101 Ways To Die - Froze to Death [Stargazer]
This baby was originally written for Sakabros on Tumblr (who gave me the permission to post it here), as part of the Gintama Secret Santa there. She wanted anything involving Gintoki and Sakamoto, so yeah, this is what I came up with! Interestingly, only afterwards I noticed that it actually fit in with the 101 Ways to Die challenge as well (I didn't actually plan it that way xD), so, here we go.
Series: Gintama
Characters: Sakamoto, Gintoki (plus a quick guest appearance by Takasugi and other Joui)
Table: 101 Ways to Die, Progress table here
Prompt: #75, Froze to Death
Rating: T
Lenght: 5,115 words
Beta: none, this time - I was too slow and only finished a day before the deadline xD Sorry!
Summary: How Sakamoto eventually came to leave his comrades and the war.
Warnings: A tiny bit of violence and tons of angst. Oh, and weird humour.
Notes: A winter story =). I love writing Sakamoto and so it was great to get this challenge and do this. Originally, I had planned for this to be a small, short, bromancy-sort-of-thing of less then a 1000 words. Instead, it suddenly turned into this 5k angst Joui-war monster xD. Sorry!
I also tried to bring some meaning to how and when Sakamoto uses 'Kintoki' and 'Gintoki' because I personally think he actually puts more thought behind it than it would appear on the first glance. Enjoy! (and I'm always happy about comments, too haha)
Stargazer
The world was frozen.
Snow coated the landscape and hid all its features in shadows of dazzling white. It was a strange beauty, one made of death and frozen glory. Sakamoto barely had time to gaze at all the wonders. Though the trees around him in the small forest were all covered in snow and beautiful ice crystals protruded from the branches like living outgrowths after the recent snow storm, he took little time to marvel at their beauty. Instead, he tried to make his way through the freshly fallen white. It was a tiring exercise since a lot had come down last night, making it all the more difficult for him to lift his legs anew every single time.
He kept walking, although he was still exhausted from yesterday’s battle. All the minor scraps and wounds he carried as a remembrance from it were aching.
He could catch glimpses of faint red under all the white. It couldn’t have been too long since the other man had walked past. There was only a small layer of snow covering the colourful marks. Sakamoto hoped he wouldn’t be too late. It had stopped snowing a while ago, but the air was icy cold, a cruel contrast to the clear blue sky with the pale eye of the sun at its centre.
It didn’t take him much longer to find the one he was searching for. The same moment he saw the shape slumped down at the base of a tree he felt his heart sinking. Nonetheless, he took some quick steps forward and bent down next to his fallen comrade. To his surprise, the man was still breathing faintly. But he was getting colder and colder by the minute, and the slow, but steady trickle of blood down his arm didn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon either. Somebody had once told Sakamoto that freezing was a nice death, much warmer than its name would suggest, but he wasn’t willing to let death have another one of his comrades just yet.
He had to get him back. Quickly.
Sakamoto grunted when he lifted the man up onto his own shoulders. It was a hard task since the body was heavy. Slowly, he made his way back through the snow, breathing hard under the weight on his back. Soon he was sweating despite the cold, exhaustion slowly wrapping itself around him like a blanket. It was a long way back. At some point, his thoughts started to get blurry, the white and grey landscape in front of his eyes losing shape. He stumbled over a hidden rock in the snow, falling over into the cold until the white engulfed him completely. He was so tired. Furthermore, yesterday’s fresh cut on his arm had started acting up again, throbbing annoyingly. Fatigue swept over him like a wave, and suddenly, the snow didn’t even feel cold anymore. Instead, he thought he was surrounded by warmth. Maybe, if he would close his eyes just for a few minutes, gather up some more strength...
***
“Tatsuma? Tatsuma!”
His eyelids felt heavy as bricks when he tried to drag them open. The voice was so familiar...that obnoxiously bored sound, now tinted with just a hint of worry. And, hovering uncomfortably close above him was the face belonging to it - silver curls and those eyes the colour of dried blood.
“Ahahahaha, Kintoki? What are you doing here?”
The face vanished and got replaced by a fist aimed directly for his chin.
“Oi, Gintoki, stop it!” A deeper voice. He recognised this one, too. With some effort, he turned his head and was promptly rewarded with the view of Takasugi somehow trying to hold back Gintoki - a funny sight regarding the fact that Takasugi was much smaller than his friend.
“Ahaha, thank you, Bakasugi, I-“ Now it was Gintoki who had to grab the dark-haired youth’s arm before he could sink his fist into Sakamoto’s stomach. It took both of them only a short while of wrestling with each other until they had finally calmed down.
Panting heavily, the two stood there facing each other. Somehow, it was hard to tell for Sakamoto just how much seriousness had been in their fight. Finally, Gintoki simply shrugged his shoulders. “Come on, you know it will likely just destroy the pitiful rest of what is left of his mind and I don’t know about you, but I feel absolutely no desire to care any more for this blabbering fool than already necessary.”
“Ahahahahaha, Kintoki, you’re hurting my feelings!” His friend didn’t even dignify this with an answer. Instead, he slumped down onto the wooden floor next to him whilst Takasugi sighed and turned towards the door.
“Well, looks like the idiot’s not going to die on us anytime soon, so I can actually get back to my troops and do something useful. Not like certain other people here...” He was out of the room before Gintoki could shoot back with an equally snarky remark.
“Gintoki...” Sakamoto lowered his voice when he finally remembered the question he had wanted to ask all along. “What about the man I brought back?”
“Dead.” Gintoki didn’t quite manage to look him into the eyes. “We’re not sure whether it was the blood loss or the cold that killed him in the end, but we only found his corpse. You were barely breathing yourself...”
“Ah...so I guess it was all for nothing, eh...”
Both of them went silent for a while. There was nothing more to be said. Sakamoto felt as if part of the cold from outside had settled in his bones. Of course, it had been such a ridiculous thing to believe he could save him...but to him, all these lives were still precious somehow.
He could see that it pained Gintoki too, even though he would never admit it. But more and more often, the hot fury and determination in those red eyes was replaced by a vague, sad emptiness. They both knew that this fight wouldn’t be going on forever.
