Welcome Home, Mister Death

A Gintama thingamawhatsit

By

EvilFuzzy9

Screams. Curses. Laughter.

Gunfire. Ringing steel. Explosions.

The Ken-ki stood serene at the center of chaos, wholly detached from the bloodshed and carnage. Corpses littered the ground at his feet, the cooling bodies of countless enemy warriors heaped high all about him. A katana sang through the air, gleefully wailing a savage dirge as it sliced through flesh with an unnatural precision. A dull and chipped blade greedily drank up the blood of its master's foes, a battered and rusted sword cutting through all which came before it.

Blackened steel and tarnished silver flashed time and again so swiftly through skin, muscle, and sinew. With all the brutal ferocity of a Yato this worn out old katana slew countless foes with effortless ease. It was eerily beautiful, in a way. A dance of death which skipped and twirled its bloody course across heaven and earth, describing a history of war and revenge.

That blade was as the arm of a demon. The Ken-ki's right hand, his touch of death. A sword of calamity, a demon weapon tainted in the taking of tens and thousands of lives. Beyond number were the bodies of its victims. Beyond hope were those who stood before it when it rested in the hands of that infamous devil, that terrible Ken-ki.

"One, two, went that chipped edge,
Splitting through like driven wedge.
Three, four, it sang in glee,
Again, again, they tried to flee.
Five, six, blood it spilled,
Friend and foe alike it killed.
Seven, eight, a slaying stroke,
Like Reaper's grin, of Death bespoke.
Ken-ki, swing; one, two, three, four,
Five, six, seven, eight before,
Before the foe stands up to you:
Cut them down and run them through."

Katana sang as one with its master, cruel and merciless.

Again, Shinpachi woke up early.

Again, he was deathly cold with sweat, shivering tremulously with his heart hammering in his chest.

This time, though, there was something a little different...

For one, Shinpachi was not in his bed. Nor was he anywhere inside the Kodokan dojo, or even at Gin-san's house. He had no idea where he was, aside from the fact that he was lying naked in an alley.

That was embarrassing.

But, there was something a little more immediately worrying than that.

"...eh? Eh?" Shinpachi stared uncomprehendingly at the rusty, beat up old katana which was gripped in his hand, its blade slick with blood. "Eh? Eh?" he repeated like a broken record, staring with mounting sense of horror at the gore which slicked the ground and stained the alley walls. "EHHHHHHH?!" he exclaimed in disbelief and shock, seeing the badly slashed and mutilated bodies lying on the ground a few feet away from him, further into the ally.

There was only one thing you could say this looked like, and that one thing was not a good thing to happen. Especially not if you were waking up with what had to be the murder weapon in your hand!

Frantically, Shinpachi tossed the sword away. It was dark, still, barely even at the twilight of earliest dawn, and he didn't see anybody around. There couldn't be any witnesses nearby...

Not that he had done anything that anyone could have witnessed and then testified against him about! Surely not! No, this was definitely some kind of wacky misunderstanding.

Although usually this was the sort of thing you would expect to happen to Gin-san... maybe Hasegawa-san, on a really bad day.

"Ah?" came a very familiar, bleary sounding voice from a nearby cardboard box. "Who's there...?"

Shit.

Speak of the Madao, and he shall appear. Or so it seemed.

"Oh, hello, Hasegawa-san..." said Shinpachi nervously, his face deathly pale. He had a forced smile on his face, feeling dizzy and vaguely nauseous. "How are you today...?"

He then blinked, seeing that the middle-aged Gendo Ikari lookalike was, also, completely naked. In his hand he was clenching a bloody, battered fishing rod.

Shinpachi glanced again at the mutilated, torn up bodies.

"Um. This isn't what it looks like," he said, his voice unusually squeaky.

Hasegawa looked down at his own hands, and his own naked body.

"Um. This isn't what it looks like, either," said he, extremely pale.

