Chapter Text
That night’s customer clears his throat, shuffles even nearer on the bench, and slides his hairy seven-fingered hand over Tae’s knee.
Tae punches him in the underside of the jaw so hard that he goes flying. His skull crashes through the timbered ceiling above her booth. Wood splinters. Debris rains down. His body crashes back down and hits the table: beneath his weight one leg of the table shatters, their glasses shatter, two empty bottles of Dom Perignon shatter and another, half-full, erupts in a glittering diamond spray of glass shards and golden fizz.
Tae brushes dust from her kimono and stands, surveying the man’s body sprawled across her cracked and slanting table. Already it’s just another tedious Wednesday night; the only point of interest here is the matter of where about his person he’s most likely to have secreted his wallet, and of how much, exactly, she might expect to—
“Get down!”
“Down, get down—”
“Hands in the air! Now! Now—!”
An eruption of violent noise, a flurry of violent movement – a stream of blinding red light, as a laser blast hits the wall where Tae’s head had been only an instant before with a hiss of heat and sudden stink of scorching wood. Bursting up from all around the club are men as hairy as her unconscious customer, in oddly streamlined all-in-one suits of an unflattering lime-green. They’re shoving the girls aside, shoving other customers aside; they’re vaulting up onto the booth seats for a better view and, Tae presumes, a heightened sense of drama.
All of them hold unfamiliar gun-like weapons in hands that look, on cursory inspection, as though they have too many fingers. All of these weapons are trained on Tae.
“Hands up,” says one of them. He’s hairier than the others. If Amanto military works the same way as Earth Shinsengumi, perhaps that makes him the default leader.
He jerks the barrel of his gun, and Tae puts her hands up.
Or – strictly speaking: she puts her fists up. Eleven of them, all armed, against one of her – it’s hardly worth her time, but at least that’ll be eleven more wallets she can pick through in the aftermath, assuming these Amanto men even carry wallets in those tightly vacuum-packed looking outfits of theirs. She shifts her stance and prepares for the attack.
In all the screaming – cabaret girls, customers, assorted Kabukichou partiers in the street outside who have overheard the chaos and never need a reason to join in merrily with unattributed screaming – and in all the noise, the explosive entrance of the newest arrivals goes entirely unnoticed until they join in the screaming too.
“This is the Shinsengumi! Weapons down!” Hijikata skids to a halt at the top of the entrance stairs, his sword drawn, and an equally melodramatic troop of armed Shinsengumi bursts in behind him. “Weapons down, I said! Everything is under control!”
His men swarm out from behind him across the floor of the club, booth to booth, engaging the owners of the laser guns in hurried conversation. Slowly, the barrels of their weapons begin to lower; Hijikata sheathes his sword and descends to the main floor of the club as well, and black uniforms swarm together with lime-green for a discussion so heated it crosses over, very soon, from disagreement into ferocious argument.
Tae’s interest wanes the more likely it begins to seem that no one is going to engage her in open combat. She sweeps aside some shattered glass with the edge of her sandal; she nudges the still-unconscious body of her customer. There’s a wallet-looking shape bulging out near the armpit of his yukata. If she just—
But Hijikata is there, with the hairiest of the men in green at his side. Tae puts the matter of the wallet aside for now, and says politely, “Good evening, Hijikata-san.”
“Ah – you too,” says Hijikata. He looks stricken by some agonising discomfort: irritable bowels, perhaps, or a gastric ulcer. He clears his throat, then clears it again. “Look, Otae-san, this is – I, ah. I don’t know how to say this, so I’ll just say it. You’re—”
“—sentenced to death,” bursts out the man in green. The bushy fronds atop his domed head are quivering in outrage. “Your execution will be carried out by the highest ranking member of the Royal Amagaeru Divisions currently Earth-side at this moment, which is to say the Reverent Commander of the Third Division, which is to say me, and it will be carried out at the first instant of tomorrow’s sunrise—”
“It won’t,” says Hijikata. “There’s no execution happening, Reverent Commander. That’s not how we do things on Earth. But... Well, the thing is—” Whether he realises it or not, he’s leaning as far away from Tae as he can without actually losing his balance. She folds her hands in front of her and listens with interest. “The thing is, Otae-san: you’re under arrest.”
“Oh, I don’t think I am,” says Tae.
“You are,” says Hijikata.
“Oh, but I’m not,” says Tae politely. “Unless the Shinsengumi prefers to arrest vulnerable cabaret girls for bravely defending themselves against degenerate old men who breathe through their mouths and fondle the legs of young women, rather than arresting the degenerate old men themselves – why, Hijikata-san, unless that’s the case, then I rather think I’m the victim here. And if that is the case,” as her voice sweetens, “then what are you Shinsengumi good for, anyway? What good are you doing for Edo? Wouldn’t you be of more service to the city dead and stuffed and rolled over on your sides as limited-edition novelty draught excluders?”
