a/n: I apologize for such a long wait, but thank you for reading!

"Who's there?" the target shouted loudly, waving his arms around. He'd leapt out of his futon, his eyes, Tsukuyo knew - unused to the dark. His back was pressed against the wall, his breaths erratic and loud. His sword rested in a room far away from his - and she had picked this night for this reason.

A trickle of sweat rolled down her forehead, and she resisted wiping it off.

Everything rested on this one moment, a culmination of the year that her master had trained her thoroughly, had indoctrinated her into the way of the shinobi.

This was their oath; to work in silence. To be a perfect weapon.

She threw her kunai, aiming it straight at the man's chest. Before he could cry out, she ran to him, clamping his mouth shut and twisting his neck efficiently with brute force.

The blood sprayed across the wooden floor, but no noise except for the slow bubbling of crimson escaped the room.

Tsukuyo lay the target down gently with her gloved hands, and then patted him down for something that could prove that she had indeed fulfilled her mission.

She slipped off the man's ring from his finger; it was engraved with the crest of his clan, signifying that he belonged to the feuding class. She pocketed the stolen memento and put it into her knapsack for safekeeping.

Opening the window, she pulled herself to the rooftop, eyes constantly on the lookout for guards, but there were none. It was the night after a banquet, after all, and no one, not even the lord's own personal army, would think to be on sentry on such an occasion.

She slipped out of the estate with little trouble, and her master was waiting for her under a wisteria tree.

They walked for a kilometer in silence in the dead of night, until one of them broke the silence. The night was cloudless, with only a sliver of the moon to guide them through the woods. Behind them, their puppets rattled in their wooden cages, hidden under the canopy of the trees.

"Do you have the tribute?" Momochi asked.

"Yes, Shishou." Tsukuyo took out her knapsack and pressed the bloodied ring into her master's palm.

"Excellent. I knew you had potential from the very beginning."

"Thank you, Shishou."

"When you reach fifty missions, we will have to think of a moniker for you. To inspire fear, you see."

"A moniker, Shishou?"

"Yes." Momochi continued walking for a bit, until she turned her head towards her student, tilting it uncannily without blinking. "How does... the Courtesan of Death sound?"

-x-

The man who stood impassively in front of her was still as a rock.

"The Oniwaban has instructed me to keep an eye on you," Jiraia said, his gaze piercing and inscrutable as she held her kunai firm against his neck. "It's nothing personal. They suspected he would attack you after moving you to a more private… location."

"You were the reason why he got angry tonight," Tsukuyo snarled, her kunai digging a little deeper into his neck. A very shallow cut was starting to appear, a tiny trickle of blood running down the edge of her knife. "I had to get out - otherwise you and I would have both been killed."

Jiraia was far calmer than he had any right to be. "I wasn't aware that he would notice."

It was a fair enough assumption to make for a normal civilian. But the Shiroyasha was no such person.

"I should kill you for interfering," she said coldly.

But she didn't.

There were certain ethical points she wouldn't have crossed as of yet. Being allied to a clan and killing a member of a different clan was an egregious offense.

She was Momochi's protegee, and firmly entrenched in the Rappa clan. To kill a member of the Oniwaban would have been tantamount to starting another shinobi war, and to begin it over an act of good intentions would have benefitted no one, least of all the Bakufu who had another war to manage. At the very least, the Hattori clan would have to be forced to kill her on principle to avenge Jiraia's death, and she had no desire as of yet to die.

"Have you remembered the oath you made in exchange for mine?" he retorted, and she glared at him.

"How could I forget," she spat out, her voice bitter. "A life for another. A life of which I'm reminded every day."

There had been a fire, once, in Yoshiwara. It had been started by Jiraia, who had done so to disguise her sins.

In exchange for arranging Tsukuyo's disappearance without any criminal repercussions, he had sold her to the village of Shiranui. The crime in question was heinous in civilized society but was warmly welcomed in the Iga prefecture.

It was a high price to pay for his sister's protection. A gamble. Shizuka was in hostile territory at the time.

But it was a deal that was irrevocable.

She had made a deal with the devil and sold her soul in order to protect the person most important to her.

To never let anything happen to her again like the way things turned out the day of the fire. She had vowed to never let another man subjugate her the way she had been in Yoshiwara.

But now she was at a loss.

