Warning(s): AU, Shoyo-comes-back-to-life fic, impossible happenings, violence, language, gen

Alternate Summary: n/a

Author's Note: Updating both of my Gintama fics at the same time? YES.
Hahahahaha, ohhh, coffee! Wondrous fanfiction-creating coffee! I think that, if everyone was just addicted on coffee, the world would be this amazing place where everyone loves Gintama and everyone knows Gintama and Gintama goes on forever and ever.
Oh, and by the way, I'm seriously just making up places in Japan as I go. Whoops.
Favorites, follows, and reviews are welcome and forever appreciated! (:

Disclaimer: I do not own Gintama.

A clamor of rickety wheels speeds past him, bouncing along the stone tiles in a jubilant manner. He stumbles, righting himself just in time to see two young boys scrambling to catch up to the wagon. Their small hands reach out to hang on the wooden railings, mouths open, calling.

A shoulder bumps into his. "Excuse me," the woman says as she rushed past; a bundle of fabrics and furs. Her bright smile leaves a shadowed imitation upon his face.

"Keep moving," Kai says, and Shoyo glances over at him. The young man is less guarded now, but the lingering traces of sorrow deepen his eyes, and after long periods of silence, his mouth twists into a harsh, biting line that neither of them seems to like.

"You'll get run over if you just stand around like that," he continues after a pause. "The streets here are busy today. The port's even worse. It'll be hard enough finding my own feet, much less making sure you haven't gotten yourself trampled."

"I'll follow you carefully, then."

"You do that."

They weave around the bustling mobs, Kai moving with the easy grace of a predator and Shoyo's gaze never not preoccupied by one thing or another - the market stalls that flank him, the laundry lines flung over his head, the world spinning in a disorienting dance he can no longer comprehend.

"Kai," he begins, after a long look at his surroundings.

"Y-...what."

"You said it would be easier to explain most things once we arrived at the port, yes?" Shoyo eyes the purple hair and kasa bobbing in the corner of his vision. "And that someone would be able to help us there."

"So?"

"We're heading away from the ocean."

Kai shot a quick look over his shoulder. "I - oh. You don't have any memories of anything after the Kansei Purge, do you. So you wouldn't know." He quickly steps into the shadow of an alley, most likely to focus on his words instead of his feet. Shoyo files in after him.

"Huh," Kai mutters, glancing around. "We can actually go through here, and it might even be faster. How convenient."

"Kai," Shoyo says again, and although he did not intend to color his voice with a specific tone, the narrow-eyed stare his student (is it really his student?) gives tells him that he has done so unintentionally.

The other man heaves a sigh. "We're not going to a seaport. It's a...different kind. You'll know what I mean when we get there, alright."

A flash of uncertainty runs through him. "Why is this necessary? Could you not speak to me now, at this moment?"

"I don't even - " Kai grits his teeth, tugs his kasa off, and brushes a hand through the stray locks of hair framed around his face. "Look, sensei. It's no secret that you don't trust me enough to believe me when I say that I'm Kai. You don't have to force yourself to say that name while you're talking to a complete stranger."

"To be fair-"

"Yeah, whatever, I get it. Okay. And secondly-"

Kai rounds on him fully for the first time since they had departed for the downtown area of Nagasaki. "I don't even know where to start. What the hell are you supposed to do when you suddenly find yourself in front of a ghost who's suddenly demanding answers and not trying to drag you into your grave. What the hell am I supposed to do, now. I'm just taking you to a friend who can probably help you more than me."

"I'm not-"

"No. Sorry for growing up to be a rebellious, disrespectful brat, sensei, but I don't even care what you are anymore." Kai leans against the wall and pinches the bridge of his nose. "You want to know what you've missed in the time since after you died. That's great. No, that's excellent. Because there's a high fucking chance you're going to regret wanting to know any of it."

"Regret?" Shoyo's brow furrows. Why would he regret learning about the current circumstances?

Although he does not actually believe the man standing before him is Yuura Kai, there is too much unknown to him at the present moment to allow him to not accept anything. Besides, there is no doubt that this man knows of his identity, and can provide some answers should they choose to act cooperatively.

