A/N : Yeah, so this would take place before the manga's current arc. If you want to skip to the next chapter, where the "story" actually begins, then fine. (You also have no idea how hard it was to not put "summary sucks" in the description)


"Hey, Kondo-san…" Hijikata brought up as him, Kondo, and the first division marched through the streets of Kabukicho. "I've been meaning to ask this since you came back, but why the hell do you have an afro?"

If Hijikata didn't know any better, he could've sworn Kondo was on the verge of tears. "Pops keeps trying to set me up…" he explained in an almost shaky voice. "I'm nearing 31 years old, and apparently that makes me a pathetic loser for not being married yet."

"Well, it's hard to disagree with that when all ya' do is stalk a young woman…" "That doesn't explain the afro." "I thought you were pathetic for different reasons."

"Shut up!" the Gorilla screeched in his raspy, ready-to-cry voice. "Oh! I know! Maybe one of you can go to these marriage meetings for me!" he suggested enthusiastically while putting an arm around Sougo and Hijikata, who were beside him. "Just one will do!"

"Hell no," Hijikata rejected. "I have more important things on my plate than to go pleasing a woman I don't even know."
Kondo turned almost pleadingly to Sougo.

"Sorry Kondo-san, but I'm going to turn down your offer too," he said not-so apologetically. "I don't care for politics and such, but if she's a princess like that other Gorilla I wouldn't mind marrying her and then divorcing her for half of her belongings."

"Hey, he's a grade A gold digger now!" Hijikata commented darkly, only to go unheard.

"... Besides," he continued, putting his hands behind his neck. "I wouldn't marry anyone my sister couldn't approve of."

"Save the marriage talk for later," Hijikata interrupted as the Shinsengumi came to a halt.

They stood before a run-down looking garage with a shabby sign that had the word "Mechanic" painted on it, but was eroding away.

"We're here. Hiraga Gengai has stayed under the radar for too long. I don't know how, but that ends now."


Prologue : No More Fanfiction Theft!


"HEY! Get back here, you good for nothings!" screeched Otose as Shinpachi and Gintoki sped past her and down the stairs. She shook her fist in the air, but it's not like it did anything.

It was their routine of skipping out on the rent. Shinpachi was usually the straight man but after years of being surrounded by bad influences he decided, "Oh screw it," and just went with the flow. Heck, did the years even go by or are we all just delusional? I bet even the Gorilla author doesn't know.

Otose sighed, but it sounded more like a growl. "Those bastards…"

Kagura came out from behind, still in her pajamas, and rubbed her eyes. Evidently what woke her up was all of the screaming. "Huh? What's going on, uh-huh?"

Otose crossed her arms. "Those other freeloaders are on their way out already. Don't you think you should catch up?" she said. Her voice implied that she had given up.

As if she had just been awakened from a great slumber, Kagura lunged forward, grabbing her umbrella from the stand, and leapt off of the outing. "Death Parade!" she chanted as she opened up her umbrella and prepared to land on the ground.

Unfortunately for her, Gintoki had just sped out of the alley on his scooter at full speed, colliding with the unfortunate girl before she even landed. The collision had been so sudden that Kagura didn't even make a noise and just fell limp to the ground. Gintoki made a mini U-turn while Shinpachi looked back at the body in horror.

"K-K… KAGURA-CHAAN!" Shinpachi shrilled as he jumped off of the scooter and ran off to her side. He lightly placed a hand on her shoulder and started panicking when she gave no response. "G-Gin-san… This is bad! She isn't doing anything! Call for help or something!"

Only a few feet away did the doors to Snack Otose slam open with Catherine angrily marching out and Tama watching from the doorway. "Hey, you bastards! It's too early for this much noise! What is this, a murder scene?!"

"M-Murder scene…?" Shinpachi was practically crying, probably because it was a murder scene. "Wh-What do we do?! Gin-san!"

Gintoki shakily got off of his scooter and made slow, tiny steps towards the

unconscious girl. "W-W-Well… She's survived things w-worse than this, right? She's okay, right? Hell, this whole scene has happened before, right?!"

