Note: Listening to the Gintama OST "Disciple of Shoyo" while reading this chapter may give you the feels.

Silver Moon – Book 3 Chapter 17

Once the door was closed and the room was plunged into darkness once again, the inhabitants quickly scrambled around to see how Tsukuyo was doing.

"Tsukuyo-san, are you all right!?" asked Shinpachi.

"You don't look good," Kagura noted uneasily. Of the four prisoners, she had the best view of the courtesan's condition.

"I said I'm fine," Tsukuyo managed to repeat, albeit roughly.

"But those cuts…" said Shinpachi. "You're covered in them…"

"And that kick from Kamui was nothing to laugh about…" added Kagura.

Despite her condition, Tsukuyo somehow managed to smirk. "It's nothing," she said. "Just some scratches and another bruise. No big deal, really…"

Kagura just sadly stared at her. "I wish there were something we could do to help."

"Don't worry," said Tsukuyo in between deep breaths. "I'll try to see if I can salvage some of these bandages…" She then took a moment to glance at Gintoki, who had remained silent since the door had closed. To her surprise, he was staring right at her, and his eyes were wide with anger.

"Curse that bastard…" he muttered. "I'll never forgive him for this…"

His hands starting to tremble, Gintoki eventually let go of the bars in front of him before giving a sigh. "I suppose I owe you an apology, Kagura. I had no idea that you weren't in control of your actions that night you attacked Tsukuyo…"

Kagura frowned at this. "Neither did I…"

"None of us did," Shinpachi admitted.

"Damn that Takasugi, damn him to hell," muttered Gintoki, continuing with his curses.

Kagura silently stared at him for a second before she decided to ask a question. "Why does that guy hate you so much, Gin-chan?"

Gintoki looked up and stared at her for a moment. He then glanced over to Shinpachi, and then to Tsukuyo. His eyes rested on her the longest, before they eventually fell to the floor as he gave a sigh.

"Takasugi and I…were both students at the same temple school."

Tsukuyo stopped messing with her bandages for a second as soon as she heard these words. She then threw a curious glance at Gintoki. Wait a second, is he…?

Gintoki soon continued. "I guess that you could say that we were rivals. We challenged each other constantly, and usually ended up with an equal number of wins and losses for both of us. Those were back in the happier times…"

Tsukuyo's mouth almost hung open in shock as she absorbed every word. She took a quick second to glance at both Shinpachi and Kagura, only to find them staring at the samurai with their full attention. Tsukuyo then turned back to face Gintoki, her expression completely surprised.

I can't believe it! He's…he's actually sharing his past with us for the first time!

Gintoki sighed before he continued again. "Unfortunately, those times came to an end when my master was unjustly arrested for treason against the state. We all knew that he was innocent, but there wasn't much that we could do about it at the time. Things would only worsen once the Joi War flared up, which me and my fellow students participated in heavily. Takasugi included."

Gintoki paused for a second. "I guess in a way, that war ended up driving the two of us together as comrades. We had a greater sense of trust then ever before, and we survived through harsh experiences together. It wasn't easy, but as long as we could rely on each other, things were bearable…"

Gintoki soon frowned. "But I guess that's part of where the problem lay…You see, our aim in the war was to save our master from his imprisonment at the hands of the Amanto. We didn't care much for the country or the changes coming about; we just wanted to save Sensei…Takasugi himself became a little obsessed with it. He owed a lot to Sensei, and he was even willing to die if it meant that he could save him. At one point, he even ended up asking a request of me. He said that if he died, he wanted me to take care of Sensei. At the time, I just made a simple request back: 'Don't die'. I knew that's what my master would have wanted…"

Gintoki's frown slowly curled into a small smile. "You see, before my master was arrested and taken away from us, he had me make a promise with him. I promised that I would protect our comrades and keep them safe while Sensei was gone. I knew that Sensei's wish was that we would all survive and stay safe, so I always did my best to look after everyone…"

