23; touken ranbu; regarding ikedaya
regarding ikedaya
g
mild/pre-slash ookurikara/tsurumaru kuninaga
2.1k words
oneshot
ao3 mirror available here.
The 'kurikara (倶利伽羅)' in Ookurikara's name (大倶利伽羅) refers to a dragon king.
Hijikata Toshizou (土方 歳三) was Izuminokami and Horikawa's historical owner. He was a member of the Shinsengumi (新選組), who were sort of a police force for the Shogunate during the Bakumatsu (幕末) period. The Shinsengumi once conducted a raid on an inn upon receiving news that the rebels/shishi (志士) who gathered there had a plan to burn Kyoto; this inn was the Ikedaya Inn (池田屋) featured in 6-3.
Omamori (お守り) are protection charms. They're the in-game item to the right of the horse on the equipment screen.
Three swords become uchigatana. Or, three swords don't become anything that they already aren't; one is a dragon, another his master's sword, and the last couldn't care less.
Or, an attempted explanation of the July 22 update, wherein Ookurikara, Izuminokami, and Doutanuki were reclassed as uchigatana.
regarding ikedaya
It’s not that Ookurikara is a failure of a tachi.
The differences in power among swords of the same class are small, he knows; any missteps are attributable to either lack of troops or inexperience being in humanoid form, and the wielder’s technique is not a concern because there is no imperfection to the swordsmanship of a sword. There must be some other reason, then, for Ookurikara’s injuries, for each time he’d ever failed at what he’d sought to do.
As Ookurikara lies on the grass, an arm and the dragon wound around it stretched the stars, he realizes: all other flaws must be weaknesses of the blade.
Their sortie to Ikedaya Inn is in an hour. It feels awkward going to inner Kyoto; longer swords were never made for the city’s narrow spaces, and to use one in such a place at night was out of the question. Was-after the ordeal of Osaka Castle’s underground floors, navigating small corridors that only became darker as they proceeded, it seemed that the saniwa had found the tachi’s performance satisfactory despite the conditions.
But now, consider the new line-up: two tantou, one wakizashi, one uchigatana, and then Izuminokami and Ookurikara, with only the former of the two having the excuse of being a Shinsengumi sword.
“Aren’t you deep in thought tonight,” Tsurumaru says, approaching from the inner citadel. He yawns as he sits on the grass next to Ookurikara uninvited. “Handful of koban for your thoughts?”
“No.” Ookurikara rolls onto his side, turning away from him. Tsurumaru dramatically gasps, and Ookurikara interrupts before he can reply. “Go to sleep. It’s late.”
“Too late for tachi to be going to battles, I’d say,” Tsurumaru answers, not unkindly.
Nevertheless, the words can mean anything. “I’m being deployed, not you. Go sleep already.”
“Yes, yes,” comes the dismissive reply. The words that follow are just slightly softer. “Are you nervous?”
“No.” And Ookurikara means it.
For a moment, only the noise of insects and rustling leaves. Tsurumaru breathes out a laugh, nearly indistinguishable from the night’s ambient sounds. “That’s the Kuri I know.” He hums. “But it is pretty strange, suddenly sending tachi to Ikedaya.”
There’s nothing new about the issue that they can figure out on their own. The night flickers in front of Ookurikara’s tired eyes, stars turning brighter, then darker, then so bright his vision is consumed-he screws his eyes shut and waits, but he’s not even sure what for.
Then he hears it. All of it, every soft sound bursting into focus.
From the inner citadel, twelve pattering footsteps. Thirty-one breathing lungs. A wet brush on paper, the crackling of fire in the forge, then a cacophony of laughter. The slide of five koi in the pond and a water strider casting ripples on its surface. Ookurikara clasps his hands over his ears but the sounds barely become softer-the beating wings high above him, the rushing river beyond the citadel’s walls. Crunching of grass, exactly half an arm’s length behind him. The shifting of soil beneath weight and then the whistle of an arm parting the air-
He bats the hand away before it can reach him, but a sharp blow on unarmed skin echoes across the noise.
Ookurikara freezes, and the world turns silent.
He only realizes that he’s sitting up once Tsurumaru draws his hand back, chuckling despite the clear wince on his face. “W-well, that’s gonna bruise.”