A moment of silence passed between the pair.

"I won't tell anyone if you won't," said Shinpachi to Hasegawa.

"Deal," the older man said immediately, bathed in a cold sweat.

Then the two of them paused, realizing something rather important. They looked down at their bodies, which had no covering of any kind. They glanced back down the alley, where the shredded corpses lay. They peered out into the street, where signs of life were beginning to stir in Kabukicho.

They looked down again at their naked bodies.

"...shit," said Hasegawa. He looked vaguely nauseous, and Shinpachi suspected that if the man didn't throw up now, he would only do so later. Thankfully, Hasegawa managed to hold back his terror vomit.

They were still naked, however.

"Ah, Hasegawa-san..." said Shinpachi weakly. "Between murder and indecent exposure... which do you think has the steeper penalty?"

The older man answered instantly, without missing a beat. "Murder. Definitely murder."

Shinpachi back nervously at the dead bodies.

He blinked.

"Eh?" he said. "Eh? Did one of those corpses just move? Eh?"

"Huh?" said Hasegawa. He looked down into the alley, glancing at the piled up bodies. "Hey. I think you're right..." he said slowly.

A moment of silence passed between them.

Again.

"Um," said Shinpachi. "Should we help them, do you think?"

"Ah... that depends..." said Hasegawa slowly. "Look, most of those guys have swords on them... What if this one wants to get revenge on us?"

Shinpachi sweatdropped.

"Um. Is there any proof that we did this?" he said nervously.

"Well, you ARE holding that bloody sword in your hand..." said Hasegawa, averting his gaze from the lad. He looked abashed.

"Eh?" said Shinpachi. He blinked, looking down at his hand. "EHHHHHHHH?!" he cried out, highly perturbed. "I threw this away! Didn't I?!"

"Don't ask me, man," said Hasegawa. "I was unconscious until just a minute ago. I'm innocent, honest!"

"I know you are!" snapped Shinpachi. "Probably! Just as much as I know that I am!"

"...probably," said Hasegawa.

Shinpachi's eye twitched. But then he sighed, and looked back at the pile of corpses.

"Well, whatever the case, if someone is hurt, we should really try to—"

He blinked.

"Eh? Where's the body?" he wondered aloud, seeing that it was gone.

"It's not 'body'," came a distressingly familiar voice. "It's Katsura."

A beat.

"Ah," said Shinpachi. He turned his head to look at the long-haired freedom fighter. "Katsura-san," he said. "Hello. What are you doing here?"

The samurai met Shinpachi's eyes with an intense look.

"I came here on reports of a tsujigiri in Kabukicho," said Katsura dramatically. He had a serious expression on his face, as ever, but for once the contents of his speech actually seemed befitting of the man's grim demeanor. "But I was ambushed by a maddened and dangerously armed old man. A madao, if you will."

Hasegawa let out a sob.

Katsura turned to the pathetic, naked, quivering mass of human waste that had once been named Taizo Hasegawa.

"Ah, Kami-sama!" he said, recognizing him from that time. "Were you ambushed by this madao, too?"

"Uh, he's not Kami-sama, remember?" said Shinpachi, sweatdropping. "And it's pretty obvious that he's the only madao here!"

Hasegawa sobbed a little harder.

"Nonsense," said Katsura. "The madao was a fearsome opponent armed with an insidious demon blade. He attacked me from behind with a fearsome cry of 'DONDAKE!' and beat me over the head with the pommel of his sword, knocking me unconscious."

Shinpachi blinked.

"Huh?" he said. "That's me. Anyway you look at it, that's obviously me!"

He then paused, Hasegawa letting out a relieved sigh.

"Eh? Wait." Shinpachi narrowed his eyes at Katsura, frowning deeply. A vein throbbed in his forehead.

He threw the rusted blade in his hand at the man's head.

"WHO ARE YOU CALLING AN OLD MAN, YOU JACKASS!?" he roared. The sword missed the man by a hair, impaling itself into the alley wall just above Katsura's head.

