Chapter Text
The first time Katsura encounters an Amanto stun-shield, he literally doesn't know what hit him. One second he's bringing his sword down on a slimy-skinned amphibious alien who raises one scrawny arm in useless defense—the next second there's a glittering flash and a crackling snap, and Katsura is lying on his back on the ground, staring up at a blue sky, its cloudless reaches marred by gray gunships. How ugly, he thinks abstractly, as his body helplessly quivers and judders in agony. His sword has fallen beside him, but he can't pick it up; he can't lift his arm, or even close his trembling fingers into a fist.
The Amanto looms over him, his shadow blocking the sky. The creature's wide mouth gapes in a conqueror's grin uglier even than the ships, as he picks up Katsura's katana, raises the blade over Katsura's chest. Katsura can do nothing, not so much as voice a protest, with his teeth clamped rigidly shut and his pulse in his ears skipping and stuttering. His vision's going black, fading in and out with that uncertain heartbeat. The last thing he thinks he sees is a glimpse of white—a cloud drifting across the sky to blot out the ugliness of the ships; a storm cloud, stained red with blood and edged with sharpened steel, and its howling gale winds seem somehow to shape his name, "—Zura!"
That obnoxious excuse for a nickname is the next thing Katsura becomes aware of—"Zura, don't do this, come on, Zura, start breathing already, get your heart beating again, damn it, Zura—" and every repetition of the bastardized epithet is punctuated by a blow to his chest, hard enough to jar his bones, though not hard enough to hurt; everything's numb, and he thinks it might not be so bad to rest for a while in that comfortable oblivion.
Then the litany of curses cuts off as a warm mouth is sealed over his, and Katsura nearly chokes from the shock—chokes and coughs and catches his breath, a great deep gasp that draws life back into his body as air fills his lungs.
With life returns the pain, tingling and burning. It hurts like hell—but when Katsura blinks open his eyes to see Gintoki, rocked back on his heels with a relieved grin splitting his cheeks under the dirt and blood, somehow it's worth it.
For a while Katsura tells himself that it is no more than the camaraderie of the battleground. All of them now are closer than ever they were, marching and fighting and sleeping and surviving together. He and Gintoki, Takasugi and Sakamoto, four men only just past being raw boys, folded together like charcoal and iron ore forged into a blade, the ground steel edge of the last Joui revolutionaries.
With the troops, the lost samurai and peasant volunteers, they usually try to maintain some of the formal distance of authority, necessary when half the men they lead are older than any of them. Polite language, honorifics and titles. Gintoki sees the least merit in such efforts, calls it nonsense and doesn't bother; but he's set apart anyway, with his white clothes and white hair and the legend of the white demon, which grows more unbelievable with every day and every battle.
But he's only Shiroyasha when they're addressing the men; he's only ever Gintoki to the three of them. And from the troops Katsura is used to the respectful Katsura-san that he accepts instead of a rank, but Takasugi and Sakamoto both call him Zura, no matter how many times he corrects them. Katsura honestly can't remember any more if they got it from Gintoki, or if he got it from one of them.
If they've set a wedge of leadership between themselves and the rest of the militia, then that same wedge is serving to drive the four of them closer together, make them depend on one another.
Katsura wakes up in the latest cramped hovel they've taken shelter in with his leg numb from his thigh being used as a pillow, Sakamoto still flopped there snoring, and Katsura doesn't push him off, instead rests his hand on his friend's curly hair and allows him a few minutes' more sleep. He bathes in a freezing mountain stream with Takasugi, an accidental splashing turning into a naked wrestling match, both of them struggling to push one another's heads under and cursing in outraged shrieks when they break the surface, breathless and warmed by the exertion.
So they all are with each other now. And yet when Katsura sits shoulder to shoulder beside Gintoki before the stew pot, when they both reach for the same ladle and Gintoki's fingers accidentally fold over his, an electrifying charge surges through Katsura, absurd and astonishing, setting his nerves tingling as if he's run into another Amanto stun field.
Katsura stumbles as he runs over the deserted battlefield, blinded by the darkness of nightfall and the ashes stinging in his eyes. The latest Amanto weapon lit fire to the ground itself, charring the very earth under their feet; he makes his way by the orange glow of those still-smoldering embers.
