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Soi Fon’s earliest memory, long ago when her name was Shaolin, is of sunlight. She has turned that memory over and over in her mind until it is soft as cloth, but she cannot make out its shape. All it is is sunlight coming bright and clear through dappled leaves, warming her inside and out.
Her memories get darker and colder as the years pass, until they fall like iron bars around her, always reminding her of the rules and regulations, ingraining themselves in her muscles and bones, but at her heart there is sunlight.
***
“Yoruichi-sama.”
Another day in Soul Society, another mission. Soi Fon straps her feet up and looks to her Captain, her glorious Excellency Shihouin Yoruichi, head of the Tenshi Heisouban, bearer of the nickname Shunshin. Soi Fon has cluttered her head up with these names since she was a child, but they tumble like cherry blossom around their owner, because Yoruichi-sama dismisses all of them equally, and still grates against “sama” when it could be san, or better yet, nothing at all. That little conflict niggles unpleasantly at Soi Fon, who cannot displease her Captain for anything, and equally cannot bear to draw close to that bright light.
“What is it, Soi Fon?” Yoruichi says, reaching one lazy hand down to ruffle Soi Fon’s hair. “Are you worried about the fight?”
It almost brings tears to Soi Fon’s eyes, only she bred any trace of tears out of herself long ago. Could it really be that Yoruichi-sama still thinks she is weak, still thinks of her as only a little girl, when her heart burns to sacrifice herself for Yoruichi?
“No!” she says, too loudly, and Yoruichi looks down at her in surprise. “I’m never afraid of fighting, never, Yoruichi-sama, not when you’re with me. It’s just…” Soi Fon swallows, blushes at her own impertinence and continues “shouldn’t you bring your zanpakuto?”
“Is that all that’s on your mind?” Yoruichi stretches herself out, from her light and dancing feet to the silky tips of her hair, and yawns prodigiously. “I suppose you wouldn’t know, since your zanpakuto isn’t awake yet, but they’re such a pain. Always nagging at you to look after them, or complaining because you haven’t visited in a while. I much prefer my own arms and legs.”
Soi Fon glowers at her feet and doesn’t say anything, because her zanpakuto is such a sore point. She was accepted as Yoruichi-sama’s bodyguard for two reasons: her stealth and her speed. She is said to be the only guard in the corps with the potential to match Yoruichi’s flash step. And while that potential is a happy and steady glow for her, a hope she hardly dares to think of, it doesn’t stop the teasing from the other guards, the jibes about the little girl who still has an asauchi sword.
They speed through the forest beyond Rukongai, following the trail of a rumour of hollows. In the distance the mountains flutter, wavering like butterfly wings through the summer heat. The air here is moist and sweet, and a pleasant relief after the sweltering heat of the Seireitei. As her feet skim the branches, Soi Fon turns over Yoruichi’s words in her head. She can put aside her worries about her own sword and skill, but she cannot reconcile Yoruichi’s words with the teachings of the Academy and later, the Stealth Forces. Everything she has ever been told has been clear on one point – a shinigami’s relationship with their zanpakuto is the most important relationship they will ever have. And yet Yoruichi-sama dismissed hers so easily. It is another note in a tune Soi Fon has been hearing for a while – the dissonant, cheerful, brilliantly shining tune of Yoruichi-sama’s informality.
***
It all might have been easier if Soi Fon had gone through the middle stages. Progressing through the ranks one step at a time is tedious, but each step is good preparation for the next. If she had taken the slow path, she might well have been used to Yoruichi-sama by the time she needed to talk to her.
If ifs and buts were wishes, Soi Fon would be strong and beautiful. She was catapulted from the bottom to the top faster than sound, and doused in Yoruichi-sama’s immediate presence like a cat doused in a cold bath. And exposure to unadulterated Yoruichi-sama was just so unnerving.
“Soi Fon,” Yoruichi said, when she came into the captain’s room on her second day, still wearing a uniform so new it gleamed. “Come and play with me.”
Soi Fon assumed that was an idiosyncratic term for spar, and she bowed low.
“At once, Yoruichi-sama.”
