Characters: Byakuya, Yachiru
Summary: It never fails to surprise him.
Pairings: None
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Timeline: None needed
Author's Note: There are people I picture Yachiru having "special" relationships with, and Byakuya is one of them. As to the choices for you to believe at the bottom, well, it's anyone's guess as to what's actually true.
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.
The only thing that keeps Byakuya from restraining his—vocal—concern with the way Kusajishi Yachiru is being raised is the fact that she seems to display absolutely nothing remotely resembling dissatisfaction with the arrangement. What that's a sign of he doesn't know and is sure he doesn't want to know.
A child covered with blood, whether illusory or real—Byakuya knows his eyes start to play tricks and doesn't always trust them as a result—runs like mad through Seireitei. Hair sticky and stiff with blood, skin bathed in it, whooping and hollering like a maniac. No supervision, no anything.
A child who was found in the worst parts of Rukongai, raised by a brute, a monster of a man, runs screaming with laughter through Seireitei, utterly unsupervised until such time as Yumichika or Ikkaku manage to track her down.
A child who is allowed to wander the battlefield and still hovers near Kenpachi when he is at his bloodthirsty worst, pelts through Seireitei like a little pink storm, leaving destruction in her wake, smile never breaking.
Byakuya stares after Yachiru and gapes as the little bumblebee zooms around like a hummingbird on stimulants. Absolute hatred of Kenpachi grows as he does absolutely nothing to even try to shelter her. Nothing.
And somehow, she still seems happy. Like there's absolutely nothing in the world that's wrong in her life.
Throughout it all, throughout the blood and battles and long nights away from home, she's still Yachiru. Still the little girl always giggling about something, still the more than a little manic child who runs the breadth of Seireitei looking for a playmate. Still the girl who begs and begs and begs Byakuya to give her candy and whines without end if he won't give it to her.
Incredulously fond of her, in a way he can't really explain, Byakuya is bemused by the violently pink enigma known as Kusajishi Yachiru.
Maybe she's so utterly disturbed that slaughter and even Kenpachi can't faze her anymore.
And maybe the spirit of innocence in Yachiru is simply indestructible.