“Oi, Kintoki, could you help me up?” Dragging himself out of the blankets and in an upright position was harder than he thought. His hands and feet were still tingling and his head kept spinning.
“Moron, what do you want to do?!” Despite the sharp tone in Gintoki’s voice, his grip on his arm was firm, but gentle.
“Ahahaha, it’s night already, isn’t it? I just wanted to have a look at the stars...”
Although Gintoki kept muttering something about ‘stupid idiots’ under his breath, he didn’t refuse to do what he had been asked for. Carefully, he supported his friend on the short way outside. Together, they sat down on the wooden walkway. Sakamoto’s instinct had been right; the night was beautiful. It was freezing, but the cold winter air was clear and the sky sprinkled with thousands upon thousands of stars.
Sakamoto leaned his head against the wooden beam next to him, never taking his eyes off the starry sky. He marvelled at the vastness of space. Those stars seemed like a promise to him, a promise that there were still things aside from this seemingly endless war. He felt Gintoki’s eyes on him, trying to guess his thoughts.
“Hey, Gintoki...what do you think is out there? Between all the stars, I mean?”
His friend snorted. “Probably more stars. And some darkness too, I guess. Why, what do you think?”
“Ahahahaha, I don’t know! But I would like to go there and have a look at some point in the future...”
Gintoki said nothing for a while. Then a faint smile crossed his face as he stood up. “Yeah, I guess you would...come on, we need to get back inside. It’s much too cold to be sitting around here for too long and you still haven’t fully recovered from your foolishness this morning.”
Sakamoto followed Gintoki’s suggestion. However, before he turned around completely, his eyes grazed over the graves on the lawn, now only visible as faint mounds underneath the snow. So many...too many. He wished they could change the world like they had once set out to do, but this was only their first winter together and already, the flame of his hope had started flickering. Looking at the graves reminded him of something else.
“Gintoki...what did you do with Yosuke’s body?” His friend stopped for a moment, nearly throwing Sakamoto off-balance, before he replied. He sounded coarse, with a quiet note of pain in his voice that Sakamoto had only heard a few times before.
“I’m sorry, Tatsuma. But we...left him there. The ground is frozen so we can’t dig any more holes. And if we would make a fire, there is a great possibility that the Amanto could spot us from their ships...” his voice trailed off.
Sakamoto was too tired, too disappointed, to react with a laugh and a jest like he would have done earlier, maybe half a year ago when all of them had still been full of hope. Instead, he said nothing, only let Gintoki take him back into the small room so that he could lie down again and sleep off the weakness and exhaustion.
***
“Hey, Kintoki, let’s go have a drink tonight.”
Sakamoto stood in the doorframe, waiting for a reply from his friend who was currently trying to sharpen his sword. Gintoki’s hands were shivering slightly, but he didn’t look up, completely immersed in his work.
Sakamoto frowned. That was unusual.
“Gintoki?” he asked more quietly. Slowly he stepped over to where the silver-haired samurai was sitting. Finally, he seemed to notice Sakamoto, since he stopped what he was doing, his hand hovering right above his sword. Carefully, Sakamoto put a hand on his shoulder. He could feel the other tense up at the sudden touch. Only then did Gintoki put down the sword and the whetstone he had been holding.
“I’m sorry.” His voice was unusually rough. Then he finally looked up. “What did you say?”
“I suggested that we should finish up those two bottles of sake I found the other day.”
Gintoki’s smile was only a shadow of what it had once been, but it was nonetheless real. “That’s probably a good idea,” he replied and got up.
“Hm.” Sakamoto just nodded. He didn’t wait for Gintoki to follow him as he went back to his room to get the very last stocks of alcohol he had hidden so carefully from everybody else. Tonight they needed them. Only a few moments after, his friend appeared in the doorway and he tossed him one of the two bottles. Gintoki could just about catch it before it smashed on the floor.
“Oi, Bakamoto, be careful!” he shouted.
“Ahahahaha, sorry...” Sakamoto turned around and pointed to door opening onto the inner courtyard of the building that served as their current retreat.
“Wanna go outside?”
Gintoki just nodded, but in his eyes was a spark of gratitude. They stepped into the night air which was still warm from the sunshine this afternoon. However, there was already an underlying note of coldness in the air. Winter would be coming soon. More then nine months had passed since the morning when Sakamoto had gone outside to search for one of their comrades who had gotten lost in the snow after a battle the night before. Sometimes, he still remembered how warm the cold had been shortly before he almost closed his eyes forever...
The two of them made their way into the adjacent forest, up a small hill overlooking the large building and the nearer surroundings. The moon was casting enough light on their path for them to be able to get to its top without stumbling or breaking any bones. Without speaking much, they sat down. Sakamoto pulled two sake cups out of his sleeve and started pouring the liquid. Gintoki took one of them and watched the ripples on the surface, waiting for his friend to pour his own drink. Then he lifted his cup in the direction of the graves in the lawn in front of their house, and quietly emptied it in a single go. Only then did he look over at Sakamoto.
“Thanks.” That was all he said.
It was that moment when Sakamoto realised just how much they had needed to get away and if only for a few moments. They hadn’t had a minute without worry since the battle two weeks ago. A great many lives had been lost in the attack on the old estate that had been their previous headquarters. And even more of them had gotten seriously hurt. Gintoki himself had been one of them, collapsing right after he had carried an unconscious Takasugi out of the burning building. It was almost a marvel that the two of them were still alive, much to Zura’s and his own relief. Only later they found out what had happened, how the two of them had fought an enemy from their past - and how they both paid a high price to defeat him: Takasugi loosing his left eye and both of them almost loosing their lives. Gintoki had once again proven his almost amazing abilities of self-recovery and was up and walking around again after only one week. Takasugi though...although he had been conscious for a while, he had now again succumbed to fever and they still had trouble stopping the bleeding from his eye.
The constant worry about him and their other wounded comrades was difficult to bear. They had other problems, too; winter was approaching fast and they were lacking in supplies - food, medicine, clothes, everything. They knew they wouldn’t be able to survive the next year like that. Takasugi might not even survive the next few days.
