temporary heroics

Because sometimes, everyone just needs their big brother to come and save them.

Disclaimer: I do not own Gintama.

BIDDING NOTICE: FEMALE YATO CAPTURED IN AREA 3Z-452 ("EARTH")

AKASUNA CREW TRAVELING TO BLACK MARKET ON PLANET HADRAIN

DESTINATION WILL BE REACHED IN TWO DAYS

ALL INTERESTED PARTIES TO RENDEZVOUS AT DESIGNATED POINT

Abuto sighed as he scanned the flickering screen before him with troubled eyes, the picture of a very familiar girl reflected back at him.

Granted, it had been quite a few years since he had last laid eyes on her, but there was no mistaking that vibrant colored hair or bright blue eyes. Aside from being unable to forget the memorable experience of being thrashed to within an inch of his life by a mere child, he looked at those same features each and every day on his baka captain.

One hand reached up to rub wearily at the back of his neck, which he swore was probably developing a crick from the length of time he'd been staring up at the screen, mulling over what exactly to do. This was yet another one of life's tricky little quizzes, a question of what was the right or wrong choice.

It had been pure chance that he had happened upon this little notice while checking the communications wave this morning—and judging from the number of views it was garnering, the ill-themed advertisement was becoming quite the center of attention.

Meaning that there would be quite a few of those 'interested parties' mentioned.

He sighed again, trying to figure out how the hell the boss's little sister had managed to get herself kidnapped by pirates. And by the troublesome Akasuna division, of all groups.

The Earth was primarily the Harusame's domain, ranging from several small provinces that were directly controlled by the Harusame, such as Yoshiwara, to firsthand dealings with the Bakufu government. On occasion a few other upstart pirate organizations attempted to dabble in the planet's affairs, but they were usually chased out with practiced efficiency and hardly any trouble.

The Akasuna Pirates were one such group, and yet unlike the others, it appeared that they had succeeded in capturing a priceless treasure during their stint on Earth.

And despite what the humans may have believed, Amanto were no more loyal or kind to one another than they were to homo sapiens—the shady markets of the universe were quite abundant with rare alien auctions. The captured ones with lower mental capabilities, equivalent to the animals on Earth, were usually sold as pets or guard creatures; the more humanoid ones were normally sold to crews in indentured servant capacities…or for more licentious purposes.

A low rage swept through Abuto's veins, born from species kinship and a sentimental pity, as he examined the displayed picture once again.

Yato were wanted by space crews throughout the universe—having a member with unbeatable strength and an unnatural propensity for quick healing essentially assured a group's superiority. There was a reason the 7th Division of the Harusame was the most feared one of the bunch, after all. But that was for the male Yato.

The female Yato were often sought for far more unsavory purposes, despite the fact that one would be foolhardy to underestimate their potential. With their porcelain pale skin and deceptively delicate features, the Yato clans were widely regarded as spawning some of the greatest beauties in the known galaxies. Men clamored to have them on their arm as trophies, to claim them as wives or concubines, to utilize their potent blood in producing strong heirs.

More likely than not, that was to be that spunky young woman's fate if Abuto allowed this matter to go unattended.

Which, essentially, meant that Abuto had to do something about this or suffer from a damnably annoying conscience for the rest of his life.

Which in turn meant going to the Captain with this unexpected problem.

He passed a tired hand over his face, wondering why the hell it always fell to him to be the bearer of bad news.

Unlike the kings and lottery winners of the world, whom good fortune seemed to just naturally befall, Abuto's luck had not yet deviated from the completely opposite course it constantly traveled upon.

Disaster strikes? Of course he would be the one it walloped. A cataclysm occurs? He would be the unlucky one to be standing on its precipice, if not the very middle. If sickness spread through the ship, Abuto was the first to come down with it and the last to recover from it; if his Captain ran an enemy or dissenter through with his hand, Abuto would be the one to be splattered with the resultant slew of blood.

His destiny fled like a spineless coward whenever it encountered the opportunity for a bit of positive kismet for once.

'Unlucky' was quickly becoming his middle name, and judging by the way the others were surreptitiously avoiding his gaze and scurrying off to different corners of the room, 'Dead' might be another gained title after he delivered this newest update to the Captain.

