[Gintama] Immortal

……

...is she dead?

A real dead person would not think about this kind of question, so Yae judged that she was still "alive".

She still exists.

As if responding to her inner voice, the boundless darkness suddenly settled down, like clouds and mists turning into the earth, paving a road under her feet.

The reorganized world emerges before Yae's eyes, and Yae finds herself standing in an unfamiliar mountain.

The night sky with few stars was dark, and the time seemed to be night. At the end of the road, there was the sound of wheels rolling over the ground, and the blurred figure holding the torch gradually approached.

A man in ragged clothes is dragging a heavy wooden cart. It seems that an old man from the same village is walking in the front holding a torch. The strap of the black servant's hat is buckled on his chin.

Yae followed, and the three of them walked to the gate of the mansion - when they came back to their senses, the mansion was already standing there - the samurai wearing a black hat cleared his throat and motioned for two villagers to stand at the gate He stopped, straightened his clothes, and stepped into the mansion to report.

The ragged man raised his hand and wiped the sweat from his face with his dirty sleeve.

At this moment, the crate on the wooden cart suddenly moved, as if there was some living thing inside, struggling inside.

With a flick of the torch, the two people who stayed outside the mansion were startled.

"...Ah...Grandpa, did you see it?" The man stammered, with a strong accent.

Yae was standing next to the two, the old man and the man looked at each other, and both saw the same panic in each other's eyes.

"The Lord Commander ordered us to bring it here, isn't it the medicinal materials?" The man panted slightly, his expression a little ugly.

county secretary.

Yae raised his eyebrows slightly after not hearing this title for hundreds of years.

The county secretary is an official position appointed by the imperial court. It is a product of the period before the vassal state and the period when the order ruled the country. After Tokugawa established the shogunate, this ancient official system was abolished.

"... Keep your voice down!" The old man glared at the man fiercely, but his voice was weak, with a somewhat stern feeling.

"My lord's thoughts are not something we ordinary people can guess. If you talk too much, be careful not to lose your head."

dong dong dong.

The movement on the wooden cart sounded again, which seemed particularly abrupt in the dark night.

The hearts of the two jumped together, and the man looked at the old man with hesitation in his eyes.

"Grandpa, if there is a person here..."

Before he finished speaking, the old man directly reprimanded: "Don't talk nonsense!" But his expression wavered.

"The box has no ventilation holes. If there is a person inside, it might kill someone."

The man muttered to himself, suddenly wiped his hand on his clothes, and turned around to check the things on the wooden cart.

"Yanosuke! You...you...ah!"

Holding the torch, the old man had no choice but to stand around the wooden cart to help guard, his dark and rough forehead was covered with sweat.

Yae followed suit.

She has long been used to the people around her not being able to see her.

The man pried open the uppermost plank, hesitated for a moment, and moved the plank away with his teeth.

At that moment, Yae suddenly knew what was inside.

She knew who was lying in it.

The firelight penetrated into the dark wooden crate, and the living creatures trapped inside raised their heads slightly following the light.

A pair of blood jade eyes.It was cold and hard, and it was so bright red that it seemed that blood would flow out in the next moment.

"...Yanosuke!"

The man staggered back in fright, and fell to the ground with a pale face.

With his hands tied behind his back, the young man curled up in a crowded wooden crate, his messy long hair was wet with sweat, his indifferent eyes turned slightly, looking at the dark night sky outside.

Her figure was not reflected in those red pupils.

Yae knew where she was now.

——This is the false past.

Although I don't know how to do it, but she may have come to the depths of Xu's consciousness - in his past memory.

From the end of Heian to the end of Kamakura, that period of more than 200 years of darkness where she never existed.

……

Alcohol has never had any effect on voids.

Since the establishment of Amaterasu-in Naraku, there are not a few people who want to kill him, but no matter how deadly strong poisonous alcohol is, it will become harmless clear water when it encounters Xu's physique.

Xu's body's detoxification speed is too fast, he has never even been drunk, and has been bearing the price of sobriety.

The crude and shoddy drinks in this era, not to mention anesthesia, probably wouldn't be able to blur his consciousness even for a moment.

Inferior and useless alcohol is the last bit of kindness of those human beings.

...Maybe they can't even call it kindness, they are just afraid of the screams and struggles.

"Don't hate me."

Torches were lit in the dark warehouse, and several martial attendants pressed Xu to the ground, firmly binding his hands and feet that were already tied with hemp rope.

