Author: garfieldsieuquay232 aka T.H.L
Disclaimer: All characters, except for my very own character, belong to Sorachi Hideaki.
Genres: a little Humour, Angst, Hurt/Comfort
Pairings: Kamui x OC
A little hint of OkiKagu
Warning:
1. A little OOC-ness.
I will try my best to make sure all the characters in Gintama are in character, but since everyone has a limit, let's accept that there would be a little OOC-ness.
2. The story focuses on family and friendship, not love.
3. My English is really bad, especially the grammar. I will try my best to check it, but if you find some grammatical errors, let me know so I can fix them.
4. Weird sentence structure.
This fic was originally written in Vietnamese, not English, so many sentence structures may sound weird. I've tried to translate it best as I could, but sometimes I felt it would be better to keep the original structures than to replace them with English ones. So please forgive me if you find some structures weird.
Special thanks to my friend Bò Rock, Adriane Wright, dentedileone and my beta reader kurasuchi.
Now, enjoy! And don't forget to leave a review, whether you like this story or not, just let me know.
[fanfic] Gintama
Home
Home is the place where it feels right to walk around without shoes ...
Chapter 1: The girl in black
The cloak of night fell on the land. The stinky smell of decaying bodies filled the air. There were corpses everywhere — of men and monsters, of intact corpses and scattered body parts. There were heaps of bodies: corpses that were still warm, sticky with blood; corpses that had long been cold and stiff. Then followed death — it was all around, within or beneath. It froze apparently on the faces of the corpses which were twisted in pain, in fear and in horror. It's right in their widely opened eyes.
Corpses were everywhere. So was death. It was a wasteland, a place that could curdle anyone's blood with just a glimpse.
Among the wreck stood a person, whose eyes were fastening on faraway horizon. That person wore a white shirt and a black gilet, with a blood-stained silver katana in hand. A stream of blood flowed from the wound on the right shoulder, dripping slowly through the shirt until it fell on the cold ground.
Sound of footsteps resounded right behind, which in the dead silence became quite frightening. There then came the voice of a man.
"If you don't treat this wound immediately, things can go bad."
The person in black turned to see a bald man in his forties with translucent skin, his features bearing the unmistakable marks of time. He wore Chinese clothes, with a chestnut scarf wrapped around his neck. In addition to his weird taste of fashion, he wore a pair of protecting glasses, and his right hand was holding a crimson umbrella.
"Long time no see, Iris," said the man.
"Mr. Umibouzu," the referent responded nonchalantly. "It has been a while since we last met."
"Well ... I've just come by and didn't expect to see you here."
He took a glance at which was once a battlefield.
"You brought them down all by yourself, didn't you?"
"No. Some people helped me to defeat them, but now they were all lying down there," she replied, her voice monotone when she answered the man, showing no emotions.
Iris took off the gilet, which had been dripping with blood. She then slipped her hand under her shirt, and took out a strip of cloth to wrap around her wounded shoulder. "Was it true that you had already finished all the monsters in Area K6A71?"
To Umibouzu, Iris wouldn't open her mouth unless it's necessary. It wasn't like her to start a normal conversation like that at all. You could say that she wasn't the type that would wear her heart on her sleeve. Instead of showing her feelings to others, she'd keep them all inside. So if somehow she might actually talk, or even started a conversation on her own, there would only be a reason: she's in a bad mood. Umibouzu had drawn that conclusion after some encounters with his young colleague.
Having seen others die right before one's eyes certainly wasn't something good for anyone, even if that was Iris, the one who often acted indifferently.
Seizing the rare chance (that she actually opened her mouth once in a blue moon), he replied:
"Um ... It took quite a lot of time to clear that area. Monsters now are everywhere. One is knocked down and others start showing up, so I can hardly have time to rest. But thanks to them, we space-sweepers never have to worry about unemployment."
"So that means you had left Kagura alone at home again?"
"No, she has been to Earth for a few years."
"Earth? You mean...?" she trailed off, as if it looked like that simple word had caught her attention.
"That's right. Actually she's in Edo — your hometown. Now she's staying at Kabuki, well, in a place called Yorozuya with a white-haired samurai named Sakata Gintoki and a glasses-wearing boy, whose name ... er ... Shin ... Shimura Shinpachi, if my memory serves me right."
