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rainsometimesNew fic for Gintama! Also up on AO3.
This is set shortly after the end of the war and has plenty of backstory spoilers. You probably shouldn't read it if you haven't watched up to episode 305 or read up to manga chapter 519. There's also violence and angst, hence the PG rating.
Possibly I might change the title if I find one I like better.
Constructive criticism very welcome. I'm particularly interested in comments about Sakamoto's dialogue. It's my first time writing him, and I don't think my own "generic rural bumpkin" attempt for his way of talking sounds all that great. Opinions on how to improve it, or if you think I should drop it entirely and go for standard English in spite of his canon dialect, are much appreciated.
Many thanks to Plipdragon who did the beta for this fic and helped me out in discussing details, finding background facts on bathing at the time, and encouraging me. Any remaining errors are my responsibility alone.
Katsura finding refuge among monks after the war is a detail I took from Naye's great fic They also serve who only stand and wait, and I've found it resonates among several other Gintama fans as well. It's part of my headcanon now.
Title: Bathing In A Time Of Peace
Rating: PG
Word Count: currently 4779, liable to change a little in case of edits of course
Characters: Katsura, Gintoki, Takasugi, Sakamoto, Mutsu
Spoilers/setting: see above
Warning: Angst, violence, suicidal thoughts
Summary: A character study in four parts. The first hot bath after the war for Katsura, Gintoki, and Takasugi, plus Sakamoto's first bath together with the Kaientai including Mutsu.
One
The last time Katsura took a hot bath was before the war ended, three weeks before the end in fact. That wasn’t too long, not by the standards of the war’s last year. They’d just carried out one final successful counter-attack and rescued what was left of their supply train in the process, leaving enough damage to the nearby enemy forces to give them a tiny bit of breathing room. By then there had been quite some time since they’d been in an area with natural hot springs which they could reach. Sparing time and men to heat water enough for actual bathing had been out of the question.
But after the counter-attack, they were lucky. The locals were sympathetic and willing to give, sell and barter food and shelter. A well-to-do merchant of the area was an acquaintance of Sakamoto’s, and they had concluded an agreement recently. So the merchant had kindly agreed to opening up his home to what was left of Katsura’s troops, even setting up a dozen temporary barrel-baths outside his buildings. Katsura tried not to think of this as Sakamoto's gift of farewell to the others, now that he lay recuperating with his wounded hand.
All the same, there was a sense of relief and a battered but reviving feeling of cautious hope among the troops, which made the steamy air all that much sweeter, and nobody grumbled that much while waiting for his turn in spite of the cold autumn air. Katsura should have been deeply tired, but he scrubbed himself down with vigour and didn’t just listen to but joined in with the light-hearted chatting around him.
It feels very strange to think about now.
He is cold, so cold. Cold, and bone-deep tired, and yet he has a hard time making his feet stop walking while there’s still daylight. He trudges from village to village, hardly raising his head to look at them, although he does have a vague sense that the places look better the further he gets from the battlefield, from the war graves.
Some people are kind enough to hand him a few pieces of food. He bows and thanks them but his face is blank and mute when they ask him questions, and he can’t always keep the food down. The nights are cold outside, yet it’s hard for him to stop and ask for shelter. Once some oddly kind strangers invite him in anyway. He falls asleep sitting huddled in a corner, hugging his sword, just like a child he once knew used to do such a long time ago. As soon as it starts to turn light outside, he slips away and walks on.
He is so cold, and it feels like his feet are going to fall off, but he doesn’t know of a way to stop walking.
Someone calls out his name, politely, startling him. It takes him time to recall the face of the young man hopping up to him on crutches. Morishige, the man reintroduces himself as. Right. It comes back to Katsura: his older brother died in battle earlier in the war, and they managed to send the younger brother home after his leg was wounded.
It’s nice to see a surviving face for once, but it still takes him three repetitions to understand what Morishige is trying to tell him. It has to do with the local temple. The monks there sympathise with the cause, Morishige says, even if they’re discreet about it, “and they might well let you stay there for a while, Katsura-san, I’ll go with you and introduce them.”
He mumbles something in agreement and lets himself be escorted out of the village and up a few hills to the temple, wondering a little why Morishige goes to such trouble; wondering also if it could be a trap. He’s too weary to care all that much, although a skittering thought in the back of his head tells him he ought to.
The temple looks perfectly ordinary, well-kept and tidy without being all that large. He shivers outside the entrance, waiting for a monk to turn up, then shivers some more in silence while Morishige talks to the monk, feeling dizzy and light-headed.
They allow him in for the night, it appears. He doesn’t listen closely, merely nods when Morishige takes his farewell, following where they lead him.
The monks don't ask any questions. He's served a frugal dinner, small enough that his stomach can handle it. Afterwards his guide shows him a corner in the dormitory where he can sleep this night, and where the futons are rolled up. Then he's handed a spare yukata and led to the bath-house that the monks use: the one for the public is closed by this time.
The steam-filled room is quiet and sombre, with just a few sounds: hisses and bubbling from the central copper kettle, padded feet on the floor, splashes of cold water and meditative murmurs from a few of the bathers. His movements are slow as he undresses himself, letting go of those grimy, bloodstained clothes at last; and he continues being slow as he scrubs himself, staring at his own skin, trying not to miss a spot. Trying to remember where he is.
When at last he realizes with a small start that he’s clean, he pours cold water over himself to wash away the soap, then steps into the nearest empty wooden bath tub. The heat makes him gasp at first touch. Then he breathes in deeply. Slowly, slowly, the tension in his body decreases.
Minutes pass.
Surrounded by the quiet heat of the room, with food in his stomach and in relative safety, he feels more anchored in the present than he’s been since it happened. Yet his hands are trembling. It feels like a part of him is still back there, still lying helpless on the cold hard ground on a high cliff, arms bound: he feels he will never really be able to move from that spot.
