Volcanolanche | End Racism in the OTW

If the kotatsu had been out already, none of it might have happened. Sure, the reward would still have been tempting. But tempting enough to make the effort to get out from under the kotatsu? Probably not.

As it was, Ketsuno Ana was promising Edo a full week of crisp, sunny autumn days, so the kotatsu was left to collect dust and the TV was left turned on. “Visit beautiful Hokkaido!” it blared, the volume jumping from loud enough for Gintoki to enjoy the lovely melody of Ketsuno Ana’s voice to loud enough for everyone to shout at everyone else to turn it down.

“Experience untouched nature!”

Shinpachi wasn’t even in the room, but Kagura and Gintoki had each claimed a sofa and neither of them was willing to give their seats up. The TV stayed on.

“Enjoy the freshly fallen snow!”

“Would either of you two incredibly useless layabouts do something about that annoying noise?” Shinpachi yelled from the kitchen.

“Frolick among the hills and go where no other people have gone!”

“What’s this ad for again? Trying to get singing nuns to migrate north?” Gintoki ignored Shinpachi’s screech of frustration and idly flicked a booger at Kagura. Kagura swiftly blocked it with the new Jump — Gintoki hadn’t even read half of it yet — and gave him a smirk. Well played. He hadn’t thought she’d have the energy for a parry.

“And then bring any garbage you find to the friendly officers stationed around the area for a fabulous reward.” The TV, which had been showing stock footage of random snowy landscapes, cut to a garish graphic of a piece of trash that looked suspiciously like a crumpled-up porn mag haloed in excited lines and yen-symbols.

“That’s really dumb,” Kagura muttered. “Gin-chan, why would people go all the way to Hokkaido to pick up trash when there’s litter everywhere in Edo?”

“Why would anyone just keep listening to this ridiculous ad and not just turn the volume down already?” Shinpachi burst into the room and stomped over to the TV and jabbed the power button.

“Turn litter into gold! The right trash has a bounty of one million—”

They all stared at the TV as the image shrunk into a point of light and vanished.

“No! Wait! Come back!”

“One million what, Gin-chan? Did they say one million?”

“Turn it back on, turn it back on!”

The TV whined, and the light bloomed back on.

“—discount at the exquisite local onsen. Good luck! Plastic bags not provided by the government.”

***

The logistics of getting from Edo to Hokkaido were easy enough. The budget? Not quite as easy.

Looking up from the flimsiest of the leaflets they’d grabbed at the local travel agent, Gintoki announced, “We can definitely afford two tickets.” He said it as if this was a feat to be celebrated.

“There’s three of us.”

“Gin-san, what coach company was this for?”

“Kagura can go in the overhead compartment. Or wait, does it say anything about babies riding for free?”

“Seriously, Gin-san, I’m not sure this HappyHokky Coach is a good idea. Look — the other coaches all list amenities and this one… What is that? ‘Free standing room, seats extra’? Do they even have bathrooms? What? They don’t. No! No bathrooms, no ride. That’s ridiculous! It’s twelve hours at least — maybe more if it snows…!” Shinpachi went on to make a few dismal calculations that all came out to enduring miserably and only maybe making it to their destination.

Gintoki and Kagura were busy scuffling, and paid no attention — Kagura had taken offense at Gintoki’s suggestion that she counted as either luggage or an infant, and it had escalated very quickly while they ignored Shinpachi’s well-founded concerns.

And so they would probably have remained — maybe not scuffling, but at least firmly stuck in Edo, unable to afford the pittance charged by the sketchiest of long-distance buses — if Shinpachi hadn’t run into Otae and Kyuubei on his way to see if they’d missed any lefleats for cheap yet reliable transport. He was going to catch them up on the money-making opportunity in the north, but it turned out that they had far more news than he did.

“Gin-san! Kagura-chan!” Shinpachi had run all the way back, only to find that the two had been too lazy to keep fighting and were back to watching random advertisements on the TV.

“Shush, Shinpachi. We’ll miss the jingle!”

Shinpachi shushed long enough to turn off the TV, which didn’t have anything plot-related going on this time around. He brandished three tickets at Gintoki and Kagura to shut them up before they could complain. “We’re going to Hokkaido!”

“That’s a ticket, right? It’s not a luggage tag? I’m not going as luggage.” Kagura scowled at Gintoki, who was already celebrating.

“Of course you’re not luggage, Kagura-chan,” Shinpachi assured her.

“One million yen, here we come! On the… Wait, what tickets did you get? You’re not going to ship us in boxes or anything?”

“Of course I’m not shipping you in boxes, Gin-san. We’re taking a direct shuttle-pod!” Shinpachi was ready for astonished gratitude and praise. He was instead rudely interrupted with suggestions of what he had sold to afford the famously pricey shuttle-tickets — “A man’s virginity is not a commodity and why are we even talking about this shut up and listen you jerks!” — before he managed to explain that the Yagyuu clan had somehow gotten involved in the government’s trash-hunt thing.

“Kyuubei-san said the Bakufu were calling in all sorts of favors, getting people to Hokkaido as quickly as possible. The Yagyuu are going to be put up in some kind of onsen...” Shinpachi trailed off. In hindsight, it was possible that Kyuubei hadn’t exactly intended to invite the entire Yorozuya, and had in fact been planning to offer Otae a getaway for two. A... romantic getaway? No, no, that couldn’t possibly — Shinpachi shook his head so hard his glasses flew across the room and there was a brief scramble to retrieve them. (Well. The scramble happened after he swore neither of the others would get a ticket until his glasses were restored to him. If not it wouldn’t have been a scramble but just him, alone, fumbling in a corner hoping Sadaharu didn’t sit down on the glasses before he could recover them.)

“Anyway.” Shinpachi cleared his throat and adjusted his glasses. “Kyuubei-san had tickets for the household and let us have some.”

“Ah, so they’re Kyuubei’s tickets, not Shinpachi’s.”

“Yeah, that makes a lot more sense.”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s okay to be poor, Shinpachi. We’re all poor, Shinpachi.”

“Good job, Shinpachi-kun. Now get packing! We’re going to the country of million-yen trash!”

***

The land of million-yen trash turned out to be in the Sorachi subprefecture of Hokkaido, a coincidence that did not escape Gintoki’s notice as they were trying to make their way to the remote retreat from the nearest pod-pad.

“Ha,” he said, squinting at the little ad on the free tourist map they’d picked up. “It says here the village is in Sorachi-gun. Really now? Sorachi?”

“It’s a bit on the nose,” Shinpachi agreed.

“The nose of a gorilla?” Kagura asked.

“It might be the nose of a gorilla. The gorilla might be right here. Or over there. It’s a Hokkaido gorilla after all.” Gintoki shook his head sadly. “If you’re going to pick a pen name from a map, at least you could pick somewhere cool, like—”

“Lake Toya?” Shinpachi couldn’t resist.

“Shut up. I hate you.”

Kagura twirled around to stare at Gintoki. “Wait. That’s on Earth?”

“It’s in Hokkaido,” Shinpachi informed her.

“Oh. I thought it was somewhere cool. Like space.”

“Shut up. I hate you both.”

Kagura and Shinpachi grinned at each other and followed Gintoki, who was stomping off through the snow in the general direction of a local bus stop, having previously declared paying for a taxi an outrageous extravagance they would would simply have to do without. Obviously they had been planning on riding along with the Yagyuu retainers, but Kyuubei and Otae had been missing from the shuttle they caught, so now it was just the three of them, a bunch of snow, and a rural bus stop.

Seventy-two minutes later everyone had complained (a lot) and blamed each other for being cold and bored. They had also failed to hitchhike with three local cars, and had to dive out of the way when a fourth sped recklessly up the mountain trail. They couldn’t be entirely sure, as it had been tearing up a giant snow cloud which pretty much hid it from sight, but it was generally agreed that the driver and passengers had all been wearing Shinsengumi uniforms and punchable smirks.

Resigning themselves to their new lives as countryside children, Kagura and Shinpachi had then built a snow-Pedoro and were doing their best to reconstruct the famous waiting-in-the-rain scene from My Neighbor Pedoro in the hopes that it would summon a crotchety man or magical animal bus or something.

What it summoned was the exact time when the local bus was due. It showed up on the dot, a rickety old thing half-full of little old grans and gramps and a starry-eyed youngster heading for some kind of card game competition. By that point Kagura had actually fallen asleep, so Shinpachi piggy-backed her onto the bus and Gintoki carried her umbrella and the driver only charged them for two adults.

“Knew I was onto something with kids riding free,” Gintoki chuckled as they arranged themselves with the drowsing Yato between them on the bench in the back. Outside the world now hovered between night and day, blue shadows falling across the snowdrifts as the sun set behind the mountain peaks.

When they got to the first discounted ryokan it was already completely full, because everyone else on the shuttle-pod had taken taxis to the village. Also there were Shinsengumi in there, so they ducked away quickly, before anyone could come out to gloat at them.

“Where did my sister and Kyuubei-san go? I’m sure they would be fine with us rooming with them.” Shinpachi paused. “Well. Me and Kagura-chan, at least.”

“And what? Leave Gin-san out to freeze in the snow? Would you do that? In the arctic night?”

“You should use the flame in your heart to keep you warm,” Kagura offered. “You’re a shonen protagonist. You’ve got to have a flame or two or you might as well take an eternal nap under the snow.”

“That’s cold. That’s really cold.”

“We’re all cold, Gin-san.”

“Then why don’t you come share the warmth of our chambers?” A familiar figure in an unfamiliar neon green skiing outfit detached itself from the shadows, at the same time as one of the shadows shifted into an indescribable ghost-like form containing unknown horrors.

“Zura! And Elizabeth. What are you doing here?”

“It’s not Zura, it’s Katsura. And we’re here on a noble quest, of course.”

“Gathering litter?” Gintoki guessed.

“I have always been on a mission to purify the nation, Gintoki.”

“Uh-huh. And the reward has nothing to do with it.”

“Purifying the nation sometimes comes at a significant financial cost,” Katsura allowed.

“So how are you paying for the hotel room?”

“Who said anything about a hotel room?”

Turned out that Katsura’s Joui network had quite a few members up here in the middle of nowhere. It was as far as you could possibly get from the government, so Hokkaido in general was popular with those warrior/terrorists who had gotten a bit too enthusiastic about national purification and needed somewhere to hole up for a bit. One of them just happened to have a dance studio (currently advertising a special on the tap dancing class) that was now doubling as dormitory for a few of the local Joui who’d gotten spooked when the Shinsengumi showed up in town and needed somewhere innocuous to hide out.

“There’s a couple of Western-style bedrooms if you don’t want to camp out,” the landlady offered cheerfully when Katsura showed up with guests. “But they were for my kids, so it’s all single beds, and you’d have to share!”

Gintoki gave her a scandalized look. “In a fic? Share a bed? What are you after — turning our innocent green square to sinful red?”

“Gin-san!” Shinpachi scolded, ears coloring at the mention of explicit ratings.

The landlady gave an amused chortle. “With these boys all cooped up in here, there’s been all sorts of things going on here — but don’t worry, we’ve got plenty of sleeping bags to keep your virtue safe.”

***

The sleeping bags proved to be warm and snug. The Yorozuya spent the night in a corner of the studio, huddled up in their cozy cocoons to emerge, if not like beautiful butterflies, then at least like mostly functional characters. They were definitely ready to go on a million-yen adventure without wasting too much time on how long the line to the bathroom got when everyone woke up, and how mad the Joui got when Kagura accidentally ate all the breakfast. Well. Whatever Gintoki and Shinpachi hadn’t wisely snatched up while they could.

A quick exit was made before that could escalate, and then the three of them were ready to find some trash and claim the bounty and return to Edo to live like kings and queens. “If it were easy to find,” Gintoki reasoned, “they wouldn’t have a bounty. So it’s probably somewhere up there.”

Shinpachi and Kagura followed where Gintoki was pointing. They looked up, and up, and up. A beguiling blue sky made a stunning backdrop for the towering peak of Tokachidake, which rose taller than even Edo’s Terminal. “Ah,” said Shinpachi. “Yes.”

“Yeah,” Gintoki said, slowly. “Maybe there’s a gondola? Or at least a ski lift?”

“Not up there, there isn’t,” Hijikata announced.

“Ch’,” Gintoki said, unperturbed by the Shinsengumi Vice Commander popping up behind his shoulder.

“But that’s alright. Kids should stick to the bunny slope, dontcha think?” Okita said as he joined Hijikata, staring flatly at Kagura.

“Oh look. It’s the Shinsengarbage.” Kagura shoved a finger up her nostril and returned Okita’s stare.

“Hijikata-san, Okita-san,” Shinpachi greeted the two. “I didn’t realize you’d be up here too!” Though he was fairly sure they had been the ones to run the Yorozuya off the road the previous day. “You didn’t bring any…” He lowered his voice and looked around the bustling village, trying to spot either the exquisite chonmage or white briefs that would give away the Shogun’s presence. “...Special guests?”

“Nah. Pops Matsudaira sent us to do some crowd control or something,” Hijikata looked more irritated than usual.

“More like trash control,” Kagura said, still without breaking eye contact with Okita.

“Yes. That’s right. And I think we found some trash right here, so let me just pick it up with my trash-picking stick.” Okita drew his sword and advanced on Kagura.

“So you finally found your calling in life, trash,” Kagura said, springing into action and leaving it vague whether she was calling Okita or Okita’s calling in life ‘trash’.

Then she sprang right back, as Gintoki had caught her by her long scarf, just as Okita was stopped dead in his tracks by Hijikata scruffing him by the collar of his uniform jacket.

“Right, so no easy way up that peak, huh?” Gintoki asked, eyeing the mountain while holding onto Kagura.

“Nope.” Hijikata took a drag on his cigarette, keeping his grip on Okita. “And if you do head up there we’ve got this disclaimer from the government about personal responsibility and not sending search and rescue and such. So consider yourselves duly informed.”

“And the bounty…?” Gintoki said.

“Still on. But only for the right trash, mind you.”

“I found some trash, Gin-chan.”

“Ah, Kagura-chan? That’s Okita-kun’s head.”

“No bounty on that,” Hijikata said, and had to duck a wild katana swing as he yanked Okita away. “Though maybe there should be. Sougo!”

“Sorry, Hijikata-san. It’s really slippery here in the snow. Whoops, I think I’m losing my balance again.”

Hijikata narrowly avoided being skewered, and swore at Okita until his subordinate reluctantly sheathed his sword.

Gintoki looked around. “And where's your gorilla?”

Hijikata sighed. “Our go— hrm — Kondou-san is… resting.”

“Really? Because he was crying in the bathroom last I saw him.”

“Sougo…” Hijikata started, then shrugged, giving up on denial. “You know. It's been rough for him.”

“Excuse me. What has?” Shinpachi approached the Shinsengumi a bit warily.

Hijikata looked surprised. “I thought you knew. Kyuubei got a private room with your sister, and… Well, you know Kondou-san.”

“What Hijikata-san isn't saying is that Kondou-san got run out of at least nine different hiding places. And he got banned from all the onsen. Not just the ladies’ half.”

“So they are here!” Shinpachi was taking this all in, torn between vicarious triumph on behalf of his sister and Kyuubei taking on the stalker gorilla, and a strange sense that he was missing something important.

“You didn't know?” Hijikata gave Gintoki a suspicious stare. “If you weren't in the hotel, then where—”

“We camped out in the snow, warmed by the flames in our hearts,” Gintoki lied proudly. “Like proper Jump protagonists.”

Hijikata’s stare did not get any less suspicious. “There's been some reports of Joui activity in town.”

“Huh,” Gintoki said, having just caught a glimpse of Katsura further down the busy main road. “Well, we don't know anything about that. Enjoy the trash!”

Shinpachi yanked Kagura along, finally breaking the silent stare between her and Okita, and Gintoki led them to the hotel from last night. He tried to spot Katsura on the way, and failed. Really, other than the eye-watering green, that ski suit wasn't a bad disguise, all things considered. Right now there were dozens of people who looked ready for the slopes out on the part of the mountain that wasn't stabbing the sky.

Kagura stepped into the lobby and immediately made a beeline for the slight figure standing on a chair giving orders to a stern-looking crew. “Kyuu-chan!”

“Good morning, Kagura-chan!” Otae intercepted the interruption in order-giving. “And Shin-chan, Gin-san. Sorry, we must have gotten confused about the shuttle-pod schedule!” Otae laughed brightly, and behind her, Kyuubei soldiered on through a creeping blush. Sure, that had totally not been on purpose or anything.

“I’m glad you found us — we were about to head out, but I think the Yagyuu will be fine without our company. Right, Kyuu-chan?”

“Of course, Tae-chan,” Kyuubei said, and scattered the Yagyuu with a quick final word and a decisive gesture.

***

There are few things in the world that make a person feel as small as hiking the vast expanse of a snow-covered mountain. The sky stretching endlessly blue above them, empty of floating space ships and clouds, just magnified that sense of scale — how small the people, and how big the mountains. In a manga panel, they would have looked like a line of ants on a refrigerator. And that was before they had made it very far at all.

In fact, the village was still close enough to hear some commotion there, and when they turned around to look they found Katsura and Elizabeth casually sauntering up the trail they had picked, shooting many a rapid glance over their shoulders (or whatever Elizabeth had). “Don’t come over here!” Gintoki shouted at them, and Katsura waved cheerfully and sped up.

Gintoki tried to lead the Yorozuya, Otae and Kyuubei away from Katsura, Elizabeth and whatever trouble they were bringing, but wasn’t like they could hide in the sparse trees, and soon their group of five was a veritable expedition of seven. (Eight if you counted the invisible stalker lurking in the sparse trees.) “We are here to offer you our assistance,” Katsura said gravely, as he made his way alongside Gintoki.

“Sure you are,” Gintoki said, and looked down at the village, where small black-clad figures were congregating at the foot of the trail. There might have been pointing, waving and shouting, but it was hard to tell exactly what was going on.

“I sure am,” Katsura nodded.

“Good. Then find some trash and bring it over here,” Kagura ordered.

“I suspect anything here would have been retrieved already,” Katsura said. “We should make it over the ridge, where the snow still lies untouched.”

“It’s untouched for a reason,” Gintoki said, having attempted a bit of trailblazing that ended up with snow in his boots and everyone else refusing to follow him.

“Fear not!” Katsura declared, and stepped aside.

Elizabeth pulled ahead of both of them. For an instant, nothing happened, and then Elizabeth started really moving, those monstrous webbed feet stamping down on the snow so that a new path emerged wherever they tread. And right now Elizabeth tread straight up the mountain, aiming for the ridge Katsura had pointed to.

“Good job, Elizabeth!” Katsura said, and gave a thumbs-up that Elizabeth somehow returned.

Gintoki shrugged. “Alright. That works.”

It worked spectacularly well, and soon their little line of ants had crested the first ridge and were surveying a virgin snowscape. Kagura was the first one to spot potential treasure. “Trash!” she yelled, and threw herself at a piece of paper sticking out of the snow. She ripped it out, damaging it badly in the process, and proudly thrust her torn porn mag at the others. “Look! We’re rich!”

“Ah,” Gintoki said.

“Kagura-chan, I don’t think that’s the right kind of trash,” Otae said gently. “Please put that back there.”

“You can’t know that!” Kagura protested, and tucked the porn mag into her jacket with a scowl. “You heard Toshi — there’s money in trash! We can’t just throw it away if there’s money in it.”

Shinpachi looked about to protest the fact that their young heroine was carrying around R-18 material, but then he shrugged. “Kagura-chan has a point. We don’t actually know what we’re looking for, do we?”

Otae and Kyuubei exchanged a glance. “Well,” Otae said.

“Not officially,” Kyuubei agreed.

“The two of you know something you want to share with the rest of the class?” Gintoki raised an eyebrow at them.

“Go ahead, Kyuu-chan. After all, the most important thing is to recover it, right?”

Kyuubei nodded. “Well. We haven’t been told exactly what it is? But apparently there was a… mix-up. There was a surprise inspection on one of the government’s official shuttles, and the pilot had some…” Kyuubei paused, clearly keeping the delicate ears of the youngsters present in mind. “Some private recreational reading material on board.”

“Well, I suppose. Long hours, lots of waiting… What?” Gintoki trailed off at the host of disapproving glares.

“He ejected the stash. And then when he landed, it was discovered that something important being carried onboard was missing.”

“Talk about blowing your load,” Gintoki said.

“Gin-san!”

“I suppose we had that joke coming,” Katsura said.

“Not you too!” Shinpachi whirled in the snow to glare at him.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Katsura replied, all haughty dignity and lime ski suit.

“So what’s the million-yen load, then?” Kagura asked of Kyuubei, completely uninterested in the straight man byplay.

“They haven’t exactly made that official. But I believe it must involve a foreign power, or they wouldn’t be so concerned with getting it back.”

Kagura took the porn magazine back out of her jacket. “Oh, so like foreign porn. Is this foreign?”

“Kagura-chan,” Otae said, putting a gloved hand gently on Kagura’s shoulder. “That’s just trash.”

Kagura’s face fell, and she tossed the tattered porn mag on the ground and gave it a kick that sent it flapping into the distance. It kicked up a powdery shower of snow where it landed, revealing a glimpse of… something.

“Trash!” Kagura yelled, and broke off from the Elizabeth track to investigate. She ended up waist-deep in snow drifts, but plowed on like a particularly determined mole. “I found it!” she proclaimed, reaching the site of impact. “It’s more porn!”

Gintoki waved at her. “Good job, Kagura-chan! Now please leave that for the adults, Kagura-chan!”

“What if it’s foreign? What if it’s a million yen?”

“Kagura-chan. Kagura-chan, please put that down,” Gintoki called, as Shinpachi yelled similar instructions.

“Kagura-chan, please don’t open that.”

Kagura, of course, ignored them.

