Chapter Text
It had been some months since the last time anyone had come by to feed the monster, or to hurt him. The monster didn't really need food to survive, of course. But it had been something to do. Sometimes they freed his hands to let him eat. Sometime they mashed his face into the bowl of slop. Why had they fed him in the first place, they who had killed the monster over and over again? To poison him, of course, and see if ingesting enough poison over a long period of time would be what did the trick and killed him once and for all. It did not do the trick. The humans gave up on it after some months. The monster had looked forward to those moments when someone would bring him food. It was mainly unpleasant fare - old kitchen slop that the humans begrudged him, since it could have gone to their animals. Rice bran and wild roots, probably of some poisonous variety. Poisonous herbs and metallic salts that left him in agony when they did not kill him outright. But it was something from outside. It was something that happened to the monster that wasn't always bad. Sometimes he didn't feel too bad, or recovered. Sometimes something in the mess of scraps would taste — he had no words to describe it. He could remember his early days, before he'd been found out to be a monster - before the humans had started trying to kill him in earnest. He'd eaten human food then, surely. Rice and fish, fruits and vegetables. Surely he'd tasted enough human food to be able to describe it. But he couldn't. He didn't know how to describe the occasional burst of some strange piercing flavour that was that was wholly free from unpleasantness. Amidst the bitter poisons and the unsavoury flavour of mixed kitchen scraps, an occasionally overlooked piece of something that was not suffering would alight upon the monster's tongue and enter into his body. There was nothing that the monster did not turn into suffering, of course, but to know that something in the world could give him a moment of reprieve made him eager to eat even the worst of the slop fed to him.
But they'd given up on poisoning him. They'd given up on tormenting him too. The food had stopped coming months ago, and it had been some days since the last time someone came in to kill or hurt him. He had sat here for countless days and nights, waiting and hoping and dreading he didn’t know what. He could not see anything of the outside world from his prison, only changes in brightness as the faint echoes of sunlight made it's way inside the cavern. He could count the days, but was there a point? He was sure that the humans had given up on him at last. If you couldn't kill a monster, then surely you would lock it up and never let it out again. That was why the humans had locked him in here. And once the humans gave up on killing him, there would be no reason to visit him. Not to feed him, not to hurt him, not to kill him. They would lock him up and forget about him, probably in hopes that he would wither away after a long enough time.
The monster had been glad for the reprieve for the first few days, but he was beginning to suspect that the solitude would not be temporary. The bars of the prison were too solid for him to escape, and he did not really understand or want to escape anyways. Where would he escape to? Back into the embrace of his tormentors? To find new tormentors in places unknown who would enact the same pain and suffering upon him? But then again, maybe the humans were on to something. Maybe he really would die like this. Maybe this would be the answer.
The oni's solitude did not last forever, like he feared. He couldn't be sure how long it had been, of course, since he had lost count often enough that he didn't trust the tallies he'd scratched into the walls. But it must have been more than a few months and less than a year after he'd last seen a human face that he heard the sound of people making their way down to the cave where he had been caged.
"There's no point going in there," a Man's voice said tremulously. "Even Shoyo wouldn't lose a USB in an underground cave. That's beyond his usual levels of stupidity."
The oni sat forward, barely daring to breathe as he strained to hear the faint voice.
"Let's explore it just in case, Gin-san," suggested a boy's voice. "Maybe Shoyo-sensei has a secret bunker or something down here."
"Yeah, Gin-chan," agreed a girl's voice. "I bet he buried it or put it in a locked treasure chest at the end of a dungeon or something. C'mon Gin-chan, it's obvious that the old guy is determined to send you on a treasure hunt."
"Well I wish he'd give us some actual coordinates or even a treasure map," the man said, sounding annoyed. "This stupid thing has been constantly on the fritz since we got here."
"Maybe its supernatural activity," the young girl said dubiously. "Dungeons are usually filled with all sorts of undead monsters, arent they?"
The oni felt something within hinself that was akin to the urge to flinch, only he had long since left behind such bodily urges.
The Man let out a high, nervous laugh, then declared very emphatically, "ahahaha, Kagura, you say the darndest things sometimes. Of course theres no ghosts or skeletons or ghosts or zombies or ghosts or ghosts or ghosts in there. Stuff like that doesnt happen in real life."
"You've met multiple ghosts before, Gin-san." The boy sounded unimpressed and unmoved.
"What are you saying, Pattsan? Those weren't ghosts!" Gin-san seemed to be on the verge of either shouting or crying. "Those were Stands! Stands! Everyone knows I'm meant to be a Stand user!"
"Oi, don't get cocky just because your voice actor ended up in JoJo," said Pattsan. "Shouldn't you be less scared of ghosts now? We dealt with some pretty supernatural stuff in the last arc or two."
"No way, no way," Gin-san said. "Shoyo was never a ghost or anything. In fact, Utsuro's whole schtick was that he couldn't successfully become a ghost. Hes an anti-ghost. If this was an anime about exorcists, he'd be the angsty rival character who is too good at exorcism because hes an anti-ghost. Or maybe the villain who controls ghosts because he can't become one."
