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The first time Zura appeared on her roof, Ikumatsu had hit him with a laundry basket. She would have done the same thing now if he wasn’t covered in blood.
“You look like hell,” she said. “Come inside.”
“No, I think I’ll stay out here,” Zura said. “It’s raining very hard.”
“I don’t see any rain.” Ikumatsu took his hands, and one of them was hastily bandaged with a bloody strip of cloth. “Hurry up before the Shinsengumi see you.”
Though she supposed he wasn’t much of an enemy to them anymore.
“How did it go?” she said when they were inside the house. “Earth is still here, so it seems you were successful.”
“Yes,” Zura said as he watched her wrap new bandages around his hand. “The battle wasn’t without its losses, but it ultimately turned out in our favor.”
“How’s your immortal friend?” Ikumatsu said.
For a moment, Zura didn’t answer, a great emptiness coming over his eyes. Then he blinked and said, “Utsuro is gone. For good this time. I’m sure of it.”
Silence fell between them, and Ikumatsu could feel the sadness hanging in the air and weighing him down. Something had happened in that terminal, and she had an idea of what it might have been, but she didn’t pry. He’d talk if he wanted to, and she had things to do anyway.
His hand was okay now, but he had several cuts on his face and his shoulder didn’t look right. He could still move his arm, but it clearly hurt and he kept clutching at it.
“Can I see?” Ikumatsu said. “If you’re okay with that.”
“Yeah.” Zura opened his shirt and let it fall off his shoulders, and he flinched when he had to move his arm. “I think it’s broken.”
An awkward bend deformed his upper arm, and the skin was taken up by an enormous bruise. “I think so too,” Ikumatsu said. “Let’s make a sling for it.”
“Out of what?”
“Your soul.” She grabbed a scarf from the laundry pile. “This should work.”
Zura squinted at the scarf. “Thanks, I love being healed by dirty laundry.”
“It’s clean, actually,” Ikumatsu said. “I don’t fold my clothes.”
“Why not?”
“Too much work and it gives annoying visitors like you something to trip on,” Ikumatsu said. “Now hold still. This might hurt.”
“Pain is nothing to a samurai,” Zura said.
Of course, he squealed, and when his arm was set, Ikumatsu patted his shoulder. Zura inhaled sharply, and she realized it was the same shoulder.
“Sorry,” she said.
“It’s fine,” Zura said in an unusually high-pitched voice. “Why don’t you stab me while you’re at it?”
“Sometimes I’d like to,” Ikumatsu said, “but it looks like you’ve had enough of that for today.”
She handed him a washcloth. “Wipe off your face.”
Zura hesitantly accepted it, but he only stared at it in his hand. “You won’t do it for me?”
“The brave samurai can’t do it himself?”
“I can,” Zura said, “but…”
“But what?” Ikumatsu didn’t wait for a reply and took the washcloth back. “Fine. I’ll just do everything for you.”
As she wiped away the dried blood on his face, she found herself wiping away his tears too.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I don’t mean to be clingy or annoying or…”
“You’re not,” Ikumatsu said.
“It’s just…” Zura took a deep breath, and he was having trouble getting words out now. “You’re the last person who’s so soft with me. The other person…”
He closed his eyes tightly. “The other person is gone now.”
Ikumatsu gently stuck a bandage on one of the cuts. “Do you want to talk about him?”
Though she’d never met him, she knew exactly who it was.
“Yes.” Zura rubbed his eyes. “He was...such a wonderful person…”
Ikumatsu bandaged the rest of the cuts and wrapped some ice in a towel, which she then pressed against the violent bruise on his stomach. “He had to be. Maybe he thought he couldn’t protect anything, but he protected everything, and he’s the reason you’re still here.”