“Gin-chan, isn’t this foreign porn?” Kagura held up a center spread which may have co-starred either a very tentacled alien or maybe an octopus. From that particular angle it was hard to tell.

Shinpachi blushed. Kyuubei blushed. Gintoki hid his face in his palm, as it seemed the safest place for his eyeballs right now was probably on a different planet, and the second safest place was right there where they wouldn’t accidentally see more of Kagura next to R-18 images.

Otae finally made it through the furrow in the snow Kagura had created, and took the magazine away from her. “Kagura-chan. This is just trash,” she said with a smile, and then hurled the magazine away with such force it impacted quite a ways off in a glittering cloud. Snow rose in the air, and beneath it they caught a glimpse of what could be a very large envelope, or something else that at least didn’t feature any intimate human or alien anatomy.

“Nice, Tae-chan!” Kyuubei called.

“Way to go, Anego!” Kagura said and dashed towards it. Elizabeth made like a ninja and sprinted across the snow next to her, and the rest of them followed in their tracks, excitement rising as they neared the object. It was definitely not a porn magazine, which was a relief.

Sixteen feet of various sizes and webbed-ness galloping across the snow made enough of a crunching, stomping cacophony that they all missed the approach of the helicopter until it blotted out the sun over them like a giant circling hawk. One making flup-flup-flup noises and whipping snow in their faces.

“Hello there, wanted fugitive and people associating with a wanted fugitive. This is the Shinsengumi special police. Please surrender,” Okita hollered at them through a bullhorn.

Katsura gasped dramatically. “How did they find us?!” He looked around the vast snow plains, where he stood out like a misplaced energy drink in his green outfit.

“Surrender or what?” Kagura asked.

Kondou stuck his head out behind Okita and cried, “Otae-san! Please, I can’t live like this, banished from your—” And that’s when Otae’s snowball hit him right in the face, sending him rocketing backwards and leaving whatever it was of Otae’s he couldn’t live without unsaid.

“Seriously, quit it. That’s assaulting a police officer, that is. We’ll arrest the bunch of you if you don’t come quietly,” Okita informed them.

“From up there?” Gintoki asked, and Kagura let out a mocking laugh that Katsura quickly joined in with.

Okita leaned back into the helicopter. “Danna has a point,” he said, still using the bullhorn. Hijikata smacked the loud part of it away from his face and cursed, because of course Gintoki had a point. The helicopter had been a surefire way of catching up with Katsura, but now he was on the ground surrounded by half a dozen civilians, and they were hovering uselessly within snowball-distance.

“Fine!” Hijikata yelled back. “We’ll just have to take matters into our own hands!”

“You mean I should offer Otae-san my hand in marriage? Again? Because she really doesn’t seem like she’s in a marrying mood right now.”

“No, Kondou-san. Not that. Katsura.”

“Good idea, Hijikata-san. Why don’t you go arrest him.” Okita shoved Hijikata, hard, but Hijikata had seen that one coming the moment they opened the helicopter door, and he used his sheathed sword as a bar across the doorframe to catch himself.

“Sougo,” Hijikata growled.

“Sorry, Hijikata-san. I just got so excited at the thought of catching Katsura,” Okita said.

“Wait. I thought that’s why we had the helicopter?” Kondou asked.

“Well, it was. But he’s not coming along,” Okita explained. They all glanced down at the group standing there. Katsura was still laughing an annoying superior laugh. Otae was squeezing something that might at some point have been a snowball, but was now compacted into a sphere of pure ice, Kyuubei standing protectively at her side.

“Right. So we’ll just go down there, arrest him, and walk back to the village,” Hijikata said.

“Good plan, Toshi,” Kondou said, nodding decisively. “We don’t need the helicopter. How hard can it be!”

Prominent volcanologists would have been able to inform them that it was not, in fact, those words that caused the eruption. They would have been able to explain the slow build-up of pressure in the active volcano of Tokachidake, and the occasional venting that happened completely randomly and wasn’t actually brought on by anyone challenging fate by throwing words like ‘how hard can it be’ around.

But the prominent volcanologists were all at a conference very far away from any active volcanoes (seriously, the volcanologists would say, those things are dangerous) and so everyone was left with the impression that Kondou had somehow brought the mountain down on their heads.

The first sign of anything wrong was a terrible, bone-shaking noise that sounded like the mountain itself screaming in distress — a scream as slow and deep as the forces that created it. That pained rumble was soon followed massive black plume erupting really too close to everyone for comfort.

The helicopter overhead lurched wildly as the ash and steam engulfed it, and the violent motion tipped all three Shinsengumi into a tangle by the open door. Hijikata just managed to catch a hold of the door frame, but before he could pull himself back inside a blast of sulphur-stinking air shook Okita and Kondou out like grains from a salt shaker. Kondou grabbed Hijikata and Okita grabbed Kondou and for a very brief, hopeful moment their human chain held and the helicopter hovered upright and Kondou yelled for Okita to hurry up and climb back inside and Hijikata yelled for Okita to just let go already.

Then the helicopter careened sideways and Hijikata’s death grip wasn’t enough to hold three people anymore, and they all went tumbling helplessly through the roiling air.

On the ground, Kyuubei caught Otae around the waist and held up an arm to shield them both from the smattering of debris that was already plummeting down towards them from whatever gash in the volcano was spewing it forth. Elizabeth did the same with Katsura, and Gintoki sprinted after Kagura and Shinpachi, who had been about to retrieve that new piece of trash. Shinpachi stared up at the billowing black cloud in horror, but Kagura lunged for the corner of the envelope sticking up out of the snow and her gloved hand closed around it just as the mountain writhed in agony and threw them all off their feet.

The impact of three black-clad bodies smashing into the snow didn’t even register against the tremors running through the landscape, and there was a gathering roar that drowned out the frantic voice shouting “Sougo! Toshi!” without receiving any reply.

Gintoki had struggled back on his feet; had almost made it to Kagura and Shinpachi when the gathering roar made manifest slammed into him. It was an avalanche, a massive, billowing mass shifting from pure white to dirty gray as it mixed with the volcanic emissions in the air, tearing down the mountainside with such incredible force that it left trees snapped like toothpicks scattered in its wake. Once it had picked its path it slowed for nothing, engulfed everything, and and left no trace at all of the tiny, fragile figures that had previously dotted the slope.

Kagura wouldn’t let something as impersonal and insignificant as an avalanche piggy-backing on a volcano eruption knock her out. That isn’t to say it didn’t try, but she used her umbrella to good effect, creating a shield between her body and the stupid bits of ice and rock trying to squash her like a space cockroach. That just left the massive pressure to deal with, and the fact that she was rapidly moving downhill and had to avoid anything that would interrupt her trajectory. Wasn’t there a human saying about not getting trapped between a rock and an avalanche? Because it sounded like good advice to her, and she used every ounce of skill and strength in her Yato body to make sure any rocks in her path shattered before they could pin her down.

The time it took her to get to the bottom of the slope might barely have lasted the length of a preview, but it felt her mad scramble-fight went on for a full episode, opening sequence and all. When Kagura finally stopped moving she wanted so badly to just flop onto her back and find shapes in the volcano-plume, but she couldn’t. Not yet. She shook snow and bits of rock off of her umbrella and looked around, heart hammering in her chest. “Gin-chan! Shinpachi!”

Nobody answered Kagura’s cries. “Anego! Kyuu-chan!” Kagura spun around, surveying the broken chunks of ice and snow and dirt, hoping so hard that she would see familiar shapes emerging from the stinky cloud spewing from the mountain. But there was nothing except for that. The mountain. It didn’t feel like a person, but she could hear it growling, and it felt angry and tense, like they had woken it up from an important nap and now it wanted to kill them. “It wasn’t us!” she yelled at it. “We didn’t do anything! Now give back Gin-chan and Shinpachi and Anego and Kyuu-chan!”

The mountain rumbled. Kagura glared at it. “And the others, too — where’s Zura and Eli, huh? Where are the Shinsengarbage?”

“Who are you calling garbage?”

Kagura startled, and turned towards the weak voice. The nasty cloud she was in swirled and shifted, and revealed a glint of eye and a strange, three-legged figure. She started brandishing her umbrella at it, and then the figure came closer and resolved into — “Sadist!” Not a three-legged creature at all, but a two-legged Okita, hunched over and using his sword in its scabbard as a cane.

“China girl,” Okita acknowledged, looking around. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen a gorilla or a mayo freak anywhere?” His words were casual, but there was something brittle about his voice, as if the avalanche had shaken something loose inside of him.

Instead of wondering how he could lose a whole gorilla, Kagura silently shook her head.

“Ah,” Okita said, and the way he squared his shoulders and then winced looked kind of like Kagura felt when she asked her question.

“I don’t suppose you’ve seen a stupid permhead or a pair of glasses anywhere?” They had been right there, right there and then they were gone and shouldn’t they have all ended up together?

Okita shook his head. “Haven’t seen anyone. Just —” And though he stopped talking, it was like Kagura could hear the rest. Just the crushing weight of snow, an enemy that couldn’t be fought off no matter how quick his reflexes were, just like her own strength hadn’t been enough to stop it from swallowing her up like a frog does a fly.

“Well, I guess it’s up to us to find them then,” Kagura said. She dusted her torn clothes off as well as she could — she was missing her hat, and one of her gloves, but at least she still had that envelope tucked into her jacket — and wiped some blood from her face. She didn’t sniffle, because Okita had fixed her with one of his flat stares, and besides she wasn’t worried. Gin-chan was strong, and so was everyone else — if she’d made it down fine everyone else must have, too.

Okita stood there, his outline vaguely blurry from the swirling snow and stinky smoke prickling in Kagura’s eyes. “Yes,” he said, but didn’t move. Kagura darted over and stared at him up close. He made an annoyed noise, but didn’t budge.

“Your leg looks broken,” Kagura informed him. It was the right one, and she could see the break because the Shinsengumi uniform trouser on that leg was in complete tatters.

“It feels broken,” he allowed. “Like that one time you broke it. It feels like that, like when you broke my leg.”

“You had that coming!” Kagura said indignantly. “Besides, I didn’t do anything this time, so stop your pathetic whining.”

“I can’t stop having my leg broken!” Okita protested. It was hardly pathetic whining when he could see the bone stick out through his skin — really, you’d think a girl might even be impressed at his stoic composure, standing here like it was nothing, but no, not this little monster.

“Well what do you want me to do about it?” Kagura asked. “Because all I know is that bending it the other way doesn’t work — do you know how I know that?” It was because that’s what Okita had been doing to her broken wrist before she broke his leg, but he didn’t really care to go into a flashback right now.

“You can splint it. Take my scabbard—” It took a bit of doing, and Kagura had to sacrifice her scarf along with Okita’s cravat and the rest of his pant leg, but by the end of it Okita could actually put weight on the broken leg without it giving way entirely. It still fucking hurt, but at least he wasn’t completely useless. He’d even rigged up a temporary scabbard for his sword from a sleeve and stuck it through his belt.

Okita hobbled a few steps, and then Kagura silently ducked into his personal space, pulling his right arm around her shoulders. “Hey, China girl. You don’t have to—”

“Shut up,” Kagura muttered at him. “You’re slowing us down.” She wrapped her left arm around his back, hooked her fingers around his belt, and when she moved the strength in her body nearly propelled Okita off his feet. He managed not to trip, and take another step without falling over, and then they were off to find the others: the gorilla and the mayo freak (or his body, Okita thought, and didn’t enjoy the prospect of that as much as he ought to) and the rest of the Yorozuya and everyone else.

***

Shinpachi came to with a gasp, sitting up out of the snow while his body went right back to being convinced that he was choking under the crushing weight of something huge. Something that ought to have killed him but hadn’t, so was it really that bad, whatever it was that had — oh no. Oh dear. It had been an avalanche. That’s what it was, that’s why he was cold and why all he could see was blurry snow on the ground and in the air and everywhere. Because there had been a whole avalanche and a volcano eruption on top of that — or maybe it was the other way around, the volcano made the avalanche happen — but who cared about that because the volcano was probably still erupting and — “Gin-san!”

Where was he? Gintoki had been right there; that’s what had happened, when the wall of snow came crashing down. Shinpachi had been trying to find some way to brace himself, knowing he couldn’t, not against an avalanche, and then something warm and solid hit him before the cold did. Folded over him in something that was more tackle than embrace, and carried him more or less safely until — Shinpachi felt the side of his head. There was a sore spot, sticky with blood — he’d passed out when something hit him, but he didn’t think he suffered from any memory loss, and he hadn’t imagined it. That had been Gintoki, he had been right there, and now...

“Gin-san! Kagura-chan!” Shinpachi staggered to his feet. The world was ashy and icy and visibility would have been terrible even if his glasses hadn’t been gone. Despite what the extremely unfunny running joke would have it, this didn’t rob him of his soul or personality, but it did make it a terrible challenge to try and find a white-haired samurai in the aftermath of an avalanche in an ongoing eruption of steam and ash from the volcano they’d accidentally climbed. Well, no — they’d climbed it on purpose, but at least Shinpachi hadn’t known it was an active volcano, because those things were dangerous.

“Gin-san!” he called again, and then a thought struck him with as much force as the avalanche had. “Ane-ue!!”

He’d forgotten. Waking up in pain and disoriented he’d just thought of Gin-san and Kagura-chan, because literally ten out of ten times he woke up in pain and disoriented it was because of something involving one or both of them and he hadn’t — he hadn’t remembered that his sister had been there, too. “Ane-ue!” He took a few running steps, staggering in the snow, looking around without seeing anything but a foul, monochrome haze, sky and snow blending together. The guilt drove him to keep moving, stumbling over obstacles he couldn’t see and had to bend down to touch, to make sure —

Shinpachi shuddered as a broken branch — not an arm, oh thank goodness not an arm — came into focus and straightened, calling for his sister again. He kept moving, kept calling for her, and then for Gin-san, and Kagura-chan, and Kyuubei-san, until his mouth was filled with grit and the taste of rotten eggs and his throat was raw. His ears kept straining for any sound, any sign his stinging eyes couldn’t catch. But all he heard was the deep rumble of the mountain and the hiss and rattle of snow and small pieces of debris landing around him. “Ane-ue,” he whispered, and there was a horrible lightness in his head and a heaviness in his heart that made his legs buckle. Shinpachi sank to his knees in the cold, cold snow as ash fell all around him, still waiting for someone to answer his calls.

***

"Kyuu-chan? Kyuu-chan, you can let go now. Kyuu-chan?" Otae had been attempting to wriggle free from the well-meaning death grip, but that had just made the arms around her tighten their embrace. The past couple of minutes’ near-lethal chaos had left Otae's body bruised and battered, so Kyuubei's squeezes were unusually unwelcome. As her words didn't seem to reach Kyuubei, Otae switched to tapping out, palm slapping against whatever was in reach. That familiar signal seemed to finally rouse Kyuubei, who hesitantly detached from Otae.

"Tae-chan?" Kyuubei knelt back in the dirty snow, long hair streaked with ash, expression full of worry.

"I'm fine, Kyuu-chan." Otae pushed herself up to sitting among the debris — there were rocks and chunks of ice crowding against them, even resting against Kyuubei's back, though none touched Otae. All around them the remains of the avalanche lay head-high, except for this little patch of ground behind the cliff spur where they had somehow managed to take refuge before getting completely crushed.

"Oh," Kyuubei said, face lighting up with relief

"And you?"

Kyuubei nodded gravely. "Thank you, but there's no need to be concerned."

"And — Shin-chan? The others?" There wasn't any way they could be hiding anywhere here — too cramped, and besides they had been too far away when the avalanche struck, but Otae had to ask.

"I'm sure they're fine," Kyuubei said. "You know how tough they are."

"They are." Otae nodded, letting Kyuubei's conviction soothe the most rational of her fears. But still, she couldn't help remembering that horrid roar, that feeling of terror and helplessness as the mountain came crashing down.

"Gintoki was with them," Kyuubei added quietly. "He would not have let anything happen to them."

Gin-san, yes. He'd brought them all back alive so many times before — a little worse for wear, maybe, but alive. Otae nodded. There was no need to worry. They'd go out there, and they would find Shin-chan and the others. She took a deep breath, and stood up. It definitely wasn't painless, but nothing another soak in that lovely onsen wouldn't cure.

Kyuubei remained on the ground, kneeling, and Otae fondly brushed a bit of ash and snow from the dark hair before offering Kyuubei her hand. "Come on, Kyuu-chan. We can relax later!"

At that, Kyuubei's lips quirked in a smile "That will be nice."

Kyuubei made no effort to actually stand up and move, Otae couldn’t help but notice. The ice pressing in from all directions seemed to brush up against Otae's heart at that. It wasn't like Kyuubei to take a break, ever, much less when they had missing friends to find. "Kyuu-chan?"

"Nice and warm," Kyuubei murmured, smile fading and face going strangely blank.

"Kyuu-chan?" Otae's sense of dread spiked when Kyuubei didn't respond, but simply toppled forward without a word. "Kyuu-chan!"

***

Katsura had outrun many a foe, strategically retreated hundreds of men from advancing armies without losing a single soldier, but even he was hard-pressed to outmaneuver the avalanche when it hit. If it hadn’t been for his opening sequence experience he probably wouldn’t have picked up the knack — however, snow was but a different form of water, and an avalanche was but a wave. And of course he had trusty Elizabeth, who courageously played the vital part of surfboard in this scenario.

They didn’t quite manage to surf the avalanche all the way down — waves tended to have fewer pieces of massive debris, and were also rather gentler on the whole, Katsura discovered. But by the time they wiped out the whole thing had slowed, and also thrown up so much snow in the air it was entirely possible to swim along for a bit before getting pulled under.

Holding on to each other, Elizabeth and Katsura came to a stop in a precious air pocket. It was nearly pitch black, of course, but they needed neither light nor words. Perfectly synchronized, they grabbed one of Elizabeth’s signs each and started digging themselves to the surface. Katsura warned Elizabeth of a scenario he had seen in a drama once — apparently it was possible to get so turned around that you would dig yourself further into the packed snow and ice, and then your own efforts would tragically kill you faster than if you had simply awaited rescue.

At Elizabeth’s sceptical silence, Katsura allowed that it was unlikely that they were tunneling deep below the mountain — and also that they could somehow end up in Moria or a similar terrifying realm if they did. After all, gravity gave them a fairly good indication which way was up — it was the direction that kept dropping bits of snow and ice on them, every time the ground shivered with the volcano’s wrath.

They broke through the final layer of snow and emerged like graceful dolphins cresting the seas of freedom. Katsura had expected the sun to bless them with shining rays, dramatically outlining his silhouette as he swept to his feet. Instead he got a faceful of snowy cloud, and bits of ash and debris stuck in his hair. The air was as opaque as ramen broth, the eruption plumes blotting out the very existence of the sky and filling Katsura’s nose and mouth with fine grit and the stench of sulphur. It was most inconvenient — he had hoped to rejoin his comrades, but now he had no idea which direction to head in to find them. Visibility was only a few swordlengths.

“Elizabeth,” Katsura said. “Please stick close to my side — it wouldn’t do to get separated in this.” He turned around to get Elizabeth’s acknowledgement — but it was too late. Elizabeth was gone.

***

There was something before. A lot of something, quite a lot…

Now? Now there was silence. Silence, except for the sound of his own heartbeat, and an aching ringing in his ears.

Pressure. Pressure everywhere, the weight of a mountain crushing his limbs, rendering him immobile. Bearing down on his chest, making it a struggle to breathe. And those breaths — short, frightened gasps, because there wasn’t enough air. Wasn’t anything except snow, right up against his face — brushing freezing crystals against his eyelids, melting cold against his lips.

That was it, now. Cold. Ice.

Not enough air.

For a brief, beautiful moment Kondou had thought the worst thing that was going to happen to them today was going to be falling face-first from a hovering helicopter. That proved to be wrong as soon as he pulled his head from the snow to find Sougo and Toshi missing, and the mountain springing a volcanolanche on them.

(Kondou was convinced volcanolanche was a real term used by actual volcanologists. As they were all on a coffee break at their safe conference location far away, they couldn’t tell him that was absolutely not an official term, nor could they make him stop using it.)

Kondou tried to make it over to Sougo and Toshi, but the ground dropped out from under him and also rose up above him and that was the last he knew of basic directions for a while. There was no way to see where the other two or Otae-san had gone in the massive chaos of the volcanolanche, and Kondou stopped shouting for them when his mouth filled with snow, and then more snow tried to make it in, and then there was an alarming interlude where he was both in a volcanolanche and had a bit of a volcanolanche in him — not much, but enough to keep things like air out.

Struggling to expel the snow and catch his breath, Kondou missed the former tree, now perfectly shaped battering ram headed straight for him. On the bright side, it smashed him so hard he flew out of the volcanolanche and landed on solid ground while it thundered past him. And really, that was all that mattered. But the less bright side was the bruises. And the cracked ribs. And the dislocated shoulder, shattered clavicle, and possibly fractured arm.

But really, the important thing was that he had been able to get out and was in good enough shape to go hunting through the wreckage for Otae-san and his Vice Commander and Captain. He called their names, and noticed he couldn’t yell very loudly. Something to do with how it was really hard to catch his breath — but that was probably just a side effect of the volcanolanche bits he’d accidentally inhaled.

And maybe there was more and more volcano smoke in the air — it smelled like natural hot spring, only a lot stronger. And Kondou was no expert, but he knew that volcanoes liked to do more than just vent a little gas. Like vent a lot of magma, for example. (Somewhere, a volcanologist twitched, sensing that someone had gotten lava mixed up with magma again.) So while he wasn’t exactly terrified, he felt it would be good to find everyone and get them off the mountain and maybe away from the general Sorachi area before too long. He really hoped everyone else was in better shape than him, because he had to stop in his shouting and just stand for a bit, trying to breathe and not doing great.

