A/N: This is a new multi-chapter story, I guess. Well, I guess the most accurate term would be an experimental fic but. . .

This started out as a couple of lines I had in my phone, so I decided to play around with them on Word and voilá, this story was born.

Critiques are greatly appreciated.

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN GINTAMA IT BELONGS TO SORACHI HIDEAKI

Enjoy~

Glass Fragments

Ch. 1: Bittersweet

.

.

.

It is a numb and rainy day filled with the stench of blood and the carcasses of forgotten things; in a forgotten alley where the air tastes like bitter ashes and the rain falling down feels like heated knives that are searing her skin off. Eyes fluttering closed; eyelashes crusted and wet. There is something foreign and lost creeping up her dry eyes and fuckfuckfuck, Kagura really doesn't want to cry right now, but goddammit, old habits die hard.

Her eyes sting and burn, but that is not when she notices that she has yet to feel something painful and reminisce drip down her eyes, or the fact that her whole body is aching terribly at the moment, until she looks to the skies and for a moment, she wonders if angels exist. For her eyes are enraptured in a pair of blue; jaded, clouded, darkened, but all the same eyes that mami gave birth to.

"Kamui," she rasps. She wants to say something, but the back of her throat is searing with untold regrets and blood. What are you doing here?

Baka-aniki doesn't say a word; nothing about the blood that won't clot, nothing about her sorry state as the rain seeps into her skin and tries to wash her clean of every sin she has committed, nothing about the same blue that stares back with as much intensity as she can muster before the curtain is drawn and in a few hours, in this desolate place filled with nothing but glass and broken things, china girl with become an empty husk of cold skin and red.

His stare is uncomfortable; intrusive, probing, undesirable. Most of all, Kagura finds it to be another form of bitter nostalgia and rain-scented memories. For baka-aniki has already left a long time ago and it's only Kamui at the moment. But something is holding her back, something from the back of her mind is screaming at her to get her sorry ass up and wrap her arms around him and run her hands through his hair like old times—

Stopstopstop, she says to herself and the delusions dancing around her mind. I'm hallucinating. There is a pause in between as she thinks bitterly. I should've listened to Sadist when he said I needed a therapist. . .

But nevertheless, salty hallucinations can be dealt with, so Kagura raises a bloodied hand and waves it in the air, waiting for the vision of baka-aniki to disappear so she can close her eyes and wait for the silence to take her.

"Imouto, what are you doing?"

Her hands immediately stiffens, eyes wide and mouth slightly open, "You're not—," cough, "supposed to be real."

The corners of his mouth crease upward into something that looks half-assed and empty, "Am I?"

Kagura closes her eyes. The feeling of glass or titanium doesn't drown her yet, and for Kagura, that's a win. "No."

"Really?" It is said with a lilt of interest and the quirk of the mouth. Kagura finds it disgusting.

"Were your smiles always like that?" She coughs again and tastes iron and salt and a pair of cold, jaded eyes. No moves are made. She doesn't stop talking. "That's a real shame, y'know." Her voice feels unfamiliar and haggard and now she's just babbling as a sorry excuse for her to not look at the red that is tainting, defiling, and practically enveloping her in what is yet to come and what she will soon experience.

She tries to take a breath, but there are too many cuts and bruises and blood, so she has to settle for shallow breaths and a shallow conversation, "I've been deceived by you all along."

"That's because you're stupid."

"And proud," she says and what the hell am I doing?

"Liar."

Now that is the one thing that motivates her to bring her head up from the wall she has been leaning against, ignoring the pain that makes her bleed red and the voices in her head telling her so many things right now, but Kagura can only gape, mouth wide open like a fish and still trying to find her voice.

Why are we the monsters?

No. No. No. No. No—

Too late.

The weight of baka-aniki's filling voice crashes down on her, and just like that, Kagura slips. It is like being hit with a million boulders and drowning in liquid and somewhere in between, she finds the urge to stop whatever is trying to slip out of her. Painful and even suspenseful for the damn audience, but Kagura becomes desperate as she holds back something choked up and painful as she pictures her dead body and a crow plucking at her bones later, because getting saved is complete and utter bullshit. Because things like getting saved are for little girls who wear red dresses and pick fights with dirty bakufu dogs, and there is nothing that is going to save her this time. There is nothing that she holds power over because Once Upon a Time, she had a reason. Once Upon a Time, she worked for a perm-headed boss and fought with a samurai man and a glasses kid. Once Upon a Time, she was there when dreams were broken and realities came into play, and she hated every damn minute of it.

And Once Upon a Time, she witnessed the silence of three men.

"What utter bullshit." Despite her situation, her voice carries an inferno of broken syllables and blazing anger as her eyes are blue and beautiful and alive. They do all the talking as they gaze into his, and she is only going off of childish pride from not crying and the bitter tastes of anger and lingering distress that is still slipping down onto her and becoming demons; running down her bloody face and into her hair, her clothes, her blood, and when she sees the other pair of blue reflect hers, Kagura wants to cry.

