Chapter Text
“I can’t believe we agreed to this.”
“It can’t be helped, Gin-san. And you were the first person to agree to this when that man pulled out his money.”
Amidst the beautiful sight of pine trees and gentle sunlight, three people were heading towards where their next job would be.
“And I can’t believe you let me do it.” Gintoki stated, for the fifth time, mind you, since they left their home for a not-quite-far-away-but-still-too-far-for-his-liking village in the outskirts of Edo. “You should’ve stopped me.”
“How?” Kagura asked while hopping from one cobblestone to another, her signature purple parasol held tight in her hands. “You would still find a way to convince us, yes? And those coins are pretty.”
“And expensive too.” Shinpachi added. “You were the one who told us that, Gin-san.”
“Well, yeah, but-” Gintoki tried to find a word to argue, but he failed. Miserably. “Fine! Bully me as much as you want! But if we all get caught and become demon's playmates for an eternity and the next, then it’s not Gin-san’s fault, okay?!” The man complained as he thought about what happened the day before.
“You want to hire us? For what?”
It was late afternoon, borderline evening, when a client walked into the Yorozuya household.
Said client was a middle aged man named Muramasa. He didn’t look like he was from this town, and definitely wasn’t a regular customer at the Yorozuya.
“I’m from a small village in the countryside of Edo, and the reason I’m here is because of this urban legend that has been floating around for a while now.” Muramasa started explaining with a serious face. He looked almost fearful. “‘A demon disguised as a young child is wandering around the village. Beware, else you might get caught in its trap and forever be held as its playmate for eternity’....That is what they have been talking about.”
Shinpachi and Gintoki both shuddered a bit. Admittedly, it was a pretty scary tale. Kagura, however, looked unbothered as always.
But Muramasa wasn’t done yet, though, as he continued. “We tried to hire exorcists to chase that demon away, but no matter how many times we did, it wouldn’t leave and continue to roam around our village’s outskirts...”
“A-And your request is?” Shinpachi asked, albeit a bit shakingly.
“I heard that you guys are one of the best fighters in this town... No, some even say that you in particular are one of the strongest out there.” The middle aged man turned to look at Gintoki with mild admiration. The silver haired man, however, took no pride in it. “Therefore, I want to hire you folks to chase away that demon for us... please.”
“ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!” Gintoki bellowed out. His breathings were shuddering and sweat was covering his pale face. He was scared of ghost stories, alright?! “You hired exorcists and it’s still there!!! And you think we mere mortals can do anything!!!?!?!”
“That’s right, Gin-chan!” Kagura agreed... for reasons. “If you want us to do your jobs for you, talk about payments first!!”
“THAT’S WHAT YOU’RE WORRIED ABOUT?!?!”
“That is indeed understandable. Chasing away a demon is a hard task, after all.” Muramasa ignored Shinpachi’s yelling and placed a small brown bag on the coffee table. “I hope this much would be enough as a deposit... If you manage to finish this task, then there will be a larger sum of money as your full payment later.”
As the man talked, Kagura took the bag to her lap and started untying its knot. The other Yorozuya, despite being wary of this whole ordeal, took a small peek into the bag with no less interest.
“T-this is!!!” Shinpachi had to adjust his glasses to avoid the shiny light the bag emitted, for the thing inside was not regular money, but pure gold.
“You’re gotta be kidding me! You pay people with gold?! And this much is-!” Gintoki stumbled mid-sentence when he remembered what Muramasa had said. “And there’s more?!”
The middle aged man nodded. “Our village, despite being small, produces a large amount of gold each year to Edo’s economy. Of course we have more than enough to spend.” He said, not to gloat, but to lay down a fact. “Will you accept this job or not?”
The Yorozuya trio looked at each other with different kinds of expressions, before Sadaharu in the background let out an adorable ‘woof!’”
“It would be your fault, yes.” Kagura stated simply before spinning into the village’s mediocre gate, as if she was dancing all along. The gate was almost deceivingly small for a gold manufacturer. “And here we are!”
“Finally!” Gintoki exclaimed before placing himself against the gate, exhausted. “Gin-san’s soooooo tired. Can we go home already?”