She did not want to fail her mission. Yet she had no way of contacting the Shiroyasha, whose appearances even to the Jouishishi were rarer than a blue moon.

Going back to the warehouse now would put both of them in danger, risking the temper of a sociopathic murderer who seemed capable of razing entire cities to the ground, if possible.

Tsukuyo bit her lip.

"I'll have to report this to the head," she said grudgingly. "But the next time you follow me, I'd have to kill you. I'd be able to justify it on the basis of my safety."

For all intents and purposes, Jiraia was far older than she was. Though he had been the strongest shinobi at one point - especially during the warring states era - he had withered away over time. His legs had deteriorated in the past after a skirmish with a rival samurai family, decades ago.

He raised an eyebrow, seemingly unapologetic for the intrusion. His neck was still bleeding. "Don't tell me you've already developed an attachment with that man."

Tsukuyo gave him a look of sheer disgust. "Don't be ridiculous."

They turned separate ways without further conversation - he, back to the red light district, and her, to the Hattori estate. Shinobi did not bond with each other. They merely came out of the shadows when it was necessary, only to sink back after the night had fallen.

-x-

"Even your own side doesn't trust you. How can you even vouch for them when you're just a tool to them?"

The Shiroyasha's words echoed in her ears as she came to the Hattori estate. The gate was left askew this time, obviously expecting her visit.

Unlike samurai, who were expected to commit hara-kiri if they failed to carry out their master's orders, shinobi were different. Failed missions, especially high-risk ones, were not an occasion for punishment - it merely served as a deterrent as the rate of success tended to be substantially lower. The jounin - in this case, it being Hattori Zenzou - would decide which tactic to proceed with.

"I angered him," Tsukuyo said bluntly, reporting directly now to her head of the Oniwaban. "He didn't like that I had a tail," she added resentfully.

"Hmm," he said.

"You nearly got me killed," she accused him. "I know you asked Jiraia to follow me. There wasn't any reason for him to do that."

"With all respect, Shinigami Dayuu, why do you think the Shiroyasha asked for a more private meeting?" The cool gaze of his lone eye fell on her, and it made her flinch. "Generally speaking, most assassinations in our field tend to start off with a private meeting. Forgive me if I don't want to risk one of our best agents on a whim."

Tsukuyo swallowed. He had a point. And then she opened her mouth again.

"He's given three sessions of intel," the kunoichi pointed out. "That should have been sufficient to establish his true intents."

"So why do you think he switched the meeting place?"

"He said..." Tsukuyo swallowed. "He said that he needed a place to sleep. To carry out his acts of evil. I guess the location was more convenient for him."

Never mind that she didn't remember seeing a bed in that wretched shack. She wondered if he slept on the floor.

Hattori tapped his fingers on the tatami floor, apparently thinking. "So, he values convenience over discretion. Interesting."

"But now he'll sever contact with us," Tsukuyo said bitterly. "We've established that we can't be trusted."

"I doubt that. I think there's a bigger picture here, than what we're seeing at the moment. And to be fair, we can't trust him either. He did just threaten to kill you, which is a persona non grata."

"It was my fault," Tsukuyo said, eyes downcast. "I asked him a question I shouldn't have."

"Oh?" There was a hint of amusement in the leader's voice. "So your hot temper wasn't merely a rumor."

"He's a human. So I asked him why he was keen on betraying humanity."

"That's too direct. You asked him to give up his underlying motives, which obviously isn't... smart."

"Which I know now. I just... " Tsukuyo bit her lip. "I think by now if I haven't blown the mission completely... "

"The war is bigger than us shinobi, and you're still alive," Hattori reminded her soberly. "But I wouldn't have picked you to be the liaison if I didn't believe there was a human element motivating our spy. He's not like the other Naraku that we've obtained intel on. He doesn't care for prestige, power, or wealth. We don't know what he actually wants, and that's where you come into play."

"I'm not a negotiator, though - "

"Which makes you ideal. Has he specifically asked you for something in return?"

Tsukuyo momentarily remembered the bag of contraceptives that she had hastily shoved underneath her futon, and shook her head furiously.

"That's unusual." The ninja leaned back, pondering the scenario. "I think in these strange circumstances, I'll have to assign you to a new mission."

Her heart dropped. "Oh." Was he about to replace her?

"You'll have to find a way to contact him. Get him back into good graces. The Oniwabanshu can't get in contact with him, but it's possible that you'd be able to lure him back in."

