The gates were still standing, despite being somewhat charred and soot-stained. The intricate iron seal depicting a Nue demon was entirely intact, and a pleased growl reverberated in the recesses of my mind. '. . . This is all so fucked up . . . .' I thought as the massive wooden doors swung open in front of me, giving way to the sight of a half destroyed mansion and equally ravened grounds; my ancestral home they'd told me. My guardian spirit, Zabimaru, was certainly pleased with it, it was almost like returning home for him.

"Abarai-sama, the workers will be arriving in the morning to begin reconstruction. The Emperor promises that the Abarai estate will be restored to its former glory in no time." The young dark haired boy standing next to me said. He was a servant of the Emperor, chosen to accompany me to the remains of the desecrated Abarai House. If I recalled correctly, his name was Rikichi, and in the short time we'd been in each other's company, the boy had become quite attached to me, leaving me feeling slightly more confused and overwhelmed, if that was even possible.

'Only a few weeks ago, I was just another one of the hundreds of lowlifes living in Inuzuri . . . then I go to being the sparring partner of the Crown Prince, and then I find out I'm the cliché long-lost heir of some great noble family . . . . I'd almost rather go back to my little shack by the river and pretend none of this happened . . . .'

According to the Emperor, my mother, Abarai Akane, had been the Abarai family's youngest daughter, who, then pregnant with her first child, had been the only one known to have escaped from the manor the night the estate had been attacked, but for whatever reason, she never reappeared, and they of the Imperial court had assumed she'd died, and that the family was lost, hence why the vast Abarai demesne had never been rebuilt until now.

I'd figured that she'd just hidden out in Inuzuri, definitely the last place I'd look for a noblewoman if I were an enemy. Her being the daughter of noble family explained quite a few things, like her obsession with making sure that I knew my surname was Abarai. She never let me forget it, but never gave an explanation as to why she was so insistent that I remember. Now, it all made sense. But my mother had died when I was fifteen, leaving me to finish raising myself in the slums of Inuzuri on my own.

It wasn't until that one fateful day, eight years after the death of my mother, that all of this insanity had started.

In all honesty, I blamed the Crown Prince, Kurosaki Ichigo, for screwing my entire life over. If I hadn't stepped in to defend the orange haired stranger who'd foolishly picked a fight with some of the starving thugs who lived nearby, I wouldn't have discovered that the orangette was in fact the Emperor's son, in disguise and on the run from his guards for a short break in his refined, orderly, or in other words, boring life. Ichigo had been thoroughly impressed with my fighting skills, and invited me to come with him to the Imperial Palace to be his new sparring partner. And, like any poor idiot who wanted more out of his life than fighting for daily survival in a dirty slum, I'd said yes.

At first, living at the palace hadn't been so bad; I'd been well-fed, well-dressed, and given a comfortable room near the training hall, which was cared for by a couple of servants who all bowed when I passed, something that had never happened to me before. Ichigo, though hot-headed and reckless, was fun and lively, and sparring with him was just the challenge I'd been looking for, having gotten bored of beating the same drunken morons who never got any tougher. I got along fairly well with most of Ichigo's guards and the other members of our usual training sessions, particularly with Ichigo's favorite, a brash, fiery man with a brilliant shock of electric blue hair and cat-like sapphire blue eyes who went by the name of Grimmjow Jeagerjaques.

Best of all, none of them really cared that I was from Inuzuri, most of the guards weren't noble born either. In fact, at one point or another, most of them had been some sort of criminal. Grimmjow himself had at one time been the most feared of the mountain raiders that had terrorized the low lying villages to the north of the capital city, known as 'Pantera', the Panther. Another guard, the sleepy, lethargic but astonishingly observant Coyote Starrk, had once been called 'Byakuro', the White Wolf, and had done his own fair share of terrorizing years ago. They'd settled down, after being defeated and pardoned by the Emperor, Kurosaki Isshin himself, and now worked for him, faultlessly loyal and completely at ease with their lives, Starrk seemingly more so than the rest of them.

It wasn't until I had been in the palace for nearly two weeks that I came in contact with the first person who made me feel the lowliness of my birthplace, and who quickly became the sole source of my heartache and misery. It was that day that I first caught a glimpse of the moon, the illustrious moon that I quickly came to worship and adore. The ruthless, cold moon that never so much as glanced at me with anything other scorn in his eyes . . . .

Kuchiki Byakuya.

He was beautiful, pale, perfect, pristine, and head of the Kuchiki clan, one of the oldest and most respected family in the entire empire. He also served as the Emperor's Minister-of-War, due to his intelligence and levelheadedness. He headed Ichigo's personal guard, though he was rarely on duty himself, because of his other commitments, which explained why it took me several weeks to finally meet him face to face.

I waited in the empty training hall for Ichigo to show up; it was weird for him to be late, even weirder for no one to be there already . . . . The shoji flew open abruptly, making me jump, but when I looked in that direction, in the doorway, stood the moon.