And that’s when he heard it — faint, but that was the voice he would recognize over the noise of a hundred volcanoes, amidst a thousand avalanches. “Kyuu-chan!”

“Otae-san!” It came out a croak, but Kondou forced his body into a slightly faster scramble downhill. Too fast, really — he tripped and slipped, but when he got back on his feet he managed to make it around a rocky outcropping in the field of volcanolanche debris. Otae-san’s voice had come from there, he was sure, but it took him several tries to locate her — she was down in some kind of hole, and he couldn’t shout loud enough to get her attention until he was right above her. “Otae-san!”

“Gorilla?” Otae looked up, her eyes luminous with tears, her face set in a beautifully determined expression. She was kneeling on the ground, and for a heart-stopping moment all Kondou saw was the blood staining her hands red, the blood splashed on the snow around her.

“Otae-san!” he cried. Then he saw Kyuubei, sprawled in Otae’s lap, coat torn ragged and soaked in blood. The relief Kondou felt at realizing Otae-san was safe, that the blood wasn’t hers, was completely spoiled by her distress, and by the fact that it shamed him to be anything but concerned for his rival.

There was no room in the hollow under the outcropping, so Kondou hovered awkwardly above them. “What — is Kyuubei…?”

“Hanging in there,” Otae said, her voice steady but filled with pain. “There was a — a piece of rock or ice — Kyuu-chan protected me, but it went all the way through and I don’t know—”

“It’s okay, Otae-san,” Kondou said, because he hoped it was, and because it was what she needed to hear. “We’ll get Kyuubei out of there. We have a medic — we can be back in Edo in a flash, as soon as we make it to the village.”

Otae nodded grimly, then held out a hand. “Your scarf,” she said, and Kondou quickly unwound it and threw it down to her. “And your shirt.” Kondou didn’t hesitate, and watched with admiration as Otae tended to Kyuubei’s wounds, stemming the worst of the blood flow.

Kyuubei moaned quietly, which was actually encouraging — still being able to feel pain was a good sign. Kondou said as much, and Otae exhaled a shaky breath. “Then we should get moving.” She didn’t add ‘while there’s still time’ but Kondou understood.

Otae carefully worked her arms around Kyuubei, and lifted the limp body to Kondou without apparent effort. Kondou cradled Kyuubei against his chest — such a slight body for all its strength, holding it hardly put any strain on his injuries at all. Otae climbed out without any assistance, and immediately went to make sure the improvised bandages were holding. When she was satisfied she stroked Kyuubei’s furrowed brow with a gentleness that made Kondou’s heart clench with an entirely new sort of pain.

“Right,” Otae said, commanding Kondou’s full attention. “We should go down. If your helicopter made it back — or even if it didn't — your people will know we were up there, and they should know to search for survivors where the avalanche stopped. Right?”

Kondou wasn’t sure they had such a thing as a search and rescue protocol, but what Otae-san said sounded good to him. “Right, of course,” he said. And because Otae seemed to be expecting it, he set off with confidence and purpose, ignoring the twin aches spreading through his chest, holding firm against the weakness creeping through his limbs.

***

Shinpachi drew a deep, shuddering breath. He immediately regretted it as half of it got stuck in his throat and he had to hack and cough, dislodging black-speckled phlegm to keep from choking. It was revolting and annoying and as soon as his airways were clear he channeled the painful knot of feelings in the pit of his stomach into a blistering rant about the stupid air and the stupid snow, and that gave him the strength he needed to stand up agan. And once he was standing up he stomped off, because he couldn't stay frozen in despair when he hadn't done anything for anyone yet.

At least he didn't miss his glasses quite so much with the shitty air so dirty he could barely see his feet — or at least he hadn't been missing his glasses until something loomed out of the snow smoke, startling him badly. Bear? Yeti? Gorilla?? He was sure Hokkaido had some of them, but what was —

The blurry figure spoke. “Oh. Gintoki’s glasses?”

“It’s not glasses, it’s Shinpachi!” Shinpachi corrected, and then squinted really hard. The blurry figure wasn’t quite as luminously green as he remembered, but —“Katsura-san?”

“Where are your glasses?” Katsura asked.

Shinpachi shrugged, and tried to perceive if any of the snow-haze behind Katsura was particularly solid. Even squinting didn’t reveal any strange shapes. “Where’s your Elizabeth?”

“Lost!” Katsura declared, and Shinpachi felt a second’s deep sympathy, thinking Elizabeth must have been crushed by the avalanche. “One moment we were together, the next — separated by this foul air.”

“Separated?” Shinpachi’s pity evaporated.

“Yes. I tried to warn Elizabeth, but —”

“So Elizabeth’s fine?” Shinpachi’s patience was quickly going the way of his pity.

“Elizabeth is lost,” Katsura corrected, and Shinpachi rolled his eyes.

“So Elizabeth is lost on the avalanche, right?”

Katsura acknowledged this with a nod Shinpachi could vaguely make out.

“Katsura-san. We’re all lost on the avalanche. We’re all together in this. Elizabeth isn’t more lost than either one of us.”

At first, that idea was difficult to grasp. Katsura said, “Oh.” Then the young man’s unfocused stare seemed to bore into his soul, and he realized what Shinpachi was telling him.

“Oh!” Yes, they were all in this together. None of them lost, all of them wandering through the fog of life and also this particular angry mountain in Hokkaido. That cold, hard logic Shinpachi had offered him in his time of need — it truly buoyed his spirits. But speaking of spirits — maybe it wasn’t just the loss of his glasses that had Gintoki’s lad looking so wilted.

“Have you suffered any injuries?”

Shinpachi looked startled at the question. He touched his fingertips to the side of his head, and Katsura noticed the hair there was matted with blood. “Just this,” he said, as if head wounds were nothing. Head wounds were not nothing; head wounds could lead to amnesia and brain injuries and death, that was definitely a thing that could happen. But it might be best not to mention that at this point.

“I see,” Katsura said. And then, to get some indication of how serious the head wound might be, “Which puppet is figureheading the corrupt government?”

“What?” Shinpachi stared at him in blank incomprehension, which made Katsura fear that his brain had in fact been severely injured.

Katsura decided to use very small words. Maybe that would help. “The shogun. Is? Who?”

“Katsura-san, are you okay? Did you hit your head too?” Shinpachi’s blank incomprehension was now tinged with concern.

“Of course I am!” Katsura exclaimed. “I was just asking you who the shogun is.”

“Um. Okay.”

Shinpachi still hadn’t answered the question, so Katsura gave up. Maybe getting an answer to the control question would make Shinpachi feel better. “It’s Tokugawa Shige Shige-dono!”

Shinpachi shook his head slowly. Maybe his injury was paining him. “If you already knew, then why— Nevermind. Nevermind!”

Katsura felt the head wound was making Shinpachi unusually irritable, and magnanimously decided to stop speaking as the boy kept overriding his attempts to explain how he had been asking questions out of concerns for Shinpachi’s own health. Besides, they had other matters to attend to. “Now that we have found each other, neither one is quite lost. We should take advantage of that to go find Elizabeth and the others.”

It was hard to tell beneath the noxious fumes in the air and the ash clinging to hair and skin, but Shinpachi seemed to go a bit paler at that. But he nodded. “Yes. Let’s.”

“We should avoid getting separated.” Katsura walked up to Shinpachi, and took his hand. Shinpachi tried to take it back, but Katsura was adamant. He would not wish to lose Gintoki’s young charge as he had so recently lost Elizabeth.

“Katsura-san! It’s fine, I can walk, just—”

Katsura shook his head. “We will walk together, like warriors.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s preschoolers who hold hands, not warriors,” Shinpachi protested.

“Are you questioning my honor as a samurai?”

Shinpachi opened his mouth and then closed it again, shoulders sinking as he exhaled a deep sigh. “No, Katsura-san,” he said, and so they walked off together like samurai, hand-in-hand in search of their comrades.

***

Okita had started coughing annoyingly in Kagura’s ear. She told him to stop. He coughed even louder.

“See, this is what happens when you hang around a dirty Shinsengarbage chimney,” Kagura's complained. “Don’t you know secondhand smoking is bad for you?”

“I’ve tried quitting,” Okita assured her. “I’ve tried extinguishing the chimney for good. But it’s very stubborn. Like a cockroach.” He said it with deadpan annoyance, but Kagura thought he lightened up a bit as he contemplated Hijikata’s pest-like nature.

Just then Kagura accidentally inhaled a huge ash-flake and burst into a life-saving bout of coughing and hacking of her own, barely managing to hold onto Okita.

“See, that’s what happens when you keep breathing,” Okita sniped at her.

After she spit out a gob of volcano nastyness into the dirty snow, Kagura turned her head to glare angrily at Okita’s jaw. “What are you saying, you brat? Are you telling me to stop breathing? Do you want me to stop breathing?”

With her face so close to Okita's, Kagura didn’t miss his brief smirk. (Because that was a smirking smile, right? Definitely not a smile.) “Would you? If I told you to?”

Kagura snorted. “Absolutely not ever— I don’t take orders from trash.”

“So does it matter?”

“Pfft. Sadist.”

“Violent maniac.”

“You’re the maniac,” Kagura said, but Okita was coughing again. The novelty had gone out of scolding him for that, so she stayed silent for a bit while hauling him through the stinky air over the jumbled ground while he limped along.

“I wish I could have brought Sadaharu,” Kagura confided, shrugging a listing Okita back into a more comfortable position. “Sadaharu could have found everyone by now. He’s really good at finding things. But Gin-chan wouldn't let me.”

Okita snorted. “That stupid mutt would probably be dead now.”

“Hey! What did you call my sweet Sadaharu! And he wouldn’t; he would be a hero saving everyone!”

“Fine, fine,” Okita said. “But at least you know he’s not dead.”

Kagura was about to protest again, but then she realized she wasn’t sure there was anything to protest. In fact — knowing Sadaharu was unharmed really was pretty nice, all things considered. So why had Okita brought it up? Okita did not do anything that made people feel any kind of nice. “Hey, Sadist. How are you feeling?”

“Oh you know. An avalanche broke my leg and now a volcano is trying to choke me.”

“Yeah, but other than that?” Kagura shook her head. Okita probably hadn’t meant it as anything nice at all. “Forget it.”

Okita exhaled, trying to keep his breath steady. It was an excellent thing the annoying girl hadn’t pressed him, because what he’d been about to say — he shouldn’t even think it. Kondou was bound to be fine. After all, he been through much worse than this. And just because they had walked for long enough that Okita’s leg was pounding and his lips were cracked didn’t mean they’d covered much distance at all, especially with this piss-poor visibility. So there was an entire mountain left to search and Kondou could be anywhere — would be somewhere, would definitely be somewhere, and Okita was not jealous of Kagura for having a dog safe at home when he didn’t know where his gorilla was. Or Hijikata.

Maybe Hijikata was slowly choking to death under the avalanche. That death hadn’t even been on Okita’s list, but it seemed like something that might be suitably drawn out and painful. Like strangulation, only lasting longer than a swift garrotte. Or maybe like being squashed in a garbage compactor. Maybe that was what was happening to Hijikata right now, maybe he was under their very feet — Okita waited for the warm glow of satisfaction that should come from such a vivid mental image, but all he felt was the snow and ash. That annoyed Okita so much that he managed to take most of his own weight for a few steps, and he imagined he was treading on Hijikata’s face with every step.

Take that, Hijikata-san, he thought. That’s what stupid Hijikata would get if he thought he could slink away and die where Okita couldn’t even see him, if he thought he could just get himself killed by an avalanche or something while Okita wanted painkillers more than he wanted Hijikata dead. Really, any other day this would have been a brilliant boon — if only Okita had dodged the avalanche, it might even have been a fun game to find Hijikata and yell encouragements at him while making scratching noises in the snow, pretending to be digging him out only to leave him behind to die. But now it was just a useless waste of a brilliant opportunity.

Okita was so engrossed in face-stomping Hijikata that he missed whatever triggered Kagura suddenly veering off, just found himself rudely hauled off his feet and dragged off in a different arbitrary direction. “Oi! Careful, you brute. You can’t just jerk injured people around like that.”

“I saw something!”

“That’s no excuse.”

“No, I see something — it’s there, it’s really there!”

Okita looked in the direction Kagura was pointing. At first he saw nothing but more jumbled, dirty snow. Then he spotted it. “I see. Hurry up!”

It was a scarf. A bit of a scarf. A blue scarf. As they rushed over, painfully and clumsily, Okita found it harder than ever to breathe, because he thought he remembered — hadn’t Kondou been wearing a scarf like that earlier today?

The numbness spreading through him would have been alarming if it wasn't for the fact that he felt quite warm and snug. So safe, with this tight embrace on all sides. Like being rolled in a futon and stuffed in a closet, only much nicer.

Like being back in the womb.

He had been so worried about something — breathing, maybe? But that worry seemed quite far away now. Everything was brilliant, wasn't it? He was just going to take a short nap, and then he would sort out whatever he had been all frantic about before. This was such a nice break. All he really needed now was a cigarette — really, he would take nicotine over breathing any day — and things would be perfect.

He'd wait here for Kondou, and—

Wait.

Here. He was here and Kondou was...where?

That thought pierced Hijikata's all-consuming drowsy euphoria. The details were still vague but he had the terrible feeling that something had happened to Kondou — had happened to everyone, whoever everyone had been. This was no time to be returning to the womb or giving up breathing.

He tried taking a deep breath, but it was wet and wrong and somehow empty. His lungs couldn't fill; his body was screaming for oxygen but there was none to be had here. Hijikata tried to beat his fists against the darkness, but it held firm — held his entire body tightly, as tightly as his sword had been stuck that time Sougo had poured glue in his scabbard.

Fine, then. Hijikata's lungs didn't need oxygen anyway. And snow was just shaved ice-mayo without the mayo. He could probably chew his way out, he just had to reach forward and—

The snow somehow countered his attack with a sudden, brutal squeeze around the neck. The pathetic trickle of carbon dioxide-laden air that had been at once poisoning Hijikata and keeping him alive was abruptly cut off, and stars burst across his vision as inexplicable pain exploded through his body. Hijikata tried to fight it, tried to stay awake, but his nicotine-riddled lungs gave up almost immediately, and he passed out.

***

Otae was worried. She smiled encouragingly whenever Kondou looked at her, which was practically every third step, but her heart wasn’t in it. She kept one hand on Kyuubei’s shoulder, making sure — just making sure. If she could she would have given anything to be able to pour her own life force into Kyuubei, but all she had was that tenuous physical connection. Otae tried not to fret, but there was no escaping the guilt that gnawed at her, knowing that that Kyuubei had saved her once again, and the fear that the cost might end up being far too high.

But at least she could touch Kyuubei, could feel Kondou’s solid presence next to her. When it came to everyone else, Otae was painfully aware of the weight of the snow, and how hard the air was getting to breathe, and about how many minutes it might have been since the mountain came crumbling down and she lost sight of them. Kyuu-chan had reassured her that Gintoki had been with Shin-chan and Kagura-chan, but what if —

Otae paused to smile at Kondou, who was looking a bit worse for wear as well. Honestly, wasn’t there anyone she didn’t have to worry about? The gorilla could usually be relied on to bounce back from anything, but either getting caught in this most unfortunate combination of volcano and avalanche or losing track of his subordinates had really done a number on him. Every so often she had to slip a hand under Kondou’s elbow, catching him before he could misstep or steadying his balance when their downhill scramble got too precarious. Usually that would have sent him into fits of rapture, but now the touch evoked no reaction whatsoever other than Kondou not pitching face-first into the snow.

There wasn’t much point in trying to find anyone on their way down, but Otae couldn’t help but scan the messy debris for hints of an unconscious form or half-buried body. Every now and again they would pause for a sulphur-laden, ashy moment, and Otae would take advantage of the silence to shout the names of her brother and the rest of the Yorozuya, and Kondou would valiantly join her and then call for Sougo and Toshi. She would return the favor and help amplify his weak croaks. After a few such breaks Otae decided to simplify the call. “Everyone! Is anyone there? Can anyone hear us?”

So far, there had been no answer. It was impossible to tell how much further they had to go to reach the bottom of the slope they were on, but maybe the others had already made it there. Maybe—

Otae put her free hand on Kondou’s elbow, halting their progress. At his confused, somewhat worried expression, she nodded in the direction of a sound that had sent her heart racing. “Did you hear that?” she said quietly.

Kondou shook his head, but peered intently in the direction she had indicated. There it was again. It sounded like a human voice — so dampened and distorted by the thick air it was impossible to tell whose, or how far away it was, but someone out there was calling back.

“We’re here!” Otae shouted, and Kondou tried to echo her but only managed a choked groan. Really, he needed a hospital almost as badly as Kyuu-chan did — Otae prayed that whoever was out there was in good enough shape to haul a gorilla around.

“Who’s there?” The words came out of the choking cloud, muffled but recognizable — and Otae’s face lit up and she squeezed Kyuu-chan’s shoulder.

“Shin-chan!” she exclaimed. “We’re here!”

The volcanic plume immediately retorted, “It’s not Shin-chan, it’s Katsura,” at the same time as Shinpachi burst out of the gloom and flung his arms around Otae.

“Ane-ue! You’re safe!” Shinpachi forgot to be careful of any potential injuries, forgot his own aching head and painful lungs and just squeezed his sister as hard has he could. To feel that she was alive, to banish that ice that had locked around his heart when he had remembered that she, too, had been caught up in this.

“Shin-chan,” Otae laughed, stroking his hair like she’d done when he was just a little boy. “It’s fine, I’m safe.” She gently caught his arms and stepped out of the hug, giving him a quick once-over. “Oh no!” she gasped.

“What?!”

“You lost your soul,” Otae informed him gravely.

“I lost my glasses! That’s not the same thing!” Shinpachi grinned, glad for the moment’s levity. Then his smile faded, as he realized Otae wasn’t just accompanied by Kondou, but that Kondou was holding someone. He stumbled across to see who, afraid to ask, afraid to know how serious it was, and saw the hair and the eye-patch and gasped.

“Kyuubei-san! What—” It was ridiculous to ask ‘What happened’, because of course what had happened was an avalanche. But Shinpachi would have thought Kyuubei would have come out on top in almost any fight, including this one.

Otae put a hand on Kyuubei’s shoulder, and gave it a squeeze. “Kyuu-chan got impaled.” There was the slightest hitch to her voice as she went on, “I think it would be good to get to a hospital as soon as possible.”

Shinpachi nodded, dazed by the sight of Yagyuu Kyuubei looking this helpless. The fact that Kondou cradling Kyuubei against his naked chest hadn’t yet been smacked into the side of the mountain showed just how serious those injuries must be.

Meanwhile Kondou and Katsura had exchanged familiar greetings and were chatting about the weather, because it didn’t really seem like the right time for Kondou to make any arrest attempts, or for Katsura to make any escape attempts.

“Very snowy in Hokkaido,” Kondou remarked.

“Yes. Rather more sulphur in the air than in Edo.”

“That too.”

“And the volcano is very active.”

“Very! That was quite the volcanolanche!”

“The what?”

“The volcanolanche!”

Katsura ended up staring at Kondou wondering how the Shinsengumi Commander was such an expert volcanologist he knew such technical terms, and Kondou stared back at Katsura, beginning to wonder if the Joui leader had been injured in the volcanolanche because it seemed like his hearing might be going.

Otae looked at the two of them, wondering if it might be possible to smack some sense into them —but no, if that had worked they would both be far more sensical, for all the smacking they’d received. Besides, Kondou was holding on to Kyuu-chan, and it wouldn’t do to go and upset his balance. Nothing was allowed to happen to his precious burden — Otae would see to that. She clapped her hands to get everyone’s attention. “Alright! Let’s keep going! We need to get down. Let’s see if we can’t find the others on the way.”

There was a general murmur of agreement, and they started moving. Shinpachi and Katsura, both doing quite a lot better than Kondou, regularly called out into the choking fog to see if anyone would answer. Otae noticed that they were also holding hands. Or rather, Katsura was holding on to Shinpachi’s hand, while Shinpachi was acting much the way he had when he’d been a squirmy toddler who wanted to go by himself and not hold on to his sister. Oh well. Maybe Katsura was missing Elizabeth, and Shinpachi had been hijacked into acting unwilling substitute — really, it was none of her business.

She just hoped they could all be reunited soon. Katsura with his Elizabeth, Kondou with his Shinsengumi, and Otae and her brother with the two missing members of the Yorozuya. They had to be out there somewhere. Now they just needed to find each other.

***

Kagura unceremoniously shook Okita off when they made it over to the scarf, throwing herself on her knees. Hadn’t Gin-chan been wearing a scarf like that earlier today? She grabbed it for a closer look, but it resisted her pull.

“It’s stuck!”

“Get it unstuck,” Okita said impatiently, hovering over her.

Kagura wrapped what she could reach of the scarf around her hand and braced both feet. Then she stood up in one smooth motion, hauling on the scarf like an fisher hauling on a line. “I caught something!” she yelled at Okita — not that he needed the warning, because the remains of the avalanche underfoot was bulging and cracking as something came unburied along with the scarf.

She gave it a final, hard yank, one foot behind her for balance, and for a moment her catch went airborne. It was a sight to behold — it would have been more impressive if she’d been standing hip-deep in a cold river, wearing waders and wielding a fishing rod with expert ease, the sun glistening off flying drops of water. But as it was, she posed majestically in her red coat as a dark-clad Shinsengumi form described a limp sort of arc through the air, ash and ice scattering in the murky smog around them. Then the body hit the ground with a snow-softened thump, and lay perfectly still.

Okita didn’t even bother scrambling back to his feet — he’d fallen over when the packed snow began to crack and crumble. He just crawled as fast as he could towards the body that had landed on its side, facing away from him.

There was ice and ash clinging to the dark hair and covering the uniform, making it difficult to distinguish which of his lost superiors they had stumbled across. “Kondou-san?” Okita asked, though he had the sinking feeling he recognized the way this particular body had flopped through the air. He reached out and rolled the body over on its back.

