Hi friends! So I know I should be writing the last chapter of Daily Score but when inspiration hits, it hits. I have recently read the final chapters of Gintama and am watching the series again and this idea hit me like a train. It's no secret that I am obsessed with future Okikagu so I wanted to write something post-canon about my favourite Sadist duo.
Disclaimer: I do not own the beautiful Sadist Duo nor do I own Gintama.
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Introduction:
The last time he saw her was before the war to end all wars began. She'd told him not to lose to anyone else until they met again.
He'd managed to keep that promise through their fight to save the world, just barely, and even over the two years they were separated. He kept that promise until he found himself in the midst of a battle with another red headed girl from the Yato clan. Or at least that's what everyone else thought, but not him, never him. He always knew her, in whatever form she took, even when her own adoptive family didn't. Even when the fiery red headed girl didn't know herself anymore.
The final battle ended and life returned to normal. They kicked, they screamed, they pulled each other's hair but still he knew she felt the gaping hole left by the last two years just as fiercely as he did. He found himself wishing that he could take the pain away from her and shield her from any further hurt. He knew better than to even consider doing that, the China Girl was stronger and braver than anyone else he'd ever known. Not to mention that she would rip his head off for even thinking about protecting her.
But still, that never stopped him from trying.
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~o~~o~~
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I:
She was sixteen the next time he saw her. Sougo was disgustingly bored with the absolute mundaneness of it all. He found himself longing for the days of constant battles and of never knowing what was around the next corner.
Almost as if karma was sneering at him for being so ungrateful, Sougo rounded the corner to find the Odd Jobs trio in the midst of a scene in the main shopping district. Sougo watched the scene unfolding before him with mild interest and a small amount of glee at the ridiculousness of the trio. The boss and the China Girl appeared to be fighting with a shop mannequin dressed in some disarray of various outfits while the Glasses fretted in the background, desperately apologising to innocent shoppers. Sougo couldn't help but let out a small laugh, that he covered with a cough, as the China Girl fell to the ground after the Glasses Stand accidentally smacked her across the back of the head with a questionably naked mannequin that appeared to have horns. Sougo decided it was time to intervene when said China Girl retaliated by throwing a very large, very sharp, hat stand at her frightened friend.
"Alright, break it up." Sougo said deadpan, "you hooligans are disrupting the peace."
Sougo had to hide his amusement when the red headed girl threw her dirtiest death glare at him and yelled, "you're the one disrupting the peace you tax-robber, uh-huh!"
The older boy would never admit it to anyone, let alone himself, but he felt the air get knocked out of him every time he saw the teenage China Girl these days. Anyone with eyes could see that she had grown significantly in the last two years and had almost become… hot. If she wasn't an unrefined, psychotic, nose-picking brat that is.
"I will have to arrest you," Sougo continued emotionlessly, "on account of hurting the police officers' feelings."
"You are so stupid! So stupid!" The China Girl screamed back at him as his partner retreated in fear.
Sougo shook his head slightly in feigned disappointment, "I thought you had matured in the last two years but it seems that's just on the outside."
"Ew! He's hitting on me! Gin-Chan he's hitting on me!" The obnoxious yelling continued from the young girl while the Glasses Stand bowed repeatedly in the foreground, trying to smooth over the situation.
Lazy as ever, the boss of the trio drawled slowly, "can we leave or are you actually going to arrest us? Ketsuno Ana is presenting the news in twenty minutes and I don't want to miss it."
"Okita-san, what do we do?" Sougo's snivelling partner asked timidly, eyes shooting wildly between the three idiots in front of them. The man was obviously hoping that Sougo would decide to leave the trio alone and go back to the station with no hassles.
One on hand, Sougo could torment the new recruit a little bit for being a scaredy cat and take the trio back to the station. But on the other hand, that meant he would have to do a ridiculous amount of paperwork and listen to Hijikata whine for several hours about his duty.
The young police officer decided he could annoy the new recruit in another way. He sighed, "you're free to go. I don't have time to wash the stink of pig from my car if that brat gets in." Sougo finished, pointing at the China Girl casually.
To the older boy's surprise, instead of biting back and trying to cave his head in, the China Girl simply rolled her eyes and started on her way back home. The Glasses Stand bowed profusely again and apologised for his general existence before making his way back behind the older man.
Sougo found his eyes lingering on the retreating back of the teenage China Girl until she was completely out of sight. He couldn't explain it but something was different about the vivacious female member of the Odd Jobs. Her time apart from her adoptive family obviously had left a bigger impact than she was letting on and she seemed, if only just a little, less lively somehow. Like the trauma of the last two years had taken something from her that she hadn't quite managed to get back yet. Sougo wasn't sure if the Boss and the Glasses Stand had noticed but of course Sougo did, he always did when it came to her.
