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Katsura Kotaro stood atop the balcony of the Jouishishi's current hideout, overseeing the current state of not only Edo, but the entire world.
It was a lot different than it was just a few years ago. The streets were eerily empty save for a masked couple or two, and most buildings hadn't been set foot in for a long time, collecting dust and bugs and strays. The people who could afford it had already fled to other planets, and ironically, this included a lot of the very Bakufu officials that Katsura was after. He didn't know whether to be happy about that or not.
So what was he to fight for now as a revolutionary? The people that remained on this planet? His friends? His own bushido as a samurai?
That fateful day ten years ago, Katsura had the same sort of questions. With Shouyo gone, what would he do? Of course, the answer he came to at the time was to continue as a Joui rebel and overthrow the government that had taken his sensei from him. He wasn't as inclined to use direct violence as he was back then, but he still followed the same ideals today.
He had tried to look into the plague that ravaged humanity before, and he came to a few conclusions, but he didn't know where they led or how he could use them to try and stop the illness.
His thoughts were put on hold as he heard the casual shuffling of footsteps behind him. When Katsura turned around, he saw a familiar face. Silver wavy hair, dead fish eyes (that looked a little more dead than usual), yukata draped on one side - it could only mean one person. He stood behind the long haired man and simply stared at him.
"Gintoki? Since when do you come visit *me*?" He remained silent. "...Gintoki? What's the matter?"
Gintoki sighed and joined Katsura on the edge of the balcony, overlooking the state of the town with him.
"Shinpachi-kun and Leader have been looking for you. They said you had been acting strange before you disappeared without a word."
Gintoki quietly spoke up, not looking at the man beside him. "....Let me ask you for a favor, Zura."
Katsura warily looked over to Gintoki, not even acknowledging the nickname.
"...Don't tell them you saw me."
Katsura's eyes widened as he was baffled. "Gintoki... what is up with you? Why do you seem so... different?"
The silver haired man sighed again before his mouth perked up by the slightest amount. "What would Shouyo think if he saw the state of the world now? Or the state of his students?"
Now Katsura was even more stunned. Why the hell was *Gintoki* of all people visiting him to reminisce about the past? But regardless, he responded quietly with "I... I don't know. I've thought about it, but... I can't imagine what he would want us to do."
Gintoki's head looked downward. "I see." Then his expression turned into an unsure one. "Zura... do you remember the Enmi?"
"The... the Enmi? You mean those guys we fought in the war? I thought we wiped them out. Wait... what are you implying? You don't think..."
Gintoki sighed yet again. "I'm not sure of anything, but... what if one got away?"
"You think the plague has something to do with them, Gintoki?" The man said nothing in response. "Then... how do we stop it?"
"I don't know." Gintoki whispered, his expression darkening.
Katsura and Gintoki stood in silence with each other for about another minute before the silver haired man chuckled and spoke up again.
"Say... Zura... on that day." Katsura didn't need clarification to know which day he was talking about. "What do you think they would have done... if instead of cutting either of you or our teacher down, I had just stabbed myself? What would have happened?"
Katsura's eyes widened again and his mouth hung open in concern. "Woah, woah, woah! Wait, Gintoki! What has gotten into you?!"
"Think about it. Would they have killed the three of you anyway? Would they have let you go?"
"Gintoki, what on earth are you talking about?! Since when have you ever been like this?! ....You're acting so weird. You're scaring me."
Gintoki stood up from the railing he was leaning on. "Well, it's not like it matters. What's done is done. All we can do is look forward. ...There, now I sound like myself, happy?"
Katsura looked behind to where he had now moved near the door. "Gintoki... please don't do anything reckless... for everyone's sake."
"Same goes for you, Zura." he replied, turning around and starting to walk away.
"It's not Zura. It's Katsura." It was only when he saw the man leaving that he noticed that along with his regular bokuto, he carried a real blade as well.
Little did Katsura know that those five words would be the last that he ever spoke to the Gintoki of this world.
-
On the near empty streets of a neighboring city far from Edo walked a certain man with a straw hat overshadowing his entire face. He wore a plain kimono and haori, wanting to conceal his identity as much as possible. On his arms and face were a few scarce bandages.
A mother and her child, unable to flee the planet, passed by Gintoki for a moment. The child was short enough to be able to see under his straw hat, and upon seeing his silver hair, gasped and ran past in fear, trying to drag his mother along to go faster.
