Chapter Text
Maki, Gintoki and Inumaki exchanged an almost invisible nod.
Maki and Gintoki had been plotting this since they returned from their mission together and they had even managed to rope Inumaki into helping them.
It was finally time to enact their plan.
Not too far from them, Gojo was humming to himself as he sat in the cafeteria enjoying a huge ice-cream sundae.
They hadn’t been able to come up with a way to hide from the vision of the Six eyes so they had instead gone with the opposite approach of sitting openly at a table near him, munching at their lunch while casually chatting away about everything and anything.
According to their observations, Gojo had just come back from a long string of missions and was likely to be in a more relaxed state right now.
His guard was further lowered by the appeal of the sweet treat before him.
Now was the opportune moment to strike.
Silently, they all got up at the same time, trays in hand, looking ready to return them.
Across from them, Gojo opened his mouth to get another bite of ice-cream, when one’s guard would be at its lowest.
Then, as if an invisible signal had gone off Gintoki’s tray was back on the table and the white head in question had his bokken drawn.
In a flash, his newly mastered curse technique activated and sliced through the air.
It collided with Gojo’s infinity, breaking through it momentarily.
Not even a moment later, Inumaki had his scarf pulled down as he invoked the words “Don’t move.”
Gojo froze just for a second, momentarily stuck in place from the binding force of Inumaki’s curse technique.
But that second of pause was all they needed.
The very next instance, Maki was before him.
She grinned and it was all teeth.
Maki shoved a tube of wasabi down his open mouth, forcing the green paste down his throat.
Gojo choked.
“Scatter.” Gintoki shouted as he turned tail and ran, Maki and Inumaki splitting off and running in separate directions as well.
He even made sure to swipe Gojo’s sundae on the way out.
Gojo finally snapped out of his shock, breaking through Inumaki’s control in a second and spitting out what was left of the wasabi in his mouth.
Gojo’s lips twitched as he heard the fading laughter in the distance.
A violent storm of killing intent so thick it could slice through walls flooded the canteen.
“Those kids are dead.” Gojo said with a peaceful smile on his face.
He then stepped forward into a teleportation, deciding to get Inumaki first and leave the sundae thieving brat for last.
He needed some time to come up with a proper way to repay that slight after all.
A woman covered in blood inched closer and closer.
Her pitch black hair fell over her entire face, obscuring it from view.
The only thing to be heard was the haunting sound of her nails raking over the walls and the faint echo of footsteps.
She jumped.
“GYAAA!” Gintoki let out another scream of terror.
The next moment, a bear doll wearing boxing gloves shot awake and punched him square in the face.
Gintoki instantly reacted by throwing the bear towards the TV, the force of his throw breaking the screen and embedding the bear into the broken glass.
He finally broke down.
“I can’t take it anymore!” Gintoki screeched as he turned to Gojo.
The man in question was sitting on the couch next to him, munching on a box of popcorn, looking every bit like a teacher simply watching a movie and bonding with his student.
If he hadn’t spent the whole time laughing at Gintoki’s reactions.
Gojo leisurely popped another pierce of popcorn into his mouth.
“Now, now, just cause I let you off the first couple of times, that doesn’t mean that Sensei enjoys buying TVs just because the big scary samurai can’t handle a little ghost story.”
Gojo signaled towards the pile of junk behind him, “That’s already the 3rd TV of the day, Father’s wallet is crying, you know?” he sighed, like he was some poor stressed parent dealin with their rebellious child.
The teen looked ready to tear his hair out.
“You said we were here to train!” he exclaimed. “And that reminds me, since when were you my father?”
He knew something was up when the teacher had gotten a hold of them after that prank they pulled.
There was no way that this irresponsible teacher was nice enough to let him off so easily.
Maki and Inumaki had been caught before him, that much had been easy to see when he caught sight of them covered in scuffs and bruises in the infirmary after being thrown in himself. From what he heard from the two, Maki had been locked in a kid’s play area, where Gojo charmed (read: scammed) a bunch of mothers into entrusting her with babysitting their kids.