Gintoki paused for a while after this. "But then, one day, I ended up in a desperate situation…My comrades had been captured, and we were completely surrounded by enemies. They soon gave me a choice: I could kill my comrades or I could kill my master. That was the only way they would consider letting us live, and all of the responsibility ended up falling on me…"

Gintoki sighed. "I knew what Takasugi wanted me to do, but I knew what my master wanted far more. After seriously thinking about the situation at hand, I…made my decision. I walked right up to where my master sat, and I…I took his head off…"

As Tsukuyo listened to this, she almost felt like she could feel tears welling up in her eyes. She couldn't help but feel bad for Gintoki. She knew all too well the pain of losing a master, but she had never expected that Gintoki would have gone through something as horrific as that. It must have been dreadful.

"Gintoki…" she whispered softly.

Gintoki just shook his head for a second before he continued. "Naturally, Takasugi was pretty upset with my decision. He had been so dedicated to saving Sensei, even if it meant his death. To be spared at the cost of Sensei's life, it was too much for him to handle. And of course, a large portion of the blame fell on me. Takasugi has never quite forgiven me for the events that took place that day and the decision that I made. He holds a grudge against me, and the rest of the world that put him in that situation. That's why he's so intent on destroying everything around him; he just wants to see the world burn. And of course, as a result of the choice I made that day, I am forced to bear the weight of Takasugi's grudge against the world…"

Gintoki soon went silent after that, signaling the end of his story. The others were also silent for a while, trying to digest what he had just shared with them. Gintoki had always been rather quiet about his life before Odd Jobs, so this situation was a little unexpected, to say the least.

Eventually, Tsukuyo was the first to speak. "Gintoki…did you really go through something like that?" she asked gently.

Gintoki simply gave a nod without looking at her.

"That's…horrible…" Shinpachi mumbled.

"I…had no idea…" Kagura whispered.

The room then went silent once more, with nobody knowing quite what to say about such a tragic story. It wasn't until Gintoki himself spoke up that the silence was lifted.

"It is what it is," he said quietly. "Takasugi has never been able to come to terms with the past, and if that means that he hates me along with everything else, then so be it…"

Shinpachi frowned at this. "That's so sad…I even feel a little sorry for Takasugi…"

"Don't bother," Gintoki suddenly warned him. "Takasugi may have lived a tragic life, but he still chooses to do evil of his own volition. He should receive no pity for his actions."

"Gintoki," Tsukuyo called across from him. "Tell me something…What exactly do you plan to do with Takasugi?"

Gintoki stared at her for a moment but didn't answer. Tsukuyo decided to push the question further.

"Are you going to try to kill him? Or is it possible that you want-"

"That I want to save him?" Gintoki finished for her.

Tsukuyo nodded silently.

Gintoki just gave a sigh. "I'll be honest, as my former comrade, I do still have a duty to my master to protect him and keep him safe, even if that means from himself. However, as much as I would like to save him from his inner demons, I'm starting to think that the only way to do it would be to kill him…"

Gintoki then glanced at Tsukuyo, who was still covered in bloody wounds. "And frankly, after seeing what he did here today, I'm not exactly against the idea," he said fiercely.

Tsukuyo stared back at him with a look of concern. That look of anger honestly scared her a little, but she understood why Gintoki was feeling the way that he was. Soon enough though, Gintoki dropped his angry expression and looked to the floor. After a few seconds, to Tsukuyo's surprise, Gintoki started laughing a little. He then slowly looked up as he put a hand to his face.

"I really shouldn't be talking about saving anybody though, seeing the situation we're in," he said, slowly looking around at each of their jail cells in turn. "I have to admit, I really have no idea how we're going to make it out of this one…"

Shinpachi and Tsukuyo didn't respond to this, but Kagura surprisingly piped up. "Well, we actually do still have a secret ace up our sleeve. You see, I didn't come here alone. I ended up bringing someone with me."

