Rangiku was pretty sure she was going to lose her mind. Convincing Kin-chan to play within sight of the Third Division captain's office was getting tougher every day. He had investigated everything of interest in the office and was constantly attempting to wander further afield, and now she couldn't send Kira to follow after him as Kira had attached himself to the unconscious Hinamori's side.
So the whole family had to stay within Gin's sight, and it was hard not to notice that Gin did not particularly want the company of a crying baby or an ever-questioning child. It wasn't like he was big on work, but he had been out for a week and the stacks of paperwork on his desk were staggering.
And Rangiku herself desperately wanted to get out of the division. Absolutely everything seemed to be happening now that she was stuck. She needed to go check on her friends. She needed to sit with Kira for an hour or two by Hinamori's side so he would know he wasn't alone in his need to see her recover. She needed to visit Rukia and Renji and even Byakuya, if only to give him someone to take his misery out on. And most importantly, she needed to check on Nanao and Shuhei, to let them know she was here for them if they needed anything at all. She needed to get out!!!
But instead she was stuck in the Third, eating a lunch the division members had been kind enough to bring her family from the division kitchen and wondering how long it was going to be until Gin actually lost his temper with Kin-chan. He was right that she'd never seen him lose his temper, but his usual methods of dealing with annoyances weren't effective on Kin-chan. Backhanded insults went over his head, and he laughed at the more direct ones. Gin couldn't even seem to come up with a threat the boy cared about.
It was interesting in a way; by this age Toshiro had been avoiding his father any way he could manage it. Kin-chan followed Gin around, sat next to him, and talked to him non-stop. He'd told his mother he liked being able to hang around with another boy since at home it was all girls all the time because Daddy and Niichan were always working.
He was currently telling Gin about his construction project and trying to convince him that what they really needed was a bigger shovel because he wasn't making enough progress with his trowel. He'd seen a backhoe in one of Niichan's old picture books from the World of the Living and was sure it would be just the thing.
Gin looked helplessly across the table to Rangiku, but she just smiled and gestured at the baby at her breast. Nursing had to have some sort of upside, and not having to entertain the other children was the best one she could think of.
"I know what you can do, Kin-chan," Gin said, hopping to his feet and leaving his half-eaten meal behind. "It's about time you learned how to read, don't you think?" He grabbed a random book from a shelf, a stack of papers and a pencil. "I'll read you off a sentence and you have to copy it down three times, just exactly like it is in the book, alright?"
"He can't do that," Rangiku protested. Even Shiro-chan had only learned hiragana and katakana by his age. How did Gin expect Kin-chan to copy kanji?
"Yes, I can!" Kin-chan argued.
"You have to do it exactly the same as it is in the book," Gin said.
"I can do that," Kin-chan assured him.
"Alright then, 'The achievement of bankai has long been considered the metric for captain, however there is some reason to believe that this view has limited the shinigami understanding of reiatsu as strength,'" Gin read off as he set the book down in front of Kin-chan.
"What do you think that's going to accomplish?" Rangiku asked as Gin returned to the table and his lunch.
Gin glanced at the golden haired boy bent over the book, examining the first line very seriously. "Ten, maybe fifteen minutes if I'm lucky," he said, smiling back at her. "Now for the mid-day notices; there have been an awful lot of notices lately, have you noticed?"
Rangiku groaned. "Just read them."
He was right, though. There were a lot of notices. On top of the usual daily activity reports and division updates, assignments were being adjusted constantly. Rangiku wondered if it was partly just to keep things unpredictable for any would-be spy. It was certainly keeping things confusing for her. She couldn't keep up with any of it despite the fact that Gin handed over each and every notice as soon as he had read it, including the ones marked 'captains only'.
A grin spread across his face as he read one and he began reading aloud, interrupting Rangiku's efforts at understanding the new wall assignments.
