Answer Me

"Luckily, her race have a stupidly quick recovery." Hijikata mused over the body before him, saying it aloud in hopes that Sougo would speak. He had been silent for far too long and who knew what was going on in his head. "Looks worse than it is, I suppose."

"Still, why did she get caught up in a dodgy deal like that?" Kondo folded his arms across his chest. "The yorozuya don't usually get involved with illegal activities."

"No, they do," Hijikata interjected, "just accidentally."

"This was a deal between two criminals. Did the China girl try to stop the transaction? Sougo, do you know anything?" Kondo and Hijikata both looked across to where the young man slouched in a chair staring blankly out the window. He shrugged, and apparently that was all the response he was going to give. Hijikata couldn't hold back an exasperated sigh.

Actually, he had spoken high hopes for Kagura's swift recovery but the doctor had told him something in confidence. Something that only himself and Kondo were informed: her constitution was poor. Human science obviously knew little about amanto bodies, and even less about the rare species of Yato, but even still, the doctors could tell she wasn't right. The recovery was too slow. It had been three days and she hadn't so much as stirred. They hadn't told Sougo. He wasn't taking her situation well. His behaviour had been perfectly normal – he slept, he ate, he worked, he played tricks on Hijikata … but they knew him well enough to detect changes in him that weren't so palpable. Little things they could not explain to anyone else, but that stood out like sharp needles.

Though paramount to Sougo's health was Kagura's, for one ultimately affected the other. Hijikata knew he should contact Gintoki – he knew that was the right decision for both her and everyone involved – but he held back for selfish reasons. He wanted Gintoki to feel bad. Eventually, when he returned, he wanted the man to hang his head in shame, feel the press of guilt and maybe, just maybe, his attention would be swayed back to where it belonged. Hijikata hadn't been joking when he had said this was the last time he would let Gintoki go. After which, things would get violent.

With one last unconscious sigh and a burst of coughing to try and cover it up, Hijikata made an excuse to leave and checked on Sougo one more time before he left. Still nothing.

He would hold off another day before making the phone call.

The real wonder was why Sougo hadn't contacted Gintoki himself. The two of them were closer than Hijikata really liked, and for that he expected Sougo to rely more on the man. He suspected there was something amiss, almost certainly related to Kagura. Hijikata probably wasn't the only one who couldn't comprehend him any more.

Behind him, the sound of scuttled footsteps alerted Hijikata that Kondo had followed him out. The inevitable conversation drained Hijikata before it had even started. Right now he just wanted to drown himself in work and ignore everything, not talk about it.

"Shinpachi-kun said he'd come over to see her again tonight," he said. "It seems construction is going well and they've managed to gather enough funds for the roof tiles they were missing."

"That's good."

"Otae made some get-well-soon rice but I managed to secretly dispose of it."

"Hm."

"Will you be visiting her again tomorrow?"

"Well since that idiot's gone, she needs some sort of guardian. I'm not taking responsibility for her, but I'll keep checking up."

"You got quite close to her recently." Kondo hummed, trying to hide the small smile twisting the corner of his lips. He didn't hide it well at all.

"Well obviously," Hijikata scoffed. "Since I spend all my time at her house." A blush zoomed into his face as he realised what he had said, which Kondo didn't aid by blushing in unison with him. He immanently needed to change the mood. "She just hates me a little less than when … ah, we first ..." He had made it much worse. "... started dating."

"She was a little possessive, eh?" Kondo chuckled and without knowing so, he made Hijikata's heart sink into his gut. Perhaps he had started all this by taking Gintoki away from her. He'd never thought of it that way, but by wedging his way into their tight-knit relationship, maybe he had pushed them apart – or at least started the cogs. Regardless, she was in need of medical attention and he would ensure she got it. Somebody had to be there for her.

"Did Sougo mention when he was planning to leave?"

"He said he'd stay a while longer before heading back." Kondo's words were accompanied by a heavy sigh. They were both exhausted by recent events. Though they didn't speak of it, both were conflicted as to whether they should inform Sougo on Kagura's condition. Maybe he could already tell. In any case, Kondo had declared a silence for now until things became clearer, and in the meantime, Hijikata was looking for a doctor well-versed in amanto conditions.

"Where are you heading next, Kondo-san?"

"Back to base. I'm going to look through the records for those cases we started yesterday. I'm sure I've heard those names before. What about you?"

"I'll see you later tonight. I sent my squad out patrolling the docks. I'm going to catch up with them for now."

"I see." Kondo nodded. They had just reached their respective police cars parked side by side at the hospital's back entrance. His hand hovered over the handle. "Ah, at some point, would you mind contacting the old woman below the yorozuya? She might know something about the girl."

"Otose-san?" He didn't feel comfortable in that woman's presence but he wasn't so disturbed that he'd turn down Kondo's request. "Sure. See you later." He swung the door open.

"Look after yourself, Tosshi!" Kondo called back just before the roar of the engine fired up.

