Wahaha Hiatus my ass, Hiatuses are only for people with social lives/something better to do than write fanfics I have neither so I'm gonna dive straight in with the second part…
Ryuu panted slightly as he climbed up a steep dirt path leading up the side of the massive extinct volcano in the dead centre of Rukon called the Soul Palace. No worries though, he was almost there. He could even see the little log cabin he was going to. He picked up his pace. It wasn't wise to get caught out here alone.
Upon reaching the cabin he knocked the door. "Who is it?" said a male
"Ryuu" he replied
"So?"
"Ryuu" he persisted
"Humph" came the reply. The door unlocked and opened. The slim Chinese man regarded him with a tinge of caution. "What do you want?"
"Regards to a certain…Hogyoku" Ryuu said
"I've already disposed of it"
"In the hands of your daughter, what kind of loving father leaves a gem in the hands of his only daughter that is worth trillions of dollars and that practically every crazed crime syndicate is looking for?"
"Shaolin is out of the way" Longwei replied "no one will find it there"
"Is that right?" Ryuu handed him a newspaper from five months ago. On the front cover was Aizen posing with Soifon who sat in a hospital bed. Longwei stared at the picture.
"When was this taken?"
"About five months ago" Ryuu said "no harm has befell young Soifon, she's found safety beneath Yoruichi's wing"
"So you've made her a criminal?"
"For god sake, Longwei are you living under a rock!" he snapped "Yoruichi is a Private Investigator"
"…so she is a criminal?"
"You haven't got any less annoying" he said pushing past him and letting himself in. Cosy he thought looking around.
"Why are you here besides to brag that another Feng is destined to serve beneath a Shihouin?"
"Ah yes" Ryuu smirked "they are…how shall we say…raging dykes with each other"
"Subtle" Longwei said lighting a stove and putting a kettle over it. "Shaolin has found love in Yoruichi?"
"Yes" Ryuu said "they seem to be quite happy but poor Soifon is catching a hella time at school"
"Soifon?"
"Yes"
"Hmm" Longwei smiled slightly "that was my mother's name"
"Why don't you go to her?" Ryuu said "tell her the truth; tell her that she was thrown out to protect her from her brothers"
"Then she'll ask me why I never left with her"
"Why didn't you?" Ryuu asked, he knew the answer but he wanted to see if Longwei would admit it.
"I…" He stared at the kettle "I thought I could change them, I thought I could pull them from the path of darkness and show them the light…but I failed, I threw Shaolin out and then they got themselves killed not two months later…what a joke"
"Don't be too hard on yourself"
"I even faked my death!" Longwei snapped "if I went to Shaolin she'd probably strangle me"
"You do have that effect on women" Ryuu chuckled "remember when Yuka used to chase you with a frying pan because you didn't like onions"
"I do" Longwei stared longingly at the steam coming from the kettle "dammit" he said putting his head in his hands
"You don't drink?" Ryuu said looking for empty bottles. Longwei showed him a red counter.
"Three years sober" he said "why are you here Ryuu, I'll ask you one more time"
"I'm going to die" Ryuu said
"Big fact" Longwei said "we all die"
"No, soon" Ryuu said "Aizen had found out I don't have the Hogyoku and now he's put a big bull's-eye on my back"
"What's it got to do with me?"
"I want to kill him before he kills me" Ryuu said "I need your help"
"That's tempting" Longwei said "if we kill Aizen he'll no longer be looking for the Hogyoku and thus will no longer be breathing down Shaolin's neck"
"He still doesn't know Shaolin has it" Ryuu said "I've been pushing people into Shaolin, Yamamoto, Ukitake and Kyoraku, Yoruichi, Kuchiki they'll all look after her"
"A Kuchiki protects nothing but the 'Pride of my Clan'" He said doing a rather good impression of Ginrei Kuchiki. He ran his hand through his greying hair. "Consider me on board" he said "I don't know what you expect though Ryuu we'll both be killed"
"Well then" Ryuu grinned and held out his hand "then let's take as many motherfuckers with us as we possibly can"
"Damn I've missed you" Longwei grinned back.
***Change***
Yoruichi let Soifon roll off of her. Her naked body covered in sweat as she panted heavily. "Who knew" Yoruichi said smiling at her "to think I'd get someone as physically fit as you into such a condition"
"You…" Soifon tried to catch her breath "you make me stretch muscles I didn't know I had!"
