a/n: Gintama movie coming out next year, eh? I can't wait to see Takasugi in Gintoki's arms, ngl.

For some very, very long term readers, you may recognize a passage that I've written a long time ago. I've woven it into this story and enhanced it greatly.

14. betrayal

The dawn had come, with the sun peaking over the horizon. The two of them - master and servant - looked at the window, and for a moment, they preferred the peace that came with a new day.

"They'll replace you soon if something doesn't change," Shoyou said, breaking the silence between them.

"It is of no concern," Oboro replied. "I will live, once more. As long as you are alive - "

"But then they will be suspicious."

"Let them suspect. They can't prove anything."

Shoyou sighed. "How close are they to the Jouishishi?"

Oboro looked in the window of his teacher's cell. Sometimes he forgot that the human spirit was unbreakable, even in the midst of such loss and destruction. Shoyou-sensei made him remember things that he'd been forced to forget the day after he had to leave his teacher behind. It had been almost twenty years of consecutive war, to the point where there were two generations of warriors had emerged, faced off against an enemy of considerable might and resources, and still to the very end, they had refused to surrender. He personally believed it to be a suicidal movement, a complete waste of manpower, and thought it foolish. But the other side obviously thought differently and called it "a beautiful death".

Oboro closed his eyes, not wanting to think about it. "Perhaps two weeks away."

"Who is still alive from my school?"

"The commander, the general, and the demon." They had names, but there was no need to remind Shoyou of their fates. Oboro did not wish to upset his master today.

"They will kill them all," Shoyou said softly.

"Yes." It was not a question of if, only when. The Shogun had sent a retainer to pass him the message today.

"I see." Shoyou sighed. He set his hand onto Oboro's shoulder. "You know, I really have to thank you. For everything."

"It was nothing," Oboro replied. "This is my atonement for my sins."

-x-

Gintoki hated crows, even before the Naraku had taken away the person he loved most from him. Even as a child he hated the way how they pecked at the flesh of the dead, gouging out the eyeballs and inner organs as they rotted away under the sun. One of his earliest memories had been trying to shoo away the pesky animals from stealing the food he ate, right before Shoyou-sensei had found him alone in the battlefield. Perhaps that was why he found himself dreading waking up right now.

There was no way to explain away the crow that had stared at him late at night, while he had stumbled into his makeshift tent at 4am in the morning, finally inebriated like the rest of his men and for once, happy about it. He had brushed it off, thinking it'd been the sake, that perhaps it had been an illusion of the light, and had quickly gone to sleep not too long after. But the morning after, he had remembered the animal, peering at him with unblinking eyes, and a chill ran across his back as if his tent was haunted with ghosts of his past.

Maybe it was a dream, he thought to himself, and then he tried to block out any more thoughts of unpleasantness, for there was also another unpleasant matter waiting for him to wake up.

"Oi, Gintoki."

Said white haired soldier opened his eyes cautiously, yawning as he stretched from his cot, a thin mat of a blanket, probably originally used for animals rather than men, but the time had gone where such niceties had been taken for granted. Sure enough, Takasugi was hungover, still dressed in his full uniform regalia which had been crumpled, having forgotten to change it from last night. But he was fairly sure that it wasn't the reason for his black mood, which was fairly dangerous to anyone standing near him.

Thankfully, Gintoki was somewhat used to this.

"Where's Sakamoto?" he asked, his green eyes glittering maliciously, as if his hand was twitching to kill someone this morning. Takasugi always had a mean streak in him, even since childhood, and he tended to be especially vicious when his temper flared.

"Dunno," Gintoki replied, his pinky finger in the middle of picking his ear. "Probably sleeping off his hangover?"

Takasugi picked up Gintoki by the collar of his haori, sneering at him while he did so. It was remarkable how simultaneously condescending and pissed off he could be at the same time, but somehow his fondness for Gintoki always papered over the cracks in their relationship.

"You sure you didn't encourage him to run off?" Takasugi asked, his voice deceptively calm.

"Now, why the hell would I do that?" Gintoki said, equally as calm. "He's the only one around these parts who bothered to get me chocolate in the middle of this shithole."

Takasugi laughed, a soft mockery of the boy who once used to show up at Shoyou's dojo as a challenger. "Your fondness for the Amanto will never fail to amuse me, Gintoki," he said, and released Gintoki's haori without further trouble.