Because despite all of Kamui's airy reassurances and overt act of unconcern, Abuto somehow doubted the Captain's fury at these latest tidings would be easily contained.

After all, Abuto was the only person in this world aware of the Captain's true feelings in regards to a certain little sister of his.

Shooting a resentful glare at the fellow occupants of the data center, Abuto pressed the 'print' button like a man deciding his own death sentence, snatched up the papers spewed out in an orderly manner, and stalked out of the crowded room in search of their baka Captain.

—

—

—

Two Years Ago…

Abuto grumbled under his breath as they stumbled yet again, cursing the fact for the umpteenth time that he only had one arm.

It made it hellishly difficult to prop up your thoroughly drugged commander as you tried to drag him through the hallways and to his bunk, after all. If Abuto hadn't had such a damnably soft heart, particularly when it came to that sadistic idiot of a commander he had sworn to follow, he would have abandoned the pink-haired man in the corridor with a muttered 'Good riddance'.

Kamui sniggered at Abuto's attempt at righting them, practically hanging off the taller man's shoulder as his arm was pulled further around Abuto's neck. "Ne, Abuto, you really s-suck at this." Kamui chortled to himself yet again. "D-drop me an' I'll have to cut your other arm off."

It was difficult not to sigh, even as Abuto shot an irritated look at his snickering burden. All of the Commander's polite speech and mannerisms had went flying straight out the window when he'd retrieved Kamui from the clinic he'd been forced to involuntarily deposit him at earlier in the day. Yato with an unnaturally high threshold for pain and impressive healing abilities Kamui may have been, but even the Commander couldn't withstand being stabbed about four dozen times without suffering some repercussions.

One of these days, Abuto wished that the Commander would learn not to engage more than five hundred opponents at a time. One or two were bound to get a lucky hit in, no matter the skill of the fighter.

After retrieving the idiot from the battlefield, Abuto had ignored Kamui's repeated commands to let go of him even as he had dragged him towards the medical center, had ignored his threats of disembowelment and beheading as he neatly avoided stepping in the small river of the Commander's blood gushing onto the floor, and had finally deposited the then-unconscious idiot in front of assorted bewildered doctors and nurses with the vague order of "Fix him. And make sure to dope him while you're at it, so he doesn't slaughter every person in here when he finally wakes up."

The group of newly-terrified doctors and nurses had scurried to do exactly that—but practically carrying a high Kamui through the bowels of the ship, Abuto suspected they had been a little too overenthusiastic in following his suggestion. It probably wasn't too unwarranted, however, given the preternaturally fast metabolism that all Yato were gifted with.

Abuto started when Kamui wrenched away from him in one swift move, staggering off to the side with a condemning "A-Abuto, you're too sloooow." He spun unsteadily, loose braid whirling and darting eyes trying without success to focus. It wouldn't be improper to compare his gait to that of a drunken duck.

An aggravated breath escaped him, and Abuto ran a weary hand through his course hair. "Commander, it would be better if you let me escort you back to your quarters."

He received a derisive snort in response. "I'll make it there m'self, since you move like an' old fart, Abuto."

"I don't think that's such a good idea," Abuto tiredly tried again, withdrawing his reaching hand when Kamui indignantly slapped it away.

"Ne, Abuto, you can t-take your ideas an' shove 'em up your—FUCK!"

Abuto calmly watched as Kamui recoiled from the wall he had just collided with, the impact which had presumably rubbed unpleasantly against his injuries, an impressive cacophony of curses tumbling with abandon from the teenager's mouth. Apparently when the Commander was as high as a kite was the only instance in which his pirate vocabulary decided to kick in.

"Dammit…" Kamui slurred to himself, sending an irate glare at the inanimate wall. "I'll get you t'mrrow…just you wait…your plaster will scream and writhe in pain at my hands, kekeke."

"Commander," Abuto deadpanned. "That's a wall."

"I'm conscie—consciens—conscientititious—I'm aware of that fact, Abuto. Whaddaya think I am, stupid?"

Abuto wisely decided against offering his opinion on that, thinking it best to treat the query as a rhetorical one. Even in this state, Abuto was under no delusions as to the Commander's unwavering propensity for violence and his unaffected ability to carry it out. He'd prefer to keep his remaining arm intact, thank-you-very-much.

