YoruSoi - J.a.t.a.f.y. Ch. 10

Story title: Just a touch away from you.

Author: Razias
Series: Bleach
Pairing: Soi Fon and Yoruichi Shihouin
Disclaimer: I own none of the characters of bleach.


Chapter 10.</i>
Ready? Fight!</i>

Soi Fon yawned as she watched in annoyance how two male members of her squad were fighting each other, desperately trying to catch the attention of Yoruichi, who was sitting at the sideline, and trying to impress her.

Soi’s night had been long, since she had had the biggest trouble falling asleep. She had kept tossing and turning under her blankets, repeating the events of what had happened that afternoon again and again in her mind, like a broken record. The complimenting words, the dazzling eyes, the soft laughter, the slender hand laying on Soi’s shoulder, it had all burned into her memories and she just couldn’t seem to let go of the images and warm feelings which these seem to give her. In the morning, it had been hard for the girl to get up due to the lack of sleep, but as soon as she had gotten out of bed, a certain vibe had possessed her. Today was the day.
Quickly Soi put on her shinigami robe, consumed her food, and hurried up towards training ground Hachi. There, Yoruichi had already been waiting for her, along with some other members which had been early, to Soi’s utter surprise. When Yoruichi saw Soi Fon had arrived, she gave the girl a smile and wink, encouraging her to come closer. Soi blushed for an unknown reason, and joined the others.

Shorty after Soi’s arrival, the remaining shinigami arrived quickly, not daring to be late and get a decreasing of points, and Yoruichi began explaining the last rules. She ordered all of them to hand over their katana because, to everybody’s slight annoyance, the match would be held with wooden sticks to make sure nobody would get badly injured. The captain made several groups, and numbered them to set up the order of rank. Then she had commanded them to run several rounds for a warm up.

With only little motivation, the shinigami started to jog around the training field in a gentle trot. They had started fast, but quickly slowed down to have a little chat with each other since it was only a warm up and the real match hadn’t started yet.
Yoruichi watched from the sideline, and shook her head at the disappointing sight.

“Come on!” She yelled. “It’s that all you’ve got?” And ran towards the group, to end up next to Soi, who was (of course) running up front. She didn’t know why, but she just felt very attracted to the girl as she smirked at her and nodded her head forwards to make clear they would do a little sprint.

Soi Fon nodded, a slight blush appearing on her face as she waited for a sign from her captain to take off. Her heart started to pound fast, as adrenaline found its way into her body. She saw the captain look at her for a second time, her topaz eyes questioning. The smaller girl nodded again, and Yoruichi smiled. Both girls turned forwards as they set off in an extreme sprint, leaving the rest of the group behind.

Yoruichi looked at her side, trying to measure how much she’d have to hold back for Soi to keep up. To her surprise, the girl didn’t seem to be in any trouble to keep up yet, and Yoruichi started to run a little faster, still keeping an eye on her companion.
Soi Fon noticed the change in speed, and sped up to keep up with her captain.

The rest of the group had stopped running when they had seen the two girls take off in such speed, and watched as Yoruichi tested Soi Fon’s abilities. They didn’t know much about the small girl, so when they saw her running like this, it was something totally new. By now the two females had reached the other side of the field, and turned around to sprint back to the group.

Yoruichi was satisfied. Soi Fon was really quick, and the girl hadn’t even achieved shunpo yet, so the speed would only increase if Yoruichi taught the technique to the girl. Now she somehow felt the urge to show the girl her own speed, to impress her, and set off in a (to her) slow shunpo. In a few seconds she had reached the group. Not out of breath at all, she grinned victoriously and waited for Soi who arrived only seconds later.

“Now that..” Yoruichi spoke towards the group as she laid her hand on Soi’s shoulder. “Is a warm up.”

The group gazed up at the woman in silence. One moment ago she’d been at the other side of the field, and then next she had stood in front of them as if nothing had happened.
Soi Fon stood next to the captain, also looking up at the purple haired goddess of Flash. Then she remembered the hand on her shoulder, and started to feel something weird in the pit of her stomach. It tickled.

