A/N: SURPRISE SURPRISE! Here's an epilogue everybody. ;)

Epilogue

(10 Years after the Thousand Year Blood War)

It may have been ten years, but Shunsui still couldn't shake the feeling that this was not his office – couldn't convince himself that the old eyes of Yamajii were not hawkishly fixed on his every move. Indeed, he was the Gotei 13's Captain-Commander. Yet, still, he felt like an impostor: some poor excuse of a waif following in Yamajii's footsteps. Would the feeling ever go away? Shunsui wasn't so sure.

The view was totally worth it though.

Cup of tea between his fingertips, Shunsui stood out upon the office balcony with a sense of awe. For miles out, he could see the Seireitei – just about shimmering beneath the golden-white wash of sunlight, new and restored with fresh glory. It was like he could smell it. Upon the breeze. Through the streets. That youthful scent of blossoms and courage as the Soul Society pushed upwards and onwards against beasts of the past.

Below him, Shunsui could see everyone and everything, like tiny dolls rushing about their business. He could pinpoint all the barracks, some of the noble manors. A landscape of movement amongst ivory buildings and golden roofs, beneath the bursting pink sakura – which, from this high up, looked rather like tufts of candy floss.

Had Yamajii gotten used to this view? This magnificent and transcendent feeling? Impossible.

Shunsui heaved a wistful sigh, feeling the morning's air run cool through his chest. He looked out upon the Seireitei and, beginning to grin, pretended not to notice the heavy creak of the door behind him, nor the excited scurry of reiatsu as a tiny trespasser shunpo'ed across the office.

There was the scratch of a chair, an uncomfortable shuffling – then there was nothing but silence once again.

"My, my," Shunsui murmured with a grin. By now, his tea was cold. He threw it back and left the cup out on the balcony.

The office lay undisturbed. Only the door was slightly ajar where before it had been closed. The chair at his desk was pushed back at an angle. Silent as a bird's fluttering, Shunsui could hear the stifled, excited breaths of the intruder. He chuckled as softly as he could. "Well now. How strange. I could have sworn I heard the door opening~"

No response. Shunsui eyed out the desk as though it would spontaneously grow feet and run away. He went toward it, making to be as casual as possible – whistling with an exaggerated lack of rhythm, hands held behind his back. There was another shuffling from the alcove of the desk, this time with the eagerness of a puppy in a box. Rounding the table's corner, beginning to tip-toe as though the intruder was unable to see him, Shunsui steeled himself. Restrained his laughter. Bent down–

"Boo!"

There was no one.

Nothing but a cubicle of varnished wood.

Shunsui's eyes widened and narrowed as he straightened himself. He touched his cheek, restraining a smirk. "Well now, do my ears deceive me?" he said to nothing, boisterous and brisk, realising how very absurd he must have seemed. "Was it but the wind that blew through my office?"

Like a phantom, there came a giggle: soft and sweet, low enough that any other old man may not have heard. Chime-like. Smug. Shunsui glanced over his shoulder, failing to catch sight of the unseen prowler but feeling the simmer of reiatsu at his back. He spun around and – with a roaring Aha! – grabbed the intruder, squeezing their little figure tightly between his arms and chest. High-pitched squeals of delight and resistance resounded through the office. Thrusting the intruder up into the air, Shunsui was met with a face brightly flushed and familiar. A black scruff of a ponytail, untamed and messy around apple-pink cheeks. A toothy mosaic of a grin.

Doing nothing now to restrain his hearty laughter, Shunsui poked his finger into the little boy's side. "You almost got me this time, Sōjun-chan!"

The hazy blue eyes exploded with childish pleasure. "I did! I did!" Sōjun declared. Then, throwing his doll-like arms into the air, he added with glee, "Mommy and Daddy have been teaching me shunpo!"

"Oh my," Shunsui grinned. "Aren't you a little young for that?"

Chin held high in pride with a signature smirk to match, the little boy raised his eyebrows. "I am just the right age."

Shunsui chuckled, setting Sōjun down. The boy was only just as tall as Shunsui's hip, and though he had the daring to compensate for his diminutive stature, he was also too cute – too wide-eyed and buzzing with excitement – to be taken very seriously. Even with his father's angular sharpness, offset by curving dimples and a charming scatter of freckles. Fortunately, he had inherited neither of his parents' tempers, and so was cooed over by Shinigami like the baby prince of the Seireitei – much to the Kuchiki family's simultaneous thrill and horror.

Speaking of which, it was rare to see him without one of his parents following closely at his side. Raising his eyebrows at the little boy, Shunsui cocked his head. "Tell me, young man, who was supposed to be looking after you today?"

"Daddy," Sōjun said, smile giving way to a full-bodied pout as he fisted his hands against his hips. "But it was no fun in Daddy's office today – Uncle Renji brought Ichika and she's so annoying. She keeps saying she's going to be a captain before me because she's bigger." Sōjun shook his head in comical dismay. "Girls are so dumb."

Shunsui hummed. "But what about Mommy? Is she dumb?"

"Mommy isn't a girl. She's a Lady." Sōjun gave a dainty nod, as though agreeing with himself. "It's also much nicer in her office. She always has snacks because she's always eating."

"She's going to give Daddy a big smack if she finds out he lost you again."

Sōjun only shrugged, pink lips parting into a Kuchiki-esque grin once again. "Daddy will find me before Mommy finds out ~ he usually does. It's like we're playing hide and seek, you see!" He spun on his toes, darted towards the desk in a boyish flurry of limbs and white material – like a little haori. Clambering onto Shunsui's chair, Sōjun seated himself at the desk in a charming attempt at playing-Captain-Commander. "But if Daddy comes here too quickly, you must pretend you haven't seen me. Okay, Ojisan? You must tell Daddy that I've disappeared."

