Phew, this is the fourth story I've updated in two hours! On the plus side, I'm officially at 200k on fanfic! Thanks for your patience!
(Still 13 hours)
—
Gin was still sitting against the wall, patiently waiting for this to end, for them to be saved and that maybe he could knock a few of those shit-eaters out before his weakness caught up with him. Shinpachi was seated near him, sword twisting in his hands. He and Kagura would check on Gin periodically. His skin was paler now and he slumped, breathing heavily against the strange emotions roiling inside of him. He'd feel anger and fever, then dread and a freezing feeling and his stomach and fear which exacerbated his shakes. He eyed his friends as they periodically touched their stomachs. They were getting hungry too, thirsty too, but they wouldn't let it show. As he thought this, a steady wave of nausea started building up in the back of his throat and put pressure on his skull, stinging his eyes. Gulping, he waited for it to subside. It didn't—mere moments later, he'd pulled himself over to the trap door vault and emptied his stomach of its illusory contents. Shinpachi and Kagura were at his side in seconds.
"Gin-san!"
"Gin-chan!"
He felt two pairs of hands on his shoulders and back, one set like a vice, like a scared cat clinging to a branch in a swell of a river, and the other securing him, one hand on his chest to prevent him from tilting forward into the piss vault, another on his shoulder, cold and clammy.
"Gin-chan, stop it! There's got to be something we can do!" Kagura's forehead pushed against Gin's neck. He was too closed in. Her orange hair was sticking to the cold sweat on his neck. It was claustrophobic. He flinched away. Kagura and Shinpachi both looked at him in shock. Gin had never shied away from the emotions of those he cared about if they were warranted, especially not from women or Kagura and Shinpachi.
"Gin-san?" Shinpachi tried. Gin's eyes were bright with discomfort, avoiding either of their eyes. His jaw was set in a tight line—tense.
"What?" Gin's tone was irritated, sharp, as he broke away from both their holds and stumbled back to the wall. Shinpachi and Kagura followed timidly and slowly.
"Are you feeling okay?" They approached again tentatively.
"No," Gin shot back, his hoarse voice as sharp and cutting as his throat felt, "I don't… Don't touch me. " His thirst had only increased after he'd thrown up the remains of the liquid in his stomach, then proceeded to dry heave. His pride had probably been thrown up along with that stomach acid. And it was a pretty good indicator that his condition was getting more serious, but his mind couldn't even focus on that fact at the moment. He was a warrior, a samurai, he didn't need to be taken care of by these two children. He'd fought with holes through his stomach and chest. He'd slashed down enemies with a sword piercing his leg. Gin did not want to be touched, didn't they know it was too hot in here? His eyes fluttered closed.
Blood was splashed around the ground, over and under fallen bodies. The blood was like the Kanji that Master Shoyou had taught him—he could read it just as easily. The splash over there, it was dotted like a spray, from a neck being opened up by steel, and over there, near a pale, day-old corpse, was the dark cherry pool that came from a slow-bleed stomach wound.
It wasn't to say that Gin felt at home on the battlefield, rather that for a long time, it had been the only home he'd had. Ever since his village had been slaughtered, he had wandered desolate, through a field of corpses and stained grass.
Gin reflected on him and his brothers in arms during the Amanto war. Their hands bathed up to the elbows in life-blood, streaks of gore across their chest from those whom their swords eviscerated. There wasn't a day where he wasn't glad that he was called Shiroyasha, the white demon, rather than Akayasha, the red one.
Hijikata crept along the outer perimeter of the town hall that was being held hostage. Sugou had taken most the troops with him towards the front entrance to negotiate for whatever hostages hadn't been able to escape earlier. Kondo either had a great plan dreamt up or he was an idiot for letting Sugou handle the hostage negotiation. There would probably be no one left if he and his small team of infiltrators weren't able to deal with the problem before he could.
Hijikata led them down another hallway, then motioned for his team to push themselves against the wall as a group of Amanto walked past an intersecting hallway.
The nice thing about these terrorists were that they had incredibly loud footsteps. Hijikata waited for them to disappear from view before he turned around and beckoned to his team to move forward.
"We don't know where they're hiding the hostages. Our estimations are that there are between ten to twenty remaining in the building. Check rooms, avoid direct confrontation, and above all, God help us, if you see Yorozuya, don't let him shit on our plans! Go!"
Three teams split up, with Hijikata leading the back of his group as they checked broom closets, pantries and finally, the two members of his party disappeared into the girl's bathroom.
"We don't need to—" Hijikata sighed, shaking his head. "They're gone." Another door on his right caught his attention. It was steel and had a large wheel-like contraption on the outside. Looking both ways, he grabbed the handle and gave it a lurching tug. The metal creaked more than he had expected—thundering footsteps of one, maybe two tank-like rhino Amanto.
"For shit's—," he'd managed to pry the door open a few inches and slid through the gap, neatly shutting the door behind him. Instead of being greeted by brooms, mops, files or even girl's toilets, he saw Yorozuya and his kids.
