What are you doing? Don't you know they'll kill you or worse once they realize you're a girl and not a Shinsengumi? They might already know...
Kagura stood in his uniform, her back arched proudly, taunt and ready to spring into action. Once again she spoke.
"That man. Give him to me."
"Why should I?"
"I have to make him pay, right here, right now. I'll kill him for what he did."
"Well then..."
Okita was impressed at how Kagura was handling the situation, though he wondered where she came up with that last cheesy line. It sounded like one from a TV Drama he had watched a while ago. Perhaps she had watched it too...
She stood, unusually calm and level headed. Suddenly, her face darkened. The stalemate ended, and she drew Okita's sword so fast only Okita's similarly fast instincts saved him from a beheading at her hands. Wood struck steel, sending shivers up Okita's spine. She was not acting a part. She was serious in her claim that she would kill him. And Okita thought he knew what he had done that had caused such murderous sentiments.
With one arm, she struck progressively faster and faster, and it took all of Okita's concentration to parry her attacks, until soon they were moving so quickly those who were watching could see but blurs of color. Kagura pressed harder, as they were destroying the house to get outside, jumping on the wall, running down it, leaping to the next, and leaving the onlookers further and further behind.
"Should we bring them back sir?"
A small smile formed at the corners of his mouth.
"I think not. It was hard enough to see them, let alone follow them."
He turned away from the window, hands folded, resting in his kimono.
"Well then, Gintoki, I wonder what exactly I shall do to you when we meet again..."
--
Kagura and Okita drew apart, sweating and exhilarated, far from the house where they started. Okita, seeing Kagura pause, withdrew slightly out of his instinctive fighting state, where everything turned a bloody shade of red, and nothing else mattered but cutting the other down. The thought crept into his mind that he looked a bit ridiculous, and he reached up to pull off his silver wig.
Once he took it off, Kagura saw his hair plastered to his head with sweat. He shook his hair, and Kagura's heart lurched. She tried to compare it to a dog shaking off water, but failed miserably.
"What the hell were you doing back there?" Kagura asked to cover her thoughts. "Why did you go in there and talk to that freakish guy?" You could've been killed...and I'm the one supposed to do that...
"What the hell were you doing?" Okita retorted. "Why did you steal my clothes and parade around in them like that?" They could've killed you...I'm going to be the one to kill you...
"Why did you go along with them and pretend to be Gin-chan?"
Okita flinched at that name, and dropped the bokuto. He undid his black belt. Quickly, Kagura looked down at the ground, willing her heart to beat slower. A Kimono fell next to the belt, followed by a black shirt. Indignation surged through her mind, and she blurted out,
"What the hell are you doing now?"
"Give me back my clothes," came the calm reply.
"After all the trouble I went through--" Kagura lifted her eyes, and could not finish her thought. She stood staring at his bare chest, the sweat starting to stand out on her forehead. She swallowed, and tried a different train of thought:
"You want me to just undress here, give you your clothes, and go naked?"
Okita stared at her a moment.
"You can wear those," he said, pointing at Gintoki's clothes and starting to turn away. "Or was I wrong in hearing you say that you've worn them before?"
"Shut up, you bastard! I don't want to wear those things now..." Kagura tried to wrench her eyes away from his hair plastered to his neck, the crease of his back, where his hips met his black pants, but couldn't.
"You're not making much sense at all..." Okita continued, a touch sarcastically. "Aren't you already wearing clothes I've worn?"
With this very true statement about her logic, pushing its way through to her true motive for not wanting to change, Kagura's rage erupted once again. Okita quickly turned, and reached out as the sword flew past his head. As he caught the grip, Kagura had her umbrella out. In the back of Okita's mind, he wondered where she kept it. There they stood, each ready, waiting for the first one to strike.
"Let's finish this."
"Fine by me, though with that bulky umbrella-gun-thing you have, it's going to be hard."
"I'll beat you senseless without even having to fire a single shot."
"We'll see about that, China girl."
Kagura struck, and Okita found she wasn't lying. Her umbrella was heavy, yet she wielded it with such ease it was like a twig in her hands. Then the blood rushed into his eyes again, and the world was his to destroy.
