hadn't stayed in one place for so long, not since his stay with Kinya. This meant he had to organise food, comfort…cleaning. He hated cleaning; but then again, he hated the smell of dead old man even more. With that in mind, he grabbed a lantern from the room and went outside.
The snow had fallen a couple of inches since he was last outside, and the corpses of the elder and the fox looked like a pair of marble statues. Kenpachi brushed away the snow and lay wood under the futon and placed the dead fox on top of the old man. With the lantern he lit a funeral pyre, the dry bodies and futon lighting up quickly despite the falling snow.
Kenpachi watched silently as fur crackled and skin withered. A noise diverted his attention away from the flame and he saw Yachiru peeking out from behind the door.
"Whatcha doing?" she asked, wide-eyed with curiosity.
"Burning shit." He replied, "I thought you were asleep."
"I had a bad dream. I thought I heard someone cryin' or sumthin'."
"Prob'ly just the fire. Go back to bed." He said. Yachiru pointed behind him.
"There's a lady coming." Kenpachi turned around and saw by the light of the pyre a woman in white coming towards the house. She was pale, with dark hair and quite pregnant. Stumbling, she made it to the pyre before collapsing a few steps away from Kenpachi.
Kenpachi leant down and picked up the woman; her hands and feet were blistered with frostbite, suggesting she'd been outside for a long period of time, "Yachiru, go put a pot of water on the hearth." He ordered. He wrapped his hand around her tiny ones, warming them with his body heat. He learnt the hard way how to deal with frostbite, and some of his toes still hadn't regained feeling. The woman probably also had hypothermia as she was wearing barely anything apart from a threadbare kimono.
He knew not to place her near anything burning or to heat her up too quickly as she could have a heart attack, so he hugged her and retreated away from the fire, gradually making his way to the warm house. Inside, he threw his coat over top of her and looked around for more blankets.
"Ken-chan, what's wrong with her?" Yachiru asked.
"She's too cold. Do me a favour, brat, and go lie next to her and hug her." Yachiru obeyed, very interested in why Ken-chan was fussing over a fat girl. Kenpachi returned with some moth-eaten kimonos, covering woman and child. After a few minutes, colour returned to the woman's face and her eyes fluttered open as she regained consciousness. Kenpachi noted that her eyes were a very light shade of cyan blue and was about to think it unusual, then remembered he carried around a little girl whose natural hair colour was pink.
"Ken-chan, I think she's alive now! Her belly's wobbling." Yachiru said under a layer of kimonos.
So the baby's safe, he thought, "Oi, woman? Can you talk?" He asked.
"…yes."
"Your name?"
"Yuki…it's Yuki. My hands…are so numb." Kenpachi grabbed a bowl of hot water, cooling it down with some ice water. He lifted her up gently and put her hands in the lukewarm water; she jerked back at the near-burning sensation, but proceeded to leave them in there as her fingers were able to move again.
"What the hell possessed you to walk out into the snow with no shoes?" Kenpachi grouched, wrapping his hands around her icy feet. He didn't expect an answer, but talked anyway.
"I had to…but I though this place is where my uncle lives." She sounded a bit dazed and worried. Kenpachi cast his thoughts back to the pyre burning outside.
"I don't think he lives here anymore." Kenpachi conceded with a rare twinge of guilt. He flashed a look at Yachiru to close her mouth before she said anything. It was at least an hour before Kenpachi decided that she would live. Yuki was exhausted and as soon as she lay back down, she fell asleep, cuddled by a warm Yachiru. Kenpachi took his position by the wall, dozing off by the wall with sword in hand.
………
The next morning, Kenpachi woke to the dusty house and a ravenous Yuki eating cold rice leftovers. Kenpachi shredded bits of old kimono up and bandaged her blistered hands and feet, listening to her story.
Yuki was married to a shinigami, but she lived out in the 60th District with her sister until he could get proper accommodation in Seireitei. Her sister died from a plague that swept the area and was forced to live in an inn with her husband's pay going towards rent. She discovered she was pregnant, a rare thing in Soul Society, and was overjoyed. The joy was short-lived, however, when her husband was killed for disobeying his superior (apparently the shinigami also killed his wife when she retailiated). She survived the previous months on the rest of her husband's finances but was kicked out of the inn when she couldn't afford it. She then decided to seek out her nearest relative, her uncle and was robbed along the way. When Kenpachi told the fate of her uncle, she sighed, thinking that the plague must have claimed him or the locals boarded him up in his own house with his pet fox.
"Geez, what a crappy story." He said.
"It got better in the end, thanks to you." She smiled. By this stage, Yachiru had woken up, her feet still dirty and hair rumpled.
"I'm hungry…and tired. Yu-chan's belly wiggled all night."
"There's rice left." Yuki said, "and sorry for keeping you up." Yachiru shrugged and ploughed into the cold rice.
"So, what are ya going to do now?" Kenpachi asked. Yuki cast her cyan eyes down.
"I'm going to go and find my husband's mother; she lives in the First District." She said, "I want to have my baby there, if I can."
"Baby? What baby?" Yachiru asked. Kenpachi pointed at Yuki's stomach.
"It's in there." He said.
"Oh…ew…"she stopped and thought for a second, "…So how does it get out?"
"Painfully."
"Oh…so how does it get there?"
"Tell ya later, brat. So, girl, you're telling me that you're going to travel to your granny's, in the middle of winter, pregnant…with no shoes?" Kenpachi was struggling with this logic. Yuki nodded; the swordsman sighed and murmured something.
"Pardon?" Yuki asked.
"You can stay. With us…" he muttered a little louder, "until Spring."
