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For the handful of days directly after the incident, it’s the only thing Sakamoto says whenever he refers to it. “It’s been documented,” the camp’s only physician says, checking the bandages to make sure they’re tight but not suffocating, “that these sort of injuries can be healed up right as they were before. But I must admit that isn’t very common. Though I suppose these sort of highly specific injuries are also not very common. I’ll do my best to return full range of movement and grip back to your right hand, but you must understand we’re waging war and I don’t have every resource with me and - rest it. Try not to move it if you don’t absolutely have to.”
Sakamoto laughs, his voice ringing and ricocheting against the medical tent’s walls. “I totally deserve it! I’m so reckless!” The physician carefully wraps sturdy sticks as a makeshift brace against Sakamoto’s wrist and does it slower with explanation when Katsura and Gintoki demand to know how to do it in the case of the physician’s untimely demise. “Ah, I hope that doesn’t give me a splinter! But I would deserve that too.”
Sakamoto says it when he drops his bowl of dinner rations because his left hand isn’t used to the sudden shifts in weight while operating alone. He says it when his right hand falters while they’re trying to set up camp and Takasugi pushes him out of the way impatiently, the rain already dampening the entire squad’s morale after walking miles and not yet halfway to their destination. He says it when the physician dies from an infected wound and Katsura is the only one with steady enough hands to make sure his temporary braces are straight. He says it when Gintoki is restless and looking for someone to spar with but Katsura is in deep discussion about strategy with their generals and Takasugi is going over formations with the Kiheitai and he tosses Sakamoto a wooden sword before remembers and his eyes glaze over with horror at himself before they fill with exasperated anger.
“Stop saying that,” Gintoki snarls, gripping Sakamoto’s shoulders and shoving him into a nearby tree. The sound makes Takasugi look over. “Quit it. It’s not funny anymore. Takasugi doesn’t even react when you say that.” Takasugi had since stopped clicking his tongue at Sakamoto, setting for staring into the fire so intently, he could have burned the image of orange flames right into his eyes. “Shut up. Shut up. You did not deserve that.”
“I didn’t,” Sakamoto says quietly. He hangs his head, but because he’s a little taller than Gintoki, Gintoki sees the way his eyes dull for a moment. His left hand clenches into a fist and his right hand twitches and stays still from the brace. “I didn’t deserve that at all.”
[=]
Sakamoto isn’t allowed to fight in battles anymore, as expected. He laughs when Gintoki ties weights to his ankles and takes away his sword and says he doesn’t like fighting anyway. But he swallows and feels his stomach turn when he stays with the injured men and messengers who stay in the rear, elevated, so they can run to tell of a tragic loss to the capital. They can’t stay out in the open because all their supplies are at the camp and they can’t afford to be ambushed if the Amanto figure out this weak point and attack. But sometimes Sakamoto undoes the weights and slinks off to watch the battles. He recognizes the attack patterns of the Kaheitai and Katsura’s spot between the frontline and the heart of the charge. Of course, he recognizes Gintoki by his hair, but if he watches for too long, it becomes harder to pick it apart from the rest.
He doesn’t fight, because he does hold onto that hope that his wrist and hand will get better. His family’s disposition is fairly lucky. He isn’t dead weight either - he’s always excelled at bargaining and turning a profit, so he focuses all his energy on selling the Joui cause and why people ought to invest and he keeps food in everyone’s stomachs and weapons sharp and replaced when they break.
“Here, let me do that,” Katsura says, holding out his hands. His hands are blistered from holding his sword for so long. Sakamoto stares at him with an armful of laundry. “You shouldn’t get your bandages wet; you’ll get yourself infected.”
“You shouldn’t get blisters wet either,” Sakamoto points out, but Katsura takes everything from him and goes off to the river on his own. Sakamoto flexes his fingers of his right hand slightly; the gash has been covered with a raw, pink skin. His hand still tingles if he moves it too fast. He goes back to camp and finds Takasugi scolding one of his foot soldiers.
