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Shinpachi’s earliest memory of the answer to what is a samurai is his father’s rumbling laughter and standing in an empty yard at the crack of dawn, long before the students are due to arrive.
“Not like that, son!” Shinpachi flushes bright red, knowing his father’s patience will only last so long. These early morning sessions are a rarity. “Move your feet here,” – and Shinpachi hurries to comply, glad his sister isn’t around to see him.
“Now, relax your shoulders…”
Stance corrected, Shinpachi takes an overly enthusiastic swing with the bamboo shinai and topples over. Tae emerges from the house with a tray of tea just as he lands with a grunted ‘oof’ onto the ground. She bursts into laughter and red blooms on Shinpachi’s cheeks.
“How are you going to defeat any bad guys like that?”
Shinpachi’s lower lip trembles, struggling to hold back the tears. He won’t be the crybaby his sister and the other students think he is. Samurai are strong enough not to cry, and he won’t cry in front of his father. Tae’s reminded him too many times of being a samurai’s son. His self-discipline must remain rock solid.
But his father isn’t even looking at him. He speaks to his sister in that stern, gentle tone he reserves for his children. “Tae, you should know better than to assume a samurai’s role is to defeat ‘bad guys’. I am not teaching you violence.”
“It would help if Shinpachi could actually hold his own in a fight,” Tae retorts, sparing none of his dignity.
Their father lays a warm hand atop his head, soft enough for Shinpachi to feel the tears clambering up his throat. “Patience. He’ll get there one day. With you as a teacher, how can he not?”
“Father!” Tae exclaims, colour rising in her cheeks to match Shinpachi’s from moments ago. Praise from their father is rare, and later, Shinpachi will reflect on how unusual it was for the famously stoic, hard-edged Shimura Ken to be so sentimental with his two children, and how that might have foreshadowed darker days.
“Don’t let it get to your head,” their father chuckles.
It’s these moments of teasing and praise that bring him back down to earth. Shinpachi is used to craning his neck up at all manner of people, his father most frequently, but he doesn’t mind when his father speaks on his level.
“Shinpachi, you and your sister are going to inherit this dojo one day. Students will entrust you with their souls as you teach them how to be samurai. You cannot do that until you are prepared to stumble a little.”
Sullenly, Shinpachi hangs his head. “You never do, Father.”
He laughs, belly deep and warm as the tea he makes in the mornings. “Believe me, I’ve made many mistakes in my life. And it would be another to not teach you this.
“Taking down bad guys doesn’t make the gallery of important things a samurai does. It is certainly a part of our duty, but not a goal in itself. We are not righteous heroes carrying hollow causes. A samurai serves not himself, but his family. We do not fight for the glory of victory. We mourn lives needlessly lost. We remember, always, to protect his soul.
“Promise me you’ll remember this.”
The sun is cresting the horizon and spilling light across the yard. “I promise!”
In the grey gloaming of a winter morning, their father leaves. Blue blankets the yard, gets into their eyes. The funeral is a sparse, limited affair beset by black and the nauseating scent of soil. Tae’s hand never leaves his, not even after the mourners have dispersed and they no longer have to put up the dignified family front expected of the Shimura house.
Shinpachi doesn’t know what they would have done without Hajime. He protects them from the whisperings of the other students, brings them meals and water and doesn’t say a thing when the trays return untouched. The mornings are quiet without his laughter. The dojo echoes with fewer feet too, Hajime having cancelled most classes. Until the siblings emerge from their self-imposed solitude, he never offers more than what they need.
“Shin-bo, Tae-chan,” he nods to them. “You up for breakfast?”
A quiet nod from both is all it takes for his smile to return. Regular classes resume. The students don’t return in a flock and they’ve lost some instructors, but the numbers are enough to justify keeping the dojo open. Shinpachi worries that his and his sister’s withdrawal from the world might have hastened the demise of an art already struggling to stay relevant, but Hajime is steadfast in his assurance.
They sit staring out at the yard where Shinpachi passed hours training with his sister and father. Its expanse looks lonely, even with Hajime beside him. He wonders if he’ll ever get used to it.
“Shin-bo,” Hajime says, “being a samurai isn’t all about runnin’ a dojo like this. Sure, it’s great. I love being an instructor. But it mattered more, to me, that you two started smilin’ again. It was my job as a samurai to make sure you two were goin’ to be okay in the long run.” He pats Shinpachi’s head fondly, and his throat closes up. “Your old man would’ve whipped me round the head if I’d focused more on makin’ sure classes were still on.”
