[Cross-posted from AO3; originally posted there on 06/11/2014.]

.-.-.-.

The dango shop is closed at this time in the morning, the first pink shadows of dawn stretching through the Edo streets, but Sacchan's already there when Zenzou slides into place on the usual bench, back to back against her.

"I'm not a ninja assassin," says Zenzou.

"I'm not a ninja assassin either," says Sacchan. Coded greetings exchanged, identities verified, she adjusts the brim of her disguise's hat. "You're late," she informs him sternly, and looks just as sternly out across the deserted tables.

"Ah, I know..." The small, bristly sound of him rubbing his goatee. "There was a rush order last night, I took to the roofs – a tile slipped, one thing led to another..." Again, the sound of goatee-rubbing, and a heavy sigh. "I'm having some trouble walking at the moment."

They're sitting back to back, but something's nudging up against her buttocks. Her experience of things nudging up against her buttocks is plentiful, but she's having difficulty identifying this just from buttock contact alone. There's something odd about it – something smooth, and rounded, with a strange sort of give to it when she shifts back against it...

"Are you sitting on a rubber ring?" says Sacchan.

"Maybe," says Zenzou, instantly defensive. "Maybe. I might be. So what if I am, anyway? I can sit on whatever I like. It doesn't mean I got anything jammed up my ass so hard last night I can't sit properly today. There's more to me than just stuff going up my ass."

Sacchan's not known as the finest ninja in Japan for nothing. She nudges up her glasses and says, with the air of a crafty prosecutor trapping a particularly villainous defendant: "Did you get something jammed up your ass last night?"

Zenzou lets out a cry of frustration. "Why does everyone assume that's all I do? I'm a ninja, I've got a job, I've got bills to pay – I can't just sit around all day and wait for stuff to get jammed up my ass, can I?"

"Not until you're married," Sacchan agrees. A lot of things can't happen until a person's married, more's the pity, though Sacchan replaced the rail in Gintoki's wardrobe with a spreader bar last week, and since she hasn't found it yet while conducting her daily raids of the rubbish bins outside the snack bar, either he hasn't noticed – in which case it must have begun to seem natural to him that his home should be her home, and that her vast collection of sexual implements should be their collection – or he has noticed, and the sight of it every morning when he shrugs on his yukata is as dizzily erotic to him as it is to her, and perhaps he's removed it, and run his hands along it, the steel warming under his skin as he thinks of her – of her! – breaking in through his window at three in the morning, ready to re-equip his bedroom, piece by piece, into the sadist's paradise he surely dreams of...

"—bi-san! Sarutobi-san!"

Sacchan blinks. She presses her hand against her cheek, and finds it burning hot. Afterimages of Gintoki posing, leather-clad, up against an entire wall of excruciating apparatus in their marital chamber go floating across her vision, dreamily superimposed on the deserted courtyard of the dango shop. "I don't know any Sarutobi-san," she says, quite calmly. "Perhaps you've mistaken me for someone who is a ninja assassin, unlike myself, since I am a humble civilian and definitely not a ninja assassin."

"Fine," says Zenzou. "Sorry, lady. Thought you were someone else." His rubber ring squeaks as he shifts his weight. It's a miserable sound. "Not everything goes up my ass," he says, sounding petulant. "Plenty of things haven't. I could list ten, right now. I could list twenty."

"Really?" A pigeon is hopping its way across a table, some two rows over. It's unlikely to be an eavesdropper, but Sacchan's keeping an eye on its movements anyway. "Most things in Edo do seem to have been up there at some point, you know."

Zenzou heaves a gloomy sigh. "It was a television aerial," he says. "Are you happy now? Terrestrial and satellite. Ketsuno Ana's evening dispatch was broadcast straight into my colon. I'll never be able to watch her shows again, knowing what she's seen."

The pigeon dips its head to peck a stray dango skewer from the table. "There's no need to act like it's a bad thing," Sacchan chides him. "Traumatic anal insertion can be an enjoyable couples' activity. It wouldn't be the basis of hundreds of happy, satisfying romantic relationships if it wasn't, would it?"

Zenzou heaves an even gloomier sigh. "I've got your assignment info," he says.

Sacchan holds out her hand. A brown envelope is dropped into it. She smoothes her palm across it and imagines the infinite variety of creatively brutal papercuts one person could inflict on another with those crisp edges. Perhaps a man could inflict them on a woman: always a possibility. Perhaps a man in leather could inflict them on a woman in chains: another classic possibility. Perhaps Gintoki could inflict them on –

"Don't look at it till I'm gone," says Zenzou, "or I'll technically count as your accomplice. And I've already got plans for this morning. Mainly ones where I lie on my front and never move again." A long, dying squeak from the rubber ring as he gets to his feet, and a hiss of pain. "It was a pleasure to meet you today for the first time in my life, humble civilian-san, who I have never seen before and will probably never see again."

"Indeed," Sacchan agrees. She dips her head, in solemn acknowledgement of their mutual commitment to maintaining strong undercover identities. Her disguise's hat slips down across her eyes. She shoves it back up. "Fate saw fit to bring us together like two leaves blown loose from their trees by wind, and I am sure our paths will never cross again. Are you coming for dinner tonight?"

"Damn right I am," says Zenzou. "See you later, Sacchan."

Sacchan keeps her back turned as he leaves. Eventually his limping footsteps fade to nothing, but the longer she waits, the longer she can imagine she's been contracted by Gintoki himself: and that what he wants from her is not a clean and ruthless assassination but something rather more lingering and torturous, bloody and convoluted and excruciating, and starring Sacchan herself as the gloriously staged centrepiece – perhaps in a public place? – perhaps in a private place...

There's a coo from across the courtyard: the pigeon, probably not an eavesdropper, has tucked its head into its neck and settled down to take a shit, wings ruffled cosily up. Perhaps an omen? Perhaps not. She opens the envelope and unfolds her assignment.

The contractor is not Gintoki. Sacchan is not the target. There is no mention from the wealthy intergalactic merchant tradesman who has bought her services that he would prefer a stunningly high-quality, live-action, professional-standard sado-masochistic tableau in place of the assassination he's paying her for, but that is, of course, absolutely no reason why Sacchan can't stage one anyway.

The Yorozuya have been retiling the roof of a department store towards the north of Edo for the last few days. Sacchan has a brand new sex swing she's been meaning to try out. She polishes her spectacles clean in the hem of her tunic, tucks her hat beneath her arm, and sets out briskly for the city. Kunai clink against nipple clamps in the weapons pouch at her side. Both professionally and personally speaking, this has the potential to be a very profitable day.