"Ow" Yoruichi purred rubbing her nose with Soifon's. It'd been five months since Soifon assassinated Grantz. Soifon had been very willing to get intimate with Yoruichi…when they were alone together. For some reason the taunting at school was absolutely shattering her confidence, she never even held Yoruichi's hand in public. Yoruichi had phoned and complained to the school several times but the principal of the school Mr Bach assured Yoruichi that he was doing all he could to stop Bambietta picking on her.
It really hurt watching Soifon in such pain but she'd just have to deal with it for now. Soifon stared at the window. Clouds had rolled in and the rain came down in buckets. They'd decided to take a walk to Yoruichi's tree house at the meadow. Then they had sweaty emotional sex on a futon and after that it rained.
"Don't you ever worry someone will see us?" Soifon said.
"What do you mean?"
"Well…" She indicated at the hatch "there is no real door and both of us are stark naked in a treehouse!"
"No worries" Yoruichi said pulling her into a hug, her soft sweat soaked skin caressed her. "No one knows about this place except you and me…and Ryo, and Shaozu…and Nel…and Kukaku…and my father"
"Stop consoling me" Soifon said "It's not working"
"Don't worry" Yoruichi laughed "if anyone saw us they'd look at my fine ass rather than your bony malnourished curves"
"Way to make a girl feel confident about herself" Soifon said. Yoruichi laughed and pulled her up for another long and wet kiss. "C'mon" Soifon said pulling away "we've got to hand out subpoenas"
"Unbelievable" Yoruichi laughed "imagine if the RDPD found out we'd been bunking off our duties to fuck in a treehouse"
"The best way to bunk off I think" Soifon smiled picking up her underwear. Under Yoruichi's demand Soifon had actually gained a touch of style….not much though, rather than what the British called a 'Chav' she'd now adopted a sort of 90's grunge style. Baggy jeans, long-sleeved t-shirts with different coloured short sleeved ones on top were her usual look. It wasn't too bad, it suited her somehow. She'd also taken up skating.
If she wasn't working with Yoruichi or at School she was zipping around the skate park on Inuzuri, which was the third most derelict area behind Kusajishi and Zaraki but the Kotowari Centre was also here so Soifon wasn't too far from home. Soifon still lived in the Kotowari centre. Yoruichi and Soifon had got intimate a few times there but people stared…no…ogled was a better word. Soifon's chronic social awkwardness was crippling their relationship though. "Get dressed!" Soifon snapped.
"I wanna be naked" Yoruichi moaned "clothes are so…eh" she made a gesture.
"Grow up" Soifon said throwing her top at her.
"Whatever" Yoruichi laughed "gloomy guts"
"You're so laid back" Soifon said "if you were any more so you'd be horizontal"
"I am horizontal" Yoruichi said "do you like this top, I think it covers my cleavage too much"
"I don't particularly care" Soifon said "I'll see you naked anyway so you're not showing them off to me, you're showing them off to other people who'll not be sleeping with you…hopefully"
"I like to at least hint at being a bit of a femme fatale, flirt with me and pay the price" Yoruichi said
"Suit yourself" Soifon said "just …never wear that onesie in the public eye"
"Wha…" Yoruichi stared at her "I can't wear it outside…what about my snuggie?"
"What about it?"
"I've worn it outside lots of times!" She said
"You've…worn…a snuggie…outside?" Soifon said staring at her. Yoruichi grinned at her "once I wore it outside and underneath I was but ass naked"
"You're unbelievable" Soifon said "do you ever get embarrassed?"
"Not really" Yoruichi said "the only time I was embarrassed was when Kisuke tried to have sex with me and missed ramming his erect penis into my stomach"
"I don't want to think about Kisuke or his 'erect penis'"
"Why not?" Yoruichi teased "is it making you go straight again?"
"Hey!" Soifon cheeks reddened and she jumped on the spot "there are more manly men than Urahara to break my sugar rush"
"You're adorable!" Yoruichi said "I could just pinch your little cheeks"
Yoruichi eventually put her clothes on and then refused to leave the treehouse until it's stopped raining. "Y'know" Yoruichi said bumping into her with her hips "we could totally make love again"
"Just wait until the rain stops" Soifon said. Yoruichi crossed her arms.
"You're no fun" She replied
"I don't care" Soifon said "if I am why don't you dump me"
"Because you're the best I've ever had" Yoruichi replied. Soifon stopped staring out the window and looked at her.
