Happy New Year!
It's Always The Quiet Ones
The Jouishishi broke away and headed off into their territory, leaving Katsura with Gintoki, Tsukuyo, and the two injured Rae and Saito.
No one talked, focusing on getting to Yoshiwara—the only place safe enough for them to rest.
They flew at light speed to Hinowa's shop, their bloody appearances scaring the shit out of the customers and courtesans in Yoshiwara. The sun had finally gotten its ass out of its bed, shining down upon the world with its godly rays.
"Gin-san! Tsukki! Katsura-san? And...?" She trailed off as she squinted at the incomplete orange afro man, unsure of his identity. Hinowa wheeled out to meet the pathetic party thundering down the street as if hell beasts were hot on their heels. Regardless of the new face, she was sure Katsura had never ventured down to Yoshiwara before.
Hinowa's face brightened with realisation. Ah. That's right. He was on standby.
"What happened?" Hinowa took in the four—oh there was a fifth on Gintoki's back—all soaked in blood, little cuts and scratches everywhere. The orange afro man sustained a graver injury, his face pasty white with all the blood he was losing.
"Let's go in, quick." Hinowa ushered them in.
Hinowa laid out extra futon for the unmoving rock—namely Rae, and ordered the other three to wash up while she cleaned the rock. Faced with the nagging mum, the three kids grudgingly obeyed and trudged to the shower with extra clothes in hand. Saito was given another futon to rest on, dropping into unconsciousness the moment he laid down. Hinowa tended to him first, cleaning and bandaging his wounds. Blood stained the clean futon but Hinowa did not seem to mind one bit.
The Sun of Yoshiwara then prepared a hot tub of water and began wiping down the Rock.
"Hello. My name is Hinowa." The courtesan smiled brightly at the blank woman. The lack of response did not deter Hinowa from making further conversation. "Can I call you Shiro-chan? Your hair is really beautiful. A little bit of the odd side of the natural colouring, just like Gin-san, but being weird is good, don't you agree?"
(Shiro = white)
Rae was still partly human, and like any other humans, she blinks. Hinowa however, took her reflex contraction of muscle as a reaction, began firing off, talking about anything and everything, from the courtesan owning the shop next door to her own son Seita.
"Ara, Gin-san, done already?" It had only been less than 10 minutes. She thought that Gintoki would take longer than usual to scrub off all the dried blood from his skin. Katsura came out of the shower seconds later.
"Man, how many years has it been and you're still faster than me." Katsura grumbled.
"Blame your long hair."
"There are some tea at the table, help yourself, and—" Hinowa tone turned stern, fixing her blue gaze on the two man-child, "Tell me what happened. In detail."
Gintoki scratched at his mop of wet curls. "Can you lend me your kitchen first? I need some sugar."
The Shogun called Kagura and the others for a meeting to inform them about the events of the Morning Court.
It was unnecessary since the whole group had been eavesdropping on it illegally without him knowing.
Maizou did the most of the talking, his small eyes squinting in suspicion as he noticed the princess doing some excessive nodding to his words.
"The edict will be conferred upon Lord Aikake by tomorrow morning."
"By tomorrow? ! That's a bit of a hurry isn't it?" Hijikata—in Tenko's falsetto voice—exclaimed.
Shigeshige shook his head. "Hijikata-san, Okita-san," That earned a surprised grunt and a blink from them respectively, but they didn't interrupt the Shogun. They expected their cover to be blown sooner or later, but in just a span of a day...perhaps their disguises needed some improving. "Even if we hand it down to him later, it is just delaying the inevitable. My uncle and I have prepared for this moment, but..."
"But?" The five leaned in simultaneously, smelling something intresting.
"I have different plans from my uncle."
The five leaned in closer.
Shigeshige sipped at his tea.
"…"
"Just tell us already!" Shinpachi's outburst was not rewarded by any reaction from the Shogun.
Letting out a satisfied sigh from the warm tea, Shigeshige placed his cup down. "My uncle plans to uproot the enitre Court and rid it of our enemies—to replace them with new ones—or to simply put it: to kill off all of them." The kindhearted Shogun's face turned somber at that.
"All of them? It sounds impossible." Hijikata scoffed.
"Sadasada-sama has his methods." Maizou replied for the Shogun. His tone bore a chill which brooked no argument. Even the stump of his left arm ached at the memory. He himself had seen it during Sadasada's reign. The crafty old man wiped out the top ranking officials with just the beauty of a single woman.
"I want to convince them back to my side. And I want to carry out my plan without my uncle knowing. If they can change sides so easily with just a few bribes and sweet talk, they can turn against Aikake again too. I don't want lives being taken when it can solved peacefully." Shigeshige frowned a little. He always didn't like that his uncle was too merciless.
"Therefore, I need your help, Kagura-san." Shigeshige smiled at the red-head who pointed at herself in bafflement.
"Oh-ho! This is a rare case! Half Siren? In most of the Amanto I have treated, this is the first time I have seen a half—and the second time I ever treated a Siren. He was quite a looker, I would say." The doctor tapped his pen against the clipboard.
Otae glared at Gintoki, Tsukuyo and the disguised Zurako—she spared Hinowa from her death glare. "What is this?" Otae whispered fiercely, "What have you troublemakers been up to?"