“I know…” Zura trailed off before continuing. “He’s the reason I had a life at all. When my mother died, I lost everything, and when everyone else followed, I only lost more, including myself and my way in life. I lived alone for so long, if you could even call it living, and then I met Shoyo and everything changed. Everything was so beautiful then because Shoyo gave me a new family. Shoyo...was my new family. He would read with me. He would wipe away my tears. He would hold me even when I didn’t need it. It was like having Mom back, and I wasn’t lost anymore. I was whole again.
“Then they took him away, and I fought a war to get him back. And I didn’t win that war, and he died right in front of me. I can still see it. I can still see everything. I lost it after that...I lost everything again...and I’m still trying to get my humanity back. Losing Shoyo killed the human in me...
“Then Utsuro appeared and everything felt wrong. Then Shoyo came back and everything felt right. I was human again, and I thought we were going home. And then he was gone again and I didn’t even get to say goodbye.
“He told me to get everyone out. He told me I was his brightest prodigy. But he never said goodbye, and he never said I love you, and I never said it either because I thought he was coming back. He had to come back. It couldn’t end like this. I couldn’t be lost again. But I’m lost now...and I can feel my humanity slipping through my fingers again…”
Ikumatsu didn’t say anything. All she did was put her arms around him and hold him close.
“Gintoki and I,” Zura said through his tears as he leaned into her, “are the only ones left. The family we had is gone, and I can never get it back. All I wanted was to be with Shoyo again. All I wanted...was for everything to be okay again. I wanted to go back to Shoka Sonjuku. I wanted to read under the trees again. I wanted to see him smile again, and I wanted to smile again, and I wanted there to never be a reason to say goodbye. I didn’t need it to last forever. I just needed...one moment...one moment to make me remember the human I was, one moment to be whole again, one moment to have a family again...and I never got it. I barely even...heard his voice…”
Ikumatsu wanted to comfort him, but she didn’t know what to say. There was nothing to say. The right words didn’t exist. All she could do was hold him and maybe rub his back, if that even helped. She hated being this helpless, this out of control, this unable to do anything…
And that must be how you feel too.
You were helpless when Shoyo was taken.
His execution was out of your control.
And the final time he died, you couldn’t do anything to save him.
“Zura,” Ikumatsu said softly, “I’m sorry.”
What good did that do? How did that help? How did that fix anything?
It didn’t.
Nothing could.
“Don’t be,” Zura said. “There’s nothing you can do, and there’s nothing I can do either. But…”
He returned her hug, and even though it was only with one arm, it was very warm. “...I don’t think I’m alone this time.”
“You’re not,” Ikumatsu said. “You’re sure as hell not.”
She stroked his back with a gentle hand, careful around the bruises. “You once said you would share my suffering as a friend. Let me share yours as family.”
“What kind of family?” Zura said.
Ikumatsu gathered his annoying long hair together and put it over his shoulder. “The kind that never leaves.”
“I’ve never had that kind of family.”
“There’s a first time for everything,” Ikumatsu said. “And if you think this world is going to take me easily, you have a lot to learn.”
Her eyes fell on the sword in the corner of the room, a weapon seldom drawn. She’d bought it when she was thirteen and kept it all these years, and she only used it when she had no choice. Today it was out in case the fight at the terminal expanded to the rest of the city. That was hardly a concern now, but just hours ago, it was a very real threat, and she had to be ready.
And with family to protect, I won’t be putting that sword away ever again.
“I can’t replace Shoyo,” Ikumatsu said, “and I can’t replace Takasugi either. I can’t replace anyone. The family you have with me is a new family, a tree growing beside the ashes of those fallen trees. This family will honor those ashes with every step we take towards our future.”
“Our future?” Zura said. “How can you see a future? What’s left to make that future?”
“You still have Gintoki,” Ikumatsu said, “and you still have Elizabeth, and you still have me. And most important of all, you still have yourself, however lost you may be. That’s more than enough to make a beautiful future, and it doesn’t matter if you have tears in your eyes…”
She brushed away more of his tears, letting them fall from her fingers and onto the floor. “I’ll be here to wipe them away.”
