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Yachiro frowned at the Asauchi in front of her. Then she looked towards the hesitant shinigami who had placed it there. Finally, she looked back towards the one responsible for this situation.
“Ken-channnnnnn, I don’t want ittttt.”
“What? Is there something wrong with it?” The mountain of a man stepped past her and snatched up the sword, twirling it around with ease as he inspected it with a searing gaze. “There had better be nuthin wrong with it,” he mumbled under his breath, causing the delivery person to start shivering.
“I don’t want a sword,” she definitely didn’t whine, before perking back up. “I’m plenty strong enough on my own! I could beat up any of those other lieutenants! Except maybe that gray haired one… But even if I can’t, I have you, Ken-chan! We’re already partners so why do I need another sword??”
Kenpachi scoffed. “Of course we’re partners, why do you think I’m giving this to you.”
“Eh?” She blinked reflexively.
“And since we’re partners…” He thrust the hilt of the sword towards her and she reflexively grasped it. “That means I gotta make sure you keep growing so you’re strong enough to keep up with me. Starting with a proper weapon that’ll grow with ya. Hell, this is long overdue even! I would've given you something back in the Rukongi, but everything they had there was crap. Now that I’m a fancy captain of Soul Society the least I can do is get you something useful.”
“Ken-chan…” Oh of course that’s what it was! Ken-chan wasn’t trying to replace her or break their partnership, he was trying to let her stay by his side! Sure she would prefer he do that in a certain other way, but she’d been trying to get him to hear her for literally years… Which could get a bit trying at times, but it was the rare moments like this that reminded her he really did care.
And because of that, there was only ever one path available for her. “Ok! If it’s a gift from Ken-chan I’ll use it!” She declared resolutely.
“Good,” Kenpachi grinned at her, showing his teeth. “The rest of Seireitei won’t even know what hit them. Hah! I bet you’ll get Shikai within the year! That’ll show those stuck-up pricks what happens when they try to question me having you as my lieutenant.”
She replied with happy nodding, even as her mind internally raced at that declaration. Ok now she had to haul around another sword, and she was even expected to achieve Shikai with it. That… would have been doable, except for one thing.
How was she, a zanpakuto, supposed to connect with and achieve a Shikai bond with another zanpakuto?????
Thankfully for her, there was no problem with her taking the sword. It took her reiryoku in just as it would that of any other Soul Reapers, which meant she wasn’t outed as a zanpakuto. Granted she wouldn’t have cared that much about it, but if Ken-chan couldn’t hear her when she flat out told him she was his sword then she wasn’t going to tell anyone else learn that fact first. Him learning her nature and chosen name was their special moment, and she wasn’t going to let anyone else get that experience before they did.
On the other hand, there wasn’t much progress in achieving Shikai either. Which was entirely expected. She’d done a few exercises to see if anything would happen, but when nothing predictably did she more or less stopped. She’d be powerful with Ken-chan, and her being able to have a zanpakuto would raise some uncomfortable questions she didn’t really want to deal with.
As such, she mostly continued with her life as before. Occasionally she forgot it somewhere, and other times she “forgot” it, and then people yelled at her, but she didn’t really mind if it followed her around most of the time.
In fact, she would probably have never done anything else with it besides shove reiryoku into it except for one thing…
“Meanies!” Yachiro yelled as she ducked a Kuchiki ninja guy. “Stop trying to stop me from seeing Byakki!” She pouted as another three of them threw each other at her and made sure to tap them on the head. Lightly. She had already majorly annoyed two noble clans this year, and the last time she annoyed three her favorite candy store had inexplicably closed on the same day she received her third official reprimand. Sure it could be a coincidence, but she wasn’t going to risk it when her current favorite was about to come out with a new type of candy. Named after her even!
Still, having to be careful to not crack anyone open made getting through the regular swarm of Kuchiki ninjas that much more tedious. She was still going through with it of course. Byakki had been all sad and mopey since Ana-chan died, and what better way to help than ask him to play! Plus apparently he had a new sister, and she really wanted to see her!
Several dozen ninjas later, Yachiru was interrupted by a scoff. When she turned to look she was greeted by a fancy-clothes man. Which… was so lame! They never wanted to fight, tended to be really weak when they did, and beating one of them up would definitely get her written up. She turned back to her own sparing, resolving to ignore the intruding presence.