“Na-ah,” Kagura raised her finger and shook it left and right. “You’re in too deep now, Gin-chan!”
“God, dangit.”
Shinpachi walked to the person closest to the gate, a guard with a wary expression, and took out the letter Muramasa gave them.
“Here, we are from the Yorozuya Odds Job. Muramasa-san told us to give this to whoever is at the front gate.” He explained and handed the piece of paper to him. The guard accepted it without a word.
“You’re hired to exorcize that demon?” The guard asked with a raised eyebrow, before looking at each one of them with judgemental eyes. “You?”
Now that ticked Kagura off. “What’s your problem, yes?! Do you think we’re so incompetent because we agreed to work for this moron of an employer, yes?! But don’t you dare look down on Gin-chan though, he’s more pathetic than you think he is!!”
“The only one looking down on me is you though?!?!!” Gintoki complained, finally standing upright. “But, whatever. Yes, we are. Where can we find this demon kid?”
“It’s in the woods, somewhere.” The guard pointed at the pine trees surrounding them. “Be careful, though. Not only are there wild animals in there, the demon itself is pretty damn scary. We tried to hunt it down ourselves once... it’s more dangerous than you would believe.”
Gintoki raised an eyebrow while Shinpachi nodded him a thanks. “I see, thank you for your concern, sir.” He said politely. “But you said you guys hunted the... demon down once, right? What does it look like?”
“A child, mostly.” The guard replied with an unconcerned voice, but it gave them this sense of uncomfort for some reason. Maybe it was because the demon had the appearance of a child, or... “And it had long hair. Very, very long brown hair...you can probably find it yourselves from this point onwards.”
“I see...” The bespectacled boy replied again. “Thank you. We will be going now.” He told him, and then they left.
The search for the demon started with asking the villagers, hoping that some of them would know the exact location of this ‘demon’.
But none of them really did. Some said that the demon would come in and steal from stores, some said it ate the wildlife in the woods. Some even said it ate human flesh.
Some said it lived in the cave amidst the woods. Some said it lived by the water. But none said any humans had ever tried to take the demon in before. Which was weird, considering that the demon looked mostly like a small child.
Alast, they had to wander the woods themselves in search of this urban legend. The walk was strangely quiet, considering they were all trouble magnets.
Maybe it’s because Sadaharu wasn’t there, now being taken care of by Otose. Or maybe it’s because the search was so unsuccessful that it bored all of them out at some point.
But they knew the truth. None of that was true, and the real reason why they were so somber was because of the conversations they had with the villagers.
“...Hey, Gin-chan.” Kagura whispered out quietly, as light as the wind that blew passed their face. “Do you think that...that ‘demon’ is really a demon?”
“...I don’t know.” Gintoki admitted as his mind wandered back to the sneers and disgust the people had had when conversing about this supposed demon. “And I don’t care anymore. Let’s just find that guy and be over with.”
Shinpachi and Kagura could only nod slowly, before all of them continued searching again.
After some time that felt like ages, Gintoki stopped in his tracks and began beckoning them to follow him quietly. The two children were bemused, but followed through nonetheless. But after a step or two, they began to notice the signs only veterans like Gintoki could recognise so quickly.
“Is this...a trail of blood?” Shinpachi asked, but was immediately shushed by Gintoki afterwards.
“Be quiet.” The man whispered. “Listen.” And listen they did.
There was a moment of silence before a roar from afar was heard. It sounded like that of a bear.
Before Shinpachi or Kagura could comment on anything, Gintoki began running towards the sound, where the trail of blood led to. Confused, the two followed him in mild worry despite knowing full well what the man was capable of.
“Gin-chan!!” Kagura called when they emerged from the trees and found a silver silhouette confronting a large bear twice his size.
It was about to use its big paw to maul Gintoki’s body, however, the silver haired man was much faster and swiftly used his (supposed) wooden sword to strike the creature, sending it flying away with a crack sound...Poor bear. It probably gained a broken bone or two from this encounter alone.
But even then, this whole situation was getting weird. Not only did Gintoki attack the bear for apparently no reason, there was also a figure sitting behind him, covered in blood and dirt, as if they were attacked by a- oh.
