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This is for the lions living in the wiry broke-down frames of my friends' bodies
When the flood water comes, it ain't gonna be clear
It's gonna look like mud
But I will help you swim, I'm gonna help you swim
Takasugi moves like a beast unshackled.
It’s good for morale, Katsura reasons, that their men get to witness someone who could so decisively manifest his rage. No holds barred and no lives spared. A little taste of victory– or the illusion of one.
Gintoki had taken off a few moments ago into the tree line to wreak his own brand of havoc. A white-haired demon aching to sully himself with the gore of their enemies and whatever else would fit on a pamphlet. The men were already spreading legends. The infamous Shiroyasha who shone in their ranks as a blinding beacon of light, harsh yet illuminating. Meanwhile Takasugi was the rebellion’s dark shadow, sating their hunger for blood, circuses, and wartime justice. They were both necessary, existing in contrast to each other.
The combined unstoppable forces of Gintoki and Takasugi called for an immovable object in Katsura himself. It was the universe’s way of putting a leash on the demons it had made. This was his god-given role, and Katsura had long since stopped resenting it.
So he keeps an eye on Takasugi the whole time, waiting for the right moment to rein him in. The leash in his hand is slack, but it's still in one piece. Only the frayed edges— the wild look in Takasugi’s eyes as he screams like he’s dying, the tendons straining in his neck, the spittle gathering at the corner of his mouth— betray that old tether’s wear.
A few more moments, Katsura reasons, feeling hollow all the same. Just a few more moments of carnage before I rein him in.
It’s his job to weigh these things, he tells himself. It’s his job to pit the pros and cons of indulging in his comrades' insanity, to know when to loosen the reins and when to tighten them. In their revolution, Gintoki had become the soul, Takasugi the blade, Sakamoto the voice… and Katsura, the shepherd, keeping them all in line.
Once, in their youth, Shouyo had pulled him aside after a particularly rowdy class; Takasugi hurled a book at Gintoki's head, which quickly devolved into an all-out brawl. Singled out by his sensei, Katsura sheepishly rubbed his forehead, having been dealt a bruise while trying to intercept one of their projectiles. Shouyo put a warm palm to his cheek and asked him if it hurt. Katsura, brave and brash and thirteen, had vehemently denied it.
Shouyo gave him a look he couldn’t quite interpret and simply said:
“It will.”
His sensei’s tone suggested he really meant it, so Katsura tried to take this impromptu lesson to heart. He truly did.
Gintoki and Takasugi got into a brawl not even a week later, and naturally Katsura took his rightful place in the middle again. Takasugi scratched Katsura’s wrist in an attempt to get out of his hold, and Gintoki’s kick hit Katsura's chin rather than the intended target– Takasugi’s face. Katsura knew he couldn’t stop the fight per se, but he could prevent it from escalating too far. If he stalled for long enough, their sensei would show up and put an end to the it for real.
Which he did, quite promptly. They got scolded first as a collective and then individually. Shouyo-sensei patched Katsura up last, and asked him once again if it hurt. It hadn’t, but in a bid to prove he was a good student that was taking their last conversation to heart, Katsura nodded his head yes.
“So then,” Shouyo-sensei said, “What are you going to do next time?”
“I don't understand,” Katsura had said, because he didn’t. “Why am I in trouble too? All I did was put a stop to their bickering.”
“You are not in trouble, Katsura,” said their ever-gentle sensei. His eyes flickered pointedly to the cut on his forehead.
Katsura only just held himself back from rolling his eyes; doing such a thing in front of sensei would only make him look terribly immature.
“It’s just a few scrapes,” Katsura said, trying to mimic their sensei’s signature placative tone. Then, reassuringly: “You don’t have to worry about us, sensei; Gintoki and Takasugi will grow out of this phase. It's normal– everyone picks fights in their youth.”
Shouyo plucked out the last of the wooden splinters embedded in Katsura’s knee— Gintoki’s misplaced kick had sent him crashing into one of the wooden desks— and dabbed a wet cloth on the blood welling up beneath the pinpricks. Once it had been deemed clean, he smeared cream around the small wounds and wrapped it in gauze. His face was unreadable throughout the process; that familiar silence which usually felt calming and unobtrusive now seemed unbearably loud.
“‘Everyone picks fights in their youth,’ huh,” Shouyo-sensei eventually repeated, voice trailing off. “Yes, I suppose most do. Kids pick fights with each other for no reason all the time. That’s common behavior for children your age.”
Katsura looked up to meet his sensei’s murky gaze.
“Most," His sensei emphasized. "But not all. Some children don't seek out a fight; they let it happen to them.”
