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Oboro knows that any minute now, he's going to fall asleep forever. His body's rundown, his guts are spilling out of his stomach, and he feels light-headed. He wants to go home, but there's no home to go back to, and he really wants to sleep.
When he closes his eyes, there's no flash of light. He just opens them again and wakes up alive and able-bodied in a wintery landscape, a scarf wrapped around his neck and his hands secured in warm gloves.
SPLAT!
The snowball knocks him off his feet and he goes face first into the snow. A loud string of laughs echo throughout the field, and for the first time in a long time, Oboro tastes snow on his tongue that hasn't already been sprinkled with blood.
“Nii-chan, get up, it wasn't even that big!” Something tiny and scrappy pulls at his shawl, attempting to haul him up but only succeeding in dragging him a centimeter or two in the snow.
Oboro picks himself up and looks down to see a miniature version of the Shiroyasha.
“You look dumb, Nii-chan,” mini!Shiroyasha deadpans while picking his nose with a gloved finger.
“Stop picking on your brother, Gintoki!” Oboro hears the demon holler from somewhere nearby.
“I'm not picking on him; he's just being stupid!” mini!Shiroyasha hollers back, and a second later, a fist bops the little boy on the head and sends him neck-deep into the snow.
“Apologize,” Utsuro commands with a sharp smile.
Something comes out of the scrappy little boy's mouth that Oboro is sure doesn't count as an apology, and when Utsuro gets his fist ready for another bop, Oboro stops him.
“I forgive him,” Oboro tells the monster.
“See, Nii-chan forgives me, now let me out!”
Utsuro sighs and fluffs Oboro's hair the way he used to when Oboro was a child. What was this world, this place where the demon had two children and a field big enough where they could have a snowball fight?
“Where am I?” Oboro asks sincerely.
Utsuro just smiles and helps Gintoki out of the snow instead of answering him immediately. The boy brushes the snow off himself before climbing up Oboro's back and settling his head on his shoulders.
“What do you mean?” Utsuro asks politely as they walk towards a house that looks like a home.
“Is this heaven?” Oboro asks, because it certainly doesn't look like hell.
Utsuro laughs like it's the funniest thing in the world. “Who knows, Obo-chan.”
And that's when Oboro decides he's not going to question it anymore. Maybe this was the peace he always wanted, because he feels like he's floating on air, even though he's carrying a scrappy six year old who decides to start another shouting match with his father, the demon. Oboro thinks that maybe, just maybe, there's some hope for him after all.