Inumaki had been stripped, thrown into a genderbent Kakashi-sensei cosplay and sent to an anime convention, where he was hired, on Gojo’s recommendation, to walk around and pose with people all day. Also, apparently people asking cosplayers to say famous lines of the characters is a thing and Inumaki had been torn a new one by the employers for refusing to speak.
Initially, Gojo had been taking so long to come after Gintok that he thought he had somehow managed to throw the man off his scent and had gotten off scot free.
He’d even felt safe enough to reroute back to his dorms and grab a copy of JUMP before running off in search of a safe place to read it.
Unfortunately, the man had shattered that illusion and danced on its ashes when he materialized right in front of the teen just as the manga was getting to its climax.
Gojo had taken one look at the chapter he was in and then proceeded to spoil him for the whole series.
AHHHHH, it pissed him off just thinking about it.
While Gintoki had been able to put up a decent fight, he had only recently learnt how to use his curse technique on command and was still sorely lacking in practice, at the same time, their curse techniques kind of canceled each other out.
Gintoki could cut through infinity and even Gojo’s little rainbow of attacks but the latter could just spam the techniques right after.
He’d only managed to score a couple of lucky hits on the man by catching him off guard but the damn old man regenerated almost instantly.
The teen on the other hand, was not in possession of a magical barrier that blocked out any and all attacks from so much as touching him and was unfortunately incapable of healing himself with a single thought.
So all Gojo had to do was wait for him to tire from dodging and to be drained of curse energy before subduing him.
From that fight, Gintoki had concluded that Gojo was a freaking hacker who deserved to be banned from the server.
The teacher had then went on to beat up his poor defenseless student like the tyrant he is.
Then he had offered Gintoki an ultimatum, obediently undergo the man’s training regime or have his access to JUMP and dessert cut off for a whole year.
“I’m currently your legal guardian and you’re a minor, in other words I have full control over all of your mission pay and allowance.” Gojo had smiled so brightly there were flowers blooming in the background. “So if I say you’re not getting JUMP or dessert, you’re not getting JUMP or dessert.”
Gintoki had gone with the first option even though he could clearly sense a trap.
It’s not that Gin-san is so pathetic as to be unable to survive without JUMP or sugar okay?
Gin-san just thought it was time to exercise his responsibility as a main character and finally allow the readers to see the long awaited training arc that the original gorilla mangaka couldn't be bothered to include.
He was doing this for you guys, obviously.
Anyways, after that, Gojo had kidnapped poor defenseless Gin-san and taken him to some secret underground bunker like the dirty adult he was.
He’d given a long speech about curse energy and its uses but Gintoki wasn’t too interested when he learnt that it couldn’t help him climb trees or walk on water.
“Why would you need to know that?” Gojo had tilted his head cutely (read: mockingly). “Your curse technique is already a rip off of the Getsuga Tenshou from Bleach and the Yato guy from Noragami, if the author tried to rip off Naruto as well she’d probably be sued.”
Gintoki rolled his eyes at him as he picked his nose. “This is why I can’t stand old people, you should get with the times old man, this is a fanfiction, it's all under fair use.”
Gojo had shoved his head into a wall for that slight and Gintoki wisely decided to shut up for now.
Moving on with the recap, Gojo kept talking for a while, blah blah blah, gave Gintoki a bear, told him to keep a constant stream of curse energy flowing towards it and shoved him in front of a TV and started streaming horror movies.
Because of course Gojo was the type to abuse his authority as a teacher to get back at personal slights.
Now on with the actual chapter.
Gojo smiled innocently, "But you are training, didn't I explain that this is to help you train your control over curse energy?"
Gintoki scoffed, "and it had to be ghost movies?"
Gojo waved his hand, "You need to be able to maintain full control over your curse energy at all times, you know, I'd be a tragedy if someone with as much curse energy as you went out of control just because of a little jump scare."
"Is that so?" Killing intent was seeping into Gintoki's voice, “How bout you help me practice actually using my curse technique, doesn’t trying to cut you up seem like a good exercise?”
