The shadows of bare branches twisted in the darkness of night, lit only by the moon

A solitary swordsman trudged down a path through the forest. The dead leaved crunched under his feet and his cursed katana clacked against his waist. His V-shaped bangs hanged over his cold eyes and the smoke rose from his cigarette

The foliage rustled as Hijikata walked past. He spun around with his hand resting on the hilt of his sword.

An otherworldly apparition materialized from the shadows. The creature stopped before him, a skeleton riding a brown horse. No, the horse was human from the waist up. A centaur with a head of messy silver hair.

"What's this? Makoto-chan?" Hijikata screamed at it in disbelief. "What's the Shinsengumi mascot doing here?! And why the hell is there a skeleton on your back?!!"

"The corpse rotted away to nothing but a skeleton..." Gintoki buried his face in his hand in despair. "I've really done it now..."

"Um... I'm the Skull Knight." A voice seemed to come from the skeleton itself. It sounded suspiciously like a certain pair of glasses. "Don't call me Glasses!!! I said I'm the Skull Knight!! I'm supposed to give a prophecy right now, so..."

Hijikata narrowed his eyes at them. "What prophecy?! I know you're hiding in the bottom half of the horse. Stop talking out of your ass, dammit!"

"It's called ventriloquism." Gintoki looked to his centaur costume's hind legs. "You still got the script in there, Patsuan?"

"You just called him— So you admit it! You admit you're just two guys pretending to be a horse carrying a skeleton around!"

The horse's butt gleamed under the moonlight with an ominous aura. A pair of plain-looking glasses sat over the tail, shining silver in the darkness.

"Gaaahhh!! Who put my glasses there?!!" The rear end screamed in disbelief. "And where's the camera pointing?! The Skull Knight's not my butt! Focus on the Skull Knight!!!"

The skeletal hipbones sat on the back of the centaur, gleaming under the moonlight with an ominous aura. It wore a pair of plain-looking glasses, shining silver in the darkness.

"Gaaahhh!! That's not any better! Stop putting my glasses on butts! It belongs on my face, not a butt!!!"

"Oi, hurry up," said the top half of the centaur. "I'm gonna be late for the weather forecast at this rate! Just say the prophecy already, Horse Butt!!"

"What?! My name's Gla— Shinpachi!!! Who cares about your weather forecast?!!!"

Gintoki only picked his nose with a bored look on his face.

The rear end let out a huff of exasperation. He cleared his throat and started reading the prophecy out loud. A foreboding calm lingered in the air as the words echoed.

When the Eclipse befalls the land,

Something bad will happen to your Band.

The Anti-Foreigner Party has a tradition

Where they have a food fight as celebration

When the Sun, Moon and Earth are aligned such that the moon blocks away the light from the sun, resulting in an eclipse.

"Who wrote this shit?!" Hijikata yelled at it like he knew anything about poetry*. "You call this a poem?! That last line wasn't poetic at all!"

[* He did. The real-life Hijikata wrote some sappy poems]

Gintoki shrugged and flicked away his booger. "Oh, and your fake mayo friend's in trouble. Go save him."

With that said, the Skull Knight turned around and rode his centaur away. The front of the centaur hurried off faster than the hind legs could follow, throwing the rider off its back and abandoning him in the bushes. "Yes! Just in time for Ketsuno Ana's weather forecast!"

The hoof beats quieted into the distance until only silence remained.

Hijikata stood alone on a road through the forest. The long moonlit path stretched before him to freedom— free from having to kill any more bottles of sauce, free from having to see that sadistic bastard's face ever again.

He looked back at the path from which he came, fading away into the shadows. He had left the Band of Mayo behind, all the mayo bottles he had come to consider his friends. He had left them in the darkness, but he couldn't abandon them, not when they'd haunt his every dream both waking and asleep.

The Leader of the Band of Mayo needed his help. He didn't give a damn about that sadist, but if anything were to happen to the mayo hair that cascaded down the bottle cap— that rich creamy mayo that came out the top all soft and wavy... he didn't know what he'd do with himself.

And Mayo-chan. She had watched him leave with a smile on her face, holding back the tears in her eyes. Just like that day so many years ago when he walked away without even looking back. He didn't want to leave her behind again, to be without her on this path he didn't even know where he was heading.