The only information he can gather at this point, from sheer influence and stray facts wandering his way, is that this is not the same period in time he fell dead to, and that many turning points have occurred since then. If something drastic had happened that was directly related to him even after death -

No, when something drastic had happened -

"What happened? What are you implying?" asks the former tutor. He tries not to concieve the worst possible ends from his own imagination, although he is still not quite sure what these possible ends may be, despite the fact that he is currently imagining them. A distant part of him recognizes that his thoughts have fitted together in the most illogical structure of architecture that has ever been made to exist.

"And this is why I am taking you to an acquaintance of mine," Kai snaps back. "I am not going to be the only one taking the brunt of whatever emotional outburst you might have after you hear about the whole shitload that's gone down ever since thirteen years ago. It'd be great if you could be patient until we get there, and the least you could do to make this easier is trust me on the directions."

Shoyo stills, mind whirling, face paled like a sickly moon. "'Thirteen years'?" he repeats, almost unsure as to whether he has heard that correctly.

Kai's mouth closes with an audible click.

"I've been dead for thirteen years?" Shoyo asks. He cannot tear his eyes away from the other man. "What?"

In one fluid motion, the traveller pushes himself off the wall, turns away, and begins to walk again. The samurai just manages to catch his half-lidded eyes, turned downward, before the kasa is reattached and all expressions are hidden by the shade it casts. "I'll tell you everything later."

A brief surge of something passes through him. Not quite anger, but...panic? "Kai-"

"I'll tell you everything and that's the least I can do at this point. So, until then...walk." His shoulders sag. "Walk, and you'll know soon enough."

As a witness to the hollow tone of his voice, Shoyo can do nothing but follow. Perhaps his feet move by themselves, or perhaps his mind is tempted by the other man's promise. Besides shouting and losing what little composure is left in him, there is nothing he can do.

Something in him is bothered by that train of thought. He quashes it for a later time (when he does not feel so overwhelmed after being reborn into the state of the living) and walks, just as Kai tells him to do.

They make their way through the labyrinth of the streets.

And around them, flowers bloom in great bursts of color, printed on the banners and on the clothes of the passing geisha. Scarlet lanterns knock against each other in the wind, and the air warms with the smell of cooked food, fruit, and cheer. Five girls, from toddlers to teens, hand out small pamphlets to advertise a play, and this closed world of a city is filled with nothing but cheer and merrymaking.

The atmosphere is nearly contagious. Shoyo finds the sudden urge to smile a bit, quietly, to himself. Sheets of all different colors, patterned with kanji, flutter on the sides of the rooftops and catch pieces of the sky. For an unknown, almost alien surrounding, it makes him feel surprisingly at peace.

Then, Kai turns the corner out onto the main path, and Shoyo stops dead in his tracks at the sight of the vessel towering against the flattened buildings. It is black, hull coated in steel, looming, leering - menacing.

He freezes, and he feels his eyes go very, very wide.

"Excuse me, sirs!"

A girl, in her early twenties, jogs up in front of Kai. His body stiffens, muscles twitching and encouraging him to do something, grab anything, find a means of defense.

Caught up in this newfound sense of urgency, he nearly misses the flat, warning look Kai shoots him.

"Sirs?" The girl asks again, sounding so perfectly human that Shoyo has to remind himself of her sharp, pointed ears and blue hair cascading in waves behind her back.

"Ah, yeah," Kai replies, riveting his attention back to her. "What do you want."

"Oh, well-" Digging into her bag, the Amanto tugs out a crumpled map and practically flings it into the traveller's face. "I'm a bit lost, you see, being new to this place and all, and I was wondering, um, if you could possibly show me the way to Yukumura District, because you seem like..." She flushes and stammers. "W-well, you seem like you know your way around here."

"We're busy," Kai says, not glancing once at the map.

Then, he turns around, and Shoyo finds himself on the other end of a contemplative stare. A short silence follows before he says, "But yeah, I do know my way around. Kind of."

With that, the young man plucks the map from her hands and pulls out a pen. He sketches a quick line over the parchment. "This way is the fastest," he tells the girl as she cranes her neck to peer at it. "Yukumura isn't labelled on this map, but it's this area right here. You can keep going down this path and then turn right at the dango shop, and then find your way from there."

The Amanto beams at him as she takes the map back. "Thank you so much! But, um-" She glances down at the markings. "Why isn't Yukumura labelled?"

"Because the map is shitty," he says. "Now, we really have to go. Have a nice day."

She bows, albeit awkwardly, and begins to prance away - only to spin around on her heel and wave. "Thank you, sir!" she exclaims, bright and shining. "Have a nice afternoon! And you too, other sir!"