“So,” he finally spoke several ninjas and scoffs later, vein clearly enlarged on his head. Yachiru responded to this by pouting where he couldn’t see her. So this was one of the nobles who wasn’t too stuck up to speak first. That was lame. The really stuck-up nobles could be so annoyed by the prospect of speaking first they would just make increasingly funny faces until they left, which was much more entertaining than whatever they usually had to say.
“It’s good to know even the weakest ‘lieutenant’ of the 13 Squads can hold off the Kuchiki’s prized retainers.”
Yachiru felt a spike of annoyance shoot through her. She could take on almost any of the other lieutenants and win if she wanted, she was sure. Except maybe Moustache. She got the feeling he kept his power hidden a lot too. Still, he was obviously looking to engage, so she kept to sticking her tongue out at him and moving through the ninjas at a noticeably faster pace.
“How a child without even a Shikai conned her way into that rank I will never know.” She continued to ignore him. “Except… oh wait. It’s actually obvious if you look at the situation.” She caught his grin turning sharper out of the corner of her eye and she punched another ninja. “Captain Kenpachi plays favorites.”
Yachiru responded in a perfectly reasonable manner to that. By which she meant she kicked the nearest ninja into the wall, unleashed her spiritual pressure - not enough to kill the weaklings around her, but enough to make them feel it and hesitate - and yelled, “Ken-Chan doesn’t do that!”
The smirk on the man's face told her she had fallen into his grasp, but the accompanying bead of sweat coming off his forehead told her he might have gained a little doubt.
Not enough to stop him, evidently. “Really,” he sneered. “Then by all means, explain why you’re the only officer in Soul Society who hasn’t achieved Shikai, bar some lower seats?”
Ignoring his question, she retorted. “In squad 11 we fight for ranks! And I beat up the old lieutenant which made me the new one!”
“And how many have challenged you since?” Yachiru glared as she thought back. Baldy had tried… once, she was pretty sure. And a few newbies. That she hadn’t seen since, weirdly enough. Had they transferred out or something? She didn’t think she broke them that much…
Perhaps sensing the difficulties she was having, the noble grinned. “Just as I thought. You got lucky in a fight against some weakling, maybe even cheated-“ Yachiru ramped up her spiritual pressure and glared even more. The surrounding ninjas practically tripped over themselves - some literally - as they tried to gain some distance. The noble, meanwhile, started sweating even more.
“A-and since then… you’ve… been protected by the c-captain,” he managed to continue in a manner she would have respected if it wasn’t for the contents of his statements.
“So then,” Yachiru replied in a suddenly cheerful voice. “Do you mean to challenge me?” She accompanied this by resting hand on the hilt of her sword - which had been sheathed the entire fight - and released a spike of related that sent half the ninjas to the ground.
“No!” The noble’s face went pale, possibly realizing just what situation he was in. “N-nothing so… b-barbaric. I simply propose a d-deal.” He waited, practically as she considered that, before slowly reducing her reiatsu. Not too much though.
“Oh,” she chirped. “What deal?”
“Ah.” The noble took a moment to breathe, perhaps thankful she wasn’t about to destroy him consequences be dammed. “It is quite simple. If you are really deserving of your position, then achieve Shikai in, say, one month. You’ve had your zanpakuto for several years already, so it truly should be a trivial task. If you fail, you promise to never disgrace the Kuchiki grounds again unless explicitly invited.”
“Why would I do that?” She asked.
“You will, of course, be able to request one thing from the Kuchikis should you succeed.”
Oh, well that could be worth it. She thought about it for a bit, but really her decision was a no brainer after that day.
“Then if I win you have to promise your ninja’s won’t stop me from seeing Byakki!” She declared while pointing at him.
“Ninjas? They aren’t ninjas, they are-“ He cut himself off, perhaps realizing she very much didn’t care about what their ninjas were officially called. They were ninjas, that was that. “Hmph. Very well,” the noble finally replied. “On the honor of house Kuchiki I will tell the guards to not interfere with your comings and goings from the main Kuchiki house if you achieve Shikai within the next month. They will, of course, prevent you going anywhere else.”
Yachiru noticed one of the ninjas stepping up, perhaps as if to intervene in their deal, but threw a targeted spike of reiryoku at them. He almost collapsed, and shakily retreated. The noble remained unaware and none of the other ninjas were quite brave enough to test her after that.
