Hey guys, Murayama Tsuru here. Here is the next oneshot in this series. As Redguy221 requested, this is a story about Tsukuyo and Jiraia. I wasn't actually planning to do this story next but then I realized that Girl's Day (or Hina Matsuri) was coming up and I got the idea for this story…and then Hina Matsuri passed and I still hadn't finished this story…so yeah, it's a little late…please just pretend that today is March 3rd. Well anyway, I hope you enjoy ^_^

Disclaimer: I don't own Gintama; it belongs to Sorachi Hideaki-Sensei!

Tsukuyo sighed again as she watched Hinowa put up the Hina dolls. She wasn't quite sure why (and she didn't really understand Hinowa's explanation) of why they were celebrating Hina Matsuri. Since the holiday was usually only celebrated when a family had a daughter and they would put the dolls up to ensure that the girl would have a happy life and marriage.

So Tsukuyo decided to ask Yoshiwara's sun again why they were doing this. Last time she checked, Seita wasn't a girl, so this celebration wasn't necessary. After taking a drag on her pipe, she asked once again, "Hinowa, what are we doing this for again? It's not like there's a little girl in our family."

The black haired woman finished putting the doll she had just gotten from Seita onto one of the red, tiered shelves. She then maneuvered her wheelchair around to face the flaxen haired Ninja and said, with a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes, "There might not be a little girl in our household, but there is someone I hope has a happy marriage…perhaps to a certain lazy silver-haired man?"

Tsukuyo's cheeks turned bright pink at Hinowa's statement. She then turned away from the woman who was considered the sun of the underground pleasure city and stuttered, "I-I keep telling you, G-Gintoki's and my relationship is not like that…!"

Hinowa chuckled, "Who said anything about Sakata Gintoki? I'm sure there are other lazy, silver-haired men out there…"

Tsukuyo, turning a brighter shade of pink opened her mouth to say something, anything to make Hinowa talk about something else, but before she could, Seita came running in, carrying another doll, "Kaa-chan, I found the other doll you were looking for. Now we're sure to ensure that Tsukuyo-nee-chan has a happy marriage! Should I call Gin-nii-chan to see if he can come over?"

Tsukuyo whirled around, her face redder than ever and practically shouted, "NO! There's no need to call him!"

Tsukuyo didn't want to say anything more on the subject of Gin coming over or not. But seeing Seita's confused look and Hinowa's amused smile, she felt the need to explain her outburst, "Um…well, you see…I'm pretty sure those three don't celebrate Hina Matsuri."

"Buy Kagura is a girl, isn't she?" Seita quipped, "Why wouldn't they celebrate Hina Matsuri?"

"Well…that's because," Tsukuyo floundered for a minute, "Because Kagura is an Amanto, so she wouldn't know what Hina Matsuri is…?" when in doubt, always play the Amanto card; it will probably work about half the time.

Seita, processing what his sort of adopted sister had said, looked to Tsukuyo as if he didn't believe her lie for a minute. But after a moment, the boy shrugged and went back into the other room to look for any other Hina dolls that had long been gathering dust in the closet.

Once they boy was out of sight, Tsukuyo sighed in relief and Hinowa rolled her eyes, making Tsukuyo flinch a little in guilt. But the black haired lady said nothing and turned back to completing the set of Hina dolls that were slowly being unearthed from somewhere deep in the closet.

Feeling more than a little guilty now, Tsukuyo left the room herself, thinking about calling Gin to see if he and the other two would like to come over to celebrate with them. After all, it would be a good chance for Kagura to learn more about earth customs. Also, Gin probably wouldn't have told her about Hina Matsuri because it involved buying a fairly large amount of rather expensive dolls. And even though, one could buy only one or two of the dolls, that cheapskate Sakata Gintoki was sure to not want to spend any money on that sort of thing.

But before she could dial a single number a voice that almost made the blood freeze in her veins said, "Been awhile hasn't it, Tsukuyo?"

