Title: Wild Mass Guessing – Part 2: Badass and Child Duo (Blood Knight)
Author: Kireteiru
Rating: T
Warnings: violence, blood
Characters: Kenpachi, Yachiru,
Summary: She didn't need a sword – she needed a protector. So that's what he'd be. Part two of two.

A/N: Early birthday fic for Gyaku no Sekai! Inspired by "There's Something about Zaraki" by drakensis, and vaguely by "The Chosen One" by Kilonji and "Yachiru Knows" by Sarshi. /shameless-advertising.

[Yachiru!]

The little girl perked up at the sound of the voice, coming from inside her head. Had someone else taken up residence with her? Goodie! She had company! The others were no fun, too focused on making each other not move to pay attention to her.

[Brat! They're gonna make you stop moving too if you don't call me out!]

Call who out? She couldn't make the pictures inside her head come out; how was she supposed to make someone inside her head come out?

[Say my name, brat, or we're both gonna die!]

One of the others had spotted her and was heading in her direction. He had a not nice expression on his face. It made her scared, made her cower back away from the shiny thing he lifted over her head. She was old enough to know that the shiny things made the red come, and when too much red came, people stopped moving.

[Yachiru!]

"Ken-chan!" she screamed, without knowing why.

[Damn well close enough!]

The other was driven to the ground at the sudden pressure that filled the blood-stained clearing, right before his head was chopped off by a furious man clad in black from head to toe. The pink-haired girl was now cradled in the crook of his arm, a far safer place than on the ground about to die. She giggled; his dragonhide jacket felt funny against her skin.

"Hold onta me, Yachiru," he told the girl, shrugging off his jacket to wrap her in it and adjusting his grip on her to make her more secure, "As much as I wanna drag this out, this's gonna havta be quick."

She understood, and grabbed onto his jacket, pulling it tight around her, before she snagged the fabric of his sleeveless black top in her tiny fingers. "Good," he said, "Don't let go." He lifted his own jagged-edged shiny thing, and attacked the others, making her laugh as he made the red come. He grinned, too, as they were soaked in the blood of their foes.

When it was all over, he set her down and adjusted his jacket on her so that she was wearing it properly. Her stomach growled loudly then as he straightened, making him chuckle. "It takes a lot o'energy to manifest a zanpakutou," he said, "Let's find some food." He shifted her so that she was clinging to his back, her tiny feet braced on his leather belt. "My name is Zaraki Kenpachi," he told her, "but I s'pose 'Ken-chan' will do fer now."

He took surprisingly good care of her. She was too young to understand, too tiny to need a sword, too weak to hold her own in a fight, so he fought in her place. He fought to keep her safe, ate food to lessen his burden on her reiryoku, and slept to give her a break from keeping him fully active, even though his didn't need the rest. He bought a wakizashi that was just her size and began teaching her how to fight with it, so that one day she would be able to defend herself, without his help. He did right by her, and was determined to keep doing so.

When he heard about Shinigami and the Seireitei, he knew that she would be safe there. The only real problem they had was getting there; his sense of direction was just as bad as her own. When they finally did get there, he asked her what her favorite number between one and thirteen. "Eleven!" she chirped, and that was that.

The captain was embarrassingly easy to kill; the fight ended in one hit. It wasn't his fault that they just assumed he was a separate being from Yachiru; he just told them to believe whatever the hell they liked, figuring out rather fast that their swords weren't like him. Besides, it's not like he actually was a sword in the first place; he was a zanpakutou, yeah, but that was where the similarities ended. Who said that soul cutters had to look like swords anyway?

She would never be able to wield him the way other Shinigami wielded their zanpakutou because he wasn't like theirs. She would have to become strong enough to take down opponents with an asauchi or – God forbid – kidou. Until she learned to do either of those things, or found a way to change him into a legit sword, he would be her protector, her Blood Knight.