It was a typical experience at that point. Before he thought to put on the hat, a lot of strangers mistook him for having the white plague and desperately tried to avoid him due to his naturally silver hair. It's not like they were completely wrong, he thought. He wanted to keep his distance anyways.
Ever since his first attempt to end it all failed, he felt so lost. Sometimes it felt like his body didn't even belong to him anymore. Every single thing he did to try and end his life was thwarted one way or another by himself. Try to fall off a cliff and into the sea? Wow, what a miracle, his body suddenly knows how to swim! Starve to death? Not a chance, his body dragged him to the nearest source of nutrients no matter what they were, which in his case was a live fish straight from the river. Burn to death? His body avoids the lighter's flame like the plague it caused. Crushed to death from falling debris? Nope, his body suddenly moves out of the way just in time for him to scream Caesar.
All he could do now was wander without aim. He didn't dare seek out company or a social life, and he didn't even drink anymore. Who knew that all you needed to quit drinking was to simply cause the apocalypse? He should have let Madao know about his new life hack before he left all those years ago.
He only occasionally went into town when it was strictly necessary to get supplies. Nowadays he mostly camped out in remote areas where he would be secluded. Since his body wouldn't let him starve, he might as well take the time to at least decide what to eat from the forest on his own terms. It was better than dealing with another live fish incident.
After briefly visiting town, he went back to where he was staying. He passed by a clear pond and took the time to take off his hat and get a good look at what he had become in the reflection.
His skin had gotten noticeably paler, and his eyes had heavy bags under them. On the very edges of his face were the faintest black markings, and his hair had morphed into a blend of silver and increasingly prominent wisps of ghostly white. The change in his hair is what terrified him the most.
The whole camping experience reminded him of when he and Shouyo wandered across Japan before settling on a nice place to start up Shouka Sonjuku. He found himself getting uncharacteristically sentimental again, and eventually he decided to very slowly make his way to where the remains of Shouka Sonjuku still resided from that fateful day where their sensei was taken from them.
At the pace he was going, it took months if not a year to arrive there. At that point he had been missing for what had to have been over four years. He didn't even know what day it was anymore, and he hadn't caught up on how the people in Edo were holding up. When he finally got to the entrance, he found the burnt down remains almost the same as how they looked almost twenty years ago, surprising him for several reasons. He settled down under one of the trees next to the debris and sighed, taking off his hat.
*Shouyo,* he thought. *If I had known this would happen... would you have forgiven me if I cut myself down instead of you?*
*Although, in a way, I guess you went through something similar, being forced to see all of the corpses of your students atop that cliff.*
*But in that case... you had me to cut you down. Who's supposed to cut me down, Shouyo?*
His silent monologue was interrupted by soft footsteps.
"Of all of the places I expected to find you, I would have never guessed it would be here."
Gintoki slowly looked up to the source of the footsteps and the humanity-rejecting voice he could never forget. In front of him stood none other than his comrade during the war turned batshit insane mastermind Takasugi Shinsuke. He grinned faintly at the man sitting in front of him.
"Gintoki. Long time no see."
"Takasugi." he stated plainly.
"God, you look awful. Who knew the oh so great Shiroyasha would ever fall victim to the plague of the same color. Or maybe, don't tell me..." he paused to look at the increasingly prominent markings on Gintoki's face accompanying his hair with less silver than white now and smirked. "maybe you *are* the plague?"
Gintoki's eyes widened. "When did you-?"
"Just now." Takasugi replied matter-of-factly with a tilt of his head. "Or maybe I already knew. Who knows? Maybe it was those marks on your face that aren't on any other victims. Maybe it was the fact that someone like you wouldn't die to something so stupid. Or maybe it was the fact that I couldn't find you anywhere in Edo. Hell, I even asked your two house playmates and they haven't seen you in over four years. That could only mean you know something no one else does. Am I right?"
"You saw them? Shinpachi and Kagura? Hey, don't tell me you..."
"Relax. There's no point in trying to kill some half-pints whose spirits are already broken. After all..." Takasugi gave Gintoki a *very* threatening glance. "That's what a certain someone said to *us*, right?"
Gintoki returned the threatening glance. Of course he knew damn well the kids wouldn't take his sudden absence well, but it still stung to hear it said out loud, let alone from the last man he would want to hear it from. "So that means you were actively looking for me? Takasugi... what the hell do you want?"