Shinpachi hiccups. “But the dojo… it was his life’s work.”
“I know that, kid.” The trees are tall and the sun slanting, light dancing. “But you and Tae-chan were his life. There would’ve been no meaning to having the most students of any samurai school but losing you two.”
The tears are coming before Shinpachi can stop them, relief and gratitude swamping him in turns. Everything unspoken falls to the ground, darkening the dirt like rain. Hajime doesn’t say anything. He wraps Shinpachi in a hug smelling faintly of chocolate, and for the life of him he can’t figure out why.
In the months that follow, Shinpachi takes to watching Hajime heading the students.
He bursts with the same warmth as their father despite being his opposite: where he flowed, poised and measured, Hajime swings in choppy strokes and wide angles. He throws back his sake cups; grins raggedly, exertion shining on his forehead under the morning light after practice.
He teaches them to laugh even more – at everything and anything, and to never take prisoners in their quest for laughter. His bravado would surely have left their old man frowning up a storm, but Hajime is precisely what Shinpachi and Tae need in the grey wastes of their father’s passing.
As a samurai, his style is boisterous and shameless, and Shinpachi gravitates to it in the absence of his father. Hajime handles a sword with enviable ease, as if it was an extension of his body. One flick of the wrist and he could have an opponent disarmed and begging for mercy. His surety, the firmness of his footsteps, loud and confident, call to Shinpachi. He passes many an hour trying, and failing, to emulate his older brother.
Hajime laughs good-naturedly at his eager attempts. “Shin-bo, this isn’t quite your style.”
“But if I’m going to be strong I have to learn from the best!”
With a conspiratorial glance around to check Tae isn’t within hearing distance, he leans down to whisper in Shinpachi’s ear. “Let me tell you a secret… I’m not the best.”
Indignant, Shinpachi leaps up. “You’re the strongest of us all!”
Hajime gives him an indulgent grin. “If you’re so confident I’m the strongest, how about a friendly spar to settle things?” He rolls his sleeves up without waiting for a response, getting up to fetch two shinai and protective gear. Tae pokes her head around the door imperially, knowing smirk on her face.
“I’ll officiate,” she declares. In moments, they face one another across the dojo.
Shinpachi tries to ignore the slipperiness of the shinai in his grasp. The nervousness comes less from the fear of losing than the fear of winning; he wants to prove that Hajime is the stronger of them and that he, despite being heir to the dojo, has a way yet to catch up to his elders.
“Give it your best!” Hajime calls.
Tae raises an arm. “Begin!”
The air hangs heavy, sluggish. Shinpachi watches Hajime, gauging the chances of victory should he move first. As much as he would like his brother to win, it would be dishonourable to deliberately lose. His pride as a samurai demands an honest effort. Jaw clenching, Shinpachi readies to charge. Here I come, Hajime-nii!
He uncoils, taking off across the vast expanse of space. Shinai locked behind his shoulder; eyes set ahead. Hajime’s wide grin beckons him onward. Why isn’t he moving, if not forward, then at least to defend himself? Is he truly that confident of winning? Shinpachi can’t let the doubt show or affect him. He bounds up, gaining height, swinging the shinai back with both arms now, preparing to bring it down.
He immediately regrets it. This isn’t a life-or-death spar. Shinpachi only wants to land a single, clean stroke to win. He didn’t need to go for the flashy shounen-style attack that looks better on screen than it feels for the attacker, exposed at the crucial moment to a strike that could disable him handily.
Hajime’s parry is oddly weak, and to his surprise, Shinpachi feels the solid thunk of bamboo connecting to helmet, the impact rippling up his arms. The reality of it knocks the breath clear out of him, and before he knows it, he’s fallen to the ground in an awkward heap, shinai clattering down beside him.
“A – A point!” Tae declares, surprised as he is.
The only one who doesn’t look shocked is Hajime, who peels off the mask to reveal a wide smile. “I knew you could do it, Shin-bo! See, you’ve been getting stronger!”
The winning blow hadn’t felt right, and Shinpachi knows Hajime knows. “You – you let me win!”
“’Course I didn’t, Tae-chan can tell, right?”
A flicker of doubt crosses Tae’s face, eyebrows coming together. “I – I don’t think Obi one-nii sama would have given the fight away.”
