Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Chapter 12

Kagura stumbles in the dark as the path gets narrower. Her energy is drained from her body, her arm is hurting… but what pains her the most, is that her stomach is freaking empty.

"Sadist… I need to rest. Like, urgently."

Okita stops moving and turns around to see Kagura as she leans against the wall tiredly. Her face is pale white and sweat runs down from the side of her face when she exhales a long breath. Okita teases her regardless, for his sadistic nature just can't let this go.

"Are you getting weaker, China?"

"Shut… shut up." Kagura mutters. All of a sudden, the small path way is filled with a scary growling sound of a beast. Okita immediately goes on alert mode and grabs his katana.

"Is that… our enemy? What sort of monster do they keep on this ship that will make that kind of sound?"

"Don't be rude!" Kagura shouts from where she sits. "It is not a beast. It is my stomach rumbling. I'm just hungry."

"Wow." Okita's tone is fills with genuine surprise. "What sort of monster do you have hidden in your stomach?"

Kagura spits at him with a scowl on her face. "This is all your fault to begin with! First, you blow up our supply bag with a fucking time bomb. Then, you were so impotent that you can only get me a banana for breakfast! What sort of a man are you?!"

"A really sadistic one who also enjoys seeing people suffers from not getting any breakfast." Okita replies and sits down beside the pale Kagura. Then he reaches his hand into his pants (yes, people. His pants, not his pocket) and try to pull something out. "Hang on; I think it must be here somewhere…"

"What the hell are you doing?"

"Found it!" Okita pulls out an object that he was looking for. Something that had once saved his life from being assassinated.

A bottle of Tobacco sauce.

"Here. Eat this, and your spirit will be on fire. You will start running in no time at all."

"… What are you, Doraemon?!"

"People call me magical." Okita smiles and twists the cap of the Tobacco bottle. The lid comes off easily with a small 'pop' sound. Then, Okita notices the bruise forming on Kagura's arm as she grasps it tightly in pain.

"Something feels off…" Kagura grunts painfully as she tries to wiggles her shoulder.

"Hey you… that arm…"

"Hmm?"

"It should be fixed if we bend it the other way."

A total déjà vu.

Foreshadow of a disaster that is about to occur.

"Yeah… no. I know better than that." Kagura backs away from Okita's cold hands when he tries to grab onto her shoulder. Okita makes the puppy eyes which resembled Sadaharu's when he wants to eat another sex doll and said;

"I just want to help."

Kagura freezes when she accidently met his puppy eyes. Maybe… just maybe, he really wants to help me. I mean, what's the point of breaking my arm now? His life also depends on this. Maybe he isn't that bad and I should trust him…

No. Screw that kind of shallow, naïve thinking. This guy is a fucking sadist who have obsession with S&M play. I can never trust him. Nuh-huh!

"I remember what happened last time you tried to fix my arm. I broke your leg."

Okita's puppy eyes disappear in a flash and his same stoic looks returns. "Tsk… I thought that your brain and your capability would smaller than this."

"My brain is bigger than your crotch." Kagura retorts spitefully.

"…How do you know how big my crotch is?"

"You rubbed it against the back of my neck when you were riding on my shoulder! I can never forget something so disgusting and gross!"

Okita throws back his head against the wall.

"You are making me sound like a sexual offender. I'm a police here. The good guy who feed goldfish."

Kagura let out a sound of disbelief and pushes away the Tobacco bottle. However, Okita wasn't about to give her the choice. He lifts up the bottle and splash the Tobacco sauce over her face. Kagura screams in agony and started running down the path.

"OW! My eyes! My mouth! I'm going to be blind… I'm going to be blind! Damn it, Sadist!"

Okita watches Kagura running through the path with amusingly with a small smirk.

"Life is full of pain… and a little bit of sadistic touch. Tobacco."

He grins even bigger. A grin that would make Hijikata and Kagura comment:

"It wasn't funny! Why are you grinning like a fool?!"

And then he follows the running Kagura down the small path. Kagura was so far ahead of him that he thought it would take him a lot of time to catch up to her. To his surprise, Kagura runs back to him in about 5 seconds with a panic look on her face as if she has just discovered something fearful.

