Two years of peace had done exactly nothing to improve the state of the Yorozuya office.
Gintoki lay sprawled across the sofa in his usual position — one leg hooked over the armrest, a copy of Jump open across his face rather than in his hands, the fan overhead doing its slow, useless best against the summer heat.
Sadaharu occupied most of the remaining floor space.
Somewhere in the kitchen, Kagura was arguing with Shinpachi about whose turn it was to actually go find them a job that paid.
“We are two months behind on rent,” Shinpachi was saying, voice climbing.
“Two months, Gin-san.
Otose is going to throw all of our things into the street.” “She’s said that before,” Gintoki said, from beneath the manga, entirely unmoved.
“Never followed through.” “That’s not exactly reassuring.” “Reassurance costs extra.” Kagura wandered out of the kitchen gnawing on something that had, at one point, probably been food, and dropped down onto Gintoki’s stomach without warning, which finally got a reaction out of him — a wheeze, and the manga sliding off his face.
“Oi.
Off.” “You’re comfortable,” Kagura said, entirely unbothered, and stayed exactly where she was.
It was, all things considered, a perfectly ordinary Tuesday, right up until the air above the low table shimmered gold and a card that had no business existing simply appeared, hovering there with the patient, unhurried confidence of something that had all the time in the world to wait for someone to notice it.
Shinpachi noticed first.
“…Gin-san.” “Busy.” “There’s a floating card.” “Tell it to make an appointment.” “Gin-san.” Something in his tone finally got through.
Gintoki cracked one eye open, took in the gold-edged card hovering serenely over his coffee table, and closed the eye again with the air of a man who had, over the course of a very long and increasingly strange life, simply run out of energy to be surprised by things.
“Kagura, get off, there’s a floating card that needs yelling at.” “I can yell from here.” “It’s addressed to me specifically.
This requires my personal touch.” Kagura rolled off him with theatrical reluctance, and Gintoki sat up, picking the card out of the air with two fingers and turning it over the way he might inspect a fish of questionable freshness.
[Sakata Gintoki.
You are invited as a guest to Void City — a city at the center of all dimensions.
Here we have everything, and lack nothing.] He read it twice, unimpressed both times.
“‘Here we have everything, and lack nothing,'” he read aloud, flat.
“Bold claim from something that showed up uninvited on my coffee table.” “What is it?” Shinpachi asked, leaning over to look.
“Some kind of business proposal, or a cult recruitment pitch.
Hard to tell which with these.” Gintoki considered it a moment longer, scratching the back of his head.
“‘Lack nothing.’ Sure.
Bet they don’t have decent parfait.” “We’re two months behind on rent, Gin-san.” “…Right.” He glanced at the card again, then at Kagura, still watching with open, undisguised curiosity, then at Sadaharu, who had lifted his enormous head just enough to sniff suspiciously at the glow.
“Fine.
Worst case, it’s a scam and I get to tell an interesting story about it later.
Best case, free money.” “That’s not really weighing the actual risks—” “Yeah, yeah.” Gintoki closed his hand around the card before Shinpachi could finish the sentence, mostly because finishing the sentence sounded like effort neither of them had in them.
The information arrived a beat later, settling into his mind the way most things settled into Gintoki’s mind these days — without much ceremony, and without much enthusiasm on his part to properly receive it.
A city outside every world.
Countless dimensions, countless strangers, an economy apparently built on selling off pieces of yourself to a talking crystal.
“Huh,” he said, unbothered.
“Sounds like a con.” [This is not, in fact, a con.] Gintoki blinked at the new voice that had somehow attached itself directly to his skull.
“It talks back now?” [The System offers real-time clarification for new guests.] “Great.
So it’s a con with customer service.” Kagura had already abandoned all pretense of doing anything else, practically vibrating with excitement.
“Can I come?
I want to come.” “Card’s addressed to me.
One name on it, no plus-ones.” Gintoki turned it over again to double-check, mostly for effect.
“Believe me, if there was a way to bring the both of you and dump the responsibility of watching you somewhere else, I’d already be doing it.” “That’s not fair.” “Life isn’t fair.
That’s Lesson One of the Yorozuya.