Otae had gone on an unexpected visit to Yoshiwara to offer Tsukuyo and the pair of mother and son her new creation: egg pudding (To be more accurate: dark matter burnt egg pudding). Instead, Otae bumped into the group panicking over a Rae Rock who collasped suddenly. And so, all of them rushed to the hospital in a flurry, with Katsura bringing the unconscious Saito along. Saito was arranged for a bed neighbour to Rae's after an hour spent in the Emergency Department.
"I didn't know she was half Amanto!" Gintoki whispered back. Hinowa's eyebrows had disappeared into her hairline.
"Doctor, is she okay?" Tsukuyo asked, glancing at the gaunt face of the sleeping Rae.
"She's in horrible shock. She hasn't ingested anything the past 24 hours—we'll put her on drip. Also, I recommend finding a therapist for her condition, it's very unhealthy for her," The doctor fiddled with the buttons on a beeping machine beside the bed, "We have put her in a medicinally induced coma for now, she will wake up...when she feels like it."
"When she feels like it? Oi, Doctor, I'm really doubting your degree here." Gintoki eyeballed the doctor menancingly.
"I cannot make an accurate diagnosis on her since I do not have enough information on her kind." The doctor sidestepped Gintoki's stare. "If she was fully human, the amount of stress she put on her body would have killed her. Currently, the only thing keeping her heart beating is her Siren blood, repairing and keeping the conditions blanced."
Gintoki's brows pulled into a frown. The doctor didn't delve further into all the difficult technicalities, and after bidding a goodbye, he left the room.
"Well? Care enough to explain?" Otae tucked Rae in, pulling the blanket higher. She studied Saitou for a moment before tucking him in as well.
Gintoki mussed his hair irritatedly. What the hell is with people asking him to explain everything? He waved at Tsukuyo to speak for him instead.
A kunai stabbed Gintoki in the head.
Gintoki's temporary cell phone rang. Hijikata had given him an extra one he owned for a more convenient way of communicating. Gintoki had almost forgotten he had the phone.
He fished out the phone from his pocket to see Okita's number flashing on the cracked screen.
Wait. Cracked?
Shit. Hijikata had warned him that if the phone was damaged in anyway, Gintoki would have to pay for the repairs.
"Yo, Danna." Okita's voice came through the speakers.
"I'm shitting. Hurry up and say whatever you need to say." Talking on the phone while in the washroom was awkward enough already.
"We will be staying in the castle until tomorrow, Shogun-sama needs China for his scheming—you'll know by tomorrow, I'm too lazy to explain. How is it over at your side?"
"We're in the hospital. Rae's in shock and half dying." Gintoki took a deep breath, feeling the undigested matter nudge its way out. "Your Wolfro Captain is alive and safe. Mild hypothermia and a large gash in his side but otherwise still fine..."
Okita snapped his phone shut, glancing over to his side where Kagura was having her measurements taken by a team of seamstresses.
"China, you have a half-amanto friend, did you know?"
"Huh?" Kagura was buried in pins and swathes of silk, her face barely visible above the gigantic headdress resting on her hair. A seamstress folded and flipped the corners of the ostentatious garment, creating complicated yet complimentary layers of colours—which both Okita and Kagura couldn't understand and didn't care.
"Your Rae friend is half Siren and half human."
"Siren-aru? I've never heard of that race before..." The rest of her words were swallowed by the headdress slipping down her face.
"Shush! We have to get this done by tomorrow! Now lift your arms up higher!" The head seamstress adjusted her glasses and poked another pin into its place. Kagura mumbled her protest as the pin poked her skin.
Seeing Kagura in her ridiculous outfit was entertaining, but not that entertaining. Okita, bored out of his mind, decided to leave the room and take a walk around the whole castle.
And to plant traps and secure the weaker spots of the castle stronghold, as commanded by his Shogun.
Night arrived. Clouds of storm and wind rolled in as well.
Nobume crept in the shadows of the dark hallway, her footsteps masked by the thundering sound of rain.
The edict had been reviewed and approved by the Advisor, Shogun, and Chancellor. Now it was stowed away on the front desk of the Head Minister of the Board of Civil Appointments, who was in charge of welcoming the new roju.
The room was pitch black. No one was in sight.
Sliding open the shoji soundlessly, the trained ex-assassin slipped in like a snake, her senses trying to detect any shift in the surroundings. She waited for a few seconds, before moving to the front desk.
Flipping on a tiny credit card lightbulb, the small circle of light illuminated just enough of her front to let her see the intended scroll sitting quietly on the table.
Nobume reached into her kimono, her fingers curling around another identical scroll—with the same exact patterns and the same red stamps of the Advisor, Shogun and Chancellor. She had stolen the stamps from the Chancellor and Sadasada and inked the identical scroll with their seals. The Shogun of course stamped his own seal willingly.
She laid out the identical scroll, copied the contents of the original one over—even the handwriting—but with a slight change in the name, then switched the two.
She was glad for her excellent eyesight as she flipped the card light-bulb close and sneaked out in a fluid motion, making sure that the room looked the same as it was before.
Now she only had to wait till tomorrow's Morning Court to commence.