A/N: Er Gintama/Bleach crossover of weirdness, spawned by a very silly conversation. Major spoilers for Bleach, not so much for Gintama. ;)

Bleach is Kubo Tite's sandbox, Gintama is Sorachi Hideaki's – I'm just playin' in em. Could someone pass me a shuvel?

Just Awesome Like That

Finite Sledgehammer

Aizen Souske blinked.

In hindsight, he shouldn't have done that. Blood dripped to the ground, forming a pool at their feet, staining his white sandals red and soaking into his socks. The infidel's shiny black boots were impervious to the crimson liquid - they were waterproof, most likely - one didn't wander around in heavy boots all of the time if they weren't waterproof. The hem of his tattered white and blue kimono was soaking up a fair amount of it though – had already absorbed quite a bit from the mans other wounds.

Aizen was sure that his sword had hit his mark, that the silver haired man standing in front of him was cleanly impaled yet... yet not all of the blood that fell to the ground was that of a mortal.

Impossibly, Aizen was bleeding. Taking a shallow breath, he let his gaze fall to his own chest, to where the blade of a profoundly ordinary katana pierced his flesh. It shouldn't be able to do that, no mortal weapons could harm him and he'd made sure that most immortal weapons were ineffective as well. He was having trouble breathing. Something was wrong, he sensed; a wound like this shouldn't make his vision swim.

"How?" He croaked, surprised at the draining quality of his own voice as he raised his brown eyes to meet the oddly red ones of the man with the natural perm. Even the Kurosaki brat wasn't fast enough to slip in under his guard like this. He could count the amount of people cunning enough to see through his illusions on one hand, and no one was capable of causing him serious harm. So how could this man – this mortal…?

Sakata Gintoki quirked a grin, a trail of blood escaping his lips to dribble down his chin. "Finally figured out my Bankai."

"Impossible..."

Gintoki managed to maintain his footing as the self-proclaimed god fell, slipping free of the blade to crumple into a heap at his feet. He knew he should relieve the man of his head but he was having difficulties staying standing himself. Gritting his teeth, he grasped the sword jutting out of his chest (managed to miss the vital stuff, he figured), and yanked it free with a painful yelp, tossing it as far as he could from the shinigami at his feet. He fell to his knees as his vision began to swim towards a light in the near distance. He wasn't sure if that was Soul Society or what, but he had no intention of heading towards it.

"Gin-san!"

That would be Shinpachi. Gintoki waved vaguely as he carefully sat, holding one hand to his bleeding chest, watching the fallen shinigami with a wary eye. He could hear sandaled feet hitting the smooth Los Noches floor, rushing steadily closer. Mingled with the slap of sandals on stone was the light clomp of boots – that had to be Kagura. There were more footsteps beyond that, an otherworldly quality to their movement, but he didn't really care about those.

"Gin-san! You're alive… mostly…" Shinpachi panted as he slid to a stop, he grimaced at the still expanding pool of blood and gingerly stepped around Aizen.

"Just a flesh wound." Gintoki quirked a grin.

"Some flesh wound…" Kagura poked the shinigami with her umbrella. "Is he dead?"

"No – not yet. He might die if we leave him but there's no guarantee." Gintoki winced. He was having a hard time focusing… maybe he'd lost too much blood after all.

"We'll take it from here, Sakata-san."

They turned as a troupe of shinigami descend upon the scene. A second silver haired man landed lightly next to them nodding sagely. Captain Ukitake gave Gintoki a long, appraising stare, then shifted his gaze to Aizen. "How are you still alive, and why is he unconscious?"

Gintoki managed a shrug and slowly dragged himself to his feet. He recognized that sickening feeling of his limbs growing heavier as his head grew lighter. He didn't much care for that feeling and, although it was extremely stupid, getting up and moving around worked best for chasing it away.

"Gin-san! What are you doing!" Shinpachi yelped, grabbing his arm both to steady him as well as keep him from leaving.

"Goin' home. Might wanna call Otae-san, she's pretty good with bandages 'n stuff."

"Gin-san, they brought healers you know…" Shinpachi rolled his eyes. "Besides, my sister would kill you if she knew you were being this stupid.

"Oh, okay, that works too – and you're probably right." Gintoki gave one his his famous off-kilter smiles then stumbled. Shinpachi grumbled under his breath and attempted to keep the samurai upright. Luckily, the fourth division arrived a few minutes later and began tending to their unlikely savior.

An hour later, Gintoki woke after a short, kidou induced nap to see the more likely savior of the story stretched out on the next cot over. "Yo."

Kurosaki Ichigo blinked his eyes open then turned his head. "Oh, hey Gin-san."

"How'd your fight with Ukelala go?" Gintoki absently scratched at the bandages on his chest. Soul Society had some nice pain killers, he was amused to note.

"Huh… oh Ulquorria. I won." He grimaced. "Barely. Who'd you end up fighting?"

"Some guy named Aizen."

Ichigo bolted upright then immediately regretted it. He coughed for a good five minutes. "What! And you're still alive!"

"Obviously." Gintoki rolled his eyes and propped himself up on one elbow. "Tricky bastard. Manged to slip in under his guard though – idiot never saw what hit him."

Ichigo had already been on the pale side (blood loss does eventually catch up with you) but the young shinigami was almost ghostly. "You… won?"

"Yup." Gintoki scratched the back of his head, then gingerly lowered himself back onto the cot and closed his eyes. "He tried this Jedi-Mind trick thing but it wasn't very good. Only took me a few seconds to figure it out."

Ichigo stared at him for a good long while. He seemed about to speak several times but he just couldn't find the right words. Heaving a sigh, the shinigami stretched out again as well.

"Told ya he was just awesome like that." Rukia commented. She was in the cot on Ichigo's other side, had been listening to the entire conversation.

"Shut up."

She giggled and snuggled down beneath her blankets.

A/N Part Deux: Backstory tiemz! This started as a gag in CAPSLOCK BLEACH, wherein, I photoshopped Gintoki onto the Bancouch. A few of us decided to declare Gintoki as our new overlord. By coincidence, it also happened to be Ask Aizen Day (probably one of the most hilarious games we play in CLB)! Naturally, I had to ask how Aizen felt about our newfound overlord.

He called us infidels.

No smiting, no sending of the Jeasusjaques to fuck our shit up, nothing. Just infidels.

This, of course, got a friend and I to wondering why Aizen would let something like this slide! After some discussion, we decided that he fears Gintoki's awesome bankai! An odd little fanfic resulted.

And now you know the rest of the backstory. Good day!