Gintoki stretched himself out on Hijikata's futon and let out a deep, happy sigh. "It's been so long," he moaned, pulling the covers up to his chin. He glanced over at Hijikata with half-lidded eyes. "I hope you appreciate this, rich boy."

Hijikata stood at the door, his heart pounding. This had been such a bad idea.

It hadn't been as hard to sneak Gintoki in as Hijikata feared. Surprisingly, though it really shouldn't have been, Gintoki could sneak around quite well when he wanted to (and wasn't that what had gotten Hijikata into this mess? Underestimating Gintoki just because he was loud and crude and looked so young?), and Hijikata's room opened out into the trees.

Gintoki's eyes fluttered shut. "I knew you were lying about not having a cute weather girl," he said, mumbling into the blankets. "I can smell it."

Hijikata's face scrunched up in disgust. "Smell it?"

"Burnt food," Gintoki clarified. "Everyone knows the easiest interesting trait to give a shounen heroine is being bad at cooking."

"Mitsuba doesn't burn food," Hijikata said, automatically on the defense. He considered his words for a second, then admitted, "Though it might have more exposure to heat than normal."

"There you go," Gintoki murmured, and fell asleep. Hijikata could tell because of the soft snoring.

Hijikata kicked him awake. "Aren't you forgetting something?" he hissed, squatting down beside Gintoki.

Gintoki's eyes lit up with such a look of genuine, unfiltered delight that Hijikata actually managed to feel more nervous. "You're right," he said, in a whisper less for, say, making sure no one overheard, and more for the awe usually reserved for legends coming true. He sat up, pulled his feet out from under the futon, and began carefully untying his straw waraji sandals. Then he began peeling of his socks, which were dripping wet and covered in mud. Hijikata thought of them rubbing against his futon seconds before and decided he shouldn't bother fighting Gintoki for the bed.

Gintoki let out a happy sigh and wiggled his damp toes. "You wouldn't believe how long it's been since I've been able to take these off," he said, reaching down to pick at a yellowed nail. "Can people grow mold?"

"I meant," Hijikata said, staring as Gintoki industriously set to peeling off the ends of each awful toenail, "Don't you have a plan?"

"Yep," Gintoki said cheerfully. Hijikata watched as he unstrapped his leather suneate greaves from his shins. For a moment, his fingers hovered above the cloth legging kyahan that protected the skin beneath, before he moved up to remove the rest of his armor. He didn't have as much of it as Hijikata believed a samurai should. And only really poor vassals and retainers still had leather armor; all the good samurai had long since moved onto iron and chainmail, and now were making the transition to super-strong Amanto metals. But Gintoki's armor was all old leather and faded white cloth.

Hijikata forced himself to be happy about this. "Are you going to tell it to me?" he ventured.

Gintoki stopped undressing and looked at Hijikata. "It seems to me," he said, "that I've done all I can. Now I just have to react to whatever comes. This part is all up to you."

"What?"

Gintoki shrugged. "I dunno. Do you have a student registry you need to forge me onto, preferably not with my real name? Any uniform you need to give me? Super secret finishing moves privy to only elite members of the dojo you should teach me? Or maybe just telling me 'my' sensei's name?" He laid back down, propping himself up on an elbow. "You're the expert here, Hijikata-kun."

Hijikata took a deep breath. Then he took several more. He did know what he had to do, now that the Shiroyasha had gone and spelled it out for him. He hoisted himself off the floor, walked to the door, said, "It's Kondo-sensei," and left. A few seconds later, he opened the door a crack and whispered, "And don't you dare leave."

Gintoki gave him a thumbs up. "Yamada Tarou is a good name," he whispered back. "Very innocuous."

Hijikata padded down the hall. It was quiet enough that he could almost force himself to believe that there was nothing wrong.