-x-

The craggy cliffs of the east coast of Japan left little to be desired, Gintoki thought to himself, but their father believed in the survival of the fittest. The tent was set up near an Altana crater, and the light glowed against the tent.

"How do you feel?" he said, sitting on the stool next to Katsura's cot.

"Bad," his brother replied. A few bandages had been wrapped around his torso and arms, and he was taking shallow breaths. Gintoki suspected there were still a few broken ribs lying underneath the loose hakama that his companion was wearing.

"Ah well, you'll feel better soon enough," Gintoki said. "The last time Chibisuke fucked up this bad, it took him a day and a half to recover. I'm sure it'll be quicker in your case."

"Father made sure I couldn't heal myself," Katsura said.

"That's what you deserved," Gintoki commented lightly. "Nagasaki could've been the striking blow against the samurai, but you blew it."

"Something I sorely regret," his companion muttered, and placed his arm on his eyes, partially blocking out the light emanating from the Altana craters. "I thought I was prepared. I'd gone through the plans a thousand times, checked for any loopholes... "

A twinge of guilt ran through Gintoki, but he decided to suppress it for now. "Action will always triumph theory, Zura."

"It's not Zura, it's Katsura."

"So you say."

"Gintoki, Father will punish you too if you leave those rice balls at the entrance. You'll get it worse than me, especially as you're not carrying his blood."

Gintoki snorted. "Rice balls? I don't know what you're talking about, Zura."

"I'm not so incapacitated that I can't smell tuna or mayonnaise."

"Again, I don't know what you're talking about," Gintoki said. "But I'm pretty sure Takasugi stopped by with them a few hours ago while you were knocked out cold. Said he only wanted the ones with umeboshi inside of them, or something like that. Anyways, you'd be proud of us getting along. We haven't even picked a single fight in the last twenty-four hours."

"Were two you even standing in the same room yesterday?"

"No," Gintoki admitted. "But it still counts."

That managed to coax a smile out of Katsura, even though it was painful from his end. "I suppose some things never change."

A crow shrieked outside of Katsura's tent, catching their attention. Gintoki sighed, getting up from his stool.

"What does Father want from me this time?"

"It's probably your turn to fight," Katsura said. "The Chatoran tribe has been antsy about putting us in leadership."

"So I'm supposed to tell them who's in charge?"

"Maybe."

Gintoki stretched his limbs, rotating his arm so that it was flexible, and then cracked his knuckles. "I'd better give them a show, then."

-x-

Tsukuyo looked at the sketches of the Shiroyasha on the rooftop of the bordello. At the hour of the tiger, the lights were snuffed out and the red light district had finally gone silent. Tsukuyo had known the bordello would be quiet now until the late hours of the early afternoon. Needing very little sleep, she was spending more time here than anywhere else lately in order to organize her thoughts.

She looked over his photos and compiled the pieces of evidence together, trying to understand as much of him as possible.

She wanted to know who Sakata Gintoki was as a person. As an enemy. As someone who'd threatened to kill her.

I'm here because it's boring.

That most certainly had to be a lie, Tsukuyo concluded. She had offended him when she asked if he would regret betraying humanity. It had bothered him enough to where he most certainly had cut her off for now.

She didn't take it personally that he had threatened her life. Of course, the death threat coming from him had scared her. But it wasn't enough for her to go back to Shiranui; Tsukuyo was no stranger to death. Now she knew for sure that there had to be a hidden motive for him to contact the Other Side - a motive so important that he was willing to risk his life in enemy territory.

He had a master, just like her. She could only assume that the individual was still alive and probably more powerful than the Shiroyasha himself; a piece of bad news to anyone fighting for the Bakufu.

She remembered that he said he was looking for a source of Altana in Edo. But that didn't make him especially noteworthy, she thought to herself. Every Amanto and patriot alike would shed blood to discover the precious energy. The problem was that Altana craters tended to be hidden; they would reactivate sporadically at times with no rhyme or reason to them. The few locations that were known in Japan and also consistently open were either located in no-man zones, or defended to the gills.

Sakata Gintoki was willing to give valuable information to the enemy with little strings attached; delivered so casually that it seemed dangerous.

But the all the intelligence given had been proven to be accurate so far. Sakamoto's army had escaped, albeit with heavy casualties.

What was the catch?

And more importantly, how could she find him again?