Not that he cared anyway he was just doing his job as a protector of the public. Sougo heard a loud crash and bullets that sounded suspiciously like the ones shot from a purple umbrella coming from the street over and smiled slyly.
On second thought, maybe the mundaneness wasn't so bad.
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II:
Then she was seventeen and the Sadist was still as handsome as ever. And she, despite puberty being very good to her, was still a feral, loud-mouthed, glutton that he only saw as his annoying rival.
The Sadist's smug smirk whenever he bested her in an argument or happened across her in a particularly humiliating job infuriated her. But along with the infuriation, another emotion had begun to seep in when Edo's Deadliest Police Officer saw her in a situation that would reiterate how little she was to be taken seriously.
Embarrassment. Kagura wasn't sure when it started but she'd started to feel embarrassed when the handsome officer saw her goofing around with her found family. Kagura did not know why she cared as, while she could admit the young police man was inhumanly beautiful, he was still an annoying brat that she could not care less about.
However, something about the way the Sadist snickered under his breathe when he caught her arguing with a particularly ridiculous beetle costume made her cheeks burn.
Kagura hated that stupid Sadist and she told him as much when she punched that smug smile right off his charming face.
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III:
Then she was eighteen and there was no denying that she was a force to be reckoned with. Sougo found himself breathless at the grace and power of the beautiful alien girl more often than he'd like to admit.
And he wasn't the only one.
Inferior lifeforms known as men had begun to throw themselves at her in troves, begging for a chance to take the enchanting inhuman girl on a date and testing the flaxen-haired boys' patience at the same time. The only one who hadn't seemed to notice was the China Girl herself. The red-headed girl always had a look of suspicion and confusion on her face when some pathetic boy approached her and attempted to woo her. One guy had asked her if she wanted to go to on a space cruise with him, to which Kagura accused him of attempting to kidnap her and called for police. Sougo had been particularly pleased to respond to that call for assistance and watch the dejected boy flee the scene.
Sougo found himself struggling constantly to supress the urge to burn Edo and every man who asked for Kagura's hand to the ground. The only thing that stopped him was the knowledge that the China Girl had no interest in anything other than her giant dog, her royal best friend and picking fights with a certain police officer.
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IV:
"Screw you, you creepy Sadist!" The red-headed girl yelled as she attempted to tear a park bench from the ground and throw it at her attacker.
"I'm going to throw you in jail for that!" The older boy yelled, dodging stray pieces of park bench and flinging rocks at the girl in return.
The two rivals had been tearing the park to shreds in the midst of a petty fight. It had started when Kagura and Shinpachi had stopped in the park for a break in the middle of their current job. Okita-san and Hijikata-san had come across the two of them and within seconds the two rivals had escalated into a full-on battle scene over a piece of pickled seaweed.
Shinpachi and the Shinsengumi Vice Chief had been watching the battle from the side lines, too exhausted to intervene.
"You're gross! You're so ridiculously pretty it makes me sick. You should be ugly, you dumb Sadist!" Shouted the nineteen-year-old girl mid-flight.
"Yeah? Well, why are you so hot when you're just a gross pig girl?" Came the jeering response.
"Why do you think I'm hot you creepy brat!"
"Sounds like you want to date me, China! You immature stalker!"
"You're the stalker, uh-huh! You learned from your Gorilla King!"
The fighting continued and Shinpachi couldn't help but ask the older man standing next to him, "is it just me, or have the insults started to sound like they're flirting?"
The Vice Chief puffed out his cigarette smoke slowly and replied, "I've given up, I can't make sense of this weird mating ritual anymore."
"Stop groping me, you Sadist! RAPE!"
Shinpachi silently watched his friend accuse a police officer of rape and felt his soul break into a million pieces. "Kagura, please stop this! He's the police!"
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V:
Then he was twenty-four years old when his boss called him into his office and declared very sternly that the young man needed to get married. Sougo stood dumbly in his superior's office as the man he admired told him that he was receiving pressure from the government to marry off the handsome, eligible young police officer to a foreign princess to improve relations. Kondou had promised Sougo that he would do everything he could to fight it but Sougo knew that it was only a matter of time before he was forced to comply. Sougo could not shake the image of a violent, red-headed girl from his mind for hours after hearing the news.
That was why when the beautiful, twenty-year-old, China Girl had tried to bait him into a brawl later that day he could only respond half-heartedly.
The red-headed girl was sitting next to him on their park bench, going on some tangent about Sadaharu being in heat and getting her in trouble for sniffing some fancy dog's butt. Sougo found himself asking without meaning to do so, "would you like to marry me, China?"
