So, this is a revised version of the first chapter of LE. For those who have read this before, it's now set in third-person POV, and (hopefully) the writing has been improved because I read what I wrote so long ago and couldn't help but feel the need to rewrite it. My thanks to whoever is (still) reading this, as tbh, this is a rather self-indulgent fic that I came up with because Gin's ending was just tragic and because he's my favourite character.

Warnings: Maybe-semi-SI (I'm not sure), OCs, anime-typical violence, AU-ish, and time is a funny thing (details found before the chapters affected). Also, I first wrote this before I read the Fullbringer's arc and will continue with the ideas I have then. 'New' canon information that contradicts my theories of how things work will likely be ignored.

That said, I hope you'll enjoy reading this.

Disclaimer (to be applied for the whole fic): I only own my characters and my interpretation of the story. Everything else ain't mine.

Chapter One: Silver End

"A soothsayer bids thee, 'Beware the ides of March.'" ~ Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

It was the start of an unremarkable holiday. Or it would have been if not for the fact that she jinxed it by complaining to her friends that she was bored.

Because that's how most stories begin, right? They say nothing ever happens to them, disregarding the fact that sometimes, things have already happened to them. Like they're tempting Fate. As if they're complaining that they don't already have enough drama in their lives.

And that's how it starts:

Two days into the holidays. Three pieces of homework completed in record time. Sixty-odd days more of boredom.

That wasn't the plan, of course. The plan was to finish her homework early and have all the time in the world to have fun. She forgot that her friends weren't going to be in town for another week or two. She forgot that she had read all the books on her shelf at least five times over and forgot that all the fantasy-genre books in the library had been read at least once. There was no TV to watch—she couldn't afford one, and there was nothing interesting in the cinema (singular—Karakura was a small town).

That proverb—be careful of what you wish for—it was something Yoruka Chizuki would only understand four to five years later.

Now let us set the scene:

A silver crescent hanging low in the midnight-blue sky like an icy scythe ready to descend onto an unlucky passer-by. A loud crash in a kitchen.

But it was not just any kitchen. It was Chizuki's kitchen.

Now, said girl was just attempting to see if she how many books she could balance on her head when it happened. For a moment, she wondered if her parents had come back to life and was now pouring out their wrath over what they would have deemed as an 'untidy' home. They were neat-freaks after all and Chizuki… well, she wasn't the neatest person around.

Quickly enough, she dismissed the thought. Of course, the dead do not come back to life. Their souls sometimes do linger around the living world, but souls shouldn't be able to create much chaos, being mostly translucent colour and mist.

So, a burglar?

There were indeed burglars in the apartment. Six hulking mask-wearing Halloween-themed burglars. Chizuki took one staggering step into the kitchen, processed the scene of her kitchen being destroyed by strange creatures that looked like they came straight out of a Ghibli-horror-hybrid film—complete with the almost tangible terrifying aura of dead things clawing out of a bloody bottomless pit—and did the smart thing: she fled as fast as her shaking legs could carry her.

Chizuki was one of those special humans who could see spirits, and had seen her fair share ghosts, but she had never seen these monsters before. They were three times as tall as her and four times as wide. But the most important thing was that they had noticed her presence.

In the whole second that she had stood there at the threshold of her kitchen, brain tripping over itself in its hurry to process the mad nightmare before her, they turned as one to look at her. Luckily for Chizuki, it was then that she saw the glowing eyes and large horns of one of the creatures and thought: Balrog. This was immediately followed by a very useful piece of advice: Fly, you fool!

She hightailed out of the apartment and leapt over the parapet of the corridor. It was only three floors to the ground and Chizuki had picked up parkour—or something like it—during the time when she and her friends had learned how to get away from pissed-off delinquents.

But of course, three floors were no deterrent to creatures as three times her size. And one of them even had wings. The ensuing events were predictable: one puny human girl against six gigantic yokai?

It was by pure good fortune that Chizuki did not perish in the spot. It was also by some misfortune that right after she was thrown several metres away by a single whack of a creature's lizard-like tail, she realised—after recovering from the nausea and headache the impact had brought her—that there was a seemingly dead body a distance away from herself. There was an alarming pool of blood spreading from under the body's head, and the body was unmistakably hers—it had her short black hair and glassy violet eyes stared out of her pale face.

Chizuki shuddered. Staring at one's own corpse was not fun. She looked down at her (spirit) self instead, because it was sometimes better to have a distraction when faced with one's own dead body. Like the suspicious chain that was attached to the middle of her chest, right over where her heart might be.

The chain was long and glowed faintly. It hung from her chest to the asphalt and stretched all the way to her unmoving body. She didn't need to be a genius to figure out the purpose of the chain. She also quickly decided to ignore her own morbid curiosity about what might happen if the chain were to break. She had other things to worry about first.

While Chizuki was taking in her newly undead(?) status, two of the creatures appeared to have left the group and gone elsewhere to stir more trouble, and the remaining four were watching her curiously, the way a group of cats might regard a mouse.

Slowly, one of them—the nearest one, that looked like a white-helmeted winged dog—raised a gigantic paw. Chizuki quickly scrambled to her feet, tripped over her own spirit-chain-thing and saw the paw descended onto her in a clear attempt to swipe at her.

She screamed.

It was by choice, she would admit to herself later, after she got over the embarrassment of behaving like a typical damsel in distress, something she had sworn she would never do. But she had also been quick enough to realise that sometimes, calling for help was the smart thing to do.

So, she screamed... though it was more like a high-pitched screeching.

Later, she would recall the events as a blur. Like a video fast-forwarded three times. There were, however, a few things she remembered with the perfect clarity that trauma and adrenaline sometimes provided.

