"Smoke & Rain"
Genre: Action/Adventure
Rating: T
Time Frame: After the Winter War
Characters: Everyone!
Summary: What if Soul Society still deemed Yoruichi and Kisuke as traitors even after the Winter War?
Notes: This kinda just popped into my mind. Don't know if I will continue it.
Disclaimer:Don't own it, except my own character.
smoke & rain
"I never knew you smoked."
The sky weeps, leaving tear tracks on his windows. It blends everything, distorts everything, creating a murky color of green, brown, and lambent specs of gold portrait on his windowpane. His ears take in only the pitter pat of the tears on his slanted roof, his eyes watching the portraits. He can smell the fresh aroma that the tears bring with it. He tilts his head back, closing his eyes. The cold draft that seeped in hugs his limbs. He doesn't shiver, doesn't grow goose bumps. He likes it actually, never one for the clinquant rays burning his back under the afternoon sun.
His hand elevates, index and middle cradling a fragile cigarette between them. He brings it to his lips and inhales. Taking the cancer stick out of his lips, he decides to finally acknowledge who was beside him, his eyes flickering over his shoulder to the visitor.
He doesn't answer her with words. His brilliant ocean eyes gazes at her, with something in his eyes akin to a predator stalking his prey.
"You should quit," is her answer to a question he never asked. She brings her two hands in front of her, wringing them together as she stares back.
He grunts, a grunt mixed with amusement and annoyance, and turns his chair fully around to face her. He takes a drag of his cigarette.
"And what is your real reason for coming here besides chastising me?" he asks as he exhales the grey fog, like a dragon breathing fire as he talks.
He combs his hair with his fingers, sending his lightly arced golden brown locks on his head flying and few stuck between his fingers as he chuckles in his own amusement. He rests his elbow on the table top, holding the top of his head down as he looks up toward her.
She smiles.
He feels unfamiliar poison seep into his limbs, rendering them useless and fragile. He can't move them.
It is such a familiar smile, reminding him of the good days when his mother didn't drink and didn't ignore him and didn't yell at him, when his mother actually tucked him in at night, wishing him sweet dreams with that same smile that adorns her face now.
Was this fear?
He roughly snaps his face to his right, suddenly finding the wall very interesting. His eyes burn the spot his rough eyes concentrate on while his hand supports his head, covering his eyes somewhat.
She seems to notice and the tips of her lips flip, concern evident on her face, further lamenting the image of the mother he wish he had into his brain.
His psychological profile runs through her head. The pages of black and white blend together, but she still sees the words perfectly.
Brash, arrogant, cocky, harsh, angry.
These are the words she sees and the words that describe him to the bone.
But this doesn't explain why his shoulders tense up, his eyes looking anywhere but at her, his hand cradling his head as if hiding from shame, and his free hand clenching his cigarette tightly.
All after her simple smile.
"I came here to inform you of your Captain's Ceremony tomorrow," she says, beaming gently. "It's tomorrow at 8 o'clock."
He takes another drag of his cigarette, finally lifting his head from his hand, sits up and meets her eyes.
"Right," he says gruffly. A hint of a scowl forms over his lips and his eyes narrow in annoyance. "That all?"
She makes a move to speak, but she falters, her lips slightly apart from the action. The wiring and the gears of her brain clinks together, trying to find a suitable answer.
"Is your family coming to the ceremony?" she asks somewhat abruptly. It works, a subtle bypass into his shielded brain.
His sapphire eyes lock onto her own blue ones with intensity she's familiar with after dealing with so many patients.
"My family?" he scoffs. His lips lift in an amused smirk, "You're funny."
A sculpted eyebrow rises on a pale forehead. "Care to elaborate?"
Oh, she's a sneaky one.
"If you haven't noticed," he scowls. "My mother's dead." He turns his head once more to say at something to her left. "And if she were alive, she'd probably be too drunk to come," he mumbles. The pitter pat of the rain rings in his ears still.
Realization hits her, and she actually curses mentally.
Of course.
Unohana nods her head apologetically, "I'm sorry to have asked." She bows slightly. "I will be taking my leave now."
His eyes move toward her leaving form, and his ears perk up at the resounding thud of the rain.
His eyes narrow once more, irritated, and his jaw clenches. "Hold on," he calls out roughly.
She looks at him from over her shoulder and raises an eyebrow in puzzlement.
He waves his hand lamely around his side, "It's raining out."
She stays silent, still confused as to why he stopped her.
He sighs loudly, "I'll walk you back to your Division. The winds are strong and," he points to the flimsy umbrella leaning on the frame of the door she's brought with her, "that umbrella is not."
