See you there, part 3
The morning revealed broken trees all around us. Sakata canned the birch tea, and made me swallow another Amanto pill. I complained, but really, I was glad for it. My headache was worse than last night, and I could feel all the rips and tears in my side and arm. I tried to help him mount me on his back but the attempt only resulted in several minutes of coughing and intense pain. He wiped my chin for me again. I could see blood on it this time, like a dark gash in the fabric. Oh, well. We both agreed I should not try to help him again.
The rains had left deep mud and slippery ground. Our progress – what is to say, Sakata's progress – was even slower and more laborious. Every now and again his sword brushed against my useless, numb legs, and I felt intense shame. I would soothe my mind by thinking about my corner piece. Of course he was an orphan. Of course he was a street kid! I had been able to hear it in his accent since day one; see it in his utter disrespect for any tradition. I thought again of him sitting on the walkway of my father's old school, feet hanging bare above the snow. The same curiosity I had felt then was my consolation now. I squinted at the wavy horizon behind us and tried to think of ways to ask Sakata about all of these things. I had been tempted to do so many times before but it had never been appropriate. Hell. Dying men did not have to be appropriate.
By noon, I realized that something was wrong with my eyes. My vision was cloudy, as though I was stuck in perpetual dusk even though I could feel the sun beating down on my face. Sakata's back was moist from his sweat, but my body felt cold. I did not mention any of this to him until he felt me shivering.
"You mean like, everything's going black? Do you see a tunnel?" He stared into my eyes as though he would see what I saw.
"No, you dumbass. It's all foggy." I wished I could move my left arm far enough around to smack him over the head but I had only recently become able to move it at all.
"You have the fever again," he sighed, pulling out the last of his Amanto drugs. "It's OK, Cat'ain. We're almost at the rendezvous. There'll be a proper doctor with the unit, and a field hospital." He squinted at the road before us. His hair stuck to his forehead and grime was once again mixing with his sweat to run down his face like black tears. I accepted a handful of wineberries he had found along the way, and munched, watching my most ferocious soldier stuff his face with fruit until it stained him from ear to ear, every inch the street kid I now knew him to be. In my dream, Hashimoto had said samurai searched for a perfect death, but surely, at least in times of peace, samurai were much more than that. They wrote poetry, and arranged flowers, and drank tea, and stared at trees. I snorted, trying to imagine either of us doing so. Sakata had a peculiar way with words; he twisted them so that they suddenly meant something else. It was the quality of a philosopher, yet I could hardly imagine him bending over an old scroll to ponder its contents. In fact, I was not ever sure he could read all that well.
"Sakata Gintoki," I mumbled. "That's a strange name."
"Yeah. S'ppose so," he shrugged, berry juice colouring his teeth. "Yours' not that much better. Mikkun."
"Your balls need to drop before you get to call me that, kid," I snorted. "Who gave you your name?"
He shrugged once more. "Same sort of people who give names to stray dogs."
And feed them scraps from their kitchens, I guessed. "And your surname?"
"My, aren't we talkative. You win another berry."
Sakata crouched over me to fit some more wineberries into my mouth. Their tart taste felt like needles on my tongue. "You are sure these are not poisonous?" I joked weakly.
"Yep. I've eaten'em plenty of times," he said, settling back into his place. Talk to me, I wanted to beg him. There was entirely too much darkness around me. I was afraid to slip into it again. There would be no bringing me back if I did.
Perhaps he had seen that wish in the lines of my pale face, for he surprised me by going on. "Mushrooms aside, slumdogs have to have a pretty good handle on what they can eat. One of many other things you pretty, pampered poofs didn't have to learn."
"Like?"
Sakata grimaced mockingly. "Microeconomics. Urban architecture, human resources, prelaw, erm… property redistribution. Resource management in general, really." By his cynical grin, I figured he was talking about thievery, burglary, squatting, begging, fencing, and other things I had seen kids of war resort to again and again. "Yep. Regular fucking renaissance man, I am."