Gintoki stared at her for a second before frowning. "I don't think that Sadaharu is going to be much help to us in this situation."

Kagura grew a little annoyed at this remark. "I wasn't talking about Sadaharu! I was talking about that Sadist from the Shinsengumi!"

"You mean Okita-san?" asked Shinpachi. "How did you manage to bring him along?"

"I didn't," Kagura explained. "He said that he had to go with me so he could keep an eye on me. It was the only way that he would even let me leave their headquarters."

"Where is he now?" asked Gintoki.

"No idea," Kagura admitted truthfully. "We boarded the ship together but then we ended up getting separated. I don't know what happened to him after that, but I can see that he hasn't been thrown in this prison with us, and that's a good sign."

"So you don't think that he's been captured yet?" asked Gintoki.

"No, I think he's still somewhere on the ship, and if he knows that we've been captured, I think that he's probably going to find a way to rescue us. He may be a complete and utter bastard, but I know that he wouldn't just leave us for dead."

"That's assuming that he's not already dead himself," Gintoki pointed out.

Kagura just shook her head at this. "Nah, he's a tough one. He wouldn't be stupid enough to die doing something like this."

"I'm not very familiar with this Okita person," Tsukuyo suddenly chimed in, "but you seem to think very highly of him, Kagura."

Kagura's expression immediately soured. "What!? Of course not! I hate that damn sadist to the core! He can go off and die for all I care!"

Tsukuyo merely raised an eyebrow at the girl while Shinpachi decided to speak up. "You know, Okita-san isn't the only person that we can rely on. Our friends that me and Gin-san left back at Odd Jobs will probably come and save us once they realized what's happened. And of course, there's the Shinsengumi too. They had this ship surrounded when we first arrived."

"I wouldn't count too much on those options," Gintoki suddenly interrupted. "First off, if those Shinsengumi bastards were going to do anything, they would have done it before the ship took off. We're already in the air; I doubt that there's much they can do for us now. The same goes for those four idiots back at Odd Jobs. They probably don't have any way of reaching us up here, and even if they did, I doubt that Mutsu would okay any sort of rescue plan. Especially after the little disagreement we had between us. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if she ended up convincing Zura and Sakamoto to just leave us for dead…"

Shinpachi frowned at this, but then lightly smiled. "Oh come on, Gin-san. No matter how upset Mutsu-san might be, she wouldn't do something like that. She's our friend after all, isn't she? I trust her…"

Gintoki just grunted as he turned away. "Hmph, we'll see…"

Shinpachi just stared at his boss for a moment before he gave a sigh. "You know Gin-san, your story about what happened to you in the past is pretty tragic, but I don't think that it's all bad…You said you had a choice between saving your comrades and abandoning them to their doom, right? And in the end, you chose to save them. You still have those comrades, Gin-san. Trust in them. They'll save you just like you saved them back then."

Gintoki stared at the glasses-wearing boy before eventually giving a sigh himself. "I guess you've got a point there, Shinpachi. Fine then, I'll choose to wait for those idiots, and we'll just see if they show up."

Just then, out of nowhere, the door at the end of the room flew open, and light began pouring inside. Gintoki and the others quickly squinted in an attempt to see who was entering the room. Just then, a loud voice called out to them.

"Hey now, who are you calling idiots? Ah ha ha ha ha ha!"

"We could hear you through the door, you know!" said a second figure.

"Shut up and get out of the way already," came a cool voice from behind them. "I need to get in there and unlock those cells."

Gintoki and the others stared in awe as the figures of Sakamoto, Katsura, Mutsu, and Elizabeth came into focus. They all stood in the doorway with small grins and their arms crossed. Well, except for Mutsu, who seemed to be more concerned with getting inside and unlocking the prison cells.

"It's them!" Shinpachi cried. "It's really them!"

Kagura also cried out. "Zura! Lizzie! And, uh…the loud guy!"