Hands that were wrapping the wound stopped right after hearing that, and she gave him a strange look.
"Did you just mention Sakata Gintoki and Yorozuya?"
"That's right. Do you know that guy, by any chance?" said Umibouzu, after seeing the other's weird reaction.
"Do I know him..." Iris looked away, and avoided making eye contact with him.
"Do I know him...?" she repeated that question in a mumble voice, as if she was talking to herself. "More than that... He's my elder brother."
Umibouzu couldn't believe his ears. He cleared his throat, unable to take grasp of the situation.
"He ... errr ... you ... your what?"
"He's my elder brother." This time, no more hesitation, claimed her as she took out the contact lenses and revealed her two ruby irises.
Umibouzu just stared at the girl right before him, frozen with shock. Iris' words had left him speechless.
She had never ever said a word about her family, let alone the fact that she had an elder brother. And even if she did, the thought that they're siblings would never cross his mind. Not even for one second. And yet they were siblings! For God's sake, like hell he would believe! But Iris claimed that herself...
Had it not been for her appearance (it wasn't until then that he finally realized the similarity in appearance between them: silver hair and red eyes), they would have nothing in common (if he paid more attention he would have realized that not only did she have silver hair and red eyes but she bore striking resemblance to her elder brother as well. But since he's Umibouzu – not a very sensitive person, let's just forget about it).
If Gintoki was the kind of happy-go-lucky guy who could live happily without ever knowing the meaning of the word "worry", did whatever he wanted or befriended whoever he liked, Iris, on the other hand, had always left an impression of "unfathomable" on people. She kept herself aloof from others. To some extent, that girl was very different from her elder brother.
If there was anything that might be called similar between the two of them, perhaps it was audacity. That's right. Audacity. Boldness. Daring. All these words were suitable to describe them. Willing to take risks or to do something different, not afraid to say whatever they feel — that's the kind of people they were.
Still, the fact that they were siblings was quite hard to accept.
The world is really small…
And the strongest space-sweeper let out a deep sigh at that thought.
"Not even in my wildest dreams would I've ever thought you two were relatives, not to mention siblings," Umibouzu said as he massaged his temples.
"You know my brother?" the girl raised her voice a little bit.
"What can I say about him ... Audacious, bold, nonconforming... That brat always causes trouble for others!"
As the other listened to those words, something appeared deep in her eyes, something that he couldn't quite catch.
"So that means... He got into trouble again?"
"Kamui, my arrogant son, he has set his eyes on your big brother," he said sternly, putting on a serious expression.
"What do you mean by set his eyes on your big brother?" Iris narrowed her eyes as she repeated his words.
"It's just as what you're thinking of. It seems that my son had been interested in your brother. The cursed blood of the Yato Clan runs through his veins. All he knows is fighting. That damn brat not only wants to fight your brother; he wants to beat him to death, and won't stop till he reaches his goal," said Umibouzu as he silently gripped his umbrella.
A pregnant silence fell between them.
The Yato Clan — the strongest and the most feared clan. Fighting ran in their blood, and they're always thirsty for blood. The cursed blood made them fight to death. Battlefield was the only place where they belong, for all they've ever wanted was fighting.
She had long known of that fact. How strong that cursed blood affected members of the clan, she had witnessed it herself. Not everyone could be like the man who was standing right before her. Most of them were aggressive, blood-thirsty and ruthless.
And her brother had been kept an eye on by one of them. And to make the situation even worse, one of the strongest and most aggressive of them.
"Captain of the 7th Division of Harusame's Thunder Guns?"
Iris was the first to break the silence.
"Huh?"
"Your son? Is he?"
"That's right, but..."
He's about to ask her what she was going to do, but was stopped by a mere glance of her.
Her tone was harsh, cold and icy; her red eyes tinged with darkness, deep in which he could barely catch the faintest ray of light. She clenched her fists tightly until her knuckles turned white. A dangerous aura emitted out of her.
What was on her mind then? He couldn't get a hold of it, 'cause she's different from the girl he had once known.
Suddenly he realized another similarity between the person standing right before him and that silver-haired samurai.
You might think you had fully understand them, and one day out of the blue you realized that they weren't always as they might seem.
That thought crossed his mind as he looked into her very deep eyes.