Disclaimer: Do not own Gintama. If I did there would be way less fighting and more...romance. Especially Sougo with Sougo and Kagura!
4 Months Earlier
Kamui wasn't a particularly good person, at least, not by most people's standards. He didn't normally fall into the good guy category. If Kamui had to use one word to sum up his actions and…admittedly psychotic personality, he would use: villain.
He was a villain through and through, though, not in the traditional sense of the word. He didn't want absolute power to take over the universe. No, he didn't want the universe. Instead, he desired to become the strongest, simply because he could.
Many knew him as the infamous space pirate who has killed hundreds in cold blood. Or the Yato who was bored and needed to let off some of his bloodlust in order to sate his obsessive need to feel a person's guts and blood spilling all over the ground.
In every sense of the word, Kamui knew that he fit the description of a villain perfectly. Villains like him tended to work better on their own. He didn't need anyone, nor, did he care for anyone because no one stood out enough to warrant his consideration.
After facing hundreds of opponent's day in and day out all their faces begin to blur. Their names were irrelevant, their identities insignificant to him.
The only two people who really mattered to him were worlds away. His mother who died when he was only eight years old, and Kagura who is living happily on Earth with her adopted family.
He never realized that he could take interest in anyone else, much less somewhat begin to care for her. He wasn't expecting her to be able to get under his skin!
Which is why when he began having those dreams, he pushed them to the back of his mind to, hopefully, be forgotten.
However, he didn't forget them. Kamui remembered them clearly, too clearly. He never remembered his dreams or even had any dreams for that matter. Kamui didn't even know if these could qualify as dreams. They were too vivid and kept disrupting him throughout the day.
Sometimes, when he would be in the middle of a fight, a flash of her dainty fingers folding clothes while softly humming a tune entered his thoughts, breaking him out of his concentration.
The dreams pissed him off! She pissed him off! He tried his damned best to forget the dreams, to forget her! But with each dream he had, his curiosity spiked.
Each one centered on her and she lived in what looked like a desert? He had no clue what the meaning or significance of his dreams, visions, whatever they are, were.
Yet, once every four or five months over the course of the last two years, Kamui would have dreams where he seemed to be living bits and pieces of desert girl's life.
Desert girl seemed like an appropriate name for her since he knew little about her.
It was as if he was Desert girl viewing the world from her own eyes. He only ever saw her slim tanned arms and hands, which were sometimes flipping through pages of books. One of them being some fact book about different places on Earth, judging by a photo of the Northern Lights accompanied with some information about the place on one of the pages.
Other times, he would see her sitting by a small window taking in the sun's harsh glare as she sat at an empty table, happily eating rice with chicken and curry as she flipped through another book with a wizard on the cover. Not only could he experience her world from her perspective, he could also share her emotions as if they were his own!
He could feel her excitement and happiness as she sat reading her stupid books. Kamui didn't even like reading! He hated it! It bored the hell out of him! Why sit and read a book about aliens, space, and fighting when he could just go out and actually experience those things?
He'd always been a high-energy guy, reading and writing never appealed to him. The only reason he ever learnt the skills was because of his mother. If it weren't for her forcing his younger self to sit down and practice he would most likely be illiterate now.
But even though he despised reading he could still experience the joy she got from reading books. It was…unusual. He hadn't really felt true joy and happiness in a long while. It's not like he forgot what those emotions felt like; they were just…rare for him. To suddenly feel this girl's happiness because of reading some silly book was…bizarre, but not necessarily awful, Kamui decided. Just weird.
A majority of his dreams consisted of her cooking, reading, or doing laundry, mundane activities. But there was one dream he had that stood out from all his previous ones that took place on a night he was in a particularly bad mood.
Earlier that day, after a rather brutal fight with members of the Akurta, Kamui actually got injured. He rarely ever got seriously injured in any of his battles. But this time he was taken off guard.
Overwhelmed by the scent of blood in the air, Kamui took on more people than he could keep track of. When his back was turned one idiot managed to stab him with a sword coated in tranquilizer causing his body to freeze up and hit the ground hard.
