a/n: Thank you all for continuing to read! I know it's been a while, but life really got in the way of me updating.

The Hattori estate was as cold and imposing as the leader of the clan. Kept in meticulous condition, the gardens were pristine and tastefully decorated with a minimalism that came from generations of sensible living in the Iga prefecture.

Once the adrenaline of meeting the Shiroyasha had worn off, Tsukuyo took a breath - relieved that she was alive, and finally set off in Edo to where she was supposed to be reporting.

Jiraia had told her the location before they had arrived at the docks, and now she stood outside of the door, anxiously waiting for it to open.

When it did, no one else was there to greet her.

She stepped hesitantly into the estate, and once she had taken five steps, the gate closed automatically behind her.

It was... disconcerting.

She proceeded to walk, regardless.

One of the rooms had been dimly lit, the shadows faintly illuminated down the hallway. The shoji door had already been opened, and when she entered, there was one person, dipping his brush into a well of black ink.

"To what do I owe the pleasure of meeting the Courtesan of Death at this time of night?"

A lone eye flicked upwards, the brush still in his hand.

He had expected her.

"Jiraia told me to come here as soon as I was finished," she said quietly.

The head of the Oniwabanshuu finally set down his brush, careful not to splash any ink on his desk. Leaning back, his hair now obscured his eyes. "And? Who was it?"

Tsukuyo let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding. "It's... the Shiroyasha."

"I see."

She took out the scroll from under her obi. "He gave me the blueprints for the Nagasaki ports. I imagine it'd be useful."

He took them from her gingerly, and then unfurled them, looking at them carefully. "Interesting."

As he looked through them, Tsukuyo sat down, seiza-style on one of the cushions in front of his desk. Being here made her feel uneasy - as if she didn't belong here. There was a stilted coldness to the house, as if the last inhabitants who had left the estate had taken all semblance of warmth away.

For practical reasons, very few people were allowed access to see Hattori Zenzou. Responsible for the well-being of his own clan, especially when his father had suddenly became ill a few years ago, he had ascended to his position in his early twenties.

He was also an accomplished shinobi. There hadn't been a single mission that he failed during the decade when he was still under service to his father.

She had met him - once. Momochi had taken her to a clan head meeting, as an introduction to her master's protegee. His father had been there, and so had Fujiyabashi Gaimon, who hadn't shown up with any of his own disciples.

He'd given her a brief glance, nodding before turning away from her. At the time she'd taken it as a snub, but later, Momochi had told her that it was a sign of acknowledgement.

"I - I'm sorry about your father," she said awkwardly. "I heard that he was ill."

He glanced at her. "Don't be. He's been planning for this day ever since I was born. The funeral preparations have already been made."

She internally winced. Of course he was the type of person who would perceive sympathy in no other way than... that.

"Regardless, I am sorry," she said softly. "It can't be easy, losing a parent."

Zenzou chuckled. "No, I suppose it's not. Even if he was a ridiculous person through and through... " He finally rolled the scroll back up, tucking it away in a drawer for later use. "How is Momochi doing?"

"She's fine. But she doesn't believe we're going to win the war."

Cordialities set aside, Tsukuyo swallowed. It was a bold statement to make, especially in front of someone considered to be one of the Shogun's closest allies. To her astonishment, he didn't seem fazed at her assessment - in fact, he looked as if he agreed with her.

"And she's right. That is, if the Shiroyasha chooses not to cooperate with you."

"It can't be up to me - " she protested weakly. "Surely a war hinges on more than this... liaison."

"It does, because for the last two years, the Jouishishi have been fighting mercenaries commissioned by planets who've been distracted by other intergalactic wars." Zenzou crossed his arms, leaning back. "They've been holding back because they were preoccupied. But now that quite a few of them have had their resources depleted, they're turning an eye towards other planets. That we've apparently behind by them in manpower and technology hasn't gone unnoticed."

"So we're a hopeless cause?" she asked, incredulous.

"Well, no," he admitted. "Thanks to the leadership at the top, we haven't folded - yet. But there's a lot of internal pressure from many of the older factions to surrender."