She put both arms around him again. “But don’t worry about the future right now. You should get some rest.”
“I don’t think I can sleep tonight,” Zura said.
“Then come eat ramen with me,” Ikumatsu said.
“How is ramen going to help?”
“I don’t know,” Ikumatsu said. “How is sitting here going to help?”
She lifted him to his feet and took his hand, and she found herself reaching for the sword too. “Come on.”
They went downstairs together, and she flicked on the lights and stuck her sword through her belt. Zura sat at the counter, and Ikumatsu made the ramen with her sword at her waist, a heavy presence against her body. Physically, it didn’t weigh much, but the blood on it, past and future, weighed more than the world. That was all right.
I want us to have a beautiful future, but I don’t know what that future holds. She set the ramen on the counter and slid it towards Zura. If I’m going to keep living for you, I need to make sure I never die, so the sword stays with me.
Just like I stay with you.
Carrying her own ramen, she went over to the door and opened it, and Zura looked over at her in confusion.
“Where are you going?” he said.
“The roof,” Ikumatsu said. “You’re coming with me. Bring your ramen.”
“Why?”
“We’re going to look at the stars,” Ikumatsu said. “They’re beautiful tonight.”
When they got to the roof, they sat down and looked up at the sky, and neither of them said a word. They didn’t need to. They were busy eating ramen.
The sky was endless and so were the stars, sparkling eternally into blackness, and thin clouds floated by, caressing the moon before going on their way. It was a bright moon, taking the place of a brilliant sun, and it almost set the sky on fire, so close to igniting the heavens with its silver glow. The stars too were bright, gleaming like shattered diamonds on a canvas of fiery shadow, and Ikumatsu had never seen a night sky like this. It was otherworldly, built by the hands of a god.
There was a new soul up there, a spirit that was free at last.
Shoyo...I never met you, but I know you’re as wonderful as he says. And I just want you to know...
I’ll protect him in your stead.
You don’t have to worry about anything anymore. Rest peacefully.
He has a family again.
“Hey,” someone said as their footsteps came across the roof, “are you having ramen without us?”
Someone held up a sign board. That’s not very nice of you.
Ikumatsu smiled without looking over. “The shop’s closed for tonight. You’ll have to make your own.”
“Damn…” Gintoki sat beside her. “And here I was thinking you’d make an exception for us.”
Me too, Elizabeth said as he sat next to Zura.
“Well…” Ikumatsu held out her ramen. “We can share.”
“No thanks,” Gintoki said. “I don’t want your germs. Zura might.”
“What are you insinuating?” Ikumatsu said.
“Zura likes germs,” Gintoki said.
“No, I don’t,” Zura said. “Which is why I don’t like you. Go away, you disease.”
“I’m not a disease!” Gintoki said in an exaggerated imitation of Zura’s voice. “I’m Gintoki!”
He then coughed several times and laughed horribly, and Zura lunged over Ikumatsu to dump boiling hot ramen on Gintoki’s head.
“I don’t sound like that!”
“I don’t sound like that,” Ikumatsu repeated in a slightly better Zura voice, crossing her arms over her chest.
Elizabeth put on a silky black wig. I will fight for a new dawn for this country, and I will make it smooth and slippery like soba.
“All your imitations are horrible!” Zura said.
“Nonsense, for they are befitting proud samurai,” Gintoki said as he made a very serious face, one so serious his eyebrows were in danger of falling off.
“Shut up!” Ikumatsu said as she made an even more serious face. “They are befitting proud samurai AS WELL AS courageous freedom fighters RISKING EVERYTHING to CHANGE THIS COUNTRY.”
She crossed her arms tighter and chugged fruit punch from a wine glass.
“Where did the fruit punch come from?!” Zura said.
Ikumatsu offered him the same half-smile he always did. “The shogun’s ass! HAUHAHAUHAUHA!”