“You leave yourself wide open,” Takasugi was saying. “Your stance and posture are so unprepared. You’re only looking forward. You’ve got to be cognizant of your surroundings, or you’ll get killed. Is that what you want?”
“No,” the foot soldier says.
“Here, let me show you how you should be standing.” He looks around for someone to help demonstrate and his eyes fall on Sakamoto and linger for a moment. Sakamoto beams and trots over.
“I’ll do it! Loud man coming through...I’ll stand here being an overzealous patriot and you pretend to be a big, bad, scary alien who wants to suck my blood!”
“No,” Takasugi says, looking away. “I need someone else.”
“Why? I’m giving you so much opportunity. I’m so big, I’m giving you so much more space to hit.” This elicits some chuckles from the men around them but Takasugi’s mouth doesn’t move.
“I need someone who can hold a sword,” Takasugi says bluntly. “Otherwise how can I show them how to parry attacks from behind?”
For a moment, Sakamoto doesn’t really process this, and then Takasugi instantly reaches for the sword around his waist, hesitating because the man before him is a friend, not foe. Sakamoto turns on his heel and stalks off to be alone without saying anything else.
When he’s sure he’s away from camp and far enough to not be overheard, Sakamoto opens his mouth and lets out a roar. Some of the meeker men who quiver on the battlefield cover their ears when he laughs, because he’s got a loud laugh. Sakamoto hears rustles as critters scurry away in the underbrush. He yells again, but with a little less energy this time, and kicks at a little shrub that did him no wrong. He doesn’t even know the source of his sudden red-hot anger; at himself, because his body is mortal and values others before himself, or at Takasugi for saying something so tactless or at the Amanto for putting him in this situation or at his father who was too old to be properly drafted. He feels so useless, although he know he isn’t. He’s a pacifist, he is, he hates fighting and killing others puts a bad taste in his mouth, but his inability to use a sword and stand alongside his comrades makes it feel so endless. A young sapling is rooted before him and he grabs at it and means to snuff it out - but his right hand screams when he closes his fingers in a certain way and he immediately loosens his grip. Then, in fury that he lets the pain get in the way, he tries again and the pain shoots up his arm.
Gintoki doesn’t say anything, he just yells sound and grabs him and drags him away from the innocent sapling. “You’re going to tear your muscles again, you stupid lug!” he hollers into Sakamoto’s ear. Sakamoto wants to tell him he’s stupid, because the things that control his hand aren’t really muscles, it’s tendons and ligaments but Gintoki didn’t go to school so he doesn’t know that, because he’s just a stupid country boy who only knows how to fight.
“Let go of me,” Sakamoto growls, and he tries to shake Gintoki off. Gintoki’s grip is strong, and that infuriates Sakamoto more. They tousle for a bit and Sakamoto knows he’s being frenzied, going against all the teachings of hand-to-hand combat from the dojo back in Tosa, but he can’t think straight. He gets Gintoki on his back and starts hitting him, a sick satisfaction curling in the pit of his stomach above his groin just by connecting with Gintoki’s face. But he realizes that Gintoki isn’t fighting back, because paring the blows could possibly dislocate Sakamoto’s wrist, especially with the uneven ways he’s moving his arms. His right hand isn’t even really in a fist and he holds back on his blows because it makes his entire right arm smart. He stops and looks down at Gintoki, sporting a bruise on his left cheek and his jaw set.
“Are you satisfied?” Gintoki snarls.
Sakamoto stumbles to his feet, unsteady, and Gintoki jumps up immediately to catch him so he doesn’t fall and rely on his hands to ease his fall and the gesture makes Sakamoto run away and when he’s sure he’s far enough that not even Gintoki will follow him, he begins to cry.
[=]
They give him space after this. Sakamoto doesn’t even think they’re trying too hard to be delicate; the smaller skirmishes with the Amanto are coming at a greater frequency and he’s doing his best with the camp to keep things in order so when the men come back, drenched in blood and dead tired, they have less things to worry about. He doesn’t watch battles anymore. Instead, he sits on the ground and stares up at the sky.
