I'm so sorry I skipped a week but it was the start of spring break and I was excited ok ;-;. Anyway, here's the last chapter of this small little story, I hope you enjoyed and thanks to all those who reviewed!

Reviews :3

Reader - I meeaaaannn, a funeral wasn't originally planned, but now that you mention it...

Person - Well... sorry to disappoint

Not To Hell

He did not don the traditional black and white despite Shinpachi's best efforts to change his mind.

Nor did he shed the blood crusted blue and silver as he pushed open the barely repaired doors of the Shinsengumi HQ.

In fact, he had not so much as touched his closet door since their last moment of eye contact and the heavens decided to dump rain on the two of them only before unleashing the thunderstorm.

He walked through the grounds, and they parted for him, a dull streak of the silver soul walking through grief. Some watched with confusion, some anger, and some hatred.

"But Gin-San, going to a funeral without proper attire is one of the biggest acts of disrespect one can commit."

Like he cared.

The last of them finally stepped to the side, and a strangely solemn gorilla and sedate sadist prince came into view. The latter at least turned to acknowledge his existence, the former didn't move a muscle. Even from the back, Gin saw how tense the gorilla was, how the usually boisterous man dug his nails so deep into his palms that a thin line of red slowly slid down his finger.

Wasn't as if he didn't know Gin was there though.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

No usual biting remark was returned.

The gorilla still didn't turn, but with noticeable effort, stepped to the side.

There sat the coffin.

The thuds of his black boots were muffled by the dirt as the silver samurai made his way to the vice commander's side, dead fish maroon scorching so hard into closed gunmetal blue, as if it would trigger the peaceful brows to furrow in an annoyance and peacefully closed eyes to glare upwards at his stupid rival.

Of course, none of that happened, much to the samurai's annoyance. Peaceful brows remained peaceful, unfurrowed, vulnerable.

He looked like he was sleeping.

So peaceful.

So gods damned peaceful.

So unlike the mess of a world he just left behind.

Pale fingers reached for pale features, as if he was going to so very rudely wake him from a nap, and was stopped abruptly by tan ones, with much more force than necessary.

Gintoki looked up and into the enraged eyes of the Shinsengumi commander before the man jerked him back, peaceful features disappearing from view as he slammed into the ground, dust staining silver strands.

The gruff voice sounded in his ear, or perhaps it was a memory.

"Get out of my sight."

"Get out of my sight."

Kondo's hands shook. In fact, he shook. From head to toe, the chief of the Shinsengumi, the stupid gorilla, the loud obnoxious idiot, he shook. Not from fear of a thundering assault from Shinpachi's sister, not from happiness over some small, minuscule affair. This was different, this, Gin knew, from years of feeling the very same feeling, signified a fracturing soul.

Those very same, shaking hands grasped desperately at the limp figure in his arms, tears finally pouring now that he'd managed to stay strong for his second's last breaths. Arms kept the dead body of Hijikata Toushirou cradled so very carefully, legs curling into his chest as he brought him closer, closer, and closer still, tears falling like raindrops onto the raven locks, soaking the vest the vice commander had worn proudly until his took his last step and made his final mark.

Around the bloodstained silver, black-clad shoulders spasmed with silent sobs, a thunderstorm of grief and tears sweeping across the crowd, the wailing hearts of Edo's protectors ringing in the silver samurai's ears and splitting the skies.

He moved, made his way through the dark masses, the eerie silence, his natural perm gleaming in the darkness. This time though, he knew to prepare himself, and this time, he would only be confronted with one battered and bleeding figure, except this time, the branch had already snapped, and the parrot had tumbled into the yawning chasm below. Moving past the last of them, Gin approached the gorilla's hunched figure, but before he could get within ten steps of him, the man's gaze snapped up, pinning the advancing samurai in place. The fingers that wrapped around Toushirou's shoulders tightened, and Kondo looked practically identical to a beast standing guard over the corpse of her cubs.

"Who did this." The words rippled out like a growl, and even Gin had to fight down a shudder.

"Kondo-Sa-" The sadist didn't finish whatever he was going to say.

"Who. Did. This." The voice was too calm for the gorilla, and Gin felt the Shinsengumi stir. Evidently, they had never seen him this angry before.

It almost made him afraid to tell the story.

"He did."

"The hell does that mean."

"It means exactly what you think it does. It means a man believing himself to be weak ended it the only way he knew how."

Brown eyes scorched into maroon, and Gin had the feeling that Kondo was seeing through his very soul, witnessing exactly what had happened at the harbor, seeing Toushirou's suicidal decision and his enactment of it.

Perhaps he was.

His next words had Shinsengumi officers grabbing Gintoki from behind and dragging him away.

And it was in that moment that Sakata Gintoki knew.

"Get out of my sight."

Kondo Isao hated him.

He got up slowly, somewhat surprised that he hadn't been dragged and dumped outside the walls, only to come face to face with a younger, brown-haired boy.

"Danna, let's go."