"It might blow away," he adds, mumbling. It's a lame excuse, he knows, but he couldn't stand someone, a mother, his mother, he doesn't know. He can't stand her, whoever she is, walking back to her division in the pouring rain and the biting winds alone.
She nods, "Thank you."
He nods, too, and he stands from his chair, his heavy footsteps drowned in the symphony of the rain as he grabs the umbrella on the frame of the door.
They walk side by side in silence. It'd look like mother and son walking side by side, though his stormy ocean eyes contrasts her serene own and his sandy-brown hair is nowhere near as dark as hers. Like a grown son, now much taller than his mother, he escorts her back to the home he grew up in.
Except, it's not what it seems. He knows, in reality, this was his senior. A colleague. It is nothing he actually wants.
They reach the exit, and he puts an arm out to stop her from walking further. But really, it's an effort to protect her from the imaginary attacks of the umbrella as he slides it open, its fangs of its skeleton stretching, reaching, until it hits its apex and shields them from the heavy rain.
He holds the umbrella out in the rain, waving a hand in front of him, as if saying 'Get in.'
She smiles, nods her thanks and steps under the umbrella. He grunts and steps under the protection, too. They head off to her Division in a hurried pace, eager to get out of the rain. But his observant eyes catch onto something.
He holds the umbrella too high due to his height, and the difference between the ends of the umbrella and her head offers no protection. The splash of rain that falls off the edges of the umbrella fall onto her clothing. He quickly hunches over and brings it lower. Unohana looks up in surprise, sees what he's done and smiles.
They reach her Division quickly as hers is right next to his. She steps inside of the barracks, turning around to face him and bows.
"Thank you, Cage-taicho."
He scowls, "Don't mention it." He turns around, the start his journey back to his own division. "Ever."
She chuckles lightly, "Of course." He grunts again, shoots her one final look over his shoulder and starts walking.
Unohana closes the shoji doors gently and walks to the filing room. She opens the doors there gently still, her feet taking her to the file cabinet she wants, muscle memory long since remembering where every letter sat.
She stops when she reaches the cabinet that read "C," and she pulls open the metal door. Fingering each file, she stops when she sees "Cage, Sho." She pulls out the file, and upon flipping it open, is once again met with brash, arrogant, cocky, harsh, angry under a picture of Sho Cage-taicho. The picture is crisp and new, having taken recently as the file was created recently. Sho looks on uninterestedly with a small, lazy grin as he stands behind a height chart, as if in prison. His high cheek bones give his face an angular look to it. He stands at a tall 6'3", but he's slouching, she notes. This must have cut inches off his real height. She shakes her head, not surprised at how tall some of the Shinigami were.
She reads his real profile, nodding as she guessed it correctly. No mother, no father. Cold, distant, walls kept high and strong. She remembers something. A human being goes through multiple life crises thought his or her life. One stage was to feel secure, happy in affection of his or her parents. If they never resolved a crisis, never found what they were looking for, they'd spend the rest of their lives searching. She shakes her head, sighing.
She looks at the synopsis once more.
Brash, arrogant, cocky, harsh, angry glare back at her.
She adds one more word.
Broken.
-x-
The Captain Promotion Ceremony is awkward. He stands behind the screen door, fidgeting on the balls of his feet as he waits to be called by the Captain-Commander. He hears the traditional babble, the traditional speech of honor and duty. He lolls his head back, his eyes gazing at the ceiling as he waits. Bored.
"Sho Cage-taicho," he finally hears. He snaps his head back down to eye level and he opens the doors before him, stepping in with a ramrod spine and chin held high. The lighting in the hall is dim, casting shadows onto his sculpted face. His sandy-brown locks were pushed back, out of his eyes, but the back of his head has shorter spikes of hair. His three zanpakutos nest lazily by his hips; two on one, one on the other. The lone zanpakuto is a standard size katana, while the two on left hip are a nodachi, a large katana with a 13 inch hilt, and a wakizashi. The nodachi is prominent, its hilt jutting out and it large blade causing ripples into his haori. The other Division captains looked in shock to his zanpakutos.
Three?
"This is Cage, Sho, new captain of the Third Division," the old man says, his eyes in lines with age.
Sho nods, "Nice to meet you all. I hope I prove to be worthy of this position." It is a monotone voice, more spoken out of courtesy than anything.
His eyes gives the room a once over—noting the captains that stand. He sees many of different extremes, old men, young children. He sees Unohana, the captain he's only met and sees many more that he hasn't. His eyes rake over the scarred, tall man's bells on his hair to the short girl with a yellow sash tying her Captain's robe together.
"Three?" a man to his right with black and white makeup on his face and a pointed helmet says.
Sho looks to him lazily. "Yes," he drawls. "Three."