"I'm not that loud!" Sakamoto shouted back to her with a frown.

"And it's not Zura, it's Katsura!"

Mutsu just ignored their bickering as she walked right up to Gintoki's cell with a set of keys in her hand. She then stared down at the man with a small smirk. "Well, look who was right," she said triumphantly.

Gintoki just ignored her comment, because he was still in shock about what he was witnessing. "I don't believe this," he said quietly. "Now that is some ridiculous Shonen timing!"

"Would you have rather had us come later?" asked Mutsu as she rolled her eyes.

"Er, n-no, now is fine," Gintoki stuttered, still stunned. "What are you all doing here?"

Katsura grinned at him from the doorway. "Rescuing you guys, of course."

Gintoki stared at them all in disbelief. "Are you serious!? I thought for sure that Mutsu would have left me for dead!"

"Actually," Sakamoto chimed in, "it was Mutsu's plan to come and rescue you in the first place."

Gintoki stared back up at the girl. "Really?"

Mutsu just frowned at him as she went ahead and unlocked his cell. "Don't jump to conclusions," she said bluntly.

Gintoki just frowned back as he stood up. "But how did you guys find us? I thought that this ship had taken off already."

"Oh, it has," said Katsura. "we're in the air right now."

Gintoki felt even more confused. "Then how did…?"

Elizabeth flipped a sign. 'Perhaps we should explain ourselves.'

"Right," agreed Katsura. "Well, you see, after you stormed out of the place back at your house, Mutsu here decided that we should keep an eye on the situation before making our move. And frankly, it's a good thing we did. Otherwise we would've ended up locked in a prison cell just like you."

"Er, right," said Gintoki as he looked away. "But how did you find us?"

"We tracked down Takasugi's ship to this location and then kept a close eye on it while evading the Shinsengumi's notice," Mutsu explained calmly. "It wasn't hard, since we were doing it from up in one of our airships."

"Wait, you guys were already flying overtop in your own ship?" asked Shinpachi.

"That's right," Mutsu continued as she unlocked the other cells. "We were so high up that those cops didn't even notice our presence, and all we had to do was use our telescope technology to watch what was happening below. When we saw this ship take off, we simply followed it. Once we caught up to it, we pulled up alongside and boarded. We took them all by surprise and fought our way inside. We found out where you guys were being held from one of the guards we questioned. After that, it was just a matter of finding you and the keys to get you out."

"Wow, you guys are crazy," said Kagura with the utmost respect.

Mutsu suddenly paused as she looked into the quietest prison cell. "Hey, idiot," she called, signaling Gintoki, "what's wrong with your fiancé?"

Gintoki immediately remembered Tsukuyo's dire condition and rushed over to her cell. Tsukuyo, meanwhile, just tried to brush it off as nothing. "I'm fine," she insisted.

"Damn it, Tsukuyo," Gintoki cursed. "Stop lying to yourself. She needs medical attention," he alerted the others.

"Right, Elizabeth!" Katsura called.

'I'm on it!' the bird's sign read. He immediately went to pull a first-aid kit out of his mouth as he ran over to Tsukuyo.

Meanwhile, Gintoki got close to Tsukuyo and looked over her wounds from head to toe. "Why do you always have to be so stubborn?" he asked her.

Tsukuyo frowned at him. "I just don't want to make you worry…"

"We're already way past that point," he replied. "At this rate, I'm never going to let you leave my sight again."

Tsukuyo weakly smiled. "And that's exactly why I didn't want you to worry."

Gintoki just gave her a small smile in return. "You fool..."

Meanwhile, Shinpachi was busy commending their saviors. "I have to say, I'm impressed with you guys!" he told them. "Did you really fight your way in here all by yourselves?"

"Well actually, there's a small part of the story that Mutsu seems to have left out," said Sakamoto with a smile. "You see, while we were waiting at Kintoki's place, a bunch of lovely girls showed up asking for the whereabouts of their boss. Now what was the name of their group again…? The Hakya?"