Okita’s heart took a strange kind of plunge as that revealed Hijikata’s slack face. His lips were blue, his eyes closed, and his skin smudged with blood from a dozen small scratches. As far as Okita could tell, Hijikata wasn’t breathing, and when Okita slapped him — a gesture both desperate and angry, for all that he tried to imbue it with malice — there was no reaction, and that pale skin felt as cold as a grape chuubert.

“Oh. It’s Toshi,” Kagura crowded in next to Okita, and poked Hijikata’s face with her finger. The nonchalance she’d displayed evaporated, and she pressed her palm against his forehead, and looked wide-eyed at Okita. “Um. He’s really, really cold. Like Bäagen-Daazs.”

Okita tried to answer, but his words had all dried up. He shoved Kagura out of the way to lean forward, putting his ear to Hijikata’s lips. He heard the sound of clumps of snow and ash landing around them, the sound of Kagura’s breaths, the sound of his own heart. There was a hiss that could maybe have been air escaping Hijikata’s lungs, but no inhale followed.

“Is he breathing?” Kagura said from over Okita’s shoulder.

He shook his head, and she said, “Oh.”

Wasn’t there — there had to be something Okita could do, because he wasn’t going to allow Hijikata to just be dead. It was Okita’s job to turn him dead, Okita was the one who was supposed to leave him bloody and cold not — nature. They’d had all that training to kill people — why hadn’t they ever trained for the opposite? The memory of languid warmth hit him, of a particularly good nap as the fools outside were running around with a dummy, ribbing each other about indirect kisses as they did something to it… What had that been again? Kissing people to life couldn’t possibly be a thing — that was some kind of fairytale bullshit. Besides, it only worked on princesses, right? Not on the prince of mayo planet? But what if—

Okita screwed his eyes shut and steeled every nerve in his body, fighting nausea and horror, and pressed his own chapped lips to Hijikata’s, as somewhere in the background, Kagura was telling him to hurry up already.

Nothing happened. Of course nothing happened. His warm lips did nothing pressing against Hijikata’s cold ones. There was the waft of tobacco and blood, but old — like it was coming from a corpse. But that couldn’t be — what would Kondou-san say?

Okita tried again — maybe there was more to it, maybe it wasn’t the kiss but the air Okita held in his lungs. He pinched Hijikata’s nose shut like he was suffocating him, and then did the opposite — breathed his own oxygen into Hijikata’s still body, imagining rekindling a cigarette that had but the tiniest of embers still glowing in it. Hijikata had to have some spark left, he couldn’t have given up this easily — Okita wouldn’t allow it.

Okita also wasn’t very good at mouth to mouth, on account of sleeping through the Shinsengumi’s first aid lessons. He was mostly failing to do much besides blowing stale air down Hijikata’s throat, and that might have been the end of the Shinsengumi Vice Commander if an unexpected rescuer hadn’t arrived.

There was no warning. One moment Okita was trying (and failing) to revive Hijikata. The next there was a blur and a shove and Okita found himself on his ass, watching as a monster pounced on Hijikata.

“Eli! What are you doing?!”

Only it wasn’t a monster — well, it was a monster, but a familiar one. Katsura’s strange companion, the voiceless space creature, was doing something to Hijikata. With those — hands? wings? flippers? — beating on Hijikata’s chest and the bright yellow beak opened impossibly wide, swallowing Hijikata’s face. It was like something out of the latest in the Alien vs Yakuza franchise, only the alien was far more horrifying than anything the movie-makers had ever conjured, and it was vs a thug cop instead of a heroic yakuza.

Kagura was clearly concerned, because she rushed forward, but right before she reached the baffling scene Elizabeth’s head turned towards her, and Okita didn’t see exactly what happened but Kagura gulped and recoiled and Elizabeth snapped back to mauling Hijikata.

It went on for a bit, and Okita contemplated an interruption, but to be honest he was quite curious where this was going to go. Was it like a vampire thing, where Hijikata was going to suddenly rise and take on the aspect of a hideously deformed bird? Would he grow a beak or a bill? Or was he just going to end up eaten by one of the Amanto he had been sworn to protect?That would make a satisfying enough end that Okita was fine just watching it happen. Though one would have expected more blood had this been an actual devouring.

Instead, it seemed that Hijikata’s body was stirring, maybe? It could have been Elizabeth’s pounding and whatever that terror-beak was doing to his face, but Okita stared intently and there it was again. Another twitch, and then Elizabeth swooped upright and Hijikata was gasping.

Gasping, then coughing — a pitiful rasp of a sound, like what you’d expect from someone who’d covered their lungs in tar and nicotine. But not a sound any corpse Okita had ever seen could make.

Okita exhaled slowly and sank back in the snow, heedless of the cold. Kagura approached Hijikata and Elizabeth carefully, and when the creature made no attempts to hinder her, she squatted down next to Hijikata and awkwardly patted his back. Well, she pounded it once, sent him face-first into the snow, and then hauled him out by his collar and patted him more gently while he tried to brace himself and gulped air like it was a cigarette after a 24-hour space flight.

“There, there,” Kagura said.

Hijikata coughed and shivered and narrowed his eyes as he took in his immediate surroundings. “China girl? And — oh. Sougo.”

Okita raised a hand in a sardonic salute. “Hijikata-san. You should have stayed down there. I’d already gotten all my business cards changed to say Vice Commander.”

The next words out of Hijikata Okita should have expected. “Where’s Kondou?” There was an edge of panic there that Okita felt quite keenly himself. Why did they have to go fish this worthless idiot out of the snow when they still hadn’t found their gorilla?

“We’re still looking for everyone else,” Kagura said. “It’s just very cloudy and nasty and snowy so we haven’t found them yet, but now we’ve found you and we’ve found Eli and we’ll find the rest soon.” It was obvious that the girl was trying to cheer herself up — Danna and the glasses were still just as missing as their gorilla, after all. Hijikata just nodded, and slowly worked his way up to standing, Kagura lending a hand when he got too wobbly.

A few steps later Kagura stopped and looked up at Hijikata. “Okay, you’re gonna have to walk on your own now, Toshi. Because that sadist is broken, so I have to go haul him along.”

“This sadist’s leg is broken,” Okita corrected, before realizing that he’d had Hijikata looking all concerned there for a moment. Ah well. There would be more opportunities to play with Hijikata-san’s adorable feelings.

“Yeah, that’s what I said.”

Okita rolled his eyes but grabbed hold of the hand Kagura offered. Pure instinct had him give a quick yank to see if he could get her off-balance, but she just hoisted him to his feet — ow, shit, no, make that foot — and shouldered his weight like it was nothing.

Behind them, there was a strange slap-fight going on as Elizabeth kept reaching for Hijikata’s hand and Hijikata kept pulling it back and batting at Elizabeth’s offending limbs. Finally Elizabeth got fed up, and a sign appeared. [We must walk together, like warriors!]

“I’m pretty sure you’re thinking of preschoolers,” Hijikata snapped, digging through his snow-filled pockets for his cigarettes.

[Are you questioning my honor as a samurai?]

“What honor? What samurai?! Stop trying to hold my hand!” Elizabeth’s advances made Hijikata drop the bent cigarette he’d finally managed to fish out, and he kicked at Elizabeth, lost his balance, and fell over in the snow. As if he wasn’t cold enough already — his stint under the avalanche had soaked him through, and landing back on the frozen ground made him feel like he should shiver. Instead the chill simply cut him to the bone, and he wished he’d managed to rescue that cigarette. Holding the lighter might have given him some feeling back, but now there was no way he’d have the fine motor skills to get a flame going now.

Elizabeth waddled up to him and pointedly stuck a flipper out. Hijikata made an angry noise, but Okita and Kagura were getting further and further away, outlines dissolving in the smoke, and he needed another five minutes or so of not being dead before he could get to his feet by his own power. He grabbed the proffered grip, and Elizabeth somehow held on to him. Somehow. Hijikata really didn’t want to think too closely about how that even worked, as he reluctantly followed Katsura’s loyal creature away from what had almost become his cold, dark grave.

***

Having been reunited with his sister, Shinpachi finally shook Katsura off to stick close to Otae. He soon noticed she had her hands full supporting Kyuubei-san and Kondou-san both, and without a word he took up a position by Kondou’s other shoulder. Despite his many, many, many flaws, the Shinsengumi Commander usually radiated confidence and strength, and it was unsettling to hear his laboured breathing and see him stumbling. Shinpachi himself wasn’t doing great with the footing — his feet seemed too close to his face without the glasses, but also the ground was impossible to make out in any detail — but he’d caught Kondou half a dozen times already.

After yet another near-miss of a stumble Otae put a hand on Kondou’s arm, stopping him in his tracks. Behind them, Katsura came to a halt. Shinpachi exchanged a look with Otae — he knew what she was doing. If Kondou went crashing down the slope he’d take Kyuubei along in the fall, and that would be extremely bad. “Kondou-san,” Shinpachi said mildly. “Why don’t you let us take Kyuubei-san for a little while?”

“No need,” Kondou wheezed. “I’m fine.”

“Of course you are, Kondou-san,” Otae said brightly. “But my ankle hurts, and I was wondering if you would be so kind as to lend me your arm?”

Shinpachi was honestly surprised Kondou didn’t literally toss Kyuubei aside in his hurry to make himself available to help Otae. (Who, Shinpachi could tell even without being able to make out her expression, needed the support about as much as she needed Shinpachi’s glasses.) Kondou did look around a bit wildly, trying to decide how to best transfer the injured Kyuubei, and Otae nodded at Shinpachi. “Shin-chan?”

“What? Me?” Shinpachi would have thought his shorter stature and current impaired vision disqualified him to take charge of his sister’s precious friend.

“Yes, you,” Otae snapped at him, and Shinpachi never hesitated when his sister used that tone on him. He reached out and plucked the burden from Kondou’s arms — and wow, Kyuubei seemed so much smaller like this. Maybe Shinpachi should consider updating his character design to include geta — the clogs did a lot for Kyuubei, apparently. He arranged something like a princess carry, and felt a dampness through the improvised bandages under Kyuubei’s torn coat. At this point there was nothing any of them could do, so Shinpachi swallowed a worried exclamation and looked in the direction he thought might be down.“Right. Let’s go.”

Kondou grunted his agreement, took one step, and promptly toppled over.

“Gorilla down,” Otae sang out, and motioned for Katsura. Shinpachi realized this was why she’d put him on Kyuubei-duty — she’d noticed Kondou was on his last legs, and wanted the strongest member of their party free to pick up the Commander’s slack. Slack body, that was.

“Kondou-san? Kondou-san?” Katsura hunkered down and Kondou tried to wave him off, but his face was in the snow so nobody had any idea what he was trying to say.

“Go ahead, Katsura-san,” Otae said, clearly anxious to get moving. Katsura shrugged, and pulled Kondou’s arm over his shoulder, offering support in a way that that looked well-practiced. Shinpachi wondered about that — the battlefields Katsura-san must have seen, the comrades he must have hauled away — before he pushed the strange, distracting thought aside.

Kondou kept looking over his shoulder at Otae, making a few attempts to go back for her, but they were far too feeble to throw Katsura’s balance off. “But. Otae-san. Your ankle!”

“Oh for—” Otae muttered something about hopeless gorillas and left Kyuubei’s side to take care of the situation. “I’m feeling much better. So Kondou-san, please be a darling and go with Katsura-san,” Otae said, giving his back the sort of soothing stroke you’d use on a nervous horse. It apparently worked on gorillas, because Kondou calmed down enough to accept Katsura’s help.

They made a strange little group, picking their way down the slope — or the way they hoped it was down. They made a couple of false turns where the ground started tilting in the wrong direction and they had to backtrack through the thick cloud, but Katsura mostly managed to lead them downwards. Kondou stayed more or less upright, but Otae had to come to Shinpachi’s rescue a couple of times. He was really missing his glasses now.

And not just his glasses. “Ane-ue,” he said softly. “Do you think the others—”

“They’re fine, Shin-chan,” she said brightly.

“What if they’re under the snow? What if they’re waiting for us to dig them out and we leave them behind?” Shinpachi hadn’t intended to let those thoughts spill out of his mouth, or his voice to climb quite so high, but it had been so long now since the avalanche. Long enough that he was freezing cold, and exhausted, and breathing was hard, and he hadn’t even been in the snow for that long.

“Shin-chan. You have to trust them.”

“I do! I do. But —Ane-ue, I was with Gin-san.” Shinpachi hadn’t told anyone that yet.

“Oh.” His sister paused. “When?”

“When it hit. He —” Shinpachi swallowed. “Gin-san grabbed me, but I couldn’t — I didn’t hold onto him. When I woke up he was gone. I looked — I looked everywhere in the spot I ended up, but I didn’t see him. But I don’t have my glasses, so what if he’s still there, what if he’s—”

“Gintoki will be fine.” Katsura’s voice interrupted Shinpachi’s torrent of words.

“Katsura-san?”

“He always is,” Katsura said calmly. “Save your strength for Kyuubei-dono, and don’t worry about him.” He said it with such conviction that Shinpachi immediately felt more at ease, as Katsura went on, “With his white hair, he will blend right in here. This country will adopt him as its own — maybe a beautiful ice queen has already taken him to her sparkling castle.”

And just like that, all of the ease evaporated. “Wait. What? What?! That’s your reason not to worry? That has nothing to do with the situation at hand! That’s just coming up with random crossovers and we cannot afford the rights to anything like that!”

“Gin-san would make a fantastic ice prince,” Otae said.

“Wait, what? Ane-ue?! Don’t encourage him! This has nothing to do with the plot! There are no ice queens! There was an ice-avalanche — that’s a natural disaster, not magic!”

“Hush!” Katsura demanded.

“I will not hush! You two hush before you get D***y’s lawyers involved!”

“Shin-chan. Shut up, please.”

Shinpachi shut up. And listened. And heard a voice, somewhere there in the gloom, loudly calling their names. Relief hit him so hard he almost dropped Kyuubei-san, and as one he and Otae and Katsura all shouted greetings that could lead the voice they heard towards them.

***

Limping around with Okita dangling off of her like some kind of giant booger was not getting any more fun. As a matter of fact, none of this was very fun at all. Kagura wished they could have stayed under the kotatsu back home instead of coming to this stupid mountain. But of course the kotatsu hadn’t been out yet — maybe the new rule should be year-round kotatsu. Definitely better than tromping around in the really deep and really nasty snow while hauling trash around.

Kagura missed Sadaharu again. He would have been able to carry her through the snow, and then she wouldn’t have it spilling into her boots. And if he’d been carrying her he could have taken Okita, too, and then Kagura would have a hand free for her umbrella and wouldn’t have stupid stinky snow and bits of volcano land in her face. She regretted giving up her scarf. That sadist should have done without any bandages, then there wouldn’t be snow falling down the back of her coat, which was even worse than snow in her boots. She couldn’t even catch it before it melted and ran down her spine and that was a really bad, really yucky feeling. She shuddered with it, and the motion must have jostled Okita, because he squeezed her shoulders a bit more tightly.

“Where are the others?” Kagura whined. “I want to go home and have a warm bath.”

“You can have a bath right here. Just go up to the top of the mountain and see if there’s any lava. Nice and warm, that. Just jump straight in.”

“Right. I’ll take you with me and give you a lava bath. Understood.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. That bath is all for you.”

“Shut up, sadist.”

From the corner of her eye, Kagura caught Okita smirking. Maybe she should throw him in some lava. “Wait. There’s lava?”

“Why don’t you go have a look?”

“Why don’t you? Oh right. Because you can’t walk by yourself.” Kagura didn’t even feel good scoring that point, but she was angry at the new worry gnawing at her. What if there was lava, and what if Gin-san and Shinpachi and Anego and the others were trapped like Toshi had been? What then? They could survive the snow, she was sure, but lava? Wasn’t that super dangerous?

As Kagura contemplated that, she kept a lookout for any more helpful scarves poking out of the snow, and listened to Okita’s carefully controlled breathing and Hijikata’s wheezing and the flop-flop-flop of Elizabeth’s feet, and a screech rising from the volcano cloud.

“Lava?!” Was that the sound of fiery death?

“Why would lava be shouting about crossovers?” Okita asked.

“Why would anyone?” Kagura was baffled.

“Hey! Hey, we’re here!” Hijikata called back at the cloud. And at that Kagura realized — the screech, it wasn’t lava, it was just a tsukkomi eruption. And there was only one straight man still lost on this mountain.

“Shinpachi!!”

Okita recoiled from her, but she held onto him and filled her lungs again. “Shinpachi! Anego! Gin-san!!”

There was a bit of a scramble, with yelling and limping and nearly losing track of where everyone was in the foul cloud, but then figures emerged from the blur and Kagura tossed Okita aside to throw herself at Otae.

“Anego!” It was so nice to hug someone who smelled good and smiled and said “there, there” and gave Kagura a warm squeeze that for a moment she relaxed into that happy sensation and felt that everything must be fine now.

After all, everyone else was reuniting, too. Elizabeth released Hijikata to bolt toward Katsura, webbed feet and hairy legs a blur before they met up in a tearful but restrained not-quite-embrace. “Elizabeth! You’re safe! I was so worried!”

Kondou found the strength to stand on his own, grinning hugely as his subordinates limped toward him. “Toshi! Sougo!” His smile dimmed slightly with concern as he took in their bedraggled state. “What happened to you?”

“Seems like there was an avalanche, Kondou-san. Not sure how you missed it,” Okita deadpanned. “Oh and Hijikata was dead.”

Kondou’s head swiveled to Hijikata, who scowled. “I was not!”

Okita’s eyes widened. “So you were just making out with Elizabeth for fun then?”

Clearly the horror of that moment had settled deep within Hijikata, because he gave a full-body shudder. “Sougo. You mention that again and I’ll have you commit seppuku.”

“Toshi. Are you okay? You look cold. Here,” Kondou — who really did not look a lot better than Hijikata — swept his coat around Hijikata, who tried to fight it off, but Kondou would have none of it. “Look. I saw you shaking.”

“Kondou-san! Please, you have to wear something.”

Kondou — bare-chested in the snow — laughed a laugh that turned into a hacking cough. “Not at all,” he wheezed.

Hijikata took the coat, afraid to provoke Kondou into showing off further. Unfortunately, that part was entirely out of his control.

“And Sougo!”

“Kondou-san, please, there’s no need—”

But it was too late. Kondou, having noticed Okita’s torn trousers and injured leg, had already whipped off his own uniform pants and was thrusting them at Okita, leaving his own body naked save for a loincloth.“I can’t let my men freeze.”

“You’re letting your boys freeze, though,” Okita remarked.

“They’re warm and snug in their rug,” Kondou assured him, which was more than anyone had wanted to know.

Kagura had darted over to Shinpachi, who wished he had a hand free to facepalm. And maybe shield his eyes. “Oh no! Kyuu-chan’s hurt?”

Shinpachi nodded, feeling as worried as Kagura looked. But it was time to be strong. “Yeah. But we must be almost off the mountain, so we can get help.”

Kagura nodded, still staring at Kyuubei’s pale face. “Okay. And how is Gin-chan?”

Shinpachi started. “He’s — he’s not with you?” In all the milling around and reuniting he’d assumed Gintoki was just out of sight, just with someone else for a moment.

Kagura’s eyes widened. “He’s not with you?”

Shinpachi shook his head mutely, the strength he’d been so determined to show draining out of him to leave room for a mounting sense of dread.

“Anego,” Kagura called. “Gin-chan is missing!”

“We were all missing, Kagura-chan, but we found each other,” Otae assured her. “I’m sure he’s just being lazy again.”

“Yeah, but what if he’s waiting for us to find him?”

“Then he’s just being lazy,” Otae repeated. “You shouldn’t encourage that in a grown man.”

Shinpachi didn’t feel much more reassured by that scenario than by the copyright infringement Katsura-san had been dreaming up earlier, but Kagura nodded slowly. “Gin-chan does nap a lot.”

“There you go. All you need is some strawberry milk or a parfait from the village and I’m sure he’ll appear in no time at all. Now, how about we get moving again, and we can get medical attention and sweets.”

No matter how much Shinpachi wanted to stay and look for Gin-san, his sister was right. Kyuubei-san in his arms was proof enough of how badly they needed medical attention — blood had saturated the improvised bandages to the point where Shinpachi could feel it seep into his own clothes, and that couldn’t be good at all. And while Hijikata was kind of propping Kondou up, neither of them looked like they could actually make it very far.

“Everyone! Let’s go!” Otae’s voice rang out, spurring them into action. Kagura gave Kyuubei’s head a quick pat and sighed, going to pick Okita back up. Katsura and Elizabeth walked along happily holding hands. Hijikata and Kondou both pretended not to struggle with things like walking and breathing, but they weren’t fooling Otae, who gave up her precious spot next to Kyuubei to rest a hand on Kondou’s arm, boosting his energy and once again preparing to catch him when he fell.

It seemed like the slope they were on was getting less steep, and maybe they could see a little further than they had before. Under their feet, the ground shook again, and the volcano hissed like an angry kaiju above. It was high time to be off — but the incompleteness of their group gnawed at Shinpachi, and he saw Kagura and Otae both scanning whatever patch of avalanche they were crossing, looking for any sign of Gintoki.

They found nothing, and kept going in silence.

Snow was white, right? Snow was light and fluffy, right? So what was all this? The darkness, the crushing weight. That couldn’t be right, could it? Gintoki wanted to complain, to point out that the snow was wrong and could someone please fix it because the readers wouldn’t stand for this ridiculous nonsense, but of course he couldn’t. He could just hold on to the thought, and hope that maybe there had been some kind of mistake that would be fixed so that he could stop feeling like he’d been frozen into a block of carbonite.