He turned around and ran.  

If only it were that easy.

***

The torches lined the stone walls of the dungeon and lit the narrow hallway in flickering light. Droplets of water plopped down from the ceiling into puddles on the floor, and the air was cold and damp underground.

Hijikata made his way through the dungeon in the basement of the King's castle with Princess Kagura as his accomplice— the insider who had the keys.

Screams of pain echoed behind the heavy iron doors that lined the hallway. Hijikata remained unfazed, already numb to the sounds of suffering. He walked past the torture instruments that hanged on the wall: whips, ropes and other sex toys... beside posters of people in suggestive poses dressed in tight revealing costumes.

"It's a dungeon..." A bead of sweat dripped down Hijikata's forehead as he looked around nervously. "It's a dungeon! Not a BDSM club!!"

"That sadist belongs here, uh huh." Kagura picked her nose as she walked

The hallway ended at a pair of black iron doors. Kagura unlocked it and pushed it open.

Before them was a scene of gruesome torture. They just stood at the doorway as a heavy silence fell over them.

Sougo laid on his stomach, chained to a stone bench with his pants pulled down.

The King himself performed the torture, a king who used to have a full head of hair, but now had barely any left on his head. King Umibouzu gave Sougo a butt-spanking with a wooden plank. His face boiled an angry red and his eyes bulged in fury at the guy who dared to sneak into his daughter's room.

"You brat!! How could you?! You broke the windowsill!" Umibouzu smacked him hard on the butt cheeks with his plank. "You know how much work it took to fix it?! We had to nail the whole thing back to the wall! You know how hard that is?!!"

"I'm an S!" Sougo screamed in agony. "What are you doing to me?! I'm an S!! An SSSSS!!!"

Kagura stared at them with hooded eyes and a blank look on her face. She had just walked in on her dad doing things she shouldn't be seeing to her shipmate.

"Oi! Close the door when you do it!" she yelled at them. "You just scarred my young impressionable mind forever!!"

"They did close the door!" Hijikata screamed at her. "They closed it and locked it, but you opened it! And don't you have something more to scream about? Like how he's cheating on you with your dad and he's not even being a sadist..."

An awkward silence hanged over the two at the door, while Umibouzu and Sougo went about their business. Smack!! Ahhhh!! Smack!! Ahhhh!!

"Damn, this is messed up..." Hijikata squinted at the scene in irritation. "I came all the way back for this?!"

He turned and walked away, a vein throbbing on his forehead as he fumed.

***

The sun disappeared from the sky little by little as if being chewed away, the bite growing ever larger.

Hijikata hurried down the cobblestone streets of a medieval town, past the rows of idyllic townhouses and the fountain in the town square. The clock tower chimed noon, but the streets were washed in the dying light of sunset and the sky glowed red as if drenched in blood.

He clenched a poster tight in his fist that he had ripped off from a bulletin board. It read:

Come to the very occasional Joui Food Fight!

When: The next time there's an eclipse

Where: The secret Joui hideout at 5 May St, Mayotown

See you there!

The words from the prophecy echoed in Hijikata's mind: The Anti-Foreigner Party has a tradition...

Sweat dripped down his face as he ran across the town. 

He had searched everywhere for the Band of Mayo, for his mayo-friends that he'd left behind in his foolishness. His guts twisted in growing fear as the sky grew dimmer. He knew what had happened to them. He didn't know how he knew, but he just knew. It was as if everything in the past and future was all in his head.

By the time he reached the address on the poster, the sun had disappeared into a thin halo. The night blanketed the world and the stars glimmered in the wine red sky. 

He stood in a dark alley in front of door that had the number five written on it in dripping paint. The clock tower chimed deep and ominous and a sound of laughter came from behind the door.

Without another moment of hesitation, Hijikata kicked it down with a crash. A blast of mayo greeted him. It filled his vision, flying straight towards him. The impact sent him falling back. The cold gooey sauce dripped down his face.

Hijikata wiped his face with his sleeve. When he opened his eyes, a scene from hell played out before him.

