Genre: Humour/Drama
Disclaimer: I do not own Gintama or any of the characters, except for the unknown guy cloaked in dark robes.
Gintama: Smackdown Arc
"Chocolate parfait! No, don't run away from me!" Gintoki yelled as he chases a life-sized chocolate parfait. For some reason, the dessert had sprung out feet.
"Noooooo," he cried as the parfait ran into a huge hole. Was it really a huge hole? This one had white crevices lining the upper and bottom parts, though.
"Haha, I ate your parfait, natural perm, uh-huh!"
"Hm?" Gintoki thought. "Did I just hear Kagura's voice?"
He looked up from the hole.
"Wait, isn't that just Kagura's mouth?!" he shouted, looking at a pair of familiar, blue eyes gazing at him.
"Looks nice, Gin-chan. Let me have a taste, yup!"
"What are you talking about, Kagura-chan? What else is there to eat- Are you referring to me?! No way, no way! You will get diabetes from eating me, Kagura-chan! It won't feel good, really! I will taste even waste than Otae's egg-"
A huge mouth engulfed him.
"Ah, I'm dead," Gintoki thought.
His eyes opened. The first thing he saw was a pair of blue eyes staring at him.
"Gin-chan? Are you alive? Gin-chan?" she asked, eating a banana right on top of him.
Gintoki looked at her for a while.
"So it was because of you that I got that weird ass dream!" he shouted, rapping her head smartly.
"Oww, it's painful, Gin-chan!" she complained, nursing her head.
Gintoki glanced around his surroundings. He seemed to be in a hospital room.
"I was taken to the hospital, huh?" he inquired. "How long was I out for?"
Kagura thought for a moment.
"Three days, yup!" she replied.
"Three days?!" he exclaimed. "My sugar level is running dangerously low! I need som-"
Gintoki grabbed the half-eaten banana out of Kagura's hands and chomped furiously on it.
"More, Kagura-chan, or I'm gonna die soon!" he managed to say between some heated munching.
"Here, Gin-chan!" Kagura planted an entire basket of… Just an empty basket in front of Gintoki.
"Kagura-chan," Gintoki said tentatively, pointing to the basket. "Why is it empty? Shouldn't it be full of fruits? Shouldn't I be the one eating them now, since I am the patient?"
"Don't worry, Gin-chan," she said, nodding her head with her eyes closed. "I ate them all for you, yup!"
Gintoki simply stared at the empty basket.
The door opened.
"Gin-san, you're awake!" Shinpachi exclaimed.
"Yeah, somehow I am, Patsuan," Gintoki muttered listlessly.
"Ah, hang on," he said as he dumped a whole assortment of sweets in front of Gintoki.
"Sugar!" Gintoki cheered as he immediately began to cram them in his mouth.
"Ane-ue and Otose-san bought them for you. Said this was a small reward for winning the match. They were actually by your side the previous two days as well, but once your condition had stabilized, they had dashed off, saying that they needed to get their money," Shinpachi said.
"Pfft, masdstelic wfmen," Gintoki mouthed between gulpings.
"Oh yeah, the Shinsengumi and Hasegawa-san were here as well," Shinpachi said, looking thoughtful. "The Shinsengumi were forced to leave soon, though. Ane-ue was gonna tear down the whole hospital soon if they did not."
"Why the hell is this sweet full of white and thick stuff?" Gintoki demanded, looking at a particularly large sweet.
"Oh, that will be the one by Hijikata-san," Shinpachi said. "He sponsored some sweets as well."
Without hesitation, Gintoki threw the sweet in an arc into the wastepaper basket.
Opening another sweet, he asked, "Why did Hasegawa-san come? How did he kno- Why the hell is this sweet so spicy?!"
"That will be the one Okita-san gave you, Gin-san," Shinpachi said, looking at it. "He said that he added some tabasco sauce in it to spice you up."
Gintoki threw the half-eaten sweet out of the window.
"Oh yeah, Hasegawa-san came by and dropped you this," Shinpachi said, pointing to a pair of sunglasses on a table beside Gintoki.
There were a few seconds of awkward silence.
"Anyway," Shinpachi continued. "Hasegawa-san said that he will start to believe as hard as possible, and start a new life. He said that he did not need his sunglasses anymore, for some reason."