Until then, he would try not to think about the feeling of holding on to Shinpachi one moment and then holding on to nothing the next. He would try, but if he wasn’t thinking about that he was remembering the Ketsuno Ana Weather Special: Nature Will F**k Your S**t Up, where she had helpfully listed all the ways in which extreme weather and natural disasters could kill you. In particular he was remembering her description of the slow, choking death that awaited any avalanche victim unlucky enough to survive being crushed to death or dug out of the snow in the first few minutes.

Gintoki was aiming for an upbeat attitude, but he thought maybe it had been more than a few minutes. He had taken the throwaway advice for people with friends who might come and dig them up, and moved — well, flailed — as much as he could before the avalanche settled into concrete hardness. His arms were braced in front of him, creating a precious pocket of air around his head, and he'd gone full Gear Second, too — holding his breath until he thought he would burst, finally exhaling to a hollow of his own creation. Among the other things he wasn’t thinking about was Ketsuno Ana’s cheerful assurance that even if you survived an avalanche, your friends were probably dead, so her personal recommendation was to go for a quick death over drawn-out suffering.

Now obviously that didn’t apply to Gintoki, because there was no way his friends were dead. Or any of the those other random people who were definitely not his friends but had also been up on that mountain. But it did leave him with an awful lot of things not to think about as he waited in the cold and dark as time passed, and Ketsuno Ana’s warnings about slow suffocation started to feel more immediate, and quite unreasonably personal.

***

The snow kicked up from the avalanche was finally starting to settle, making it easier to see where they were going. Otae was sort of leading the way — so far everyone was still managing to hobble along, but it had been a close call with Kondou a couple of times. He was breathing in short grunts, and quite frankly Otae wasn’t sure he was fully conscious anymore. He was just too stupid to know when to pass out, and his body was on autopilot, either following Otae’s touch or going wherever his men were going. She would like to take credit for it, but she could hear Hijikata’s voice mutter worried imprecations and encouragement, and it was as if each word sustained Kondou for another step.

Otae went through her mental roster of everyone present, their current support configurations and injuries, and turned to look over her shoulder. “Kagura-chan, Katsura-san? If we call out for help, it would be easier for rescuers to find us.”

“Good idea, Anego!” Kagura lit up, while Okita — his ears in very close proximity to Kagura’s mouth — desperately shook his head. “And maybe Gin-chan will hear, too!”

Otae was glad she could keep smiling encouragingly despite the pain she felt at Kagura’s optimism. “Of course. You should call for Gin-san, too.” She knew how long it had been. She had seen the state of Hijikata, knew what a close call it had been for him — and he had been found a while back.

Having been reunited with Elizabeth, Katsura was quite enjoying this outing, and his role as party crier. The others seemed quite worried, some of them, but Katsura chalked that up to youth and inexperience. He was solicitously concerned about Kyuubei-dono, but it would take more than that kind of injury to take down a samurai of Yagyuu caliber. And as for the rest of it — everyone was still upright, and as they weren’t likely to contract any further injuries, Katsura found it unlikely that they would die. There was still the missing Gintoki, but Katsura was certain he would show up sooner or later. He always did.

Really, they had been lucky to experience such a rare natural phenomenon — it was quite impressive how the avalanche had crushed everything in its path to remake the mountain in its own image. And it had been quite the feat to surf it, too. He would have to see if there was any way to work that into future openings — he had the feeling he and Elizabeth could absolutely perfect their technique. For now they walked hand in hand, ensuring the foul smog didn’t split them up again, and cried out for rescue. Well, Elizabeth didn’t cry, but did have a sign up reading, [Help!]

The slope was far gentler now, and the avalanche underfoot might be thinning out. There were a few trees still standing here and there, at least, which must indicate this was the outer edge of the disaster zone. A good location for rescuers to begin their search — and truly, there had been government dogs everywhere back in the village, so Katsura was expecting the mountain to be crawling with them soon. He wondered if they would follow traditional rescue dog etiquette and come with tiny casks of brandy around their necks. Also he wondered if any of them knew first aid, because for all that he wasn’t worried, he was fairly certain that the Shinsengumi Commander had a punctured lung that would need seeing to soon.

Katsura was deep in thoughts about what brave young surgeon might have taken a wrong turn in life and ended up in the Shinsengumi rather than fighting for freedom when he felt a stir from somewhere. A rising of emotion, an armed troop without killing intent — downslope. Ah, yes. That would be them. He wondered if his brave young surgeon would ever follow his heart, or stay tied to the government by the arranged marriage he had assumed loomed large in the surgeon’s mind. Then he gave another holler, because he wasn’t sure the government’s dogs had sharp enough senses to find the others in the poor visibility. And that answering call was the signal for him and Elizabeth to make themselves scarce until the mountain was freed of polluting Bakufu presence.

***

If expressions could get stuck on your face, they were going to dig Gintoki up with a permanent wince. There was neither light nor sound to aggravate his headache, and it still felt like his avalanche-casket had grown an ice-spike directly into his brain. It put his usual hangovers to shame, the pain of it so sharp and throbbing it spilled over into his other senses: glowing red in his vision, tasting of bile and blood, pounding loudly in his ears. Unless that last one was his heartbeat. It wasn’t like there was anything else for him to listen to down here. No matter how much he strained he caught no muffled sound of voices, no scraping or digging, no barking of rescue dogs coming to bring him brandy.

Ugh. Shit.

Thinking about alcohol had been a mistake. Throwing up would be a worse mistake, and yet Gintoki only barely managed to avoid an ignominious death by barf suffocation, filling his lungs with stale, icy air in quick gasps that also felt quite ill-advised. How much oxygen was left down here now? How much did he need? Maybe this crisis would trigger some kind of Gintoki evolution, or superpower — gills, maybe. For breathing snow. No, that would be a waste. Snow-power would be better. The power of snow. Moving snow with his mind. Actually, moving anything with his mind. That's it, that was the ultimate power. He'd never have to leave the couch again.

Only he was not on the couch, was he? Or in the Yorozuya office. Or in Edo. He was — oh yeah. Mountain. Avalanche. That was it. In Sorachi, Hokkaido. Of course going to Sorachi had been a disaster — they should have seen that one coming.

"You should have."

Wait. Wait a minute. That wasn't his headache, was it?

It wasn't.

***

Though the sun didn’t suddenly burst through the clouds to triumphant music, the relief that swept through the group when their rescuers spotted them was an emotional crescendo. And not just for them — Yamazaki had tears in his eyes when he nearly flung himself at Kondou and Hijikata. “You’re alive!! Commander! Vice Commander! Captain!” It was a testament to how worried he had been that he didn’t hesitate before including anyone but Kondou.

“Good job, Yamazaki!” Kondou exclaimed. “Well done finding us — good thinking.” Then he looked around vaguely. “Isn’t it very warm?”

That’s all the warning anyone got before the loincloth disappeared, and Kondou stood stark naked in his boots, arms crossed over his chest, nodding with satisfaction. “Yes, much better.”

“Oh for—” Otae very nearly punched him on pure reflex, but managed to contain herself. At least this saved her from more gorilla-sitting duties, and she could go back to Kyuu-chan.

Kondou continued to claim he was fine and not cold at all. “Oh! That’s a sign of hypothermia!” Yamazaki exclaimed, because he’d spent the whole search interrogating the village clinic staff they’d grabbed to volunteer for the rescue effort.

“Or it’s a sign of gorillititis,” Okita suggested.

“It’s practically the main symptom of gorillititis,” Hijikata agreed.

“Hey!” Kondou shot them both a wounded glance. He might have had more eloquent protests lined up, but just then his eyes glazed over, and he slowly toppled forward. Yamazaki sprang into action to catch him, then paused in his tracks when the sheer nakedness hit him full force. Kondou’s body met the snow with a loud thud, a small spray of snow whirling up around him like porn censor’s modesty blur. Not even nature wanted to take a longer look at that than necessary.

“Yeah, that’s really going to freeze the boys,” Okita remarked.

“Medic! Can we have a medic up here?” Yamazaki called.

Hijikata sighed, propped Kondou up, and covered what he could of the Commander’s body with both Kondou’s jacket and his own.

Okita looked completely innocent when he said he had no idea where Kondou’s pants had gone. It shouldn’t have been possible for him to set anything on fire and throw it away in the walk downhill, as he had been clinging to Kagura, yet somehow that was the impression Hijikata got.

The hijacked village doctor, her nursing staff, and the most talented first-aiders of the Shinsengumi were all gathered around Kyuubei. They had already arranged for a stretcher and an oxygen mask, and the doctor was applying a quick field dressing to the wound. Otae, Shinpachi and Kagura were all crowded around, though the doctor had managed to get them to leave her enough room to work. Barely.

“Doctor, how does it look?” Shinpachi asked.

“The same as last time you asked me, dear,” the doctor said.

“Yeah, but how is Kyuu-chan doing?” Kagura insisted.

The doctor paused and fixed the two of them with a very professional smile of the type Otae recognized. “In the unlikely event that I either miraculously heal or outright kill your friend, I will let you know. Until then, rest assured that the patient is stable, and will remain that way unless you distract me at a critical moment.”

Otae took the hint, and shooed Kagura and Shinpachi off. She stayed, of course, until the doctor had finished and two strong young Shinsengumi came to take the stretcher away. Before they could, Otae darted in and leaned over the pale, still form lying there and pressed a brief kiss to Kyuu-chan’s forehead. “Hurry up and heal.” Once they were all back in Edo, she would have to bring the most extravagant fruit basket she could get to Kyuu-chan’s hospital room. Until then, all she could do was trust that what they had together was too important for Kyuubei to give up on, or do anything as thoughtless as take a turn for the worse.

She wiped her face quickly, before anyone could see, and put a smile on to go see how the rest of their little band of survivors were doing.

Kondou had also been placed on a stretcher, and —oh, thank goodness — covered with a thermal blanket in addition to the oxygen mask. Next to him, Hijikata was getting the same treatment, despite his protests.

Kagura was unhurt, of course, and Shinpachi looked much worse than he was. His head was bandaged now, but he still had Kyuubei’s blood all over. The two of them rushed over to Otae, and Kagura gave her another hug. “Anego,” she said, and looked up at Otae with big, sad eyes.

“Don’t worry, Kagura-chan. Kyuu-chan will be fine!”

Kagura nodded. “But Zura and Eli disappeared.”

“They’re just hiding from the Shinsengumi!” Shinpachi hurried to reassure her.

“And Gin-chan…”

“We can go look for him now, Kagura! I’m sure he’s somewhere close by — right, Ane-ue?”

Otae nodded. “We’ll go look for him together.”

“Danna’s still missing?” Okita hobbled into the conversation.

“Yeah,” Kagura said quietly.

“I’ll come too.”

Kagura made a face. “You can’t walk!”

“I’m walking right now,” Okita contradicted. His leg was properly splinted, and his sword was back in its scabbard. He’d even picked up a pair of crutches some thoughtful nurse had brought, and his color looked much better. It should — he’d nicely asked the medic in charge of the supplies for the very strongest stuff they had. And then when the nurse had told him he couldn’t have it, he’d asked without being nice. And now he was feeling great, and could channel all that energy into finding that permhead Yorozuya. “Come on, let’s go!”

The non-permy Yorozuya and the big sister all stared at him, as if they’d never seen a Captain do Captain stuff like give orders before. Okita was about to lecture them when Yamazaki came running up to them with a hilarious expression on his face and a walkie-talkie clutched in his hand.

“No! No, you can’t go — we all have to go, we all have to go now!”

“Yamazaki-san? What’s happening?” Shinpachi asked.

“The volcano! The readings aren’t good — the government’s scientists, they’ve ordered an immediate evacuation of the area.”

“But we can’t go,” Kagura said. “Gin-chan is still here.”

“You don’t understand!” Yamazaki said. “This, all this—” he flailed his arms at the gas and the ash — “was just the beginning. It’s all going to blow!”

“All what?” Shinpachi asked numbly.

“The volcano! It’s erupting! It’s really blowing up!”

“No it’s not,” Otae said brightly. Because for all her worry and her earlier misgivings she was not about to turn her back on Gintoki now.

“What are you talking about?! There’s an official warning, there’s science—”

“Do you see any lava?” Otae asked.

“No, but—”

“Anego’s right. There’s no lava. As long as there’s no lava, we can go find Gin-chan.” The set of Kagura’s face was that of a girl who wouldn’t actually let a bit of lava stop her from saving her Gin-chan.

“You can’t go!! Not with the volcano about to blow at any moment!”

“Yamazaki-san,” Shinpachi said. “It’s Gin-san.”

“Yes, but you can’t. Nobody’s allowed, it’s a mandatory evacuation—”

“And you’re going to stop us?” Okita asked. He was smiling.

Yamazaki shrunk back in horror. “I—”

“Thanks for the warning, Yamazaki-san,” Shinpachi called as they all began to walk away from him.

Even Captain Okita was walking away from him, which was honestly a relief. At least for now. It wouldn’t be once Yamazaki had to explain to Kondou-san what had happened to his First Squad Captain. “You can’t!” Yamazaki called plaintively.

“We can!” Kagura shouted back.

“We are!” Shinpachi chorused.

“But please,” Okita said. “Try to stop us.”

Yamazaki gulped.

“We’ll be right back,” Otae said.

“With Gin-chan,” Kagura nodded.

“With Gin-san,” Shinpachi agreed.

And then they were gone, into the smoke, and Yamazaki stood there, holding the crackling walkie-talkie, wondering if he would ever see any of them again.

A warm golden glow lit the darkness. It was rich and soothing and set Gintoki's teeth on edge.

"You know, I would never have led the others into such danger," Kintoki told him.

“What are you doing here, you bastard?” Gintoki glared at his golden double with his smug expression and silky hair.

Kintoki shrugged. “Beats me. It’s too late now, anyway.”

“Too late for what?”

“Oh, Gintoki. Poor, flawed Gintoki. Leading everyone on a wild goose chase up a volcano. Do you really think I would have done that?”

“Too late for what?”

“The others, of course. Focus, please. I know you don’t have half the cerebral capacity I do, but do I wish you would keep up.”

“What do you mean?” Gintoki’s voice wavered slightly as he felt cold in a way that had nothing to do with the physical sensations of the ice around him.

“I mean, if it had been me, I wouldn’t have made that trek unprepared. Do you know they make avalanche airbags? Of course you don’t. You didn’t even check the snow conditions, or notice that little information sign at the bottom of the track that warned you Tokachidake was an active volcano.”

Gintoki hadn’t done any of those things, that was true, and avalanche airbags sounded totally fake, but that wasn’t the point. “No. What do you mean, the others?”

“Let’s see. I wasn’t there, of course — if I had been, this would be quite a different story — but the others would have been Kagura and Shinpachi and his sister and her Kyuubei, and your favorite Shinsengumi plus a couple of stalkers. Oh, right, and Zura. And do you count his creepy mascot?” Kintoki grimaced delicately. “I wouldn’t.”

As Kintoki was listing the names, Gintoki shuddered. He remembered the rumble and the world turning on its head, and yeah. They had all been there. Kagura and Shinpachi had been so close — he’d grabbed Shinpachi, hadn’t he?

“And then you let him go, didn’t you?”

“Shut up,” Gintoki rasped.

“You got them into this. You failed to keep them safe, and then you failed to save the single one of your friends you even tried to protect.”

“Shut up.” Gintoki didn’t want to hear any of that, didn’t want to feel any of what these words were making him feel.

“Honestly, I hope it was quick for poor Kagura-chan, so she didn’t have to live with the disappointment of getting passed over in favor of Shinpachi-kun.” Kintoki shook his head sadly.

“I—” Kagura was fine, wasn't she? No Earth weather except sunshine could beat a Yato, right? And she’d been just out of reach — he hadn’t left her, he’d just grabbed Shinpachi because he was closer. If he could have, he would have grabbed them both, but—

“You’re only human,” Kintoki said. “You did what you could, and it wasn't enough. As usual, it wasn’t enough.“

Gintoki flinched, and tried to hide that he’d flinched, but Kintoki was smirking now, satisfied and sneering. “And now you have to live with the consequences. Again.” Kintoki checked his watch, and corrected himself. “For a little while, at least.”

“They’ll find me,” Gintoki said, though his throat was so tight it was difficult to get the words out.

“Who?”

“The others, they’ll—”

“Who? Do you have anyone coming up from Edo? Anyone else you would like to put in the path of the oncoming eruption? Oh yes, by the way — the volcano is about to erupt for real.”

“Stop lying, you bastard.”

“I’m really not. That was a phreatic eruption before — just a warmup. Tokachidake is about to go full Vulcanian.”

Those words meant nothing to Gintoki, who hated Kintoki with such a fierce passion it was practically choking him. The trivial insults were nothing, but the way that piece of shit had casually dismissed everyone else, as if — as if he knew anything about them. “I don’t care. Just—”

“You mean you don’t understand,” Kintoki interrupted. “I knew I should have used smaller words. Maybe ‘big mountain go boom’ makes it clearer?”

Gintoki wished he could smash Kintoki’s face in again. “They’re alive.”

Kintoki’s clear blue eyes widened in mock surprised. “Oh? I thought we’d covered this already. But here, let me reiterate: you failed to keep them alive, and so they are dead.”

Anger flared hot behind Gintoki’s breastbone, because how dare he? “You really think they need me to stay alive?”

“Ah. Good question. Honestly I don't understand why you came back at all. If you would just have left it all to me — Yorozuya, Kabuki-cho — none of this would have happened. All you had to do was slink off to live the pathetic life you deserve, and I would have kept everyone safe.”

“They don’t need you for that!” Gintoki snarled. “And they don’t need me. Not like that.” They were all too strong and too stubborn and too stupid to fall to anything Gintoki could have protected them from in the first place. That they still wanted him in their lives, that they still chose this version of reality — a dirty silver over that gleaming gold — was more than Gintoki deserved, and nothing he would ever give up. Because they might not need Gintoki as their protector or savior, but he needed them. And if Kintoki couldn’t understand that — well, that made him more of a fool than Gintoki himself.

***

They hadn’t made it far back up the avalanche and into the thick, reeking fog before Katsura — his green ski suit only slightly ash-dusted — and Elizabeth rejoined their little party. The first they knew of it was when Okita dreamily exclaimed, “Look, it’s a bird and a longhair lime!”

“It’s not Lime, it’s Katsura,” Katsura said.

Elizabeth nodded, and whipped out a sign. [It’s not Bird, it’s Elizabeth!]

“Yeah, it’s Elizabeth! Don’t you know anything?” Kagura challenged him.

“Have you ever seen an Elizabeth like that?” Okita asked.

“Have you ever seen a lime like that?” Kagura countered.

“Come on, Elizabeth,” Katsura soothed. “Don’t mind the children.”

Two identical death-glares turned in his direction, and the mountain shook, causing bits and pieces of loose debris to rattle.

Okita’s eyes widened. “How did I do that?”

“How do you think you could do that? That was clearly not you!” Shinpachi snapped, and looked around for lava.

“I suggest we retrieve Gintoki and evacuate the mountain,” Katsura said.

“Retrieve him from where? Did you stash him somewhere and not tell us? Because now would be the time to tell us,” Shinpachi said, his voice sharp with more than just a straight man’s instinctive comeback.

“Yeah, how are we going to find him?” Kagura asked.

“He was close to you two, wasn’t he?” Otae asked. “Maybe he ended up somewhere around there.”

“Yeah,” Kagura said. “But I already looked and Shinpachi looked and we didn’t find him.” She hung her head.

“I— I looked, but I didn’t have my glasses.” Shinpachi swallowed, imagining going back to find Gintoki right where he had already searched — imagined coming back too late, and shook his head. No, that wouldn’t happen. Couldn’t happen.

Otae gave his shoulder a quick squeeze. “It’s a big avalanche,” she said. “The five of us—” Elizabeth raised a flipper. “The six of us could look for days and never find Gin-san. On top of that, visibility is poor, so we might miss something if we split up to cover more ground. And we don’t have days, because there’s a volcano about to erupt.”

“Um. Ane-ue,” Shinpachi said. “Is now really the time to list all of the flaws in our plan?”

“Yeah, Anego. I thought you were going to give us a pep-talk or something!”

Otae grinned at them. “So what would Gin-san say?”

“Maybe, ‘Quick, run’?” Shinpachi suggested.

Kagura cleared her throat and her voice went maybe a tiny fraction lower — and yet she sounded remarkably like Gintoki. “‘What a pain in the ass. This mountain’s too much of a pain in the ass. I’m going home’?”

“Danna would say ‘Help, I’m buried in snow and can’t get out oh no the air is running out,’” Okita said. Kagura gave him an appalled glare that he shrugged off.

“Gin-san would say ‘Forget about all that stuff. We’ll look until we’ve found what we’re looking for!’” Otae told them.

Shinpachi’s lips quirked in a smile. “Yeah.”

“We’ll find what we’re looking for because we’re too foolish to give up,” Katsura mused. “Yes, that does sound like Gintoki.”

“Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go find him!” Kagura bellowed, and took off running, calling for Gin-chan.

Shinpachi gave his sister a grateful nod, and then he took off too, more clumsily, but shouting as loudly as Kagura.

Okita hollered, “Danna! How dead are you? Danna!” and hobbled off after the two Yorozuya.

“Nicely done.” Katsura nodded to Otae. “They’re all fired up now.”

The volcano rumbled a bit, because it too was all fired up, and they walked along carefully, waiting for it to calm down before picking the conversation back up. “Yes.” Otae smiled fondly. “It’s nice, isn’t it? Much better than when they…” Her smile faded.

“Face reality?” Katsura asked. At Otae’s surprised look, he gave her a gentle smile. “You’re very worried,” he said.

“I—” Otae paused, then nodded.

“Take your own words to heart, Otae-dono,” Katsura said, as solemn and serious as Otae had rarely seen him. “Trust in Gintoki.”

“I do! It’s just — it’s been so long, and we’re running out of time.”