She sat, crouching on the rooftop, contemplating various ideas until she grew tired, and then slipped into the window of the room where all the servants slept at night.

-x-

Lady Oryou had asked Tsukuyo to fetch the chickens for the bordello's kitchen. The cooks had been busy all day in the kitchen, prepping for tomorrow's banquet, and there wasn't anyone else to do it except for her. While the courtesans and their assistants were not permitted to exit Yoshiwara, servants could leave the premises if needed. And so, the owner of the bordello had given Tsukuyo a slip of paper to the butchers, who lived on the outskirts of Edo.

Tsukuyo had donned a plainer kimono, putting her hair into a simple style so that she would not be mistaken as someone who was from nobility - not that she had any intention of doing so in the first place. But the more expensive courtesans did, and she wished to distance herself from such niceties.

She wasn't a nice girl. Never had been, even when Hinowa had coached her for hours, preparing her debut to serve at her mentor's socializing events.

She blended seamlessly into the crowd, finding her way towards the gates of the city. Having spent a month in the capital, Tsukuyo was beginning to remember the paths in and out of of the city from long ago. But a few things had changed since she had left.

Most of the entrances were brigaded. The Bakufu had put guards in place, and there was a sense of uneasiness in the populace. There was a caste system - even during the days of war. Edo hadn't been starving - at least, not yet. And so, the workers who tanned leather and killed animals for meat had been banished outside of the city. The aviary was located near the riverbanks, although many of the birds were tethered inside the cages, in order to prevent them from escaping.

Tsukuyo lingered in the entrance, eying the door with suspicion before dipping into the shopfront. There seemed to be little light inside, and what was left of it only made the aviary seem more foreboding than necessary.

The dank room reeked of bird droppings, and she held her breath before scanning her eyes for a plump chicken. The owner would come looking for her soon if she didn't return to the bordello before nightfall.

There were doves stuffed in cages, ducks on the brink of dying, and a rooster that had seen better days walking around the shop. He clucked impatiently at Tsukuyo, as if he was warning of some dark energy that lingered inside the room.

She swallowed, wishing she'd brought more kunai. There was one tucked up her sleeve, but it didn't feel sufficient at the moment.

Then out of nowhere, a crow loudly squawked - causing her to turn her heel.

It was a strange creature. It looked at her, eyes unblinking while its head turned sideways. The bird's feathers gleamed black in the dim light, and there was an unsettling dignity to it as the two of them stared at each other.

It's just a crow, Tsukuyo told herself, trying to stabilize her breath. It can't hurt you.

Still.

It looked a lot like... the Shiroyasha's crow. The one who had rested on his staff when they had first met.

"Ah, so I see you've discovered our latest addition."

Her head whirled around, only to come face to face with the aviary's shopkeeper. An old woman that she hadn't noticed from a while back stood near the entrance.

"It's a pet?"

"I wouldn't say so. It's more of a stray; it comes and goes here as it pleases."

"I've never seen one so comfortable in a shop," Tsukuyo commented, still unnerved. It was eerie how the bird looked at her...

As if it knew her.

"It has an owner, I think," the shopkeeper said. "We used to cultivate messenger pigeons back in the day until they came out of fashion. Like clockwork, this one arrives every couple of days. I can't figure it out."

Her hair stood on end.

"The Bakufu ordered us to kill all the crows after that nasty incident in the palace," the woman continued. "The mornings became peaceful, of course, but I suppose a few might have escaped the city - even though we tried our very best."

"You didn't kill this one, though."

"I've tried," the owner said. "I think it's too intelligent, though. It wouldn't come here when I set up the usual traps. It's as if it has a third sense for these kinds of things. So I stopped; I didn't think it was worth the trouble a year after the incident happened."

"I see..."

"So, miss, how can help you today?"

Tsukuyo finally tore her eyes from the crow, remembering why she came here in the first place.

-x-

After the chicken finally tucked into her knapsack, wrapped in fabric tied securely with knots on top, she made her way home back to the red light district.

But she couldn't forget about the strange bird who seemed almost sentient in the shop. It was almost impulsive, the way she had blurted out, "I'll be back," to the crow, as if it was capable of understanding what she meant.

It was ridiculous, she knew, but her master had told her once that animals were more intuitive than humans gave them credit for. The leader of the Oniwabanshu had kept cats for various reasons during their centuries of service to the Shogun.

