Make-up fic for Saint Alecto
Title: The End of Our Lives
Genre: Angst, Romance
Characters/Pairings: Gin/Rangiku
Word Count: 1,220
Rating: M
Summary: They are both one soul, split again and again by time and betrayal.
Warnings: Implication of incest.
The End of Our Lives
They are born in different wombs; their first heaving breaths are their last. Their souls then flit far-far away, to an unreal-real land, where they take a few more breaths.
This kinship of being devoid of living memories and being born among the dead endears them to each other. Living in the darkest bowels of the Rukongai, shielding one another from the dens of iniquity, they become bonded innately as children.
Rangiku, empyrean beauty, and Gin, the black white child are one. They decide they are twins, if not in body, then in soul.
*****
And one day, this bond shatters like the lives of the family of a dead person.
There’s news in the sunlight-bereft, stinking streets. A rich man’s carriage has overturned, with food and jewels in it. The lepers of the Rukongai rush to that El Dorado, to rightfully claim the mythical treasure.
Gin, the dark-light child offers to go, for he is the stealthiest, the most ruthless of the street urchins. Rangiku, his soul twin, begs him not to leave. She fears for his life. Silly child, what is there to fear for life, when you are already among the dead?
And he never comes back. Never to Rangiku’s waiting arms, and to his little straw bed in the corner of the street that even rats fear to tread on. Never again.
All this is non sequitur to little Rangiku. Her heart cannot feel a thing; it’s as if he took her soul along with him.
But he had every right to do that. After all, they were one, weren’t they?
*****
Fifteen years have dolorously passed by, each year adding another heavy burden to Rangiku’s heart. There’s not a day when she doesn’t remember her ingrate soul mate Gin.
Her Gin. She shudders and whispers his name, as if he were the very essence of her soul. Hers. It was all her fault, she should have stopped him.
As Rangiku walks inside the jinxed walls of the Seireitei for the first time, she promises to herself that she will become a powerful shinigami. For Gin. For her twin.
She will become the most powerful shinigami ever.
*****
Malicious whispers and leers follow her like the quietest of spies at the Shinigami School.
Look at her, so beautiful. No surprises who the topper will be.
I bet she won’t have to work for even one day, with a body like that.
Why don’t I have her beauty? Now I can never get the grades I want, because all the teachers will favour her.
Rangiku inwardly laughs at these foolish people, trying their best to find foibles in her. What do they know about her, about the guilt that has kept her alive for all these years? Imbeciles.
Today is her first day, and she duly arrives on time. She wonders what she will be taught in these hallowed halls, filled with the promise of witchcraft and swordsmanship and power.
Suddenly a snake voice fills the air behind her, making the hairs of her body stand on end. It is the slimy voice of a ruthless heart, freezing her lungs and choking her.
“Welcome, new students. I am Gin Ichimaru, vice-captain of the fifth division. I shall be your new guide into the…”
For guileless Rangiku, the whole world falls apart at this one instant. It’s all a grotesque joke, isn’t it? Gin could not be alive; her heart could not be alive.
“Rangiku-chan?” the icy voice asks her now.
She turns around to face her death-twin, alive, breathing, Gin. And then she falls, the invulnerable fortress built around her heart, having been crushed.
*****
Another ten years later…
She knows this is wrong. She knows the cost of this illicit relationship. She knows the toll it takes on her soul, on Gin’s soul. Strange, how no longer she refers to it as their soul.
Rangiku has forgiven Gin for what he has done to her. She has given him absolution for those five thousand, four hundred and seventy-five days of pain, and nights of nightmares. It isn’t easy to forgive a part of your soul.
But Gin has told her a most elaborately crafted lie, of being injured that day in the stampede of people, of losing his memories, of being found and cared for by a shinigami, of recovering faint thoughts of Rangiku.
But how can Rangiku know it’s a lie? After all, one has to trust their own heart.
And so she trusts. And so she spends nights in Gin’s arms, first innocently, then passionately. He takes her to the very peaks of pleasure, and drowns her in their sorrow every night. Their sorrow. Their heart. Their soul.
It’s almost as if the separated twins are trying to become one again, in body and soul.
*****
The final betrayal isn’t easy for Rangiku. She feels like she did many uncountable years ago, pain, anger, guilt and loss. And hate. Such an infinite hate for the man she wrongly loves.
The evil shinigami scurry into the sandstorms of Hueco Mundo along with their denizens. And he is one of them. Her Gin. Her heart. Her twin.
Don’t look back at me, she begs him. She cannot bear it, she’d rather die now, that live to see her soul being split again.
But he does look back at her, knowing the toll it would take on her. “I wish I could hold you, just a bit longer…”
Making these false, empty promises, he joins the shinigami he truly loves, not Rangiku.
Rangiku falls once again. This time, the heartbreak is complete.
*****
You hate me, don’t you? His snake eyes whisper to her as she fights the final battle.
Rangiku doesn’t reply. This is her fight; this is her battle, one that she will fight to the very end.
Please forgive me, his eyes literally beg her. Gin has no heart, but he does have a soul, a soul inextricably linked to his Rangiku.
Rangiku knows this is a strategy, a tactic to make her falter and lose. She will not look at the man her twin has become; she will just fight for justice today.
She struggles with this friendly adversary, the man with snake eyes who is not her Gin. And before she knows it, a zanpakutou runs through her heart, splicing it for the third time.
So you win she bitterly says as she watches Gin kneel down beside her. So you win and kill me again.
Gin smiles and kisses her.” I’m sorry, my dear twin. I hope we meet again, in another time, in another life.”
As he turns to walk away, he suddenly feels a piercing pain in his back and heart. It is Haineko, crying for the last time. This time, Gin doesn’t win. Rangiku does.
*****
The pregnant woman at the Tokyo Hospital cries out from the unbearable pain.
Push, the doctor tells her. Push harder.
After one last effort, she collapses on the bed.
“Congratulations, you have twins.” the nurse says.
“Twins? But the scan showed a baby girl.” the surprised mother says.
“Sometimes, things just go wrong. I’m sorry.” says the doctor.
The mother holds the tiny, perfect children in her arms and kisses them.
“Maybe they’ve always been there… together.”