a/n: I just realized I hadn't written Sakamoto's wrist getting injured, lol. Ginpachi-sensei says that in this fic, Sakamoto's wrist is not injured, but he naturally prefers to use guns over swords as he has really good eyesight and hand-eye coordination for it.

Also, Kouka deserved better.

17. bay flower

It was raining on the planet of Rakuyo again.

Kouka slowly made her way out of bed, trying her best not to disturb the little girl who had taken it on herself to sleep next to her mother each night. Placing a hand over her mouth, she held her breath in order to suppress her coughs before she walked to the kitchen, fixing herself a kettle of medicinal tea.

After she had ground various herbs and supplements in a mortar by using a pestle, she closed her eyes, practicing her devotions for the day while waiting for the kettle to boil. Kankou had never understood the practice, thinking it'd been an odd habit for someone who could be classified as immortal.

Who would you pray to, anyway? he once asked.

She had smiled and told him, The spirits of the universe. After all, they led you to me.

And he would blush and grumble, but she'd only love him more for that.

Kouka knew others would have looked down on her, for accepting an odd type of marriage that would have looked strange from an outsider's view. After all, Kankou was a father, but barely had the opportunity to see his own children. Unfortunately for both of them, she could not make her children understand why their father left home so frequently, even if they trusted that she wasn't lying behind their backs. The concept of immortality, of life and death itself, seemed to be a subject that was beyond their comprehension, and so she had simply tried her best to press upon them that Kankou was doing the right thing for the sake of their family.

Sadly, it wasn't enough for Kamui, who had been cursed with the gift of precociousness. The planet that they now lived on had always stressed the importance of fostering children's independence, and though Kouka had been heartbroken when he'd left of his own volition, she wasn't surprised. Kankou had wanted their little family to understand their heritage of the Yato clan; it had meant assimilating to this culture that she wasn't sure about, and consequently, her uncertainty had caused the outcome of their broken family. Still, she held out hope that they would soon be together. Her faith in the universe was unshakable by now, having seen the impossible made possible, the ugly shards of misfortune turning into something beautiful.

Dear spirits, she thought, pressing her palms together. Thank you for making sure my son is safe. Thank you for sending my husband where he needs to be.

She started to cough; the kettle started to whistle. Kagura would wake up soon.

-x-

The blare of the alarms rang high through the prison, and yet Gintoki did not move.

"Who are you?"

"Umibouzu," the stranger said. "We don't have much time, so I'll give you two options. I can carry and lift you out of here, or you can walk on your own two feet. Looks like they haven't broken your legs, at least."

Gintoki frowned. "And what if I want to stay here?"

Umibouzu laughed. "Sorry; I wouldn't let you. This was already way too troublesome for me to come here in the first place. If you really insisted on it, though, I'd just knock you out and carry your body out of here."

Gintoki sighed. "The war's over. If you think one soldier is enough to turn the tide, you're horribly mistaken."

"Shiroyasha-dono, I wouldn't waste my time on anything less than an inter-species war. We're playing with much bigger fish than the Jouishishi," Umibouzu said. "Now, you've got two seconds to answer my question. Will you run with me, or will I have to carry you out of here?"

Gintoki grumbled, but lifted his arms that were still bound with rope. "Not like I have a choice," he muttered.

"Oi, don't be so ungrateful!" The Amanto grinned, pulling out a knife to hack away at the rope. When he was finished, he lifted his umbrella, and shot a hole in the wall behind Gintoki. "Now, let's give them hell."

-x-

He hated to admit it, but he was glad that Umibouzu had rescued him. True to his word, the stranger was an incredible fighter, who seemed completely impervious to any of the attacks from the guards, and when they ran to the top of the prison block, there was a spaceship waiting for them.

There was an empty chair in the cockpit, and the alien had settled in, gesturing Gintoki to stand near the entrance. Firing up the ignition, he saw that there were more guards out there, streaming out endlessly from the exit; the door of the spaceship still open.

Umibouzu tossed Gintoki his umbrella. To his surprise, it was almost as big as Hosen's, though he found it deceptively lighter than expected.