"I could ask you that same question, Gintoki. As for me, I'd love to simply destroy this rotten world. To think that you'd get to do it before me, stealing my spotlight..." Takasugi unlatched his sword from its sheath with a click. "It pisses me off."
"So you're here to finally kill me?" Gintoki asked, almost bored. "You know, before I left Edo, I asked Zura something. He brushed it off like the prick he is, but I want your answer too." He remained seated on the ground, unfazed by Takasugi's blade.
Takasugi raised his only eyebrow uncovered by bandages, intrigued.
"What do you think would have happened if instead of cutting down you two or Shouyo, I cut down myself instead? Would the Naraku have killed all of you regardless? Would they spare your lives? How would you all turn out?"
Takasugi, taken aback slightly, looked up as if he were genuinely thinking about it. "You know, Gintoki, that's a really good question. Given any other context I would have never expected those sorts of 'what if's' from you. But now you say it because it would have prevented this whole mess if you perished that day, am I right? Hindsight is such a cruel thing, is it not..." He released his hand from his sword's hilt and his expression unexpectedly softened by the faintest amount. "You know what? I like your question. Before I kill you, I'll go along with your little thought experiment as a final send off."
Gintoki looked up at him expectantly.
"Let's say that they *do* spare us after you cut yourself down. It's entirely possible that they just kill all of us and the story ends there, but for now, let's just go with if me, Zura and sensei survive in your place, because that sounds more interesting." Gintoki just silently listened, opting not to look at him.
"Let's start with what happens to sensei. He had already seen the countless bodies of his other students overlooking that cliff. But if he looked back to find one of his first students' lifeless body on the ground, the body of the boy that he took in, or perhaps the boy he was taken in by... what would become of him? Maybe he would want to destroy the world as much as I do now. Or, no... maybe he always wanted to destroy the world and you were just the final push. Maybe he would become an entirely different person."
"As for Zura... let's see. I recall him saying that you stopped him from cutting himself down when the odds for a particular battle looked dire, something about 'living beautifully' and all that cheesy crap. I can only imagine what Zura would think, seeing you do the exact opposite of what you told him to do. Maybe his spirit would have been more broken than it was that day. Maybe *he* would be as vengeful as me." Takasugi unexpectedly chuckled. "Maybe he would be like he is right now with you gone. Man, you should have seen him, Gintoki. He looks so stupid trying to copy my eye bandages."
Gintoki raised his eyebrows. "...Is he really doing that?" he asked weakly.
"Sure is. How pathetic, right? Oh, and before we do me, let's throw in the loudmouth Tatsuma. If he learned you ended yourself that day, I wonder, would he have gotten that final push to travel throughout space? Perhaps he would have stayed here, and then *we* would be stuck dealing with him. For that, we would never forgive you. That alone would drive anyone insane."
Gintoki surprised himself when he laughed. "Guess you're right there."
"And Gintoki, you know what I, Takasugi Shinsuke, would do differently if your life was our stepping stone instead of sensei's?"
Gintoki finally looked into the single eye of the man in front of him.
Takasugi narrowed his eye and his mouth perked up. "Nothing."
Gintoki raised an eyebrow. "...Nothing?"
"That's right. Nothing would change for me. I'd still simply destroy this world that took our fellow student from us."
"But I'm not Shouyo. I could never think to be him. Why would you have the same reaction?"
"Why, you ask?" Takasugi paused and put his hand up to his bandages. "Do you know the last thing I saw with this eye? The image permanently burned into it even now? ....It was you, Gintoki. It wasn't the bakufu, Oboro, the rest of the Naraku, and it wasn't sensei either." Takasugi's head, eyebrow and tone lowered slightly. "It was none other than your gloomy face."
"If you died that day instead of sensei, that image wouldn't have changed. I would have run over to your body and gotten my eye crushed all the same. ...And I have the feeling that even as a bled out corpse on the ground, you would *still* have that same gloomy expression."
"............I see. So you're saying that if I perished, even if the plague would be stopped, the world would have been the same in some ways and different in others." Gintoki paused in thought for a moment. "...Do you think that world would be better or worse than ours?"
"I can't say. Neither you nor I are worthy to make that judgement." Takasugi put his hand back on the hilt of his sword and smiled. "So... how was that for an answer? Are you satisfied?"
"Certainly better than Zura's."
