An Idiot is for Life, Not Just for Emergencies.


Kagura was practically dragging Gintoki down the dark streets now with Shinpachi and Otae trailing behind them.

"It'll be okay, Gin-chan," Kagura said to the bleeding and limping samurai. "You'll be okay, right? You always are, right? We just need to cover you in bandages and you'll be fine."

"You'll turn me into a mummy," Gintoki mumbled.

"Mummy or daddy, we don't care, as long as you're being true to yourself and you're okay," she replied, seriously.

"Not that kind of mummy, dummy," he scowled as best as he could.

"Oi, don't underestimate mothers," the yato girl scowled back, "Mothers can be as strong as a hundred bazookas if you annoy them!"

"What kind of mother has a bazooka?"

"Every mother has a bazooka in her heart if you mess with her kids."

"Baka..." Gintoki mumbled and suddenly fell to his knees. His arm slipped from around Kagura and she fell right beside him, her eyes watering at the sight of him wincing at clutching at the gaping hole in his stomach.

"Gin-chan!" she exclaimed, "Don't die! Use the bazooka!"

"What bazooka..." he muttered, his voice quiet.

"We should take you to a hospital," Shinpachi said. He and his sister had caught up to them, wiped their tears at losing Hajime-nii and stared down at him, just as worried as Kagura.

"...Had worse," Gintoki shrugged a little. "And I...hate hospitals," he muttered as Shinpachi knelt beside him.

"But..."

"I just...wanna go home, 'kay? I...I'll be fine..."

"You have a hole in your stomach!"

"Only a small one," he retorted.

"And besides, everyone has at least one hole on their body somewhere!" Kagura added.

"Err..." Shinpachi blinked at her.

"There's no way one more hole is gonna kill Gin-chan! Right, Gin-chan?"

"R...right," he nodded, grinning as best as he could at her. "One bleeding hole, two bleeding holes...a bleeding hole after pushing too hard...What's the difference?"

"Oi! Are you saying this stab wound is just haemorrhoids?!" Shinpachi yelled, "It's clearly a stab wound!"

"Whatever," Gintoki waved a shaky hand, dismissively.

Shinpachi let out an exasperated sigh and carefully drew one of Gintoki's arms around his shoulders. "Kagura-chan, grab his other arm," he said. "We'll go back to the dojo, it's closer and at least you won't have to go up any stairs...with a stab wound that's clearly a stab wound," he added, muttering under his breath.

"Are you sure..." Otae asked, looking at the wounded samurai.

"If I stop breathing then you can take me to a hospital," he told her.

"Then we'd be taking you to your funeral, idiot!" Kagura replied.

"Same thing," he said.

"How is that even the same?!" Shinpachi yelled as the began to make slow progress back to the Shimura dojo.


A while later, Gintoki was lying comfortably in a futon with his wounds bandaged and his friends sat around him. Kagura was reading scenes from JUMP to him and making the crashing sounds as she tried to describe a fight scene.

"Craaaaaash! Woooooosh..." she yelled.

"Stop it! Stop! You're ruining the story. I don't know what's going on anymore! What went crash? The hero? What went whoosh? Your head? Argh...it's too confusing!" Gintoki yelled back. "I'll read it myself!" he said, reaching out to snatch it from her.

Kagura leapt back quickly, "No way, a wounded man can't properly read JUMP with a hole in his head!"

"Who said I have a hole in my head?!"

"You said you had haemorrhoids."

"That's in your a** not your head! BAKA!"

"Ore...so your a** is in your head and it has haemorrhoids?" she asked.

"WHAT?!" he yelled. "Your head's the one with the hole in it. The empty hole where your brain should be! When did I say my a** was in my head?!"

"I thought all men thought with their..."

"STOP!" Shinpachi cried, muffling Kagura's mouth with his hand as he blushed a furious red. "Mo...where are you hearing these things? Gin-san, you need to be more careful what you say around Kagura-chan!"

"Me? Why is it my fault?!"

"Who else would say stuff like that?"

"IT WASN'T ME!"

"It's always the big brother's fault when the sister says something like that," Kagura declared with her arms folded. "Just act like an adult and take the blame," she added.