Hefting the deadweight that was his Commander up again, Abuto gently steered the teenager into resuming their trudge towards his quarters.

"How much did that nurse give you?" It was difficult not to sound amused. "Normally you refuse all forms of painkillers, don't you? You don't have any sort of tolerance for them—that's probably why it's affecting you so much."

Kamui looked pained as he thought back, a scowl marring handsome features that many a woman had been besotted by. "Y-yeah…the b-bitch jabbed me with a needle before I could tell her to take her painkillers and go to hell." The scowl deepened even further, until his teeth were nearly bared. "And then the d-damn woman patted my freakin' cheek and said I would be better in the morning." Abuto hastily coughed as he strove not to laugh, and Kamui remained silently stewing for a moment.

Abuto, not without some difficulty, schooled his features into an impassive mask as Kamui looked up at him. "Abuto. Remind me in the morning to put that nurse on my 'People to Painfully End' list."

He rolled his eyes. "Which number?"

Kamui took a second to mull over it, before replying seriously, "Somewhere below my father but above the asshole who put carrots in my salad yesterday."

"Carrots are good for you, Commander."

"Yeah, well, not f-for someone with orange hair," Kamui countered, disgruntled.

"But your hair is pi—" Abuto rapidly put an end to the intended correction when the aura around his Commander became a tad bit too deadly for his liking. He'd forgot how touchy the teenager was in regards to the color of his hair. Upon Kamui's initial arrival into the Harusame, all it had taken was one misbegotten comment about his 'girly' hair, one stupid underling being kicked into the ceiling courtesy of a pleasantly smiling Kamui, and the entire flotilla had quickly learned the golden rule:

You don't mention the Commander's hair color, and all would be well in the world.

"C-carrots. T-that bastaaarrrrd." Apparently this was one of Kamui's favorite peeves to rant about. "Deliberately trying to undermine me—trying to make my hair more pink!"

"You mean orange," Abuto inserted.

"What're you, stuuupid?" Was the scornful reply. "Or just colorblind? My hair's pink. Damn stupid pink. That's another thing I have to kill my father for, you know." In typical Kamui fashion, he stated this intent for patricide with an almost bored expression on his face.

Abuto blinked in confusion as he continued to haul his leader down the hall. He had, of course, heard of the legendary Umibouzu—who hadn't?—but had yet to meet him. But so far as he knew from the often exaggerated descriptions of the most ferocious alien hunter in the galaxy, the man had black hair. Therefore, he couldn't quite understand the ire directed towards a man whose genetics couldn't have possibly bestowed Kamui's most hated physical characteristic upon him.

He decided to point this out. "Commander, your father has black hair."

"Yes, Abuto," Kamui said patiently, as though speaking to someone particularly slow on the uptake. "But it was entirely his fault for deciding to marry my mother, who had pink hair."

Abuto blinked again. While it made sense that Kamui must have had a mother at some point, it had never come up before in conversation. Then again, the past wasn't something freely discussed among the cutthroats of the Harusame, most of whom had completely abandoned all ties to their former lives. Hell, Abuto hadn't even known the Commander had had a younger sister until he'd had that interesting encounter with her in that underbelly of the world: Yoshiwara.

Among all of the non forthcoming men Abuto worked and fought alongside, it was with Kamui most particularly that Abuto received the unvoiced message of discussions of family being wholly off-limits. Beyond recognizing his surname, long since cast off, as belonging to the most feared Yato mercenary in existence, Abuto was still hardly more enlightened in regards to his Commander's past than he had been the first day he'd encountered him—when he'd been no more than a silent, pensive boy with a chilling glint in his blue eyes.

Still, it was interesting to hear mention of the woman who had played a part in bringing such a promising son and daughter into the world; a woman who must have, in some small way, contributed to the creation of the boy who unerringly listened to the call of his blood and the girl who sought an existence free of such a binding, animalistic control.

"Your mother, huh?" Abuto murmured contemplatively. "Well, if she gave you that hair, I guess it would make sense that you hate her as well." He smiled wryly, glancing down at the suddenly quiet youngster. Abuto sighed, shaking his head as he turned his attention back to navigating their way through the empty halls. "But then again, you hate everyone in your family, don't you Commander?"