His grandmother used to say all of man’s misfortunes came from the displeasure of one’s ancestors. Nothing was finite except death, and it was all messages from beyond the grave to keep one in check. Ancestors paved the path to get one to where one was at in life, so they had an investment in the present. Oh ancestors, Sakamoto thought, make me better. Or if he couldn’t get better, he was good with his hands, so inspire him to make a weapon that he could use with his left hand or with one finger so the others wouldn’t look at him with pity. He fantasized about portable cannons; with one arm out of commission, he wasn’t a good gunner, but if there were smaller cannons that fired the same sort of power, wouldn’t that be perfect? The sky was so vast, so perhaps it existed somewhere. The Amanto came from space - there was so much left to explore, so such things must exist.
“Stop daydreaming,” Takasugi snaps at him from behind. He’s covered in blood and his entire left sleeve is torn. His arm is bloody but not torn in the way Sakamoto’s wrist is. Sakamoto feels a little better he doesn’t wish it spitefully on Takasugi; the boy would probably commit seppuku than be dead weight. Sakamoto washes Takasugi’s arm and bandages him better and Takasugi lets him.
[=]
As weeks passed and they picked up a new physician from a town they passed through - Katsura made pains to make Sakamoto see any specialist that worked in any area they traveled in, giving up old trinkets to pay the consultation fee (Sakamoto pretended he didn’t see Katsura hand over the ring with his father’s crest just like everyone pretended they didn’t notice when Sakamoto struggled with his utensils after insisting he didn’t need to be fed, because a man’s pride was to be considered) - who said all Sakamoto needed now was time. He could still move his fingers. A full recovery was in the realm of possibility, but only if he made sure he didn’t injure himself in the process. The pink skin was still bright against the rest of his skin, darker from summers in Tosa. Nowadays, it seemed he thought about his family home more often.
(“We can’t abandon him. I won’t let us,” Katsura says. “Have you lost your mind? He’s your friend.”
“It’s because he’s my friend I’m doing this,” Takasugi mutters. “It’s for his own good. What good is it to follow us around like that? It’s like dangling food in front of a starving man. He doesn’t like to fight and he likes to hang around the rearguard but you know if you were in his place, you wouldn’t be able to watch people die around you without doing a thing about it. Think about his feelings for once, you stupid wig. He doesn’t even have fighting the Amanto to distract him from the fact that his friends are dying around him.”)
“Ah yes,” the merchant says, bowing. “The Laughing Soldier. I’ve heard many things about you.”
“Have you?” Sakamoto says, bursting out in a laugh that sounded hollow even to him. “Good things, I hope!”
“You do business with blood money,” the merchant leers but he winks. “Lucky for you, money is money for me, bloodied or not. What are you looking for today?”
“Swords.” He brings a thick, deep sack to carry them all in, with wrappings to conceal that he was transporting weapons to camp. Stealth in handling his wares was coming naturally to him to avoid giving their placement away. “Just had a pretty awful battle and we’ve got chipped steel and broken hilts! War is just too rough.”
“Tell me about it,” the merchant hums. He brings Sakamoto to the back of the shop and opens some of the many crates he has. There are glimmering swords, looking almost mass produced.
“Where do you get these?” Sakamoto asks, inspecting them. “They seem very heavy to transport through regular channels.”
“Space,” the merchant says. Sakamoto looks at him from the tone of his voice. “We know the Amanto come from space, but there are some brave guys who have gone out and found some high quality steel in other areas. Don’t you think some of your swords lately seem sharper and shinier than before? And the best part? Big guys like me float out there.” The merchant picks up a sword. “After a while, I’d think this thing is heavy because I’m not used to using a sword, but you know? In space, you can even hold boulders because there’s nothing bringing them down to your feet.”
“Weightless, eh?” Sakamoto says.
[=]
“I’m going into space,” Sakamoto tells Gintoki.