Isshin sat in his office staring up at the ceiling, his feet propped up on the desk. His arms were crossed behind his head and he found himself staring at the ceiling in a bored manner. Someone's voice caused him to look suddenly to the door to see who had entered the office. "Are you slaking off on your job again nii-sama?"

"I already finished. Now I'm just bored."

Kaien came over and sat on the edge of the desk. "Can I talk to you about something?"

"You know my ears are always open but you know full well that I may not be able to keep a secret."

"It's not really a secret." The other young man looked up at the ceiling as well. "Miyako and I have been talking a lot since the kid ended up at our door."

"Yeah... the two of you have been wanting to adopt the kid because you two haven't been able to have one of your own."

"Well... you already know that. We're actually considering on adopting both. We aren't ready to tell her or the boy yet but Miyako and I have made up our mind on this. Since you are the head of our clan I am going to follow procedure and ask for permission."

Isshin's lips pushed out into a pout. "Oi... you should know that you don't have to ask permission."

"We'll be need you to help us with the paperwork. You know how long it can take."

The older brother rolled his eyes. "Ahh man! You know how much I hate paperwork!"

"Isshin..."

"Well... I'll be getting a cute little niece and a cute little nephew out of it so I'll put up with it." The man then paused for a few minutes. "Wait... they are cute, right?"

"Isshin..." Kaien moved then from the desk and simply left leaving Isshin to his own. The man looked up at the ceiling. "I miss Ran-chan. I wish Gin would come and visit but he hasn't been around since she died. I kind of wish he would come around. I also have to think about getting a new fukutaicho. I'm not looking forward to this."

"I know. I'll go to the thing at the school and meet my niece. How though will I know it's her. Ah well... I guess I'll just wing it." The man stood up and walked out the door and found the Shinigami he had placed in charge of the task. "Guess what. That thing I assigned you?" The member of his division looked at him. "You know... the thing at the academy? Well... I decided I'll do it! So I'm off."

He left his division member there staring at him, blinking a couple of times before shaking his head at them. He headed towards the academy and on his way he saw the taicho of the fifth division and purposefully shunpooed into the man, knocking the man to the ground. "Hello Sosuke!"

The fifth divsiion taicho pushed the tenth division taicho off of him. "Exactly what are you doing?"

"I'm going to the academy." Isshin swung his fingers around in a heart shape causing the man to simply stare at him before getting up and heading on his way. "Hey! Wait! We're going in the same direction!"

"Why exactly is the head of the Shiba clan choosing to go and help with this."

The younger Shinigami snickered. "He thinks I'm a pervert the old fool."

"Not to offend here, but normally you're goofing off like Gin-kun is."

"Yeah... and I wasn't goofing off just then. Oh... wait. He means that me actually taking on the duties of being a taicho instead of goofing off." Isshin waved his finger in the air. "How much longer are you going to be calling Gin-chan that?"

"Ah... yes. His promotion to captain rank is soon."

Isshin began to chat with the man, a smile on his face as he enjoyed acting like a goofball. "Better then thinking about all the bad stuff that goes on in life really." He continued to speak to the man in a convoluted manner. They each took their places at the long table. A sudden bright idea popped into his head as he saw Nanao come into the room. "Hey! Juushi-chan! Good morning too you!" He then turned to look at Aizen. "See... I don't flirt with everyone!"

A bunch of girls began to giggle as he sat down and they continued to giggle as he continued his actions. His zampaktuo let out a deep sigh. "Look... you need to behave yourself as your cute little cousin said."

"Yeah... but girls know to stay away from a pervert and I don't have to worry about any intimate relationships with a female that leads to some... well, really weird sistuations."

"You mean like walking in on your future sister-in-law with the top of her clothing off and running out of the room screaming your head off?"

"Yup."

"You do realize that those two things have nothing to do with each other. How is it that your twin brother who graduated at the same time as you is able to grasp this concept and you're not."

"Don't know. Females are strange creatures."

"Does that include Unohana? And do you realize that you said that out loud to someone asking you a question?"

"Ehh... what was the question?"

"You know what it was! The question was what kind of food does the tenth division seve."

"Well... they kind of deserve that kind of answer for that kind of question."

"Kaien-dono?" Momo blinked a couple of times.

"It's her! I can't believe I was actually able to figure it out!"

"Don't..."

The zampaktuo was not able to say anything as Isshin proceeded to scoop the girl up and hug her. "No! It's oji-chan Isshin!"

"You're dead."

"Huh..."

"She doesn't know what you're talking about."

"Oopsie..."

"And you're not even high on sugar. You're also just rattling stuff off now."

"Random stuff... I'll give you random stuff!" Isshin found himself inwardly giggling like a school girl knowing full well that him actually giggling like that as well as what he was going to do would really irritate Kaien. "Hey, did you know that Kaien met Miyako by walking in on her naked during a physical?"

"You didn't."

"I did!"

They finally left and another young man came up to him. "How do you see a real lady naked?"