"Oi! Quit messing around!"

"Besides," she continued, "We thought you were gonna die. I'm traumatised. It's your fault."

"You're not capable of being traumatised!" he retorted, "You're usually the one causing the trauma!"

"See how mean he is, anego," Kagura said, crying dramatic, fake tears as she threw herself over Otae's lap. "Make him stop!" she cried.

"Show a little sensitivity, Gin-san," Otae said, seriously as she stroked Kagura's hair.

"You're the ones who need to show some sensitivity. I got stabbed! Right here!" he said, pointing at the bandages.

"Ah, so you admit it's not haemorrhoids," Shinpachi said in a deadpan voice.

"Shut it!"

"...Why did you do it, Gin-san?" Shinpachi asked him, quietly after a moment.

"What are you talking about," Gintoki grumbled. "Quit bugging a wounded man and go away," he added.

"We're staying here, right, Kagura-chan?" Otae replied with a smile. "Besides, who knows when you might run off again," she said. She turned from where she sat a little and picked up a naginata as though it was the most normal thing in the world to keep a deadly weapon by a wounded man's bedside. "We can't close our eyes even for a second. But if you do try and leave again..." she stopped, smiling her usual smile whilst brandishing the gleaming blade at him.

"Anego, so cool," Kagura exclaimed, sitting up and beaming at her.

"Oi, oi, gimme a break, crazy lady. I'm already a mess," Gintoki said, his eye nervously twitching at the woman.

"That's right, your brain is a mess," she replied.

"Eh?! When did I say that?!"

"Always running off by yourself and leaving us to think the worst. You really are the worst!" Otae glared at him. "If you'd died along with Hajime-nii, what do you think would've happened to Kagura-chan and Shin-chan, you bastard?!"

"Oi! Put down the naginata when you're talking to people!" he retorted.

"Why would you let us think you were the bad guy? Why did you beg the stupid, Shinsengumi gorilla for help and not us?" Otae continued.

"Don't know what you're talking about," he grumbled, "I'm already a bad guy. Always was. I never claimed to be anything else." He turned his back to them and hid under the covers of the futon.

"But..." Shinpachi said.

"I'm the opposite of what you need...what you deserve. I thought...if I could get him back for you...you wouldn't need me anymore so it didn't matter what you thought of me," he gave a rueful scoff. "You guys are so weird. You can't see you've got a monster right under your noses," he said.

"I'll show you who's weird, you stupid perm head!" Kagura yelled and leapt up, grabbing her umbrella but Shinpachi held her back.

"Calm down, Kagura, he's try'na make you angry," he exclaimed.

"Well, it worked!"

"Mah, mah," Otae said, placatingly, "We can kill him once we know for sure he'll survive his wounds tonight. How's that, Kagura-chan?"

"What kind of compromise is that?! Monster woman!" Gintoki yelled back, sitting up suddenly and glaring at them.

"Makes sense," the red haired yato girl nodded, suddenly calm and she and sat back down.

"Sense?! What sense? Your head's devoid of sense! We should call you no sense monster girl!" Gintoki told her.

"Ooooo, sounds like a superhero name!" she said, happily.

"Baka! What kind of superhero would want that name! BAKA! You'd just go around beating people up with your empty head! Even the Akamaru version of JUMP wouldn't publish that!"

"Of course they would! They'll publish anything."

"Urgh," Gintoki dragged his hand through his hair. "Fine, fine, go to their office and tell them about the stupid superhero and watch them laugh you out the building. Don't come crying to me when you're the laughing stock of the manga world!"

"Well, this show's about a stupid samurai, so why's that any different?" Kagura asked.

"Enough, shut up and go away, I'm tired," the samurai muttered, turning around and curling up under his futon. "He was an idiot," he grumbled after a moment and they stared at his back, confused. "He had everything...and he just left. I get wanting to be stronger...but what's the point in leaving behind the reasons you wanted to be strong in the first place? In the end...what's that strength worth if you were both left alone while he was out there beating up people on every planet just for kicks? That guy...he's an idiot. I can't stand it," he hissed, angrily.

"He didn't choose to leave," Otae said, sadly, "He was the best so he was sent into space to study."

