Side note: This is my first attempt at writing Ichimaru Gin. My understanding is that the way he speaks English translations is a manner of dealing with his accent in Japanese, which cannot be reflected in English. As such, I'm assuming he speaks normally since this is an accent rather than a dialect. If anyone reading this actually speaks Japanese and can explain this better or correct me entirely, I would be thrilled. Thank you!
Disclaimer: Only Bleach I own is NaOCl
There was only the road.
There was only the road, so he followed it. There was only the road, lying straight and infinite in each direction, disappearing into a flat horizon. The sky was blank and grey. The sun was dim and faint. It set in front of him and the sky grew a little darker. After a time there was more light, until once again the sun fell beneath the horizon, seemingly at the end of the road.
Three times the sun rose behind him -- presumably, at least; he never turned back to see it -- then set again before him and still he walked. He had long lost count of the sun's courses across the sky when he heard his name.
"Ichimaru Gin."
The voice, her voice, had come from behind him. He turned slowly, unsure what he would find. Her back was facing him but the cascade of golden hair was unmistakable. The world lacked all color until he saw her hair gleaming like fields of wheat rippling in a summer breeze. She had stopped, too, but she was facing away from him. She was going in the opposite direction. There was nothing but the road. There was nowhere else she could have come from. She was walking in the opposite direction and that meant she had passed him by. He hadn't seen her. She had walked right past him and he hadn't even felt her.
"Ran-chan," he whispered.
"Where are you going, Ichimaru Gin?"
He smiled and knew at that moment he was dreaming. He was always leaving Rangiku, never saying goodbye, never telling her where he went or when he would return. And she had never asked. Knowing it was a dream made him bold.
"Come with me, Ran-chan! Come with me and see!" He threw his arms wide, giddy with all the possibilities that could never be realized in the waking world, drunk on the limitless potential of a dream.
She turned her head, but not all the way. He saw one clear blue eye and one half of her bitter, sad smile. "No, Gin. I never could follow you, and now I never will."
She didn't say goodbye, either. She simply turned back and resumed her path, following the road that led her further from him with every step. Even though it was only a dream it made him very sad. She would follow the road in the opposite direction, walk until she melted into the glorious sunrise and they would not see each other again.
He waved at her receding form before turning around to face his own path. There was nothing but the road and he followed it. Ichimaru Gin walked forward into the same bleak, repeating sunset until he woke.
Ichimaru Gin dreamed. Sometimes he thought he was the only one in Hueco Mundo who did. He dreamed of loud noises and bright colors and all the other things he left behind to come to this place. But he had never before dreamed of Matsumoto Rangiku, and he never did again.
The next time he saw her was the last.
He had been in the thick of the fighting for too long. He was tired, and not only physically. It was an easy thing to slip away. Everyone else was wrapped in their personal battles, struggling not only against opponents but their own sense of betrayal. The tides of arrogance, indignation, superiority and sorrow ebbed and surged around him and simply left him... tired. He didn't think anyone saw him leave.
He walked aimlessly, moving in any direction that made the shouting and the clamor of sword against sword more quiet. When the battle noise grew sufficiently distant, he sat. He didn't hear her approach. He didn't know she had followed him until she said his name.
"Ichimaru Gin."
He held his smile until he looked up and saw her face, assured himself that it truly was her. Her eyes were harder than he remembered but she was still beautiful. He raised a hand to his forehead in a cheeky salute.
"Have you abandoned your new god so readily?"
He let his hand drop. "Haven't really decided." He leaned forward, face brightening that he had someone with whom to share the joke. "Hey Ran-chan, aren't you going to ask me 'why'?"