Seeing his Captain lying paralyzed on the ground, Abuto, who was fighting near Kamui, quickly rushed to his aid. He grabbed the Captain's limp arm and placed it around his shoulder, allowing him to lean against Abuto.
"You ok?" Asked Abuto, slight concern entering his eyes.
Glaring at him from the side, Kamui acidly replied, "I can't move, what the fuck do you think?"
Grunting, he muttered to himself, "He'll live," and proceeded to lead his immobilized leader to the ship's infirmary.
Once he safely got him back on to the ship, Kamui was forced into receiving medical care and put to rest. He felt humiliated. His senses were impeccable; nothing ever caught him off guard. But, for once he was wrong. That whole day, to sum it up, sucked and he desperately just wanted to sleep it off.
That night he spent in the infirmary was when the dreams of Desert girl started to really quip his fascination with her. This time, she was walking across a massive desert with a small knapsack hitched over her shoulder. She slowly trudged along the sand and pulled the hood of her cloak over her head.
The desert was incredible, unlike anything Kamui was used to seeing, and he'd traveled all over the universe. There were dunes of reddish golden sand everywhere and nothing else for what seemed like miles. The bright sun rested high in the clear blue sky shining its rays down on the entirety of the land.
He could actually feel the heavy heat role off Desert girl in waves, and he wasn't even truly there. Being a Yato he would never survive the harsh temperatures of this desert without concealing every inch of his skin. He could never really experience the sweltering atmosphere without getting burnt to death. This vision through her was the closest he would ever get to living that experience without his wrappings.
He relished in the sun that she was feeling. For once, he could understand Hosen's desire to feel the sun beaming down on him. However, his master holed himself up underground and never built up tolerance for certain levels of sunlight.
Kamui could still walk under the sun free of wrappings depending on the intensity of the light. But this kind of sun was something else entirely; unique only to a desert's hot climate and he felt…at peace for once, free for once. Which was strange considering the fact that he was a pirate living a lawless liberated life.
He was used to the kind of freedom that allowed him to create panic amongst the masses and upturn countries and governments. But this was a different kind of freedom.
Not a single person was within sight of Desert girl. There weren't even any animals or plants or any life whatsoever. It was just…her…walking…in the silence of the scorching desert, without anyone disturbing her or getting in her way, without anyone questioning her place or her actions. And even though she was exhausted from walking hours across the dry ground, she actually felt content.
The next morning when Kamui woke up, he wondered – not for the first time – whether these repetitive dreams of her were real. It was too much of a coincidence having dreams of the same person over and over again for the last two years. And nothing too strange happened in any of his dreams.
Aren't dreams supposed to have some unrealistic elements to them? Every single dream he had up until this point has been completely normal. And if the dreams were real, why the hell was he having them in the first place?
What was he supposed to do about them! What did they mean for him? Questions were teeming in Kamui's mind, but he continued to ignore them, and ignore the dreams. As long as they didn't disrupt his sleep he was fine with having them. They actually managed to get him to relax at night.
Unfortunately, for Kamui, the desert dream would be the last of the peaceful dreams of Desert girl.
About four months after his last dream, he has another dream. However, this time the dream was much more intriguing than he anticipated. It also revealed something about Desert girl he would never have suspected of her.
The first thing Kamui registered when he entered her mind was the excruciating pain coming from her stomach. She was clutching it tightly as pangs of hunger wracked through her small frame. He could feel her hunger as if it was his own.
And it. Was. Painful.
Kamui had never in all his life felt this kind of pain eating at him from the inside out.
She was lying on the ground, curled up in fetal position, desperately trying to stifle her cries. The only sounds coming from her mouth were painful whimpers.
It…stirred something in him.
How did she even get in this famished state? How long had she gone with no food?
Growing up, he and his family may not have been the wealthiest, but they never went hungry. There was always food waiting on the table for him either prepared by himself or his mother when she was feeling well enough. He'd never experienced true hunger.
He supposed that he was fortunate enough in his childhood to not have experienced such levels of excruciating hunger. But Desert girl obviously wasn't as fortunate, and he wondered if she had any friends or family herself. She was always alone in his dreams of her, and she was alone now.
