Thanks for all the reviews! I had a bit of a hard time getting the right tone for this chapter, but if you've been following my stories for a while, you'll notice I do most my updating in Jan-Feb as that's my fanfic anniversary, where I try to update every WIP story I have. Well, next month will be 8 years for me, with just under 250k words written.
Thank you for all the reviews, and Mirror Under The Sink, we all enjoy the suffering of our faves. Welcome.
"We're here to bust you asshats out."
*** Three minutes earlier ***
Gin and Hijikata reached a quiet understanding that would have been comfortable if under better circumstances. Gin leaned his head back in exhaustion, wondering what else could go wrong when the vents started shaking.
Both sets of eyes immediately trained on the duct, that was now clanging, denting, and sagging. Hijikata was too puzzled to even move into a defensive position in front of Gin.
With one final tortured groan, the vents caved onto the ground and looked around.
"Oh? Did I make it to the file room already?" he asked, rubbing his head. Hijikata spluttered, eyes bulging and at their unexpected luck (if that was what he'd call being in a room alone with two of the infamous Joui rebels—Nobleman Katsura Kotarou and Shiroyasha.)
On seeing the other man, Gin felt apathetic, which was as much of a warning sign as anything. But their day had turned in an unexpected direction, at every point something playing out insanely, so if something expected happened, it would actually be more surprising—oh his head spun. Or maybe his condition was preventing him from reacting appropriately to seeing his oldest living friend?
"Katsura?" Hijikata managed.
The Joui rebel evidently hadn't noticed them yet though he boasted having sword-sharp survival instincts from the years of attempted government assassinations. Katsura said, automatically, "It's not Katsura, it's oh wait, you got it right." His gaze landed on the two samurai chained and sitting on the floor.
"A-ah, good. We found you. Look, Elizabeth, we found them, just like we were trying to," Katsura exclaimed, laughing jovially, hands on his hips.
"You had no idea we were here," Hijikata accused.
"Not true, tell them, Elizabeth."
Gin had been staring a little past Katsura at the vent, which a dirty blob had slowly been growing from, with a disgusted look.
"Zura, get it out of there," he pointed and Katsura finally took notice and started trying to pull the blob out.
"He's stuck! He can't come out!"
"I hear prune juice helps with that."
"Come on, Elizabeth, squeeze!" Katsura cried out. Hijikata had to face away from the fiasco. A round of coughing caught Katsura's attention from where he was wailing, attempting to pull his friend out of the event. He slowly let go of his mystery duck friend, his face dropping from open to appraising and furrowed. That cough was coming from Gintoki and it sounded wet, raspy, and exhausted. He kneeled by his friend, tucking a stray piece of his own hair in concentration.
"Gintoki? Are you alright?" Katsura took in his pale face, dark circles under his eyes, the tremor to his hands, and the glazed, exhausted look in his eyes, along with the collection of open cuts and bruises littering his body. He seemed…faded. Worse, snuffed like a candle. Like he had spent days fighting on the battlefield, and had finally lain down and accepted his fate. It was…disquieting to see in his friend. Hijikata caught his eye for a moment with a sobering look. He didn't seem surprised at his condition but rather stressed. As Katsura had expected, this must have been a while coming. Katsura unsheathed his katana, still waiting for a response from his friend, Gin and Hijikata's chains clattered to the ground.
Gin opened his eyes from a long blink to look at his friend. It's funny, considering he'd just been remembering his Joui friend. He wasn't about to say, 'I was dreaming about you,' he was lucid enough not to say that. Although for how long, he didn't know. He could hear a clock ticking down to when he'd lose consciousness, the only thing was he couldn't see the numbers—oh his head hurt fiercely and the hit he'd taken to the back of the head wasn't helping.
"He's been in bad shape. It's, he said it's related to his blood sugar? China girl said it started this twelve hours ago, Glasses said earlier than that." Hijikata felt himself getting nervous as Katsura's face hardened and his lips pressed together. Like a man who been unable to prevent a disaster—grim.
His voice changed, he sounded younger, but quiet, deliberate—perhaps practiced. "Around fifteen hours? What do you think, Gintoki?"
"Around there-ee," Gin's words trailed off as his eyes suddenly rolled back into his head and the tremors in his hands traveled up and down his body.
clang. clang. clang.
Both black-haired men surged forward as Gin's head lolled on the side and his body shuddered and his muscles went rigid. Katsura threw his hand behind Gin's head and his arm braced across Gin's chest and shoulders.