Perhaps it was something. Or nothing.

Still, she wasn't one to let go of the tiny details. Her mind wouldn't let her rest, and it sustained her through the evening until the sky turned pitch black.

When her errands were done and the night had passed, Tsukuyo crept out of her room. At the hour of the tiger, even the troublesome guests of Yoshiwara were put into cheap inns to rest for the night. The lights had been dimmed - for now, until the groundkeepers would turn them on for tomorrow's entertainment.

She had always felt the most alive during the night. The sun had made her lethargic; slower in movement and sense. Donning lighter clothing, and armed with a puppet, it was a more natural state of existence for her than any other time of the day.

Jumping from rooftop to rooftop, it was faster to navigate her way across the city than it was before. There was no traffic, ox or crowds of people to get in her way as she retraced her way back to the aviary.

When she arrived, the shop was closed and most of the birds seemed to be asleep; thick blankets had been placed over their locked cages. She had been careful to not disturb the peace, and her training made her invisible to most bypassers that might have been awake that time of night.

There was no sign of the crow.

Tsukuyo frowned, even though realistically this was what she expected.

Maybe I'll pick open the lock, she thought to herself, and as she reached out for her knapsack, she scanned the vicinities for any immediate danger.

Then -

Her ears detected a flapping in the wind.

A bird? she thought hopefully, turning her head.

And indeed, it was the same crow from that afternoon that had gazed at her, hovering a few meters away from her. The same patterns, the same glossy feathers that had marked its wings gleamed underneath the moonlight.

"You can understand human speech," Tsukuyo said quietly, in awe as the bird flew in small, graceful circles around her head. "Who is your owner?"

Then she noticed that the crow had dropped something on the ground. Squinting, she leaned to pick it up, before realizing it was the warifu that she had made a blood oath with Gintoki weeks ago.

The brown stain of her blood and his handwriting was unmistakable. She took out her own piece of warifu while holding her beath, matching it to the jagged edges of the other half. The two of them fit perfectly together, verifying his identity.

Her blood ran cold.

"You belong to the Shiroyasha," she said, her hands trembling. "How did you find me?"

The bird flew a little further away from her, giving her no explanation.

"Wait," Tsukuyo said, pocketing the warifu into her tunic. "Don't go. I need to - "

I need to see him again.

She took a step forwards, following the bird. In response, it slowly flapped its wings in a lazy motion, as if to beckon her into pursuing it.

A part of her suspected it could be a trap.

Maybe Gintoki wants to kill me, she thought fearfully. She should have left Jiraia a message before she left Yoshiwara. After all, it could take weeks for them to find a missing body...

But a part of her didn't want to.

She wanted to find him on her own.

And so, she followed this strange crow - knowing there was a chance that she might never come back.

-x-

Tsukuyo walked out of the city limits and into the edge of the forests. She had estimated it had been a few kilometers until they reached the base of a mountain, and then the crow had flown in a direction where the trail was no longer commonly used by travelers. She surreptitiously plucked strands of golden hair from her head at random intervals, leaving behind a subtle trail of evidence on the ground in case something went terribly wrong. By now, she had switched from her sandals into her leather moccasins, as they protected her feet better from the wild thistles that grew in the grass below.

"Where are we going?" she finally asked the crow, to which there was no answer. Still, she was aware, somehow that they were near where Gintoki would be.

It finally hovered near the entrance of a cave a few minutes later.

"Is this where he is?" she asked.

The crow dipped its head once, as if it was nodding, and then with a flap of its wings, disappeared in a flash. It was as if the creature had never existed, and though she craned her neck in search of where it went to, she could not follow its path with her eyes. The night was simply too dark. She would have to rely on her other senses to navigate her surroundings.

Her heartbeat accelerated.

Be brave, she told herself. Before she entered the cave, she ensured her fingers were wrapped around her puppets.

She stepped into the entrance, letting her eyesight adjust to the dark. Her footsteps echoed into the cave, causing her to wince even though she had tried her best to remain as quiet as possible.

A voice came out, raspy and menacing. "Who's there? Speak now, or forever sleep."

Tsukuyo swallowed. It was unmistakably his voice. She would have recognized it from anywhere by now.

"It's me, Tsukuyo. I know you're in here, Gintoki. I wanted to... to apologize to you in person."

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- tbc

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a/n: Reviews are always appreciated.