"Pleased to hear it. Now, before I kill you, I'll ask you something in return. Why not end it yourself now? Why do you still stand here if you know it's destroying the world?"
Gintoki just sighed and threw his head back onto the tree trunk. "Trust me, Takasugi. I tried. Several times. But this body barely belongs to me anymore. That's why I'm hoping my so called sworn enemy will find a way to do it."
Takasugi was thrown off guard when Gintoki suddenly threw his bokuto like a dart hard enough to stick into a distant tree stump. "Gintoki, what the hell did you do that for? I'm about to fight you."
"You don't get it, Takasugi. What you're about to try and kill won't be me. I *want* you to succeed in killing me. I'll even thank you for it. I'm trying to give you a fighting chance here."
"Tch. You think I'll lose to whatever's controlling you? I'm almost offended."
"Not even *I* can stop it, and it's *my* body."
Takasugi finally unsheathed his sword slowly and dramatically, glistening in the afternoon sun. "You're no fun, Gintoki. Throwing away your already blunt sword like that... but fine. If you want to give yourself a handicap..." He instantly lunged at Gintoki, who *still* hadn't bothered moving. "...then be my guest!"
His sword jabbed straight into the trunk in front of him, causing a bit of dust to sprout out from beneath the bark. When the air finally cleared, Gintoki's body was nowhere to be found, throwing him off guard for a moment. He then heard movement to his right, and his eye widened at what was jumping at him.
He finally understood what Gintoki meant when he said he wouldn't be fighting him. In front of him, Gintoki - rather, his body - was covered in more of those black marks than what he saw before. His left eye looked nearly lifeless, and his right was engulfed in a strange pink light, like what he had witnessed when he saw other Enmi over ten years ago, and his face had no readable expression. This Enmi taking over Gintoki had already recovered the bokuto previously discarded.
Takasugi just barely dodged his all out attack and rolled to the side, sweat already forming on his brow. He laughed before saying "I see. I guess I *can* still have fun killing you!" He lunged at the Enmi again and clashed his own sword with Gintoki's bokuto.
"You say this isn't you, Gintoki, but this fighting style says otherwise. There's no one else with it." The Enmi said nothing in return as they continued exchanging blows.
"The score is 246-246. I've won exactly half the time against the way you fight! Possessed or not, I can still cut you down!" Takasugi saw an opening near Gintoki's shoulder and quickly took the opportunity to cleanly slice through muscle. Gintoki did not yelp in pain or make any noises at all, but he did fall onto his back for a moment.
Takasugi saw his chance. He lunged forward again to deal another blow, but the Enmi blocked it and blew Takasugi away with a swift kick to his solar plexus, causing the wind to be knocked out of him with a blunt "oof". His back hit the ground hard, and before he could even register it, a bokuto was approaching dangerously close to his chest. This thing controlling Gintoki was out for blood, pulling no punches. He was only able to dodge halfway, and he was slashed across his abdomen, shallow enough to not hit organs but only just barely. He tried to bite back a yelp in pain but was only partially successful. Before he could get up, the Enmi in Gintoki's body pounced again, prepared to impale straight through the one eyed man's chest, and his eyes widened. If he couldn't move out of the way in time, he would be dead for sure, and the odds weren't looking so good at the moment.
Takasugi attempted to raise his sword but to no avail, shutting his eye closed in anticipation. He heard Gintoki land, but the blow did not come. He opened his eye in confusion only to see his arms trembling in an effort to pull away the bokuto. Gintoki's face made it look like he was trying to fight back against the Enmi inside him if only for a brief moment. His eyes struggled to resist being taken over, and that pink part seemed to flicker on and off. His teeth clenched tight in concentration.
"...Why?" Takasugi asked weakly, not even moving from the spot given the chance. "Why are you trying to keep whatever's in you from killing me? Just do it."
"Because..." Gintoki croaked, breathing heavily. "Because I'd rather kick your ass when I'm myself. No way... in hell... am I'm letting someone else fight in my place! And..." The bokuto slowly pulled away from Takasugi's chest. "...the more people there are that know about the Enmi, the more of the slightest chance there is that we can stop it somehow!"
It seemed that the Enmi no longer thought it was being attacked by Takasugi, so it stopped taking over Gintoki's movements, causing him to fall onto his back from the residual oppositional force.