" 'Ayasegawa Yumichika, formerly Fifth Seat of Division Eleven, has passed the lieutenant's exam and has been appointed 'Acting Lieutenant' of the Fifth effective immediately,' I have to say I didn't expect that, did you, Ran?"
Rangiku stared at him for a moment dumbfounded. "Yu-chan is a lieutenant?"
" 'Acting lieutenant', without a Captain to promote him it's only 'acting' and anyway, Hinamori still hasn't officially been stripped of her title. Don't think they've even stripped Aizen or Tosen of theirs; seems like someone ought to get on the ball about that. We really could do with replacements, not that there is anyone since Shiba--"
"I didn't think Yu-chan'd ever leave the Eleventh," Rangiku interrupted, still trying to get over the shock.
"He's a good fit for the Fifth if he can get over the Eleventh," Gin said. "They're actually capable of appreciating his abilities there unlike the brute squad."
"They appreciate him at the Eleventh," Rangiku argued. "He wouldn't be a top officer otherwise. He and Ikkaku are their main strikers. They're at the head of every attack."
"But that's not where Ayasegawa's real talents lie. He's a kido-expert playing first-strike fighter, tells you something about how strong he is that he's managed to survive this long in the Eleventh on his secondary abilities."
Rangiku knew better than to ask Gin how he knew any of that. He always knew, and he was always right. It was strange to think Yumichika might not be what he'd always presented himself as, but not really surprising. He was following Ikkaku. If Ikkaku decided to mine coal, Yumichika would mine coal too, and he'd find a way to look good doing it. That's who he was. Kido-user or sword-fighter didn't matter. He was Ikkaku's partner.
Only now he wasn't. Someone higher up must have given the order. She was certain he wouldn't have decided to test for lieutenant on his own. Maybe Gin was right, and this would be a chance for Yumichika to really use his abilities to show what he could do, to really stand on his own and impress everyone. Maybe that would be enough to make up for not being by Ikkaku's side every day; Rangiku doubted it.
"I wish I could help them celebrate," Rangiku said wistfully. Even if Yumichika wasn't thrilled, she had no doubt Ikkaku would throw a bash to congratulate Yumichika on his promotion.
She wished she hadn't said anything though because she saw how Gin flinched. It was, after all, his fault she was under house arrest or "protection " as the guards themselves prefered to call it. "Not that the mother of a five-week-old needs to go out drinking anyway," she added quickly. "Kinda sad that I have to be forced to be a good mom, but there you go."
"Ran, that's not--"
"Better read the rest of your notices before Kin-chan finishes."
Gin frowned at her for a second before he picked up the next scroll.
The grin returned only a line in, and he handed the letter across to Rangiku. "You get one guess why, and if you get it I'll tell Ikkaku to have his party at our house and I'll pay for the sake."
Rangiku looked from Gin to the letter and back. "Why?" she repeated. She could not imagine what was so big and so amusing and so unbelievable that Gin was willing to bet she couldn't explain it.
"Why," he agreed.
Her attention returned to the letter. It was very simple. It stated that Lady Ukitake Nemu had resigned her position as lieutenant of the Twelfth. Rangiku stared at it. Nemu had resigned. That wasn't possible. Sure, Miyako had resigned, but her husband was head of the Shiba house so who was going to object, and, anyway, things were different for nobles. Of course, Captain Ukitake was a noble, but Nemu wasn't, not really, and hadn't she been constructed to be the lieutenant of the Twelfth? It was all she was, and as far as Rangiku could tell Nemu really did love it. Miyako had loved her work too, but she had quit, Rangiku now understood, so that she would be in the relative safety of the Shiba Estate, and Kaien could follow the clues Gin had given him without having to fear he would be exposing her to greater danger. She had quit for her husband, but Nemu wouldn't do something like that. For one thing Captain Ukitake would never want her too. According to Nemu the one thing he was really afraid of was stealing her life from her. He didn't want himself or especially his illness to prevent her from enjoying every day of her life to the fullest. So why on earth would she resign?
