Respect your older siblings, because they are much more experienced at getting away with stuff. Also, they can kick your butt.

Attention: what Kamui Is going through might be described as a spell of depression, but I don't think there's anything worthy of a trigger. Maybe the pining, as always.

One day I will write a fic where the elusive Takamui at least kiss, but it won't be today. What's the score- four fics and they got to weird-ass cuddling? Smooth, aren't they?

The battle was over. The damage was healing, weapons cleaned and put away, all wrongs forgiven but probably not forgotten.

All fights died down, because even the best things had to end one day.

The humans welcomed the peace, it seemed, and so did Kagura. Kamui was.. alone.

No, no, that wasn't exactly correct. He had his whole squad at his beck and call, the whole Harusame fleet waiting for him if he decided, but they didn't understand.

In a way Abuto would have, but Kamui had no idea where his uncle was, or even if he was alive. Single minded focus, remember? Lately it didn't do much good for Kamui, not at all.

He was the only one who felt like he had lost something precious when the fights died down.

Aside of that he didn't get much alone time at all, be it because those around him were worried over him or for him; he cared not.

He was never completely alone these days that he spent on the planet of samurai. He exercised, trained lightly sometimes, cooked. Drifted. The skies were high and no one stopped him when he went out in the storm. But he was never alone.

"Yanno," That was the silver haired samurai that Kamui now called Gintoki and didn't try to kill anymore. They were both in Shinsuke's hospital room, Kamui trapped by the sun outside and Gintoki mocking him by staying, too, even though he didn't have to. He didn't mind the company, not when the guy was just reading a magazine and looking for his brain by way of digging a pinkie into his ear- it was a lost cause, Kamui wanted to tell him. You can't find what doesn't exist.

"You're not such a terrible brat after all." Pages rustling, finger digging. Kamui sighed and shook his head, quietly disagreeing.

"You shouldn't listen to my sister." he answered without taking his eyes off of the tree behind the window, bathed in sunlight in a way he will never be. In a way Shinsuke might never be, either.

"Eh." Gintoki waved that off, incidentally with the hand he had just pulled out of his skull. It should be gross, but Kamui didn't care.

Pages rustling, wind howling outside. Another sigh. Heels clinked out in the corridor and they both tensed, hoping it wasn't Shinsuke's stalker returning already from her impromptu trip into outer space. It wasn't.

"Didn't mean it like that, though. You could have killed her, yanno? And you didn't."

That was true. Back there he had been high on the taste of blood, his soul singing, a sun exploding from within him. He would have killed her, though.

"Didn't stop for her." Kamui replied. He guessed Gintoki might be disappointed by that, disgusted by the lack of regret in his voice. For all his talk about family, though, the guy never blamed him these days.

A sun exploding, matter and antimatter collapsing, all the energy necessary to lighten up Kamui's whole universe.. but there was a force more powerful than that, there always was.

Like a black hole, swallowing all the light and never letting it go again, keeping it nestled in it's tight embrace.

"Once upon a time, Takasugi was my friend." Pages rustling as Gintoki set his magazine down and when Kamui looked at him he locked eyes with the Shiroyasha instead, chilled to the bone. Any other day he would have bitten and scratched, but these times even fighting left sour taste in his mouth.

"And back there, I would have let him die. You're a better friend to him than I was. So I don't mind taking care of your sister for you a little bit longer."

He got it all wrong, though. It wasn't a trade, it wasn't fair or right, not at all. So what if Kamui put his fight away to save a life? So /what/! So what if he kept returning to sit by a sick man's bed. So what, so what, so what. It was no one's business.

It had been an impulsive decision, a whim of his mind. He probably wouldn't have done the same, second time around. His fingers sometimes twitched in regret for the ruined fight.

Kamui looked back out and a few minutes later the pages rustled again and it was the same thing all around. Again and again and again.

Minutes, days, weeks, time measured by the beep of a heart monitor, by the food that he sometimes made and rarely ate, by Yato dropping to the Yorozuya to talk at Kamui about their work.

That was why he should have seen the change coming from far away and really, he had no excuse.

The hints had been there; whispers when he walked past them, conversation dying when he entered a room, side glances. The prickle of eyes boring into the back of his head.

Single minded focus, again. It was possibly his only luck that he was in a company of.. friends, maybe.

Family, more like. Kagura loved him, he saw it in her eyes and avoided her for it, that boy Shinpachi just took him in a stride, keeping his thoughts to himself if he had any, and Gintoki.. somehow Kamui had wormed his way into the man's good grace, even though he had done exactly nothing.

It was keeping him safe much more successfully than he would have managed, what with his mind a mile away, stuck on the soulless body of a dying man.

And it was his sheer luck that when someone aimed a punch at his face it was not with the intention to kill.