His life isn’t truly his own anymore. It’s been far too dearly bought for that. A sacrifice he’s not worthy of, and never will be.
He runs a thumb up and down his knee, listening without listening to the sounds of the bath-house, feeling the calm, humid air settle around him. Making a room for him to be in.
He doesn’t know how long they will let him stay here, or how long it will take him to learn to talk and think and move again. But he does know one thing: the leader of the crows was wrong.
He knows he will be able to take up his sword again.
He doesn’t know if he will ever be able to put it down.
*
Two
The executioner cleans Gintoki’s face and wounds with his own hands after he’s ordered the men who were just beating him to stop. He sends for food, and later a washing bucket turns up as well, with a bar of soap included. Gintoki think it’s the first time he’s touched hot water since it happened, although he’s not entirely sure – his memory of the past couple of weeks is patchy. He does know he washed himself in cold streams a few times before he reached the city.
He hears later that in ordinary times even the death row prisoners get to bathe regularly, not every day but twice a week or so. But right now the prisons are overflowing with rebels seized in the government’s purge, and the authorities have no interest in making the effort to provide for baths for those already condemned to die. Ikeda doesn’t seem to be too happy about that. He mutters that the higher-ups don’t seem to realize that the cleaner the prisoners are, the less risk of diseases being spread from cell to cell, and from the condemned prisoners to the guards and the rest of the prison.
Gintoki’s hands shake the first time he washes himself from the bucket. It’s nice of Ikeda to provide it for him, to be sure. Feeling a faint sense of something that might pass for obligation, Gintoki does a proper job of the washing. He even eats all of the food.
The light is different down here in the cells. Outside it looked like there were no colours in the world anymore. Here there never were that many colours in the first place, perhaps. So some of them can stay.
And the walls and the floor are solid. On the outside, sometimes he would feel like he was falling endlessly forward. Here, he stays right put. There’s no falling any further than the floor of this place.
Ikeda has executed the man Gintoki struck down, the informer. But he has taken in the man’s daughter, and he will train her to become a good executioner. That seems a bit strange to Gintoki, but what does he know of the traditions of executioner clans? You learn something new every day.
He tries to make her go away when she hangs outside his cell and talks to him, telling her how terrible he is in order to scare her off. But the brat is the persistent type, and doesn’t believe him. What a nuisance.
One day the door to his cell is opened, and Ikeda stands there tossing him shoes and a set of clothes, signalling him to put it on and then follow him. He figures this is it, the last walk he’ll ever take.
The new clothes, however, aren’t white as he would expect, just a blueish gray, different from the brownish gray of the prison clothes. Even stranger, a couple of minutes later he finds himself standing outside with a shawl over his shoulders, one street away from the prison and no guards in sight. It’s early in the morning, and the air is cold.
“Walk quickly for the first block, then run,” Ikeda tells him, pressing a pouch of coins into his hand. “Don’t stop until you’re at least two districts away. Live your life well.”
Gintoki blinks in incomprehension, looking down at the pouch, then up at the other man.
“Go!” Ikeda pushes him forward. Gintoki stumbles the first few steps, then starts to walk. Mechanically at first, then picking up the pace, finally breaking into a run as he has been advised. He doesn’t look back.
When he finally stops running, out of breath and throat parched, the sun is high in the sky and the shops have opened. He can taste snow in the air. He breathes in deeply before starting to walk on. At the next street stand, he buys a few dango and eats them right there on the street.
Looking up, he realizes he’s standing outside a bath-house. He looks into the pouch again, figuring there’s enough money for two more street meals and a hot bath. And there’s a bar of soap in the pouch, too.
Yet part of him is reluctant to go inside. So what if he will soon start reeking like an animal, keeping everyone away from him? So what if he will end up crawling into some alley like so much garbage and just wait for everything to stop? Hadn’t it been a mistake in the first place, pulling a demon child away from the battlefield, giving him clean clothes and a clean sword, and the first bath he could ever remember?
But he stands there clutching the pouch that the executioner has given him, realizing that the kind man could lose his own head for what he’s just done for his sake.
It really would be too ungrateful to refuse, wouldn’t it?
And there’s one more thing…
So he shuffles forward into the bath-house, pays the fee at the entrance, walks further inside, removes his new sandals and clothes, and starts to wash himself.
He remembers strong yet gentle hands holding him, scrubbing him, showing him how to do it; washing his hair and rinsing it, and later, after he’d bathed and been dried off, patiently combing through his hair until all the tangles were gone.
He exhales and rinses himself off with cold water, his body shaking a little before he walks on. There’s only two other patrons in the men’s bath, a couple of codgers who are deep into their own conversation and barely glance at him as he slides into the water. He closes his eyes. The face he sees now -- the face he chooses to see -- is that of a little girl, on the other side of prison bars.
”I know! I’ll grow up to become a great executioner! I’ll send you off to paradise without any pain! So until that happens, mister, don’t get killed by anyone else!”
Gintoki smiles softly, a puff of air escaping his lips. “If it’s like that, I guess I’d better keep my neck clean for you until then,” he mumbles to himself. He slips further down into the water, stretching out his legs and toes, listening to the city noises outside. He hears the sound of the first snowflakes falling, tapping at the high windows of the bath.
***
Three
Takasugi feels as if he’s watching himself from far off; watching himself walking walk through fields and towns, sleeping huddled in trees, hiding from enemy troops and the police, or cutting them down when they come for him. It doesn’t take long to see that the amnesty granted by the leader of the crows was very temporary and very local.
