Ichika was growing up, as all children do. 'And,' Renji noted a little dejectedly as he watched her sleep, 'she's growing out of things, too.' It was all happening so fast. Ten years ago, they had taken care of the Quincy threat and peace had returned to the Soul Society. Eight years ago, he and Rukia had gotten married. And seven years ago, Ichika had been born.

It all felt like it had happened mere months ago. Though, that was part of the deal with having a prolonged lifespan—what felt like years to a human passed in the blink of an eye to a soul reaper. But Ichika launched through life, and fascinations, with an unwavering vitality.

From birth, she had been clothed in rabbit-themed everything. Renji had been loath to persuade Rukia into toning it down, and absolutely powerless to prevent his daughter's favorite character from being his captain's (now brother-in-law. Yeesh.) weird seaweed creation. But once she started being able to choose her own tastes, she had turned away from the cutesier merchandise. She still doodled with Rukia on Chappy stationary and slept with her Seaweed Ambassador doll, but now she was more interested in learning how to be a soul reaper than anything else.

Had someone asked him a few years ago, "Bet you can't wait until your kid gets out of that phase, huh?" he would have fervently agreed. But now that he was witnessing it happen…it was too quick. Where was the toddler running towards him in her rabbit hoodie? The little yukata decorated with carrots? She was throwing herself, as much as a seven-year-old could, into training to reap souls and fight Hollows.

He was proud, of course. His kid was going to kick some major ass! Ichigo's kid wouldn't stand a chance. He derived a ridiculous amount of pleasure from sending his friend pictures of Ichika attacking a bush with her wooden sword with the caption, "She's coming for you." Ichigo would see for himself when they went down to the World of the Living in a few weeks. But he was still lamenting the impending loss of his daughter's childhood.

There were still some things, though, that she wasn't even close to growing out of. Most kids had trouble breaking the habit of sucking their thumbs. Not Ichika. Ichika's equivalent to thumb-sucking was shoulder-sitting. Rukia had started it and Byakuya had perpetuated it, but given a choice, Ichika always went straight for her dad. She was a total daddy's girl. Renji didn't think life got much better than meeting Rukia after work at the Squad 13 barracks, holding onto Ichika's legs so that she wouldn't slip off his shoulders, and walking home together, hand-in-hand with the woman he loved and the daughter he adored.

In truth, Renji suspected Ichika preferred sitting on his shoulders because he was the tallest. When he took her around, she towered over virtually everyone. She loved heights. Try playing hide-and-seek with a four-year-old who likes to leap onto roofs and climb to the highest tree branch sometime. Books on parenting hadn't exactly covered what to do when you find your child who could barely speak in full sentences hanging upside-down from the tallest building at the Kuchiki manor. Heights weren't the only reason she stuck to Renji, though.

Ever since was able to grab (which is to say, the day she was born), she had grabbed onto Renji's hair. They had never been able to quite figure it out, but Ichika had always been obsessed with trying to style his hair. To an infant, "styling" meant hanging on for dear life and coming away with a couple (or more) of red strands. To a six-year-old, "styling" meant attempting to put his hair into its characteristic ponytail, and ending up with a mess that was more tangled than it had been before it was brushed. Consequently, Renji had started wearing his hair in a long braid, more often than not paired with a bandana, to keep it neat even when Ichika got to it. In exchange, he had helped Ichika learn how to do her own hair.

Now, she would wake up in the morning and, all by herself, choose her clothes for the day and sweep her hair up into a ponytail with one of her dad's old bandanas to secure it. Even though she had grown out of Chappy-everything, she still preferred pastels, and even though she had stopped needing to carry around Seaweed Ambassador everywhere, she had switched to following her uncle around everywhere when they were at the manor.

When Rukia saw her daughter trailing Byakuya with a white bandana holding her hair up in Renji's old style, she always felt a few tears threatening to spill, wondering how she got so lucky. When Renji saw it all—his brother-in-law entertaining Ichika, his wife filling out the remainder of her impending captainship forms with a Chappy pen, his daughter, now too large to sit on shoulders, clambering onto his back monkey-style—he wondered the same. Despite the struggles and the heartbreaks and the healing it had taken to get to where they were, he was grateful for feeling like he had won the grand prize of all grand prizes. Every day he felt like he was sitting on top of the world, and the view was absolutely perfect.