The Heat

Yoruichi likes the heat. Finds it good to bask in its watery depths, have it cascade over her fur as if she were standing in a waterfall.

She stretches, opens her golden eyes, blinks once, then surveys her surroundings to check that nobody has found her – it would undoubtedly cause a fuss if they did. She then curls up, her jaws agape, feels the sun pour down her throat, warming her from the inside out like hot tea.

It's shady where she lies, but from here the sun still seizes her by the scruff of her neck, drags her onto its lap, and forcefully pats her down. It's not her fault she has black fur.

Through the heat waves, she can see that nobody is out on the streets, and just as well, too – they'd probably be fried two steps from any shade that was left in Seireitei.

She wonders what everyone else is doing now, tucked away in their safe, air-conditioned abodes. Not even the birds dare to make any utterance, lest the sun seize them by the wings and burn.

After the day is over, she might return to her squad, secretly, just to check on her brats, just to make sure none of them have died yet.

It's an almost improbable, foolish hope.

Work in the Onmitsukidō isn't as risk-free, isn't as sissy as what Zaraki Kenpachi thinks. Live, and no one knows you exist. Die, and nobody mourns your passing.

It's not like she cares that much about them anyway, though - they're things of the past.

Or does she?

The thoughts are fuzzy now; they've flown so many circles in her head.

If she doesn't go back to her squad, perhaps she might go out onto Sōkyoku Hill, deep into its forest, where a grove of trees open to a small clearing; from which the top of a rock wall splashes a waterfall. She'll sit at the top, watching the sun fall slowly, as if through water, beneath the endless horizon.

Yes, that sounds good.

She'll come and go as she pleases, because she's a cat, free from love, with no responsibilities, not anymore, and she'll do whatever she wants, whenever she wants. Anything she wants. That's the only constant in her life now.

Above, the sun pierces through the gaps where the leaves don't quite fit together, like puzzle pieces forced into play. The pinpricks of sunlight run her through, pinning her to the spot by a thousand needles, a thousand blades. By some masochistic will that's way beyond her comprehension, she remains unmoving, almost ceasing to breathe.

She still loves the heat.

Byakuya despises the heat.

Under his pristine, unruffled layers, and even in what must have cost him half his inheritance's worth of air-conditioning, he's sweating. Pretty soon, he thinks sardonically to himself, it would be apt for him to go and stand in an empty pond to fill it.

Perhaps even take off his clothes.

Then he thinks of the shame it would bring upon him and his ancestors, Rei-ō bless their souls, and keeps still, though his legs are numbing from the stiff seiza he's damned himself to for the past three hours.

A stray bead of sweat trickles uninhibited down the back of his neck, and inwardly he curses; a string of unholy words that have somehow stuck in his mind from years of training with his mentor. He can almost see her now, drunk, her dark skin flushed, and laughing along to something he said, and there's a painful twinge in his heart.

He looks up, almost by reflex, to see how his fukutaichō is dealing with the heat, but he's not there.

Right, he thinks to himself. Gone to the Human World with Rukia.

And then, as an afterthought, he had better not be doing anything to her.

Then the thought of his unfinished report comes back to him, and he mentally slices it into a thousand pieces. He's gotten good at that.

He picks up his brush, thinks for a while, writes the first few strokes of a character he hadn't even meant to write, and then changes it into something else.

The sentence turns unpoetic and awkward, but he's beyond caring. Better than having to rewrite the entire report from scratch. A strand of damp hair comes loose, the sweat dripping onto the pristine report, and this time he really does swear, out loud.

Damn the report. Damn the demon-cat. Damn everything.

He despises the heat.

No, he loathes the heat.

Yoruichi fades in and out of her memories, picking out some that look significant, letting the rest float through her fingers. She has to brush the dust off some of them to remember them properly.

Byakuya's first meeting with her. The subsequent days of training, complaining, and every single time he'd raced with her. Yoruichi smiles to herself, at the memory of his indignant face, her canines showing, and gets up.

And then the other memories come to her. Of spring, of falling petals. Of a love, taken by fate, never to return again. Of mourning, and loss, and that smile that hid in lies. Of betrayal, yet of friendship, and regret. Of Byakuya.

