Insubordination, part 1

We really did begin to look like an army. I inhaled deeply. Cold air growled through my nostrils, bringing with it smells of the camp. I listed them. Damp earth and wet tree bark. Sour vegetables – the last before the spring brought fresh food, mixed with sweet perfume of cooked rice. Horse dung as well as human waste clung to the outside of every breath, but I barely noticed it anymore. Wood fires, and leather, and damp hair. Beautiful.

"Fucking beautiful," I murmured with a smirk. Morning sun was gentle on my face while the busy bustle of men reassured me with its routine. We were preparing, but nobody was panicking. We were on the offensive. I made my way towards the Commander's tent. Oh, now. It was the General's tent. I massaged the insolent smirk out of my mouth. Takasugi had guessed right. Itou was Grand General now, Hashimoto was Commander. Satou was also promoted to Commander.

I was still Captain. Sakata poked fun at me about it. That was alright; he was still a foot soldier even though he technically did the work of a lieutenant. But a lot of my core men did get swept up from under me in the last year. Aizawa was first. He got made Captain of the rear guard last spring. My other lieutenant got his promotion rather more recently. I laughed at the memory of Katsura, preparing his insignia with great care while his schoolmate gave him hell for it. Even with all the piss-taking, it was obvious Sakata was concerned for his friend. I could also tell he was proud of him. Yesterday, he volunteered to accompany Katsura on his first solo recon mission. He never volunteered for anything. I gave in out of pure shock.

In the meanwhile, I got stuck with the gangly clodhopper whose name I constantly forgot. Saka—fuck[1]. All I knew is that it wasn't Saka—ta. He was running up to me right now, too-big helmet bouncing around his shaggy head as he skipped over or around people and objects in the camp. He looked exactly like what he was – a merchant-boy. He had about as much of a swordsman's grace in his movements as a lake trout. But he was my lieutenant now. I sighed.

It was not that I disliked the merchant-boy. It was just that he could be… grating. Particularly early in the morning.

"Ca'tain!" For one, he had Sakata's lazy greetings down to a T.

"Hey, erm, Sakagawa."

"Sakamoto, sir."

I coughed. "Got the maps and figures, lieutenant?"

Saka… whatever, gestured to a bundle of paper scrolls grasped under his arm. I nodded in a captain-like way. That was a winter's worth of inventory he had there – all men, weapons, animals, our needs and expenditures – what amounted to the sum total of the military might under my command. The merchant boy had proved quite adept at bringing it all together, actually. He was useful in other ways as well. A well travelled man, it had turned out, he knew the different routes around the country, places to find water, shelter, food, or even temporary work. He also knew where to get weapons on the black market, and which craftsmen to ask for help, which city councilmen to threaten or bribe. He had a head on him, that was certain. Somewhere, under that stupid helmet.

"Sir?" he saw me frowning at him and barked a silly laugh. "Erm…"

I was saved from having to call him something terrible when a friendly face popped up from the crowd. "Mikkun! Mikuni!"

"Ah!" I greeted Murakami with a smile and waited for him to catch up. He looked good, settled in his new position of General's Captain. I was happy for him. It was a position of honour and responsibility. Itou had taken him under his wing after Murakami had saved his life during a surprise raid. Their rather stoic, severe personalities worked well together. Having said that, I wouldn't have traded places with him for the world.

"On your way to the General?" he gripped my forearm warmly.

"Yep. What's the news?"

"We have the Amanto off our tails for the moment. Reports came in that they still have troops searching as far back as Kami-tsu-ke[2]. But we have to move fast before they pick us up from this side. We've circled so far around them, they won't even know what hit them." His iron-cast mouth tugged into a vicious little smile.

"Katsura should be back from the recon within hours," I supplanted. "Then we re-manoeuvre and…" I squeezed my fist.

"The General thinks we should make a move now, from here, pick up Katsura along the way and take advantage of early surprise."

"But Aizawa and his unit are not back yet, or Takasugi."

"They are a day behind us at most. Aizawa would hold the rear line anyway. And Takasugi is light on his feet. He would catch up."

"We'll still have time to sit and think about it properly," I shrugged it off. "Once Katsura reports in."

"Will we? Sentry saw movement to the east. They are careful little buggers 'round these parts."

"I heard. But they were too far t-"

"East?" I heard my lieutenant inquire, interrupting us. Murakami and I frowned at him in unison, the way superior officers tended to do. We were becoming a couple of old geezers, honestly.

"What's wrong, Sukegawa?" I grunted.