The blade and scissors had been scalded with fire, and the leading middle-aged man picked up the utensils, his fingers seemed to be trembling slightly.

"Don't hate me, I'm just following your lord's order." He said hoarsely, the sternness in his eyes flashed away.

"If you want to blame...just blame you for being a monster!"

The human eyeball is connected with many muscles and nerves, and these things need to be cut off one by one when it is removed.

Click.

The flames flickered, and the black shadow reflected on the warehouse wall looked like some kind of huge monster—composed of countless pitch-black shadows, the body of a huge monster.

Those monsters pressed down on the immobile prey, and lifted the scissors that were dripping with blood and sticking to pieces of meat.

Click.

Then there was another click.

When people are in extreme pain, they cannot make a sound.

Like a fish thrown into a frying pan or a beast skinned alive by humans, the long-haired young man struggled silently and violently, his muscles spasmed and trembled uncontrollably, and his blood-red pupils kept contracting, as if he was on the verge of collapse in pain.

After cutting the optic nerve, the middle-aged man took out the bloody eyeball and put it in the wooden box handed by the attendant.

He wiped his face, his face was stiff, his eyes were like stagnant water, and his voice was like a dry well, faintly and without fluctuation.

"The left eye remains."

The eye socket on the right is empty, and the only remaining left pupil has begun to slacken. The young man with light-colored long hair is lying on the ground soaked in blood, staring blankly at the dark patio of the warehouse.

Like a beast ready to be slaughtered.

Even screaming, crying, begging, cursing, dying in pain, dying in pain and being dragged back into the world, it's not over.

"I'm here, I'm here."

Yae kept repeating in Xu's ear, but it was useless.He couldn't hear her and didn't know she was here.

In this memory, no one can see her, and she can't touch anyone.

"I'm here."

Yae seemed to choke when she heard her voice, but she quickly continued.

"I'm here...I'm here...I'm here..."

But she is not there.

For more than 200 years, she was not there.

……

The gray-haired Lord Jun Si lived for 40 years longer with the help of a secret prescription.

At the beginning, the human beings in this memory still had faces, but later on, only shadowy facial features remained, and then the limbs also began to disappear, turning into shadows that could only open their mouths and talk.

Those talking shadows open the door of the warehouse every morning, put the freshly harvested eyeballs into wooden boxes, and send them together with medicinal food at night to the bedroom where the lord of the county sits.

Day after day, year after year, later, regardless of the day or night, the young people who will become virtual in the future all close their eyes. Even if the eyes grow back, they still keep their eyes closed habitually.

In this world of memories, the concept of time is blurred.

Yae stayed in the warehouse with the young man who couldn't see her. A small window was opened at the height of the warehouse, and one could see the cloudy, sunny, rainy and snowy seasons outside.

"Did you know? A nest of swallows moved under the eaves of the warehouse."

There are no chirping birdsong outside.This warehouse located in a remote corner of the north seems to have been forgotten by the world, except for the warriors who regularly open the door every morning, the bloody warehouse, whether it is humans or birds and beasts, stay away.

"In the bird's nest, there is a silver chirp, a gui chirp, and a Jin chirp. Yin chirp quarrels with Jin chirp every day, but Gui chirp is a good boy who never fights or quarrels. Every day, he wants to learn how to fly as soon as possible."

The blood-stained clothes hadn't been washed for a long time, and they were crusted with blood. The young man was huddled in a corner, leaning his head against the wall, with his eyes closed as if he was sleeping.

He wasn't sleeping, he just had nothing to do.

In addition to enduring the pain every day, there is only enduring the pain.

The blood from the eye sockets dried on his face, and the young man's eyelids drooped slightly, covering the holes where the eyeballs should have been.

"Although Yinjiu and Jinjiu peck at each other every day..."

Yae's voice suddenly stopped, and there was a terrified cry from outside.

She walked out of the warehouse and saw the blazing fire.

The black shadows burned by the flames rolled and screamed. She knew that they were all human beings, but because Xu Xu had her eyeballs gouged out, she closed her eyes and stopped looking at the world, so the human beings in this mansion have no facial features. People are just blurred shadows.

The all-wooden mansion soon fell into a sea of ​​fire, and the raging fire burned all the way to the warehouse.

No one remembered to open the door of the warehouse, those running and screaming shadows were too busy to take care of themselves, how could they remember the young man who was regarded as a monster by humans.

Yae rushed back to the warehouse.

"Run!"

