"Be still," Yoruichi snapped.

Soifon twitched. Seventy-two hours after she had handed her romantic issues to the Shihouin heir, she realized she may have been hasty and made a mistake.

A big one.

Yoruichi-sama had been kind; she had given Soifon additional time to cool her heels and her head, to pace her office and train in the dojo with her despondent men. She waited two days, and then summoned Soifon to the Shihouin estate, which rivaled the Kuchiki manor in its opulence. Even the servants were decadent-seeming, with rich clothing marked in front with delicately embroidered Shihouin insignias. They looked at her warily, like she was plotting to blow her nose on the drapes. Soifon pointedly ignored them and allowed herself to be led into the open parlor where Yoruichi-sama sat with a dumpy woman in an expensive-looking kimono. "This is Sato Kimiko. She will be representing you," Yoruichi said coolly.

"Representing me?" Soifon tilted her head even as she bowed at the woman, who also bowed, and deeply.

"It is my honor to come to the aid of one connected with the Shihouin," Sato said. "I will do my best to resolve the situation to your satisfaction."

"Are you a matchmaker?" Soifon asked.

Sato chuckled as she stood upright. "No, Soifon-sama. I am a mediator. Shihouin-hime has asked me to speak on your behalf before the Kuchiki-clan. You have been terribly used and you are owed significant restitution."

"Ah." Soifon looked at Yoruichi.

Yoruichi heaved an exasperated sigh. "We can't kill him. We can't kidnap and torture him. Neither of us have the right parts to rape him with, and considering Senbonzakura, I doubt we'd be able to hire a guy to do it for us. The last best way to really get revenge on a man is financially."

Soifon crossed her arms. "So. You tell me you're going to help me get him, and your plan is to sue him? How exactly do I get him back that way?"

Yoruichi scowled. "I gave you a couple of days. Aren't you done wanting him yet?"

"No."

Yoruichi's nose wrinkled in disgust. "And there we go. The most perfect soldier, wrecked and ruined when a hint of affection is thrown her way. All the gifts and flattery have clearly affected your judgment. I thought I'd given you enough time to realize that he'd tricked you and is therefore not worth your affection. But here you are, still idolizing that little faker. Are you really that weak?"

Soifon could only gape at her. Just two days ago, the Shihouin heir had seemed adamant that reconciliation was possible and she supported Soifon's wishes. But now, Yoruichi seemed bent on revenge. Her change of heart was so completely unfathomable that Soifon was rendered speechless. Yoruichi took her silence for obeisance. A grim determination crossed her face, and as Soifon mutely settled on her knees at her side Yoruichi began to line out her case. "A handsome nobleman, for no reason besides capricious boredom, chose to while away his time by toying with the affections of a woman so innocent as to have never entertained the thought of attention from the opposite sex. After stealing her precious first kiss, he drops her. With no thought to the tender feelings he cultivated in her, he abandons his suit, publicly humiliating her as well as privately shaming her. What would be the appropriate amends?"

"Traditionally, Shihouin-sama, an offer of marriage is decided by the clans of the couple involved, and there is an exchange of goods. I understand Kuchiki-sama took it upon himself to flout the authority of both his clan and that of Soifon-sama in pursuit of his own selfish desires?"

"That is correct." Yoruichi eyeballed Soifon shiftily. The jilted bride was observing her clenched fists.

"Well then," Sato said, shifting her position before resettling upon her sizable rump, "it is clear to me that we are dealing with an incorrigible rake with no respect for tradition and a lack of self-control. Does this man have a history of leading women on?"

"Well―" Soifon started.

She was interrupted by Yoruichi. "This man was an accessory in the unjust imprisonment of his own sister."

Sato's eyes went wide, then narrow. "A misogynist? Not surprising at all, not at all! And I take it Soifon-sama has not been the only other woman stung by his cruel nature?"

"I don't think―" Soifon stopped short at the Yoruichi's hand in her face.

"He is a widower, having done in his poor wife with his cold behavior."

"Oh my, what a monster!" Sato clasped her hands at her chest dramatically. "I suppose he visits brothels to abuse the poor souls there, as well!"

Yoruichi's eyes glittered. "I wouldn't put it past him."

At this point, Soifon rose and began to pace with a clenched jaw. This precipitated the order to be still. She could only stare at the woman she had admired for most of her life and wonder if she was this much of a mess when she idolized her. She hoped not. Her hands knotted themselves and she felt the tickle at the back of her throat that always came with nervousness. She had to end this. "Yoruichi-sama, Sato-san, perhaps this is hasty."

Both women looked at her as if she had sprouted antlers.

"It's true I was upset, but I feel it is an issue best dealt with privately. I do not care to see his dirty laundry or mine on public display for the sake of my pride." Soifon shifted her gaze from one face to the other at this last, praying for some hint of understanding.

And sadly saw none. "Oh, you poor dear." Sato tilted her head in misguided empathy. "You've been completely brainwashed, to defend him so. Don't fret one bit. I'll see to it he gets what's coming to him."

Yoruichi nodded in agreement, arms crossed. "He'll be sorry he ever tried," she said darkly.

Soifon bit her lip(and her tongue) and sat back down. I really am that weak, she thought.

"She is not that weak." Kuchiki Byakuya's eyes flickered from the parchment back to the patient face of Kyouraku Shunsui. The demands of the Kuchiki clan were lined upon the thin white paper in an imperious scrawl: He was summoned to appear before the clan in one week to explain his actions and be made penitent. There was, however, no mention of the would-be bride. Only her indignant clan. "If Soifon wished to deal with me, I would not be standing before you. She has been swayed by the will of that cat-demon your friend spurned, and now I am to suffer the punishment she dares not visit upon him."

"I hardly think Yoruichi would push this far with Juushirou. His clan is significantly poorer than yours. And she can't get anywhere near Juushirou at this point. He seems to be quite annoyed with her." Shunsui yawned, waving his hand. "Sit, dammit. You're making me restless."

"You speak as if my situation amuses you, to some degree." Byakuya settled delicately onto his haunches.

"It does, a little. Did you think there would be no consequences?"

Byakuya scowled at the sake that had materialized in front of him.

Shunsui sighed. "Of course you did. And yet you allowed your temporary anxiety to overwhelm your better judgment and assumed she would be too dazzled by you to notice."

"My temporary anxiety."

"Yes, your anxiety. We all know how you bullied Hisana. You'd fallen back on old habits without realizing it and pinned yourself into a corner, but without the assurance that Soifon would turn out to be as sweet. You obviously never expected to develop feelings for her. How does it feel to question yourself for the first time? Can you admit now that you chose her specifically because you believed she would refuse?" Shunsui met the cold gray stare and was not deterred in the least.

Byakuya examined his fingers. He hardly thought he could ever be so transparent, particularly not to a person who spent his life gazing up from the bottom of a bottle. But it was too late for pretending. Even if he did not ask for help, this person would certainly offer it anyway. "It was so, in the beginning."

"But?"

"She enjoys pie," Byakuya said. "She is earnest, and even as she is innocent in many ways, she is shrewd in many others. She is not at all what I anticipated."

Shunsui tilted his head. "Will you challenge and reassert your suit, then?"

"I will," Byakuya said. And then, recalling the words of the mother, "But I will address only Soifon-san. This does not involve anyone else."

Shunsui chuckled. "And you want to know how to make this happen, no doubt."

"If you would be so gracious."

The grin on Shunsui's face was wide and wicked. "Leave that to me."

A/N: Yet another chapter that was monstrously hard to write, which is probably why it's so short. My apologies for the delay.