"Why?"

"To some people, they'd rather preserve their way of life. The assumption is that if we gave the Amanto what they wanted - they'll leave us alone to govern ourselves, like the other colony planets in the past."

"What on earth are they talking about?" Tsukuyo said, blanching. "There's no guarantee of that happening in the first place."

A conquered nation would look nothing like the one they had right now, as war-torn as it might be at the moment. Genocide could happen. Slavery was a possibility. At the very least, prisoner camps would spring up for those who had chosen to fight against their oppressors.

Or worse... The government would restructure society to the point where samurai would possibly become obsolete.

There was too much at stake.

"I agree, but it's hard to convince to people who haven't been on the front lines." Zenzou's voice had a sharp edge of bitterness to it. "You know how it is. The rich sons of politicians won't put their necks out - they're all looking out for themselves, rather than to try and save the country."

He sighed, and then rose from his desk. "Still, I made an oath to serve the Shogun - and that's more of his department, anyways."

"Which is... ?"

There was a wry smile on his face. "Diplomacy." Without missing a beat, he added, "On the other hand, my job is collecting intel. What do you know of the Tenshoin Naraku?"

-x-

They walked across to the other side of the backyard; Zenzou taking out a key to unlock the padlock of one of his hidden basements located beneath a shed.

The lantern wasn't bright enough to completely illuminate the room underneath the ground, but it was sufficient to cast a light over the pictures tacked up against the wall. Various charcoal drawings of the Tenshoin Naraku were scattered around the room, and Tsukuyo could make out a few of the infamous Shiroyasha.

"Sadly, you've made contact with the most dangerous of them all," Zenzou commented. "We don't have as much intel on him, but what little we have should tide you over for the next meeting."

"You mean Sakata Gintoki?"

"Yes. What do you know of the warrior monks?"

Tsukuyo racked her head, trying to remember the lessons she had learned as Hinowa's apprentice. "That they used to own a lot of land... and that they fought with the former Shogun for power and control."

"Correct. The Tenshoin Naraku were descended from a religious sect that became too radical for the mainstream Buddhists." Zenzou took down a sketch of someone she didn't recognize. "Over the years, they've been responsible for events destabilizing the Bakufu - even before the Amanto came. They don't believe in the sovereignty of the Shogun."

Tsukuyo studied the picture. "Who is this?"

"The leader of their group. We don't have a name for him, unfortunately."

The person in question wore a cape of feathers and had taupe-colored hair, his lips curled into a menacing smile. The artist had somehow been able to capture a slight hollowness in his eyes, and for some reason she felt uneasy the more she looked at him.

"Did the Shiroyasha mention his motives for coming to us?"

"He says he's bored," Tsukuyo said, her mouth frowning. "But he still thinks his side would win even if he came to us. He said he would swear on his master's life as collateral."

"Ah. Do you think they might be the same person?"

"I don't know, but I had to give him something in return. He knows my real name."

"Better that than to know you're the Courtesan of Death," Zenzou said, seemingly indifferent to her confession. "If he knew you were responsible for hundreds of deaths, he'd probably think twice before seeing you again."

She said nothing to that, keeping her mouth wisely shut on the matter. She didn't enjoy being reminded of how desensitized she'd become ever she entired the shinobi world.

It's for Hinowa, she reminded herself.

Everything she'd done since she left Yoshiwara. It was for her.

To keep secrets that needed to be kept. To preserve the woman who had believed in her.

Everything she did, or would do, was for Hinowa's sake. That was the vow she had made to herself ever since she had stepped outside of the only place she considered home.

"Did you set up another meeting?" Zenzou asked, finally turning around and crossing his arms.

"Yes. Next week."

"Hm. Quicker than I thought. I suppose you've captured his interest."

Despite herself, Tsukuyo couldn't help but flush pink."I don't think it's anything deeper than being a messenger... "

The leader of the Oniwaban shook his head, somewhat amused. "I think you've got the wrong idea. I'm saying that men like Sakata Gintoki - if they wanted a woman in that way, they wouldn't go to such measures the way he has. No - you've accomplished the first part of your mission. To keep and hold his attention. It might be a card we could use later on."