I smacked my dry lips. "How does a slumdog end up here?"
"Swung my dick too far out."
My crooked frown guided his gaze to the black scabbard leaning on his thigh. "A slumdog doesn't just get to learn to swing the way you do, no matter how big his dick is. How'd you end up in Shouka Sonjuku?"
Sakata took a moment to feed me another berry. I studied his face but it was the usual one: placid, bored, opaque. "Master Shoyou took me in," he said easily.
This was the first time I heard that name fall from his lips, I realized. In fact, all of Yoshida's students barely mentioned him. Some thought it was indifference or even resentment. I knew better. I remembered Katsura's voice almost cracking back in that temple when I had first met them. Whatever else they were, Yoshida's students were not indifferent towards him. I tried to relate but my newly found hate for Hashimoto made it difficult. It occurred to me that whatever Yoshida had meant to Katsura, he had to be that much more to Sakata. A father? I couldn't really relate to this either so I ended up clearing my throat awkwardly.
"When, eh, when was this?" I finally squeezed out.
Sakata twirled his canister top around to slurp some water from it. "Five, six years ago. Oh, actually, a bit more."
"Huh." I said stupidly. He had been only a child. He was still so very young…
Sakata gave me to drink and spoke in a softer tone, staring meditatively at the treetops. "I was surprised you guys knew about the school, though. I thought it was at the end of the world. We walked for weeks to get to it. From around Edo, all the way to Hagi," he added, by way of explanation. "Master Shoyou carried me on his back for the last part of the way. I must have stunk worse than you do, Ca'tain. Although I was a lot lighter."
His face seemed bare now even though he had not changed expression at all. I wondered how I had ever mistaken his calm for laziness, or his patience for lack of feeling.
Sakata walked on until sunset, me, strapped to his back like a giant, smelly backpack. I tried not to think, like a dead weight. I could tell he was exhausted. He was breathing as loudly as I was, although with significantly less wheezing, rasping and gurgling. He did not complain, though. He was ignoring his body with all its aches and pains the same way I was trying to ignore mine. We spent the night out in the open, high up on the mountain. A fresh, gentle wind carried distant smells of the sea on it: salt, stone, seaweed. I could no longer make an educated guess which province we were in. The mountain ranges on either side of us were nameless to me, as was the river halving the valley below us. Our ill-fated battlefield and all my dead soldiers could have been to the north of us, or the south; it was all the same to me. Sakata had been stubbornly putting one foot in front of the other since day one, saying her was getting us to the rendezvous point, but I was not so sure he had the first clue what he was doing anymore. It seemed to me that we were on some hellish journey from nothing to nowhere. It would only end when I finally died. I was so tired but my head was splitting down the middle and I could not sleep. Even worse, I could feel my lungs filling with fluid again, making each tiny gasp for air excruciating. I was desperately trying to keep myself from coughing. The fever was indeed back, shaking my useless limbs with pent up adrenaline. I concentrated on breathing and tried not to disturb Sakata. He, in turn, lay on his back, eyes closed, and not fooling me at all. After a while, we both dropped the pretence.
"I do not think I was meant to be samurai," I whispered.
"I think you're pretty good at it. You have the fatalism down like nobody's business," he murmured back, indulging me.
I shook my head weakly. "I don't like killing."
Sakata laughed darkly. "You're definitely in the wrong line of work, Ca'tain."
I had to take several breaths just to finish a sentence and it was frustrating me. I wanted to talk. "I do not believe in being indebted to a master who cares nothing for me and mine. I do not believe that loyalties owed to principles before they are to people."
Sakata took a moment before saying, "This is not what I was taught.
I smiled weakly. "Yes. Yoshida always had his own definitions. I wish I had met him.