Katsura frowned, picking up on the implication. “I don’t pick fights because I’m not stupid. But when they’re happening right in front of me, I have to finish them.”
“And who are you finishing them for?”
Sensei had always been fond of trick questions. Katsura knew better than to answer.
This is for the snakes and the people they bite
For the friends I've made, for the sleepless nights
For the warning signs I've completely ignored
There's an amount to take, reasons to take more
An axe cleaves down mere centimeters from Takasugi’s neck, and Katsura draws the line then and there. Takasugi brings up his own blade to meet it, but the Amanto swings his axe with speed that is quite literally inhuman, and shatters the katana with one blow. Takasugi doesn’t even flinch as it takes aim for his head next.
Katsura is running, running, running to his comrade’s side. He’s good at that: running. Runaway Kotarou, they call him. The master strategist, the escape artist, the coward– he likes that last one especially. Coward is just about the worst thing a soldier can be called during a war; Katsura embraces the title, and the men follow him anyway. The reputation haunting him all his life, and he grew stronger from embracing it.
Besides, being a coward is hardly something to be ashamed of. Cowardice is a luxury-word for those who live to tell the tale; you can't be a coward if you don't survive.
Katsura the Coward puts his body in between the axe and his oldest friend with less than a thought.
He’s just in time. The blade comes down in a lethal arc that Katsura is able to mostly redirect with the edge of his katana. It only succeeds in slashing at his arm rather than taking it off altogether.
The wound is not fatal, he tells himself, and it's just about his last conscious thought.
One thing they don’t tell you about pain is that it makes you forget everything else. It's a shock, first and foremost: a brutal, mind-emptying shock. As far as Katsura’s concerned, that momentary debilitation of one’s mental focus has always been far worse than the physical side effects. He absolutely hates the feeling of his mind, his greatest weapon, scattering in the breeze as his body tries to gather itself. It's like getting the wind knocked out of you, and all your thoughts are suddenly filled with clamorous echoes of how do I breathe how do I breathe I forgot how to breathe am I breathing yet am I dying is this death—
Or you’re hit with an intrusive, completely unhelpful thought. The axe comes down on Katsura’s arm and slices it from shoulder to forearm and all Katsura can think of are his sensei’s cryptic words. Yeah, it hurts, it really hurts— but it was supposed to. That was what it meant to protect someone.
I’m doing it for all of us, he wanted to tell sensei. But mostly importantly, I’m doing it for you.
A trick answer to a trick question.
It's no big surprise you turned out this way
When they close their eyes and prayed you would change
And they cut your hair, and sent you away
Battles these days don’t end with white flags of surrender; they're over when there’s no one left standing to oppose. Katsura doesn’t see the end of this particular battle, but he’s told afterwards it went on long after he passed out. A slaughter that saw no survivors, Takasugi hunting down even those who tried to retreat.
Katsura takes this information stone-faced; in lieu of an answer, he tells the squad leader Moritomo to guard his door and not let anyone inside. Later, perhaps, Katsura will do his rounds with the men, gauge how they’re feeling about the whole thing, get Sakamoto to lift everyone’s spirits with a raunchy story or out-of-key song. Later he’ll track down Gintoki, hear his side of the story, get his read on the black beast of vengeance showing his colors. Probably force that idiot permhead into a medic tent too, while he’s at it. No doubt he’s hiding an injury or two— or ten— under that perpetually bloodstained armor.
Then, with all the information at hand from as many sources as he can gather, he’ll find Takasugi and have the conversation they’ve both been avoiding. (They both know he can’t hold this leash forever. )
Naturally things do not go to plan— around Takasugi, they rarely do. The leader of the Kihetai practically busts down the door a few moments later, an apologetic Moritomo on his tail. Katsura waves the latter away with a placating gesture: his subordinate, loyal as he may be, stood no chance against the fury of a man like Takasugi. Katsura would never have given the order if he’d realized the extent of his comrade’s impatience; in hindsight, he should have known Takasugi would not wait for Katsura to come to him.
That beast inside him has always been a greedy little thing.
Takasugi doesn’t even wait for the door to close; he grabs Katsura by the shoulders and sets him against the wall of the abandoned barn turned makeshift homestead. His movements are deliberate, which is about as close as Takasugi gets to gentle. His hands are shaking– Katsura’s not sure if it's anger or fear or just that everpresent current of energy that simmers under Takasugi’s skin, like a fever that never breaks. Or maybe he is actually feverish— clammy hands and hot breath and wild, clouded eyes are all signs that could possibly point to some kind of latent infection.
Possible, but not likely. This is more or less Takasugi at his default state these days.
