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Snow
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Gintoki thinks the estrangement of him and Takasugi was something inevitable. The image of the man falling down to his death onto the snow is strangely poetic.
It haunts Gintoki for a long time. Sometimes he has to remind himself that he saved the world in exchange for the nightmares that flash back and forth like a too-vivid Technicolor film. He dreams of Takasugi grinning in malice as if they'd never played as boys in the school yard when suddenly, a sword pierces his chest, blood spilling out too fast all at once.
He doesn't beg for mercy and neither does he lament his failure to destroy this rotten world. There is no such thing as desperation for a man who has lost everything years ago. Gintoki's eyes blur because he's broken a promise to himself to never hurt someone he loves - and in that moment he truly loved Takasugi in the same way he fiercely loved Katsura and Sakamoto and Shoyou-sensei.
Betrayal fills his lungs up with poison. He wakes up with tears in his eyes. Tsukuyo is stirring in his futon; her pale lashes flutter sleepily in the dark.
"Somethin' wrong?"
"No," he says, and crawls back into bed with her.