Kyoto, 1864

The son of a sickly whore rubs his skinny hands together. The sticky August heat has given way to cool evening breezes, but the boy is not glad for this respite. He is cold, so cold that at times it feels as if his heart is made of ice and steel.

His patched up pockets jingle with the satisfying weight of three whole strings of copper coins. Perhaps there is enough in there to exchange for a silver; perhaps there is enough for them to indulge in three square meals tomorrow with enough left to purchase sweets and a new comb to put in his mother's hair so that she feels beautiful again. There is hope. The moon shines brightly here in the outskirts. He shields his squinted eyes at that beautiful, faraway light, and for a single desperate moment, the world disappears.

The walled city is walled no more. There is no palace, no emperor, no nobles, no castes. And because of that, there are no outcastes - those untouchables such as he.

Tomorrow, he thinks, tomorrow he and his mother will start a new life. He looks out toward the line of trees from which the silvery moon rose, and he smiles. There is a river beyond the forest, and a settlement along its banks. Burakumin, some call them. Or eta, the mass of filth. When his preparations are done, he and his mother will be welcome there among the butchers, leatherworkers, executioners and coffin makers whom society has deemed to be too tainted by death to have a place among the living.

It's a good thing that he ran into that ronin, or he wouldn't have known about the village of outcastes, and he wouldn't have gotten such nice blades as a gift. The katana will fetch a good price if he can find the right buyer, and the wakizashi... He wipes off the short sword and sheathes it.

The boy turns his smile down toward the blood-spattered ground. "Thanks," he says to his patron.

The corpse at his feet does not respond.

-oOo-

Streetlights come into view as he nears the more heavily occupied sectors of the capital. He scurries through the back alleys and stashes the katana behind a crumbling wall; the wakizashi goes into the tattered folds of his clothes, secured at his waist, concealed. He slinks his way deeper into the slums.

"Have I told you about when I was a maiko?" asks the whore standing by the gate to Shimabara district. "I know the dances," she says, waving her arms dreamily. "I lived in Gion district back then, ya know. An' worked inna fancy tea house with the others in the geiko community. Samurai would come from Osaka an' Edo an' everywhere else ta see us dance, an' they'd call us geisha, all proper-like in their funny Edo accent... Mama would give us new kimono when we graduated, but I never did. No, I never did, because I had a baby boy... Ain't no boys allowed in there, so I had to leave..."

The boy interrupts her reverie with a tug on her sleeve. The embroidered brocade of her kimono is faded and graying. There is dirt underneath her cracked fingernails, he notes as he slips his tiny hand in hers. With her borrowed warmth radiating from their connected palms, his heart thaws just enough for him to smile with genuine happiness.

"No more customers t'night, mom. Ya said we'd get up early t'morrow to go shoppin'." He smiles brightly at the woman and steers her away from the lamps of the red light district.

She pats his head and cheeks, and ruffles the fine strands of his hair. Her eyes are sad every time she notices that his eyes are blue. "You're such a good boy, Gin. Such a good boy..."

He is a good boy, isn't he? He never complains that they don't have enough to eat, or that he's always cold. He is cheerful and respectful when he ought to be. And if, sometimes, the drunkards who buy his mother mysteriously go missing, it has nothing to do with him. Nothing to do with the bruising on her wrists and the secret flash in his blue eyes that he never lets her see. No, nothing to do with that at all, because Gin is a good boy.

Tonight, his mother is quieter than usual, but even though she doesn't go on with her customary rambling, the speech plays out all on its own in Gin's mind. "You'd have made a gorgeous geiko, Gin. The nobles would come from all corners of the world to call on ya. Just look at ya... Skin so white you'd hardly have ta put any powder on. I'd teach ya how to drive th' men wild. Tease 'em, but leave 'em high and dry, wantin' more."

And he'd say, "Yeah, it'd be nice if boys could be geiko too."