"It is best to know now what you don't know but what you should avoid."

"Wow... you just told him that he should be careful while spying on girls and make sure he didn't get caught. We both know though you meant that it's best to not ever know what a naked lady looks like."

"I'm pretending that I never saw my sister-in-law half naked thank you very much." Finally the whole thing ended and he found himself walking away with Aizen and answering something but he really didn't care what.

M

It was a few days later that a soft drizzle fell outside of the tenth division and Kaien came and got him to help with something. He found himself not liking the fact he was causing the small child to skitter under the bed but knew full well that Unohana was in on the whole thing. That meant there was some direction this was going. He sat their waiting, knowing full well that Miyako also didn't know what was going on.

It was then that Kaien came back with Gin and things went to hell. At least that was how he felt things were. "Why didn't he tell me that he suspected that Gin was the child's father, or that Ran was the mother. They're my fukutaicho and my little buddy. Actually... it's really weird thinking of my little buddy and my little fukutaicho... eww... eww..."

"Thank you for keeping a straight face on that one."

Isshin waited until Gin had left the room and turned to where Miyako was sitting with the child. "So... does this mean that he won't run from me?"

"I don't..." Toshiro suddenly lurched and looked up at him as if he would bolt. The child's body shook and the tenth division taicho took a deep breath. Miyako lowered her head to try and comfort the boy. "Perhaps you should go."

"Ah... oh, wait. I know." Isshin pulled on the corners of his mouth and stuck out his tongue. As he began to wiggle his tongue up and down he rolled his eyes up into the back of his head. He watched as the boy at first looked at him with wide eyes and a frown but then a grin spread across the child's face. "Hah, you... owe I bit my tongue."

Miyako suddenly laughed. "That serves you right for doing what you were doing Isshin."

The sound of Kaien coming back caused the man to look up. Isshin moved to the side and pulled back the covers. "Come on Shiro-chan, cute little Shiro-chan. Get into bed so Miyako-chan can sing you a song."

Toshiro blinked a couple of times before walking over to the bed and climbing in, allowing the man to pull the overs over the child. He then stood up and walked over to Kaien. "We need to talk."

"You do realize that this isn't his room." Isshin grabbed Kaien's uniform and dragged him back to the room he knew to be Toshiro's. Pausing he looked at the wall before tossing Kaien onto the bed. "Why? Why did you have to do that to Gin?"

"What do you mean?"

"Do you know how hard it is on him not to hold his own child? No... I guess not because you don't have any and I honestly can't know because I don't have any. But he's not hiding Toshiro for just no reason Kaien. He trusted you to take care of Toshiro without digging into things, but you go and make it so that they have to interact."

"We needed to confirm something."

"You did not need to confirm anything." Isshin poked his finger into his brother's chest. "That was low... and I know just how dark and depressing that mind of yours can get, how morbidly twisted it can be. I know because I have to deal with that dark, depressing feeling at times as well. Why did you have to go and do that to Gin?"

"Well... you're speaking normally." Kaien looked away. "I spoke with Unohana about this and she agreed with me. If she didn't..."

The finger poked two hard times into the others chest. "I want an explanation."

"We wanted to confirm something and it was confirmed by Gin being in the room. Well... it wasn't really one thing. I mean, we did confirm that Gin was his father. But that wasn't what this was about."

"What was this about?"

"I wanted more information on the kid."

"He's not something that you can throw away because you find out there is something not so nice about him you know!"

"That's not why I was getting the information!" Kaien took a deep breath. "Look... the only male he's ever come out around before Gin came into the room was gramps. Even then he had to send his fukutaicho out of the room. When Gin was in the room though Toshiro was able to be out near us and not care that we were anywhere near him. This is also the first time any of us have heard him speak."

"So?"

"So? One of the things we've been worried about what how severe his inability to speak was. But that wasn't the only thing." The younger twin turned his head towards the mural. "This isn't exactly normal. You yourself took notice when you came into the room. I wanted to know how Gin felt about this particular part and if he was concerned I wanted him to have his concerns put to rest."

"Again... so?"

"I was actually surprised to find out that he wasn't at all surprised. He'd actually gone into the boy's inner world and interacted with his zampaktuo."

This comment from Kaien caused Isshin to turn his head towards the mural. He then stepped over and touched the mural with his fingers, frowning as he did so. His zampaktuo spoke then. "You know of this one from the records. Does Gin know that this is in the records?"

"How could he not." Isshin carefully examined the mural, kneeling down in front of it. "You still could have given me a heads up."

"Well, just to give you a heads up. Toshiro can't see Gin anymore. At least not until Gin finishes what he needs to do."

"And how long will that take."

"For some reason he believes that Ran-chan is alive."

Isshin flinched. He turned to look at his brother. "That can't be."

"There was no body."

"And he wants me to but out?" Isshin pointed a finger at his chest. "Ran-chan's my little sister. I can't..."

"Neither one of us can do anything so you might as well back off."