When he first manifested his zanpakuto, Kuchiki Byakuya was pleased.

He liked the feel of it in his hand, the way it rested, the way it looked, and the sheer perfectness of it, never mind that all zanpakutos were created equal and perfect anyway.

He liked the square guard neatly divided in four, precise, angular and so completely him.

The light purple wrapping appealed to his inner aesthetics, and the curve of the blade fit perfectly into his fighting style.

Yes, when he first manifested his zanpakuto, Kuchiki Byakuya was pleased.

When he first learnt the name of his zanpakuto, Kuchiki Byakuya was pleased.

He liked the grace, the femininity, and the beauty behind her movements, her voice a poem and her movements a dance.

Her dress was simple and elegant, white with delicate pink sakura embroidered into the silk.

She liked to skirt near him, running cold fingers down his jaw line, but he could deal with that.

The noble families were not intimate, but they loved showing off their offspring, and he had been no exception. He had shaken the hands of more people than he cared to remember. This was not much different.

She liked to laugh at him, but it was a light tinkling laugh, and he could deal with that.

It was not often that anyone laughed at all in his presence, unless one counted that Demon Cat, who had just upped and disappeared. He liked to laugh, but there was no one to laugh with, so he supposed that being laughed at would suffice. No one else even dared laugh at him anyway.

So, despite her faults, Senbonzakura really was lovely, yes, she was.

Yes. When he first learnt the name of his zanpakuto, Kuchiki Byakuya was pleased.

When he first manifested his shikai, Kuchiki Byakuya was most displeased.

He had heard the words whispered on the wind, had worked so hard, trained so many hours, he had climbed so high.

He had forged such a connection that he knew her and she knew him.

He knew all there was to know, all that she would reveal, and this was what came out of it?

The first time he whispered those words, those words which Seireitei would come to fear, he had felt dread and fear…

His noble ego was completely destroyed in one crushing blow.

Cutting edges were interesting but flower petals were not manly.

Several hundred cutting edges were impressive but flower petals were not cool.

And pink flower petals would most certainly not do, no matter how they scattered the light but were actually metallic.

He tried asking Senbonzakura to stop playing a fool, to stop making fun of him, because by the gods, it was not funny.

It was not funny to present his flowery shikai in front of a group of undeserving, silently sniggering nobles, because there would go the prestige of a Kuchiki.

("Did you hear? That heir to the Kuchiki clan has flowers as his shikai! How pathetic!")

He could just hear it.

But Senbonzakura merely remained silent and laughed at him, while he stood in the middle of a grove of cherry trees and growled.

And nothing changed; his shikai was still pink, flowery, and sharp.

Yes, when he first manifested his shikai, Kuchiki Byakuya was most displeased.

When he first manifested his bankai, Kuchiki Byakuya was horrified.

He had been coping with a flowery shikai for the better part of a decade already.

It had been a short time, as compared to some of the others, partly because he already knew Senbonzakura so well, and she did not seem eager to hold back on her knowledge.

The other part had been incomprehensible before, but he understood it fully now, oh yes, he did.

He could have cried when he manifested his bankai. It was supposed to be a magical day, a day that many shinigami would die for. Not him, not Kuchiki Byakuya.

He would have cried when he manifested his bankai if he had not noticed that the servants were watching out from their stations of duty. But it would not have been tears of joy. No, far from it. But he was a Kuchiki. He was The Kuchiki.

He was claimed to be the singularly most brilliant heir apparent of the Kuchiki clan, and would soon bring the clan to new heights, of course they would want to watch.

He had been utterly disappointed to realize that his bankai was just about the same as his shikai. Pink, sharp and flowery, it had darned near broken his heart.

He was so very, very disappointed.

The blade had sunk into the ground, his heart had clenched tightly as he watched the ripples spread, secretly hoping, please oh please, to get something cool.

When the blades had risen out of the ground, he had cheered mentally, whooping in delight as he waited to unleash sharp blades of hell.

The very moment that the blades had scattered, forming millions of small blades just as his shikai had, he had held his breath, praying and praying that they would not turn out…

Pink.

Biting back a howl of anguish, he had merely stood there as his emotions whipped up a storm of pink petals, whirling around him in a maelstrom of death but not a single blade cutting his skin.

His control had been superb from the beginning, but not even that had comforted him.

His shikai was pink.

Pink flower petals.

And guess what his bankai was?

Yes, it was also pink.

And yes, it was also composed of pink flower petals. Wow! Who would have guessed?

Honestly.

The day when he went for the captainship test, he had had to maintain that stony façade with a little more effort that usual, trying not to show his own disappointment at the fact that the new captain's bankai was composed of Pink Flowery Petals of Doom.

It did not help that it had been the duo of Kyouraku and Ukitake there to oversee the test, and while the latter was tactful, the former was not at all, howling with laughter at the poor young man's misfortune.

So yes, when he first manifested his bankai, Kuchiki Byakuya was horrified.

It took two more decades and the development of the annihilation-scape for him to finally, finally smile once more.

He finally had something relatively manly, such a pity that not many would get to see it.

And it was, yes, you guessed it, pink.

He soon realized that his shikai, coupled with his superior shunpo as compared to most if not all of Seireitei's current inhabitants, instilled fear into even the bravest of hearts.

Of course, his grave countenance and mercilessly emotionless face helped greatly.

Pink, Flowery Bankai of Doom, huh. Those who had started that were going to pay.

By spring the next year, half the shinigami jumped out of their skins whenever a sakura petal landed or fluttered near them.

Kuchiki Byakuya the relatively new Captain of the Sixth Division allowed himself a small smirk.

A small, indulgent smirk.

It had taken some time, but he had beaten so many of those who had whispered and laughed into pulp, that for a period of time, he had had to skirt around the Fourth Division for fear of retribution Unohana-style.

Yamamoto Genryuusai-Shigekuni knew that there had been a reason why he had made Kuchiki Byakuya a captain.

No one else could pull off a pink, flowery and oh so feminine zanpakuto the way he did, no one could dish out bowls of pain with the same flowery devices as well as he did.

No one.

Not even Shunsui and that was saying something.