Encore, or Else

As signs and portents go, the ill-timed buzz wasn’t exactly a dramatic roll of thunder, but Gintoki knew a plot interruption when he heard one. He tried to sink back into sleep by burrowing deeper into the couch and letting the Jump over his face block out the noise, but the first buzz was followed by a longer, more insistent press of the button.

“Shinpachi. Door.” His words came out muffled by cheap, drool-damp paper, and didn’t bring any response because of course the reason he’d managed a nap in the first place was that Shinpachi had said something about errands and scurried off.

Gintoki lifted the Jump. “Kagura! Door!” Despite the raised voice, his only reply was another buzz. Probably Kagura had gotten bored and wandered off to find some other kids to play with. Which probably also meant... “Hey, Sadaharu?”

Silence.

Buzz.

Even the dog had abandoned Gintoki.

“Oh, for crying out loud,” he muttered. Irritation propelled him off his comfy perch, the magazine thumping to the floor. When the tinny noise recurred after a brief respite with what sounded like even more force, he rolled his eyes. ”We don’t even have a buzzer,” he complained as he stomped towards the door. “It’s a doorbell. Goes pin-pon. Right there in episode 15 already — it’s not that hard to fact-check.”

In a state of righteous indignation he slammed the door open rather more brusquely than necessary, and was shoved half a step back across his own threshold by two very large bodies in black suits. They came together like the doors of a barely missed elevator, closing the space between them to shield the man behind them from any cutting words Gintoki might have had for him.

Gintoki, once he’d regained his footing, went for his cool customer service voice rather than blustering outrage. “Yes hello — Yorozuya Gin-chan, how may I help you?” Anyone who could afford trained mooks would have pockets deep enough to make the interrupted afternoon worth his while, and he craned his neck to try and catch the eye of the moneybag. Uh. Customer.

The bodyguards reacted to some silent signal, executing a nicely synchronized bit where they slid open and ended up lurking menacingly behind their slighter charge instead. The man was dressed in fancy silks — black with red trim, which Gintoki couldn’t fault him for, but the kimono was lined with red, too, and a scattering of seasonal red maple leafs stood out like splashes of fresh blood against the black. He’d seemed smaller than he was behind his bodyguards — stepping confidently forward, the man in his geta was taller than Gintoki would be in his boots. The artful silks gave him a solid silhouette, but he was thinly built, and up close his face had a gaunt cast. It made it impossible to say if he was a younger man who had aged poorly, or an older man whose skin was drawn so taut across his skull his wrinkles didn’t show. If that was the case his ponytail was a likely culprit — it did look awfully tight.

“Sakata Gintoki-san?” There was an eager gleam in the man’s dark eyes that Gintoki hoped meant he was ready to pay dearly for Yorozuya assistance.

“The very same, at your service.”

“Yougai Yasuhiko,” the man introduced himself without producing a card, leaving a pause after his name indicating he expected some reaction there.

Gintoki waited. Yougai blinked. Gintoki cleared his throat. “Yes…?”

“Ah. Well.” Having missed his self-introduction window, Yougai pretended he hadn’t just failed to impress Gintoki. “I know you are a busy man,” Yougai said superciliously, “so let me get straight to business.”

Gintoki perked up at that. Usually he’d herd the mark — uh, client — inside at this point and serve some tea and senbei, but with Shinpachi out and those giant looming mooks? He made a quick calculation of what would appear most businesslike, and then nodded brusquely as if he always conferred with clients barefoot on his doorstep. “Of course. I’m sure whatever you need, Yorozuya Gin-chan is your man.”

Yougai smiled thinly. “Not quite.”

“Excuse me?”

Yougai took a half-step forward, getting closer than Gintoki felt was quite necessary. “I’d like to hire Shiroyasha.”

It took Gintoki a second to parse the words, to make sense of the shock he was feeling. It took another second to exhale, quirk his lips in a lazy smile, and drawl, “I’m sorry, we’re all out of those.”

Yougai’s expression didn’t change, though Gintoki felt a stirring of imperious impatience from him. “I’m sure I can make it worth your while.”

“Then I’m sure you can hire a fantastic cosplayer,” Gintoki retorted. Whatever this rando wanted with that name was none of his business, but he felt an urge to get the man out of his naturally curly hair as quickly as possible. Sure, there might have been money in it for him, but he knew in his bones that nothing could pay what it would cost him, and that it wasn't anything he wanted to dwell on.

“Don’t worry,” Yougai said, leaning even closer, his voice now a conspiratorial whisper. “This will stay between us — the police don’t have to know.”

Oh, the police didn’t have to know? Well, Yougai had clearly missed most of canon — definitely the Shinsengumi episodes, at least. Gintoki leaned forward, mimicking Yougai. “I’m sure that will make whoever you hire very happy.” He straightened and cleared his throat, speaking up again. “Sorry I couldn’t help you — goodbye.”

“Sakata-san,” Yougai said slowly, a crease struggling to appear between his brows. “I’m sure you don’t quite understand the situation—”

“No, you don’t understand the situation,” Gintoki retorted, very carefully not thinking about anything beyond ending this non-transaction as quickly as possibly. “And I can’t help you with that.”

Yougai was now frowning in earnest, and his henchmen loomed extra threateningly. “Sakata-san—”

“Sorry. Shiroyasha needs a nap. Goodbye!” Done with the conversation, Gintoki shot them a grin, then stepped back into his hallway and slid the door shut quick as a striking snake.

Then he slid it back open, gave the noncanonical buzzer a good punch, and slammed the door on the sight of the three men outside staring at the smoke billowing out of the new hole in the facade, Yougai’s ponytail wafting in the resulting breeze.

Gintoki stomped back to the sofa, and groaned. “Those bastards. They made me lose my place in the Jump!”

The next thing that roused him from sleep was far more welcome — a jumble of familiar footsteps and voices and yips, the smell of Otose’s cooking. He didn’t stir, and soon Shinpachi’s critical stare bored through the Jump. “Gin-san, what happened to the door? And where’s the client?”

Gintoki plucked the Jump off his face and blinked up at Shinpachi. “Who?”

“The old lady said she heard you talking to someone!” Kagura said as she hopped into view.

“Pff. She must be getting senile.”

“There’s a hole next to the door!” Shinpachi looked insulted on Otose’s behalf, but before he could continue protesting Gintoki overrode him.

“Honestly, there was no client! Just someone annoying me with the buzzer.”

“Since when do we have a buzzer?” Shinpachi exclaimed.

“That’s what I said!”

“Gin-chan, Shinpachi, I’m hungry.”

Gintoki ignored Shinpachi’s follow-up questions and complaints about repair bills — that sort of thing tended to sort itself out eventually — and the issue was dropped when they both had to dive in to keep Kagura from picking out all the meat in Otose’s curry. Sadaharu added to the mayhem by barking happy approval of dinner plans. The familiar chaos put Gintoki at ease. Everything was back to normal, and it was time to put that smarmy Yougai and his request out of his mind and then forget that he had ever put anything out of his mind. Since the guy hadn’t come back, he had probably taken the hint and gone off to do weird shit without Gintoki.

Slamming the receiver down for the fifth time the next morning, Gintoki admitted the possibility that he might have been slightly too optimistic about Yougai. The man was far too persistent for anyone’s good.

It made Gintoki wonder. He tried to keep his speculations from running away with him, because then his feelings might follow, and that would be— Well. That was something he’d prefer to avoid. But it was strange. Not that it was impossible for Yougai to have made the connection between Shiroyasha and Sakata Gintoki — he’d never made a great secret of his past; he just didn’t bring it up much — but that the man cared at all. And if he cared about that, it had occurred to Gintoki that he might care about others, too. Gintoki hesitated, mulling the conclusion over, considering what he had to lose by just pretending none of this was happening. Then he sighed and dialled Zura’s number.

The dial tone droned on until Gintoki nearly hung up before the call went through. There was a rustle of cloth, a muted voice muttering as a finger blocked the microphone, and then, “Hello? Hello? It's Katsura.”

“Hey, Zura.”

“It’s not Zura, it’s Katsura.”

“It’s Gintoki.”

“No, I said it’s Katsura.”

Every single time. Gintoki refused to take the bait. Katsura knew it was him. Probably. Either way, Gintoki couldn’t spend too long on this schtick, so he forged ahead. “Have you gotten any… weird callers lately?”

“I have one right now,” came Katsura’s deadpan voice from the receiver.

Gintoki stared very hard at the far wall. Funny, Zura. Very funny. “So nobody asking about the old days?”

There was a pause. It wasn’t a subject either one of them would bring up unprompted. Not even that idiot Sakamoto would, usually. “No. Why?”

It was Gintoki’s turn to pause. He didn’t know what Yougai wanted; he’d never listened that long. He just knew he didn’t like it. But he did have a business advertising they’d do any job, and he did have a big sign outside with his name on it. So maybe there was nothing sinister, just creepy fanboy shit, and that was not something Zura needed to know he was dealing with. “No reason,” Gintoki said. “I just some random stalker asking question.”

“I thought you already had a regular stalker? Why are you getting a random one too?”

“I didn’t exactly ask for it.”

“In that case, have your four-eyed ninja take them out. There can be only one and all that.”

“Isn’t that Highlanders, not stalkers?”

“Well, whatever they are, don’t hog them! Some of us have no stalkers, regular or random. It’s quite unfair.”

That sealed it. Katsura would definitely not be thirsting for the spotlight if he had to put up with Yougai to get it. “Fine, I’ll give them your card.”

“Don’t be silly, Gintoki. I don’t have cards. I am a rebel, on the run from an oppressive government, I couldn’t possibly carry cards that would betray my true identity.”

“Sure, whatever.”

Gintoki hung up, feeling a bit lighter at heart for the confirmation that whatever was going on was a localized phenomena. Then the phone rang again. He picked up the receiver, and at the sound of the now-familiar voice greeting him politely on behalf of Yougai-san he nearly ripped the cord from the wall and threw the phone out the window. But that would set him back a phone. Instead he held the receiver at arm’s length, eyeing it with disgust, and then and lowered it by the cord until it dangled into his trash can.

Shinpachi wandered in and processed what was happening to the phone. “Another prank call?” he asked with a fair bit of sympathy, and Gintoki grumbled an affirmative and put his feet back up on his desk. That bastard Yougai’s personal assistant had a vocabulary entirely lacking the word “no”, as well as all versions thereof, such as “hell no” and “you can tell him to shove his offer up his ass.” She was ruthlessly polite and completely inflexible as she persisted in her efforts to get Gintoki to accept a slightly higher offer than the previous figure her employer had mentioned. He was sure the trash can would be very impressed.

Running interference to make sure Shinpachi or Kagura didn’t get involved in the one-sided bidding war had kept Gintoki from at least one good nap and forced him to rush through taking a dump, all of which had put him in a sour mood. What he needed was a proper client with an easy problem: a lost mystical pet to recover, a village to defend, a pirate treasure at the end of a geographically unlikely sea to find. Anything that would put a few more yen in his bank account and get him and those two layabouts out and about away from the phone.

Instead he got an envelope, delivered covered in dog saliva by a cheerful Kagura. “I taught Sadaharu how to fetch the mail!”

Gintoki looked at the soggy envelope. “Un-teach him.”

“Meanie! At least Sadaharu is doing some work around here, unlike some people I could mention.”

“Fine, fine. Now go train him to put out fires or something.”

Kagura pulled the expected face at him, and Gintoki ignored it. He poked the envelope open, wiped his hands, and fished out the surprisingly dry card inside.

It wasn’t black with red calligraphy or anything, but it did have that little scattering of blood-red maple leaves in the corner. Past the formalities and pleasantries, it included the words “final offer” which was the only reason Gintoki didn’t toss it straight in the garbage. Final offer was another way of getting the peace and quiet he was missing, and without having to go to the end of the Grand Line. There was a time and place the very next day, and an apology for any bother Yougai had caused by framing his request so poorly.

Great. He’d go tell Yougai where to shove the request. Do it in person to make sure it was done right — he had the feeling the assistant may have taken some liberties with his message — and that would be that. In the meantime, he had a nap to catch up on.

Gintoki waved vaguely and told his employees he was leaving, but Shinpachi was busy teaching Kagura the fanclub choreography to Otsuu-chan’s latest single, and they barely mustered a distracted “Bye,” as he slid the door shut. Yougai had picked a park outside of both Kabuki-cho and the neighborhood that had been on his card. Perfectly polite and neutral. Easy enough to get to, and by the time Gintoki arrived, the pleasantly warm sunlight slanted fetchingly through the foliage of green keyaki and maple shifting to shades of red.

A few kids roughhoused among the trees, and a couple of tiny old ladies were making their slow way along the path, cheerfully swapping supermarket sale battle stories, but other than that the park was quiet. It felt remote from the city, even though the bulk of Central Terminal blotted out parts of the sky behind him. One of the children laughed, loud and joyful, and in the rural silence the sound brought a wave of pure nostalgia — the small school house; the dojo. Flopping down to get a better look at the maple leaves Sensei had pointed out; his kind smile against the crimson.

Gooseflesh prickled Gintoki’s bare arm, and he shrugged the moment off before it could get more than skin deep. This was no time to space out among the trees — Yougai seemed like the type to arrive by fancy car, so it would make more sense to wait by the main entrance to the local shrine. Plenty of traffic went right by that. Plenty of noise, no playing kids. That would do fine.

Yougai was indeed delivered by a shiny black limo— one of two. His two suited goons spilled out of the first like clowns from a very expensive clown car. One took up a looming position near where Gintoki was leaning against a convenient stone pillar, the other went to hold the door of the second car. A young woman in a conservative business kimono and glasses emerged, a tablet in one hand. There wasn’t a hair out of place in her smart bun, and even without hearing her voice, Gintoki knew this must be the personal assistant.

Finally, the man himself emerged, greeting Gintoki as warmly as if no door had ever been slammed in his face. Gintoki sighed. “Yougai. You sure don’t know how to take a hint, huh?”

“Apologies, Sakata-san. I’m sure we will be able to reach a cordial agreement once you hear my proposal.”

Gintoki scratched an itch on his butt. “Yeah, my cordial offer is ‘no’.” He pushed off the pillar. “That clear enough? I have a weather forecast to catch, so…”

Yougai nodded as if he had very much wanted to hear those exact words. “I’m sure we can keep a window of your schedule clear for your viewing pleasure,” he said. A frisson of tension went up Gintoki’s spine, and he straightened. This was neither desperation nor poor negotiation tactics. Yougai was casually rewriting Gintoki’s answer to suit himself — and not just that, but doing it as confidently as if he expected his words to override Gintoki’s reality. It was the sort of thing a dangerous person used to getting their way would do.

“Ueno-kun.” Yougai motioned to his personal assistant.

There it was again. Gintoki hadn’t pegged Yougai as dangerous before, but now he had a pit in his stomach that had nothing to do with how the two bodyguards simultaneously reached inside their suit jackets. It was the way Yougai’s serene smile tilted into a smirk, the way his eyes lit up as the woman with the tablet stepped inside Gintoki’s personal space and wordlessly held up the screen.

Gintoki forced his fingers to curl into a fist rather than clench his sword. His body knew this for a loaded trap, even if it was one without locks or bars. Knew once he looked at that small square of pixels he would be well and truly in it, but that it had already been set all around him — and he hadn’t even noticed. Idiot. He kept his voice calm, made very sure Yougai couldn’t tell how the rush of worry had set his heart racing. “What’s this?”