“Nah, That’d just be an exercise in futility.” Gojo said with his head held high.
Gintoki’s hand twitched towards his bokken but reminded himself that the man before him had his supply of sugar and manga held hostage.
It took all his willpower to lower his hand when suddenly a thought struck him, his head shot up.
“You’re changing the topic! Answer the question damnit! When did you become my father? Why the hell did Nozomi think you were my dad or something.”
“Eh?” Gojo pulled down his blindfold just to bat his eyelashes at him. “Because I am your father?”
Gintoki shivered, “Don’t even joke about that! Why the hell would you be my father when we both know I’m literally from another world. Heck even if I did have a father, he’d definitely be stronger, taller and have straighter hair than you.”
Gojo, had yet to pull his blindfold back on, instead, he took the moment to look at Gintoki with eyes full of pity.
His eyes raked over the teen mockingly, eyeing him up and down. “I hate to break it to you brat, but with the genes he passed down, I don’t think that’s the case.”
Gintoki aimed a flying kick at his head, Gojo simply leaned forward and dodged it, Gintoki ailing over him harmlessly.
Gojo shrugged as he pulled the blindfold back over his head securely.
“Besided, I’m not lying.” He waved his hands and like magic, a little book appeared in his hands. “You probably don’t know this because you're a poor uneducated brat from a backwater era, but in current Japanese society, all births and deaths in a family are reported to the government and recorded down in the family registry.”
“Of course as a traveler from another world, you’re not registered at all.”
“That is where I,” Gojo struck a pose and Gintoki rolled his eyes. “Your brilliant teacher comes into play.”
“I simply pulled some strings to get you into the national records and added you to my family registry while I was at it.”
“You're standing before your legal guardian right now, aren’t you going to show some respect to your elders brat?” Gojo smirked.
“Let’s see, you can start by going over there and baking that cake from that new recipe you mentioned last time.”
Gintoki, in an exceedingly fluid motion, sliced a hole in the ground directly below Gojo with his curse technique, waited for the man to fall in and then kicked the sofa into the opening to thoroughly bury him.
So what if he couldn’t completely overcome infinity yet, he thought, enraged, there were other ways to take him out.
Unfortunately, reality proved that our young perm head is still too naïve as not even a second later, Gojo teleported right out of the hole, seating himself directly onto the sofa.
The man casually lifted a leg and crossed it over the other, reclining back into the chair comfortably.
“That was a long enough break.” He said, tone gleeful “Let’s get back to training!”
And then he pointed down at the hole in an afterthought. “Oh and you’re fixing that.”
Gintoki just turned and started banging his head onto the wall.
A few days after Gintoki, Maki and Inumaki pulled off their prank on Gojo, the latter walked into the teacher’s office one morning to find a small, homemade cake sitting on his desk.
It was a classic strawberry shortcake, soft sponge in between layers of fresh strawberries, jam and soft whipped cream.
It was skillfully decorated too, nothing special was done but the cream coating the top of the cake was spread smoothly and the little peaks at the top were all pipped evenly.
He even cut it open and investigated it with his Six eyes to make sure there wasn’t another prank awaiting him.
Gojo raised an eyebrow at the display.
There wasn’t anything to indicate who left it but the strongest pretended he couldn’t blatantly see who’s cursed energy remnants were freshly smeared all over the room with his eyes.
Instead he sat down and dug in with a satisfied smile on his lips.
He definitely deserved this after all that running around he did for the sake of those brats during their Nozomi case.
What can you do, he shrugged mentally, as their favorite teacher, he had a duty to help fulfill their requests as long as it wasn’t anything too outrageous.
Though he supposed he wouldn’t mind giving them a hand in the future if this was the kind of repayment he was getting, he sighed in contentment as the cream melted wonderfully in his mouth.
He finished up the cake after a couple more bites, got up and stretched before teleporting into the classroom where all the kids were waiting.
“Yo,” he greeted cheerfully.
Then he slammed a thick stack of papers onto Gintoki’s desk, watching in satisfaction when the teen shot out of his seat in surprise.
