trial and error

Disclaimer: I don't own Gintama.

Chapter 5

Interlude and a Half-Attempt (Otherwise known as "The Shinsengumi Finally Extract Revenge on Ryotaro for his Schemes and Okita Seeks Help for What He Thinks Is Indigestion")

In the early hours of the morning, an imposingly tall and strikingly sharp-featured woman strode up the graveled path that led to the expansive Shinsengumi compound. A patchwork bag was slung carelessly across one shoulder, while a small woven basket was tucked snugly under the other arm.

Due to a particularly cruel-humored set of parents, the woman's name was Sakura Hana, but she would kill anyone who dared to call her that.

With glaring grey eyes that could spot a smudge of grease on fabric or a loosened stitch from a mile away, and cropped black hair, sprinkled with emerging white, that clearly indicated a pragmatic personality scornful of any forms of nonsense, the woman was as far away from being the 'cherry-blossom flower' that her name proclaimed her to be as a bull was from being a delicate butterfly.

Therefore, everyone with even half a brain cell or an inkling of intelligence just addressed her by 'Ha-san'. To call her 'Sakura-chan' or 'Hana-chan' was just inviting a premature death upon yourself.

In her late thirties now, Hana had been the seamstress in charge of the Shinsengumi's clothing affairs for approaching nigh on ten years. While not the most crucial position one could hold in the Shinsengumi rankings, it was definitely one of the most respected.

After all, everyone knew that one misbegotten insult to the sharp-eyed woman and you could very well find a phallic-shaped symbol sewn onto the seat of your pants the next time they tore.

Ryotaro had learnt this the hard way shortly after his induction into the Shinsengumi as a headstrong and arrogant sixteen-year-old, and had unwisely made a snide remark about the presence of a weak woman in the midst of superior warriors. A few days later, his handmade uniform had finally been finished—but two sizes too small. Due to Shinsengumi funds being what they were (in other words, scarce thanks to the Bakufu being particularly stingy about spending), Ryo had been forced to traipse around Edo in constricting garments that would have been more suitable for someone twice as short and infinitely more skinny.

The moral of the story? Ryotaro had gained a healthy and earnest new respect for women, as well as a healthy and earnest fear of Hana that caused him to flee each and every time he saw the vindictive woman heading his way.

Nodding curtly to the sleepy guards that were posted at the gates of the traditionally-styled compound, and receiving acknowledging stares back, Hana made her way into the familiar buildings. Once inside, a drab interior, scuffed floors, and the unmistakable smell of testosterone-ridden imbeciles greeted her—all woeful signs of this being the domicile of unwed males who, while excelling in the art of swordsmanship, apparently were hard-pressed to become equally adept at the art of sanitary living.

It was with a grumbling sigh that she began making her way to the room designated for storing the uniforms of the Shinsengumi, still wondering why in the fiery hells she had been commissioned to cobble together twenty more of the navy outfits by Kondo-san. Given the general infamy of the Shinsengumi amidst the populace, surely there couldn't be that many people clamoring to sign up to be a glorified dog of the Bakufu?

Then again, Hana reconsidered, men were largely stupid. All it took was the promise of being able to wave a pointy weapon about and they would be lured in like hapless flies to the prospect of honey.

Wrapped in her glum thoughts, made so by the ungodly hour of the morning and the natural pessimism of her personality, she nearly collided with a frenetic Kenji, who had been in the process of sprinting by with an armful of strangely hairy objects.

The young teenager squeaked fearfully as he tried to skid to a halt at the last moment to prevent it—it was legend that the last Shinsengumi who had accidentally trodden upon the seamstress had ended up as a veritable human pincushion, for Hana's skill with her needles were on a level equitable with Okita-taichou's prowess with a bazooka.

Thankfully, however, it appeared as though the formidable woman was in an atypically giving mood, as she calmly reached out a hand and steadied the wobbling boy.

"H-hana-san—I mean, Ha-san! I'm s-so sorry, I really didn't mean to almost bump into you, but we're having an emergency and Shin-senpai sent me on an errand and I had to get it done really quick or else we're going to be in so much trouble, and this is all Ryo-senpai's fault except he won't admit and—"

"Kenji." She calmly cut off the freckled boy's unintelligible babbling, grey eyes boring into his horrorstricken face. If she felt any amusement at the young recruit's veritable quavering beneath her deadpan stare, there was certainly no trace of it on her stoic expression.

"Yes?" he squeaked, voice cracking comically. Evidently his mind was awhirl with imagined scenarios of being jabbed full of pins and other assorted objects of sharpness for his transgressions.

"…why are you carrying a pile of hair?"

Relief scrawled its way upon his countenance, some of the natural healthy color beginning to suffuse his skin again. Readjusting his grip on his stringy burdens, he cocked his head to the side. "Would you like to see what we're doing with it, Ha-san? If you want to follow me, you can."

Shrugging indifferently, and figuring that because she had little else to divert her this morning she may as well garner some amusement from whatever idiocy the Shinsengumi were embroiled in now, Hana fell into step besides Kenji. The young boy huffed slightly as he fought to keep up with her long, quick strides, miserably cursing the late-adolescence growth spurt that had yet to grace him.

Of course, that might not be for a while, Kenji lamented silently to himself, since Okita-taichou had offhandedly told him that he hadn't reached his own final height until he had turned twenty. While Kenji had missed his shorter years and therefore had to take his captain at his word, Okita-taichou now stood nearly level with Hijikata-taichou…so at least it was a possibility that Kenji wasn't forever doomed to be staring up people's nostrils and treated to the damaging site of their nose hairs and boogers.

Hana's edgy voice cracked through the air, so cutting that a comparison to a whip would have done it an injustice. "Kenji, hurry up. Some of us don't have all day to waste on dawdling."

The offender winced, hastening to comply and walk faster. For having Ha-san yell at you was akin to a mother's scolding…the only difference being that your mother usually had scruples against causing you bodily harm and Ha-san had no such qualms.

Kenji's feet thumped heavily against the floor as he darted ahead, grunting as sought to simultaneously heave open a door and maintain a balance of the hairy objects tucked in the crook of his arm. "Here, Ha-san! Please, go ahead."

Hana swept past him into the indicated room…but the sight within gave her pause. In all her years employed by the government's lackeys, she hadn't thought there was much left to surprise her.

Observing the spectacle neatly laid out before her, it was evident she'd been horribly mistaken about that.

"Tell me," Hana enunciated slowly, gaze sweeping from panicked face to panicked face. "Did I walk into the headquarters of the Shinsengumi Police Force, or did I unwittingly stumble upon Barbie's Beauty Parlor from Hell?"

Her eyes settled on the very center of the room, where upon a low footstool, surrounded by other fussing Shinsengumi members, was perched one very wretched-looking Ryotaro.

Except it wasn't the brash upstart with an incurably loud mouth and a deplorable absence of manners that she had suffered many years of knowing, but a Ryotaro clad in a gaudy kimono of varying shades of lurid pink. Dark kol rimmed his eyes, rouge was slathered upon his cheeks, and someone had inexpertly smeared a gob of lipstick onto his mouth.

Hana was fairly sure she'd seen something like this in a cheap horror television show once.

"Well, I promised to explain, so I will," Kenji chirped in his normal pleasant way as he popped out from behind her. "Ha-san, you know how there's always the Spring Fair during the cherry blossom season? That's what we're all preparing for today."

Hana shuddered reflexively at the words 'cherry blossom', and repressed the automatic urge to mentally curse her parents for her name once again, instead giving a jerky nod. But surrounded by all of the proceedings, something struck her as strange. "Isn't it usually the local businesses and regular police that're put in charge of seeing to the fair's completion and its safety? So why the hell are you guys seemingly running the show?"

And God help the poor civilians who would be attending the thing. The Shinsengumi's notions of fun did not always correlate to a normal human being's definition of the word.

"That," came the morose voice of Shin, who possessed a demeanor that was even more ominously doom-is-coming-for-us-all than he usually exhibited, "is a very good question, Ha-san. And in fact, there are multiple parties that bear the guilt for this task being thrust upon us, isn't that right Ryotaro?"

There was an indistinct murmur from Ryo as he grouchily burrowed deeper into his squashy kimono. Soon only the tips of his unkempt red hair were visible.