“My offer,” Yougai said with deep satisfaction. “I believe you will find it… compelling.”

“And if it pisses me off as much as your endless buzzing did?” Gintoki knew the fate of the buzzer would not have slipped Yougai’s mind.

The mook twins shifted threateningly, and Gintoki was surprised to see some kind of snub-nosed Amanto weaponry come out of the suits. He’d imagined revolvers, to go with their look. “Splendid attitude. But I wouldn't recommend it,” Yougai said, clearly enjoying his part of the exchange. “We live in an age of wonderful technology, where one little mishap here might have very immediate, very fatal consequences elsewhere.”

Gintoki couldn’t help it. Hearing the threat out loud, he had to know — had to see how bad it was. He dropped his stare from Yougai to focus on the tablet. To the live-feed image of two bodies slumped unconscious, too small to be adults, too blue-and-white and red to be anything but Shinpachi and Kagura. They were on separate nondescript futons; the exact state of the two of them— Gintoki breathed through fear and into anger. Hostages were no use dead. He watched long enough to confirm that they were just unconscious, that they would be fine as soon as he could get them out. “If you’ve harmed them,” he said, fixing Yougai with a level gaze, “I will end you.”

Ueno, who hadn’t faltered once through any of their calls, took a step back from him and swallowed.

“Excellent!” Yougai seemed like he was about to clap with delight, as if he hadn’t heard that every single word Gintoki had just said was a promise, not a threat.

No matter what the minions were packing, Gintoki could take them before they had a chance to react. He would have Yougai at his mercy; Ueno could call whoever had Shinpachi and Kagura and demand their release… and if Yougai was true to his veiled threats, the response to that would be to kill Shinpachi and Kagura while they were still out cold. It wasn’t hard to tell that Yougai had the utmost confidence in his plan — he wouldn’t be here personally if he didn’t think he had taken enough measures to keep himself absolutely safe.

“No, your little friends are just with me for a visit,” Yougai continued. “They are perfectly fine, and will remain that way as long as you don’t overreact.”

Braced as Gintoki was, feeling the trap snap unequivocally shut on him still brought a surge of rage so powerful it blocked out his guilt and made the two bodyguards flinch and subtly brace for a fight even though he didn't even shift his stance. With those words Yougai had rendered him completely powerless to act — and the shitty bastard knew it, too, even if the mooks weren't as confident in their boss’s unassailability.

Yougai radiated smugness. “I knew we could come to an understanding, Sakata-san. Now if you would, please — we have places to be.”

The drive was about as uncomfortable in every way as Gintoki had expected when he realized he’d been volunteered for middle seat between the two individuals of ridiculous size Yougai employed. They rebuffed all conversational openings and didn’t crack a single smile at his attempts to lighten the mood. They just sat there making the car’s rear axle creak whenever it went over a bump, Gintoki squished in like a schoolboy between salarymen at rush hour. Ueno and Yougai had disappeared into the other car, taking the tablet — and Gintoki’s bokutou — with them.

By the time the car finally slowed down and rattled across a cobbled drive, dusk had fallen outside, and Gintoki could just about catch a glimpse of high walls and electric lanterns. They came to a halt in a floodlit patch of gravel nestled artfully between a very old, very stately mansion house and a large and well-kept garden.

Gintoki felt so compressed he wouldn’t be surprised to find his ribcage amusingly zipped together, ribs interlaced from the pressure. Stepping out of a vehicle had never felt so good, but his stretch was interrupted by a muzzle digging into the small of his back.

He spun around and glared at the nearest bodyguard, who took a cautious step back. “Oi! What’s that for? What did you think I was going to do — mime my way to freedom? Climb up an invisible rope?” During the ride Gintoki had decided that of course Kagura and Shinpachi were perfectly fine, and idiots to boot for pulling a double damsel in distress on him. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t slightly tetchy about the whole situation.

“Boss’s orders,” came the laconic reply, Amanto gizmo pointed unerringly at Gintoki’s sternum. He gave it an unimpressed look, and stretched slowly and theatrically, grumbling under his breath all the while.

Yougai was approaching from the other car, beaming at his own cleverness and offering Gintoki a normal, non-kidnappy host’s warm greetings to a welcome guest.

The stretches had pulled a yawn out of Gintoki, so his immediate reply was to blink sleepily and try and force his jaw shut. Yougai paused, and the nearest henchman shifted awkwardly, trying to catch his employer’s eye — Gintoki guessed they must have been told to prepare for resistance, and didn’t know what to do with something as prosaic as languor. “That’s a lovely welcome. But you do know it’s usually considered gauche to keep guests from leaving? It’s a sign of… what was it again?” Gintoki picked his ear, ignoring the way Yougai’s smile was rapidly fading. He withdrew the finger, flicking it clean as he leveled his gaze to Yougai’s. “Being a third-rate pantomime villain with delusions of psychopathy.”

The flash of anger in Yougai’s eyes pretty much confirmed Gintoki’s assessment. Little Yasuhiko was not a man used to indolence, or to having his character flaws highlighted in front of the staff. The curt nod to the suit behind him was entirely predictable. It was what would happen in the next few seconds that Gintoki was curious about and wanted to get to now, before there was anyone else around for Yougai to demonstrate on.

The Amanto weapon made the faintest of hums when it discharged, a whisper of energy that registered a barely perceptible fraction after it hit the target Gintoki’s back presented — and loose-limbed as he had made himself, the surge that hit still snapped his spine into a taut arc. It was entirely unlike being stabbed or shot or electrocuted — though not entirely unlike being hit by a dump truck. There was a second of intense pain, and then an abrupt numbness, as if every nerve in his body had simultaneously gone on strike. His limbs were leaden; his muscles felt like overcooked ramen noodles. Gintoki flopped to his knees on the gravel, arms uselessly at his sides, head bowed.

A pair of geta and the hem of a black-and-red kimono came into view. “I expect a certain level of respect from my employees,” Yougai said, and Gintoki supposed he should be grateful his tongue wasn’t working right quite yet — what he had to say in response would hardly have helped restore Yougai’s good mood.

“It’s all in your contract, of course — or would have been, if you hadn’t made this far more complicated than it needed to be,” Yougai said accusingly, then he sighed. “But as long as you don’t provoke it, we won’t need to have any further unpleasant exchanges.”

Gintoki was fairly sure there would be unprovoked unpleasantness until his fist could exchange Yougai’s teeth for dentures, something he was very much looking forward to doing. Unfortunately, it would have to wait — he had some lost kids to return home first.

“No matter.” Yougai took a step back, his voice briskly businesslike again.”We can sort all those details out later, I’m sure.”

Gintoki’s legs tingled as they started to register the sharp edges of the pebbles pressing into his knees, but it still seemed easier to sit for a little while longer than stand up and walk around or whatever. Yougai, however, had different ideas. A curt, “Aoki, Ayamine,” and meaty fists wrapped around his biceps and hauled him more or less upright.

“So you do have names,” Gintoki drawled, his words only slightly slurred. The two men ignored him, dragging him along as they following Yougai and Ueno towards the house. “I was trying to think of something to call you, but it seemed rude to Downtown-san to go with Matsumoto and Hamada. And your sizes are just wrong for Tom and Jerry.”

Aoki and Ayamine — or was it Ayamine and Aoki? — wittily retorted with silence and dumped Gintoki hard on the porch, where he politely took off his boots, because he might have been a kidnap victim, but he wasn’t a barbarian. And this was a seriously nice house — far nicer than someone clearly not of an old samurai family would have been able to get their hands on a couple of decades ago.

The fresh evening breeze had helped clear his head, and when Yougai told him to make himself at home Gintoki gamely gave a courteous reply, apologizing for intruding. After all, he did mean to do quite a lot more than intrude — and he certainly wasn’t going to apologize about it when he did.

There were people moving about the corridors and open walkways of the mansion — servants, probably, but also watchmen carrying more of the Amanto weapons tucked in their obi belts. It seemed that Aomine and Ayaki or whatever had leveled up to gangster clothes while the rest of the staff were still just shopping at the Takashimaya. All of them greeted the boss with deference that would have done a yakuza oyabun proud, and a few of them cast fearful glances at the Double-A Duo — the whole vibe would have creeped Gintoki out if he’d walked in here unawares. Now it just added to the reasons that this guy was a stuck-up wannabe sadist. “Nice place,” Gintoki said.

“It’s been our family home since my father acquired it,” Yougai said with the same kind of pride as people who were on their tenth or twentieth generation of home ownership. “We came by it cheaply in the war.”

Of course they had. Lots of old families on the Joui side had left empty homes behind as entire families were killed, or fled execution. Gintoki’s steps didn’t falter, but he sent a silent prayer to any ghosts or spirits hanging around to keep their grudges to his host and ignore poor innocent unwilling guests.

“Of course, since then it’s been modernized to the highest standards.” Having timed his words to make an entrance, Yougai stopped as Ueno slid a magnificently painted fusama aside to reveal a large, oddly proportioned room — and that was all Gintoki registered before he saw the cages.

For a second, white static drowned out all other impressions — Yougai’s droning voice, the reception room, the gold-leaf wall decorations — and threatened to blind Gintoki with rage. Cages. With bars. Like for animals, only instead of animals these held Shinpachi and Kagura and Yougai had put them in there and he would pay. It didn’t escape Gintoki’s attention that two of the silent house guard were standing a step or so behind each cage, Amanto weapons drawn and faces grim in a way that left no doubt as to what their orders were.

One of the henchmen jammed a muzzle into his spine again. Gintoki exhaled, the white noise fading, but his body still refused to relax. The last time he’d seen Shinpachi and Kagura it had been on that small screen, and both of them had been lying down, motionless. It wasn’t until he caught a glimpse of movement past Yougai and Ueno that the live-wire tension drained from his body.

“As you can see,” Yougai concluded, “perfectly safe.” He stepped aside to give Gintoki an unimpeded view of the cages. Ueno cleared her throat, and Yougai huffed with annoyance, but added, “Maybe a little groggy, but that can’t be helped.”

Indeed, behind them Shinpachi was hoisting himself up with the help of the cage, and Kagura was flat on her stomach, face jammed so tightly between two of the iron bars her eyes bulged out.

Gintoki raised a hand in greeting. “Oi, you lazy brats. Were you napping on the job?”

“Gin-san!”

“Gin-chan…”

Gintoki grinned at them, letting their clashing greetings-turned-excuses wash over him as he relaxed back on his heels as one of the suits held an arm up to stop him advancing.

“Gin-san, we didn’t know—”

“—chocolates shouldn’t do that but maybe they were lick-or chocolates for adults and they knocked us out because we’re under 21—”

“Kagura started it! I said we should wait for you but then she was eating all of it—”

Gintoki had thought it odd that whatever had taken them down had affected Kagura more than Shinpachi, but drugged sweets? Yeah, it made sense the little glutton had gone down hard. Also — drugged sweets? Now that was truly monstrous. To force innocent sweets to betray you — that was absolutely unforgivable.

“—and my tummy feels funny—”

Shinpachi took a deep breath, getting ready to scold Kagura — even in his wobbly state, there was no mistaking that disapproval — but then he started as if he’d realized he’d forgotten to turn off the stove before getting kidnapped, and stared at Gintoki instead. “Gin-san, what are you doing here?”

“Um,” Gintoki offered. “You see…”

Kagura stopped mid-sentence, and blinked blearily. “Gin-chan’s come to take us home, of course.”

Geez, that brat. Gintoki’s heart clenched in what was obviously annoyance, and he cleared his throat. “Yes, Gin-san’s here to take you home. We just have a little, uh. Job to do. First.”

“What job is that, Gin-san?” Shinpachi’s voice was level, but there was a brittle quality to it, his eyes behind the glasses darting to the guards standing by behind Kagura’s cage.

“Gin-chan, just beat the crap out of those candy-ruiners and let’s go home or I’m gonna puke,” Kagura whined.

“You barf and I leave you here,” Gintoki snapped, and that annoying oversized minion shoved the Amanto gun at him again.

“Nobody’s leaving anywhere just yet,” Yougai said loudly, trying to get everyone’s attention. It occurred to Gintoki that he may have tried to start some kind of spiel before, but none of the Yorozuya had actually paid him any attention until now. It would definitely explain the pained crease between his brows.

“Sakata-san has agreed to be my retainer—”

Sakata-san had done no such thing, and also — ‘retainer’?

“—in exchange for your lives.”

Gintoki winced at the twin shocked looks, Shinpachi clutching the bars and Kagura — oh great, Kagura was actually barfing now.

There was an undignified scramble to get servants to clean up, and Yougai sounded utterly revolted, but this full, un-pixelated experience really served him right. While Ueno supervised the operation, trying to get everyone to hurry up and Kagura to clean herself off and Shinpachi flailed uselessly at the whole circus, Gintoki turned to Yougai. “I noticed you didn’t specify a length to this contract?”

Yougai’s thin lips were still pursed in disgust, and he looked down his nose at Gintoki. “You missed your opportunity to negotiate that.”

Something in Gintoki’s expression must have made an impression, because the bodyguards crowded threateningly close, and Yougai hissed angrily. “I have been patient with your touching reunion and your little outbursts so far, but I do not have to be,” he said curtly. “I think it’s time I impressed the full seriousness of the situation on you — on all three of you. Ueno-kun!” The last was aimed across the room at the personal assistant, who immediately came to attention.

“Yes, Yougai-san?”

“It’s time for the special delivery.”

“Yes, Yougai-san!”

Gintoki coolly considered the current situation. Kagura was a rather green shade of Yato pale, swaying where she sat. Shinpachi was waving his arms around, but he had a hip propped against the bars. Now, Gintoki could definitely take the clowns so helpfully within easy striking distance, and one of Kagura’s guards had been in the splatter-zone and had completely lost his focus. But that still left three of the Amanto guns — which might have more settings than stun — against the two woozy kids.

“Ch’.” Gintoki crossed his arms, an uneasy current running down his spine, raising the hairs on the back of his neck. Yougai might be a bony weakling, but he wasn’t playing fair. He also had the first hint of one of those satisfied smile playing on his narrow lips, a glint in his eyes Gintoki recognized from similar shitheads in situations he hadn’t enjoyed very much at all.

“You know, I charge very reasonable rates,” he offered quietly. “Throw in some strawberry milk and you won’t even have to break your piggy-bank, just shake some coins out the slot in the top.”

“Please, Sakata-san. You made your refusal perfectly clear, leaving us with these… alternative arrangements. Being well aware of your true feelings on the matter, I’m sure you’ll understand why I wouldn’t want to take any risks at this stage.”

Gintoki shrugged. “I’d say you’re taking really big, really stupid risk, dragging my innocent employees into this.”

Yougai sniffed, annoyed. “Well, you left me no choice. Everyone said the best way to get a request through was to go through them.”

Gintoki stared at Yougai. Clearly whoever they’d been talking to had meant ‘get a request through if the lazy bastard’s off playing pachinko again,’ not ‘by the way you could always kidnap his employees’. It was a perfect setup for a straight man reaction, but Yougai had already proved he didn’t like being cast as the blockhead he was. Well, screw that. Gintoki was gearing up for a scathing rant when Ueno reappeared, diverting his attention. She walked through the open fusama at the end of the reception hall and stepped briskly across the tatami with a closed briefcase resting on her upturned palms.