It was good to get away from it. Only some minutes, maybe an hour, that was all they needed. When they didn’t have to think about tomorrow, about death and wrong hopes. For a moment, Sakamoto felt a stab of guilt that he hadn’t invited Zura to come, too. But then, their friend had already been exhausted from taking care of the wounded and collapsed on his futon just a few minutes before Sakamoto felt the sudden need to run away.
He felt his gaze being drawn to the stars again. Recently, it had happened more and more often. Inside him was this urge to go away, and never come back again. A never ending curiosity what else there was to see in this world. He didn’t want to be holed up here forever, caught in a spiral of seeing all his friends die for the sake of a war they could not win any longer.
Gintoki noticed it, too. “Are you staring into the night sky again?” he asked.
“Ahahahaha, sorry.”
“Geez, what is it with you? Don’t you think it might be better to concentrate on what is close by?” Gintoki frowned. “Don’t tell me you’re really planning to leave...”
Sakamoto just remained silent. Suddenly, he didn’t have strength anymore to look into his friend’s eyes. Only now that Gintoki had voiced it he realised just how close he had come to the truth.
“I know I can’t hinder you and I won’t. But you know how devastated the others would be, right? Just promise me that you’re not going to do anything half-heartedly. Promise you’ll be...happy with whatever you do.”
“Ahahahaha...that doesn’t sound like you at all, Gintoki!”
“Shut up!” A fist went in the direction of Sakamoto’s face. He managed to catch it before it could connect with his chin, but as he did so, he was already laughing again. Maybe because he didn’t want Gintoki to see how much his words had affected him. Be happy...but how could he if he was forever torn apart between his friends and his longing to be somewhere else?
***
About two months later, winter was upon them again with full force. After several days of snowstorms even their last supply chains had been cut off and they were starving and freezing. The sick and weakened amongst them were the ones who were affected worst.
At some point, Sakamoto couldn’t stand it anymore. He didn’t want to be held up in their quarters forever, unable to do anything. Therefore, he took three of his comrades and together, they went out into the white to face the snow and cold. It was an almost suicidal idea, but they wanted to try and make it to the next village, to get hold of at least some kind of food or help.
The wind blew sharply, whipping snow into their faces and making them shiver from a cold which cut worse than a knife. They couldn’t see further than a few meters. After a few steps, Sakamoto already started regretting their choice. A hundred steps later and he hated himself for it. And another hundred steps later he didn’t care about anything anymore. They were getting lost quickly with no orientation whatsoever and soon, they finally decided to give up on their mission and make it back.
It was hopeless. They were completely lost. Slowly, Sakamoto started getting angry at himself. How could he have been so stupid? Why didn’t he wait longer, at least until the snowstorm was gone? How-
His thoughts were interrupted all of a sudden.
He could hear a muffled scream behind him, the terribly familiar sound of steel ripping through clothes, flesh and bone. Startled, he turned around as fast as possible only to see his worst fears come true. Later, he could never find any good explanation as to what exactly the Amanto patrol had been doing out there, whether they had been equally lost, had stumbled upon them by chance or had actually tried to ambush them. No matter the reason, however, they had come upon Sakamoto’s small group with the same ferociousness as the snowstorm itself.
Luckily for them, the patrol only consisted of two fighters, so theoretically, the four of them should have been at a great advantage. However, their attackers had surprise on their side and the first one of Sakamoto’s comrades got killed within seconds. The Amanto were stronger than them and somehow faster - maybe they weren’t affected by the cold so much as their human adversaries were. Or they were simply much better rested, well fed and much less plagued by thoughts of despair than them. It didn’t matter in the end.
Sakamoto drew his sword, blocked a falling blow aimed for his head and tried to step aside. The high snow cover made it difficult to move, and he almost tripped over his own feet and stumbled, barely avoiding a fall. Instead of skewering him, the next strike therefore only caught his left shoulder, carving a deep wound into his flesh. Sakamoto screamed in pain, but there was no time to worry, no time to deal with it. He brought his sword up just in time to redirect the other’s weapon, a sword similar to his own Katana, into a different direction. The swirling snow hindered his sight immensely and he didn’t have the time or strength to look out how his comrades were doing.
Another quick exchange of blows, then Sakamoto found an opening. He thrust his weapon towards his opponent and finally managed to slash his throat with a single strike. The gush of blood seemed unnaturally vivid, colouring his surroundings red for a single instant before spreading in the snow around him.
Drawing a deep breath, Sakamoto finally looked up and concentrated on what was going on around him. He could only see two of his three comrades. One of them, the first one to fall victim to the Amanto’s attack, lay in an unmoving shape on the ground. The dark stain slowly spreading around him told Sakamoto that he was most likely already dead or going to be so in a few moments, especially in this cold. The other man was engaged in a fight with the second Amanto, but it didn’t look too good. As Sakamoto was looking at him, his movements were getting slower and slower. Just before he could reach his friend, Sakamoto had to watch how the Amanto’s weapon, a heavy axe, shattered his breastplate and went deep into flesh and bone below. He was dead in an instant.
The Amanto himself was also wobbling - he must have taken at least one hit as well. He took a few steps in Sakamoto’s direction, but before he could reach him, he fell down into the snow. The violent outburst had not taken longer than a few moments, but Sakamoto felt even more exhausted than before and he could sense the pounding of his heart up in his throat. He had to look for his fourth man...but soon he realised just how fruitless such a task would be. He wanted to save his comrade, wanted the certainty if he was dead or not, but there was no reply to his shouting and he couldn’t wait forever.
A year ago, maybe he would have searched, no matter the danger for himself - like he had done that one morning that had almost cost his own life. But now, he had seen too many people get lost, he had seen too many of them die. He hadn’t stopped caring, no. Each death still weighed heavily on his heart. But he had lost his idealism, gradually swept away by the cruel stream of war and reality.
He had to get back, somehow. The wound at his shoulder was still bleeding and he could feel the warmth oozing out of him, turning into frozen red inside and outside. At the beginning, he slowly tried to retrace his steps, but he soon gave up - the snowstorm had quickly eradicated every trace of their four-man party. So he tried to rely on his meagre instinct to find his way back to the base. He had no idea if he was going in the right direction, but he had to try. He didn’t want to give up.