Few of the soldiers saw Takasugi for what he really was, which was a samurai lost at bay without Shoyou telling him what to do. For a while, Gintoki had thought he'd bottled it up, as much as Katsura did the year that Shoyou had been taken away, but that was right before Takasugi elegantly slashed an Amanto into two without a second thought when it looked at him the wrong way while they were walking to Kyoto on a combat mission.

His thirst for vengeance was unrivaled; for every man who died at the hands of the Amanto, Takasugi made sure to pay back as much as they had taken from him. Only second in kill count to the Shiroyasha, the men spoke of him as if he was untouchable, a quality that had made him an excellent and trusted commander, but a lousy friend.

Or that was what Gintoki thought. Some people could put up with the surly bastard far better than he could.

He knew that there was a delicate balance in Takasugi's mind; often he thought it was toeing the line between genius and madness. He was intelligent enough to keep up with Katsura, especially with games of shogi and debates of the olden philosophers - things that Gintoki had personally no use for - but his tenacity on the battleground was unmatched, a hardened savagery that came out when the time was necessary to do so. Between the other three of the legendary Jouishishi, Takasugi was the only one who could equally keep up with Gintoki, even when there were no more Amanto soldiers to be left on the battlefield.

"I knew he was going to leave," Takasugi finally said, and Gintoki cautiously turned his head to look at him. "Maybe it would have been later, but I knew he was doing me a favor when he agreed to this attack in Kyou."

It was strange; for all of Takasugi's hatred towards the Bakufu, and his unyielding loyalty towards the Cause, he took a softer approach on the men who could bear the war no longer. Gintoki would sometimes see him talking for hours late at night at the campfires, especially in regards to the struggles that surely came with the horrors of war. Most of the soldiers would have left by now if it weren't for him, especially with the sheer amount of sickness, the loss, the countless deaths that happened during the years of ceaseless bloodshed with no relent... and on top of that, the Amanto were simply content to send more troops, more artillery, more nameless creatures that killed with no regards to humanity as it were.

If Gintoki was the symbol of the movement, then Takasugi was the commander who carried the fate of the souls who had sacrificed everything - their families, their lovers, their lives. He did this willingly, for the Cause, knowing how heavy the knowledge of their deaths loomed on his shoulders. And for that reason alone, Gintoki could never hold anything against his longest and most cherished childhood friend.

"Takasugi... " He was about to console him before he saw that there was a shadow at the entrance of his tent. He lazily waved them in.

It was Katsura.

"We have a problem," he said flatly, though the two of them saw that his hands were shaking.

It was a letter from Shoyou-sensei.

-x-

The letter had been unmistakably real, as all of them had instantly recognized the elegant script from their teacher from countless days of practicing their own calligraphy. Gintoki had remembered one quiet afternoon where Shoyou-sensei had written his name over and over again until he'd gotten it right, even though his handwriting was never quite as good as his teacher's. The brush strokes were burned into his memory, but as of today the fleeting reminder of what they had missed was especially vivid, and a lump had grown in his throat. The message had been very short.

My dear students,

The Bakufu has decided that this is the last straw.

They are determined to hunt you all down. I simply ask you all to persevere as best as you can.

As for me, my execution date has been decided, and will happen very soon.

Please do not try to rescue me. Live your lives as faithfully as you can.

Yours sincerely,

Shoyou-sensei.

The address that had been referenced as to where Shoyou had sent the letter from was interestingly a prison that was especially notorious for imprisoning political activists who dared to openly defy the actions of the Bakufu. The three of them had been there before, when they were much younger and had no grand ideals regarding the war that pitted the samurai against the Amanto. They'd been refused entry, and when they fought, it'd taken eighteen Naraku at the time to defeat them before they were unceremoniously threatened with decapitation, and then right after they successfully broken entry into the prison, had discovered that Shoyou-sensei had long since been transferred to another unnamed prison.

Gintoki paced up and down, Katsura simply looked at the map, while Takasugi stared bleakly at the wall of the tent, trying to think of his next move, but none came to mind.

Finally, Katsura looked up, and said solemnly, "We'll need to move camp if the crows know we're here."

"Agreed," Takasugi replied mechanically, but the other two knew his heart wasn't in it.

"It's a trap," Gintoki said. "If we go there, they'll ambush us. And then... " The war will be over, he wanted to say, but he wasn't quite ready to admit that right now. Three hundred soldiers left out of what had been previously thousands would not be enough to overcome the might of the Naraku.

Takasugi stood up, and left the tent. Katsura rose from where he was sitting to ask where he was going before Gintoki silenced him with a look.