He felt something sticky underneath him. He held up his hand and stared at the thick liquid dripping between his fingers. A pool of mayo covered the entire floor. The corpses of mayo bottles littered the room, squeezed into twisted postures and drained of their contents. Laughter echoed in his ears, the sinister laughter of Joui demons, until nothing else could be heard.

A long-haired Joui demon blasted long strands of mayo at a duck-like Joui demon, while the duck demon fired back. A dozen Joui demons filled the room, shooting mayo at each other, playing in the carnage. They crushed the bottles in their hands until the insides spewed out.

Hijikata stared frozen as sweat flowed down his face. He stared at the mayo, the wasted mayo. All the mayo bottles who could have done great things now laid in waste.

They weren't just any mayo bottle. They were his friends. Floating right next to him was the corpse of a smart mayo bottle named Judeau. Laying in a pile of mayo corpses was a giant bottle named Pippin. Even the bottle named Corkus who he didn't like at first now laid dead on the floor, trampled by the Joui demons like he didn't matter. All of his mayo-friends who he had laughed and fought with, all dead.

At the back of the room, at the center of it all, stood the man who was responsible for all of this— the Leader of the Band of Mayo who used to be mayo but could no longer be considered one.

Sougo slipped out of his mayo costume, leaving it behind like a snake sheading its skin. Gone was the mayo bottle Hijikata had fought side-by-side with and almost considered a friend. Only the sadist remained.

"You were their leader!!!" Hijikata screamed at his friend-turned-enemy with a voice hoarse from anger. "They trusted you!! Why?"

Sougo looked to him with round innocent eyes. "Do I need a reason to sell mayo? You wanna see my mayo-license?"

"They're not your property you can just sell whenever you want! They're mayo! They're mayo and they got rights, you bastard!!!"

With that, Hijikata charged at Sougo. He splashed through the sea of mayo. Everything around him seemed to warp and lose focus— the Joui demons playing their evil game, the mayo gushing out of the bottles; everything but the one he hated more than anyone.

"Mayo-chan!!!" Hijikata called out.

He had to at least save Mayo-chan from this massacre.

He couldn't find her among the corpses on the floor. He didn't see her in the grips of the Joui demons.

Then, he spotted her.

The mayo bottle he loved more than anyone gleamed at the end of his tunnel vision, trapped in the grasp of his worst enemy. Sougo held Mayo-chan tight in his hand by the bottleneck. He poured a sickening green liquid into her mouth— the contents of a dark vial that had a skull symbol on it and fumes coming out. The shadows warped on his face as he tainted her with poison.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!" Hijikata reached out to her in desperation.

No matter how fast he tried to run, he couldn't get closer. He lifted his feet off the floor, each step at a painfully slow pace. It was like he was stuck in slow motion.

After Sougo was done with her, he simply tossed her away like trash. He turned his attention to Hijikata, pointing his mayo-bazooka at him.

And then he smiled. He smiled as cruel and innocent as a child, surrounded by the slaughter of mayo bottles.

"My friend~. My irreplaceable friend~~. Become my sacrifice!"

***

Hijikata woke up with a jolt.

He looked around at familiar surroundings: the tatami mat spread out across the floor, his katana resting on a stand beside his blankets, the morning sun filtered through papery shoji doors. He laid in his room in the Shinsengumi Headquarters.

"Just a nightmare," he told himself. Or was it?

A nightmare couldn't be that vivid. He wondered if it could be a memory of something that had happened in the past that he'd long forgotten. After all, writers often use dreams to reveal backstory, especially for characters who suffered amnesia.

He sat up, dressed in black kimono pajamas, and climbed out of bed. He slid open the doors of his room, half expecting to see more Joui demons just waiting for him outside.

He was greeted with a scene of tranquility: the sunwashed courtyard and the leaves rustling in the breeze. The officers must have already gone out on patrol.

"Oh, Toshi! Good morning!" A voice came from the side.

A wave of relief washed over Hijikata at the sound of Kondo's voice. He turned his head to look down the hallway.

Hijikata let out a high-pitched scream at the horror before of him.

"KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!"

***

Is this really the end?

Hijikata woke up in cold sweat. He laid under his covers on the floor of his dimly lit room. His heart pounded in his chest at a speeding rate.

"What the hell was that? Inception?" He muttered in a low voice. He buried his face into his hands and groaned.

