This is a brief filler chap from Kisuke's pov.

Contrary to popular belief, Kisuke was not a kind or gentle man.

He'd simply lived far too long and done and experienced far too much to be. Those qualities in him were only brought out by those he considered his dearest friends. Isshin had been one of those friends.

And even after he had married Misaki and started his family- Kisuke's world had grown beyond the small number of people that he had come to care for.

The day that he had heard Misaki had given birth, he'd dropped everything to go and see if she and the baby were okay. Especially when just two short months before she had been attacked by a Hollow and he'd had literally run to save her since her abilities were weakened by her pregnancy.

At the time Isshin had been working at the hospital almost ninety hours a week and was simply beyond exhausted and even if he wasn't working that day- he would never reach her in time to prevent her from being injured or dying.

He'd walked into the hospital with a somewhat grim determination. His mind awhirl with possibilities about Misaki's present condition. And then there had been her child. Was it okay? Or was it deformed? Sickly, or dying? And of course there was the occasional weird stray thought of, Please don't tell him that the baby had been born with Isshin's huge, dumbo ears.

The worry had very nearly driven him crazy.

And in turn had nearly driven Tessai and the kids crazy too since they lived with his crazy ass.

He hadn't expected how his world would change again- well okay, that was sort of a lie. He knew automatically that he would love any child of Isshin's. The fact that the baby was also Misaki's simply sweetened the deal as far as he was concerned.

The woman was simply mindbogglingly awesome. How Isshin had managed to not only find her but marry her too was simply a mystery to him. Honestly, she was too good for the man.

And he said that with all the affection in the world for his friend. Even if it was sort of true.

He hadn't bothered to ask anyone for information on Misaki since he was using her spirit energy to track where she was in the hospital, and had gone straight to her room to see her.

Isshin had been passed out in the corner on a cot, snoring when he walked into the room. Misaki however had been sitting up in her bed talking to the little pink bundle in her arms. She'd looked up at him and smiled as he quietly closed the door behind him and then made his way over to her bedside and leaned down to kiss her forehead before turning his eyes to the baby.

"A girl huh?" He asked in wry amusement. "I should have known." Already knowing that Isshin was going to go totally nuts once the kid was at the age to date. "You two are going to have your hands full. Especially if she takes after her mother as far as looks are concerned." He said as he sat down in the chair beside the bed.

"I think you may be right about that."

"So what did you name her?" He asked curiously as he watched the baby yawn and then stick out her tongue. Eliciting a small chuckle as Misaki replied,

"Ichigo."

"You named the poor kid Strawberry?" He asked as he made a funny face at the infant, and snorted when the baby just stared at him unblinkingly for a second as if trying to figure out what was wrong with him.

"No. We named her that because it also means, number one guardian." Misaki said as he ran her hand over the strawberry blond fuzz on little Ichigo's head. "Both of her parents are protectors. So it only makes sense that she will inevitably be one as well."

Kisuke had mulled over her words for a moment and then shyly reached out his hand to touch the baby's hand and felt a weird sort of warmth in the vicinity of his chest when her tiny hand wrapped around his finger, making him smile. At least up until Misaki had coaxed him into trying to hold her.

And then he'd nearly had a heart attack from worrying that he would end up dropping her and pissing the new parents off. Misaki had laughed at his terrified expression and had managed to sneakily take his picture of him.

No one aside from Tessai and Yuroichi knew it- not even the kids- but Kisuke kept a copy of that picture in his bedroom along with a few others of Ichigo in various stages of her life.

Isshin and Misaki had kept him up to date on everything going on in the girl's life, even when he couldn't always be there to see it for himself. Those pictures were amongst some of his most treasured items.

He went through them almost weekly for a while there in the beginning because he had wanted to commit everything that he could about the girl and the stuff going on with her, to memory.

The day that Misaki had been killed, Kisuke had been the one to find Ichigo sitting dazed next to her dead mother on the muddy ground with blood smeared on her face and clothing. And had carefully collected the slightly hysterical child and taken her to his shop to be checked over while he called the authorities, and then Isshin to tell him what was going on.

He remembered how once he hung up the phone after delivering the devastating news of Misaki's death to his friend, he had gone to see if Ichigo was okay.

He entered the room that he'd left her in to find her bathed and in the process of being dressed in an old pair of Ururu's PJ's.

Tessai had been in the process of buttoning up her shirt when he'd told him that he would take over for him and had waited until the man was gone to move into place and started to pick up where he left off when she had asked, "Mom?"

His heart squeezed painfully in his chest as he moved his gaze to her face and simply said, "I'm sorry." And watched with dread as she had crumbled before his very eyes.

He had sworn that he would never allow her to look that utterly wrecked- that destroyed ever again. He had sworn it on her mother's grave. And he would swear it again on her father's.

Isshin had left him to care for Ichigo and his other two children. And while that was both flattering and vexing in the extreme- especially since he only ever really had a strong emotional attachment to Ichigo. He would do as his friend wanted.

He would care for the kids to the best of his abilities.

And he would completely, ruthlessly and utterly destroy anyone who ever irreparably hurt his little guardian again.