"Sakamoto, sir. East…" he squinted into the tree canopy, and beyond, to the sun, as though pondering the whole countryside from its perspective. "They shouldn't have been to the east."

Murakami shrugged, but I stared at my lieutenant for a moment longer as we both ducked down to enter the relative darkness of the command tent. People were just beginning to assemble, so a few Captains were standing at the back of the room chatting in hushed voices. Front and central, Itou was presiding over several large maps, Satou and Hashimoto on either side. I recognized the mountain range drawn on one of them – I have been walking it for a year, leading the enemy this way and that while the rest of our forces sneaked in from the other sides. Now we were all together, finally assembled, and standing on the same sheet of paper geography as our prize. A wooden pillar represented it: the Terminal. I glowered at it for a moment. After all was said and done, it did look remarkably like a dildo. The running joke in my unit was what Itou did with it after hours. I missed Sakata…

"Mikuni," Hashimoto greeted me.

"Commander," I smiled. I had not had time to congratulate him for his promotion but the warm lilt in my voice seemed to be enough. My old master nodded. His hair had gone whiter than I remembered it.

"Mikuni," Itou said curtly. "I need your figures."

I nodded. "Yes, sir. Erm, Sugi… mura?"

"Sakamoto," he gave a pained giggle and handed his bundle of papers to Itou. Itou spread them over the map. Hashimoto pointed something out to him, while Satou coupled my inventory to the inventories of other Captains. Our three highest ranking officers began to mumble like witches over their brew. I prepared myself for a long wait before their conclusions eventually trickled far enough down the chain of command to reach me. Then I noticed that my lieutenant hadn't stopped talking yet.

"About the sentry reports from the east?" Sakafuck blurted out. "Where exactly are we talking? Up the mountain, or down?"

If the frowns Murakami and I had given him were not enough to do the trick, the Itou-Satou-Hashimoto combination was powerful enough to down a small elephant. Silence fell around the room like a thick fog. The older Captains skewered him with their gazes before Hashimoto finally unglued his jaw.

"Up the mountain. Why do you ask… Lieutenant?"

He did not take the hint. "And their bearing? Was north, right? They shouldn't have been there."

"Why not?" Yeah, why the hell not, I thought at my lieutenant, but now with a dose of dread slipping down my throat.

Whatever Sakamoto was going to say was interrupted when a breathless man ran into the command tent. He clutched his side and stumbled towards us. At first, words didn't come out of his throat at all, but when they finally did they were, "Ambush! We were ambushed."

All of us burst into questions like clucking chickens.

"What?"

"Who was?"

"Ambush?!"

"Give the man water!"

"Where? When?"

Itou raised his hand and we shut up. He gestured towards the gasping man. "Continue."

"The recon mission! They engaged us on the down-slope, came in from behind five hours march north. Captain split us up and took an attack group forward, while we doubled back to warn you. They likely know our position."

"Katsura?" Hashimoto asked. My heart stopped.

The man waved his head. "They are cut off. We could not wait for them… we, we had orders!" he justified. I could smell survivor's guilt on him as clearly as I could smell his sweat. I wanted to say something comforting, but my mind was blank and my breathing shallow.

"How many? How many attackers?" Satou asked, usually monotone bass reverberating with emotion.

The soldier shrugged. I saw a trickle of blood running down the back of his neck. "Dunno, sir. Thousands."

Itou looked stricken. All colour had drained from his face; even his gums turned white. "Wh… How?"

The man, having delivered his message, shook his head weakly. Somebody was sensible enough to have brought him a drink. I only vaguely heard Murakami call for a medic. My head was spinning, unable to reconcile what I had just heard. No, no, no! This wasn't how it was supposed to be. We were so good, we had the advantage! They couldn't have found us out, impossible!

I also thought, my men! All those people I was supposed to kill for…

The hush was sticky with the breaths of hyperventilating officers awaiting a battle plan. We stared at Itou, but he was lost in an internal struggle. We could see it contract his face with anger, and stretch it with frustration. Finally, Hashimoto decided to speak instead of him, voice level. "Captains, get everybody uprooted. We break camp immediately. Murakami, I need you to find Aizawa and stop him from bringing the supplies here. Take a unit with you. He might be a target as well."

"No, wait," Itou raised a hand once more, but I could see it shake. "We need the supplies. We need to fight them off here and now."

"General, not in this terrain," Hashimoto protested.

"Sir, he's right, they'll likely come with airships," somebody agreed. That was very sensible. I was still mute.

"Thousands, sir," Satou mouthed. "And we must assume they have reinforcements ready." Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a medic take the wounded man away. Katsura's wounded man.