Shin continued, ignoring the mutinous grumblings of his best friend with a practiced indifference. "You see, Ryo here had the brilliant idea of pissing off Okita-taichou's pseudo-girlfriend by kidnapping her precious pet, which in turn pissed off Okita-taichou. And a pissed off Okita-taichou, after leaving us in prison for a night, decided to volunteer us all to coordinate and watch over the fair."

It was only natural that a befuddled Hana wondered exactly what pour soul had taken it upon herself to date a man with so many mental and emotional imbalances that he could've retired from the Shinsengumi and been a recurring star on one of those popular psychiatry shows.

"Shin-senpai, you forgot to add how all of the foreign dignitaries and government officials and the Shogun are going to attend the Spring Fair, and we'll all be executed if we screw it up," one of the members added unhelpfully from where he was adjusting the bow of Ryo's hideous outfit. Being a self-proclaimed man's man and having no regard for fashion or aesthetics, he settled on foregoing a fancy bow and just tying a sailor's knot instead (it would later take a very large knife to hack through that same knot when Ryo went to remove it that night).

Hana's eyebrow arched sharply. "A pretty explanation that I really could care less about. I'm rather curious as to why you have the red idiot dolled up like some hideous geisha from a dystopian Edo."

Ryotaro, the aforementioned red idiot hidden somewhere beneath the dystopian geisha makeup, cringed and leveled a purely venomous look at Yamazaki, who was watching the hubbub before him with every appearance of enjoyment and doing nothing to contribute.

Irritably batting away someone's stray hand as they tried to apply a dosage of eye shadow to his forehead, Ryotaro seethed, "Well, I wouldn't be like this if someone else had stepped up to bat, ya know? Someone else who has experience dressing up like a chi—lady."

"Ryo-san, you were the one responsible for running off our fortune teller with your horrible flirting techniques and creating a problem," Yamazaki replied amicably, unperturbed by the accusation. In the manner that a snake did, he veritably detached his lower jaw to stick an entire anpan into his mouth. His next words were muffled. "It's only suitable that you rectify the situation you created. And besides, me dressing up in women's clothing is a tired old gag."

Noticing Hana's mystified expression, Shin released one very long, very woeful breath. "Shogun-sama is very partial towards the art of fortunetelling, and specifically requested that a mystic be employed at the fair. Not only that, but a female mystic. We were notified of this only a day ago, so we were scrambling around, trying to locate a suitable one on very short notice."

One hand crept up to his forehead, wearily massaging out the stress-derived creases. "Well, fortunately for us, we managed to find a renown fortuneteller who was willing to do it. Unfortunately for us, this fortuneteller was also rather attractive, and Ryo being Ryo decided to exercise what he calls his infallible charm and magnetism on her…"

"And he miserably crashed and burned, right Shin-senpai?" Kenji interjected, eager to add a part to the narrative. "And then the fortuneteller smacked Ryo-senpai, and called him a—"

"You don't need to repeat it, Kenji. You've still got your youth and innocence to think about."

"Oh," Kenji said, looking a little disappointed. "Anyways, then she stormed off and we didn't have a fortuneteller anymore, and Matsudaira-sama promised he'd personally chop off all our heads if we screwed up the fair for Shogun-sama, so we—"

"Forced me to dress up as a girl! A girl!"

Ryo's protestations were abruptly silenced by the nasty glares he was bombarded with.

"You have no room for complaint, Ryo," Shin informed him dispassionately. "After all, it was your own stupidity that made you try and chat up someone from a planet called 'All-Men-Are-Slimy-Jerks-Palooza'."

"I told you, I honestly thought she was just kidding about that, ya know!"

Hana planted her hands on her bony hips, cocking her head as she wordlessly surveyed the unfortunate Shinsengumi-in-drag before her. Ryo shifted uncomfortably under her direct gaze, feeling rather like a cow one was trying to decide was ready to be turned into a hamburger or not. Finally, she said dully, "You know those teen movies, the ones where the really hideous girl gets a makeover and instantly become beautiful?"

"…yeah?" Ryo replied bewilderedly (in actuality he had no idea of what she was referring to, seeing as he was in possession of a Y-chromosome and therefore shied away from chick flicks like Hijikata-san from a non-smoking sign). All the other equally befuddled males nodded compliantly along with him.

The seamstress smiled thinly, a nasty tinge of ridicule lining it. "It really didn't work. Good luck fooling anyone, including Shogun-sama, with that getup. I hope they wash the lipstick off your unattached head before they bury you, at least."

To reply would have been to invite death, so Ryo settled for glowering at the smirking woman but keeping his mouth shut.

After all, his mouth had been what'd gotten him into this hideous nightmare.

Kenji hurried over to Ryo, plopping down the bundle of hairy things he'd been toting around—wigs. "We're hoping Ryo-senpai will fit the part more if he only had a wig." Helplessly, he attempted to force one onto Ryo's head, frowning when his voluminous red hair refused to tamely lie beneath it and instead caused the wig to slide off.

"Ha-san!" Ryotaro peeped out in an unnaturally high voice, nearly cowering when her steely grey eyes locked onto him. "Um…you're a girl, ya know…"

She stared vacantly at the redhead, as though in awe at the inanity of the statement. "Red, you do know that you're probably at fault for lowering the collective intelligence of the Shinsengumi by about thirty IQ points or so?"

Ryo swallowed hard, paling. "Uh, right. Well, since you're a girl—uh, woman!—I thought maybe you could help do something with my hair, ya know? We'll be in trouble if—"

"You'll be in even more trouble if you keep going on in that crappy misogynistic direction I sense coming." The temperature in the room descended about a hundred degrees from the pure frostiness of her tone.

"N-no!" Ryo waved his hands frantically, sensing the impending hurt about to be delivered upon him by a woman who had scarily accurate aim with her sewing needles. "Ya know, I really didn't mean it like that!"

"Oh good," she said calmly, pointedly running one of her nails along a silvery needle she held. "Because I would absolutely hate to tell Chief Kondo-san about your…untimely demise. He might dock my pay a few yen because of it." Smiling in an eerily satisfied way at the palpable terror radiating from the annoying redhead, Hana turned to regard a worried Kenji. "I really can't help you out there anyways. I'm rubbish with hair—why the hell do you think I chopped all the damn stuff off in the first place?"

There came a shrill scream of, "You're not chopping off my hair, ya know!"

"Vanity, thy name is Ryotaro," Shin muttered derisively, fingering his own short locks and briefly entertaining the amusing notion of shearing off Ryo's.

It went without saying, Shin tended to hold grudges for a very long time, and he still hadn't recovered from the indignity of being forced to endure so many hours in jail. Especially not when there had been an old, toothless female inmate in the cell besides theirs trying to whisper sultry things to him all night.

Urgh.

He supposed he would let Ha-san torture Ryo for a little while longer, and then shove the most ridiculous-looking wig he could obtain onto him and bundle him off to the fair. Shin would also have to somehow dredge up a few men willing to carry Ryo about, since it was doubtful he had the ability to walk with any degree of coordination in that contraption he was wearing.

Kenji offered Shin a oddly wry smile, a knowing quality to it that seemed at odds with his youthful age. "You know, there's a bright side to this whole thing, Shin-senpai. At least this way, Ryo-senpai can't plot any crazy schemes for the captain and Kagura-sama today."

Shin let loose a humorless laugh.

If only.

Sakata Gintoki stared blearily down at the unexpected visitor outside his doorway.

With the cumbersome layers of kimono that she gracefully bore, the stiff repose of her spine that lent to a flawless posture, and tiny hands, untarnished with the marks of work, that were properly folded before her, Soyo-hime's regality looked extremely strange amidst the weathered wood and peeling paint that denoted the Yorozuya's home.

Gin belatedly wondered if he was still immersed in the nap that a knock on the door had roused him from—usually the most distinguished guests he had were the navy-suited Shinsengumi irritants that chose the most inopportune times to come begging for his help.

That was alright though, because he always made sure to extract a more-than-generous service fee from 'em.

But although the princess was likely infinitely more wealthy, it wasn't as though he could wrangle money out of her for whatever job she presumably wanted him to do—Gin's dubious morals aside, Kagura would first throw one of her infamous we-shouldn't-charge-friends fits, and then she'd throw her infamous umbrella at his poor head.

Dammit, if Kagura was going to make friends with the rich and powerful, couldn't she have chosen to schmooze up to someone with a looser wallet and less inhibitions about thriftiness?

"Gintoki-san? Are you quite well?"