It was a wonderful moment, lowering her head to the floor and raising it slowly, just taking in every inch of Yoruichi-sama. No goddess could be more brilliant or perfect, not even Amaretsu herself. It hardly mattered that the effect was spoiled by Yoruichi’s decadent sprawl, crumbs of sweet cake scattered across her black uniform.
“I knew you had it in you, Soi Fon,” Yoruichi said, and in one invisible movement she was pulling Soi Fon to her feet. Soi Fon hardly had time to register the intense, glittery feeling that spread through her stomach before Yoruichi was gone again. “You’re it,” Soi Fon heard distantly, and a cold breeze snaked around her neck, marking the empty spot where her neckerchief had been.
Soi Fon began to move through the corridors as carefully and quietly as possible, stalking her prey with the precision and elegance essential to the Stealth Forces. That lasted approximately a minute, and then Yoruichi sprang on her from behind.
“You’re too slow, Soi Fon! I’ve already been around the palace twice.”
This is a test of my speed, Soi Fon thought grimly, and she sank her reiatsu into her feet, preparing to flash-step.
“Oi, Soi Fon, hurry up. Your neckerchief isn’t coming back on its own!” The shout rang across the crowded atrium of the second division. Heads turned. Eyes twisted to Soi Fon, who felt as though a large and glaring spotlight had suddenly hung itself over her head. For the first time, she began to suspect that “play” was not a euphemism.
She did not get her headscarf back. Not that day, not the next, not for two years. The embarrassment didn’t get better either. She had lived too long among the shadows of the rules for that. Each time – and there were many times – Yoruichi-sama said to her “let’s play” she felt a creeping dread, a knocking of the knees come over her. Something in her resisted. You can’t do this. You, Soi Fon, cannot possibly be seen interacting so casually with the princess of the Tenshi Heisouban. She is perfect, and you are nothing. Your realms should never touch. Soi Fon learned to ignore her own thoughts, and sometimes it horrified her that she did so so easily. If she had been more honest with herself she might have recognised the simple want that lay at the heart of her acceptance, but honesty was not very valued in the Secret Forces.
Yoruichi-sama was casual in every aspect of her life, not just with Soi Fon, and it was not always easy to see such informality in someone you admired so strongly. When you were brought up to the idea that breaking the rules meant death, when you were trained in an arena where precision and accuracy and perfection were a badge of honour, it was more than a little disconcerting to find that the Captain of your squad, the best and brightest star in the firmament of the Secret Forces, was a cheerful, indolent, dry-witted woman with a penchant for wandering around with no clothes on.
That last flaw was revealed to Soi Fon on a bright April morning, six months into her service. The cherry blossoms were blooming, the captains of the Seireitei were gathered under their pink clouds, and Soi Fon had been entrusted with the honour of waking up the Captain.
“Yoruichi-sama, it’s time to go.” Silence. Soi Fon rapped on the door, just once. “Yoruichi-sama, your absence will not go unnoticed. I do believe it’s time for you to leave.”
More silence. It wound around Soi Fon, thick and heavy as late evening sunshine. “Yoruichi-sama, is everything alright? May I be of assistance to you?”
There was no reply, and at last, hands trembling, Soi Fon slid back the screen door to Yoruichi-sama’s chamber. The room was empty.
At least, it was empty of beautiful women. It did contain one sleek black cat, flopped on its side in the brightest patch of sunlight, its tail flicking lazily back and forth.
Soi Fon had been warned about Yoruichi-sama’s cat form, though she had never seen it before. It was incredible to her that the woman she so fervently admired, that woman who was so fierce, so full of strength and power, should be able to collapse herself into the frail and delicate form of a cat. Soi Fon’s hand trembled on her thigh, and she fought back the impulse to touch the soft black fur.
“If you want to pet me, my ear could do with a scratch.” Soi Fon’s jaw dropped. That was not Yoruichi’s voice. It was deep and masculine and ugly. Where was her playful sing-song tone? Still, this was Yoruichi-sama. Soi Fon would do anything for her.
She reached out a hand and petted the ear slowly. It felt like any other cat’s ear – soft and velvety, and Yoruichi-sama leaned into the caress, butting her small but solid skull against Soi Fon’s fingers.