This is your chance to escape.

As if he didn't hear the running and screaming outside, or he didn't care at all, the young man who would become imaginary in the future was still sitting in the corner, expressionless and motionless.

The fire rushed up the beams, the air was twisted by the heat, and the world creaked and groaned, and began to fall towards the ground.

"Run! You run!"

Yae knew it was all in vain.

With a loud bang, the burning wooden beam fell down and shattered into countless scorched wood.

Before the entire warehouse fell down, Yae put his arms around the young man's head and protected his head in his arms.

—— Xu didn't escape from the fire.

He did not escape from this nightmare that lasted for 40 years.

He just got burned once and then came back to life.That's all.

That's it.

……

The forest with towering ancient trees is covered with greenery.

Yae followed Xu, who seemed to have been walking aimlessly in the world since he left the mansion that was destroyed by fire.

Avoiding humans, avoiding villages, and avoiding everything related to humans, young people choose the most desolate and least populated roads. Sometimes they walk alone in the mountains for ten and a half months. Except for wild deer, even this age is everywhere. Not a single rogue bandit who caused chaos could be seen.

He walked alone through the mountains shrouded in clouds and mist, through the fast-flowing rivers, and across the boundless wilderness.

Yae didn't know where he was going and just followed him.

She has long been used to the stand-alone machine, chattering along the way, and can finish a conversation by herself.

"Under your feet! Be careful under your feet! There are gravels, you have to step on them—ah, you stepped on them again."

"No, you've been here just now, can't you get out after wandering around the mountains for a few days? No, no, not this way! Go there! Go there!"

"Aren't you hungry? It's already noon, don't you really want to eat? Are you not tired from walking all this time?"

"...Shh, I think the deer is following us."

"I think that crow is mocking your sense of direction."

"Where the hell are you going? Why do you keep walking?"

On the way, Xu met a blind monk under an old tree covered with moss.The blind monk was holding a pipa and singing ancient songs with his eyes closed. Several men dressed as travelers sat on the surrounding stones to rest.Standing far away, Yae thought he would like to hear it, but it took a while to realize belatedly——

"No, that man's eyes were not gouged out."

After the song was sung, the blind monk, who was born blind, bowed deeply. Several travelers around him threw a copper coin at him, and the others acted as if they hadn't seen it. After resting, they got up and left.

On the road again.

The autumn red maple fell and turned into a snowy winter.

The winter ice and snow melted, revealing the warm spring of the earth.

Yae watched Xu go up the stone steps covered in weeds.

It was quiet in the cloud-shrouded deep mountain, and he walked up step by step until he came to the access road that had been burned by the fire.

The shrine no longer exists, weeds grow wantonly, the hemlock still towers straight into the sky, and the ancient shrine is nowhere to be found.

- "Where are you going?"

…He wasn’t walking around aimlessly, he was always, always wanting to go somewhere.

The young man whose clothes were covered in dark blood was standing in front of the charred dead wood. He raised his head, as if he was looking for something in a daze.

Cherry blossoms once bloomed there.

The mountain cherry blossoms once bloomed brilliantly in the slanting sunlight, and they are graceful and graceful like the brilliant clouds that are still here.

The ancient shrine is covered with vines, and the thick moss is covered with rotting cypress.Many, many years ago, when she came to Kumano for the first time, she looked up and saw the cherry blossoms in full bloom.

These pictures blurred in front of my eyes, as if covered with a layer of mist.

Chunlei rumbled across the sky, the world stood still for a moment, and the sound of rain fell down in an uproar.

Xu stood in front of the scorched cherry tree, dazed, as if he just realized that he was lost and stood there with nowhere to go.

The rain dampened his long, soft, light-colored hair, which dripped wetly down his chin.

——In the sixth year of Zhenhe, after more than 200 years, she met Xu on the battlefield again.

"……It's you."

The soldiers around were frightened and raised their knives in unison. Under their gaze, the man who was regarded by the court as an evil spirit held the knife for a long time. His blood-red eyes were like a dark and dark pool, and he moved slightly after a long time. one time.

He lowered the tip of the knife slightly, and suddenly said strangely to her existence that could not be said to be alive or dead:

- "You're not dead yet."

……

You are not dead yet.

The sound of rain seemed to suddenly increase.

The author has something to say:

The virtual world of consciousness is here, why not take a stroll _(:з」∠)_

I have always wondered how perverted a person would be to poach people's attention for decades

comics are so cruel