Tsukuyo's eyes immediately widened. "Do you mean the Hyakka!?" she shouted.

"Ah, that's it!" Sakamoto said as he pointed a finger in the air. "The Kyakka! Yes, indeed. They really are a bunch of nice young women. They showed up at Kintoki's house looking for Tsukuyo and once we explained what had happened to her, they begged us to bring them along! Ha ha, can you imagine? A bunch of women wanted to board my ship!"

"They didn't want to board because you were on it though…" Shinpachi muttered.

"They came with you?" asked Tsukuyo out of surprise. "So where are they now?"

"Where do you think?" asked Sakamoto with a grin. "They're on this ship right now, fighting off Takasugi's goons."

Tsukuyo could only lightly smile at this. "They…were really worried about me? Those idiots…I'll never understand why they hold me in such high regard…"

"Oh, stop being modest for once, would you?" Gintoki told her seriously. "They obviously love you, so they came to help you. And it's a good thing too, because we're going to need all the help we can get for what's going to happen next."

Tsukuyo glanced at Gintoki with a look of curiosity. "And what's that?"

Gintoki stared at her for a second before he stood up straight with a determined look on his face.

"We're going to kick Takasugi's ass."

And another chapter done! After a long ass break! Er, yeah, sorry about that. My other story was giving me trouble, so naturally this one got delayed and blah blah blah excuses excuses I'm lazy, you basically know the drill by now right? XD

Anyways, I finally got around to exploring Gintoki's past in this chapter, and all I can say is that I hope I did it justice. I tried my best to explain it, at least XD And then a bunch of characters showed up that barely ever interact with each other and they all got together and now basically we're going to switch back to action pretty soon! Yay!

You know what I've noticed ever since I started writing Gintama fanfiction? The Gintama characters all have different ways of referencing each other, and it gets really confusing sometimes XD For example, some are easy, like Shinpachi who usually just adds "san" to everyone's name. "Gin-san", "Tsukuyo-san", "Katsura-san", etc. But then there's characters like Kagura, who call Gintoki "Gin-chan" and Katsura "Zura". That's simple enough, but what does she call Sakamoto? "Loud guy?" XD And what about Mutsu? And how does everyone else refer to Mutsu? Honestly, I wish that somebody would make a chart for all of the Gintama characters and how they refer to each other. It would be such a big help for fanfiction writers like myself! That way I wouldn't have to look this stuff up on my own XD Just a thought ;)

Speaking of characters, I'm supposed to be doing a top ten, right? Well, back to it then!

Number 4: Kagura

Listen to me. Kagura is my favorite main female lead in any anime or manga ever. Period. She's better than Nami, Winry, Kaoru, and is leagues above Sakura. What can I say? I love her attitude. She's so carefree, but will get upset over the smallest things, which is hilarious. She's also fierce and badass when she wants to be! But at the same time she can be really naïve and innocent. There's just so much going on there! Meanwhile, she is also a Yato, which automatically makes her awesome in combat! You just can't deny it! And I really like her tragic backstory with her family, which shows us that she's had to deal with a lot of stuff in her life. It's just sad…And finally, Kagura is just downright adorable. Her design, her interactions with the rest of the cast, her role as Gintoki's daughter/sister; it's just too damn adorable! And, oh man, when I saw tiny kid Kagura in the last episode (Episode 326), she was just so cute that I think my heart melted…Yup, that's right, it melted…Why is she so adorable!?

But yeah, I would say that Kagura is easily one of the best female characters in all of anime, and I would also definitely say that she is the best female lead. The only competition that comes to mind would be Kyoukai from Kingdom, and that's only if you consider her the main lead of that series…So yeah, Kagura wins XD

And that's that! Please feel free to leave a review with your thoughts on the chapter, and also let me know if you listened to the OST I suggested. I'd appreciate it XD Next time: everyone springs into action while they make a plan! Should be fun :) See you then!