"The button on the handle is for shooting," he told him. Gintoki didn't even want to ask how that worked.

Without further ado, Gintoki aimed at their feet, not wanting to harm them any more than he had to. His aim wasn't as good as Tatsuma's, but time was of the essence. The panicked yells of the men - who were just doing their job or following orders from a higher-up - had made him slightly nauseous. He wondered if they'd get punished for allowing the mighty Shiroyasha to escape.

Fuck it. He'd think about it tomorrow.

As the nitro boost kicked into gear, the ship lifted off, and the door finally sealed into place. With the press of a button, the spaceship entered into warp mode, and they shot into the sky, leaving Edo a tiny speck on the horizon.

But right before the ship had flown past the clouds, he'd seen Tsukuyo, peering at the sky, her eyes widened in amazement as they followed him to a place far, far away.

He wanted to call out to her, to say her name as if it would be the last time they'd ever see each other. But instead, he turned away from the window.

She wouldn't have heard him, anyway.

-x-

Umibouzu cranked the handle so the spaceship would go on autopilot. Breathing a sigh of relief, he wiped a hand on his forehead.

"This planet hasn't yet figured out how to pursue space criminals, so we're safe for now," he said, taking off his helmet. Unbuckling his seatbelt, he made his way towards Gintoki. "Seems like you've been on a few ships before," he observed.

"Only to take them down," he replied, still staring at the window.

"Impressive. But I'm not surprised; you are the Shiroyasha, after all."

Gintoki finally turned to the stranger. "Why did you rescue me?"

Umibouzu paused. "It's a long story. And I'm not sure if you'll believe me."

He took a deep breath. "Yoshida Shoyou is alive."

Gintoki froze, and something hammered in his chest.

No.

That was impossible.

He'd seen and felt everything.

"No," he said, and his hand reached out to a nearby wall to steady himself. "No way. That's... not possible."

Umibouzu smiled wryly. "I knew you wouldn't believe me."

"But... how? He was a human. I saw his head. I... "

Cut it off so cleanly barely any blood had splattered on the dirt.

Knew there was as little pain as possible, had tilted the sword in such a way that it would take no time at all.

Saw the hairs splaying out, like the time Takasugi stepped on a brush by accident.

I killed him. I know I did.

"He was a god who defied the heavens. Tell me, Shiroyasha. Have you ever met one before?"

"I don't believe you."

Impassively, Umibouzu reached into his pocket, fishing out a remote. With the press of a button, a screen had popped down from the monitor. A short video started to play - and Gintoki saw the decapitated body of his teacher.

It made him want to throw up.

Umibouzu passed him a plastic bag. Gintoki heaved for a moment, but nothing came out except for bile. His eyes watering, he wiped his mouth before his eyes focused on the screen again.

The crows had set his body on fire, and then they stepped back, as if they were waiting for something to happen.

A minute passed.

Then two.

Slowly... a strange miracle had begun to form.

The head of the body had started to put itself together, pulling atoms of materials out of nowhere.

With horrified fascination, Gintoki watched as the sinewy muscles of the head reformed and made itself new. By the time it was finished, he saw his teacher the same as he ever was, the spitting image of the same person before he'd been decapitated on the top of that cliff not so long ago.

Yoshida Shoyou had stepped out of the fire, and had smiled a terrible, dark smile that Gintoki had never seen on him before.

The video cut off, and Umibouzu turned back to Gintoki, shutting off the monitor. His face was grim.

"Do you believe me now?"

-x-

Gintoki had asked for a moment of privacy, and had curled into a ball once Umibouzu had gone, his fists gripping his hair in shock. All the emotions that he'd suppressed until now had come out in full force at the sight of his resurrected teacher, and the number of questions in his head, one popping after another, had overwhelmed him to where he'd knew he'd have to be by himself for a minute.

This was simply illogical. This defied the law of nature by every conceivable notion.

He'd taken the lives of countless Amanto, and none of them had come back alive. If they had, it would have been easy for the Jouishishi to notice. He would have insisted on ending the war if that had been the case.

