Thank you for choosing my story to read! This story originally was my first on fanfiction and I have noticed significant problems in the chapters, so please bear with me. Thank you CrystallineX for being my original beta.

This chapter has been rewritten based on the changes in my writing style, the fact that I have now settled into this story considering it was my first and the reviews of SilveringBlue who pointed out many flaws in my chapter. Thank you to SilveringBlue who beta-ed this chapter for me.

The End Justifies the Means.

Romance, Gin/Sakura Naruto - Bleach crossover.

:Prologue:

The end justifies the means.

What a strange phrase for my life to have once revolved around, 'the end justifies the means.'

Perhaps I am foolish to have lived my whole life by that one sentence. I am not some divine being that can judge someone, not by any means. I, too, was once human.

In my incompetent life it would seem that the end, unfortunately for me, does not justify the means. Far from it. For, you see, I have failed to do what I've worked so hard to accomplish.

My time, the lives I have taken, the things I have said, the lies I have spun and the opportunities for happiness I have thrown away, were they really all for nothing? How bitter it is to know what I sacrificed.

Who knows, all this may just be some sick delusion brought on by that man's Zanpakutō. Maybe this is his way to punish me for protecting that which I love, loved, most. Even the great Aizen is human, no matter how much he denies it.

And all humans are selfish creatures. They do not care who you are or what you do; they only care for themselves. The doctrine of self-preservation, I believe, describes not only human lifestyle, but Aizen's pathetic struggle for power the best. It is a cruel reality I have found to be true.

As for my own lifestyle, I'd like to believe I was a human who evolved into a snake that, no matter how idiotic it may be, strives to play the game called life based on that infuriating phrase, 'The end justifies the means.'

However, right now it seems I am stuck in a limbo state. My heart has beat its last… yet my brain still functions.

How long have I been like this? Perhaps hours. Perhaps seconds. Milliseconds, even. My thoughts are becoming discombobulated and hazy as my mind fades.

It is time to leave this life, I suppose.

"GIN!" A single cry of pain sounds through a broken battle field, filling that one word with such anguish.

Ah, my dear Matsumoto. You call to a corpse. Gin Ichimaru – former captain of the 3rd division, traitor to Soul Society – is dead. It's funny really, to die once and be thrown into Soul Society – a world of misfortune– only to die again, the moment I thought I had done something right for once, that the end I had created justified the means.

It didn't.

Ah, I really am a fool.

…It occurs to me that I sound like a babbling old man.

I am the snake who hides behind the mask of the smiling fox; a disastrous creature without emotions. But for the first time I am happy.

I am so glad.

I'm glad that I apologized, Rangiku.

Ah, Shinsō, do you see him too? I'm not hallucinating, am I? That boy… Ichigo Kurosaki… his eyes… they… hold more power in them. That's good… he's at… at a level… to defeat… and everything has faded to black… where are we now, Shinsō?

I am Gin Ichimaru, and this is where my life is supposed to end.

But sadly for me, it doesn't.

No.

This is where it all begins.