Yo! This is something I wrote a while back, so I edited it and published it. Gintoki and Kagura is a ship I can never renounce!

Disclaimer: Oh the great Sorachi-sensei, bless you for creating these characters!

Thanks for reading!

A full pale moon lay high up in the sky. This was a rare occurrence in Edo; powerful storms and dull rain would almost always tarnish the forgotten beauty of this city. Kagura had forgotten the last time she could walk at night with so much peace on her mind, and be able to breathe in the fresh night air. But perhaps the unusual feeling of being safe was not coming from the clear weather.

She turned her head slightly to her left to lay her eyes on the person walking beside her on this clear night. It was a man who wore clothes very similar to his, if not the exact same ones. This man who called himself Pin-san claimed that he had been saved by Gin-chan in the past and that they were close friends – a story which sounded somewhat suspicious, but the former Yorozuya members had left it at that.

Pin-san seemed to know a way to cure the people of this abandoned city and had requested that Kagura, Shinpachi and Sadaharu join him to bring the Yorozuya together once more to find that cure. As a result today they all joined together to look for the man Pin-san held responsible for the occurrence and spread of the White Curse. The night has come and they had to halt the search until tomorrow. Everyone had gone home, and Kagura decided to take Pin-san to the former Yorozuya office as the man apparently did not have a place to sleep.

That was how she found herself in this situation. Kagura and Pin-san were taking slow steady steps down the Kabukicho road in silence, and Sadaharu was following close behind wiggling his tail happily for the reason unknown to Kagura. The man walking on her left started inducing strange feeling of dislike in her. His confident way of walking was too familiar, his eyes, seemingly bored, were looking straight ahead, his expression appeared calm and composed, and worst of all, he was resting his right arm on the waist of his kimono that was only worn on one shoulder. All of these were irritatingly similar to how he used to behave. The large man may have felt the slight scorn that had formed on the girl's face, as he diverted his gaze towards her.

"What's wrong?" he asked her.

Kagura quickly composed herself and set her eyes straight ahead.

"Nothing," was her dry response.

The man had his eyes linger on Kagura's face for a few seconds, then he faced the road again.

After some minutes they had arrived at the office. Kagura entered first, followed by Pin-san, and then Sadaharu. The girl walked into the living room to try and find something warm for the man to use to cover himself and that's when she heard a thud in the hallway.

"…No, Sadaharu! Stop!"

"Woof!"

"Weren't you supposed to mature as well? …Ah!"

Kagura stood at the end of the hallway to check what was happening. Sadaharu had pinned down Pin-san on the floor and was excitedly licking the man's face with his huge tongue. The man underneath Sadaharu was squirming and trying to get the dog off him.

"SA-DA-HA-RUUUU!" the man almost growled as he lifted the giant dog off himself by its paws. Although Sadaharu didn't seem intimidated by the man in the least and still kept breathing rapidly and wiggling its tail while the man held his paws. Pin-san's back was facing Kagura.

"Sadaharu, leave him alone," firmly commanded the girl and Sadaharu did as he was told. Pin-san finally turned around, clumsily wiping off his face on the sleeve of his kimono while grunting words of annoyance at the amount of saliva that was on his face. As he finally finished, he was interrupted by an audible whimper at the end of the hallway.

He lifted his gaze from his sleeve and his eyes widened when he took in the form of the girl facing him in a few steps' distance. Kagura's eyes had widened in utter shock, her stature frozen as she stared at the man's face in disbelief.

"Do I still have his spit on my face?" clumsily asked Pin-san as he tried wiping his face on his sleeve once again.

"Gin…chan…" were the words forcibly squeezed out by the girl as she stood there in fear of being delusional.

Gintoki froze as he heard his real name, which was uttered by a voice he knew so well with the honorific that was only ever used by one single person in the whole wide world – Kagura.

He recovered from his stupor and in panic checked his own forehead that was supposed to have the camouflaging snot stuck to it but it was nowhere to be found. He immediately turned around to look at Sadaharu which barked happily and he realised his dog had licked it off his face with his giant tongue.

"…Gin-chan?" this time it was a question. Kagura was afraid; afraid that this might be a dream or that she might be seeing things, but she needed to know for certain no matter how frightful it may be.

Gintoki faced her again as a reaction to his own name and saw the girl widen her eyes even more, now with clear tears formed in them. Her mouth was agape and he realised she was about to cry loudly. He ran up to her in an instant and covered her mouth with his hand, and held the back of her head with his other hand. As he watched her face he saw countless warm tears stream down her face and onto his hand. Kagura was shaking as she gently removed Gintoki's hand from her mouth and slowly reached out with her trembling hand to touch the man's face. Gintoki's expression went from momentary panic to a tender gaze as he felt the extremely familiar pair of soft white hands carefully touch his face. The girl in front of him had that one desperate question in her eyes.

"Yeah, it's me – Gin-san," he said ever so gently, as he tenderly locked his eyes with Kagura.

No other confirmation was needed and Kagura closed the small space between them and pressed her whole body against his. Her body was still trembling, even more violently than before, and Gintoki wrapped his arms around the girl tightly as he pressed her fragile form into his own. Kagura wrapped her arms around his waist as well and started quietly weeping into his broad chest, and the man pressed his mouth onto the top of the girl's head as a soft smile formed on his lips.

This was how much he hurt them. He had abandoned them and left them all alone in this cruel future. He had broken them beyond repair. One of his priceless treasures was uncontrollably sobbing in his embrace, uttering his name over and over again, and this was enough proof. He held the tender form of the beautiful girl even tighter as he whispered the words "Kagura, I'm sorry".

Later...

That night the red-haired girl refused to sleep and wanted to spend as much time as she possibly could with Gintoki. Tomorrow they would join Shinpachi, now Gintoki being himself, and find the culprit of the deadly disease.

Despite all of her excitement, Kagura finally drifted off to slumber on one of the sofas on the very late hour of night, while Sadaharu had been napping on the floor. Gintoki stayed awake for some time thinking on the second sofa, and later closed his lids for the night as well.

The next morning he woke up, as the early sun rays found their way in through the window. As he started moving his body, he found the red-haired girl's slender body resting on top of him. Kagura had straddled him with her legs around his hips as if he was a large pillow, and her head was resting on his heaving chest. She was quietly snoozing as her long silky locks gently spread across the man's chest. Gintoki couldn't help but smile at the girl's sleeping face, he realised how much he had missed it.

"Oi brat, you're drooling on me," he said with humour.

As the morning sun softly graced the buildings of the city, the three of them walked to meet Shinpachi, and reunite the Yorozuya once again.