Hajime claps a still-shaken Shinpachi on the back. “There you go! You won fair and square.”
A disappointed Tae soon wanders off, leaving the two to unbuckle their gear and put everything back. Shinpachi simmers with confusion and the beginnings of anger; suspicious that Hajime was mocking him and his desire to be stronger, or wanting to make Shinpachi feel better, because his head would have to be in another universe to believe he, the crybaby brother, was stronger than Obi Hajime.
“C’mon, Shin-bo, let’s refuel.”
“Why did you let me win?” he repeats, standing his ground.
Hajime feigns ignorance. “You’re stronger than you give yourself credit for. All those months of practice finally paid off, that’s all. I’m proud of ya.”
He’s speaking too awkwardly, eyes skittering ahead even as he tries to sound cheerful. The echo of falling to the floor in shock still weighs on Shinpachi’s limbs. His fists shake, cheeks flushing. Hajime shouldn’t have given him the victory, because he feels worse than before. Everyone thinks to hold his hand and lead him about as if he can’t look after himself – even when he says something sincerely, earnestly, they can’t take him seriously either.
“Why?” Shinpachi stutters, more than aware of the wetness on his cheeks.
In the same second, Hajime has backtracked and crouched down to peer intently at his younger brother. The gravity of his gaze takes Shinpachi aback. Hajime doesn’t tell him to stop crying.
“Shinpachi,” he says quietly, “you really are stronger than you think. I might’ve been a little lenient with you today, but that doesn’t mean you’re weak. Winning spars is one thing; being a samurai is another. Maybe you haven’t quite got the hang of the first. But you’ve got the right soul for the second, Shin-bo.” He taps Shinpachi’s head fondly.
“One day, you’ll be a stronger samurai than me.”
“That’s impossible,” Shinpachi sniffs, burying his face in Hajime’s chest. There isn’t any living person who could best his brother. Hajime’s arms are longer than his father’s, as if they could stretch around the world and still come back to him carrying the warmth of every person on the planet. Something wide and winged takes flight in his soul.
And all Hajime does is laugh, chasing away the tears and defeat.
A spilled parfait and mop of silver hair send Shinpachi catapulting into another life. This Sakata Gintoki – with none of his father’s work ethic but all his brightly burning passion; possessing Hajime’s brute strength and carrying a grief his brother never had – is every part the samurai Shinpachi wants to be, and yet does an admirable job of convincing everyone around him (even Shinpachi at times) that he isn’t.
Gintoki gambles his money away on pachinko, never leaving enough for the rent or his and Kagura’s wages; drinks only strawberry milk and eats parfaits; reads JUMP manga like a kid half his age. Disrespects law enforcement and throws general civility out the door if it can make him a quick buck.
Being the straight man and designated punching bag of the Yorozuya has its downsides, from cleaning up after Kagura to covering for his boss’ inexcusably overdue rent payments; having to put the dojo’s revival on hold indefinitely while he’s dragged along on madcap adventures into outer space and skirmishes with pirates, skirting the hard edges of the law as they aid and abet former-comrades-turned-terrorists.
Can’t even catch a break in between their world-saving escapades, making sure Kagura and Gintoki don’t drown in their own rubbish.
It overwhelms him at times, to stand next to a Yato and the former Shiroyasha. Yato, the night rabbits even Amanto fear; and the white demon of lore, names that send shivers running down the spines of battle-hardened warriors. He’s just Shimura Shinpachi, heir to the school of Tendo Mushin. Human-wearing spectacles to most, and a pair of glasses to those who couldn’t care less. He doesn’t inspire fear or awe; no one grovels or flees. He wouldn’t like it if they did, anyway.
Being Shinpachi is enough. Being Yorozuya is more than enough.
He holds onto the memory of his first encounter with Gintoki in that bar, the brightness of his soul, radiant with hope and the promise that the way of the samurai lived on. It carried him then to new resolve, and it carries him still, through despair and ennui alike. His training might not be conventional in any sense of the word – wresting his head from Sadaharu’s jaws in the morning, sweeping the apartment while Gintoki snores on the couch, saving the world every now and again – but he learns. He protects, over and over. If one day he has the privilege of protecting Gintoki, he will take the opportunity gladly.