Kamui twitched, something akin to a shudder briefly wracking his body, but other than that offered no response for the remainder of their traverse to his room.

—

—

—

Abuto took his sweet time as he strolled through the corridors, not in an particular hurry to reach his destination and not overly concerned about how long it would take to find Kamui.

After all, it was never a chore to locate the Captain: if you so wished to, one only had to find the nearest trail of a) bloody body parts; b) sobbing, quaking pirates; or c) heaping pile of food. Any of the aforementioned things would almost certainly mean that the Captain was in the same vicinity.

In this case, it was scenario b. Abuto inhaled sharply as a dozen or so pirates rushed past him in the hall, looks of terror fixed upon their faces and in such a hurry that none stopped to offer their apologies when they nearly bowled him over.

Well, not that he was really expecting any apologies. They were pirates after all—not a group that was particularly renowned for their tea-party worthy manners.

Still, the stampeding herd out of the viewing room most certainly meant that the Captain was not in a favorable mood today. While Kamui generally refrained from demonstrative acts of anger (or…any sort of outbursts involving emotion, really), he had his bad days, just as everyone did. And while others tended towards snappishness and angst when ensconced in foul humor, Kamui tended towards detaching much-needed body parts from any unfortunate underling who happened to be in the way.

Reaching the room entrance that the fleeing pirates had just departed from, Abuto held up a lazy hand and pressed it into the dimly glowing scanner. It lit up in recognition of his biological signature, flashed him a cheery message of 'Have a Great Day!' (sometimes, Abuto thought, his Captain had the strangest sense of humor), and then there was a soft hiss as the doors slid open.

And sure enough, at the far end of the viewing room (which was essentially an entirely windowed and clear-floored area exposed to all of the sights space had to offer) was the Captain. He was standing idly near the forefront of the area with an unreadable expression on his face, an oddly bright figure against the uniform blackness outside.

Abuto wasn't foolish enough to believe that his Captain hadn't detected his presence even before the doors had opened, but still went through with the impulsive need to clear his throat and announce his presence.

His long braid whipping through the air, Kamui turned his head at the noise and offered Abuto a large smile, complete with crinkled eyes and grinning mouth.

Crap, Abuto blanched. The Captain really was in a pissy mood today. And after what Abuto had to tell him, it was surely only going to get worse.

A cool trickle of sweat dripped down Abuto's neck and he tried not to cringe. Or remember if he'd updated his will anytime in the last month.

"Abuto, why are you just standing there like a lemming?" came the half-curious, half-amused question as Kamui cocked his head to the side and eyed him. "What is it?"

The offending papers crinkled ominously in his hands as he approached his waiting Captain. His steps echoed loudly around the otherwise deserted room, steps that he wasn't entirely uncertain weren't leading him to his doom. "There's a widespread notice over the communications wave," Abuto told the pink-haired man with no little trepidation.

Kamui's wide blue eyes blinked at him. "And?" he questioned blankly.

"And I thought you might want to see it, Captain."

"Abuto, I thought I told you I'm not interested in crap like that." A grin. "That's why you're around, remember? To deal with all that boring stuff." Kamui stretched and yawned, clasping his hands behind his head.

To Kamui, anything that didn't involve severing limbs, tentacles, or otherwise unspecified human and alien appendages was classified as 'boring stuff', Abuto thought dryly to himself. A fighter through and through, the Captain was hardly a politician or negotiator by nature. And while Abuto normally did refrain from bothering the Captain with all of that aforementioned "boring stuff", he felt this warranted interrupting the norm.

Abuto ran a distracted hand through sandy blonde hair, shifting under the Captain's piercing gaze. "Aa, sorry about that. But I thought you should probably see this, Captain…since it has to do with your sister."

If Abuto was expecting an overt reaction, he was sorely disappointed. Kamui's face transformed into another oddly smiling mask at the mention of his sibling, blue eyes fathomless. "How odd. You're really bothering about my useless little sister?" His voice was lightly mocking. "Abuto, I've said before I don't mind you getting attached to others of our kind, but I don't have time for weaklings."

With that, Kamui aimlessly spun around in an about turn, essentially ignoring his second-in-command in favor of resuming his productive staring out the window.