His teacher, a god?

How?

It was true that Shoyou-sensei was undoubtedly strong, and had seemed inhumanly so back when he, Takasugi, and Katsura were young boys. But they had all assumed one day they would defeat him as adults. It was surely a matter of time, Katsura had once concluded - and he'd been thirteen then, with his hair growing longer to emulate sensei's.

Still.

Why couldn't he have told them?

They would have understood. In fact, they would have done anything for him had they known the truth of the matter.

There were too many questions, and not enough answers.

Had the Tenshoin Naraku known all along about this? Was this the reason why Shoyou-sensei had moved locations so many times throughout their childhood?

Was this the true reason the crows had hunted him down?

They had all assumed it was because he'd been seditious towards the Bakufu. But clearly, it had been a deeper reason than all of the anti-government propaganda he'd been teaching to the students at Shoka Sonjuku.

Gintoki slowly pulled his hands away, a lump forming in his throat. He had realized the most important thing of all.

I didn't kill him. Shoyou-sensei is still alive.

And tears rolled down his cheeks as he sobbed quietly in sheer relief of knowing the truth.

Thank God, he thought. Thank God.

-x-

When his eyes were dried and he felt that he could face Umibouzu normally, he entered the cockpit again. The Yato handed him a piece of stale bread which he accepted gratefully. He hadn't had much to eat for the past few hours.

"I suppose you must have a lot of questions," Umibouzu said. His hands were holding the steering console, eyes still looking at the void ahead.

"That goes without saying." Gintoki settled into the seat next to him. "For one, why did you rescue me?"

"Because I trust you."

"... But you don't know me. I've killed so many of your kind before."

Umibouzu laughed. "Our species were fated to be that way, so it would be pointless to blame you for that. Even in our world, you are very famous, Shiroyasha." He leaned back in his seat, stretching out a kink in his shoulder. "And besides. Who better to know a monster as a fellow monster?"

His eyes flickered to Gintoki. "It was you who killed Hosen, was it not?"

"It wasn't just me," the white haired samurai mumbled. "It was a collective effort."

"From all eyewitness accounts, you lasted more than fifteen minutes against him one to one. That's never ever happened in a fight between a human and a Yato before. Especially coming from the King of the Night."

"Like I said. I had some help."

Umibouzu waved his hand, as if he didn't believe him at all. "Regardless, Shiroyasha-dono, I rescued you because we are going to kill a god. And in order to do that, I need a monster's help."

"You want me to kill Sensei? Again?" Gintoki's eyes widened, and he was repulsed again, feeling the urge to retch. "Absolutely not."

"Hear me out. Your teacher is alive, but he's not the same."

"Explain."

"Gods live for hundreds of years. Before he was your master, Yoshida Shoyou went by the name of someone else."

"And what might that name be?"

"Utsuro. The void, to mean empty. Devoid of all empathy and kindness towards the living."

"That doesn't sound like my teacher at all."

"He has many personalities. Some more dangerous than others. Let me explain." Umibouzu took out a flask of water, taking a swig of it before continuing. "Your teacher has probably died a thousand deaths by now. And every time, he has always come back to life."

"And yet you think it's possible to kill him?"

"I have my theories about that, but yes."

Gintoki rubbed his eyes, trying his best to keep up. The prison escape already had seemed so long ago, what with this crazy revelation that should not have been possible, and yet... it was. He was still trying to make heads and tails around it, and knew it would take some time to get used to. If there was undeniable proof of miracles out there, this surely counted as one of them.

"How can you be sure? For all I know, even if we tried taking his head again, he would simply regenerate, right?"

"He would," the Yato agreed. "But if you tried to kill in him another way, he would be gone for good."

"How would you know?"

Now Umibouzu smiled at him sadly. "Because my wife is also a goddess of Altana, and she is well on her way to death."

-x-

They had stopped at the closest planet to refill on fuel and supplies. Umibouzu had insisted on Gintoki wearing his helmet, as his white hair would have attracted too much unwanted attention. Gintoki didn't mind; as one, he had no desire to go back to prison, and two, Umibouzu was taking his time to carefully explain what was going on.

