"Be careful, China." Hijikata caught her wrist before she dashed away. Kagura snorted at him and stuck out her tongue so that he could see right down her throat, making a noise that reminded Hijikata of her stupid boss. "Just listen for one goddamn second, jesus, you miniature perm!" She shut her mouth reluctantly. "Don't take risks. This isn't our only way to save him. If it's too dangerous, get out of there. You hear?"
"Stop whittling like an old man," she pulled her wrist from his grasp with ease and took two steady paces forwards, swinging her umbrella up on her back with one smooth swoop, the evening light glowing around her figure. "Tonight we're under the full moon," she drawled. "That means everything has a silver lining, right?" Tilting her head back to look at him, she bared her teeth into a grin. A second later, she was gone.
"She's really a tiny Gintoki." Hijikata sighed. It was annoying, but all he could do now was click his heels together, overlooking the towering heights of the Shogun's castle.
Tonight the operation had been made as simple as it could possibly be: just Hijikata and Kagura were out. Any more people could raise suspicions and increased their chances of being caught. Kagura was under strict instructions to get in and out as quick as possible, only spending enough time in there to do what was needed and even so, if the risk became too great, abort. They knew whereabouts Soyo-hime resided and at this time, it was almost certain she'd be asleep. Kagura was their best option because she had sneaked in various times before, to the point where she was a familiar face to some of Soyo's closer aids. However, if she bumped into anyone who was less familiar to Soyo's friends, Kagura would be in big trouble. Likely, she would be pardoned by Soyo and so it would only be brief incarceration until then, but the risk was if anyone considered her a threat or an intruder, she would be killed on sight.
There really wasn't a need for Hjikata to be there. Even if things did go wrong, he wouldn't know about it until it was too late. And if he got himself captured, too, suspicions would raise. That's why their plan was so simple, and Hijikata was only waiting there to ease his conscience. He watched the glow of lanterns flicker shadows across the castle grounds, to the point where his eyes were playing tricks on him. He was constantly alert and flinching at any movement. It was going to be an extremely long night at this rate, but he was fine with that. If he weren't here, he would be awake anyway, images of ropes swinging at the back of his mind. To be actively doing something, anything, put him at relative ease.
Until now, he had only slept with guilt.
As often as he could, he slept at the yorozuya apartment too. At first, it had been awkward and he wondered if it was the right thing to do: a grown man sleeping alone with a minor around? That was something only an idiot would do. A permed one. However, the benefits he came to find through sleeping there far outweighed that initial awkwardness. The feeling of actively helping eased the shiver of constant, quiet panic. All the little pieces of Gintoki lying about to keep the man on his mind made him breathe easier: if he forgot him for a second, he was terrified of the guilt he'd feel. If he took a moment to relax, if he laughed, if he worked on something to take his mind off it – no, he couldn't. He wouldn't let himself. His mind needed to be focussed constantly, because he was unreasonably paranoid that his state of mind could influence the precariously balanced platform Gintoki was standing on.
And so there wasn't a minute where those ropes stopped swinging.
…
"Uh-oh," Kagura tottered on a roof tile that slid underfoot. She rebalanced with ease but she was no longer a flash in the corner of an eye; she was a stationary target. She had to get moving again quickly. There was a nervousness in her gut that was unfamiliar. She had never felt fear coming here before: it was a trip she often made to visit Soyo, and never before had she been so alert and self-conscious. She worried about stepping under the light of the moon. She worried about the tap of her feet as she ran. Every tiny thing played on her mind; cautiousness wasn't a natural trait of hers.
She reached the outside of the building across from Soyo's room, faced with the two guards on post outside. The only other way in was to run through the castle and navigate her way down corridors. With that, there was a risk that she would encounter someone more dangerous in a confined space. This was the only access she had.
Her eyes ran down her figure to check she wasn't bathed in any moonlight, shifting one foot slightly further from the glow of a lantern just to be safe. She was pressed as close to the building as possible, so that the wooden wall was flat to her spine. There was no better cover around here, but the darkness should hide her enough. Reaching into her boot with slow steady movements, she pulled out a dart and winced at the crinkle of the paper attached. All she had to do was throw this through the tiny gap in the door: Soyo liked the door leaving open during hot nights. Tonight wasn't particularly warm, yet Soyo had made it a habit to leave a gap anyway in hopes that Kagura would come visiting. This was Plan A, and Plan B involved making risky distractions which would put the guards on edge, so she hoped this would work smoothly. She rolled the fine dart through her fingertips, feeling the roughness of the metal grip and etching the memory of its weight into her fine muscles. She prepared to throw it … and waited. Waited for their eyes to wander. Watched their pupils with owl-like vision until both flickered away-
Fwooosh.