She could never bring herself to truly love him, even when he tried to love her.

And now, he would never love her.

The wind blows in the sluggish late afternoon, and as she prepares to leave, a flood of sakura petals cascade from the tree, are adopted by the wind, and surround her in a flurry of pale pink and pure white.

Much like Byakuya's blade, she thinks, and then, Of course. It's his garden, anyway.

Where else would she spend the whole of an afternoon, intently watching him through the window?
She knows he can sense her now; she's made her presence clear enough. He doesn't look at her, and so she licks a paw, slowly and steadily, to provoke, and is gone in a black blur – the opening move in the game they play.

Byakuya sets down his brush in a burst of annoyance, berating himself for his lack of stamina.

He's preparing to start on a new draft – his sixth one – then freezes.

No, stops cold.

No, he ceases to move, he mentally corrects himself.

Why do most phrases that describe a lack of motion have something to do with a decrease in temperature?

It follows logic, he decides; the heat makes one restless, imbibes the body with a curious wanderlust.

But now he's felt the touch of Yoruichi's distinct reiatsu, and is even more unsettled. She's been outside in his garden all this while. She's been watching him. What does she want? She can know that he no longer cares for her, just like she never did for him. What can he do for her where he failed in the past?

What more could he have done but to hurt beside her as she wept?

Her reiatsu flares again, beckoning.

Should he take the bait?

Well, he thinks, the report isn't writing itself, and his legs have probably died beneath him at this point.

A second later the room is void and cold, save for the gentle sigh of a closed paper door.

Yoruichi sits and waits by the Sōkyoku Hill waterfall, their secret meeting place.

She's waiting for him, because she knows he will appear.

She has been waiting, now, for a long while.

The rustle of water heaves, back and forth under the moon, as if attracted too by its endless pull. She slips in, her human, uncovered form, and her limbs quiver in anticipation as they meet the cool silver surface. A ripple spreads from where she has touched the water; it yields, slightly. The cold water swallows her, and she sinks in, holds her breath, her hair a wreath of purple, almost a violent cobalt in the glare of the moon, her face a ghostly, dark shadow. She sits, beneath the water, and waits.

Byakuya stands and walks.

He has been walking now, for a long while, guided by the voices of those who have walked the same path before him. They beckon him; expect him to follow, and he is obliged to map out the exact same moves in this world of black and white.

He knows what he is expected to have done.

He would lead the Sixth Division.

He would marry, and have an heir.

All this his grandfather had spoken to him about.

She will be of noble birth, Byakuya. You will marry her, and continue the bloodline. You will do as I say. There is no other path.

He thought there was only one possible answer.

Only Yoruichi, of noble birth. Only Yoruichi, his only friend.

But he had seen the look in her eyes, the edge that crept into her voice when he talked of the future, of courtship and a wedding-bed.

Where he talked of love, he saw in her eyes a grave. He saw her placing a sprig of flowers there every spring. He saw her tears, where she sat alone on her window-sill at sunsets. When he looked at her shadow, long in the evenings when they walked back home, he saw a caged soul that was as doomed as he was.

He knew that she couldn't love him.

At night, when he lay down, all he could see was the endless road that he would follow, scribed out on a neverending scroll of parchment.

And it terrified him.

Were they forced, by fate, to meet, to love, to marry, and to keep living?

Would she hate him for it, even as he loved her?

She'd come up to him afterwards, one night, as he was resting under the cherry tree in his courtyard, and shown him a knife. He'd taken fright, scrambled away, but when she caught his shoulder, her voice had been pleading.

"Byakuya... If they ever promise you my hand, please..."

He could never look into Yoruichi's eyes again the way he used to, never fully take part in the games they played; no, the games she played, in which he was only an unwilling participant.

He thought he knew, dreaded the day his grandfather would come to him with her hand. Dreaded the night that would follow, where she would weep tears of red to an endless sleep in the crook of her sleeve.

And then, she left.

Just like that, with the two traitors, Urahara Kisuke and Tsukabishi Tessai.

In the nights that followed, the laughter of her absence rang in his ears.

Did she value them over him, he who had heard her troubles, who had seen her for the broken person that she was? The shred of doubt in his mind wondered.

