BLEACH, Night of the full moon

Episode V: Sayonara Kanemochi

It's one of two the things that don't discriminate the other is birth- Episode V, synopsis

The silence in the sereitei was extra ordinary. The birds were not singing, the tree branches and blades of grass stood still. Suddenly, the clouds turned dark and rain began to drizzle. It was mourning weather…
“Nanao-chan, have you spoken to Captain Soifon or should I?” The head captain asked with concern.
“I’ll talk to her…” Nanao responded. “I was in charge of the mission. It’s only right that I should do it.”
“Okay, the relics are ready. It’s up to you to decide what goes where…” remarked the head captain. Nanao looked at what had remained of a once energetic shinigami and she knew exactly what would go where…

At first, she thought she had it all figured out but as the moment came closer, she realised that she was not ready at all. She didn’t know what she was supposed to say and what she wasn’t supposed to say. Each time she put a foot on the wooden floor it thumped like thunder probably because it was the only noise in the place. She thought about softening her step but that would mean she couldn’t get this over with soon enough. She thought about moving very fast but she concluded she wasn’t quite ready. In the end she chose to hit that floor as hard as possible so that they were ready for her when she finally got there even if she wasn’t ready for them.
She was holding a purple cushion with a golden outline. On the cushion were pieces of a broken zanpakuto including its yellow hilt. A number of the squad members were gathered in the squad common room when she arrived. Word had been going around the sereitei that the 2nd squad vice-captain had not survived the battle but the sight of his shattered zanpakuto was confirmation of the sad tale. He was not a friendly guy by any stretch, he was arrogant and never stopped talking about how much richer than them he was but he was their vice-captain and he had never failed them in that role. Everyone present in the room was genuinely sad but not everyone was in the room…
“Where is the captain?” Nanao asked the 2nd squad members who were present.
“She is in the training ground…” one of them answered sadly. Nanao had gone to the 2nd squad barracks with the aim of delivering the zanpakuto to the squad captain-a very unenviable task. Once she heard the answer, she turned away from the common room and made her way to the training ground.
There was a very strong wind in the training ground and the trees were shaking violently. The 2nd squad captain’s haori was laid out on the ground and a massive reiatsu could be felt ahead amongst the trees. Lightning was striking throughout the shoots of the trees.
“Captain Soifon.” Nanao called out. She had not seen the captain yet but the reiatsu in the woods was unmistakeable. Lightning continued to strike amongst the trees and the wind whirled violently but Nanao received no response. After about twenty minutes, the events continued along the same course but still, Nanao had heard no response…
“Captain Soifon…” she called out again louder than before. About five minutes later, Soifon emerged from the woods very exhausted.
“What do you want?” She asked though she shouldn’t have. The answer was right there before her very eyes.
“Umm…Omaeda-san…” murmured Nanao. “I think he would have wanted you to have this.”
Soifon’s eyes lit up for a moment you could see tears forming on the linings of her lower eye lids. For an instant, it seemed to Nanao that she had done right by the deceased vice-captain and by Soifon too. Slowly, Soifon lifted up her hands to receive the zanpakuto fragments on the cushion. She remembered that time many years back when, together with Omaeda, they were fighting Barragan…

They had agreed that Omaeda would distract Barragan to create an opening for Soifon to strike him with her Suzumebachi. However, at the last moment, Omaeda had chickened out and Soifon got exposed to Barragan’s power, losing the use of her left arm. That is how unreliable and selfish he was. And yet when moments later she was caught up in Barragan’s respira, it was his name that she yelled out for assistance. When she was afraid of death, it was Omaeda she called upon to perform an unenviable task and that time, he answered her call. Having had her hand cut off to evade death, it was Omaeda she asked to fight in her stead. Even without having a clue what plans his captain had or indeed if she had any plan to defeat Barragan, he agreed to put his life on the line to fight him. For his captain, he was capable of the most honourable deed. It later turned out that Soifon’s plan was to use her bankai to put an end to the match up once and for all. Jaihou Raikkoben proved to be too powerful for the one armed captain and even when she was wondering if it had worked against the enemy, she was worried that she would crash into a building. The pain, the thought of the pain, it was unbearable. Suddenly, she stopped falling but it didn’t hurt!
“Captain…you got him.” Omaeda spoke. “Are you okay?”
She stared ahead and saw a cloud of smoke where the enemy had once been. That is when she realised that the fall had not hurt because Omaeda had used his body to shield her from direct impact with the hard wall…