Hijikata’s expression is growing increasingly pained. It’s still nowhere near pained enough to satisfy Tae. “Look, Otae-san,” he begins – then stops, and looks shiftily around, and resumes in a much lower voice, “It’s a damned mess of a situation you’ve walked into here, if you’ll just hear me out – the Amagaeru are in town as special guests of the Shogun, and that’s their most senior diplomatic envoy you just knocked cold. So – think of it as a token gesture. They want your execution. We don’t, but unless we pacify them they’re not going to stop pushing for it; so we put you in prison while we deal with them, and that way you’re safe, and the Amagaeru see us taking action. And—”
“This is the Shinsengumi!” bellows Kondou, skidding to a halt in the same place Hijikata had skidded to his own halt. He draws his sword with an even more impressive flourish. “Everyone remain calm! The situation’s under control!”
“Hijikata-san did that bit already, Kondou-san,” says Yamazaki, in an undertone that carries across the sudden hush of the club.
Kondou straightens up and sheathes his sword just as impressively as he had drawn it: which is to say not impressively at all. “Excellent,” he declares. “Then we can get straight to work, can’t we? Where’s the trouble?”
Okita has wandered up beside him, hands in pockets as he surveys the club. His gaze falls on Hijikata, and Tae beside him, and his dead stare brightens up with the same vibrant, youthful joy with which a dead fish would brighten up if a small torch was forcibly shoved down inside its lifeless gullet and flicked on. “Well, would you look who it is, Kondou-san? Maa, what a mess, what a mess...”
It takes Kondou a moment, peering out across the atmospheric glitter and gloom of the club. But then he sees her – sees Hijikata, sees the Reverent Commander of the Third Division – and his expression falls as hard and fast as though Tae had kicked his body from a clifftop.
+++
Once it becomes clear that the Shinsengumi won’t be vacating the premises any time soon, Tae’s manager reluctantly sends the other girls home. The last of the customers fled long ago – the conscious ones, at least – and now in the club there’s only Tae, the Shinsengumi, the lime-green uniforms of the Third Division, an unconscious Amanto diplomat, and the manager of Snack Smile skulking unhappily by the door to his office.
The situation is very simple. The Amagaeru want Tae dead, and the Shinsengumi don’t; they want her in prison instead, but Tae wishes to be neither dead nor in prison, and therefore neither of those things are going to happen.
“That’s not how it works, Otae-san,” says Hijikata, for the hundredth time. His expression has grown even more long-sufferingly pained. It’s still not pained enough for Tae’s liking. “Being arrested isn’t optional. You can’t just say you don’t want to be arrested. If you’re arrested, you’re arrested. That’s how it works.”
“But I’m not arrested,” says Tae, also for the hundredth time. Sitting in the middle of them all, she folds her hands neatly in her lap. “Honestly, Hijikata-san, have you listened to me at all? I’ve already told you this. If I was under arrest, I’d be in handcuffs.”
“You were in handcuffs,” says Kondou. His head is in his hands, his voice is brokenly low.
“I was,” concedes Tae, “but now I’m not. Because I’m not under arrest.”
“Because you snapped them in half,” says Okita, “and incidentally, Otae-san, please don’t think my admiration for that level of brutality will prevent me sending you a bill for the replacements.”
“I say we don’t wait for morning,” says one of the members of the Third Division, and shakes a bristly fist. “I say you do it now, Reverent Commander! Right now! Out with her guts and off with her head, that’ll teach her not to do it again! That’ll show her not to—”
Still sprawled across the broken table, the diplomatic envoy lets out a painful groan.
A sudden silence falls – expectant, anticipatory – but nothing else: unconsciousness still reigns. Tae nods in satisfaction. Barely an hour since she punched him; of course he’s not recovered yet.
There’s a commotion at the doors, where most of the Shinsengumi now stand guard. A voice rises above it: “Oi, oi, I’m not here for trouble—”
“I am—”
“—but what does a man have to do to get a drink round here?” demands Gintoki, over the sound of distantly splintering wood.
“Yeah,” demands Kagura, over the sound of distantly colliding skulls, “how much Shinsengumi butt does a girl have to kick to get a drink round here?”
“Ane-ue!” cries Shinpachi, and breaks free from the tussle to sprint across the club. He vaults over a table and keeps going; only an instant away do the Third Division seem to realise that he doesn’t plan on stopping, and hurriedly they make way just in time for him to burst through their ranks and launch himself at Tae. “We heard, ane-ue – Otose-san told us as soon as she heard, and she heard as soon as it happened – about the, the—”
“Misunderstanding?” offers Tae. She takes his hand gently in her own and pats it soothingly as he gasps for breath. “There’s no need to worry, Shin-chan; that nice Gorilla-san has promised to get it all sorted out, and I’ll be receiving a hundred thousand yen in compensation for the inconvenience just as soon as the banks open tomorrow morning.”