"Some things are more important than strength. He could've said no. He could've come back sooner. He should've come back sooner."

"Then why did you leave, too?" Shinpachi demanded, "If we'd lost you both, what would've been the point in that?!"

"What's it matter if you lose a monster to get a big brother back?" Gintoki replied, perfectly serious. "Seems a fair trade to me. I didn't care, my pride or my blood, what's any of that matter? I know what it's like to lose everything. I didn't want you or your sister to go through that again. But I failed...again. All I'm good for is destroying things, or killing things and I made my peace with that a long time ago. Sensei used to say...I was a monster with a sword, just like him. I don't really know what he meant about himself; he was the farthest thing from a monster you could be. But he was right about me, at least. The corpse eating demon he found me as or the blood stained Shiroyasha I became, why'd you think you need either of those? If I could've got your big brother back for you, I'd have died happy," he trailed off with a sad smile.

"You stupid bastard!" Shinpachi yelled at him. He snatched the naginata from his sisters' hands and brandished it at Gintoki. He raised the weapon and brought the blade straight down. The silver haired samurai jumped out of the way as the futon was skewered just inches from where he'd been lying.

"Gaaaaah!" Gintoki explained. "Are you try'na finish me off?! What is it with your family?! Idiots! You're all violent idiots!"

"BAKA! You're a part of this idiot family and you're the biggest idiot of us all!" Shinpachi yelled back.

"You just agreed that we're all idiots," Kagura mumbled, idly picking her nose. "You wanna die, bastard?" she added for good measure, "Anego, I say we kill them both and bury their corpses then have a curry party."

"What the heck is a curry party?!" Shinpachi cried.

"Eto...a party where we throw curry at each other," she answered.

"Who'd wanna go to that kind of party?!" Gintoki exclaimed.

"All girls want to go to a curry party," Kagura said, "It's a part of being a woman."

"Since when?" the samurai yelled. "What exactly do you think a woman is? Get a dictionary!"

"If I get one, I'll just use it to knock some sense into your stupid head!"

"You're both as bad as each other," Shinpachi declared as he pulled the naginata from the futon and Gintoki settled back into it, rubbing a gentle hand over his stomach wound as he moved.

"You owe me a new futon," he muttered, eyeing the jagged hole that pierced the futon.

"It's our futon!" Shinpachi yelled.

"Oh, I see, then you owe yourself a new futon. Didn't anyone ever teach you to respect your own property?"

Shinpachi growled at him and then sighed. "You're so annoying. I don't know why you and Hajime-nii are so bothered about the word 'brother'. It's more like there's another kid around with you, anyway. You're the most reckless person I've ever met. I keep hoping one day you'll learn to look after yourself better..."

"Oi, oi, I've been taking care of myself since before you were born..."

"I mean, you need to care about whether you live or die, idiot! Stop trying to throw your life away!"

"I wasn't trying to..."

"How can you even try to deny it?" Otae said, much more calmly. "You attacked Hajime-nii even after I begged you to give us more time. We didn't know you were just trying to disrupt the Beam cannon. We thought you were going to kill him. If we hadn't arrived when we had you'd probably be dead. Hajime-nii...no, Kenofi would've killed you and we'd have lost you both."

"No need to rub salt in my wounds! I know I lost! I failed, okay. Geez, this is annoying. You people are annoying," Gintoki mumbled and crawled back into the futon, ignoring the hole it now had.

"You could've killed him if you'd wanted to," Shinpachi said.

"Shut up," the samurai said, his voice muffled from where he was huddled under the covers.

"But you didn't," Shinpachi continued.

"Shut up, Patsuan!" Gintoki repeated, a little louder than before.

"Thank you...for trying, Gin-san," the young samurai said, genuinely, "But...please don't ever do it again. We don't want to lose you."

Gintoki was silent as he lay huddled and warm under the covers, then after a moment, he wormed his head out from under them, but still kept his back turned to his friends so that he wouldn't have to look at them. "I just wanted to beat the galaxy sword master. I don't know what you're talking about," he muttered.

"Hai, hai," Shinpachi said, dryly. "So you begged the Shinsengumi to keep watch over us and keep the other police off your back all so you could defeat Hajime-nii all alone. Oh, we understand now, don't we, aniue?"