Abuto scrubbed an irritated hand down his face, feeling the scratchiness of his stubble bite against his hand. "I know, Captain. But I thought you might want to make time, considering that your sister's been kidnapped by Akasuna pirates and there's a quadrant-wide notice on her impending auction," he said in a carefully mild tone.

He had to admit, there was some satisfaction in witnessing the emotionless Harusame Captain go utterly still in poorly concealed shock.

—

—

—

It was not without a sense of overwhelming relief and the promise of some rest of his own that Abuto unceremoniously dropped the pink-haired teenager onto his bed. Commander or not, Abuto drew the line at tucking him into bed—on the off chance Kamui retained even a semblance of recollection of this night come morning, Abuto did not want to offer up a reason to be put on the kill list between the unfortunate nurse and Ichirou the Salad Guy.

He could only pray that the pain-killers currently incapacitating his Captain had the convenient side effect of short-term amnesia.

Kamui rolled onto his side with only a murmur of protest at being plopped onto his bunk like a sack of rocks, drawing his legs up to avoid the umbrella lying horizontally and within easy reach across the foot of the mattress. Abuto raised an eyebrow at yet another tangible sign of his Commander's paranoia (or was it preparedness? It wasn't like Kamui had any shortage of enemies—most of them were on that aforementioned "To-Kill" list).

Shrugging off the oddity as being just another one of the Commander's idiosyncrasies, the sandy-haired Yato grunted out a short goodnight and turned to depart.

"Abuto." His name rang out in the silence, as much as a command to stop as anything else. Abuto obeyed, obligingly halting in his long strides despite the painful headache that had begun to unhelpfully accumulate in his frontal lobe. "You're wrong, you know."

"Wrong?"

"About what you said before." Kamui's voice was utterly toneless. "I don't hate them all."

That voice couldn't have belonged to his ruthless, bloodthirsty Commander, Abuto was certain of it. Because for all its monotony, this voice was ancient and strained, as fragile as though the overbearing weight of secret after secret was threatening to finally shatter his icy restraint. Unease began to swirl in Abuto's heart—everyone knew that the Commander's façade of rational sanity was hanging only by a thread, and Abuto really didn't fancy being around when the thread finally frayed into pieces.

"Oh?" Abuto asked casually, inching towards the beckoning door.

"Just…just that bastard."

Abuto raised an eyebrow at the admission, momentarily forgetting about his escape effort and turning slightly to observe the Commander's stiff back and tense form. "You mean Umibouzu."

He watched as Kamui's head curled forwards in an assenting nod. Clearly the painkillers were still wreaking havoc with the Commander's admittedly-already-warped mind, because otherwise there was no chance in a very warm place that the two could even be encroaching upon the periphery of the territory this conversation was entering.

Wondering what the hell he was supposed to say to that, Abuto attempted hesitantly, "Well…I suppose just one out of three is hardly bad. Though I admit, Commander, you don't exactly give the appearance of caring about that little sister of yours…" He trailed off lamely.

"Kagura."

"Hm?" Abuto was baffled, wondering if they were just going to start listing names. He was even more baffled, or rather, surprised, when Kamui shot up from his curled up position on the bed, whirling to face a taken aback Abuto.

A small trickle of sweat ran down the back of Abuto's neck, despite the cool air of the room, as Kamui leveled narrowed, bleary eyes and a scowl at him.

"Her name is Kagura," Kamui gritted out, blue eyes glittering menacingly. "Remember it."

"Ah, right," Abuto laughed nervously, unused to such a side of the Commander. Normally Kamui only had two moods: homicidal and mock pleasant. This expression was bordering on the intense. "Kagura. Right. Cute name." He was well aware that he was babbling slightly, and only relaxed his terse posture when Kamui nodded and calmly reseated himself upon the bed.

Propping his chin in his hand, Kamui grumbled, "It is a cute name. The cutest name in the entire universe."

Squinting his eyes and practically honing in on the Commander's contemplative face, a nagging, wriggling, and slimy feeling started twisting in Abuto's stomach. Something terrible, too terrible to even put a name to, was beginning to occur to him. "Commander," he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose with the dawning realization he had just had. "Your little sister…"

In an unnerving gesture of wariness, Kamui cocked his head to the side. It wasn't dissimilar to how Kamui regarded a new battlefield with new soldiers and the promise of new battles—anticipative, dangerous, and intense. "What about her, Abuto?"