As she lay on the ground her fear of dying from hunger shot through him. Her loneliness and hopelessness hit Kamui like a bucket of cold water.
They were familiar to him, but also different. True fear wasn't something Kamui was used to feeling. He hardly ever got scared of anything or anyone. It was the opposite for him. Everyone feared him. He thrived off that fear. It's what made him tick.
As for somber feelings such as loneliness and hopelessness? Ever since he joined the Harasume at a young age, Kamui busied himself with training to get stronger. He never sat down and analyzed his feelings over losing his mother and abandoning his family. There was never time for regretting his life decisions. He buried any troublesome memories and emotions that hindered his quest to become the strongest.
Kagura calls it running away from his problems. He calls it being productive. Even now, he still kept his distance from his sister, only visiting her when it suits him or coming to her aid when she desperately needed it.
But Desert girl's fear of dying triggered something in him. He was used to feeling delicious satisfaction over breaking someone's head open. Or almost uncontrollable excitement after seeing drops of blood spilt. He was used to feeling victorious, the thrill of the battle, he was used to feeling invincible, powerful, not…human vulnerabilities.
Which is why, the sudden onslaught of her very human emotions made him feel, for the lack of a better word…uncomfortable. But what astounded Kamui the most was what happened next.
As she writhed on the ground trying to suppress her hunger a large lizard came in to view and tried to scurry past her. But she was more aware of her surroundings than he thought because the next thing Kamui knew, the lizard's scaly body was being pulled towards Desert girl's outstretched hand.
Once the creature was firmly grasped in her hand, she dragged herself with her free hand toward the kitchen drawer reached up and pulled out a knife.
Taking the knife by the hilt she stabbed the lizard through its back. Blood immediately gushed out of its wound. Then, she weakly raised her hand and motioned towards the fluids coming out of the creature.
Kamui stared at the air in shock. Crimson colored liquid was flowing through it in small streams, slowly draining the lizard's body of any blood. The process took only minutes.
Once all the blood was drained from the animal's limp body she let it pool on the floor and crawled towards the stove. She weakly stood on her feet and hunched over the cook top. Then she turned on the appliance and proceeded to cook the lifeless lizard.
He woke with a start. Sitting up in his bed he pressed his hand to his beating chest, trying to regulate his breathing. The dream didn't disturb him as much as it fascinated him. These dreams have to be real.
He knew exactly what Desert girl was. Kamui hadn't met one in years because their were so few of them left, but that ability didn't belong to just anyone.
She was a blood manipulator and therefore an enemy of the Yatos. Blood manipulators were one of the only species that posed a real threat to the Yatos godly strength because their powers allowed them to manipulate someone's body from a distance in an instant by reaching inside and controlling their blood.
It was a rare and beautiful gift in Kamui's opinion. Not one he wanted to extinguish, but take advantage of. For hundreds of years the Yatos and blood manipulators tried to wipe each other out in, what Kamui believed, was a pointless ethnic war. As a result of the violent cleansing, the population of both races had declined throughout the years.
Now days, Yatos and blood manipulators tended to be scattered across different planets. The last time Kamui had met one was when he was a child just starting out with the Harasume. The blood manipulator he worked with was a hit man who used his abilities to take out anyone his clients told him to. He worked briefly with the Harasume on a mission, but not without a couple fights breaking out between him and some crewmembers.
However, Kamui had no such racial issues with the hit man, Desert girl, or blood manipulators in general. Now that he knew that she wasn't just some random peasant he's been dreaming about, but actually a powerful opponent to fight or recruit – it would be a waste to kill her – he was actually rather interested in her whereabouts. Yet, Kamui had no clue how to go about finding her. There were deserts on many planets; she could be on any of them.
For now he decided to wait. Despite what Abuto and others thought of him, Kamui could be quite patient when he really wanted to be. He'd wait a bit before starting his search for her. First, he had to somehow accumulate a list of as many deserts he could find and begin searching, that would take some time.
He also had to come up with some excuse to give Abuto and the rest of his crew for wanting to search different deserts without telling them about his interest in some girl. Not because he was embarrassed or anything, but because there were no women on his ship, never have been.