Seconds drew out into minutes and soon started feeling like hours as he stumbled through the snow. His vision slowly turned blurry, his heavy breathing being snatched away by the sharp wind. He lost every feeling for time. When he first glimpsed a shape different than those of trees or rocks in the distance, he thought that surely it was some kind of illusion, a trick played by his tired mind and body. However, the shape grew, became more and more humanoid until it finally turned into a real person.
It was Gintoki.
His silver hair and white haori almost became one with the snow and the words he was shouting were snatched away from his mouth by the wind without reaching Sakamoto. Frantically, his white-haired friend waved his arms. It only took him a few moments longer to catch up with him. Stiff fingers, almost blue from the cold, closed around his right arm. Sakamoto still didn’t entirely believe what he was seeing.
“Gintoki...”
“You idiot!” His friend was almost screaming into his ear. “What did you think you were doing? Where are the others? What-“ Only then he noticed the dark red stain on Sakamoto’s left shoulder. He frowned and looked up into the terrified eyes of his friend, his thoughts slowly piecing together what might have happened.
“Come.” He didn’t say anything else.
In the end, it was a close call. In a shape which was almost too familiar (as Gintoki couldn’t help to remark later as well) the two of them arrived back at the old house which served as their temporary retreat. Sakamoto shivered violently and the blood loss only made things worse. It took him several days to recover and even after a week, he was still feeling weak. They never found the fourth person of his party or even the corpses of those that were dead.
His friends were furious. Sakamoto could understand why; he didn’t even know himself what kind of madness had driven them to go out after all. But he felt that it was his responsibility what had happened and those three lives were weighting particularly heavy on his mind. Without Gintoki and an incredible amount of luck he would have been lost, too.
At some point, about three or four weeks after the incident, Gintoki told him what had happened. Apparently, they had all gotten worried and he was the one who had offered to go and search for his friends in the end. The thought that Gintoki had gotten himself into such danger just because of him only made things worse. It only strengthened the belief within Sakamoto that there was no place for him in this war anymore. All he could do was to send even more of his comrades into a meaningless death.
But still he stayed on.
The final push came the next year, when the hard winter was finally coming to an end. Forced to by their dwindling numbers and resources, the remaining Joui had finally decided to bet it all on a single attack. It was a hard and long battle, one which only few of them survived. Although they had managed to kill off all of the Amanto sent against them, their victory came at much too high a price. They were almost wiped out.
To make things worse, this time it was Zura who was heavily wounded. When he looked into Gintoki’s eyes, Sakamoto could see the worry and the hurt in them, almost choking him. It was enough, he decided. A few weeks after the battle, when it was clear that Zura would survive, he finally made his decision.
***
“Hey Gintoki, I’ve decided.”
They were sitting on the roof of the old farmhouse they were currently living in. It was a brilliant, clear night and the stars shone down with a soothing brightness. Sakamoto had his eyes fixed on them, had them give him the strength to finally tell somebody about the idea he had nurtured in his head for so long.
“Hm?”
The silver-haired samurai was lying on his back. Although he had his eyes half closed, Sakamoto knew that he was listening.
“I’m going to space.”
Gintoki didn’t reply, but strangely enough, Sakamoto couldn’t feel disappointment coming from him. Maybe his friend had realised it already. So he proceeded in explaining why, telling him that he wouldn’t be able to watch any more of their friends die, that he wanted to find a much more peaceful way for humans and Amanto to coexist. If they weren’t able to expel them from their planet, then they might as well benefit. It was the truth, though only a part of it. He didn’t mention how the stars were calling him and how the call was getting stronger every day. He didn’t mention his belief that that there was much more waiting for him than just dying in a pointless war. Maybe because he knew that Gintoki wouldn’t understand the former and likely only laugh about the latter.
The samurai at his side only listened.
When Sakamoto was finished, he only had a single question.
“Have you told the others?”
“Ahahahaha, no way! You know, I wouldn’t be able to stand the look in Zura’s eyes if I told him. And Takasugi would probably get so angry that he’d try to cut me down right on the spot. No, I think it’s going to be easier this way...”
That made his friend smile.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right. But still, they’ll be pretty hurt you know...”
Sakamoto remained quiet. He knew that Gintoki was right, but in his head, he had weighed all the arguments against each other a thousand times and still come to the same conclusion. He needed to leave.
This night, he was barely able to sleep. So he and Gintoki continued sitting on the roof, not always talking, but somehow savouring the last hours of their strange companionship. At some point, faint snoring next to him told Sakamoto that Gintoki had finally fallen asleep. He smiled. It was a trademark of his friend that he could sleep anywhere if he was just tired enough, even on the hard, uncomfortable tiles of the roof beneath him.
Sakamoto laughed quietly. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the same abilities as his friend did, but he wouldn’t be able to sleep much anyway. Finally making his decision had filled him with a sense of tingling excitement about what the next days and weeks would bring. Strangely enough, at the same time a certain calm had now settled upon him too, sweeping away the dreadful uncertainty of the last weeks.
Carefully, trying not to wake anybody, he slid down from the roof and tiptoed around the rooms to gather up his few belongings. He wanted to be gone at the first glimpse of dawn so that he wouldn’t risk running into anybody else. It would only make things more difficult.
He spent the last few hours at the house dozing off in a quiet corner, but never fully asleep. Shortly before dawn, when the stars slowly winked out and the first faint glow of light appeared on the horizon, he cast a last glance around. Then he stepped outside and stood in front of the graves for a while, watching their shadows slowly getting shorter as the sun rose. He hadn’t planned staying
for so long, but somehow he found himself rethinking all the times he had spent with his comrades, the living as well as the dead. Before he shut the door to his past, he felt the need to relive it once again.
When he finally turned around to go, the sun had already started to rise above the horizon. Just when he stepped out of the gate, he heard a voice to his right. Turning around, he saw, to his surprise, Gintoki standing there.
Sakamoto laughed. He should have known.
He tried to convince Gintoki to come to space with him, but he knew his friend wouldn’t agree. And somehow, it was better like that. As he told him, it was easier to leave if he knew that the white demon would still fight at the side of the ones he left behind. Maybe, with Gintoki being with them, the war would not kill all of them after all. It was a reassuring thought. Maybe his friend would be able to find his peace as well. Maybe they would see each other again at some point...