Yoshida Shoyou's grave had gone.

After all, it had only been a sword in the ground and not a proper burial. Either it had tumbled into the sea, or someone had played King Arthur on the cliff edge. Still, the two men pinned their eyes to where the point of the sword had pierced the earth and exchanged not a word.

The wind was bitterly cold.

Gintoki closed his eyes and saw open palms flash under his eyelids. Those were chased away by playful sword swings and smiles of familiar faces. He could see them all clearly. It was almost as though he could reach out and return to them. He thought once more about whether it was a mistake not to invite Zura with them, but he couldn't find an answer to that. He let it pass by him with the blowing wind. Takasugi remained in stoic silence as he cast his eyes over the horizon. There was nothing here for them any more – just the heavy, hanging nostalgia.

"We'll never know if we did right, you know." Takasugi said, his words whisked away by the wind but Gintoki still heard them.

"What do you mean?"

"Killing Shoyou, killing Utsuro … and my plight to destroy the world Utsuro had created. How do we know that any of it was right?" Gintoki snorted.

"That's simple, isn't it?" He scoffed and though he was smiling, there was a dullness in his expression. "We look at what we've got," Gintoki raised his eyes to the sky, holding out open palms to the clouds, "and we decide if it was worth it." The first rain drops splashed into Gintoki's open hands, quickly followed by more as the sky began to darken with cloud. After a few seconds, Gintoki suggested they return with a tilt of his head. Takasugi took one last look towards the sky and followed behind.

Shortly after they began the walk to Takasugi's residence, Gintoki's mobile began to buzz. He considered not answering, but the name on the screen made him wince. He definitely had to take this.

"... Hijikata-kuun~?" He said, tentatively into the microphone. He expected a heated response; the calmness in Hijikata's softly spoken words came as a shock. Instantly, the mood was serious.

"Come home, Gintoki."

" … I was planning on returning soon."

"Soon isn't good enough. I'm being serious – get back here."

"There's a storm tonight. Even if I wanted to come back-"

"-Look, I don't want to talk about this on the phone. Get walking, whether there's some pansy raindrops in the air or not. Understand?"

"What happened?" Hijikata didn't hide his sigh: as expected, Gintoki was making this harder than it needed to be.

"It's your girl. She's not very well."

"What do you mean?"

"For gods sake, Gintoki-"

"Hijikata!" He snapped. "Tell me."

"..." Clearly, Hijikata was hesitant to say anything when there was such a gaping distance between them. Either that meant he was tricking Gintoki into returning, which was extremely unlikely considering his character, or he wanted to say it in person. Therefore, it was serious. Kagura was in serious danger – so much so that Hijikata wouldn't reveal what was happening until he could fully gauge Gintoki's mood and reaction, which he could only do face to face.

"Toshiro." Gintoki pushed.

"Gahh …" He exclaimed, exasperated. "She's in a really bad way. She got involved in a fight a few days ago – it was really bad, but there's something else going on. We got a doctor involved-"

"You didn't tell me?!" Gintoki shouted in anger. Takasugi was watching him carefully.

"You didn't deserve to know." Hijkata replied calmly, and it stung. "Anyway, the doctor said her bad health is nothing to do with that incident. So we got in touch with Umibouzu, and he seems to think that Utsuro has awakened some of her mother's DNA within her. She's suffering the same symptoms. Now that the terminal has been shut down, there's no longer a huge source of altana running through the earth. We're not sure at all what's going on … you need to get back here."

Hijikata didn't need to tell him twice.

"When the terminal shut down, the core altana was removed, too." Hijikata announced mid-stride. This wasn't official police business; he didn't care. He was using police time and resources because fuck policy. Sougo, on the other end of the phone, was unsurprisingly cooperative. "One of the members of the previous Naraku who guarded the place must have taken it."

"Send me, Hijikata."

"You know I can't. You have a whole team to lead back here."

"That's why we have a 2IC, isn't it? I'm going, whether you give permission or not."

"Sougo, what can you hope to achieve out there in space? Shouldn't you stay back here with her?"

"I can't stay still."

"Kondo-san wouldn't allow this."

"Which is why I'm asking you."

"... Fine." He sighed – he'd done a lot of that recently. "The team head out tomorrow morning. See if you can get in contact with anyone in space. Even that laughing idiot Gintoki knows could help."

"I've got someone in mind."

"Who?"

"A pirate. And a brother."

"... You can't let the higher ups find out. If they know you've worked with the Harusame ..."

"They'll only know if you tell. Besides, there's barely such a thing as the higher ups now that Edo has been destroyed."

"Be careful, Sougo."

"I'll probably have left before danna returns … so I want you to stop him from going out into space after me. This is his chance. As much as he'll want to do something for her, his responsibility now is to stay by her side."

"I've never been very good at stopping him, you know that." Hijikata warned, feeling irritated just imagining the inevitable argument him and Gintoki were going to have soon.

"Then get good at it." Sougo said, hanging up.

"That brat ..."