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The first time it happened, the child was scouring through the mountain of corpses. His sight went black, and when he woke up he was on another battlefield. A recently finished one at that.
The child blinked and shrugged. One field of corpses is no different from other fields for him, just another chance for him to survive day after day. As he went to check the corpses for their unused rations, several footsteps came closer. The child clenched tighter to his sword.
“Ǵ̷̡̡͍̯̘̱̉͒͘͝i̴̮̯̼̎ņ̵̛͖̣̣̪̭͋̏̉̐̋͜ṫ̶͇̫͛͘ơ̵̥͓͔̙̥̫̋k̸̝͗̋͒̚ï̴̧̗̦̜̜̬̖̄!̵͖̑̈̐!! Oh, another blackout?” The child looked up at the approaching adult. The long haired samurai smiled softly at him, something the child never expected he’d see. Instead of being reassured though, he raised his vigilance. Nice smiling adult never meant anything nice. This adult also carried around a sword, which meant he was dangerous.
The child pulled out his sword and bared his teeth, suddenly the world around him went dark. When he opened his eyes, he returned to his previous field, crows circling above his head and a field devoid of people. The child exhaled in relief. To his surprise though, a couple of stale onigiris and some rare candies were gathered near his feet.
The child looked around in wariness. Seeing no one approached him, he gathered the food and immediately ran away from the field. This field is too weird.
The second time was when he ate a rabbit the weird samurai named Shouyou caught. Just as he bit into the skewer, his sight went black. His free hand grabbed Shouyou’s sword and he was prepared to draw it.
When his sight returned, he was in a damp dark place. 3 stone walls surrounded him, and a bunch of long steels covered the only way out. Across the steels, stood a surprised young girl around his probable age.
“What?! Where did the uncle go?” The girl asked him. Not that he knew what was going on better than her. Anyway, she doesn’t seem to be a threat, just an annoyance he can ignore. He went to the darkest corner of the room and squatted there. He wanted to escape, but that would be difficult.
“Oh no! Did that uncle leave? That’s bad! I better call Yaemon-sama!” The girl left in a hurry.
The child just stared at her silently. His gaze followed her until she left his sight. He snarled when he saw a bunch of chains hanging from the wall. Those chains simply brought bad memories for him.
The child closed his eyes and counted to 5 multiple times. He wanted to count more, but Shouyou had only taught him until number 5. It’s better to start small, he said. In his shriveled heart, the nameless child kind of misses the weird samurai that took the devil child in.
When he opened his eyes, the child saw Shouyou’s worried face. Annoyedly, he shoved Shouyou’s face away from his own.
“Are you alright?” Shouyou asked.
The child nodded, “Was in a weird place.”
“Is that so?” Shouyou hummed as he poke the fire back on. “Want to talk about it?”
The child shook his head, “No. Just…”
“What is it?” Shouyou prodded patiently.
“Can you, give me a name?” The child's ears were a bit red.
“Of course! Give me a few days to give you a better name, alright?” Shouyou beamed.
The next time the blackout happened (Shouyou decided to call it a blackout after hearing him say it always started with him losing his sight), was when he was having dinner with Shouyou in the temple they decided to settle down into.
“Gintoki, pass me the salt please.” Shouyou asked.
Gintoki reached out towards the salt shaker when his vision went black again. Unfortunately, he never managed to grab his sword.
The moment he opened his eyes, he stood at the edge of a massive rundown building staring at the far drop below him. Panicking, he scrambled backward, hitting the three presences behind him.
“Ouch! Calm down, aru!” The girl held him down with crazy strength.
“Let go! Who the hell are you!? Where the f*** am I!” Gintoki struggled harder than ever to escape. Amanto, the girl must be an amanto!
“Gin-san! Calm down! Right now you are in Edo !” A glasses wearing human tried to calm him down.
Slowly, Gintoki’s struggles calmed down. He looked around and saw the three presences were 2 people and a big dog. The girl had red hair and blue eyes while the boy looked like a common glasses wearing human.
