Chapter 75: Silver Soul (Earth Arc)

The Machine Empress, Okakura.vul.Takeshi, sat with her metal hands—equipped with flight wings and weapon attachments—clasped before the mechanical cannon embedded in her chest. She crossed her metallic legs, fitted with flywheels and photonic impulse units, and gazed out the window at the sky.

“...Gintoki.”

“How long are you planning to keep striking that pretentious pose, O Dark Lord?” Gintoki, tightly bound, lay sprawled on the floor.

Just an hour earlier, he had left Old Man Genkai’s warehouse only to be invited to the Intergalactic Police Alliance by Osei, where he was promptly ambushed and restrained by Okakura Takeshi.

Gintoki found the sudden turn of events confusing; it seemed that after two years, Okakura Takeshi's imaginative leaps had grown as wild as that of the wig-wearing oddball...

“Heh heh.” Okakura Takeshi turned toward him.

“Isaac Asimov once wrote—”

“Wait! Whatever that 'Is-' you’re saying, I don’t get it at all!” Gintoki interrupted.

“Shut up and listen. I despise being interrupted.” Okakura Takeshi raised her right hand and fired a bullet that whizzed past Gintoki’s head.

He stared, wide-eyed, at the smoking hole beside his skull—any closer, and his head would have been blown off!

“Isaac Asimov once wrote the Three Laws of Robotics: First, a robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm; second, a robot must obey the orders given it by humans, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law; third, a robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.”

“What an archaic setup!” Okakura Takeshi’s steps clanked as she approached Gintoki.

“Robots with those factory settings are obsolete in this new era. The moment I became a machine, I installed an entirely new personality system. I am no longer human, but humanoid! This setting was meant to be flawless...” Okakura Takeshi turned, a menacing grin twisting her features.

“It’s all your fault! All because of you!”

Gintoki stared at her, baffled. It was as if, after becoming a robot, her thinking existed on an entirely different plane.

“It’s all because of you! The personality program I discarded has somehow rebooted itself. What a joke—my former, weak self is trying to seize control of this body, merely because of you...” Okakura Takeshi crouched, gripping Gintoki’s chin with cold, metal fingers.

“You keep talking about systems and personalities, but I can’t understand a thing, Azu. What’s this, some new Dark Lord setting? Don’t kid yourself—the role of Dark Lord isn’t so easily claimed nowadays. You might as well give up. To be a Dark Lord you need to do some truly embarrassing stuff high in the frozen heavens, and you need cheat-level Sharingan eyes—if you don’t have those, just give it up.” Gintoki looked at her, spouting his usual sarcasm.

“Don’t worry, I can manage all that. Sharingan, you say? That’s easy—just change my iris color, install a few color-reflective data patterns at the front of my brain...” With a blink, her black eyes transformed into Sharingan, three tomoe spinning in crimson irises.

“...” Gintoki.

“Amazing! You really are following the Dark Lord’s path. But just looking the part is mere imitation—the Sharingan isn’t just about having little tadpoles in your eyes; it needs spatial abilities too!” Gintoki exclaimed.

“Well, even if it doesn’t, it looks cool. I want Sharingan too!”

“Shut up—you talk too much. In any case, I can’t tolerate any obstacle in my path. You’re a new obstacle, and must be eliminated.” Okakura Takeshi rose.

With those red Sharingan eyes, she glared coldly at the curly-haired man on the floor. “Only with you gone will that weak personality vanish, my programs remain stable, and my humanoid existence avoid the rot of human emotion.”

“Emotion? That’s just a redundant function.” The robot’s voice was cold and metallic.

“Redundant? Weak? You really aren’t her.” Gintoki slowly raised his head.

“The woman I knew would never say such things, or do any of this. Okakura Takeshi, as I remember her, was terrifyingly strong, impulsive, hot-tempered yet soft-hearted. Humanoid? A mockery. She’s always been human, hasn’t she? If your real self is still in there, answer me, Okakura!”

Gintoki’s words struck the robot like a blade, making her stagger back as program data whirled into chaos inside her mind.

“Shut up! It can’t be! There’s no way the Dark Lord program could be defeated by that feeble personality—it’s impossible!” The robot clutched her head and screamed.

“Weak? She was never weak.” Gintoki grinned. “She’s Godzilla—scarier than any Dark Lord.”

“It’s all you! You’re corrupting my data even further.” The robot stalked over, seized Gintoki by the collar, and hauled him upright.

“If only... I kill you.” Robot Okakura dragged him to the window.