When he finally set off, he did so without looking back.
The stars were waiting for him.
Series: Gintama
Characters: Sakamoto, Gintoki (plus a quick guest appearance by Takasugi and other Joui)
Table: 101 Ways to Die, Progress table here
Prompt: #75, Froze to Death
Rating: T
Lenght: 5,115 words
Beta: none, this time - I was too slow and only finished a day before the deadline xD Sorry!
Summary: How Sakamoto eventually came to leave his comrades and the war.
Warnings: A tiny bit of violence and tons of angst. Oh, and weird humour.
Notes: A winter story =). I love writing Sakamoto and so it was great to get this challenge and do this. Originally, I had planned for this to be a small, short, bromancy-sort-of-thing of less then a 1000 words. Instead, it suddenly turned into this 5k angst Joui-war monster xD. Sorry!
I also tried to bring some meaning to how and when Sakamoto uses 'Kintoki' and 'Gintoki' because I personally think he actually puts more thought behind it than it would appear on the first glance. Enjoy! (and I'm always happy about comments, too haha)
Stargazer
The world was frozen.
Snow coated the landscape and hid all its features in shadows of dazzling white. It was a strange beauty, one made of death and frozen glory. Sakamoto barely had time to gaze at all the wonders. Though the trees around him in the small forest were all covered in snow and beautiful ice crystals protruded from the branches like living outgrowths after the recent snow storm, he took little time to marvel at their beauty. Instead, he tried to make his way through the freshly fallen white. It was a tiring exercise since a lot had come down last night, making it all the more difficult for him to lift his legs anew every single time.
He kept walking, although he was still exhausted from yesterday’s battle. All the minor scraps and wounds he carried as a remembrance from it were aching.
He could catch glimpses of faint red under all the white. It couldn’t have been too long since the other man had walked past. There was only a small layer of snow covering the colourful marks. Sakamoto hoped he wouldn’t be too late. It had stopped snowing a while ago, but the air was icy cold, a cruel contrast to the clear blue sky with the pale eye of the sun at its centre.
It didn’t take him much longer to find the one he was searching for. The same moment he saw the shape slumped down at the base of a tree he felt his heart sinking. Nonetheless, he took some quick steps forward and bent down next to his fallen comrade. To his surprise, the man was still breathing faintly. But he was getting colder and colder by the minute, and the slow, but steady trickle of blood down his arm didn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon either. Somebody had once told Sakamoto that freezing was a nice death, much warmer than its name would suggest, but he wasn’t willing to let death have another one of his comrades just yet.
He had to get him back. Quickly.
Sakamoto grunted when he lifted the man up onto his own shoulders. It was a hard task since the body was heavy. Slowly, he made his way back through the snow, breathing hard under the weight on his back. Soon he was sweating despite the cold, exhaustion slowly wrapping itself around him like a blanket. It was a long way back. At some point, his thoughts started to get blurry, the white and grey landscape in front of his eyes losing shape. He stumbled over a hidden rock in the snow, falling over into the cold until the white engulfed him completely. He was so tired. Furthermore, yesterday’s fresh cut on his arm had started acting up again, throbbing annoyingly. Fatigue swept over him like a wave, and suddenly, the snow didn’t even feel cold anymore. Instead, he thought he was surrounded by warmth. Maybe, if he would close his eyes just for a few minutes, gather up some more strength...
***
“Tatsuma? Tatsuma!”
His eyelids felt heavy as bricks when he tried to drag them open. The voice was so familiar...that obnoxiously bored sound, now tinted with just a hint of worry. And, hovering uncomfortably close above him was the face belonging to it - silver curls and those eyes the colour of dried blood.
“Ahahahaha, Kintoki? What are you doing here?”
The face vanished and got replaced by a fist aimed directly for his chin.
“Oi, Gintoki, stop it!” A deeper voice. He recognised this one, too. With some effort, he turned his head and was promptly rewarded with the view of Takasugi somehow trying to hold back Gintoki - a funny sight regarding the fact that Takasugi was much smaller than his friend.
“Ahaha, thank you, Bakasugi, I-“ Now it was Gintoki who had to grab the dark-haired youth’s arm before he could sink his fist into Sakamoto’s stomach. It took both of them only a short while of wrestling with each other until they had finally calmed down.
Panting heavily, the two stood there facing each other. Somehow, it was hard to tell for Sakamoto just how much seriousness had been in their fight. Finally, Gintoki simply shrugged his shoulders. “Come on, you know it will likely just destroy the pitiful rest of what is left of his mind and I don’t know about you, but I feel absolutely no desire to care any more for this blabbering fool than already necessary.”
“Ahahahahaha, Kintoki, you’re hurting my feelings!” His friend didn’t even dignify this with an answer. Instead, he slumped down onto the wooden floor next to him whilst Takasugi sighed and turned towards the door.
“Well, looks like the idiot’s not going to die on us anytime soon, so I can actually get back to my troops and do something useful. Not like certain other people here...” He was out of the room before Gintoki could shoot back with an equally snarky remark.
“Gintoki...” Sakamoto lowered his voice when he finally remembered the question he had wanted to ask all along. “What about the man I brought back?”
“Dead.” Gintoki didn’t quite manage to look him into the eyes. “We’re not sure whether it was the blood loss or the cold that killed him in the end, but we only found his corpse. You were barely breathing yourself...”
“Ah...so I guess it was all for nothing, eh...”
Both of them went silent for a while. There was nothing more to be said. Sakamoto felt as if part of the cold from outside had settled in his bones. Of course, it had been such a ridiculous thing to believe he could save him...but to him, all these lives were still precious somehow.
He could see that it pained Gintoki too, even though he would never admit it. But more and more often, the hot fury and determination in those red eyes was replaced by a vague, sad emptiness. They both knew that this fight wouldn’t be going on forever.
“Oi, Kintoki, could you help me up?” Dragging himself out of the blankets and in an upright position was harder than he thought. His hands and feet were still tingling and his head kept spinning.