“There isn’t a shogun anymore! And who would drink fruit punch that came from his ass?”
“Brave.” Gintoki poured a box of raw soba down his throat.
“Honorable.” Ikumatsu took a delicate sip of fruit punch.
Samurai. Elizabeth fell asleep with his eyes open, not that it made a difference since he was wearing that unnerving costume and all.
Zura was on the verge of pulling out his hair. “How does fruit punch even come out of the nonexistent shogun’s ass?”
“Anything is possible if you take the Joui Rebel Course,” Ikumatsu said. “It only costs one human soul.”
“What’s with you and souls?” Zura said.
“They’re magically delicious,” Ikumatsu said.
“That’s Lucky Charms!”
“We can’t talk about Lucky Charms,” Gintoki said. “That’s copyrighted.”
Zura was running in circles screaming now. “Everything is copyrighted, Dicktoki!”
“Including the shogun’s ass,” Ikumatsu said.
“Stop talking about the shogun’s ass!”
“MY ass is in the public domain,” Gintoki said. “It’s too thick for copyright.”
“STOP.”
“I can’t hear you over the clap of my silver samurai butt cheeks,” Gintoki said.
“Gintoki!” Zura ran towards him with his sword drawn.
“Time to go,” Gintoki said as he scrambled to his feet and grabbed Ikumatsu and Elizabeth’s hands.
“Get back here!” Zura said.
“Put the sword down and then we can talk,” Ikumatsu said.
“Fine.” Zura sheathed the sword and leaped onto Gintoki’s back, pinning him to the roof. “Apologize at once, Gintoki!”
“All right, all right,” Gintoki wheezed. “I’m sorry you look like a low-budget Disney princess.”
“That’s not what I wanted an apology for!”
“That’s the one you’re getting,” Gintoki said. “Now get off me.”
“Fine.” Zura got up and dusted himself off. “You smell awful.”
“Awful good,” Gintoki said as he took a deep whiff of his armpit. “I should be a candle.”
“Yeah,” Zura said. “Then someone can burn you.”
“You’re so affectionate,” Ikumatsu said.
“No, I’m Katsura,” Zura said at the same time that Gintoki said, “No, I’m Gintoki.”
“Stop imitating me!” Zura started whacking him with his sword, which was thankfully still sheathed.
Ikumatsu and Elizabeth watched their fight, and then Ikumatsu said, “Do you all want to get pizza?”
“Pizza?” Zura said. “You just ate.”
“I’m still hungry,” Ikumatsu said, “and you didn’t eat. You poured your ramen on Gintoki.”
“He deserved it!”
“Let’s go,” Ikumatsu said. “I’ll race you there. Last one has to pay the bill.”
“Then I need rocket boots,” Gintoki said, “because I don’t have any money.”
“Take out a loan,” Ikumatsu said, and she took off running with them.
“Hey!” Zura said as he lagged behind. “Wait!”
“Looks like you’re paying the bill,” Gintoki called back. “Tough luck!”
Ikumatsu laughed but slowed down, reaching out for Zura’s hand. He grasped her hand, and she looked back at him.
“You don’t want to pay, do you?” she said.
“No,” Zura said.
“Then run with me,” Ikumatsu said. “We can beat both of them.”
She held his hand tighter, and they ran ahead together, passing Gintoki and Elizabeth as they leaped through the rooftops.
“Slow down!” Gintoki said. “This isn’t fair!”
Ikumatsu just laughed again, and it took her a moment to realize Zura was laughing too. And smiling. He was smiling so brightly. For a time, the sky smiled with him, glittering with eternal fire, and then its eternity melted away into dawn. The sky was a breathtaking inferno of countless colors, and it welcomed them into the future.
This is our future, and we’ll make it beautiful with our stupid faces. Ikumatsu returned Zura’s smile as they ran. We’re all lost children, but I’m sure we’ll find something, even if it’s just each other.
I’m not letting go of you idiots for anything.