Various parts of Soi Fon’s brain had shut down, overloading in their desperate attempt to cope with this breach of protocol. Yoruichi-sama let out a deep, rumbling purr and it was too much – Soi Fon jerked her hand back, feeling like a criminal.
A gleaming golden eye caught mirrored her hand, and with a sudden poof, the black cat was gone.
“Are you alright, Soi Fon?” Yoruichi-sama said, setting a hand on Soi Fon’s shoulder in concern. Her eyes, still bright gold, hung over Soi Fon’s face like twin autumn moons.
Soi Fon blushed and mumbled and it crept past her immediate thoughts that Yoruichi-sama was totally naked.
Her eyes slammed shut and her fingers trapped them in. She ignored the strong impulse to peek.
“I’m so sorry, Yoruichi-sama, I didn’t mean to look at you. Please forgive my insolence.”
“Soi Fon.” Yoruichi-sama’s tone was cold, and Soi Fon waited painfully for a reprimand. “What the hell are you talking about? Why did you stop petting me?”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry I didn’t mean to look at you I won’t ever do it again.” The more Soi Fon thought about how much she wanted to do it again, the more insistent her statements became.
“Soi Fon, stop.” And even in her current state, Soi Fon obeyed that voice completely. “Did I frighten you? Some people find it very strange, when I’m a cat. I’m sorry if I upset you.”
Soi Fon, still hunched in the darkness behind her eyes, heard Yoruichi-sama’s words with astonishment. There was no way the Captain could have meant to apologise to her. It was a misunderstanding, nothing more.
“You don’t frighten me, Yoruichi-sama,” she said as clearly as she could. “I just felt I was being improper.”
“Improper, eh?” Yoruichi shook her head – Soi Fon felt feathers of hair on her cheek. “Everything is propriety with you, Soi Fon. Loosen up a little. None of this is hurting anyone. It’s just a body. Cat or human, I’m all the same.”
“But it’s wrong!” Soi Fon burst out. “I can’t be allowed to be near you like that. Not when your existence is so far above me.”
There was a long silence, and then Yoruichi-sama’s arms tucked themselves round Soi Fon, holding her thin little body close against the warm musk of Yoruichi-sama’s shoulder.
“None of that,” Yoruichi said, her voice rumbling against Soi Fon’s collarbone. “On the battlefield you can think anything you like, but right here, right now, I’m me and you’re you, that’s all.”
“It’s not like that for me,” Soi Fon said quietly, but she was so soothed by Yoruichi’s presence that her words seemed feeble and futile.
“I know, I know,” Yoruichi said. “You can’t change a mind in a day. Baby steps, that’s all I ask.” She patted Soi Fon’s head and stood up. “Now, I believe I was late for a cherry blossom party?”
“Ah, yes.” Soi Fon jumped to her feet, still enclosed her embarrassed darkness, and fumbled towards the wardrobe. Yoruichi pushed her down again firmly.
“Since you can’t open your eyes, let me find my own shirts.” Soi Fon heard a scratching sound, Yoruichi running her fingers though her thick hair. “It’s a Kuchiki affair. That means a formal kimono, I think. They’re worse than you.”
There was no cruelty in that tone. It was rich and sweet as honey. It made Soi Fon feel squirmingly guilty. What had she done to deserve this generosity? If she worked all her life for Yoruichi she would not have earned even a moment of her Captain’s kindness.
“You can look now.”
Soi Fon took her hands from her face. Her eyes blinked at the sudden light, and watered a little – or maybe that was just a natural reaction to Yoruichi. She was standing by the open window in a heavy brocade robe, embroidered with hell butterflies and abstract circles. Soi Fon wondered if they were a representation of reiatsu.
“Can you tie my obi?”
Soi Fon took the heavy sash in both hands. Arranging kimono was not a particular skill of hers, but no one in Yoruichi’s guard was useless at any task. When the box knot was done and smoothed she gave a long sigh. She was so tempted to lean into the strong, broad back of her Captain, to bury her head between Yoruichi’s shoulder blades. Yoruichi’s scent washed over her, heady and vivid.
“Soi Fon?” Such a lovely smell, though she couldn’t say what it reminded her of. Leaves, moving against the wind, bright green. “Soi Fon?”
