Two Halves Can Fill a Whole

The day was warm with a pleasant breeze. A perfect day for a picnic.

Upon pulling their van into the parking lot of Karakura Park, the Kurosaki children immediately threw open the door and clambered out into the beautiful freedom of the outdoors. The Kurosaki parents followed more slowly than their offspring, going around to the back in order to begin unloading their provisions and supplies.

While they were still getting everything situated, four more vehicles pulled up beside the Kurosaki's van. From one came the Abarai family, while another carried Ms. Kurosaki and her fiancé. The other two held Mr. and Mrs. Sado and Mr. and Mrs. Hitsugaya respectively.

As soon as Mrs. Sado stepped out of the car, Mrs. Kurosaki immediately gave a cry of delight, saying, "It's so good to see you!"

Looking around at the others, Mrs. Kurosaki said ecstatically, "I'm so glad you all could make it!"

Grinning at her long-time friend, Mrs. Sado gave Mrs. Kurosaki a side-hug and said, "Like we would miss this chance to get together with you guys. How long has it been since we last got together?"

Mrs. Abarai handed her newborn son to her husband so that she could go over and join in the hug as she said, "Far too long."

The young Ms. Kurosaki ran over to join as well while her sister, Mrs. Hitsugaya, looked with a smile at the Kurosaki children and the two older Abarai children running and playing as she said, "Wonderful as this reunion is, we should probably get moving. Kids will be kids, you know."

Waving a hand carelessly, Mrs. Abarai said, "Oh, that's easily taken care of," before she turned to the men and said firmly, "Take the stuff, set up and then at least keep an eye on the kids if you're not planning on playing with them."

Even though he had known Mrs. Abarai for years, the younger Mr. Kurosaki still hadn't learned that talking back to the abovementioned woman never turned out well and so scoffed, "What? No please?"

Everyone else wisely took a step back the moment before Mrs. Abarai gave an almighty leap, planted her foot in Mr. Kurosaki's chest to send him reeling before delivering a mean kick to the left side of his face. This final blow sent Mr. Kurosaki crashing to the ground in a daze.

Landing lightly on her feet, Mrs. Abarai leaned over Mr. Kurosaki's prostrate form and said in a sugary sweet tone, "Please," before turning to the other women and saying, "Well, we have a lot of catching up to do."

As the women walked away talking and laughing, Ms. Kurosaki's fiancé bent over his prostrate friend and said with a straight face, "You never learn, do you Ichigo?"

Blinking a few times and trying his best to put on a ferocious scowl, Ichigo growled, "Shut it, Uryu," before he turned his gaze on his attacker's husband and asked incredulously, "Renji, wh-"

"Don't you dare ask me why I can't control my wife! You know perfectly well that Rukia does as Rukia wishes," said Renji as he adjusted his infant son in his arms, "And besides, you kind of had it coming."

Before anyone could continue arguing, Toshiro said matter-of-factly, "The kids are still running around unsupervised," which caused all the menfolk to quickly gather the picnic supplies and make their way over to where the kids were playing. As they walked, the men found ways to keep on verbally sparring with one another.

The afternoon sun climbed up to its highest point and then began its descent and in that time was able to watch the families and friends enjoying each other's company. They talked, laughed, joked, playfully fought, ate and all around had fun together.

All of a sudden, the calm atmosphere of the picnic was shattered as the peal of an expensive sports car tires squealed into the parking lot. The adults all turned as one to see a bright red sports car begin to make a circuit of the lot. They also saw with horror that the children had been on the verge of rushing out into that parking lot in order to retrieve a ball.

As one, all the adults surged up from their seats and began racing towards where the children were. Fortunately, the older children had known better than to race out into the path of an oncoming car and had kept the younger children from doing so either.

After making a full circle, for whatever reason, the driver of the sports car decided to go around again and this time as it passed by the children, the racing adults saw the tires shoot gravel and small pebbles into the air. Some of the missiles hit the older kids as they tried to protect the younger ones.

"Stop right there!"

"What do you think you're doing?!"

"Stop your car right now!"

"Don't you dare drive away!"

"Get back here you idiots!"

For whatever reason, the driver of the sports car brought his vehicle to a stop and sat there staring at the oncoming mob of five furious females. One could almost say the three teenage boys inside the car had a certain amount of courage to not drive away.

Upon reaching the car, Tatsuki started first, growling, "Just what do you think you were doing?!"

Yuzu was a little less vicious, but still quite upset as she said, "You ought to be ashamed of yourselves driving around that recklessly!"

Rukia was up next, barely keeping her voice under control as she said, "There are children playing over there! You must be blind not to see them over there!"

Crossing her arms and glaring down at the boys, Karin Hitsugaya said icily, "You're lucky that your stupidity didn't end up hurting my nieces or nephews."

The boys in the car had cowered lower in their seats with each new accusation and demand from the upset women. After each one had said their piece, the boys turned their attention to Orihime, waiting with apprehension for the last verbal blow to fall.

For a time, Orihime simply stood there, staring down at the boys with an unreadable expression. As they sat there, the boys looked at one another then back at Orihime before she turned around and walked over to the group of children. Taking her youngest son by the hand, Orihime walked back over to the car with her son toddling silently beside her.

When she reached the side of the sports car, Orihime looked down at the boys and said, slowly, "This is my son, Natsuki. He just had his first birthday a little over a month ago. He has three older sisters, two older brothers and a father who all love him dearly. I am his mother and I love him with all my heart."

Looking down at the boys with a calm, serious expression in her eyes, Orihime went on, "The next time you do something like this, you might hit someone. A child of Natsuki's size wouldn't survive. Your reckless action would not only affect the family of that child, but the friends and extended family as well."

Bending down to pick up Natsuki, Orihime finished with, "Please, don't ever do this again."

The boys all shook their heads and the driver replied in a soft voice, "I promise," and in less than two minutes the car was creeping its way back out of the parking lot.

From their standpoint next to the children, Renji remarked to the others, "You know, there's a reason you don't want to go after baby bears."

Ichigo smirked as he replied, "Yep. Because you know Mama Bear isn't far behind them."

Chad crossed his arms and said, "I almost feel bad for those boys."

Adjusting his glasses, Uryu remarked, "I don't. I'm guessing they learned their lesson."

Giving his wife a small smile, Toshiro said, "I think they did."

The rest of the afternoon hours waned away in peace.

Author's Note:

And the end has arrived! As always, it is a bittersweet finish to another story, but since I have other projects that are in the works right now it definitely helps with that.

At one point, I read a story where Uryu and Yuzu were in a relationship, so since I was playing around with Toshiro and Karin together (now that we know that Isshin and Toshiro knew each other in Soul Society and worked together, I could actually see this pairing somehow happening) I thought it would be fun to experiment with these two as well. Hope you guys don't mind!

This was a lot of fun to write and I will definitely be trying this again sometime in the future since it was so much fun!

Thank you to everyone for your wonderful support of all these different stories! I really enjoyed creating them for you to enjoy!