“I don’t know what you thought of, but whatever it was must be annoying dammit.” The glasses muttered.
Gintoki picked his nose. He wanted the comfort of Shouyou’s sword, but he didn’t have a chance to grab it when the blackout started. He unconsciously relaxed though, because somehow everything around him felt like Shouyou.
“Anyway, you must be surprised, but you are actually in….” Gintoki didn’t hear anything more since the blackout started again. The next time he opened his eyes, he was actually being hugged by Shouyou. Shouyou looked at him with red-rimmed eyes and that painful looking smile.
“Shouyou, why are you crying? Did someone hurt you?” Gintoki asked. He wanted to find whoever hurt Shouyou and make them hurt too.
“Haha, I’m alright Gintoki. Welcome back. What kind of place did you go into?” Shouyou asked while wiping his eyes. Gintoki gave him a judgemental look, knowing full well this Shouyou’s attempt to redirect his questions. Even so, he complied and told Shouyou about the three weirdos he met after the recent blackout.
The school was in full swing. Children running around after classes. Some, helping their parents, some taking the time to play before being forced to help their parents. The two newest additions to the school were with Gintoki, watching the children left in trickles.
Gintoki was about to invite them to have dinner with Shouyou and him when another blackout happened. This time, he seems to have woken up in a drab and gloomy inn.
“Gintoki…” Gintoki jumped in fear at the sudden voice. He went pale the moment he turned around. A floating pale transparent lady was behind him. Floating, like a…. a ghost. Something that Shouyou said wasn't real.
“Hmm, who are you?” she asked. Gintoki, being frozen in fear, didn’t answer. He just clutched Shouyou’s sword closer to him and tried not to shiver. His eyes never left the ghost lady.
The transparent lady floated closer to him. She seems to inspect Gintoki from top to bottom.
“You’ll do. Follow me now. The guests are quite anxious lately.” She gestured to him.Gintoki, having no choice, reluctantly followed the ghost lady. They reached an Onsen filled with transparent skeletons.
“Your job is to scrub their backs and between their ribs. Even skeletons want to feel clean once in a while. Well, good luck.” The ghost lady left him a bucket and a brush. Gintoki hesitantly grabbed the bucket and stepped to the onsen. Though apparently, the blackout decided to happen right at that time.
Gintoki woke up and found he was back at the school. Shouyou, Takasugi, and Zura were staring at him worriedly, not that it was visible on Takasugi’s face.
“Shouyou, you liar,” Gintoki said bluntly.
Taken aback, Shouyou looked confused. “What do you mean, Gintoki?”
“You said ghosts don't exist. Well, I was at an onsen inn serving ghosts and spirits and walking skeletons!”
“Wait, ghosts actually exist?” Zura looked weirdly enthusiastic.
“Be for real Zura, it was probably some weird Amanto from the future.” That chibi, he actually refused to believe Gintoki??
“Well, if you ever find a transparent amanto that decides wearing a white yukata and a hitaikakushi as a new fashion culture, please tell me about it. Until then, what I saw was a ghost and a bunch of skeletons waiting to have their bones scrubbed.” Gintoki insisted.
Takasugi seemed to want to argue more, but Shouyou clapped his hands. “Alright, that’s enough. Let’s eat before dinner goes cold.”
After that, the blackout happened several times. Silly Zura even made a chart to see if the blackout has a pattern or not. The answer, not at all. Gintoki was rather frustrated. He kept having Blackout, appearing in some random places before being forced back. None of them answered what happened here when he had the blackout. Shouyou, instead, enthusiastically recorded what he saw during these blackouts. Like the one where he apparently appeared in a prison, or the one where he was in the middle of a fight with that long haired samurai from long ago. Or the latest one where he woke up in a weird desert-y place with the two people from before who looked younger and a dog. Oh, and a dying baldy was at his feet. Weirdly enough, when he returned to the school after that, the first aid kit was out and Shouyou looked even more worried than usual.
Regardless, Life continued on. Whether he had a Blackout or not doesn't matter. What will happen will happen, and nothing will change that. Even the burning of the school will always happen.