"Madao is still Madao even without sunglasses, isn't he?" Kagura commented after a while.
The other two inadvertently nodded.
"It should be here, I think," Tendou muttered as he stared at a piece of paper. "At least I think so. Why the hell did that damn samurai draw the location himself? I got lost three times already!"
He looked up and saw a beautiful sight.
Yellow dandelions danced in the wind, seeming to be welcoming his arrival. Petals streamed the air currents, looking for all the world like a gathering of a million yellow butterflies. The grass was soft and rustled gently under his feet.
"This…" he murmured, losing his grip on the piece of paper. It floated away, riding the currents.
"Hey, stop!" Tendou yelled as he dashed after it. "I will get lost if I lose you! I don't have Google Maps on my smartphone!"
Bam
He crashed into something. Falling onto the grass, he shielded his eyes from the intense sunlight.
"Oi, brat, watch where you are going."
"That voice…" Tendou thought slowly, getting up. "That irritating voice of an old man… I will recognise it anywhere, even if it has already been four years."
"Master?" Tendou inquired tentatively. "Maste- What the hell are you doing?!"
"Aha," Jirochou cackled as he drew a card from the deck. "It's my win then. I use Pikachu's volt tackle!"
"Dad, that's the twelfth consecutive time you have won already," a girl with a ponytail at the front sulked. "Let's move onto Duelmasters already."
"Not yet, not yet," Jirochou grinned, shuffling the deck of cards expertly. "I still haven't got enough of this game. I have got to use Charizard's Hydro Pump first before I am satisfied."
"Dad…" Chin Pirako slapped a hand to her forehead. "Charizard is a fire-type. It cannot use water-type moves."
"Really?" Jirochou laughed. "I will just have to settle for its Psychic then."
"Ah, I'm not explaining anymore," she said. "By the way, there's been a guy behind you for some time. Can I cut him down?"
"Not this one, you sadistic daughter," Jirochou said, dealing out the cards.
"Why are you dealing for three people?" Chin Pirako asked.
"Because there will be three people playing, obviously," Jirochou said. "Oi, brat."
"Yes?!" Tendou found himself saying.
"Did that natural perm manage to fix your mental issues?"
Tendou found himself pondering. What was his sense of beauty now? Was it still a blood-red Kabukicho?
"I don't know, old man," Tendou shrugged and sat down, taking his cards. "Mayb- Oi, why did I get all the weak pokemon here?! How the hell did you shuffle, old man?!"
"Shut up, brat," Jirochou looked at him for the first time in four years. "Or I will kill you."
After finishing his sentence, he gave a smile, a genuine one that he had only displayed to his daughter, an old woman and a certain natural permhead in recent years.
"Dad, who's this guy? He looks like he haven't taken a shower in weeks," Chin Pirako commented.
"Well, you look like you haven't taken one in years," Tendou replied.
"Dad, can I kill this person? I want to stain the flowers with his blood. They will look even more beautiful for sure."
Yeah, a real sadist like you. I bet you could hit it off straightaway. Probably go around murdering flowers or something.
"Looks like he was spot-on, after all," Tendou said softly as he began to enjoy himself for the first time in four whole years.
Guess this is my new sense of beauty then. Playing a game of cards with an old man and a yandere in a flowery land. Well, it ain't so bad after all.
Author's ending note: And that concludes the Smackdown Arc. It's funny but even though I gave Tendou so little screen time in this story(Considering he's the main antagonist), I got real attached to him. Maybe it's because he's an original character of mine? I don't know. Anyways, please do review this story as a whole if you guys are free and want to offer constructive criticisms. I'm interested in knowing what areas you guys think I could improve in! Oh yeah, a shoutout to Artemis and TheBlueSheep. Sorry for not incorporating your ideas in this final chapter as I thought I should just end it on a similar note to the previous chapters. However, I will strive to drop all the anime-esque jokes in future works. Cheers!
P.S. I'm starting to regret naming this story the SmackDown Arc. As you could probably tell, there are hardly any wrestling references in the content.
P.S.S. I never managed to explain the backstory of those two elusive managers. This is because they were simply meant as a parody of the wrestling duo, Undertaker and Kane. However, I can say that they worked for Tendou's second master.