Abuto folded his arms, regarding him equally as unflinching. "You pretend to not care, but in actuality…you really cherish that girl, don't you?"

The projectile launched at his head shouldn't have been unexpected, but in spite of his relative surprise Abuto still managed to duck by a narrow margin. Even high and physiologically unbalanced, mental faculties disturbed, the Commander had excellent aim, as evidenced by the book that grazed the top of his head.

"I do not!" was the snarl that accompanied the book; a snarl that belied the defensive glare and slight flush of cheeks.

Abuto exhaled noisily, pondering why out of all the Commanders in the world, he had ended up with the half-crazy one with what appeared to be the sister-complex from hell.

—

—

—

A thin sheen of blood leaked from Abuto's finger as Kamui turned with an overly-nonchalant air and snatched the papers from his hand, the crisp edges painfully slicing along his skin.

Despite intense scrutiny from Abuto, Kamui's face remained carefully void of reaction as his blue eyes flicked rapidly through the contents of the report—eyes that were fast gaining a dangerously darker tinge to them, one born from immense displeasure and a liberal dose of utterly pissed off.

Abuto gave a casual sweep of the room, noting all possible exits in the case that Kamui finally erupted. The last time he'd seen the Captain in such a tense state, the kid had literally decimated a few armies to quench his anger.

"Abuto."

"Yes?" The voice that emerged from his throat was a tad bit squeakier than Abuto would have liked. He cleared his throat. "I mean, yes, Captain?"

"When was this sent out?" Kamui's disturbingly cool gaze never deviated from the papers he held; nor did his voice fluctuate from its practiced level of uncaring composure. Abuto had to admit—their baka Captain was a damn good actor. If he hadn't been treated to a first-hand account of the man's true regard for his sister, he would never have believed it.

"This morning." He scratched the back of his neck absently. "Which means they'll have had a fairly good head start on us, Captain."

"Hm."

Abuto blinked at the soft, noncommittal noise that came from the Captain. Was Kamui actually going to do nothing? To resign his younger sister to her fate? A faint sense of unease bubbled up inside of him—he knew the kid was largely heartless, but this was just cold.

The papers were abruptly shoved back into Abuto's lax hand, nearly slipping to the ground before he recovered his cognitive functions enough to capture them in a tight grip.

Kamui was already stalking past him, fluidly snatching up his traveling cloak and whirling it around his shoulders. In one swift movement, he hooked a foot behind the purple umbrella propped against the wall and pulled, causing it to catapult up into the air and catching it with a lightning-fast hand.

Bemused, Abuto queried, "Oi, Captain? Just what're you doing?"

"Leaving, of course," was the detached reply. "Really, Abuto, you know what they say about stupid questions."

He quirked an eyebrow. "That there's no such thing as one?"

"No…that the person who asks them is equally as stupid."

As though something had struck him, Kamui stopped at the doorway and called out thoughtfully, "Oh, and Abuto?"

"Uh…yes?"

"Move Sakata Gintoki up a few slots on the To-Kill List, would you?"

Abuto could only stare at the other man, wondering what in the seven hells this topic had suddenly popped up from. He voiced as much, saying, "That silver-haired samurai on Earth, right? Huh, I don't really see what that guy has to do with anything."

Kamui was already walking out the door, idly twirling his umbrella with deft hands. "He didn't follow my orders," was the only vague answer he offered on the subject.

(A rooftop in Yoshiwara. A young girl attacking with desperate eyes and a pitifully hurt body—one that made his heart clench strangely, unfamiliarly. Turning to look at a silver-haired man, who had proved his strength ten times over in the course of the battle with Hosen, flippantly requesting that he take good care of the girl who was 'not much of a sister'.)

