Note: I forgot that I posted this on my tumblr a long time ago... well here it is for too! enjoy xoxo

Look Right at the Sun | There is always a woman. — Gintoki x Tsukuyo / Yoshiwara in Flames arc

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And so, this is where Seita has led him. Gintoki wants to sigh in frustration, but can't quite draw the emotion deep enough into his lungs. Yoshiwara, the seediest of seedy underbellies in the city of Edo, which is already a seedy place to begin with. After Kabukicho, Gintoki wasn't sure he could still be disgusted, but this massive, red-lit city underground has stopped him in his tracks.

And yet. Across the way, there is a woman. After over one hundred episodes, there is a woman. In a place deep in the corner of his mind, a voice wants to scoff and narrate: there is always a woman, you stupid f—

Kagura and Shinpachi stand behind him, their bodies tensed to leap into action. His body chills, as though an autumn wind has passed through his clothes and brushed his skin. Is this woman a supernatural being? He feels as though they are her fingers under his kimono, and he shivers despite himself.

There is a woman with moonlight in her hair and dusk in her eyes; this is all Gintoki can see before she attacks, kunai flying through the air too rapidly to see.

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"I am the guardian of Yoshiwara," she says, smoke floating from between full lips. "I eliminate anyone who makes trouble in Yoshiwara."

Gintoki feels Shinpachi's blood run cold, but Kagura next to him is watching Gintoki's face, waiting for a signal: Should we be afraid, Gin-chan? He narrows his eyes at the woman in the dark kimono — there is still moonlight in her hair, how is that possible, when there is no sky in this place?

Yet she has led them here to escape. There is a hardness in her eyes but a softness in her mouth that reminds Gintoki of someone — he squints, but all he can see is Shinsuke.

"Hinowa is the sun," the woman, Tsukuyo, declares firmly. "I am here to protect her." Now she brings her hand to her face; Gintoki realizes, with a start, that she is badly disfigured by a scar around her left eye. Had he noticed before? When she speaks, she speaks with such finality that his heart gives a lurch: "I scarred my face and forsook my womanhood."

Ah, that little dark corner of his mind sighs. Claps its hands. Perfect, perfect. A woman you can't have. A woman you can't control.

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She cannot wrap her mind around this man. "You will go?" she asks, her pipe loose between her lips. Standing behind the door, Tsukuyo cannot bear to look at this group of youngsters going off into the deep, deep night: a single man, a boy, and a little girl. Yet they have a practiced air about them, as though they have charged into such danger many times before. She keeps her eyes firmly closed as she says matter-of-factly, "You will also die."

The girl speaks first, with such resolve that Tsukuyo wants to smile. "It's my job to do something about him."

Then the man, Gintoki. "I'm just going to take back the sunshine."

This time Tsukuyo does smile: he speaks like a poet, like a hero from an old folktale. Take back the sunshine for whom? She thinks, but does not say.

Then he continues, "You've gotta live standing up straight and look right at the sun."

Despite herself, she is impressed. Out of the corner of her eye, she peeks: a tall man with silver hair, dead eyes. But there is a strength in his back, a conviction in the way his hands rest on the hilt of his sword. There is something that he sees with those dead-looking eyes, something that she would like to see, too.

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"Go on ahead," she says.

The girl — Kagura? — and the boy with the glasses both look shocked. They start to argue, but Tsukuyo looks over their heads at Gintoki, her eyes decided. You are children, she wants to say. You should not have to see this bloodletting, much less partake in it.

The man seems to understand. "Hand over your pipe," he orders.

She hesitates, caught off guard. "A moment please," she says.

But he is not taking no for an answer; Gintoki's lips turn down in impatience. "If you want a smoke that badly, come back alive."

Tsukuyo can't help it, she blinks a little at the man and complies. It feels intimate, plucking the pipe from between her lips and handing it to this stranger. She could almost blush. His eyes are on hers: This is a promise.

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Too bad, she thinks. She won't have another smoke from that pipe after all.

"I have no right to kill any one of you," Tsukuyo confesses, her breath coming out in a whisper.

She is brought to her knees before her Sisterhood. She looks out, one eye swollen shut, her arms limp at her sides. Despite their masks, Tsukuyo can still identify each of her Hyakka sisters by name: Sister Mitsuko in the pink kimono, with the scar on her jawline; Sister Una, who favors spicy snacks and has a scar in the middle of her forehead; Sister Haji, who's beginning to get gray hairs and whose scar over her chin never quite healed. She cannot watch them remain caged any longer.

She closes her eyes, tries to see that sun that the man Gintoki had described: your own sunshine, he'd said, wasn't it? Where was the fear, the tremor in his voice? There was none. She tries to clear her throat enough to sound as strong.

"I will not run, I will fight to break this cage."