The night was silent save for the snoring of Shinsengumi officers next door and the obscene noises coming from Kondo's room a few doors down. The moon glowed pale, its light shining through the papery door.

Hijikata looked to the side.

An untainted off-white mayo bottle waited faithfully by his side. She sat beside a small wooden table that had a grid drawn on top— a go table, the haunted go table from Hikaru no Go, his Anime Item. The moon casted light on the dark red splatters on the corner, a stain that couldn't be removed.

"Mayo-chan..." Hijikata sat up with a serious face. "We have to stop him."

The mayo bottle listened with patience.

"If he wins, he'll becomes MC and who knows what he'll do."

He shuddered at the thought of Sougo gaining the invincible power that came with main character once he won that title. He wanted revenge— revenge against that sadistic bastard for all he'd done. Didn't matter if it was in a nightmare.

Blood and guts and guts and blood... The voices chanted in Hijikata's ears. He foresaw the violent deaths of his mayo bottles, the corpses piled up on the floor. The winner of the Tournament... it couldn't be that sadist. For the sake of all the mayo bottles in the world, he had to stop him.

"Say something..." His voice trembled, barely a whisper. He turned to his beloved mayo, the gleam of his eyes wavering in the darkness. "Say something, Mayo-chan. Why you so quiet?"

Mayo-chan remained silent, bathed in silver moonlight, never moving from the spot as the dust floated in the air.

Hijikata's gaze lingered on her figure, tracing the curve of her bottleneck, the vivid crimson of her cap, and he couldn't hold himself back anymore. He wrapped his arms around her, pressed his head tight against her shoulder, felt her cold smooth skin against his cheek, and held her unable to let go.

"I can't let him hurt you. We can't let him win."

***

The Author stood at a lecture podium with that last scene frozen on the screen behind her. She turned to the classroom with round koala eyes and a smile on her koala face. Her class consisted of a sadist, a silver perm guy, a Chinagirl and a Glasses, all sitting in one row.

The koala sensei continued her lesson. "From the case study you just saw of that mayo-addict's dream, we can see that our subject Hijikata is attracted to guys with hair that looks like mayo, subconsciously ships OkiKagu and UmiOki, plays too much Dungeons&Dragons and has a dark painful regret buried somewhere deep inside him... in addition to an extreme fear of naked fairies that look like Kondo."

Sougo raised his hand with a solemn look on his face and eyes that glowered murderous red. He didn't wait to be called upon.

"UmiOki won't happen... ever." His voice seethed with rage. "It only works if it's OkiUmi*."

[* in a ship, the name of the dominant character comes first]

Gintoki looked to the rest of the class. "Oi, does anyone know where to go to straighten my naturally wavy hair? I mean, to make it look less like mayo? Maybe I should just shave it bald..."

Shinpachi turned to him. "Gin-san, everyone will think you're copying One Punch Man if you're bald."

"But One Punch Man is copying Papi, yes?" said Kagura picking her nose. "So you'll be copying that baldy too."

"Um, I don't think they're copying each other..." said Shinpachi with hesitation. "It's kinda like two people showing up at a party with the same dress. It's not on purpose that they're both bald."

"Damn, those bald people are so strong." Gintoki rubbed his chin in thought. "I really should just become bald."

"That—That's not how it works." Shinpachi smiled nervously. "One Punch Man is bald 'cause he's strong, not strong 'cause he's bald."

Kagura balled her hands into fists and shot up from her seat in anger. "Well, my dad is stronger than your dad!"

Shinpachi held up his hands in defense. "Ah... that's got nothing to do with this."

"I am stronger than your dad..." Sougo sat there smoldering in quiet fury on the verge of boiling over.

"And that concludes our exploration into Hijikata's mayo-infested closet-otaku psyche." The koala quickly ran off before she could get pulled into the fight.

***

̶C̶h̶a̶r̶a̶c̶t̶e̶r̶  Complaint Corner

Author: Yes, another one. The complainant this time is... SussLikesSleep!

Suss: I WANT MY COMPLAIN CORNER TOO!

Author: This complaint is valid! Here, it's all yours :)

***

Next time: Sougo tries to find a job before he turns into a madao