Gritting his teeth, Ookurikara looks away. He lies back down but the very earth beneath him is too loud, and though he clamps his hands over his ears and screws his eyes shut, the sensations threaten to drown him. Everything, noise. His own thoughts being overtaken.
A voice, then touch, firm on his skin. “Hey.” His own hands being pried from his face. “Don’t hurt yourself. Can you hear me?”
His eyes find Tsurumaru, silver hair almost glaring against a backdrop of night. A growl escapes from Ookurikara’s throat unbidden.
“Your dragon’s coming out.” Tsurumaru leans closer and presses a thumb on Ookurikara’s cheekbone. Too close-Ookurikara’s arm lashes out by its own will, but Ookurikara won’t let it, and Tsurumaru pins him to the ground by pressing his own weight onto Ookurikara’s chest. He laughs nervously. “This hasn’t happened in a while, huh?”
Foreign voices, distant hoofbeats, creaking, rustling, clamor. Sensations he never wanted. Ookurikara tries to pull away. “Leave me alone!” All, unwanted-flawed. “I can handle this alone.”
“I know I’m old, but trust me when I say you’re really being a brat right now.” Tsurumaru leans down and presses his forehead to Ookurikara’s own. "Does it bother you that much? Going out at night, I mean.” Though Ookurikara struggles in his grip, Tsurumaru smiles, face soft and open as if there’s no safer place in the world. “Since they’ll see your dragon eyes.”
“I never wanted them!” Not these, his nights always as bright as his mornings, always noisier, every breeze colder. “I don’t need any of them.” Ookurikara wants to turn away but Tsurumaru’s everything is holding him in place; he tucks his chin closer to himself because the very mixing of their breaths feels like a thick fog. “I can fight on my own without them.”
Tsurumaru doesn’t immediately respond, still and noiseless. His heart, though, is loud in its proximity. “Yeah.” He exhales. “That doesn’t mean you can ignore them, or reject them. They’re a part of you.” Then he chuckles. “I’ve always thought that you’re stronger than any of us, you know? And not just because of the dragon.” Impossibly, he relaxes like that, on top of a damaged, dangerous being-not sword nor dragon nor human. “Day or night, you’re always looking forward.”
And once more, Ookurikara lets himself close his eyes. No visible world, no sound but for the breaths and heartbeats so close to Ookurikara’s own. He buries his face into Tsurumaru’s neck and stays there.
After a long moment, Tsurumaru speaks. “Still going to Ikedaya?”
This time, when Ookurikara opens his eyes, the world only murmurs, illuminated. His reply comes without a moment’s thought. “I’m fine.”
Footsteps in the distance, carefully shuffling by the grass-Ookurikara nudges Tsurumaru’s shoulder. “Go sleep.” He rolls back onto his side once Tsurumaru moves away. “You too, Mitsutada.”
“Oh, was I caught?” Mitsutada says, mirth clear in his smile even from far away. But his next words, though similarly light, are spoken with a concerned furrow to his brows. “You don’t look very well. Were you bothering him again, Tsurumaru?”
Tsurumaru puts an affronted hand to his chest. “I’d never!” At the raised eyebrow he receives in response, he corrects himself. “Well, I wasn’t just now. Right, Kuri?”
Ookurikara elects to ignore them, sitting up without a word.
“Silence means yes,” Tsurumaru says.
“It means silence,” Mitsutada follows. He sits by Ookurikara’s other side. “Your night sortie is today, right? Make sure you have enough food! It’s easy to get lost in the city, and it won’t do to fight hungry.”
Tsurumaru murmurs, “And it begins.”
Ookurikara slaps a hand onto his own face.
“Remember that you can’t use catapults! On that note, are your troops well-rested? How about your horse? You can borrow my omamori if you want.”
“And mine, too! Though it may have a bit of a surprise. Just a cute one, I promise.”
Mitsutada interrupts himself to turn to Tsurumaru and stutter out a chuckle. “The last time you lent me your omamori, it made bird calls when pressed…”
“I’ve added more sounds!”
Past their banter, Ookurikara's ears find voices gathering by the stables. “Noisy.” He stretches to his feet. “I’m going.”