And in one of her rare moments of clarity, she would laugh while unshed tears glittered at the corners of her eyes.

-oOo-

The katana gets him a small handful of silver, half of which were stolen from the dealer's pockets when he wasn't looking. Gin thinks it's good enough, and he smiles in satisfaction as he stashes this latest gain with the rest of his secret savings.

Just a little bit more... Just a little bit more... He shifts fallen bricks back over his hiding place behind the crumbled wall and scurries over to pick up his mother.

That's when all hell breaks loose.

What he had thought was celebratory shouting are actually the sounds of battle. The smoky smell of roasting meat that wafts from the various inns has gradually been replaced with a far more acrid burning, and Gin curses himself for not having noticed.

Fire! There is fire everywhere! Kyoto is under siege!

He rushes out onto the street to see the palace gate in flames off in the distance. Soldiers stomp past, and civilians scream and lock themselves in their houses or make for the outer city gates. Gin scurries between the shadows, ducking and dodging, still trying to reach his mother, but navigating the battlefield is difficult, especially when downed combatants are knocking over torches and inadvertently setting everything on fire.

At Shimabara's gate, there is panicking. A wooden beam crashes down into a tea house, sending splinters and shards of pottery flying outward. Whores and brothel patrons flee like ants. Some are on fire; some are desperately throwing buckets of water into the inferno to no avail. Gin sprints forth and grabs his mother's hand, tugging her out of the way.

She stumbles, waves her dirtied sleeves and says, "There's my beautiful baby boy... There ya are, there ya are... Lookit here, isn't the fire festival jus' so beautiful? So pretty. So pretty just like you, my baby."

"We dun 'ave time fer this!"

She babbles, twirls, and laughs as they're jostled down the streets by the fleeing mob. "Hurry up! Out of the way, out of the way!" the faceless masses scream. Their shouts reach a fevered pitch. Gin has never heard such screaming in his short life, but his instincts are good and he knows that there's danger coming from up the road.

Sure enough, he's right. Behind them, soldiers cut a bloody swath through the stragglers in their haste to retreat. The survivors of whichever side of the conflict had lost are quickly pushing through the crowd with their blades. Gin tugs at his mother's hand again.

"This way," he says, but it's too late.

"Hello there, handsome. Wouldja like some company t'night?" She plasters herself over a frightened soldier.

"Get off, crazy woman!"

In the next moment, two blades are simultaneously drawn. One slices the whore's head clean off her neck, and the other plunges into the soldier's heart from behind.

There's another plunge, and another, but the reality of the situation doesn't quite register. There's another body on the ground, and another. A katana dropped here, and another there. From the corner of his eye, Gin sees a short sword flashing as it strikes, far more deadly than its size would suggest.

"Shit, this kid's gone insane! Take 'im down!"

The coldness in his veins creeps up toward his heart. Numbness follows it even as he feels the steel slide all the way through him and he slumps into a sea of blood, his mother's dreamy voice sliding in and out with consciousness...

Lookit ya, so pretty, my baby boy. The blood makes yer eyes stand out.

...His mother's severed head lying just out of arm's reach...

He doesn't know how much time passes as he lays there, face down in the crimson tide. He doesn't know if the flames consume him or not. None of that really matters, because at least his mother isn't suffering anymore. Gin doesn't believe in heaven, but for her, he wishes the stories are true. She is free now, to find the happiness that he couldn't give her.

It's enough to let him go in peace.

-oOo-

When he wakes up that first time, it's to the sun above, to God's bright eye, all-seeing and unforgiving. The sun hangs alone in the cloudless sky. Gin's fingers grasp a handful of parched, sandy earth as he pushes himself up to take his first look around his new home in outer Rukongai.

Barren. No people. No animals. The trees are brittle, their branches cracked, and whatever fruit might have once grown on them had long since shriveled under the intense dry heat.

