101 Ways To Die - Blood Loss

Sep 08, 2012 19:51

Written for fc_smorgasbord

Series: Gintama
Characters: Takasugi, Bansai (BanTaka if you put some heavy slash googles on)
Table: 101 Ways to Die, Progress table here
Prompt: #12, Blood Loss
Rating: M (strong violence)
Lenght: 621 words
Summary: What would Takasugi do after the world's end?
Warnings: MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH! (you shouldn't read it if you you don't like that sort of thing)
Notes: I got the initial idea from a discussion with friend about Takasugi's aims and what he would actually do if he succeeded in destroying everything. This is pretty much what we came up with.



They had been fighting for a while now. Around them, the world was falling apart, everything becoming engulfed in roaring flames.

But Takasugi wasn’t somebody to simply back down and die even if he had no intention of winning. And that was why, so many hours before, when Bansai was rewrapping the bandages around his head with slow, tender movements, he had suddenly said: “Kill me once this world is gone.” It was neither a question nor an order. It was a simple request, born out of the mutual understanding that was between them.

Bansai had never once fought against his master in all seriousness. Sure, they had sparred in their spare time and he had watched Takasugi kill more than just a few men, but against each other, both of them had always held back. Takasugi was strong. He made up for his lack in size in sheer speed and technique; and the remnants of the mad beast that had been raging inside him for all these years seemed to give him superhuman strength at times. However, the previous fights had left Takasugi weakened; his former comrades had been nothing if not strong themselves. And so their blades clashed, strings lashed out through the air and drew blood, only to be cut or withdrawn again.

In the end, however, Takasugi’s wounds from the previous fights and the subsequent loss of blood had cost him the crucial ounce of speed he needed to evade Bansai’s sword just another time. His head jerked back in pain when the tip of the weapon slashed a deep wound into the flesh of his upper thigh and his remaining eye went wide when Bansai finally buried his blade in his stomach. The man in the dark coat watched the strength vanish from the body in front of him, heard the sword clattering to the hard floor. Part of him wanted to reach out and catch Takasugi when he finally went down; but he only withdrew his blade causing a gush of blood to dye the ground an even deeper red.

Bansai bent down to where he was lying. He looked in his face, could see how the other’s body was still fighting against the inevitable end, eye closed and teeth clenched. But Takasugi’s breathing was already ragged and heavy and slowly even the last bit of resistance left him. He had lost a lot of blood; enough that he wouldn’t survive the next hour.

Carefully, Bansai picked him up. He was so light; now that the beast within him seemed to be gone with the world it wanted to destroy there was nothing left but some skin and bone. He walked over to a part of the roof which was still shielded from the flame and the heat of the inferno around them. Then he slowly lowered the body in his arms until Shinsuke sat with his back against one of the walls. His one good eye cracked open, his gaze clearly clouded with pain, the same pain which was lining the edges of his smile. It was the first time Bansai found something else in this smile besides mad emptiness.

“Thank you.”

It was unfamiliar hearing such words from a man like Takasugi, so Bansai just nodded, quietly acknowledging how he had fulfilled his final task. Then he watched how the remaining life slowly flowed out of him together with the blood now pooling on the floor. Bansai wished he could’ve died at a nicer place. But then, maybe this end was the only one befitting of such a man, a dying beast in the middle of his very own mad storm of destruction whilst the world around them was slowly crumbling to ash.

fanfiction, gintama, 101 ways to die

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