His uniform stands out, as it has always done; even those who don’t know exactly who he is can still guess from his uniform that he’s a high-ranking rebel. Perhaps it is time to lose it, though he’s not sure if he truly wants to lose the excuse it gives him to strike back at those who attack him. But the boy general he was a few days ago, the honest, angry good-for-nothing, is no longer there. There’s something else burning and moving and growling behind his eye as he moves, as he cuts their throats and stabs their hearts.
That something is there as well when he chooses to hide instead, to duck down a different street, to walk on without glancing at Amanto. And he finds himself quieting sooner than he would have before, even as he also erupts faster.
If he dies here, he thinks, this repulsive world will be left still standing.
There’s an obvious arrogance in that thought, and he recognizes it, but doesn’t care.
His wounded eye keeps throbbing.
The inside pocket of his jacket contains the last of the Kiheitai’s salary in paper bills. For whatever reason, the crows didn’t bother taking it. The Kiheitai are -- were -- volunteers, but they were still paid, if not by much. It’s possible some of them survived that catastrophic last battle, but if so they’re scattered without any way for him to find them. The right thing to do would be to send the money to their families, but he’s lost all of his paperwork, and doesn’t know any of their home addresses.
The right thing to do in general is not something he’ll be able to do anymore, he suspects.
He can do nothing for the Kiheitai, now. Only take all the rage and bitterness and despair they surely must have felt when they died, and pour it into his own.
He’s mostly slept outside since it happened: he was attacked at night at the first inn he stopped at. The weather’s getting colder, he’s hungry and tired; and it’s been a long time since he last bathed. Finally he decides to deal with all those things by walking into the next inn he sees and telling them he wants a room with its own bath.
The innkeeper gives him a judging, suspicious look, but relents when Takasugi pulls out his money and shows it.
“Of course, of course, there’s a room like that available, over in the back by the garden. Nice to see a customer who can pay. So much poor scum trying to scam me,” the man prattles while showing Takasugi the way. “Those damn surviving rebels are the worst,” he adds over his shoulders. “Can’t stand that disgusting vermin. Disloyal and treacherous, and they claim to be against the Amanto, but they’re the ones pushing new, alien ideas and trying to tear down society! Can you imagine the nerve of peasants trying to pretend they can fight like real samurai? People who spread such nonsense need to be eradicated like rats.”
Takasugi says nothing. He would like to tear the man’s throat out. But he would also like a hot meal, a bath, and a fresh change of bandages.
The room is clean and spacious, with a lit fireside. A servant brings in a meal of braised salmon and chestnut rice, and he eats while gazing out at the garden. The bath is adjacent to the room, no screen to separate it. After a while, two servant-girls come bringing in a large kettle of hot water and pour it into the bathtub, then repeat the move with another kettle which fills up the bathtub. The younger one of them bows and hands him a roll of bandages and a pail of hot water (there is already a pail of cold water in the room), and tells him that she will do her best to keep his bath warm from the outside by blowing on the fire, for as long as he wishes.
He waves her off and closes the door behind her. Then he steps in front of the room’s mirror, unwraps his old bandage and cleans the wound. He’s thorough, but less gentle with himself than he could have been. But his hands only start trembling after he’s wrapped the new bandage tight around his head.
He starts to undress himself with his slightly trembling hands. Having to take off his clothes one by one makes him realize how exhausted he feels. He lets his uniform jacket drop to the floor, then the trousers and the socks. Kneading his forehead, he closes his eye for a moment. One deep breath, then another one. A wave of dizziness rolls over him. He feels very far away. Years away, worlds away, when bath-time was easy and peaceful, even if there were always dumb scuffles...
He stiffens as the door slides open and spins around, but his sword is by the door and he’s only got his loincloth on -- and the innkeeper proves to be faster than assumed. Takasugi already guessed that the man had some sword training, but he hadn’t thought that the man would manage to put a sword to his throat.
“Don’t try anything,” the innkeeper breathes. “Think I’m so dumb I can’t recognize rebel scum when it knocks at my front door?” He moves the edge of his sword to the side of Takasugi’s neck. “But a bounty is much higher than an informer’s tip. All I needed was to get you unarmed. With all the losses your lot have caused my business, I’m well entitled to a reward.”
Takasugi glances around the room, and back to the well-fed, kimono-clad man. “You seem to be doing fairly well for yourself.”
The innkeeper bares his teeth in a grimace, the edge of his sword pressing closer. “You have no idea how much I’ve worked to turn this place around. Stop talking. Get in front of me and start walking forward. I’m taking you to the police.”
Instead of acknowledging the blade at his throat, Takasugi reaches out slowly and strokes the innkeeper's silk kimono by his collar, blue and gold with a geometrical pattern.
“You stop that-!”
"This is fine work,” he notes. “If I have to switch to civilian clothes, it might as well be something like this." It wasn't quite his colour, but it would do until he could find a better one.
He slips off to the side and ducks before the innkeeper can react, chokes him into unconsciousness using a sleeper hold, walks over to check the state of the hot water, then walks back and undresses the man. Once the kimono is off he uses the man's own sword to cut off his head. Then he takes off his loincloth, scrubbing himself down with hot water, rinsing off the soap with cold water, and then slipping into the bath.
It all feels rather dreamlike. He doesn't even lock the door to his room; at any time someone might walk in and discover the corpse. The trick, he supposes tiredly, leaning back against the side of the bathtub and feeling his body relax in the hot water, is to not truly care.
***
Bonus: Four
“We found a volcano!” announces the scouting ship over the intership communication. Cheers of surprise and excitement erupt around Mutsu, much to her bewilderment.
A week has gone since the pirate spaceship convoy picked up a drifting merchant on this watery planet; six days since the convoy ended up in the possession of that lunatic, aided by the liberated slaves in its cargo and Mutsu herself, the vice-captain who had switched sides.