He didn't have any complaints about that. It was already enough to learn that your father figure was actually one of the most powerful beings in the universe who happened to be immortal.

"Want some booze?" the Yato asked him.

"Please, and thank you," Gintoki had said. "If there are sweets in the shop... "

Umibouzu had grinned. "You are an unusual warrior, Shiroyasha-dono." But he came out of the service station with a synthetic bar of chocolate, which Gintoki accepted with gratitude, scarfing it down in a minute.

"So tell me about your wife. Seems like she ought to be flourishing, like my teacher."

"Things are a bit different, in her case," Umibouzu said. "By the way, you can call me Kankou."

"Likewise... call me Gintoki." He licked the crumbs of sugar off his fingers. "I never liked that nickname, anyway. I'm really not much of a demon."

"As I was saying. My wife's case is different. When we first got together, I met her on a different planet that allowed her to be healthy and strong. Altana comes in many forms, and this type on her planet was the most in synergy with her biochemistry."

"So why don't you take her back there?"

"I have my reasons," Kankou said. "For one, Utsuro destroyed it. Two... I know he's in pursuit of her. I decided to hide her the best I could. Even if she's suffering from the lack of Altana, she's still alive. For the sake of my family, I'd rather keep her safe than take a risk of him ever finding her again."

"Why would my teacher, an immortal being, want to kill your wife?" Gintoki asked, incredulous.

Kankou laughed. "Because he was vain. He couldn't stand that there was another immortal being out there in the universe."

Sometimes the simplest explanations were the best ones. This one was part of the truth that he could afford to spill, for now.

Gintoki tried to accept this without too much trouble, but couldn't manage it. None of this sounded like Shoyou-sensei. "I guess." In fact, he was starting to get a bit of a headache from all the information overload. He'd known that Altana was a resource that had been widely coveted, especially by the Amanto; it'd been a reason why the Bakufu were ready to open their borders to the invaders. But he had never dreamed in a million years that it would be something that could grant others immortality.

His companion had sensed his skepticism, and handed over a small bottle of whiskey. "Drink a bit. It'll help."

And he did, taking a generous swig, letting the alcohol sting the back of his throat.

"Where are we going now?" he asked Kankou.

"Well, we can't go back to Earth just yet. You're still injured, and they'll be on the lookout for you."

"There's nothing for me there, anyways," Gintoki said, shrugging. He was a soldier of a lost cause.

Kankou looked sympathetic. "Listen, Gintoki. You don't really have to do anything you don't want to, you know. I'll show you what I've been doing all this time, and if you're not convinced after three days, I'll drop you back to Earth. How does that sound?"

Three days. For the price of freeing Gintoki from prison, he could accompany the strange man for three days. He nodded, and the Yato grinned.

Still, something didn't add up. Not one to ignore his survival instincts, he mulled over the question in his brain.

He'd ask Kankou later of where he'd gotten the video, but somehow he got the feeling that the Yato wouldn't give him a straight answer.

-x-

This was what Kouka could never tell her son:

Once upon a time, there was a desolate planet, abandoned long ago with her remaining as the only sentient being alive. On her last day there, it was filled with fire and smoke, and the flames had burned the Orochi that had protected the peace of their little corner of the universe. The screams and the pain came from the inhabitants, who had lived thousands of years in relative calm before the void swallowed them all, leaving nothing behind in his destruction.

I heard there was a being who has lived here for six hundred years, the void had said, his voice deceptively gentle. Might that be you?

Night and day, the void had battled against her, and though she was strong and fought back valiantly, the might of his power was stronger. She had asked him where he came from, and there was no answer. She then asked him why he was attacking her, and again, there was no answer from the being. Finally, after the second day, she had given up entirely on finding any information from the strange creature, preferring to focus on her own survival.

On the tenth day, he had finally shredded her to pieces, had set fire to everything she had loved, and had left her to perish.

She had not wanted to die just yet, even though in the past she had wished for death many times before, deep in the throes of utter loneliness and apathy. She had wanted the chance to say goodbye to someone, at the very least.

