Beginning Notes: Un-beta'd. Apologies in advance for typos I didn't catch.
"Neither of you's gonna come outta this alive! Fuckin' stop it, you two! Please," cried Gintoki desperately at the setting horizon, dropping to his knees. Yet the furious syncopation of clashing swords echoed on.
He swore at his heart sinking heart. Goddamn his stupid fucking self for getting his stupid fucking hopes up. Of course they weren't going to listen. Fat chance in hell a thin plea was going to wash away nearly twenty years of bad blood. He should've known better since—there was an awful screech of metal that made Gintoki gnash his teeth—this was a rare kind of fight. A fight like this occurred only once, maybe twice in a lifetime. This wasn't a battle out of duty to a cause or a battle to protect the defenseless.
It was a battle for one's pride.
With another sharp clang of swords crossing in the distance, an epiphany, too, struck Gintoki. If those stubborn bastards wouldn't listen to reason in their mother tongue, then he would make himself be heard in the language they were using now.
This would arguably be his most difficult match yet. Gintoki would be taking two of the greatest swordsmen he's ever known head on, but no part of him wavered. His heart was resolute. It was resolute on clobbering the ever-loving shit out of those proud idiots even if that meant bringing him within an inch of his life. Determination swelled in Gintoki's chest as he slowly stood back up. He was sure he could do this. The advantage was his. This way of communicating was his first language after all.
Estranged memories drenched in red flashed across his vision. Balancing the weight of a sword taller than he, the jagged lacerations a chipped blade left on battered flesh, the blisters on his tiny palms popping raw with each swing— all of which intimately more familiar to a child Gintoki than the sound of his own small voice forming words. Yes, as a waif left for dead, he had no choice but to adopt violence as his first language.
Confidence renewed, he panned the landscape for something, anything that could be used as a weapon. Off a ways he spotted a heap dumped on the ground with something peculiar jutting out of it. His blood surged with adrenaline as he relinquished control over to his intuition. He tore into a full sprint at the mass and commended his gut when a corpse with a naginata sticking out of its back came into focus. Stomping a heavy black boot onto the dead amanto's back, he rent the weapon out of its desecrated sheath with a war cry that would've shamed the screams in hell.
"Hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry," he chanted between heaving pants, racing towards his friends—no—brothers. Like a mantra, each further repetition of the word ebbed Gintoki's consciousness into recesses of his mind, leaving at the surface only his most basic, feral instincts that had birthed the reputation of the Shiroyasha.
Katsura often reflected on why he had chosen to disguise himself as a traveling monk. Though he was dedicated and did everything a good monk ought (meditate, collect alms, be a confessor), he would never in a thousand years dare call himself pious. What a filthily lie that would be since, truthfully, he didn't believe in anything at all.
No gods. No karma. No reincarnation. No enlightenment. Just life and death and how one chooses rationalize the interim.
He didn't frown upon having faith however. In fact, Katsura missed the rapturous joy faith gifted. Such joy was reminiscent of days spent with his grandmother or with sensei— praying with her, training with him. Regrettably, he would never experience such joy again. Those people, as well as his faith, were cruel casualties and forever gone from this world.
Katsura trembled from behind closed eyes as he pictured Death, hidden amongst enemy cavalries, coming for him on its massive pale horse. He recalled the plunging, fathomless hopelessness when he offered fearsome and supreme Death the only other good to his name in temporary lieu of his life: his honest faith.
A particularly long exhale escaped Katsura's pert nose. His head was swimming. So why exactly had he chosen to be a traveling monk again? Maybe he was fundamentally a masochist, and this was some form of mental asceticism. For recompense, he was forcing himself to walk a path he didn't (or rather, couldn't) believe in.
Dissatisfied, he grimaced. No, that paradox was too gratuitous an interpretation of himself. The relationship between his personal philosophies and everyday practices was more like a fool's errand. It was like a man wanting to disprove the existence of ghosts by dedicating his life to hunting them.
A tiny mirthless chuckle escaped him next. Yes, he was essentially living a fool's errand. He liked that idea very much. It was fittingly self-deprecating.
Katsura's expression returned serene as he eventually fell back into idle contemplation, but the grip on his prayer beads never became any less tight.
"Here," a voice crooned above him, and something clattered into his begging bowl, "It's all I can offer right now. …Zura."
The rush of deja vuwas assaulting as Katsura's hazel eyes flew open. He couldn't control his heart from skipping beats. Instantly he recognized this moment from years ago, from when he was sitting on a bridge disguised as a monk all the same. Making himself gulp down the frantic palpitations clogging his throat, he glanced down to the brass bowl at his feet, and inside it, a small dagger.
"It's not Zura; it's Katsura. …Takasugi."
"Where is your vigilance, Zura? Had I needed it, I could've lopped off that pretty, empty head of yours." A high-pitched giggle pierced the air. "Oh, and do be careful when handling my gift! The inside of the sheath is laced."