"I'm the best you've ever had?"
"Yeah" Yoruichi said. She wasn't lying either. Soifon had something that all the other women she'd slept with didn't…affection. Even Nel was a distant lover but Soifon, she liked contact and closeness. Yoruichi sat down on the futon. "Soifon?"
"What?"
"Have you ever taken drugs?"
"Uh…" Soifon shrugged "some"
"Like?"
"Ermm" Soifon said making a gesture that made Yoruichi think she'd taken a lot "I've smoked weed….took cocaine, heroin, meth, LSD, solvents, Magic Mushrooms and ecstasy"
"Look at you, quite the regular Marshall Mathers aren't ya?"
"What about you?"
"Much the same" Yoruichi said "I never touched Heroin though"
"So you've taken contraband too?"
"I used to be addicted to cocaine" Yoruichi said "back when I was going to raves every night and letting any guy or girl I met finger me in the bathrooms"
"Your history is dark" Soifon said "I'd never admit I was such a skank"
"When I finally pulled myself out of it I was ashamed of myself too" Yoruichi said remembering many cold showers spent sobbing like a five year old. "But I gave up conning people, bought the office, Nel split up with me after four months, worked to make a clean reputation for three years and then I hired you"
"You got up to a lot as a kid"
"Well" Yoruichi said "when I was sixteen I met Kukaku and became rivals, at seventeen I was going out with Kisuke and Kukaku was my best friend. When it became clear that Kisuke didn't actually love me I kind of fell off the beaten track. Drugs, sex, parties until I was about twenty two. Then I gave it up and went with Nel who'd just been kicked from the Espada. Literally on my twenty third birthday Nel broke it off and then three years later here we are" Yoruichi chuckled "there is my life's story"
"Okay"
"I wanna hear yours" Yoruichi said
"Well" Soifon sat next to Yoruichi "when I nine my father took me and my brothers to America. Between then and my eleventh things were going relatively well. Then my father got all depressed and disjointed. My bothers picked on me for being quite sickly, I was weak, I couldn't even speak properly when I was a kid" Soifon shook her head "Shaozu, who'd looked after me left, he never gave me a note or told me he was going, he just smiled once and said he was going to the shops, he never came back"
"Sucks" Yoruichi said patting her shoulder
"After that things went from bad to worse, once I was about thirteen my brothers kept bringing their asshole friends over to have their way with me…I was raped for the first time on my fourteenth birthday, then my father threw me out. I met Ggio, he was eighteen and I was fourteen…you could see where this was going"
"Was he abusive?"
"Yes" Soifon said "he forced me to do a lot of degrading things, just my luck I got stuck with Ggio, he was exactly the same as my brothers, he even brought his friends over to do me…I was raped for the second, third, fourth…fifth and sixth times in my own bed"
"You never said you'd been raped"
"I didn't feel like saying" Soifon said. She had pulled Yoruichi's arm over her and she shivered. "I stabbed Ggio and ran out of the house" Soifon said "I just couldn't take it anymore. That was nearly a year ago"
"And now you're here" Yoruichi said "with friends and someone who loves you very, very much"
"I'm grateful" Soifon said "if I died tomorrow I'd be happy that I got to spend at least a few days of my worthless life in your arms"
"Don't be self-loathing" Yoruichi said "you're a good person that a ton of crap landed on, there's nothing worthless about you"
"It's stopped raining" Soifon said "c'mon"
"Okay" Yoruichi giving her a reassuring smile. Soifon smiled weakly back. Sometimes Yoruichi felt like the true Soifon was still locked away underneath her quiet, staunchy exterior. She was turning out to be a tough nut to crack indeed. Soifon climbed out of the Treehouse and Yoruichi followed.
Her phone rang as she walked. "Hello?" She said flipping it open.
"Yoruichi?" Said her father
"What's up?"
"I don't have much time I suppose"
"You're worrying me a bit" Yoruichi said. She hadn't heard his voice like this since her mother had died.
"I'm sorry, Yoruichi" he said "I didn't mean for any of this to happen but it has…goodbye"
"What?" Yoruichi said to the empty dial tone. "What was that about?" Yoruichi said to herself.
"What did he say?" Soifon asked
"Just that he was sorry about something"
"He never said what?"