"Very interesting…" the man replies, his greedy eyes eyeing his three zanpakutos.
Sho lets his posture waiver, slowly slouching back, his energy leaving him.
"Dismissed yet, Captain-Commander?" he asks, tilting his head to his right overdramatically.
The Captain-Commander nods, slams his cane onto the floor. "Dismissed."
Sho turns around. He starts walking to the exit when he feels a hand on his shoulder. He looks up over his shoulder to see the intruder. The hand belongs to a man with long, white hair with a kind smile.
"I'm Ukitake-taicho, Captain of the 13th Division," he smiles.
Sho turns around, causing Ukitake's hand to drop, nods, "Nice to meet you." A slight frown adorns his face, but Ukitake shrugs it off to something like Soifon.
"Have you met the other Captains yet?"
Sho looks to his left, something he tends to do. He never liked eye contact much. "Only of the Fourth Division," he mumbles.
Ukitake lights up, "Excellent!" Sho looks to him, a small amount of confusion shown through his azure eyes. "The Captains are celebrating the recent defeat of Aizen."
Oh, Aizen. He's heard of him. Some apparent traitor who had a God-complex. Cut down after some difficulty by a Ryoka with blazing orange hair.
Sho curses under his breath.
I wish I could've fought someone that strong….
"—like to come with us?" Ukitake asks. Sho looks at him in surprise, not listening having been lost in his thoughts.
He gets the gist of it, though, and answers, "Yeah, sure."
The Captain who he thinks is the name of Kyoraku laughs boisterously, his two arms hooked around two faceless females of Soul Society with a half-empty sake bottle in his right and even more empty sake bottles in front of him.
The bar's lighting is too dim, reminding him of his home. He growls slightly, looking away, trying to divert his attention elsewhere.
The man with white bandaged braids in his hair sits stoically, drinking a decent sized cup of sake as he lowers his head to speak softly with Unohana.
The white haired boy sits with a scowl on his face as he drinks a soda, eyeing the sake distastefully as he sips his cup. Ukitake talks to him animatedly, asking him if he was hungry. The boy snaps back with a 'no.' Ukitake then presents him with candy, and the boy grudgingly takes it. Sho smirks at the two. Seeing enough, he turns to look at the other Captains.
The man with bells in his hair is grinning manically as he seemingly argues with the short woman with braids that ends in gold rings. The short woman has an amused smirk to her face as she counters his argument. They're face to face, both starting to grin like mad, their arms twitching to grab their zapakutos until a large humanoid canine pushes the two away from each other, opting to sit between them. The man with the bells shoves the intruder out of his seat, and the two scoot back together, continuing their argument with their psycho grins. The canine growls and the woman and the man snap their heads to glare at him. He sighs and sits beside the short woman instead. It's rather comical, he thinks.
Sho turns his head and sees the man with the black and white makeup nowhere, shrugging, not caring whether he was present or not.
The man with the bells looks up with much excitement as he eyes Sho, causing Sho to raise his eyebrow.
"I'm Kenpachi Zaraki of the 11th Division," he grins.
The woman next to him looks up, too.
"Soifon. Second Division and Commander-in-Chief of the Onmitsukido," she says, clipped.
Zaraki rolls his eyes, "There you go again. Sprouting about being Commander-in-Chief."
Soifon glares back, "Someone sour about only controlling his discipline-lacking Division?"
"'Discipline-lacking?'" the man roars, but a grin is imminent on his lips, as it is on the short woman's, too.
"Shut up, and drink your sake," the woman quips, turning to face forward in her seat, sipping her sake.
Zaraki turns to face Sho.
"Kid: power or discipline?" he quizzes.
Sho looks back blankly. "Power," he says, restraining himself from adding 'duh.'
Zaraki laughs and clamps his hand onto his shoulder. "Everyone!" he calls out, catching the attention of the Captains available, disrupting their conversations. They look on blankly, silently wondering what Kenpachi of people had to say. "This kid's alright."
The Captains go back to their conversations, not before mumbling about the interruption. Sho looks away from everyone in embarrassment, frowning.
Soifon sighs loudly, "We don't need another Kenpachi Zaraki here." She puts her sake down and crosses her arms across her chest.
Sho chuckles, "But," he starts, "discipline is needed to stay alive and grow in strength, which," he pauses dramatically, "is why I believe in both."
Zaraki groans, "Dammit, kid." Soifon smirks smugly at Kenpachi.
"What was that, Kenpachi? Something about discipline?"
"Tch," he makes the noise, grabbing more sake.
Sho grabs more sake, too, having finished his glass. As he pours more into his cup, Soifon looks up to him in interest. "A noble," she says, "like me."