He blinked as the refined voice cut neatly through his ponderings, the eyes that had often been eloquently compared to that of a dead fish's refocusing on the politely smiling girl before him.

One of his scarred hands scratched sheepishly against his neck. "Uh…yeah, sorry. Erm, what exactly are you here for, princess?" He narrowly avoided the yawn that threatened to wriggle out of his throat. "And by the way, should you really be out and about by yourself? I don't see any guards or anything…"

Soyo-hime tittered. "Oh no, I assure you that I'm sufficiently protected. One of my most skilled guards is, at this very moment, watching us with the eyes of a hawk."

Pivoting serenely on her heel, she pointed across the street at a bench. Upon it snoozed a seemingly innocuous hobo, his form draped with newspapers for warmth and a ragged hat perched upon his head. "That's Takao-san! He's actually been here since this morning—he does like to scout out an area before I arrive."

"W-wait a minute! I talked to that guy earlier!"

"Really?"

"He told me his wife and thirty kids had all died in a rabid duck attack and he subsequently became a grief-stricken bum! Oiiiii! You mean Takao-san the homeless bum is actually Takao-san-The-Royal-Guard who actually makes more money than Gin-san! Ehhhh?" Gin grabbed his hair in a furious gesture. "I gave that guy my last yen coin this morning because he said he hadn't eaten in five years!"

Soyo-hime raised a dainty hand to her mouth, covering it as though in shock. Her lips twitched. "Oh dear…I do keep telling Takao-san to stop taking advantage of gullible idiots when he's in disguise…"

"You said that with a smile. You just insulted me with a smile. You're not really sorry at all, are you?"

"What a thing to say!"

"…you didn't even answer the question…"

She waved her fingers, as though to dispel an irksome fly from the vicinity. "But never mind about that. My real purpose here is to invite Kagura-chan to accompany me to the Spring Fair. She told me she's never been, and we've scarcely had the chance to catch up as of late."

Still stewing over being so blatantly tricked (Gintoki liked to think of himself as a hardhearted old battle axe, and was dismayed whenever his soft heart revealed just the opposite to be true), there was an element of bitterness in his voice when he spoke. "Yeahhh, that's probably not going to happen. She's taken to shutting herself in her closet lately and only comes out for meals."

"What!"

Tugging his hands absently through his snarled curls, Gintoki nodded. "It's probably better to just leave her alone till she gets over it. Shinpachi tried dragging her to get some fresh air yesterday, and she bit him."

Distressed, the princess implored, "Please! I really want to see her."

"Sorry Hime-sama, I'm not risking her depriving me of my opposable thumbs just for some girl time."

Shinpachi, after all, had sworn that he'd seen her eyes go a bloody Yato red when he had tried to disturb her seclusion, and both he and Gin had agreed that the best path of action was to just leave Kagura to her own devices.

"Then I can't see this ending very well," Soyo-hime said, wringing her hands together.

"Eh?"

Soyo-hime sniffled slightly, nose red and eyes watering. "You see, Takao-san is under strict orders to shoot anyone who might hurt me."

Gin cast a nervous look at the hobo still snoozing away on the bench across the street, before giving an uneasy laugh. "A-ah…well then, it's a good thing nobody here would want to do that, right?"

"Well, physically, no…but if I don't get to see my dear friend Kagura-chan today, I'm going to be just as wounded, Gintoki-san." Soyo-hime tapped a nail against the thick layers of silk she wore, right above where her heart rested. "I'm going to be severely wounded here."

As if reinforcing her words, there was an audible click of a rifle being loaded.

Gintoki paled.

The princess rearranged her kimono with a placid air about her, seemingly heedless of the fact that a gun-toting guard was currently peeking out from beneath his dirty pile of newspapers and frightening the hell out of Gin.

She offered a sugary smile to the frozen man, her tone wheedling as she spoke. "Ne, Gintoki-san, do you think you could be so kind as to fetch Kagura-chan for me now? After all, we don't want to be late to the festival!"

She had only the split second impression of a high-pitched laugh and an agreement of "Oh no, we wouldn't want that, now would we? Hahahaha!" that encroached on the realm of hysterical, and then Gin had flung open the sliding doors and was swallowed by the darkness of his headquarters as he sprinted inside.

Intrigued, for it was rare that she was allowed a glimpse of a dwelling other than the castle, she peered slightly within the rented quarters. Overall it was a bit of a fruitless effort, seeing as the insides were completely shrouded in a disheartening dimness due to the overcast of the skies that permitted hardly any natural light for illumination.

Soyo cocked her head and supposed that maybe poor commoners couldn't really afford to have electricity all them time. Perhaps they started campfires in the middle of their living room for purposes of lighting and heat, and to cook their meals over using wood that they were forced to laboriously chop down from trees each day in the forest?

Oh dear, how very grand a thought that was!

"Waaaah!"

Soyo-hime blinked as a shattering wail pierced the air, the unmistakable tones of her friend causing a bright grin to spread upon her lips. There were two things that often preceded Kagura's entrance someplace: an act of destruction or her characteristic voice yelling angry profanities.

"Gin-chaaaaan, put me doooowwwwwn! If I go outside today, something terrible's gonna happen to me, the horoscope lady on the radio said so!"

"Oi, if you don't go outside, something terrible's gonna happen to Gin-chan. And I thought I told you to stop listening to that superstitious crap!"

"It isn't crap—it was right last week when it said 'someone you love is going to go broke', and then we didn't have enough money for dinner!"

"That's true every week!"

"Ouch!" Kagura's agonized cry of (fake) pain carried all the way out to the front door—it held such overtures of suffering that one might very well have thought her to be in the midst of a strenuous bout of torture. "Gin-chan, put me down right now, uh-huh! You're crushing my boobs!"

There was a snort. "Don't be silly. You can't crush what isn't there, Kagura-chan."

A deadly bout of silence ensued, causing Soyo-hime to tilt her head curiously at the ringing hush. Then came a resounding smack.

"Oiiiiii, Kagura! Don't hit Gin-chan's head so hard, you know, you'll kill his brains!"

"You can't kill what isn't there, Gin-chan."

Although it wasn't something she was frequently required to do, Soyo-hime briefly abandoned her composure and swiftly scrambled backwards as the bickering duo appeared and Kagura was brusquely dropped onto the porch.

With her frazzled bedhead and eyesore orange polka-dotted pajamas that clashed almost grotesquely with her hair color, it was evident Kagura had had absolutely no intention of emerging from the bowels of her closet/room this morning. Her mouth was screwed upwards in a cantankerous scowl as she eyed her traitorous perm-headed friend, the thunderous expression on her face indicating she was teetering dangerously on the edge of a tirade.

But as soon as she opened her mouth, whatever enraged rant she was preparing to embark upon was promptly stifled by a heap of clothing being plunked on top of her by Gintoki. This was rapidly followed by a pair of Kagura's black slippers, which clattered uselessly onto the floor beside the fuming girl.

"Princess," Gintoki said distractedly, for he was alertly surveying Kagura's fists for any sign of an impending flurry of punches and already inching back into the relative safety of his home (although it was doubtful that anything so flimsy as a mere building could impede Kagura's wrath from seeing fulfillment). "Here she is, as requested."

"Hey!" was the outcry. "Don't make me sound like a fastfood meal-to-go, yup!"

Ignoring her indignation, he continued blithely, "Kagura, try not to get the princess killed with your usual antics—otherwise we'll all be executed and you'll have Gin-chan's death on your conscience for the remainder of your life."

"If I'm executed and rotting in the ground, how can I feel guilty, uh-huh?" came the muffled inquiry from where Kagura was attempting to untangle herself from her pile of outerwear.

Gin shrugged. "Now, don't talk to any strange weirdos at the fair—"

"Fine," Kagura grumped.

"Two: don't overindulge in sugary fair treats."

"Isn't that more of a guideline for you? You actually wanna go to this fair, dontcha?"

"Three: don't try and set the goldfish in the goldfish-catching game 'free'. We've been over this: fish need water to survive, and turning them loose in the grass with instructions to run for it isn't doing them any favors."

"That only happened once!"

"And another thing—"

Blue eyes rolled despairingly from beneath a pair of pants Kagura was currently plucking from atop of her tangled nest of hair. "Gin-chan, you sound like an old man fretting over his daughter's first date, uh-huh. Jeez, it's not like I'm gonna go and get my cherry popped or anything…and what does that even mean, yup? Gin-chan, what's cherry popping? Why's it a bad thing? Anything involving food is good, right? That's what you always say, right?"