The dart flew and shot straight through the gap, scrap of paper flapping behind it and the dart landed on target with a faint thud. One of the guards looked towards the sound but discounted it for nothing, to Kagura's relief. It didn't matter now though: as long as that dart came to Soyo's attention, she was safe.
She just had to hope the girl was awake, or at least slept lightly.
There was a flash of child-like hands and the paper was snatched out of the crack of moonlight cast over the wooden flooring. A second later, the same fingers pushed the sliding door ajar and big, innocent eyes blinked into the night. One of the guards jumped at the princess' arrival and knelt down to hear her words. With a nod, he left hurriedly and the second guard stiffened with new-found responsibility. Seconds later still, Soyo herself shuffled out, wrapped in her thick blanket. She wore the item like a woollen cape which pooled across the floor. After a few moments of conversation between the two, and the guard pulled an exasperated expression; he couldn't complain under the puppy-eyes of the princess though. He nodded, somewhat reluctantly, and with a beaming smile Soyo began to wave into the darkness – Kagura's cue.
"Good evening again, Kagura-san," the guard sighed as Kagura hopped past. "It is really not proper that you continue these meetings, princess."
"Kagura is a friend!"
"It's dangerous! If she gets caught ..."
"Kagura is a super alien girl, she'll be fine. If you'll excuse us ..." she slid the door shut.
Soyo immediately clambered back into bed and patted the space next to her. Kagura filled the spot where her hand had been with the warmth of her legs and pulled the covers up to shut out the cold night air.
"The second guard will soon be returning with a pot of lemon tea."
"Soyo-chan, I'm not here for a chat today." Their hands entwined under the sheets.
"Not even for tea?"
"Of course I'll take the tea!" Kagura affirmed. "Waste is bad." To this, Soyo giggled and rolled over on her side to meet Kagura, nose to nose.
"Your eyes look heavy, Ka-chan." She reached up her spare hand to gently prod the darkness sitting beneath Kagura's bright blue eyes. The moment she did so, the darkness seemed to swell. Kagura lowered her voice to a whisper.
"Gin-chan is in trouble." She said in response to Soyo's soft, questioning expression. "He did some bad things in the past and now they've locked him up." For a moment, Soyo looked pitying. It was only a few seconds later that something clicked in her head and shock dawned on her.
"Not … SparrowHawk?"
"You've heard?"
"I've caught onto rumours. The castle seems to be hiding it from me. Even my brother avoided the question when I asked. He is greatly troubled by them and their methods. It is extremely difficult to go against the amanto, however, without damaging relationships."
"They say they're going to … execute him. Of course, I'm not going to let that happen!" Soyo's smile was fond, but haunted by truth: she knew how difficult Kagura's request was going to be. "So, Soyo-chan … I need to speak with Sho-chan." Soyo hummed.
"He may not be able to do anything. As much as he'd love to."
"If we work together, I'm sure we'll be able to protect Gin-chan!"
"I will organise a meeting with my brother. However, please be aware that he must follow his duties as a shogun – this may mean his hands are tied. The General in charge of SparrowHawk is a very powerful man and it would not serve well to make him an enemy of Edo."
"I appreciate it, Soyo-chan!" Kagura kissed her cheek.
She had to hurry back as soon as they'd shared a small chat over lemon tea, and it was with regret that she waved goodbye to Soyo. There was just something so lonely about leaving the comfort of a friend behind and returning to the place where warmth had been sucked into a vacuum. She hesitated at the doorway. Soyo tilted her head slightly but before she could open her mouth to question Kagura, she was gone.
…
"You took too long!" Hijikata chided her immediately as she appeared.
"Gin-chan was right. You nag a lot."
"People like you and him need nagging. And I'm not the only one that moans! That guy can whine enough to fill the Old Testament."
Hijikata ruffled her hair with slight awkwardness and Kagura decided to let it pass this time. After all, she could tell he was trying to fill the gaping hole Gintoki had left. Rethinking that though, she decided to hit him after all.
"What's with the delay?!"
...
"This seems a bit much, doesn't it?" Gintoki spat liquid from his mouth, knowing it wasn't just spit in there. Down on his knees and hands tied, there was plenty he could do to pummel his attacker into the floor … but not much point in doing so. He could find hundreds of vantage points and had twice the strength and skill of his opponent; despite that, he took the hits. It was much easier to do so, playing the victim. Hitting back would only give them an excuse to punch harder. And the fists were landing hard enough.
"Tell uz where Katsura Kotarou ish and al stop." The amanto shrugged, gleefully rubbing his bloodied fist against his shirt. He had a lisp and once Gintoki had noticed, he couldn't help but be bothered by it.
"You look like you're having way too much fun for that."
"True, I gets a kick out of beating ya up. But orders ish orders. If I gets the informashon, I stops." To seemingly add to his point, he thwacked Gintoki across the cheek with an open palm. It stung. He'd had worse (Hijikata could slap like an angry salmon).