"This is bad… I think Gin-san's lost it…"

Gintoki crouched down by Kagura and began to turn her over. "Right, Kagura-cha-"

As he did so, a pool of what looked like blood started spreading like someone just spilled over a shaken bottle of fanda grape.

Before anyone knew what was going on, Catherine had decided to get the hell out of there while Otose was rushed into the yorozuya to call for help. Shinpachi was screaming bloody murder and Gintoki had crawled between a confused Tama's legs.

"I-It's okay… All we need to do is find a t-t-t-t-time machine…"

"Gintoki-sama…?"

"HEY! What are you doing?! Are you trying to add to our felonies?!"

Gintoki turned back, trying to hold an apathetic face but failing to. "Oh… That's right… They wouldn't know about that reference, right?" And that's how Gintoki found himself unconscious on the floor of Otose's bar, later waking up to Kagura chugging down some fanda grape, because she was fine the whole time apparently.


"So what you're saying is… you asked Gengai-san to build you a time machine and he succeeded?" asked Shinpachi, solely for expositional reasons.

The three of them were walking towards Gengai's place on a dirt road. It was around sunset by now.

"Then he gave the device to Tama. I used the device to change the past, so all of us should be the 'new' versions of ourselves that wouldn't remember that such an event happened."

"Then how do you remember, uh-huh?"

"Plot convenience. The author's too damn lazy to think of another reason."

The three of them arrived at the mechanics. They took a look up at the sign before heading in.

"Gramps, you here?" called out Gintoki.

Kagura and Shinpachi fanned out, looking around the workshop as no one was in plain sight.

"Is that you, Ginnoji?" asked Gengai's raspy voice as he slid out from under a tarp. "Good, good! I needed some test dummies."

"Test dummies?" Shinpachi echoed with reluctance.

Gengai stood up and pulled the tarp down, revealing this cylindrical chamber. "I don't know how, it must have been a stroke of genius, but I got the inspiration to build a time machine!"

Shinpachi's eyes lowered tediously as he pointed to the TV to Gengai's left. "Gengai-san... Were you watching the second movie?"

Gengai sidestepped in front of the TV. "I was not."

"You were, weren't you?"

"I just want you three to step into the chamber and tell me what happens! You should reappear here in the future only a few seconds later, a minute at most," he informed, pressing a button to open the giant capsule's doors. He went in and took out a mosaic-looking item. "You see, I just put this monjayaki in a minute ago, and just now it came out looking exactly the same!"

"Gengai-san, there's no way to tell if that thing aged or not! It's just a mosaic!"

Gintoki and Kagura seemed unfazed however, and each took a confident step forward. "Gramps… So what you're saying is that this is a fully functioning time machine?"

"Of course!" he replied surely. "But there are some catches. It will only send you back to a past time of your own, but there's no way to control what point in time it sends you to. I also don't know for how long. That's why I need you guys to experiment for me."

"So you want us to go one at a time?" asked Shinpachi, with just an inkling of skepticism.

"You can all go at the same time," he replied. "I intended that multiple people could use it at the same time, hence its size. An improvement from the Time Thief."

"Oh. You just admitted you watched the second movie."

But true to Gengai's words, the size of the capsule was almost the size of a small room, or the size of an exceptionally large walk-in closet.

"Just try not to touch each other. I don't know whether the machine will recognize you as one life force or not. I wouldn't know the repercussions."

"Good enough for us. Alright, let's go guys," Gintoki said cooly while he and Kagura strutted into the machine.

"What? We're really doing this?!" asked a baffled Shinpachi.

"I'm sure that you guys have things from your past that you want to clear up, as well as I…" Gintoki began. "This is probably our only chance to clear up any loose ends that are too frayed now to fix."

"Actually, that might create a paradox, especially if you're transferred to a point in time where your age is close enough that you look exactly the same, so you'll need to wear these," claimed Gengai as he tossed each of them a bracelet. "It'll change the appearance of how you are. That way if you interact with your past self for some reason, there'd be no way for him to put together that it's you."

