The serpent tattoo wraps around his ankles and shoulders, the snake's eyes and the man's eyes, the one and the same, marking him as a living offering to Angui, the snake god.
He bows before the priest.
"Gin" the man says, "A heretic wanders the land, her cult choking the faithful like weeds. Subject her to the trial of Blades, and the judgement of our just and merciful god"
It is decided. Miyano Shiho will die
Gin kneels before the veiled self-proclaimed prophetess
"My name is Astoria, lady of the flowers, I am here to pledge myself into your goddess' service."
The woman takes off her veil, and Gin's eyes widens at what he sees. Miyano Shiho is a striking women with hair the color of achingly sweet strawberry, eyes green as spring in full bloom and sensual lips. She is sex and power and ferocious passion, and she can bring a god to his knees.
She kneels to caress his face, stroking it like he is a favored pet, a feeling of electricity passing between them.
What the fuck he thinks
"That is not why you are here Gin"
He draws his dagger and rushes towards her.
"The Snake god bids you to face the trial of the blades!"
She curls her lip in amusement, and then his entire world spins as she disappears.
"Come find me when you understand" her voice calls out before merging into the darkness.
Miyano Shiho the heretic disappears. The priests praise him for a job well done, but he knows it isn't. And so the next day, Gin vanishes.
He starts in the capital. The city of serpents is, to outsiders, a bewildering maddening city where alleyways loops back around on themselves, merely giving the illusion of progress, and where every building is proportioned perfectly so that a man may spy on a neighbor, and be spied upon by another in return. Speak in any gathering larger than four, and soon, everyone will know what was said. Hawkers wander the streets yelling out the news of the day, truth and lies mixing together in equal volume erasing the distinction between the city reveals and obscures in equal measure, the only constant is deception.
And somehow, this is also where Gin discovers Shinichi Kudo, seeker of the truth.
Gin is walking down a street with a broken down wall, when a hand grabs his sleeve. Gin whirls around with his knife in hand, prepared to take care of a pick pocket. Instead there is a sharp chinned youth with piercing blue eyes, over sized ears and bangs operating in an unnatural state of chaos.
The young man seems unperturbed at the gesture. He just gives Gin a cheeky grin, as if he meant to be in this position, and doesn't find it threatening at all. Gin hates him already.
"State your name and business before I gut you like a fish" he growls.
"Why so violent Gin? Didn't someone ever tell you, live by the sword, die by the sword?"
"I am not here to play games" he says as he rushes the stranger with the knife, but with a quick flip, the mysterious man divests Gin of his knife.
"Not here to play? What nonsense! Here you are, seeking a girl who doesn't want to be found in a place where everybody is always watching one another. You're awfully good at killing, but you can't seek worth shit" he mocks, amusement clear in his features. Gin imagines tearing him apart piece by piece. But, he does admit, that the boy may have a point.
"Then what do you suggest I do, oh wise one" Gin bites back sarcastically.
"Glad you asked", the mysterious man says before drawing himself taller, "My name is Shinchi Kudo, seeker of truth, and I can point you in the right direction, for a price"
"And what will it cost me?"
"For now? One truth. Why do you seek Miyano Shiho?"
"To subject her to the trial of the blades in the name of the serpent god"
Shinichi gives him a knowing look, "It seems you really believe that. No wonder you suck as a seeker. But very well, I will accept that for now. But I do expect the truth from you Gin, eventually, the one you will not admit, even in the safety of your mind."
"Then you'll end up waiting forever"
Shinichi just laughs.
The world is much vaster than Gin ever cared to realize. There are thousands of civilization - ones that build eternally up, such that the base of their buildings are mausoleums, and they live and work and exist through stairways between the windows of the living, creating a labyrinth of stairs, a living network that binds these peoples together, as the dead rest quietly below, only to be to distrubed by the predation of the occasional tomb raider. There are nomads that place an entire city into a large vehicle, a block of steel on the landscape, pushed about by the magnetic waves that seem to pulse over the windswept plains. It makes him feel small, like a speck in the universe. He kills something, just to feel that rush of power when someone's life ebbs from his fingers. He hates Miyano Shiho for doing this to him.
Shinichi is unaffected, following some scent only he can see. Gin envies him. The seeker is always operating on his own forward momentum, always moving towards something. Gin doesn't even know why he's here.
Shinichi asks him again, "Why do you seek Miyano Shiho?"
"To subject her to the trial of the blades in the name of the serpent god" Gin says.
"Really Gin-chan? Even you don't believe that anymore."
"I want her to suffer. I want to place my hands around her neck and look into her eyes as she sees the power I have over her life and death, and I want to watch those eyes dim as she dies. I want her to feel what she's done to me."
"We're one step closer, but Gin, are you sure you want to kill her? Are you really sure?"
"Why did you become a seeker?"
"Really Gin, that was too obvious and clumsy a turn. However did you become an assassin if you're as subtle as a toothache, but very well, I will entertain you. I seek truth, not because it can protect me, or because it can give me anything, I seek it because the very act of looking has given me so much."
"I don't see how being a rootless wandering vagrant really provides one with much."
"Well, it did lead me to you" Shinichi says, and Gin finds his words stuck in his throat because he can tell that Shinichi actually means that, and its the first time anyone's ever said something like that to him.