Could it be that he needed to repent in order to reach heaven, perhaps? That this was the "purgatory" that foreigners such as his unknown father sometimes spoke of? But no, it couldn't be. Those like him, who not only lied, stole, and murdered on a whim, but also rejected the very notion of salvation... No. It was clear from what the preachers said that someone like him was supposed to be doomed to an eternity of pain and suffering. Burning in a pit of lava, or something like that.

But far, far away in the distance, he sees the outlines of ivory towers, glimmering like a mirage. As he makes his way toward the white walls, he comes across others, and he asks them about the shining towers. They tell him that it's a sacred place, a palace for pure souls.

He would have believed them if he hadn't met her along the way, too. Pure souls, was it? And what about the innocents? What about his mother, and now this unfortunate girl? They had never done anything wrong. What right did those men have to take things from them and then toss them out like yesterday's trash?

The world had disappeared, but in the new one that sprung up in its place there was still a palace, and where there was a palace, there would be an emperor, and nobles, and castes. The rich still abused their power. The wall was still there, and Gin was still on the other side of paradise, his hand twined protectively around another's. Funny, that. It seemed that death really hadn't changed anything; not even Gin, who, with a wry smile, chuckled to himself at how much of a hopeless romantic he was, with his strange weakness for women's tears.

It really made no sense, but it gave him a sense of purpose. One day, he said, they would live in a world where she would want for nothing. No more hunger. No more tears. Her goodness and beauty would shine out for all to see, and no one could say that, just because she had been born of low status, she was not a pure soul in every way.

Because she was. Rangiku was lovely and warm, even though at times she was as sad as lingering graveyard ashes. And even though she didn't remember what had been done to her, he promised to himself that from now on, no one would ever violate her again. This time he would make it so.

Gin looked toward the wall, the thin slits of his eyes doing little to ward off the sun's harsh glare. A gleeful part of his heart gave an excited little skip at the thought of seeing all those pretty white stones come tumbling down.

He woke again, this time within the walls.

He was lying sprawled out on a stone bench, basking in the heat of the sun's afternoon rays, his head nestled in someone's lap. Muffled voices drifted over from the academy where his captain was holding his weekly calligraphy class. Of course a captain who was so perfect would have a perfectly loyal lieutenant - one who tagged along even though he had no knowledge or interest in calligraphy. Lieutenant Ichimaru just couldn't bear to be parted from his most beloved captain for so long. How painful it would be for him to be parted from the man he'd set his sights on; his aspiration and his goal.

Gin blinked up at the owner of his borrowed pillow. "Heya, Izuru. Ya finished another poem?"

"Oh, um, yes. It's about the moon."

"When it's not even out yet?"

"It's out there," Izuru said, loosening the collar of his blue uniform. "I can see it clearer than the sun."

Gin watched in amusement as a light pink flush started creeping up Izuru's neck to settle on his cheeks as he realized what he'd just said. It was followed by a lot of nervous sputtering and 'that's-not-it' and 'I-didn't-mean-it-that-way' and 'it's-not-what-you're-thinking-if-that's-what-you're-thinking'.

Gin just laughed and brought his arms up to wrap around his pillow, burrowing deeper. "Writin' about the moon in broad daylight, huh. How bold. The sun might get mad at ya, though."

"That's okay. I don't mind." Izuru's reply was quick and breathless. It was also exactly what Gin wanted to hear.

"Good. Wake me up when class is over, would ya?"

Izuru's only response was a soft sound of acknowledgement. Perhaps he had nodded, but Gin couldn't tell with his eyes fully closed again. There would be time later for more lies, more masks. For "Yes, Captain Aizen, he's loyal to ya. All three of 'em are fine. No problems at all. Let's recruit 'em all." Nope, no problems.

In his dreams, towers crumbled and the moon blocked out the sun. He dreamt of total eclipse; the end of days. And of rebirth, too. He dreamt of golden flowers rising above the ashes.