Yato women were as strong as their male counterparts. But many Yato families believed that a woman's main duty was to protect her children and home, not engage in outside battles. He didn't know how his crew would react to having not just a teenage girl, but also a blood manipulator on board fighting with them. He'd have to figure out how to deal with that small detail later.
Abuto he knew wouldn't have any problem with her. But, the rest of the crew wouldn't be too fond of the idea and might try to murder her or something. But once Kamui made it clear that she was not to be harmed they wouldn't dare try anything, at least, nothing that would leave a mark. Not if they wanted to get their insides scrambled, which he highly doubted they did.
Getting out of bed and walking towards his private bathroom to get ready for his day, Kamui started to thinking of a good excuse to feed the others before starting his search.
About three weeks after Kamui finally decided to begin his search for Desert girl he had yet another dream of her. How many dreams was that now? He lost count long ago, but he suspected that it was in the teens.
When he woke up in Desert girl's mind, this time she was walking through a town at night. The moon glistened high in the sky and there wasn't another person in sight. She seemed to be the only person out right now.
As she was walking through the empty streets Kamui sensed a presence behind her. However, she didn't seem as attuned to her surroundings as he was because she didn't show any signs of recognizing that another person was following her. Usually, whenever Kamui was tailing someone, if they knew he was following them, they gave some sort of physical response. A pause in their step, slight turn of the head, anything.
But she continued walking unaware. He decided that if he were going to recruit her, he would also have to train her to be a bit stealthier than she was now. If she even escaped her current stalker.
Suddenly, a hooded man appeared in front of her seemingly out of nowhere. She stopped in her tracks. "What do you want?" She asked, her voice wavering slightly.
The hooded figure pulled out a gun and began to walk towards her. "You," he stated simply.
The man raised his gun and pointed it at her. Kamui wasn't concerned though. Desert girl should be able to take this thug out easily with her abilities. But that's not what she did.
Instead, much to Kamui's surprise, she began to back away slowly. He could feel terror coarse through her body. Why the hell wasn't she controlling him?! What was she waiting for?
Kamui knew that the Extremist Organization had it out for blood manipulators, but she could easily kill them and dispose of their bodies, erasing any trace of what truly happened. Why wasn't she doing it?
As she backed away from the guy in front her Desert girl felt her back bump into another figure. She whipped her head around. Another hooded figure loomed behind her, blocking her escape.
She clenched her teeth and said, "If it's money you want, I don't have much of it. You're better off mugging someone else."
"On the contrary, you have something…very useful to us," he leered; his eyes greedily roaming up and down her body.
Kamui felt something unexplainable. All he knew was that he wanted to gouge out their eyes to keep them from looking at her ever again. No one was allowed to look at her in –in that way! It was nauseating!
If he were there right now they'd be nothing but bloodstains under his boots! No, instant death wouldn't be enough. He'd shoot holes in them first and then stick his fingers in their bloody wounds, savoring their pitiful screams.
But he wasn't with her and the bastards kept advancing on her. What infuriated him more was that he knew she could easily take them out if she really wanted to!
Her eyes widened in understanding. Their traffickers damn. She began to look around for any possible escapes, but the two men blocked the only paths.
Realizing this she took a deep breath to calm herself. Then she reached into the pocket of her shirt pulling out a large knife. It was glaringly obvious that she wasn't holding a normal knife, though, because Kamui couldn't even see the knife's blade. It was invisible; rather there was a faint wispy aura emitting from where the blade was supposed to be, making it known that there was still something there.
Glaring at the man who leered at her, Desert girl pointed the strange knife at him and said in a deadpan voice, "Useful? All you want is my body."
She pulled her hood up and pointed the knife at one of the men. "Well, if you want it you'll have to come and get it."
Huh, Well this should be interesting, Kamui thought. There was some trick to that knife he was excited to see.
The man holding the gun laughed, "Stupid cunt! Your knife's fuckin broken! You can't do shit to me," and began to rapidly shoot at her.
Suddenly, the knife she was holding sprang to life in her hands and quickly deflected every single bullet shot at her.
Smirking, she gestured towards the two men blocking her, "Kill them," she said to the knife softly.