Six months of collecting intel, Tsukuyo thought. That was the minimum the Bakufu had instructed her to stay on this mission.

She wasn't sure if the Shiroyasha still be interested in feeding it, depending on how the war waged on.

"In either case, you'll report to me directly or send a letter if I'm unavailable here. Make sure nobody is following you, and set up different arangement points. I can give you a few pointers, but I'm sure you'll figure it out."

Tsukuyo nodded.

It was time for her to go back to Yoshiwara.

-x-

The house of Okamotoya was understated in its decoration, but Tsukuyo was keenly aware of how expensive the place was. The sleek mahoghany wood offset the fresh cut flower arrangements near the window sill, a luxury only that could been afforded by the upper class. A few hand-painted scrolls hung from the walls, and there was the slight scent of incense, recently lit to give a pleasant aroma in the room.

"This is Yomi," Jiraia said. "Her husband suddenly passed away before they had any children, and she has nowhere else to go. You'll find that she's very strong and quick to learn on her feet."

Lady Oryou was sympathetic. "You poor thing."

Tsukuyo bowed, and then rose up. "Thank you, I'll be grateful to work harder under your guidance."

"Those barbarians keep killing those poor men out there and then the women are left behind," Oryou said, her voice rather melancholy. "I understand. My love is in the army, himself."

Jiraia turned to Tsukuyo as if he didn't know who she really was. "You're lucky. She's not one of those oirans who'll whip you senseless if you knock over a hairpin or two."

Tsukuyo rearranged her expression into a look of gratitude. "Yes, of course..."

"But I do expect a bit of professionalism, Yomi-san." Oryou appraised her frankly. "I won't need your help all the time, but I do expect hard work from you. And if you steal from the house, you'll be hunted down. The Hyakka will see to that."

Tsukuyo had to stop herself from shivering. "Yes."

"The last servant girl who escaped the house found herself drowning in a river," Oryou said. "I'm not sure if you're well acquainted with Yoshiwara, but this is a different world than whatever may lay outside."

Tsukuyo met her eyes - which were somewhat sad - and thought to herself, that she understood it so much more than the courtesan could even imagine.

"Yes, ma'am."

-x-

And so she worked. It was not a particularly stimulating job, to be responsible for cleaning and to do various errands in the house of which the courtesans entertained, but Tsukuyo had once served an assistant before, and adapted well to the ways of the brothel.

To live in the shadows were two things that she - a mere servant girl, and shinobi alike - shared in common.

She was not allowed to interact with the customers. She kept well out of the way, and made sure things were clean and orderly for the courtesans when they were done entertaining for the night. The kimonos - of which there were no lack of, despite it being wartime - were always hung up on wooden racks and were on a rotation to be cleaned, depending on which clients were scheduled to see them.

Unlike a kamuro, she was not expected to linger around the courtesans, although enough of them had treated her courteously from the start. She instead took orders from another woman - a bantō shinzō - a clerk that was responsible for managing most of the house's book keeping and affairs. As this sort of person had aged out of the courtesan profession, she had transitioned into a line of work that still aligned with her experiences in the business.

"You should have been a courtesan," the clerk had commented, right before handing Tsukuyo a list of things to do. "You would have made a lot of money years ago, with looks like yours."

Tsukuyo's smile was stretched thin. "I don't think I'd be any good at it."

Which had most certainly proven to be true, as things had turned out. Killing didn't involve any deeper intimacy than for her to watch a person's last moments, trickling out of them at the very end.

You couldn't do that over and over again without building up walls.

The clerk chuckled. "You never know. Everybody here lives a double life - or at least, a past one. You don't have to let it define the present."

In any case, Tsukuyo was spared from having to answer as the okiya came around the corner, and she hastened towards the laundry room as fast as she could.

-x-

The week had passed by slowly, but eventually the day that Tsukuyo dreaded had come.

She was granted one day of rest each week, although it was dubious as to what this really meant as she still was granted a list of duties for the day - as light as they were - to perform.