“What the fuck were you thinking,” he rasps, “Getting in the way like that.” He doesn’t phrase it as a question, because it isn’t.
“You’re welcome,” Katsura replies, keeping his voice cool. This dance is a familiar one, but that doesn’t mean it's not still dangerous. He needs to play his cards right. “That Amanto was about to take your head off.”
Takasugi slams Katsura against the wall, fingers digging into the collar of his robe hard enough that he feels the bite of nails through the fabric and on his skin. It distracts from the still aching pain running down his arm.
“I had it. Under control.” Takasugi breathes out each word heavily, like it's costing him effort.
Katsura lets an expression of incredulity climb his face. “‘Control’ is the last word I would use to describe the state you were in on that battlefield. You’re lucky the men—”
“The men flock to me and you know it. You know I get their blood boiling like no one else does— the Kihetai has more new recruits than the other three divisions put together!” Takasugi tears through this argument with teeth, rabid like an animal, meeting a challenge that wasn't there. “Don’t act a fool, Zura; if who I am and what I do wasn’t getting results, you wouldn’t be letting it happen.”
“I didn’t say anything about your results, Takasugi. I know the risk of enabling your behavior, and I do it anyway because you are right: the men do need you.” Takasugi inhaled, sharp retort on his tongue, but Katsura barreled forward. “They need your strength, and your passion, but most importantly they need you with your head still attached to your shoulders—”
“I wouldn’t have let myself die to some Amanto footsoldier—!”
“Good, because neither would I!” Katsura held Takasugi’s molten gaze for a moment, then pushed him away and drew himself to his full height— still a good few inches taller than his feared comrade.
Takasugi’s eyes narrowed in response. Childish as it was, the height thing got a reaction nine times out of ten.
“I don’t need you fussing over me, Zura. We’ve all outgrown the need for a babysitter, wouldn't you say? ”
“It’s not Zura, it's Katsura— and watching your back in combat is hardly fussing: it's literally my job.”
“Watch your own goddamn back.”
“I do that too.”
“I didn’t see you go after Gintoki,” the name came out like a curse, “When he ran off into the bushes to chase some scattering prey.”
“That’s what this is about? You think I don’t keep my eye on Gintoki just as much as I keep my eye on you?” Katsura eyes fluttered shut, suddenly exhausted. “Gintoki had five men on his tail as support. You were surrounded only by enemies and the allies you’ve taught to value bloodsport over all else. The Kihetai are effective in combat, undoubtedly: and you’ve taught them well. But there are some essential lessons they’ve yet to learn. Namely, how to watch each other’s ba—”
Katsura finds himself cut off by the suffocating press of another mouth on his own. Takasugi’s teeth clack into his own, then dig into his lower lip until they can both taste blood. Katsura knew that this argument would probably land them here eventually. That didn’t make reclaiming his breath any easier in the wake of Takasugi’s hungry kiss.
“Mmph—” he tries to get out, but Takasugi runs his hot hands up Katsura’s neck and winds his fingers through the ponytail laying limp across his shoulder. A firm tug at the hair, and the last of Katsura’s ability to form words is gone.
But they never really needed words, the two of them. Katsura brings his hands up to Takasugi’s face; they’re cool in contrast to his feverish skin. He lets his fingers draw circles on Takasugi’s jawline, before letting his left hand cup the back of his head, around the swell of his skull. Then, without warning, he rakes his nails down Takasugi’s scalp, right hand gently caressing his jaw all the while. Takasugi could never take something gentle unless it had pain attached.
The noise he made sounded like a wounded animal. Katsura swallowed it eagerly. Maybe there was a greedy beast inside him too.
After a moment, Katsura pushes Takasugi back to get easier access to his throat. He bites down on the tendons there, gently, just to remind them of their place inside the neck of his oldest friend, pumping his blood and keeping him alive. Keep him alive.
Takasugi is reduced to clawing and panting and whining, and he really does look wild like this, skin even hotter and pupils even more unfocused than before. Katsura hates that a part of him likes it.
Takasugi knows he likes it too— knows how Katsura’s eyes burn when he gets to watch his friend lose control and come apart.
Who is this for? Shouyo’s words ring over and over in his head. Who is this for, he wants to ask Takasugi, but doesn’t for fear of the answer. Whoever started this game, this push-and-pull, whoever attached this leash in the first place doesn’t matter; what matters is who’s going to let go first.
“You almost died,” Takasugi mumbles, voice hoarse from overuse. “You stupid fucking idiot,” he punctates each word with an open-mouthed kiss, probably to prevent Katsura from responding, or maybe he was just that greedy, “You almost died— if that axe ‘d come down just a bit more to the left it would have caved your chest in two, you idiot, you–”
And they call him the fussy one.