With the phone practically dropping from her nerveless fingers, Tsukuyo turned slowly and saw her teacher, her almost father, standing behind her with an almost unreadable expression on his face. He looked as he did when he had tried to burn Yoshiwara in order to give her a reason to kill her; not the burned out shell of a person she had always known, but the innocent-looking spider of a man who was willing to get his student to hate him so he could die as he had wanted to for a long time. Swallowing hard, the words that left her lips were, "S-Shishou, what are you doing here? I-I thought…"

Before she could finish her sentence, Jiraia shook his head and said, "No, I am not here to try and raze this city you seem to love so much. I woke up, in a matter of speaking, in order to celebrate Hina Matsuri with you."

As a very perplexed expression appeared onto her features, Tsukuyo asked, "But…I thought you told me to throw away my femininity. Why would you want to take part in a celebration that brings out any sort of feminine side of me?"

Her former teacher made a sound that was somewhere between a sigh and a scoff, "Yes, I did tell you to throw away your femininity, I thought it was the best thing you at the time, as you would be the one to replace me as the leader of the Hyakka. I imagine that being less aware of your sex has made your job easier. But, that being said, you are like a daughter to me so I want to see you happy, Tsukuyo."

Tsukuyo's eyes widened in surprise, she had always thought of Jiraia as a father figure (that's why his 'betrayal' had hurt so much), but she had never known that he thought of her as any sort of family, he had never let that sort of thing show after all (being the emotionless Ninja he was). So to hear that he came back from the grave to celebrate Hina Matsuri with her almost brought tears to her eyes.

She was about to fling herself into her master's arms (well, as much as Tsukuyo flings herself into anyone's arms) when Hinowa entered the room, "Tsukuyo, we're going to be late for the celebration. I almost forgot about it until one of our neighbors mentioned it, shall we…" the wheelchair bound woman trailed off mid-sentence as her eyes landed upon Jiraia and a Tsukuyo almost in tears.

Blinking, Hinowa turned to glare at Jiraia, "What are you doing here? Haven't you hurt her enough? I thought you died a long time ago."

"I did, as you know," Jiraia responded, "but I came back for Hina Matsuri."

Hinowa's eyes narrowed further, "It's never that simple with you. What are you really here for?"

Jiraia raised his hands in defense as well as a demonstration that he could no longer do anything being a ghost, "Nothing, I honestly came here to celebrate Hina Matsuri with Tsukuyo. I may not have shown it very well, but I did, and still do, think of her as my child."

"How very convenient that you happened to awaken on Hina Matsuri," Hinowa practically growled, then turning to Tsukuyo she said, "Do you want me to find someone to exorcise that ghost from our house?"

Tsukuyo shook her head just slightly, making Hinowa look at her as if she were almost off her rocker. After a minute though, she sighed and addressed Jiraia again, "If you want to spend the day with that's fine. But if I hear one negative thing about your day together, you will regret the day you came back from the grave with every fiber of your being."

Jiraia nodded slowly, a small smile on his face, "Yes Hinowa-san, I will make sure Tsukuyo has a good time. Your wrath is not something I would like to face, I think. I've heard many a rumor that would have made even the great Hosen cringe."

Hinowa gave Tsukuyo's former teacher one last contemptuous look, but said nothing else as eh wheeled herself out of the room. Once the black-haired lady was out of sight, Jiraia turned to Tsukuyo again and asked, "So, what would you like to do today now that we've gotten permission from your sun?"

Tsukuyo chuckled lightly and a small smile graced her lips, "Why don't we go to town? I heard that there's going to be some sort of celebration there."


Hina Matsuri in Yoshiwara was…different. Usually, families would go to the local Shinto shrine with their old Hina dolls and have them sent out to sea so that any bad luck that the dolls had accumulated over the years would be washed away with the tide, literally. But, since Yoshiwara was an underground 'paradise' there wasn't exactly a Shinto shrine or an ocean easily assessable for the festival…so they had to improvise.

Instead of a Shinto shrine, people would take their old Hina dolls to Hosen's old mansion, which had been converted into a shrine of sorts for occasions that called for a shrine. And instead of sending the dolls out to sea they burned them, as is customary in other Shinto rituals of warding off bad luck.

