A/N: This fic pretty much only draws on Bleach canon from before the Butterfly thing. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, be grateful. If you do… well. Yeah.) So the fanfic is going to ignore certain things Kubo tossed into Ichigo’s family tree later. Half Human shinigami Hybrid is more than trouble enough!
“Masaki didn’t have a trace of spiritual power. Ichigo may have patched you up a little, but… let’s face it. You heal like an Aesir. We could drop you out of a plane and you’d survive.” Yoruichi settled down, sphinx-like. “Half his family tree’s human, and the other half – well. Subtle, they aren’t. Give him a few years, teach him how to hit things – he’ll do fine.”
“Hmm. Why does that sound familiar?”
Yoruichi narrowed gold eyes at the cold, angry bite in his voice. “Did something happen between you and your foster brother?” Her tail twitched, thinking of the last time she’d been petted by a heartsick sorcerer as he snarled his way through the latest litany of how Thor simply would not think. “I mean, more than usual?” Belatedly, a few of Kisuke’s speculations rose to mind. Tachyons. Huh. “Or is it something you can’t tell me about yet?”
Surprise flickered in green eyes, followed by a poker face that could have put Kisuke to shame. She almost couldn’t read the twitches of muscle and power that whispered of thought, and dawning hope….
And gray despair, sacrificing what-might-be for whatever his exile had won. “Thor is stubborn, not hopeless,” Loki said firmly. “He will be a good king. Someday.”
Kneading forgotten, Yoruichi stared. A good king? That thoughtless, chauvinistic, battle-mad Aesir who made half of Eleventh look tame? “What did you do?”
“Nothing that will harm this house, or anyone here,” Loki said smoothly. “Even the most straightforward fighter can use training in strategy. The earlier, the better.”
“Whiny kid,” Yoruichi said firmly. Let him deflect her for now. He wasn’t going anywhere until Isshin said he was fine.
And train Ichigo? Please. Even Soifon had been mostly grown before the clan had tossed her into the Shihouin Princess’ service. “He’d have to catch me first.”
“Really?” Loki purred.
Oh no. Cats couldn’t sweat, but she felt all the fur along her spine stand up. Stupid, stupid… he’s Asgard’s best sorcerer, their magic uses words, and you just handed him a straight line. “He would. No help. No traps. Nothing anyone else set up for him to set off. His plan, his work, his luck.” And that ought to hedge it in enough to make it impossible. The whole Kido Corps couldn’t catch her.
“Hmm.”
Oh, I don’t like that look. “Why do you even care?” Yoruichi demanded, exasperated. “He’s already killed his mother. You want to try for the rest of the family?”
…Was it her imagination, or was it suddenly cold in here?
“You blame a child for a monster he never knew existed.”
Crossover Queen's Creative Chaos 
Oh. Damn. Incoming cat-cicle in three, two….
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*Halo* Urahara’s not the only one who could use a few thwaps.
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Shihouin Yoruichi!
Just for that, I hope you get an object lesson in why we don’t piss off the Jotuun sorcerer. And you better pray that Loki doesn’t tell Isshin what you just said (or he didn’t just hear it himself). Because I imagine he’ll have words as well.
Not that the victim blaming isn’t entirely unexpected. The Soul Society has a bad habit of blaming the victims for their attackers crimes and/or seen them as just as at fault (see the Vizards) with added punishing people for doing the right thing (see Rukia).
Mmmm . . . has the Soul Society always had their heads up their behinds, is not-blaming the victim a very new thing, or has Aizen been sock-puppetting / subhorning the Central 46* longer than we thought (probably a good bet) – or was some of the people there part of his scheme?
*Another set of people I’d like to burn to the ashes. I agree that having an independent organization that checks the power of the Gotei 13 is good but that there isn’t anything checking the Central 46 is bad. And don’t claim that the Soul King and that Court are the check – if they are supposed to be, they either agree with those jerks every time – in which they can also all go die in a fire – or they haven’t been paying attention to what they are doing. Either way, haven’t been doing their job.
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Loki’s not going to start a fight this close to the kids; not while he’s still injured enough he can’t protect them. But yeah. He’s going to take this into account for further interactions – meaning he’s now definitely leaning toward “get the kid some tactical training while he’s still young!”
It’s sad commentary on human nature that not blaming the victim is something we have to teach people, over and over. Across cultures, most people seem to want to believe “bad things only happen to bad people.”
And yes. Soul Society is a Grade-A mess. In a way Aizen was a symptom, not just the problem. Ouch.
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Across cultures, most people seem to want to believe “bad things only happen to bad people.”
Of course they do. Because that’s easier to accept than the universe isn’t good or evil, it simply is. And that is also under no obligation to follow human notions of good and evil. That sometimes bad things happen to good people and there is nothing anyone can do about it. That sometimes you are just in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people.
But people don’t like to think about that. They want there to be a rhythm and reason for everything that happens. They like to convince themselves “that will never happen to me. Bad stuff is something that happens to other people.” They like the illusion of control that comes with thinking “as long as I don’t do x, then nothing bad will happen to me.”
And they don’t like it when something comes along that brings those lovely illusions into question.
Also the people can and will ignore injustice and things like that when it isn’t happening to them or anyone they care about. They will convince themselves that those people got hurt not because the system is wrong but because they somehow deserved to get hurt. And will dismiss the idea that they could be next. “And then they came for me and there was no one left to say anything.”
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*Nod*
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There’s a series of studies I heard of recently where it was shown that having small good things happen – even just getting extra change returned from a vending machine – made people statistically more likely to dismiss other’s problems as their fault and blame bad luck on the person suffering from it. Scary stuff.