“Let me,” Katsura mumbles into his skin, trying to put words together, “Just let me—”
Let me protect you, let me stand by your side, let me stay without pushing me away, let me make the choice, let me let go, let me walk away without fearing I’ll be leaving you to die—
Takasugi cuts him off with his teeth, digging into the skin of his lip until it breaks. "Don't you make promises you can't keep, Zura."
He presses his lips, soft and firm, to the bitemark. “And don’t get in my way.”
Katsura doesn’t have the energy to form words, so for now they just breathe into each other’s mouths, sharing air.
You stopped by my house the night you escaped
With tears in my eyes, I begged you to stay
You said, "Hey man, I love you, but no fucking way!"
Less than a week later their unit is caught in an ambush on the outskirts of Edo.
Gintoki and Sakamoto are nowhere to be found. It’s near midnight, they’re too far from the city to share its light and Katsura can barely make out the outlines of his comrades. Judging by the flashes of yellow eyes, their attackers are likely one of the nocturnal Amanto taking advantage of humanity’s poor night vision. The Inuisei, or perhaps a Chatoran tribe is his best guess. They were all becoming more aggressive with their tactics these days.
One of the trees catches on fire, and they are given light once more. Katsura counts fourteen… no, thirteen men still standing. Their attackers outnumber them, but when has that ever been new.
What is concerning is the sound of gunfire coming from behind: there are snipers in the trees, perhaps even a reserve unit waiting to descend on them. He opens his mouth to issue the order to retreat—
“Kiheitai!” A warcry from his left. He turns to see the man they call the Black Beast of Vengeance illuminated by an unwavering fire as it consumes the treeline behind.
“Grab your swords and fight! Do not stand down until every last Amanto is dead!”
The order for retreat never leaves Katsura’s lips as he watches the thirteen… now twelve men around him rally to that cry. Incensed, the men find the will to stand, the strength to raise their swords, the rage to bring them down. Takasugi’s image wavers with the firelight behind him and the heatwaves make his form blur. His sword moves faster than Katsura can track it, slicing an arc around the figures that descend upon him.
Takasugi makes it look easy, cutting down another and another enemy with bared teeth one might mistake for a smile. His fervor spreads through their ranks. Katsura tells himself that there is no other way.
Then Takasugi staggers as a bullet grazes his leg, and there are no more excuses. Katsura cuts his way through to the treeline as another shot rings through the air. He feels the heat of the flames grow the closer he gets, and Takasugi swings around to look at him with wild eyes– the reflection of the fire behind them softens them for just a moment– before turning away. They stand back-to-back in a show of vulnerability and trust and all the other things men like them don't quite deserve.
Katsura thinks back to their last conversation: and the long night he’d spent afterwards, staring at the ceiling and thinking of ways to phrase his question.
"Watch my flank."
Takasugi huffs indignantly. "Watch your own flank. You have two eyes, don't you?"
Katsura turns, just a little, just enough to bring his body closer to Takasugi. Close enough to graze. With the touch of a shoulder Katsura tries to convey to him everything he means in the time they have.
Remember that I need you.
And for god’s sake, remember that you need me too.
A sharp inhale, and he knows he's done his job. Katsura turns his back.
"Don't we all?"
Three months later Takasugi's left eye is gouged out on the point of a sword as their sensei's head rolls.
A demon cries and Katsura is stiff on the floor, cheek pressed into the hard ground, realizing he never held any reins in his hands at all. You can't tame beasts; and you certainly can't tame demons.
When the atmosphere settles closer to something breathable, Katsura is holding a sword in his hand— not his, not his— and trembling. Takasugi and Gintoki on either side of him form an uneven triangle. Takasugi is on his knees, head bowed, chest heaving, blood dripping, looking more inhuman than ever. He doesn’t tear his only eye away from the severed head of the man they’d lost. Gintoki is turned away, utterly quiet and unnaturally still. He won’t look: not at the battlefield, not at the man he sacrificed or the comrades he chose to save. Instead, his eyes turn upwards towards the heavens, as if expecting immediate retribution.
Katsura observes at both of them, the severed head between them, the dawn light closing in. He takes it all in. He breathes it all out.
"What are you going to do next time—
—it hurts?"
"Watch my flank."
""What are you going to do next time—
—you make promises you can't keep?"
"Watch yours."
Katsura turns his back. He looks for the answer to sensei’s trick question on the horizon.
The sun sets in reply.
I wanna contribute to the chaos
I don't wanna watch and then complain
'Cause I am through finding blame
That's the decision I've made