She can see him there, his silver hair against the bluest sky, a man with a spine like a tree, two children hanging off his arms like branches. Tsukuyo wonders at the strength of his shoulders which can pick up lives like theirs and hers at will. She can barely stand with only the weight of her own body. Look right at the sun, he'd said. Right at the sun.

It is the last of her strength to rise from her knees. "I will stand up straight and look towards the sun until the very end—"

There is the clatter of a hundred kunai falling to the floor. No one has taken a step toward her; forty-eight women stand before Tsukuyo, their masks down down their chins, exposing their faces. Their eyes are filled with tears.

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Everything is dark. There is unspeakable pain, a throbbing in every muscle. Something is torn, Gintoki is sure of it. The blood in his eyes is thick and gooey. He thinks, I am glad Kagura and Shinpachi are not here. And, I am glad —

"Hey!"

His mind shivers in recognition. She's here.

"Look at you!"

Gintoki raises his head, but can't see for the smoke. There is a voice, strong and accented, female. He blinks, he imagines moonlight, autumn leaves, a long leg peeking out from a dark kimono.

"Where's that sun you promised?" Her voice is like a whip.

She moves — he catches her kunai between two fingers. His muscles groan in protest, but body sits forward and moves, almost without his control. He feels his hackles rise for this woman, he needs to speak —

"The sun did rise," he says softly, seeing her standing there, arms crossed, looking huffy. In his mind, he laughs: Don't look at me that way.

Tsukuyo grins and can't help but tease: "I guess I was wrong. I thought you were dead." She draws her teeth back and sneers at this man who has risen to her challenge. "But it doesn't look like you'll be much help. You can barely stand."

Gintoki drags his body back to his feet, using his wooden sword as support. Adrenaline floods his system again, he can't be outdone by her tongue.

"Shut it, bitch. I could say the same thing about you." He glances up, sees her bandaged from head to toe. Good. Gintoki feels his own lips twitch despite the situation — how absurd, how ridiculous, how comical! After all this time, all these years, episodes, meta or not, to finally, finally meet this woman, and — "Nice of you to finally show up."

"I followed the smoke and crawled back from hell," she retorts.

"I appreciate the hard effort, but you took so long that I already sucked on it." He gestures toward her pipe, in a puddle of blood.

The woman actually snorts. Gintoki wants to look closer at her face but all he sees his smoke and moonlight. "What do you mean? I don't remember using a dirty pipe like that." In a flash, she leaps from her perch on high and lands noiselessly nearby. "If you lost my pipe, you'll have to buy me a new one. On the surface."

It is a dare. A cheeky dare.

When did they start to banter? When did it become so natural, so easy? He could count the hours they've known each other on his fingers; he knows nothing about this woman. Why is there moonlight in her hair and dusk in her eyes? Why are there pearls in her cheeks and gold in her lashes? He could find her in a dark room, wearing a blindfold; he could find her on a moonless night with just the touch of his hands; he could find her in a black hole on the other side of the galaxy. Look right at the sun, right at the sun, and she is there.

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She sees a silver wind, watching Gintoki with his wooden sword. Any other grown man wielding such an item would look like a fool or a child, but Gintoki is the wind itself — razor sharp, accurate, deadly. He beats against the Night King over and over.

"You can't blow out my flame," he says, quietly, with perfect composure. His back is straight again, his body is strong. Tsukuyo has never seen such a body. Who is this man? Who is this man? How can he be this way, how can he draw such crowds to his side?

"I've got a lighter that can never be extinguished. As long as I have them, I'll burst back into flames every time you blow them out."

The children, she understands. Like her own Hyakka in the Yoshiwara, this man has fashioned a family with his own two hands, and he will be damned before it falls apart. Tsukuyo watches Gintoki move toward the ruined outer wall of the palace; she panics for a split second that he will jump.

The sky splits, and the sun comes in behind him, illuminating him in gold. She thinks she sees the face of a fairytale knight, or perhaps the face of a god, or is he — is he —

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When all is over, there isn't much to say. One monster is defeated, but there is another — a red-haired boy with the smile of a mask — who will come for them. Gintoki fists his hands. Umibouzu says, "Don't die," with such nonchalance that Gintoki almost hopes he does die, just to spite the old man.

There is still the woman to consider. They sit around together, the Demon Courtesan and the Yorozuya, on a sunny street in the middle of Yoshiwara. She crosses a long elegant leg over the other, but she can't keep her starved eyes off the blue, blue sky. It is fully daytime, but the moonlight is still in her hair, and dusk is still in the irises of her eyes. Gintoki catches her eye for the briefest moment, sees her mouth quirked upwards in a small smile.

Be careful, her lips seem to say. Don't fall for me here, now. It is not time, I am not yours.

Gintoki crosses his arms and turns away, looking out onto the street. "Oy, oy, I'm not buying you a pipe," he grumbles.

But Tsukuyo just laughs — is this only the first time he's heard it? Somehow it is familiar and warm. "We'll see about that, Gintoki."

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Fin.

Note: Thank you.