Hijikata sinks further into his seat. “No one promised any of that, Otae-san.”
“You’re quite right,” says Tae, “it was two hundred thousand yen, wasn’t it? Such a silly mistake for me to make.”
Shinpachi stares at her, his eyes huge and frantic with worry behind his glasses. “Ane-ue, I think you – I don’t know if you know about the Amagaeru, but they’re,” his voice drops, desperately anxious, and for the first time tonight a jolt of real concern passes down the length of Tae’s spine, “they’re serious, ane-ue. They run the public transport industry, they are the public transport industry – they control half the shuttle routes in this solar system and more like seventy percent outside of it – they’re important, ane-ue, they can get what they want. They can make Earth give them what they want. They—”
“Breathe, Shin-chan,” says Tae. Her concern is already pushed aside; she’s on her feet, rubbing his back. “Breathe, come on—”
Shinpachi squeezes his eyes shut tight and breathes. Kagura somersaults across three booths in one go and aims her crash-landing at Okita, who spins and deflects her, which leaves his ribs open to the heel of her foot, and furniture begins to detonate around them as Gintoki wanders over, Yamazaki trailing despondently at his heels. “We tried to hold them back, Kondou-san, really, but—”
“But there’s no holding back the Yorozuya,” says Kondou. “It’s all right, Yamazaki.” He takes a moment to compose himself, and then he gets to his feet. “Regarding the current situation—”
“Go along with them,” says Shinpachi, in a voice still too desperately low for anyone but Tae to hear. “Please, ane-ue – I know it’s stupid and unfair and – and everything, it is, but – please. Please.”
Raised voices: the opposing forces of Gintoki and Hijikata’s testosterone supplies have collided. Tae ignores them. “Shin-chan...”
“It won’t be for long, and then afterwards you can beat up Kondou-san and the others all you want – well,” he amends hastily, “maybe not all you want; it wouldn’t be much good if you just went straight back to prison... But please, ane-ue: go along with them.” He hesitates. It’s a fragile, precarious hesitation. It drops Tae’s heart into a vice. “They could hurt you,” says Shinpachi at last. The vice slams closed. “I don’t want you to be hurt. So – please.”
His hand is clammy in hers. Tae looks at him a moment longer, at the fingerprint smudge on his left lens – yet more evidence of how frantic he’s been, that he’s let it stay there unpolished for so long – and then she drops his hand and turns away. “Hijikata-san? If you could stop tugging on Gin-san’s curly little pigtails for a moment, I’m sure we’d all appreciate it. It’s late, after all, and Kagura-chan’s a growing girl; she needs her sleep.”
She holds out her wrists.
Hijikata lets go of Gintoki’s yukata and shares a glance with Kondou, who passes it on to Okita, who passes it on, presumably, to the very clear view he currently has up Kagura’s nostrils, and then passes it back to Hijikata. No one moves.
“Well?” says Tae impatiently. She pushes back the sleeves of her kimono and holds her wrists out again. “Won’t you hurry up and arrest me? I could assault another of those hairy green snot-suits over there, if that would help to speed things along—”
“Ane-ue!”
“Well,” says Kondou, and hesitates as though he’d very much like someone else to step in and reassuringly tell him not to worry, everything will be fine, and they’d be more than happy to handle this particular responsibility on his behalf – but no one does. He unhooks a pair of handcuffs from his belt and gazes down at them in misery. “Well – all right. All right, then. We’ll, ah – Shimura Tae, you’re under arrest. For—”
“Violent abuse,” says the Reverent Commander at once, whose expression is twisted into an intent and ugly scowl, “violent assault, violent harassment, abusive violence, abusive assault, abusive harassment, assaulting violence, assaulting abuse—” but he cuts off with a cry. The reason isn’t clear, but Okita is at his side; generally, that’s reason enough.
The handcuffs aren’t cold: they’ve been soaking up the warmth of Kondou’s leg all night. Tae would like to tell herself that that’s the single most distasteful part of the whole situation, but it wouldn’t be true. At her side Shinpachi is standing as resolutely, determinedly straight as he only ever does when he’s trying very hard not to crumple down and cry. Kagura is watching from the back of the booth, restlessly kneading the loose sleeve of Gintoki’s yukata, her eyes huge and her mouth scrunched small with dismay; and Gintoki is watching too, his expression faraway, looking at the cuffs she could break in a heartbeat if she wanted to.
There’s a small frown between his eyebrows. It’s the closest Tae’s seen his usual blandness come to an expression of open worry since Sadaharu cocked his leg outside a newspaper stand some few months ago and turned the entire display of that week’s Shounen Jump to sodden, yellowy mush.
For only the second time that evening, the faintest trace of real concern slides icily down her spine.