“Good, good,” Yougai said, rubbing his palms together in anticipation. “We’ll get this sorted, and then the two of us can go over the details.” The way Yougai switched back and forth between jocular businessman and psycho-wannabe was one of the creepiest thing about the man — and he was creepy enough for an entire horror franchise.

“Any chance you could do this without the gloating?” Gintoki said. “It’s getting really tiresome.”

“What did I say about rudeness?” Yougai snapped, and Gintoki braced himself before Yougai waved Aoki (or was it Ayamine?) off. “We really need to get a move on here; but in the future I would ask you to keep your quips to yourself or suffer the consequences.”

“Sure,” Gintoki agreed, meaning ‘sure I can suffer the consequences if I get to piss you off.’ Yougai gave him a dark look, as if he suspected there was more to the answer than he’d heard. He must not have found anything to comment on in Gintoki’s expression, because he turned away and started fiddling with the briefcase, initiating an opening sequence of some sort.

“Yes, yes, good — exactly what we ordered.” Gintoki wasn’t sure if Yougai was muttering to himself or what, but he noticed Ueno’s severe expression lighten, as if she were beaming at a personal compliment.

Yougai turned around, thrusting something at Gintoki. Who didn’t reach for it because his first thought was ‘No way is he doing this’ and his second thought was ‘That bastard’ and his third was, “What kind of shitty S-toy do you think you’ve got there?” which he didn’t bother to keep to himself as he took a step away from what was absolutely without a doubt some kind of Amanto collar. It backed him straight into a large mook, but Gintoki didn’t really care. “That’s definitely too kinky for our rating!” Which wasn’t entirely true, but as Okita wasn’t around nobody was going to argue the point.

“It’s not an ‘S’ toy, whatever that means,” Yougai huffed. “It’s a very handy piece of technology developed by the Donatiens — valuable trading partners of mine. They use it to keep track of certain types of investments, and also make sure those same investments don’t… abscond.”

“That’s even worse!” Gintoki retorted, loud enough that he suddenly had the full attention of everyone in the room. “Also those are totally S’s, big Amanto S-shits.” It was actually impressive that Yougai could sink in his opinion after all this, but galactic slave traders were truly the scummiest of scum, and the man referring to them as ‘valuable trading partners’ turned his stomach.

Big hands closed on Gintoki’s arms, and Yougai advanced with the collar — it looked like solid steel, like a really cheap giant’s wedding band, only with a few little built-in displays that hinted at more technological components than met the eye. “Come, now, it’s not going to hurt you.”

“Oh really?” Gintoki said with utmost sarcasm. “It’s just for decoration then, you closet-S?” His body had tensed, already half-wrestling the mooks as they were trying to hold him steady and he was drawing away, but he kept his tone even.

“Well, putting it on isn’t,” Yougai qualified. “But we don’t need to make this so complicated.” He stopped his attempts to hand the thing to Gintoki and turned, looking straight at the two cages, where Kagura — damp, sitting woozily on her futon — and Shinpachi both gripped their bars and stared at them.

Shit. Gintoki froze. He really didn’t want to encourage Yougai to start using the two of them as leverage, but he was even less keen to actually let the bastard go through with any of his implied threats. Relaxing into the unfriendly grip of his twin guards felt unpleasantly like defeat, but Gintoki ignored that, clearing his throat to get Yougai’s attention. “No, you’re right. No need to make things complicated, since we’ll be working together and everything.” For the moment, the customer was — well, he wasn’t a customer, and he couldn’t be more wrong, but Gintoki didn’t let that get in the way of his ‘the customer is always right’ voice.

Yougai turned slowly, looking far too shrewdly pleased. Gintoki didn’t have a lot of cards up his sleeve, and he wondered if he shouldn’t have played this one so early — but with Shinpachi and Kagura in the state they were in, he had no choice. “Indeed, we will,” Yougai said, and nodded to his minions.

They hesitated before releasing Gintoki, but just like before Yougai seemed perfectly confident as he handed the collar over. Gintoki’s fingers closed around it — cold; alien. He looked at it, then at Yougai. “So, how do I…?” It had no visible clasp, no buttons — just those little displays, like Earth LEDs only fancier, because the Amanto kept the best of everything for themselves.

“Oh, right.” There was an incredibly anticlimactic moment when Yougai turned to Ueno, who hastily handed him a controller and pulled up some instructions on her tablet. The tension oozed out of the room as there was quite a bit of mumbling and looking at the steps described — a helpful drawing of some happy, vaguely humanoid cartoon affixing the thing to the necks of some distinctly unhappy similarly humanoid cartoons featured prominently — and it was all really awkward all around. Finally Yougai restored some of the drama to the room by going “I got it!” after Ueno helped him to get all the displays to glow green at the same time. The collar snapped open, invisibly hinged through the middle.

It sure made Gintoki even less eager to wear the damn thing — not only had he glimpsed some truly disturbing instructions in the booklet on the tablet, but a novice user seemed like someone apt to trigger one of the more unfortunate functions. He reached out reluctantly, and accepted the thing back from Yougai. “Okita had better not be behind this,” he muttered darkly. Then, ignoring the protests coming from the rest of the Yorozuya, he latched the chilly metal closed around his own neck.

“Fine, happy?” Gintoki snapped, quite aware that the weight of the collar couldn’t be constricting his breathing as much as it felt like it was, and still unable to stop whatever part of his brain was telling him he was choking and needed to escape.

“Much better, yes,” Yougai said, that disgustingly pleased look back on his face. “Now, Ueno-kun — please distribute the remaining ones, and—”

Gintoki stiffened. “What? Excuse me, the remaining whats?”

Yougai blinked at the interruption. “The other two collars, of course.”

Carefully banked rage flared, and Gintoki growled, “No. Leave them out if this — you got the damn thing on me; that’s enough.”

“Aw, but I already ordered a set of three,” Yougai said lightly, almost as if he was indulging in some friendly teasing. “And the Donatiens have a very strict no-returns policy.” Behind him, Ueno was crossing the room to the cages. Cages. What they were already doing was too much, but what Yougai was threatening right now was worse.

“You’re not putting any damn collars on those two, you pervert,” Gintoki said icily, and he was so focused on Ueno’s approaching Kagura and Shinpachi that he didn’t register the change in Yougai’s mood until a shock of pain flared through him, coming from everywhere at once and nowhere he could see. He spun towards the bony bastard, who was wielding that controller with a smirk that really couldn’t be called anything but sadistic. Before he could do anything else, a combination of interfering goons and another burst of numbing pain slammed him down on his knees on the tatami, arms twisted behind him in an expert grip.

Worried cries echoed in his ears, and he looked up to see Shinpachi practically hurling himself at the bars, while Kagura tried to ooze through them.

“Gin-chan! What are you doing to our Gin-chan, you assholes?!” Kagura was actually shouting now, though her grip on the bars didn’t as much as rattle them in place, much less tear through them like toothpicks.

Shinpachi, seeing Gintoki’s head come up, raised his hands in a placating gesture. “Please, it’s okay, we’ll wear your gross space jewelry. Just stop, please.”

“There,” Yougai said. “Do you see? They don’t mind.”

“Well, I mind!” Gintoki snarled, and Shinpachi and Kagura both yelled at him to shut up, they didn’t; and he would have yelled back but that bastard twiddled the controls again and pain stole the breath Gintoki was going to use on his protests. He clenched his jaw and shuddered, body hunching in the henchmen’s grip as the pain ran its course. When he was able to look up again, Kagura and Shinpachi were both wearing the damn things.

If his previous capitulation had felt like defeat, that paled in comparison with how badly beaten he felt right now. At least the collars weren’t sized for teens. Where Gintoki could barely get two fingers under his, they hung loosely on the other two, more like a torque than a choker on Shinpachi, and pretty much an oversized accent necklace on Kagura.

“Look, Gin-chan!” Kagura contorted her face into an approximation of her usual dumb grin, slumped cross-legged on the floor. “We match now.”

Shinpachi’s grin was rather too tense to be believable. “Because we’re all Yorozuya, not just you alone.”

“Even though your name’s the only one on the sign,” Kagura said.

“And though you don’t pay us on time,” Shinpachi added.

“And you just leave your Jump about instead of taking them out on Wednesdays with the recyclable trash, you delinquent,” Kagura added to that.

Gintoki inhaled sharply, then snorted. “I thought this was about being Yorozuya, huh? But now it just sounds like an inventory of my character flaws.” The smiles he got in return were rather wan, but actually reached the kids’ eyes.

“You sound like a terrible employer,” Yougai remarked, interrupting their moment as if they didn’t all want to kill him already.

“At least he’s not a piece of—” they all heard Kagura say, and then Shinpachi yelled at her and Gintoki took a deep breath and intoned “BLEEP,” which drowned out the rest of the sentence.

Kagura glared at him and Shinpachi glared down at Kagura and Yougai looked slightly confused, but at least he couldn’t claim to have been insulted because he hadn’t heard any insult. “So, you said we needed to go over some details? Something about hurrying up?” Gintoki was still on his knees, which wasn’t the most dignified negotiation position, but at least he managed to draw Yougai’s attention back from Kagura.

“Indeed. Time is running short, we have…” Yougai paused, and Ueno supplied, “An hour and twenty-five minutes.”

“Ah, yes. And the staff need to start preparing the tables for the banquet, too.” Yougai looked down at Gintoki, who was getting a crick in the neck. “I assume we understand each other, and you will be more amenable to instructions now?”

Gintoki swallowed as he forced himself to take in the sight of Shinpachi and Kagura in cages, with Amanto collars around their necks. “Yeah,” he said, ignoring the way two concerned voices called his name. “I am.”

At some signal from Yougai, the Double-A Duo released Gintoki, who climbed to his feet and rubbed his arms. Other than the soreness from where the brutes had held him in place there was no lingering pain. Whatever the collar had done had left no mark, so for all intents and purposes he was completely whole and hale and and he had still somehow allowed Shinpachi and Kagura to be locked up and collared. Shit. “So what’s next? I dress up in cosplay for you, host a banquet…?”

“Host?” Yougai laughed, thoroughly amused. “No, no, no, Sakata-san. You fight.”

After pointing out the lack of in-cage facilities, Ueno had assured Gintoki that Kagura and Shinpachi were only there while ‘their presence was required.’ It still disturbed Gintoki that Yougai had cages around, but at least they wouldn’t be kept around as zoo exhibits until he managed to get them out. Just until Yougai got his fight or whatever the hell tonight was all about. He didn’t even get a chance to ask about that before the Double-A Duo whisked him off through the back hallway, where a row of extremely thick and solid western-style doors led to ‘guest rooms’ with small barred windows and bare-bones ensuite facilities.

Gintoki had been told to change and be back out in fifteen minutes, and then there had been completely unnecessary threats made to the welfare of the two waiting for him to return. He’d lashed out at that, as the mooks didn’t carry the collar controller, and they’d shot him with their Amanto paralyzing guns. Again. Both of them. Then they’d kicked him across the threshold and locked the door behind him as he wasted a couple of minutes recovering from the discovery that the guns’ effects were cumulative, both in intensity and in duration, as well as in how much it pissed him off to be zapped with them.

Meanwhile he’d surveyed the cell — Yougai could pretend it was a guest room, but Gintoki knew a cell when he was locked up in one. Once he was able to, he took advantage of the facilities, because you never knew how long a kidnapper would make you go without a toilet break. Finally he confronted the bundle of clothes folded on the cot for him. “All of this just for some shitty cosplay, huh.”

If he’d known, he would just have accepted the request. Probably. Gotten a shitload of money — no questions asked where it came from; Yougai was clearly as dirty as a Shinsengumi bathroom — and walked off before anyone else got involved. How hard could it be, dressing up for someone’s amusement? It wasn’t that different from any of the other costume changes he’d gone through.

At least that’s what he told himself, in the minute or so he stood in his boxers and the damn collar, having determined it was no big deal and still failing to even touch the outfit in front of him. “Just cosplay,” he muttered, and took a deep breath.

Objectively, the outfit wasn’t bad. Someone had clearly done some research — it all looked about right; good enough that he started dressing by rote, as he’d once been able to do half asleep and in the dark. But then it wasn’t. It wasn’t right; Gintoki couldn’t say what was wrong, exactly, because he didn’t have a perfect recollection of all the details. But his fingers fumbled with the tabi; the fasteners were all out of place. And the belt was too flimsy, and the jacket… too short? Too long, maybe. Just — not right. And everything smelled of machines and factories and hadn’t been softened by deft hands wielding sharp needles and courage in the face of the Bakufu and Amanto both.

Gintoki didn’t check the bathroom mirror when he was done, just stood and waited. It was awkward — no lazy fold to rest his elbow in; no sword to rest his hand on — but he’d cut it close; the door opened before he could sort out a comfortable pose. Before he could get driven to distraction by the difference in what he knew, who and when and where he was and what his body felt with the weight of the breastplate heavy over his chest, and how the clothes shouldn’t matter but still did. So maybe there was a reason he dressed in black once he left Shiroyasha’s whites behind back then — but that was history, that was backstory, and he had a third-rate pantomime villain wannabe to deal with right now. That was what he focused on as he allowed himself to be herded back to the reception room.

The room itself had changed — the repulsive cages were in a narrow slice of the main banquet hall, a terrible take on the hidden guard rooms the Shogun and such had all over their castles. Only instead of hidden guards it was a sound-proofed cell for hostages already locked up in cages. Nice bit of villainy, that. Architecture that could just materialize seemed like it might be better used for something creative, but sure, it would work to create impromptu dungeons too.

Shinpachi and Kagura were arguing about falling for the drugged chocolate when Gintoki returned, and for a moment he watched them go at it in high dudgeon, almost like back home. It was good to see that a little bit of kidnapping wouldn’t get in the way of Shinpachi’s righteous anger or Kagura’s ridiculous comebacks, even though he noticed she was still looking far too pale.

Both of which stopped like a flipped switch when they spotted him watching them. “What’s that, some kind of new cosplay?” Kagura asked, flippant.

Shinpachi stared at him in silent consternation, realization clearly dawning as he put together the style of battle dress, the color of the coat and headband, and Gintoki’s own silver hair. “Gin-san…”

“Yes, just some shitty cosplay,” Gintoki said, and standing there with the two of them made it true. He walked up to the cages, close enough to see the futon mattresses at the bottom, the cameras fixed in the top corner. Yougai wasn’t there yet, just the Double-A Duo, and they were eyeing him cautiously but without bothering to stop him roaming the little room.

Shinpachi and Kagura crowded close, hands wrapped around the bars as they looked up at him. “Listen,” he said. “Don’t do anything stupid, okay? Whatever happens, just — stay put for now, and I promise I’ll get you out.”

The main reaction he got was one of sceptical concern. “What’s going to happen, Gin-san?” Shinpachi asked, and Kagura added, “What if I need to go pee?”

“Hold it in!” Gintoki bopped Kagura on the head, then admitted, “And I don’t know.” But after tonight he would. “So be good boys and girls and wait for Gin-san to come back, alright?”

Having heard footsteps on tatami stop just behind them Gintoki wasn’t surprised to hear Yougai’s unwelcome voice from the doorway. “Such good advice,” the jerk said, which made Gintoki want to take it all back and tell his employees to do their worst — but of course he didn’t, because then Yougai would do his worst, and that was a scenario to avoid.