The official had been moved into Mitsuba's room, one of the more lavish rooms in the dojo (not that it meant much here—it was just slightly bigger than the student's rooms) and, importantly, close enough that they could hear anything happening in there but far enough away that no one felt impeded. Mitsuba had laid out a futon in Sougo's room. He could hear the floor squeak as she sat up to cough, though it was almost muffled by Sougo's snores.

At the end of the hall, Hijikata pressed himself to the door into Kondo's room and whispered, "Are you awake?" This was more for Hijikata's sake than any courtesy towards Kondo; he could hear the loud snores from inside; these could outclass Sougo's any night.

The snores stopped, and Hijikata could hear Kondo yawn and push himself upright. "Come in," he said, and Hijikata slid the door open. His heart was racing. Each beat seemed to force a shudder through his whole body.

Kondo looked at him, concern brightening his sleep-dull eyes. "Come sit down, Toshi," he said, patting the end of his futon. "Tell me what's wrong."

It was times like this that Hijikata could forget that they were barely a year apart. Tamegorou had always said the same thing whenever Hijikata had wandered in after a nightmare (or, and he would never tell this to anyone, when he had sought out his brother just because he felt scared and alone in a big house where everyone hated him).

Hijikata sat down. "Kondo," he said, and the words bubbled up his throat and poured out of his mouth, like they had been waiting to escape. "Tomorrow, I don't know what will happen but I think it'll go very wrong, and you just...you just have to trust me, because it was my mistake and I'll get us through it, I promise." He took a breath, aware he wasn't making any sense, and tried to calm himself down. "I mean...I've done something awful, but—"

"Toshi, I'm sure that whatever it is, it can't be as bad as you're making it out to be." Kondo reached over and put a big hand on Hijikata's shoulder.

"There's going to be a person tomorrow," Hijikata said, choosing each word carefully. "And you're not going to know who he is—or you'll recognize him, but you shouldn't—and I'm going to say he's a student, and please, please, don't look surprised, or don't say anything, just pretend you don't know anything."

"That won't be hard," Kondo said. "What's going on?"

"I can't tell you," Hijikata said, and it was agonizing, but...Kondo had to be warned, but he couldn't be told. There was still a chance, if Hijikata and Gintoki were caught, that the rest of the family could plead ignorance. If Kondo could tell the interrogator that a trusted student had told him something was going to happen, and he had simply believed it would be for the good of the dojo and of Japan, he might get off lightly. If he admitted that he knew that Hijikata was sheltering the Shiroyasha under the official's nose, that would be unforgivable. But if Kondo didn't have any warning that something was up, he would spoil it before it even began. "Just trust me."

Hijikata didn't deserve anything from Kondo, and he especially didn't deserve it when Kondo nodded solemnly and said, "Alright."

From there, it didn't take long Hijikata to find the registry of all members and discover that Harada Sanosuke was visiting his family back in the Iyo-Matsuyama Domain. He wrote in that Harada had returned a few days ago, but had been injured on the way back and was currently resting. Satisfied, Hijikata went back to his room.

And laid eyes on a nightmare.

Sougo had a knee in Gintoki's stomach and locked his hands around Gintoki's wrists. They both looked at Hijikata when he walked in.

"Oh, it's you," they said at the same time, with equal amounts of disdain. Sougo frowned down at Gintoki.

"Fuck," Hijikata said. "Damn it, Sougo, get off him."

"Nah," Sougo said.

"'Kay, that sounds enough like permission," said Gintoki, and brought his left leg, his good leg, up and above Sougo's head and rested his knee on Sougo's right shoulder. Before either Hijikata or Sougo could react, Gintoki pushed his leg back to the left, and Sougo tumbled off him, losing his grip on Gintoki's wrists. "Is this the kid you could never beat, Hijikata-kun?" he asked, pushing himself up and leering down at Sougo.

Hijikata grabbed Sougo by the collar before he could retaliate and glared at Gintoki. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Are you blaming me?" Gintoki looked genuinely wounded, but that didn't mean anything. He pointed at Sougo. "That brat just attacked an innocent stranger in his sleep." He paused, then added, "An innocent, wounded stranger. A veteran."