“Great!” With that Yachiru cut her reiatsu and bounded forward, coming to a stop right in front of him and thrusting her pinky out. “Now we just need to make a pinky promise!”
The noble - now looking like he wanted to leave, but out of disgust this time - stared at her hand with trepidation. “Pinky… promise?” He said doubtfully.
“Yep!” When he continued to hesitate, she added, “If we don’t pinky promise it’s not a real promise.” She smiled up at him.
“I… very well.” The noble reluctantly moved his pinky to curl around hers, arm straight out in an effort to maintain as much distance as possible. “It’s… a promise” he grinded out.
“Yay!” Yachiru released the pose and stepped back. “See you in a month then!”
She departed quickly as the rest of the of the courtyard resolved into chaos.
With her goals for the immediate future now set, Yachiru started to plan. Unbeknown to most, this was not a completely alien thing to her. Sure she was incredibly spontaneous and regularly caused mischief, but doing so without getting killed or worse when surrounded by individuals with god like powers took some amount of effort. Not too much - most soul society members were much weaker than her, or at least Ken-chan. But with some captains a careless mistake would be bad, and others were much stronger than her and had only so much patience. Which was also why she tended to be very careful around Mayurin and Ren-chan.
The other times she needed to plan were when her plots were elaborate enough that she needed genuine effort to trick people. She generally didn’t do this much, preferring rampant chaos and keeping people on their toes, but it had been why her great heist of Squad 8’s candy rations was undetected to this day. Sure she had been their number one suspect, but some distractions, false flags, all nighters, and Soul Society’s belief that she couldn’t possibly be subtle had let her get away with it. It didn’t make up for her favorite candy store closing, but she was pretty sure Gramps now knew he had to use that punishment sparingly to prevent her retribution.
And pretending to achieve Shikai was definitely a complicated plan. She would need to choose a form for her fake. Something silly would be ideal, like… that palm sized rock she saw on the side of the road would work. She grabbed it for the future. She could change her mind, but it’d be hilarious to make everyone think she actually had something like a rock as a Shikai.
With that decided, she next needed to figure out how to switch the fake and the real one out seamlessly enough that no one could tell. Keep her ‘Shikai’ empowered and relatively unshattered. And do it all with her reiryoku so well no sensors could detect her cheating. Technically she also had to figure out an ability, but she could just release a little more of her reiryoku than normal and have it be a generic power up. Those were very common in the 11th.
That was coincidentally why all of this was possible in the first place. She had figured out early on that blasting around almost as much reiatsu as Ken-chan would conflict with her “make sure Ken-chan is the first to find out I’m his sword” plan, and taken to suppressing it accordingly. It had sucked at first, but at this point her control was at least decent and astronomically better than Ken-chan.
Either way, she needed ideas for the rest of the process, and she couldn’t exactly ask around the Soul Society for them. She wanted that unlimited access to Byakki, and any clue that she was conning them would likely see her lose access.
That in turn was what led her to District 5: the entertainment district. Specifically for the magic shows. From what she heard they originally formed when a down on their luck noble with great control but poor power flunked out of the Academy. In need of funds, she had managed to turn her skills into wholly unorthodox techniques that she put on display. Those unorthodox techniques were also exactly the reason Yachiru was here. Not only were they perfect for a performance, but since most Shinigami dismissed them as party tricks or worthless for fighting few Shinigami even knew they existed!
Of course, she didn’t immediately go to the magic district. That would definitely be to suspicious. Instead, she started with some of her other favorite locations. Like the cotton candy dispenser. And the fun ride that twirled you around that someone had managed to snag from the World of the Living. And that other cotton candy dispenser. And the frozen treat place. And the first cotton candy dispenser again.
By that point, the entertainment district started their usual response to her arrival- arranging for a highly paid decoy to lure her out of the district with yet more cotton candy. She typically played along with this- it was more free cotton candy, how was that not a win? - but this time she had a purpose. So instead of slowly following the cotton candy trail eating as she went, she flash stepped along the path straight to the decoy, ignored the panicked yelping, snagged the bag, and then flash stepped again into the nearest building. Which was ‘coincidentally’ where a magic show was just starting.