They are still on the same planet because the ships need to stock up on fresh water, fuel, food, and tools. With islands being so sparse here, it took a long time to find inhabited places, and the towns are small. They’ve already been to two of them and bought plenty of food and all the spaceship fuel they can find; they have also gathered water in springs and lakes. But the ship still needs more fuel and tools.
“What’s so great about finding a volcano? Do you Earthlings eat lava or something?” she asks Sakamoto, who’s sitting next to her and beaming, leaning back with arms behind his head.
“Ahahaha, no! No, ’s just that where there’s a volcano, might be you’ll find hot springs, too! And we love hot springs! The country back home’s just plain full of ‘em!”
“That’s right, captain!” the speaker on the scouting ship answers over the intercom. “So we’ll take a closer look, and two of us will go down to search the island!”
Sakamoto urges them on with enthusiasm, and the conversation around Mutsu among the crew that’s now been named the Kaientai turns to revolve completely around the possibility of hot springs.
“It’s not like you haven’t been able to get clean here,” Mutsu tries to point out.
“Oh, these fancy ships only have showers. That ain’t even close to ordinary baths,” says the old granny disdainfully, “an’ bathin’ in hot springs with everyone’s way better than regular bathin’ alone.”
“Showers have always been enough for me,” mutters Mutsu, but nobody listens to her. An hour later the scouts report that there is indeed a fine hot spring on the volcano island, and it’s decided everyone will go there the next day.
And that’s it. The ships settle down on the water near the shore, a minimum of guards are left on each ship to guard against sudden raids, and everyone else go ashore in landing boats. Mutsu trudges with the rest, carrying a picnic basket she’s been handed. She only put up a token resistance, being as curious as she is confused.
Mutsu is a pirate chief’s daughter, not unfamiliar with luxury. But baths aren’t a sign of luxury where she comes from. They’re seen as a sign of weakness, being mostly reserved for the elderly and the infirm.
Nor is she used to people bathing or showering together by choice. Soldiers and ordinary crewmen often have to shower by necessity: it was like that for most of the old crew in these ships, showering in groups because they had to. Only she and the captain had cabins with their own showers. Even the other officers had been envied for sharing cabins and a shower with only three other people.
The Kaientai are different: they always troop off to shower time in a relaxed, cheerful mood, chatting and talking together, and Sakamoto usually joins the guys. She had assumed this was because they were so pleased at being free again and finding a way to survive together. But it seems there’s more to it than that.
Finally they reach the hot spring, and she stares suspiciously at the bubbling water, wrinkling her nose at the sulphurous smell.
“Are we really going to bathe there? Is it safe?” she asks.
“Perfectly safe!” the rest assure her. “The scouts have had the water tested! There’s fine, healthy minerals in it.”
“And you want to bathe in it… together? With everyone naked?” Nobody’s carrying swimsuits, from what she can see.
“That’s the good old way!” says Old Granny. “No modern prudery here!”
“Actually, Granny…” a young woman, Misao, starts to object, “I wouldn’t say I’m dead sure of that, personally…”
A discussion among the Kaientai start after that, first just among the small group of women but soon involving the men as well; it’s kept in low tones but going back and forth quickly, and Mutsu has a hard time keeping up with it. Finally they make an announcement that the men will keep their loincloths on in the bath. The women will do as they please, but at least some of them are going to keep a towel on.
Mutsu gets the feeling that at least half the reason this decision has been made is due to her sensitivities. Given that, she suppose it would be rude to refuse to join in… not to mention that she truly is curious. She sighs just a little, and then accepts.
She goes with the other women into the washing area they’ve set up, and they explain the procedures. Apparently Earthlings prefer to wash themselves before they get into the bath, so they can share it with others. She follows suit, washing with hot water from the spring, rinsing with cold water from a nearby creek, then puts on a towel and walks over to the hot spring. It seems awfully hot, but she’s a pirate and a Yato. She slips into it bravely.
“Whatcha think?” asks Sakamoto after a few minutes, lounging nearby with a peaceful expression.
“It’s nice, I guess. Hot.” She pauses, wriggling her toes, shifting position, the ground not being that comfortable at first. “Feels a bit weird to sit in all this water. Now what? You just sit like this?”
“Sit, relax, chat if ya like, daydream if ya wanna… and afterwards we’ll have some food.” He looks out at the spring and the group dreamily, leaning back on his shoulders and letting his toes stick out of the water.
“You have a lot of scars,” she says. She’s seen scarred chests and shoulders like that before, but rarely in someone so young.
“Oh, yeah,” he says, sounding surprised, as if he’s forgotten he does. “Well, I was in a war back home. Didn’t I say?”
She shakes her head.
“Well, that’s over and done with now, anyway.” He smiles, a faraway look in his eyes. “Made some great buddies there. Guess it’s no surprise, though, that war ain’t really something I’m cut out for doin’. I make a much better merchant than a soldier, ahaha!” His laugh is softer than usual.
“Did you win the war? Your side?”
He shakes his head, not losing his small smile. “We didn’t. But! I’ve found another way to fight.” He looks up at her, then the trees above them, the sky. “That’s why I’m out here in the first place. And that’s why we’re buildin’ a merchant fleet, Mutsu. We’re gonna make it all better.”
She puts her head to the side. “And bathin’ in a group in a hot spring will help with that?” It’s hard not to take on his cadences of speaking after a while.
“Yeah!” He laughs. “Listen, when ya can be together like this, and really relax and trust one another, ya get immensely strong. Together and separate.” He smacks his palms together decisively, splashing them both.
Mutsu shoves him, lightly, but he still tumbles over into the water, coming up to laugh more loudly.
“Idiot,” she says. She leans her arms on her knees and her chin on her arms, looking at the eased faces and happy chatter among the Kaientai, but she also sees a couple of them silently crying. She gets the impression those might be happy tears, though. And something in her own heart eases.
She, too, looks up towards the sky, wondering about new discoveries, and the unknown distant Earth.
