Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Chapter two

3 weeks ago…

It was a sunny morning in Edo city. The street was crowded with hardworking and active citizens as always. This, of course, meant that both Gintoki and Kagura were still asleep inside of Yorozuya Gin-chan.

Kagura grunted when she heard Gin-chan muttering something about spoiled milk and Shinpachi complaining about Gin being too lazy to even get healthy food for himself. Gin then retorted back that the milk that went bad is regular milk, not his strawberry flavoured one. Soon after the argument, Shinpachi decided to take the matter in his own hand and went out. Kagura found their conversation too worthless to even care, so she decided to go back to sleep in her closet.

2 hours after her peaceful sleep, Kagura was awoken by something that resembled earthquake. The vibration was so strong that it literally sent the Yato girl flying out her room, destroying the closet door in process. And if that wasn't bad enough, Kagura landed on the hard wooden floor painfully… only to be stepped on by Gintoki.

"Gyaa! My strawberry puddings!" Gin screamed as he tried unsuccessfully to carry all 34 cups of pudding he'd won from the convenience store in his arms.

Kagura sat up and screamed back at him, "Gin-chan! What the hell!"

And then the Yato girl finally realised what was going on when she noticed that the whole house was shaking and the electricity went out. Like one of those scenes you'd see in a horror movie, right before the giant octopus will invade Earth.

Nope, she decided, this is definitely a dream.

With that thought in mind, Kagura went into the washroom and splashed cold water on her face, ignoring the rumbling sound of the roof as it threatened to fall down. And just when she was about to finished brushing her teeth, Gintoki burst into the washroom and swooped her in his arm two seconds before the roof will collapsed onto where she was.

"Do you want to die, you damn brat?! There's an earthquake! How can you just ignore it and get on with your daily routine like that, huh?!"

"This is no earthquake, Gin-chan." Kagura mumbled. "It is just a dream. Once you go back to sleep and wake up again, all will be well."

"Then go on and sleep forever! If you go to sleep right now, the place where you'll be when you woke up next is probably at a hospital or in heaven, you hear me?!"

"Whatever…"

After seeing that it is useless to try and get Kagura out of her slumber state, Gin decided to throw her over his shoulder like a potato sack and walked unsteadily towards the door with Sadaharu following close behind.

"Gin-san!" Shinpachi shouted when Gin opened the front door.

"Shinpachi, I thought that you might be dead! What's with this earthquake anyway? Why is it taking so long?"

"Don't curse me like that! And this is no earthquake…"

Kagura's limp body shot up from behind Gintoki, fully awake now. "Ha! I told you…"

"It is an attack! Look at the sky and the Terminal!"

When Kagura and Gintoki looked up, their jaws dropped and their mouth hung open.

Above them was a big, enormous, gigantic black ship. It was so big that it covered more than half of the sky, making it impossible for sunlight to reach the Earth's surface. The ship was headed towards the Terminal, which is now falling down like a broken match stick from the enemies' attack. People are screaming and running everywhere, like one of those scenes you'd see in a horror movie, right after the giant octopus invaded Earth.

Nope, they both decided, this is definitely a dream.

"This is not a dream!" Shinpachi shouted, being a straight man that he is. "Hijikata-san and Okita-san are waiting downstairs. They want to speak to you."

"Hah? What do they want?" Gin asked as he walked down and saw the two unhappy policemen standing by their car.

"Sup, Danna," Okita greeted while Hijikata just stared at the broken Terminal. "Ah~ah. They really have done it this time."

"Who did this," Gin asked as he dropped Kagura to the side, "the Harusame?"

"No. We'd be much better off if it were the Harusame." Said Hijikata, he lit his cigarette and blew out an unhealthy looking smoke. "I'm talking about the Bakufu. Those people opened the new portal which joined our galaxy to another one. They weren't careful and ended up opening the wrong portal which exposed Earth to the invincible, bloodthirsty clan that was put into solitude 20000 years ago. And now that the clan have enemies to crush, they've decided that Earth will be their first target."

"You're kidding," said Gin, half joking half serious, "what are they called?"

"Kumoto." Answered Okita, "They're called the Kumoto clan. It seems like they resemble humans a lot, but…"

"I've heard of them before!" Added Kagura excitedly, "Papi told me that they are the ancestors of our Yato clan many years ago. But the Yato and the Kumoto separated because of the conflicts, which later on resulted a bloodbath war between them."

"Great," Hijikata swore and bit down on his cigarette. "Now we know that we are up against something worse than what we had expected."

"I knew that you would have something to do with this, China girl." Okita smirked. "It seems like we're going to have to arrest you."

"This doesn't have anything to do with me, Sadist. We separated our planet 20000 years ago." Kagura smirked back. They were in their fighting stances when Shinpachi spoke up.

"And… why are you guys here, Hijikata-san, Okita-san?"

"You see," Hijikata coughed uncomfortably, "more than half of our men were supposed to protect the Terminal, but since this had already happened, I can only assume that they are probably dead or are terribly injured. With most of our men down… well…"

"We would like to hire you guys." Okita finished the sentence. A long, awkward silence formed between them. Gintoki finally started to laughed when he saw big cash coming his way.

"So… what do you say, Danna?"

"We're in." Gin replied. He then quickly adds, "But only under certain conditions that we will have enough space to put in 34 cups of strawberry pudding. And remember that you guys came to us to ask for our help, so don't expect us to be your bitches for you. Got that?"

"Whatever." Hijikata grumbled. He was actually against this idea at first, but then he had to swallow down his pride when Kondo told him that they do not have much choice left.

"Then, let us go get our stuff… Ah."

While they weren't looking, the house had collapsed down. A piece of paper flew from Otose's Snack House and landed in Gin's hand. It read:

'Dear the good-for-nothing lazy ass bastard who never pays my rent, Gintoki, (Gin: why does she even bothers to write Dear?)

Tama, Catherine and I have decided to go help my friend's business at the country side for quite some time. If you do not have the money to pay by the time we come back, you're dead, understand? You're beyond dead. You will suffer in hell, understand?

Love, Catherine, Tama and Otose

"Well, we just have to use the money we get from you guys to fix the house and buy new stuff. Let's go Shinpachi, Kagura." Gin gathered strawberry puddings that are on the floor and stepped inside the car casually. Hijikata curses his luck then followed in. The car drove to the Shinsengumi's headquarters and dropped them off. Okita explained the situation to them in details and while he leads them to the meeting room.

"We are lucky because we still have supply electricity left. I guess that the rest of the town will lose power soon because the Terminal that conduct electricity to feed the whole town has collapsed. Many houses, like yours, had also received the impact from the crash and collapsed down too. It is only the matter of time before people will start evacuating out of Edo… do you understand the word evacuate, China?"

"I do!" replied Kagura. "What, do you think I am stupid and uneducated? Do you understand the word educate, Sadist?"

"Do too." Replied Okita. "I have been educated about the sadism stuff. Want me to educate you on that, huh, China?"

As they argued, Okita finally opened the door to the meeting room. He then added the last important thing that he forgot to tell Yorozuya.

"One last thing… there is somebody I would like you guys to meet."

Kagura stepped into the room and froze.

"Danna, Megane, China girl… meet the previous captain of Harusame's 7th division, Kamui."

And sure enough, in the middle of the room, sat the certain orange-head who was smiling one of his dangerous smiles. He looked up at Kagura and lifted his right hand in a greeting manner.

"Hiya," Kamui chirped cheerfully, "my dear little sister!"