"Oi, shit, what is this?" Hijikata instinctually secured his hand on Gin's leg. Gin wasn't shaking uncontrollably, more all his muscles had tensed, exacerbating the tremors.
Katsura didn't answer him, even if he did, he wouldn't have anything to tell him, he hadn't seen anything like this before. The shaking subsided after a few moments as Katsura held onto his friend, until slowly, his muscles released. Katsura breathed a sigh of relief, it hadn't been a seizure, like he'd feared, but some kind of loss of consciousness. "His pulse?" he asked.
Hijikata moved down Gin's arm slightly, ignoring the sweat dripping down his face. "I can't get it."
Katsura swore and went to Gin's pulse point at his throat. "It's thready, but he's with us." He looked at the door, knowing how many amanto were undoubtedly behind it. Then turned back to Gin and patted his cheek a few times, then watched for a change of condition.
It took Gin twenty seconds to wake up from his stupor, and his eyes opened, looking worse off than before. Gin huffed out a few hoarse breaths before he whispered, "that was an…experience."
"Gintoki, I didn't know you still had this sickness," Katsura said, his voice deadly quiet. He held onto Gin's free wrist and stared into his glassy eyes. "I didn't know they could get this bad. You should have told me."
The silver-haired man gave a small sigh, looking a bit sheepish. "Sorry. But most of this…is new."
Katsura sighed and reached into his pocket, pulling out a small embroidered pouch. He loosened the drawstrings and poured a small pile of crushed wagashi sugar into Gin's palm.
Gin's eyes flew to Katsura's as he realized what it was. "Zura, you—"
"Eat," Katsura ordered, pushing Gin's hand upward. Gin obeyed and poured the sugar into his mouth, swallowing it with a little difficulty.
"After all this time?" he asked incredulously.
"I told you I'd hold onto it for if you needed it, so I couldn't bring myself to throw it away."
"And that's going to fix this?" Hijikata had to ask.
"Not fix him really, but when we have to move, hopefully he'll be able to move," Katsura responded.
Hijikata gestured to the armored door pointedly, "And when are we going to move? I may not have my sword but I can make a pretty good distraction."
Katsura nodded grimly, helping Gin pull himself more upright against the wall. "There's at least a dozen out there but if they haven't noticed the noise, they might be occupied with something." The long-haired man got up and peaked out the window. "Four, no, five, out there right now, but more will come if we try and fight. We can't use the vents either," Katsura said, eyeing Gin.
"So we'll have to risk it and see if they'll thin out or else we won't have a chance," Hijikata added.
Then, likely for the first time, Hijikata's masochistic nightmare of a subordinate did what Hijikata wanted.
"GIANT MONJU VANILLA SHAKE CANNON!"
Gin felt the rumble and creak of the wall before he could comprehend the loud explosion he heard. The entire brick wall of the town hall was obliterated. Katsura pulled himself over Gin as the heavy door keeping them in was knocked off its hinges and sent into the opposite side of the room. The wall to the sides of the doorway caved several feet on the sides after it had been swiss-cheesed by projectiles.
Now standing on the brick rubble were several imposing figures as the amanto struggled to shake off the explosion and more of them charged into the room. Gin and to wonder if this was a hallucination, or if the rhino amanto were a hallucination—there was really nothing logical about this situation.
To the right, Sougo, who was smoldering cheerfully from the size of the explosion. "We're here to bust you asshats out," Kagura gave the creatures a crazed Yato grin and pointed her umbrella at the leader. Then she charged and slammed her fist into his snout so hard he stumbled back and Gin heard something break.
"Parfait punch!" she shouted.
Gin frowned. They planned a rescue operation but what's with these stupid attack names? They can't be…
Kondo unsheathed his katana and ran into the fray. "Triple chocolate mousse Baked Alaska strike!"
They…they really are doing that.
Yamazaki backed Kondo up. "An-pan pound!"
Sougo by now had charged up another shot and aimed it at a group of now-nervous amanto. "Mochi-God-of-War-hot-sauce-massacre-Gear-Fourth-Jet-Gattling!"
The grin slid off Gin's face as annoyance replaced it.
"What are you—searching for the One Piece?" He shouted at the Shinsengumi captain.
"360 Calorie Shot!" Shinpachi yelled, flailing three swords in his hands, trying to fend off an amanto. "1080 Pound Man!"
"Huh? The greatest swordsman is here too?" Gin shouted back hoarsely.
"I-wish-I-had-a-popsicle-strike!" Kyuubei shouted, slicing the back of another amanto.
"That's a Freudian slip right there!"