Once safely eschewed in the rafters, she proceeded to chew through her new stash as she watched the performers, eyes wide and reiatsu sensing focused. Not everything was relevant to her - juggling, for instance - but some of it… She smirked as she watched a performer “reconstruct” a shattered instrument by twisting their reiatsu between the instrument and another one hidden on their person. Some of it was going to be very useful.
Such was her focus that she barely noticed the panicked backstage performers running around trying to figure out what mischief she was up to. She did make a mental note to be seen leaving the district peacefully though. If she ignored their ‘distraction’ completely then they would eventually stop giving her free candy, and she couldn’t have that.
Several hours later she had found an appropriately deserted area and settled in to try and replicate the process. To start with, she grabbed two random rocks. Starting experimentation on her actual sword wouldn’t be a great idea.
She then settled into a bastardized meditation stance with one rock in each hand. Ever so slowly she released a little reiryoku into each rock. She would have to be careful with this so as to- CRACK.
She glanced down at her left hand, now holding the rapidly crumbling remains of her rock. Well. That wouldn’t do. She guessed she’d have to figure out how to reinforce her rock first before she could put enough reiyoroku into it.
She tentatively looked towards her right hand and tried to tweeze the reiyoroku just right- CRACK.
Oh well. That just meant she needed to practice.
A few days later
Ok, she had managed to reinforce a rock to about the levels she needed and keep it steady for an entire half hour. That was good. Now she could try tying the two together. If she just pushed her reiryoku like this… perfect! That step was easy. Now she just needed to twist the connection just right… and… almost… there-
Yachiru flinched back as the rock on her right outright exploded. Checking things over, it seemed like she had transported the left rock into the right rock. Which… she would need to work on that.
Several more days later
By this point, she had managed several swaps successfully and discovered a few things in the process. For one, the process went much smoother the longer she imbued an object with her reiryoku, which was why she’d been passively imbuing her sword and rock for the last several days. She also discovered that the reiryoku needed to be very well balanced between the two objects, otherwise one would teleport into the other. That combined with the fact that the cost and difficulty seemed to rise exponentially after maybe a foot explained why this wasn’t a very desired combat technique.
When she began the process with her actual zanpakuto and chosen rock, everything thankfully went smoothly. The sword held her reiryoku near perfectly (she supposed that was its purpose) and with her control she was competent enough with the rock. Being extra careful with her relatively irreplaceable items, she then held her higher level imbuing for an entire hour, before very slowly interconnecting their reishi and holding that for another two. Finally, she very carefully twisted and all of a sudden her sword was now in her right hand and her rock was now in her left. She smiled. Now she just needed to practice it until she had it down, then she could add the embellishment she needed to make it truly undetectable.
The next couple weeks passed quickly. She made sure to keep her sword and rock continuously imbued and connected, randomly switching them throughout the day until she barely needed to think to do it. She then started adding the embellishment she would need.
Making her weapon glow was easy enough to accomplish by flaring some of her reiatsu outside of her sword. It was something Academy instructors would consider incredibly wasteful, but she had the reiryoku to spare. She didn’t really have anything for having her sword change shape. So instead she decided to just flare her reiatsu at the instant she switched, which would hide the swap from casual inspection via blinding the senses of anyone who was looking too closely.
Fooling Reiatsu sensing was… more difficult. She would need to flare mana in both items while pretending they were both the sword. Then she would need to do the switch, instantly cut power to the sword to shrink it as much as possible, and also put even more energy into the stone. The process wasn’t helped by the fact that the sword did not depower well. Every time she forcibly depowered it she could swear it was fighting her. If she could have had a live zanpakuto she would have sworn it was annoyed at her or jealous or something, but that was, again, not something that could actually happen.
Still. With time she was able to make more and more progress, enhancing her control and technique, towards the end of the month she was confident she would succeed.
On the final day of the bet, Yachiru arrived mostly on time. She’d seen some candy in her division that hadn’t gotten taxed yet and had had to delay to berate the troublemakers.
When she arrived, she was greeted with noble guy, looking much less confident than before. The reason for this might have been Byakki, who was standing immediately behind him and looking immensely displeased.
Yachiru reacted to this in the only appropriate way.
“Byakki!!” She yelled as she dive bombed him, jumping straight over noble guy’s head. He effortlessly stepped out of the way, as per usual. While she could have course corrected, he also threw a piece of- was that konpeito!
