-x-
The ghosts of our masters
-x-
How he knows something is wrong: she's late for work.
How he also knows something wrong: she's resting her forehead against the toilet seat.
"Oi, Tsukuyo! What's the matter?"
She lifts up her head weakly, and gives him a helpless look. "Sorry. Not feelin' too well."
Naturally, he fusses. "Aaaaah, you've been working too hard, haven't you? I keep telling you to keep drinking strawberry milk, you know - all that calcium would help - "
She laughs, but shakes her head slowly, having barely enough strength to lift her hand. He holds her palm, until she opens it; inside was a pregnancy test.
He holds his breath. "Is this... ?"
"Positive," she said.
There's an indecipherable expression in her eyes, and he continues to circle her palm with her thumb. He's careful to keep his own expression neutral.
"How do you feel?"
"Like crap," she admits, resting her forehead against the toilet seat again. Then tears came to her eyes, and he sees a rising panic in her chest. "What am I goin' to do? I never had much of a mother - I dunno how to raise kids - I - I... "
"You have me," he promises her. "And you're more of a pro then you think. Look at Seita - he might suck at history, but he's a wizard at math."
"He's different, though!"
"He's not," Gintoki reassures her. "You just don't believe in yourself. You're just as much of a mother as anyone else."
She sniffs. He takes some toilet paper, folds it and hands it to her. After she blows her nose, he places his hand over hers again. At his sign of affection, Tsukuyo wipes her eyes.
"There's no need to be so sad," he said gently. "Tsukuyo, what's going on?"
"Shishou told me one time that if I ended up pregnant, he'd kill me," she whispered. "He was the one in charge of eliminating... the... "
She chokes, unable to speak. Not for the first time, Gintoki curses a man who had long been - and thankfully, stayed - dead.
"I was fourteen when I first saw him kill one of those girls. She was sweet on - sweet on somebody. And she wasn't careful, so when her belly started to show - " Tsukuyo lets out a low sob. "I couldn't do anythin' to protect her - I just couldn't - and Hinowa had just lost her legs - "
Was that the time where she had started to take in those women, to protect them? A lump forms in his throat, and he cups her chin with his hand.
"He's not here anymore," Gintoki said firmly. "Tsukuyo, look at me. It's not like that anymore. I promise. You're safe with me."
And they sit there for a while, where he continues to murmur words of comfort as he strokes her back.
Shh, shh. Close your eyes, it's just you and me, okay? Just you and me.
-x-
Despite the complicated parsing of what was right and what had gone terribly wrong during their respective childhoods, Gintoki understands her. There isn't a rhyme or reason to it. He just does.
Tsukuyo would never go inside that room anymore, even though it had the best view to watch the moon from the open ceiling. The day that she had made the final calculation had effectively closed whatever chance in hell it'd been to see it as a normal zashiki, no longer a place where frivolous conversations were held, effervescent drinks poured for mindless consumption. She would only see the bloodstains of her master, and register nothing else. If there was an unruly customer who sat in that room, she'd send another member of the Hyakka to take care of it.
Once upon a time, she'd seen him as a god. He'd been her everything. He'd been the only man who could tame her quick temper, honing it into a weapon as he forged her from a cesspool of rage and despair. Tobita Danzou had been the only one who had vowed until his dying day to protect her from the sins of the city, and in turn would allow her to protect others by rejecting her womanhood.
With that last strike, she had turned her back to her god. She had given a merciful blow to someone who'd asked and wished only for his death, too cowardly to cross the Sanzei river by himself. A goddess of forgiveness, beacon of light and strength, a goddess of the moon.
But she would never go inside that room ever again.
-x-
Sometimes there are questions that could only be answered at night, when their insomnia kept them awake for hours on end. Sometimes she talks, and he listens. And sometimes, he talks and she listens. To not talk about it gives their presence more power than it should, a lesson they've learned rather late in life.
He knows she sometimes pray for his spirits in the afterlife. She knows he doesn't understand, but tries her best to explain. When she kneels at his grave, he stands solemly at the back. When they leave, he asks her question.
"Tsukuyo."
"Hm?"
"How did he know back then, that we were… ?"
"Who?"
"Your master. We weren't anything - I mean, not like this, not now."
"Shishou was one of the most perceptive ninjas that ever lived," she said. "Anytime I was upset, or unfocused - he'd know it, even if I tried to hide it. And subconsciously… he had figured me out before I had ever begun to understand what was going on. " She put a hand over her chest, as if she was trying to protect herself. "He knew me better than I knew myself. Knew my heart before I had started to realize that I was falling for you."