Hijikata's face immediately puckered like he ate a lemon and his face started to sweat. "Huh? The door is jammed! Anyone out there, hello? Get me out of here!" He yelled, no longer caring who heard him. He did not want to be involved with whatever shenanigans the Yorozuya were currently ass-deep in. The door didn't budge, no matter what direction he pulled or pushed.
"Hijikata-san!"
Hijikata took a few desperate deep breaths before turning around to face them. "Ah, hello."
"We're so glad you're here! You've got to help us!" Kagura was in his face in a flash. Hijikata tried to back up but was kept from moving by the steel door.
"It's Gin!" Shinpachi said. Hijikata's eyes moved from eyeing the monster of a little girl, to Shinpachi, to the man who had not yet called out an insult at him. Sougo threw insults out more often but Yorozuya's were usually a more focused and angering. Sort of like when you're given low sodium mayo instead of 1/4 fat mayo. But Gin was sitting against the wall, head between his knees. He hadn't acknowledged Hijikata's arrival.
"Yorozuya?" He asked cautiously. No response, except for Shinpachi shifting nervously behind him. This was unlike the man, even when he was sulking when he was in prison one of the dozen times they've had to arrest him. Seriously, didn't he understand how much work it was to either straight release them and feign innocence, or cook up some reason why they should be freed? Hijikata closed the distance between them and crouched hesitantly by the other man. "Gin?"
Hijikata watched carefully as the silver-haired man's lazy red eyes slowly turned to him. "Hijikata-san." His voice was hoarse and Hijikata was close enough he could clearly see how pale he was and that he had a sheen of sweat on his face. Other than looking at him guardedly, Gin made no other movement. More than Gin's reaction, Hijikata had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach.
Hijikata looked back at the kids, who were staring at him hopefully. "What's wrong with him?"
Shinpachi shook his head. "We're not really sure. We've been in here for at least twelve hours. He said it's because of his low blood sugar and that he would keep getting worse."
"Alright," Hijikata frowned, steeling himself. "Gin? Hey." When he touched Gin's arm, Gin was suddenly in action again, scrambling away from his position against the wall, lifting himself up into a half-crouch.
"Hijikata, what are you doing here, you mayo freak?"
"I just came here to deposit a check. Why did it take so long for you to react? I've been waiting in line for hours."
"Eh?" Gin retorted, settling back down as his limbs protested violently. "You don't know how do deposit your checks online? Are you some kind of idiot?"
"Online checking? Huh, looks like it didn't work out well for you? Worse than when we tried to cash in that lottery ticket?" Hijikata approached again. If he couldn't even stand, he had to be doing badly. Looking him over, physically, he was kind of a mess. A few bruises blooming over his cheek and peaking out at his collar, barely-staunched cuts, a bloody…Otsu headband around his thigh.
"I was performing my duty as a citizen, teaching these two no-good kids how to do things off the internet." Gin returned, a little light returning to his exhausted, sunken eyes. Hijikata thought he heard a small sigh of relief from Shinpachi behind him.
Hijikata Toshiro pulled out his cigarette carton but didn't light a smoke. It was a pretty enclosed space. Could he really smoke like that in front of two kids and still have pride as a samurai? He considered it for a moment before doing it anyway.
WHACK.
Hijikata's next view was of the marble wall aquatinting itself with his forehead and nose. "Ughh."
"You should show more manners around a lady and a sick person." Kagura yelled, being held back by Shinpachi.
"Kagura, I'm fine. I was just out of it for a moment." Gin said.
Hijikata stared sadly down at his cigarettes before tucking them back in his pocket and facing the Shiroyasha. "From what your employees told me, it was more than a moment. You were really out of it. What the hell is wrong with you? You want a parfait?"
Gin's tongue pushed the inside of his cheek in thought. "They probably already explained it. Unless you have an insulin shot or, yeah, a parfait, there's nothing you can do to help me." Gin looked around for a moment before bracing against the wall to help himself into a standing position. "But I can help myself and we're getting out of here."
"Gin-chan, I already tried, it's not budging." Kagura protested. Gin didn't say a thing, just stood in front of Hijikata expectantly, boring into his eyes. There it was, like always, something in that mysterious, albino, ex-Joui rebel that made Hijikata trust him, respect him, and want to follow him just to see what he'll do.
"Tch. Take it." He finally said, tossing his sword to the red-eyed man in exasperation. Gin caught it and unsheathed it in one fluid motion before stopping at the vault door. A drop of sweat fell from his jaw, trailing down the pristine surface of the metal blade. It felt strange to hold the weight of a metal blade in his hands again. Using a bokuto to fight was like working in thick gloves. With steel, it was almost like another sense, every vibration registering as touch; pressure, texture, strength, all sung through a good steel blade.
One deep breath, two, a third because the second felt like he were breathing under thick covers. He lifted his arm and steadied himself for a strike against the door, blinked his vision clear and struck.
So, Hijikata won the poll :) But you can expect Katsura at some point too. Please review!