Characters: Gin, Aizen, Rangiku
Summary: Every time he questioned why he was doing this, he recalled the sight of the blood on her clothes and the bruise on her cheek, and he would remember how much he hated this man. GinRan, Aizen.
Pairings: GinRan
Warnings/Spoilers: Spoilers for Deicide Arc; spoilers for 414, 415
Timeline: flashback in 415, Turn Back the Pendulum arc, pre-manga, current events
Author's Note: Okay (do not read this unless you've read 415 or are just really prepared for huge spoilers), one way to interpret chapter 415 would be to assume that the whole reason Gin defected from Soul Society, allied himself with Aizen and tried to kill him in the first place is because him and his cronies attacked Rangiku while the two of them were still living out in Rukongai. That would be the cue for the shippers to go nuts with the information. While I'm hardly a die-hard shipper myself, I did start grinning when I read the chapter. Then the ending made me really sad… and a little confused (Butterfly wings? Seriously, butterfly wings?).
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.

It didn't always seem worth it. Gin wasn't the most patient of souls, even if he did know how to wait when he had to. Being the snake that slithered, golden, slitted eyes poised on the bare, exposed ankle in front of him was a laborious task at best, and well nigh maddening at worst.

That and the fact that the man to whom the ankle belonged had hoe in hand, poised and ready to use it.

"Perhaps I could hear your name one more time?" Aizen's voice was impossibly mild, his eyes containing the same deceptively gentle gleam that Gin had seen that day many years in the past.

Gin's heart pounded more than it had when his Shinso had pierced the flesh of his division's truly hapless third seat, more then when his victim's crimson blood stained his cheek. He's noticed me! his mind crowed.

"Gin," the boy introduced himself, the elation of his face masked by the deep shadows the night was plunged into. "Ichimaru Gin."

What was the use of killing Aizen, anyway? Gin knew of only one way how, and there was no guarantee that that would even work.

The desire to see blood spilling from the corpse of his captain was at times overwhelming, yet Gin had but a small clue as to where this craving even originated from. It was just a whiff of bloodlust on years of murderous intent, and it had come to almost define Gin, swallowing up almost all of his other characteristics.

"The name of my bankai," Gin informed the board, "is Kamishini no Yari."

Yamamoto raised an eyebrow, noticeably. "Such an odd name for a bankai," he murmured, frowning deeply.

Gin didn't bother to inform him why his bankai was so named.

And why did Gin want to kill Aizen so badly? Why did he see him as prey?

At that moment, a few ravens flew away from their coops in his mind, scattering dust away from the old memory and reminding Gin of what he could never forgive.

There were four men in black—Shinigami, Gin realized—in the clearing. Three kneeling subserviently before the fourth, who held a small, round object in his hand, and was smiling, an odd, gentle gleam in his eye. Gin recognized that gleam. It was the look of a predator, just before they struck.

Then, his eyes were drawn closer to where he knelt in hiding. There was a small girl lying on the ground, strangely crumpled.

Gin's heart pounded in alarm. Then, a storm of ice swept over him.

Her thin yukata had been smeared with blood, disturbingly loosened in the front; the bruise on her cheek, black, blue at the edges and sore and throbbing, eventually made that side of her face swell for a few days before it started to heal. The men there had left her for dead; it had taken her weeks to heal.

Rangiku smiled through her swollen face, her eyes crinkling in pain as Gin handed her the mushy persimmon—nothing hard for her to eat until her jaw stopped hurting. "Thanks, Gin."

It wasn't hard anymore, to remember the instinctual, visceral hatred that he had felt, as Gin remembered, again and again and again, to remind himself why he hated his captain so much.

Gin's eyes opened wide, then narrowed, cold and brittle. He's the guy I have to kill.

Gin never let go of his grudges.