-x-

Sakamoto would have been able to figure these damned contraptions in half a minute. Still, Takasugi knew a stun gun when he saw one, and aimed one at a nearby pine tree, pulling the trigger.

It exploded into flames instantly, right before it dissipated into a pile of ash. Not too soon after that, he could hear the soft steps of someone walking towards them.

"Gintoki," he said, not bothering to look back. He would have known his footsteps from a mile away.

"One hell of a weapon," the Shiroyasha commented, as the smoke fizzled into nothing. "No wonder the Amanto are winning."

"Tell me what I ought to do," Takasugi said, still in position, aiming the stun gun at another tree.

"Isn't that your job?"

"There isn't enough time," he replied. "How do we convince our men to go on this suicide mission?"

Without consulting the two of them, he already decided that he was going to try to rescue Shoyou-sensei. If Gintoki hadn't felt the exact same way at that moment in time, he might have socked his commander. It wouldn't have been the first time, anyway.

"Give them a choice," Gintoki suggested quietly. "Hand them the weapons. Tell them the truth. We could regroup later."

"Personal vengeance over the lives of our men?" Takasugi laughed darkly. "How would we explain them the situation? That there is a giant conspiracy behind all of this madness?"

"Let them decide whether to follow you or not," he insisted.

"They've already decided that a long time ago," the commander said, and he finally lowered the weapon, capping the safety. "Hey, Gintoki... "

"Yeah?"

"I know I've asked you this before, but... " Takasugi gave him the barest hint of a smile. "... If I die, you'll protect Sensei in my stead, right?"

"You're not gonna die," Gintoki said bluntly. "If anything, I know you better than that."

-x-

In the end, they didn't have a choice in the matter.

It wasn't as if Takasugi hadn't prepared his men as well as he could have. They'd handed every man a piece of the pilfered, hefty artillery, and Takasugi had given them all explicit instructions to escape the battlefield if the circumstances were dire.

The soldiers were uneasy. Although it was to be expected that Katsura would say such a thing, it was... unusual, to say the least, hearing it from their commander of all people. As they packed up camp, they were aware that something was off between the three seniors higher in command, and the mood shifted from what should have been celebratory into something more solemn. They were all tense while they marched to a smaller town that had served once as a hideout due to its rocky cliffs, mostly unassailable due to its heights.

It was worth noting that by now, all of the soldiers were probably the best, well-trained samurai they'd had for a while.

"Ne, Katsura-san - " One man asked, bravely trying to break the ice. "Why the hurry? We made sure to erase all traces - "

"We're being tracked," Katsura cut him off, although he tried his best to be encouraging. "It's better to be safe than sorry."

As usual, Gintoki was the last to walk behind the men, as if it was simply another day on the road. But his eyes were sharp, on the lookout for another crow. Takasugi was even more sullen then he normally was, and for a while they walked silently before the men started whispering to each other, speculating on what had transpired since this morning, especially with Sakamoto's disappearance. Perhaps it was a case of them expecting things to go bad after an unusual stroke of luck?

After an hour of walking on the empty road, Takasugi heard something rustle in the bushes, and raised his fist. It was a clear signal to stop. Narrowing his eyes, he held up three fingers - the sign for the formation where the men silently but efficiently walked to the nearest trees to hide from the main route - and for a minute Takasugi and Gintoki were the only one on the sandy road. Katsura had already unsheathed his sword behind a bush, preparing for the worst.

It was a crow. Without missing a beat, the commander elegantly lifted his assault rifle and cleanly shot off the head of the animal, letting the blood splatter across the soil.

"Now that wasn't very nice," Oboro said dryly, pointing his staff at the back of Takasugi's head.

Where did he come from?!

Although Gintoki had sprinted to catch up with Takasugi, Oboro simply placed his palm in his opposite direction without a backwards glance, blasting the samurai away with the force of his Hakkei, buying the assassin some time.

"I was wondering when the crows would show up," the commander said dryly, his lips curled into a sneer. With a swish of his sword that was too fast for untrained eyes to follow, Oboro's staff had shattered into many different parts, leaving pieces of wood rolling on the ground.

And indeed, from the corner of his eye, he could spot thirty Naraku at the edge of the road. The red smoke signal - the sign to retreat - had already been shot, thanks to Katsura, and he could see his men scurrying away, knowing it was a matter of life and death.

"This is revenge," Oboro said calmly. "You took my men. I will take yours."

