Author's notes:
First try on Gintama fanfic. I pretty soon realized, that this manga is one hell of a complex bitch (not that I had already noticed that after having read the first few chapter XD) and Sorachi-sensei is one of those geniuses among JUMP mangaka everbody should be putting up shrines for (wouldn't a Justaway-shrine be just splendid?)! Hail to his hairy behind O.o'
Hope to be able to entertain you moderately with this little snippet of Diploma-induced madness!
Feel free to r&r, because basically, I can't live without your brutally honest opinion. o(_)o
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Lesson 1: Don't draw your sword inside a closet.
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Damn those Amanto… beaming their grey asses down from their super-cool spaceships and thinking the world was theirs to boot.
Sure. They hade brought some fine stuff along. Television, Pachinko-halls, color printers and G-pens. Which had undergone the most natural co-evolution and had inevitably lead to the first JUMP issue and mangas about friendship, adventure, pirate kings and substitute shinigamis.
He was sure to become one of the latter in his afterlife.
But of all the things, those weird looking, sometimes gross smelling fellows could have brought with them, why this.
The street made another strange motion, almost bringing Gintoki down on all fours. Only a nearby plush-hamster prevented him from toppling over ungracefully. Who had come up with the idea of moving streets anyway?
"Oh, Gin-chaaaaan!" The hamster whined, staring back at him with big, black eyes. "You shouldn't have had that last glass, neeee?!" It winked, its fur changing color from brown to pink with purple dots. Brows rising high on his forehead, the swaying man watched as it opened its wings and flew away.
Closing his eyes for a second, he found the blackness behind his lids doing approximately exactly the same as the damn alien street.
Frigging hamster was probably right… that last Dom Pérignon had done him in.
The God of gamble had been good to him that day, blessing him with the sacred hand of luck. In an Pachinko-marathon like none ever before, he had made so much money that he could have paid the rent for last month and buy Kagura enough sukonbu for her poo to never return to its original color again.
But a man was still a man!
And men needed to drink sake! And they did it with style! And with lotsa women! They had needs that had to be quenched!...
He had planned to have some quality time at that ramen stand with a few cups of warm sake. But trying to remember that was difficult, because his brain was like a broken record and seemed to automatically jump from that thought to a red couch and empty bottles scattered around him…
If he remembered correctly, and his memory appeared to be a bit fuzzy around the edges, it had been a certain someone else who had made him go inside that hideous huge building with all those money-thirsting women…
Falling over a waste basket, Gin got back up again and tried to make out whether the sign of his house was already in sight, his eyes glassy.
"Damn monster-woman." He mumbled in a slurred voice. "The offspring of a mountain gorilla… "
He could still feel that unbelievable vice-grip around his wrist, a powerful strength like that of five mules pulling him inside that freaking establishment. And then there was that dazzling smile on her face as she ended every damn sentence with Dom Pérignon.
Gintoki would make Shinpachi bleed for having that woman as his sister!
Scratching his head, he finally found himself in front of the closed doors of the old hag's bar. With an effort born from pure desperation to take a pee, he climbed up the stairs, black boots dragging behind as slowly but surely darkness crept up on his consciousness.
The sliding door was pried open and the boots discarded somewhere along the way to the living room.
He could just hope Shinpachi would fall over them the next morning. His plan on revenge was initiated. Now fate had to play its evil part.
His eyes were barely open anymore as his hand grabbed blindly for the remote control, while flopping down on the sofa. His bladder protested mildly against the movement, but Gintoki's last few working brain cells had already decided to pick up the latest JUMP instead.
The back of his head hit the armrest hard.
"Why ain't my zanpakutou talkin' with me." He mused, listening to a commercial for eatable diapers blaring soundly in the background.
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He woke, to find his world bathed in absolute darkness. The smell of recycled paper and fresh ink infiltrating his senses as he took a deep breath.
His limbs were aching as he dragged his heavy arm up from where it had been lying partly on the table. With numb fingers, Gintoki grabbed the JUMP lying on his face and pulled it down with an incoherent grunt.
Moving his eyes to the left, he found Son Goku doing the Kamehameha in a re-run of Dragon Ball.
What had woken him in the middle of the night anyway? Had it been the noise of the dozen police cars speeding by his front door? Or maybe the unbelievable need to wet his pants right here and then? Or that strange dream involving Zura dressed in a Kimono, eating his parfait?