The three of them slipped on their respective bracelets. Shinpachi then walked into what he was sure would be his mechanical coffin, speculating on his life choices. "Do you two know what you want to do, wherever you show up?"

Suddenly, Gintoki and Kagura's eyes darkened. Shinpachi blinked. He just knew that whatever answers they were going to give were no good.

"Chances are I'll end up at a point in time where Katsura and I were around each other. I'll cut off that bastard's luscious hair! How dare he have better hair than me!" he griped. "Maybe if he loses it in the past, he'll lose all hope and won't outshine me in the future!"

"Kaamuiiiiii!" Kagura growled. "That bitch! How dare the Gorilla author give him better hair than me! I'm going to rip out his pre-pubescent balls and carry them around as a trophy, uh-huh!"

"G-Gengai-san! We can't do this! These two are planning-"

"Happy trails!" Before Shinpachi had the chance to finish, Gengai pressed a button and the metal doors slammed shut, cutting off whatever he was going to say. "Now all I have to do is wait twenty or so seconds for the machine to inspect the specimens in there and they'll be on their way," he said to no one in particular.

"Freeze! Put your hands in the air!" a powerful voice commanded out of nowhere.

Gengai whipped around, his mouth agape.

"This is the Shinsengumi!" Hijikata declared, as random no-name lackeys flooded into the place and surrounded the unsuspecting mechanic. "What was that you said? Specimens in there?" he asked as he, Kondo, and Okita slowly approached the semi-circle from behind.

"How do you open that capsule?!" Kondo demanded.

Sougo's eyes shifted to Gengai's side. "Oh? A button."

"No! Don't press that!" Gengai warned as he attempted to cover it, but he was restrained by more background characters.

Kondo ran up to the button and pressed it. The doors opened up much slower than they closed. "Hey! Is anybody in there?! Are you alright?!"

"Maybe I can decorate them with Papi's sideburns, uh-huh. Since they are from before puberty, there's bound to be no hair down there, yes?"

"... Sometimes you worry me, Kagura-chan. Oh? What's this? The door's opening up?"

Kondo, Hijikata, and Sougo exchanged curious glances before approaching the opening of the capsule. There was a white glow that was gradually getting stronger, strong enough to make them wince.

"Wait, get away from there!" warned Gengai.

"Quiet, you!" one of the background characters demanded, holding Gengai firmly in place.

Kondo's eyes widened. "Shinpachi-kun? Wait… The Yorozuya?!"

"I don't know what the hell you guys are doing there, but get out!" Hijikata demanded as he stepped in, Kondo and Sougo in suit.

"No way! I've got important business to do in here, yes?!"

"Stay out of our business, damned tax robbers!"

Kondo and Hijikata pulled on Shinpachi's and Gintoki's arm respectively while Sougo blocked a strike from an umbrella.

"Don't touch me, uh-huh! You'll give me an STD, yes?"

"Do you even know what an STD is, moron?"

"Just come out! We've got questions for you!" Hijikata demanded.

"Hell no! Don't you know that when you tell someone not to do something, it just makes them want to do it more?!" snapped Gintoki as he kept pulling back, ignoring Hijikata's advances to get him out of there.

"Shinpachi-kun! What is this?!"

"I'll explain later Kondo-san! Just let go for now!"

"Police brutality! This is police brutality, uh-huh!"

"You're the one that swung first, idiot!" retaliated Sougo as he tried to look for an opening to haul the idiot girl out. That, or give her a good punch. After all, he had a right to say it was self defense. For once.

"Ginnoji! You're touching!"

Shinpachi and Gintoki's eyes widened with awareness as they gave both Kondo and Hijikata a forceful and hurried shove. Both of them stumbled out of the capsule, but it was too late. The capsule emitted a blinding white light, courtesy of the unclosed door, with Hijikata's and Kondo's arms missing from their sockets the next second. Before the blinding light, the last thing anyone saw was Gintoki and Shinpachi pushing their pursuers away, fingers still in contact with their arms, and Sougo's and Kagura's fists connected to each others' faces.