The invisible weapon whipped towards the man who shot at her. It was incredibly fast! And since the blade of the knife was invisible, only the hilt could be seen. Kamui barely saw it fly through the air before it embedded itself deep in one of the trafficker's chest and quickly ripped itself from his body, heading for the other guy.
"Shit!" The other one yelled, noticing his dead companion and began to run in the opposite direction. But it was too late for him. Desert girl's invisible knife stabbed him in the back.
His body hit the ground with a thud and the blade vanished leaving only the hilt, which rested on the dead man's bloody back.
She slowly approached the body and solemnly stared at it for a few seconds before picking up the knife's hilt. Once she straightened, she put the hilt into her pocket and walked off into the dry night, not sparing the dead men a second glance.
Kamui's first thoughts when he woke up from his vision was, what was kind of knife was that? And, why didn't she simply crush their hearts or something and then use the knife to make it look like she stabbed them in the chest? Not that her weapon wasn't efficient or anything, but why even bother using it?
She would use her powers to drain blood from defenseless animals but not people who threatened her life? Kamui was many things and has killed many people, but he had boundaries. If he could help it he would spare women and children from his attacks…as well as animals!
Granted, she was starving and could barely move last time he dreamt of her. But it made no sense to him when she didn't control their blood and make it look like she killed them with a knife instead.
Sitting up in bed, Kamui ran his fingers through his long orange hair, 'I really needed to trim it,' he thought as he pondered his dream. Every time he learns something new about Desert girl more and more questions pop up. Every time he thinks he has her figured out, she somehow springs a surprise on him.
He's never met her, doesn't even know her real name, but she's somehow managed to snare his attention.
For the rest of the day, Kamui had an even harder time than usual getting her out of his mind. She kept popping up in his head!
Even when he was being debriefed by some of his crew he couldn't stop thinking about how she felt somewhat regretful when taking out the traffickers, or how her whole demeanor lit up whenever she read one of her silly books. He couldn't get the sight of her small delicate hands draining the lizard's blood from its body out of his head. The beautiful red liquid flowing through the air –
"Captain? Captain! Is it alright for us to go ahead with the current plan?"
Kamui was leaning back in his chair, precariously balancing on one of the legs when he blinked up at his subordinates coming back to reality.
"Sorry, what did you louts say?" He asked casually, subtly scratching his cheek.
Slightly put off, the Yato asked again, "Ummm is it alright for us to carry out the plans of invading the Akurta, Captain?"
Staring out the large window in front of him, he simply replied, "Uh yeah sure, that's fine."
All the other space pirates in the room looked at each other uncomfortably. Having their Captain be in an unpredictable mood did not bode well for them. He was already prone to lashing out at them when he was pissed off. This aloof, spaced out version of their young leader was no better. He actually alarmed them more than the other version. That one was still predictable.
"Are you…ok Captain? You seem kinda…out of it," one of the Yato pirates asked hesitantly.
Swiveling in his chair to face his lowly subordinates Kamui rested his chin on his hand. He grinned at them and lightly said, "I don't know what you mean."
One of the men flinched at the aggravated look in the young Yato's eyes.
Kamui picked up his umbrella, which was resting beside his chair and aimed it at his crew. "Now, unless you want your heads disconnected, don't ask stupid questions."
"Get out," he ordered, his voice soft but threatening.
Everyone filed out of the meeting room as quickly as possible for Yato men, leaving him to deal with his wrangled emotions.
This was ridiculous! Desert girl was going to drive him to insanity if he didn't find her soon! He was already showing signs of weakness in front of his crew. Spacing out on important plans due to his…distractions.
It was decided. Starting tomorrow he would officially begin his search for her.
Strolling towards a large bookshelf located in the corner of the meeting room, Kamui pulled out a thick book filled with every possible planet in existence. He knew she lived on a planet that was mostly desert judging from the strong heat of the sun and dry air he felt in his dreams.
Therefore, he needed to come up with a list of all planets that are either entirely desert or mostly desert. It was funny he thought. He always knew where he was going, who he was dealing, what to expect.
He never needed to do his own research, but Desert girl forced him to crack open a book for the first time in who knows how many years.