"Takasugi..." he gasped, clenching onto his torn shoulder. "I know you wanna destroy this rotten world and all that crap, but I get the feeling this isn't how you wanted it to go. Do you really want some little nanomachines to take the spotlight using some stupid sickness to do it?"
Takasugi didn't move from his spot on the ground, but he did sit up, guarding his own deep wound.
"Think about it. What if the plague gets to the Kiheitai? What would you do then?" Gintoki narrowed his eyes. "Or would you not care like with what happened to your pal Nizou?"
Takasugi glared at Gintoki dangerously. "Oi. Keep the Kiheitai's name out of your cavity ridden mouth-"
"I'm just saying. Is this how you want it to end? Wouldn't you rather end it on your own terms? ...Isn't that why you and the Kiheitai haven't fled to another planet? Surely you have the money."
"...And what the hell do you want *me* to do about this? You should fix what *you* started, patient zero."
"...That's right. I have one final last ditch effort."
Takasugi raised his eyebrow. "And that would be...?"
Their spat was interrupted by a third voice. "Shinsuke-dono!" The voice belonged to Takechi, the Kiheitai's strategist and pedophile - no, sorry, """"feminist"""".
"Oi. I thought I told you to wait near the entrance."
"It's an emergency, Shinsuke-dono! It's Matako! She suddenly collapsed!"
Gintoki made a grim expression to the man he just nearly killed. "Takasugi. It seems like we're both running out of time. ...You shouldn't be near me. Even if I don't infect you, there's no telling what the nanomachines inside me will make me do sooner or later."
"Tch. I don't need pity from you, Gintoki." Takechi helped him up with a significant amount of difficulty considering the wound to his abdomen. "Where's Matako?"
"Just up ahead. Shiroyasha-dono, is there anything we can do to help her?"
Gintoki looked nowhere in particular. "You shouldn't be asking that to the guy who's causing it. I can't protect anyone anymore."
Just as Takechi shifted Takasugi's weight onto his own shoulder, the latter spoke up.
"Gintoki." The silver-turning-white haired man looked to him. "If you're going to start acting like an Enmi hellbent on destroying humanity..." He faintly smiled. "...perhaps you should start looking the part, too."
With that, he limped back over to the entrance of Shouka Sonjuku with the help of his strategist. Gintoki crawled back underneath the tree he was sitting at before and sighed, still clenching his torn shoulder.
"So not even he could take me down in the end. That leaves only one other person who can cut me down - me. That geezer Gengai had better be making progress otherwise we're all fucked."
-
With nothing better to do, Gintoki ended up following Takasugi's advice. He had no idea why he went through with it. He wasn't even sure if it was entirely out of his own free will - there was something in him compelled to seek it out for some ungodly reason. He couldn't even tell if it was the Enmi doing it or if it was just some sort of self fulfilling prophecy.
It's true that the new look meant no one would recognize him, but did he need to be in something so conspicuous? At least those guys looked kind of badass, he thought. And he realized that if by some miracle Gengai somehow brought past him to this world, he would need to make himself look like a target that past him would recognize for sure when the time comes.
At first he was clueless as to how he would conceal his entire identity to look like an Enmi. He didn't know how to obtain any of their clothing. But then it hit him - there were probably still remains of the Enmi at the abandoned battlefields of the Joui War. He supposed it was a little morbid, but at the same time, so was watching all of humanity slowly die out because of you.
So he took the long trek back to the top of the rusting airship where he battled the very Enmi container that infected him. Alas, there they were - a long abandoned pile of cloth that he was surprised hadn't been blown or washed away by time, although they were a little ragged.
He washed them before trying them on because he wasn't a total rabid animal (just yet), and he took a good look at himself in his reflection. From top to bottom, he looked indistinguishable from the container he fought fifteen years ago, creepy glowing eye included. He even made the heartbreaking decision to retire his Lake Toya bokuto once and for all, rooting it into the ground to be replaced with the staff he found.
The next time he walked into a town, it was nearly deserted, but for some reason there were still recent newspapers being printed. Not everyone had been losing hope, he guessed. He finally got an idea of what the date was - about one month away from being the fifth year he was gone. It had to have been nearing the time in which Gengai would be prepared to use the time machine, if he succeeded in doing it at all of course. If there was one man who could pull it off, it would be that geezer who had a few screws loose.