“Your Sakata-san has already shared with you most of what I wished to impart.” Yougai nodded, as if Gintoki should take that as a compliment. “But I did neglect to mention a couple of things before, about your, erm. Monitoring devices.”

Gintoki crossed his arms, and he could feel Shinpachi and Kagura radiate displeasure, though they both followed his example and kept it to themselves for now.

“First, of course — don’t try to remove them; they will defend against tampering. The setting for that is rather higher than the standard, and I worry that the effects on young humans could be slightly lethal.” Yougai sounded faintly apologetic, as if it was a nuisance one had to put up with, risking accidentally killing one of the hostages; as if he hadn’t been the one to get this shitty Amanto tech involved in the first place.

“Right,” Gintoki nodded. “No tampering; got it. What else?”

“As I mentioned, the three come as a set, and can be linked. So should you decide not to heed the warning and attempt to remove your own collar, the effects will be felt in all three.”

Gintoki gritted his teeth. This guy was really into hobbling escape plans, to the point where it was getting a bit excessive. It wouldn’t stop them, of course, but it was adding complications the Yorozuya didn’t need right now. “Understood,” he said, just in case it could get Yougai to shut up.

No such luck. Yougai nodded, and went on, “Also, when linked, any… controls activated can affect all three, to varying degrees.” What a wonderfully delicate way to convey that he was ready to zap the hell out of all of them if any one of them disobeyed his shitty rules. Gintoki had the feeling it was mostly aimed at him, as this asshole clearly had no idea what a handful the two brats could be. And he wouldn’t need to know, either.

“Yes, fine, understood,” he acknowledged, interrupting what sounded like two different kinds of protest at the treatment in general and Gintoki’s calm acceptance of it in particular.

Yougai looked at him up and down critically, and then nodded at the outfit. “It fits well, I trust… Shiroyasha?”

Gintoki shrugged, ignoring Shinpachi’s indrawn breath, ignoring the tightness around his neck and around his heart. “Not bad. So, are we ready, or what?” He scratched the back of his head, deflecting Yougai’s searching gaze with nonchalance that betrayed nothing of the uncomfortable start he felt when his fingers brushed the knot of a headband he hadn’t worn in a decade.

“Well, you certainly are,” Yougai responded, as if disappointed to be missing an opportunity to use his new toys. “As for tonight — I am sure it will be an easy task for you. All you have to do is wait where I ask you to until the challenge.”

Gintoki nodded. Yougai had mentioned a fight; Gintoki didn’t particularly care about the details, weird as it was to schedule one in your evening entertainment. Yougai however did care, and was going to share. “We have a spectacular opportunity to forge a new business alliance with some very prominent foreign traders,” he explained. “But you could say their customs are rather… alien.”

There was an awkward pause for laughter which Gintoki spent thinking of all the ways he could take Yougai out. The bodyguards hurried to chuckle to fill the silence, but it rang hollow from them too.

Undeterred, Yougai kept going. “They are a very martial people, and the best way to win their favor is through earning a challenge, and winning it.”

So all of this was about, what — profit? A business deal? Gintoki’s hand itched for a sword; when he clenched it to a fist, it itched to punch Yougai in the face.

The man didn’t seem to notice; he didn’t pause in his little lecture. “They don’t… think very highly of our planet, I’m afraid. But I heard that some of them were present during the Joui wars, and that there is one human warrior they learned to fear and respect. One samurai they would still be glad to fight.” Yougai looked Gintoki over again, clearly glowing with pride at his acquisition, and Gintoki didn’t bother stifling a full-body shudder. This was gross.

“Shiroyasha. I’m so glad it’s all worked out — this evening, these encounters will mean the world to our enterprise!”

Gintoki looked at Shinpachi, at Kagura, at the bars and the collars, and kept the loathing and acute urge to kill under control. Barely. His hands had both spasmed into fists, and they were trembling. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing Yougai was hoping these Amanto would come spoiling for a fight — Gintoki had a lot of aggression to work off.

Yougai served up quite a feast — banquet style, with each guest seated on a fancy cushion in front of an individual table overflowing with high-quality seafood of all kinds. Yougai himself was sitting in the seat of honor, next to the stage showcasing a few vases of austere flower arrangements that all complemented the black and red of his kimono quite nicely, if one cared about that sort of thing.

The ikebana also flattered the Amanto guests, who Gintoki gathered were called Mayudachi — though who knew if that was this particular group, or the entire species. They were monochrome and muscular, stockier than humans in their white uniforms under black robes with short, wide sleeves. They wore no rank insignia, the only splash of color on them their magnificent yellow mohawks that started as eyebrows and ran across their skulls in twin feathered crests, and the short, blood-red bills that eagerly devoured the fish-based delicacies.

Standing behind Yougai like another damn vase, Gintoki could feel them looking at him curiously with those eyes — as red as their beaks, with tiny pinprick pupils and no white at all. Evaluating eyes; there were stirrings of excitement among them, groups getting together to point and murmur quite apart from the friendly banter they kept up with the host and his human guests. Occasional peals of cawing laughter set Gintoki on edge — any more raucous and it would be like standing in the middle of a Harusame pirate canteen. Out of deference for their host, they had arrived in the banquet hall unarmed, but every last one of the couple of dozen Mayudachi in the room looked like they could manage very well without weaponry.

Gintoki wondered which one of them he’d be fighting. Or was that which ones? Not that it mattered. He’d fight and he’d win because he had no other options, and he didn’t need to waste time thinking about that. Or about anything. Standing around, waiting for battle — it was easy to slip into a standing doze, barely awake but completely aware should danger approach. Though in this case danger had already happened, which made that particular knack completely useless. Just like he was kind of useless in general — why hadn’t he seen this coming? If only he’d done something in time, Shinpachi and Kagura wouldn’t be on the other side of that wall, hostages to Gintoki’s good behavior and performance; completely at Yougai’s mercy.

With guilt squeezing its way past his drowsiness, Gintoki didn’t feel relaxed as much as wrung-out when Yougai clapped for the trays to be taken away and the stage to be cleared of the flowers. Then he announced, in stupidly poetic and supercilious language, that the esteemed leader of the Mayudachi delegation had honored his house with a request to participate in the ancient custom of a Duplex Multiplex Mega Showdown. “Dear guests, it is my pleasure to present you with the champion of the House of Yougai, the white demon of the Joui, the undefeated samurai: Shiroyasha!”

Gintoki took the introduction in stride, despite the way his heart lurched. Maybe he should have given Yougai a CV. Or better yet — a history book and a dictionary, since Yougai clearly needed the concept of ‘undefeated’ explained to him. At Yougai’s impatient gesture he gave a reluctant, shallow bow, and made his way over to the stage while Yougai’s people clapped and the Mayudachi snapped their bills and waved their crests in excitement.

“We are very pleased that you offer us such a rare treat,” the leader — Cresty, Gintoki decided to call him, as his yellow mohawks reached closer to the ceiling than any of his fellows’ — “But it would be a short Duplex Multiplex Mega Showdown indeed to pair one of you Earth apes with the strongest of us. However, we can make this a glorious occasion for one our fine young warriors, ready as they are for the battlefield. Indeed, tonight’s Mayudachi champion shall be…” Cresty looked around to the back near the entrance, where the junior members of both delegations were sitting, and seemed to pick one of them at random. “Gotan, from the illustrious Baunteii clan — long may our ranges entwine.”

Gotan scrambled to his feet, his eyes wide, his bill gaping in… elation? He bowed deeply all around, then strutted to the stage with the pride of all young, inexperienced warriors everywhere. He practically leapt up on the stage to stand next to Gintoki. Up close his crests looked pale and downy compared to the bright bristles of Cresty and the other big Mayudachi up front. Gintoki was no Amanto expert, and no ornithologist either, but he was pretty sure they were matching him with a kid. He rolled his shoulders to loosen them up after all the standing around. Fine. That would probably make this go faster.

Yougai’s servants brought them their swords on velvet cushions — at least Gintoki assumed the wicked-looking two-pronged sabre was a Mayudachi weapon. Instead of his bokutou there was a katana waiting for him — it had an ornate gilt tsuba and a flawless edge that looked sharp enough to slice shadows. Not exactly the plain, battle-scarred blade Gintoki had carried for most of the war — but then again, that might have made things a little too realistic. This cosplay sword would do nicely, as long as it held up better than EVA foam.

While Gotan and Gintoki armed themselves, Yougai lowered another one of those walls — this one was as translucent as a clean pane of glass, but the gap in the tatami that had slid aside for it was a good handspan across. It was presumably meant to keep the fight (and any resulting blood) from spilling over into the rest of the banquet hall — the stage wasn’t much bigger than the main Yorozuya office. It was probably a good thing they were separated from their audience, or Gintoki might accidentally have stabbed Yougai, just a little bit. Well — he just needed to win this fight and get the Yorozuya out of their bind, and then hopefully he could stab Yougai a lot to make up for it.

One of the bigger Mayudachi had stripped off his black robe, and flapped it at Gotan, who bobbed in another bow, and Gintoki, who blinked at it. Yougai and Cresty behind him bowed formally at each other, and turned to bow to the clear wall.

“Death and honor,” Cresty intoned.

Yougai must have been prompted beforehand, because he readily agreed. “Death and honor.”

Oh, so they wanted death, did they? Gintoki was fairly certain nobody had mentioned that little detail before, and now there was no time to ponder the implications. The Mayudachi in front of them held his robe up high, and behind him Yougai opened a clenched fist to reveal the collar control gadget — a last minute reminder, as if Gintoki could ever forget what he was fighting for. Then the black robe dropped like a starting flag, and Gotan sprang into action.

The Mayudachi was solidly built — hardly any neck — and he struck hard and fierce. Gintoki leapt back, watching as the broad blade cleaved the air where he had just been standing. Gotan followed, striking a two-handed blow without any hesitation. Despite his compact size, he moved fast. Gintoki was faster, ducking below the swing and bringing the tip of his katana into a quick thrust inside Gotan’s guard.

Gotan parried with the broad pommel of his sabre, striking sparks, and Gintoki whipped his blade away before the blunt force could damage the loaner weapon. With Gotan’s attention on the gleam of the katana’s edge whistling through the air, Gintoki swept a leg at his opponent’s feet. Gotan caught the attack just in time, shifting stance to avoid the kick and bring his sabre down on Gintoki’s back — but the abrupt movement had left him off-balance, and Gintoki parried with ease. The force of the blow he caught still reverberated down his arms — this young Mayudachi’s strength was far greater than most humans’. Rather than press in to overpower his opponent, Gintoki slid back out of reach.

Crests raised, bill wide open, Gotan followed, hacking wildly with his sabre — but Gintoki wasn’t stopping to parry, just feigning and then drawing back out of reach. Once, twice — then his back leg hit the wall and he kicked off against it with a loud crack, propelling his body forward. Gotan hadn’t paid attention to the wall, or noticed Gintoki bracing himself for the attack, and still had his sabre drawn back for a blow when Gintoki slashed him.

Squawking in outrage Gotan twisted, catching Gintoki’s katana with a black-robed shoulder instead of his neck. The fabric tore, and a few drops of blood ran down Gintoki’s blade. Gotan brought his sabre down one-handed, just catching the retreating katana between the two prongs, and gave it a clever flick that nearly tore the hilt out of Gintoki’s hand. Rather than overextend himself to hold onto it and pull himself back down into position, Gintoki pushed off into a jump, letting the force of Gotan’s impact dispel in the air. He caught the glint of steel following, and kicked hard, gaining more distance as he pushed off from the sabre mid-air.

Then the limits of the stage caught up with him and he had to contort himself in the air to avoid going head-first into a golden screen wall — that was a close one; far too close for comfort, especially with Gotan using Gintoki’s lapse to catch up and hack at him again. Gintoki parried, but now he was the one with uncertain footing, and Gotan’s next blow forced him up against the wall and knocked the breath out of his lungs.

Wheezing, he crossed blades with Gotan, pushing back hard to keep from getting shoved through the delicate paneling. Gotan twisted his blade in a clever movement that had the two prongs sliding toward Gintoki’s eyes even as the sabre’s hilt locked his katana in place. Gintoki ducked and danced, and the largest prong brushed his skin so gently it was like a petal opening a cut on his cheek. Now Gotan’s blade was blooded, too, but Gintoki had spun all the way around him. When they clashed again, the Mayudachi was the one with his back against the wall, and Gintoki wasn’t going to make this a contest of strength.

Gintoki flowed through his attacks, the katana in his right hand now flicking out at Gotan like a snake’s tongue, now deflecting a brutal two-handed blow as if had been batted at him by a child. Which it might as well have been — the Mayudachi didn’t have the experience to analyze the attacks and alter his technique; he just kept the same few hacks and slashes coming, hampered by the wall, hampered by the fact that his sabre couldn’t match the katana’s speed. Little by little he was paying the price for his repeated attempts at brute-forcing his way through Gintoki’s defences. Little by little his proud warrior’s resolve was crumbling, and those alien eyes were growing wide with fear and desperation.

Recognizing the danger in that desperation, Gintoki let Gotan’s next onslaught push him backwards on the tatami, giving ground and giving space, and drawing the Mayudachi out exactly where Gintoki wanted him — sabre raised for another fierce blow, confident now that he had the human on run. Only he didn’t, of course. All Gintoki had to do was feint — a simple feint, one this kid’s teachers should have inured him to years ago — and his blade was past Gotan’s guard and clean through his shoulder. Gotan gave a bark of pain and tried to counter, but Gintoki whipped the katana out, spraying blood on the wall and tatami, and slashed at the Mayudachi’s legs.

It was a vicious cut, slicing muscle and grinding against bone, and Gotan went down hard, sabre clattering away as he collapsed on the floor. Gintoki exhaled the breath he’d drawn before his final attack, and drew his sword arm back. His heartbeat, barely elevated by the short fight, was beating louder and louder in his ears. Gotan’s fluffy crests were pressed flat to his head, and he had rolled over on his back, pressing one hand against his torn shoulder. His other was scrabbling at the tatami as his bill opened and closed over chittering sobs. He might have been trying to sit up, or to reach for his sabre.

Somewhere very close by there was a clamoring of voices, but Gintoki couldn’t make any of them out through the roar in his ears. Death and honor, they’d said. Well, Gintoki wasn’t going to die, and this little guy wasn’t doing anything, wasn’t fighting. The borrowed katana was steady in his grip, raised, but this wasn’t a battlefield; there was no point to keep going now that his opponent couldn’t fight anymore.

A sting of pain made Gintoki’ss fingers twitch around the hilt. It was the piece-of-shit collar, flaying his nerves, and he couldn’t hear any cries but he felt his stomach twist. This wasn’t just a warning, was it? It was Yougai, having an opinion in the most obnoxious way possible. If there was going to be a death today, it might just have to be that of the bony asshole with his sadist’s remote outside. That should satisfy everyone plenty, and was no less than he deserved for threatening — please let it be no more than threatening — to hurt Shinpachi and Kagura.

The injured Mayudachi’s every struggling breath proved there was no more fight left in him, and Gintoki turned away from the Amanto and stared through the wall. It prompted Yougai to ratchet up the intensity on the collar, until the pain seemed a physical thing, a web of razor wires strung through his arteries and veins. The message was clear — Yougai wanted to see more blood, if he’d have to wring it from Gintoki himself first.