Also there is no Lesson Two, I made that up just now.” “You’re the one who’s two months behind on rent.” “And I’m about to go fix that.
Personally.
Alone.
Very heroically.” He grabbed his wooden bokutō from where it leaned against the wall, slinging it over one shoulder with the same lazy indifference he brought to most decisions in his life, and headed for the door with his hands in his pockets, entirely unhurried, exactly the way he approached everything.
“Bring me back something good,” Kagura called after him.
“No promises,” Gintoki said, and stepped through the gold light without so much as looking back.
• • The gate rose up out of the dark ahead of him, and beyond it, a city suspended in a void full of more stars than he’d ever bothered to count, and Gintoki stood there for a moment taking it in with the same flat, unimpressed expression he gave most things.
“Huh,” he said.
“Not bad.” That was, apparently, the full extent of his reaction.
He crossed the bridge with his hands still in his pockets, absorbed the welcome message and the rules with roughly the same enthusiasm he gave the terms and conditions of anything, and wandered through the gate into the square beyond it like a man who had wandered into stranger places and come out the other side mostly fine.
He didn’t get far before something made him stop.
“…Oi.” He squinted at a boy in orange, loudly arguing with someone about ramen toppings a short distance away.
“That’s — hang on.
That’s the kid from Naruto.” Naruto, oblivious to being recognized, kept arguing.
Gintoki turned his head the other way and found himself staring, with growing and deeply confused suspicion, at a woman reading quietly near the Exchange Center — dark hair, calm expression, entirely too familiar.
“And that’s the archaeologist from One Piece.” He rubbed at his eyes, wondering, not for the first time in his life, whether he’d simply lost his mind somewhere between his living room and here.
“Great.
Wonderful.
My imagination’s decided to start plagiarizing Shonen Jump.” He decided, on reflection, not to think about it too hard, and kept walking.
• • The crystal read him without much ceremony once he found it, the panel assembling itself in front of him with polite efficiency.
[Guest: Sakata Gintoki] [Shiroyasha’s Swordsmanship — 3,000 Void Points.] [Amanto-Era Combat Resilience — 1,500 Void Points.] [Familiarity with Amanto Technology — 800 Void Points.] [Total Assessed Value — 5,300 Void Points.] Gintoki looked at the number with mild, distant interest, the same expression he might give a decent but unremarkable lottery ticket.
“Five grand for basically my whole life’s work.
Rent’s gonna eat through this in about a week.” He shrugged, sold all three without any real ceremony, and pocketed the total.
“Guess it’s something.” • • The shop, once he actually looked at it properly, turned out to hold one detail that improved his mood considerably.
[Gold — 10 Void Points per pound.] “…Gold’s worthless here?” He said it out loud, delighted despite himself.
“Ten points a pound?
That’s basically free.
I’m rich.
I’m gold-rich.
Somewhere my ancestors are weeping with joy.” He bought as much of it as felt reasonable, then wandered the rest of the shop with the particular focus of a man determined to get his money’s worth out of every category available — buying one of nearly every consumable on the shelf, a pill here, a tonic there, sampling his way through the whole catalog with growing enthusiasm right up until his balance dropped low enough to actually give him pause.
“Huh,” he said, staring at the remaining total.
“Can’t afford the rest.
That’s annoying.” He put the rest back with only mild regret, and kept moving.
• • The food street undid whatever restraint he had left almost immediately.
It was the parfait that did it — a tall, absurd tower of strawberries and cream sitting in Restaurant Yukihira’s display case, prepared, according to the small sign propped beside it, by a chef whose palate had reportedly been nicknamed God’s Tongue.
Gintoki stood in front of the case for a long moment in something close to reverence.
“That,” he said, to no one, “is a parfait worth going broke over.” He went broke over it.
Every remaining point vanished into a single order, and he ate the entire thing in a state of quiet, focused bliss that briefly made him forget he was two months behind on rent, several dimensions from home, and now, once again, entirely out of money.
• • He was still licking the spoon when he noticed the other white-haired man across the street.
Gintoki stopped mid-lick, studying him with narrow, deeply suspicious eyes.
“Oi.
