Flowers From Hell
Friends
Summary for this chapter: Soi Fon and Ken were friends. First-name-term friends. They knew each other better than the backs of their own hands. Soi Fon wanted an answer to a question that she would receive from no one else. Because she trusted Ken.
So I had this crazy idea that Shaolin and Ken would get along really well together. And, well, this happened.
Sorry if I refer to characters with a name you don't agree with. I love Soi Fon's name, but I like her given name of Shaolin Fon as well. So, I call her Shaolin. And Ken is Kaneki's given name. Everyone in the series refers to him as Kaneki, for some reason, which is his surname. Some people get that confused. Yeah.
Uh... Oh! Implied Soi FonxYoruichi and KanekixHide! No like, u probs shouldn't be here :)
Shit, just realized I made a mistake on the pilot chapter. The bankai release phrase is "Bankai. Unravel, Mukade Hiirokari."
Lol "unravel" geddit? Yes? No? Okay, fine, leave me hanging.
"Soi Fon?" Called Ken, venturing further cautiously into the moonlit garden. "Soi Fon, are you there?"
"I am right here, Ken," called a female voice from somewhere above Ken's pure white head. "And if you intend to find a spar, I suggest you look elsewhere. I am not in the mood."
Ken chuckled, stepping aside to allow the young Secret Tactics Captain to land in the grass he'd previously been standing in, assuming correctly that she had had an unpleasant run-in with Captain Zaraki.
"What are you here for, Ken?" Asked Soi Fon, settling in the grass with her legs twisted into an elaborate pretzel shape. Ken, accepting the unsaid invitation, sat as well.
"Just to talk." Glimpsing Soi Fon's scandalized expression, Ken grinned. "Yes?"
"I am a captain, Ken," she said slowly. "And you are a lieutenant. Do you ever work?"
"The task usually falls to our Third Seat," replied Ken nonchalantly, referring to Hinamori Momo, who had been demoted while she recovered. As soon as she had recovered enough to speak of Aizen with hate, she was offered a higher position in other divisions, but Momo had stated firmly that she wished to stay in the Fifth Division.
A piece of Aizen to hang on to.
Ken's mood soured considerably.
Noticing his reiatsu shift, Soi Fon asked, the sharp edge of her voice softening, "Ken? What is the matter?"
Soi Fon still remembered the first time Kaneki Ken had been introduced to the Thirteen Court Guard Squads. Staring at the quiet white-haired boy with manners that rivaled Captain Kuchiki yet lacked the pride to match, Soi Fon yet again had the feeling she'd had seeing Yoruichi-sama for the first time, seeing a god in the flesh.
She was witnessing evolution.
Captain Kurosaki... He was different. Though she respected him now, she had thought him an upstart, hotheaded, not knowing his proper place. He had even obtained his formidable powers (at the time) illegally.
Kaneki Ken had been a considerably reiryoku-high human and thus obtained his powers through constant exposure. He got his powers through hard work.
Or that's what Soi Fon believed until she saw him, standing in the garden, with four scarlet, scaled tentacles waving from the small of his back.
A half-ghoul. That was Ken's true identity.
But strangely, Soi Fon wasn't afraid of this new threat. Especially not when he was well and firmly tied to Soul Society by loyalty to those who saved his past life.
"Nothing, I just... Thought of the traitor." Ken knew Soi Fon well enough to address Aizen as such. As expected, the young woman's face darkened.
"He had no right to destroy everything we'd known like that," she growled, her reiatsu swirling around her, lifting her hair and braids. Only when Ken, who hadn't raised his own formidable reiatsu in retaliation, winced, did Soi Fon rein in her power.
"I... Apologize," muttered Soi Fon, glancing off at Ōmaeda, who had apparently come running after sensing the flare in reiatsu. At her jerk of the head, Ōmaeda slunk off rather sullenly.
"I expected more self-control, Captain Soi Fon," teased Ken, leaning forward and bumping shoulders with her. Predictably, Soi Fon scowled and punched the offending body part, and Ken pouted, backing off, rubbing his shoulder.
"Really, though," said Ken, turning his head to gaze at the starry night sky. "When will the mark he left on Soul Society dissipate?"
Soi Fon's eyes grew sad. Ken joined the Shinōreijutsuin Academy (more commonly known as the Shin'ō Academy) as the Winter War was conceived, and as he had immediately achieved shikai, he was pushed to the front ranks quickly. And from there, he saw hell again.
"I do not know," she whispered. She laid back on the grass, and Ken did the same, allowing her to use his arm as a pillow.
When Soi Fon and Ken had stricken up a fruitful friendship, at first, the Shinigami of the Thirteen Court Guard Squads were skeptical. When one particularly nosy sixth seat from the Twelfth Division glimpsed Soi Fon walking into a courteous Ken's personal quarters, word spread like wildfire and soon five different mischievous captains were poised at the door, peeking in.
However, Soi Fon and Ken just settled in the middle of the room and talked. And talked. And talked. Eventually the two ended up bringing out pillows and blankets, as it seemed Soi Fon wasn't really about to leave and Ken wasn't really about to let her go. At about this point all the captains had left out of boredom, and it was made much clearer to Yamamoto that he wouldn't have to talk to the two about a relationship between a superior and subordinate when Ken walked into the Seireitei with a young man who looked around his age or older, and there was a light in his cold dark eyes that hadn't been there before.
"All I know is that for now, we can pursue that which we weren't able to before." Ken's eyes flew sideways to meet hers, and he raised his eyebrows.
"Oh? Has Soi Fon finally won the heart of her lady love?" At this, Soi Fon jabbed the sheath of her zanpaku-tô into his ribcage with a vicious blush.
"There is nothing between me and Yoruichi-sama!" She hissed furiously, as Ken yelped and shot up, giving a high-pitched squeak from the sudden change in position. Glimpsing Soi Fon's murderous expression, Ken subsided into helpless laughter, and the assassin's ferocious visage multiplied in homicidal intent.
Giggling weakly, Ken wiped away his tears and laid back down with a sigh. There was a comfortable silence, then Soi Fon said, with uncharacteristic hesitation, "What is it like... To love someone of the same sex?"
Ken paused, then got the feeling he knew what she was talking about. He opened his mouth, closed it, then began reluctantly, falling into the noble tongue as he did around the more respectable captains, "I will not lie, Shaolin. It is hard. I cannot bring myself to tell you that it will be easy when there will be rumors, and from those of a crueler disposition, jeers. Hide..." His voice grew slightly warmer. "I do not know—I do not understand how he just takes it all in stride. He... He never underestimates how low humanity can fall. And I feel that Yoruichi-san is the same."
Soi Fon nodded slightly. This she knew, though not in full. She remembered the time Ken had completely fallen apart, and it had taken Nagachika and a strange phrase she did not understand to calm him.
"We're home, Ken."
She wondered briefly if Yoruichi-sama was the same type of person as Nagachika, then tuned back in to Ken's low voice.
"No matter what they say... Love is love, Shaolin." Ken's eyes dropped to the ground, and his hands began to shake slightly. "I know that you, as a Secret Tactics Captain, believe that all must be balanced. An eye for an eye, is it not? You believe that for every action there must be an equal force." Soi Fon pursed her lips. There was a reason she had been so intrigued in learning hanki sōsai. Equal and opposite force of return.
"But, Shaolin, a circle of revenge can only go on so long. Sometimes, that vicious cycle only ends when one of the offenders is killed. That is not righteousness, Shaolin." The pale fingers with black nails curled into the grass.
"You must endure it."