He was a monster, Gintoki wants to say. Why grieve?
But he doesn't, because his own had been just as monstrous, possibly worse.
He'd just been lucky enough not to be a victim.
-x-
Once upon a time, his teacher had taken him to a shrine. It was before the school had ever been built, and before he'd thrown a sword to break up a group of bullies intent on punishing a few fools who didn't know how to play hooky.
There was a man. Victim of the first war, probably. Paralyzed from the waist down, hunkered down, begging for change.
Shoyou knelt down, had a short conversation, half of which Gintoki couldn't understand the words of. His voice was soft and soothing, and the beggar had stilled, listening.
"What did you say to him?" Gintoki asked later, once they were out of earshot.
"I said I would pray for him," Shoyou said.
"Why would you do that?"
"Because there are worst things than to be a cripple," Shoyou had said then. "Never forget, Gintoki, that our bodies may be maligned, but it what we do with our souls that is important."
And though Gintoki was unaware of it at the time, that had marked the beginning of an end.
-x-
"I don't want them to be like us," she says, as the children are playing on the playground. The twins rest in a stroller at the park as their parents sit on a nearby bench.
"They won't have a choice," he replies. "Our DNA is coded in them. It's not like we can undo their existence - "
"No, Gintoki," she says, and her eyes are furrowed. "Not that. I meant - "
Her voice broke off, and then she traced her finger on her scar. "Like this."
His eyes close for five seconds, before they slide open again. "They won't."
-x-
Intuitively, he understands why she works so hard, and instinctively, she understands why he hits the bottle more than would be considered healthy. They're two broken people in that sense - tied together because of a mutual understanding of what it means to break their own hearts for the sake of duty, of honor.
And yet. If she starts taking two days off, and he starts looking for a sponsor to talk to when the ghosts of his past haunt him, they don't talk about it. It's just not a thing that happens. They'd rather spend the time with their blended families, hold hands, or just talk about their day; they allow the minutiae of the mundane and the refuge of the ordinary to sandpaper the trauma away, bit by bit.
-x-
"Your handwriting is so beautiful," she says, as they're in the process of finishing their New Years cards; the photos of their newborn children already attached.
It's not, but it's a step above hers.
"Thanks. Shoyou-sensei - " and his voice trails off, right before he swallows. " - He used to punish me by giving me lines. I hated it, but... "
"I s'pose it was worth it in the end, huh?"
He nods. "Yeah."
That'd been the first time he had ever told anyone the story of how his handwriting was the way it was.
-x-
What makes an immortal live forever?
Was it simply the presence of Altana?
Were the strands of the mystical energy, interwoven into the DNA of a physical body?
Or was it simply the mutation of a biological experiment gone wrong from eons ago?
In between the quiet nights where Gintoki looked at the infant form of his master, unable to sleep, he would roll these questions around like a stone inside his head. He was his teacher, and not at the same time. A keeper of many secrets, it seemed.
Gintoki had grown old enough to understand that there were facets of people that would be kept permanently hidden - and he included himself in this very equation. It would be remiss of him to criticize others as he was guilty of the same crime.
But... it had hurt, all the same.
This man was his father. Had been his master; had taken care of him since he was a boy. At one point, Yoshida Shoyou was the only human connection between him - a demon - and the rest of society, where he didn't belong. Had never belonged to.
Begone, you spectre.
Ghosts had no place in the living world, and yet here the memories would linger here - a wisp of existence that would never go away.
When he looked at his own children, he wondered if Shoyou had ever thought he would betray them. If he ever thought that he would have left them.
He vowed never to do that. Would fight like hell or to high heaven to see them, no matter what.
-x-
In the night, he often finds her in the study burning the midnight oil.
There's no point in lecturing her anymore, so he stands in the doorway watching the back of her head.
"Was it a dream?" he asks.
"Yeah," she answers, and taps her pipe on her ashtray. She had managed to quit smoking while pregnant and had picked it up again. He couldn't blame her.
He walks next to her and sits down. There are cases on her desk. She'd been reading the files - probably as a distraction more than to get any work done.
"Was there anything that I could have done differently?" she asks, and he holds her hand, because he's asked himself this very question a million times.
"No."
She wouldn't believe him, as much as he wouldn't believe it when he told himself the same answer.