"No!" Itou shouted. "We are so close! We will never have this momentum!"

"What about Katsura?" I asked, but nobody heard me.

"General, we are dead here," Hashimoto told his superior evenly. "We need to break camp immediately."

Itou's face was no longer drained, but bright red with fury. "No! No! We must strike now. The opportunity is perfect, there will never be another one like it."

"We will make another one, sir," Hashimoto said. "We will make it again."

Itou slammed his fist onto the table. The Terminal toppled over. "We will never have the numbers. Don't you know how long it took us to assemble?!"

Carefully, Hashimoto gripped Itou's shoulders; whether for restraint or support, I could not say. "Yes. And now we have to disperse. We have to run, General," he whispered. Then ever more softly, "Please, Hayato, please listen…"

They stared at each other, and I wondered how many private moments like this they had shared before. Then Itou deflated. He sat down onto a stool. His sigh sounded to me more like a desperate howl. "Commander… Give the orders."

Hashimoto nodded gravely. "We break camp immediately. Satou's group will guard the north-western flank, myself and the General will take the front. We move fast and disperse the moment we descend the mountain. You all know the drill. We rendezvous in…" We hung on his word, eyes searching the map in front of us eagerly. The silence stretched and I looked up at my teacher. He seemed tired, sad… And lost. I had never seen him lost before. And now, for the first time, I was afraid.

"We rendezvous in… I, I- don't even know."

"Mito[3]," my lieutenant piped in. His finger fell onto the map without hesitation.

"You are mad!" Smoebody protested. "Mito is directly under the rule of the Tokugawa family."

"It's an old keep in an old city. They are no friends to the Amanto, I guarantee it," Sakamoto replied, much more patient and collected then I could have been in his place. "Besides, they'll never think to look for us there."

"That's a month's trip!" Murakami gasped. "We'll never make it."

"We will if we carry minimal weight," he shrugged. "From Mito we can make our way to the sea, barter passage into Kamigata[4], and from there, wherever we want."

Hashimoto nodded. He looked solid once more, the way before him firm and broad. "That's how we'll do it. Load up the horses: food for a month, essential gear. Carry only your weapons with you. We might have to engage on the way. Everything that-"

"Sir," I interrupted. "What about Katsura?"

Hashimoto's neck snapped in my direction. I already knew what he was going to say. I could see it in his eyes, and I stared back with spiteful defiance. But my old master never got to tell me how I should let my men die, because Itou spoke up from the chair, voice gravely. "We cannot spare the time. Besides… they are lost already."

"But-," I began.

Hashimoto raised his voice over mine, letting it fill the whole room once more. "Men carry weapons, horses carry essentials. Everything that cannot be loaded, we leave behind. Now go! We move out within the hour. I will see all of you in Mito. Dismissed!"

"Yessir!" people shouted in response. Captains shuffled out in an orderly fashion; the way we were taught to. I, however, did not move.

"Commander!" I called to Hashimoto. "I request permission to go assist Captain Katsura's unit. I also request that you allow volunteers to accompany me."

Everybody froze. I heard Sakamoto behind me stop his breathing. The men who had not yet exited the tent, began shuffling through the doors, while the ones who had stepped out, began trying to squeeze back in. Their eyes were on me like burning hooks. I knew I had done wrong the moment I heard my tone reverberate back at me. I had broken etiquette, I had addressed the wrong officer, I had ignored the dismissal.

"Captain," Hashimoto ground out. "You have your marching orders."

"So we are just leaving them?"

"You overstep, Mikuni!" Itou growled from the chair.

I inhaled to reply, but Hashimoto walked up to me with such ferocity I thought he was going to deck me. "You heard the messenger. Thousands. They are dead. So are we if we don't move. Junchi, I need you here."

"Sir-"

"I know your lieutenant has become known for performing miracles, Captain," Itou called, getting up from his stool, "But don't you go around picking up his habit of disobeying orders!"

I was confused, angered. "Katsura is not insubordinate."

"I wasn't talking about-," Itou began but I did not let him finish.

"Sir, we have barely assembled, you said so yourself. Do you know why?" My voice trembled violently. I had toed the line before; now I was stomping on it. I did not care. "Because we have become known as the ones who either fight to die, or the ones who let our comrades do it for us! If we leave them out there now, what man would ever join us again? How many will leave? They can all leave, General, did you forget that? There is nothing we can do to stop them. As a matter of fact, there is nothing you can do to stop me!"

"Junchi…" Murakami breathed from the other side of the room.