"Fight me!" voice screamed from the spot where Kamui had been standing until a few seconds ago, before he got launched through the air in an elegant arch, right into the wall he was now blinking out of his eyes. Kagura, of course. "Wake the fuck up, Kamuiiii!"

The sight swam a bit as she stomped across the room, past a brain-digging Gintoki and completely disinterested Shinpachi, then she wrapped her Yato-pale hand in Kamui's shirt and tugged him up.

He let her.

He couldn't see a single reason to struggle out of her strong grip, watching detached as pieces of concrete from the wall dripped off of him. No blood, but he tasted copper anyway.

"Wake up!" she shook him and Kamui blinked when his head briefly bumped into something annoyingly sharp, his hair tangled in it and few torn out in the process.

She slapped his cheek and then again, stripping him of the safety of his plastic smile. When she raised her hand for the third time he caught it, surprised by how much whiter his skin was, even compared to one of another Yato. It was shaking, too. Strange, he had never had trouble with Kagura's strength before.

"What are you doing." he asked instead of thinking about whether she had gotten stronger.. or him so much weaker.

Kagure grinned in face of his scowl, all teeth and eagerness for fight without the burden of bloodlust. "Slapping some sense into you." she beamed at him for some reason and then kneed him in his stomach, sharp enough that Kamui gasped for breath and- and-

He wasn't about to let his midget of a sister punch him around, not with that kind of attitude. She had to learn some respect.

One burning breath in and he lowered his hara, bracing against the indent in the wall. All of the energy went into his foot as he kicked Kagura away, sending her flying across the room. She got stopped by Gintoki's couch, but instead of coming to her defence like Kamui half expected, the guy just moved his journal away from the impact zone, "Oi, oi. Keep it down, children." he said in a bored drawl.

Kagura folded herself back up just as Kamui peeled himself out of the wall. This time they moved both, so synchronised that Kamui wouldn't be able to tell who struck first.

Kagura's style was the same it had been, leading with her fists and kicking out when she had no other choice, brutal force unpolished but effective. Kamui dodged and misdirected, blocked and danced around her; he had forgotten how good it felt to be able to breathe freely.

The differences were there, though. Neither of them was aiming to kill and.. Kamui felt slow, sluggish and weak so much it was disgusting. He was still faster than her but not by much and he had to get more creative.

Instead of a kick to her head he swept her feet from the ground, instead of a punch to her sternum he wrapped his legs around her neck and tossed her. It was fun.

She answered by grappling him to the ground, first the table falling victim to their combined weight, then Gintoki's desk, then the front door.

By the time they fell through the porch and to the muddy ground Kamui was grinning and Kagura was laughing, loud guffaws that revived the sun of his soul into a warm glow.

Down in the mud Kamui propped himself up on an elbow and let her catch her breath, his own lungs burning and chest heaving.

"Peace?" Kagure asked as she rolled onto her back, her eyes a cloudless sky.

Kamui searched himself for a moment and decided that yes, he was at peace. He nodded, dropping into the mud to gaze at the clouds above them, too.

"I'm hungry." he noticed, surprised. "Ah! Let's cook."

"Yeah!" Kagura sat up fully revitalised, it seemed, thrusting a fist up towards the sky. Kamui felt like doing the same, but he was tired; he will have to start eating properly again, start training hard so he will be ready to kick Shinsuke's ass when the guy finally decides to wake up.

"Uh, no..?" came from above them and when Kamui looked that way, he saw Gintoki's face through the hole in the porch, "Clean up first. I'm not dealing with this mess for you two!"

"Aw, but Gin-chan~~" Kagura whined, getting up to head back up the stairs where she latched onto the samurai's arm, puppy dogs and all.

Kamui chuckled and followed, first taking a look over the place. Wow, okay, they had really made a mess.

"Yeah, Gin-chan~" Kamui matched her tone of voice and grabbed a hold of Gintoki's other arm, trying to see if his favourite pleading expression worked on the man as well as it always did on Abuto.

"Oi, oi, what's with the Gin-chans, Gin-chan can't keep cleaning up after you!" the man complained, but Kamui was pretty sure he was caving in, his expression more exasperated than annoyed.

"We'll clean up." Kamui said earnestly, blinking slowly and upping the pout a notch, "/After/ we eat."

"Gin-chaaaaan~" Kagure tugged at Gintoki's sleeve, her face a mirror of what Kamui was doing; she was a quick study.

Gintoki grumbled some more and then sighed, "Fine, fine! But you're gonna clean up afterwards!" he called, having to raise his voice at the end because they were both already sprinting back inside, Kagura expertly taking over dividing the cooking duties, even dragging Shinpachi into it.

They both ate enough to feed a small army and then the rain started to fall and Kamui went out and then when he came to visit his samurai.. he had a lot to tell him about.

And of course, in the end they didn't clean a thing.

Cute kids are trouble.