"Ah!" Shunsui cooed, meandering up to the little boy. "Like magic."

"Exactly! Magic!"

Delightedly, Sōjun's eyes shimmered, their blue starriness movingly familiar. He grinned at Shunsui, who touched the rim of his hat and chuckled once more under such exquisite attention. "Well then," Shunsui said. "What shall I do with you until your father arrives?"

In the drawers of his desk, Shunsui always kept blank papers and an old calligraphy brush. He took them out, set them across the floor by his chair for Sōjun to employ as he pleased, and then made a poor attempt at resuming with his own admin. Futile, of course, since he glanced continually to the little boy at his side to grin and coo and compliment the marvelous doodlings. Paperwork, Sōjun called it. Just like Mommy! Just like Mommy indeed, his tiny body bent over the papers with rigorous focus as he drowned his brush in ink and splattered it in all directions in a childish mimic of calligraphy.

Quick to bore though, Shunsui was soon up from his desk once again in search of a suitable snack for the little boy: he offered him an orange, but no no, oranges were gross. What about an apple? Only peasants ate apples. Sōjun would settle for nothing less than a banana – three bananas, at that.

They had a short tea party with Shunsui's finest china, and then Shunsui told a story about how a pair of zanpakuto named Mubōna and Yorokobi single-handedly managed to orchestrate a mischievous series of events throughout the Seireitei, and then Sōjun was rolling around in Shunsui's kimono like a little white rosebud.

It was only when the boy returned his attention to his initial paperwork that the office doors burst open. A red-faced redhead stormed the room, her gold-lined haori billowing in a magnificent breezing of silk. Beneath the material, her hakama hung comfortably around her swollen stomach, falling in graceful black folds as she dashed towards little Sōjun. Behind her, looking very pale and very steely-faced, her husband followed cautiously.

Sōjun leaped from his place on the floor, flinging himself against Kiyuku with exaggerated and careless thrill.

"Mommy! You found me!" he cried, shrill and adorable. "You found me!"

"After looking everywhere, you little fiend!" Kiyuku said in turn, straining to bend down to be eye-level with her son. She squeezed his cheeks in her hands, narrowed her eyes at him though she looked far from being angry. Then, with all the forceful affection which never ceased to surprise the lieutenants and captains, she pressed a multitude of kisses to Sōjun's forehead. "You are the naughtiest thing!" Kiss. "No sweets for a week!" Kiss. "Now show me all these drawings you've been doing." Kiss. Kiss. Kiss.

While she ignored Shunsui, thoroughly absorbed by Sōjun as he held up all his papers and doodles, lovingly and absent-mindedly stroking her stomach as he did so, Byakuya stepped around her as one would around a small and dangerous animal. Graceful, uncertain. He came up to Shunsui, features in a chiseled mask. "Please accept my apologies, Captain-Commander," he said. "Sōjun appears to be going through a… phase of sorts."

"You were exactly the same as a little boy," Shunsui smirked.

"Never."

Lifting her head for only the shortest moment, Kiyuku shook her head at Byakuya. "You were so much worse~" And then she promptly returned her attention, wide-eyed and flushedly glowing as a spring blossom, to her son as he spoke with dramatic hand gestures and excited giggles.

The corner of Byakuya's mouth twitched. He cleared his throat, looked back to Shunsui. "I say this every time, but Sōjun won't disturb you again."

"Please," Shunsui waved his hand. "I enjoy this sort of quality time with my godson." He leaned in, raising his eyebrows. "So long as it doesn't get you into too much trouble, Kuchiki-taichou."

With a rare sense of resignation, Byakuya sighed quietly. "It seems I'm always in trouble, nowadays."

"Not long now until your due date."

"I can hardly keep an eye on that one as it is." And for a moment, Byakuya looked back to Sōjun and Kiyuku. "If his sister ends up being anything like he is…"

Shunsui chuckled. "The Seireitei wouldn't know what hit it."

A throaty hum. "Quite."

In the silence that followed, both of them stared as Sōjun and Kiyuku gathered up the papers across the floor. Kiyuku hadn't changed from the girl of ten years ago, though perhaps ever so slightly more beautiful – slightly softer and more relaxed. There was a purple darkness around her eyes from the sleepless nights of motherhood and captaincy. A new rose-like tint across her cheeks and nose. Hair now long in a fiery cascade over her shoulders, she seemed more woman than girl – and with the sheen of pregnancy across her features, heavy with both tiredness and the pleasure of responsibility, she had come into her own more than ever.

Shunsui glanced to Byakuya out the corner of his eye and was unsurprised to find a twisting smile, restrained but distinct. Wholly beguiled, even if his son was as ridiculously impossible as his wife.

The three of them left Shunsui's office in a quiet breezing of movement. Where Kiyuku held the mass of Sōjun's inky paperwork to her chest, Byakuya held his son – and the Seireitei hadn't ever seen anything so perfect.

Indeed, as they receded down the corridor and away from Shunsui's door, he watched them in an elated state of satisfaction. The Blood War had been awful. The years before that had been complicated. But in all their noble impossibility, the Kuchikis made for a wonderful story of love accumulated. Clearly unaware of their being watched, Byakuya snaked an arm around Kiyuku's waist – tender, adoring. He leaned down as they walked, planted a kiss against the top of her head with tremendous affection.

And in a dismayed, bell-like voice, Sōjun cried, "No Daddy!That's so gross!"