“It’s been eight fucking years with-” and to prove his point, Zaraki Kenpachi’s body doubles over with such a forceful cough that rattles even the marrow inside Isane’s bones; his face paints red, glass dampens his eyes, and something redder hacks out of his mouth into the tissue she presses against his mouth: bile, phlegm, blood… and red poppies.

“Can you cure me, or something?” he asks, his voice hoarser than she’s ever known it to be as a storm of questions whirl inside Isane’s mind -Why did you wait eight years to tell me this? I could have helped you; Red poppies for remembrance, death, success and love; Surgery can help but you would never consent to it if you knew the source of the disease- yet she tells him she can and, after eons of debating what to do (this will hurt him far worse than a knife through the throat), reaching a decision (Isane is captain now and it’s her duty to save the lives of others), and rummaging through her personal possessions (“he must never know” were her instructions, but she had passed away eight years ago and her wish for him to live outweighed her words), she steps back into the exam room, pressing Unohana’s letter into his hand and ushering him to read it.

Sometimes medicine is far more bitter, far more crueler than the illness, proved by how his mouth tightens, how his throat bobs and how his fist tightens around the parchment; two more years pass and he stops coughing up red blooms altogether -but lifetimes can come and go and Isane still overhears him say “Yachiru.”