“Moron, what do you want to do?!” Despite the sharp tone in Gintoki’s voice, his grip on his arm was firm, but gentle.
“Ahahaha, it’s night already, isn’t it? I just wanted to have a look at the stars...”
Although Gintoki kept muttering something about ‘stupid idiots’ under his breath, he didn’t refuse to do what he had been asked for. Carefully, he supported his friend on the short way outside. Together, they sat down on the wooden walkway. Sakamoto’s instinct had been right; the night was beautiful. It was freezing, but the cold winter air was clear and the sky sprinkled with thousands upon thousands of stars.
Sakamoto leaned his head against the wooden beam next to him, never taking his eyes off the starry sky. He marvelled at the vastness of space. Those stars seemed like a promise to him, a promise that there were still things aside from this seemingly endless war. He felt Gintoki’s eyes on him, trying to guess his thoughts.
“Hey, Gintoki...what do you think is out there? Between all the stars, I mean?”
His friend snorted. “Probably more stars. And some darkness too, I guess. Why, what do you think?”
“Ahahahaha, I don’t know! But I would like to go there and have a look at some point in the future...”
Gintoki said nothing for a while. Then a faint smile crossed his face as he stood up. “Yeah, I guess you would...come on, we need to get back inside. It’s much too cold to be sitting around here for too long and you still haven’t fully recovered from your foolishness this morning.”
Sakamoto followed Gintoki’s suggestion. However, before he turned around completely, his eyes grazed over the graves on the lawn, now only visible as faint mounds underneath the snow. So many...too many. He wished they could change the world like they had once set out to do, but this was only their first winter together and already, the flame of his hope had started flickering. Looking at the graves reminded him of something else.
“Gintoki...what did you do with Yosuke’s body?” His friend stopped for a moment, nearly throwing Sakamoto off-balance, before he replied. He sounded coarse, with a quiet note of pain in his voice that Sakamoto had only heard a few times before.
“I’m sorry, Tatsuma. But we...left him there. The ground is frozen so we can’t dig any more holes. And if we would make a fire, there is a great possibility that the Amanto could spot us from their ships...” his voice trailed off.
Sakamoto was too tired, too disappointed, to react with a laugh and a jest like he would have done earlier, maybe half a year ago when all of them had still been full of hope. Instead, he said nothing, only let Gintoki take him back into the small room so that he could lie down again and sleep off the weakness and exhaustion.
***
“Hey, Kintoki, let’s go have a drink tonight.”
Sakamoto stood in the doorframe, waiting for a reply from his friend who was currently trying to sharpen his sword. Gintoki’s hands were shivering slightly, but he didn’t look up, completely immersed in his work.
Sakamoto frowned. That was unusual.
“Gintoki?” he asked more quietly. Slowly he stepped over to where the silver-haired samurai was sitting. Finally, he seemed to notice Sakamoto, since he stopped what he was doing, his hand hovering right above his sword. Carefully, Sakamoto put a hand on his shoulder. He could feel the other tense up at the sudden touch. Only then did Gintoki put down the sword and the whetstone he had been holding.
“I’m sorry.” His voice was unusually rough. Then he finally looked up. “What did you say?”
“I suggested that we should finish up those two bottles of sake I found the other day.”
Gintoki’s smile was only a shadow of what it had once been, but it was nonetheless real. “That’s probably a good idea,” he replied and got up.
“Hm.” Sakamoto just nodded. He didn’t wait for Gintoki to follow him as he went back to his room to get the very last stocks of alcohol he had hidden so carefully from everybody else. Tonight they needed them. Only a few moments after, his friend appeared in the doorway and he tossed him one of the two bottles. Gintoki could just about catch it before it smashed on the floor.
“Oi, Bakamoto, be careful!” he shouted.
“Ahahahaha, sorry...” Sakamoto turned around and pointed to door opening onto the inner courtyard of the building that served as their current retreat.
“Wanna go outside?”
Gintoki just nodded, but in his eyes was a spark of gratitude. They stepped into the night air which was still warm from the sunshine this afternoon. However, there was already an underlying note of coldness in the air. Winter would be coming soon. More then nine months had passed since the morning when Sakamoto had gone outside to search for one of their comrades who had gotten lost in the snow after a battle the night before. Sometimes, he still remembered how warm the cold had been shortly before he almost closed his eyes forever...
The two of them made their way into the adjacent forest, up a small hill overlooking the large building and the nearer surroundings. The moon was casting enough light on their path for them to be able to get to its top without stumbling or breaking any bones. Without speaking much, they sat down. Sakamoto pulled two sake cups out of his sleeve and started pouring the liquid. Gintoki took one of them and watched the ripples on the surface, waiting for his friend to pour his own drink. Then he lifted his cup in the direction of the graves in the lawn in front of their house, and quietly emptied it in a single go. Only then did he look over at Sakamoto.
“Thanks.” That was all he said.
It was that moment when Sakamoto realised just how much they had needed to get away and if only for a few moments. They hadn’t had a minute without worry since the battle two weeks ago. A great many lives had been lost in the attack on the old estate that had been their previous headquarters. And even more of them had gotten seriously hurt. Gintoki himself had been one of them, collapsing right after he had carried an unconscious Takasugi out of the burning building. It was almost a marvel that the two of them were still alive, much to Zura’s and his own relief. Only later they found out what had happened, how the two of them had fought an enemy from their past - and how they both paid a high price to defeat him: Takasugi loosing his left eye and both of them almost loosing their lives. Gintoki had once again proven his almost amazing abilities of self-recovery and was up and walking around again after only one week. Takasugi though...although he had been conscious for a while, he had now again succumbed to fever and they still had trouble stopping the bleeding from his eye.
The constant worry about him and their other wounded comrades was difficult to bear. They had other problems, too; winter was approaching fast and they were lacking in supplies - food, medicine, clothes, everything. They knew they wouldn’t be able to survive the next year like that. Takasugi might not even survive the next few days.
It was good to get away from it. Only some minutes, maybe an hour, that was all they needed. When they didn’t have to think about tomorrow, about death and wrong hopes. For a moment, Sakamoto felt a stab of guilt that he hadn’t invited Zura to come, too. But then, their friend had already been exhausted from taking care of the wounded and collapsed on his futon just a few minutes before Sakamoto felt the sudden need to run away.