Well, screw that. Gintoki locked his body tight around the pain, stood stiffly and looked out over the clamoring Mayudachi, their robes flapping and crests flickering, until he found Cresty. “Oi, you,” he rasped.

“Shiroyasha,” the Amanto acknowledged with a grave nod. At his black-robed elbow Yougai startled, and moments later the absence of pain made it far easier to speak.

“This fight’s over.”

“We owe you a death,” Cresty protested.

“Nah. I don’t need anything like that — no samurai would.” Gintoki shrugged and tossed the sword he was still holding aside for good measure. “That’s my honor.”

There was a moment of stunned silence, and then an onslaught of cawing and cheering.

“Then we shall be privileged to host the second of the Duplex battles. Tomorrow we dine together, and then we fight!”

Oh great. Another fight. But having no other choice than to accept, Gintoki nodded, and the crowd went wild. Yougai was forced to have his wall raised to let the excited Mayudachi in to retrieve their injured fledgling, with plenty of back-clapping the kid surely couldn’t be enjoying at this point. No matter. They’d patch him up, and maybe he had learned a valuable lesson about underestimating your opponents or something. Gintoki might have sent him off with a quip, only he caught sight of Yougai carefully stepping between the pools of blood on his floor.

Gintoki sighed. The bastard’s outward expression was pleased and humble, but he was clearly in a poor mood. His thin smile was extra tight, his fists were balled, and Gintoki would have taken a lot of satisfaction in having managed to piss off the skull-faced bastard if that same bastard didn’t have his friends locked up backstage. Shit. As if the evening hadn’t been bad enough without Yougai throwing some kind of sadistic temper tantrum.

The way Aoki and Ayamine materialized and hauled Gintoki away none too gently didn’t bode well, and though he was keen to check up on Shinpachi and Kagura, it felt like a bad sign when he was shoved into their small slice of the banquet hall rather than taken back to the cell.

“No need to be so pushy,” Gintoki huffed at the thugs, who deposited him inside the door and then stood there with their arms crossed, making their suit shoulders bulge. He hesitated, then, before turning around. Only for a second, but such was his fear that something would already have happened to Shinpachi and Kagura that he needed to force himself to face them.

They were clinging to the bars and calling out greetings — Shinpachi standing, Kagura at least moving, not paralyzed or in pain — and Gintoki grinned at them in relief. “I’m back!”

“Did you beat that poison candy-fiend, Gin-chan?”

“Are you okay? There’s blood—”

“Not my blood,” Gintoki assured Shinpachi, but as he tried to move closer one of the goons landed a hand on his shoulder.

“Wait.”

Gintoki shrugged the hand off — or at least that was the plan. Instead one of two men behind him moved in and forced his arms up behind his back again, applying excessive strength. Gintoki hissed at the discomfort, and demanded to be let go. That earned him a brisk shake that he felt in every single joint in both arms. “I said wait.”

The order didn’t stop Gintoki from attempting to squirm for leverage, an activity that was cut short by the second henchman’s fist to his stomach. That saw him panting for breath and dangling painfully from the arm lock for a little bit, and then he looked up at Aomine or whatever and said, “It’s so good to see a bit of traditional Earth roughing-up in here. Those Amanto gadgets really can’t compare with—”

Gintoki wasn’t particularly surprised when another punch interrupted that sentence. “You, shut up,” the mook growled at him. “The boss is very unhappy with you.”

“Well I’m sorry it’s so hard to kidnap good help these days,” Gintoki snapped, and didn’t have to hear Shinpachi and Kagura cry a warning to see the next swing coming. He braced, then blinked — there should already have been an impact; instead—

“What’s going on here?” Instead Yougai had impacted on the scene. In all honesty Gintoki would really have preferred another punch.

The henchmen apologized sheepishly when Yougai reminded them that Gintoki was meant to be fighting for them, and that there was too much at stake to risk injuring their champion. He let the two off after a final warning to stick to using the technical solutions provided — Gintoki figured that meant the Amanto zappers — and turned his glower on Gintoki, still in the grip of one of the shamefaced mooks.

“Was that the best you could do?”

Gintoki blinked, offended. “Oh? I thought I was supposed to win.”

“The Mayudachi are sensitive to slights against their honor — their leader might have taken back the offer to participate in tomorrow’s Duplex Multiplex Mega Showdown if he’d taken your stunt the wrong way!”

“If you don’t like how I fight, I suggest you kidnap someone else,” Gintoki retorted, in absolutely no mood to care about Amanto honor or Yougai’s prestige. “Or better yet — you get up there and show us all how it’s done.”

Yougai’s gaunt face flushed, making him look a bit like a flaming skull. “You’re Shiroyasha. They feared you. And you decide to stay your sword to humiliate me?”

Really, nothing Gintoki had told this guy since their very first meeting had stuck, had it? “I’m Sakata Gintoki. And sure — but that was war. Tonight was a show. I’m not going to murder some guy who can’t stand or swing a sword anymore for anyone’s amusement. Not for the Amanto and certainly not for some perverted freak.”

Silence descended on the room as Gintoki’s words hit Yougai and the color drained out of his face, leaving him bone-white.

“Oh crap,” Gintoki muttered. “That was too much, wasn’t it?” It had all felt very satisfying to snap back at Yougai, but now he was still twisted up in an armlock and he hadn’t actually managed to get Shinpachi and Kagura out yet, either. So in hindsight, he should probably just have shut up. “Sorry, I don’t get much practice with, uh… tact?”

Yougai was still staring at him with cold fury that made the the mooks shift nervously and all of Gintoki’s previous bad feelings about the situation come flooding back. “I don’t understand why you would force me to do this,” Yougai said in a low voice trembling with anger. “But I can’t afford another debacle like tonight, and you have wasted every single chance I’ve given you to prove your sincerity.”

Oh yeah, definitely not feeling good about this. “Um. Pinky swear?”

Yougai glowered. “For all the finesse of the wonderful tools our trading partners have provided us with, sometimes they just don’t have the same impact as the methods my father used. I think he would have been able to teach you quite a lesson, especially as it could always be continued with your second little friend if it failed on the first.”

As he was talking, Yougai stalked about the room, yanking an entirely new hidden compartment open — this place was a ridiculous nesting doll of walls — and impatiently waving the free bodyguard over. The little nook had bare floors with suspicious stains — no tatami there — and featured a solid wood pillar and some shallow cupboards. “Now, Sakata-san. You decide. Which of our guests should be invited to serve as an example?”

Though he’d been preparing for it since Ueno first showed him the tablet, Yougai’s Villain 101 move still went right to Gintoki’s core. Rage and helplessness and fear welled up in him, strong enough that his body yanked at the grip holding him back with a growl rising in his throat. He choked it off before anyone heard, fought his own instincts to a standstill and met Yougai’s smirk with a deadpan stare. “Really?”

Yougai seemed maybe a little disappointed, which was absolutely right — the quicker he lost interest in this particular game, the quicker they’d all be one step closer to done with him. But Yougai marshalled his villainy and followed the Bad Guy For Beginners handbook to the letter. “If you don’t choose, it’s all the same to me — we’ll just have to repeat the process with both of your friends here.”

Gintoki was hyperaware of the angry outburst from the younger Yorozuya, Kagura cussing at Yougai and Shinpachi all too ready to offer himself. The young samurai would consider it his duty to protect his friends, of course — Gintoki as much as Kagura, for all that he was explicitly exempt from any real harm. And once he started, naturally Kagura wouldn’t be outdone, so there was a clamour of volunteering going on over in the cages.

As before though, all of Yougai’s attention was on Gintoki alone, eager for a show. Gintoki quirked his lips in a humorless smile. How about no. “Sure, take Shinpachi.”

Weak bully types like little Yasuhiko here lived for the reactions they got from their victims. As long as Yougai couldn’t see what the words did to Gintoki, he wouldn’t keep trying the same trick. So all Gintoki had to do was nothing.

Nothing shouldn’t be so difficult. Silence shouldn’t be so deafening — there was a long moment when his words shut both kids up, too, and for a second there were identical expressions of disbelief through the room. Then Yougai frowned, Shinpachi put on a brave face, and Kagura hoisted herself up standing to shout, “Gin-chan, you can’t do that! Shinpachi’s just a hu—”

“Humongous Otsuu-chan fan, I know,” Gintoki bit his words off, trying to telepathically tell Kagura to shut up, but she was clearly on a different wavelength.

“What does Otsuu-chan have to do with this? I mean, Gin-chan, I’m a Ya—”

“Yammering idiot!” Gintoki yelled at her. He saw a flicker of understanding in Shinpachi’s eyes at last, and then he had backup in keeping Kagura from volunteering the wildly obvious fact that Yougai was still somehow completely ignorant of. “Yes, good. Be quiet and let Shinpachi handle this. Ch’. If you want it so bad you can go next.”

Whatever reaction Yougai had expected, it clearly wasn’t infighting. “I’m sorry, did you say—”

“I said Shinpachi now. But sure — the next time this comes up, the answer will be Kagura. They’ll take turns in order of seniority. That’s only fair, right, Kagura-chan?” Gintoki was tempted to suggest Yougai could go ahead and just do his worse with both of them at once since they were so eager, but he cut himself off — if Yougai had actually followed through on that, he might have had to kill himself later.

Kagura made a face but something had gotten through to her. “Fine.” She crossed her arms, swaying a little as she let go of the bars, and pouted, like Gintoki had denied her an amusement park ride for being too short or given her ice cream to Shinpachi. “But next time’s mine!”

Looking up at Yougai, Gintoki shrugged as much as he possibly could with his arms behind his back. “There you have it.”

Yougai, starting to look a little deflated, scowled at Gintoki. “I thought you’d at least be more careful of your girl.”

“My what?”

Yougai lowered his voice, conspiratorial.”I mean, she is your daughter, yes?”

“She’s my what now?”

“What did he say I was?” Kagura yelled.

“Unofficially, of course.”

Of course, because why else would a grown man be sharing a home with a normal human motherless teenaged girl who was obviously not from outer space or anything. Gintoki made a choking sound, because the lack of research here was killing him, and he longed to disown the brat — clearly he wouldn’t have fathered such a violent, gluttonous little delinquent — but Yougai’s assumptions were just too perfect to dispel. “Very unofficially, of course,” he nodded. Almost like she was adopted or something.

“Gin-chan’s not my Pappy,” Kagura protested before he could intercept, as offended by her presumed parentage as Gintoki had been.

“No, of course not, Kagura-chan. Your Pappy is a great space hero,” Gintoki told her in his Real Adult voice, and winked at Yougai.

“Yup. He has a lot of work to do there in space, you know. Winning wars and chasing down bad guys, he’s so busy he’s going bald. So I’m just staying with Gin-chan until he comes back.”

Yougai nodded slowly. There it was. A truth so ridiculous that Yougai was absolutely convinced that they had shared some bedtime story told to soothe a lonely child whose bastard of a father couldn’t bring himself to acknowledge her.

Speaking of which — suddenly someone so seemingly competent and non-sadistic as Ueno staying in Yougai’s employ made a lot more sense to Gintoki. She must be unacknowledged, too, as she didn’t have the name, but Yougai was keeping her close — possibly for lack of any other heirs. Interesting that Yougai hadn’t invited her to this part of the evening, then.

Kagura seemed pleased that they had established her father wasn’t some good-for-nothing curlyhead, and Yougai seemed confused that they had gotten so sidetracked from his torture plans. It was hard to keep a good villain monologue going with the Yorozuya around. With a start that set his ponytail swaying, Yougai stared up at his free henchman. “Well, Ayamine. What are you waiting for?”

Shinpachi had clearly been preparing himself, because he stood ready as the cage door opened and he was led to the newly revealed dungeon nook. Gintoki watched in tense silence as the henchman on torturer duty had Shinpachi shrug out of the top of his gi, the white-and-blue cloth folding over his hakama, leaving his torso bare save for the collar. Shinpachi went about it calmly and methodically — then his hand flew up to touch the side of his glasses, and he looked up at his guard. “Excuse me, could I leave these somewhere safe?”

Ayamine looked to the head villain, who shrugged impatiently — eager to get back to being threatening and dramatic, but how do you say no to a polite young man asking to take off his glasses before you torture him?

Shinpachi crossed over to Gintoki, who chuckled. “Sorry Patsuan, but I don’t have any hands free.” In fact, he wasn’t sure he still had hands — they had gone quite numb in the grip of Aoki’s human vise.

“It’s okay, Gin-chan,” Shinpachi said, which was the worst kind of lie — none of this was okay, not one bit of it — but he looked so earnest. Like he’d come over here just to reassure Gintoki. Shinpachi smiled, his face without the glasses looking younger than ever as he tucked them into Gintoki’s belt. “There. You make a pretty good glasses-stand, too.”

Gintoki should have said something, had some comeback to that, but his throat had gone too tight to trust. That brat, what right did he have to let Gintoki get away with putting him in harm’s way like this? All he could do was watch as Shinpachi went back there and calmly let the henchman lash his wrists together and loop them over a hook in that creepy wooden pillar. A hook that Gintoki couldn’t help to notice had been placed where it would secure a grown man — Shinpachi was having to balance on his toes, but he didn’t complain.

Ayamine then stripped his suit jacket off and rolled up his sleeves before fetching a cane from one of the cupboards, hefting it with workmanlike satisfaction. Gintoki’s breath caught in his throat. It wasn’t like he had been keeping a list of shitty things he hoped would never happen to his kids, but if he had, being beaten up by goons in a dungeon would most certainly have been on it.

Yougai scurried over to inspect the preparations, and nodded with satisfaction. Studying Gintoki for a reaction, he told his minion, “Keep him conscious, but make sure to leave marks. That will hopefully give Sakata-san enough of a reminder that we won’t have to do this all over again tomorrow.”

“Yeah, sure, sounds good,” Gintoki said, after unclenching his jaw. Shit. His body was too tense, battle-ready and eager to shake off the choking collar and implacable hands holding him, as he couldn’t escape the wrenching guilt.

Yougai might not have seen anything he liked, though, because he frowned as much as his gaunt face would let him. “Oh dear. Aoki, my apologies. You look rather strained there. How about we help Sakata-san calm down a bit?” His hand dipped into his sleeve, and — yeah, of course.

Gintoki twitched in Aoki’s grip, that garbage-truck impact of shock from the Amanto collar hitting him straight on without any preamble. The sheer force of it through his system cut his legs out from under him, leaving him dangling in Aoki’s grip with all the strength of a newborn kitten. The big man had to shift and prop him up, poking him annoyingly in the face until Gintoki was looking in the right direction. It was stupidly excessive, but it seemed to give Yougai a kick that didn’t come from hurting anyone else, so Gintoki would take it.

Satisfied with what he saw, Yougai turned back to his other henchman, giving him a sharp nod in Shinpachi’s direction. And then there were no more distractions.

The first blow that fell echoed in the room, and Gintoki flinched, but didn’t look away. He couldn’t do that to Shinpachi, not after failing him so badly today. Shinpachi, who was being brave enough for a squad of grown samurai; Shinpachi, whose endurance and courage were entirely wasted on that piece of shit bully Yougai. Said bully who was watching Gintoki, not Shinpachi at all, and honestly even after all the sketchy possessive behaviour he’d already exhibited, that was creepy.