Kai snorts, watching her back disappear behind a new wave of pedestrians. He turns around to look at Shoyo.

Immediately, he frowns. "Seriously, what the fuck, sensei," he says. "I know seeing an Amanto and one of their cruise ships might be a little too hard to take - but if you looked like shit before, now it's like you've just been fucked over. Or just really out of it. Did you even see her, or were you spacing."

"I did," he replies. His voice sounds a little too faint for his own ears. "See her, that is."

Kai's eyebrows leap skyward. "You're not going to collapse on me right now. I'll leave you here if you do."

"I will not. I feel normal, actually." Shoyo glances at the ship, the horrifying silhouette in the distance. "An explanation for this, though, would be appreciated. At this present moment."

"Well..." Kai begins to move forward at a brisk pace and turns to the right - the direction of the ship. Shoyo is hesitant to walk with him, but does so anyway.

There is nothing else he can do.

"Long story short," he says. "The Amanto are all over Japan, now. Most of them are in Edo, but a fair few of them are around the other cities and a couple of towns. The ships are a common sight, and so are people like her - the Shinra. Subspecies of Amanto. One of the strongest clans, as they say, but overrated in my opinion. Like I said, it's nothing new anymore."

"'Nothing new'?" Shoyo echoes. "That ship has the same build and design as the ships being used in the Joui War. It's a war ship."

"They're not being used anymore. It looks the same on the outside, but they've changed it on the inside so it's meant for holding cargo and passengers. And," Kai adds before the samurai can cut in. "We're not going on that one anyway. The ships we're looking for are...different."

"Diff-"

"You'll see. Really. You won't be able to unsee it. It's tramautizing."

They turn another corner to see a large, open space, filled with dozens of Amanto-made ships of all shapes and sizes.

Many of them are simple, black, and small. Several figures, slender for their strength, hefting boxes on each hand as they run up and down the platforms. The ones that draw in all eyes, though, are the grand cruise ships colored red and bordered with gold, sporting several large attachments at the bottom used to generate enough power for takeoff.

Surrounding them are thousands of Amanto, and thousands of humans mingling with these Amanto. The crowds here are diverse, extraordinary.

"See," Kai says. "Common."

Shoyo lets out a weak laugh that draws the traveller's attention.

"So the Amanto won the Joui War, I can assume" he says. There is no other possible explanation (the samurai were far too outnumbered since the beginning, and the chances of a peaceful compromise were slim). He feels surprisingly blank - almost calm - to learn of this, although there is a strange detachment hovering there, too, and also regret. As if he is standing before another world (or another time), watching a tale of legends animate before his eyes, and something within him has snapped to release his connection with his own world which no longer exists.

"Come on, sensei." Kai's voice is quiet, almost respectful, and it brings Shoyo back to 'reality'. He seems to be pointedly avoiding his gaze. "This way."

Kai leads him to a small fleet of ships, parked neatly in a row. All of them would be generic if they did not wear the faces of strange, white, duck-like animals. Their supposed crew bustles about around them, sweat gleaming from their foreheads and laughs resounding in the day.

"Is Mutsu here," Kai asks a group of them, seemingly at rest beside a pile of crates.

They glance up sharply at his arrival. "You're looking for Mutsu?" one of them asks. "What for?"

"Business between me and her and...maybe her boss, but nobody else. Where can I find her."

"Can't say," the same man says. "You're supposed to schedule an appointment, anyway."

"It's urgent." Kai looks wholly unimpressed. "And no, I don't want to talk to Sakamoto instead. She knows who I am and she'll know what this is about once I fill her in. If you aren't going to tell me where she is, tell me the name of somebody else who will, so all of us can stop wasting time."

Another worker shrugs and takes a bite out of his anpan. "She's over in the back of the second ship to the left, checking the supplies. Don't blame us if she brushes you off, though. She's busy and pissed off at some poor guy for doing something stupid."

"Sakamoto?"

"No, some other guy."

"Good guess, though," someone says, cackling. "You're no stranger around here."

"Right," Kai says with a sigh. "Nevermind, then. Where's your commander. The other one that doesn't do the majority of the work."

They smirk, and one of them jabs his thumb behind his shoulder. "Back there. You guys are friends?"

"Definitely not," Kai replies, and sweeps past them. Shoyo hurries along, casting a quick glance over his shoulder at the group of men, who have resumed their conversations.