"Ah?" said Katsura, looking up at the battered katana which had only barely missed him. "Ohh! Excellent work, Shinpachi! No doubt this is the weapon of the madao who attacked me!"

Shinpachi glared daggers at the fascinatingly imbecilic Joi patriot.

"I'm not an old man," he hissed. "I woke up with that sword in my hands. Any way you look at it, I'm obviously the one who knocked you out!"

Katsura shook his head.

"Impossible," he said. "While I didn't see them, the person who attacked me had the aura of an old man. In fact, it was an aura exactly like yours!"

Shinpachi twitched.

"I keep telling you...!" he snapped. "I'm obviously the one who attacked you! And, what? I have the aura of an old man? Are you trying to piss me off, Katsura-san?!"

Katsura's eyes widened.

"Shinpachi..." he said slowly. "You were the madao...!"

"DON'T CALL ME THAT, DAMMIT!" snapped the young man, ticked off beyond belief. "The only person here that I will allow you to call a madao is Hasegawa-san!" He pointed to where the older man was. "But, yes, I was probably the one who attacked you."

"Is that a confession?" came a quite, feminine voice. It sounded breathy yet dispassionate, the tone even and controlled in a way that bordered on mechanical. It was almost as though the speaker was a soulless puppet with no emotions whatsoever.

He recognized that voice, most unfortunately. He recognized it from that horrible time in the Shogun's palace, in that civil war launched by those three keisei. It reminded him of a bloodthirsty demon, a coldblooded killer with no remorse, and no restraint.

Shinpachi heard the sound of a long, sharp sword being drawn from a sheath.

"Ah... Nobume-san...?" he started to say. But he was interrupted by his body suddenly rolling out of the way of a devastating overhand swing, moving seemingly of its own accord as the assassin and Mimawarigumi ace attacked.

She was damn stealthy. He hadn't even heard her approaching, and Hasegawa-san had clearly not seen her either, even though she appeared practically right next to him. Shinpachi had no idea when she had gotten there, but it must have been pretty recently.

Ah... somehow I've gotten involved in something really dangerous... the young man thought. And all on my own, for once... Gin-san and Kagura-chan aren't anywhere in sight...

Again, Shinpachi felt his body automatically jerk out of the way, ducking a lateral beheading chop.

Nobume's blood red eyes gleamed in the gloaming sunrise over Kabukicho. Her pale face was expressionless, as blank as a doll's. Dark hair fluttered in a breeze behind her, the air pressure kicked up by her own sword-swings. Her white Mimawarigumi uniform was pristine and spotless, its conservative nature doing little to bely the womanly curves which lay beneath.

Her eyes bored intensely into Shinpachi's.

"You..." she said slowly, her sword outstretched. "Glasses boy..." she turned her nodachi, and stepped forward. She moved to pass Shinpachi, eyes glancing into the face of infamous rebel and Anti-Foreigner activist Katsura Kotaro. "Who is that behind you? He looks suspicious."

Nobume's sword moved. Steel flashed in the morning sun. A long, keen blade swung straight for the wanted Joi's neck.

CRACK

Red eyes widened.

The severed blade of a nodachi embedded itself into the opposite wall, Nobume now holding little more than a handle and guard with just a few inches of sword left. Slender, pale hands trembled in spite of their master.

A lean, naked young man of no particular distinguishing features crouched behind her, a rusted and dirty old sword gripped tightly in his hands. Kind brown eyes were cast into shadow, a soft face looking hard and stern.

Katsura's eyes widened infinitesimally.

F-fast... I almost couldn't even see it... the man thought, disbelieving.

Nobume's heart beat thunderously in her breast, hammering eratically against her rib cage. She gasped, staring uncomprehendingly down at her sword, a Nihon masterwork which had been so easily sundered by that notched, tarnished, worthless katana.