“Hey, are you okay?!” The two children immediately ran straight to the figure sitting behind Gintoki with worried faces. The person was injured, there was no doubt in that, but it was also hard to tell, because she (he?) had such long, long brown hair.
Wait a moment.
“Wait, you!” Kagura exclaimed. “This is the one they were talking about, yes?! A child with super long brown hair?!”
“You’re right, Kagura-chan…But he’s also injured...” Shinpachi said with a frown, unsure of what to do. On one hand, they were asked to chase this child away. But on the other hand, he didn’t seem like a demon at all...save for his unkempt hair, that is.
The bespectacled boy tried to gain a better look at the child, but they wouldn’t let him get close. As soon as he moved into their vicinity, the child scrambled away with something he assumed was fear and shield their face, as if they expected to get hit.
The reaction alone was enough to drive away whatever fear Shinpachi still had in him. There was no way a demon could have a reaction like this. Before him was a child. A scared, injured child that needed medical help immediately.
“Gin-chan...” Kagura’s whisper met his ears, and before he knew it, their employer was right beside them, kneeling in front of the child with an apathetic expression as always.
“Don’t worry, we aren’t here to harm you.” He said in a surprisingly gentle voice as he intentionally let the child see him letting go of his weapon. “Let me see your wounds.”
Instead of feeling calmer, the child shook even more and vehemently shook his head. As if anything was better than that.
That made Gintoki frown a bit, even though it was almost undetectable by anyone that was not the Yorozuya. Seeing that, Shinpachi decided to intervene. “You’re wounded. By a bear. You obviously need treatment.” He said seriously, but not unkindly. “Leaving it for too long will be bad for you. Please, let us see it. We might not be doctors, but at least we can do first aid on it.”
The child, probably a boy despite the hair, still looked wary, but after having a staring contest with Gintoki for a while, he decided to open his dirty yukata for them to see. Albeit slowly.
The sight of the wound shocked them more than it should have. A large gush of blood was plastered along his skin for all to see, and it continued to flow. The injury should have knocked the boy out the moment he was attacked, considering that he was obviously malnourished and weak for his age, but it didn’t. Either the boy was stronger than he looked, or the wound was more shallow than it presented itself to be.
It turned out to be neither of them, though, because seconds later, his wound began to heal itself out of nowhere. The healing rate was much quicker than that of Kagura, which meant it was quicker than one of the stronger Yato out there, and that was ridiculous.
Before long, the wound was gone, and the blood on his body was as unthreatening as red paint would be. It was as if the injury was never there in the first place.
“It’s...gone.” Shinpachi stated in awe. More amazed than anything. “Is that some kind of your tribe’s ability? Like Kagura-chan’s Yato strength? That’s awesome.”
“Eh, I think it’s a meh.” Kagura made a face. “Mine’s obviously cooler, yes?”
“Don’t be so petty, Kagura-chan.” The bespectacled boy teased.
They were all shocked...but the one that seemed to be shocked the most was the boy himself when none of them seemed to have any kind of special reaction to his ‘ability’. He tried to stand and get away again, but a big hand was placed on his head, making him stop.
“Hey,” Gintoki spoke up. “Are you scared that we would get upset because of your healing ability?”
When the child didn’t reply, which was expected since he hadn’t talked at all since they met, Gintoki just ruffled his hair. A strange action, considering Gintoki wasn’t that much of an affectionate person, let alone this.
He looked...almost sad, Shinpachi noticed.
The boy, once again, did not reply. Gintoki didn’t force him to.
“It’s okay.” He shushed, as if he was talking to a scared animal...which was probably appropriate in this scenario. “You don’t have to answer me. But there are things I want to ask you. Can you shake your head to answer?”
The two teens had never seen Gintoki be this soft to anyone before, and it was baffling to figure out why. They had seen Gintoki interact with a child this age before, more specifically Seita, and he had no filter to that boy whatsoever. But even though they were very curious as to why that changed, they didn’t speak it out loud.
The boy nodded, and Gintoki smiled. Smiled. Not the sarcastic, nervous smiles he usually showed, or the obnoxious smirks he sometimes presented, but a gentle little smile. Something that even they rarely, if ever, received from the man.
“Okay then.” He said. “Can you speak?”
There was a pause. Then a yes.