Soi Fon opened her eyes. Her hands were still on Yoruichi’s obi, and Yoruichi was looking over her shoulder concernedly.
“Daydreaming? How unlike you.” Soi Fon blushed, and Yoruichi laughed. “I got to see a new expression of yours though, so I guess we’re even.”
And Soi Fon had no answer at all for that.
The party was dull.
Soi Fon had resisted thinking this for the first hour, telling herself that she was simply too plebeian to appreciate it, but her boredom knocked down all the dams in her mind. The party was duller than dull. The eldest Kuchiki was making an interminable speech about Soul Society, full of rambling anecdotes about ancestors no one remembered and minor battles. Here and there the other Captains were drifting off into pleasant dozes, lulled by the sweet blossom and the heady sake. Only the Captain of the Twelfth Division sat up straight, her short hair fluttering in the wind.
Yoruichi-sama was not sleeping. She was pulling up handfuls of short grass, her eyes fixed on a boy in the Kuchiki section. Soi Fon, perched on the rooftop, had no idea who he was, but his placement told her he was in line to be the heir. She disliked him instinctively.
As the Kuchiki speaker began yet another story of the nineteenth Hollow war, Yoruichi’s impatience boiled over. There was a snap in the air, a whiff of ozone, and she was no more. In the sudden silence the Kuchiki heir’s hair tumbled down around his shoulders. She had stolen his hair-tie.
“Devil woman!” He yelled, his voice on the cracking point of puberty. His hands shook, and he essayed a faulty flash step, reappearing on a rooftop about ten yards away.
The eldest Kuchiki had stopped his speech, and was peering curiously through his huge spectacles at the audience. The Captains stirred themselves, looked around blearily for the source of the trouble. Kyoraku-taichou began to applaud, and Hikifune-taichou stopped him by grabbing his wrist in a vice grip. The Kuchiki retainers were in a state, flapping this way and that. From the distant courtyard a cry of shock rose, and there was a gold blur moving away across the roofs. It was a total disaster.
Something bubbled up inside Soi Fon, something she had locked away for so long she had forgotten it. Sitting on the roof, unnoticed by the crowd, she laughed and laughed.
A blur flickered by her ear, and a voice said softly, “what a lovely laugh you have, Soi Fon.”
***
That was only a taster. For two years now Soi Fon has lived with Yoruichi, and she has spent those two years spinning in a circle to keep up with her energetic Captain. They have been the most stressful, exhausting, frustrating years of her life. They have also been the best. Every day is a present, full of treasures waiting to be unwrapped. Every day is a precious memory she folds up in the crepe of her heart.
Even in moments like this, heading through the forests of Rukongai to danger and battle, she is glad to be alive. Her happiness drowns out her fear.
She is so busy thinking about Yoruichi that she misses the disappearance of the woman herself. When she realises she is alone she panics, and glances around furiously for her mentor. A chuckle snakes up through the leaves and she drops below the canopy.
Yoruichi is standing in a half clearing, where the trees bow low over a clear stream and a golden pool wavers steadily where a waterfall ends. In the sticky August heat the cool water looks like heaven. If she were alone Soi Fon might pause, and just for a moment trail her fingers through the water, but she is with her Captain now. There must be signs of the hollows here. Soi Fon extends her senses, feels for the teeth-grinding reiatsu of the hollows they are following.
It has been two years, and Soi Fon still expects discipline. Her learning is much slower than Yoruichi might have liked.
“Yoruichi-sama,” she says, “have you found some trace of our targets?”
Yoruichi looks up from her contemplation of the pool.
“What? Oh, not at all. That can wait a while, Soi Fon. I want to swim. This heat makes me sluggish.”
“But Yoruichi-sama, the hollows…”
“There’s no one after them but us, Soi Fon, they won’t reach the borders for another six hours or so, we can easily catch up to them, and I want to swim.”
Yoruichi begins to pull off her shirt, and Soi Fon looks away. Though she knows her Captain’s body well now, from too many walk-ins and too many transformations, it still feels wrong to peek.
“Oi,” Yoruichi says, drawing the syllable out to irritation. “No prudishness today, Soi Fon. I want you to swim with me.”
Heat crawls up Soi Fon’s neck and spreads across her face.