This is set shortly after the end of the war and has plenty of backstory spoilers. You probably shouldn't read it if you haven't watched up to episode 305 or read up to manga chapter 519. There's also violence and angst, hence the PG rating.
Possibly I might change the title if I find one I like better.
Constructive criticism very welcome. I'm particularly interested in comments about Sakamoto's dialogue. It's my first time writing him, and I don't think my own "generic rural bumpkin" attempt for his way of talking sounds all that great. Opinions on how to improve it, or if you think I should drop it entirely and go for standard English in spite of his canon dialect, are much appreciated.
Many thanks to Plipdragon who did the beta for this fic and helped me out in discussing details, finding background facts on bathing at the time, and encouraging me. Any remaining errors are my responsibility alone.
Katsura finding refuge among monks after the war is a detail I took from Naye's great fic They also serve who only stand and wait, and I've found it resonates among several other Gintama fans as well. It's part of my headcanon now.
Title: Bathing In A Time Of Peace
Rating: PG
Word Count: currently 4779, liable to change a little in case of edits of course
Characters: Katsura, Gintoki, Takasugi, Sakamoto, Mutsu
Spoilers/setting: see above
Warning: Angst, violence, suicidal thoughts
Summary: A character study in four parts. The first hot bath after the war for Katsura, Gintoki, and Takasugi, plus Sakamoto's first bath together with the Kaientai including Mutsu.
One
The last time Katsura took a hot bath was before the war ended, three weeks before the end in fact. That wasn’t too long, not by the standards of the war’s last year. They’d just carried out one final successful counter-attack and rescued what was left of their supply train in the process, leaving enough damage to the nearby enemy forces to give them a tiny bit of breathing room. By then there had been quite some time since they’d been in an area with natural hot springs which they could reach. Sparing time and men to heat water enough for actual bathing had been out of the question.
But after the counter-attack, they were lucky. The locals were sympathetic and willing to give, sell and barter food and shelter. A well-to-do merchant of the area was an acquaintance of Sakamoto’s, and they had concluded an agreement recently. So the merchant had kindly agreed to opening up his home to what was left of Katsura’s troops, even setting up a dozen temporary barrel-baths outside his buildings. Katsura tried not to think of this as Sakamoto's gift of farewell to the others, now that he lay recuperating with his wounded hand.
All the same, there was a sense of relief and a battered but reviving feeling of cautious hope among the troops, which made the steamy air all that much sweeter, and nobody grumbled that much while waiting for his turn in spite of the cold autumn air. Katsura should have been deeply tired, but he scrubbed himself down with vigour and didn’t just listen to but joined in with the light-hearted chatting around him.
It feels very strange to think about now.
He is cold, so cold. Cold, and bone-deep tired, and yet he has a hard time making his feet stop walking while there’s still daylight. He trudges from village to village, hardly raising his head to look at them, although he does have a vague sense that the places look better the further he gets from the battlefield, from the war graves.
Some people are kind enough to hand him a few pieces of food. He bows and thanks them but his face is blank and mute when they ask him questions, and he can’t always keep the food down. The nights are cold outside, yet it’s hard for him to stop and ask for shelter. Once some oddly kind strangers invite him in anyway. He falls asleep sitting huddled in a corner, hugging his sword, just like a child he once knew used to do such a long time ago. As soon as it starts to turn light outside, he slips away and walks on.
He is so cold, and it feels like his feet are going to fall off, but he doesn’t know of a way to stop walking.
Someone calls out his name, politely, startling him. It takes him time to recall the face of the young man hopping up to him on crutches. Morishige, the man reintroduces himself as. Right. It comes back to Katsura: his older brother died in battle earlier in the war, and they managed to send the younger brother home after his leg was wounded.
It’s nice to see a surviving face for once, but it still takes him three repetitions to understand what Morishige is trying to tell him. It has to do with the local temple. The monks there sympathise with the cause, Morishige says, even if they’re discreet about it, “and they might well let you stay there for a while, Katsura-san, I’ll go with you and introduce them.”
He mumbles something in agreement and lets himself be escorted out of the village and up a few hills to the temple, wondering a little why Morishige goes to such trouble; wondering also if it could be a trap. He’s too weary to care all that much, although a skittering thought in the back of his head tells him he ought to.
The temple looks perfectly ordinary, well-kept and tidy without being all that large. He shivers outside the entrance, waiting for a monk to turn up, then shivers some more in silence while Morishige talks to the monk, feeling dizzy and light-headed.
They allow him in for the night, it appears. He doesn’t listen closely, merely nods when Morishige takes his farewell, following where they lead him.
The monks don't ask any questions. He's served a frugal dinner, small enough that his stomach can handle it. Afterwards his guide shows him a corner in the dormitory where he can sleep this night, and where the futons are rolled up. Then he's handed a spare yukata and led to the bath-house that the monks use: the one for the public is closed by this time.
The steam-filled room is quiet and sombre, with just a few sounds: hisses and bubbling from the central copper kettle, padded feet on the floor, splashes of cold water and meditative murmurs from a few of the bathers. His movements are slow as he undresses himself, letting go of those grimy, bloodstained clothes at last; and he continues being slow as he scrubs himself, staring at his own skin, trying not to miss a spot. Trying to remember where he is.
When at last he realizes with a small start that he’s clean, he pours cold water over himself to wash away the soap, then steps into the nearest empty wooden bath tub. The heat makes him gasp at first touch. Then he breathes in deeply. Slowly, slowly, the tension in his body decreases.
Minutes pass.
Surrounded by the quiet heat of the room, with food in his stomach and in relative safety, he feels more anchored in the present than he’s been since it happened. Yet his hands are trembling. It feels like a part of him is still back there, still lying helpless on the cold hard ground on a high cliff, arms bound: he feels he will never really be able to move from that spot.