A deadly member of an ancient race Kagura may have been, but of some sections of life she remained woefully ignorant.

Gintoki stared at Kagura for a long moment. Then he turned to Soyo-hime and wearily wished her luck on the outing before walking away, mumbling something to himself about enlisting Umibouzu to discuss the goddamn birds and the bees before it was too late.

Shimura Shinpachi, who has heretofore not appeared in this tale of hopeless romance, was about to step onto the porch and make his grand debut with a very witty and observant comment…but unfortunately, it was time to transition to the next scene.

Sorry, Shinpachi.

"Oh, come on! Just give me a break here! I'm one of the main characters, you can't just—"

"The nerve of him, uh-huh," Kagura announced in seething tones as she walked alongside Soyo-hime. Her slippered feet stomped furiously for every one of the princess's footsteps. "Tossing me out on my butt without so much as my umbrella! Well, if the sun fries me into a little, bitty Kagura-crisp and I die a horrible death, and after Papi brutally rips out Gin-chan's entrails for allowing that to happen, just make sure you bury me as far, far away from Gin-chan as possible, okay, So-chan?" She paused, a dark pout overcoming her features. "Maybe even let Jugem-Jugem the Monkey leave a few chocolate-y funereal gifts on his grave for his dearly departed soul, uh-huh."

"Well, it is cloudy today," Soyo-hime remarked in defense of Gin's actions, wracked with a small amount of guilt over the tactics she had used in….well, not bullying, per se...but persuading him to get Kagura outside. "You'll probably be just fine, Kagura-chan. And if the sun comes out at all, I'll just send Takao-san to purchase one for you."

Kagura looked skeptical. "Takao-san?" she mused out loud. "You mean that bodyguard of yours who's currently tailing us disguised as a cardboard box, uh-huh?"

"Oh, you noticed that?" Soyo-hime said, seeming a little crestfallen. Her lips twisted into a slight frown. "Takao-san is supposed to be a master of all manners of different guises."

"So-chan, it's hard to look at a mobile cardboard box and not be suspicious, yup."

They continued on for a few steps in silence, one still boiling with unkind thoughts about white-haired bosses who forgot to chuck umbrellas out the door when they did so to their subordinates, and the other puzzling over how a box trailing after a person was a suspicious sight. They made quite an oddly-matched pair to the outside eye—a princess who was the embodiment of refinement and poise as she gracefully pattered along, and an Amanto tugging irritably at her long pink hair and engaged in a strange pattern of walking that involved random hops and skips.

But whatever the outside consensus was, Kagura and Soyo-hime were perfectly balanced in their friendship with one another, and that was all that mattered.

"Kagura-chan…" The clear ring of Soyo-hime's voice overtook the quiet between them, a pensive, worried quality to it that caught Kagura's attention. "Why didn't you…why didn't you wish to see me today? Did I maybe do something to upset you—?"

The self-condemning words were abruptly stifled by Kagura's arms wrapping tightly about her as they continued to walk, transforming the duo into a strange facsimile of a two-headed, four-armed creature.

"Of course not, So-chan!" Kagura protested earnestly, adding an extra squeeze to emphasize the point and nearly causing them both to trip over a small dip in the road as a result. "You heard Gin-chan—I've been a shut-in all week, uh-huh."

"Was it true about your horoscope warning against outings, then?"

An unladylike snort came from Kagura, who rolled her eyes. "Nah, that was just something I told Gin-chan, yup. If he knew the real reason I've been so annoyed with the outside world, he'd probably go out and do something impulsive that would land him in prison."

Kagura mercifully released Soyo-hime, who was beginning to turn a little blue in her tight embrace, but was prevented from moving too far away by a small hand that clamped down on her arm.

"What you mean, the 'real reason'?" the princess hissed through her teeth, in an uncommon display of ill temper born of worry. "Kagura, what's going on?"

Looking around anxiously, as though in fear of being overheard, Kagura lowered her voice to a dramatically breathy whisper and confided solemnly to her friend, "I'm being followed, So-chan."

Soyo-hime's delicate eyes rounded until they resembled teacup saucers, her mouth dropping open in a thoroughly unladylike fashion that would have had her tutors and manners mistresses smacking her reprovingly upon the hand. "Followed? As in, stalked? Oh, Kagura-chan, why didn't you say so before? That's—why, that's horrible! And who's responsible for such a reprehensible thing? I never would have made you accompany me to the fair had I known!"

Finally having gained the sympathetic ear she'd been hunting for, Kagura's solemn expression morphed into one much more pitiful. "A bunch of wackos who're trying to make me marry their sadistic…um…gang leader, uh-huh," she told the princess avidly listening to her every word. She made the small change due to the fact that one word from her and the city may no longer have a police force, given the protective mood So-chan seemed to be in. "Every time I walk out of the house, they freaking show up, begging me to hook up with the guy, yup!"

"A…a gang leader?" Soyo-hime repeated, while Kagura nodded vigorously in affirmation.

Soyo-hime quirked a brow, some of her initial shock and abject fear fading with the story. She was, after all, familiar with Kagura's habit of exaggerating…and what in the world would a gang leader be doing trying to marry her friend? "But you said they were actually stalking you…have they threatened you at all?"

Kagura shifted uneasily at the question. "Well…they told me they'd eat Sadaharu if I refused to marry their boss, uh-huh. Does that count?"

"…Kagura-chan, it's hard to imagine anyone actually eating a dog."

"But Sadaharu's so cute!" the pink-haired girl protested. "Who wouldn't want to eat him? You could even throw some rice on there, cause it'd match his fur!"

"Kagura-chan, I'm beginning to think you're the one that wanted to eat Sadaharu."

"I do not!" Kagura made a disgusted face, her pink tongue sticking out as far as she could extend it. "Bth I amf thired of bthein relbenssy bthwaged de mathy thdu lethar."

Blinking bemusedly, Soyo-hime requested, "Could you repeat that? And try retracting your tongue this time."

Her friend complied, and repeated her grievance with a pout. "I said, but I'm tired of being relentlessly begged to marry the leader. First they ambush my home and get down on their knees with these pathetic faces, then I get delivered a whooooole bunch of sukonbu with the proposal actually spelled out in it, and then they try to use Sadaharu against me! HAH! As if I'd ever marry that S—stupid guy, uh-huh. That's why I thought it'd be safer if I just stayed indoors until they gave up."

Unfortunately for Kagura, she had forgotten one very crucial detail:

Soyo-hime was a great lover of the written word, with a particular fondness for romance novels.

Especially smutty, completely unrealistic, romance novels.

"Wow," Soyo-hime exhaled slowly, her gaze adopting a dreamy sheen. "A viciously dangerous man, having caught sight of you one moonlit night and fallen desperately in love with you…yet he's too ashamed of his criminality to ever woo you and so sends his minions to untiringly entice you to him in his stead. My, my, Kagura-chan…" she blushed, placing two hands on her reddening cheeks.

"Oi, that's not it at all! And he's definitely not in love with me, uh-huh!"

Kagura was beginning to feel that she should have just fessed up the reality of the matter entirely, but…this was her problem. And while she could take pleasure in ranting about it to her dear friend, she didn't want Soyo-hime to feel obligated to do something about it. Independence was Kagura's second nature, and so too would she fix this ridiculous situation on her own.

A gusty sigh of regret left the princess's lips as her rosy fantasy rudely came crashing down around her royal ears. She cast a curious look at her visibly ruffled companion, noting the faint tinge of pink on her normally fair face and her clenched hands.

Kagura was…unusually bothered, apparently. And Soyo-hime didn't entirely feel she was receiving the unfettered truth here.

Because of what she knew of the girl's strong-mindedness and inhuman strength, nobody messed with Kagura unless they were, as her friend amusingly and inelegantly termed it, 'cruisin' for a bruisin'.

The deeds of the Yorozuya were well known—for it was hard to ignore things like giant aliens chewing on the space terminal or warring gangster factions battling for dominance—and Soyo-hime had enjoyed hearing of Kagura's participation in them, marveling at her indomitableness.

No, there had to be another explanation for why Kagura hadn't simply marched up to this persistent gang leader and employing her usual umbrella-and-fist method of persuasion with people who simply refused to listen. A reason for Kagura being uncommonly cagey with enumerating on all the details.

Perhaps the 'feelings' this supposed boss had for her weren't wholly unreturned?