Sougo untangled himself from Hijikata's grasp and pushed him away. "You're the one they're looking for, aren't you? And you—" he turned to Hijikata "—you're sheltering him. I always knew you were an idiotic scumbag with delusions of grandeur and a tendency towards violence, that you were raised in a gutter and hated by everyone who was forced to lay eyes on your awful face, that you don't deserve any of the attention Mitsuba and Kondo give you—"

"Oi," said Hijikata.

"—and that the only cure for being you is to commit seppuku or possibly light yourself on fire, which I have tried my best to help you with—"

"Um," said Gintoki.

"—but I didn't know you were a dirty traitor who sheltered terrorists and put the safety of some filthy samurai's boot-licker over that of the people who took you in." Sougo took a deep breath, and for a horrified second Hijikata thought he was going to continue, but Gintoki burst out laughing before he could say anything else.

Hijikata ignored the outburst and took his chance. Putting his hand on Sougo's shoulder, squatting down so they were face to face, and catching Sougo's foot before it could collide with his groin, he said, "Just this once, we're in complete agreement. But you have to help me. He's got us in a bind; if he doesn't escape, the Shogunate will blame this on Kondo."

"And if he does escape, who do you think they'll blame then?" Sougo hissed.

"We'll have a better chance."

"This is all your fault."

Hijikata took a deep breath. "I completely agree."

Sougo subsided a little in Hijikata's grip. "Okay," he said.

"Really?" It had been a long, long day; he weakened his hold.

Sougo ducked down, grabbed Gintoki's sword where it lay by Hijikata's futon, and unsheathed it. "I see two options to getting us out of this. One, claim all responsibility and kill him, then yourself. Two, kill yourself, I'll blame him, and he can be tried for all his crimes plus one."

"There's definitely more than two options here," Gintoki said, a trace of laughter still lacing his words. "You could kill me, then kill Hijikata yourself. Or the three of us could stage a coup, and take all the officials hostage, which would result in Hijikata's death sometime in the close future."

"Will you shut up?" Sougo said, moving his eyes but not his sword. "The only reason I'm not turning you in right now is because I can't figure out a way to get a dead Hijikata out of this."

Gintoki whistled. "Hiji-kun, what did you do to this kid?" He sat with one leg crossed, leaning his elbow on his good knee. "Listen, the reason you're not killing me is because there's no way in eight hells that the government is going to accept that a samurai-in-training stumbled across a criminal of my caliber and just handcuffed him."

Sougo frowned, then sat down cross-legged in front of Gintoki, laying the sword across his knees and keeping a hand on the hilt. "So, boss, what you're telling me is that I should kill you?"

Gintoki waggled his finger at Sougo. "That would have been the ideal option. However! I am in your house."

"I think that's the biggest problem," Sougo said.

"You bringing in a dead me is bad enough," Gintoki continued. "I mean, I am a renowned warrior, famed across the universe. They'd be pretty suspicious if an eleven year old and a Hijikata—"

"Hey," Hijikata protested.

"—brought me down, when the united armies of Japan and the solar system couldn't."

"But they'd forgive it," Sougo said. "Because you'd be dead."

Gintoki stuck out his tongue. "Oi, oi, there's no need to be so callous. That's me you're talking about. And I'm getting to that. A dead me that's just around is all well and good, but a dead me that's in your dojo, bandaged, in your private quarters? That's suspicious."

"Yes," Sougo agreed. "But you'd be dead."

"And it'd look like you were sheltering me until someone important-ish came asking, and then you freaked out," Gintoki said. "Betrayal of the shogun and cowardice to boot."

Sougo looked up at Hijikata, and for heart-stopping moment, Hijikata interpreted it as plaintive; his eleven year old senior's first time asking Hijikata for advice. But Sougo said, "If I left now, I'm sure Hijikata wouldn't hesitate to indict me when he's inevitably discovered."