In the days of her absence, when his grandfather no longer began to speak of marriage, he realized what she had left him for, what she had left him with.

He no longer had her to love, and in that moment, the path before him had burned to ashes, the parchment blackening, crumbling, flaking away to nothing. His fate was no longer set.

He had a will!

He could follow that will!

He started to see something in everything, resisted his fate with all of his might. The stubborn core that still resided in him chose a woman from the Rukon. He had truly done his best to care for Hisana, to love her with the capacity of his heart, though in the dead of a hot night it was Yoruichi's soft plum hair he saw bleeding over his pillow, her cold dark skin he felt stark against the white of his futon.

He'd done his best to ignore her; the memory of her, concentrating on his duties even more than before.

And still it was not enough.

Even Hisana had left him in the end, with a broken heart, and no road to follow. He was utterly alone.

Had it come as a surprise to him, then, to know that Yoruichi, whom he'd given up for dead, was amongst the ryoka, suddenly reappearing after a hundred years?

No, it was just like her.

She had challenged him again, and he'd won, Senbonzakura drinking her warm blood as it spilled from her, crimson. Just to feel her heat from the inside out.

Three days, Byakuya. Give me three days, and I will make that boy stronger than you.

He'd left without a word.

When had he ever doubted her?

A lot had passed since then.

She feels him before she sees him; he hasn't even bothered to conceal his reiatsu, and she feels its distinct pulse like ice through the trees, the ground, the water.

She does not invite; does not need to.

He disrobes, and walks, regal, into the water, which laps at his legs, his waist, his shoulders, his muscled, lithe body.

She snorts, the burst of air loud in the night.

"You ever seduce Renji like this?"

He ignores her.

It is she who speaks again, breaking the silence for the second time.

"You came."

He looks down at her, cold eyes glittering. "Of course I did. There was a lack of cheap entertainment in my squad. As I am sure you are very well aware of, my fukutaichō has left for the Human World, and I am to be alone for a while. You are, however despicable, a source of free entertainment. It would be a waste not to take advantage of that."

"Besides, " he adds, "I should want to make sure you are not in the process of planning another invasion, or I shall have to cut you down."

She is mildly amused by the way he talks, as if life is something to be discussed in what one can buy, and what one can't.

"Idiot, " she replies, matter-of-factly. "Do you think I would have been so careless as to let you even see me if this were the case?"

His cheeks fill with colour, ever so slightly, and for a moment he's her hot-blooded, passionate student, about to retort with an indignant remark. But he's not, not anymore.

He stays at a wary distance from her, and so she swims over, next to him, the tops of her breasts grazing the water surface as she stills before him. If he were younger his face would have been clouded red with embarrassment at the sight of a naked woman, and she would have laughed and teased him about it to no end.

But he is grown, now, and much more experienced than before, and now hardly flinches at things that would draw bile from even the bravest of men. He barely shows any emotion, and so she leans closer, making small waves in the water with her movements.

She can sense a slight discomfort emanating from him, but he takes her challenge, and grudgingly allows her to close in. There's her chance.

Taking it one step further, she slowly slides a leg between his. All of a sudden there is a loud splash – he's fast! – and when she next knows what's going on he is above her, pinning her down at the edge of the water, lips curled back in a snarl.

The silence is ominous, droning. Water trickles from his face onto hers.

"Have you no shame?"

The water laps at her hair.

She doesn't answer, stares mutely into his eyes. They're shaded slate-gray now, cold and unforgiving, but she can see the light glares that speak of another story.

They reflect the moon, leaking the sorrow he keeps hidden from everyone else, and she wishes to reach up, pluck his eyes like marbles from his face, and stare into them forever. What would they tell me?

She reaches out, and feels him hurt, like a cornered animal.

For a second she is sure, almost knows he will pull away, call her an impudent demon, and leave.

Perhaps he will kill her, and lay her still-warm, breathless body to bleed into the water. She is strangely excited by both prospects.

Her fingers touch soft skin, sense the contrast of heat to the cool of the stilling night air, settle into the hollow of his throat. She can feel his hot pulse through the cool water, so very much alive, unlike the rest of him, and for a second, she fears the worst.