Gintoki kept his gaze on Shinpachi’s back, watching as welts bloomed and split, white lines of damage turning red where they intersected — which they did with cruel deliberation; Ayamine was clearly set on maximizing damage. Which made Gintoki set on beating the crap out of him, but at the moment all he could do was put Ayamine right after Yougai on his shitlist. Aoki would have to really try if he wanted to make top three, because right now Gintoki had scheduled another beating for Yougai after he was done with Ayamine.

Shinpachi groaned through clenched teeth — the first sound he’d made — and Gintoki revised that. He was going to let Shinpachi beat the crap out of them, and then he would kill them all. And Kagura would help — he could hear her rattling the bars she’d been clinging to for balance only minutes earlier, fury driving her past her body’s limits and as close to full Yato rage as she could get in her weakened state.

As the beating continued, white noise was beginning to fuzz the edges of Gintoki’s vision — literal blinding rage — and he was shaking from repeated shocks from the collar despite his effort to keep still and avoid making everything worse somehow. Shinpachi’s voice was raw and wet, Kagura was desperately calling his name, and Yougai was staring so hungrily at Gintoki’s face that he couldn’t let himself crack now. Keep it boring; make the little shit of a bully give up on torturing anyone else and really have a go at Gintoki instead. He’d rather take any punishment the bargain-bin sadist could dream up than live through another moment helpless to stop his friends’ pain.

When the next blow fell, Shinpachi’s body flinched weakly — silently, which was a bad sign. Apparently Ayamine agreed, because he hesitantly lowered the rod. “Uh, boss?”

Yougai looked over, and at the sight of Shinpachi sagging from the hook, head lolling off to the side, he cursed. “You idiot! I said to keep him conscious! Call Ueno-kun, have her bring medical supplies — and get him down from there.”

“Shinpachi!” Kagura called again. When he didn’t answer, her voice wobbled as she repeated his name. “Shinpachi, wake up.”

Aoki grunted and gave Gintoki a sharp shake, and the flaring ache in his arms made him realize he had mostly shrugged off the effects of the collar in his efforts to move closer to Shinpachi.

Meanwhile Yougai was annoyed and out of sorts — the tiniest silver lining now, that the event seemed to have been a disappointment for him. Yougai twitched his black kimono away from a splash of blood as he peered at Shinpachi’s semiconscious form on the tatami where Ayamine had put him. “Well, I suppose that will have to do.”

Ueno appeared in the doorway, rolls of bandage and a bottle of antiseptic clutched in her arms, and asked, “Who needs…” before she took in the scene. “Oh.”

Ayamine mosied over to grab the supplies, as Ueno hovered uncertainly by the door. Yougai kept eyeing Gintoki suspiciously, so he smiled vaguely, even when Shinpachi made a soft noise of distress and tried to twist away from the large goon, while Kagura shoved her body against the cage bars — they still held firm — and yelled at Ayamine to watch himself.

It wasn’t until Shinpachi was back in the cage that Yougai finally nodded at Aoki to release Gintoki, who sagged to the floor. The bony clown was taking no chances leaving them together unrestrained — in fact, despite making an enemy out of Gintoki about a hundred times over since they met, Yougai seemed more wary of him now than he had before the fight with that Amanto. Which was satisfying, but annoying when it came to planning their escape.

Gintoki’s arms were tender and his chest hurt, but as soon as he figured out how to get his legs working and could move forward without falling over, he walked casually over to the cages. When nobody stopped him he hunched down to peer at Shinpachi. Looking vulnerable without the glasses, his eyes were cloudy with pain, but he was stirring, beginning to sit up. Gintoki waited until Shinpachi blinked and tried to focus on him. “Gin...san?”

“Yeah. The color scheme’s a bit off, I know. But it’s me.” Gintoki carefully held the glasses through the bars.

“Here.” When Shinpachi leaned forward to grab them and restore them to their proper place, Gintoki brushed the top of his head in a fond gesture. It was the most he dared acknowledge Shinpachi’s act of courage; the most he dared apologize right now. He was going to have to buy Shinpachi the entire special edition of Otsuu-chan’s Summer Tour Extrapoopaganza DVD collection later. Maybe it could start to make up for him having nothing but a brief touch and a smile to offer now.

Then Gintoki rose and turned his back on Shinpachi and Kagura both, casually, as if that cruelty didn’t cost him anything. He caught Ueno looking at him and then Shinpachi, her eyes unreadable behind her glasses, but she didn’t say anything. “Yougai-san.” Gintoki nodded at Yougai-you-piece-of-shit. “Did the —” damn, what had those eyebrow guys been called? — “the Amanto guests say they had another fight planned for tomorrow?”

Yougai lit up at Gintoki’s deference, and rubbed his hands together briskly. “Indeed — we’re very lucky; I’ve heard of no other humans who have been allowed to set foot on their ship, much less participate in both parts of a Duplex fight.”

An Amanto ship? Gintoki couldn’t have arranged for anything better himself, so his pleasure wasn’t entirely feigned. “I’m looking forward to it. But today has been a long day —” of being kidnapped by this asshole — “so unless there’s anything else, I suggest I retire for the night?”

Gintoki’s carefully chosen words had the desired effect. Yougai looked mostly placated, and didn’t spare the scene behind them any attention. “Yes, of course. We’ll prepare a guest room of a, uh. Higher standard for you. Ueno-kun!”

“Right away, Yougai-san,” the young woman acknowledged, and rushed off with one last glance at Gintoki.

“Thank you,” Gintoki said, and waited for the arrangements to be made, eager to get away and let Yougai forget about Shinpachi and Kagura. He kept his back stiff and didn’t turn, even when he heard Kagura’s worried voice, and Shinpachi’s soft response. They were looking after each other, and he let that be a comfort to him as he followed Ueno out of the slice of dungeon.

He was going to leave without a backward glance, but his resolve failed him at the last moment. Or maybe it was only at the last moment he was brave enough to face them again.

Kagura had twisted her shoulder between the bars, reaching her hand towards Shinpachi, who was starting to sit up. When Gintoki turned to shoot them a wave and a smile, he was gifted with two smiles in return — wan and pained, maybe, but entirely without resentment. “Rest up, you two. We’ve got Yorozuya work ahead tomorrow.”

They were innocent words that Yougai couldn’t possibly object to — a responsible adult motivating his young employees, but as he turned away Gintoki saw the eagerness on Kagura’s face, the determination in Shinpachi’s. They’d listened to him and heard what he wanted them to: he had a plan, and they were getting out of this. Holding their trust in him close to his heart, Gintoki left them behind.

The next afternoon Gintoki had managed to make his request to see the junior Yorozuya members polite enough by trying it out on a mental image of Otae. He figured that if Shinpachi’s sister could have said the lines with a smile (and without punching anyone), he was probably not going to piss Yougai off too badly. After a few false starts, when the mental image punched him, he added a bit of stoic drama taken straight from any number of characters who had death flags planted on them as they headed into battle, and it was convincing enough to earn him five minutes alone with Shinpachi and Kagura. To ‘say his farewells’, as it were.

Spending an entire day on his best behavior dressed up in creepy cosplay before getting to see them had been worse than Gintoki really wanted to think about, but he had waited long enough that Yougai was getting less paranoid, and there had been no time for Shinpachi or Kagura to argue about the plan before he left. He fully expected them to have objections, and he wasn’t disappointed. He’d barely gotten past the first greetings and bare bones of the thing when they started shouting at him.

Only the fact that he could guilt-trip Kagura into taking responsibility for Shinpachi — who was pretending to be fine but very clearly was anything but — got her to agree to her part in it, and she wasn’t happy about it. At all. Some furniture suffered incidental damage, and Gintoki had to bribe her with a promise of sukonbu and 300 yen to get her to calm down enough that they wouldn’t bring down the wrath of the Amanto collars on all three of them. Shinpachi’s displeasure was far more quiet and reasonable, but the hurt in his eyes cut deep.

In Gintoki’s defense, he was pretty certain the plan was going to work, and that it was their only shot before something worse than last night happened. In Kagura’s defense, it had a few minor kinks he hadn’t really had the time to iron out. It was the lack of blood sugar, probably — everything from breakfast onwards had been terribly traditional and savoury, without a single sweet treat in sight.

When Gintoki left them this time, there were no smiling faces. Well, good — it played right into the ‘might not come back alive’ drama he had been exploiting with Yougai. It wasn’t like Gin-san needed to be sent off with a smile or anything, not by those brats.

Yougai seemed nervously excited about the evening, prattling on about all the important Amanto manners and customs they had to remember. Ueno, who was coming along for the occasion, seemed to be listening with rapt attention, but Gintoki caught her eyes glazing over behind her glasses when Yougai wasn’t looking.

For all his eagerness to use and trade in Amanto tech, Yougai didn’t have a single landspeeder or hover cruiser for them to ride — though he did have a limo big enough to fit his entire entourage, including Ayamine and Aoki flanking Gintoki, for all that they’d ridden in separate ones last time. The Mayudachi’s ship was waiting for them in the harbour, and Cresty himself greeted them with a small honor guard. Gintoki waved lazily at the familiar, bandaged figure in the back, and got a solemn nod from Gotan in return.

Fortunately that seemed to be the extent to which Gintoki was expected to socialize. He spent the banquet at attention behind Yougai, who needed frequent intercepts from Ueno to keep from messing up as he made his way through the complicated Mayudachi cuisine — mostly fancy takes on space krill. It was dull and grating, and Gintoki’s sugar craving was reaching critical levels. The time before a battle was best spent snacking or napping, not playing mannequin to some fanboy’s cosplay outfit.

Gintoki tried not to let the weight of the collar bother him — it seemed particularly itchy and threatening at the moment. At least Yougai had kept his bony fingers off the remote today. Too psyched up for his big break to risk it, Gintoki suspected — if the Duplex was a big deal, the Multiplex was huge, and Yougai was aiming for the stars. Or at least aiming Gintoki, who’d have to win tonight to get Yougai that honor.

That, and to not die, which Gintoki was slightly more concerned with. He’d caught one particularly tall fellow near Cresty eyeing him more than the rest of the mohawk crowd, and he had the feeling it wasn’t just idle interest. There was a hell of an aura coming off the guy — bloodlust, definitely, though all he was currently battling was the plate of dancing shrimp. The slightly curdled feeling to it — that would be a grudge. Maybe just because Gintoki had won yesterday — or maybe it was something more personal. Gintoki didn’t know and didn’t care, but really wished he could have some strawberry milk to wash the sour taste of it out of his mouth and help him focus.

The Mayudachi didn’t have any fancy transparent walls — they had a hexagonal metal stage lowered from the ceiling, hovering a few feet over the floor as the Mayudachi and Yougai’s little human contingent grabbed their after-dinner drinks and scrambled to stand around it. There was another round of bowing and vows of honor and death, and then finally Gintoki had a sword in his hand and was facing down Gupen, the guy who’d been giving him the evil eye all night. Or facing up — not counting the crests, the guy had a good handspan on Gintoki, and he was built like a small mech suit.

Cresty himself did the robe-flapping this time, first at Gupen and his forked sabre, then at Gintoki with his gilt-hilt katana. Next came the dramatic fluttering of the dropped robe, and for a second time was suspended, pregnant with the silence of a roomful of people holding their breath, Gintoki’s own pulse loud in his ears.

It all exploded into sound and movement on the very first whisper of cloth on the ground, Gupen twirling like a one-person sabre-tornado, Gintoki’s sandals slapping on the metal stage as he dodged. It should have been an easy attack to avoid, violent as it was, but Gupen moved with frightful speed, and before he knew it Gintoki was batting off that flurry of cuts with own blade in a disharmonious clash of metal. The Mayudachi’s strength was as excessive as his speed, and Gintoki staggered under the blows he caught until he managed to work with them, channeling the force of his opponent’s killing blow into a spin from which he could lunge at the unprotected black-robed back.

The lunge met with a sabre, Gupen whipping around to fast enough that they were face to face again. Gintoki bit off a curse and tried a feint instead, only to have it caught as handily. The Amanto was already counterattacking, vicious one-handed strokes parting the air with such speed that Gintoki only barely parried them, letting them get far too close for comfort. He bounded back — and balanced dangerously close to the edge of the stage. The fall wouldn’t kill him, because he had no doubt in his mind that if he lost his footing here, he would already be dead when he landed. Gupen would team up with gravity and cleave Gintoki in half as he fell.

Not a good thought to have at all, much less to dwell on. Looking up from the drop, Gintoki found Gupen up close and personal, and moving in a way that was clearly intended to block Gintoki off from the main body of the hexagonal stage. It was an advantage Gintoki could press — while Gupen’s reach guarded from a direct sally, he was so focused on herding Gintoki toward the edge that he didn’t count on Gintoki gathering speed and running along the edge. Which, on a hexagon, angled him handily around Gupen.

The Amanto’s blade flickered forward as he extended, trying to stop Gintoki — the slash caught the edge of the sleeve over Gintoki’s left elbow and drew a few drops of blood, but it didn’t slow him down. Free of Gupen’s range, he could spring up and around, taking to the air for a powerful swing on his way down.

The Amanto whirled his sabre in a two-handed move that batted Gintoki out of the air like a volleyball slam dunk. Gintoki landed hard on his feet — only to have Gupan move low to kick them out from under him. It had been a miscalculation on Gintoki’s part — Gotan hadn’t seemed to be aware kicks could be used in swordfights, so he wasn’t particularly guarding against them from this Mayudachi either. He didn’t evade quite fast enough, and Gupan chuckled and lashed out, intending to cut Gintoki’s head off in one fluid move.

Gintoki felt the sabre pass through the air overhead as he was going down — and then it was coming at him again. Fending Gupen’s attack off mid-air slammed Gintoki down hard on his right shoulder, which crunched against the metal of the stage. It slowed him down for a fraction of a second, and as he was jackknifing to his feet again the prongs of Gupen’s blade skewered his bruised shoulder, shoving him back down on the floor. The Mayudachi’s bloodlust surged, his bill opened in a shriek, and that was it. This was Gintoki’s chance.

Telling his instincts to shush, he dropped the katana to wrap both hands around Gupen’s bulging forearm. The Mayudachi reacted as expected — bracing against the throw he thought was coming, shoving his blade clean through Gintoki’s shoulder so hard the prongs sliced through the stage itself. Which left the edge — sharp and bloody — exposed long enough for Gintoki to slam his neck against it.

Gintoki didn’t hesitate, bringing his full weight to bear even as the sabre ripped through his shoulder, keeping one step ahead of the pain to slice the Amanto collar around his neck open on that lethal edge.

There was a clang and shower of sparks, and then Gintoki could breathe. It had worked — it had better have worked. The startled Gupen tried to follow through on the self-inflicted blow, but Gintoki held firm — Gupen’s sabre didn’t move the hairsbreadth it would have needed to cut his throat. In a blur of blood and rage, Gupen ripped his sabre back, and Gintoki rolled away, grabbing for his discarded katana with his left hand. His right arm was pretty useless at the moment, but there was a new lightness to his movements as he met the Mayudachi’s next volley of attacks. And Gupen wielded his sabre with more force than necessary now, either angry to have let such helpless prey get away or just off-balanced by his opponent’s strange unpredictability.

It was impossible to say how anyone else was reacting, because Gintoki did not have a second’s attention to spare from the fight now, throwing himself into exploiting his opponent’s reckless attacks, following the Mayudachi’s speed more easily now that he knew to expect it. Gupen pressed on with another sabre whirlwind, and Gintoki saw opportunity, batting the attacks away in flashes of ringing steel before they could reach inside his guard, simply flowing forward and under and there.