The next few minutes of silence were long while Sougo waited for the inevitable outburst from his hot-headed companion. Except it didn't come. After several minutes Sougo turned to face the girl beside him who was staring at him with confusion written all over her face, "you can't be serious?" She managed eventually.
Sougo shrugged, desperately trying to believe the nonchalance he was putting forward, and asked levelly, "but what if I was?"
"I'd ask if you were crazy." The girl said plainly.
The flaxen-haired boy looked back to his companion, catching her gaze this time with intent, "you're honestly saying that you haven't thought about it?"
A moment passed where neither of them said anything. Sougo found himself studying his enchanting companion nervously, as though he was trying to soak up her presence before she responded in the case that her response smashed his fragile hope into pieces. The red-headed girl eventually got up without a word and began walking away. Sougo sighed and slumped back on the bench again, accepting that as her final answer.
Sougo caught his breathe sharply when the China Girl stopped suddenly and looked back at him in puzzlement. The police officer locked eyes with the beautiful China Girl, surprised to see the bewilderment in her gaze that completely captivated him. A moment passed like this before the girl turned to make her way out of the park again. Sougo watched the retreating back of his rival and closed his eyes softly. He knew from that look what the China Girl was trying to convey, that she can't say that she hasn't.
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VI:
Then she was twenty-one and the loneliness of growing up had begun to settle in. Kagura spent more time alone now than she did with her adoptive family.
Shinpachi had slowly started spending more time at the dojo than he did at the Odd Jobs. The two Shimura siblings had been working hard to rebuild their father's dojo and now that it was thriving, they were both needed more and more at home. Gin-chan was always out and about doing one thing or another, or "secret adult stuff" as he told Kagura. The red-headed girl didn't know what was so secret about him sneaking down to the red-light district to spend time with Tsukki but she just dismissed it as her useless adoptive father being pathetic. Even Otose and Catherine had been too busy to spend time with her at the snack house these days.
The fears of her childhood, of her father and her brother leaving her again, had started to creep back in. This had meant that Kagura was becoming desperate to occupy herself to forget the constant dull ache she had in her heart.
Kagura initially could enjoy herself by picking fights with the Sadist, but even he barely seemed to be out on patrol anymore.
As Kagura walked down the streets of Kabukicho with Sadaharu for the millionth time this week she sighed in resignation. She hated to admit it but she had resigned to stop fooling herself, life was already pretty lonely at the moment but it seemed especially bleak without a certain Sadist around.
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VII:
Then she was twenty-two and she was out in Kabukicho waiting impatiently for Gin-chan to finish arguing with the cancer riddled tax-robber. Kagura was quickly growing tired of the two grown men jeering at each other and slinging insults that were also relevant to themselves.
Eventually the tax-robber Vice Chief let out a disgruntled sigh and stated, "why do you have to show up today when I'm already pissed off at that stupid little Sadist for making a big fuss about his marriage interview."
He said it so nonchalantly that Kagura almost missed it, "marriage interview?" She asked warily.
The demon chief turned dragged his hand through his hair and continued, completely missing the change in Kagura's voice, "yeah. Kondou-san has set him up with some princess from another planet or something. 'Bout time that little shit got married and finally left me alone."
"Where are they meeting?" Kagura asked, trying to keep her voice casual and purposefully ignoring the piercing look the silver haired man was sending her.
Hijikata shrugged, "at some restaurant downtown, I can't remember the name."
"Where?" Kagura insisted.
This finally caught the vice chief's attention. He arched an eyebrow and asked, "you're not jealous are you, China Girl?"
"Of course, I'm not!" She yelled too quickly, not missing the shared look between the two older men present, "shut up!" She yelled again.
The silver haired man held his hands up in defence, "hey, I didn't say anything."
Kagura felt her cheeks burn as she tried to ignore the pitying look both men were giving her.
"He's at that place next to the casino." Hijikata said evenly, "the one with the fancy lion statue out the front."
Kagura looked at the black-haired man suspiciously, trying to work out if he was still making fun of her. Hijikata rolled his eyes, "go. He might have already promised to marry her by now."
With that the red-headed girl jumped atop her obnoxiously large dog and made her way downtown to the spot the cancer loving police officer had described.
If you'd asked Kagura what was going through her head when she stormed the restaurant in the company of her giant dog and demanded to know where the "creepy Sadist and his date are" she would not have been able to answer. The truth was, hearing that her rival was in a marriage interview had sent her into such a state of panic that she barely processed anything past his current location. She definitely had not begun to process why she was so distressed at the thought of the Sadist being on a date with another girl nor the logic of busting into the middle of a date to kidnap him.
And kidnap him is exactly what she did.