And so, he decided it was time to finally return to Edo to wait for the one man who could kill him, the one man who could prevent this entire thing from happening with a necessary sacrifice of his own. The hardest part of returning home was going to be finally seeing the town and people he willingly abandoned with his own two eyes.
-
Matako slowly opened her eyes at the hospital she was staying at. Her vision wasn't nearly as good as it was just months ago, but she was still able to make out two familiar figures.
"Takechi-senpai? ...Bansai-senpai?"
"That's right." said the latter. Both had very solemn looks on their faces. "How are you feeling today, Matako?"
"I... I'm not really sure." she weakly answered. "Where's... Shinsuke-sama?"
Almost as if on cue, the man himself came through the door quietly. "I'm right here."
Matako smiled. "I'm sorry for being such a burden, Shinsuke-sama..."
"...Quit it with that nonsense, Matako. The Kiheitai need to look out for each other is all."
"Since when... have you talked about all that sentimental crap, Shinsuke... sama?" Takasugi said nothing in response. "But still... I'm so happy you're all here."
Matako weakly exhaled and looked out the window in contentment with the company. Takasugi decided to look in that direction too and found something strange that was too far away for the blinding Matako to see.
On the ledge of a rooftop from the adjacent building sat a figure, covered head to toe in strange wrappings and unusual garments. To the side of it was a staff, similar to what a priest or even the Naraku might have adorned. But the most off putting of all was the bright pink light on its otherwise shaded face, and it looked like it was staring straight into their room. Its head was tilted down slightly, hands casually folded and resting in its lap. When it noticed Takasugi looking back, it quickly got up, picked up its staff and walked out of sight.
Takasugi couldn't help but chuckle out loud. *Looks like that damn fool actually listened to me for once.*
"Shinsuke-dono, what's wrong?" Takechi asked when he heard the man.
"...It's nothing. Just saw a butterfly out the window is all."
Whatever Gintoki's supposed last ditch effort was had better come quick, he thought to himself.
What he didn't know was that the Kiheitai weren't the only people the Enmi had his sights on. Gintoki, after being spotted and fleeing, had moved to get a view of the other side of the hospital. Standing on another rooftop, his eyes zoomed in on another victim dying of the same plague as Matako.
This woman's hair was completely white, unlike Matako's who wasn't in the advanced stages just yet and still had a few blonde strands left. Sitting on a stool next to her bed was a dark brunet, medium length haired man with glasses, gently resting his head on her frail lap. Of course, this man, although looking almost completely different from five years earlier, was unmistakably Shimura Shinpachi. And the dying woman was none other than his older sister, Shimura Tae, who looked practically unrecognizable in her current state.
Gintoki couldn't help but clench his fist and tighten the grip on his staff. Although it wasn't the first time he had heard that Otae fell ill, it still made his insides churn in guilt to the point where he almost made *himself* sick.
He saw Shinpachi look up after a minute and notice him standing outside, but the moment the younger man rubbed his eyes from beneath his glasses out of confusion, he was gone. He didn't give a shit if Takasugi recognized who he was, but there was no way in hell he would let Shinpachi worry about some mysterious figure stalking them before the right time came.
-
He continued wandering around Edo for the next few days, hoping for some sort of sign that this nightmare would end once and for all. It was only until he heard the sounds of a distressed man yelling at something on a nearby empty street that he went to observe out of curiosity.
"A certain individual wanted to change this world. That's why they summoned you to this era-"
"Who the hell is this certain individual?! What the hell happened to our world?! Hey! Answer me!!!"
...That voice, could it be? No way...
On the ground beneath him stood a very familiar face. Blue and white yukata draped on one side, bokuto attached to his waist, signature silver hair that he hadn't had himself for a while.
Present Gintoki's one visible eye widened in disbelief. It really *was* him. There really *was* hope that this could all end. He couldn't help but smile in relief beneath his face cloth.
Unfortunately, it seemed like the humanoid time machine in a suit would need repairs before his final plan could be carried out. Until then, it was out of his hands. He could only watch as his past self, currently being disguised as a phallic headed man by the headless time machine, slowly unfolded the cruel situation he was rudely shoved into.
-
Gintoki stood atop the ruins of the Terminal waiting for his past self to kill him, the latter unaware it would be himself. He had just finished kidnapping the Time Thief to lure him in, and he had briefly revealed his face to the machine (and Gengai as a result) so they would be willing to follow his instructions.