"Well," Soyo-hime began with a practiced air of majestic rationality, absentmindedly smoothing down her hair. "If you are being bothered by these men, I'll just arrange for my brother to have a contingent of his own personal police protect you. After all, no one would dare trifle with you while you were under the guard of the Shinsengumi!"

Soyo-hime smiled brightly at the pink-haired girl, waiting expectantly for her suggestion to be met with the appropriate gratitude and accolades.

Her smile quickly faded into a confused frown as she saw Kagura turn to the nearest wall and begin hitting her head despairingly upon it.

"K-Kagura-chan, don't do that! We haven't even reached the fair yet!"

The Fair

or

Within Madame Oratoyr's Love-Love Fortunetelling Tent

or

The Place of Ryotaro's Imminent Suffering

—

—

"Heheheheh! You know, I feel quite sorry for all these unfortunate guys coming in here, desperate for predictions of true love! I've already found my beautiful true love and married her, bwahaha!"

"…this is a love fortune tent. Why're you already in here if you've found your soul mate already?"

"Erm…"

"You came in here just to gloat didn't you?"

"Well, why shouldn't I! It took me countless years begging and plotting and wooing to attain my ladylove! I just about went broke from how many Baagen-Daaz icecreams she made me purchase!"

"Hmph. Well, you might need a love prediction after all, it seems."

"Eh?"

"Yessss…I'm currently sensing that a seven-foot-tall, blonde American with rippling muscles and a penchant for carrying around a loaf of French bread is trying to seduce your wife."

"EHHHHHHH!"

—

—

"Oh! I'll never achieve the young lord's good opinion and sweet love! Oh young lord, you probably loathe me for my complicit part in suppressing your femininity and forcing you to dress as a boy!"

"You made the girl you love dress up like a guy? Well, maybe she doesn't hold it against you. Is she easily mistaken for one?"

"How dare you insult the young lord in such a manner! The young lord is the most outstanding and shining example of delicate womanhood that ever existed in this miserable land!"

"Please put the sword away. I didn't mean anything by it, ya know."

"Oh young lord, how did people ever mistake you for anything other than a beautiful woman! Does a man have such long, curling lashes? Such silken, dark hair? Such soul-sucking eyes?"

"Have you seen the wanted posters for Kotaro Katsura? It's definitely possibly. The Women's Weekly Magazine voted him 'Sexiest Outlaw We'd Be Willing to Risk Prison For' in last year's poll."

"Oh, young lord! Your unworthy retainer has loved and revered you from afar, for so very long!"

"…you weren't listening to me at all, were you? And like I've had to tell every other damn person, this is a FORTUNE-TELLING tent, not relationship counseling!"

—

—

"Smoking's really not allowed in here, you know. It constitutes a fire hazard and—"

"…"

"I m-mean, please continue to smoke all you want in here. Sir. I mean, Mister. Whatever makes you happy and not continue to glare at me like that!"

"…"

"Ah…so you didn't come in here to get your fortune told, sir—I mean, Mister? That's kinda my job, so—"

"Hm. No thanks. I really just came here since one of my subordinates was trying to push me into the Rare Carnivorous Animals from Other Planets pit."

"Oh crap! You mean Okit—um, that is to say, how terrible!"

"Not really. I figure it's his right…I made someone he desperately loved very unhappy, and he's never forgiven me for it since. Hell, I don't think I'll ever forgive myself for it."

"Is that why you think you don't need a love fortune? Just because you did something bad, doesn't mean you can't find happiness in the future, ya know."

"Che. I'm saying I don't need one because I already know where I could've had that happiness, and she's long gone."

—

—

"Sorry to barge in like this. Please forgive me, won't cha?"

"Wow!...Ah, I mean, please come in. Would you like your fortune told?"

"…"

"Uh, are you alright? Do you need an ambulance?! Why're you turning so red?"

"Cause I would like a—a love fortune, if ya'd be so kind."

"Of course. Anyone in mind that you'd like me to divine compatibility of spirit for? Oh crap, you're all red again!"

"His name…his name's…i-it's…Sak…Saka…"

"Sake? If you're an alcoholic trying to have a love affair with your booze bottle, that really doesn't work out too well, ya know..."

"No! His name's Saka…his-name-is-Sakata-Gintoki-and-he-has-silver- hair-and-a-kind-face-and-he's-so-gentle-and-I-neve r-feel-like-a-goddamn-prostitute-when-I'm-with-him -and-I-I've gotta get goin'!"

"Hey, w-wait! Don't you want your…fortune?"

—

—

"You will not look him in the eye. You will not speak unless you are spoken to. You will not lay a finger upon his royal skin. You will not breath until after he has taken his breath. That is all. My lord, we will be just outside."

"Thank you, men. That is indeed very diligent of you."

"…"

"They are quite gone now, I assure you. Please disregard my men's instructions, for I believe them to have an element of absurdity to them. My younger sister enjoys communicating with the citizens as a natural girl, and so too should I endeavor to learn about my people in a similar fashion."

"Yes, sir."

"Now, I would very much enjoy learning when I am due to be married. My luck with women has not been extremely fortuitous as of late."

"Uh, why's that? It seems sort of hard to believe, sir."

"Hmm…possibly it is due to my calamitous tendency of finding myself in the nude in an assortment of public settings. I really don't know how it comes about."

"…"

"But more likely, it's just that I'm incredibly shy around women."

—

—

"What the hell! Get your kunai away from my neck right now, ya know!"

"Now, now, please don't offer up a noisy struggle, Miss Fortuneteller. But I do need your help, and you're going to give it to me."

"I'll tell your damn fortune without the damn knife at my throat!"

"Oh no, it's not a fortune I want. It's a…love potion."

"A—a what?"

"A love potion, I said! A magical brew that has the power to make Gi—um, somebody—fall madly and irreversibly within my lovey-dovey thrall!"

"Yeah, I don't have any of those."

"A seduction potion, then? If I can't have Gin-san's love, at least I can have that lovely, lovely body of his! Those hands, chaining me up. Those feet, mercilessly trodding upon my face. Oh Gin-san, punish me! Use me as your willing doormat! Wipe mud upon me!"

"Ahem."

"…sorry."

"Look, I'm not a magical person or anything, so I don't have what you're lookin' for, ya know."

"Aw, dammit! How else will I ever coerce him into slathering my lips with natto and then passionately kissing me?"

"…I don't even know what to say to that."

—

—

"Pardon me, do you mind terribly if I briefly use your tent as a temporary hideout?"

"…why not? It's not like there's been much fortune-telling going on here today anyways."

"Thanks much, Fortuneteller-dono. It's just that those damn Shinsengumi bastards—uh, that is to say, those upstanding and virtuous guardians of our country!—are swarming like a bunch of irritating locusts. Wait, no! I mean butterflies. Swarming like the beautiful, people-oppressing butterflies that they are. Yes."

"Okay. So, what business could a monk have a fair anyways? Aren't you guys supposed to refrain from earthly pleasures or something?"

"Technically, yes. But it's definitely not earthly pleasures I'm here to seek. I'm here to…perform an exorcism, you might say. Of things haunting this land that really don't belong."

"That's very noble of you, Monk-sama."

"It's not Monk-sama, it's Kats…Kathy!"

"Your name's Kathy? I could have sworn you were about say something else."

"Well, you can see why I became a nameless monk now, can't you? Such an embarrassing name. Oh look, I think it's quite safe for me to leave now!"

—

—

His last visitor of the day stayed exactly two minutes, and for every single one of those hundred and twenty seconds Ryo saw his life flashing in rapid succession before his eyes.

Okita slid leisurely into the chair, creating the very depiction of languid elegance as he crossed his legs and leaned his head upon one fisted hand. Red eyes scrutinized a frozen Ryotaro sharply, trailing speculatively from the top of his shawl-covered head to the tip of his uncomfortably pointed shoes.

"I have a problem with my brain," Okita said finally after a long silence, grimacing at the admission. "I need you to fix it."

"U-um, I'm not really a psychologist…or a brain surgeon…" Ryotaro mustered weakly, hands immediately twisting in his bejeweled shawl to drag it lower upon his face in hopes of further concealment. His heart had threatened to rip a hole right through his chest cavity with the stress of its pounding beat when Okita-taichou had strolled into the tent, a deep glower on his face and impatience embedded in his gaze.