"Shiroyasha!" the men behind him are shouting, and Katsura should stop them; it's dangerous to make such noise. The Amanto forces have retired for now (Katsura knows not to consider it a retreat; this reprieve is only because their alien foes don't consider them worth the effort to battle through the night) but they still might have scouts about. They shouldn't draw attention to themselves—but after searching for half an hour the men are starting to get desperate.
And Katsura cannot chastise them, because he feels the same desperation, clawing his way through corpses and ash, seeking blood-stained white. Finding nothing, he finally abandons caution to holler, "Gintoki!" echoing over the battlefield.
It proves worth the risk, because there's a noise behind him, a shuffling rustle and a faint, "...Yeah?" Katsura turns, seeking that hoarse voice. The slain Amanto giant to his left moves, and he draws his sword; but no, the monster's not resurrected—something underneath the corpse is pushing it up.
Katsura puts his shoulder to the massive body, heaves to roll it over. He slips in its rotting blood, falls over and lands nearly on top of a squirming supine figure, who coughs and asks, "That you, Zura?"
"No, not Zura, it's Katsura!" Katsura pushes himself to his hands and knees. " Are you all right?"
The Shiroyasha is more black than white now, clothes and skin smeared in alien blood, but he's conscious and whole, peering at Katsura through the dimness. "Better now that I'm not being smothered. This guy stinks."
The corpse's stench is indeed strong, the stomach-churning wrong reek of alien guts, but Katsura barely registers it, over the grit of ash in his throat and the pounding of his heart, the damp chill of Gintoki's skin when Katsura grabs his arm. "You idiot! Taking on the whole squadron of these giants yourself—are you mad? We couldn't see you in the fracas; we didn't know what had happened, if you'd even survived—"
"Eh, I'm okay," Gintoki says, blinking at him in that vaguely puzzled way Gintoki gets sometimes, when people express concern for him. Like he can't quite make sense of it, though Katsura knows it's less because he doesn't understand, more because he'd rather not. Usually Katsura just lets that willful ignorance pass as Gintoki being Gintoki, but tonight, kneeling here in this stinking ash and mud, it pisses him off.
"We were scared," Katsura tells him. When Gintoki tries to look away, making like he's trying to brush the black bloodstains off his clothes, Katsura grabs him by his jacket and hauls him close, so Gintoki has to meet his eyes. "I was scared," Katsura says. "How many men did we lose this time? I don't want to lose you, too."
Gintoki stares at him, eyes wide and slightly crossed from his proximity, their noses almost touching. "I—" he starts, then changes it to, "Sorry, Zura, that's—"
"It's Katsura!" Katsura insists, "even if you're an idiot, you can get that right—" and he tries to hold onto his anger, but he can feel Gintoki's breath fanning his cheeks—Gintoki, breathing and alive, strong enough to survive even his own colossal reckless idiocy, and Katsura is so grateful for that boon, that single blessing on this scorched battlefield, that he can hardly breathe himself.
He grabs Gintoki, yanks him into a tight embrace, cheek to cheek and chins on one another's shoulders. Gintoki shifts but doesn't pull away, and after a moment his arms come up to wrap around Katsura's waist, holding him back. As if he wants this, too; as if he needs to know Katsura's there and alive, as much as Katsura needs to know he is.
"Shiroyasha! Katsura-san!" Cries floating to their ears across the burning earth, and they break apart. Katsura turns his face as they do, so his lips brush Gintoki's cheek as they separate. Gintoki doesn't notice, calling, "Oi, over here!" as he waves.
In spite of the drafty night Katsura's face is flushed warm. He looks away, towards their comrades running to them, as Gintoki clasps his hands and they pull one another to their feet, leveraging up in an unsteady seesaw. Gintoki's not entirely fine after all; he's limping enough to lean on Katsura as they rejoin the others to make camp for the night.
Katsura ignores it, of course. Even if it weren't so patently ridiculous a thing—this is Gintoki, of all people. Gintoki who he's known since they were both snot-nosed brats; lazy foolish irresponsible Gintoki, with his messy hair and sleepy eyes and startling unexpected strength. But even if it were some lovely young maiden with long smooth hair and a pretty smile, such distraction is unwelcome, unwanted. Not now, not when they have so much else to fight for.