His life isn’t truly his own anymore. It’s been far too dearly bought for that. A sacrifice he’s not worthy of, and never will be.
He runs a thumb up and down his knee, listening without listening to the sounds of the bath-house, feeling the calm, humid air settle around him. Making a room for him to be in.
He doesn’t know how long they will let him stay here, or how long it will take him to learn to talk and think and move again. But he does know one thing: the leader of the crows was wrong.
He knows he will be able to take up his sword again.
He doesn’t know if he will ever be able to put it down.
*
Two
The executioner cleans Gintoki’s face and wounds with his own hands after he’s ordered the men who were just beating him to stop. He sends for food, and later a washing bucket turns up as well, with a bar of soap included. Gintoki think it’s the first time he’s touched hot water since it happened, although he’s not entirely sure – his memory of the past couple of weeks is patchy. He does know he washed himself in cold streams a few times before he reached the city.
He hears later that in ordinary times even the death row prisoners get to bathe regularly, not every day but twice a week or so. But right now the prisons are overflowing with rebels seized in the government’s purge, and the authorities have no interest in making the effort to provide for baths for those already condemned to die. Ikeda doesn’t seem to be too happy about that. He mutters that the higher-ups don’t seem to realize that the cleaner the prisoners are, the less risk of diseases being spread from cell to cell, and from the condemned prisoners to the guards and the rest of the prison.
Gintoki’s hands shake the first time he washes himself from the bucket. It’s nice of Ikeda to provide it for him, to be sure. Feeling a faint sense of something that might pass for obligation, Gintoki does a proper job of the washing. He even eats all of the food.
The light is different down here in the cells. Outside it looked like there were no colours in the world anymore. Here there never were that many colours in the first place, perhaps. So some of them can stay.
And the walls and the floor are solid. On the outside, sometimes he would feel like he was falling endlessly forward. Here, he stays right put. There’s no falling any further than the floor of this place.
Ikeda has executed the man Gintoki struck down, the informer. But he has taken in the man’s daughter, and he will train her to become a good executioner. That seems a bit strange to Gintoki, but what does he know of the traditions of executioner clans? You learn something new every day.
He tries to make her go away when she hangs outside his cell and talks to him, telling her how terrible he is in order to scare her off. But the brat is the persistent type, and doesn’t believe him. What a nuisance.
One day the door to his cell is opened, and Ikeda stands there tossing him shoes and a set of clothes, signalling him to put it on and then follow him. He figures this is it, the last walk he’ll ever take.
The new clothes, however, aren’t white as he would expect, just a blueish gray, different from the brownish gray of the prison clothes. Even stranger, a couple of minutes later he finds himself standing outside with a shawl over his shoulders, one street away from the prison and no guards in sight. It’s early in the morning, and the air is cold.
“Walk quickly for the first block, then run,” Ikeda tells him, pressing a pouch of coins into his hand. “Don’t stop until you’re at least two districts away. Live your life well.”
Gintoki blinks in incomprehension, looking down at the pouch, then up at the other man.
“Go!” Ikeda pushes him forward. Gintoki stumbles the first few steps, then starts to walk. Mechanically at first, then picking up the pace, finally breaking into a run as he has been advised. He doesn’t look back.
When he finally stops running, out of breath and throat parched, the sun is high in the sky and the shops have opened. He can taste snow in the air. He breathes in deeply before starting to walk on. At the next street stand, he buys a few dango and eats them right there on the street.
Looking up, he realizes he’s standing outside a bath-house. He looks into the pouch again, figuring there’s enough money for two more street meals and a hot bath. And there’s a bar of soap in the pouch, too.
Yet part of him is reluctant to go inside. So what if he will soon start reeking like an animal, keeping everyone away from him? So what if he will end up crawling into some alley like so much garbage and just wait for everything to stop? Hadn’t it been a mistake in the first place, pulling a demon child away from the battlefield, giving him clean clothes and a clean sword, and the first bath he could ever remember?
But he stands there clutching the pouch that the executioner has given him, realizing that the kind man could lose his own head for what he’s just done for his sake.
It really would be too ungrateful to refuse, wouldn’t it?
And there’s one more thing…
So he shuffles forward into the bath-house, pays the fee at the entrance, walks further inside, removes his new sandals and clothes, and starts to wash himself.
He remembers strong yet gentle hands holding him, scrubbing him, showing him how to do it; washing his hair and rinsing it, and later, after he’d bathed and been dried off, patiently combing through his hair until all the tangles were gone.
He exhales and rinses himself off with cold water, his body shaking a little before he walks on. There’s only two other patrons in the men’s bath, a couple of codgers who are deep into their own conversation and barely glance at him as he slides into the water. He closes his eyes. The face he sees now -- the face he chooses to see -- is that of a little girl, on the other side of prison bars.
”I know! I’ll grow up to become a great executioner! I’ll send you off to paradise without any pain! So until that happens, mister, don’t get killed by anyone else!”
Gintoki smiles softly, a puff of air escaping his lips. “If it’s like that, I guess I’d better keep my neck clean for you until then,” he mumbles to himself. He slips further down into the water, stretching out his legs and toes, listening to the city noises outside. He hears the sound of the first snowflakes falling, tapping at the high windows of the bath.
***
Three
Takasugi feels as if he’s watching himself from far off; watching himself walking walk through fields and towns, sleeping huddled in trees, hiding from enemy troops and the police, or cutting them down when they come for him. It doesn’t take long to see that the amnesty granted by the leader of the crows was very temporary and very local.
His uniform stands out, as it has always done; even those who don’t know exactly who he is can still guess from his uniform that he’s a high-ranking rebel. Perhaps it is time to lose it, though he’s not sure if he truly wants to lose the excuse it gives him to strike back at those who attack him. But the boy general he was a few days ago, the honest, angry good-for-nothing, is no longer there. There’s something else burning and moving and growling behind his eye as he moves, as he cuts their throats and stabs their hearts.