Their pace quickened, and Kagura found his footwork was becoming troublesome. She tried to focus only on the flash of his sword, instead of his half-naked body, now becoming wet and glistening with sweat. The Yato did not usually train to combat such thoughts, but discipline slowly won over the desire to stare, and Kagura struck with fierce resolution.
Now, though, it seemed Okita was the one quickening his thrusts. Soon Kagura was only parrying, as the blows of his sword rained down upon her. She realized now why this was the man deemed the best swordsman in the Shinsengumi. His cold focus tore away everything in its path, until his sword was dyed crimson, his eyes distant and vast.
It dawned on Kagura that no human --perhaps not even Gin-chan-- could stand when Okita held a sword in his hands. He was equal to her, even though she was from one of the universe's strongest fighting clans, and this enraged Kagura even more. Some brat from a planet out in the middle of nowhere was fighting as her equal. She glanced at his eyes and was met with fierce, detached horror. His eyes were the color of spilled blood, growing more crimson and terrible with each passing moment. Their swords locked, each close to the other, her breath cooling his chest, his hair dripping on his uniform that she wore.
Why is he doing this?
Something snapped in Kagura, and as their swords still locked, she closed her eyes and dropped her umbrella. She ducked and turned as his sword swung down and buried itself in the ground, the force of his strike so close that it rustled her hair. In an instant, before he could fully dislodge the sword, she grasped his right hand. Slowly, as she lifted her eyes and stared into his, the crimson faded, retreated back into the shadows of his mind.
There they stood, so close Kagura could count the lashes on his eyes or the strands of his hair. She took in his smell, the same that embraced her in the clothes she wore. She brought up her right hand, and brushed the hair off his forehead, glimpsing a darkness similar to the one she carried in his eyes.
Okita felt her hand on his hair, sweeping across his forehead, and it nearly broke him. She had banished the scarlet thoughts from his mind, and he was left empty. Void. Okita slowly closed his eyes to the deep, drowning blue of her eyes which were beginning to swim in his vision. As a solitary trail of a tear left a mark down his cheek, he embraced the darkness which left him alone.
In that darkness came a sweet, cooling flutter. Soft lips slowly wiped away the tear, as if to stamp out the thought that he was alone in the dark. They moved down his cheek, to the corner of his lips. A moment later, his eyes flew open. The grip he had on his sword loosened, and it fell with a clang onto her umbrella. His hands, shaking from the impact, stole around his jacket, as his eyes closed once more, this time to bliss.
I...
go on, you can at least admit it to yourself
...love this girl.
Wait, does this make me somewhat of a narcissist, since she's wearing my clothes?
As his lips lost hers, she bowed her head, and he looked down at the top of her hair, wondering how he was going to control himself as her hands slid from around his neck down his chest.
Her lips parted, and she breathed,
"I know now...I did it because it was you."
Epilogue
The door to the yorozuya slid open and shut.
"Welcome back..." Shinpachi said, a trifle timid.
"Oi, oi, oi, I'm gone just to buy Jump and this is what you do to the house?" Gintoki surveyed the various homemade shrines set around the room.
"Er...you're not mad?"
"Except at this mess, no, I'm not..." Gintoki held up a candle, flickering faintly, covered in wax. "What are you doing, begging Buddha for a girlfriend?"
"You're really not mad?"
"Nope." Gintoki grinned, his eyes sugar-glazed. "I had 3 parfaits on the way back, courtesy of the Shinsengumi."
"Oh...well then, I think my prayers were answered..."
The door slid open and shut again.
Shinpachi glanced up at it from his kneeling posture, in front of a shrine.
"Eh? Kagura..." Shinpachi trailed off, unsure whether to continue.
"Why are you wearing my clothes?" Gintoki finished, looking incredulous.
Author's Note:
I've always been curious about Gintoki's mysterious "sensei," but as there's not much information about him, I decided to make him undead, and more than a little sinister. Takasugi and Sensei would get along well I should think, if I write a sequel. Please do review and tell me if you'd like to read one, for I have several ideas rolling around in my brain. Of course, it would have more Okita/Kagura and perhaps some other pairings as well...