Who knew… probably a sugar low.
Sitting up, he found his world still dipping slightly to the right even when his head was perfectly straight.
"Dom Pérignon should come with parental advisory… " He mumbled to no one in particular, scratching his messy silver hair as he got up slowly and walked to the kitchen on unsteady legs.
The fridge opened and he grabbed a carton of strawberry milk.
A noise from the sleeping room aka storage room made him stop mid-gulp and with a frown Gintoki suddenly realized that he hadn't heard any noise from the violent Yato offspring.
"Ah." He remembered with a small smile. "Sleepover at Shimura's." The gathering of the beasts.
The noise again, sounding almost like a herd of ungraceful boars tiptoeing through the hall. Strangely enough he felt no need to take hold of his bokuto, the only sirens he could here coming from the blaring police cars roaming the streets of Kabukicho.
Hangover and rest alcohol forgotten, he strode to the door leading to the living room, frowning when he couldn't remember having closed it, and pulled it open in one fluid motion.
"Oi, danna. Long time no see."
Averting his gaze from the scene currently playing out in his favorite room, Gin heaved a sigh born from total overtiredness.
"I'm having real bad hallucinations… damn Dom Pérignon."
Looking back up, he made a face and finally entered, stepping into a puddle of sticky liquid. The smell of blood clung to the formally normal dusty air and in the eerie light of the TV he could make out drops and puddles of the crimson liquid forming trails to the two familiar men.
"Could'cha at least spread some newspaper on the floor and couch? Ya're bleeding all over the place." He grumbled, watching as Okita was already ripping out pages of his JUMP issue and covering the immediate area around him.
"Ya know, my heart just got ripped as well…"
"Sakata-saaan!" The obnoxious loud voice of the leader of the shinsengumi announced his presence, one apparently uninjured arm lifted high in the air to gain Gin's attention. Retrieving his arm, he folded them across his chest, sitting serenely on the couch.
"As you can hear, Edo is facing a disastrous event." The sirens were still racing past the house in disorder. "There has been an assassination attempt on the Shogun's life."
The arm that wasn't inside the kimono sleeve snaked across his abdomen to scratch a spot somewhere close to his wooden sword. "He dead?" Gintoki asked in a flat, disinterested tone of voice.
A small grin played around Kondou's lips as he nodded his spiky head towards his right.
There was a moment of absolute silence, as Gintoki blinked a few times as if to clear his vision.
"WHY THE HELL IS A NAKED SHOGUN SITTING ON MY COUCH!?!" Gintoki yelled, finger pointing at the tall man with a perfect top-knot sitting silently on the sofa. Even then, an air of aristocracy surrounded him like a halo.
"Shogun-sama, would you please so kind as to stand up for a moment?" Okita asked in the most humble voice, spreading torn JUMP pages on the sofa where the young Shogun had been sitting silently.
"He ain't a leaking puppy fer God's sake!! He can control his sphincter!!" Gin's nerves were slowly running thin.
"We were able to deflect the attack. We had obtained some reliable information from a source outside the shinsengumi beforehand." Kondou continued as if nothing had happened, staring straight ahead at the TV changing its program from the re-run to breaking news. "The shinsengumi were decimated by half, either killed or taken prisoner, leaving the rest to protect his highness' life."
"And when did I get dragged into this mess?" Gin asked with a sigh as he walked towards Sougo and snatched the remains of his favorite magazine out of his destructive hands before he could reach the new 'Bleach' chapter. "Can't remember having signed up for your club."
Clearing his throat, Kondou got up from his seat, finally turning his face towards the silver haired man. His features were partly covered in blood, one eye already swelling. His clothes were splattered with blood as well, though Gintoki doubted it was all his own.
"I am enlisting the services of the yorozuya!" He announced with a loud sonorous voice. "Grant us asylum until we have charged our strength again!!"
Frowning slightly, Gintoki scratched his head with a sigh.
"What Kondou-san is trying to say is, let us wait here until Hijikata-san and Yamazaki-san return from gathering the survivors and doing a perimeter check. We were scattered after our flight and not in a too good shape either." Okita pointed at the numerous bleeding wounds covering his torso and arms in a strange pattern with a slight smile.