"Mmm hmm," she nodded, indulgently. "Our mistake, we misunderstood, eh, Kagura-chan?"

"An idiot ran off to fight another idiot and almost got himself killed," the red head shrugged, "He does that practically every episode anyway, what's new?"

"We're not a one plot line show, idiot," Gintoki grumbled.

"Sure we are, the writers are lazy and that way, the fight scenes can be reused over and over again and keep the budget down and..."

"Stop talking about writers while we're on air, Kagura-chan! Oh, oops, I just did too," Shinpachi sighed.

"Idiots. If you get fired, you're on your own," Gintoki told them.

"They can't fire me, I'm the heroine!" Kagura declared.

"You're the stupid mascot screaming from the sidelines, you mean," he said and she glared at his back.

"You're the mascot! With that stupid hair!"

"Hey, leave my hair alone! It's not my fault I was born with naturally curly hair! Blame my parents!"

"Well, I would if..." Kagura stopped, and her anger faded instantly. "Erm...I mean..." she stammered.

"...If they were around, yeah, me too," Gintoki finished for her. "I mean, what kind of people curse a kid with this hair? Not right, if you ask me. Maybe they didn't even have stupid hair like mine. Who knows?" he shrugged. "Who cares, anyway," he added after a moment.

"Sorry, Gin-chan," the girl said, sadly.

"Parents who abandon their kids lose the right to be called parents so I guess I'll just blame god," he said.

"He'll curse you more then," Shinpachi said.

"Let him try."

"Watch out, Gin-chan. What if he gets angry and he makes your hair fall out," Kagura retorted.

"Hey! Don't even joke about that! You want me to be a cue ball?!" Gintoki sat up and glared at the girl. "You want me to be a bald cue ball like your crazy old man? Eh, is that what you want?"

"We could shine your head like in the bowling alley," she grinned, "And use you as a bowling ball!"

"Oi!"

"It'd be so shiny you wouldn't need to fight anymore, we could just blind the enemy with your shiny bald head," she laughed.

"Oi! Gin-san is too young to be bald!" Gintoki exclaimed.

"Ah, right, and you know what happens to old men when their hair falls off," Kagura continued. "Their b***s fall off too," she said.

"OOOIIIIIIII?!" Gintoki yelled. "Where did you hear that?! Who's teaching you these things?! That's b******t! That's not true! There's no way that's true! No way! You're lying. There's no way you can know that! You're lying...you're lying right?! Shinpachi, she's lying, right?"

"How do I know?! I'm younger than you!"

"Ah...this is bad...no...no way, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, it's a lie...I'm too young to be hairless and b***less. What do I do...what do I dooooooo?!"

Kagura was too busy rolling around on the floor laughing and Shinpachi and his sister watched in a mix of humour and confusion, one which they'd become very familiar with.

"Ano...Gin-san..." Shinpachi said.

"This is really, really bad...nooooooo, no, no, no, no..." he repeated, clutching at his hair with both hands and rocking back and forth.

"Ano..." Shinpachi tried again.

"No, no, no, no..."

"Hahahahahahha, I broke Gin-chan!" Kagura chortled.

"Oooiiiiiii! Gin-san's not broke yet. He still has his hair and his b****!" Gintoki yelled at her which sent her into another laughing fit, clutching her stomach.

"Ahhh...my sides gonna split!" the girl said through her laughter.

"Good! You can break and we'll see how funny it is then! Lose your hair and your b**** and see if I care!"

"But I don't have any b**** to lose!" she laughed.

"Oooiiiiii! Stop talking about b****! What kind of girl are you?! Besides you have hair, what if you went bald, too? Just like Umibozo? You could be the bald alien hunter double act!"

"I'd still be cute if I was bald!" Kagura managed to say.

"Liar!"

"Hehhehehehehe..." the girl continued to laugh.

"Fine. If it's so funny, I hope you go bald! I'll take up voodoo and chant spells at you till your hair falls off! I'll summon evil demons who make people go bald! Say goodbye to your hair!"