One more glance at the uncharacteristic tranquility adorning the features of the bakufu's resident demon, and Gin followed Sougo out the broken doors, about to make his exit when he was stopped once again.

"If you want to see the rest of it, Danna, the wall's right there."

Those were his parting words before the sadist walked back inside.

He watched the rest of it from the wall that was right there.

The few words of farewell that all the members murmured.

The lack of nearly everyone required for atraditional funeral.

The lack of cheesy speeches and cliche "I would like to say a few words"s.

This wasn't a funeral, was it? It was just a final farewell to send him on his way.

They all fell in line. Neatly, perfectly. How he always taught them to.

"Pay your respects to the vice commander!"

In one fluid motion, Edo's protectors gave one final salute to their soft-hearted demon.

And the flames burst into life.

The kids had left him alone, Kagura following Shinpachi home when he had promptly ignored her efforts to cheer him up.

He sat on the couch, a crushed carton of strawberry milk on the table , its contents dripping off the table and pouring onto whatever poor volume of JUMP was laying next to it.

He was so going to regret that later when he runs out of money to rebuy it.

The sake bottle was almost empty, and he halfheartedly brought it up to equally empty eyes to swish it around. Some liquid bounced out the top of the bottle (no, he still doesn't know his own strength) and leapt into his eyes, at which he dropped the bottle, the thing shattering on the floor as he reached up to rub them, cursing along the way, when the door to the Yorozuya slid open.

"How long are you going to sulk for?"

"As long as I want."

"Tch."

"Don't 'tch' me you nicotine bastard."

A plume of smoke floated into the room, and footsteps echoed on wood, shattered glass crunching beneath black boots.

"Oh I'm gonna do whatever the hell I want."

Gin glared back at annoying v-shaped bangs, only for the equally annoying owner of said bangs to blow a cloud of smoke into his face, the scent of tobacco overwhelming him.

"Hey!" The silver samurai choked, coughing and hacking as he tried to wave the smoke away, though his efforts were sadly in vain when the bastard added a second plume.

"Stop it!" Gin leapt off the couch, making to tackle the vice commander only to pass straight through the man, sending himself sprawling across the room and into the wall, confused, upside down, and with his dignity in shreds.

Regaining his composure (kind of somewhat not really), Gin looked up, about to shoot another biting remark when he was greeted with the sight of a blood-drenched demon with vortexes of swirling purple for eyes, his mouth open in an enraged scream, cigarettes forgotten and a cursed blade in hand. Then he blinked and it was gone, leaving the calm and collected vice commander, though the echoes remained.

WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU HOLDING BACK

I'm not strong enough

Fight it for me

Kill me

Another plume had him out of the trance and glaring at strangely attractive features.

"Oi."

The raven knelt so that their noses were almost touching through the smoke.

"Two things. One, I'll stop when you stop sulking."

"… na"

"Two, whatever you did with the sword, it's already gone to hell for both of us."

"Oi Danna!"

Gintoki jerked awake, the sadist looking down at him shrinking back to narrowly avoid a collision. Sitting up, Gin stretched before flopping back down. "What do you want?"

Silence.

"You don't know, do you."

"Some of them still hadn't know what happened, the ones that happened to be on errands or were stationed elsewhere."

"And?"

"And they looked at me like I was crazy. 'Why do you call him the vice commander?' 'Where is the vice commander?' 'Isn't he the first unit captain?'

"Then they learn about what happened, and they shake their head, they say it's impossible, because 'the vice commander is a demon', because 'the vice commander is invincible'."

He was almost rambling.

"So now Zaki's work is getting nowhere because there's no one to beat some sense into him when he's playing badminton, and political affairs are a mess because no one really knows how to handle them anymore." He sighed, turning to walk out, pausing at the stairs, taking in the strips of black and white adorning the houses of the Kabuki District and all buildings as far as the eye could see.

Edo was crying.

"If it's any help," Gin joined the sadist outside. "You can tell them that he won't be going to hell anytime soon."

At that, the brown-haired teen gave the samurai a quizzical look, but didn't respond before walking down the wooden stairs.

"Stupid sword's going instead." The perm head added.

Still the new vice commander did not look back as Gin headed back inside, a smile curling the corners of his lips.

It's already gone to hell for both of us.

He should start cleaning up, and maybe prepare an apology speech.

FIN

Hey at least it ended on an upbeat note :p

But yah that's it! I really hope you enjoyed and if you did, please leave a review :D. Even if you didn't like it, please also tell me where I went wrong so I can improve in future writings! For example, did I go too OOC with the characters (highly likely since I don't really know Gintama characters very well)? Was the plot too cliche? Was the story not Gintama-y? Was the writing just, you know, bad? You get the idea.

Even if you don't leave a review though, I still want to thank everyone who read this story, I know I sound so cliche rn but I really appreciate people taking the time to read my stories :)

I'm just rambling at this point lol, but thank you again and byebye! I'll see you in my next story.

(i just said story way too many times)