Sharp Wings; 鋭い翼 [Gintama]

43| Two people Gintoki don't trust and two people Shizuku trusts the most

XLIII

Manga: Lesson 98

Anime: Episodes 62

HIJIKATA sighed heavily, accepting that he was getting too old for shit like this.

In front of him were stacks upon stacks of papers regarding the incident that happened only a few days ago. He's got them organized on the nature of what happened, how it happened and who were involved with what happened. Hijikata was never the type to be so organized like that – it was Kusahara and Yamazaki who were, though, but seeing as both of them were currently not in the station, it landed on Hijikata's hands to organize shit.

Normally, he doesn't really mind all the paperwork as he knew from the start that it was all part of the job when he got it. By that point, only four years into the job, he was already used to all the paperwork and the processes that he needed to go through – although he still gets annoyed at the sight of the paper stacks on his desk, sometimes.

With an exasperated sigh, he looked around, "What the hell is happening?"

Honestly, he's not really sure.

While he's not really one of the smartest people around, he knows how to piece things together really well.

He's seen a lot of things already, he's been to a lot of places where a massacre happened, he's been with people who died at the end of a mission and he's already numb to all of those things – either that or he's just choosing to ignore them all together.

Yet, despite all of those, Hijikata still found himself scrambling for information through his head at contents of the stacks of papers in front of him.

From everything that he's read so far, he only got three things certain, and that's the presence of the Kiheitai members on the ship that took off from Edo Bay, Katsura's faction fighting them off, and the arrival of the Harusame space pirates in the conflict. Everything else was a blur and Hijikata's having a hard time understanding the course of action throughout the whole event and who else were involved.

There were reports of a man with white hair arriving at the scene, accompanied by two young teens, one boy and one girl. It didn't take a genius to know who those three were. Hijikata's had had enough being with those three and they've been together long enough to know that it was them who came to the center of the conflict on their own – seriously, does the Yorozuya even have friends?

Whether or not they were there because they were tied to the three groups who were at the center of it all, Hijikata doesn't know, but he can't rule out them being accomplices to either three. That's one thing that's been going on inside Hijikata's brain lately.

Another thing is something that he absolutely cannot dismiss, but knows that it is impossible.

A bunch of other reports have stated seeing a tall man with teal hair holding two katanas on his waist. On all accounts, witnesses stated that the teal haired man was with Katsura the whole time, even talking alone with him and Takasugi at one point. The witnesses stated that he was very skilled with almost God-like speed and reflexes in his movements. Now, there's only one person that Hijikata knows who fits all the descriptions that he was given through all of the reports.

But there was no way that it was Kusahara who was there up in the fight because one, he's a proud officer, Hijikata knows that – he'd rather have tea with Okita than to fight side-by-side with a Joui Roushi – and two, Kusahara was injured and in critical condition only the night before the incident over Edo Bay, barely making it out of intensive care when morning came. Added to the fact that Hijikata strategically placed officers around the younger male's room and the hospital, there was no way he slipped out unnoticed. At least, not with the level of injury that he obtained. Had it been Hijikata in that state, he'd even consider it a miracle that he even regained consciousness mere hours after his surgery. Added to that, Shizuku was with him the whole time. None of the officers have reported that they've gone missing, none have reported any anomaly, and none have reported them trying to escape from the hospital.