Katsura nodded. “But there’s something you forget,” he said calmly.

“What?” Otae asked, wondering what insights into Gintoki’s whereabouts or psyche Katsura might have to impart — what past experiences he might base his current prediction on.

“Gintoki’s the protagonist,” Katsura said.

At that moment, loud voices rang out from uphill, and Katsura nodded knowingly at Otae as they both broke into a run and dashed into the ashy mist that had swallowed the others.

Shinpachi wasn’t quite navigating by sound like a bat, but he was definitely relying on Kagura’s yelling to keep from losing the rest of his party again. Somewhere further down slope he could hear Okita’s voice — not his words, exactly, but the sound of those calls went straight to that spot between Shinpachi’s shoulder blades that sometimes prickled right before someone attacked him.

Shinpachi called out too, listening until the sound was absorbed by the volcanic plume and the snow, hoping for some kind of response. It was the best he could do, as he was quietly convinced the only way he’d find Gintoki in all this was if he accidentally stepped on him. White hair, white snow, mostly white outfit — for a four-eyes operating with only two it was definitely a challenge. Not impossible, of course — it was unthinkable that any of this was impossible — but a challenge.

It was a challenge that he absolutely aced when his quiet listening — something Kagura and Okita were making more difficult with their incessant yelling — paid off. At first he wasn’t quite sure what he was hearing — a babbling brook? A ferocious squirrel? It didn’t sound like Gintoki, but as this was the first thing he’d come across that wasn’t ice, rock, or a bit of broken tree, Shinpachi eagerly made his way towards it.

The fog muted the sound, and made it tricky to tell exactly where it was coming from, but Shinpachi persisted, and came up to a collection of very tall blurs — trees, he guessed. And not broken, either, so this must have been the edge of where the avalanche had reached. It was probably not trees making the sound he was hearing — louder now, with words he could almost but not quite make out. Shinpachi squinted at the stand of trees, and did a double take when one of the things he’d taken for a pile of snow moved. And it was making noise. Bears weren’t white, right? “Yeti?!” he exclaimed, and the blur lurched over to another tree.

“Rude!” The blur exclaimed. Was it topped with purple? “I came to you for help, and here you are, insulting my appearance?! How dare you call me a yeti! I have been telling you, Gin-san is in danger and you just stand here unmoved — I thought you had hearts of stone before but now? Such a callous, evil way to treat a poor woman searching for her beau!” The entire spiel was very passionate, but that last part came out rather suspiciously breathlessly.

“Eeeeh?! Sacchan-san?” Shinpachi couldn’t believe his ears. That was definitely Sacchan, right — the bit of color he could see matched her hair, and breathless yelling about Gin-san? It all checked out, but what was she doing here? “What are you doing here?!”

“Trying to save Gintoki, of course!” Sacchan exclaimed to the tree she had been yelling at. “But these Shinsengumi louts are just standing around instead of coming to his aid! It’s absolutely unconscionable — how dare you call yourselves protectors of anything, when this is how you act in a disaster?”

“Uh, Sacchan-san? Those are trees.”

“Really?” Sacchan turned around. “Him too?”

Shinpachi nodded, then caught himself — of course she couldn’t see the gesture. “That one too.” But now was no time to indulge in the poor eyesight shtick. “But Sacchan-san, what did you say? About Gintoki?”

“That I’m saving him!”

“You’re really not — you’re yelling at trees! That’s not how you save people. Where’s Gin-san? Do you know where he is, is he okay? He isn’t —” Shinpachi’s breath caught in his throat, as he stared at the white blur.

“Of course he’s not okay! He’s stuck in an avalanche! You were right there, how could you miss the avalanche?”

“I haven’t missed the avalanche! We just lost Gin-san, and we’re trying to find him again so tell me where you saw him!”

“Well. See. Here’s the thing. I know where he is but I couldn’t dig him out so I went for help only there’s all this snow around and I tripped a bit and…” The blur radiated embarrassment. “I lost my glasses and couldn’t find my way back.”

“Oh that’s just perfect! That’s just perfect, this is a great gag — you had him and you lost him?”

“You lost him too!” Sacchan countered.

Shinpachi huffed. “I passed out from a head wound! An injury! That’s different! But forget about that — Gin-san? You know where he is? You saw him? He was okay?”

“Of course my Gin-san is okay! Why wouldn’t he be okay? Are you saying he’s not okay?”

“What’s with all the shouting?” That was Okita’s voice, and it was coming from right behind Shinpachi, who jumped and may have made emitted a high-pitched noise as he did.

“Sacchan!” A small red blur tore out of the fog and barrelled into the white blur. “I didn’t know you were here too!”

“She was with Gin-san!” Shinpachi said, because that was the important thing here.

“Oh, Gin-chan’s here?” Kagura lit up.

“Not… here,” Sacchan said sheepishly. “Not exactly.”

“Oh. Well. Do you know where he is?”

“I do! In my heart. He’s always in my heart.”

“Okay fine could you take him out of your heart now?”

“Not… exactly…?”

“He’s not in her heart, Kagura. He’s in the snow, and she lost him.”

“Oh.” The metaphorical temperature was dropping below the literal one, as they stood among the trees, having located one unwanted stalker and zero wanted permheads.

Shinpachi frowned. No, this had to mean something — they were getting closer, and had a better chance of finding Gin-san than they’d had minutes ago. And yes, Sacchan wouldn’t be able to find her way back, but — but they had two people here with sharp eyesight, and the snow was loose enough that they’d been leaving tracks all over it so… “Follow her footprints! If we follow Sacchan-san’s footprints in the snow, we’ll find where she was digging after Gin-san!” Shinpachi exclaimed.

Kagura whooped and took off. “I see them! I see footsteps! I see them!” She sketched a particularly fuzzy red blur in Shinpachi’s vision, weaving between the trees, then vanishing into the fog. Then coming back out of the fog and vanishing back into it in another direction. Then reappearing as Shinpachi sighed and Okita snorted, before rushing off like a tiny locomotive, throwing up snow as she went, leaving a trail in the snow deep enough that even Shinpachi could see it well enough to follow. Heart in his mouth he set off, leaving the others to catch up, all thoughts on what they might find when they got there.

***

Gintoki had no idea how deep under the snow he’d ended up, but he felt it might be a bad sign when he heard a loud booming sound. If it was loud down here, it was probably even louder out there. And loud volcanoes were probably bad.

“Genius observation,” Kintoki told him.

“Go away.” Gintoki didn’t quite have the energy to pour as much vehemence as he would like into that, so he hoped his glare would do the trick.

Kintoki smirked, so clearly it hadn’t. “Ah. That’s an interesting philosophical conundrum. Can I go away when I’m not here in the first place?”

“Whatever.” Gintoki paused for a breath that felt like inhaling a thimble of air through a straw. “Don’t care. Leave me alone.”

“You sure you don’t want any company in your last moments?”

There were so many things Gintoki wanted to say to that, starting with how this was in no way his last moment and moving on to how even if it were, Kintoki was about as welcome to share it as a giant hemorrhoid, but all he managed to get out was, “Really not.”

“You really don’t want company? Or you really don’t think this is it for you? Because let me tell you: you are already fully delusional, so I don’t think you’ve got much of an argument left for making it out of here alive.”

Maybe that was intended to frighten him, or make him contemplate his own mortality or something. But Gintoki was having none of that crap. “They’ll come.” They would. Gintoki refused to contemplate a world where they couldn’t, so they would. Because that’s what they were to each other.

Kintoki’s mouth twisted. “All that faith in your friends.”

Gintoki’s mouth quirked in a smile. “Yeah.”

“I didn’t mean it like that! You shouldn’t—” Whatever Kintoki was going to say disintegrated into vague static as things happened very rapidly. An earth-shattering sound was followed by a ground-shifting shudder. It pressed the avalanche that much closer to Gintoki, filling the hard-won empty spaces around him with snow, squeezing his body like the fist of an Attack on Titan titan. And just like that, both the air and the golden glow went away, and Gintoki was left trapped in suffocating darkness.

If someone was coming to rescue him, he thought, now would be a really great time.

***

Kagura had the trail, she had it now — Sacchan had gotten real turned around, as usual, but once she’d tripled back and looped around and paused a second to make sure she wasn’t following her own tracks now instead (that would be funny any other day, but not now) she had it. It went uphill, disappearing in the stinky cloud, but it was so straight now it had to be from before Sacchan lost her glasses.

They were close. They were close to getting Gin-chan back, and that was all Kagura wanted right then. That, and for Kyuu-chan to be okay. But Kyuu-chan had help already, and Gin-chan had been all alone up here for the entire time they were walking and shouting and finding and being found and nobody had found him except for some useless stalker who hadn’t even gotten him out of the snow. Kagura decided to be charitable — kunai probably made terrible spades. And also without her glasses Sacchan might have stabbed Gin-chan to death while excavating him. So maybe it was a good thing that Kagura was going to be the one to get him out.

Kagura shouted at the others to hurry up, and was relieved that Shinpachi had gathered the others. Anego and that sadist and everyone else were still vaguely visible behind him in the smoke, and they were all following her. Almost there, almost there — Kagura looked hard at the ground, afraid to miss something, maybe some white hair even. But here the tracks were crisscrossing tracks again, as if Sacchan had spent some time here, and then — there! A pathetically small pile of snow, and an even smaller hollow. Was that Sacchan’s best efforts at digging? Or was that — okay, yeah, that was literally just where someone had rolled around in the snow trying to snuggle a buried body. “Gross!” Really though, Kagura was just glad not to find an anatomically correct snow-Gintoki next to that Sacchan-shaped hole as when she made it over.

“I found him!” Kagura yelled downhill, and it was as if the entire mountain had taken offense. For a moment she thought someone might have punched her and left her ears ringing, but that was actually just how loud the sound she’d felt had been — and then it was as if another punch had sent her flying, and that was definitely the mountain shaking weirdly.

It felt like being in the middle of a battle when she scrambled back to her feet and thrust a hand deep into the snow where she’d seen the Sacchan-hole before. It was gone now, because the snow had moved, but if this stupid Earth mountain wanted to fight Kagura about Gin-chan, it had another thing coming. “Give him back!” she shouted. “He’s ours, you can’t have him. Give. Him. Back!”

Shinpachi fought his way back to his feet and quickly checked that nobody had gotten buried or impaled or anything else, and then realized with mounting horror that the roaring he’d thought was in his ears wasn’t. It wasn’t his ears ringing from the painfully loud bang before, it was the volcano, roaring as it darkened the skies. The skies that were nothing but a vague memory at this point, a random concept of something existing above the mix of smoke and gas and snow but now Shinpachi was reminded that it had been a spectacularly clear day before. It also wasn’t anywhere near sundown. And yet everything went very dim, visibility decreasing as if the noise was making it hard to see, and that meant there was something — quite a lot of something — in the air right now.

“Onwards!” Katsura called, and Shinpachi tore his gaze away from the threatening skies. Now wasn’t the time to stand around fearing for his life. He licked ash and sulphur from his lips and braced himself against the noise and the volcano and ran towards Kagura, and towards Gintoki.

The first of the newborn boulders launched from the eruption hit a few breaths after they all took off uphill. It struck the very spot where Shinpachi had been standing moments before with all the force you’d expect from something with the official designation of ‘volcanic bomb’. (The volcanologists were quite proud of that term. Accurate and descriptive, but still with the dramatic flair the phenomenon deserved.) Snow flew through the air, the ground shuddered, and Shinpachi gave a scream that echoed all the way down the mountain. “What’s this now? What’s happening? Why are there rocks in the air why are the rocks flying?!”

“Rocks can’t fly,” Okita protested, panting as he scrambled on his broken leg and crutches.

As if to spite him, a cat-sized rock hurdled out of the thick clouds and landed half a step in front of him. Okita absorbed the shockwave with the ease of someone used to firing a bazooka indoors. “See. That one clearly just fell. Very fast.”

“Isn’t that what flying is? Very fast falling?” Shinpachi was arguing now because otherwise he would be screaming in terror, as there were death-rocks (not the correct term) shooting out of the volcano and flying (or falling) all over the place including places like where Shinpachi and his friends were standing, and where Kagura was frantically digging through the snow just up ahead.

“Hurry up!” Kagura shouted at them. She brandished a single black boot at them. “Look! Gin-chan is down here but I can’t reach him — come on, we need to get Gin-chan!”

They all rushed to her and fell on the task of scratching at the snow, shovelling it as hard as they could with their hands and Elizabeth and Katsura with their signs. More projectiles whined through the air and struck the slope around them, and the light dusting of ash turned into a steady fall of big, choking flakes. Okita took his katana out, but Kagura blocked him before he could stab the snow, and Gintoki with it. Sacchan took inspiration from this and used two kunai to attempt to dig, but as predicted they were terrible spades, and besides she was digging in the wrong place. Nobody bothered to stop her, or invite her to the actual Gintoki dig.

They were crowded together, shoulder to shoulder, working in grim determination. They had seen the hole where the boot had come out of the avalanche, but there hadn’t been any sign of Gintoki yet. But at this point they had to be close or else — no. There could be no else.

Kagura’s was already leaving red stains on the snow she shovelled aside, but she didn’t even flinch, just kept going. One by one they tossed their gloves aside as they found the packed avalanche was too hard to dig through with hands wrapped in soft wool, and handful by handful they worked their way through the layers and found the imprint of the boot and demolished that and then Otae froze and pointed. She’d unearthed — unsnowed? — five toes sticking straight up towards the sky. No sign of any sock, but Kagura whooped and punched into the snow next to it, revealing a bit of a black-clad leg.

“He’s there! He’s really there!” The relief Shinpachi felt at having been digging in the right location was short-lived as he stared at their little bit of upside-down Gintoki and saw no sign of life. No kick, no twitch — not even when Elizabeth gave the foot a tentative poke.

“Come on! Naptime’s over, you idiot!” Kagura shouted. Then she wrapped both hands around the ankle they’d uncovered and pulled. It looked like she was trying to pull a swollen cork from a bottle, and there were a few shouts of warning like, “Don’t, you’ll rip him in half!” that Kagura ignored in favor of giving a heroic yank.

A lot of things happened then. One was that another volcanic bomb, this one roughly the size of Elizabeth, came hurtling down at their exact location. Another was that Gintoki’s body came unstuck from the avalanche with significant force. A third was that Katsura sprang back, his katana suddenly in hand.

And as Gintoki came flying up from the ground and the rock came flying down from the sky Katsura stepped on Gintoki mid-air to take a running leap up at the incoming projectile, and cleaved the boulder just as it was about to strike. The volcanic bomb split into two halves and those halves cracked into bits and pieces disintegrating harmlessly to either side of their group, and Katsura landed lightly and sheathed his sword.

“Zura, no!” Kagura hollered, outraged, still gripping Gintoki’s ankle.

Katsura’s eyes widened in surprise. Did they not appreciate the rescue?

“Katsura-san please get off!” Shinpachi shouted. “That’s not snow — that’s a permhead, pleased don’t stand on the permhead!”

“Oh,” Katsura said, and looked down. He was indeed standing on Gintoki’s head, pressing it face-first into the snow. He got off, and Kagura and Shinpachi maneuvered Gintoki out of the snow and into a supported sitting position.

His body slumped back into their arms, and they both gasped — Gintoki’s face was smeared with blood, and he was limp and cold and for one terrible moment Kagura and Shinpachi looked at each other in despair, because this wasn’t just a hangover coma or afternoon laziness. This was bad, really bad. Otae, Okita, Katsura and Elizabeth crowded in, while Sacchan kept digging behind them.

“Gin-san. Wake up, Gin-san!” Shinpachi said, shaking the shoulder he was holding. Behind him, a rock landed with a resounding thud.

“Oi. Gin-chan. Gin-chan!” Kagura yelled at him, ash in her mouth, ash making her eyes prickle.

The volcano boomed, deep and angry, and something glowed in the gloom.

“Is Gin-san asleep?! He needs a loving embrace to wake up to, quick!” Sacchan tried to force her way to wherever she thought Gintoki might be, but Okita stuck out a crutch and stopped her in her tracks. “He doesn’t need you,” Okita said, so cold and casual that Sacchan froze. “Danna has what he needs already,” he added, because that wasn’t a corpse over there, and if the Yorozuya kids hadn’t noticed yet they soon would.

“I don’t think he’s breathing,” Katsura pointed out, and helpfully added, “Oi, Gintoki. Breathe!”

“Wait, what? My Gin-san isn’t breathing? But that means -- I have to save him with mouth to mouth!” Sacchan clapped her hands to her face. “But am I ready? It’s so sudden! No, I’m ready! Gin-san, here I come!” she sang — and dove straight at one of the pieces of volcano rock. So that was one less obstacle they had to deal with.

Fortunately Otae had already moved forward. With the practiced ease of someone whose livelihood depended on getting men very, very, very drunk without actually killing them she had simply tilted Gintoki’s head back, opened his mouth, and reached in without hesitation to scoop out a terrible glob of black ash-ice. Shinpachi and Kagura watched wide-eyed as she worked, repeating the gesture before stopping with a frown.

“Kagura-chan? Could you please tip Gin-san upside-down for a bit?”

Kagura bounced to her feet and pretty much tossed Gintoki in the air before catching him by the waist and shaking him like she was hitting him up for loose change. It wasn’t technically the standard choking rescue move, but it worked. Only instead of change, bits of ash and half-melted snow came out. It was followed by a silence in which they heard the mountain’s pulsing booming.

A huge gasp followed, as Gintoki’s chest expanded and his body jerked back. Kagura and Shinpachi let out simultaneous explosive, long-held breaths, and Otae smiled a radiant smile and blocked Sacchan’s flying leap before she could interrupt. “Well done, Kagura-chan!”

“Gin-chan!” Kagura swept Gintoki into a hug. His knees buckled, and Kagura held on to him as he alternated coughing and gasping, propping him up in an embrace so tight it threatened to choke him all over again.

Breath restored enough that he didn’t seem to be on the verge of dying anymore, Gintoki leaned into the support and chuckled weakly. “Told him you’d come.”

“Who?”

But Gintoki just shook his head, clasping Kagura’s shoulders to steady himself as he looked around, taking inventory. The movement hurt, but Gintoki wasn’t going to worry about himself when the rescue party seemed to be three people short, for all that they had a mildly unexpected stalker addition. “The others?” Gintoki asked, and his voice didn’t shake at all. He could read the good news in the faces he saw even before a chorus of voices assured him everyone was fine. (Except for the voice that lamented the fact that Hijikata was somehow still alive.)

“Here,” Kagura said, and thrust the boot she’d rescued at Gintoki. “You lost this, stupid.”

“Brat,” Gintoki said. “Thanks.” On that word, his voice rang with far more emotion than a single piece of footwear merited.

“We should be going now,” Katsura said. The glow behind the night-dark clouds had been getting stronger while all of that had been going on, and none of the others needed Katsura’s instincts to know that it was high time to beat a strategic retreat.

“Yeah, let’s,” Gintoki agreed, and Shinpachi and Kagura flanked him while he figured out standing, trying to find the knack for doing it unsupported. And then trying to figure out running, because the glow was coming real close — close enough that they could hear a hissing as vast quantities of steam were produced where lava ran across the snow.

“How fast does lava flow?” Shinpachi called out nervously, as they tried running without tripping and falling and dying horribly.

A hissing noise like a giant, hungry snake behind him answered before any of the others could.

“Rather fast, it would appear,” Katsura stated.

Hiss.

Glow.

“Oh wow, yeah, that is fast,” Kagura said, and they all managed to speed up. Okita would have been in trouble if he hadn’t gone full sadist to commandeer himself a piggy-back ride from Sacchan, who would likewise have been in trouble if not for Okita’s shouted directions.

They went on as fast as they could, the smoke and steam now enveloping them so thickly it was almost impossible to see obstacles in time to dodge. Kagura frequently elected to use her umbrella as a bat, smashing things out of their path, clearing the way for the others. Katsura likewise swung his katana at anything it would cut. They narrowly avoided another handful of lethal volcano bombs before one exploded right in front of them — one large enough that the shockwave threw them staggering back. Kagura and Shinpachi caught Gintoki, who was knocked off his feet by the impact, and Katsura steadied Otae with a perfectly chivalrous gesture.

They lost precious seconds scrambling around the smoking impact site while yelling things like “Augh!” and “Wow, that’s really big, just imagine if that had hit someone,” in between bouts of coughing and wheezing as the ash made its way down into their lungs. Despite pelting downhill at far fuller speed than was generally recommended for that particular activity, they could now all feel heat at the back of their necks. The crackling and popping of molten rock meeting frozen snow was likewise extremely close, and still they were nowhere near flat ground yet.

“Ow!” Gintoki yelped. “Ow, ow, ow something just hit me!”

“The volcano,” Kagura suggested, unmoved.

“Less talking! More running!” was Shinpachi’s advice.

“I can do both, Shinpachi!” Kagura returned.

“Ow!” Shinpachi yelped. “Something hit me too!”

“Didn’t you say less talking?” Kagura said, and then burst into a fit of coughs loud enough to rival the volcano.

“I did,” Shinpachi wheezed, managing a sliver of smugness despite the circumstances.

“Oi, you in front. Could you move faster maybe? I think my ride might be on fire,” Okita called out. Those few who spared glances back over their shoulder could confirm that, yes, the soles of Sacchan’s boots were indeed smoking — smoking enough that it was possible to make out that smoke amidst all of the other soot and steam and gas. Sacchan herself was coughing so hard she couldn’t actually comment on her situation, but her legs were moving with amazing speed, coming up right behind them with Okita peering over her shoulder.

“We can’t move faster!” Gintoki yelled back, offended. “If we could we would, but we can’t, this is as fast as any of us can run, none of us would hold back on our running since our asses will literally be on fire if we don’t, and then we will die!” He was looking straight ahead as so not to run into anything — whoops, boulder, dodge — but his legs were moving with maybe a little less speed than Sacchan’s, making him and Kagura and Shinpachi on either side an obstacle blocking Okita’s path downhill.

