Gintama Star.
The lights of Kabukicho.
Blended into a warm, ambiguous brilliance beneath Edo's night sky.
A crimson Chinese-style tower rose from the ground, its five tiers of upturned eaves like cranes spreading their wings.
The large characters "Edo Vegas" on its gold-lacquered sign glittered amid the neon lights.
Carriages and automobiles streamed endlessly past the entrance.
Men and women in kimonos, suits, and evening gowns entered and exited with intoxicated or fanatical expressions.
They paid no heed to Kizaru's fleet hanging in the sky.
After all, the blockade was far out in orbital space.
The dice, roulette wheels, and pachinko machines before them were the only wars gamblers cared about.
At the top floor of the tower.
The scene in the hall was entirely different.
Ukiyo-e paintings and golden folding screens hung along the walls, swaying in the light.
The expensive incense in the air could not suppress the tense atmosphere.
Upon a dragon-patterned armchair with gold trim and red upholstery.
Hua Tuo sat rigidly still, her slender fingers tightly gripping a peacock-feather fan until her knuckles turned faintly white.
She wore a red, blue, and white uchikake.
It was embroidered with golden peacock patterns, while her blue hair cascaded to her waist and a golden crown rested upon her head.
Her face possessed both bewitching beauty and majesty, yet it was now clouded by gloom.
Her gaze occasionally drifted toward the moonlit, starry night beyond the window.
But the cherry-red meteor that had streaked through storm clouds on the screen hours ago.
Still seemed to burn across her retinas.
"That was merely a knife thrown casually."
Hua Tuo murmured, the fan in her hand trembling slightly.
She had nearly made a fatal decision today.
When Kamui's 7th Division and Takasugi Shinsuke's Kiheitai had joined forces to attack Shogun