Pull Down the World
Prelude
Moonlight spilled through the courtyard like liquid mercury, leaving a brilliant shine on the marble benches and walkways. Rangiku pressed her left hand to her stomach, trying to staunch the bleeding. Her right hand clenched the cord-wrapped hilt of Haineko. She coughed, and the sharp metallic taste of blood was strong in her mouth. A little longer. Please, just a little longer.
To her right, one of those marble benches was ripped in two, its halves now skewed awkwardly. The unconscious form of her captain, Hitsugaya Toushirou, was sprawled in the depression where the massive stone slab had cracked and tumbled. She prayed he was merely unconscious. But his left arm was resting at an impossible angle, and Rangiku feared he might be worse off than she herself.
She could hear shouts from elsewhere in Seireitei. No, not shouts, she amended. Screams.
Standing not ten meters away, squatting on the broken remains of a fountain that still gurgled feebly, was the man who had caused all this. The man she blamed for all the fear, the pain, the horror she had felt in the last two years. The man that had held her trust, and her heart, and shattered them as heedlessly as he now shattered Soul Society itself.
A tear rolled down her cheek, and she hated herself for it. Everything she loved, everything she knew, was being destroyed by this man. But the tear wasn't for Soul Society, or for the Shinigami lying dead in the courtyard around her. The tear formed, and fell, for him.
Ichimaru Gin.
He perched, raptor-like, on a long spike of marble that slanted out from the ruinous mass of the fountain. His Shinigami uniform was still visible beneath a closed white coat. Not the coat of a Shinigami captain, not any longer. The coat of an Arankar. His face was a mask, but he wore no smile. That smile, the cold smile he wore every moment of the day…. Rangiku trembled at the memory, but not in fear, or anger. She had not seen that smile since the day he first left her, so many years ago. The day he abandoned her in that Rukongai hovel, that mass of bundled twigs that had served as their home, during the one time in her life Rangiku had been truly happy.
Ichimaru Gin did not smile at Matsumoto Rangiku.
"Whatsa matter, Rangiku? Aren'cha happy to see me again?" His voice was soft, almost gentle, the same voice she remembered from so many years ago.
"You bastard," she wanted to say. "You betrayed everything I knew and loved. You maimed my captain and killed my friends. You destroyed my home. You took away the only thing I ever cared about. You took away Ichimaru Gin. I don't know who you are anymore, you bastard."
She said nothing.
Another tear, slipping down her other cheek. Another stab of shame, of longing fused with self-loathing. Rangiku felt her throat tightening, felt sobs drifting up from her chest like bubbles rising through tar. She couldn't bear it. She couldn't bear to let him see her cry.
All she wanted now was release. She wanted the pain to end, wanted it more than she had ever wanted anything. She couldn't live like this. He had destroyed her so completely she knew she could never recover. She had loved him. She had loved him with every strand of her soul. And he had never even noticed.
Raising Haineko before her, Rangiku lurched forward. She was no match for Gin. She had never been. But maybe, just maybe, he would take pity on her and kill her. Maybe he would hold her then, and she would die wrapped in his arms. Maybe she would be able to say the words that had always eluded her before.
She waited for him to reach for Shinsou, to cut her to ribbons. She waited for the first moments of death, the fiery agony that would let her know all the other pain was ending. But he waited, too. Ichimaru Gin was as still as the corpses around him. And then she was splashing through the ruins of the fountain, no more than a meter away from him. Death would come now, and so fast she would hardly have time to notice it.
Haineko slid smoothly into Ichimaru Gin's chest, and blood welled up, staining his white coat a deep crimson.
And then she could hold back the tears no longer. Wet sobs wracked her body. She shook, like a leaf caught in a late autumn breeze. It wasn't supposed to happen like this. She tried to force words. "Why, Gin? Why didn't you kill me?"
Ichimaru Gin's eyes flew open, and for the third time in her life, Matsumoto Rangiku found herself staring into those beautiful, crimson irises, like wells that trapped her heart.
He moved slowly, so slowly it seemed as if he was forcing his way through water, and his hand came to rest on the back of her head. He smoothed her hair with a gentle caress. "You really don't understand, Rangiku…." His voice was filled with a mix of shock and pain. "How could I kill you? Everything you see, I did it for you." His voice was becoming weak, hollow. "I did it all for you. I…" His lips fell closed, twisting upward in that deadly smile she knew so well. But in his eyes, she saw no hint of malice, just a spark of….
The eyes of Ichimaru Gin slid shut as he toppled backwards into the marble-strewn fountain bed, Haineko still jutting from his chest, and Matsumoto Rangiku knew, with exacting precision, how much pain a soul could take before it shattered.
Author's Note: I don't own Bleach; that honor belongs to Kubo Tite. Also, this is my first attempt at an angst fic, so be gentle! I intend this to be a fairly serious work, but chapters (at least the first couple) may wind up being short-ish (1000 words) rather than the long ones I've used for other narrative fics. I apologise for the shortness. Hopefully you'll find this story to be worth it, nonetheless.