—

—

—

From his seat upon the floor, his back resting against the discomforting wall and legs stretched out in the limited space, Abuto despaired at ever escaping this damn room. Why hadn't he just dumped the Commander off onto some random passerby with the instruction of looking after him? It wasn't like Kamui was coherent enough to distinguish one crew member from another, with the state he was in…

"—and my name was the first one she said. And she couldn't even pronounce 'Kamui', so she just went around calling me 'Camel' for a few months. And then there was this other time that…Abuto, what's wrong with your face? You look like someone's torturing you. You're jealous that I have such an adorable little sister, aren't you? Aren't you? But if you try to take her from me I'll seriously kill you, you know."

…but even though his mental state was currently beyond salvaging, the Commander had had absolutely no trouble pouring out anecdote after anecdote about his 'adorable little sister'. This had been going on for the better part of an hour, and Abuto had yet to figure out exactly why the hell he had been compelled to open this Pandora's box of repressed emotions.

"Don't worry, Commander," he groaned, trying to no avail to clear his expression of the aforementioned 'tortured' look. "She's a little too young for me." And becomes a little too much like you when she descends into a bloodthirsty rage, he added in his head.

Kamui nodded, pleased. "Good. You'll stay alive a while longer then. But she's turning sixteen soon, though…"

"Uh…good for her. Girls like getting older."

He barely had enough time to call upon his trusty reflexes before the Commander's umbrella, only recently lying at the bottom of Kamui's bed, sped through the air and embedded itself into the wall behind him. Far too used to his Commander's wild mood swings and violent episodes that were part and parcel with them, Abuto sent only a mildly annoyed look at the smiling pink-haired boy. "Oi, oi, what'd I say now?"

"Her getting older isn't good. It means boys are going to want to marry her. Which means I'm going to have to take time out of my busy pirating schedule to slowly…tear…apart…each…and…every…one." An unholy sort of anticipation colored the words, as though Kamui were already envisioning the piles of bodies that were going to begin accumulating by his hand.

Unimpressed, Abuto commented from the floor, "Hey now, girls generally don't like overprotective brothers. You're really gonna make her hate you, Commander."

"Too late," Kamui shrugged. "I already made her hate me, you know," the Commander said conversationally, grinning widely, though with a certain emptiness that emphasized the gravity of the statement. "Told her she was useless, told her she was weak, told her I didn't wanna protect her anymore."

"Charming." This late at night was when Abuto's two-syllables-or-less side tended to emerge.

Kamui seemingly took no notice of his subordinate's sarcastic commentary. "And she believed me! Just like that!" Though his face was a paragon of bewildered delight, the slight clench of his hands did not go unnoticed by an observant Abuto. "Stupid," Kamui muttered to himself.

"Perhaps it's her big brother who should be labeled as such, hm?" Abuto offered neutrally. "They say the older you are the wiser you are, but that doesn't quite seem to be the case here."

He suddenly found himself on the receiving end of a nasty glare.

"Well, what the hell was I supposed to do when she begged me to take her with me? Let my six-year-old sister waltz right with me into a literal den of pirates?" A dry snort echoed loudly around the small cabin, enhanced by the relative emptiness of the room and the shining metal walls. The snort escalated into loud, mocking laughter that held absolutely no jollity, or even any of the Commander's usual sardonic cheer.

Abuto, tired and with the gut sensation that he was really, really going to regret listening to this, stayed quiet.

"Abuto, there's a reason people like you and I don't have family," Kamui commented in a marginally more tranquil voice, staring out his window and into the vacuum that lay beyond. Abuto had to wonder if it was more than the blur of stars and blackness that held such fascination for him—like a small, green and blue planet a million miles away. "To people with our professions, our goals…they're liabilities."

He quirked an eyebrow. "With all due respect, I don't have family because they're all dead," Abuto pointed out blandly. "You don't have family because you sacrificed them for something you considered worth sacrificing them for, Commander."

"I didn't kill her."

Abuto looked hard at his Commander, idly running a hand down the length of his grizzly face. "You came pretty close to it in that Yoshiwara hellhole, as I recall. You hit her when you destroyed the pipeline."

It was obvious, from the way Kamui's eyes closed tightly and his breathing became slightly erratic, this was a sensitive subject—one Abuto immediately regretted touching upon. He remembered it all too well in impeccable detail: the horrified look on the girl's face, the resounding crack that had ripped through the air as Kamui's umbrella smacked brutally into the pipe…and into the small girl who hadn't managed to dodge, the small girl whose body had careened through the air until the silver-haired samurai had leapt up and caught her, holding her protectively against him as they fell.

