Date indeterminate; outside the established temporal flow of the impure worlds

Befriending a shinigami whilst investigating the minor spiritual pocket dimension called 'Soul Society' by its denizens was understandable, expected even; falling in love with said psychopomp was not. Especially when you knew only too well that love, true, sincere, lasting love forged the kind of bonds that made it almost impossible to step outside the flow of time and space. She would be limited to the mere handful of local dimensions for as long as this particular beloved lived, which considering he was a purely spiritual being and a knew soul could be centuries. Millennia, even.

Not to mention that she would have to hide herself away to avoid attracting attention: shinigami were powerful enough in their own way but not on the same scale as she was. As a kami whose powers flowed freely from the life-force of the pure worlds and whose domain was energy in all its forms, her abilities covered some of the same ground as theirs but went far beyond what they even believed possible. Their purpose was to regulate and protect souls as they passed into a designated afterlife; she on the other hand was an agent of Creation itself. There were always power-hungry individuals out there and as she did not want to be looking over her shoulder for the entirety of this lifetime, a disguise would be in her best interests. A shinigami disguise, so she could use some of her powers openly and not attract unwelcome attention.

But to become a shinigami she would need a zampakutō, which she could not attract. She was not a human soul and had no need of a weapon spirit to stand at her side; lacked even the places in her being that would enable one to latch on to her. True, she had the necessary inner forms to become a zanpakutō, but that would not do her any good at all. She wanted to stand beside her beloved and he already had a blade.

Though, thinking about it...

She could attach herself to a human soul, provided said soul allowed her to do so, and reversing the sword-to-soul relationship that all shinigami had would not be difficult so long as the soul cooperated. Finding a suitable and compatible soul with the right mindset to be comfortable being a blade, that would be the tricky part. At least her love was still new enough that she could yet wander outside the time stream in her search. Most souls wanted to pass on and would not be comfortable or willing to delay their own afterlife to offer aid to a kami trapped by chains of her own making, however involuntary those chains might be.

The other hard part would be choosing a name. Names mattered and her true name was unpronounceable to non-kami. She needed to pick something that harmonised with her true nature and fitted in with her new environment; not as easy to determine as it seemed. Fortunately being outside of time –if only just– meant she wouldn't have to hurry, having quite literally all the time in the world. A shortage of places to choose from perhaps, but that actually made things easier by cutting down on the available options.

Which inevitably drew her mind back to her beloved, her shinigami who was also a captain in the military organisation being put together to protect the souls of the dead from the lost and hungry. Her heart hoped he would live for a long, long time: it hurt when she lost an anchor even though she could follow them into their next life if she wished. She rarely did so; the ties biding her to them always shattered in death and they inevitably forgot her.

However the wild, untamed part of herself that danced amongst dying stars and wandered freely amongst the impure worlds scattered throughout the firmament like tiny bubbles in a rushing river could not help chafing at the imposed limits that came with loving a being bound by time. It did not make her adore her shinigami any less, but she knew only too well what she was giving up to stay at his side.

At least this one knew –however vaguely– that she wasn't just another human soul but a being different enough to be outside of most people's understanding. She'd met him in what amounted to avatar form and had never hidden her true nature from him. He knew she wasn't human in the slightest. Once upon a time she had been, yes, but no longer. She had lived too long, seen too much and learnt too much for that to be true anymore.

Nonetheless, she had managed to fall in love again and hopefully this relationship would be among the more fulfilling ones where she got as much out of it as she poured in. That he knew her for what she was amounted to a good start. A long existence of everyday human living would be pleasant and restful even if she had to masquerade as a psychopomp while doing so. It was so exhilarating to love and be loved again; ironic that what bound her was all she had ever wanted out of life.

It did not take all that long to find a suitable wandering soul with a basic compatibility to her. The soul in question could not recall her own name yet remained an elegant and fierce onna-bugeisha with a strong sense of honour and duty. She agreed to aid the soon-to-be-incarnate kami on the strength of that duty: the formless being was moulding herself to become a proper wife to the man she was bound to, which was what a samurai lady's honour required her to do.

The second soul however was the source of a serious overturning of the status quo. For one this soul had in life been a peasant-born hitokiri in the Bakumatsu, which instantly antagonised the Samurai lady already bound. For another he had a borderline dissociative identity disorder dividing his soul into highly polarised opposites, making him almost two people in his own right. The kicker however was that he was so unbelievably compatible with her on a spiritual level that they melded on the very moment of contact, making it impossible to leave him behind.

Unlike the former soul this one knew himself very well indeed, the lighter half claiming he was a rurōni called Kenshin while the darker half introduced himself as the hitokiri Battōsai. The incongruously petit redhead's distinct lack of inner peace was ironically what had caused him to be bound so tightly to her soul; being a kami forced into mortal form through ties to a human soul was the kind of thing that inspired profound internal conflict no matter how many times it had happened to her.

Said inner conflict was unlikely to resolve itself any time soon, considering how constantly the two souls bickered in her mindscape. Well, Battōsai and the well-dressed lady bickered. Kenshin was the peacekeeper and had what seemed to be infinite resources of patience.

Her zanpakutō problem theoretically resolved, the kami paid one final visit to her shinigami beloved to inform him of her intention to incarnate and the high likelihood of a few changes in her appearance connected to being limited in that way. She also told him the name she would be using: Nishi Amagurai, Heaven's Twilight of the West.

Preparations complete, she shifted her entire being into the empty dimension between the local human dimension and Soul Society and let the natural forces at work sweep her into mortal form.

So, this is what happens when you start thinking about how to insert a powerful, self-insert-ish character into a story yet have the plot still mostly work, then get bitten by the plot bunny you were poking. Plus, I was reading Vathara's many and wonderful Bleach and Rurouni Kenshin AUs and this sort-of eventuated.

It is long, slightly messy and was written over about ten days after desperately trying to ignore it for most of a month. Hopefully putting it up online will either get it to stop bugging me or persuade my muse to explain how the Winter War is supposed to go...

EDIT 20-12-11: I've fixed the spelling up now and fiddled some of the grammer. Still not sure how to write the war though...