“You’ll probably die anyway,” Okita said, “so could you kindly scoot over so that we can be a little further away from the volcano?”

“No!” Kagura yelled back. “Are you trying to throw us to the volcano? Get it to take us instead of you?”

“I think that’s for when you’re chased by bears, not lava,” Shinpachi said.

“Everyone, didn’t we agree to shut up and run?” Otae asked.

Katsura was exchanging glances with Elizabeth — it might be faster to surf, but would it be the honorable thing to do? Escaping while leaving their friends behind? No, their glances said. No, it wouldn’t. So they would keep running side by side with their comrades (and stray government dog), supporting them through this dire situation.

Unfortunately Katsura and Elizabeth were so busy exchanging glances and deciding to be loyal to their friends that they missed a jagged rock sticking up from the avalanche like the tip of an iceberg. It snagged their feet, and they both tripped over it with impressive synchronization.

Their suddenly halted bodies knocked Otae and the three Yorozuya off their feet, and they in turn took down Sacchan and Okita. And so they went, sprawling in a giant tumble, limbs flailing, voices crying out in panic because the lava really was right there and they weren’t running anymore, weren’t even standing up properly, so how were they going to avoid certain death?

For a brief moment, it all seemed about to end horribly, in fire and ice — and then the foul gloom ahead of them was parted by a mighty wind. The pressure of it tossed hair and flapped coats, and a shaft of weak sunlight shone through the hole in the smoke and steam and illuminated a glorious vessel descending from the skies. A ramp opened like a stairway to heaven, and an elegant figure made a brief but impactful cameo as they rose to their knees and stared up at their rescuer.

Shinpachi could only catch an indistinct but refined glow of expensive silks and what was such a sharply impeccable chonmage he could see it without his glasses. It could almost have been anyone, really, anyone with a good tailor and better barber, but the shocked gasps around him were a definite hint that something was up. “Uh, is that the…?”

Gintoki shook his head. “You’re just seeing things!” he snapped. “There is no way that’s him, absolutely no way. It’s impossible, so you’re seeing things!”

“But I see him too, Gin-chan,” Kagura said.

“What?!” Gintoki’s voice slid along the word in confusion, wobbling from one kind of disbelief to another.

“Please, friends. Make haste and board!” a warm voice called from above, startling them all into motion.

Gintama stared suspiciously at the Shogun, still unsure if he was seeing what he was seeing or if he was just hoping he was seeing what he was seeing. Really, why would the Shogun come all the way out here for them? Unless of course a minor natural disaster involving his special police force warranted a quick site visit, in which case — but no, this last minute rescue seemed a bit too fantastic, and the Shogun standing there radiating calm assurance was simply a bit too unbelievable. Kagura and Shinpachi tugged at a wrist each, baffled at the resistance, but Gintoki balked. What if it was a trick, a fake, an illusion over a lava pit or something? Or worse, like somehow Kintoki had been worse.

The Shogun spread his arms, and called a warning — but didn’t take into account the way things were flying around on the mountain. Or how some of those things were on fire. And then the Shogun was on fire, and that made everyone stop in their tracks, because now it was a choice between a burning mountain and the flaming Shogun, and only one of those two could order their execution.

There was remarkably little screaming and flailing, the Shogun trying to pretend everything was under control even as his clothes turned to ash. Moments later the ship’s emergency systems had reacted to the fire on board, and washed the tattered remains of the kimono off the Shogun, who elected to keep going as if there had been no interruption.

Gintoki blinked. Right. No illusion would be that convincingly awkward and naked. He ran for safety, Kagura and Shinpachi shouting recriminations at him for slowing them down, and with fire and brimstone at their back they clawed their way up to salvation. In the struggle to get away from certain death it seemed to be each man, woman and child for themselves — though somehow nobody got left behind, no matter how nearsighted or injured.

Before they could mob the Shogun, or any other type of calamity could befall him, the terrifying force that was Matsudaira Katakuriko swept him away. The Superintendent spared a glance for Okita, noting the First Squad Captain’s continued survival with a brusque nod, but he didn’t pause to chat, and nobody tried to stop him. Katsura was painstakingly trying (and failing) to be casual, but with Matsudaira and his staff having a lightly roasted shogun to care for, there wasn’t really anyone around to order his arrest.

***

The Shogun wasn’t there to give them a ride back to Edo, for all that Gintoki tried to wheedle one out of an expressionless guard. He was cold and wanted to go home. But the Shogun had another destination in mind for them. He didn’t come to see them off, but that could be because he’d foolishly forgotten to bring a change of clothes.

Only a few minutes after they had been picked up they were unceremoniously shooed off the ship. Matsudaira stood at the top of the ramp and blew some cigarette smoke in their direction by way of farewell, as they all tromped out to join the evacuated villagers in an emergency shelter outside of the eruption zone.

Here the air was breathable and didn’t stink of sulphur, though the monstrous ash plume still blotted out much of the sky overhead. They found medics flown in from Edo swarming the place, and enough tents and blankets and rations to keep an army warm and fed — more than enough for the villagers and whatever tourists and fortune-seekers had been unfortunate enough to get swept up in the disaster.

“Kyuu-chan!” Otae said by way of explanation as she caught sight of a village nurse that had been part of the rescue expedition, and rushed over to him for news of their wounded.

“Ah, those three!” the nurse said. “Yeah, we brought them in here ready to send them off to the big city, but wouldn’t you know it — they’d already shuttled some Edo doctors up here.”

“So they’re fine now? All of them?”

A concerned look flashed across the nurse’s face before he shrugged noncommittally. “It’s not really been long enough to say.”

“But — Kyuubei, the one with the ponytail?”

“I wouldn’t know, I’m afraid.” Seeing Otae’s face drop, he hastened to add, “But our doctor, she did a good job. And that medical tent they slapped up looked better than any of our hospitals out here. Really, your friend has the best help available.”

“I see,” Otae said, then summoned her smile and good manners. “I’m very grateful for your assistance.” If the nurse resented the government keeping its resources for those with the right connections, that still put a sparkle in his eyes and a blush on his cheeks.

“Anego, I wanna go check on Kyuu-chan,” Kagura said promptly. “And maybe we should dump the broken sadist there, too,” she added, making it sound like an afterthought.

Okita’s reply was a swift smack to the top of her head. Easy enough to do from his perch on Sacchan’s back. He’d maneuvered them closer when the nurse explained how to get to where the wounded were being treated. He needed to know because — because it was his duty as the highest ranking Shinsengumi still on his feet (technically Sacchan’s feet) to keep apprised of his superior’s medical status. Superior singular rather than superiors, with any luck — though maybe he could put something fun in Hijikata’s IV. He’d always been curious if it was true what the television dramas showed about air bubbles getting in your circulatory system.

Kagura made to jump for his head in retaliation, but Otae blocked it with startling swiftness and a stern look. “Kagura-chan, not now. He’s injured.”

“But he started it!”

Otae smiled dangerously sweetly. “Do you want me to make it an even fight for you, Kagura-chan?”

Shinpachi and Gintoki both reacted to her tone by scuttling away from the general area. Katsura cocked his head like a curious student attending a particularly fascinating lecture. Kagura paused, thinking about it for a millisecond before giving her cheerful reply, “No, Anego. I think I’ll just wait until he’s better!”

“Good girl,” Otae said, and Kagura beamed.

Okita contemplated sticking his tongue out at Kagura. It was hilarious to see her so thoroughly bested. But even though Otae had her back turned to him, he was still enough of a little brother that he knew not to risk it.

And Otae was enough of a big sister to cast a quick look over her shoulder, favoring Okita with a smile that took him entirely by surprise. “Good boy.” Okita didn’t know if the woman in front of him had spoken those words, but he heard them loud and clear, and he found himself beset by a mayfly swarm of emotions.

If Sacchan noticed, she didn’t say anything. She just followed the others as they went in search of the field hospital.

Walking through camp was the first time since the volcano nearly killed them all with a mountainous shrug that they had a moment to catch their breath and get some news. Everyone wasn’t out of danger yet, but at least they were no longer one wrong step from being immolated.

What they gathered from snippets of conversations was that the village was either probably gone or maybe safe. Neither the distraught villagers nor the Shinsengumi on crowd control duty seem to know which. There were reports of damage, at least, and they heard people talking about narrow escapes and things left behind. “We have our lives, boys, and that’s what matters!” the tapdance studio matron was saying to her huddle of cowering Joui warriors when they walked past her. The little old ladies and a few old geezers gathered around the emergency tea urns expressed similar sentiments, though not everyone was so cavalier at having their homes and livelihoods destroyed. There were a lot of tears too — glinting unshed in the eyes of those with stoic dispositions, flowing freely from the more expressive.

Two wailing toddlers standing around in the snow belonged to the latter category, though a young girl was doing her best to calm them. Gintoki made a half-hearted attempt at sneaking past and making the loud scene someone else’s problem, but Otae and Kagura both beelined for the smallest children, while Shinpachi hunched down in front of the older girl. “Hi there. I’m Shinpachi, and these are my friends. What’s your name?” he asked gently, as his sister and Kagura made comforting noises at the little ones.

The girl had gone stiff as this horde of strangers descended upon her, and she eyed the crusty blood stains on Shinpachi’s gi with suspicion. “Are you dying?” she blurted out.

Shinpachi started, then realized the girl had seen Kyuubei’s blood. “No! No, I just — I was helping a friend who got hurt.”

The girl nodded at this, warming up to Shinpachi now that she knew he was a helper-type person. She sucked in a determined breath and bowed formally to Shinpachi. “Hello. I’m Sayako.”

“Are those your siblings?” Shinpachi nodded to the children who’d been swept up in loving cuddles by Otae and Kagura, startling their wails into silence. Katsura went over to make faces at them, which started them wailing again.

Sayako nodded. “Little brother and little sister.” She kept a careful eye on what the strangers were doing with her siblings, and was relieved when Gintoki hauled Katsura away and their wails trailed off.

“You seem like a very dependable sister, Sayako-chan.”

Sayako looked down, mumbled something in embarrassment at this praise.

“Do you need any help? Should we find your mom and dad for you?”

The girl’s lip trembled a bit at the mention of her parents, but she shook her head. “They’re with the grannies and granpas who need help with stuff,” she explained, glowing with pride. Shinpachi and Otae both exhaled in relief, and shared a quick smile.

“So you’re looking after your little brother and sister until they come back?” Shinpachi guessed.

Sayako nodded.

“Well, you let us know if you need any help, alright?”

“Because we’re such a reliable daycare,” Gintoki muttered, quietly enough that everyone could ignore him.

After thinking Shinpachi’s offer over for a moment, Sayako nodded again. Shinpachi ruffled her hair. Otae handed the girl the child she’d been holding, so wrapped up in winter clothes it was impossible to tell if it was the brother or the sister. “Good job, Sayako-chan,” she said, and Sayako hugged her sibling close to hide her blushing face.

Kagura reluctantly surrendered her wide-eyed, round-faced toddler to Sayako’s care, and skipped ahead of the group. “It’s good that they have their mommy and daddy,” she said, keeping her back to the rest of them so they couldn’t see her face. “Even though that stupid mountain ruined their house maybe.”

“Yeah,” Shinpachi said, and he and Otae flanked Kagura, sharing the same relief. Though they didn’t touch, their presence seemed to bolster Kagura, who straightened up and smiled at them.

“But it didn’t get us!” Kagura crowed.

“Of course it didn’t get us, why would it get us?” Gintoki agreed a bit too readily. “It was just a bit of snow, that’s all.”

“It almost got you more than it almost got any of the rest of us,” Shinpachi felt compelled to point out. “If it hadn’t been for us—”

“For me!” Sacchan corrected.

Shinpachi didn’t correct her correction, because though he hated to admit it, she was kind of right. “—you’d be a Gin-cicle now, Gin-san.”

“What’s this? The whisper of a ghost? A voice from beyond the grave?” Gintoki declared theatrically, scanning the volcano-plumed horizon above Shinpachi’s head.

“I just lost my glasses! That doesn’t kill me! I’m right here, you can see me just fine! Just because I can’t see you just fine doesn’t mean you can’t see me!”

“Gin-chan. I think it’s a glasses-ghost,” Kagura deadpanned.

“I’m not a glasses-ghost!” Shinpachi shouted, loudly enough that conversations stopped mid-word and everyone in the general vicinity turned to stare at him.

“Stop haunting everyone, Shin-chan,” Otae said firmly, and Shinpachi groaned, mortification warring with frustration. He was about to retort when he realized his sister wasn’t looking at him. Despite jumping into the banter she was staring ahead, her fists clenched.

“Ane-ue?” Shinpachi swerved around Kagura to fall in next to his sister. He didn’t need to ask what was wrong — he knew how it felt to see someone hurt because they had protected you.

Otae shook her head silently before he could offer any platitudes or baseless reassurances, so he simply remained by her side. Kagura did the same, in uncharacteristic silence.

The oversized medical tent was in fact more of a pop-up building, with curving golden eaves where the shiny white walls met a traditional-style pointed roof of the same material. There were Shinsengumi gathered outside. Not on duty, as far as they could tell, just hovering. Hovering but trying to appear casual. As their party crossed the packed snow leading to the entrance, they saw Shinsengumi engaged in what appeared to be a crappy a snow sculpture contest, an impromptu workout session, and a one-man badminton match with an audience and cheer squad.

“Captain!” Yamazaki threw his racket to the side when he spotted Okita’s unorthodox approach. “You’re back!” His eyes scanned the rest of the group, and widened as he noticed Gintoki’s presence.

“Yo,” Gintoki raised a non-ghostly hand, because it was better to be flippant about it than contemplate how bad things must have seemed for Yamazaki to make that particular face.

“But the volcano…!” Yamazaki couldn’t deny that they’d made it, somehow, but he still felt like they should have taken his warnings more seriously. After all, those scientists had been right.

Okita planted his elbows on Sacchan’s head so he could lean forward and smirk in response. “If we’d brought some meat we could have used it to grill yakiniku,” he said. “It was very sizzly.” His eyes were shining with the sort of mad amusement you’d only find in a person who utterly believed in their own ability to beat a natural disaster.

Yamazaki gulped. “Well. I—I’m glad you found Danna,” he said.

“I found him,” Sacchan interjected proudly.

“You mean you knew where he was for a bit and then you lost him,” Shinpachi snapped. “So we had to find him.”

Sacchan made an insulted noise but Kagura interrupted her. “Yeah, that’s right. I found him for reals!” Kagura glared at Sacchan, who picked up on the general vibe despite being completely unable to see Kagura’s expression.

“What was real was that I tracked him through the avalanche! Because our bond is just that strong and true love means not even a wall of snow can separ—”

A wall of snow might not be able to separate them, but a large snowball to the face could shut Sacchan up. Gintoki dusted his hands off. “The only bond I want with you is the one between your lips and some superglue,” he said, and Kagura grinned.

“Oh! Gin-san!” Sacchan exclaimed in high-pitched delight, which made Gintoki loudly assert his complete lack of interest in any of Sacchan’s games, assisted by Kagura who got into a shouting match with Okita. Shinpachi yelled at them to calm down, Katsura laughed, and the assorted Shinsengumi didn’t seem to know if they should assist their Captain or get the hell out of the general area.

“Excuse me,” a deep voice cut through the chaos. “But if you could please do us a courtesy and shut up?” The rude request delivered in such polite language made everyone freeze and stare at the newcomer. He was a large man in surgical scrubs, and he was glaring at all of them above his green face mask.

“Thank you,” he said. “Now that I have your attention, we have patients in here who need their rest, so kindly refrain from any further ruckus.”

“Patients?” Half a dozen voices exclaimed at once, making the doctor flinch back.

“Yes — and like I said, they are resting now, so please calm yourselves.”

Otae expertly elbowed her way to the front of the anxious Shinsengumi crowd. Her eyes were wild enough that Shinpachi thought she might just grab the doctor and physically shake him down for information about Kyuubei. Instead she considered the anxious crowd around her, took a deep breath, and smiled a sweet smile. “Please, doctor — I’m sure what would put everyone at ease would be if some of us could see your patients, and report back to the others.”

The doctor considered this, taking half a step back to distance himself from the throng in front of him. “Well, they shouldn’t be bothered…”

A chorus of disappointed voices were raised in protest. Otae smiled at the doctor. “I’m afraid this is quite a rowdy crowd, but they can be reasoned with.” She cleared her throat, inhaled, and spun on her heel to glare at the gathered Shinsengumi. “Everyone! Please listen to the doctor and behave.”

Her order had the effect of turning the shouts at the doctor into a confused mumble — were they supposed to take orders from their Commander’s crush now? Whether they were supposed to or not, a lot of them felt compelled to focus their attention on her, though they couldn’t have said if it was because they were charmed or terrified. Otae smiled brightly and went on. “If you don’t, I am absolutely telling Kondou-san that I was desperate to visit his sickbed but you all kept me from it.”

The Shinsengumi crowd fell dead silent.

Okita’s eyebrows rose in surprise, and he nodded with appreciation at the deftness of that maneuver.

The doctor blinked.

“As you see,” Otae said as she turned around to face the doctor. “As long as you give them a good reason, they’ll do what you want.”

“They’ll do what you want, that’s for sure,” the doctor said, not sounding entirely thrilled.

Otae acknowledged this with a nonchalant tilt of her head. “So — we can come visit?”

The doctor sighed a defeated sigh. “Sure. If it will mean some peace and quiet for the patients, I don’t see why not.” (He said “patients” but what he really meant was patience. As in his own patience. As in: “These walls are really thin and my staff and I are absolutely sick of your endless ruckus, so at this point we don't care if you go use the patients’ beds as trampolines, just please give us a break from this schoolyard cacophony. You're grown men! How are you so loud and why was the side of our tent being pelted in shuttlecocks??”)

Otae beamed.

“Let’s go see Kyuu-chan!” Kagura shouted, and tried to dart ahead, only to be caught by the scruff of her coat by Otae.

“Hush, Kagura-chan. You heard the nice doctor. We have to be quiet.”

“Let’s go see Kyuu-chan,” Kagura repeated in an exaggerated whisper, her enthusiasm undaunted.

“Let’s,” Otae agreed, releasing Kagura and leaving the others to sort themselves out. The doctor scowled when he saw just how many people detached themselves from the crowd and strolled in after Otae, reaching a hand out in a futile gesture to get at least some of them to halt. But when the bulk of the Shinsengumi remained quietly at ease rather than run around causing a ruckus, he relented. He sighed another tired sigh, and disappeared into the tent.

The tent was divided into a couple of screened-off areas presumably meant for surgery and such, and a large dormitory-style room bare of any of the privacy dividers non-tent hospitals usually provided. It featured three occupied beds, though there was clearly room for ten times as many patients. A few medics were scattered around, but at a signal from the doctor, they faded into the background.

“Kyuu-chan?” Otae paused to scan the room, then made her way to a bed surrounded by medical equipment as unerringly as if she’d received an answer. “Kyuu-chan!” Her voice wasn’t loud, but rang with intense emotion as she hurried over, followed by Kagura and the other two Yorozuya.

Otae sat carefully on the edge of the bed, peering intently at Kyuubei’s still face. Dark lashes brushed pale cheeks, and bandages covered the cuts and bruises she remembered. A monitor displayed Kyuubei’s strong and steady — if slightly fast — heartbeat. There was no sign of an oxygen mask or any more invasive equipment. All in all, Otae had definitely seen people in worse shape make it just fine. Knowing Kyuubei was anything but delicate, and sure now it couldn’t hurt, she reached out and grabbed the hand not stabbed through with an IV needle.

“Kyuu-chan,” she said, then swallowed a lump in her throat to continue. “Thank you. We all made it — you got me out safe and we all made it. And I’m here now, so you can rest.” She looked at Kyuubei and smiled unthinkingly, grateful for the truth of those words, grateful to be able to be here for Kyuu-chan.

Behind her, Kagura grinned at Shinpachi and Gintoki. “Kyuu-chan is Anego’s hero, right?”

Otae colored faintly. “That’s right,” she said, stroking Kyuubei’s hand as she thought about all the ways in which that was true.

Kyuubei didn’t say anything of course, but the heart monitor showed a sudden spike, followed by intervals growing gently longer, until the heartbeat was perfectly slow and even.

The others all had their gazes fixed on Kyuubei’s expressionless face, but Gintoki noticed what Kyuubei’s heart revealed. “Good job,” he said softly. Kyuubei would be thrilled that Otae was safe — the injuries would mean far less than her wellbeing. He was glad things had worked out for the two of them, but despite his best efforts to ignore those feelings, the reminder that Kyuubei had succeeded where Gintoki himself had failed hurt. Shinpachi was fine, but no thanks to him. And the others, who had somehow been fine, had risked what had definitely felt like near-certain death just to come back for him. Because what he’d tried to save them — to save himself — wasn’t enough. He heard the mocking echo of Kintoki’s voice. ”As usual, it wasn’t enough.“

Before he could do anything ridiculous, like spin around trying to locate where the voice was coming from, or curse it out loud, a blessed distraction erupted a few beds away.

“Sougo! That’s my face, what are you trying to do with that pillow?”

“I was just plumping it for you, Hijikata-san,” Okita said innocently.

“More like suffocating me with it in my sleep!” Hijikata had sat up in the hospital cot and was shaking the pillow in question at Okita.

“But you’re not asleep, are you?”

“I was! And then you tried to murder me! And you —. Wait. Is that Sarutobi? What is she doing here?”

“Hi! I came here to be with my Gin-san and then I saved his life and now—”

“Sougo, why are you sitting on her?”

“It’s more convenient than having her carry me.”

Hijikata, free from any monitors or tubes, brought the pillow to his face and groaned into it.