Sakata stayed silent for a long time. I had the impression he wanted to tell me I might yet meet him, but could not bring himself to say something like that. Whether because he lacked the gall to tell me I would not die here, or the confidence that he would ever see his Master again, I could not be sure. I wished I could see the night sky, but my vision was almost entirely grey.
When Sakata spoke again, his voice was filled with quiet resolve and gentleness. If I did not know him, I would say it was reverent. "Samurai kill. They also let people live. They serve masters and principles. But these are the masters and principles they have chosen for themselves. And themselves is whom they owe loyalty." He paused for a long moment, sounding so heartbreakingly fragile that I did not even dare breathe. "Master Shoyou said that. If that is all you ever learn of him, you could still say you have met him."
I smiled through my pain. "Where is your master now?" I asked him.
He cleared his throat. "Imprisoned in Edo, still awaiting trial. The government has bigger issues to deal with at the moment," he added with a nasty lilt in his voice. Bigger issues, like us and our rebellion.
"We do try our best to be a big issue," I snorted, gripping onto black humour. It helped.
"Yeah, you do," he agreed.
So Sakata did not count himself among us, not even after everything that we've been through together. The thought caught in the fragmented net of my consciousness like a stray fish. He was with my unit, but not part of it. I had always known it, the same way I had always known I was never his commander. This was what had bothered Kuramoto so. Strangely, it had not bothered me once. I was too feverish to think about what that meant, if anything at all. Instead I thought of Yoshida, the brilliant, irreverent, indescribable sword-master, wasting away in some putrid cell in Edo. Was he still the man Sakata and his friends remembered from Hagi? I had never been caught by the government, never imprisoned by our enemies, but I had a pretty good idea what happened to those that were. Did he have use of his body, or had they thought him too dangerous and decided to crush its strength and grace? And what of his mind? That was surely the more dangerous thing…
"Trial for treason," I murmured.
"Yeah."
"Do you think he is still alive?" Do you think he is still himself? I could not bring myself to ask that. Sakata heard it nevertheless.
He was silent for a moment, as though making up his mind. "Oh, yes," he said stubbornly. "He is waiting for us."
This time I knew exactly which "us" he meant, and I was not part of it. It was, and always had been, Takasugi, Katsura, and him.
And so it finally occurred to me why he was in this war.
XXXX
The morning was cool and moist. I had not realized I had fallen asleep at all until Sakata's careful fretting woke me up. Once more, he strapped me to his back – for the last time, he promised – and started his stubborn trudge onwards. It was downhill today. I thought it might be easier for him, but this quickly proved to be a stupid assumption. Sakata's stumbling was worse than ever as the soft, wet earth slipped and crumbled underneath his feet. Every time he had to jerk and jolt to regain his balance, I thought my insides would spill out between my legs. There was no improvement to my vision. I thought I had gone completely blind until Sakata told me there was low cloud enveloping us, and he could barely see as well. It calmed me down somewhat. My right eye was marginally better off than the left, but it too saw mostly shady outlines against a misty background. At least the mist was real.
Sakata was truly in a bad way now. His sweat was cold and his muscles shook uncontrollably every time he stopped moving. I could smell his wound; it must have become infected. He kept up a running commentary despite his laboured breathing. It was as much for his benefit as it was for mine. I could only respond in grunts and mumbles. The weight of my own ribcage was too much for my lungs, and they allowed nothing but short, shallow gulps of air. I lost consciousness a few times only to find both of us lying on our sides like some strange conjoined twins, Sakata patiently waiting for the blood to rush back into my head. He gave me no silly assurances or hollow consolations, merely got back up and continued talking. Rhythmic, inane chatter. It kept me awake. It kept me alive.
"Sakamoto is entirely obsessed with Amanto tech. It's actually not all bad. Did you know they have machines that crap out any drink you want? Press a button and poof!"
"Hrrmh."
"I should learn how to swim one of these days. Not my favourite activity. We're not made for it. Look at monkeys. Buggers stay out of water like they do out of fire. Surprisingly reasonable animals."
"Mmrm."