Katsura peeked from underneath his straw hat to meet the stare of an equally poisonous green iris, and he fought back his shock as their gazes locked. It was impossible to decide which sight before him was more unsettling, the psychotic glint in Takasugi's eye or his twisted, wicked smile.
Looking back down again at the bowl and dagger, he only hesitated a second before plucking it out. He took care to palm the weapon as to not alarm the passing civilians while outstretching his arm towards his comrade from once upon a time ago.
"What a waste of good breeding. Have you forgotten that monks beg for alms and not arms?" he criticized scornfully.
"That rich coming from a bogus monk," jeered Takasugi as he accepted the blade, inconspicuously tucking it back into one of his sleeves. "You know, Zura. This seems familiar. Is it just me, or haven't we been here before?"
"Shut your mouth. You planned this. We both know it. Tell me what you want then get out of my sight."
"I'd like for you to hear my confession, oh honorable monk."
"Damn it, Takasugi!" Katsura snarled. "You'd try the patience of a monk, but as you said, I'm no monk!"
"Oho! Look at this! I have goose bumps! I like the sound of that authority! Despite being the spineless fucking bakufu apologist you are now, I mean it when I say you were once a great general, Zura."
Katsura literally spat at the compliment, finishing with a click of his tongue, and Takasugi gasped in delighted surprise at the vulgar act. Katsura hated the tone of Takasugi's voice. No, he hated Takasugi's entire being. Everything about him from his speech to his movements was arrogant, capricious, and dangerous. Takasugi had gone absolutely fucking crazy, and not even the god Katsura didn't believe in could save him.
"You've already wasted your chance at a conversation with me. Keep dragging this out, and I'll blind you," Katsura pointed a finger at Takasugi's unbandaged eye and glared down the length of his hand as if he was looking through a crosshairs. "I swear I won't make a clean job if it either."
The more treacherous joui rebel threw his hands up in flippant resignation. "One month," he said. "There, happy? One month."
"The hell are you talking about?"
"I'm sick of biding my time, waiting for opportunities. I've decided to expedite matters on my own terms."
"Stop playing coy!"
"A single month, Zura. Spend it with him well."
Katsura snapped the wooden rosary beads in his fist with an ugly crunch. It was the punctuation mark at the end of the phony monk's unspoken sentence.
"I want to take away his life exactly how they took away sensei's. I want him on his knees with his hands bound behind his back. Even more than I'd like to do to you, Zura, I want to slip my fingers into his hair and grab a fistful of it."
"Enough!"
Takasugi was now savoring his words as if they were fine sake, "I want to yank his head back so hard, so far that he chokes. You see, but unlike sensei, he doesn't deserve to be beheaded. So just before loses consciousness, I want to slit that handsome, bared throat.
"Shut up," ordered Katsura pathetically. He was lurched over with a hand over his mouth on the verge of puking.
But Takasugi kept hissing, "Ah, but Zura! I still have more to share! Did you know the last thing my left eye saw were his disgusting, unfaithful tears? Why, it's only natural that I want his last moments to be equally as hateful. As he's gurgling his own fucking blood, I even know what my parting words to him will be. Hand still in his hair, I'll lean down and whisper in his ear, 'Give my regards to sensei for—'"
"SHUT UP!"
Crows scattered from the roofs, passersby on the bridge flinched, and Takasugi cackled with glee.
"I just realized how poetic it is that I found you dressed like this. Won't you preside over his funeral then, oh honorable monk?"
With a sharp clank of his staff, Katsura shot up to his full height and leaned into Takasugi menacingly, making sure the depraved bastard knew his place as the shorter man. Katsura's face was burning hot, but his voice was ice cold, "Rest assured. I'll make sure I bury you."
Softer this time, Takasugi laughed his evil laugh, and it was if a spell had been lifted. Katsura's breath hitched in his chest because he was inexplicably watching Takasugi's silhouette blur into the throng.
"Catch you 'round, Zura!" A hand shot up a backwards salute in the distance.
Everything was reeling. It had all been so quick, so familiar, and so intense that Katsura momentarily questioned his sanity. Where had that blip of time gone? Was that figure fading into the crowd just another ghost of the past haunting him? How could've it—
A wave of nausea crashed into him, and he spun around, forcefully emptying his stomach into the lazy river below. He gripped the railings of the bridge until his knuckles turned white, and with each dry heave he was imagining another scene of Takasugi's heinous fantasy.
Shaking, Katsura glowered at the people staring at him as he wiped the bile from his chin with the back of his hand. For some queer reason the strongest urge to feel pain overcame him, and so he bit his bottom lip until it bled. Swishing the salty, tangy liquid around in his mouth helped finally convince himself that this was indeed reality.
Gathering his things, he started in opposite direction of the crowd, and the people split a path for the terrifying sight of a monk. As he boldly marched forward, there was only one thing, one person, and one name on Katsura's mind.
Gintoki.
End Notes: Um ... I have no idea where this is going, but I hope you'll stick around for the ride!