"Nope" Yoruichi said, she looked at the ground "I hope I'm not gonna have to bury another parent soon"
***Change***
Kukaku sighed as she dried a glass. That was all she did these days, just dried glasses and sold people down the river. She wished she was out there, in the field, in the action. Yoruichi and Nel were fighting serial killers and crazed scientists and Kukaku was here…drying glasses. Kisuke was away somewhere, Tessai had returned from his trip to Iran and then he and Kisuke left again. Leaving the shop in Toshiro's capable hands. That kid was creepily good at anything he did.
The door opened and Grimmjow sauntered in. Kukaku almost widened her eyes. He'd disappeared five months ago and completely ignored her info. "Grimmjow" She said
"Yo woman" He said "I forgot to get Ulquiorra's location from you"
"You still haven't gave me my money and you helping Yoruichi was a joke, she did most of the work herself"
"What are you talking about?" He snapped "I got the info about the scientist?"
"So?"
"What do you want?"
"Eh?" Kukaku said
"I don't have any money" he said "I spent the last of my funds running around Russia fleeing from freekin Barragan"
"Oh?"
"Once he uses Pesquisa it's next to impossible to escape him, lucky he didn't know about that ex-CCCP base I hid in"
"What is Pesquisa?"
"It's…" he stopped and grinned at her "I ain't telling you nothing"
"I'll trade you"
"Now you're speaking my language" he said "you first"
"Ulquiorra Cifer currently lives in one of the many hillside condos overlooking the city" She said "he, as you probably know, still works for Aizen and lets both Coyote Starrk and a girl called Lilynette stay at his condo"
"Which number is it?"
"Guess"
"…four?"
"Spot on" Kukaku said "now, Pesquisa?"
"Pesquisa is a virus"
"A virus?"
"Yes a computer virus, facial recognition, it infects the entire world…" he shook his head slightly "and whoever Barragan is looking for he just has to put their face into Pesquisa and send it all over the world, no matter where you are Pesquisa will find you, cameras on cell phones, CCTV, webcams and even google street view"
"Is there any way to counter it?"
"Not really, besides walking around with a mask or something on or at least going somewhere that doesn't have cameras or an internet connection"
"Is Barragan the only person with access to this Pesquisa?"
"No" Grimmjow said "all the Espada are allowed to use it, Ulquiorra is the best at using it since he helped write the programme"
"Who else helped write it?"
"Aizen and your boyfriend"
"Kisuke?"
"Yes" Grimmjow chuckled "Aizen basically bastardised a programme Kisuke Urahara wrote called Tsuppane"
"That's impossible" Kukaku said "Urahara created Tsuppane with Benehime, no one else in the universe has access to that computer and its operating system"
"That's why he bastardised it you retard" Grimmjow said "he couldn't use it without Benehime so he got into its coding and made it able to work on other computers"
"I see" Kukaku said "what now…I wanna know why you wanna kill Ulquiorra"
"He stole something from me" He said
"What would that be?"
"Pantera"
"What's that?"
"Never you mind" he snapped "it's…important to me"
"Whatever" Kukaku said "…do you want something?"
"No" He scowled at her "just…Aizen will take out all his enemies in one fell swoop…maybe you'd better distance yourself from that chocolate skinned kitty you play with"
"Funny" Kukaku said "I thought she played with me"
"Whatever" Grimmjow said walking away "have you got a black dress?"
"Somewhere" Kukaku said remembering Kaien's funeral
"Yoruichi will want you to come to the funeral"
"Who's funeral?"
"You'll see"
***Change***
"There is a strange freedom" Ryuu said to Longwei "knowing you're about to die"
"There is" he replied. Longwei loosely held a black katana. Ryuu had its sister; a pure white Nodachi. They'd used these blades more than guns, they'd probably killed more people than most guns had. They both sat in the penthouse suite of one of the many five star hotels in Seireitei. It was clear the Espada were after them, they'd already found a bomb in Ryuu's car, a sniper had taken a few shots at them and they were chased by an Apache gunship.
"They sure are taking their time" Longwei said pouring himself his nineteenth cup of tea. Chinese and British, he was bred for tea drinking! The door banged.
"Housekeeping" a voice said. Ryuu grinned and pushed his sword out of its sheath with his thumb.
"Whoever kills the most wins" Ryuu said
"Agreed"
Ryuu took a deep breath "Come right in then!"
Massacre.
***End of Chapter Eleven***