Blood spraying from his chest, Gupen took a few wild swings at Gintoki, roaring with pain. Meeting the Mayudachi’s berserk blows jolted the bones of Gintoki’s arm, and he slid back on the blood-slick stage, deflecting and redirecting, protecting his injured right side. The Amanto’s small red eyes were full of death and madness, and he flared his crests as he gave chase, targeting the side Gintoki was favoring, seemingly inexhaustible despite the blood soaking through the white Mayudachi uniform.

Gintoki breathed, and breathed again, pain hovering at the edges of his consciousness — or maybe blurring those edges; he was staunchly ignoring what his body was telling him, but he knew it wasn’t good. Gupen was big and solid and really, really angry, and there was only so much Gintoki could do to deflect that. Damn. Having gotten what he needed, Gintoki had been hoping to avoid this, but Gupen was not at all eager to lie down for an overdue nap.

Gintoki made his move. Gathering the strength he had left to muster, he stopped defending and hurled into an attack. Both hands now on the hilt of the katana to hold it through the impact of Gupen’s attempts to deflect him, he shoved past the sabre. There he buried his blade to the hilt in the Mayudachi’s side with a quick, brutal movement.

Between one heartbeat and the next there was silence, as if the two of them had remained frozen in the moment before the fluttering robe hit the ground, as if the end of the fight folded back on the beginning. All eyes in the room were fixed on them, collective breaths held. Gintoki met the Amanto’s stare from across the gory steel, and Gupen opened his bill in a dreadful, bloody smile.

The room erupted as Gupen’s saber slashed up from where it had been dangling by his side. Gintoki couldn’t yank the katana out fast enough to deflect, so he kicked and twisted, and the Mayudachi went down like a rotten cedar trunk — but not before his powerful sabre sliced Gintoki’s breastplate in half; leaving a long cut across his ribs below. Gintoki flew back from the impact and braced himself with the hand of his damaged arm on the floor, reclaimed sword straight behind him as he looked up wildly.

Gupen wasn’t moving. The crowd was too loud for Gintoki to hear any breathing, the clamoring Mayudachi pressing so close to the stage that it shuddered under their weight, spinning and swaying like a kid’s swing under Gintoki. No, wait — the stage was holding steady; the rest was just bloodloss and pain making themselves known. Gintoki shuddered. It was a bad time for his footing to go drifting off like that — if Gupen rose, if there was another attack, he would have to move again, because there was no doubt that the Mayudachi would claim the death he was due if he got the chance.

Breathing hard, Gintoki clambered to his feet, and was hit by a brief surge of panic as he thought he saw Gupen stride towards him as if he’d shed all his injuries, crests held high and eyes shining with passion. But before he could get his katana back up Gintoki exhaled the tension. Blinking blood out of his eyes, he could see that it was Cresty.

The Mayudachi leader made his way slowly across the stage, his bearing grave but his face animated with excitement. “Amazing,” he squawked. “To take down Gupen, the champion of the Ookuran — Shiroyasha, you honor us with the blood you shed.”

Gintoki chuckled wetly. “You have plenty of honor to go around, then.”

Cresty gave him a searching look. “Will you have your death, today? Our Ookuran and Baunteii clans both would welcome you to it.” The Mayudachi gestured at Gupen’s supine form.

“Told you,” Gintoki said, the words sounding like they came from really far away as the stage sped up like a merry-go-round. “I don’t need any...” And then he folded softly into painless oblivion.

Painless oblivion was fun while it lasted, and Gintoki made sure to dive back into it instead of bothering to investigate who was putting bandages on him, or where he was being moved. The edge of anticipation was always there, however, drawing at his awareness, anxiously reminding him that the stakes were still high, and that his gambling luck tended to be bad.

When cold water splashed him in the face and oblivion finally drifted too far away to reach, Gintoki came to with the vague thought that kids weren’t actually allowed to gamble, so the bad luck would have to look elsewhere. That’s right — fortune could go curse a pachinko machine or something, just leave Shinpachi and Kagura out of it.

Then the pain caught up with him, worse somehow than it ought to be, and he shook off his daze and blinked water from his lashes to open his eyes. The scene that greeted him was at once familiar and backwards, leaving Gintoki on the cusp of dizzy relief. He was back in Yougai’s banquet room, which would have been bad, except the two cages still standing there were empty. Completely empty. That had to be a good sign. Yougai’s thunderous expression and the two mooks’ dark looming seemed to confirm things had gone according to plan for the Yorozuya.

Unfortunately this was the part of the plan Kagura had wanted to — and still probably would — punch Gintoki for. The part where he hadn’t exactly escaped along with the other two. More like — oh yes, he had it now. He was strung up in Yougai’s little dungeon nook, which definitely explained why even his non-stabbed arm was aching dully, and his ribs stung. His torso was bare save for fresh bandages, damp with either blood or the water that had so rudely brought him back to consciousness.

Yougai came strutting over, shoving his skull-face into Gintoki’s space. He whipped his arm back in a predictable backhand that set his ponytail swinging. “He’s definitely awake now,” Yougai snapped. Gintoki licked his split lip, frowning a bit at the bitter taste, but didn’t bother with any other response. He looked around the room, checking again to make sure — and yes, the cages were still empty. Ueno was standing over to one side, clutching her tablet and looking nervously at the entire setup. There were no windows to show if it was night or day outside, but the henchmen’s bloodshot eyes suggested that whatever time it was, none of them had slept as well as Gintoki had.

“Tell me who did it,” Yougai growled, and Gintoki let his gaze drift lazily to meet the man’s stare.

“Huh? Who did what?” Yougai’s fists clenched at his response, and Gintoki quirked his lips in a smile. Bet the bastard was missing his remote now.

“You…!” The color rose in Yougai’s face, and he hit Gintoki again. Someone like him taking these matters into his own hands — yeah, he was hilariously upset. “You know what! Who did you talk to? Who did you tell? How did those little brats of yours get away?”

Gintoki’s bloody smile widened, and he chuckled. “Really? That’s your question? You mean you still don’t know?”

Yougai was practically shaking with rage. “Was it one of the servants? Who was it — who is the leak? Listen, Sakata, if you don’t tell me I’ll have Ayamine beat it out of you, Multiplex or no Multiplex.”

The stupid clown’s breakdown was the best entertainment Gintoki had had in days, and he was fully enjoying every bit of it except the one where he couldn’t just leave. Yet. “I don’t know. Why won’t you tell me what happened?” At Yougai’s surge of rage Gintoki cocked his head. “Look, I was with you the whole time. Why do you think I had anything to do with it?”

“Because people don’t just break through walls and disappear. You can’t just rip off a Donatien collar, much less two linked ones, fast enough to escape the damage. It’s impossible.”

The kids had done good. The plan had worked well. Pride and relief and more than just a little smug self-satisfaction buoyed Gintoki’s spirits to the point where he was getting a bit lightheaded. “You stupid shit,” he told Yougai. “What did you think would happen, locking up an angry Yato?”

Ueno gasped, getting it before any of the others. Yougai blinked at Gintoki, and the henchmen blinked at each other. “A… Yato? Those dread Amanto?”

“Yeah, dread pain in my ass,” Gintoki drawled. “And you went and really pissed one off.”

“What are you talking about?” Confusion was bleeding some of the rage from Yougai. “The boy wasn’t an Amanto, he—”

To Gintoki’s amusement, Yougai changed colors like a chameleon, going a shade of pale that wouldn’t have looked off on a Yato. “The girl,” he breathed.

Gintoki wished he could have clapped sarcastically — or maybe enthusiastically. After all, that had been a magnificent performance from Kagura. You had to appreciate her timing — waiting for the pain that would have alerted her to the fact that Gintoki had broken out of his own collar; getting Shinpachi out of his before it could hurt him, then getting it off herself and breaking them out. Literally. The cells with their outside walls facing a quiet part of the garden were perfect to break out of late at night — all Kagura and Shinpachi would have had to do was to scale the wall (or possibly run straight through it) and disappear.

Kagura had complained that Gintoki should come too and they could all bust out together, but he needed to be sure — after what had happened to Shinpachi, Gintoki couldn’t bring himself to risk either of them getting caught trying to flee. Especially not when he knew he’d be able to offer both an excellent diversion and a chance at having their escape go undetected for hours.

“But then…” Yougai was still processing, trying to comprehend where his own choices had brought him. “And you…” He narrowed his eyes, glaring at Gintoki again. “You were behind this.”

Gintoki raised his eyebrows. “Told you I wasn’t interested in your shitty cosplay job. Made it pretty clear, I think.”

“But I need it! We’re already engaged in valuable negotiations; you must go on to the Multiplex or we’ll never—”

“Screw that.”

“Sakata. You can’t deny me.”

Gintoki huffed dismissively. “I can, and I do. You should let me go now, and then maybe kindly turn yourself into the cops. They might be able to protect you. Maybe.”

“Are you out of your mind? I can’t do that! You will fight for me—”

“No.”

Yougai’s eyes were wide, his mouth open, ponytail lashing in frustration as he turned from Gintoki to the henchmen and finally managed to splutter, “I won’t accept this, any of this. Leverage isn’t the only way — I was counting on those two to ensure your good behaviour, but there are other ways to teach stubborn fools like you who is in charge.”

Gintoki sighed. “Trust me. There’s nowhere on Earth safe for you now, so for your own sake—”

Yougai had grabbed one of the Amanto guns from Ayamine, startling Ueno, and fired it twice. Trussed up as he was, Gintoki twitched like a fish on a hook, and gasped like one too. The damn nerve-paralyzer or whatever did absolutely nothing to make his shoulder stop screaming as it was bashed against the wood of the pillar behind him, and the other cuts and bruises he had been mostly ignoring were all clamouring for his attention.

“Unacceptable,” Yougai snarled. “This behavior is unacceptable; your offer, Sakata-san, is unacceptable.” Then he looked up at Ayamine. “Change his mind for me, if you please.”

Ayamine grunted in assent, and Gintoki remembered how he had hurt Shinpachi and would have done anything to get to kick his head in. Instead all he could do was shiver with aftershocks from the Amanto blast, hanging limply from his bound wrists as the goon disappeared out of his vision to raid the cupboards for another cane or something.

“You shithead,” Gintoki panted in Yougai’s general direction. “Seriously… cut it out.”

Yougai didn’t look entirely sane as he crossed his arms haughtily. “I will once I can be absolutely sure of where your loyalties lie, Sakata.”

At that, Gintoki had to smile. “That’s never going to change,” he murmured. “Ever.”

Things went a little muddled after that, because Ayamine was back, and he had brought a really big stick. The overgrown minion hauled Gintoki around so he faced the pillar. Yougai added another dose of Amanto paralyzer, and it made Gintoki’s body feel like a heat map of pain, each bruise lighting up, each deeper cut white-hot even without the blows raining down on him. There was no avoiding them, no bracing against them. His body shuddered as it absorbed the pain, impact after impact wrenching sounds from him that hurt as they tore out of his throat.

When his vision swam and dipped, cold water hit his face again, and again the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was Yougai. The ringing in Gintoki’s ears was so loud that he couldn’t quite tell what the complete asshole was asking him, but he could guess. And it was just pain he was feeling. Awful but familiar; unable to hurt anyone but himself. A few panting breaths, then he could pull his split lips from his teeth in a grin still as wide and mocking as when this bony clown first darkened his doorway. “No.”

They didn’t bother with his back when they started the next beating. Gintoki could see them now: Yougai with his thin lips peeled back from his teeth in euphoric self-righteousness as he fired the Amanto weapon, Ayamine a dark shadow that rained down pain. It hurt like split skin and bruised bone never had before, like he could feel each damaged cell, each panicked nerve overloading with concentrated agony.

It was no wonder he missed the moment when Aoki disappeared out of his stinging vision. Gintoki didn’t notice what was happening until there was no new pain when he had been expecting it, and the shadow fell out of sight with a loud thump. He did catch Yougai turning, and very much enjoyed his wide-eyed surprised, his startled gasp. “You—” And then Yougai fell, too, and Gintoki exhaled a very shaky breath and tried not to pass out.

“You gonna shoot me too?” he asked Ueno, who was standing in front of him, holding Aoki’s Amanto weapon in hands that barely trembled at all. Or he tried to ask; it might have come out a groan.

“Sakata-san…” The young woman tucked the gun into her obi and rushed to stand on tiptoe and get Gintoki’s hands free from the the hook. It hurt to lower his arms again, but not worse than anything else. “Sakta-san, I’m so sorry.”

Gintoki licked his parched lips, swaying where he stood, peeling the rope off his wrists. He looked around at the three men lying motionless on the tatami. “Are they…?”

She shook her head, a wisp of hair working free of her tight bun. “Stun setting. They’ll be unconscious for hours.” So the guns did come with more efficient functions than just ‘torture,’ then. And that was good, because right now Gintoki wasn’t sure he could beat even one of those assholes, even if they were unconscious when he fought them. He swayed on his feet, and Ueno ducked under his left shoulder, not caring that he knocked her glasses askew or got blood all over her expensive kimono.

“Come, I’ll get you out — there’s a back way…” With Ueno’s help, Gintoki managed to put one foot ahead of the other, forcing his bruised and battered body to move through the pain, towards—

“Where are we going?” he rasped.

Ueno looked a bit wild around the eyes, but her mouth was set with determination. “Out. Away from here. I want—”

Gintoki felt her tremble, and the last of his suspicion faded. “You wanna get away too?”

Ueno nodded. “Yougai-san — he wasn’t always like this. It wasn’t always like this. But now — he was going to kill you.”

“Yeah.” Either today, or the next time he threw Gintoki to some angry Amanto, or whatever the hell he had planned.

“I didn’t… I’m sorry.”

Gintoki swallowed. Ueno had been involved in getting Shinpachi and Kagura captured, and worse. But she sounded wretched, and she couldn’t be much older than the kids herself, despite her stern adult getup. “Yeah,” he breathed. “‘s okay.”

At his words Ueno straightened a bit, taking even more of Gintoki’s limping weight as they left the nightmarish banquet hall behind and entered an empty hallway. “I didn’t think Yougai-san would do… this. I thought…” She swallowed, then continued. “I thought because he was always jealous of everyone else — of the samurai for their legacy and the Amanto for their technology — if he could have the most legendary of the Joui working for him, then maybe…”

A naive wish, but Ueno must have grown up desperate to be accepted by this loathsome man who would clearly never be satisfied. Not with his big house, not with all of his servants, not with the interstellar contacts he had already made. And obviously, not with whatever girlfriend had borne Ueno — good enough for a while, maybe, but not wife material. Same as his daughter wasn’t good enough to carry his name. “Getting greedy bastards what they want won’t make them less greedy, huh?” Gintoki said softly.

Ueno shook her head. “It would have gotten people killed — it got you hurt, and your friend—”
Gintoki was glad he didn’t have to revisit that particular subject, because before Ueno could finish talking, the wall in front of them exploded into a shower of dust and debris, shafts of light through the falling chunks of building illuminating a ridiculously large canine shadow from behind.

“What,” Ueno mouthed, and Gintoki slipped from her grip to stand protectively in front of her, shielding her from another blast as a smaller hole opened further down in the hallway.

The clang and clamour of a small battle welled in to fill the smoky hallway, and an excited “Yip!” came out of the destruction. The voice that followed wasn’t the one Gintoki had been expecting, but it was familiar and stupid and that was all that mattered.