All the same, he'd repeat it to her again and again. He pressed a kiss to her forehead, and then said quietly, "C'mon. Let's go to bed. I'll read you a chapter of that new issue of Jump."
-x-
"Who are our grandparents?" their four year old daughter asks at dinnertime, and they both freeze.
Tsukuyo is flustered. "Wh-why do you ask?"
"Our homework was to draw a family tree," she chirps, blissfully unaware of the growing tension between her parents. She hops off her chair from the table, and comes back with a makeshift piece of construction paper from her backpack, a picture scribbled with crayon resembling a shrub more than anything. "I put Otose-baa-chan on the top, but I don't know who else might be there - "
"Put down Gengai," Gintoki interrupts smoothly. "Next time there's bring-a-grandparent-day, I'll see if he can come."
Their daughter nods. "Okay!"
Tsukuyo squeezes his hand, under the table, grateful.
It's not the right time, they both think. Let her remain in bliss. Just a little bit longer.
After all, they can afford to procrastinate telling the truth in times of peace.
It doesn't stop them from being unable to sleep well that night, though.
-x-
Parenthood softens both of them. She presses kisses on their tiny foreheads just before a patrol shift, and comes home from work early to have breakfast with them. He takes a part time job - and to everyone's surprise, doesn't blow it on pachinko so that he can build up savings for their future.
They have no idea what the hell they're supposed to do, their only blueprints coming from their former surrogate children. And still, it occurs to them, while doing this whole parenting thing, how sort of shitty their own respective masters were.
"Wish I coulda read about fairy tales when I was a little girl instead of sharpenin' kunai," she remarks once, in the middle of looking over a piece of homework. "Is it me, or do ya think they're making these characters even smaller than they use ta be?" Already she's bought a pair of reading glasses out of pure necessity, to prevent herself from squinting so often.
"At least he wasn't hell-bent on destroying the whole world. Just the ninja one, eh?" Gintoki is struggling with fractions, himself. He refuses to get the glasses - at least not for another good decade or so - and squints.
She snorts. "Some role model he was."
They keep on checking their children's homework, as if with every careful glance, every word, they could prevent another tragedy from happening again.
-x-
The children are of course interested in learning how to be strong. After all, it was the reason why their mother was away so often.
But the two parents choose to expand their world. There is a life outside of combat, out of protecting others through physical strength.
First, they take them to see Shachi - who is finishing up his fifth year of Shonen Jump serialization. The father and said offspring gain a new appreciation for art.
Another sunny weekend, Gengai allows them to take apart robots, to see what makes them work and what doesn't.
Tama and Kintoki teach them how to program simple games using programming software, and the children fascinated by what they can do.
Tatsumi shows them exactly how a fire is put out as Edo still uses wood for most of their housing. Tetsuko, her partner, allows the children to hammer away at a piece of metal, right before she forges it into a piece of artwork fine enough to display in a daimyo's home.
Ikumatsu gives them an education in the Way of the Ramen. And when they tire of eating noodles upon noodles, she sends them to the Nishiki shop to pick out fabrics for their kimonos and summer yukatas, finely woven from mulberry silkworms.
Nobume one way or another accompanies the two of them to tag along with Auntie Kagura and Auntie Soyo-hime to learn how to make Pon-de-Rings in a big kitchen, filled with light and laughter.
Sakamoto whisks them away to planets every summer and they spend evenings looking at stars and constellations, all while learning how to negotiate, to bargain, to make deals.
Katsura talks about politics, of a new direction in a democratic government. The children are quickly put to sleep when he does.
-x-
A son of someone wronged by the Shiroyasha, someone who had fought for the Bakufu more than three decades ago finds Gintoki while he is escorting his children to temple school.
The fight lasts less than half a minute - in a blur, before anyone can see, Gintoki has pinned down the man, leaving him incapable to move for a good while.
"You can pick a fight with me any other time," he says, in a tone that is darker than the night. "You can try to break my legs, you can curse me to eternity if you wish. But not in front of my children. Please."
His heart breaks for an emotion that has crossed his little one's eyes for the first time: fear. He had once seen it in front of Shinpachi and Kagura's eyes and had sworn to himself to never repeat whatever had caused it again. And yet, he understands that a child's innocence can never be truly preserved, merely prolonged until the time has come to shed it.
The son snarls, "You don't deserve them, you damned monster - " as he writhes uselessly on the street, and Gintoki simply gives him a look of pity.
