Introduction[]
Two down, one to go; last up, Gintoki vs. Batou with mistaken identities and illusions galore. And in the end, a certain character awakens and a certain quartet reunite.
Plot[]
During the Joui Wars, Batou remembers someone going through scores of Amanto to reach him. The two start to fight and the white haired and clothed person introduced himself as… Pakuyasa. Gintoki denies it was him as his nickname was “Shiroyasha”. Batou insists he was as his psychic eye can see the truth yet describes someone that looks and sounds completely different from Gintoki. The Amanto continues by stating that like before, his thoughts were filled with only one thought, to avenge his master or his friend. Pakuyasa, while fighting Batou, fights to survive so he could… bring food back to his master, Gintoki. The said Samurai confirms this, revealing that Pakuyasa was a rookie whom Gintoki believed was not cut out for the battlefield so he had the rookie doing food supply runs. Pakuyasa indeed was not skilled in battle and left to run two failed businesses before settling on doing shady odd jobs. Gintoki decides to give Batou the overweight man’s address so the Amanto can finally settle the score with him. Batou throws a small tantrum when realizing that he had been searching for Gintoki’s student the entire time but mockingly adds that the person whom he taken the swordsman’s “life” from (Sakamoto) was far inferior. Gintoki angrily challenges that Batou should look deeper inside Gintoki with the eye and he might not like what he finds.
Batou extends his beam saber into Gintoki, shoving him into a building and stating that he would do so after killing him. Using his Enlightenment eye, he notes that Gintoki blocked the strike from being fatal. He predicts Gintoki’s movements and counters them, leading to the samurai being thrown into rubble and barely blocking Batou’s strike. Batou admits his disappointment in how weak Gintoki was compared to his wartime self or even to Pakuyasa before completely slicing Gintoki in half. To his surprise, the silver-haired man still attacks him and he ends up fending off multiple Gintoki clones, who are his eye’s solid rendering of Gintoki’s invisible but potent killing intent. The Harusame captain realized he felt the murderous aura before. Gintoki's clone reveals that his Enlightenment eye’s weakness was that it was too good; by taking in everything, it easily loses sight of more important things. Batou then realizes that what he was fighting back then was Gintoki’s murderous aura but he was distracted by Pakuyasa’s thoughts, which was enough for Gintoki, who arrived behind Pakuyasa, to save him from Batou’s finishing strike and retreat. The clones “stab” Batou but the Star Sword King knew that the samurai’s true goal was to stab his sword arm and claim the "life of a swordsman" as vengeance for Sakamoto. He uses his wrist to block the bokuto in place before beginning to strike Gintoki with his beam saber in his left hand. While doing so, Batou thinks back to the times when he fought other swordsmen and how they all tend to empty all thoughts before their impending death, giving the Amanto a sense of victory. However, as he peered into Gintoki’s thoughts, he realized that the human was thinking about having sunny-side up eggs for breakfast tomorrow, surprising the commander with his will to live. Another clone, created in the image of Pakuyasa, strikes at Batou, who turned around to slice the clone. Gintoki reiterated the Enlightenment’s weakness before hitting said eye with his freed bokuto and the fight ends. Gintoki begins to leave before Batou remarks that he was the second person his eye could not read, the first being Utsuro. The difference was that one thought about tomorrow's breakfast as he stood by the abyss of death, while the other was empty even while he was alive. He wonders if Gintoki would fight the immortal while Gintoki asked the Amanto to use that eye of his to find the answer. Batou did not know; he remarked Gintoki had lived all his life alongside death to the point that it had become his constant companion, while the concept of life and death simply did not exist for Utsuro. He asked Gintoki would fight against that “emptiness”? Gintoki himself did not know but responds that he could only pursue what was in front of him; Gintoki would fight for tomorrow's breakfast and to spend another day with the people he cares about. Batou remarks that he could finally see that Gintoki did not have a bottomless abyss but endless stupidity.
