Chapter Text
"Have you had enough yet, Shiroyasha?" A man screams in his ear. Before Gintoki can tell him about the giant booger hanging from his nose, they shove his head into the bucket. It's filled with water and ice and frankly not the greatest experience on multiple levels. The first, because getting your head shoved into a bucket is, by principle, never a good time. The second, because the wardens hold him down until his lungs give out and the black water comes rushing in.
When they yank him out, he’s either throwing up water or already passed out. Gintoki usually prefers the latter, but these assholes in prison are always so damn unaccommodating. Then it’s rinse, wash, and repeat--pun totally intended. Until recently, people were going around calling him the White Demon, Scourge of the Battlefield, but not even all his fancy titles can do much against five men, iron chains, and weeks of starvation.
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Back when they captured him on the battlefield using the good ol' We Have Your Friends Hostage, Surrender or Watch Them Die maneuver, they tied his hands together and told him they were bringing him in for more "questioning." Three months later, and no one's really gotten around to the "questioning" part, but Gintoki figures that’s bureaucracy for you. Also, if he was going to be honest with himself, everything’s been kind of a blur since that whole fiasco on the cliffs—you know, the one where he swung his blade and sent his teacher’s head flying like a punted soccer ball while his friends on the sidelines exploded like his cheer squad. Albeit, instead of “go,” they were all screaming “stop.” Details.
And maybe he had made the whole “questioning” bit up, who knows? He’s probably lost a few screws here and there since that day.
These days, at the end of tHe ToRtUrE, he very rarely ever gets back to his cell on his own two legs. Usually, they have to drag him back, and usually, he lays where ever he's tossed on the flagstone floor (the disrespect!), partially for the fragrant eau de toilette of urine and spilled prison soup, but mostly so that he can wait until he listlessly slides into sleep's abyss. If he’s lucky, he won’t have any dreams.
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When his executioner appears in front of his cell in the dead of night, a crooked grin cuts across Gintoki's face. They weren't supposed to lop his head off until tomorrow morning; it seems his appointment with Death's been moved up on the schedule.
He's punch-drunk from hunger and exhaustion, and it must be bad because he's talking to his dead teacher. He says, Hey, hey, what's this? I guess the Shiroyasha's getting some VIP treatment, tonight. Aren't I the lucky guy, Sensei? He’s sitting against the wall of his cell, his arms limp on the ground beside him, mottled with bruises that are turning some pretty fascinating shades—he didn’t even know they could turn purple like that!
The end is nigh, and Gintoki’s actually a little relieved: he still hasn't been able to tell his interrogator about the lump of booger in his nose, and that was the worst of the torture these past few months.
His executioner, a strict-looking man who looks like the type that would starch his underwear, takes a seat on the cement floor, leaning back against the prison bars. The man doesn't say a word, and Gintoki frankly can’t bring himself to give a damn.
After some intervening silence, during part of which Gintoki wonders if he’s just sneakily trying to pick out a wedgie, the executioner says some mumbo jumbo about demons killing other demons. It sounds wise and poignant, so Gintoki automatically tunes him out (force of habit). Then, keys jingle, a latch clangs, and slowly, the bars to the cell groan open.
Oh. Well, that's a twist. Gintoki decides this is how L must've felt when he found out who Kira was.
Long after his executioner leaves, Gintoki remains with his back against the cold walls of his cell, staring out into freedom. Congratulations Sakata Gintoki, you did it, he thinks, trying to muster up the right amount of enthusiasm for the occasion, but his fingers just scrape against the bottom of his heart and come up empty.
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The world outside is canvassed in snow, and Gintoki leaves one kind of prison to enter another locked in winter. White flakes float down from the flat, gray skies and he guesses it must be around January, though it's hard to tell since the days have started running into each other--prison benders had that effect.
He's dressed in his finest prisoner's regalia, but the thin linen is just one big joke against the cold, so he folds his arms over his chest and does the only thing he can ever seem to do right: he walks forward.
At first, it’s easy, and then it becomes hard. The cold cuts like a thousand razorblades, and Gin-san's thinking starts getting a little funny. Okay, maybe his thinking has always been a little funny, but look, what more do you expect from a guy whose earliest memory is of patting down a headless corpse, searching for a bite to eat? Fine, fine, his thinking gets funnier than usual, happy? As he trudges through the snow, the little funny thinking he imagines is the soles of his feet sticking to ground the way your tongue does when you lick a metal pole in the middle of December, and when he rips his foot away with the next step, it'll leave a sheet of skin pasted to the ice behind him. He'd leave blood in his wake like a trail of red blooming in the snow. He'd keep walking until all the flesh on the pads of his feet have been ripped away to the bone. He's trying to decide whether the pain would be horrific or if he'd be so numb he'd just go on without noticing.
He wonders if the blood loss would be bad enough to make his heart give out, make that red organ finally throw its hands up in exasperation and cry out, "Fuck it! This is it, I'm done—fucking done! DONE-ZO! " Lately it’s been through quite the crucible, you know, between beheading his teacher with his own hands and losing an entire fucking war for humankind—no one would blame the poor guy for throwing in the towel, right?
His heart, he means. He's talking about his heart.
But the bottom of Gintoki's feet stay attached, his heart keeps beating (the persistent little turd), and eventually all his bits go so numb he can't even pretend he's going to die an excruciating death. More likely, he'll end up passing out in some alley and slip quietly in the great beyond and no one would be the wiser, at least, not until spring comes and melts the layer of snow off of his corpse. It's not going to be the flashiest way to go, especially for a guy who's life had played out against the grand sweeping backdrop of an intergalactic war. Compared to all the blood and glory of battle—against motherfucking aliens, no less—dying of hypothermia behind some trashcans would be a little embarrassing. Then again, his whole life has been one great big embarrassment, so he might as well take it to the grave, ha ha.
Melodrama just cramped his style, anyways.
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Somehow, Gintoki ends up wandering into the graveyards. His teacher had found him walking among the dead and now he's returned. It's not entirely clear how he got here, and in his half-delirious state his guess is good as anyone else's; maybe it's kind of like "ashes to ashes" or the whole "Equivalent Exchange" thing (wait, that's not trademarked, right?).
He spies a particularly large headstone sticking out over the city of tombs like an unsightly skyscraper. Man, that guy must've been one cocky son-of-a-bitch, Gintoki thinks and decides it's perfect for him, too. He had battled motherfucking aliens, after all, and there was no way he'd die an embarrassing death behind some trashcans. He was the Shiroyasha, damn it, crank that melodrama up to fucking eleven!
"Hope you don't mind sharing some of this real estate, buddy," Gintoki says and takes a seat in the snow behind the eyesore of tomb. He leans back against the stone, unable to feel the ice-cold surface against the frozen skin of his back. He lays his hands in his lap and he notices that his pinky-toe might be turning black, but that's okay since he's sure he can do without it in the afterlife.
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