His only hope of clinging onto life lay in praying that his captain made no discoveries as to his actual identity, else he might very well find himself cheerfully gutted and abandoned on the floor of this damn tent. After the stunt they had pulled with Kagura-sama last week, the men of the Shinsengumi had found their way onto Okita-sama's shit list—Ryo really didn't think that this particular misdeed would improve Okita-taichou's opinion of them either.

Ryo sighed, affecting a higher-pitched voice and a more formal accent than was his norm. "But what, precisely, is this problem you speak of? A problem of…love, perhaps?"

Yup, it was official, Ryo thought to himself gloomily. It was possible he was short a few brain cells, as Shin was always oh-so-kindly informing him, but this was really too valuable an opportunity to pass up.

If Okita-taichou was in here for the reasons Ryo suspected he was, then perhaps it was a crucial moment in which he could subtly intimate that Okita-taichou and Kagura-sama were destined for togetherness by the Fluttering Fairy Fates of Fortune or whatever.

"Hey, are you deaf or something, lady? I said it's a brain problem, not something as absurd as love." Okita muttered something beneath his breath, likely a derogatory remark about the sentiment he so seemed to loathe.

"Tell me then," Ryotaro intoned. "What are your symptoms?"

"Not sleeping."

"Mmhmm."

"Can't eat."

"Ah."

"And you know, I really think I want to throw up whenever I look at...this person."

"Oh yes," Ryotaro murmured sagely, impersonating the way he believed a fortuneteller might talk. "That is nothing more, and nothing less, and nothing beyond, and nothing below, a case of love."

What had actually come out of his mouth was incoherent babble, but it was a valiant effort all the same.

"Hn. Either that or a bad case of indigestion." Apparently Okita-taichou wasn't as keen on Ryo's explanation. "Whatever it is, just get rid of it. It's annoying as hell, and Kondo-san keeps threatening to drag me to the hospital to get me looked at."

Ryo stared blankly at his captain, wondering how on earth he was supposed to cleanse someone of love? Short of literally ripping Okita-taichou's heart out from his chest and stomping on it—ewwww—he couldn't fathom how else he could go about doing it.

And seriously, what was so wrong with someone that they'd mistake the feeling of attraction as indigestion?

Something like 'Hey, I think I'm in love with you—whoops! Nah, that's just the spicy burrito I ate last night talking!'–who actually thought that way?

Well, besides Okita Sougo, who was obviously clueless in the realm of emotional intimacy.

Ryo sat up straight, the thought having struck a chord of inspiration within him.

He didn't suppose Okita-taichou, in all of his emotionally-constipated glory, would have been familiar with the term 'Absence makes the heart grow fonder'?

Concealing a satisfied smirk, and clasping his fingers together, Ryo proclaimed, "Shinsengumi-san, I believe I have the solution to your woes."

"If it involves me tying frogs to my eyes or newts to my toes, I might really have to set fire to this tent."

Ryo almost choked on his own saliva. "No! It's nothing like that. It's merely a solution you yourself can employ. Have you tried simply ignoring her? Avoiding her? If you find yourself in close proximity, turn around and walk away. If you gain the chance to converse, don't even so much as cough in her direction."

Smiling sinisterly, Ryo settled backwards into his chair. "I promise you, Shinsengumi-san, the results will be thoroughly rewarding for all those involved."

It was a far more smug and satisfied Okita that emerged from the sparkly depths of the lurid love tent. Which sounds vaguely dirty to the uninformed person, but it wasn't meant to.

With the first streaks of sunset and oncoming night appearing in the sky, the fairgrounds were slowly beginning to empty of visitors weary from the day of festivities and be replaced by the ones more partial to a nighttime outing. Lovers linked hands as they strolled away, children slumbered peacefully in their parents' protective arms, and friends chattered merrily as they left with sparkling eyes and fingers sticky from shared cotton candy.

The Shinsengumi Captain, however, was entirely unconcerned with all of these serene little pictures—his gaze passed over them unseeingly, his eyes hungrily scouring for the specific flash of pink that would lead him to the one person he was in dire need of right then. The raucous world of blinking lights and repetitive tunes had melted away, leaving him a man obsessed in discovering whether or not this damn infatuation of his could be banished once and for all.

Avoidance. He would simply find her (most likely with the princess, who had notified the Shinsengumi of her intention to be accompanied by a friend to the fair to ensure that they didn't tackle Kagura as a threat), ascertain that he was quite capable of looking at her and deciding against the need for interaction, and then walk off.

Foolproof. Simple. An easy exercise in building tolerance against something you took enjoyment in—Kondo-san's dojo had been full of such training when instructing him in samurai values.

A smirk faintly played upon his lips when he finally caught sight of his rival near a cotton candy vender—all too noticeable in her typical crimson cheongsam dress and bright hair that was loose down her back and swaying with each energetic move she made.

Okita studied her for a moment, cautiously waiting to see if he received the usual urge to head over and irritate the hell out of the Yorozuya girl.

He waited.

Nothing.

He waited.

Nothing again.

And just when hope began to well inside of him, putting him in such a scarily optimistic mood that he even considered going back and trying to push Hijikata-san in the carnivorous animal pit again just to see if his luck would hold, a tall figure appeared beside Kagura.

A tall, male figure who lightly touched her hand to summon her attention, a lascivious (to Okita's eyes, at least) grin smeared across his face and two shifty-looking eyes that casually skimmed across her body.

Well.

Unless she had applied for a spontaneous gender change, there was no way in hell that was Soyo-hime-sama.

His eye gave an unconscious twitch as China stepped back, a little apprehensive initially, but her body exhibiting all the classic signs of relaxing as the guy harmlessly held up his hands and laughed before saying something.

There was a tiny hint of a smile, and then the alien girl opened that rosebud mouth of hers in reply.

A wave of annoyance engulfed him then, for he felt an almost personal indignation at the foolishness (or was it that irrepressible innocence?) of his rival.

Okita blew out an irritated breath, ruffling his bangs. Didn't the little idiot know better than to be drawn into conversations with strange guys she didn't know? There were all sorts of hustlers and dealers out there, searching for rare Amanto that would fetch a high price on a black market auction.

As a Shinsengumi Captain, Okita had been entangled in far too many raids upon such shady trafficking operations to be ignorant of the fact that Yato were the most desired of all Amanto. The men were sought for their unparalleled skills on the battle, the women for their fair aesthetical attributes.

And, completely speaking as an uninterested and objective observer, there was no one who wouldn't notice that the luxurious pink hair, china white skin, and intense blue eyes were features that had no earthly origination.

(Of course, it was far more likely that the guy who was currently the object of Okita's abhorrence was just some random hot-blooded male who couldn't resist the face of a pretty girl, but rationality was currently not something Okita possessed).

For a moment, he wavered between ruining his newfound avoidance policy with a timely interference or illustrating his resolve and leaving her wellbeing up to fate's intervention and China's own good sense.

He glanced back towards Kagura and her flirtatious assailer.

The guy now had his arm about her petite shoulders in a tentacle-like fashion, smiling creepily down at the uncomfortable girl.

God dammit. If he allowed the alien girl to get nabbed on his watch, he'd be destined for a bloody ending with the pointy part of danna's sword. Not to mention an earful from Kondo-san about allowing his wife's pseudo-sister to be stolen away.

And then Okita would probably have to waste valuable time and energy traipsing around space to bring her damsel-in-distress hide back to Earth.

So, in the spirit of prevention, it was really just simpler to nip this entire deal in the bud right now. He could always get back to his 'avoid-the-monster-girl-like-the-plague' policy later.

"China," he said loudly as he strode towards her, adopting a wide-eyed expression of surprise.

It had to be observed that Okita performed 'naïve shock' about as well as he could act out 'innocent angel' (that is to say, not at all), so it was not unexpected when Kagura turned about with a look of wariness on her face.

The hoodlum that had been speaking with his rival looked up impatiently at the intruder, and then promptly took a hurried step back in the familiar oh-hell-it's-the-police sort of way.

This was obviously indicative of his nefarious plans for the alien girl (clearly Okita didn't believe in the legal ruling of innocent until proven guilty with substantial evidence), and Okita offered him a cold smile.

A cold smile that in actuality meant 'if it weren't for the presence of hundreds of witnesses, I'd take an unholy pleasure in ripping your nails out and stuffing them in your eyeballs'.

There was a disgruntled grumble from the pink-haired girl. "What do you want, uh-huh?"