“Gin-chan,” he tutted dramatically, “you didn’t hand in your homework again, so here’s your punishment, do try to finish this and hand it in to me by today.”
He grinned at the boy gleefully when he saw his gobsmacked face.
Then, he ruffled Gintoki’s hair gently and dropped a piece of candy onto the boy's lap.
“You're welcome.” Gojo said, because unlike a certain brat, Gojo had manners and knew when words should be said to a person’s face.
Gintoki threw the stack of papers at him in response, rude.
Yuuta dragged his tired body forward. This year’s winter was brutal by Tokyo standards and it was freezing today, despite that, Maki seemed to have an endless amount of energy, expertly navigating through the crowd of early Christmas shoppers, jumping from shop to shop.
He was only carrying a third of the bags that she was, yet his arms felt like they had turned to lead.
Next to him, Inumaki was not faring much better as the silent boy shivered and pulled his ever present scarf up higher. He had rows of shopping bags slung across his arms as well but he seemed slightly more at ease than Yuuta, still having the spare energy to look up and admire the Christmas decorations dotting the shops.
It was times like this when he was truly envious of Panda, who didn’t have to come with them, simply due to the fact that he was a panda.
I want to be a panda too, Yuuta thought absentmindedly. That way I don’t have to put up with annoying human customs, people praise me for lying around all day and everyone seems to like them.
Actually speaking of people not here, Yuuta’s thoughts continued to drift, where was the new student? He was sure he had seen him around here not too long ago…
Seemingly at that very instant, Sakata materialized next to him, with a piping hot Taiyaki in hand, the fresh treat still steaming in the cold winter air.
Suspiciously, he only had a single paper bag in hand despite their long trip.
Now that he thought about it, he couldn’t recall Sakata being with them at any of the shops, when had he given them the slip?
He must not have been the only one that noticed the white head’s absence because next to him Inumaki leaned backwards to look at the newcomer.
“Okkaka?” He asked, tone questioning.
Sakata leaned back as well to meet his eyes even with Yuuta between them.
“Oh I went to the arcade while you were at the first shop” he shrugged causally and Yuuta was hit with a slight feeling of betrayal at the easy admittance to blatant abandonment.
Now that he thought about it at the first shop, Inumaki and him had yet to tire from the trip and had even been a little excited to be out shopping instead of busy training or running around doing missions.
So they had all been looking around as well, keeping an eye on things that interested them personally or could make a good Christmas gift.
After that Maki had started dragging them from shop to shop in a ritual they were already well practiced in. Combined with the fact it was the first time Sakata was joining them on one of these outings, it wasn’t completely out of the realm of possibility they would overlook his disappearance.
His and Inumaki’s looks of disappointment didn’t seem to phase the teen at all as all he did was blink at them innocently, “I bought you guys meat buns.”
Yuuta instantly felt himself salivate at the image of fluffy, piping hot meat buns warming him from the inside out. Inumaki must have agreed too because his eyes were frighteningly bright.
Any and all feelings of betrayal were forgotten as Gintoki handed them the paper bag in his hands to them.
Yuuta and Inumaki both took a moment to push the bags held in their hands upwards so they could hang on their wrists before reaching out to grab onto the bag.
Sure enough, cracking open the bag, they were instantly hit with the sweet aroma of freshly made meat buns, the steam from the food wafting up and hitting their frosty skin, bringing back some warmth to their faces.
Adding to the pleasant surprise, Gintoki reached into his pockets and pulled out a couple of cans of warm coffee and tossed it towards them casually.
Inumaki and Yuuta both reached up to catch their respective cans and looked up at Gintoki with identical stars shining in their eyes.
“Is it okay for us to have these?” Yuuta asked carefully, his eyes open so wide he almost looked like a puppy.
Next to him, Inumaki nodded along to the question, “Shake, Shake.”
Gintoki nodded towards them with a kind smile on his face. “Of course, I bought this for you guys.”
He was smiling so widely, his eyes slid shut, obscuring crimson orbs from view.