"Sadist… Oi! I think I just saw… saw…"

"Hmm?" Okita asks, not being able to understand what can make her panic so much. Kagura gulps and yells with a very excited tone.

"I THINK I JUST SAW YODA!


Okita and Kagura are currently peeking through the door where Kagura had claimed she saw 'Yoda' from. Her description of this Yoda was:

"He was short and his face was all wrinkly. I can't really see his skin, but I think it is green. He was also holding some sort of long stick like a laser beam! He's got to be Yoda!"

… Or something along the line. Okita looks at her excited face with all kinds of complicated feelings in his chest. He wants to crush her dreams by telling her that Yoda can't possibly be in this small room. And even if Yoda is indeed here, Yoda must be their enemy. It's given since Yoda is in their enemy's ship.

On the other hand, Okita find himself enjoying the cheerful expression on her face instead of a scowl she had always given to him. But that must be changed since he is more than positive that Yoda is not here. Now, let me see this Yoda for myself.

In that dark, glowing room is an old grandpa standing still. His height is somewhere around Okita's waist. He is sort of bald and in his hand is a long stick which glows in the green aura. No way… is that really Yoda?!

And then Okita's predicament was cut loose when he gets a better look. There stood in the middle of the room is no Yoda. He is just an old, short grandpa who resembles Yoda a lot, like how certain grandpas does. And to Okita's and Kagura's disappointment, that stick in his hand that looked like a laser beam sword is actually a broom stick.

He smacks Kagura hard at the back of her head. "You brat! That is not Yoda, it is just a janitor."

Kagura returns with a kick in the gut. "You bastard! I saw that look on your face 4 seconds ago. You thought he was Yoda too!"

"Who was it that got me all excited about Yoda?! It was you!"

"Shut up! I was excited too! I thought he could teach me some technique to make Gin-chan pays my salary, but then…"

"What are you youngsters doing out there?" Asks the fake Yoda who is sweeping the floor slowly without turning around. Kagura and Okita stop grabbing and kicking each other at once and lower their voices into a whisper.

"Sadist… You answer him."

"Huh? You do it!"

"You should do it because you are older and you get along with old people, no?"

Okita sighs and run his fingers through his light brown hair. He's then stands up and walks into the room casually. "Um… hey, janitor-san. Hotsuma asked me to tell you that this one guy puked in the cafeteria… it is real nasty so I think you should go to the cafeteria now and…"

"Hotsuma?" The old man repeats slowly and stops sweeping the floor. "Ah, you youngsters must be from Earth, aren't you?"

"How did you know?" Okita admits while Kagura got up from behind the door, seeing no point in hiding any longer. The old man laughs.

"How, you asked? Well there is this simple answer to it." The old man drops the broom and turns around. He'd then opened his eyes, revealing a shocking resemblance to certain someone they just saw.

"You are…" Kagura's mouth hangs open. Okita rubs his eyes to make sure that this is not an illusion.

"Yes. My name is Hotsuma. I'm the true last survivor of the Kumoto clan."


"How is this possible?" Kagura yells. "The Hotsuma we saw… has aged so much!"

"I think you got the wrong idea here, China." Okita said and take a long, careful look at the old man. His head flashing back to the Hotsuma they saw earlier and then he realises that this guy in front of him is indeed the older version of Hotsuma. "What is going on, old man? The Hotsuma we saw earlier also claims that he is the last survivor."

"He did?" Asks the old Hotsuma. "Ah… he just like me. I created him from my own DNA after all… I shouldn't be surprised."

"He is an artificial being like the others?" Kagura questioned. "Then how come he is so much stronger than the other artificial beings?"

"That is because he is the original one who got my raw DNA and because I trained him." Old Hotsuma replies calmly. Kagura almost can't see the same personality in them at all. The old man continues;

"He was the first one I created after everyone in my planet is gone. I raised him like a son, and he treated me like his father. That's when I learned that I no longer want to make name for myself and attack anymore planets. I just wanted to live a peaceful life with my son on my own broken planet… but Hotsuma has a different idea. He has the blood of the Kumoto inside him and thought that it is a disgrace to live a happy life. He saw my diary and picked up what I planned when I was younger… when I was still bloodthirsty. He took this ship and artificial beings without my permission and headed to Earth 3 weeks ago."