He felt his gaze being drawn to the stars again. Recently, it had happened more and more often. Inside him was this urge to go away, and never come back again. A never ending curiosity what else there was to see in this world. He didn’t want to be holed up here forever, caught in a spiral of seeing all his friends die for the sake of a war they could not win any longer.
Gintoki noticed it, too. “Are you staring into the night sky again?” he asked.
“Ahahahaha, sorry.”
“Geez, what is it with you? Don’t you think it might be better to concentrate on what is close by?” Gintoki frowned. “Don’t tell me you’re really planning to leave...”
Sakamoto just remained silent. Suddenly, he didn’t have strength anymore to look into his friend’s eyes. Only now that Gintoki had voiced it he realised just how close he had come to the truth.
“I know I can’t hinder you and I won’t. But you know how devastated the others would be, right? Just promise me that you’re not going to do anything half-heartedly. Promise you’ll be...happy with whatever you do.”
“Ahahahaha...that doesn’t sound like you at all, Gintoki!”
“Shut up!” A fist went in the direction of Sakamoto’s face. He managed to catch it before it could connect with his chin, but as he did so, he was already laughing again. Maybe because he didn’t want Gintoki to see how much his words had affected him. Be happy...but how could he if he was forever torn apart between his friends and his longing to be somewhere else?
***
About two months later, winter was upon them again with full force. After several days of snowstorms even their last supply chains had been cut off and they were starving and freezing. The sick and weakened amongst them were the ones who were affected worst.
At some point, Sakamoto couldn’t stand it anymore. He didn’t want to be held up in their quarters forever, unable to do anything. Therefore, he took three of his comrades and together, they went out into the white to face the snow and cold. It was an almost suicidal idea, but they wanted to try and make it to the next village, to get hold of at least some kind of food or help.
The wind blew sharply, whipping snow into their faces and making them shiver from a cold which cut worse than a knife. They couldn’t see further than a few meters. After a few steps, Sakamoto already started regretting their choice. A hundred steps later and he hated himself for it. And another hundred steps later he didn’t care about anything anymore. They were getting lost quickly with no orientation whatsoever and soon, they finally decided to give up on their mission and make it back.
It was hopeless. They were completely lost. Slowly, Sakamoto started getting angry at himself. How could he have been so stupid? Why didn’t he wait longer, at least until the snowstorm was gone? How-
His thoughts were interrupted all of a sudden.
He could hear a muffled scream behind him, the terribly familiar sound of steel ripping through clothes, flesh and bone. Startled, he turned around as fast as possible only to see his worst fears come true. Later, he could never find any good explanation as to what exactly the Amanto patrol had been doing out there, whether they had been equally lost, had stumbled upon them by chance or had actually tried to ambush them. No matter the reason, however, they had come upon Sakamoto’s small group with the same ferociousness as the snowstorm itself.
Luckily for them, the patrol only consisted of two fighters, so theoretically, the four of them should have been at a great advantage. However, their attackers had surprise on their side and the first one of Sakamoto’s comrades got killed within seconds. The Amanto were stronger than them and somehow faster - maybe they weren’t affected by the cold so much as their human adversaries were. Or they were simply much better rested, well fed and much less plagued by thoughts of despair than them. It didn’t matter in the end.
Sakamoto drew his sword, blocked a falling blow aimed for his head and tried to step aside. The high snow cover made it difficult to move, and he almost tripped over his own feet and stumbled, barely avoiding a fall. Instead of skewering him, the next strike therefore only caught his left shoulder, carving a deep wound into his flesh. Sakamoto screamed in pain, but there was no time to worry, no time to deal with it. He brought his sword up just in time to redirect the other’s weapon, a sword similar to his own Katana, into a different direction. The swirling snow hindered his sight immensely and he didn’t have the time or strength to look out how his comrades were doing.
Another quick exchange of blows, then Sakamoto found an opening. He thrust his weapon towards his opponent and finally managed to slash his throat with a single strike. The gush of blood seemed unnaturally vivid, colouring his surroundings red for a single instant before spreading in the snow around him.
Drawing a deep breath, Sakamoto finally looked up and concentrated on what was going on around him. He could only see two of his three comrades. One of them, the first one to fall victim to the Amanto’s attack, lay in an unmoving shape on the ground. The dark stain slowly spreading around him told Sakamoto that he was most likely already dead or going to be so in a few moments, especially in this cold. The other man was engaged in a fight with the second Amanto, but it didn’t look too good. As Sakamoto was looking at him, his movements were getting slower and slower. Just before he could reach his friend, Sakamoto had to watch how the Amanto’s weapon, a heavy axe, shattered his breastplate and went deep into flesh and bone below. He was dead in an instant.
The Amanto himself was also wobbling - he must have taken at least one hit as well. He took a few steps in Sakamoto’s direction, but before he could reach him, he fell down into the snow. The violent outburst had not taken longer than a few moments, but Sakamoto felt even more exhausted than before and he could sense the pounding of his heart up in his throat. He had to look for his fourth man...but soon he realised just how fruitless such a task would be. He wanted to save his comrade, wanted the certainty if he was dead or not, but there was no reply to his shouting and he couldn’t wait forever.
A year ago, maybe he would have searched, no matter the danger for himself - like he had done that one morning that had almost cost his own life. But now, he had seen too many people get lost, he had seen too many of them die. He hadn’t stopped caring, no. Each death still weighed heavily on his heart. But he had lost his idealism, gradually swept away by the cruel stream of war and reality.
He had to get back, somehow. The wound at his shoulder was still bleeding and he could feel the warmth oozing out of him, turning into frozen red inside and outside. At the beginning, he slowly tried to retrace his steps, but he soon gave up - the snowstorm had quickly eradicated every trace of their four-man party. So he tried to rely on his meagre instinct to find his way back to the base. He had no idea if he was going in the right direction, but he had to try. He didn’t want to give up.
Seconds drew out into minutes and soon started feeling like hours as he stumbled through the snow. His vision slowly turned blurry, his heavy breathing being snatched away by the sharp wind. He lost every feeling for time. When he first glimpsed a shape different than those of trees or rocks in the distance, he thought that surely it was some kind of illusion, a trick played by his tired mind and body. However, the shape grew, became more and more humanoid until it finally turned into a real person.