Yuuta brightened into a grin, even the deep seated eye bags under his eyes seemed to lighten through the force of his joy.
“Thank you, Sakata-kun!” he exclaimed in excitement.
“Shake!” Inumaki said as well.
Then he looked up and must have noticed that Maki was wandering off because Inumaki started tugging at Yuuta’s sleeve and signaling towards her.
“Mentaiko!”
Yuuta tore his eyes away from the awaiting meat buns to call out to Maki. “Maki-san! Let’s take a break for a bit, Sakata-kun bought us meat buns.”
Maki easily picked his voice out from the crowd and turned back to face them.
At the sight of Gintoki, she raised an eyebrow as she jogged slowly back towards them.
As the one there who was most familiar with their new classmate, Maki turned to eye Gintoki suspiciously.
“You?” She stared at him, trying to spot a crack in his facade. “Got us meat buns.”
Gintoki pressed a hand to his chest dramatically, a comically hurt expression on his face. “How could you accuse me of having an ulterior motive, I was just trying to be nice.”
“But if you insist on being like that, how about you guys treat me back with dessert at a later time.”
Inumaki nodded at that suggestion, “Shake.”
Yuuta smiled in agreement as well.
Maki continued to look at him, distrustful, but ultimately the appeal of the meat buns won out as she shrugged and reached into the bag to take one.
“Fine, I’ll treat you to something later this week, so consider this favor repaid.” She glanced at him sideways as she fell into step beside him. “So you better not expect anything else from me.”
Gintoki rolled his eyes as he handed her a can of coffee as well. “Of course, of course, seriously just what kind of person do you take me for?”
Maki huffed, but then cracked a smile after she took a bite of the pastry. “Thanks.” she allowed.
Yuuta looked at the warmly grinning Gintoki and couldn’t resist smiling to himself, the new student was more considerate than he thought.
After that, the four of them continued to walk through the busy streets, eating their respective snacks and exchanging stories, like normal teenagers hanging out with their friends and enjoying their youth.
Later, some time after Maki, Inumaki and Yuuta had all treated Gintoki to three different servings of desert each to repay the favor, it was revealed that Gintoki had paid for the meat buns with Gojo’s credit card.
This fact was let slip by the teen himself, when all the other first years had come to retrieve him one fine evening so that they could have dinner together, only to find him in a drunken stupor in his dorms.
“What the hell perm head?” Maki grabbed the happily giggling drunk by the neck and shook him violently. “You ordered the most expensive item on the dessert on the menu and made a fuss about how I was being an ungrateful hag for your ‘huge debt of buying me meat buns’ when I tried to stop you.”
“That damn parfait was almost worth a whole mission’s pay!”
“And now you’re telling me that you didn’t even pay for them?”
“Shake! Shake!” Inumaki exclaimed, glaring at Gintoki.
Even the normally mild mannered Yuuta looked as offended as a little boy who just had his whole stash of junk food stolen by the neighborhood bully.
“Hic! No idea what you’re-” Gintoki slurred even as his eyes darted around the room, guilt making his voice uncertain. “Talking about.”
Maki shoved his face into the floorboards.
Gintoki pried his head off of the ground, he made for a rather gruesome sight with all the blood flowing down his face.
“Okay but I paid for the coffee myself though!” he said in a desperate attempt to calm Maki’s seething. “Even I felt bad giving you guys meat buns from the bag I tipped over so I got coffee as a sort of ‘even if you don’t know I did this, I’m kinda, sort of sorry?.”
“What do you mean ‘the bag you tipped over’?” Maki grit out.
“Eh?” Gintoki took a moment to blink at her, valiantly trying to fight through his drunken haze “You know, the meat buns that I dropped on the ground?”
Inumaki pulled down his scarf and evoked the words “Don’t move.”
Instantly, Gintoki was frozen in place, no longer on the verge of tipping over from the influence of the alcohol.
Yuuta silently drew his katana and Maki’s hand latched onto the back of the white head’s neck.
Panda slowly inched towards the door.
That evening, screams could be heard echoing throughout the dorms.