But he yields to her touch, letting her trace chilling patterns into his skin, and she grows bolder, leaving his face to tangle in his hair, to work their way downwards. He remains absolutely still.

"Why?"

The sound startles her, and she curls her fingers deeper into his cold wet hair.

"Why did you do… what you did?"

She has no real answer, save one that would take millennia to explain, and by that time her limbs will have taken root and melted into the earth.

"For you," she replies instead, and her fingers close into a fist over his heart.

The confession falls from her lips like molten sin, to trickle away from the corner of her mouth like blood. It's his turn to be surprised; she can feel it in the curve of his arms, suspending his body above hers, and she takes the chance to flip them, so her hair is flung out as clouds against the moon, and the water droplets fly from her hair, crystal in that one second. She now sits astride him, naked and dark as the sky above her, and from his position all he can make out of her are her golden eyes, two stars in the universe, the pressure of her palms on his shoulders, and the heat in the joint of her legs against his hips.

He can't say that he doesn't react, can't say that he doesn't want her right then, and there.

His breathing hitches as she leans down, so close to him. So close to him.

"You had to follow your own path, Byakuya," she continues, and the wet silk of her plum-coloured hair reflects the moon, flowing unbidden down her shoulders, into his face, framing them both. "And you couldn't have done that, not while I was here. Not while I was hurting you."

His lips part, ever so slightly.

"Sensei… " She shakes her head, ever so slightly.

"No. Not anymore. I was honored to be, though, if anything."

He can't help but feel a surge of pride, and then curses himself for allowing her to make him feel that way. He's been played from the moment he met her, and he still is.

He'll still be.

"Yoruichi, then. Shihōin Yoruichi."

The name feels so good on his tongue after so many years, like an antidote for his poisoned heart that he says it, again and again and again until his lips melt into hers, and now he can't voice himself so he says it again, and again, and again in his heart until he's memorized every nuance, every lilt of those syllables, those words.

Shihōin. Yoruichi.

They're back in the water now – when did that happen? – and his back is to the surface of the rock behind the waterfall. She has all the control, lifting her hips, sending jolts of white pleasure up through his spine, then slamming them down with her usual challenging grin, her hands grippling him harder than he thought any woman's should be. There will be bruises. She's leaving her mark on him, he realizes, in every cry that he gives her, the way her thighs connect on his hips, in the sound of wet skin and burning flesh. After all those years, nothing has changed. She's still ahead of him, still leading him by the hand, still better than him, and boy, does she want him to know it.

But he's grown.

In those hundred years, he's matured both physically and mentally, whereas he can almost swear she's gotten rusty.

No, he can tell it, see it; reddish brown, streaking through the cracks in her pitch-black armor. He digs his fingers into her skin, and more of that intense, burning weakness bleeds from the open wounds in her flesh.

There will be scars. This he knows, but he humours her, letting her rake her nails down his back.

He pauses for a second, gathering himself, then pulls out completely.

She blinks at him, her rhythm disrupted, and he takes those few seconds to shove two fingers into her, twisting until she gasps, the light in her eyes brighter than before, until her head is lolling on his shoulder, her face flushed, mewling.

He plays her, like a master musician -he knows what he's doing! - his fingers drawing sounds from her throat that she's never heard herself make.

He toys with her, bringing her close to the edge, then stops, abruptly. She is still half-collapsed on his shoulder. He is warm, so warm.

He lines their bodies up again suddenly; snaps his hips forward, slamming into her with just the right angle that he knows will make her go limp.

She does, and he raises her chin with a finger that commands power. She's forced to look at him, the pleasure and weakness in her eyes clear as she mewls, eyes startled wide, and she feels helpless for a second as he turns them, forcing her back against the rough rock. Her skin splits with the friction, and she grits her teeth as the rock behind her glistens with her blood.

He can see the surprise in her eyes, and so he slams into her balls-deep, rocking her body upwards with the water sloshing all around them, her eyes wide like a kitten's.

She screams, one of the few times he's ever heard her this undone.

Now she moans his name as her fingers dig deep into his back, as he makes her cry out again, and again, and again, to the beat of his heart and the call of the wild, and she sinks her teeth into his shoulder in an attempt to silence her anguish.

She hates being so fragile.