You.” He pointed the spoon accusingly.
“You’re doing the Kakashi thing.
The eye-covering thing.
That’s a whole bit someone already owns, you know.” Gojo, blindfold in place as always, turned to look at him with open curiosity.
“The what thing?” “The mysterious-ninja-with-something-covering-his-face thing.
Very derivative.” “I have no idea what you’re talking about, but I like your hair,” Gojo said, grinning.
“Very fluffy.
Very white.
We match.” “We do not match.
Mine’s a perm.
Natural, effortless, timeless.” Gintoki gestured at his own head with visible pride.
“Yours looks like a cloud got a haircut.” “My hair’s iconic.” “My hair’s iconic-er.” They stared at each other for a long, silent moment, both entirely serious about a rivalry that had no possible resolution, right up until Gojo shrugged and delivered the final word with total, unbothered confidence.
“I’m taller.” Gintoki opened his mouth, found no actual counterargument, and closed it again.
“…Yeah, okay..” Off to the side, Levi watched the entire exchange with flat, weary disdain and said nothing at all, which was, in its own way, the most damning review either of them received.
• • Gintoki went home broke, full, and thoroughly unbothered by either fact, and it wasn’t until he was halfway through kicking off his sandals that the idea actually hit him — stumbling, half-formed, directly into the pile of manga still scattered across the Yorozuya floor.
He stood there a moment, staring down at it.
“…Huh,” he said slowly, a grin spreading across his face at the exact same pace his last one had, back on the coffee table.
“Huh.
Huh.” • • He went back the following week with a considerably heavier bag.
He didn’t bother with a stall — no sense sinking money into overhead he didn’t need — and instead made his way straight toward two very specific, very familiar faces, manga tucked discreetly under one arm.
“Oi,” he said, crouching down beside Naruto with the casual, unhurried air of a man about to do something faintly illegal.
“You.
Ninja kid.
I’ve got something you’re gonna want.” He held up the volume so the title showed plainly.
“Naruto, volume one.
Ring a bell?” Naruto blinked at him, then at the cover, then at the small, stylized drawing of his own face staring back at him from it.
“…That’s — what.” “Nope, don’t worry about how.
Just know it exists.” Gintoki held it just out of reach, unbothered.
“This concerns your future.” “My future?” “Your whole future.
Every fight, every rival, every ridiculous thing you’re about to do with your life — someone already wrote it down.” He tapped the cover meaningfully.
“For a price, obviously.
I’m not a charity.” Robin had drifted over by then, drawn by the exchange with easy, scholarly curiosity — curiosity that didn’t survive contact with the volume Gintoki produced next.
One Piece, the cover read, and her own face looked back at her from it, rendered in ink, younger than she currently was.
Whatever amusement had been sitting in her expression a moment ago simply left it.
She took the book from his hands without asking, turning it over slowly, and the silence that followed had nothing playful left in it at all.
“You’re telling me,” she said, quiet, entirely serious now, “that someone, somewhere, has already written down what happens to me.” “That’s the pitch, yeah.” She didn’t answer right away.
Robin had spent a great deal of her life being hunted for what she knew, punished for the wrong kind of knowledge landing in the wrong hands — and here was a stranger, offering her the one kind of knowledge she’d never once thought to look for.
Her own story, already finished somewhere, already safe enough to be printed and sold to strangers as entertainment.
“Name your price,” she said.
“Already did.” “Then we’re finished discussing it.” She was already reaching for her points before he’d even confirmed the number, no haggling in her at all, none of the careful calculation she usually brought to every transaction.
This wasn’t a purchase.
It read, on her face, like something closer to relief.
Naruto squinted at the two of them, then at his own volume, still deeply suspicious.
“That sounds like a scam.” “It’s a gift-based economy.
Very sophisticated.
Very legal.” Robin transferred the points without further comment, and the quiet, unhurried certainty of it settled the matter for Naruto considerably faster than any explanation could have.
Gintoki watched the numbers land in his balance with the deep, satisfied contentment of a man who had, against considerable odds, found the one business model perfectly suited to his exact combination of talents.
“See,” he said, to absolutely no one.
“That’s customer service.”