“Yeah, remember? He’s a broken sadist,” Kagura explained. She had of course been drawn to the scene, and Shinpachi and Gintoki both followed, at a safe distance from her and Okita while still being close enough to hold her back should the need arise.

“I don’t think that’s the explanation Hijikata-san was looking for, Kagura,” Shinpachi noted. “There are crutches, you know. Most people with broken legs use crutches, not masochists.”

Hijikata still hadn’t emerged from the pillow.

“You know, I could give you a hand with that,” Okita suggested, leaning over Sacchan’s shoulder in a ridiculous attempt to murder Hijikata with the hospital pillow.

Hijikata flung it at Okita in aggravated self-defense. Sacchan ducked, taking Okita with her, and the laws of physics drew the plump projectile in a parabolic arc, landing with a fluffy smack right in Kondou’s face.

Kondou had been lying so still he barely registered as a presence, but now everyone awake in the room was staring at him. Beneath the hospital blanket, his body stirred. The monitor by his bed showed an elevation in his heart rate. His hands reached up, grasped the pillow — and hugged it tight to his face. “Boobs.” The word was quite muffled, but that was what it sounded like.

Hijikata rubbed his forehead in mortified frustration. “Kondou-san. Go back to sleep. Please.”

A few seconds passed. Nobody else said anything — possibly they were all listening for any other nuggets of wisdom from the Shinsengumi Commander. Kondou ceased rubbing his face in the pillow. “Toshi?”

“Yes, Kondou-san?”

“Toshi! You’re okay!” Kondou tossed the pillow aside, but in his enthusiasm he underestimated his own strength and the hapless object went on another short flight. It would have been funny if it had smacked another Shinsengumi officer, but Okita wasn’t about to offer his face as a target when he had his blade at his side. The poor pillow exploded in a cloud of feathers. Kondou stared up at it. “Oh. It’s so pretty,” he murmured. “Look. It’s angel snow.”

Kagura and Gintoki exchanged a look and snickered.

“It’s feathers,” Katsura — who was sticking around for reasons known only to himself — explained helpfully. “Your Captain attacked a pillow.”

“Good job, Sougo,” Kondou said proudly.

“Kondou-san,” Okita responded. “Go back to sleep.” But there was a smile lurking in his eyes when he looked down at his Commander, now with feathers sticking out of his hair.

“I can’t sleep! There’s an emergency, and we have to—”

“It’s fine, Kondou-san,” Hijikata interrupted. “The emergency’s over. Everyone’s fine.”

“Everyone?”

“Yeah. Everyone.” Hijikata looked around, feeling a strange sense of relief at the truth of those words. Yagyuu Kyuubei would need a while yet to recover, and so would Kondou himself, but even the stupid Yorozuya perm had come off that mountain alive.

“Oh. Good.” Kondou’s eyes were drifting shut, then they opened wide again. “Otae-san?!”

“I’m fine too,” Otae sang out from her spot by Kyuubei’s side. “Go to sleep, Kondou-san.” It seemed like the sort of occasion where she ought not call him ‘gorilla’.

“Yes, Otae-san.” And with that, Kondou slipped back into deep and restful sleep.

“Ch’,” Hijikata said, and shook some feathers out of his hair. “I need a smoke.”

He made a move to get out of bed but Okita maneuvered Sacchan to block him. “Oh no, Hijikata-san. You can’t smoke now. You’re still recovering.”

“Get out of my way.”

“It’s for your own good.”

A scuffle ensued, which Kagura and Gintoki watched with particular amusement, while Shinpachi blinked. As long as people were speaking he could follow what was going on, but when they started shoving each other it was hard to tell anything at all from the multi-limbed blur that was all he could see. He got distracted by a nearby empty cot. Now that he wasn’t running on worry and adrenaline anymore he was left with a leaden blanket of exhaustion weighing him down, and the minor injuries he’d ignored were clamoring for attention. Taking a look around to make sure his sister was still fine — and she was, sitting by Kyuubei’s side — he noticed that two of the previously unoccupied beds were now suspiciously lumpy. He couldn’t make out any features at this distance, but there was nobody else with long black hair around, and nobody who held up signs instead of making snoring noises. And well — if Katsura-san was doing it, surely it must be okay to lie down, just for a moment.

Gintoki looked over from the Shinsengumi show to see Shinpachi collapse into a cot. Within moments his body had gone slack, and his face relaxed from its myoptic frown. He hadn’t even bothered pulling the covers up, despite the fact that the air in the tent held a bite from the Hokkaido chill outside. Good thing he had Gin-san, then. Gintoki went over and spread the blanket over Shinpachi, and then he sat on the bedside and absently plucked a few bits of down from the tousled hair.

A couple of feathers had gotten stuck in the dirty bandage around Shinpachi’s head, and Gintoki winced as his fingers brushed the fabric. A head wound could easily have been more serious. And that bandage must have been white at some point, but since Shinpachi — like the rest of those idiots — had headed back up the volcano rather than evacuate to safety, it was an unappealing gray smudged with darker streaks.

“Gin-chan, you look like a stupid fluffy chicken.” Kagura followed her statement by coaxing a feather out of his hair.

Gintoki spun around to say something scathing in return, but his eyes caught on the fingers jabbing the freed feather at him. Kagura’s nails were cracked and caked with blood. He snatched her hand out of the air and she clenched the feather tight, but he’d gotten a good look at her fingertips. Now that he thought about it — Shinpachi had fallen into bed still wearing his gloves, and Otae had done a better job of cleaning up, but what he’d taken as injuries she’d suffered in the avalanche matched the damage to Kagura’s hands. From where they had been digging into hard-packed ice and snow, recklessly careless with their own lives and bodies.

“Gin-chan?” Kagura said carefully. “Gin-chan, are you okay? Did you hit your head? Do you need to lie down?” She was peering worriedly at him, and released the feather to lay her hand against his forehead to check his temperature.

Gintoki exhaled slowly. “No, I’m good,” he said. After all, he’d told Kintoki the others would come, so he could hardly begrudge them the risks they’d taken to do so. Thinking about it for a second, he added. “Though a nap might not be so bad.” He had been aching from his bones out through his lungs and muscles ever since he recovered enough to feel his body at all, and his skull was still pounding. Closing his eyes for a bit sounded tempting, and now seemed like a good a time as any.

“Yeah. Go to bed, Gin-chan. I’ll finish plucking you in your sleep.”

Gintoki opened his eyes to waggled a finger at Kagura. “The feathers. Pluck the feathers. You don’t want your Gin-san to go bald, now do you.”

Kagura snickered at the mental image, and then patted him thoughtfully on his curls with her scratched-up hand. “Nah,” she said. “I already have a bald dad.”

At that, Gintoki’s chest expanded in a strange, airless way that radiated through him in a wave of absence of pain. “Yeah,” he said when he could breathe again. “You sure do.” He returned Kagura’s gesture, ruffling her hair with teasing affection, and she shoved him over onto a cot next to the one Shinpachi was occupying.

With enormous effort, Gintoki bent and pulled his boots off, and when he groaned as he straightened Kagura was there with a blanket, sweeping him into it like a mother hen gathering her chicks under her wing. He chuckled softly, and let her tuck him into the sweet embrace of a horizontal surface.

He couldn’t breathe. That’s what it felt like, and it propelled him from sleep to shaky disorientation, disjointed images of darkness and golden light and bloody hands all swallowed up by angry red flames whirling before him. Gintoki flung his arm over his eyes, rubbing at them to see little red sparks instead, and concentrated on the feeling of air flowing into his lungs.

He could breathe. True, pain followed every breath in that familiar, broken-rib kind of way, but he wasn’t stuck and he wasn’t buried and he could breathe. He was just — he tilted his head to look. Yeah, he just had Kagura’s sleeping form draped across his chest. She must have passed out on him at some point. Maybe not long after he went to sleep himself, because looking around he could tell there was still daylight on the other side of the tent’s thin roof.

The medical tent was quiet save for gentle snores and the quiet beeping of medical equipment. It should have been easy to go back to sleep, since he had nothing to fear from the darkness behind his own eyelids, but Kagura’s elbow or something dug uncomfortably into his broken ribs. He tried to shift her into a more comfortable position, but she jerked upright. “Watch out! It— huh?” Kagura blinked, staring blearily around the room and wiping a bit of drool from the corner of her mouth.

In the bed next to them, Shinpachi reacted to her sleepy warning, sitting bolt upright in a panic Gintoki very much sympathised with. “What? What’s happening? Where’s the… what?” He blinked like a worried owl, squinting as he tried to scan the tent for danger.

“Nothing’s happening. Go back to sleep, you two.” Gintoki didn’t bother asking either of them if they’d had bad dreams. Of course they had.

“But Gin-chan, I’m hungry.” Kagura’s stomach rumbled.

Shinpachi started to scold her, but before he could claim that they needed rest more than food the realization hit that he, too, was hungry. They hadn’t eaten since they’d stolen everyone’s breakfasts back at the village, and that was a lot of chapters ago. Beside them, Katsura and Elizabeth rose like zombies from the grave, swivelling around to see if any food was to be had.

Gintoki wasn’t hungry, but only because his organs still felt compressed, and the thought of putting food in his belly made it clench unhappily. “Fine. Go look for food, go — ow, just get your elbow off of me!”

“My elbow isn’t on you, Gin-chan,” Kagura said, rolling over so she was flopped on his belly with her arms in the air. The sharp point dug even further into Gintoki’s rib cage and he groaned and shoved at her. Of course, Kagura could be an immobile object when she put her Yato mind to it, so the result was just a bunch of aching muscles protesting. “Well, whatever it is, get it off!”

“Gin-chan, what are you doing?” Kagura asked testily. “I don’t have got any— ooooooh.” Her eyes grew distant as she reviewed the last few moments before the avalanche hit.

“Ooooooh what?” Gintoki wheezed, because Kagura wasn’t large but she was solid.

“Remember the trash?” she asked.

“The bounty?” Shinpachi asked with some confusion. “Sure, but that’s probably all buried now — if the avalanche didn’t get it, the volcano would have.” He sighed. “All this way for nothing.”

“Well,” Kagura said cautiously, because she had learned something of a lesson after all that trash that was just trash. “Maybe not?” She opened her jacket and pulled out a thick brown envelope, bulging with what looked like far more than a porn magazine.

Shinpachi frowned as he tilted his head, trying to make sense of the vague shapes that were all he could see. “Did you keep one of the magazines? I thought we told you—”

Gintoki’s voice was a bit strained. “It’s not a magazine.”

“What?” Shinpachi rose, intrigued enough to come join them so he could see what was going on.

“Gin-chan is right. It feels a lot heavier than all that foreign porn,” Kagura agreed.

They all stared at the envelope, and then Kagura ripped in to it with the abandon of a toddler on her birthday. Bits and pieces went flying, and it was a good thing that whatever was in there wasn’t a million yen in cash or something, because it would have been turned to confetti. A breathless hush enveloped the three of them as they waited for the finely shredded paper to clear out of the air and they gaped with greedy anticipation as it revealed a glint of gold — Gintoki shuddered reflexively before he reminded himself that gold was good, gold was excellent — and they could see that Kagura held what looked like a priceless sort of statuette in her hands.

“Oscar?! Is it an Oscar?” Shinpachi exclaimed, before he could remember there should probably be an ® there somewhere or they might have to worry about the Academy’s lawyers.

Another moment passed as eager hands brushed more shredded paper off of it, and finally it was revealed to them in all its glory: not an Oscar® at all but a masterfully realistic rendition of Prince Hata of the planet Oukoku.

A nude statuette.

Of Prince Hata.

Masterfully realistic.

Gintoki and Shinpachi pulled their hands back as if they had just touched a radioactive burning scorpion, and Kagura gave a yell loud enough to wake anyone sleeping not just in the tent, but in the entire evacuation village. Acting on instinct, she wound her arm back and flung the horrifying treasure as far away as she possibly could.

Given that she was a Yato, that was quite far. It left a round hole in the tent’s ceiling, and sailed off with a twinkle.

“Shit!” Gintoki was the first to recover. “That’s — that’s a million yen, get it!”

He pulled his boots back on in record speed and pelted out of the tent, Shinpachi and Kagura on either side, and Katsura and Elizabeth following close behind. He didn’t know where the Shinsengumi were, and at this point he didn’t care. That statuette, they needed that statuette, they needed it back if he so had to put his own eyes out to be able to handle it.

“Are you sure we want it?” Kagura asked dubiously as they followed the trajectory of one small, golden, anatomically correct Prince Hata flexing for a sculptor.

“It’s a million yen!” Gintoki shouted at her, and she considered this.

“Okay, but I’m not touching it. It’s definitely the grossest thing I’ve seen today.” And she’d definitely seen some gross things that day.

“I can see why that pilot panicked now,” Shinpachi agreed. “But it’s a million yen!” They ran on, sure that they couldn’t be far away from where it had landed, sure that the million yen was waiting for them around the next corner in the tent-lined evacuation area —
Up ahead, something moved — there had been people around but no one in black uniforms, and the glimpse of one now was enough to make them redouble their efforts to get to their bounty, the reward they so richly deserved for all of their aches and pains. They rounded another tent and froze, Katsura and Elizabeth behind the tent, the Yorozuya in front of it.

They’d found the statuette, alright. And they’d also found the Shinsengumi, in the form of Hijikata with a lit cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth and Okita still riding around on Sacchan. But that wasn’t all. The gleaming curves of their million yen prize weren’t embraced by the cold white snow. No. The statuette was currently cradled in two innocent, mittened hands.

“Sayako-chan?!” Kagura exclaimed, and Shinpachi blinked. “Eeeh?!”

Indeed. It was the little girl from earlier, now with the two toddlers holding on to her jacket as she raised the golden likeness of Prince Hata to Hijikata. “Police-san?”

There was a glint in Hijikata’s eye as he noticed the arrival and stunned halt of the Yorozuya. “Yes, little miss?”

“I found this…” Sayako said tentatively.

Okita had Sacchan sidle over so he could smirk at Kagura, who was staring in disbelief at what was happening.

“You found it?” Hijikata said. “Is that so.” He made sure he caught Gintoki’s eye.

“Oh no,” Gintoki said softly.

“Mm-hmm,” Sayako nodded decisively. “I saw it come through the air and it landed in the snow right over there.” She pointed. Everyone looked over and saw a small, Hata-shaped crater.

“Shit,” Gintoki said, even more softly, but with great feeling.

“I see,” Hijikata said, and now there was no mistaking his smirk.

“What’s happening, Gin-chan?” Kagura wondered in a small voice.

Okita chuckled.

Sayako was still proferring her find to the Shinsengumi. “Yes. And, well. My mommy always says that if you find something that isn’t yours, you should give it to the police.”

Hijikata reached out and ruffled her hair. “Well done, little miss. That’s absolutely right.”

Sayako beamed. “Here you go!” She raised the statue up to him.

Hijikata swallowed, but he couldn’t very well refuse the child. Still, a shudder ran through him as he took possession of everything Prince Hata had to offer. He covered as much of it as he could with his hands, but that meant he could still feel its shape. Ew. But he did have a perfect distraction from that unfortunate awareness. Looking at Gintoki again, he leaned over so he was at eye level with the girl. “Thank you,” he said. “Did you know that this is a very special find you’ve made?”

“It is?” Sayako looked puzzled.

“Yes,” Hijikata said. “It’s very valuable.” Or at least it would cause an interstellar incident if their generous gift wasn’t on display the next time an Oukoku delegation came for a diplomatic visit. “And the Shogun had promised a really, really, really big reward to whoever found it.”

Gintoki whimpered. Kagura’s fists clenched. “But I was the one to find it,” she muttered.

“A reward?” Sayako asked, wide-eyed.

“Uh-huh,” Hijikata said. “A million yen. All yours.”

Gintoki closed his eyes and wondered if the ground could maybe do him a favor and swallow him again. Kagura fumed, but Okita had drawn her ire by cackling, so at least she was cursing him and not the little girl. Shinpachi had taken over Gintoki’s whimpering.

Sayako’s eyes went even wider. “Mine? For me? But — I don’t want a million yen.”

For a moment, the three Yorozuya turned on her with hopeful laser focus.

“Oh?” Hijikata wondered.

“No, it’s the village that needs it, not me!” she protested. “I saw — I saw Mayano-chan’s house, when we had to run, and I think it was broken? And the post office too.”

“Hear that, China girl?” Okita asked breezily. “The sweet little child wants the money for her village. Are you really going to fight her over it?”

Kagura shot Okita a glare. “No, of course not!” She crossed her arms tightly over her chest. “Sayako-chan— Sayako-chan should have it.” Her voice hitched slightly. “But I did find it though.”

Gintoki put a heavy hand on her head. “You sure did,” he agreed.

Meanwhile Hijikata had explained that they could arrange for the money to go to the village, and Sayako was looking at him with tears of joy in her eyes. “Really?”

“Yeah,” he said, and this time his smile wasn’t aimed at anyone but the girl in front of him. “Really. Well done.”

Sayako said, “Oh,” and then wordlessly flung her arms around a startled Hijikata’s legs, trailing her two little siblings. Surrounded by children, still clutching the statuette, and definitely not fully recovered yet, Hijikata looked a bit harried and unsteady, but despite that he was still smiling.

Gintoki heaved his shoulders in an enormous sigh. “Well,” he said. “I guess that’s that.”

Shinpachi nodded. “But at least we didn’t lose anything in the eruption. Not like Sayako-chan’s village.”

“Yeah,” Kagura agreed. “We found everything we lost.”

“Except for the million yen,” Okita added helpfully, while Sacchan interjected, “I found—”

“Don’t you have a terrorist to arrest or something?” Gintoki suggested irritably.

“Gintoki!” Katsura scolded from where he and Elizabeth had been peeking out from behind a tent. His eyes were red-rimmed, and he was clutching a packet of cheap complimentary tissues from a karaoke box. Clearly Sayako’s communal spirit had moved his samurai heart.

“Hey there. You’re under arrest,” Okita drawled.

“Elizabeth,” Katsura said. “Run!” And they did, pelting straight out of the evacuation zone and into the white wilderness beyond.

At Okita’s gesture one of his men tossed him a bazooka. He leaned it on Sacchan’s shoulder and said, “Halt,” without much conviction. Then he gave it half a second before he pulled the trigger.

There was an explosion of snow, but Katsura in his lime ski suit had pulled ahead and all it did was propel him and Elizabeth forward even faster. “Go!” Okita yelled at Sacchan. And so the hunt was on.

The Yorozuya exchanged glances, and promptly turned their backs on what was clearly none of their business. “I wonder if we can find that friend of Otose’s who sent her that nice crab,” Gintoki mused. “If it doesn’t have time to spoil it’s delicious.”

Shinpachi and Kagura simultaneously clutched at their stomachs and groaned about being hungry, so they went to the emergency mess tent before returning to the medical tent, where Otae begged them all a ride back to Edo with the Yagyuu come to transport Kyuubei home.

***

The return journey was blessedly uneventful, and as they landed in Edo they shed their Hokkaido layers and basked in the warm autumn sun. Sadaharu gave them a violently joyful greeting, and Otose accepted the crate of crab legs her friend had surprisingly shown up with before they took off. “So the trip wasn’t entirely wasted, then,” she said with a nod.

Gintoki, still feeling properly tenderized, grunted in response and hauled himself up the stairs. Kagura shoved past him, and when he muttered darkly at her she just grinned. When he finally limped inside with Shinpachi in tow, they were greeted by the unexpected sight of the kotatsu already plugged in and spread with the cozy blanket. Citrus season hadn’t started yet, so Kagura had set a bowl of sukonbu on the table. She’d even arranged it so that they could watch the television.

“There!” she said proudly.

“Kagura-chan, that’s for winter,” Shinpachi said, a bit confused. He could finally see again, thanks to the spare glasses that Otae had somehow arranged for him as they landed in Edo, so he was very sure of what was going on, and why it wasn’t right.

“We just had winter!” Kagura explained “And it was really nasty and snowy and cold! So we deserve some of nice winter.”

“But it’s not even—” Shinpachi began, only for Gintoki to cut him off. “Good. I’m still cold.” And with that he slipped in under the table and gave a satisfied sigh.

“Come on, Shinpachi!” Kagura gestured impatiently at him.

“Well, I suppose... “ Shinpachi sat, and the moment the growing heat of the kotatsu enfolded him he completely forgot why he’d had any qualms about this.

Kagura joined them, and Sadaharu knocked the table around as he fit his hindquarters under it. “See?” Kagura said. “Isn’t it good?” She grabbed the remote and switched on the TV.

On the little screen, the camera panned across a white expanse of snow. “And despite the avalanche and volcano eruption, the special bounty garbage was indeed found and removed, thanks to one very brave little girl. Sayako-chan!”

The three exchanged looks. So the TV was back to giving them plot content. But at least it was good stuff — the snow-cam cut to a reporter clearly completely charmed by Sayako, who stood with her parents, each holding one of her little siblings. After what she’d already been through the interviewer didn’t scare her, and Sayako carefully recounted how she’d told the police she didn’t need the money, but her village did.

The voice-over cut in and explained that the government was investing relief funds to rebuild anything damaged by the natural disaster, but that Sayako-chan’s million would go to local community development and activities. And then Sayako and her family on screen turned to wave at the camera, and Kagura waved back with such enthusiasm that Gintoki and Shinpachi both raised their hands in greeting.

“So it’s a happy ending for some, at least,” Gintoki mused.

“I’m glad the government’s actually helping,” Shinpachi said. “And that all that money is going to the villagers.”

“It could have gone to Gin-san,” Gintoki complained. “It really could have.” He was quiet for a moment, feeling the weight of the others’ gaze on him. “But maybe…” He sighed. “Yeah, fine. That brat did good, you got me.”

Shinpachi and Kagura smiled.

“But not as good as my brats.” And with that, Gintoki reached across the kotatsu to ruffle both their heads, and their laughing protests could be heard all the way down to Otose.