"Vengeance and despair will only consume you if you let it," he says quietly. "I know that from experience. And I am sorry. Please know that. But not in front of them. They have done nothing wrong."
-x-
The children are asleep, after an explanation that they know will not be sufficient in the years to come.
They had spent so much time trying to protect their children, that he knows she is upset when he brings her the news of the altercation. He holds her, because she does not blame him for it, and is trying his best to give comfort whenever possible.
"Were we monsters, created by monsters?" Gintoki ponders out loud.
Utsuro: a monster, forged from the cruelty of mankind. Tobita Danzou: a brother, incapable of absolving his own sins, choosing instead to inflict suffering on others instead.
Are monsters allowed happiness of their own?
Tsukuyo places a hand over his. "No. You've atoned for it," she says. "Whether the public or not knows about it, I do. And so will they, in times to come."
Over the years, their marriage had become a careful tapestry of information, interwoven and unraveled with the utmost delicacy. Her sixteenth birthday was the day before she'd seen her master die in a fire. He'd spent his eighteenth in prison.
It was only through the years that they had gradually achieved a modicum of peace from their own demons, and they had poured every bit into their children.
They certainly had no intention of shattering that illusion of normality. Not until the right time, anyway.
-x-
The history books aren't honest, but that's something to be expected when Gintoki gives them a cursory glance. The nation still owes the Amanto a hefty amount of debt, and no amount of lobbying from a certain ex-Jouishishi patriot will change that.
"Dad? You were alive during the second Jouishishi War, weren't you?"
His son has the temperament of his mother, a capacity for fair judgment. And like most adolescents, an inquisitive mind.
Gintoki nods.
"Were you, y'know. Involved?"
He considers the range of answers, and settles on, "Yes."
"How involved?"
Gintoki closes his eyes. "I was a tool for the losing side." A symbol that would lead countless others to their inevitable death.
His son hmmms at that. "So you wrote war propaganda?"
"Not exactly. I was a soldier."
"Oh."
Sooner or later, Gintoki knows, his son will find out the truth, and either it will turn out to be an thought exercise in abstract theory, or the history books in school will give him a reason to despise his own father.
"Did you kill people?"
"Yes."
"How many?"
"More than enough."
His son pauses, and sees that Gintoki's hands were trembling, ever so slightly. His voice is hushed. "I know Mom's killed people too, in the past. She told me once, after a patrol shift. But... she's tried to save lots of them, too. You're the same way, aren't you?"
"That's up to other people to decide," Gintoki says wryly.
His son is emotionally intelligent enough to know not to push further, and nods.
Gintoki puts a hand on his head. "For now... I think it's best if you finish your homework. Your mother won't stand for it if she sees you slacking off again."
The conversation is closed, but when his son finally gives him an encouraging, if not sheepish, grin, Gintoki thinks that at least Shoyou-sensei would liked to meet him. Just once.
-x-
Their daughter is impulsive, a fiend for sweets, and she doesn't question much of anything - not even her own thought processes. When the principle calls the parents in for an altercation at the twins' high school, Tsukuyo gives her a stern look.
"Auntie Kagura was the one who taught me how to sock 'em in the jaw, where it really hurt," their fifteen-year-old daughter insists. "How was I s'posed to know that he'd hafta go to a dentist to fix his mouth?"
"What did he even do?"
"He said that girls weren't any good at fighting, and I couldn't let that one go, even though you told me it's best to ignore dumb people talkin' all the time. So I said, you'd better meet Mom, and then he said he could probably kick her ass. Then I gave him my best left hook - and well... I hit him a lil' bit harder than I wanted to... "
"'Atta girl," Gintoki says approvingly, and dodges Tsukuyo's kunai, tuning out her shrieks of "Stop encouragin' her!"
The school they visit isn't on setting on fire, there isn't a war going on, and no one's master needs to be rescued from a cliff. When Gintoki laughs, it's because he's proud of his himself - that his own children will never know the horror of breaking promises too heavy to keep.
Instead, their biggest problems are the stress of school exams looming ahead. Instead of eternal nights and hopeless cages, they can have the taste of first kisses, exchange love letters and to feel the warm sunshine on their faces. Instead of losing comrades and bandaging wounds that won't heal, they can smell the sweetness of strawberry cakes, cooling in the kitchen, and the inevitable arguments when it came to who should have the biggest slice.