Katsura thought of the empty pouch in his pocket as he prepared his blade with a relieved grin. "Wagashi warrior cleave!" He prepared, then slashed out his katana, cutting deep into the nearest amanto's leg. Then he reached behind him and grabbed Gin's upper arm, who stumbled as he was pulled along. Katsura nodded to Hijikata, who n stopped an incoming amanto trying to escape from Kagura's berserker attacks and Shinpachi's three flailing swords. They made their way towards the now opened wall, Gin's friends and allies blocking every pass the amanto made to try to cut them off or attack. Gintoki did his best just to keep his eyes forward and focused on limping on a burning leg. Trying not stumble too badly over the chunks of concrete as his vision went out in blotches. The clattering swords and bellows of rhinos and shouts of sweets soon started to blend with something else. Quiet whispers to clattering chains, a clang, clang, clang, like a small rock being banged against a metal bar.
Soon they had reached the Shinsengumi car and he noticed Sougo slip into the driver's seat. Hijikata appeared at Gin's side and held the door open while Katsura maneuvered Gin's slow to respond body into the seat. The Joui rebel and Shinsengumi Lieutenant then exchanged a look Gin missed. He felt as if his hearing had gone somewhere else and he had a foot in two places.
He was laying on the ground, immobile. He was sure his back had been near broken and every inch he tried to move felt like a knife slash to his back. He figured he'd better stay as still as possible for a few days. So he ignored the jeers of the other prisoners, and the ache and cold in his bones, and the bruises he'd received along with his back injury the day before, on his first day in the jail. He ignored the blood and dirt coloring his hair and the numbness in his bare feet, and the clang clang clang of an old man two cells over on death row. He didn't ignore, however, the small footsteps of the Yaemon's daughter. A little blonde girl the age of the one he'd saved, who was curious and asked him questions about what he'd done. Another time, Gin thinks he would have made her laugh. Today he feels broken and miserable. He is nineteen and will die here. "Kid, punishment isn't always about what you've done."
"Get him to the hospital. I'm going to deal with the amanto and get his kids, we'll meet you there" Katsura told Hijikata. They heard Kagura's battle cry in the air that was thick with dust. Katsura's hand was secured onto Gin's as he spoke, the red eyes looking very far away, head fallen back against the seat. He'd done well for his condition and the idea of having to force his oldest friend to lucidity again cramped his chest.
Asaemon wasn't scared of him, though. She wasn't scared of anything. She came back the next day to ask him what he meant (she didn't get an answer), and the day after that, she did not ask him anything, just read her picture book out loud, got up and left. And it continued every day, after Gin could move again, but was weakening from hunger as they hadn't fed him, and beatings. It was quieter now that the clanging had stopped with the old man's death. Others had been executed too, and he was one of the few remaining. One day they played cards, and only stopped after his hands shook too badly to continue. Another time they sat there, on two sides of the bars, completing one drawing in the dirt. Asaemon never offered him food or comfort, as if she didn't understand starvation and only took him for a sick man, or if she had accepted death was the way the world worked. It was better that way, Gin reflected. You could live a happier life if she could accept death like that. Gin couldn't bring himself to spite the girl, no matter how hard he tried, over those thirteen days he starved.
"We'll take care of it," Hijikata said, climbing into the passenger seat and striking his last cigarette as the car peeled back, then shot forward with a quick turn, engine roaring to life.
They'd made it out, finally. And they had given him so much ammunition for insults and jokes with that cheesy entrance they'd made. Even Toshiro had participated. Gin would be a bad friend if he didn't give him shit about it for the rest of his life.
Gin couldn't help a small pleased smile cross his lips as he looked at the rising run through his blurry vision. Morning again.
With that thought, the cotton-filled exhaustion in his head seeped through his limbs and his eyes fluttered closed into blackness.
Gin lay on the dirt cell floor after a beating on the thirteenth day. The air was cold enough to take some pain from his bruises and his body was much too starved to shiver properly. But he wouldn't have to deal with this much longer-the execution was today. Gone would be the constant episodes between portions of water, gone would be the memories of the war and the Joui, the smile of a young executioner's daughter; washed away by his death just like his master. He thought about the child he saved. No regrets, he promised himself.
I've tricked you all! This story isn't over! Watch out for the last chapter in the next issue of Jump GIGA.
Also, wow, didn't expect this chapter to be the mammoth that it became, but at the last second, I realized I needed those flashbacks.
And anybody who isn't familiar with one piece, zoro's attacks are actually 360 caliber shot and 1080 pound phoenix - I couldn't resist.
See you one last time!