"We're almost there. The terrain is evening out."
"Grrgrn."
"Never took to smoking. Takasugi's mad for it. I swear he makes those batshit commandos of his raid towns just to get some snuff. That's misuse of power, right? Should be court-martialled for it or something."
"Hhn, ygrrh."
"You're the most talkative bastard I've ever met, Mikkun."
"Ffkh ynu."
"I totally understood that."
"Mrm."
"Wish this mist would clear."
"Pff."
"It's alright. We're practically at the camp now. They're gonna shit themselves when we show up. If Katsura tears up, you owe me money, Ca'tain. Deal?"
"Nnh."
I waited for the next senseless comment but there was nothing. The terrain was even and the trees opened up into a clearing. I could smell a river somewhere to our right. It was a perfect place for a camp. I didn't hear anything; not horses, not men, certainly not an army.
"Erm," Sakata mumbled. He set me down carefully. He ground was cold, thick and moist. "I'll scout ahead," he told me in a whisper.
"Rhhgh," I observed. Lying down made it easier to breathe but by the time I could beg him to stay by my side, Sakata was already gone. I knew what was wrong. There was no camp. Nobody was at the rendezvous point. Of course they weren't! They had left us. There was no rendezvous point. That is, if we were in the right place to begin with…
Sakata must have been thinking the same thing, for he came back into view, crouching above me a few moments later. "We're where we're supposed to be," he said, but I could hear the doubt in his voice.
They left us, I wanted to tell him. They didn't show up where they were supposed to, when I really needed them to show up. Why would they be here now?
The ground seemed to vibrate beneath me. Muddy water drenched my borrowed, soiled clothes, chilling me to the bone.
"Are you sure, we're," it was annoyingly difficult to talk, "at the right, spot?"
"Hmm," he not-answered.
I could swear there was a quiet earthquake going on. Then I heard a tumult in the background. I had thought it was only blood rushing through my swollen head, but as it got louder, closer, I realized what it was.
"Shit," Sakata swore. He had realized it too. "Oh, come on. Come ON! You gotta be kidding me."
Footfall of soldiers was entirely unmistakeable. Metallic clanging of their equipment was as familiar to me as my own heartbeat. It jingled determinedly in our direction, like wolves smelling blood. I heard Sakata pull himself up to his feet with a despondent groan. "Fucking perfect."
Two days ago he had killed a small group of Amanto scavengers. Honestly, it had been a superhuman feat then but it was plain impossible now. Besides, whatever was coming for us this time was much bigger, better organized.
I grabbed his ankle blindly and found my voice, "Gintoki. Go. This time. Just go."
He said nothing. I heard his blade slip out of its sheath like a breath of death.
"For fuck sake's, boy! GO!"
There was a proper unit of them coming, five dozen men at least. I could tell by the vibrations of the ground. They carried no supplies, no heavy artillery, but their synchronized run told me volumes of their battle readiness. They would plough over us without skipping a beat. Overkill, really.
"Stop trying to…" hassling Sakata's ankle, I looked for words to chase him away, but how do you chase away a fearless man? "Stop… You are not the almighty! Don't do this to me for a third time, Sakata! Don't you dare!"
The tendon in his foot tightened and slipped my grip gently.
"Sorry, Captain."
He stepped to the front, not going anywhere. I screamed at him, growled, flailed around with my one free arm. My broken bones complained miserably, but I paid them no mind, just as Sakata paid no mind to me. How many miracles did he think he had in him? Why waste what could be the last one on me? That moron, that idiot, that…
The war machine before us slowed down, surrounding us. Sakata inhaled through his nose, exhaled through his mouth. His feet shifted apart in the gravel. I fell silent as well, blind to what was happening, and powerless to prevent it.
"Gintoki?" I heard. It took me a moment to recognize the voice. "Is that you?"
It had taken Sakata even longer. "Shinsuke?" he mewled. "Wh-?"
