‘Wait…
don’t rush to a conclusion.
This is something that affects her whole life.
Things will always turn around.
Don’t panic.
I can definitely save her.’ Definitely.
He could definitely protect her.
Before the right time came, he just needed to stay steady.
The woman’s peaceful life was not affected too much.
It only became more bleak and quieter.
Her husband was gone most of the time and only came by once in a while.
And the child who had always been noisy by her side also seemed to disappear completely the moment she gave up on him.
There was no annoying mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relationship, and she did not need to deal with her husband’s legal wife either.
In this extremely remote estate, she could not even see 1 servant.
There were only lively crayfish, and 3 meals a day placed on the broken window on time.
She ate until full, slept, then looked at the old roof.
At some point, the roof had been patched with all kinds of messy materials.
Wooden boards and porcelain basins had been nailed on randomly, and every time it rained, they made crackling sounds.
Every time this happened, she would think of Gintoki.
A concubine had no right to raise her own child from the very beginning.
6 years old was a dividing line, deciding whether that child would be a useful heir, or fall into being trash like her.
The woman knew very well that she would eventually part with Gintoki.
But at the same time, she firmly believed that child would become an outstanding heir and have a bright future under Zenin Ogi’s legal wife.
A Jujutsu Sorcerer of the Zenin Clan.
The heir to the Clan Head.
Even if the price was separation from his birth mother, as long as he stepped into the world of Jujutsu Sorcerers, anyone could see what a shining future that would be.
That would definitely be completely different from a worthless existence like her, someone who had Cursed Energy but failed to inherit a Cursed Technique.
She blessed that future and looked forward to that future.
However, when she prayed with all her strength, what she heard was bad news that had fallen upon her own child.
If a Jujutsu Sorcerer of the Zenin Clan meant a shining future, then the short 4 words, “Non-Zenin, non-sorcerer,” were enough to explain everything.
Failing to inherit the Zenin Clan’s ancestral Cursed Technique meant having no status at all and only being treated as a meaningless consumable. The source of this chapter is g.com.
Just like back then, when she had been sent to the Zenin Clan by a weak Jujutsu Sorcerer family.
She was the mother who had carried Gintoki, yet she failed to let him inherit the Zenin Clan’s ancestral Cursed Technique.
Instead, he had walked onto a pitiful path.
The moment she confirmed this, the woman felt hatred toward the gods for the first time.
If that was the case, then it would have been better if he had never been born.
If he had never come into this world, wouldn’t he have been happier instead!
How long had days like this gone on?
The woman looked at the golden fallen leaves outside.
Newly fallen leaves covered the old ones, as if as long as she kept looking at the gate, she could wait until the child ran toward her.
Gintoki, holding up ginkgo leaves and smiling at her.
“Gintoki…?” The woman staggered to her feet and rushed out of the room for the first time.
Was she an idiot?
She was an idiot, right!
Just because she heard news she did not want to accept, she shut herself away on her own and drove that child away from her side on her own.
Where exactly was he sleeping?
What was he eating?
What kind of life was he living!
“I’m sorry. I’m an unqualified mother.”
She had given you no talent, given you no love, and had not even given you 1 hug.
When she was young, she had once longed to be held in her mother’s arms too, but now she had already forgotten that feeling.
The woman cried, not knowing where she was running.
She struggled across the muddy path, ran past abandoned estates, and when she was lost and did not know where to go, a voice called out to her.
“Ojou-san~ Ojou-san~ It’s raining on your face. If you forgot to bring an umbrella, Gin-san can lend you 1, though it’s an umbrella for the heart.”
The woman looked toward the voice.
At the end of her gaze, she finally caught that dim shade of silver.
“Gintoki! You’re hurt. Why! Did crayfish pinch you?” The woman cried as she hugged Gintoki.
“How could it be crayfish? Today’s training was just a little hard to handle.”
‘Honestly, it’s really warm, but it hurts like hell!
Gin-san felt like his bones were screaming inside the woman’s hug.
Love?
Is this the weight of motherly love?
Isn’t it way too heavy?
“Thank goodness. You’re okay.” The woman hugged Gintoki tightly, as if once she let go, she would never be able to hug this tiny figure again.
Gintoki did not resist.
They hugged for a long time, as if time had really turned into eternity.
The woman murmured with trembling lips, “I’m sorry. Okaa-san shouldn’t have said such awful things to you. You were hurt, right?”
“Gin-san is pretty much past the age where getting scolded with 1 or 2 lines makes me want to destroy the world. Okaa-san just nags because she wants her son to walk a shining path, right? If I don’t even have that much tolerance, my luck with women will pretty much be zero.”
“Does Okaa-san count as luck with women too?”
“Even Gin-san wants to receive chocolate every year on Valentine’s Day. It doesn’t matter if it’s from Okaa-san or an older sister. I want sugar!”
“Then on Valentine’s Day—”
“Before that,” Gintoki prepared himself and said in an extremely gentle voice, “resign from the job of being Okaa-san first.”
The woman’s strength was instantly drained away by those words.
She loosened her arms and stared blankly at Gintoki’s face.
That face she had watched, from wrinkled and tiny to slowly growing open, still had a little baby fat and looked cute.
His blood-red eyes were gentle, but the words he spat out were cold.
The woman spoke weakly and in disbelief.
“Do you hate me that much? Enough to want to drive me out of the Zenin Clan?”
“You should have some self-awareness by now, stupid woman. From now on, I’m going to be raised under my dad’s legal wife. Who would look up to you? If people know I was born from you, it’ll only embarrass me. The fact that I can still give you some good conditions now is already special treatment. Take it while you can.”
The woman collapsed onto the ground at once.
But Gintoki showed no intention of stopping there.
“Listen carefully. You’re just an ordinary person who has left the Zenin Clan. Once you go outside, just act like you have nothing to do with us. From now on, you’re no longer my Okaa-san. You’re only yourself.”
After saying that, Gintoki shook the sleeves of his kimono.
Without even looking at the woman on the ground, he turned his back and walked away.
Only the woman was left behind, still futilely reaching out, trying to grab the edge of his clothes.
‘Ah…
she knew.’
After all, he would eventually grow wings and fly out of her palm.
Being adopted by the Clan Head meant that even if he had not inherited the Zenin Clan’s Cursed Technique, he must have inherited some kind of value strong enough for the higher-ups to approve of him.
Leaving his mother’s arms, he would eventually spread his wings and fly high.
Tears kept pouring out, but after hearing this good news, the sorrow on her face also eased a little, as if a flower about to wither in a desolate courtyard had finally bloomed with a faint smile.
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