Sharp Wings; 鋭い翼 [Gintama]

2 | Comic relief is useless if you don't know how to write them properly

II

SHINPACHI and Kagura looked at each other as they both thought of the same thing.

"What the hell is this story about again?"

It had already been a week and a half since their encounter with the Haruasame pirates. After Katsura and Gintoki saved Kagura and Shinpachi, the two older males went off to look for the other hostages that were present inside the ship aside from the two teens. Shinpachi and Kagura followed closely behind them. As soon as the two older males saw who was inside that small room, they both just stared at each other and kept quiet as they picked up the person inside and went to the room next to it. There, they saw the man that Shinpachi saw when he groggily woke up for the first time that they were inside the ship. Because of the severity of the wounds and bruises of the other kidnapped people, the two hostages were rushed to the hospital with Katsura and Gintoki keeping quiet the whole time.

Since the Shinsengumi was the one investigating the Harusame incident, one way or another, they would find out that there were hostages inside the ship that sank a week and a half ago. It would be troublesome if they found out that Gintoki and Katsura were involved in the incident, so they forced the hospital to discharge the two hostages and made them settle inside the Shimura household for treatment from Shinpachi's sister. Tae was skeptical, but she didn't have the heart to refuse to treat two heavily injured people.

After the incident, the Yorozuya trio spent their time at the Shimura household, waiting for the heat from the Shinsengumi to die down. Gintoki never left the compound ever since they brought the two rescued hostages inside the house. Shinpachi and Kagura have a guess as to why, but they couldn't exactly confirm it because the two older males were keeping their mouths shut about it.

"Otae-dono, how are they?" Katsura asked the young woman when he came to visit, three weeks after the incident.

"I'm sorry, Katsura-san, but I'm afraid neither of them are budging." Tae said with pity in her voice as she looked behind her, eyeing the spot where a small girl laid on her back, her body snug inside a futon on the floor.

"I see." Katsura replied in a low voice. "Might you know where I would find Gintoki?" he asked.

Tae nodded. "He might be at the back, under the lone tree there. He's been there since this morning." The young woman smiled when Katsura gave a slight bow and walked off towards the back of the house. At the same time, Kagura came inside the room with towels on top of her arms.

"I never saw Zura and Gin-chan act like how they're acting right now." The young girl said as she passed off the towels to Tae.

"Well, you're not the only one." The older replied as she and Kagura went inside the room that housed another girl. "You said that they've been like that ever since they saw her, right?" Tae asked as she gestured to the girl sleeping under the futon.

"Yeah." Kagura nodded. "They're not telling us anything at all, either." She pouted as she handed Tae a small bowl of water.

"Those two are both mysterious people, Kagura-chan. Gin-san even more so than Katsura-san." Tae smiled she soaked the towel with the water and began wiping it on the girl's skin. She brushed away the girl's very long teal hair away from her very pale, almost white skin. It was scarily similar to Kagura's own complexion, if not whiter – if that even is possible.

Kagura huffed. "They should really tell us who she is. It's hard to not refer to her by her name." She pouted, before she stood up with Tae after a while of wiping the girl's skin and redoing her bandages. "Besides, she's supposed to be the main character, but it looks as though we're still the main ones – I mean, not that I'm complaining, or anything."