At the same time in the cliffs, Shirei continuously sees his fleet being destroyed by Umibouzu alone. The watching Abuto is awed by the older man’s prowess and suspects that the father and son duo had the potential of singlehandedly destroying the Harusame pirates. Some pirates arrive on foot and Abuto and the remnant 7th division fight back. Meanwhile in another area on the cliffs, some Kiheitai carry the still-comatose Takasugi until a blast knocks the Kiheitai commander over the cliffs. Another group of the Kiheitai containing Makoto, Takechi and Kagura rush up another road underneath just as the blast knocked Takasugi over. Makoto fails to grab Takasugi and Kagura pulls her back before she fell too. Sensing his boss in danger, Bansai slashes through the pirates to reach the cliffs and mentally calling out to his boss not to die. He thinks back to when both he and Takasugi were in jail awaiting their execution; Bansai was a convicted murderer, and listened to Takasugi’s declarations of refusing to die so he can accomplish his goal of destroying Japan; a guard, revealed to be Takechi, also listens in on the conversation. Bansai, along with Shinpachi and their remnant Kiheitai reach the cliffs but Harusame ships lead by Utsuro shoots at them, injuring Bansai. Worse, the duo and Gintoki were surrounded by the Oboro and his Naraku. The Kiheitai second in command slowly rises to his feet, apologizing to his boss that he can no longer live to help him and tells Shinpachi that he will create an opening for the teen to escape. He also asks for one last request: to tell Takasugi that Japan was not finished yet. Although still wounded, the country and its people were still struggling to move forward and to rise again. Takasugi should not die either, his enemies and his friends are still alive and fighting, so he must live long enough to either become the new country's enemy or ally. Either way, even if he does die, Bansai believes that he should do so next to his friends.
Makoto and Kagura overlook where Takasugi fell but Kagura notices a cloaked figure saving the commander and covering him in Takasugi’s own yukata before leaving, stating his debt was paid. Kagura leaves before Makoto and their group realizes Takasugi survived. The heavily injured Katsura, the weakened Kaientai, and Gintoki fighting through the Naraku, struggle to reach the same cliffs. The injured Bansai himself fights the Naraku and becomes overwhelmed with the growing numbers until a ship blasts his location, knocking him out. A Naraku goes in for the kill with Shinpachi and Gintoki too far away to stop him, but then a thrown sword immediately kills him. Everyone looks on in shock as the perpetrator, the awake Takasugi, stands on the ledge.
As he awakens from his coma, Takasugi sees Matako crying over his body. He muses on about Rakuyou’s cloudy skies and compares himself to its rain/tears finally shedding or stopping. He did not know if it was either or neither, but declares that he was sick of the rain. In the present, Takasugi orders his men to attack the Naraku while Oboro orders his men to attack Takasugi. Shinpachi, riding Sadaharu, rushes to Takasugi’s aid but a Naraku trips the dog and the teen falls off within range of two assassins. Gintoki throws his bokuto at one while Shinpachi defends against the other and another two assassins rush towards the heavily injured Bansai. Takasugi and Gintoki use each other’s swords to save each other’s comrades. The assassins split into two large group rushing towards the two men who tells them to move as there was someone they must greet.
An explosion and backup signal the arrival of Katsura and his Joui faction, who declares that he will open a path for the two to reach the other. Then the Kaientai fleet arrives, dropping the Kairinmaru onto the assassins with Sakamoto and his men joining the fight. He berates Katsura for allowing the two battle-hungry men a chance to brawl, since it inevitable results in him having to stop their fight. Katsura instead responds that they should join in and the Kaientai commander agrees. Takasugi, in seeing his former Joui friends, smiles before meeting with Gintoki and the two stab each other. Takasugi admits that humans do not change easily and even after ten years they were still the same. Gintoki refutes this and states that ten years before they would have tried to kill each other, revealing that the two men had really killed assassins that was behind the other. While they pulled out their own swords from the bodies behind them, Sakamoto and Katsura reach the duo with Katsura musing that they were just saving the best for last. With the Four Heavenly Kings standing back to back, Katsura finishes by saying they have all grown up; Gintoki tells him to shut up.
In the after credits, three scenes, with Sakamoto, Katsura, and Takasugi respectively, replace Gintoki with Pakuyasa. Gintoki angrily berates BNP for ruining the cool ending with comedy before trying and failing to not be interrupted by the preview.
Characters[]
- Harusame
- Pluto Batou
- Shirei
- Sakata Gintoki
- Pakuyasa (debut)
- Kagura
- Shimura Shinpachi
- Sadaharu
- 7th Division
- Umibouzu
- Kiheitai
- Kaientai
- Jouishishi
- Tenshouin Naraku
- Utsuro
Trivia[]
- The name Shiroi Onibito (White Demon Human) is a word play of a Hokkaido sweets company Shiroi Koibito (White Lover). Therefore it's implied that said company was the one that sued Pakuyasa for one of his failed ventures after leaving the war.
- The flashbacks in the end credits scene were from Episode 5, Episode 23 and Episode 304 respectively.