The first sign of her Shinichi leads him to is the Cave of Persephone, where the goddess of Spring eloped with the God of Death.
There is an ethereal light that runs through the cave bathing everything in a soft glow that speaks of sin and seduction and dark deeds done in shadow, and he's never believed in much, but he believes this, she was here; I will follow you he thinks, I will follow you into every corner of the earth, caverns so deep and dark the gods have forgotten its existence, ancient forests so vast and thick their roots strangle the earth, islands so far from shore there are not even myths of their existence, into tombs so ancient the mother tongue of their inhabitants have been lost to time, I will follow you into the underbelly of decayed and rotting civilizations and I will find you
Shinichi asks again, his voice echoing through the cave, "Why do you seek Miyano Shiho?"
Gin finally admits, "I don't really know. I just need to find her, the same way I need to breathe."
"You're getting warmer," Shinichi teases.
At this point, Gin only feels a slight desire to murder him.
Lelich is this - a no man's land made completely inhospitable by the presence of a massive slumbering creature with a gaping maw and a nightmarish form, a bulbous inelegant mound of flesh that reminds Gin of rot and decay.
"I will scout this area alone," Shinichi declares, "it's too dangerous for you."
"How is it any safer for you?" Gin protests
"Do you know why this place is called the graveyard of empires, Gin-san? It's because these creatures eat empire. The minute you take a step into their territory, these creatures will wake up, and trust me that would be very bad."
"I don't see how, given that I am not an empire. Would they be satisfied with my map maybe?"
Shinichi rolls his eyes at that, "Empire isn't lines on a map or a government. It's a set of normalizing assumptions. It's about who and what is prioritized. It's about history and religion and culture and how those intersect with politics and power. It's about how one views themselves in relationship to the nation and how they view the nation's place in the world."
Gin blinks, still not getting it.
"How about instead of going into the complex metaphysical definition of empire, you just trust me."
It goes against his very nature to trust, but Gin slowly nods his head.
"I'll wait in a nearby town. Report back to me on where Shiho's been."
"Will do sir" Shinichi says and gives a salute.
Gin never expected to miss him so much once he was gone.
"Why do you seek Miyano Shiho?"
"Did you catch her trail?" Gin asks
"Answer me!" Shinichi practically yells, shaking Gin.
Gin takes a moment before answering, "Because I love her."
It was a revelation he had in the months alone. While travelling it was easy to focus on the road and moving forward and not thinking too hard about it, but now that he's been forced to stop, he's had nothing but time. Time for her to invade his dreams, invade his senses, and time for him break down his mental barriers to facing the facts.
Gin continues, "I know it doesn't really make sense. I barely know her. And honestly, I'm still not sure this isn't madness or obsession, but I need her like I need my heart to pump blood throughout my body. I want her madly. Do you know how embarrassing this is to admit? I'm fucking in love with Miyano Shiho, and I have no idea what to do when I find her. I just want her to acknowledge me in anyway I can make her. I want to make myself the center of her universe, even if just for one moment. I think that's always been the case, even when I was trying to kill her.
Shinichi gives him a shit eating grin.
"When you eliminate the impossible, all that's left is the truth, no matter how improbable."
"So now will you tell me what you found out about Shiho's whereabouts?"
Shinichi smiles tauntingly at Gin, "Are you sure you need me to spell it out for you?"
And Gin remembers, that moment when Shiho touched him and something passed between them, a sort of energy that he was unable to name then.
"You son of a bitch, she was with us along," Gin realizes.
Shiho appears in front of him in a flurry of cherry blossoms, and she is so beautiful it steals his breath away.
"You kept me waiting for quite a while dear"
"You were never just a heretic were you?" Gin says in wry amusement.
"To your snake god, I am undoubtedly something worse - a rival. But I have never concerned myself with the petty jealousy of a lesser deity."
"But why does my lady go to all of this trouble for me? I am but a man and you are" perfection, sin, seduction, sensual passion, "a goddess"
"Because I have loved you thousands of autumns ago, and I will take the chance to love you again, no matter how many forms your soul takes. You are mine Gin" she says.
He kisses her like his life depends on it.
They stay in town for a few days. Gin and Shiho catch up on their history, and Shinichi stays to prepare for his next expedition.
Before he leaves, Gin asks him, "You're not simply a wandering vagrant are you? You and Shiho have something."
He tries not to sound too jealous
Shinichi smiles and says, "She is very dear to me, a relationship spanning millenia, true. But I have never lied to you. I am indeed a seeker of truth. I am also a seeker of other things as well. Justice. Avalon. My wife Mouri Ran. Who also happens to be trapped in Avalon which can only be reached if I seek truth forever."
"That's not quite what you told me about why you sought truth now is it?"
"Haven't you learned anything Gin? Many things can be true at once, when it comes to humans and their hearts"
Shinichi laughs as he leaves them, but his back seems small, sad, weary and old.
Gin turns to Shiho as they watch him leave.
"You know, I'd never have thought I'd say this when we first met, but I'm going to actually miss the bastard"
"He has a way of growing on you, doesn't he?" she says.
"Like a weed" he agrees
In this life, the lady of flowers, the goddess of sensual love Miyano Shiho finds her love Gin. They are happy for many years.