The capsule was empty, the four missing people and two missing arms no where in sight. That wasn't because everyone was temporarily blinded either.

"The door! Close the door!" Gengai demanded as he flailed about in the grasp of two Shinsengumi officers.

Kondo had no gripes or complaints and stumbled to the button, pressing it as if it meant life or death. The metal doors shut close with a bang.

Hijikata looked at his right shoulder with horror. "My arm… What happened to my arm?!" he demanded, unsheathing his sword with his other hand and bolting to hold it up to Gengai's neck.

"It'll be back in one piece!" he assured him, wriggling in his predicament. "Hopefully…" he muttered. "A-Ah, Just give it a few seconds!"

"Where is it now?!" demanded Hijikata, as he pressed his sword further into the mechanic's neck, but not hard enough to break skin.

"Wh-Where's Sougo?!" plead Kondo.


In some war that no one remembers because the Gorilla author hardly writes about it, a group of seven or so men sat huddled in a circle. The room was unlit, except for a single lantern in the center of the circle.

"And so… And so!" Katsura narrated with great emotion. Apparently, he was telling a scary story. "The woman named Machiko, whose soul should have been lost but wasn't, felt fingers creep up on her shoulder left."

The story was proven to be not so scary, as Takasugi and three others seemed unamused. However, Sakamoto was pulling on his hair from the anxiety and Gintoki was also shaking a bit in place; he'd never admit that the story actually scared him though. An elevator that lead to some void? Pfft.

"Machiko turned, with tears in her eyes, fear at her very core. 'Takashi? Takashi?!' she called. She saw his hand gripping her shoulder tightly, so tight that his fingertips turned white. It was too dark to see her husband's face. But then, she soon came to realize that it wasn't dark. She could see herself fine, it was everything else that was black!" the raconteur told fervently. "That means…" Katsura closed his eyes and paused. "IT WAS JUST A SEVERED ARM!"

Sakamoto screeched as he pulled out two sizeable chunks of his hair; yep, he'd have to wear a helmet from now on.

Gintoki turned deathly pale and felt a drop in his stomach. There was a sickly blue hue at his temples. He attempted to keep his poker face, but he couldn't stop that awkward smile as a sweat broke out on his face. "I-Is that it? That was weak…" he commented with a high-pitched voice. He suddenly felt a hand grip his shoulder. "H-Hilarious! Hilarious, Zura! Just cut it out! Can't you see Tatsuma's balding?!"

"It's not Zura, it's Takashi."

Gintoki's face went blank as he realized that Katsura was sitting across from him. Meanwhile the rest of the crew was looking at him like he was a ghost. Even the usually pokerfaced Takasugi.

Gintoki began to turn his head in small, sharp movements, like a sprinkler. His mouth was agape. "D-D-Don't tell me…"

For what was on Gintoki's shoulder was indeed a severed arm, clad in black material. The whole room broke out into high-pitched screams of men whose voices should've dropped by now.

"AAAAAHH! WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!"


A/N : I can't write. Someone please take pity on me and re-write this for me.

Anyway, that story that Katsura was telling was a reference to Death Parade, because Takashi has the same VA as Hijikata.

Anyway, while I do plan to make this fanfic Okita and Kagura centered, there will be little bits of Shinpachi and Gintoki in there. That being said, I know what point in Kondo's life Shinpachi is going to end up in, but I've been back and forth between when to put Gintoki. So, to the one reviewer out there, the fate of Gintoki's sidestory is in your hands. Should he show up when Hijikata is 11 (around the time Tamegoro's eyes got slashed out) or a bit later when he becomes Thorny?

(Actually if you want an overview, the fic will probably be mostly Okita and Kagura, some bits of Gintoki and Hijikata, and little mentions of Shinpachi)

Thanks for reading.