A/N: Spoilers here and there. I've always been interested in Kenpachi and Yachiru, so here's my take on their past, that takes place between when Zaraki finds Yachiru in the 78th District, and when he makes Captain.

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Hanya shuddered, as if stuck in a cold wind. "What was…?" He hadn't felt anything like it since his days as a mortal; Soul Society did have seasons, but winter and summer were both very mild. Not much changed in the land of the dead. So what, then, was that feeling, like someone walking over his grave?

He opened up his senses as widely as he could manage. This was his ability, the reason the Shinigami had taken him off the streets of Rukongai. It was his ability to see, a little better than most, what lay inside a person's psyche. Well, feel, more than see, really. Empathics, they called it.

His roving senses caught on something… and shuddered in the midst of a sudden onslaught. It was a feeling of bloodlust so strong he was surprised he was still standing in the wake of it. His eyes darted through the throng - it was a sort of passing period, between classes, and the halls were thick with students. He kept looking, until… there!

A bubble of stillness as every Shinigami student in the area, feeling subconsciously what Hanya could put a name and face to, strove to distance themselves from the threat.

The 'threat', it seemed, was a tall, lanky man. Of course, the description 'tall and lanky' didn't really do this man justice. He towered over the nearby students by a head or more. Some he dwarfed by several feet. And he wasn't so much 'lanky' as skeletally thin. Hanya could see through his open shirt, the suggestion of rib bones. His hair lay on his head and hung around his face like a dead thing. His face housed a blank void of an expression. In short, the man looked like death warmed over. He looked more like something that belonged in the ground rather than up and walking among the living.

Hanya was reminded of the horror movies he'd seen as a mortal, the ones with zombies. Dead men who rose and fed on the flesh of the living. It seemed all too possible, just in the presence of this man.

"Ah, I see you noticed ol' Gloom n' Doom over there," a voice breathed in his ear. It was only through a serious effort of will that he didn't leap a foot into the air. Looking rather calmer than he felt, he looked over his shoulder at a classmate and friend of his, Satoshi. "Gloom and…?" He shuddered. "What's a man like that doing in the Court of Souls?"

Satoshi shrugged. "Hardly a man at all, from what I hear. Word is, he clawed his way up out of the 80th District. You know what they say about that area of the Rukongai. Demons and jackals, the lot of 'em. The very worst get sent there when they die. And if the rumor mill is anything to go by, he carved a bloody swath up through the Districts until he hit the Court of Souls, took down one of the Guardians of the Way, and asked to become a Shinigami. They signed him up and gave him a zanpakuto on the spot."

Satoshi looked back at the man. He didn't even know Hanya existed, and that menacing reiatsu pushed at him until he felt like he should be on his knees. He tried vainly to draw in on himself, to lessen the spiritual pressure in his head.

And then, a pink head popped up over his shoulder, and Hanya almost fell over. The - girl's? He thought it was a girl's - mouth was moving a mile a minute, though he was far enough away that her words were a meaningless babble of sound. The man - he'd have to learn his name - didn't even seem to notice he'd picked up a child somewhere, and that said child was clinging to his back like a limpet.

"What in the name of Soul Society…?" Satoshi filled him in, like he'd expected the question. "Yeah, some kid. When he showed up, she was with him. Hasn't let her out of his sight yet, that I've seen. They eat together, sleep together - probably bathe together, too."

Something of what had passed through his mind must have shown on his face, because Satoshi hastened to reassure him. "Not like that. Just sleeping in the same bed, is all." He almost seemed to drift off for a moment. "I dunno what she sees in the big guy. She's just about the cutest thing ever, and him… well. Kenpachi-san ain't gonna be winning any awards for sweetness any time soon."

"Kenpachi…?" Hanya asked weakly. Kenpachi. The title given to the most blood-thirsty, battle-hungry Shinigami of a generation. It fit him. Satoshi nodded soberly. "Yea. Zaraki Kenpachi. He doesn't answer to anything else. The kid's name is Yachiru. Yachiru-chan, or things can get messy."

"Ah," Hanya said faintly.

Kenpachi moved on, looking like a shark swimming through a school of tuna.