“Ahahaha! Good job, men — and trusty dog! Now onwards to crush these fiends!”

Sadaharu didn’t need the encouragement to come bounding down the hallway towards Gintoki, and a bit further away the voice he had been expecting came in through the smaller hole shouting, “Sadaharu, fetch!”

Unfortunately the giant mutt took that literally, and an alarming interlude of wet darkness followed as the oversized maw closed gently on Gintoki’s head and most of his torso and carried him the last bit down the hall.

“Arf!” Sadaharu’s tongue lolled out and Gintoki thumped to the floor, seeing damp stars and cracked ceiling and then — concerned brown eyes behind round glasses looking down at him. “Kagura-chan, don’t make Sadaharu play fetch with Gin-san!” Shinpachi scolded, but he was grinning from ear to ear.

A fluffy inugami head butted into Gintoki’s vision next to Shinpachi, and Katsura leaned forward between the pointy ears, absentmindedly stroking their fluffy fur. “Oh, there you are, Gintoki. I thought Leader said that we were rescuing him?”

“We are!” Kagura protested, and squatted down to poke Gintoki in the cheek, eclipsing the rest of the bunch of idiots. “There,” she said. “See, now you’re all beat up. You should have come with us like we said, stupid Gin-chan.”

Gintoki ached from his curly head to his bare toes and he couldn’t move and he couldn’t stop grinning. “Yeah,” he said, just before he lost his desperate grip on consciousness. “I guess I should have.”

It was only natural that Gintoki’s nightmares should take the marvellous opportunity handed to them, and gleefully remix some of their greatest hits with a horrifying montage featuring the worst moments of the past few days. They pulled Gintoki from what should have been healing sleep into a restless riptide that confused fears with memories until he was thrashing under the weight of too much loss and failure to bear.

Pain — blessedly real, terribly annoying — yanked him most of the way to wakefulness, and then he had to continue thrashing because he was clearly being more than just figuratively suffocated. “Gah!” Gintoki flailed, trying to come up for air and ending up having to bat aside enough pillows for an entire high school sports camp sleepover just to sit up.

Which he did, only to find himself transported back in time again. Dappled with leaf-shadow, warm afternoon sunlight spilled over him where he sat staring out over a calm garden, gently stirring crimson leaves filling his vision. The smell of clean tatami and polished wood and rich earth was heady with nostalgia, but when he turned it wasn’t because he was hoping to see anyone long gone standing beside him.

Not when he had those two right there — Shinpachi sitting in a futon strewn with almost as many pillows as Gintoki’s, and Kagura jumping up from her perch on Sadaharu.

“Good morning,” Gintoki yawned, and reached to scratch his head only to freeze when the motion jostled his abused shoulder.

“Gin-san!”

“Gin-chan’s awake! Anego, Gin-chan’s awake now!” Kagura’s joyful cry was loud enough to bring reinforcements — Otae appearing from the doorway, and for some reason Katsura poking up from behind Sadaharu with Elizabeth next to him. They converged on Gintoki in a welter of happy exclamations, recriminations, threats, threatening offers of food, and joyful yapping. It was loud and annoying and not entirely unlike sinking down under a kotatsu, but instead of warding off the cold of winter, this warmth dispelled nightmares and nostalgia alike. And just like a kotatsu, Gintoki wanted to wrap himself in the moment and forget everything outside of it, since he was clean and bandaged and all dressed up in comfy pajamas.

But he couldn’t.

“Oi. Oi! Gin-san here has to pee!” That got their attention, though it didn’t exactly shut anyone up.

“A samurai should always be in control of his body, Gintoki. And that includes the bladder.”

Gintoki glared up at Katsura from the futon. “Oh, I am. Looking at where you’re standing, you’d be the first to know if I weren’t, Zura.”

“It’s Katsura.”

“Why is he even here?” Gintoki asked his hostess, but before Otae could say anything Elizabeth butted in.

[Paw pad junkie]

“Uh…” Gintoki was hoping he’d misread the sign.

“Rowr!” Sadaharu confirmed, tail thumping on the tatami.

Katsura was definitely blushing, but cleared his throat. “No, I was just — I was leaving, I just wanted to see that you had recovered, Gintoki. And I joined forces with Sadaharu-dono when I came to see you with some information after I followed up on your call and found him all… all alone there.”

Kagura beamed. “Sadaharu came to save us! He is such a good tracker, he found us.”

[Katsura-san found you], Elizabeth disagreed. [When we were following his lead!]

Sadaharu growled an objection.

“Yeah, like I said. Sadaharu brought Zura.”

“That’s all very interesting, but—”

“It’s Katsura.”

[Not the dog, Katsura-san!], Elizabeth signed vehemently.

“Everyone!” Otae sang in the voice she used when they were closing up the club and needed all the drunks to go home and leave their tips behind. “Gin-san needs his rest to recover.” Her tone was enough to break up the mascot-character fight before it could get physical, and then she miraculously herded all participants away like she was brushing crumbs off a table.

“Gin-san needs to use the little samurai’s room,” Gintoki muttered when she was gone and wouldn’t hear him correcting her. Then he tried to figure out how to stand up, and winced as what felt like absolutely everything hurt at the motion.

“Gin-chan.” Kagura appeared at his side, and reached out a hand with a smile that warmed his heart. “Don’t pee in Anego’s futon.”

Oh wait no, that was just irritation — why would that brat ever do anything to his heart. Gintoki grudgingly accepted her support, but didn’t complain, not even on the way back when she kept asking if he had washed his hands properly. For all that she was too short to make a good crutch, her solid strength made the bathroom run a lot easier than if he’d tried to prop himself up on pride alone.

When he sank gingerly into the nest of futon and pillows it was with enormous relief. Now he could probably lie — carefully, on several of the pillows Kagura was helping him arrange — flat on his back without moving until the worst of the pain had faded slightly. That sounded like a plan. Not moving. But it wasn’t like he could just burrow into the blankets and fall asleep again — or if he did, with this lump of feelings caught behind his heart he would certainly not escape nightmares.

“Welcome back, Gin-san,” his sickbed neighbor said, and Gintoki finally looked over at Shinpachi. He was sitting propped up by plenty of cushions, snacks and idol magazines strewn around him. “Ah, Ane-ue thought it would be easier to look after us if she didn’t have to run between our rooms,” Shinpachi said and scratched his head apologetically. “Sorry. If you’d rather—”

“It’s fine,” Gintoki interrupted, feeling bad that he was being apologized at, when he was the one who should be apologizing. But how could he even begin, after all he’d done — all he’d failed to do? He stared up at the ceiling, avoiding Shinpachi’s eye. Somewhere in the room, big paws tromped in a circle and then the floor vibrated as Sadaharu flopped down, and Kagura went over to praise him some more. The sun was sinking behind the walls around the Shimura mansion, the growing shadows spreading a slight chill through the room.

Gintoki sighed. He could take that hint, sure. Even if he still didn’t have the right words, at least he could try. “Shinpachi,” he said, eyes fixed on the ceiling. “I’m sorry.”

“Gin-san?” Shinpachi sounded confused, and — and a little tremulous. Gintoki had to look now, searching that expressive face, and sure enough — what he read in Shinpachi's eyes was the opposite of the accusation. But that didn't make sense.

“I mean. What I did—”

“I’m sorry!” Shinpachi blurted.

“What?”

“I’m sorry — if I hadn’t had that chocolate; if we hadn’t been there, then they couldn’t have made you…”

Kagura muttered, “Stupid chocolate.”

Shinpachi inhaled, quick and shaky. “You wouldn’t have gotten hurt.”

Gintoki pushed himself up on an elbow. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Only one who did anything was that bastard Yougai.”

“That’s right!” Kagura agreed with absolute conviction.

“But we…”

“Neither one of you volunteered, and that’s it. If you’d asked to come along with that creep just for fun, we’d need to have words, but really — he got me first; it’s not like any of us had any luck there.”

Shinpachi was blinking rapidly, but his shoulders straightened out of their slump.

“There. And I’m not that hurt,” Gintoki reassured him.

Shinpachi clearly didn’t believe him, and somewhere Kagura snorted.

So that taken care of, Gintoki could have dropped the subject and worked on becoming one with the futon. But instead he sighed. “Shinpachi. It’s… I’m still sorry. When he made me choose...” The memory of that moment stole Gintoki’s breath for a moment, choking it with anger and guilt and the helplessness he’d experienced then; his helplessness to fix it now.

“It’s okay,” Shinpachi said, and there was no glint of glasses hiding any emotions, just earnest comfort. “I know you had to, and I’m glad… I’m glad I could protect everyone. Even just a little, I’m glad it worked.”

Pride and affection gave Gintoki his breath back. “Yeah,” he said. “But you shouldn’t have had to, and I shouldn’t have… I shouldn’t have said it like it didn’t matter.”

“What are you talking about, Gin-san?” Shinpachi blinked at him, and Kagura chorused, “Yeah, Gin-chan. What are you talking about?”

“You know.” Avoiding the whole subject he was talking about was increasing the difficulty level of the conversation a bit. “I made it sound—”

“Oh, that. You mean what you said to fool Yougai?”

It was Gintoki’s turn to blink.

“Shinpachi, I think our Gin-chan thinks he can act, like he’s Oguri Shun or something.”

“I... “ Gintoki sat up enough to be able to see both of them staring at him with amused smiles.

“Also, Gin-san. If it’s all Yougai’s fault, how does any of that matter anyway?”

“Yup, it’s all that asshole’s fault. We decided it had nothing to do with who ate the chocolate!”

That took Gintoki completely aback. What he said about Yougai had sounded good when he was dispensing wisdom to the kids, but he hadn’t expected to have it dispensed back like this. It threw all of his carefully ignored feelings into complete disarray as the guilt and the self-loathing started questioning what they’d showed up for, if everything could be blamed on that clown. Meanwhile his memories of making terrible choices alone for all of them started taking on the shape of something that was a distinct team effort. “You…” He shook his head and tried to hide a grin. “You can’t just copy someone’s encouragement like that, you know.”

“I just did,” Shinpachi said primly. “And it worked.”

“Sometimes even curlyheads say a smart thing or two,” Kagura nodded. “Like how all of this was Yougai’s fault and how we all knew the plan all along and stuff. So you can’t go and ignore that now — you can’t start throwing chocolate-blame!”

Well, they weren’t wrong. Gintoki felt at once strangely light, and very, very heavy. He groaned and sank back into the futon, which was getting more and more inviting. “Okay, well, this time it was nobody’s fault,” Gintoki acknowledged. “Next time, try to save me some sweets.”

“I tried!” Shinpachi laughed.

“You wouldn’t have liked them; they make you really sick,” Kagura informed him.

“You didn’t know that when you ate them all,” Gintoki said.

“Well it worked, didn’t it. You weren’t sick, were you?”

“Just save me some damn sweets, you glutton,” Gintoki muttered, sinking deeper into the futon.

“Even regular ones might make you sick if you eat that many at once,” Shinpachi said.

“Ahaha. You mean how I fooled that nasty dumbass?”

“You didn’t fool him! You barfed all over everyone!” Shinpachi protested.

“Yeah, my plan worked!”

“That wasn’t a plan, it was just barf!”

The noise should have made it hard to sleep, but Gintoki was too tired to object to the bickering, which went on in the background long after he closed his eyes and started drifting off.

The next time Gintoki woke it was softly, wrapped in warmth, moonlight shining bright through the screen door. Something big and fluffy and smelling faintly of kibble breath lay piled there, leaf shadows playing in the white fur. And between Gintoki and Sadaharu — taking up half his futon, no wonder he was feeling like the stuffing in a meat bun — Kagura sprawled. She was on her back, one hand clutching Sadaharu's fur, the other wrapped around Gintoki's arm, using it as a pillow. She was making a ridiculous sleeping face that wasn't the slightest bit cute or anything. When she twitched in her sleep she kicked both Gintoki and Sadaharu, who whined faintly and flopped his tail over the offending limb.

Turning his head the other way, Gintoki found that Shinpachi's futon had mysteriously migrated closer to his own. Shinpachi had rolled over on his stomach, bandages glowing white in the faint light where his pajamas was riding up. He had his face pillowed on one arm — the other was flung across Gintoki’s chest.

The third presence in the room stirred when Gintoki huffed at the ridiculous position he found himself in. “They were so tired, I didn’t have the heart to make them move,” Otae murmured.

Gintoki craned his neck to find her kneeling at the head of her brother’s futon. She had a tray next to her, but Gintoki was twice lucky — the food was all covered, and somebody had put a carton of strawberry milk in one corner. He would have grabbed for it, but that would shift everyone over, and he was unwilling to do that. He was sure he had perfectly good reasons, too, like — if the kids woke up they’d be really loud, and things like that.

Otae smiled in the dark, and without saying a word she put the carton in his free hand, straw already in place. Gintoki muttered a hasty thanks and set to draining every last bit of that nectar of the gods. As he drank, Otae’s hand drifted down to smooth some hair from Shinpachi’s face. “Katsura-san left a message for you,” she said.

Gintoki nodded for her to go ahead while he continued slurping his sweet, sweet strawberry milk.

“He said you shouldn’t worry about seeing ‘the fiend’ again. Something about how unwise it was to anger both the Joui and the law.”

Yeah, that sounded about right. After Zura’s lot were done with the Yougai mansion, the neighbours would definitely require some calming police presence, which would hopefully turn up all sorts of shady dealings when they poked around whatever remained of the place and Yougai's businesses. “Nice, Zura,” Gintoki mumbled. He went on to demolish the last of the strawberry milk carton, which was making sad hollow sounds and collapsing around his straw.

“Katsura-san also said there was another message for you.” Otae reached over to grab the milk carton from Gintoki’s desperate attempts to get one last sip from it, and put a card in his hand instead.

Gintoki recognized the thick card stock, the scattering of maple leaves. There were only a handful of beautifully drawn characters on it, standing out in the moonlight.

Thank you, for opening my eyes, and tearing down the walls. It was signed Retsuko.

“Wasn’t me that did most of that,” Gintoki sighed, but he tucked the card under one of the many pillows around.

“Whatever it was, I’m sure you did enough,” Otae said mildly.

“That a threat?”

Otae laughed quietly. “Honestly, Gin-san.”

Gintoki glanced over to Shinpachi’s face, naked in sleep, a small frown between his brows.

“Listen, I’m sorry—”

Otae smacked him lightly on the top of the head. “Don’t.”

Gintoki looked up at her. Otae’s face was in shadow now, harder to read.

“They told me everything. You got them out. Then they got you out. You’re all even now — don't take that away from them, not even with apologies.”

“Even, huh?” Gintoki supposed that was right, though he’d never been one to keep count.

“And apologies don’t suit you,” Otae said decisively. “Now go back to sleep. Unless you want some more food?” She gestured at her covered tray, and Gintoki shut his eyes and snored quickly.

“Nice try,” Otae sniffed. Then after a moment, “Go ahead, go to sleep. I have my naginata right here, and we’re in fortress mode. There’s not even a single stalker to worry about.”

Gintoki wasn’t entirely convinced he didn’t hear a stifled giggle at that, coming from somewhere under the floorboards or a ceiling pane, but he let it slide. Rest was far more enticing than hijinks right now. He relaxed, and let Kagura and Shinpachi pull him with them into a sleep that was deep and warm and dreamless.