Kagura slammed open the door of the small room the flaxen-haired man and his date were meeting in. Two pairs of eyes turned to focus on Kagura immediately and she pushed on before she could think twice about what she was doing.
Kagura could feel her rival's intense red eyes watching her intently as she declared, "sorry Princess! This Brat is already on reserve for a Queen!"
With that, the red-headed girl grabbed her rival roughly by his clothes and dragged him out of the room. Kagura kept pulling the flaxen-haired boy until they were out the front of the restaurant, at which point the Sadist fought himself free of her grip and moved to block her path. "China, you're supposed to wait for the actual wedding to object." The flaxen-haired boy said with a hint of amusement in his usually flat voice.
Kagura avoided the Sadist's gaze and moved to turn away from him without answering. The Sadist grabbed her arm and held her in place, "China, what's going on?" He asked gingerly.
"Shut up!" Kagura snapped in response, hiding her face under her long red hair.
A moment passed and Kagura heard a small hitch in her companion's breath, so subtle that she almost missed it, "wait… do you like me?"
"Shut up!" Kagura wailed again.
"No," the Sadist said forcefully, tightening his grip on Kagura's arm and yanking her around to face him. "You just interrupted my marriage interview, answer the question."
Kagura wished desperately that she could disappear into another dimension and looked around for one last escape route. Finding none, Kagura took a deep breath and muttered stubbornly, "stupid Hijikata told me you were on a date-"
"Marriage Interview"
"-and I hated it so I came to stop it before I knew what I was doing!"
Several moments of silence passed where Kagura swore she could hear the Sadist's brain processing this information. The flaxen-haired boy finally said, "why did you hate it?"
Kagura shrugged, still refusing to look her companion in the eyes, "I don't know." She said into the ground hesitantly, "I didn't like the idea that I couldn't fight with you anymore and that some other girl would be your favourite girl and stuff."
The only response Kagura got was, "when did I say you were my favourite girl?"
Kagura finally lifted her head up in spite and glared at the Sadist, "Shut up! You know you're obsessed with me!"
Locking eyes with the Sadist, Kagura could see the amusement in his gaze as he asked warmly, "when did I say that?"
Kagura found her anxiety slowly seep away under the Sadist's warm gaze, "you did. At the park."
"I said I'd thought about marrying you, not that I'm obsessed with you." The Sadist continued. Kagura basked in the soft amusement of his gaze. It began to dawn on the red-headed girl that he only ever directed this look towards her, and only her. Usually, it was when he thought that she wasn't looking but she had caught him looking at her this way on several other occasions. His gaze displayed fondness, adoration, wonder, and pure joy.
"Isn't it the same thing?" Kagura asked quietly, noting that the space between herself and her rival had decreased drastically.
The Sadist's face was so close to hers that she felt his breath on her skin when he responded, "what's it to you?" He asked gently.
"Shut up." She snapped reflexively.
"Kagura." The one word hung heavily in the tiny space between the two.
The red-headed girl felt the caution leave her under her rival's intense gaze, just inches away from her own, and stated simply, "maybe I like you too."
And just like that her long-term rival kissed her on the crowded street in the dim Edo moonlight, foreign princesses long forgotten.
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Epilogue:
Then she's twenty-four and he's twenty-eight and they're holding hands in the middle of Kabukicho. Everyone knows the famous Sadist couple of the Kabikucho. They can often be seen holding hands and squabbling as the captivating red-headed girl accompanies the lazy police officer on his daily patrols.
Sometimes they can be seen laying in the grass near the park bench, dazing together in the mid-day sun. Other days they can be seen getting into heated debates, leaving a wake of destruction in their path.
The first few weeks after the two were first spotted kissing in public, droves of broken-hearted boys and girls packed the local shrines to pray to the gods for the Sadist duo to break up. Eventually, everyone accepted that the pair of rivals oddly worked just as well, or even better as a romantic duo.
Otose and Catherine watched impassively as the two striking figures walked through the district holding hands and chatting idly amongst themselves. Otose puffed out her cigarette smoke and stated, "they really are a perfect picture together aren't they."
Catherine spat on the ground bitterly, "just because they're a little good looking they think they can throw their happiness in my face!"
Otose sighed, "I just hope they never decide to have a child. Who knows what that Sadistic brat will do?"
"At least it might finally send that perm head bald." Catherine stated.
Otose nodded in agreement, "that girl looks happy now."
Catherine muttered bitterly, "too happy."
Otose ignored the jibe and watched the red-headed girl smile brilliantly at her taller companion. Otose smiled to herself, noticing the way the flaxen-haired boy returned the Odd Job's brats look of adoration.
Good for her, Otose thought as she returned inside her shop, leaving the young couple to their happily ever after.
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Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Love as always,
Hils xoxoxo