Disclaimer: Not mine.
Warnings: None.
A/N: Set shortly after Yachiru first summons her zanpakuto.
New Tricks
Sometimes Yachiru was disturbingly precocious.
Seeing as she had her zanpakuto and all, Kenpachi supposed it was his responsibility to teach her how to fight and not get herself killed in the process. He hadn't hauled her around for all those years just so she could get herself offed by some lame-ass weakling with a rusty meat cleaver. So whenever he had a moment –which was often- and had nothing better to do –which was even more often- he took it upon himself to teach her the fine art of Knocking Off Opponents Before Your Own Stupidity Gets You Killed.
"Hold it like this, kiddo," Kenpachi told her, adjusting her grip on her zanpakuto's hilt. "Grip it too tight and it'll get knocked right outta your hand and you'll get yourself gutted. They ain't gonna go easy on you just 'cause you're puny. Got it?"
"I'm not puny. Ken-chan's too big!" she cheerfully informed him, grinning like a ninny.
He gazed stoically at her. "Got it?" he repeated.
"Yep!"
"About time," he said, rising from his crouch to tower above her. "Now get serious. What wouldja do if some idiot tried to pin you against that rock over there?"
She considered for a moment before her face lit up with inspiration. "Duck under his legs and stab him in the back!"
He nodded in approval. "Show me."
"Hai!"
Yachiru backed up against the rock and Kenpachi loomed over her. "Go," he ordered.
In a flash she was gone, and he felt her sheathed zanpakuto prod him in the spine. He hadn't even seen her move.
"How was that, Ken-chan?"
"Probably wouldn't get you killed," he told her, "'cept while you were doing that, one of my buddies got his ass moving and chopped your head off. Whatcha gonna do to keep that from happening?"
She looked pensive. "Stupid stabby dead man has a buddy?"
"That's what I said."
"He got any more?"
"Maybe."
"Hmm…. Then instead of stabbing you in the back, I'll slice you from the side!"
"Took you long enough," he told her. That would allow her to spin with the motion and meet the second bandit face-to-face, able to block any attacks. "Now do it."
"Okay!" She ducked back in front of him and allowed him to pin her to the rock.
"Go," he said, and felt her scabbard sweep across his back in the next breath. He turned around and found her facing away from him in a defensive stance.
"Not too bad, but looks like there's another of our friends hangin' around. He just popped outta those bushes over there. What now?"
"Hmmm. Is the second guy dead yet?" Yachiru asked.
"Yeah," he decided.
"Okay," Yachiru said. "Then I do this to 'im."
Suddenly her zanpakuto was thirty feet away and imbedded in a tree trunk, the blade reverberating from the violence of the throw.
Kenpachi blinked at it for a few seconds. That was… unexpected. And kind of cool.
"Where'd you learn that?" he asked eventually, walking over to the tree and eyeing the sword. Its tip was buried at least four inches in.
"Nowhere," she smiled, looking pleased with herself
"Only morons throw their weapons away," he said.
Yachiru stuck her tongue out.
"Whatcha gonna do if there's more than three of 'em?" He grabbed the hilt and started working the zanpakuto free.
"Ken-chan will take care of them," she said dismissively.
"Oh, yeah?" He eyed her, considering. "Whatcha gonna do if I don't?"
"Ken-chan will," she stated with absolutely certainty, "'cause Ken-chan's the best!"
"Che," Kenpachi swore, but he was pleased. As he pulled the zanpakuto out of the tree, he allowed himself to smirk a little. And later, when he discovered that the accuracy of Yachiru's throw wasn't a fluke, he even smiled.
Maybe she wouldn't get her moronic self killed after all.
-the end-