"Seriously? So you are the true last Kumoto… right?"

The old man nods. "That is correct."

Kagura exchange worry glances with Okita after they'd heard the whole story and whispers to him. "Sadist… what should we do? His story does add up."

"Even if you ask me that…" Okita scratches his back and suggests. "Should we hold him as a hostage and force him into S&M play then broadcast the clip to the entire ship?"

"HECK NO! WHAT ARE YOU, A MONSTER?!"

The two rival drop to the floor and started fighting.

"Um…" The old man tries to speak up to the two who are now strangling each other with a deadly determination. "The thing is…"

"Not now, older version of Hotsuma." Kagura who got on top of Okita and is currently getting the upper hand speaks to Hotsuma. "I'm trying to save your anus from candles and whatnot. Just wait until… wah!"

"Thing is…" The old man tries to speak again to Okita who flipped the situation around and is now sitting on Kagura's stomach. His one hand pushes her down while the other grabs her flailing arm.

"Not now, fake Yoda. Wait until I get to torture you and show it to the whole ship, then you can say whatever you want. Though, I doubt you will be able to say much by then. *Insert evil smirk*"

"LISTEN UP, BRATS! I KNOW THE WAY TO GET THE SHIP BACK TO THE KUMOTO PLANET SO IF YOU WOULD PLEASE GIVE ME A SECOND TO EXPLAIN MY PLAN TO YOU YOUR PLANET SHALL BE SAVED!"

Upon hearing this explanation, the two rivals stop their own battle and face the old man.

"What do you mean?" Asks Okita who is still on top of Kagura, just in case what the old man might tell them turn out to be useless and he must sticks to the original 'S&M broadcast' plan.

Hotsuma points to the corner of the room. "That, over there, is a control panel. If I can just press the home button, this ship will head right back to the home planet. But the thing is, the button is secured by a metal top, so it will take a lot of strength to pull out the top. I've been trying to do that for the past 3 weeks, but I'm too old for it and…"

Kagura and Okita waste no time to get up right away and race toward the panel in the corner of the room.

"Rip it off!"

"UNGHHHHH!"

With both of their ridiculous and desperate strength, they pull on the metal cap. The metal budges a little bit and Kagura put her head down to bite it and tear it to shreds.

"OUHH!"

"Hang in there, China!" Okita cheers. He places his foot on the ground and smashes his head on the metal. "COME OFF!"

Clearly, as you can see, the two are desperate to end this mission as soon as possible. And what else is stronger than two desperate enemies?

Well, there might be something. But not if the enemies are Okita and Kagura.

Finally, with the last of their strengths, the metal was yanked off. Kagura and Okita fly back to the opposite end of the room with Okita landing on top of Kagura.

"Uhh…" Kagura grunts and wiggles awkwardly under his weigh. "Sadist, get off me! I'll report you for sexual harassment!"

The word sexual harassment rang through the room like any other word. It came out of Kagura's mouth casually and breaks into small molecules, some bounce on the wall while some others went through the wall. The few molecules that went through the wall travels in the air at the sound speed and find its way to the other room where Kamui and the younger Hotsuma are fighting. Then, the molecules entered Kamui's ears and register itself in his brain which immediately started to form the shape of the word and a picture of Kamui's imagination along side it.

Sexual harassment.

Kamui snarls and turns his head towards the direction that the sound came from furiously. He has left his little sister in the hands of that perverted Earthling long enough. It is time to take her back.

P.S. The entire dramatic sound event happened over the time length of 1.4 seconds.


Well, here is another chapter! Hope you enjoyed it. Tell me if you like the plot twist. I did it because I know that Gintama is not all comedy and action. Some episodes can be really touching and thoughtful and twisted, so I just had to do something like that.

PLEASE REVIEW, PEOPLE!