Rapid footsteps echoed over the ground as Takasugi ran to his friend. I turned my head to see the outlines of two figures gripping each other's forearms. "What are you-?" both began at the same time.
"We were looking for you."
"That's my line," Sakata breathed. He gulped. "Captain's not doing so well. He needs help."
Takasugi must have signalled his men for two of them suddenly appeared on either side of me, kneeling and cooing. They flipped me onto a gurney. I melted from relief, not for myself, but for Sakata. As they took me away, I looked to where he stood with Takasugi just in time to see him stumble and drop to his knees, his friend following suit. The tense circle of soldiers jerked forward fretfully.
"It's alright," Takasugi overrode them. "Get the Captain to the camp. It's alright, it's alright."
He was no longer speaking to his men.
"It's alright."
The words echoed in my mind while four strong, rested, young soldiers hopped through the forest, carrying me. I wished Sakata was with me, but I could not even hear his voice among the rattle of military noises. Takasugi's soldiers stopped every now and again to make sure I was still breathing, ask me stupid questions like "Are you feeling alright, sir?", and tell me repeatedly that we were almost there. All that fuss, and for what? No amount of field hospitals could help me, and I knew that well enough. They still tried, assembled surgeons talking about shaving a part of my skull clean off. Apparently, congealed blood was pressing on my brain, causing my loss of vision. I was not eager to try it. I saw it go terribly badly, leave men flat and flaccid like corpses. Honestly, it was nothing to celebrate even if it went well. Just a lot of pain for a hole in your head. There was also the matter of my ribs and right arm. I lost consciousness from the pain when they pried open Sakata's bandages. I just wanted them to stop. I had made it this far. I got back from the battlefield. Wasn't that enough? Surely that was enough even for Sakata.
Katsura tried to discuss it with me. His face was a disassembled collection of shapes and vectors to me but I immediately recognized the long, dark hair. In that calm, cultured tone, he did his best to convince me Takasugi's surgeons knew what they were doing. The only thing I wanted to know was what had happened. Where had they gone? Why had they not come to the battle? Where was Hashimoto? Eventually, Katsura relented. I must have looked mangled enough for he pulled a stool nearer to my bed and spoke in a low, quick voice.
"It was our fault, Captain. We were too slow. General Hashimoto," if he had been a more vulgar man, he would have added something to that title, I could tell. "Got word the Amanto were setting a trap. He was afraid it would be a repeat of the Mutsu fiasco. He ordered us to march out. Before we figured out what was happening, half the army was pointing in the wrong direction, and the other half was miles away already."
"Ah," I grunted. I thought I would feel more bitter, more livid. I didn't feel a thing. My anger with Hashimoto was, strangely, spent.
Katsura's was not. I heard him swallow. "We were too slow on the uptake. By the time we regrouped… Takasugi took scouts all the way to the battlefield, but we didn't find... We found…"
I knew exactly what they found. "How'd you get, Hashimoto to, let you scout?" I wanted to know.
"We didn't," Katsura said simply. "We parted ways with the general."
"Oh." Insubordination was contagious, Itou had been right after all. I smirked. "Who's the, general now?"
I could practically hear Katsura blush. "I am."
"Good. Knew you had, it in you."
Katsura sniffled. Mercy, he really did tear up. Sakata won our bet. Which reminded me…
"How, is Sakata?" I managed to squeeze out.
Katsura seemed confused. "He's fine. Wound's clean."
"Not, what I meant."
"I know."
"I want, to talk to, him."
"Captain, you need to re-," he changed his mind midsentence. "Yes, sir."
Sir, hah! The little bastard outranked me now, technically. I decided not to point that out.
Time stretched like snot. My body was heavy. I had absolutely no inclination to move. Sometimes I heard the noises of the camp acutely, viscerally, and they anchored me. Other times I got lost in my own head and found my hearing only when I remembered to listen. A physician came and went. As he pussyfooted around me, I realized this man had chosen to follow Katsura and Takasugi. They had given him a choice, and he elected to leave his commander and follow these boys. So had every man out there, in fact. I was at awe with their bravery, or their stupidity. Actually, I was ready to admit to myself that these two were the same thing.