"This is the Kaientai," Kai answers his unspoken question. "They're basically a fleet that goes around space and makes deals with other planets. Like merchant ships. They buy and sell and make alliances with everyone and everything that isn't or doesn't require anything illegal." His eyelids twitch. "The leader of these guys is Mutsu, but the leader of the actual organization is Sakamoto Tatsuma."

"This is the person who can help us?"

"I think. He's batshit insane, so you can never be too sure. Oh, there he is."

Shoyo catches sight of the man in question, standing in front of the biggest ship - presumably the head of the fleet. He has a mass of wild brown hair atop his head and wears a dark red jacket, complete with what looks to be a scarf; all of which fuse together into a flamboyant appearance. As they approach him, the former teacher notices that he wears a pair of sunglasses with round lenses.

"What the hell," Kai mutters underneath his breath. "Why hasn't he noticed us yet. Is he seriously just going to stand there and look cool until we're a ridiculously close distance and then pretend to see us for the first time. Has he been watchinganime."

Shoyo stares alternatingly between the two of them. "What?"

"That idiot thinks he's such a great guy, standing in front of his ships with his lame-ass scarf blowing out behind him." The traveller began to glare. "I'll kill him."

Just as the words are uttered, Sakamoto Tatsuma's head turns in their direction - only to tilt back and release a stream of peculiar laughter. "Ahahahaha! Hey, Kai! That is you, right? It's been a while!"

"Hello, Sakamoto," Kai says in a clipped voice that causes Shoyo to find himself torn between wincing and flinching. "It hasn't been long enough, it seems."

"Ahahahaha! Don't be so cold, Kai! We're friends, aren't we?" The merchant smiles warmly at the two of them and removes his hands from his pockets. "How have you been? And who's your friend?"

"Yeah." The traveller and the samurai exchange glances. "About that. Let's not waste time with the small talk and get to the reason why I even bothered to come here."

"Alright, then! If that's what you want! I don't think you've ever been interested in my business, though." Sakamoto strokes his chin and 'hmm's thoughtfully, oblivious to the way Kai clenches his fists. "Unless it's something unrelated to that? I didn't think you'd be the kind of person who would visit me for anything else, ahahahaha!"

"This is serious," Kai says, glowering. "I need...your help, with something."

"Oh?" The merchant subsides in his laughter. Although his smile never falters, Shoyo is under the impression that they are being analyzed. "What's this about, then? Did you finally get married? No, can't be - in that case, you would've just sent a card-"

Kai's lips curl into a snarl. "This," he says, gripping Shoyo's arm with a ferocity that has both of them stumbling. His eyes are alight with the slightest hints of panic, and now, Shoyo can recognize the unknown emotion within them; fear. Irrational fear. "This man's name is Yoshida Shoyo. It's him. I know it. He knows things only Shoyo-sensei would know, but that doesn't make any sense, because Shoyo-sensei is dead. Your comrades, Gintoki and the rest of you, got his fucking head back from the Tendoshu and buried it on the hill. He's dead. And now, apparently, he's alive."

Sakamoto is as still as a statue, gaze fixated upon the mentor of his former comrades. His mouth is settling on the beginnings of a grim line that is slowly solidating into a frown.

"And also," Kai spits out. "He doesn't know a fucking thing about what happened while he was dead, and he doesn't know how he's here and alive again. The most recent thing he remembers is from more than a decade ago. Sakamoto-" His hands drop to his sides, anxiety written across his face. "I know you never knew him, but I can't just...I can't just do this on my own, whatever this is, I don't know-"

"Wait," Shoyo says, words falling from his mouth like stones. Things begin to click into place, forming a picture he would rather not see. "My head, after the execution. What happened to it?"

Kai closes his eyes.

"My students saw it?" Shoyo rounds on Kai, barely believing in the horror of what he is questioning. "They fought in the war against the Tendoshu? And they gave them my decapitated head?"

"Yoshida Shoyo?" Sakamoto intervenes, then, looking at the man he has just addressed. His expression at first is troubled, restless. "Tutor of Sakata Gintoki, Takasugi Shinsuke, and Katsura Kotaro, right?"

He does not wait for Shoyo to respond, and it takes only a second for the merchant to compose himself long enough to put a smile across his face, strained as it may be.

"It seems we have a lot to discuss," he says. "Would you like to come on board?"