Open Your Eyes

All this feels strange and untrue,
And I won't waste a minute,
Without you.

I want so much to open your eyes,
'Cause I need you to look,
Into mine.

Get up, get out, get away from these liars.
Cause they don't get your soul,
Or your fire.

Tell me that you'll open your eyes.

It seemed to Rangiku that romantic tales always had their beginnings in the snow; so of course, it hadn't been snowing the day they met. Conversely, it had been intensely dry, the sun bleaching the sky and the ground a pale, grimy shade and the scorching heat cracking the ground upon which she lay. The winters in the Rukongaiwere always harsh, but this particular summer and the intense heatwave that came along with it proved even more deadly than the bitter snow. She stared blindly at the sun, mindful of half-forgotten and never heeded warnings not to do so. Not that it mattered anymore, she was born into these streets and it seemed that it was here, today, upon them that she would die.

Notions of the unfairness of her situation had always danced at the back of her mind, but truthfully in her heart she had accepted her situation long ago. You were either born into the elegant world of the shinigami or you weren't, instead condemned to an ashen lifetime of toil and poverty among those streets. A childhood spent watching and wishing had told her so, a child of the streets like her had no chance of fulfilling that impossible dream. She saw the reality of her situation reflected in the eyes of the housewives, she saw before her naught but drudgery; days spent laundering sheets that were never clean enough, scolding the street children as they raced through the market stalls, batting away the no good men that hung around, too lazy or inebriated to even think of doing anything productive. Really, what kind of life was that? And to live that way, never with a light at the end of the tunnel, it just didn't bear thinking about. Certainly not for her anyway. She'd rather die… Could you even die here in this place? Was there another plane of existence bearing the same marks of injustice and unfairness? Or was it a better place? Soul Society, it was meant to be a better place, better than the human world they told her she came from, but she didn't know anymore. She supposed it didn't matter; her memories from that time were few and far between, not enough to make a proper comparison. Anyway, if this was all there was here, death seemed preferable. Not that she had much choice in the matter, she was starving, her friends had vanished and quite probably they were already gone on ahead of her. Perhaps she would see them again, when she left this place and this reality. It was so warm, to slip away to sleep and never to awake, it seemed quite an attractive prospect to her now…

"You shouldn't stare at the sun like that; it's bad for your eyes, so they say." A face entered her field of vision, blotting out her eye watering view of the sky. She blinked and was horrified to find her eyelids sticking together through lack of moisture. This realisation completely derailed her train of thought; all ideas of just lying there and dying were instantly erased from her mind as she gazed at the face above hers. It was a boy, his eyes closed to slits through which he peered at her like she were some strange insect he'd discovered crawling upon the ground. He was around her age or perhaps a little older, though he certainly looked like could be much older than she, his hair was as white as though he had lived her years ten times over. He was dressed in a threadbare blue robe, giving him away as another street child. As he spoke he held a scrap of food up to her mouth, stolen probably, that was the only way the children could possibly hope to survive in this place. She accepted it, feeling only slightly mortified, as though she were some pet animal. The grin tugging at the boy's lips turned into a wide mouthed smile, something that Rangiku soon learned was another constant trait of his.

As he sat and talked and smiled with her, he shone like silver snow in the sun-bleached landscape, and Rangiku thought that he was the most beautiful thing she had seen in her life.

And as he ascended, a traitor departing for a false heaven, and he was bathed in that terrible golden light, she still thought the same.

She saw him not as a fox, the white coated kitsune that toyed with the hearts and souls of the wicked and the innocence alike, but as an angel, white and silver and transcendent. He was and would forever be her saviour, her devotion to him said to be bordering on the fanatic, she clung to him like the lost child that he was. And so, the first time he left, her heart simply shattered.

She waited for weeks, refusing to leave their makeshift home. She waited though the snow fell and threatened to freeze her down to the bones, and still she believed he would return through the falling flakes, brushing the snow from his hair and robes; still sporting that ever present enigmatic smile. She waited through till the spring, the other children bringing her food till they deemed her a lost cause. In their society there was no room for those who were no longer willing to help themselves, never mind others. And she waited still, fearing to leave in case she happened to miss his return. It was not till spring had taken full hold over the town that her wish was granted, and she was shaken from her slumber by her snow white angel, his grin faltering at the realisation of how undernourished she had become. She had been severely scolded for that, she remembered his anger towards her, she remembered how he had told her that if she dared to pine over him in such a way he would really leave her for good next time. She remember how she did not believe him, devoted to him in a way that only a child could be, she sincerely believed that he would always return. And so he always did, until the day he left brushed off the filth of the streets for good.

That day, it had finally snowed, flecks falling like feathers towards the earth. She stood there in wonder with him in the great void of whiteness in which he seemed so at home. And he turned to her, no longer that same child, and she had understood. She understood that this time he would not return. He reached out a hand, catching flakes along the robe of his student uniform. He was leaving for the Academy, there to become one of the elite, one of those that Rangiku had spent her childhood dreaming over. She swore that she would shed not a tear, she was no longer a child and so no longer had the liberty at which to do so.

"I'll follow you. I swear, one day I'll find you again, even if you no longer wish to return to me."

She swore this promise in the falling snow, and as he turned his face towards her once again she was sadly overjoyed to discover the cold freezing a single tear that trickled down his face, leaking from eyes that were no longer closed but wide open, regarding her properly for the first time. She inhaled sharply, the breath stolen from her by this sight. Long had she wondered what colour they may be, and today she saw in them colour of the palest blue, almost pale enough to be called grey really, if not for that subtle hint of colour. She felt her own tears freezing upon her cheeks as she motioned to move towards him, to beg those to eyes regard her a little longer before he departed forever. He just grinned, a soft smile full of sadness and (dare she hope for it?) love. And so it was that that last touch was stolen from her, as the representative sent to escort her angel arrived to usher him away into his new life. He smiled and her and raised a hand in farewell, she frozen to her spot as he repeated her promise

"One day you will find me… I look forward to it, Rangiku."

And with that he was gone, leaving her alone within the swirling snowflakes that melted as they touched her flaming skin.

She stood there, over 100 years later, feeling the cold emanating from her captain's sword, remembering the twirling of the falling snowflakes as they alighted in his hair.

"Do you feel uneasy?"

"What are you talking about?"

"No… Let's go. Don't lose your focus Matsumoto."

"Yes sir."

And as she felt that monster rip into her side, gouging out her delicate flesh, and Kira leaning over her, spreading out his hands to heal her with that grim expression of pain and sympathy that she saw all too often from him now, she could still feel the heat in her stomach when the white haired man had turned to her on that fateful day, the words which stung like venomous poison, spreading anger and fear and doubt and terrible sadness throughout her veins.

"Farewell Rangiku… Sorry."

Now as she watched Kurosaki facing off against him, seeing that grin which once had meant the world to her twisted in that expression of malicious intent, she remembered that as he was lifted away into the dark sky above, she couldn't help but think that he did look just like an angel, bathed in that light.

Squinting through the dust she raised a hand, reaching towards the bruised sky as though she could drag him back down to her, as if she could hold him and make him look into her eyes as he had before. As if she could make him understand her feelings, and undo this pain and betrayal by a simple gesture of love.

"Look at me."

The sky was falling as he was swallowed by the black chasm of the sky.

"Look… At… Me…"

The snow was falling as they stood there, only meters but yet worlds apart.

"Open your eyes… Gin."