A Chance for Love
By: CrimsonGaze
Chapter 002
Back at the academy, the third year student was furious as she felt completely ignored by her instructors. The finding she made on her patrol today was critical and she knew it, but for some reason unknown to her, things just weren't advancing the way she had imagined.
They had laid out photographs before her, asking her to identify the men on the pictures if she could. Some of them she remembered from the brief encounter but knew that they were not the big deal. Who seemed important were the three men that just nonchalantly passed them by, the blond woman and the blue haired man.
She sighed in aggravation as things just weren't going her way, like usual. Suddenly the door to their classroom was opened, the principal along with two detectives entered, asking if the raven haired woman could join them. Soifon rose from her seat and followed them to the principals office.
"Now then.." the white haired man started, strolling around the chair Soifon was seated on. "Could you describe what happened during your patrol today?"
Soifon looked at him briefly and then at the man seated before her, across the table. The bearded man smiled gently, Soifon almost chuckling out loud at this ´good-cop, bad-cop´ display. "Sure." she nodded. "I was on an evaluated practice patrol with Oomaeda Marechiyo on the 7th district. We strolled around the neighborhood, noting nothing out of the ordinary.. well, out of the ordinary for that district anyway." she tried her best to appear calm, though inside she felt rather excited as this was her first time to really have succeeded this well. "Then a trio of men passed us, leaving behind another group, dressed almost identically with them."
"Any of them seem familiar?" the man dressed in a pink, short sleeved collar shirt asked, passing some photographs over the table for Soifon to see.
This was obviously a test to see if she was playing a prank as the men in these pictures were just probably some small time dealers or not even that. "Please.." Soifon grinned. "They didn't look anything near that."
The two detectives exchanged looks.
"If you want, I can give you a description for a sketcher."
"Well get the picture if you just describe them to us here, right, Ukitake?" the brown haired man smiled.
"Yeah, that'll be fine."
"Ok.." Soifon shrugged. "One of them was African-American, wearing dark sun glasses. One was very pale with sort of purplish hair and a very smug grin on his face. The one walking in the middle of them was an ordinary looking fellow, dark hair, brown eyes.. maybe a bit Hispanic skin, not sure though."
"Kyouraku!" the white haired man gasped. "It's Aizen."
"Mmh.." the goofy man suddenly got serious. "Why is he back here..?"
"We've got to report this."
Soifon looked at the exchange between the two men. She figured she had stumbled upon something big, but never imagined it could really spike up such a stir with these two.
"You my dear young lady.." Kyouraku said, sighing. "..have met with Aizen Sousuke and his gang."
"Aizen?"
"He practically runs the crime in this country.. and the gang even has some international branches." Ukitake cleared.
"What about the blue haired man?" Soifon asked, only receiving confused looks. "The one tattooed with a number 6."
"He must be one of the Espada.."
"Espada?" Soifon scratched the back of her head.
"The top organization.. they only take orders from Aizen himself, and from those two men with him." the bearded man explained. "He left them in charge when he left the country."
"And now he's back." Soifon put one and one together. "There might be power struggles on the way.."
"We shouldn't say anything more.." Kyouraku smiled gently. "For your own safety, kiddo.."
"Wait a minute, Shunsui.." Ukitake stopped his friend who was about to leave the office. "She has seen the Espada up close.. maybe she could help us identify the others."
"It's a bit risky.."
"I don't mind." Soifon quickly said, not wanting to be intimidated to silence.
"We can't guarantee that they won't know who identified them.."
"This is important, right?" the raven haired woman asked. "I want to help if I only can."
"The Espada are divided into at least ten smaller groups.." the white haired man started but then shook his head. "No, ten fractions and each one is lead by an Espada. The followers of the Espada are called Fraccion.. The man you saw must have been him." he said, tossing a picture of the blue haired man before Soifon.
"Yes, that's him." she nodded and scratched the back of her head. "I think they called him.. Grimmjow, maybe?"
"That's right." Kyouraku stated. "We've had him on suspicion for a long while now, but it's difficult to really tell which of Aizen's followers are Espada as they hide it rather well." he continued. "The number 6 tattooed on him must signal his rank somehow.."
"I figured so myself." Soifon said, lost in thought. "But that means I saw another Espada."
"Huh?"
"There was this woman.. who seemed somehow higher ranking than him.. at least he instantly backed up when she showed up."
"Not by any chance this woman?" Ukitake asked, again presenting the student with a photo.
Soifon shook her head. "No.. not her. She was blond."
"Hmm.." Kyouraku hummed thoughtfully. "She must have been someone we've yet to have seen.."
Ukitake and Kyouraku both nodded after that, agreeing on one thing. "You could prove useful on this investigation."
"Wha- what?" Soifon asked, taken aback.
"You've seen by my understanding quite a few of them.. So we could definitely use all the help we can get."