But there were all types in Yoshiwara, and not all of them thought that buying a new set of Hina dolls every year was necessary (like Hinowa). Those people would set up a display of the dolls, that were made to look like the emperor and empress and all of their courtiers, either before or on March 3rd. If the dolls were kept up any later, they were thought to bring bad luck on the daughter's love life. But since having any sort of happy marriage or life in Yoshiwara used to be an impossibility because of Hosen, both traditions were relatively new to the pleasure city.

Tsukuyo and Jiraia decided to go out and watch the festival for Hina Matsuri in Yoshiwara because Hinowa didn't seem too appreciative of Jiraia hanging around the house. Tsukuyo and Jiraia, though, weren't really crowd people so they watched the festival from the rafters of Hosen's old house.

As the two watched the ceremony, the two began talking about Tsukuyo's life after Jiraia died. Jiraia seemed genuinely interested in how Tsukuyo had been fairing ever since he had tried to burn down Yoshiwara back in volumes 29 and 30.

Tsukuyo, though, didn't really have much that she wanted to say about herself and tried to turn the conversation to her teacher instead. And so the ceremony that the two weren't really watching went, Jiraia asking about Tsukuyo and, to a lesser extent, Sakata Gintoki, and Tsukuyo deflecting her former teacher's questions back at him.

Once the ceremony of burning the bad luck was done, the two, seeing nothing else to do, decided to head back to Hinowa's house. On the way back, though, Jiraia stopped Tsukuyo and disappeared into a shop for a few minutes.

Just as the flaxen-haired leader of the Hyakka was beginning to worry about whether or not her former teacher had left her without saying goodbye, he reappeared with a small paper bag. With a quizzical look, Tsukuyo asked, "What's in the bag, Shishou? How did you buy something, I thought you were a ghost so you couldn't touch anything."

Jiraia smiled slightly, "Actually, before I came to see you, I found someone who could lend me a Haori that could turn ghosts solid. I didn't say anything about it before because Hinowa was sure to not let me see you if she knew that particular detail."

Tsukuyo smiled at that and then Jiraia motioned for her to close her eyes. Once her eyes were shut, she heard a slight rustling and then felt the Kunai hairpin she usually used being pulled out of her hair. Before the hair could fall out of place, though, she felt Jiraia's rough hands put something else in her hair.

Then her former teacher told her that she could open her eyes and when she did, she saw her face reflected in a nearby window. In place of the usual hairpin she wore, was a set of simple black picks that had what looked to be a set of moonflowers on the end of each.

She then heard her former teacher say, "I wanted to get you something as a present, but I wasn't sure what to get you. And then I saw these in that store over there and I thought they would suit you…I'm not…very good at buying things for people…I hope you like it."

Tsukuyo turned to face her teacher then, a smile and a 'thank you' on her lips, but Jiraia was on where to be seen. On the ground, near her feet, where Jiraia had been previously standing were her Kunai hairpins and a silver pipe which was embossed with a swirling design of a moonflower vine.

As she picked up the items on the ground, she heard her now invisible teacher say, "Be happy Tsukuyo, this is probably the last time we will meet." And as a single tear fell from her face, she felt a breeze that was almost like a rough finger try to brush the tear away.

When she got back to Hinowa's house later, Yoshiwara's sun was waiting near the entrance. Without turning around at Tsukuyo's entrance, Hinowa asked, "How was your day Tsukuyo?"

With a quiet sniffle, Tsukuyo answered, "It was the best Hina Matsuri I ever had."

And that is the end of this story ^_^ again sorry that it was late. Also, I'm not sure how in-character either Jiraia or Tsukuyo were. Jiraia hardly shows up in the Anime/manga, that it was hard for me to get a fix on his character. But I tried…and, I think that I will be updating this series tomorrow as well because tomorrow's White Day in Japan and I already have a story planned for then. So, as always if you'd like please leave a review, I love to know what you guys think. Until next time then, guys.

-Murayama Tsuru