"Sougo," Hijikata said, "I know that—" we've had our differences, but I would never actually betray you like that, he would have said, but Gintoki was making frantic gestures behind Sougo's back.

"He would, the bastard," Gintoki agreed jovially. "And I know we'd be caught too, because, between you and me—" he leaned forward and stage-whispered, "this guy's kinda of stupid."

Sougo took Gintoki's sword off his knees and gently placed it on the ground in front of him. The he stood up, turned to face Hijikata. "This," he said, "This is something I will never forgive you for," and Hijikata was taken aback by just how adult he sounded, the maturity of the hate in his voice, something that wasn't his usual fiery vitriol but something deep and abiding and Hijikata knew right then that any chance of reconciliation between them was lost forever. Sougo took a deep breath, obviously steadying himself, and then said, turning back to Gintoki, "The problem here, obviously, is that you're ugly."

Gintoki leaned forward and poked a finger at Sougo's chest. Before he could fully open his mouth, Hijikata stretched his foot out and kicked (gently) at Gintoki's bad knee. While Gintoki was busy going sheet-white and trying to clutch at his leg without actually touching it, Sougo said. "Hijikata, go out and gather, say," he hesitated, briefly, "ten, fifteen walnuts."

"And what are you planning?" Hijikata asked.

"He needs a makeover," Sougo said. "Mush, doggy."

Hijikata mushed. He could be the mature one in the situation, even if it rankled, and even if he spent the twenty-five minutes it took to find thirteen walnuts in the dead of night alternatively swearing and kicking trees.

Once he was finished with the harvest, Sougo sent him off to the family room to boil the walnuts for half an hour. Hijikata sat cross-legged in front of the irori, watching the water bubble up and gradually turn darker and darker. He should have made himself tea, or gotten some food, while he was here. It had been a long night and would turn into an even longer day. But he found that even the thought of food made him feel sick, and though his nerves kept him awake, he couldn't bring himself to move, to even do so much as to tear his eyes away from the simple fire, to the point where the heat sent floating mirages dancing across his vision.

When he returned, the sword had disappeared back into its sheath, Sougo was bent over Gintoki's leg, examining the wound, and Gintoki was looking at Sougo with something like begrudging respect. The leg, while markedly improved from the first time Hijikata had laid eyes on it, was not pretty. Deep, ugly bruises had bloomed on every patch of skin healed enough to sport a color besides red, running up Gintoki's thigh. The contrast of the green-grey-purple bruises against his tanned skin made the leg look unnatural, as if a graverobber had stitched one of his finds onto an amputee. Miraculously, there was no sign of infection that Hijikata could detect, but the knee that had been exposed to the bone was still messy, all still-wet blood clots and flaps of skin.

And Sougo was examining all this with the same forensic curiosity as Kondo examined the interior of his right nostril. He sat back on his heels as Hijikata set the still-hot concoction of walnuts and water on the floor.

"There's no way we can pass this off as a dojo injury," Sougo said. "Attempted murder, maybe."

"I've penned him in on the roster as Harada, attacked by rebel forces on his way home," Hijikata said. "Perhaps we can keep him in the infirmary; they may not think to inspect there."

Gintoki looked up from rewrapping his leg long enough to roll his eyes. "Yeah, like they won't be specifically looking for a guy with a pulverized right leg. That'll be the first place they go."

"I could give you another injury," Sougo offered. "To hide the trail." While he was talking, he dragged the steaming bucket between Gintoki's outstretched legs, then stepped behind him. Unceremoniously, but quick as thought, he dunked Gintoki's head, scalp first, into the bucket.

"Alright," Sougo said, putting his knee on the back of Gintoki's neck and leaning his weight forward as Gintoki thrashed uselessly. "How much have you told Kondo?"

"Almost nothing," Hijikata promised.