The night Nizou appears with Benizakura, Shinpachi has no room for errors. Gintoki is slumped beneath the bridge, bloodied and beaten by the sheer force of the demon sword. His life hangs on the assassin’s next move. Shinpachi needs to wrest control of the moment if he’s to have a chance at saving his mentor. He can’t accept the thought of being helpless as someone else he cares about dies – leaves.
If there is any meaning to being a samurai, it weighs on the outcome of his next actions. His father and Hajime are gone but this man cannot leave. His determination swells, rocking at the edges of his mind like the water agitated by Nizou’s movement. The moment gnaws at him to hurry. In a heartbeat, Shinpachi tears himself from Elizabeth’s hold and runs towards the assassin without any thought in his head save GIN-SAN, crystal clear.
His arm seems possessed by a will of its own – strength, fear or desperation, he doesn’t know or care – and it comes down with a portentous blow, cleaving flesh and bone clean off. The arm splashes to the ground in a wet, dark gurgling. Nizou stops. Leaves. The moment returns. He is shaking. But I won. His grip on his sword doesn’t slacken but his knuckles are white and painfully taut. I won. Gin-san is safe.
Shinpachi feels the moment try to swallow him up in what should count as a triumph. I protected Gin-san. Darkness and moonlight play at the edge of his vision. Gintoki lies square in the centre, face pale and clammy.
“I knew you could do it,” he wheezes.
What… did I do?
Shinpachi stares at his sword hand in the days after with a newfound trepidation, as if expecting it to be possessed anew by the violence of the moment. It feels like a foreign appendage, not quite a demon sword but something more dangerous. He remembers the burning, overriding sensation of wanting to save Gintoki, even if it meant throwing himself bodily at Nizou and losing an arm of his own, or worse.
A ripple of terror rolls down his spine. He, mild-mannered and bespectacled, had been completely prepared to give his life for Gintoki’s. So where does the fear come from? Shouldn’t that have been a celebration? Proof he was committed to the bushido? Another flex of his hand. Tendons stretch and skin pulls taut in an echo of his then-fever.
It had felt like a sickness then, the urge to protect boiling his blood. But there was nothing foreign or wrong in wanting to protect Gintoki. They were master and disciple even if Gintoki never acted like the mentor he was meant to be, and Shinpachi was obliged to defend his master at all costs. Could even dare to presume he was family by now, considering everything they’d gone through. The force of his actions that night made more sense if he’d seen Gintoki as family and not just his master. A samurai protects his family.
His hand is still trembling, almost fluttering.
He’s not aware of Gintoki’s presence until he feels a hand on his head, ruffling his hair. “You did good.” It’s not his usual sarcasm or playful mockery; a gentleness Shinpachi has never known Gintoki possessed runs through his words. “But I hope you won’t have to do that again anytime soon.”
The quiet in the apartment sinks onto Shinpachi’s shoulders. Inexplicably, his hand – the one that severed Nizou’s arm – stills, seemingly calmed by the older samurai’s words.
“Gin-san?” he ventures. “What do you mean? I’ll always protect you.”
It’s what he does as a samurai, placing his life in the service of others. Gintoki rounds the couch and sits himself next to Shinpachi, holding back a wince as he adjusts his sling, brushing off any attempt to help. It’s a practical routine by now: near-death encounter, patching up, stubborn refusal of everyone’s aid. Indignation flares, briefly.
But Gintoki gives him a soft, kind look, and his irritation vanishes.
“Shinpachi,” says Gintoki in that same soft tone, “you’ve always protected me. Even without your sword and only that loud yelling you call a tsukkomi routine.”
“Oi,” but it’s a weak retort.
“You don’t need to give your life for this old and ugly one,” Gintoki continues. “I’m glad you were there and that you did what you did. It’s thanks to you I’m still here. But if you’re going to die for anything, don’t let it be for me.”
Shinpachi frowns. “Gin-san!”
“Wouldn’t you be glad to get rid of your troublesome boss?” he laughs, lopsided and self-deprecating.
“Please don’t make this into a joke, Gin-san. You’re not just important to me, you know. Kagura-chan relies on you too.” More people rely on him than he knows. “I wouldn’t be a samurai if I wasn’t prepared to die for someone precious to me.”
Gintoki holds back a snort. “Some master I am, neglecting your education.”
Despite himself, Shinpachi raises an eyebrow. “You’re only realising that now?”
“Hush, near-death situations do that to you. Life flashing before your eyes and all that.”