First, a saviour and his dramatic entrance.

He was a strange man dressed in stranger clothes. He had pale hair that looked silver under the moonlight, a pale pointed face with narrow slits for eyes and a smile that seemed to split his face, reminding Chizuki of the traditional depictions of foxes, minus the facial markings. As for his outfit, wore a set of black kimono robes that billowed in the wind that seemed to have been caused by his own arrival. He also carried with him a short sword that had apparently just cut the dog-like monster in half but she couldn't be sure her eyes weren't deceiving her because woah that was fast? And hell, that was cool?

Second, a horrifying revelation, straight out from a thriller show.

Out of the three remaining creatures, one of them had a white scorpion-like tail complete with stinger. The strange newcomer easily sliced off one of its gigantic pincers—later, Chizuki would realise that the sword had actually shot off the pincer and no, she hadn't been hallucinating a sword with a blade that could shoot out like that—but he when the stinging tail came shooting towards him, one moment he was beside the scorpion-monster, the next moment he was a few metres away, his sword raised, effectively blocking the really long tail.

Two things happened then, and Chizuki wasn't sure which happened in what order. Nevertheless, there was a moment when she realised that the white armour of the creatures could block a sword blade—when the pincer had been sliced off, it had been at the joints, where it had an 'Achilles' elbow of sorts. And there was also a moment when she saw, with growing horror, that the scorpion-thing was raising a second tail.

Third, another realisation, found out the hard way.

Things were blurry between seeing the second tail and... the spray of blood. Chizuki spent half a heart-stopping second worrying about the stranger who had saved her from getting mauled. But in the next half of a second, she realised thatsomething had changed without her noticing.

The clues: the scorpion-thing was right in front of her, the stranger was nowhere to be seen, there was blood pouring out of the gaping wound on her chest where there were only a few broken links left of the chain, and she could practically feel the presence of someone close behind her like a heater.

The conclusion she did not immediately arrive at: something had changed, and that something was her. Or, to be more precise, the position of her spirit-self.

Perhaps is was the loss of blood that slowed down her thinking. Perhaps it was just denial, some part of her convinced she was dreaming. Or perhaps it was just plain fright. Either way, it took Chizuki a while to comprehend what she was witnessing, even with the very real and bitter coppery scent of blood that had her involuntarily wrinkling her nose. It took her so long to piece together the different things she was noticing into one complete puzzle that by the time she was done, the stranger had successfully killed the scorpion-like monster and was now in front of her, looking like he didn't know what to do next.

Chizuki laughed (and regretted it when she tasted the blood that coated her throat and filled her mouth). It was funny how different the man looked from the first time she saw him. He was still wearing that face-splitting grin as if it were a permanent fixture on his face, but the confidence he held in his shoulders and stance was gone, and the fumbling concern he currently seemed to be struggling with was at odds with his face.

She laughed again, because she felt light. Like she was floating, and she didn't feel any of the pain she thought she would with the bleeding gash on her chest. Instead, there was only a strange numbness that was spreading from the wound, and the feeling of heavy water sloshing about in her head. She tipped, and a pair of arms caught her.

The first thing she thought, when she realised the stranger was gently laying her on the ground, was that she must be getting a lot of blood on his robes. The next thing she thought was that it was a good thing that the stranger was mostly wearing black, aside from his white haori.

Chizuki tried to turn to see the stranger's face but found that her body was no longer responding to her commands. Instead, she could only stare ahead and watch as the last creature flee the scene.

When the stranger had set her down and finally came into view, she spent a whole second trying to figure out what was wrong with his face because he was still grinning. Then she realised that he wasn't grinning and that the corners of his mouth were actually slightly turned down—she would only marvel about this much later—and that his face was actually upside-down.

"Stay here," the stranger said. "I'll be back soon."

Chizuki barely managed a nod. She did manage a wobbly smile, or what she thought felt like a smile. She didn't mind the fact she was going to be left there. She was still feeling blissfully numb, and somewhat drunk, and was probably not in the right state of mind to... mind anything really. And even if she were, she would have sent him on if she could. There were other people that would need his help—the monster probably wasn't going to stop terrorising people just because he gave it a fright. And he said he would be back. At this point, she wouldn't be surprised if he had mystical healing powers or something.

Sometime after the stranger had left in a flicker of black—like the flutter of a butterfly's wing—Chizuki began to grow alarmed.

The adrenaline (because, she quickly realised, spirits appeared to have the spirit-equivalent of a human body complete with heart and brains and everything else) was wearing out at last, and with nothing she was capable of doing, nothing to keep track of time with aside from the position of the moon in the sky, it seemed like hours had passed.

Chizuki could feel the wet sticky feeling of blood spreading through her clothes. She could feel the beginnings of an ache in her chest where the wound was. She could feel herself getting tired, her vision dimming around the edges, and she began to wonder when the stranger would return.

She wasn't sure if she could stay awake until he did. She wasn't sure if she would wake up again if she fell asleep now. She even began to doubt if she could be fixed. If her wound could be healed, if the chain could be renewed and if she could return to what must be a dying if not already dead body.

Doubts began to gnaw at her thoughts while pain gnawed at her chest.

The creatures returned. She recognised them as the two that had left the group first. Panic fluttered for a short moment in her chest before it died as quickly as it was born. It was instead, replaced by a combination of despair and acceptance.

As Chizuki stared at the creatures loping towards her, black fuzzy mould-like spots growing in her vision, she had three thoughts: First: I am going to die. Second: Perhaps I'll die before the pain gets worse. And third:

He isn't back yet.

So, how was it? Reviews and PMs are always welcome.