Long, silky black hair, set up in the kensaiken I'd only heard stories about before this moment. Clear eyes of dark silver, eyes that betrayed nothing but a calm serenity that enveloped him. High cheekbones and pale, fair skin, a perfectly controlled expression of blank neutrality that he wore as an unbreakable shield around his thoughts and emotions. The silvery-white silk of the scarf loosely wrapped around his neck caught the soft light coming from the shuttered windows of the training hall. It was almost as though he gave off a soft silvery gleam, a cold radiance that had me hypnotized within seconds.

His sharp gaze found me immediately, and for a minute, he did nothing but scrutinize me. His eyes narrowed as he caught sight of my tattoos, a slight, severe scowl crossing his expression. A chill ran down my spine at that moment.

Finally, he spoke.

"You are the mutt Kurosaki-denka brought back with him from his little escapade into Inuzuri."

The way he said it did not make it a question. His voice was icy and full of scathing disgust, and it made me flinch, a surge of defensiveness flaring up in my chest.

". . . Yeah, so?" I muttered, looking away from his harsh beauty, not wanting to see it, for fear that it would captivate me completely, but wanting to see it, for fear that it might end up being a simple delusion.

"Do not speak to me, mongrel. The only reason I haven't ordered you to be removed from the palace is because Kurosaki-denka received permission from the Emperor to keep his newest pet from Inuzuri here. If it were up to me . . . I would have not let you within a hundred feet of the gates."

'Okay, that was uncalled for . . . .' I thought, clenching my teeth. "Oh, yeah, and who are you to kick me around?" I hissed. A painful war of emotions was going on inside me, the part that longed to touch and kiss the haunting beauty in front of me, and the other part that was pissed as hell at this bastard's chilling superiority.

"I am Kuchiki Byakuya, head of the Kuchiki clan."

I actually took a couple steps back out of astonishment. There wasn't a single person in the entire empire who didn't know the name Kuchiki Byakuya. He was every bit as well known as Kurosaki Isshin, Sousuke Aizen, or Urahara Kisuke. Suddenly I was slightly afraid; this man was powerful and known for being cold-hearted and almost cruel to people who came from outside the Imperial court, mostly due to his upbringing, they said.

"Mark my words, mutt. You may have Kurosaki-denka's favor for the time being, but do not start thinking that that actually means something. You are nothing. So do not expect anything out of your stay here. Eventually, Kurosaki-denka will learn what is expected of him as Crown Prince, and then . . . you will return to your hovel in Inuzuri. I will see to it . . . personally, if I have to."

That had been my first encounter with the man, and as much as I hated it, as much as I tried to deny it, as much as I didn't want it to happen, I was smitten by the light of that icy moon. I still was, despite all the hostility I'd gotten from him. Maybe I was just a dog . . . howling at the moon.

"What do you think, Abarai-sama?" Rikichi's voice broke through my shell of gloomy reminiscing. He was looking at me as if expecting an answer, and I flushed faintly as I realized that I had no idea what he had been talking about.

"Wh . . . What was that, Rikichi?"

"I said the Emperor will be holding a festival to celebrate the return of the Abarai house when the manor is completed. What do you think about that, Abarai-sama?" the boy replied happily, unaware that I had blatantly been ignoring his incessant chatter for the past little while as we strolled through the desolate holdings belonging to the name Abarai, surveying what needed to be done to bring it back to its proper order.

Rikichi's question bothered me, to be honest. I really had no desire to be a great lord. I disdained court life. I'd seen enough of it during my time as Ichigo's sparring partner, and I hadn't even been directly involved in it. It seemed unnecessarily complicated and full of hidden agendas and veiled threats. Besides . . . returning to the Imperial Palace meant . . . returning to the source of my misery.

The ache of longing for Kuchiki Byakuya had lessened somewhat, as I slowly brought myself to terms with the fact that he would never look at me as anything more than a mangy animal, though I had not seen him since before it was discovered that I was the lost heir to the Abarai clan. I did not want to go back to the Imperial palace, even if my friends , such as Ichigo and Grimmjow, and the others were there, even if there was to be a festival in my honor . . . .

I sighed heavily, letting my eyes slip closed, attempting to push back the hollow feeling in my chest.

"You know, Abarai-sama . . . as the new Lord of Abarai . . . you now stand even with Kuchiki-sama . . . . You have every right to court him."

My eyes opened quickly and I fixed the servant boy with a wide mahogany stare, "What?!"

Rikichi, had a very determined look on his face, not a look a servant of the Imperial Palace was expected, or allowed to have. "Abarai-sama, Before, Kuchiki-sama rejected you because of the station of your birth, right? But, as a great lord, he has no basis on which to reject you anymore, right?!"

I was stunned. I had tried my best to keep my attempts at claiming Byakuya's attention as unobtrusive as possible, more for his sake than my own. " . . . Rikichi . . . how do you know about that . . . ?"

Rikichi suddenly looked nervous, as if realizing right then what he was doing, and how far out of line he was by palace standards. He paled a bit, and looked down at the broken stone path we had been walking on. "I . . . well, I . . . it's . . . it's common knowledge in the palace. Everyone knows about it . . . but no one says anything to Kuchiki-sama, or to you . . . Abarai-sama."

'Great . . . now I really don't want to go back to the Imperial Palace . . . .'