And the anomaly in front of her is crouching right now, staring at her with the same color eyes that might be able to refract light and see into someone's soul; same color hair that is sticking to his face and making him look like the old Kamui—but Kagura knows better than that.

Both of his arms lurch forward, and Kagura doesn't know why she doesn't close her eyes or at least tries to avoid his touch, but there is something that smells like the hydrangeas that mami used to care for before she died, something that feels like papi and something that feels smooth and soft, but all of those thoughts are erased once she feels a pair of wet hands on the top of her head, picking out the unwanted things and some of the bad.

"Stop it," she immediately says.

His hands feel like magic in her hair, as much as she hates to admit it, but she is tired, so she puts up a sorry state of a fight that is put down with docile force.

"Stop it," it's less forceful this time, and she says it again; again, again, again, and again, and no matter how embarrassingly futile her struggle is, he still manages to keep his hand on her head and pick out the good, the bad, and the grey in between. Damn.

The bastard was always too perceptive for his own good. . .

Meanwhile, Kagura lays there; the upper half of her body propped up against a part of a wall that is nothing but trash and rubble from her fight with the dead yato lying several yards away from them; her bottom half laying limply on the floor, pushed down with gravity and the weight of ribbons soaked in water, and it is then when everything hits her for the millionth time and forces her to lay there, feeling the hazy ashes, the tiring feeling of shittiness, and the mortality all at once. Because she is exhausted beyond belief; because she is so done with looking at gravestones and bullshit and home and herself. And she secretly wishes for summer and spring and winter and fall to come back; where she was just Kagura-chan; all dolled up in red Chinese dresses and mafia accents and innocence.

"You're not gonna cry yet, are ya?" Baka-aniki asks, hands not pausing once in working their magic.

Kagura musters everything she has into a snort and for every second of this moment, she hates herself.
"No."

She never prided herself in her lying talents.

"You were always terrible at lying."

And just like that—

Just like that—

—it slips.

Once those words leave his lips, Kagura feels just about the entirety of the situation dawn upon her and is about ready to lose herself; for the rain is still searing her skin and the alleyway of forgotten memories still remains forgotten as she feels her throat constrict and the hot red blaze dripping down her eyes and drowning her in salt, in water, and a cold hand on her forehead that signifies so many things that linger in between them—and she is frustrated, humiliated to be stripped bare in front of the one person in the world she never wanted to show this side to, and the tears never stop. It is not just hotness coursing through her veins or ice that is daring to pool out of her as well; it is the sound of her walls being teared down and wrenched apart, and Kagura is terrified for life because breaking down in front of him means defeat. Breaking down in front of the person you detest—nope, that was a lie too—and showing him that face—

Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop.

She can't stop.

God, this wasn't a Yato.

Be a Yato, she tells herself for the first time, and she doesn't realize how foreign, how incomprehensible those words seem to feel on her; her lips, her tongue, her teeth; and she doesn't understand the true meaning of it all until her throat cracks, and pretty soon after that the world crashes and shit just got real and in the midst of forgotten memories and spilled bottles and broken umbrellas, there is a yato witnessing the end.

"Nii-chan," she is a mess and fucking delirious at this point, but she doesn't give a flying shit whether or not he cares to listen or even bothers to acknowledge, but she feels like she is better with words right now than actions. "I never hated you."

His hand never strays from the spot on her head and she is semi-grateful that the warmth-laced magic hasn't faded yet. The moment passes like anything else that is flowing from her pale lips as she feels two rough hands lower and position themselves against both of her damp cheeks.

"You were always weak, imouto."

And before she even knows it, the sun has risen, and something old returns as she feels a small force on her forehead, and it feels like nii-chan all over again. Same hair, smooth smiles, story-teller nii-chan.

She thinks that those nicknames sound so much better than the ones he has now.

The pair of lips are warm and chaste against her wet and dirt-covered forehead, but this moment has magic and reassurance and Nii-chan written all over it.

"I have no use for weaklings."

"I'm not weak, asshole."

His lips part from her forehead and just like that, the magic disappears along with all the red that is washing away. Nii-chan keeps both of his hands on her face. "You are."

Kagura tries to manage something tiresome as she quirks a part of her mouth up into something that doesn't seem so painful than the last time she did it, "The hell was that?" She can't seem to see past the jade and the tarnished sapphires, but then something inside of her mind registers the scent of hydrangeas, and it's like home all over again.

"Mami did that all the time, didn't she?"

Kagura doesn't have a chance to respond before a wave crashes over her and when the blackness comes, she does not see a light at the end of the tunnel.

A/N: So, yeah. . .

God, I'm so tired right now, so forgive me if I made any mistakes. I only proofread it a couple of times and I don't think my eyes can stare at a computer screen much longer. . .

Feel free to PM me or leave a review if I made a mistake somewhere

Til next time~