“We just worry-!” Mitsutada sighs after him, but Ookurikara briskly walks away. “There he goes.”
“I put the omamori in your pocket,” Tsurumaru hollers. “Both mine and Mitsu’s!”
“Eh, how did you get mine?”
Ookurikara presses a hand to his pocket, and something gives way beneath his touch with a click. The roar of a dragon, small and toy-like, sounds from inside. He sighs.
They split into two groups and enter the inn through both entrances; Hirano, Yasusada, and Ookurikara from the back, and then Yagen, Horikawa, and Izuminokami from the front. Smaller groups mean it’s easier to be overwhelmed, but the revisionists are lit beacons in the dark, and the tantou’s strikes, drawn to their unnatural light, always land true.
The mission proceeds under Izuminokami’s lead. But troops, formation, attack patterns-all at Horikawa’s approval. That’s how it’s always been, for the two of them; though Izuminokami can appreciate tactics as well as any other sword, it’s easy for Horikawa to wear a second skin of shadows, and the way he always emerges with an unwavering gaze is something to admire.
Horikawa’s firm footsteps, on the other hand, tracing a path clearly not unfamiliar to him, are a thing of envy.
It’s not a new feeling. Horikawa had always been Hijikata’s companion, seeing through most battles with him, even the ones that required subterfuge and were barely battles at all. Resentment, or regret, Izuminokami harbors none of that for either of them, nor any for himself. As two different kinds of swords, they simply had their own roles in Hijikata’s hands.
They quickly clear out the first floor of the inn, and both groups meet up by the stairs leading to the next story. It seems their stealth paid off; with the few sentries on the first floor disposed of, the bulk of the revisionists on the second floor have yet to be alerted to their presence.
“Find out anything new?” Izuminokami asks.
“Looks like the inn’s staff can’t see or hear the revisionists,” Yasusada reports. "But rooms in the second floor are all reserved under the shishi-there’s a chance they’re cooperating.”
“Well, that complicates a whole lot.” Izuminokami frowns. “If they can make themselves visible to humans at will the way we can, then…”
Already, a change in history.
“What do we do?” Hirano prompts, hands curled at his sides. Following his word, four other pairs of eyes turn in Izuminokami’s direction, waiting for instruction.
But Izuminokami doesn’t know.
He grits his teeth and turns to Horikawa. At moments like these, he feels it the most-the unchanging gap between them.
Horikawa nods as if given a signal. “If they really did communicate, there’s nothing we can do now. But the revisionists must be staying here for a reason.”
“So we go ahead,” Izuminokami says, angling his head up the flight of stairs at their side.
“I think so,” Horikawa responds, looking up as well.
“How do we attack?”
At that, Horikawa looks back at him, head cocked and eyes piercingly bright. Izuminokami draws his blade in the silence, and the rest of the swords take that as a signal to prepare themselves as well.
Then Horikawa says, “It’s your call.”
Izuminokami blinks at him.
“There’s really only one entrance to the second floor,” Horikawa continues. “And it looks like we’re all in good enough condition for a more direct fight.”
“What, so we can just storm in?”
Horikawa’s face, always so serious on the battlefield, breaks out into a smile. “It’d be like a raid.”
Despite himself, Izuminokami responds with a half-smile as well. A raid he hadn’t been part of, sure. “Just like old times?”
But Horikawa shakes his head, drawing his own blade. “We’re fighting together this time,” he replies, the corners of his smile turning sharp.
For a moment, Izuminokami thinks of something to say, only to come up with nothing. He barks out a laugh as he looks back up, and then they all start running.
(A few hours before-
“Izuminokami in the Ikedaya team?” The saniwa hums. “I’d be fine with it, but would a long sword like him be fine indoors?”
Horikawa’s smile turns sheepish as he looks at his lap, where his loosely curled hands rest. “It’s not as if cities are unfamiliar to him, and he’s always been a better fighter than me. I’d also like to request for him to replace me as leader, since he’s more charismatic, and…”)
Otegine leans forward against his spear. “So would you call yourself an uchigatana or a tachi, now?”
“I’d call myself Doutanuki Masakuni.” Leaning back against the citadel gates, Doutanuki yawns and crosses his arms. Today, again, the two of them are on guard duty; it’s as terrible of a drag as always. “Does it even matter what kind of sword I am?”