There’s something bitter to the way he says it that makes Shinpachi think better of a teasing reply. He settles for picking at his sleeves, eyes glued to the floor.
“You think exchanging your life for someone else’s is honourable?” says Gintoki. “The battlefield isn’t a place where you pin all your hopes on a single person. What if you lose them before the war’s over? Wouldn’t you also lose your reason for fighting?”
“I wouldn’t let them die,” Shinpachi mumbles.
“I wouldn’t let you die.”
Gintoki sighs. “I knew I wasn’t cut out for this mentoring thing.”
That he’s even making the effort to explain is more than what Shinpachi expected, and he holds back a smile at Gintoki’s frustration. This side he’s rarely seen, but he has no complaints.
“Alright,” Gintoki huffs, collecting his thoughts. “Think of it this way. If you’re prepared to lay down your life for someone, anyone, then you’d be more than prepared to live for them. To go home and say, ‘I’m back’, and hear ‘welcome home’ in return.
“There are many ways to be a samurai, Shinpachi. Sometimes it’s just –,” he waves a hand in the general direction of the shoji, “just coming back.” He goes strangely silent, eyes lingering on the threshold.
“Someone once taught me a long time ago we each find our own bushido in our own time. The path I took is not the path you will make for yourself. You don’t have to –,” he stumbles, pauses, “give anything so precious up, understand?”
His eyes are hooded. Shinpachi discerns the faintest hint of fear in that dropped gaze, and he understands.
There are things about his past Shinpachi has yet to know, to hear from Gintoki himself, even if his curiosity burns after their encounters with the Kiheitai. Perhaps this is his way of telling Shinpachi (in however roundabout a manner) what the war took from him – more than a shaking hand, nerves shot through with uncertainty; more than wide-eyed naivety and idealism.
That path, littered with corpses, crows and alien swords, diverges so sharply from what Shinpachi had known of the Yorozuya before Benizakura. He sees himself from a distance, cutting Nizou’s arm off, desperation writ large. As the clouds part, allowing moonlight to illuminate even the belly of the bridge, he sees a lurking fear mingled with Gintoki’s pride. The moon cuts a swathe through this Gintoki to a younger version of the Shiroyasha: figure white and stained red, teeth bared, fighting for a home he is about to lose.
But this Gintoki came home. Shinpachi made sure of it. He, Kagura and his sister patched him up, sat by his side, wiped the remnants of nightmares from his brow.
This apartment they call an office is their shelter too; this district of low-lifes and unruly children is where Shinpachi wants to return, hand in hand with Gintoki and Kagura.
Memories of hurry and save Gin-san seep into the floorboards with the afternoon light. Doubtless the moment will surface when he takes up his sword and steps onto the battlefield once more. There is something in Gintoki’s shadow that speaks of unfinished stories, shadows circling for blood.
And when the time comes, no matter what Gintoki says, Shinpachi will fight alongside him. To protect and defend, but to look forward too, to another morning beside his family. Once that time recedes and the shadows no longer sway so forebodingly behind his friend, mentor and brother, he will be samurai still.
“Oi,” Gintoki grumbles in a recognisably gruffer way. “Have you fallen asleep? What did I do to deserve an ungrateful student like you?”
“It’s alright, Gin-san,” Shinpachi smiles. “I understand.”
The vestiges of fear cause his hand to shiver, albeit momentarily. Nizou did not take either of their lives, and Shinpachi will not let him have that chance again.
The war washes to their door in an ugly, stinking heap, dredges of the past unearthed and laid bare for all to see.
Fight for your family, says his father.
Don’t die for me, says Gintoki.
You’ve got the right soul for this, says Hajime.
Shinpachi holds fast to the teachings of samurai greater than him, and fights. He is strong enough now to carry their lessons and then some, to protect his soul and family both. Around him is war and loss, pain and sadness from histories too layered for him to comprehend, exhaustion snaking through what is, in the end, a human body.
But broken families trace the coastlines of their enmity, find new ways to bring continents together; the people of the planet he calls home present a united front to the enemy, and Shinpachi grits his teeth, heaves his aching body into the fray, thinking of what comes after.
When all this is over – and it will be when, he is sure, he won’t allow if to swallow his future – they can return home to the Yorozuya apartment, to the dojo and his sister. It won’t be the same, but it will be something, and that’s enough to start again. They’ve built more from less. Here on Earth, in the land of the samurai, their story will continue.