He heard footsteps to his left, but unexpectedly, they didn't sound like the boots his past self should have been wearing. When he looked over to the sound, there was another familiar face, only one eye visible, just like him. The man smiled wide and narrowed his eye.
"Hey again, Gintoki."
Gintoki's eye widened briefly before narrowing as well. "Takasugi. Stay out of this. You'll mess everything up." he warned, in the deep voice unlike his own that he had when he donned the Enmi's appearance for some reason. "This will save *her* too, you know."
"Now, now..." Takasugi started. "I overheard what you're doing. I don't plan on interfering with whatever time machine bullshit you and that geezer came up with."
"Then what do you want? Why are you here? To see me die once and for all?"
"Not entirely. I'm just curious to see how the you from five years ago will fare against the empty inhuman shell of himself from the future. If you say the only one who can kill you is you, then I wanna be there to witness it. That's all." He tilted his head up in thought and sighed. "To think your so called last ditch effort was to stop yourself from existing... I suppose that question you asked me back then wasn't completely hypothetical, was it?"
"...No." Gintoki admitted quietly. "The difference is I'll be dead *before* that day happens. I don't know how it will change what happens with Shouyo, but... surely whatever goes down will be better than all of humanity dying out." He looked at the starting sunset. "Who knows? Maybe me not being there will somehow prevent either of you from getting captured, and you'll save Shouyo and live happily ever after. Or... maybe instead of me bearing that cross, it'll just be one of you." Takasugi narrowed his eye.
"But at that point, would anything else change? Takasugi, I get the feeling that no matter how much you'd deny it, you would have made the same choice as me that day. I think Zura would too. And you two would be just the way you were five years ago, except without me."
"If Zura were to cut down Shouyo, would he be burnt into your eye instead of me? And if you were the one to do it, would *you* be the one with the gloomy face?"
At this point, Takasugi was tightly clenching his fists and teeth. "Stop it-"
"It's not like what I'm saying will ever matter, Takasugi. Nor will whatever you say right now in response." Gintoki finally looked back at Takasugi. "I will no longer exist in a few moments. And you'll be doing something else in a world without me. Let me have this moment while I still can."
Takasugi's voice wavered. "Would you stop saying shit like that, damn it-"
But Gintoki ignored his plea. "I wonder... will you still remember me, even if only as a corpse who mysteriously died on the battlefield? Or will I have never existed in the first place? I'm not quite sure how this time travel retcon thing works."
"Gintoki..." Takasugi started, unexpectedly softly. "...is there really no other way to end this?"
"...Even if there was, it's too late to change anything." Gintoki looked back when he heard the rushed shuffle of several footsteps exploring the Terminal. "There's no more time. Get going. I don't care where, just don't let them see you." He looked back to Takasugi with an almost pleading eye. "Please, Takasugi. Let it be my dying wish."
Takasugi huffed loudly and looked away. "Tch. You're still a pain in the ass to the very end it seems." He turned his body and walked back the way he came from, not allowing Gintoki to see his lip trembling.
-
"I'm counting on you to do the rest... Sakata.......... Gin....toki. The only one who can kill me is myself."
Gintoki's past self only stood in awe as the man he just listened to - himself - lowered his head and slowly closed his eyes for the last time, finally experiencing peace for the first time in five years. Although it was a lot for past Gintoki to take in at once, he still knew he owed it to everyone to accept what he needed to do - erase his own existence. And so he gently dislodged his bokuto from his own corpse's chest (which he would admit was a little unsettling to do), stuck present Gintoki's staff into the crumbling floor, and made his way back to where the Time Thief was being held.
When past Gintoki was out of sight, another man emerged from behind a nearby pillar, slowly making his way to the body of his now dead former comrade. He silently stood in front of the withered man's slouched over body.
"Gintoki, you're a damn fool, you know that? Taking the credit for killing you was supposed to be my thing, and yet here you are, stealing the spotlight for your own death." Takasugi's fists shook as he clenched them hard. "Damn it... I was right. Even as a corpse, you *still* have that gloomy face." His one remaining eye couldn't help but start trembling as well.
"But at the same time, you were also right. I always hated it. When you ended up being correct about something." he choked. Despite his overwhelming efforts to stop it, a tear escaped his eye, ran down his cheek, and fell gracefully onto the ground beneath him.
"You were right about just one thing this time around. It *was* me who ended up with that stupid gloomy face in your place."