Her face was still unexpressive. Even as that snow white uniform was stained a bloody crimson.

Hasegawa stared, horrified.

"Ah... ahh..." he gasped, sweating bullets. "I... I..." he murmured, staring aghast at Shinpachi. He was probably the only one who had been in a position to see the boy's eyes when it happened. He was the only one who saw what happened with Shinpachi's face in full view.

That expression...

"I'm... GETTING OUT OF HERE...!" the good-for-nothing old man wailed, jumping to his feet and running for his goddamn life, straight out of the alley and right down the middle of the street. He fled, completely naked, not caring at all about his state of dress.

Nobume swooned. The assassin of the Mimawarigumi disarmed and disabled. Blood poured from the gash in her shoulder, staining her once pure and pristine uniform. She fell, swiftly losing consciousness as her life's blood ebbed away.

Katsura glanced concernedly between the woman and the boy. His face was pale, his jaw grimly set. He narrowed his eyes, staring intently at Shinpachi Shimura.

Or...

No.

"...who are you...?" he asked, feeling the change in the boy's aura, in the way he held himself.

This could not be called Shinpachi.

There was a moment of pensive silence.

Then the boy turned his head, glancing coldly into Katsura's eyes. The Joi gaped, feeling a chill shoot up his spine. His bones shivered, his heart feeling as though it had been pierced with a blade of ice.

Katsura staggered backwards, in shock.

Those eyes.

They were blank. Completely empty. It was pure white, a deathly pallor. They were shrouded with the frost of the grave, the dense and impenetrable mist of death.

Those were the eyes of a corpse.

"Y-you...! O...oni...!" the Joi ronin gasped. His frame tensed, hand moving immediately for the hilt of his sword.

He stopped just before he could reach it. His entire body froze up, feeling the touch of ice against his throat. That beaten, broken old sword was held to Katsura's throat, its tip pressed ever so gently against his Adam's apple. Fear gagged him, primal reflexive terror driving a proud samurai back, and down onto his knees.

The boy smiled, a mirthless rictus of a grin. The eyes of a dead man leered out at Katsura.

"Aah... it's been so long..." said the boy, but he spoke with the voice of an old man. "Katsura-kun... you were especially fun, I remember... so much fun to break down and dismember...!"

Katsura's eyes widened. He saw a cruel flash in Shinpachi's blank eyes, a vision of his own hewed and bloodied corpse.

"You..." he murmured. "What kind of demon...?"

The blade in Shinpachi's hand gleamed, a flash of pale crimson.

"They call me... Benizakura..." came the voice, and it echoed inside Katsura's head. The man clasped his hands to his ears, feeling an incredible agony. He shuddered, moaning in misery. He felt the terror of death grip his heart. "The one and only... genuine... original... Benizakura, de aru...!"

A flash of silver.

Blank eyes widened. The beaten, battered old sword fell from Shinpachi's hands with a noisome clatter.

Red eyes met white, which faded back then into brown.

A hilt of diamond wood, graven Lake Toya, impacted the naked abdomen of Shinpachi Shimura.

"Oy, oy..." muttered Gintoki Sakata, a rare serious expression on his face. "That's a pretty dangerous thing to be carrying around in just your skivvies, Patsuan..." He grinned, seeing the boy's eyes return to normal. "What if your hand were to slip and you cut off your little general? Eh? Where would you be then? Ya dumbass."

Shinpachi swooned, falling backwards onto the unconscious form of Nobume.

He stared at the sky uncomprehendingly, unable to understand what had just happened.

Darkness took him.

A/N: Huh, so now this actually has a second chapter, eh? Well, whaddya know. I know there was at least one person who wanted me to update this. And I was in the mood for some Gen!pachi, so I figured I might as well write something out for this.

Hehe, I always DID wonder what happened to that original Benizakura, you know...?

Chapter added: 2-25-14

TTFN and R&R!

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