A brief diversion later and she was staring up at Byakki with guilting hoping eyes.
Byakki sighed at her expression. “Lieutenant Kusajishi. Greetings. I am here to observe the ‘bet’ that 3rd branch head Reiji Kuchiki made between himself and you. While I would… normally throw out this ‘bet’ as irresponsible the branch head saw foot to invoke the family name.” His eyes fell on noble guy, whose look of nervousness only grew. “The clan elders did not consider this worth expelling him from the clan though, which means… it is unfortunately binding.” He practically grit his teeth at this last part, which made Yachiru internally pout. She really wasn’t that bad! If he really didn’t want to see her he could just give her candy. That was what everyone else did.
“Regardless, please, show us your Shikai Lieutenant Kusajishi.”
“Ok!” Yachuri chirped. “Just so you know it’s a really cool one!”
Internally Yachuri was slightly more concerned. Tricking a captain who wasn’t completely hopeless at reiatsu sensing, even a young one, would require a near perfect execution. While she was confident in tricking most people, her technique wasn’t quite as good yet. The only way to compensate would be to throw even more reiryoku into the process and hope that covered up any inconsistencies.
With that plan in mind she started the process. First, pour significant amounts of reiatsu into both the rock hidden up her sleeve and her sword. While doing that, make sure to connect the reiryoku to make it seem like it was the same source and prepare the switch. Continue pouring that in for longer than normal until it reached what she thought would be enough. Say the sword’s fake name. “Bounce, Ganseki” And then swit-
Her concentration was shattered as her sword practically grabbed her reiryoku and yanked.
She desperately tried to cancel the switch, but it was too late. She’d already started twisting her reiryoku and the reishi had begun to react. She watched helplessly as the technique, now faced with one object having much more reiryoku than the other, proceeded to teleport the rock into her sword.
Then she stopped watching helplessly and chucked her sword as far as she could because she remembered what happened to the last item that happened and did not want a sword exploding anywhere near her. Especially imbued with as much reiryoku as that one was.
Turning back to the two spectators, she mentally started to plan. She had obviously just messed up her plot, but if she was smart about it she could play it off as an unfortunate accident. Maybe she could even get them to not force another zanpakuto on her? But first, she needed to reassure Byakki that…
And he wasn’t there. Just the noble guy looking wide eyed at her. That… could be a problem.
“Lieutenant Kusajishi,” Byakki’s voice came from behind her. “As much as I appreciate your… enthusiasm for finally achieving Shikai I would appreciate it if you didn’t do so by having your zanpakuto crush random parts of the Seireitei.”
“Ah,” was all Yachiru could come up with as her response. Standing behind her was Byakki, with a slightly more annoyed expression on his face than normal. That wasn’t unexpected though. What was unexpected was the circular rock, now just big enough she could hold it, and practically bursting with her reiatsu.
Byakki continued with his lecture, and she numbly accepted it while holding her hand out to receive her(?) rock. It fell in with a plop and then started resonating even more with her reiryoku. Interestingly, it looked almost the same as her old, circular rock, but was a bit bigger to better fit in her hands as a weapon. That was… a thing.
“-and furthermore, you need to consider the damage to clan Kuchiki. If you cause injuries while under my supervision, then-“ Byakki abruptly stopped. His eyes tracked across her body. Why would-
Frick. She’d been so distracted by the fact that she’d somehow (probably) achieved some version of Shikai as a zanpakuto that she’d completely forgotten to keep up her act. Hurriedly trying to cover, she put on her best attempt at a sheepish grin.
“Heh heh, sorry Byakki! Rock-Chan just wanted to be thrown. But with that I win the bet, right?”
His eyes tracked her even more intensely. “…Yes, you win the bet. The Kuchiki’s retainers will not stop you from coming to see me.”
…Frick. Frick frick frick frick. He was totally suspicious of her, and now she would have to be extra cautious around him until that suspicion was relieved. For now though, she needed to retreat. She was much too off her game to do otherwise.
“W-well I need to go now! My, ah, zanpakuto wants to talk to me!” She proceeded to bounce out as quickly as she could.
Funnily enough, she wasn’t even lying that much. Sure she didn’t know if her zanpakuto wanted to see her, but she definitely needed to see it. They would have some words.