It was Gintoki.
His silver hair and white haori almost became one with the snow and the words he was shouting were snatched away from his mouth by the wind without reaching Sakamoto. Frantically, his white-haired friend waved his arms. It only took him a few moments longer to catch up with him. Stiff fingers, almost blue from the cold, closed around his right arm. Sakamoto still didn’t entirely believe what he was seeing.
“Gintoki...”
“You idiot!” His friend was almost screaming into his ear. “What did you think you were doing? Where are the others? What-“ Only then he noticed the dark red stain on Sakamoto’s left shoulder. He frowned and looked up into the terrified eyes of his friend, his thoughts slowly piecing together what might have happened.
“Come.” He didn’t say anything else.
In the end, it was a close call. In a shape which was almost too familiar (as Gintoki couldn’t help to remark later as well) the two of them arrived back at the old house which served as their temporary retreat. Sakamoto shivered violently and the blood loss only made things worse. It took him several days to recover and even after a week, he was still feeling weak. They never found the fourth person of his party or even the corpses of those that were dead.
His friends were furious. Sakamoto could understand why; he didn’t even know himself what kind of madness had driven them to go out after all. But he felt that it was his responsibility what had happened and those three lives were weighting particularly heavy on his mind. Without Gintoki and an incredible amount of luck he would have been lost, too.
At some point, about three or four weeks after the incident, Gintoki told him what had happened. Apparently, they had all gotten worried and he was the one who had offered to go and search for his friends in the end. The thought that Gintoki had gotten himself into such danger just because of him only made things worse. It only strengthened the belief within Sakamoto that there was no place for him in this war anymore. All he could do was to send even more of his comrades into a meaningless death.
But still he stayed on.
The final push came the next year, when the hard winter was finally coming to an end. Forced to by their dwindling numbers and resources, the remaining Joui had finally decided to bet it all on a single attack. It was a hard and long battle, one which only few of them survived. Although they had managed to kill off all of the Amanto sent against them, their victory came at much too high a price. They were almost wiped out.
To make things worse, this time it was Zura who was heavily wounded. When he looked into Gintoki’s eyes, Sakamoto could see the worry and the hurt in them, almost choking him. It was enough, he decided. A few weeks after the battle, when it was clear that Zura would survive, he finally made his decision.
***
“Hey Gintoki, I’ve decided.”
They were sitting on the roof of the old farmhouse they were currently living in. It was a brilliant, clear night and the stars shone down with a soothing brightness. Sakamoto had his eyes fixed on them, had them give him the strength to finally tell somebody about the idea he had nurtured in his head for so long.
“Hm?”
The silver-haired samurai was lying on his back. Although he had his eyes half closed, Sakamoto knew that he was listening.
“I’m going to space.”
Gintoki didn’t reply, but strangely enough, Sakamoto couldn’t feel disappointment coming from him. Maybe his friend had realised it already. So he proceeded in explaining why, telling him that he wouldn’t be able to watch any more of their friends die, that he wanted to find a much more peaceful way for humans and Amanto to coexist. If they weren’t able to expel them from their planet, then they might as well benefit. It was the truth, though only a part of it. He didn’t mention how the stars were calling him and how the call was getting stronger every day. He didn’t mention his belief that that there was much more waiting for him than just dying in a pointless war. Maybe because he knew that Gintoki wouldn’t understand the former and likely only laugh about the latter.
The samurai at his side only listened.
When Sakamoto was finished, he only had a single question.
“Have you told the others?”
“Ahahahaha, no way! You know, I wouldn’t be able to stand the look in Zura’s eyes if I told him. And Takasugi would probably get so angry that he’d try to cut me down right on the spot. No, I think it’s going to be easier this way...”
That made his friend smile.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right. But still, they’ll be pretty hurt you know...”
Sakamoto remained quiet. He knew that Gintoki was right, but in his head, he had weighed all the arguments against each other a thousand times and still come to the same conclusion. He needed to leave.
This night, he was barely able to sleep. So he and Gintoki continued sitting on the roof, not always talking, but somehow savouring the last hours of their strange companionship. At some point, faint snoring next to him told Sakamoto that Gintoki had finally fallen asleep. He smiled. It was a trademark of his friend that he could sleep anywhere if he was just tired enough, even on the hard, uncomfortable tiles of the roof beneath him.
Sakamoto laughed quietly. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the same abilities as his friend did, but he wouldn’t be able to sleep much anyway. Finally making his decision had filled him with a sense of tingling excitement about what the next days and weeks would bring. Strangely enough, at the same time a certain calm had now settled upon him too, sweeping away the dreadful uncertainty of the last weeks.
Carefully, trying not to wake anybody, he slid down from the roof and tiptoed around the rooms to gather up his few belongings. He wanted to be gone at the first glimpse of dawn so that he wouldn’t risk running into anybody else. It would only make things more difficult.
He spent the last few hours at the house dozing off in a quiet corner, but never fully asleep. Shortly before dawn, when the stars slowly winked out and the first faint glow of light appeared on the horizon, he cast a last glance around. Then he stepped outside and stood in front of the graves for a while, watching their shadows slowly getting shorter as the sun rose. He hadn’t planned staying
for so long, but somehow he found himself rethinking all the times he had spent with his comrades, the living as well as the dead. Before he shut the door to his past, he felt the need to relive it once again.
When he finally turned around to go, the sun had already started to rise above the horizon. Just when he stepped out of the gate, he heard a voice to his right. Turning around, he saw, to his surprise, Gintoki standing there.
Sakamoto laughed. He should have known.
He tried to convince Gintoki to come to space with him, but he knew his friend wouldn’t agree. And somehow, it was better like that. As he told him, it was easier to leave if he knew that the white demon would still fight at the side of the ones he left behind. Maybe, with Gintoki being with them, the war would not kill all of them after all. It was a reassuring thought. Maybe his friend would be able to find his peace as well. Maybe they would see each other again at some point...
When he finally set off, he did so without looking back.
The stars were waiting for him.