A bordello never stopped working around the clock, not even in the morning where there were less customers. The house had to be presentable before the lanterns were lit, and everyone - from the male servants who emptied the chamber pots, to the teahouse merchants who were busy making sure there was enough coal for the night - had their part to play.

It was considerably different from her other missions where she was usually alone.

She tried her best to assimilate as best as she could, taking care not to step on anyone's toes. Courteous, but not remarkable. A newcomer with a tragic backstory - and had a reasonable excuse to keep her distance from the other members of the bordello. They were regarding her as a curious specimen - a woman who was far too old to be contracted from her parents, but possessed enough beauty to stir up their imaginations - after all, wasn't that the social currency of the red light district? Beauty, and little bit of mystery?

She knew she would have to come up with more details about her story in the future - but for now, what she had offered was enough to not arouse any suspicions.

At the hour of the tiger, Tsukuyo slipped out of the house and headed straight to Jiraia's quarters.

He merely nodded at her when she came inside, still awake at the hours before dawn.

"Try to find an different place to hide your things," he commented, right after she fetched her puppets and kunai. "It'll do you no good if someone tracks you here every week."

"I'll try my best," Tsukuyo promised, and then leapt outside of his window.

Having already memorized the path to the docks, she quickly made her way in the direction of the Sumida river. The lantern that she had used last week was gripped tightly in her hand.

Her orders had remained the same from the higher ups. Stay alive, keep his interest, and don't provoke him.

It would have been simpler if he was a government worker or even a high-ranking samurai.

When she finally arrived at the abandoned jetty, she did the same as she did before. She allowed the lantern to shine brightly for half a minute, and then finally snuffed it out.

The fear was still there in her bones. Her nerves spiked once again, jittery under her skin. Tsukuyo tried her best to compartmentalize the reality of consorting with a known enemy. Sakata Gintoki was still an unknown factor.

She mentally went through her very short list of what she knew about him so far.

Mercenary. Possible student to the leader of a formerly religious cult. Dangerous. He had protested against his bloody reputation, despite his actions and known atrocities.

Generally speaking, you weren't supposed to make this much contact with the target. To engage this directly with the contact went almost against everything she'd been taught as Momochi's student.

Not that she had much choice. The directives had been clear.

Stay alive.

She double checked that the strings to her puppets were tied securely to her fingers. She hoped she wouldn't need them, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

Gintoki came not a moment later, stepping outside of the shadows.

No hat. No crow.

She could smell the blood on him.

"Good evening," he greeted her, already in a good mood. The half crescent of a moon in the sky was enough light to highlight the small smile he held. "Oh, so they haven't replaced you yet."

"What do you mean?" Tsukuyo asked.

"The Oniwaban. I thought you would have chickened out, but I guess the organization is tougher than I thought."

She slowly took out her warifu, the one that he'd split into half last week. His eyes followed the direction of her hands, and he, too, took out his half while reaching out for hers. The blood that he'd marked it with had already turned dark brown, dried and permanent on the surface.

The pieces of wood matched perfectly.

"You'll have to burn yours once you get home," he observed casually. "We wouldn't want anyone to be suspicious of us."

Tsukuyo nodded. "Of course."

"Killed anyone since the last time we met?" he asked. He asked it as if it was as normal as asking about the weather.

It took her by surprise, but then she shook her head. "No."

"I had to take out a platoon of soldiers at the Nagasaki port to order to cover my bases," Gintoki said. "Of course, that commander of yours - Sakamoto, I think? He was very cunning. He dug some underground tunnels to escape the blockade. Zura was very upset that the Kiheitai had managed to figure a way to get away. He thought his plan was foolproof."

He was testing the efficacy of the chain of command, mocking those who had sacrificed their lives to supply the army in their quest against colonialism. Tsukuyo forced herself to keep a neutral expression.

"And? Did they win?"

"Depends on your definition of winning," Gintoki said, more or less indifferent. "From your point of view, you guys lived another day. From my point of view, it's simply prolonging their inevitable deaths."

