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Takasugi is a fool.
That’s what his parents said (“You stupid boy, you failure, you good-for-nothing fool-”), that’s what Gintoki calls him and what he calls Gintoki. At first the insult stings, the way his parents’ sharp words and punishments did (he’s not good enough, never good enough, stupid, useless, unnecessary, only allowed to hang around because they have pity on him- so he trains and trains like they’ll leave him if he doesn’t do well because he’s sure they will) - until Gintoki frowns at him and tells him that he really is stupid, he’s never going to be the best and doesn’t need to be, doesn’t he get that?
After that he and Gintoki agree that they’re both idiots - they can’t communicate through words, not properly, only understand things like fighting and exchanges of blows - and at first it’s simple, simple enough that even an idiot like Takasugi can get it. They’ve got his back and he’s got theirs, and it’s them against the world; simple, clear-cut lines - we’re friends, we’ll never leave you, we’ll stick together till the end.
Even when the war hits, it’s simple. It hurts like someone is carving chunks of bleeding flesh from his chest and lungs, like his heart is being shredded apart and his lungs are drowning in blood, but it is simple. He and Gintoki and Katsura - and now Sakamoto, who’s wormed his laughing way to fit by their sides like he was always there - they’re a team. It’s them against the world, they’ve got his back and he’s got theirs.
Then everything goes to shit and Takasugi and Katsura are captured and Sakamoto isn’t there and Takasugi can’t stand it, can’t look at Gintoki’s face, can’t see that idiot trying to smile that stupid broken smile through the tears, can’t take it-
-when Gintoki turns to face them for the first time since he killed their teacher, Takasugi snaps; because Gintoki has stopped crying but he’s still smiling, and what is there to smile about, why is he smiling, why does he look like he’s in so much pain, why won’t he just let himself cry? (How could they have hurt him this badly, this boy who he’s never seen cry, this boy who’s already lost too much? How could Takasugi have failed so terribly to keep his friends safe?) Rage flares in his chest and eats him alive and everything is blood and pain and Sensei is dead and Gintoki did it and Katsura has lost another person he loves (two if you count Gintoki) and Takasugi was too weak to stop it from happening. It’s all his fault, it’s all their fault and when he comes to his senses, when the anger’s finally drained from his limbs, Gintoki is lying on the floor beneath him, face beaten into pulp and Takasugi knows that he hasn’t raised a finger to defend himself and he isn’t smiling, isn’t crying, isn’t anything, he looks dead, his eyes are empty and Takasugi can’t breathe. (And nothing is simple anymore, a fool like Takasugi can’t understand, he doesn’t know what to do.)
They go their separate ways - because watching each other hurt is like knives to their chests, because they can’t stop snapping cruel words at one another in their rage and grief and confusion, because they just can’t take this anymore, they can’t keep watching one another slowly die. Takasugi takes to the skies and watches over the new country, this place ruled by men who cut through their friends, who burned down families - who, after the war, swept through the villages and killed off the families of the Joui warriors (children and women and people who had nothing to do with it, who didn’t deserve it, who never had to die).
He sees Amanto looking down on humans and pushing down the survivors. He sees Gintoki, sometimes, dead eyes and tired loss in every line of his body; sees Katsura, steely-eyed and relentless. He hates the Amanto, fury and bitter resentment that rises like bile in his throat (you did this to them, you did this to us, why couldn’t you stay in space where you belonged, why did you have to come and take away the only friends I ever had?); but he hates himself, too, hates his weakness, hates that he couldn’t protect his friends (and they died around him, screaming, choking on their own blood, trying to hold their innards in with shaking, blood-slick hands and he couldn’t breathe), hates that he got caught (and Gintoki, Gintoki made that choice; and Takasugi hates himself and Gintoki has always been too much like him and he hates himself so much, he hates them both, he can’t stand to look at them-
-these two idiots, these no good brats who joined a war and couldn’t save a thing, who came out with nothing but blood on shaking hands and loss in their hearts. Who went in for nothing and came out for nothing and watched people die for nothing. He hates them, he hates them so much, these weaklings, these children, these fools.)
And there is a hole in his left eye, a hole in his heart - it aches, it burns, and there is fire and blood eating him alive and tearing him apart because he couldn’t save anyone, they’re all dead, and he’s so stupid, he and Gintoki and he is so tired, he is so angry, why couldn’t they have been better, smarter, faster? Why did they even join the war, if it did no damn good in the end?
He hates them. He hurts, he aches, he burns (he remembers). In the hole of his left eye, in the hole in his heart, there is something (someone) missing - a moronic stray-loving idiot (who was a decent general but a better friend); an idiot who laughed too damn much and cared too damn deep (who would die for a stranger in a heartbeat); a fellow good for nothing (who Takasugi can’t think about without thinking of tears and a shattered smile, without wanting to rip something apart).
He misses them, he wants them back, his brothers, his blood - the laughter and bickering and fighting that once filled that hole in his heart. (Where have they gone, why can’t he see?)
He still has his right eye but he feels like he’s blind.
And then ten years later, ten damn years later, after he fights Gintoki and Gintoki fights him and he realises that they both had the chance to kill each other a hundred times over and that they didn’t, that neither of them could really bear that at all (and they are fools, such fools), he finds himself on the battlefield amidst gunfire and smoke, and Gintoki and Katsura and Sakamoto have his back and he has theirs - and he realises that it has always, always been that simple.
(Don’t turn around. We’ve got your back.)
They have always been fools.