Katsura fights for his country, for the ideals their teacher impressed on them; in the Amanto's new world, if the only place for courage and honor and loyalty and dignity is on the battlefield, then Katsura has no choice to be on that battlefield. So, too, is Takasugi here, though for him it's more personal; not only about what the Amanto are taking from the samurai, but about what has been taken from him. Sakamoto fights because he loves freedom and hates unfairness, because he wants everyone to live their lives as he does, true to their own ambitions.
And Shiroyasha fights for the souls of Japan's samurai, so they tell the new recruits; he stands with the Joui army for love of their bravery and strength.
But Sakata Gintoki, Katsura knows, fights because they fight, because he can protect them with his sword, Takasugi and Sakamoto and Katsura himself, and all the others who join them. If they all walked off the battlefield, then Gintoki would walk with them, and never once look back.
Until they do, Gintoki will keep fighting with them. And more and more, Katsura finds himself grateful for that—not only because they need Shiroyasha's power, or because Gintoki's saved his life, but because it somehow strengthens Katsura just to know Gintoki's there, as ridiculous as that may be.
If Gintoki's noticed it, if Gintoki feels anything like it, he gives no sign. Not like Gintoki ever does; Katsura can read him best of all of them, and he's still at sea, more than not. The thoughts behind those rust-red eyes are as illegible as the messy characters he scratches in the sand when they sketch out battle plans—
"What is this," Katsura asks, "whose name kanji is that scribble meant to be?"
And Gintoki snaps back, "Well, excuse me, Zura, for studying swordplay while you were brushing up on your calligraphy!" and Katsura retorts, "It's Katsura, and I don't recall you ever studying anything," and the men gathered around are staring at them, distracted from the tension of the plans, shaken out of their rut of fear by the petty pointless bickering.
And Gintoki tilts his head to wink at Katsura under his silver fringe of bangs, mission accomplished, and Katsura feels his undisciplined heart skip a beat in his chest.
They knew it was risky, but the opportunity was too great not to go for it—a chance to take down one of the Amanto war fleet's flagships while it was grounded; they had to try. There was little time to decide, even less to confer; Sakamoto and Gintoki were both off on other missions, but Katsura and Takasugi and the squad leaders were in agreement.
Not until they've snuck aboard the ship, not until Katsura has lead his small team of explosive experts almost to the engine room, do they realize that the chance was in fact a trap. Bait set out for them, and they dove for it like starving rats. He tries to turn the squad around, tries at least to send warning to those troops making a distraction outside, covering them.
He fails. From the ship's bay they see the laser canons—the laser canons their intel claimed were decommissioned for repairs—glow brilliant red. The beams they fire are invisible, save for scarlet glints where the smoke over the field catches the light—invisible until they hit, and then there's flame and blood and screaming cut sickeningly short, as three hundred men are chopped down as if by a single sweep of a giant crimson axe.
Katsura's throat is raw from the smoke, from his useless shouts of warning, too late to save any of the troops massacred outside. He knew the names of more than half of them, good brave men, all samurai in spirit if not always in family or education.
His squad is surrounded, the uniformed Amanto crew leering at them behind their fearsome weapons, closing in. "Katsura-san!" Yukito yells, the youngest of them, fearlessly throwing himself before Katsura with his katana raised, "go, you have to escape, we'll guard your—"
The blast from the Amanto rifle hits him in the eye, and he falls, silenced. Yukito whose hands were so clever with the making of bombs that he had to come on this operation, however dangerous it might have been. Yukito whose brother had died in this war before him, Yukito who Katsura had trained personally when he refused to leave the lines, for all his scrawny fourteen years—
"Run, Katsura-san!" the rest of the squad is crying, but Katsura is beyond hearing them. His sword in his hands is wet with Amanto blood, its metallic tang coating his throat, choking him with every breath, but it's not enough. He can never take from them all the lives that they've taken—but he can try.