The way things should have been, back then.
-x-
The twins grow up beautiful. The daughter is a heartbreaker with a penchant for mischievous pranks. The son, on the other hand is a responsible, diligent student who stands up for what is fair.
He stands fifteen minutes outside of the pachinko parlor before Gintoki sighs and calls it a day.
"You're not allowed to be in Yoshiwara. Didn't your mother tell you that over and over again?"
"Uncle Zura said I should go to you first." He fishes something from his pocket. It's a photo of Gintoki, unmistakable in his white haori. "Why didn't you tell me you were the Shiroyasha?"
Gintoki picks up the photo. "I used to look this good back then, huh."
"Don't joke, Dad. This - this is a big deal! You - " He's sixteen. The world is still black and white. "You should have told me."
"Why? So that you could see me as a monster, like everyone else back then?" Brutal, but the truth often was.
His son looks stricken at that.
"Dad, you're not - "
"I know. But does the world know that?"
The difference between Utsuro and him, Gintoki thinks, is that he'll be here when the chips are down. He won't turn into a phantom. He won't disappear this time.
His son purses his lips.
"Personally, I found the idea of what to cook for breakfast for my family far more interesting than all the horrible sins I committed when I was your age." Gintoki places his hand into his yukata, and finds it lacking. The wooden sword remains in the house these days. "That's why I don't talk about it. When you wake up with constant nightmares for a decade or so, you start to appreciate the ordinary things. Not the ones that strangers find impressive."
"Oh."
"C'mon." Gintoki throws his arm around his son, who is almost getting to his height. Damn those teenage growth spurts - he was going to have to buy him new clothes soon. "Wouldn't want Patsuan to keep dinner waiting, eh? His wife won't be happy to see us again."
"But, Dad - "
"When you're eighteen, I'll show you the place where I grew up," he promises. "But now, you have to help me come up with an excuse. Mom won't be happy when she finds out how much money I've lost - "
His son scowls. "Again, Dad? Why do you keep doing this to her? Aren't you tired of her throwing those kunais at you?"
"That's love, son, and you'll understand one day."
-x-
Their daughter, when informed of her old man's tragic backstory, is duly unimpressed. She buries her nose back into her copy of Shonen Jump after deciding the matter is not interesting enough to tear her away from the second-to-last chapter of One Park.
Her opinion is succinctly, almost elegantly, stated. "He's still our father who keeps gambling our college funds away."
(Which frankly, is not true. Tsukuyo made sure of that a long time ago.)
-x-
When they finish moving the furniture into their son's dormitory at the newly established University of Tokyo - he wants to study history, and anything related to the samurai - and then drop the daughter off the next week at the Terminal for an internship at some bakery on a faraway planet, famous for their sweets - it feels like they can finally breathe again.
And yet.
Their house feels empty.
"Finally," Gintoki says with a grin that doesn't meet his eyes. "We can watch pornos together in the living room, like we used to - " and barely misses the kick from Tsukuyo's pointy boot.
Still, he doesn't quite miss the lump in her throat as she looks at the spare bedrooms.
"What do we do now?"
He looks at her, and softly replies, "Whatever the hell we want. We could blow our retirement savings at a pachinko parlor. Wreck some bars. After that, I could force you to try my Uji-don special for the hundredth time - and maybe you'll finally admit that you like it after all. I even think we're still young enough to take down the government, if you find another spurned courtesan. Don't you agree?"
"You're a moron," she says, her eyes softening, and then he wraps his arm around her waist, grinning.
-x-
When she returns back from a patrol shift, he's looking at her strangely.
"What?"
"Why didn't you tell me about your scar?" Gintoki asked her.
"What are ya talkin' about?"
He sighed, only to bury his nose once again in his copy of Shonen Jump. Scowling, she went to their room to look in the mirror.
It was fading.
-x-
the end
-x-
a/n: I see Gintoki and Tsukuyo having their own family as a rebuke to what their masters stood for. In Gintoki's case, I believe him having his own biological family says, "Despite what the world has done to me, I still find it beautiful to care for the ordinary things," and in Tsukuyo's case, the family proves that she can be in love with someone, embracing her womanhood, and still be able to protect the people she cares for in the fullest capacity.
Dia and Block do not have names in this story because I do not think they are the most important part of the story. I hoped to convey the fact that both Gintoki and Tsukuyo had some terrible childhoods but are determined to break the cycle for their own children.