Okita smirked, his eyes crinkling up into some unusual mimicry of cheerfulness. "A rematch."

"You're accosting me for a match? Now?"

While their rivalry had never really had any specific terms or limitations applied to it—it was really more of a casual seek-out-the-other-person-and-beat-them-up arrangement—Kagura's confusion at this abrupt request was blatantly splayed on her delicate features.

"I seem to recall our last festival shooting game concluding with me as the victor," Okita lied smoothly. In all honesty it had ended in a draw, but that wasn't as likely to piss her off and fulfill his intention of distracting her. "And as we're both at a fair, I thought you might like the chance to reclaim your samurai honor. After all, weren't you supposed to spill your entrails when you lost?"

While it was generally against his better judgment to allow her anywhere near his extremities with a loaded weapon, fake or otherwise, Okita figured the promise of allowing her the chance to potentially cause him bodily harm would divert her from the shady asshole if nothing else could.

Apparently this assumption was correct, for Kagura immediately leapt forwards, teeth bared. "Hah! Gin-chan says only idiots subscribe to that kind of dumb honor code!" Clenching her hands, she cocked her head back to glare at him. "But I'll fight you in another shooting game, Sadist—and this time I'll send you to meet your descendants!"

"Oh good," Okita said, insincerity undermining what would have been a cheerful statement. "And by the way, the phrase is sending you to meet your ancestors, not your descendants, China. Unless you built a time machine I don't know about?"

In her unguarded state—really, she allowed herself to become too carelessly unaware of her surroundings, he brooded to himself—it was simple enough to slip one hand about her wrist and begin blithely pulling her away from the gawking guy they were fast leaving behind.

There was a tinnitus-like ringing within his ears as she released an unearthly cry of surprise at being manhandled so, her voice chastising, "What the hell do you think you're doing!"

"Saving you from a possible fate of enslavement and leering men who don't bathe," he answered.

"What?" she sputtered, confusion rampant in her tenor.

"That guy you were talking to. It didn't occur that he might've been involved in some sleazy dealings?"

Kagura gawked at him. "He was just the normal kind of sleaze, idiot! The type that likes to chat up beautiful women he finds!"

"…actually, I'm changing that to him being a visually impaired sleaze."

Experience had long since granted him the foresight in immediately ducking when confronted with Kagura in a rage, and indeed: a second later came the whistling air of a clenched fist rushing towards him.

"I was about to walk away from him anyways, uh-huh! To rejoin Soyo-chan!" she berated him without any restraint to her furor. "You didn't have to play protector with me!"

In no mood to engage in one of their climactic battles that were worthy of any intense action sequence within the cinema, Okita merely directed her a grim smile and an amused, "I'm getting some déjà vu here, China. Didn't we do this just a few days ago?"

Plainly in as impatient a temperament as he himself was, the girl slammed a hand against his chest. "I let you get away with this touching crap once, you bastard, since it was between that or getting flattened by a speeding car. And believe me, there's some serious doubt within me that you were the better choice, uh-huh."

"Becoming a pancake in the street's preferable to my company?"

Kagura eyed him flatly. "Glad you caught on so quick, uh-huh. But the point is, stopping putting your stupid Sadist hands on me! I'll get…cooties, or something, yup!"

Okita could no more prevent the deviousness twisting his mouth into a crooked grin than he could have forced Hijikata-san to abandon his mayonnaise addiction. "Monster girl," he said languorously, red eyes glinting with a mischief to match his tone. "You don't get cooties by simple touching. If we did, I would've been infected with your disease long ago."

"Disease!" she screeched wildly, eyes alight with a murderous aura. "What disease, uh-huh!"

"Stupidity."

Kagura's reply was relatively impressive—it consisted of a blend of swear words, mostly in different languages with every fifth word or so actually being Japanese. You learned quite a lot when subsisting in the underbelly of society, as Kagura had been forced to ever since she was a young child, and it usually wasn't wholesome values of happiness and peace.

Amusedly noting some mothers directing scandalized glares at the not-quite-couple and firmly marching their children away from the scene lest they be scarred, Okita drawled, "Yo, China, am I going to have to arrest you for public indecency?"

"Public indecency is getting naked in public, idiot!" Kagura snarled back, pink hair spreading in a whirlwind about her as she shook her head in frustration. "So unless I'm giving a free strip tease on a tent pole, you don't have any case against me, uh-huh."

"Please don't," he entreated sardonically. "You'll blind everyone here and the Shinsengumi will have to pay a fortune in corrective eye surgery." He was fairly certain that the blood vessel throbbing away in her forehead was going to erupt at some point in time. "And public indecency can include lewd speech as well, China."

"You'd have to arrest yourself too then, yup!" Kagura struck a smug pose, arms folded and haughtily looking down her nose at him (rather a feat considering she barely cleared the top of his shoulder at full height). "Cause of all the crap you spew!"

"Huh. I guess then we'd have to share a jail cell for a common misdemeanor."

"Yup!" Like a bizarre human action figure, she rearranged her limbs and face—she elevated two fingers in a victory sign and directed an unrestrained grin at him. "I win the argument, then, uh-huh! Since there's no way in hell we'd be able to withstand each other in a two-foot by two-foot space, there's no way you can arrest us!"

Two-foot by two-foot cell? Okita had to wonder at her perceptions of prison.

"Now let's go find that shooting booth, uh-huh! I wanna kick your ass."

"Yeah, we're laying down some ground rules before we go, China," Okita said, foreseeing imminent harm for himself and determined to circumvent it. "First off is this: no riddling innocent Shinsengumi captains with bullets."

His shorter companion scoffed. "Che. You've never been innocent a day in your life, uh-huh."

"I think you're missing the point of the rule."

After a good deal of bickering and a near-disastrous moment where Kagura was sorely tempted to point at him and yell "'Wild Beasts of the Universe Attraction' escapee! Catch him!" to see what would happen, they finally happened upon the traditional shooting booth.

It was stocked with the regular plush toys (including an adorable rabbit that looked so much like Sadaharu Number 1 that she immediately became misty eyed and sneakily used Okita's sleeve to blow her nose) and candies, as well as some twisted-looking objects that were purported by handwritten signs to be ancient artifacts from all of the known galaxies.

More likely they were just bits of garbage filched from people's trashcans, but whatever.

The booth manager was none other than Hasegawa, trying his hand at yet another day job in order to convince his wife that he wasn't a complete deadbeat of a madao. Stubbing out his cigarette on the countertop, he monotonously droned, "Yo, and welcome to Gallons of Guns Fun Booth, where you can win—shit!"

"Win shit?" Kagura echoed indignantly. "Ne ne, if I wanted that, I'd just ask Sadaharu to gimme some for free, uh-huh!"

"China, I think he meant 'Oh shit, it's the alien girl who destroyed my booth last time with her monstrous strength!', actually," Okita corrected her in his usual inexpressive manner.

His amendment received little more than a twitchy eye and a contemptuous sneer. "Pshh. He probably means 'Oh shit, it's that Sadist weirdo who gets way too freakin' carried away with games and ended up accidently shooting me in the shoulder with a fake festival gun!'"

"Hmm. I don't think I ever apologized for that, did I?"

"Why would you? It probably goes against the Sadist genetic code in your cells, yup."

"'Genetic code in your cells'? Have you been watching Mad Scientist Mud Wrestling again?"

"Oh, shuddup! It's educational, uh-huh, and anyhow, we still have to figure out the meaning of the Madao's shit!"

"Would you both stop trying to interpret my 'shit'!" Hasegawa bellowed, tossing his hands up in the universal sign of exasperation. He flushed a dull red as his shouted words earned snickers from surrounding fairgoers, and immediately lowered his voice a few decibels. "For the love of…just tell me how many games you want to play, quickly, and try not to destroy anything while you're at it."

"I woooon," was the elated cheer that rent the air, as Kagura spun about in some bizarre war dance. "I beat cha, yup!"

"Yeah, I don't think it can be termed 'winning' if you shot up half the stand in the process, China," Okita said blandly, hands deep in his pockets as he studied the now-decimated booth with latent interest. "Huh, you even managed to shatter a vase that supposedly came from an ancient Edo temple. You're really gonna catch holy hell now, alien girl."

Shrugging, as though the prospect of bringing down the wrath of heaven upon her wasn't overly concerning, she ignored the Sadist and instead addressed a battered-looking Hasegawa. "Hey, Madao! I'd like the bunny rabbit plush please, uh-huh!" Kagura requested sweetly, her eyes keenly fixated on her desired prize.