It might be minutes later, or an hour, or a day, when the Kiheitai storm the ship. Katsura is the only one of his squad left standing; whether any of them still live he doesn't know. He doesn't even realize that the new figure before him isn't Amanto, only that it's not one of the men under him; he brings down his sword and is vaguely surprised when the blade is caught on another katana.
"Damn it, Zura, it's me!" Takasugi yells from behind his sword, words coming to him as if spoken underwater, distant and indistinct, meaningless mumbles. "We've got an opening, we've got to get out of here, put down the damn sword—" but Katsura can't by then. His right arm was broken; the only way he can maintain a grip on his katana is to keep his fists locked tight around the hilt. And there's more Amanto coming, fresh soldiers flooding into the bay, bringing more weapons, more murder, and Katsura spins round to charge them.
Takasugi's never had much patience. He balls up his fist and slams it into Katsura's jaw, knocking him over; his head slams hard into the deck when he collapses, and everything goes black.
Katsura doesn't really wake up; his eyes slide open, enough to make out blurry shapes moving around him, and voices drift through his ears, but nothing connects and he is connected to nothing. His legs don't move when he tries to stand, and his fingers don't open. He's vaguely aware that his body's being lifted, that hands are touching him, cleaning and bandaging his wounds, setting the fractured ulna. The click of bone being snapped into place ought to hurt, but it doesn't, as if it's happening to someone else.
He thinks that maybe he ought to feel lucky, but he doesn't; he doesn't feel anything.
"Katsura-san," some of the voices say, but he doesn't have a way to respond to them even if he wanted to, and he doesn't; he wants for nothing now. "Zura," someone else is saying, "come on, Zura," but that's not even his name.
It's like that for a while, and then it's quiet for a while, and then he hears, "Zura," again, which is still not his name, but for some reason he finds himself listening anyway—
"What do you mean, you broke Zura? Takasugi, you son of a bitch, what'd you—"
"I was trying to save the idiot's life! He just hit his stupid head—"
"Come on, Kintoki, Bakasugi, this isn't helping Zura—"
"How am I supposed to help him anyway, do I look like a doctor? What was the point in dragging me here if the guy's not even awake—"
"But if you're here, if he can hear you in his sleep, maybe..."
"Why me?"
"Yeah, why him? You think Gintoki can annoy him into waking up?"
"Something like that...you can try, at least, right, Kintoki? Since we've already—"
"Yeah, of course I'll try, but I don't know what... " There was silence again, and then, "Zura? Yo, Zura, anybody home? ...Or not...look, you can wake up anytime now. It's safe. We're at a new place, hasn't been tracked yet. And Takasugi's gone outside to take out his mood on the new recruits, if you're worried about the bastard throwing another sucker punch...you want me to pop him one for you? Since you're not going to be able to use that arm for a while. I'd be happy to take care of it, just say the word...
"Okay, yeah, I know, no fighting in the ranks. Have to set a good example. Wake up and chew us out for it, will you?"
Katsura can't move his hand, but he's aware of the fingers which grasp his, squeezing, the warmth of that hand.
" Come on, Zura, wake up already. Don't got all night here, Gin-san needs his sleep, too. ...Seriously, Zura, weren't you the one who told me you were scared? You think you're the only one who feels that way? It's unfair of you to pull this shit on us, you hypocrite.
"...Come on, Zura, please," Gintoki says, and Katsura feels a warm pressure against his forehead, something tickling his skin.
He opens his eyes, blinks back pale strands of hair falling in his eyes. "Gintoki?" Katsura asks, his voice thready and rasping. He knows he's awake by the pounding of his head, the throbbing of his arm.
"Zura—?" Gintoki raises his head from where he's rested his forehead against Katsura's, blinks down at his face.
Katsura can't help himself, even with his body bruised and aching; he lifts up his head and presses his lips to Gintoki's, as if to prove his reasons for awakening, as if to make the pain mean something.
Gintoki is still blinking at him confusedly when Katsura lets his aching head fall back on the bedroll. "Um, Zura, you've mixed up the order of your fairy tales," he says at last. "The handsome prince is supposed to be the one kissing the princess. Before she wakes up."
"Not a princess, it's Katsura," Katsura informs him, closing his eyes, but not letting go of the hand still holding his.