"We say we follow Bushido. It is what binds us all together; it is all that binds us together. Well, fucked if this is Bushido!" I could no longer hear a thing, but I saw men around me recoil, as though I was contagious. Even Hashimoto stepped back in shock.

Itou rose up to his full height. His two long swords were quiet at his hip but I noticed them. He had finality in his voice. "Mikuni. One more word out of you…"

"And what?! General?" I screamed back. "You will ask me to open my stomach? Really, sir? Really?"

Itou faltered so badly I thought he would fall over. "An army without discipline…" he finally squeezed out. "An army without discipline is doomed."

"We are doomed anyways! And if we leave those men to die, we are damned as well."

I had bellowed on pure impulse. I had said something really evil. I did not mean it, did I? Had I not stood in front of my tent only a few minutes ago and surveyed the camp thinking we looked like an army? Had I not begun to wonder what my soldiers would be after our battles were won? Had I not imagined the new world we would create? Was I lying to myself? That did not sound like me at all…

When I finally began breathing again, I saw hurt in Hashimoto's eyes and it pierced me straight through the chest. But his tone was icy when he said, "Alright. Find your volunteers, Mikuni. Find them in your own unit."

My heart broke, but that was fair enough. "Yes, sir."

"Dismissed."

This time I stomped out promptly, Sakamoto dogging my heels as we rushed through the camp. I bumped into Captains who were too slow to get out of the way. Outside, the bustle that had been so reassuring before, took on a frantic edge. I shouldered through groups of people, jumped over fires, my purpose burning a path for me. Even my tall lieutenant with his long legs had to run to keep up.

"You know you don't have to march out with me," I told him. "But I would ask you to help me assemble volunteers."

"Sure," Sakamoto said.

"You know the area. Can I trust you to lead the retreat?"

"No."

I turned to him with a rabid expression, but Sakamoto shrugged, giving a nervous laugh. "I am coming with you. Of course." He seemed to look for words – or his breath, as we slid downhill towards our part of the camp. "They are- I mean, this is… It's Bushido, right?"

I smiled at the once-merchant boy. "Yes, Lieutenant. I sure as fuck think so."

[1]Sakafuck. Come on, I couldn't resist.

[2]Kami-tsu-ke is the modern day Gifu prefecture. Together with Tochigi, it made up Edo-period Kenu province. Incidentally, this chapter is taking place in modern-day Fukushima prefecture, then the southern-most part of Mutsu province. [3]Mito is the capital of Hitachi, today-Ibaraki prefecture which is to the south of Fukushima.

[4]Kamigata was the region between Kyoto, the old capital of Japan, and Osaka, one of the biggest merchant ports. Both of these were traditionally very conservative cities, and – I think – would not have approved of Amanto. In the real Boshin war, Kyoto was the hidden front line for the fight between rebels and the loyalists – the Shinsengumi were based there, for example, an clashed with many different rebel factions which ran around Kamigata. Not sure what the verdict is on this region in Gintama, but to defend Sakamoto's logic, Osaka's port was vast and busy. It would easily take the load of a few thousand sailors and pass them along undetected.

What I had a lot of fun with in this fanfic was exploring what leadership styles the JOUI four have. I think Takasugi is just charismatic by nature. He's the sort of mystical, ineffable leader that could fit just as well into a cult as they could in the military; think Che Guevara, but also David Koresh. Katsura's appeal comes from his actions, instead of his personality. For me at least, Zura's charisma emerges only once you get to know him; once he sells you his perfect vision of samurai. I may have been a little bit harsh when I wrote he had the personality of a sea urchin, but in comparison to Takasugi and Gintoki, he would not stand out until crunch time.

Now, Sakamoto is a charmer, but his leadership lies... I have no idea. There is an aura of a Prince of Thieves around him, though – he is unscrupulous in business but takes care of his own. A very military rather than mercantile quality, I think, and something he may have learned in the war. I really like exploring how he developed into the strategist we know he becomes, especially since canon says he is a merchant. Until I started writing this chapter, I did not really stop to think about what that actually meant. For example, here's some headcannon for you: who taught Sakamoto how to fight? As a merchant, he would have never even held a weapon in his hands, especially since they were banned before his birth. How did he even decide to get involved in this samurai war?

And as for Gintoki's leadership style, I think he has innate charisma, but it comes from a totally different place than Takasugi's (and that is a whole other discussion). Considering his disregard for hierarchy, I think that he would never have held a rank despite being a brilliant military commander. He would have just taken over when he really needed to, used that strange magnetism to live out his god-complex. Nobody would know his name, but they would all know about him.