"I didn't mean to do it," Kamui breathed, the words barely a whisper between them. A dark smile twisted upon his lips, giving him an appearance that was closer to his normal self than this open, foreign Kamui. "I actually misjudged…I misjudged the distance." A raw laugh tore from his throat. "I was distracted with other things, I suppose."

"If you weren't meaning to hit her, you probably shouldn't have been so close to her in the first place," was his dispassionate observation.

"Probably," Kamui agreed, looking up into Abuto's flat stare with a self-deprecating smile. "But I got that close…because I wanted to see her. Because I wanted to be near her."He laughed again at the surprise that flickered across Abuto's previously stoic face, carelessly flopping onto his back to stare aimlessly at the ceiling. "Ironic, isn't Abuto? I abandoned her because she was the only thing I had left to protect; the only thing I swore the consequences of the life I'd chosen wouldn't harm…and my own selfishness was still the very reason she almost died."

Abuto closed his eyes, head tilting back until it collided with the metallic wall with a thunk. "Heh. Some King of the Pirates."

He didn't have to look to know that the mirthless smile on his face was mirrored on the Commander's.

"Indeed, Abuto. Indeed."

With that, Kamui mimicked Abuto as he fell back onto the bed, closed his eyes, and immediately dropped into sleep.

The next morning, after the effects of the drugs had been flushed out of his system, Kamui hadn't remembered a single thing of their conversation.

—

—

—

Abuto hurried after the Captain, darting through the sliding doors that threatened to crush him and slipping into the hallway. "Oi, oi, you're not really just heading out like that, are you?"

"Now's as good a time as any," Kamui commented, not breaking his fast stride nor giving any notice to the man. "Make sure Takasugi-san doesn't do anything nefarious without me while I'm gone."

He resisted the urge to throttle the Captain for the impulsiveness that had landed them into trouble on more than one occasion—the same impulsiveness that had led to Abuto having to do some quick thinking to smooth over the Yoshiwara incident with the higher ups of the Harusame; the same impulsiveness that had led to the 7th Division suddenly becoming allied with a strange little band of odd samurai and their undeniably bloodthirsty leader.

"Captain," Abuto muttered, "A little planning never goes awry. If you're worried about the wellbeing of your sister I understand, but some forethought—"

"My sister's wellbeing?" Kamui repeated, in his usual enigmatic tone. A bloody grin stretched upon Kamui's mouth, even as his eyes crinkled up in a faux-cheerful smile. "Abuto, I don't think you're quite understanding. I'm just getting rid of some inconvenient competition. Those Akasuna guys have been getting rather too annoying lately, wouldn't you say?"

Abuto repressed an eye roll at the denial rampant in the words. Instead, he played along and gave a slight nod. "We have been meaning to pay them a little visit recently," he said. He paused, glancing down at the still-grinning Captain beside him. "Should I assemble some of the men together?"

"I don't think that's necessary." Kamui's pale, spindly fingers moved restlessly upon the handle of his umbrella, clenching and unclenching. "I do believe I'll just go and…deal…with them myself. Much more fun that way."

"I see," Abuto replied dryly, raising his eyebrows. So his Captain intended on waltzing onto an enemy pirate ship unannounced, kicking the sorry ass of every filthy cretin, and leaving pure devastation in his wake…all ostensibly to eradicate a meddling pirate group, which also happened to be the takers of something he knew to be quite precious to the Captain.

Despite their rivalry in the business, Abuto could almost pity the unlucky bastards that were the soon-to-be-extinct Akasuna pirates.

Because unfortunately for them, they'd chosen the wrong little sister to kidnap…and the wrong older brother to cross.

to be continued

This is a little Kagura and Kamui story I randomly typed up-it will probably just be two chapters. I love the idea of their sibling dynamic, because as much as Kagura loves her brother I find it difficult to believe that Kamui truly hates her. I'm guessing that their relationship is probably going to turn out to be more of an Itachi-Sasuke scenario, in which we one day find out that this whole 'hating-your-younger-sibling' deal was a complete ruse.

Anyways, please leave me some feedback on what you guys thought! :)