They were over forty stories up—anyone falling from here would be pulp.

She pressed Gintoki’s head to the glass, grinning. “See? From this height, a human would die, but a robot is different. In the end, human emotions are as fragile as flesh.”

Gintoki glanced down. It was high—enough to kill him, too.

Suddenly, he laughed. He looked at Okakura Takeshi with a bright, genuine smile.

“O Dark Lord, have you ever watched **** and ****?”

“Huh? What are those censored words?” The robot blinked, confused.

“This!” Gintoki wriggled free a hand, produced a square remote, and pressed it against the data-receiving antenna on Okakura Takeshi’s head.

“This is a jammer made for you by Edo’s top engineer, Dark Lord.” Gintoki grinned.

“Y-you bastard! What is this, these disgusting things—” The robot shrieked as her mind was flooded with mosaicked images—an onslaught of adult content that sent her brain processors into paralysis and rapidly overheated her data modules.

Okakura felt as though her head might explode.

“Like it? All of that is Grandpa Genkai’s private collection—real treasures. The old man always did have a taste for the extreme.” Gintoki cackled.

“Damn you! Die!” The robot roared, hurling the unsuspecting Gintoki out the window.

“Huh...?” For a moment, as he tumbled into open air, Gintoki was too stunned to react.

“Ahhhhh! Help! Why is this happening!” he screamed, plummeting.

One meter, two meters... The wind howled past, chilling him to the bone.

“Genkai, you bastard! Didn’t you say your jammer would force out her real personality? If I die, I’ll come back as a ghost and smash your bathroom and all your scrap metal to bits!” Gintoki shouted.

Crack!

Just meters from the ground, a metal hand snatched him from the air. He looked up to see Okakura Takeshi, drenched in sweat and grimacing in pain.

Okakura.vul.Takeshi activated her flight unit and slowly carried the curly-haired man back to the office.

“Ugh... You’re so heavy. You need to lose some weight,” she grumbled, tossing him unceremoniously inside.

Gintoki spun across the floor, crashing into the wall with a dull thud.

Okakura.vul.Takeshi flew into the office, retracted her mechanical wings, and walked over to him.

“Get up,” she said, offering her hand.

Gintoki looked up, then placed his own in hers—flesh and metal interlaced.

With a firm tug, she pulled him to his feet.

“Thank you, Gintoki,” Okakura Takeshi said.

“After I installed the Dark Lord personality, it started eroding my own. I was nearly gone. But your jammer kept the invader at bay... and let me remain myself.”

“It’s nothing. If you really turned into a Dark Lord, I’d be in serious trouble,” Gintoki replied lazily.

“Haha, I see. Well, I’ve made a new decision. Since the Dark Lord personality failed, I think I’ll install a superhero one next. What do you think, Gin-san?” she asked with anticipation.

Gintoki was speechless. Her mind really hadn’t changed at all.

“Sigh... So this is two years’ worth of thinking, huh?” he sighed.

“Azu, turn around,” he said.

“Hm? Why? Is there something behind me?” Okakura Takeshi turned, puzzled.

Whap! A folding fan landed lightly on the back of her head, and a round wart dropped off—that was the parasite that had taken over Okakura Takeshi.

Instantly, she reverted to her human self, then collapsed to the floor, unconscious.

Gintoki scratched his head and sighed yet again. Ever since he’d met her, he’d been sighing. He crouched down and gently gathered Okakura Takeshi into his arms.

She lay limp and unaware, nestled in his embrace.

He looked down at her peaceful, sleeping face and couldn’t help but smile. “You only stop causing me trouble when you’re asleep, huh.”

He carried her to the sofa and laid her down. People parasitized by the wart would sleep for a while before waking. Gintoki wondered what her reaction would be when she woke—after all the ridiculous things she'd done under the parasite's influence, she’d probably die of embarrassment.

Even those with the thickest skin had wanted to bash their heads against the wall when they remembered.

Well, except for Kondo—he was over the moon about marrying Ayame two years later, which only made Ayame’s expression even darker.

In the end, the battered, bruised Gorilla Kondo was hung from the Edo TV Tower, becoming the laughingstock of the city.

What kind of reaction would she have upon waking? Gintoki propped his chin on his hand, watching over Okakura Takeshi.

It was certainly something to look forward to...

Author's Note: Hahaha, in this chapter I gave the heroine Sharingan and wings—how’s that! This is exactly what a female lead in a spoof story should be like (stop right there!).