Sho nods, "A low-class noble." He puts the sake bottle down.
"Where did your family matriculate to?"
Sho shrugs, "Nowhere special. Just the Gotei 13."
"Your family," she starts. "Where are they now?"
Sho looks at her straight in the eyes. "Dead." He takes a sip of his full glass. "All of them."
He smirks wolfishly, "But you already know, don't you?" He puts his glass down and leans in to eye-level with Soifon. "Commander-in-Chief of the Onmitsukido."
Soifon smirks, "Of course." Kenpachi snorts. She kicks him from under the table, and he scowls. "But I never learned who killed them all." She looks up to him, with something he pins as a warning in her eyes. "That knowledge was locked up."
"So, lone survivor of the Cage Family, who killed them?"
Sho laughs. It's a surprisingly gentle and warm laugh.
"You'll have to find out now, won't you?" he smirks after his laughter has died down. "Commander of the Onmitsukido-san ," he enunciates the words.
Soifon smirks back, accepting the silent challenge. "I suppose I do."
Kenpachi snorts.
"You Onmitsukido are good fer nothin'." Soifon scowls and kicks him again.
"You're good for nothing, Kenpachi," Byakuya retorts back, a blank face will plastered on him, having listened in onto the conversation.
Kenpachi turns around to face Byakuya, but even he is silent as a Hell Butterfly floats over to Sho's outstretched index finger.
"Second Division Captain, Third Division Captain, Tenth Division Captain, and Eleventh Division, report to the Captain-Commander's chambers immediately."
The Hell Butterfly takes flight, leaving Sho's index finger.
Sho looks over to the white-haired boy, the man with the bells, and the short woman with the yellow obi tying her Captain's haori.
"We make hell of a team," Soifon quips.
"What do you mean?" Kenpachi asks gruffly, furrowing his eyebrows.
"Don't you see?" the white-haired boy says, frowning. "Soifon-taicho for the intelligence and tactical skill, you for the brute strength, me for the experience of being to the World of the Living already and…"
"Sho for the learning experience," Soifon interrupts, smirking, eyeing Sho.
Sho looks up after hearing his name being mentioned and smiles lazily.
"What's your name, boy?" Sho asks, silently impressed at how quickly the boy sized up the situation. Soifon, he's not surprised. He expects her to know.
The boy scowls, "I'm not a boy. My name is Toshiro Hitsugaya, Captain of the Tenth."
Sho smirks. "I see. Well, let's see what mission the Old Man is giving us then."
They all stand to begin shunpo'ing to the First Division Barracks, but Unohana's hand on his shoulder stops him.
"Be careful, Sho," she says softly.
He looks over his shoulder, eye lids lowered as if tired.
"Yeah."
He shrugs her hand off and leaves.
They disappear as they head off to meet the Captain-Commander, Kenpachi with a large grin, Soifon with a slight scowl, and Hitsugaya looking blankly.
"He's an interesting one, isn't he?" the earlier drunken man grins under his sakkat, seemingly out of his drunken stupor.
Byakuya glances toward him, looking unimpressed.
"Don't you feel it, Kuchiki?" Ukitake, a man with flowing white hair and the occasional cough, says gently. "Powers swims off him in unchecked waves."
Byakuya turns his head toward Ukitake this time.
"I feel it."
Unohana smiles.
-x-
Sho looks on with confusion. Soifon's face is covered in shock, Kenpachi's in digust, and Hitsugaya's in annoyance. He doesn't understand what is so wrong with this mission.
"You're kidding, right?" Kenpachi spits out.
"Why would I be kidding?" the old man raises a long eyebrow.
"Because they helped us win the war!" Soifon yells, clenching her jaw after her outburst.
"Why would we arrest allies?" Hitsugaya inquires, his low voice rumbling.
Sho looks to his right, where the Captains and he formed a line.
"They helped you win?"
"Yes, Sho," Soifon answers, strained as she tries to keep her temper in check.
He turns his head back to look at the Captain-Commander.
"I thought it was odd to send four Captains to destroy some Hollows…" Kenpachi mumbles, his earlier suspicion proven correct.
Yamamoto clenches his lips, slams his cane down.
"They are still liable to the crimes they have committed," he speaks out, angry. "Capture them and return them to Soul Society."
"Dismissed," he speaks with such finality that all Captains are rendered speechless.
They all leave the hall silent, each lost in their own thoughts.
Sho isn't stupid.
He knew of the war and how the boy won it. He knew they helped, feigning ignorance to gather information he might have missed. But he didn't gather any new intelligence.
They step out in the midnight moon's rays, each eyeing each other.
"Come," beckons Hitsugaya with a flick of his hand. "We will discuss in my office."