He has her. He's lost, in the moment, knowing that right now, he alone can topple this seemingly infallible woman. No more will he be uncertain about himself. No more will she be better than him, for he has brought her down from Heaven. He has claimed her as his own.

The heat surges, and he urges his pace on, that sudden cold that has manifested in his chest maniacally and precisely executing each deliberate slam into her, changing angles so that it no longer pleasures her.

She cries out, the muscles in her neck cording, eyes squeezed shut, throat convulsing. His hands are around her waist as he sheathes himself in her, hears her pain as sure as the call of a bird in his ears.
But what does it matter? She's the one that has everything to lose.

Slam.

He wins.

Slam.

He wins!

Slam. He finally-

He pulls out then, mute, wet and dripping, turns away, disgusted with himself. The dripping water makes trembling ripples, swallowed by the pounding water which sounds akin to his heart.

"I lost control. Rei-ō be damned, I lost control."

She doesn't question him, but he can feel the tender tug of fingers at his hair, her lips pressed to his shoulder where she had bitten him. Then her tongue flicks out, rough like a cat's, exploring. She can taste him in those few strokes; all of him, the blood, the pain, the regret.

The longing.

Where has this path led me to?

Her arms encircle his waist, slow, yet sure, hands moving lower as she presses her chest flush against his back. He can feel her, all of her - her hips rubbing in circles against his body, her breasts soft against his back, and her hot, wet mouth.

"Yoruichi… "

She says nothing, just strokes him in response, gentle, from base to head, base to head, in an intoxicating rhythm while her other hand works just below the head of his erect penis.

She rubs her thumb over his slit, and he lets out a soft cry of ecstasy as his body seeks more of her touch, his hips pushing into her hands, eyes fluttering closed. She holds him still for a moment, then turns his head to kiss him, her tongue sliding into his mouth, playing with his, rough surface scraping across his own wet appendage.

He moans softly like a young boy between his parted lips, and his silver eyes flutter open to meet hers, vibrant and powerful like a big cat – a tiger? A cheetah? One of her hands draws back from his hips to glide into the water from behind him and squeeze, gently.

He chokes, sputtering water.

She's still playing with him, even now. He lets her do what she wishes, enraptured by each movement that seems to flow like a dance, and he feels the lithe muscles of one arm around his waist, the fingers of the other rubbing sensually. She doesn't speak, but he can feel the emotion, all that unfamiliar emotion, flooding hot and cold into him through her fingertips.

Is this how to love?

He doesn't know, anymore. She bends, pushing off the wall to move in front of him, kneeling in the water, and he winces at the raw slashes that criss-cross her back. Her hands find him first, tugging and slipping fluidly over hot, wet flesh, and then the similarly hot, wet cavern of her mouth closes over his throbbing erection, and he can feel nothing and everything at the same time; the rush of blood to his veins as she pleasures him, far too skilled to be inexperienced, but he loves it, all the same.

Her tongue is fluid as it navigates the bundle of veins webbing across the cock, the powerful drag of her mouth, and he throws his head back, banging it against the wall. The pain is jarring, yet it mixes with the pleasure in a combination he never before thought possible.

His hands find their way into her thick violet hair as he sucks for air like a drowning man, and a ragged gasp escapes from his throat as his eyes, alight with disbelief, stare down at her in horror.

"Yoruichi... What... what in the name... of Rei-ō do... d'you think you're..."

Her mouth sucks him in, tongue flicking at his slit, and her hands move, one tugging at the stem of his penis and the other rubbing behind his balls. Every shift in position sends a fresh, numbing wave flooding the length of his spine.

He moans, face flushed, trembling.

He's brain-dead, devoured by this woman, this woman he can still never bear to turn away from.
"Hahhh... Hnnn... Yoruichi... "

"Shush, Byakuya-bō," she grins deviously around a mouthful of cock, slides him deep into her throat, and shoves two fingers into his ass.

It's sudden, unexpected; it burns. It's been ages since Renji was last in there, and he's tight with disuse. Her fingers shift inside him, and he cries out as they brush a spot inside him that makes him dig his fingers into the rock wall behind him; it crumbles and shatters under his grip. Her fingers thrust into him, missing that same spot deliberately; now he's impaling himself on her just to regain that feeling, but she doesn't allow him that release he wants so much.