I wondered whether I would have stayed with Hashimoto or followed Yoshida's students. What would once have been an impossible question now answered itself with terrible ease. It settled something inside me. Sakata said loyalty was what samurai owed to themselves, not merely to the master they had chosen for themselves. Maybe I was not such a bad samurai after all. I was certainly becoming more and more realized. If I lived any longer, I might even write a poem about it.
I played around with it in my head, composing lines as my mind was drifting, when I heard Sakata's drawl spill over my makeshift medical tent, "You look like shit, Ca'tain."
"Hrnhh," I chuckled. "Right back, at you."
"Your vision's back?" he asked, coming closer.
"Nah. I just, assume you look like, usual."
"Touche. That what you called me here for?"
"Hmm," I sighed. "It's a real hustle, out there."
"Sure is," Sakata agreed. He seated himself on the same stool Katsura had used and leaned on his knees. "There's quite a few people out there, actually."
"So you're, gonna make a bid for, Edo? For Yoshida?" I asked.
Sakata must have debated with himself whether or not to discuss strategy with me. He made the right call. "Eventually. We have to reorganize first. Build up our forces, raise some hell."
"Make, big issues." My voice sounded far away.
"That's the idea."
"You won't escape command, this time. Private," I told him.
He snorted in response. "I'll leave that to Grand General Zura."
"Told you, he'd not stay at the back, of the bus," I mumbled.
"Hmm," he chuckled. "You called it. Apparently, he went at it with Hashimoto. Sakamoto had to pull them apart."
"Oh?" Sakata's outline was a less and less visible. A faded shadow on a whitewashed wall.
"Good thing too. If Zura hadn't exploded before Shinsuke showed up, there would have been a total bloodbath. Shoulda court-martialled him while there was still a chance." There was warmth beneath his flippancy.
"Pro'lly," I agreed. "Sakafuck, is here too?" I could no longer hear the sounds of the camp, even if I concentrated on them. I could only hear Sakata's voice.
"Of course."
"Of course," I nodded. It came out garbled.
"It's actually not just Tatsuma. Plenty of the old captains decided to follow Zura. Hoping for instant promotions, perhaps."
"Haps."
"You just called me here to watch you die, didn't you?"
"Wh?"
"I said, bet you wish you were a fly on the wall when Zura went bananas, though. I know I do."
"Hhn."
"Must have been quite a match. Hashimoto's twice Zura's size, but Zura can be a dirty fighter. Wouldn't think it by looking at him."
"Neh."
"Yeah, dust in the eyes, hair-pulling, below-the-belt dirty. Zura's the meanest little prick I know in a fist fight."
I could no longer move my mouth. It was alright, it did not bother me. I was at peace, listening to Sakata go on, grunting every now and then. Who knew he could be this talkative! It took some doing, though. Few days of slow dying, and he opens up like a flower. I wanted to tell him we should have talked like this a year ago. I wanted to tell him I would have loved to see Katsura go at it in a bare-knuckle match. I wanted to tell him I was sorry I wound not make it. It had been an honour to have met him. Not in that stuffy, samurai way, but in the way two friends were honoured to have met each other. But really, there was only one thing I really wanted to tell the man patiently keeping me company while I breathed my final breaths.
If I had never learned a thing about Yoshida Shoyou, and knew only that you were his student, I could still say I had met him.
But I could not move my mouth. It was alright. It did not bother me. I was at peace-
THE END
Which it kind of isn't. There is an epilogue because I am a sap, and I could not leave it there, but this is the end of Mikuni's story. Hope you enjoyed it. Hope it made sense. As ever, I am looking forward to your comments.
Cheers to all of you who have stuck with me to the end.