By now, both Shinpachi and Otae were laughing too. "Oi, you think it's funny? What if you both go bald too?!" Gintoki asked them.

"The follicle gods wouldn't dare take my hair," Otae declared, suddenly serious, "They know I'd destroy them in a bloody, all out war."

"Err..." Gintoki stared at her.

"Isn't that a bit much, aniue?" Shinpachi asked her, placatingly.

"Never mess with a woman and her hair," she replied, sagely.

"Well, you're on your own if you're staring a war even if it is to save our hair," Gintoki replied, settling back down gently. "I'm outta commission for a while. Go kill the follicle gods yourself. You'll probably annihilate the entire planet of follicle gods and become the new follicle god," he said.

"When did the follicle gods get a planet?" Shinpachi muttered, "More importantly, what is a follicle god?" he asked, but his question was ignored.

"Probably should've just let you lose on every battlefield I fought on. Would've been a lot easier. A flat chested, demon cabaret girl with a naginata is way scarier than...oooowwwwww!" he yelled out when Otae punched him in the face.

"You were saying," she grinned and cracked her fingers.

"Err...nothing..."

"Gin-san," Otae began seriously, "Will you promise me something?"

"Huh?"

"Promise us...you won't do that again. Don't make us think the worst of you and then put yourself in danger for our sake."

"I don't make promises I don't intend to keep," he replied, quietly.

"But..."

"I'd do it all over again. If I have to backchat to some crazy old, bald alien hunter and fight a gross, squishy amanto on top of the terminal," he said thinking of Kagura's father. "Or fight a galaxy sword master and get stabbed in the gut, or throw away whatever pride I've got left and beg them for help then I'll do it if that's what's best for you all. If it means you think I don't care, or you think that I'm a cruel bastard, so what? I've done worse things for worse reasons...or for less reasons. As long as you're alive and you're happy, what else matters?"

"You really are an idiot," Shinpachi gave a sad smile.

"That so?" he muttered back, sounding uninterested.

"But you're our idiot," Otae said.

"We won't be happy unless you're here with us, idiot," her brother clarified.

"We don't care if you think you're a monster. To us you're just an idiot," Kagura said. "So...please don't die, Gin-chan," she begged. She reached out a hand and placed it on his shoulder and shook him with more force than any human would have. "If you're gone, life won't be any fun anymore! Who's gonna do stupid things with us? Or tell funny jokes?! Or make us laugh when things go wrong?! Who's gonna spend all our money on strawberry milk and parfaits and sneak us the last bowl of rice when we're not looking!" With every word she shook him back and forth even more.

"Err...maybe you should be careful, Kagura-chan," Shinpachi said, nervously.

"I can do any of that if you kill me off!" Gintoki yelled, "Cut it out, Kagura!"

"BAKA!" Kagura cried laying her head down on his shoulder, "So stupid, Gin-chan...you'd win the world prize for being stupid!" she was sniffling and they could hear her weeping quietly against the wounded samurai.

"Kagura-chan," Shinpachi said, kindly.

After a moment, Gintoki sighed and draped the covers over her and let her clutch at his arm from under them. "Are you guys gonna stop calling me an idiot already," he said after putting a bandaged hand on Kagura's head.

"No!" Kagura mumbled.

"Not till you stop acting like one," Shinpachi retorted.

"Which is never going to happen," Otae added, "It's too late to teach an old dog new tricks."

"Oi! I'm not old! I'm young! Young!"

"Suuuuuure you are," Shinpachi drawled.

"You are getting on now, Gin-san," Otae said, "Maybe it's time to stop being so reckless."

"Geez, you guys are cruel," he scrubbed a hand through his hair and yawned.

"Payback's a bitch, huh?" Kagura said, dryly and let out a quiet laugh as she sniffled.

"Fine, fine, we're even now, yeah? You're gonna stop insulting Gin-san now...right?" Gintoki asked, his eyes heavy as he mumbled at them.

"Maybe for now," Otae said, noticing his eyes closing, "Only for a bit."

"Oi, Kagura...did you get snot all over my shoulder?" he asked, his voice so quiet they could barely hear it.

"...Maybe..." she muttered.

He didn't say anything else and it wasn't long before they noticed that he was asleep.