"I don't want to be a burden." Yuki blushed, taken aback from this unexpected kindness. So was Yachiru for that matter. The pink-haired little girl tugged on the sleeve of the huge man.
"Ken-chan…are you being nice?!" She asked, a little shocked. Kenpachi, was a little uncomfortable with this observation.
"Shuddap. I have a soft spot for little kids and women who haven't seen their feet for a couple of months." He admitted. Yuki flung her arms around the man, overjoyed as Yachiru looked on, dumbstruck.
"Thank you so much, Zaraki-san!" she cried, this being her first good news in months.
"Okay, okay, okay…geez woman, it's not like I made you Empress or anythin'." He pried the joyful woman away, though letting a small smile shadow his lips.
………
Thus began a somewhat normal family unit…which surprised Kenpachi more than anyone else. The house was soon clean and warm and with Kenpachi's frequent excursions out into the populace, they were well fed.
The end of the year was drawing to a close and Yuki's frost bite had healed up and her stomach protruded out in front of her and she waddled with the weight of the baby. Yachiru was fascinated with her belly, laying her head against it, listening for the second heartbeat but more often than not, finding a tiny foot kicking her face. Kenpachi could certainly see a future rival there, if the kid could Yachiru when still in the womb, but something in his gut told him that this bliss wouldn't last.
"Oh." Yuki said one night, clutching her belly. The pair perked up their heads at the noise.
"Yuki, you've peed yourself." Yachiru pointed. Yuki looked desperately at Kenpachi who knew what to do…well, actually he had no idea, but knew how to get her to someone who did. Kenpachi rushed over to the woman and bundled her up in a blanket. Yachiru also jumped on board as he rushed out of the house, towards the midwife.
The matronly old woman was annoyed to have been disturbed so late at night, but when she saw the distressed Yuki, he countenance changed to one of authority. She ushered Kenpachi and Yachiru into a side room while the midwife woke her attendants and they fluttered in and out of the delivery room like bees around the hive. Yachiru yawned, curling up on Kenpachi's chest and dozing to the sound of his heartbeat. Kenpachi sighed, closing his eyes to the thoughts of family.
Kenpachi must have dozed off because he woke to a winter sun, low in the dawn sky. He looked around and he heard the sound of weak cries; carefully shifting the small child to a chair he went in search of the midwife. When he found her, she was tired and her once neat hair was messy.
"How is it going?" he asked, but the look the midwife gave him was all that he needed to know, "I'm goin' to see her." He pushed past the woman and into the delivery room. Yuki lay on a small bed as pale as the first day he saw her and there was a surprising amount of blood around her.
"Kenpachi-san," she smiled weakly, reaching out to grab his hand, "This baby just isn't coming out."
"You'll be fine." He said, but he wasn't certain in himself; he'd seen enough blood in his lifetime to know how much was too much.
"Promise me…" she cried out as another contraction hit her and left, "promise me that you'll return the child to his grandmother."
"I will."
"You remember where it is?" She asked.
"I do."
"Good." The final contraction hit her, causing her to scream harshly. Two minutes later a healthy boy with a good set of lungs was born into the world. But Kenpachi wasn't looking at the boy, instead he was looking at pale cyan eyes darken and close and realising that Yuki's hand would have dropped if he hadn't been holding onto it so hard.
………
It was New Year's day and Yachiru was having a staring contest with the most serious baby on the planet, light cyan eyes considered the pink-haired child incredulously and unblinking. Kenpachi on the other hand was looking along the row of houses for a door painted in yellow. He found it and approached juggling children to knock on the door. He shuffled uncomfortably, he'd never been in the First District before and the law and order unnerved him, but Yachiru was fascinated by the nice houses and suggested that he break into those for winter, since he burnt the last one down with Yuki in it.
A fat old woman shuffled to the door, taken aback by the large swordsman with children.
"Can I come in?" he asked as nicely as possible.
"Sorry, I've got no room for beggars." She began to slide the door close, but Kenpachi stopped her.
"I've come on behalf of Yuki." He said. The woman gaped wordlessly and ushered him in without further ado. He was sat down on a cushion and the baby in his arms began to fuss loudly.
"Is this…Yuki's child?" The old woman asked, relieving him of the child.
"Yes…and yer son's, I think. I don't have good news…Yuki died in childbirth six days ago. She told me to bring the kid to you."
"Thank you, she must have trusted you very much," Granny said. Kenpachi said nothing, "did she say what she named the boy?" Granny continued.
"She did…she wanted to name him after his father, but I dunno what his name was."
"Toshirou…his name was Toshirou Hitsugaya; a very good shinigami." She replied. Kenpachi nodded his approval. He stood up and made to leave.
"Wait! I don't know your name or what happened to Yuki." The woman said.
"I'll find him and tell him when he's older; if he's gonna blame me for the death of his mother and seek revenge, I want him to be stronger when we cross blades." He reached over and patted the soft white tuft of hair on Toushirou's head, which seemed to annoy the baby greatly.
"See ya, midget." He said, with a grin.
"Bye-bye, Sir Poops-a-lot!" Yachiru chimed. Together they turned around and walked out the door. About an hour after they left Yachiru hugged his neck.
"Oi, what's that for?" He asked.
"You're sad."
"Hmn."
"You kinda liked Yuki-chan, huh?"
"Mm. Like I said, I have a soft spot for children and women who can't see their feet for nine months." He shrugged.
"Do you think we'll ever see Toushirou-chan again?"
"Dunno. Maybe."
Note: Yuki means 'snow' in Japanese, which would be fitting for Shiro-chan's mother. Also, I've sneaked in part of Tousen's back-story in here as well in true LOST style.
Also, I apologise again for OOCness and original characters.