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*Nod* Sad but true.
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Observation: I don’t know if it’s a error in translation, a cultural gap, or something about his mindset but Yamamoto*, like a lot of people, has a bad habit of using the words “justice” and “law” interchangeably. They aren’t the same thing.
A law is “the principles and regulations established in a community by some authority and applicable to its people, whether in the form of legislation or of custom and policies recognized and enforced by judicial decision” (dictionary.com) Notice that no where in there does it say that it has to be “just”, “fair,” or “right”. That because the law doesn’t have to be any of those things. What a law says and how just, fair, and right it is depends entirely on the people making them and enforcing them. The law isn’t about fair or unfair, right or wrong, it is just about the law. There are laws that can be, have been, will continue to be unfair and unjust.
Because they don’t have either of those things. They should and usually people do try. But what is considered fair and right in one society will be viewed as unfair and wrong in another. One man’s justice is another man’s oppression. And it tends to change over time because people and places aren’t static. They change and sometimes that means the law needs to change too.
*whose character alignment is definitely Lawful Something. Sometimes, IMO, it is Lawful Stupid. But that might be why Ichigo annoys the heck out of him because Ichigo is certainly Chaotic Something.
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Hence why I consider Yamamoto to be Lawful Neutral. Lawful Good prioritizes good if there’s a conflict!
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Laws are factual. They exist because one or more someones made, supported, and enforced them.
Justice is contextual. What is just, right, and fair changes entirely depending on the circumstances.
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I’d say justice is never contextual. There may be mitigating circumstances. But theft because you’re starving is still theft. It is less wrong than dying, but it’s still wrong.
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Lawful Moron Yamato fits to me! Or maybe Lawful Boneheaded?
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Edit:Yamamoto
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Protective Loki is already quite protective.
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He’s reacting to the similarities in the situation. Loki didn’t know he was a ‘monster,’ but it is at the very least heavily implied that Odin never let him forget it. There is a reason that ‘Odin’s A+ parenting’ is a tag over on AO3. So, he’s twitchy as all get out over this.
Incidentally, depending on timelines, a good time for the events of ‘Thor’ might possibly be during the ‘Rescue Rukia’ arc. Awkward explanations for everybody! (This is not the ‘group project’ I should be working on. But who thinks that assigning a group project to an online class is a good idea anyway? And besides, my group mate won’t respond to me and won’t even tell me which timezone he’s in.)
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Ooo yes. Exactly. Loki knew that he was considered the problem, but didn’t know exactly why until after that disastrous visit to Jotenheim. And here’s Yoruichi saying Ichigo is “the problem”, when the kid – just like Loki – had no idea what the problem was.
Yep. This is hitting a lot of Loki’s buttons.
Hmm. I haven’t decided exactly how the timelines match up, given Marvel is notoriously slippery. I know that Ichigo’s nakama will meet up with the Avengers a couple months after the events of that movie, and that Aizen’s attempt to conquer the world took place fairly close to Thanos’ attempted invasion. So SHIELD was a little too busy to notice. Thoughts?
Augh, group projects. I feel your pain. I don’t think I’ve ever met one where people thought it was more important to do the actual assignment than socialize. Ouch.
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It’s kind of cute, in a chilly way. 😉
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>>Hmm. I haven’t decided exactly how the timelines match up, given Marvel is notoriously slippery. I know that Ichigo’s nakama will meet up with the Avengers a couple months after the events of that movie, and that Aizen’s attempt to conquer the world took place fairly close to Thanos’ attempted invasion. So SHIELD was a little too busy to notice. Thoughts?
I feel like SHIELD doesn’t need a distraction to miss events in Karakura. Strange may need the distraction, but not SHIELD. Magic -I think – is one of those things SHIELD knows about and deals with, but magic usually either polices itself before SHIELD gets involved, is so big and immediate it’s impossible to miss,or Strange deals with it while SHIELD is still staring in alarm.
If memory serves, Soul Society’s prep for Aizen involved setting up a pocket dimension layer of protection over Karakura so noone outside could interfere and to contain Aizen’s damage. I don’t know if SHIELD even could detect that.
I imagine any place where the barrier fails and Aizen’s forces damage Karakura will be notable and confusing enough for SHIELD to send investigators once reports get to them, but I’m not even totally certain SHIELD has authority in Japan or how much authority it does have. I mean, SHIELD is basically superhero NATO, so they have no legal authority outside of NATO members, and varying levels of power within separate NATO members – not that that’s ever particularly stopped them from doing whatever they want in the past.
I figured SHIELD would poke around and start tracking leads after Aizen’s invasion – distraction or no – in such a scenario. Not that unlike SGC around Shay’s tower after Alan is done with it. Though SHIELD will probably meet with a bit more – or maybe less depending on how you write it – success in tracking down leads.
Though the idea of two separate over-powered death-related megalomaniacs each sending an army to conquer Earth and each starting at only a single city and striking out from there at the exact same time is hilarious to me.
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Is, isn’t it? *Amused* Too bad it’d be inconvenient to throw one at the other…
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*snrks*
To change the topic back to something a bit farther up in the Bit….
*grins very evilly at Yoruichi* “Shihouin-sama, you just put a challenge in front of Loki the Trickster. It’s not going to take as long as you think to lose.” *cackles*
(And yes, Loki is identifying with Ichigo – and for good reasons. *nods firmly* Isshin will agree.)
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*EG* Yoruichi is going to be so, so embarrassed.
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