"How the hell am I meant to know where he is? I've been locked in here for god knows how long."
"You'z his friend, right?"
"He blew up a truck full of strawberry milkshake once. Nobody who does that is a friend of mine." THWACK. Gintoki's smart comments halted abruptly. He could feel himself shutting down: he wasn't feeling faint – it was a defence mechanism of his. He'd been tortured before: proper torture, not this low level spanking. Something like that left scars on your brain and each and every one of them had begun to throb steadily. His eyes lost their focus; his thoughts became distant. Sounds in his ears were like the soft distortion of the waves in a sea shell.
"Where can we find Katsura Kotarou?" The amanto asked again. A deep breath temporarily brought Gintoki back over the edge.
"I don't know." SMACK.
"Where ish his hideout?"
"I don't know." CRACK.
"The next time you zay that, I breakz yous fingers."
"I don't know." The fist before him raised high and Gintoki braced himself for the hardest hit yet, but it never came. He vaguely noticed someone else in the room and they spoke first to the other amanto, and then to him. His head dropped forwards, eyes closed.
"We know torture won't work on you, Shiroyasha." The voice said, honey-thick waves trickling through his ears. "There's a whole file on that." Gintoki forced himself awake again with another sharp breath, blinking quickly. "So instead … how about we postpone your death sentence in return for our answers? It's not like Katsura will be caught because of anything you say. Just a little bit of information from you and we'll give you a few more days to live. How about it?"
And in Gintoki's head, Hijikata's desperation reached out to him. Fingertips pressed white against glass. Hands reached through to touch him. The red string of blood steadily trickling over his finger tugged his hand back home.
…
It was hard for Hijikata to carry on his work as normal with all that was going on. How was he supposed to get Gintoki off his mind for even a minute, enough to concentrate on anything? Somehow he was stumbling through the day, pretending everything was fine. He could console himself with last night's success, but then he'd only become more stressed when the other part of his brain whispered to him – that hasn't changed anything. He's still going to die.
Kondo was managing to tone down the pitiful glances and he had only caught one so far. There were no 'are you sure you're okay?' interrogations, and Hijikata was sickeningly thankful for that. He could not deal with those conversations right now. Of course he wasn't okay. So what? No one could change anything. Hijikata hissed air through his nose and shook his hands, trying to rid them of the tremors shaking him. He reached for a cigarette but could only throw it to the floor in anger: how could he smoke at a time like this? It felt like out-right betrayal to Gintoki. And without even a trace of nicotine to subdue his nerves, they kept escalating. Throbbing. Rising sky high with no outlet.
"Are you-"
"FINE!" Hijikata cut Yamazaki off with a yell loud enough to scatter the pigeons tottering around the yard.
"... I was going to ask if you're going to drink that ..." Yamazaki flinched, gesturing to the coffee that Hijikata hadn't even noticed was there. The bubbling rage in him subdued to despair. That white hot stress at the back of his head evaporated into a cold emptiness. His head fell into his hands, rigid fingers piercing the sharp rainbows of his nails into his scalp. When he looked at the mess of so-called work on his desk, he crashed.
"Vice commander … Are you-?"
"Yeah, leave it there. I'll drink it."
"No, this time I was actually going to ask if you're okay. You're really pale. Did you sleep at all last night?" A muffled affirmative vibrated through Hijikata's palms. His subordinate huffed, getting down onto his knees next to his commander and sliding his arm around his back. "I'll finish this. C'mon." Scarily obedient, Hijikata let Yamazaki take his weight and lift them up. "You'd put some weight on recently and now it's all gone."
"... zaki?"
"Yes?"
"What did Gintoki do … when I wasn't here?" Yamazaki managed to grab the futon with his spare hand and used his feet to flatten it across the floor.
"Do you really need to know?" Hijikata let himself be lowered onto the futon and was grateful to finally rest his head. He could feel his eyelids growing heavier already.
"I just can't stop thinking about it." He seemed reluctant to get onto this subject, but eventually Yamzaki sighed.
"He went quiet." He paused, obviously remembering the time. "The usually loud, playful danna went quiet." Hijikata wasn't particularly surprised by this: maybe a year ago his jaw would have hit the floor, but now he'd seen the Gintoki before daylight. He knew the eerie silence and distance stares, those lips that could not be prised open. "And you're doing the same. You, who can work through anything, can't even put pen to paper. The Hijikata who was calm and steadfast through all adversity has been shaken to the core. So listen to me and rest your eyes for a few hours; wake up the commander we need."
"We're running out of time though …"
"So what? As you are now you're no use to anyone."
"Bastard." Hijikata cursed, but knew full well that he was right.
"I'll come back to wake you in a little while. Until then, sleep as long as you need."
Hijikata was so tired he didn't even hear the door shut. He wasn't scared of the nightmares of sleep: he'd seen them all before.