"Don’t you get started about exorcist anime again, Gin-chan," Kagura complained. "The Chimpanzee author just went to a con where no one they spoke to had watched Gintama, and the closest thing to Gintama merch that could be found was a sticker of Gojo Satoru with a smug smirk and a strawberry shortcake. Theyre still kind of depressed about it; its a sensitive subject. Maybe you should avoid mentioning J*jutsu K*isen or G*shin Imp*ct or B*ldur's G*te 3 for now."
"Nothing wrong with BG3," Gin-san said, as if just to be contrary. "I'd cosplay Astarion any day of the week. Its good that people are now acknowledging the sexiness of curly silver hair."
"I prefer Wyll," Kagura said. "Papi always told me that a good husband should be kind, responsible, and set to inherit a whole lot of money."
"Oi, what have you been playing when I wasn't looking Kagura-chan?!" Pattsan demanded. "You're way too young for a game like that! You're going yo get us introuble with the PTA again."
"Pfffft, relax," Kagura said. "Im 16 now, and the game is, what, 17+? Thats practically the same. You were only 16 when you were getting us into real hot water with the adult mags and the wooden horse."
"Thats hardly my fault!" Pattsan protested hotly. "And you're not just gonna set off the PTA. Theres a scarier group of people that might get in the comments if you keep going at this rate."
"Tch, little kids should stick to little kid games like kickball and Maeio," Gin-san said disapprovingly.
The sound of earth and rock shifting under heavy boots indicated that he seemed to be moving. The two others followed after a moment.
"Ah, Gin-san, look," Pattsan exclaimed soon after. "The gate is locked. I wonder if there's a key nearby or-"
Kagura hollered out a battle cry which was swiftly followed with the sound of cracking wood.
"Or Kagura-chan could destroy the whole door too," Shinpachi finished.
"You don't get to be the heroine without being smart and handy and good at problem solving," Kagura explained graciously.
The oni almost wanted to smile at the banter.
"Kagura-chan, you only joined the main Yorozuya cast because you got tired of your life of crime," Pattsan retorted.
"No, she became the heroine through nepotism, its obvious," Gin-san said. "What are the odds that her mom is an Altana mutant while my... while I was also raised by an Altana mutant? Either it was some sort of nepotism or the Gorilla managed an asspull of titantic proportions. Shinpachi, are you sure your mother or your Obi-One-niisama aren't secretly Altana mutants lurking around the corner for a Borutama or a Gintahime?"
"There's no way the Gorilla has a Borutama or a Gintahime in him," Kagura said critically. "They're probably just going to go all in on Ginpachi-sensei. Besides, you’re going to have to reproduce first if you want a Borutama or a Gintahime. You've got options if you want a ninja baby, but I don't know about a half-youkai. Maybe try an Amanto or something. Don't they say that the true love interest is usually- HAH!"
"Ah," said Pattsan. There was a clank and a creaking of wood and iron. Another door seemed to have been bulldozed by the mysterious Kagura-chan.
“Where are all the skeletons and ghosts?” Kagura commented, unimpressed. “If a dungeon is this empty, I’m going to assume there’s no good loot.”
“We’re not looking for loot, Kagura-chan,” Pattsan said reprovingly. “We’re just here to look for Shoyo-sensei’s lost USB with the [Beep]coin keys on it.”
The oni straightened from his slouch. He had never heard a human mouth make such a noise before. He wondered what manner of creature this Pattsan was, to be able to emit such a beep with his frail human vocal chords.
“I don’t think it’s going to be here,” Kagura said doubtfully, then kicked in another door.
They were past the final gate now, and only a few twists and turns of the tunnel and the woodens bars of the oni’s prison separated the three humans from him. He wondered who they were. He had never heard their voices or their names before. Perhaps they were outsiders, travellers from far away. Perhaps they had been mislead or deceived, tricked somehow into coming here when they were looking for some sort of lost item for their teacher.
“Hey, um, Gin-san, Kagura-chan…” Pattsan said hesitantly, as if he had turned the corner and come face to face with the talismans and paper banners with written warnings telling unwary visitors to turn back lest they accidentally come face to face with a dreadful oni. “I… I don’t know if we’re in the right place.”
“This place is definitely cursed, right?” Gin-san’s voice climbed rapidly in pitch, and he sounded like he had actually teared up.
"Relax, Gin-chan," Kagura said nonchalantly. "Oni aren't ghosts. Or spirits, really. In fact, aren't you supposed to be the Shiroyasha? You've got nothing to fear."
"I dont see why..." Gin-san began uncertainly, then drew to a halt. Then, all of a sudden, his footsteps hastened into a sprint.
"Gin-chan!" Kagura called. "Where are you going?"
The other two sets of footsteps chased after Gin-san as he dashed forward, closed and closer until the light of whatever lamp he must have been holding began driving away the gray darkness that had been a constant for the oni. The oni had to shut his eyes and shield his face against the sudden brightness, and could only track the man's progress by the sound of his slowing footsteps. Gin-san had certainly come within sight of the oni now, but he said nothing, only walked forward with loud, steady steps and his light in hand.