"Phew… this stinks like one of Sadaharu's piles. The waste disposal costs are pretty high these days, ya know?"
Another deep sigh and Gin cocked his head slightly to the side to watch a burning palace flittering across the TV screen. His hand scratched through his natural perm roughly. "Who was it? Don't guess it was a Joi thing."
A long uncomfortable silence spread out in the living room.
"The Tendoshu."
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"We're baaack." Still half asleep, Shinpachi pulled the sliding door open, ignoring Sadaharu's sticky breath on his neck. He hadn't really gotten any sleep last night with two giggling females in the room next to his. "Otose-san caught us downstairs and demands the rent…"
He entered and promptly crashed to the floor, landing in a heap in front of the second boot. Somehow, he just felt like having stepped into a trap screaming his name…
Shinpachi wiped his bleeding nose on his sleeve and got back up.
"Good morning, Shinpachi-kun."
"Good morning, Yamazaki-kun."
The badminton-playing man disappeared in the toilette and Shinpachi walked on, watching as Kagura entered the living room with her inugami hot on her heels. Just then a grumbling man walked out of the kitchen with a bowl of rice topped with approximately one kilo of mayonnaise.
"Get outta my way, brat!" He barked, the lit cigarette whipping up and down with the movement of his lips.
"I'm sorry, Hijikata-san." Shinpachi replied demurely, bowing his head slightly as he apologized. He waited until the vice-captain of the shinsengumi had entered and followed then inside.
Looking about the totally messed up room, Shinpachi pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose and silently walked to the couch, where the head of the yorozuya was sitting. He was picking his nose languidly, looking like he was deep in thoughts.
He was watching the news, grabbing for the remote to raise the volume a few notches in response to the new arrivals.
"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE??" Shinpachi finally exploded, vein throbbing dangerously on his temple. "Why is half the police force gathered in here?!"
Not bothering to extract his pinky from where it was stuck, Gintoki turned his head around to face the youngster with half open eyes.
"Oi, oi, Shinpachi. Pipe down or your blood pressure will make yer head explode." The finger appeared out in the open and the silver haired samurai blew something off of the tip. "I can't hear the weather broadcast anymore."
An arm suddenly appeared around Shinpachi's shoulder as another presence materialized out of the nowhere right beside him.
"Sakata-san, don't be like that!" Kondou's voice was didactical and way too loud. Barking a short laugh, he winked at Shinpachi. "We Shimuras have to stick together, ne, little brother."
Taking the hairy hand resting on his shoulder, Shinpachi extracted himself from the companionable semi-hug with a sigh. "Who are the Shimuras? Be glad my sister didn't hear that." He stated in the flattest voice one could muster. "And stop calling me little brother or she will."
A nervous chuckle and Kondou's arms folded across his bandaged abdomen defiantly.
"Shinpachi-kun. I am deeply sorry for taking up so much of your room, but the shinsengumi had to make the yorozuya into our temporary command headquarters."
"Oi, Kaguraaa. Get outta the way." Gintoki announced suddenly, making a motion with his hand for her to step aside. "Ketsuno Hana is talking about her freshly divorced ex."
In front of the television screen, Kagura was standing, still wearing her jacket and nibbling on a half eaten sukonbu slice.
"Ne, Gin-chan." She began around a mouthful of sukonbu and pointed her red umbrella at a spot to Gintoki's right. "Why is that man sitting in my command headquarters."
"Kagura, didn't your mother teach you not to point your umbrella at just anyone? That's rude."
Shinpachi felt his hair falling out all at once when he found the shogun himself sitting on a few torn JUMP pages in his spare-hakama. Maybe he hadn't really woken that morning. Maybe this was all a big bad dream, induced by his sister's abominable tamagoza.
If he hit his head hard enough, the shinsengumi and the shogun would be gone.
"Oi, danna." Shinpachi stopped in the middle of banging his head against the big table to find Okita standing in the doorway, wearing one of Gintoki's yukata and looking slightly off. "There's no strawberry milk left in the fridge. Do you have anything to wash down the chocolate cake with."
A moment of absolute silence followed, when suddenly the vacuum filled with black horror.
"You are dead."
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FINIS?!
Second part planned… but well… time and muse hit for the most unexpected reasons. Maybe your constructive criticism helps?