“So you just don’t like to, then. Do you have parents?”
A no.
“That’s bad. Do you have a name?”
A no.
“Well, not like I didn’t expect that...Do you know anyone in the village?”
A tilt of his head.
“On an intimate level. Like...someone who had given you food. Willingly.”
That was oddly specific, but the boy seemed to understand nonetheless as he shook his head.
“That’s...probably a bad sign.” Shinpachi commented, and Kagura agreed. There didn’t seem to be anyone who talked about this child in a good light in that village...They could only guess how things went when the boy stumbled across a villager or two on some random day.
“Okay...now the last question.” Gintoki decided.
“Do you...remember who you are?”
That was...an alarming question, to say the least. And the fact that the boy signaled a ‘no’ was even more ominous.
“You mean...nothing at all?” Kagura asked with a rare frown on her young face. “Not your Papi, your Mami, or even your family?”
The boy looked at her blankly, and for the first time Shinpachi could see his eyes. They had a weird color, one that Shinpachi couldn’t quite decide what to call. It’s gray, but also not. Probably green, but it was too pale to be called that. Heck, you could probably look at them and call it brown.
It was weird...almost ethereal.
Finally, after staying unmoving for a bit longer, the boy shook his head as a ‘no’.
“Amnesia, then.” Gintoki concluded. “And now you have nowhere to go.” It wasn’t quite a question this time, but the boy nodded nonetheless. He seemed to enjoy the gesture, now that Shinpachi thought about it.
“What should we do, Gin-san? I don’t think it’s a good idea to take him back to that village again.” Shinpachi asked with worry. “Who knows what would happen to him.”
The silver haired man didn’t reply immediately, and frankly, the bespectacled boy didn’t quite expect him to. After all, it wasn’t like Gintoki would jumped to taking the boy in instantly or anything-
“Let’s take him with us.” Gintoki announced, and Shinpachi almost fell onto his butt.
“WHAT?!” He exclaimed, and it wasn’t just him, either. Even Kagura was surprised as to how quickly things wrapped up. I mean, it wasn’t like there was any other place to take this child except for taking him with them, but even then, this is Gintoki they were talking about. The Sakata Gintoki, the well-known Lazy Samurai throughout Kabuki-chou, one that would deny any kind of responsibility bestowed upon him despite the money and power promised to be followed through had he accepted the offer with conviction. The position of one of the Four Devas of Kabuki-chou was one of the best examples of that.
And yet, for this child, he immediately...
“Gin-chan,” Kagura called seriously. “Are you ill? You are feeling unwell today, yes? Let me see.”
The girl tried to put her hand on the man’s forehead, much to his confusion and annoyance, as he tried to put her hands away.
“What the hell is wrong with you suddenly? I’m not sick, thank you very much.” Gintoki said with a weird face as he succeeded in making Kagura stop, but failed to not make eye contact with one Shinpachi. “...What is it, Pattsuan?”
“No, nothing. I just...” Shinpachi squinted his eyes and readjust his glasses. “I just think I forgot to clean my lenses this morning. I’m beginning to hear weird things now...”
“How the hell does cleaning your lenses involve your hearing ability? So you finally admit that you’re just a pair of glasses, huh? That was it, wasn’t it?”
Shinpachi ignored the older man’s rambling and continued speaking. “Anyways, that’s probably for the best...Let’s take him with us.”
Between taking a young, seemingly innocent boy in and letting said boy wander around a forest where he had to find food and defend for his life was an easy choice, and obviously Shinpachi decided with the latter. Kagura agreed with him too, as she hopped around the boy to analyze him once more.
“I guess you’ll be with us for a longer while now...Are you okay with that?” She asked the strangely blank boy.
Said boy didn’t reply, and instead chose to have another staring contest with Gintoki, and the man stared back. It was almost like they were having a silent conversation. One that couldn’t be understood by outsiders.
Eventually, the boy responded by tugging at Gintoki’s white sleeve and smiled.
It was almost eerie to see the boy with those blank eyes doing such a simple expression as smiling. Before he knew it, while the boy was still a boy to him, he also became much more.
At that moment, Shinpachi and Kagura instantly understood why the villagers called this child a ‘demon’. And it wasn’t because he looked demonic, nor was it because of his regenerative ability. At least, not entirely.