Her lips twisted in disgust and his stretched wider in delight. She always understood; she always recognized the secret things he laughed at, even if she didn't laugh with him. The battlefield had been littered with "Why?" Hitsugaya had demanded it of Aizen-sama, but he was cut down before he could hear any answer. Kyouraku asked in consternation and Ukitake in disappointment, when they took up the fight. Komamura channeled his sense of loss into rage and bellowed it, made it his war cry. Hisagi inquired quietly, sincerely, but then he and Komamura disappeared into Tousen's bankai and were heard no more.
"I would never ask you for a reason. I don't think the word holds any meaning for you."
"Maybe I just never met anyone who wanted to be a god before. Maybe I thought if I followed him something interesting might happen. I figure that's as good a reason as any."
There was bitterness in her smile, bitterness he had never seen in her before, save in a half remembered dream. "As good a reason as any," she repeated. "Or none at all."
He offered a hapless shrug. "I don't know what you want from me, Ran-chan. I never knew." He stood. "I'm tired of all this. I'm leaving."
"Did you think it could be that easy?" She hissed, drawing Haineko. "After everything you've done?"
She was supposed to know. It was a feint, a false opening as he readied his next attack. He was certain she would know. Time slowed as she extended her sword and launched herself forward. Against his greater desire, instinct and habit conspired to whisper "Ikorosu, Shinso." She was supposed to know. She was supposed to stop. Their eyes caught for a brief instant in the midst of her mad charge and he saw that she had known. She just didn't care. All of his intentions were shattered into irrelevance as he and Rangiku collided. They had strength enough only to withdraw their swords before falling at each other's feet.
Her blade had struck him high, above his heart, but he saw the brightness of spurting arterial blood. He would die, and soon. He propped himself up on an elbow to look at her. He had pierced her midsection, near her lower abdominal muscles. She was doubled over in pain, hands pressed tight against the wound. She would linger; death would come slowly for her.
They were dying together in a colorless world. Her robes were black, his white. The stones of the road beneath them were grey. There was a thick haze in the air, smoke and ash and dust from kido fire and the wreckage of ruined buildings. The sky was grey. He found a comforting familiarity about the scene but could not explain why.
"Gin..." Her voice rasped with pain and she struggled to lift her face. Strands of hair fell across her forehead and rested in the sticky blood on the ground between them. There was the exception; it was a colorless world save the rolling golden waves of her hair and the rich red of their blood. "Gin... I would have gone with you..."
How funny, he thought, suddenly remembering. I dreamed of this. Maybe I dreamed it just so I'd know what to say.
"No, Ran-chan. You couldn't. And you never will."
He knew the words but he didn't understand until he said them out loud. His eyes opened wide. The familiar smile that he thought of as his only face slid away. He couldn't let her follow him. He knew what he needed to do.
Her hands were slick with blood and it was easy to slide them away. He pushed his hand against her wound with all his strength. She let out an agonized groan and her eyes fluttered shut. Ichimaru Gin had never been good with healing kido in the best of times, and now he was dying and weak. He poured all his energy, all his life, into closing her skin. It was a crushing effort, pinning him under tremendous weight, threatening his ability to even breathe.
The weight didn't feel any less after he had mended her stomach. He slumped backward, his hand falling away from her skin. His fingers brushed against the rough puckering edges of scar tissue. It felt ghastly. He hoped the Fourth Division could fix it for her, though he suspected she wouldn't let them. The scar would be the last thing he gave her.
He still couldn't breathe. The weight was changing, not touching him anymore but passing through him. He couldn't say goodbye this time, either; she wasn't awake to hear it. He would have called it unfair but saving her life was enough. Knowing she wasn't coming with him was enough.
He looked up at the sky hoping to see the sunrise from his dreams, the sunrise she should wake to. Darkness pooled around him and in the last whisper of a wind that wasn't there, in the last glimmer of imagined sunlight he saw again the Rangiku of his dreams asking him, asking him, "Where are you going, Ichimaru Gin?"
He finally, truly understood. He knew the answer to the question she never asked, knew why she must never be allowed to follow him.
Where are you going, Ichimaru Gin?
Nowhere.