“I can’t, Yoruichi-sama.”
There’s a heave and a splash and cold water dripping down her neck. She looks up, and Yoruichi is standing above her, stark naked.
“But you look all sweaty,” Yoruichi says, grinning. “And so hot. A swim would do you good.”
“I don’t want to swim,” Soi Fon says, thinking just the opposite. Her words and her thoughts line up less and less readily when Yoruichi is around.
“Oh Soi Fon,” Yoruichi says, her voice sad, almost betrayed. “I really didn’t want to have to do this.”
Before Soi Fon can move – before she can blink – she is scooped up in Yoruichi’s arms and flung into the pool, fully clothed. Yoruichi cannonballs in after her with a yell.
Soi Fon rises to the surface, spluttering. Yoruichi is watching her with an insufferably smug expression, her eyes smirking under her water-slick lashes.
Soi Fon is furious, all at once. Her clothes are wet, she’s embarrassed, and she wants to hit something. Without thinking about it, she lifts a hand, fills it with reiatsu, and drops it onto the water. A fountain sprays up and soaks Yoruichi.
Soi Fon trembles. She reaches for her zanpakuto, ready to do who knows what to herself, but even as her hand stretches out a sheet of water hits her square in the face. She inhales at least half of it, coughs it back up, and in the minutes that follow she finds herself engaged in a deadly, reiatsu heightened game of Splash with her Captain.
It’s childish, silly, and they both need it like they need air. As she slips through the cool water, Soi Fon realises just how stuffy it has been – not only the weather, but the division itself. August is the slowest month, and the paperwork has been drifting interminably around her for weeks.
She begins to understand just why Yoruichi-sama is the way she is. In the midst of all the bureaucracy of the Gotei 13, bound by the chains of captainhood and nobility, Yoruichi is true to herself, through and through.
At this precise moment Yoruichi dives off a ledge into the water, coating Soi Fon in pondweed and algae, and in the ensuing confusion Soi Fon forgets her moment of insight. If she were to remember it, things might have been very different, but that story is one nobody can tell.
***
The sun is dipping slightly towards the horizon and the worst of the day’s heat is gone when they pick up the hollow trail again. They race through the forest, flash-stepping from branch to branch, winning and losing by the slimmest of margins. Yoruichi is the eventual victor, but it is their closest match yet, and Soi Fon feels proud.
When the trees end they pick up speed, and they cover two miles in a minute, almost without noticing. They are both giddy, which is probably why Yoruichi misses the strengthening reiatsu around them.
The ground explodes upwards, and a dozen hollows leap from the earth. One must be a trap type, Soi Fon thinks, even as she pulls her sword from her sheath and prepares to fight.
Yoruichi is moving rapidly among the creatures, landing kicks and blows with almost impossible precision. Her hits are sure and strong, but they do less damage than Soi Fon would like. There has been an increase in the number of dangerous hollow attacks lately, and she has a sinking feeling that this group is more dangerous than was reported.
If only Yoruichi-sama had brought her Zanpakuto, Soi Fon thinks, dodging a scraping claw. Her sword, clumsy in her small hands, glances off the bone without leaving a scratch, and Soi Fon is overwhelmed by her own uselessness.
It is all the distraction the hollow needs. In a moment unbearably quick and incredibly slow a shower of vicious serrated needles bursts into the air all around her, and Soi Fon, for all her training, doesn’t have time to move.
She resigns herself to death, tries to tell herself she has no regrets. And then Yoruichi-sama is there, in front of her, striking the needles away with shins and arms. The bone patter dies away, and a slick drip drip begins. Blood is running down Yoruichi’s arm, and she stands crookedly. All the same, she looks over her shoulder at Soi Fon with a perfectly brilliant smile.
“Sorry,” she says. “I just couldn’t let it happen.”
And she falls to the ground in a dreadful heap.
Soi Fon screams. The sound tears out of her, and the hollows themselves are forced to pause. No conscious being, hearing that sound, could be unmoved.
“No,” Soi Fon shouts, “this can’t happen. I don’t care, it can’t. Someone give me power. Someone give me strength. I won’t let it end like this!”