It was because of this look of his. The sense of incorporeal that he emitted. One that couldn’t be defined as good nor evil, nor could it be defy as simple as those words.
It was as if he was from another realm altogether, creating this sense of dread humans felt when they couldn’t understand what was in front of them, and began imagining things. Like when the lightning struck, they imagined Raijin and began worshiping him. Or when they saw the sun shining in the sky, and crowned her as the queen of heavens, Amaterasu.
This was exactly that. Except the impalpable nature of all was compressed into this one, tiny human. So close to them, but far nonetheless.
And while his instincts screamed at him, telling him to run away from whatever this being is, his heart told him to stay. His heart, where his bushido and humanity rest.
Before he knew it, though, that ethereal gaze was gone, replaced by a far more human one.
One that consisted of genuine surprise and something that Shinpachi still couldn’t explain. This time, it wasn’t because it was far from human understanding, but because it was so close to his day to day life that he couldn’t compress it into one word.
If he tried though, he would say that it was relief...and warmth. Warmth, from a silver haired man who, abruptly, embraced him and whispered something into his ears. It couldn’t be more than a sentence or two, and yet the message left the unnamed boy shell shocked.
Before long, the boy embraced him back, and Kagura used that moment to her advantage and hugged the both of them with her pale arms. Shinpachi, too, joined the force for some reason. He didn’t understand why he did that, and frankly, he didn’t care. He hugged all three of them with his embrace, never to let go.
Let’s just call it family bonding time.
::
“Thank you for completing this commission. Here is your promised reward.” Muramasa said with a relieved smile, before handing him the gold.
It felt awkward receiving them, considering that they didn’t exactly chase away the ‘demon’ as he commissioned, but they did the job nonetheless so Gintoki ordered them to claim the prize while he would watch over the boy for them.
“You’re welcome.” Shinpachi said shyly and Kagura immediately snatched the bag away for further inspection. (More like to watch how sparkly they were.)
While they didn’t have any real evidence to support their claim that they had completed their task, they still managed to answer what the boy’s unordinary nature was.
As it turns out, the villagers agreed amongst themselves not to tell the ‘exorcists’ that came here about the boy’s weird nature to test whether or not they had really chased away the ‘demon’ as they so claim to be able to. And, obviously enough, most of the exorcists that came here were conmen and couldn’t even touch, let alone injure the boy enough to know of this, and failed the test. Which was for the best, in his humble opinion.
They bid their farewell to the middle aged man and left for the cobblestone road, a bit far away from the gate, where Gintoki and the boy were waiting.
“Hey, Gin-chan.” Kagura spoke out of nowhere while they were traversing back down towards the path where they had come from. “What should we call him? We can’t call the little guy ‘you’ forever, yes?”
The silver haired man, now holding hands with the boy, looked down towards the younger male with a soft expression. A sad, longing, and nostalgic expression that made Shinpachi wonder if he had had a child who looked like this before.
“You’re right.” Gintoki said quietly before looking at the sky above. Bright with summer light and shadowed by pine trees. A beautiful, beautiful sight.
“It’s morning right now, and we are amidst the pine trees.” The man said somberly, and not even Kagura could tease him about being overly poetic with that expression on his face. “Let’s call him...Shouyou.”
The name made the boy stop in his tracks, making the other three pause too.
The boy looked up at Gintoki, wide-eyed, like he was surprised by something that wasn’t there for them to see.
And Gintoki looked down, mildly concerned, but still able to keep his cool.
“You...don’t like it?”
Immediately, the boy shook his head vehemently. But after a moment, he realized that the gesture could mean both ways and started nodding his head instead. Obviously, this confused the Yorozuya even more, and the boy began to look guilty, which was kind of cute but also concerning.
But alas, when one of them was about to tell him that it was okay, he opened his mouth.
“...I-” A small, shaky voice came out of his equally small mouth.
“I...I like it.” He said at last. “I like it a lot.”
That made them smile in relief. Gintoki in particular looked like a whole mountain was lifted off of his shoulders.
“I see.” He whispered. He sounded equally happy and...guilty at the same time. “That’s...good.”
“After all...it’s a great name.”