The Land of the Samurai ; 侍の国 (Gintama x Reader)

Popularity Polls Can Burn In Hell

For the past two minutes, your eyes were constantly squinting at the flyer that had been distributed around town. The contents of it didn't make you feel satisfied in a way. Your hand clenched the paper, crinkling up the side. You understood that Gintoki was a popular man—you could admit that—but ranking him number 1? Now, that crushed your ego.

Hell, you couldn't even see your name or face on the character popularity poll. When you looked up above your head, you couldn't even see a number at all! The civilians walking around all had them, such as 1678 or even 5471. All you could see was '???' pointing down at your head.

You clicked your tongue and reached up for the arrow and tried to force it off of you. It wiggled in its place, but it wouldn't budge. At least you were able to break a piece off of it, but it still displayed the confusion you had right now.

There was no explanation for this occurrence at all! You'd rather have a number in the ten thousands than have a '???' above your head. The only conclusion you came up with was... you weren't actually a part of this story and it was struggling to come up with a number for you. Right now, you weren't a real character in this book, you were just some random NPC.

If that was so, then what was the point of being here? Why did you even exist in the first place? What was your purpose in life? Did... anyone even believe that you were some main character? Or were they just going along with your imagination. You weren't entirely sure.

Even the people around you—those who were actually NPCs and just the random characters that will never be introduced—were laughing at you. You, someone that has appeared in every single chapter since the beginning! Once again, you thought, what was the point of being here?

But the one thing you were glad about not having number was not being attacked randomly in the street to get a higher ranking. You supposed getting made fun of was better than getting jumped. So, while everyone was fighting like wild animals, you were strolling down the street as if nothing was happening.

However, that moment of 'nothing worse will happen' ended when you noticed Gintoki, Kagura, Sougo and Hijikata run into a nearby alleyway building. You quickly followed after them to figure out what they were doing (obviously they were running away, but you wanted to be involved too).

"Knock knock!" you kicked the door a few times, hoping that one of them would open it.

"Nobody's home! Go away!" Gintoki made sure to have his back to the door to ensure extra safety on his side.

"Gintoki, I can hear your stupid voice!" you punched the door a few times creating some dents in the metal, "Just open the door or I will get everyone who's lower than you in the rankings over here, so they can kill you!" The man immediately opened the door and pulled you in, quickly shutting the door after.

"You're a menace!"

"Call me Dennis," you pat his shoulder and looked above his head. "So, number one, huh?"

He lifted his head in arrogance and scoffed, "Of course! Who else would be– Why do you have question marks? What are you?"

"[name]-nee! You're here! Stupid Sadist was trying to kill me," Kagura jumped onto you and held onto you like a koala, "Save me!"

"You're okay, you're okay! And to answer your question, I don't have an explanation for it," you turned over to the sadist in question, "Hey, Sougo, stop looking so violent."

"I was born with this face, can't help it."

Kagura hopped down from you and went over to Sadaharu who had happened to be in the room. He was currently staring down... Elizabeth who was sitting peacefully on the floor. "Okay, why is everyone in here?!"