Kankou had found her body on the eleventh day, and her mind had been weaving through states of consciousness and unconsciousness. It had only been a year since they first met, and he'd been off on another hunting job between visits to her little planet.

She had begged Kankou to leave her behind as her blood slowly spilled into the earth, and the Altana was slowly seeping out of her body, the little left behind not enough to heal her wounds. Her voice was hoarse, the tears dampening her cheeks as she could feel the life slipping out of her, like sands in an hourglass. Her leg and arm was broken, and more than a few of her ribs had been cracked. A trickle of blood had ran out of her mouth, and she could taste the metallic tang on her tongue.

Despite her warnings, he would not obey her words. He had ignored her cries, had ignored the flames that flickered around their feet. He scooped her up and ran through the fire, carrying her broken body in his arms in his ship as the planet destroyed itself inside out and the Orochi ate each other in the advent of its own self destruction.

Who did this to you? he'd ask, gripping her hands so tightly that it'd almost been painful. Tell me, Kouka.

I don't know, she told him. A vengeful ghost. I'm not sure. She had sobbed, and sobbed, the tears trickling down her cheeks until the pain battered against her body, rendering her immobile. It had been the very first time he'd ever seen her cry.

She wouldn't wake up until she rested in the hospital on a neighboring planet for a whole week, and even then, she would rarely speak of the incident.

Kankou wouldn't leave her bedside.

Kouka would sob intermittently at his kindness. I don't deserve to live, she would repeat over and over again. It had been her fault that her planet was destroyed; she had tainted it with her presence. He'll try to find me again, and kill you too. Don't think about me, leave me behind. Don't get involved.

He would remain silent, his gaze always gentle and understanding, but he wouldn't leave her side. Instead, he would take care of her without saying a single word, and she would try to convince him a thousand times, over and over again, to leave her alone. For once, their roles had been switched; she who had once been the quietest of them all was now desperate for him to say anything.

Why won't you leave? she finally asked him one day. It had been an hour after the rain stopped, the sweet scent of dew giving a purity to the earth below their feet.

To her surprise, his answer was as simple as the day was long. He put his hand on hers, and said, Because I love you, Kouka. A part of me isn't complete without you.

She had cried at his words, after spending centuries alone. She would have followed him anywhere, now that she had no home left.

They had wandered the universe for years, hunting aliens together, and for a while, they were happy to stay that way. Neither of them had wanted to remain at one place for a long time. She had been content to see different places, to see the things she had read about only in books come to life.

That was before she had gotten pregnant. She was overjoyed with the news, thinking that for a while she'd been infertile due to the fact that she was a mutant of Altana, unlike the other members of the Yato clan. Kankou had only then bothered to file the paperwork for their legal union; not that it had mattered in the first place. Their little joke was that their love had started in bed, which never failed to make her smile.

Kamui had been - and still was - her miracle. Kouka could still remember the softness of her baby, the first time he had said, "Mama."

And though she had not expected any more gifts, the universe had granted her one more. Kagura had fit in the places where Kamui couldn't; she had brought an eternal spring to Kouka's heart. Her body had never quite recovered as well after Kagura's birth, however. The doctors in Rakuyo had been puzzled, but she had figured it out once it'd taken her three days for a simple paper cut, near her thumb, to heal. That was a rate almost or just as slow as a regular Earthling's regenerative power.

She was becoming mortal again. Just as she had began to live a simple life, surrounded by the people she loved - all the things she had ever wanted, would ever possibly need - it was going to be taken away from her again.

And so, as it rained, she sipped her tea while waiting for Kagura to wake up. She would take joy in the little things, now.

-x-

- tbc -

-x-

a/n: I couldn't decided between the spelling of "Umibouzu" vs "Umibozu", but I'm just more used to "Umibouzu," so that's the spelling you'll get. lol

The "ko" in "江" means "bay" and "ka" in "華" means "flower". So Kouka's name means "bay flower", the chapter title. (taken from Gintama wiki.)

As always, reviews are deeply appreciated.