"Then it seems we are at an impasse," Takasugi replied, and charged straight at the assassin.

-x-

All three of them had stayed back, as was usually the Joui's custom when faced with the most challenging of Amantos. A year ago, they'd faced off some rogue Yato, hellbent on completely eliminating the Kiheitai, and Gintoki had ended up with a punctured lung that would have felled anybody had Takasugi - who'd been suffering himself from a fair amount of wounds - not threatened a doctor from Edo at gunpoint to operate on his friend. The saving grace had been that only one - and not more - soldier had died in the skirmish, and though in civilian days they would have considered this to be a tragedy, in wartime it was nothing short of a miracle. Since then, the Kiheitai had drilled into their soldiers that the goal was self-preservation at all costs. By now they had fully understood that to remain alive was a far, far better alternative than dying, despite the glory the olden texts would have otherwise led them to believe.

Still. The situation was bad, and they knew it. Oboro seemed to be able to conjure spirits that came out of nowhere, and the Naraku were relentless in their pursuit of the other samurai while the three of them were struggling to hold them back, for they knew once the league of assassins reached the rest of the troops, it would have spelled the doom of the Jouishishi movement as they knew it. For each Heavenly King, there was always three assassins targeting them at any given time, and even though they were eliminating one after another, the fighting never completely stopped. What was worse was the fact that they did not go down as quickly, or easily, as most others would have done in their position. Even Gintoki was starting to show signs of fatigue, which was never a good sign.

There was too much smoke in the air to tell what was going on, but Katsura knew things weren't going well from the screams that he sadly recognized from the skirmish. Although they had their new weapons, it didn't seem to make much of a difference compared to the inhuman speeds of their opponents, who seemed intent on eliminating everyone in their immediate proximity.

And finally, in a crucial moment, one of the assassins had stabbed Katsura in the back with a poison-laced needle, causing him to fall to his knees.

"ZURA!" someone screamed at him, but by the time he recognized Gintoki's voice, he had already slipped into the darkness, succumbing to his unconscious.

-x-

When he came to, with the taste of dirt on his tongue, he knew that they had lost. The smoke in the air and the smell of blood clouded his senses, and to his dismay, he could feel the ropes tied around his body.

And the worst part was that he could see Shoyou at the mercy of the crows.

"Shoyou? Your pupils have done what they were taught and went to die like dogs."

Katsura struggled to get up, but one of the Naraku swung his rod at his neck. A steady stream of blood trickled out of his mouth, and he could barely breathe.

It was their worst nightmare.

He mouthed out the word sensei but nothing came out. The uncertainty was unbearable. Years and years of searching - only to see Shoyou-sensei kneeling in front of them as if he was damned to die?! Why? Choking back a sob, he bit on his lip, trying his best to think his way out of his situation, but his mind only came up blank, as much as he willed otherwise.

"You don't recall teaching them that? That is what you'd like to say, no?"

Shut the fuck up, Takasugi thought, and every muscle in his body was aching, aching, aching for action, but in the midst of the enemy's land, the adrenaline had fueled nothing advantageous. The ropes tore at his skin, and he'd been slowly working at them with a knife slipped inside his jacket sleeve, hoping that no one would notice. Though the Naraku had kicked him and Katsura on the ground, Gintoki had been the only one standing, his face completely blank and hollow at the sight of Shoyou-sensei.

"If that's the case, shall we test it?"

They ripped off the ropes from Gintoki, knowing full well that even the famed Shiroyasha could not defeat the strongest of the Naraku, especially with three hostages in their grips. He rose, so tired and weary. Defeated.

"Will your disciples choose the path of dying like a dog with you?"

Katsura's head rose, not understanding, but the feeling of horror threatened to snuff the breath out of his body.

"Or, with their own hands… Will they choose the path of survival even if it means killing their master?"

Nooooo! Katsura screamed in his mind, because the ropes were bound around his lungs and it was impossible to say anything, because this was hell with lives on hand and he wasn't there to protect them; this was torture, this was above beyond what any decent person would be able to bear. He knew what choice Gintoki would have made on their behalf.

They all - Shoyou-sensei included - would have known what choice any of his students would have made.

"A fitting method of execution for one who fancies himself a teacher, don't you think?" The monster chuckled. "Your master or your comrades. Choose whatever you like."

(Gintoki. If I die, take care of Sensei.)