Rangiku raised her eyes to Gin. He was still grinning happily. He was so certain there was no way she could guess. She had seen Nemu just the day before, and the day before that Nemu had broken Gin's nose. Had anything seemed at all out of the ordinary--for Nemu, anyway?
All she'd done was walked Yuki around and asked Rangiku questions about the baby--
A huge smile spread across Rangiku's face.
Gin's faded. "There's no way--" he said.
"Nemu's pregnant!" Rangiku burst out.
"That's not fair! How could you possibly figure that out?" Gin demanded.
"But why would she resign?" Rangiku demanded. "They've made RD much safer than it used to be, and Unohana's reishi shields are strong enough to protect the baby. There's no reason she can't keep doing everything she's always done."
"Kurotsuchi disagrees, looks like," Gin said.
"But there are rules about that. You can't just fire a woman for getting pregnant--not a married one, anyway," she added, remembering her own long-ago fears.
"Nemu's position is not like other shinigami; you know she's not exactly--natural. She's basically one of Kurotsuchi's experiments, and she had no defined status. I've a feeling she wouldn't be keeping the baby if she was married to a man who was less important than Ukitake Jushiro."
"But that's horrible!" Rangiku protested.
"Best not to think about it," Gin suggested.
"I can't believe that they would let Kurotsuchi--we should do something! It shouldn't be allowed!"
"I offered, but Captain Ukitake assured me he could handle Kurotsuchi. Really, Ran, it's not our problem, and they don't need our help. Let Captain Ukitake protect his family. Isn't that why you and Miyako thought Nemu would be perfect for him? He can protect her from her father."
"I know, but..." Rangiku sighed. Then she remembered why she'd guessed it in the first place. "You said we'd throw a party," she said. "And you'd pay for the sake."
"I wasn't serious."
"Oh, yes, you were. It's the only way I get to help celebrate. I'll call Shiro-chan home, and you can go get everything arranged with Ikkaku and Kenpachi. You'd better invite all the lieutenants, and that includes Nemu, and invite Captain Ukitake; I just have to congratulate him! And you two can play Go or something while the rest of us drink. You'd better get enough sake! The worst thing you can possibly do at a party is run out of sake. You think people make a mess at parties? Well, you should see them if the sake runs out. It's not pretty, so don't try to be cheap. Just let Ikkaku tell you what to get. I can't believe we're finally having a real party!"
"Ran, you can't seriously think this is a good idea. The entire city's already on high alert. Do you really think we need all of our lieutenants to get completely smashed and--"
"Daddy!" Kin-chan said loudly enough that his parents finally noticed him standing at Gin's elbow.
"Oh, hello, Kin-chan," Gin said, pleasantly. "What's up? You get stuck?"
"Nope," Kin-chan answered. "I'm done. I need you to read the next sentence so I can learn to read all those words too."
Gin turned and really looked at him. The boy was holding up a sheet of paper covered with very poorly written, but somehow still complete, kanji and hiragana. It was the sentence he had read copied off three times just as instructed.
"That's nice work, Kin-chan. Do you remember what it says?"
When Kin-chan recited the complicated sentence exactly Gin blinked. He pointed at one of the more complicated kanji. "Do you know what this one says?"
"That's achievement. I like these picture words a lot better than the squiggly letters in my picture books. They take a lot less time to read."
"You can read the hiragana in your picture books?" Rangiku asked.
Kin-chan gave her a look like she was being silly. "Anybody can read those 'cept Ai-chan, but she's just a baby."
"Of course," Rangiku agreed, feeling more than a little stunned.
She watched Gin read off the next sentence to Kin-chan, and then watched the little boy return to his corner with pencil and paper. "Two geniuses?" she said softly.
"The shunpo did point that direction."
"What if Yuki--" Rangiku asked, looking down at the baby now asleep in her arms.
"We're going to be seriously outnumbered."