That something is there as well when he chooses to hide instead, to duck down a different street, to walk on without glancing at Amanto. And he finds himself quieting sooner than he would have before, even as he also erupts faster.
If he dies here, he thinks, this repulsive world will be left still standing.
There’s an obvious arrogance in that thought, and he recognizes it, but doesn’t care.
His wounded eye keeps throbbing.
The inside pocket of his jacket contains the last of the Kiheitai’s salary in paper bills. For whatever reason, the crows didn’t bother taking it. The Kiheitai are -- were -- volunteers, but they were still paid, if not by much. It’s possible some of them survived that catastrophic last battle, but if so they’re scattered without any way for him to find them. The right thing to do would be to send the money to their families, but he’s lost all of his paperwork, and doesn’t know any of their home addresses.
The right thing to do in general is not something he’ll be able to do anymore, he suspects.
He can do nothing for the Kiheitai, now. Only take all the rage and bitterness and despair they surely must have felt when they died, and pour it into his own.
He’s mostly slept outside since it happened: he was attacked at night at the first inn he stopped at. The weather’s getting colder, he’s hungry and tired; and it’s been a long time since he last bathed. Finally he decides to deal with all those things by walking into the next inn he sees and telling them he wants a room with its own bath.
The innkeeper gives him a judging, suspicious look, but relents when Takasugi pulls out his money and shows it.
“Of course, of course, there’s a room like that available, over in the back by the garden. Nice to see a customer who can pay. So much poor scum trying to scam me,” the man prattles while showing Takasugi the way. “Those damn surviving rebels are the worst,” he adds over his shoulders. “Can’t stand that disgusting vermin. Disloyal and treacherous, and they claim to be against the Amanto, but they’re the ones pushing new, alien ideas and trying to tear down society! Can you imagine the nerve of peasants trying to pretend they can fight like real samurai? People who spread such nonsense need to be eradicated like rats.”
Takasugi says nothing. He would like to tear the man’s throat out. But he would also like a hot meal, a bath, and a fresh change of bandages.
The room is clean and spacious, with a lit fireside. A servant brings in a meal of braised salmon and chestnut rice, and he eats while gazing out at the garden. The bath is adjacent to the room, no screen to separate it. After a while, two servant-girls come bringing in a large kettle of hot water and pour it into the bathtub, then repeat the move with another kettle which fills up the bathtub. The younger one of them bows and hands him a roll of bandages and a pail of hot water (there is already a pail of cold water in the room), and tells him that she will do her best to keep his bath warm from the outside by blowing on the fire, for as long as he wishes.
He waves her off and closes the door behind her. Then he steps in front of the room’s mirror, unwraps his old bandage and cleans the wound. He’s thorough, but less gentle with himself than he could have been. But his hands only start trembling after he’s wrapped the new bandage tight around his head.
He starts to undress himself with his slightly trembling hands. Having to take off his clothes one by one makes him realize how exhausted he feels. He lets his uniform jacket drop to the floor, then the trousers and the socks. Kneading his forehead, he closes his eye for a moment. One deep breath, then another one. A wave of dizziness rolls over him. He feels very far away. Years away, worlds away, when bath-time was easy and peaceful, even if there were always dumb scuffles...
He stiffens as the door slides open and spins around, but his sword is by the door and he’s only got his loincloth on -- and the innkeeper proves to be faster than assumed. Takasugi already guessed that the man had some sword training, but he hadn’t thought that the man would manage to put a sword to his throat.
“Don’t try anything,” the innkeeper breathes. “Think I’m so dumb I can’t recognize rebel scum when it knocks at my front door?” He moves the edge of his sword to the side of Takasugi’s neck. “But a bounty is much higher than an informer’s tip. All I needed was to get you unarmed. With all the losses your lot have caused my business, I’m well entitled to a reward.”
Takasugi glances around the room, and back to the well-fed, kimono-clad man. “You seem to be doing fairly well for yourself.”
The innkeeper bares his teeth in a grimace, the edge of his sword pressing closer. “You have no idea how much I’ve worked to turn this place around. Stop talking. Get in front of me and start walking forward. I’m taking you to the police.”
Instead of acknowledging the blade at his throat, Takasugi reaches out slowly and strokes the innkeeper's silk kimono by his collar, blue and gold with a geometrical pattern.
“You stop that-!”
"This is fine work,” he notes. “If I have to switch to civilian clothes, it might as well be something like this." It wasn't quite his colour, but it would do until he could find a better one.
He slips off to the side and ducks before the innkeeper can react, chokes him into unconsciousness using a sleeper hold, walks over to check the state of the hot water, then walks back and undresses the man. Once the kimono is off he uses the man's own sword to cut off his head. Then he takes off his loincloth, scrubbing himself down with hot water, rinsing off the soap with cold water, and then slipping into the bath.
It all feels rather dreamlike. He doesn't even lock the door to his room; at any time someone might walk in and discover the corpse. The trick, he supposes tiredly, leaning back against the side of the bathtub and feeling his body relax in the hot water, is to not truly care.
***
Bonus: Four
“We found a volcano!” announces the scouting ship over the intership communication. Cheers of surprise and excitement erupt around Mutsu, much to her bewilderment.
A week has gone since the pirate spaceship convoy picked up a drifting merchant on this watery planet; six days since the convoy ended up in the possession of that lunatic, aided by the liberated slaves in its cargo and Mutsu herself, the vice-captain who had switched sides.
They are still on the same planet because the ships need to stock up on fresh water, fuel, food, and tools. With islands being so sparse here, it took a long time to find inhabited places, and the towns are small. They’ve already been to two of them and bought plenty of food and all the spaceship fuel they can find; they have also gathered water in springs and lakes. But the ship still needs more fuel and tools.
