Nemu spent the day with Rangiku. She was one of the two lieutenants on guard duty during the captains meeting. The second lieutenant, Kira, was in the garden arguing with Kinta over his newest plan for remodeling the waterway.
"Do you enjoy very much being a mother?" Nemu asked as she carried Yuki back and forth--she was very puzzled by the infant's desire to be held by a standing rather than a seated person, but she was learning that babies could not be reasoned with so she paced and the baby's eyes blinked blearily. "Babies seem to be quite a bit of work, and pregnancy and giving birth are both fraught with peril. Do you find it to be worth it?"
Rangiku smiled. "I suppose it isn't for everyone, but I love it. I really do. They drive me mad, and I'm so exhausted right now I think I could cry, but they're everything, just everything--when the Arrancar was here all I could think was how close Yuki and Kin-chan were and if I could get him to follow me away from them. I thought I wouldn't mind if he killed me as long as he didn't come back for them."
Nemu nodded seriously. "It is a mother's instinct to protect her children; even a difficult baby like Yukiko, who cries constantly and does nothing but make her mother's life more difficult, can depend on her mother for protection."
"Course she can," Rangiku said with a huge smile. "'Cause I'm her mommy."
"And even before she was born you felt that way. It is curious, isn't it, how strong the instinct is to protect one's offspring?"
"Is it?" Rangiku said. "Seems about right to me."
"Even Captain Ichimaru, despite all the monstrous things he was willing to do for Aizen, could not allow Toshiro to be harmed. The instinct of a father overrode a hundred years of careful planning and any sense of self-preservation, forcing Captain Ichimaru to shield his son irregardless of the cost." Nemu paused for a moment to look down at the baby asleep against her chest. She really was a beautiful baby; she had such perfect pale, clear skin and hair as white as Jushiro's--Jushiro who was still sick in bed and would probably take years to regain even the health he had had when they had married--the health he had had before Ichimaru Gin had begun poisoning him with her cosmetics.
"I am sorry, Rangiku-san," Nemu said abruptly. "But I have found that my anger toward Captain Ichimaru will not be calmed. Shiro-chan is a very good person, and despite all of the suffering he endured, he has forgiven Captain Ichimaru, and truly bears him no ill will, but I am afraid I am not so good. I have tried, but every time I remember how the slow, steady decline of his health was stealing away the hope for a future he had risked allowing to grow for the first time in centuries, I have an irrational desire to tear Captain Ichimaru's head from his body. I had no idea I could feel such anger! It was a shock to discover. I have never desired to commit any act of violence against any person before."
Rangiku sighed. "He brings it out in everyone," she said. "Tell you what, you can't kill him, but when he does get home you could hit him. It'd probably make you feel a little bit better, and it's not like he doesn't deserve it."
Which was why, nearly an hour later, Gin's face collided forcefully with Nemu's fist as he was walking up the path to his front door. The lieutenant's inhuman strength sent him flying back almost ten yards before he hit the ground with blood gushing from his nose and mouth.
He was almost instantly back on his feet, shouting, "What was that for--oh." He broke off as he identified his attacker, and instead of saying anything more, spat a couple of teeth into his hand.
"Did it help?" Rangiku asked from the doorway.
Nemu was standing a few feet ahead of her, looking down at her hand curiously. It was liberally decorated with Gin's blood. "Perhaps. I think my anger might dissipate further if I continued to hit him, but Shiro-chan wouldn't approve."
"Neither would I," Gin couldn't help adding.
"You don't get an opinion," Rangiku called out to him. "You still owe Nemu and Captain Ukitake an apology. Poisoning him after all the kindness he's shown us! You know his family gave us nearly everything we had for Shiro-chan, clothes and toys and books, when we were so completely broke, and you go and poison him--for years!"
For a moment Gin just stared at her like he'd been stricken dumb by her words. "Rangiku, have you been paying any attention at all?" he asked finally. "I was working for a very, very bad man. Poisoning Captain Ukitake is not remotely close to the worst thing I did for him--I am sorry, Nemu, and I did lighten it up a little last spring, you may have noticed; he was getting frighteningly thin, and killing him was never the goal--but I was a monster. I killed lots and lots of people. I set hollows on villages--"
"Sir!" Kira's shout from behind cut him off abruptly, and Rangiku's expression shifted abruptly to absolutely horrified. Even Nemu's eyes widened.
Gin didn't move as Rangiku rushed past him to catch hold of the small son whose genius-level mastery of shunpo had brought him into the middle of his father's confession.
Kira was apologizing. "Sir, he wanted to surprise you. I would never--I had no idea--I--"
"Kira, you can get back to work now," Rangiku said, scooping Kinta up and somehow smiling brightly. "Gin can keep an eye on us now. Thank you."
Nemu pulled out a handkerchief and stepped up to Gin. "I am sorry, now, for hitting you, Captain," she said, handing him the handkerchief. "I think you will never be free from the consequences of your crimes. Your guilts separates you from every other person, even those you love. You are forever alone, and you chose this path knowing you would be. I understand, now, why Jushiro pities you."
She walked away as he pressed the cloth to his face, and as she reached the edge of the garden, Kinta's clear, childish voice asked, "Why would Daddy kill people?"