“Now it’s your turn.” The older woman remembered the group. “Two rounds extra. And even more for the ones who still like to think it’s not necessary to have a good warm up.” Her voice sounded stern and her eyes stood serious.

Soi Fon turned around to join the rest of the group which had already set off in a jog, ready to follow the orders given and complete the two rounds she still had to run.

“Hola” Yoruichi’s voice sounded, as she tightened her grip on the girl’s shoulder, pulling her back harshly. “Where do you think you’re going?”

Soi Fon hadn’t seen this one coming, and tumbled backwards at the force which pulled back her shoulder. She lost her balance, and felt her body curve to ground. Just before she thought she would hit the bottom, she felt an arm wrap around her waist to keep her from falling and pulling her up straight.

“You okay?” Two worried topaz eyes stared down at her, seeming to burn their way in through her own grey ones.
Soi Fon felt heat crawling up to her cheeks as she realized Yoruichi had caught her before she was able to hit the ground, and that she was now standing up straight with the woman’s warm hand still on her waist.  

“I-I-I-I guess s-s-so.” Soi managed to stutter, while she looked up at Yoruichi’s hypnotizing eyes. “T-t-thank y-you, S-Shihouin-taichou.” The heat had now reached her cheeks, and coloured them an unmistakable shade of red.

“No need to thank me.” Yoruichi replied, feeling slightly shy when she saw the younger girl blushing heavily. “I pulled you back in the first place.” She flashed a toothy smile to hide her own awkward feelings, and released the girl from her touch, realizing weirdly that she hadn’t done so earlier.

“I-I-I’d better finish those two rounds.” The younger girl muttered, as she turned around again.

“No!” Yoruichi corrected her, and lay down a hand on the girl’s shoulder to stop her. When she noticed she repeated the previous action again, she quickly withdrew her hand. “You’ve exhausted yourself enough already with that sprint I made you do, so you’d better keep it down until the fights.”

The other girl looked at her in silence, but then nodded shyly. “Hai, Shihouin-taichou.”

As Soi Fon and Yoruichi waited for the group to finish their rounds, they held a little chat. Well, mostly it was Yoruichi who asked the questions, and Soi Fon who tried to answer them as good as possible so she wouldn’t make a fool out of herself.

“So, has there ever been a match like this around here?” Yoruichi asked the girl, deciding she just wanted to talk with Soi, to make the connection between her in human form as good as her connection with the girl in cat form.

“Not really.” Soi answered the woman with a little shrug, turning her head to look in those dazzling eyes. “Well, I mean..” She began, when she saw Yoruichi looking at her intensively, waiting for her to continue. “There have been some competitions around here, but most were just because we had to. The previous Taichou thought it was good for us to fight each other once in a while, so that we could learn from each other.” Soi explained, quickly averting her silver gaze from the woman when she realized she had stopped looking at her captain, and begun staring at her beautiful eyes.

“Oh.. yeah well your captain was right. Fighting with your companions can be a good way to train.” Yoruichi answered casually, pretending to not have noticed the weird look on the other girl’s face.  “I used to fight a friend of mine as well. We always learned a lot from each other’s moves and techniques.” A short silence followed while Yoruichi thought back about the past, when she had trained together with Urahara Kisuke in their secret training spot. “He was never able to beat me though.” She added with a smirk, smiling down proudly at the girl standing beside her.

Why do I want her to look up to me this much? Yoruichi questioned herself. Not able to come up with an answer to herself, she quickly asked the girl another question. “Actually, do you know what happened to the previous captain?”

The black haired girl looked up at Yoruichi when she heard her voice. “Ehh.. No I’m sorry, nobody knows.” she replied, while she turned her head back to look at the group of still running shinigami. “He just disappeared all of a sudden, together with his lieutenant.” Her eyes darkened a bit when she mentioned her old captain. She had really liked him. He had been a strict, well talented captain and he had even been able to come a little closer to Soi Fon, even though she always tried to keep some distance between them.

“Are you okay?”

Soi Fon snapped out of her memories and glanced up at her captain when she heard the female speak. When she looked up and her eyes locked with Yoruichi’s, she realized she didn’t mind it that much her previous captain had left off. Yoruichi, Yoruichi was much better. When she finished this thought, she caught herself staring at the other woman. “Eh..” She begun, blinking her eyes rapidly while trying to remember what Yoruichi had asked her. Her answer got spared when the group of shinigami returned from their rounds, breathing heavily and bending over to catch their breaths.