"My sister?"

Hijikata's temper flared. "Nothing, and you won't either."

Sougo leaned more of his weight on Gintoki's back so he could look down at Gintoki's leg. "She could probably—"

"No," Hijikata said. "Mitsuba's the only one they may spare. They won't kill a woman if they don't think she knows anything. We're not involving her."

"You involved her the moment that you didn't kill this guy," Sougo said, expression distorting. "You really think that they'll let her go if—"

"Drop it," Hijikata snapped. "None of that matters now. All we can do is try and see this through, and—are you drowning him on purpose?"

Sougo looked down. Gintoki had stopped struggling awhile ago, and the bubbles rippling up from his half-breaths had ceased as well. "He should be able to breathe," Sougo said, anger replaced with curiosity. "Maybe his face is smooshed up against the sides."

They considered this.

"Maybe you should let him go," Hijikata suggested.

Sougo frowned. "I'm not sure if his hair will be dyed enough yet."

"It won't be the only thing that's died, soon."

Sougo grabbed the back of Gintoki's collar and heaved up upright. Gintoki gasped for breath as he was heaved backwards, then spent a few more seconds dramatically heaving and spitting out lumps of boiled walnut. "What the hell," he sputtered. "What the hell was that for?"

Hijikata stared at Gintoki. He looked at Gintoki's hair, down to Gintoki's face, back up to the hair. He burst into laughter that was hysterical around the edges, doubling over and gripping at his stomach. There were surely other giveaways, but Gintoki wouldn't be recognizable as the Shiroyasha on sight anymore. Sougo had dyed Gintoki's hair a splotchy dark brown, darker with it still dripping wet. There was even a ring of brown skin around Gintoki's hairline, where the liquid had just barely reached.

"We can tie a headband around that," Sougo said.

Gintoki reached forward, grabbed his sword, and unsheathed it. Sougo and Hijikata were both on their feet, hands going to their hips— Hijikata to the hilt of his own sword, Sougo to where his would be if he had it—but Gintoki was using the blade's edge to inspect himself in its reflection. He groaned. "I'm sorry for everything I said about the silhouette being the most important part of a character design," he whispered, like a prayer. "It was definitely the color palette all along." Louder, he said, "I've decided. I'm going to desert. I can't go back now, no one would recognize me."

Hijikata was unimpressed. "Surely the white isn't the only part of your image."

"Have you heard people talking about the Tea-colored Demon? The Chairoyasha?" He spread his arms. "That sounds like a kind of novelty furniture."

"I haven't heard anyone talking about a demon of any color," Hijikata said. "I first heard you mentioned this afternoon."

Gintoki's grin cut a sharp line across his face. "What's that saying about not living to tell tales?"

"Why don't you tell it to the Bakufu tomorrow?" Sougo asked.

"Someone's up past their bedtime." Gintoki half-covered his mouth and whispered to Hijikata, "Put your kid to sleep, he's getting cranky."

"Hey, Hijikata, maybe you should put your dog to sleep?" Sougo said. "It's cruel to keep something so mangey around as a pet." He knelt down by Gintoki. "He's got no friends, you see, so he's kind of a wimp about this sort of thing."

Gintoki pushed Sougo away with his shoulder. "Don't try and get me in on your comedy routine when it's me you're talking about killing."

"I'm happy you two are getting along," Hijikata said. "Sougo...maybe—thanks for the hair, but you should really go back to your room now. Mitsuba's going to notice you're gone."

Sougo hoisted himself to his feet. "Fine," he snapped. He stopped before the door and said, "If anything goes wrong tomorrow, and it will, I'm going to do everything I can to protect my sister and Kondo." He opened the sliding door. "I don't give a shit about either of you." The door slammed shut behind him.

Gintoki and Hijikata watched as the washi paper panels shuddered in the frame.

"Cheerful kid," Gintoki said.

Hijikata put his head in his hands. "We are so dead."