Some strange energy is coiling inside her. It shakes her through and through. Just as she thinks she can bear no more it vanishes, taking the world with it.
Soi Fon is standing on a tiled colonnade in golden sunlight. The world around her is barred gold and black – those black lines could be columns or cypress, she can’t tell. The air is heavy with scent – walking feels like moving through a deep ocean.
Somewhere inside she is screaming at herself to move, screaming that there is no time to waste and Yoruichi-sama could be dying, but it doesn’t reach her. In this strange place, time itself seems impossible.
The colonnade stretches on into the distance, and Soi Fon follows it slowly. The stones beneath her feet are worn and chipped, but under their scars a story coils. As Soi Fon walks, she realises it is her own.
There is Yoruichi-sama in her palanquin, the first time Soi Fon saw her. There is the Academy, and the Secret Forces, and there is Yoruichi-sama again, grinning at something. The more Soi Fon walks, the more of Yoruichi-sama she sees. Yoruichi is woven through her whole life, a solid gold thread against the drab black of endless fighting. And though Yoruichi is shocking and unpredictable and messy and the cause of so much grief and paperwork, she is all the happiest memories Soi Fon has.
The colonnade ends abruptly, leading without hesitation to the largest throne Soi Fon has ever seen. It dwarfs her, towering over everything in this place, though by some quirk of this world she did not see it until she was almost upon it.
Soi Fon looks around anxiously, wondering if her zanpakuto – for this can only be her own mind – is a huge and hideous monster. The thought sends electricity down her spine and through her knees. Though she does not acknowledge it, even now, Soi Fon has always been afraid of knowing what her inner nature is like. She is so terrified it will be ugly.
“Oi.” The voice is high and squeaky, and Soi Fon cannot find the source. “Oi.” She turns to the throne again, and sees that floating a little above the seat is a fairy.
Fairy is the only appropriate word. The being is small, with translucent wings, glossy brown hair, a golden tail, and a snotty expression.
“Took you long enough,” the fairy says, her voice piping up louder than should be possible. “I thought you’d never find me, and after I finally got you here and all.”
“You… you wanted me to come here?”
“Course I did.” The little fairy loops excitedly around her head, humming fearfully. “What fun is it being stuck in this dull world?”
“Please,” Soi Fon bursts out, “I need power! I will do anything you ask, so help me now.”
The fairy tilts her head.
“You’re so serious. This place doesn’t measure time like the real world. We have all the time we want here.”
This confirms Soi Fon’s expectations, but the worried beat of her heart will not fade.
“Please,” she says, “I need to go back.”
The little fairy pouts.
“You are distinctly no fun at all. It’s been so boring being here in your mind and now you finally come to let me out and you’re boring too. If I’m going to help you, you have to help me the same.”
“Anything,” Soi Fon says, and though she is worried by this giddy little thing, she means it.
“Dance with me.”
That blindsides Soi Fon, and she blinks solidly at the fairy.
“Dance with you?”
“I want to dance,” the fairy says, and she spins around. Her tail flicks out behind her, and Soi Fon sees how sharp it is, how dangerous looking. “Call my name, and let me dance with you, and I’ll give you all the power you need.”
And Soi Fon bows her agreement.
Not a moment has passed since her scream, but Soi Fon feels completely different. Energy is coursing through her veins, flooding her with confidence. A voice in her head calls out, and words cascade down her tongue.
“Sting all enemies to death, Suzumebachi!”
She feels the metal of her sword flex and curl around her arm, segmenting into a replica of her fairy’s tail. The golden metal covers her middle finger on her right hand, warm against her skin, and the thought of how to use it floats into her mind.
She jabs the leg of the nearest giant, and almost before the first dark butterfly forms her hand is darting back. The needle is so wickedly sharp that the hollow hardly feels it, and the second strike hits neatly.
Just like that, the hollow vanishes. Its substance, its reishi, dissolve into the air, floating away to the Seireitei where they will become a purified soul.
Though there are other hollows to deal with, Soi Fon’s first concern is Yoruichi. She kneels beside her master, and her hands tremble to see how still the Captain is. Slowly she turns the body over, and as she does, Yoruichi’s eyes open and she winks, bright as anything.