"…you're kidding, right?" Hasegawa's voice was an amalgam of disbelief and hoarseness—the latter gained from yelling himself into a voiceless state as the raging competition between Okita and Kagura had threatened to rob him of a job yet again.

"B-but I won, yup!" Her mouth wobbled suspiciously. "I got the most targets!"

"Yeah, and you also managed to destroy most of the prizes while you were at it!"

Kagura hazarded another glance at her Sadaharu Number 1 look-alike rabbit, a sharp ache tugging somewhere above her ribs. "I…but…"

Her forlorn tone and wide blue eyes were difficult for even the hardest heart to remain impermeable to, and Hasegawa groaned and scrubbed his hands down his face. "Look," he relented, "I can let you have it if you purchase it, but no other way. I'm already facing not getting paid for this gig to compensate for the damage you guys caused."

"Purchase? But I don't have any money!"

Because the Odd Jobs were in a perpetual state of near-poverty, Kagura had become accustomed to living in thriftiness. She, Shinpachi, and Gin-chan usually managed to make ends meet and keep her stomach relatively full, so Kagura hardly noticed that her clothes weren't as fancy as the garish kimono some girls pranced about in, or that her shoes were secondhand and slightly scuffed. She could cope with eggs on rice for every meal, or the occasional flickering of the lights when the electric company's bill went unpaid, but she…

…she really wanted the little rabbit.

Still, she was seventeen now, right? Aneue always said it was the age one began to mature, and learn to store away childish frivolities and impulses (although she said Gin-chan was a unique exception to this rule). Perhaps her twelve-year-old self might have pitched an ear-splitting fit, but maybe her adult self could gracefully decide upon a different path of action—one of acceptance and resignation.

It was just a stupid toy, she half-heartedly tried to tell herself as she began trudging away. Nothing for her throat to begin clogging up over, or her eyes to start burning with the stirrings of tears.

Ugh, she was a daughter of the ferocious Yato clan and a member of the Yorozuya! She couldn't start being all weepy now, uh-huh, especially in plain view of her most hated rival!

She could only imagine the Sadist's smarmy, superior attitude would worsen if he bore witness to her acting like a silly, wailing idiot, after all. Knowing him, he'd find some devious way of humiliating her with the incident each time she encountered him, from now until forever.

"W-wait," came Hasegawa's cry, sounding strangely croaky and panicked. "Wait, I changed my mind, kid!"

She whirled about in surprise, finding the Madao with a strained smile on his face and the Sadist standing complacently beside him, hands partially hidden somewhere, wearing an unconvincing look of innocence. "What?"

Tobacco-stained fingers plucked the fluffy prize off the shelf, extending it out to her. Amidst Kagura's happy exclamation and her rush to retrieve the toy rabbit, she didn't notice the shakiness of Hasegawa's hands or the beads of sweat dripping down onto his collar.

"Like I said," Hasegawa continued, his teeth bared in a horribly toothy grin and his eyes bulging behind his sunglasses. "It's yours—enjoy!"

The inanimate bunny rabbit was cradled against her chest, so tightly that it was fortunate the thing wasn't a living creature…otherwise, Kagura may have had a repeat of what had befallen the original Sadaharu Number 1.

Despite her previous self-assurances that she could do without it, her voice was breathless with exultation when she spoke. "Thank you, uh-huh! Madao, you're a good guy, yup…even if your wife does think you're a worthless bum."

"Hey!"

Waving her prize victoriously at Okita, who still had yet to move from his place beside Hasegawa, she grinned triumphantly. "See? I guess this means I really am the winner, Sadist!"

"Seems that way."

"Oooh!" Kagura crooned. She cuddled the plush rabbit to her face, delighting in its softness with all of the unguarded innocence of a child. "I have to show you to So-chan, uh-huh! Right, Sadaharu Number 1 Version 2?"

And with that she darted off, ignorant of the dark red gaze that gleamed with the satisfaction of subversion.

Once she was gone, Hasegawa shakily asked, "Hey, Shinsengumi-taichou, can you put the sword away now? I—I gave her the rabbit, just like you said, didn't I?"

He shivered at the blood-curdling memory. As soon as Gintoki's ward had despondently turned away, shoulders squared and head bowed, the wicked point of what was unmistakably a katana had ruthlessly dug into his back. An ominously composed voice had whispered sharply, "Booth-Manager-san, I suggest you give that girl what she wants...else I might be tempted to prop your dead body up as a prize for your game. I'm sure there's some necrophiliacs around here that might be interested…"

What else had there been to do but comply with the request? Hasegawa had no interest in dying for the sake of a toy rabbit.

Thankfully, Hasegawa heard the soft shing of a sword being re-sheathed, and the deadly pressure vanished from the small of his back. He nearly collapsed from relief, and an inability to continue standing due to the gelatinous quality of his leg muscles all of a sudden, but instead leaned on the countertop for support.

The Shinsengumi captain, as though he hadn't just threatened to sever some poor idiot's spine in one easy strike, nonchalantly strolled out of the booth with a tuneless whistle on his lips.

Perhaps he was tempting fate, but Hasegawa swore and stopped him. "Hold on a second! How am I supposed to pay for all of this damage, eh? After all, it was your girlfriend who did all of this!"

"She's not my girlfriend."

The words sliced through the air, causing Hasegawa to flinch back as though from a real weapon sailing towards him.

Instantly switching to a more blasé demeanor, the Shinsengumi captain idly scratched his neck and shrugged. "But I guess it's partially my fault your game looks like this now. Tell you what, Booth-Manager-san, just charge all the damage expenses to the credit card of Hijikata Toushiro, got it? Courtesy of the Shinsengumi."

In the opposite direction that the pink-haired girl had run off to, the policeman wandered away.

He had neatly gotten her away from some guy that may-or-may-not-have been an illicit black market dealer.

He had coerced a hapless deadbeat into giving her the ridiculous rabbit doll just to get rid of that stupid look of sadness from her face.

This avoidance deal wasn't going well at all.

"Damn it!"

Fairgoers backed away uneasily as a tall blonde-haired man repeatedly bashed his head against a nearby wall.

They shook their heads pityingly—you really did get all sorts of strange types at these alien fairs.

The obscenely long author's message of doom:

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The plan was to first shower you all with thanks and love, so I'll stick with that: I'm so grateful that so many people took the time to read and favorite and comment on this story, because it's something that is very dear to my heart and I love writing it. Life and university just got crazy these last few months, and that really hindered my writing time. Also thank you to everyone who private messaged me with pleas for another chapter, because eventually the guilt got the better of me and I sat down and wrote it.

If I'm ever inactive for long periods of time, send me messages. It works very well on me, haha.

Writing for Gintama is so hard, especially for stories that I want to be humorous, because sometimes I feel like I just can't achieve the proper tone of humor it uses. But at least I gave it a try XD

I made this behemoth chapter 13,000+ words for everyone's enjoyment and patience, and it might have gone on longer but eventually I just had to find a place to end the thing! I apologize for the wall of unending text.

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I'm a little uncertain about this chapter—it wasn't so much of a plot-by-the-Shinsengumi-to-get-OkiKagu-to-happen, but more about the unfortunate aftermaths of one of their harebrained schemes. Still, at least Ryo did give it a valiant effort.

Next chapter will see them resume their idiot tries at making Kagura and Okita get together, and here's a little preview: the men of the Shinsengumi may or may not be planning to try and put Kagura in mortal danger so they can have Okita fly to her rescue.

Somehow, I very much doubt that the plan's going to work out very well. Okita just doesn't seem the knight-in-shining-armor type to me..

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The topic of Hana-san: no, she's not meant to be a love interest for anyone (hears readers breathe a collective sigh of relief). She's only meant to be a temporary OC for this chapter, because I have fun creating Gintama-universe people and seeing if I can make them fit in. I like her sharp and yet simultaneously blasé attitude…I sort of picture her like a female Isaburo.

On that note: I AM BECOMING A CRAZY ISABURO/NOBUME SHIPPER. I finally got caught up on the anime and manga, and I wonder how Sorachi-sensei can create characters who are obviously so adorable together in a non-romance manga.

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By the way, can anyone tell me who all the characters who came to Ryo's fortune-telling tent were? ;)

And I'd love, love, love, love to hear what everyone thought of this chapter!