It comes to him that his teacher, his teacher that he's admired for so many years, the one he thought couldn't love him, is kneeling before him, giving him head, and the resulting flush of heat into his groin forces a curve into his spine, and he arcs into the wall and her mouth, groaning in pleasure.

She pushes into him again, stretching his entrance wide, and pierces him in the prostate, three times in rapid succession.

White-hot release that makes stars spring into existence in front of his eyes comes a second after she pulls off, and his hips arch forward, spattering her face with his fluids, the sensation of her teeth scraping at the vein on the underside of his cock still lingering in his brain, the buzz of pleasure refusing to fade.

He's panting, heavily, his eyes wide in numb shock and silver pleasure, as if he's just rediscovered himself, and she licks her lips, savoring what taste of him she has in her mouth, fingers wiping shining fluid off her cheeks.

He watches her, brain still numb. She moves away then, gets up to go, the fluidity of her movements marred just a little by the way she twists awkwardly to get around the tender pain at the joint of her thighs, but he grabs her wrist, faster than he thought he could move.

She stops dead to look at him, golden eyes alight with a sharp observation. The flame of her eyes looks cold.

"Wai- I mean-" He clears his throat and collects his thoughts. She waits, and for a second, between the dry taste of his tongue and the parched plain of his lips it's like he's forgotten how to make the syllables in her presence.

She cocks her head, and he finds the words.

"It would be, ah, preferable if you did not just leave in that state. It would be a disgrace to your- I mean, the Four Noble Houses, if you even have any shame left in you, and I am certain nobody, even in this hour, wishes to see any naked woman, especially one like you. "

He even manages to put a little distaste into the final word.

She accepts the formal speech, the roundabout message, knowing that he must have something for his soul to hide behind, even if his body is exposed, and slides back into the water to lay her head on his shoulder, her legs twining into his again, much like a cat curling into its owner's lap, and the moon reflects both their eyes.

His hands find her shoulders, her waist.

He holds her till morning.

The day is hot, unbearably so, and what seems like the millionth draft of this new, terrible piece of paperwork is crumpled with a vengeance and discarded.

There is a noise, and he looks up. Yoruichi is sitting at the fukutaichō's seat across from him, nonchalantly sipping something that is not sakura tea from a cup. He hisses in annoyance.

"Who gave you permission to be here? Get out, demon cat. "

She regards him with a playful smile that twinkles in the gems of her eyes, and he is suddenly reminded of what she can do to him. He swallows a gulp.

He's Rei-ō-be-damned Kuchiki Byakuya, for goodness' sake. He's not about to let her best him.
"Is that any way to speak to your sensei?"

He scowls, all his retorts evaporating.

"I thought we were through that. "

"Of course we were. I was just kidding, Byakuya-bō. "

"Do not call me that! "

She disregards him, only because it will anger him even more, and lays down, stretches out on the floor in a manner that his ancestors would be itching to behead her for.

A vein twitches in Byakuya's forehead.

She blows on her maple tea - yes, he can smell it now, that disgusting, potent –

"So, how was I? Has my body gotten better after all these years? " she teases, and he can't help but feel just the tiniest bit of arousal.

He strangles it and buries it.

"It is acceptable. "

"To you, nothing ever gets better than acceptable. "

"Indeed. "

There's a hint of a slightly lifted chin as he says that, and so she decides to wipe the smugness off his face.

"You should take a rest."

"A what? "

"A rest. Never heard of one?"

"Shut up. "

"I'll do your paperwork for you. Relax, I can copy your writing perfectly. I'm not Onmitsukidō for nothing."

Before he can protest, or even make a noise, the brush is snatched out of his hands, and she's doing his paperwork – his paperwork! – as if she were perfectly entitled. He sighs, and gives up.

"Remind me to slice you into ribbons someday. "

She laughs, her tone challenging.

"Only if you can catch me."

"I will. Someday. I am just not going to waste my energy on someone like y-"

"Oh, be quiet. Do you want this done or not? "

"I told you, I am perfectly capable of- "

"I know. That's why I'm doing it for you."

He scowls. Maybe this heat is barely acceptable, after all.

-END-