“What’s so great about finding a volcano? Do you Earthlings eat lava or something?” she asks Sakamoto, who’s sitting next to her and beaming, leaning back with arms behind his head.
“Ahahaha, no! No, ’s just that where there’s a volcano, might be you’ll find hot springs, too! And we love hot springs! The country back home’s just plain full of ‘em!”
“That’s right, captain!” the speaker on the scouting ship answers over the intercom. “So we’ll take a closer look, and two of us will go down to search the island!”
Sakamoto urges them on with enthusiasm, and the conversation around Mutsu among the crew that’s now been named the Kaientai turns to revolve completely around the possibility of hot springs.
“It’s not like you haven’t been able to get clean here,” Mutsu tries to point out.
“Oh, these fancy ships only have showers. That ain’t even close to ordinary baths,” says the old granny disdainfully, “an’ bathin’ in hot springs with everyone’s way better than regular bathin’ alone.”
“Showers have always been enough for me,” mutters Mutsu, but nobody listens to her. An hour later the scouts report that there is indeed a fine hot spring on the volcano island, and it’s decided everyone will go there the next day.
And that’s it. The ships settle down on the water near the shore, a minimum of guards are left on each ship to guard against sudden raids, and everyone else go ashore in landing boats. Mutsu trudges with the rest, carrying a picnic basket she’s been handed. She only put up a token resistance, being as curious as she is confused.
Mutsu is a pirate chief’s daughter, not unfamiliar with luxury. But baths aren’t a sign of luxury where she comes from. They’re seen as a sign of weakness, being mostly reserved for the elderly and the infirm.
Nor is she used to people bathing or showering together by choice. Soldiers and ordinary crewmen often have to shower by necessity: it was like that for most of the old crew in these ships, showering in groups because they had to. Only she and the captain had cabins with their own showers. Even the other officers had been envied for sharing cabins and a shower with only three other people.
The Kaientai are different: they always troop off to shower time in a relaxed, cheerful mood, chatting and talking together, and Sakamoto usually joins the guys. She had assumed this was because they were so pleased at being free again and finding a way to survive together. But it seems there’s more to it than that.
Finally they reach the hot spring, and she stares suspiciously at the bubbling water, wrinkling her nose at the sulphurous smell.
“Are we really going to bathe there? Is it safe?” she asks.
“Perfectly safe!” the rest assure her. “The scouts have had the water tested! There’s fine, healthy minerals in it.”
“And you want to bathe in it… together? With everyone naked?” Nobody’s carrying swimsuits, from what she can see.
“That’s the good old way!” says Old Granny. “No modern prudery here!”
“Actually, Granny…” a young woman, Misao, starts to object, “I wouldn’t say I’m dead sure of that, personally…”
A discussion among the Kaientai start after that, first just among the small group of women but soon involving the men as well; it’s kept in low tones but going back and forth quickly, and Mutsu has a hard time keeping up with it. Finally they make an announcement that the men will keep their loincloths on in the bath. The women will do as they please, but at least some of them are going to keep a towel on.
Mutsu gets the feeling that at least half the reason this decision has been made is due to her sensitivities. Given that, she suppose it would be rude to refuse to join in… not to mention that she truly is curious. She sighs just a little, and then accepts.
She goes with the other women into the washing area they’ve set up, and they explain the procedures. Apparently Earthlings prefer to wash themselves before they get into the bath, so they can share it with others. She follows suit, washing with hot water from the spring, rinsing with cold water from a nearby creek, then puts on a towel and walks over to the hot spring. It seems awfully hot, but she’s a pirate and a Yato. She slips into it bravely.
“Whatcha think?” asks Sakamoto after a few minutes, lounging nearby with a peaceful expression.
“It’s nice, I guess. Hot.” She pauses, wriggling her toes, shifting position, the ground not being that comfortable at first. “Feels a bit weird to sit in all this water. Now what? You just sit like this?”
“Sit, relax, chat if ya like, daydream if ya wanna… and afterwards we’ll have some food.” He looks out at the spring and the group dreamily, leaning back on his shoulders and letting his toes stick out of the water.
“You have a lot of scars,” she says. She’s seen scarred chests and shoulders like that before, but rarely in someone so young.
“Oh, yeah,” he says, sounding surprised, as if he’s forgotten he does. “Well, I was in a war back home. Didn’t I say?”
She shakes her head.
“Well, that’s over and done with now, anyway.” He smiles, a faraway look in his eyes. “Made some great buddies there. Guess it’s no surprise, though, that war ain’t really something I’m cut out for doin’. I make a much better merchant than a soldier, ahaha!” His laugh is softer than usual.
“Did you win the war? Your side?”
He shakes his head, not losing his small smile. “We didn’t. But! I’ve found another way to fight.” He looks up at her, then the trees above them, the sky. “That’s why I’m out here in the first place. And that’s why we’re buildin’ a merchant fleet, Mutsu. We’re gonna make it all better.”
She puts her head to the side. “And bathin’ in a group in a hot spring will help with that?” It’s hard not to take on his cadences of speaking after a while.
“Yeah!” He laughs. “Listen, when ya can be together like this, and really relax and trust one another, ya get immensely strong. Together and separate.” He smacks his palms together decisively, splashing them both.
Mutsu shoves him, lightly, but he still tumbles over into the water, coming up to laugh more loudly.
“Idiot,” she says. She leans her arms on her knees and her chin on her arms, looking at the eased faces and happy chatter among the Kaientai, but she also sees a couple of them silently crying. She gets the impression those might be happy tears, though. And something in her own heart eases.
She, too, looks up towards the sky, wondering about new discoveries, and the unknown distant Earth.