“Ah! Finally! I started to think you all drowned somewhere!” Yoruichi joked, when she turned around to face the rest of the group. “So.. all warmed up I see? Let’s take a twenty-minutes rest then and after that we’ll start with the first round.”

The shinigami sighed grateful, thankful that they were allowed to rest a little while before starting the first rounds. “Hai, Taichou.”

“Oh, yeah. Don’t forget your number” Yoruichi added before walking away. “I’m not going to rank all of you again. No number, no fight.”

--

After a short rest, Yoruichi had called all members together. The first round had started fast, and the squad had surrounded the two fighters in a wide circle to see the match clearly. Yoruichi instead had taken place on a big wooden chair, which had been placed at the side earlier. With her legs folded up, she watched the two members in front of her fight. Showing their skills to the captain, they tried to hit each other on a critical place with the wooden sticks, to settle the match. The sound of the wooden sticks hitting one another sounded hard over the training ground. Eventually, one of the fighters nailed the other down, and the match was settled.
This routine continued for a while and Soi Fon watched her squad members as she was waiting for her turn. If she’d be able to win, she’d have to fight a second round. And depending on how many people would get eliminated, she’d have to fight another one.

After some matches, two male members from her squad were ought to fight each other. Both males were enormous show-offs, and Soi Fon really disliked them. While they were fighting, they kept throwing glances at Yoruichi, who was silently watching from the sideline. Both men tried to impress her with the strangest moves and strikes. Yoruichi instead seemed a bit bored by this performance, and dropped her head on her hands to support it. Once in a while she glanced at Soi Fon, who was silently preparing herself to fight. She was really looking forward to see the raven haired girl kick all of the other member’s asses.

A scream from one of the males on the field caught back her attention, and she averted her gaze from the female she had been staring at. It seemed that one of the males had finally managed to hit the other on a critical spot, and was now grinned at Yoruichi victoriously, waiting for her to comment.

“Ah! Good job Katusuo.” She managed to say. “You’re very skilled. Now let’s move on, who’s next? Number eight!”

To Yoruichi’s utter pleasure, Soi Fon stood up and walked forward to face her enemy. Immediately she sat up straight in her chair, eager to see how Soi Fon would take care of her opponent. “Yush!” she shouted happily. “Are you both set?”

Soi Fon shifted her gaze from her opponent to Yoruichi, to lock their eyes together. Yoruichi winked, and seemed to whisper something. After a moment, Soi realized the woman had just wished her good luck, and she nodded almost unnoticeable towards her captain, a blush slightly appearing on her cheeks.

“Then let the fight begin!” The captain called from her chair.

After Yoruichi had announced the beginning of the fight, Soi Fon eyed her opponent carefully. She knew the boy on opposite of her would be the first one to attack, she could tell so by his movements. His feet paced backwards a bit and his body was leaning forward so that he stood in an attacking pose. She looked the boy straight in his blue eyes, and saw them narrow when he was about to pull out towards her. And indeed, the boy lifted his sword.
Soi’s reflexes were fast, since she’d been able to read his intentions, and she blocked the attack with ease. The male didn’t seem very surprised and pulled out another time. Soi dodged the wooden stick as it came flying towards her, aiming for her chest. She stepped to the side and tried to hit the boy instead. His eyes sparkled devilish when he managed to dodge her assault and he screamed as he aimed another attack, this time targeting her head.
Soi Fon felt the air move as the stick came nearer rapidly. She caught the blow with the end of her stick, and turned around on her toes as she tried to hit the boy with the other end. The male managed to step aside, so the stick wouldn’t hit his chest, but it hit his shoulder hard instead. He stepped backward as his face showed how much the wooden stick had hurt him. Soi took advantage of this situation, and quickly paced forward to hit the boy on his chest. Her opponent saw her coming, and his eyes widened when he realized her speed. He tried to move away, but was too slow and a dull sound of wood colliding with fabrics sounded as a wooden stick hit him on the chest.