“Got you there, didn’t I?” Soi Fon’s hand clenches under Yoruichi’s back, and she doesn’t know whether to hug or punch her mentor. “Nice shikai you’ve got there,” Yoruichi adds.
She springs to her feet, her arm bloody but perfectly functional, and without warning leaps into a kick that sends the nearest hollow sprawling. Soi Fon stands dazed for a moment, glowing with the happiness of Yoruichi’s praise, and then she returns to the fight.
There is nothing equal about the battle now, and though Soi Fon is still getting used to her little sword, the hollows are all purified within ten minutes. Soi Fon breathes a sigh of relief as the sparks of the last soul drift into the air – a sigh cut short when Yoruichi-sama promptly collapses again.
“Yoruichi-sama, how’s your arm?”
“Oh, it’s fine,” Yoruichi says airily, but then a spasm of pain flickers across her face. “Well, maybe not totally fine. I can get back to the Seireitei on my own, though, and Unohana can take care of it from there.” Another flicker of pain crosses her face.
“You weren’t faking, before, were you?” Soi Fon says, her throat catching.
Yoruichi-sama shrugs.
“The darts were a bit of a shock – I think there’s a numbing poison in them – but I wasn’t as bad as I made out to be.” She laughs. “I was going to tease you some more, but then you named your zanpakuto, and I couldn’t spoil the moment.”
Soi Fon nods, and wipes her eyes in what she hopes is a subtle manner.
“Thank you for saving me, Yoruichi-sama.”
Yoruichi’s gentle hand comes down on Soi Fon’s head.
“Whenever you need me to,” she says, though the effect is rather ruined by her hand sliding limply away. “I think,” she adds, “that that numbing poison may be taking effect about now.”
For once, all Soi Fon can do is laugh, and the laughter is wonderful, bubbling right up from her soul. She laughs and laughs, and Yoruichi-sama pretends to be offended.
Soi Fon carries her all the way home.
They have a division party to celebrate Soi Fon’s shikai two nights later. Soi Fon lasts half an hour, and then sneaks out onto the veranda to watch the full moon. The cherry blossoms are fading fast now, and the trees look like ragged cut-outs against the sky. Soi Fon cradles her drink and feels peaceful.
“Oi,” says the most familiar voice in the world, and Yoruichi folds herself up beside Soi Fon. “Not enjoying your party?”
“Parties aren’t my kind of thing.”
“I know that.” Yoruichi smiles. “You’re so tense all the time, Soi Fon. You need to relax a little more.”
Soi Fon says nothing. Something has been nagging her the past two days, and she doesn’t know how to bring it up.
“Out with it,” says Yoruichi, who knows all her companions well. “What did you want to ask me? Since you won’t get drunk and all.”
Soi Fon smiles politely.
“My zanpakuto,” she clutches her cup tightly. “She wasn’t like me at all. She was so bubbly and cheerful and she wants me to dance with her and I don’t know how.”
Yoruichi laughs, the low sweet rumble that Soi Fon loves best in the world.
“She sounds fun, your zanpakuto. Wish I’d got one like yours.”
“What’s your zanpakuto like?”
“Stuffy and old,” Yoruichi says, half whining. “He always wants to talk about poetry, and he’s such a stickler for the rules. You’d like him,” she adds, with a swift elbow-jab to Soi Fon’s ribs.
“Well you’d like Suzumebatchi.” Soi Fon knots her fingers together. “Would… would you help me? So I can give her what she wants?”
Yoruichi smiles, fond in the silver light.
“You’re such a diligent girl.”
“It’s not like that.” Soi Fon rubs the edge of her cup and looks away. “She gave me what I want most in the world, so I have to return the favour.”
“What you want most in the world?”
Somehow, Soi Fon finds the courage to look back. The night is still, and the sounds of the division partying madly inside echo through the thin paper walls. Yoruichi-sama is looking at Soi Fon curiously, her golden eyes catching the moon. Her dark hair falls around her face like a song, and the whole of her is beautiful beyond dreaming.
“Yes,” Soi Fon says at last. “What I want most in the world. The power to protect you.”
Yoruichi almost blushes, and she rests her chin gently on Soi Fon’s head, and they sit like that for the rest of the night.