"There are things worse than dying," Tsukuyo countered, before she could stop herself.

He looked at her for a moment, surprised, and then laughed. "I suppose not. You ninjas believe in finishing the mission rather than to die for a noble cause, don't you?"

"That doesn't mean what they did was in vain," she retorted. Her blood was starting to simmer - a rare occurence of her temper rising against her will.

"I'd rather stay alive than to die a beautiful death," Gintoki said calmly. "Wouldn't you agree?"

His smile had frozen in place, warning her not to toe the line without uttering a single word. She was reminded again that he could easily kill her if she wished.

He reminded her of a wolf. He was deceptively friendly on the surface, but history had told her that she was playing a dangerous game. She wouldn't change his mind on what was wrong or right - and she would have been naive to descend into that mind game.

Momochi's voice echoed in her head. Your first objective is... survival. I won't let you die for this country on a whim.

"I suppose so," she conceded reluctantly. She clenched her fist as she said it, and forced herself to look in his eyes without a trace of anger.

"You can't change the world if you're dead," Gintoki said, and then a strange look came across him. "Either way, I've got what you're looking for."

He tossed her a scroll. She caught it, and started to unfurl it. This time it wasn't a blueprint, but there were some notes on possible locations of Altana craters. It could potentially predict which battlegrounds would take place in the future.

"Thank you," she said.

"You're welcome," he said quietly, causing her to re-evaluate him again.

Even if he was a mass murderer, he still would be saving potential lives, she reminded herself. War had collateral damage. Most of it would be out of her control.

She knew she couldn't save the whole world. In fact, that lesson had been consistently beaten into her ever since she entered the ninja village. It would be childish to expect more out of herself. If his philosophy directly contradicted his actions, at least some of the damage would be mitigated.

I only need to save one person.

They were both cogs in the machine of wartime, she realized. As soon as she thought of that, she straightened out her act considerably.

Slowly she took out something from her pocket.

"Here."

He cautiously took her offering. The glass bottle glinted in the moonlight. "What's this?"

"It's an analgesic. It'll relieve pain. I use it when I'm injured." Hopefully he would take it as a token of good will.

"And how do I know you're not giving it to poison me?"

She scowled. "Test it on one of your enemies, then. I don't care. I just saw that your arm had blood on it."

"That's very kind and considerate of you," he said, and the mocking tone had come back in full measure. "I certainly hope that a ninja of your calibre would have more subtlety than to try poisoning her enemies this early in the game."

"Like I said. There are worse things than dying," she said. She wouldn't let him insult her more than necessary. "All the same, you're worth more alive than dead."

"A very unpopular opinion, but I won't argue with you there." Gintoki tucked the painkiller into his pocket, still amused. "I don't have another piece of wood, unfortunately. How about coming up with a new location instead of a password for next week?"

So he was pleased enough with her to continue this arrangement.

"Sure. Same time?"

"Same time," he confirmed. "There's another warehouse located near the Arakawa river, in between the sixth and seventh bridge. It has a sliding door with a red flag stuck to front of it - you can't miss it."

"Your house?"

He laughed. "Don't be ridiculous. But people seem to think it's haunted. Couldn't possibly be because I might have dragged a few bodies and let them rot a few years ago."

Revulsion crept into her throat. "That's - "

"Disgusting, I know. But it keeps people away. If you lead a life of doing evil things, then you need a safe house. Even enemies of the state need a place to sleep, you know. Gin-san personally needs nine hours each night."

She doubted that the monster across from her really needed that much sleep, but she wasn't one to argue with another meeting.

"Tell the people you serve that I'm not here to burn everything down," Gintoki said. "I'm... adaptable."

He turned away, ostensibly to leave. "Oh, and Tsukuyo?"

"Yes?"

"Good night," he said.

There was a moment, where her eyes met his, and for a split-second, she could have sworn that she was looking into the face of a tired, young man, and not an accomplished mass murder or a demon who had taken away thousands of lives.

Then as soon as she blinked, he had vanished, leaving her behind with nothing to hold onto.

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- tbc

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a/n: Reviews are always appreciated.