Gintoki's hand trembled, the grip of his sword unsure. And then, he took one step towards Shoyou, his eyes empty and mysteriously devoid of life or light. And in an instant, both Katsura and Takasugi knew what his choice permanently entailed.

(Gintoki... our comrades - everyone, protect them, okay? I'm leaving things in your care.)

(Please do not try to rescue me. Live your lives as faithfully as you can.)

And for all the good that him forcing these unwanted promises did him, Takasugi now saw Gintoki take a step towards Shoyou-sensei. Feeling like he might retch, he pleaded, "N-no, Gintoki! Please!"

When he saw that his words would do him no good, he resorted to anger.

"YOU PROMISED ME ON THE BATTLEFIELD!" he roared, hiding his desperation behind a wave of rage. "PICK US OVER HIM! GINTOKI! ANYTHING BUT HIM!"

Some Naraku had stepped on Takasugi's back, trying to silence the commander to no avail. And yet, Takasugi could barely feel it as he saw the swish of the Gintoki's sword striking Shoyou's neck, the cleanest cut he'd ever seen for an execution.

"GINTOKIIIIIIIIIIIII!" screamed Takasugi, his arms scratching against the rope, legs beating against the red dust of the ground, his body protesting against what he had to see.

The knife had finally severed the rope between his wrists, and he jumped to his feet as quickly as he could - intending full well to murder Gintoki in cold blood with his own hands, to atone for his betrayal - damn the consequences, damn him -

And then he looked at Gintoki's face, who was gazing at Shoyou's body, crumpled at his feet -

and saw the tear that had fallen from his eye -

- only to be pierced by a dagger from Oboro, and then

- he fell to his knees as the blood dripped onto the ground,

staining it a ruby red.

"Do not waste the lives your master has sacrificed for you," the assassin said, voice harsh against the backdrop of what surely must have been Hell.

One of the Tendoshu laughed. "You won't kill these soldiers, Oboro?"

"My lord, these are samurai. Without a country or a master to protect, they are just as good as dead."

This isn't real, Takasugi thought. None of this is fucking real. I'll wake up tomorrow, and we'll be on the road, looking for Sensei again.

But it was, and so he let his eye bleed until he passed out.

-x-

When he woke up, he found that someone had bandaged his eye. The crows were gone. For a split second, his mind had wiped out the memory before he remembered exactly what had transpired on this cursed cliff.

And in that moment, when Gintoki had taken away the very thing that he had cherished the most in this world, his heart had ceased to beat once he knew that Shoyou-sensei was undoubtedly, inexplicably, and irrevocably dead. The universe had stopped dead in its tracks, the pain was no longer biting at his eye, and what had remained of his heart - hardened already by the reality of war - had cracked into a million pieces. Somehow he could not even stand to be in the same place, breathing, or even seeing, the men around him, the dead soldiers who he was supposed to lead after Shoyou was gone. He saw blackness everywhere, a numbness that he could not fight, even if he had wanted to.

He could not stop the black beast inside of him from braying for cold blood - anyone would do, even his comrades. For this time, it was not the same listlessness that would drive him to take his rage out on the Amanto. It was not the same as mourning his soldiers on the battlefield. It was not the same as the palpitating fear of Gintoki - or Zura - or Tatsuma - being dead. For they had escaped death many times before.

Something in him had cracked - the last bastion of hope, of faith, maybe even the faintest shred of sanity. Whatever it was had vanished, leaving a crippling void in his chest.

Nothing of worth could be saved.

-x-

In the middle of Edo, a crowd of people had gathered in front of the Shogun's castle. The sky was a brilliant blue, and the sun was shining. Tokugawa Sadasada nodded in contentment; it was a good omen for things to come for the new era of the next ruler. Turning to his nephew, he smiled, placing a reassuring hand on the young man's shoulder.

"You will do well, Shigeshige. The fates and heavens above have blessed you today."

"Thank you, Uncle." Behind him stood a very young Soyo-hime, dressed in her finest ceremonial robes.

As the palace servants bowed their heads, pushing the doors open to the crowd, a deafening chant could be heard through the middle of the capital.

"All hail the Shogun! All hail the Shogun! All hail the Shogun!"

He took a deep breath, and then stepped out, waving to the crowd.

-x-

- tbc -

-x-

a/n: I can't work on this chapter anymore, I'm finished lmao. If you spot any grammatical errors and such, I'm afraid this is the version you're stuck with.

Thank you, to all my readers, for continuing to read. Please let me know what you thought of the chapter. :)