The oni couldn't resist anymore. He knew that his vision hadn't adapted yet, but he opened his eyes and looked anyway. He saw the shadowy figure of a man holding a short length of metal which emitted a light from one end that was much brighter than any oil lamp. But the oni did not have the wherewithal to marvel at this gadget. When the man moved his light away so that it no longer pointed directly into the one's eyes, his face and form became visible, a form so alien and baffling that it stopped the oni's every thought in their tracks.
"Ah." The man named Gin-san seemed to be struggling to speak. A strange noise came out of his... Face? Head?
Atop his shoulders where a man's head should be was a blocky, monochrome object full of strange planes and angles, at the centre of which was a gigantic circular crystal that seemed to be a huge unblinking eye. The oni might have thought it was a helmet or a headpiece used for some arcane ritual, only the huge sinister eye shuttered briefly, as if it was blinking, and a little green button on its side began to glow green.
"Ah," Gin-san said again. His voice seemed to waver and distort, as if he was shouting during a storm. A strange buzzing sound emitted from his sinister head. Then, something even more sinister: he began to speak with the oni's own voice.
"Gintoki," said Gin-san with the oni's voice. "What are you doing? Get out of there immediately."
The oni shrank back in his cell for the first time since he had been place in it. He hadn't moved in so long that his body protested the motion, but he ignored it in favour of watching Gin-san warily.
"Your fault I ended up here," Gin-san said with his own voice, ignoring the oni. "And im not just going to leave him here."
"You can't change the past without erasing yourself," answered the oni's voice from Gub-san's sinister metallic head.
"I've done it once, and everything turned out pretty much fine," Gin-san answered himaelf nonchalantly. "If you have a problem with it, maybe give better directions next time. I dont think they've invented Bitcoin yet in this time period."
"Gintoki," Gin-san's oni voice said, "you can't change the past without erasing me."
Gin-san seemed to hesitate to reply. But then, after a pause, he said, "and you don't want that anymore, Shoyo?"
"I don't want our past to be erased. I don't want the Shoka Sonjuku to be erased. If im cursed to this existence, then I want it to be a version where I got to know you and all my students."
The oni had never heard his own voice sound so gentle.
"I can't just leave him here," Gin-san said in the same gentle tone. He crouched down until his huge round eye was level with the oni's gaze, then waved in greeting. "Yo. All the scary signage outside says to beware of a big scary oni, but you're a pretty cute oni, aren'tcha."
Gin-san gripped his big square metallic head-thing and pulled and tugged until it revealed itself to only be a strange helmet after all. The man inside it had curly silver hair, a wobbly smile, and eyes that were somehow both lax and yet brimming with sadness. He also had a mole on his cheek, an ugly little mustache, and the world's most cylindrical neck to shoulder ratio.
"Gintoki," Gin-san's helmet continued with the oni's voice, as the one Gin-san called Shoyo. "Gintoki, don't."
"Sensei," Gin-san said. "How can i leave an oni with such sad eyes?"
Shoyo-sensei fell silent.
The oni blinked at Gin-san. Then he blinked at Gin-san's two compatriots, who had rushed in after Gin-san but had seemed to reluctant to disturb Shoyo-sensei and Gin-san.
"Shoyo. I. Can hear you." The oni's voice was hoarse with disuse, and his tongue stumbled haltingly on the words. He didn't get many chances to practice speaking to others.
"Ah," said Shoyo-sensei, strange and choked.
"Don't worry about him," said Gin-san. "How would you like to get out of this horrible little prison? It's got to be the worst prison I've ever been in, and let me tell you, I've been to quite a few in my time."
"Why does Shoyo-sensei sound like me," the oni said, heart thumping in his chest at the offered hope of escape.
"Uh, no particular reason," Gin-san said. "Hes uh. They say everyone has seven doppelgangers in the world, you know. Maybe he's just your evil doppelganger."
"I would say I am the good doppelganger," Shoyo-sensei said. The warmth and gentleness had begun creeping back into his voice, now that he seemed less startled.
"You can both be the good doppelganger," Kagura suggested cheerfully. She had turned out to be yet another strangely dressed individual, though she had a blue sack over her head, rather than Gin-san's strange contraption.
"Are you all oni?" The oni asked. "Are you like me? Is that how you have travelled to your past?"
Gin-san grinned. "You're brighter now than you are in the future," he said. "I suppose even you aren't immune to senility."
"My mami was like you," said Kagura. She tore off her blue head-thing to reveal a girl with orange hair and the same strange cylindrical neck situation as Gin-san. She also tore the door of the oni's prison off its bars with less effort than the wind blowing away an autumn leaf. "But she wasn't from Earth. She was from Kouan."
"Psssst, Kagura-chan," Pattsan whispered. "People on earth don't know about aliens yet! You need to be more tactful when breaking it to him!"
Kagura rolled her eyes.
"Earth people don't even know that the earth is round yet, I bet," she said. "You can't sugarcoat every realisation. Relaaaaax. He's pretty sharp. He'll infernalise it into his world view, no problem."
"It's internalise," Shinpachi corrected weakly. "And I don't know, Kagura-chan. It's a pretty big leap."
"Hush," said Kagura, at the same time that the oni said, "but you look so human."