"I, I don't know what to say.." the woman answered, looking at her lap as she felt incredibly honored.
"Say that you'll help." Shunsui smiled. "And I'll make sure that nothing bad happens to you."
"I'm not worried about that." Soifon said. "I just don't know what you want me to do.."
"We'll tell you when the time comes."
"How was your day?"
"Want the long version, or the short one?"
"Which ever suites you the best."
"Hmh, I honestly thought you'd say the long one.." Yoruichi sighed.
"Why is that?" the woman sitting across her asked, leaning forward.
" 'Cause you get paid by the hour." the heiress grinned, loving how she sometimes managed to press the womans buttons.
"Very funny, miss Shihouin." her therapist smiled humorlessly. "But we're not here to talk about my paycheck, we're here to talk about you."
"Yeah, I really love talking about myself, don't I?"
"Do you?"
Yoruichi grunted. "You always have to answer everything with a question?"
"Do I?"
"Argh!" the tan woman threw hear head back aggressively, admitting her defeat for now. "Fine. I had a shitty day. I was late from work and skipped breakfast due to that. I wrecked my car driving here so I wouldn't be late from this session as well. I had a fight with my friend yesterday and I'm on my PMS. Wanna hear more?"
"You fought with a friend?" the woman asked, grasping the one thing Yoruichi kind of wished she hadn't heard. "What about?"
"The usual."
"So you fought with Soifon." the glassed woman nodded. This girl was one of the topics they talked about the most in their sessions so it didn't come as a huge surprise to the experienced doctor. "Tell me about it."
"It wasn't really a fight.. It was the same as every time." Yoruichi sighed. "I love her, she loves me, we both know that, but still we aren't together." she repeated the lines like she read them from a book, the words engraved to her mind as this was probably the sentence she used most whenever laying on this couch. "I made a pass at her, she took offense and I left."
"Have you talked about it?"
"No." Yoruichi's answered, her tone screaming 'duh' "If I had, would I really be here talking to you about it?" she asked but before the doctor had time to respond, she answered the question her self. "Would you? Hmm.. yeah, I kinda have to be here so.."
"No one is forcing you to come here."
"No. No one.." the tan woman nodded. "Well, for the exception of my father."
"Your father recommended this for you. He was concerned for your wellbeing."
"My wellbeing?" Yoruichi snorted. "So I party a lot. I drink, I dance, I fuck.. what's so wrong with that? I tell you what. Nothing."
"Then why is your best friend not your lover?" the therapist asked calmly, though Yoruichi could swear that if she turned around, she would see a smug grin on the womans face.
The words really hit home as the usually catty woman didn't have any sarcastic or witty responses to slap on the doctors face. She sighed heavily and ran a tired hand through her purple locks. "I think I wanna go home now.."
"Alright. See you next week then?"
"Yeah."
As the evening slowly ascended, Soifon finally made it home around nine a clock after a long day of work. She had been asked to join the two detectives to go to the station where all the necessary paperwork and such had been done in order for a civilian to aid in an ongoing investigation. Of course she was allowed to help quite easily as the investigation was a top priority case and for the fact that Soifon was a third year Police Academy student with only a few months of studies before graduating.
She kicked her shoes off, the offending footwear crashing randomly around the hallway. The dishes in her sink were seriously starting to stink she noted, but now the girl just didn't have enough energy to start washing them. She made her way to the living room and crashed onto the couch, flicking the TV on. Nothing was on, nothing that interested her anyway, but she wasn't really even watching it. It was just a nice background noise which made her subconsciously feel like she wasn't alone in the apartment.
She shook her head slightly as the thought of calling her friend popped up in her mind. It was not like she had anything earth shattering to tell her and for the principle of it as it had been her friend that promised to call her, not the way around.
The long day seemed to take it's toll as her eyelids started to feel rather heavy, the image of the TV started turning blurry and her feet felt numb. She yawned hugely and scratched the top of her head before allowing the strips of skin over her eyes to fall down, making her almost instantly fall asleep.
The evening came rather too quickly for Yoruichi who also made it back to her apartment very late in the evening. She walked inside and got herself a glass of milk which she gulped down with a one go. She ran her fingers through her hair and sighed, she felt tired. Kuukaku was always nice to visit but the woman just wouldn't understand when Yoruichi said it was time for her to leave. She always started babbling about something, stretching the time spent Yoruichi had to spent there for at least half an hour.
She made her way to the bedroom and got undressed, throwing the clothing randomly around the room. She pulled the covers down and slipped under them as she was about to go the sleep but then remembered she was supposed to call Soifon. She picked her cell up from the nightstand, flipped it open and sighed. It was already past midnight, Soifon would be asleep by now. Yoruichi shrugged mentally and put the mobile phone down. She could just as well call her tomorrow.
FIN
AN: Oh well, it was short.. But the story is just on the way, so the early chapters never really are that long. Thanks for reading and hope you enjoyed it!