In the distance, approaching hoofbeats and familiar silhouettes. Otegine smiles as he straightens. “I guess not.”
“Swordsmith, scabbard, history-hell, even the metal we’re made of-none of that stuff matters.” Doutanuki shrugs, and the two of them start pushing the gates open, ready for the Ikedaya team’s return. “We’re all just whoever we are.”
- masterlist + requests - watch - join -
- i always wonder how kuri feels about his two dategumi friends being the highest impact stat tachi and a 3-slot rarity-4 tachi lol
- also i like to think that tanuki's response to gine has an extra ow layer if you've heard gine's lines and know his history o(-(
- ps tachi to uchi is not a downgrade.
thank you for reading! leave a comment? <3
g
mild/pre-slash ookurikara/tsurumaru kuninaga
2.1k words
oneshot
ao3 mirror available here.
The 'kurikara (倶利伽羅)' in Ookurikara's name (大倶利伽羅) refers to a dragon king.
Hijikata Toshizou (土方 歳三) was Izuminokami and Horikawa's historical owner. He was a member of the Shinsengumi (新選組), who were sort of a police force for the Shogunate during the Bakumatsu (幕末) period. The Shinsengumi once conducted a raid on an inn upon receiving news that the rebels/shishi (志士) who gathered there had a plan to burn Kyoto; this inn was the Ikedaya Inn (池田屋) featured in 6-3.
Omamori (お守り) are protection charms. They're the in-game item to the right of the horse on the equipment screen.
Three swords become uchigatana. Or, three swords don't become anything that they already aren't; one is a dragon, another his master's sword, and the last couldn't care less.
Or, an attempted explanation of the July 22 update, wherein Ookurikara, Izuminokami, and Doutanuki were reclassed as uchigatana.
regarding ikedaya
It’s not that Ookurikara is a failure of a tachi.
The differences in power among swords of the same class are small, he knows; any missteps are attributable to either lack of troops or inexperience being in humanoid form, and the wielder’s technique is not a concern because there is no imperfection to the swordsmanship of a sword. There must be some other reason, then, for Ookurikara’s injuries, for each time he’d ever failed at what he’d sought to do.
As Ookurikara lies on the grass, an arm and the dragon wound around it stretched the stars, he realizes: all other flaws must be weaknesses of the blade.
Their sortie to Ikedaya Inn is in an hour. It feels awkward going to inner Kyoto; longer swords were never made for the city’s narrow spaces, and to use one in such a place at night was out of the question. Was-after the ordeal of Osaka Castle’s underground floors, navigating small corridors that only became darker as they proceeded, it seemed that the saniwa had found the tachi’s performance satisfactory despite the conditions.
But now, consider the new line-up: two tantou, one wakizashi, one uchigatana, and then Izuminokami and Ookurikara, with only the former of the two having the excuse of being a Shinsengumi sword.
“Aren’t you deep in thought tonight,” Tsurumaru says, approaching from the inner citadel. He yawns as he sits on the grass next to Ookurikara uninvited. “Handful of koban for your thoughts?”
“No.” Ookurikara rolls onto his side, turning away from him. Tsurumaru dramatically gasps, and Ookurikara interrupts before he can reply. “Go to sleep. It’s late.”
“Too late for tachi to be going to battles, I’d say,” Tsurumaru answers, not unkindly.
Nevertheless, the words can mean anything. “I’m being deployed, not you. Go sleep already.”
“Yes, yes,” comes the dismissive reply. The words that follow are just slightly softer. “Are you nervous?”
“No.” And Ookurikara means it.
For a moment, only the noise of insects and rustling leaves. Tsurumaru breathes out a laugh, nearly indistinguishable from the night’s ambient sounds. “That’s the Kuri I know.” He hums. “But it is pretty strange, suddenly sending tachi to Ikedaya.”
There’s nothing new about the issue that they can figure out on their own. The night flickers in front of Ookurikara’s tired eyes, stars turning brighter, then darker, then so bright his vision is consumed-he screws his eyes shut and waits, but he’s not even sure what for.
Then he hears it. All of it, every soft sound bursting into focus.
From the inner citadel, twelve pattering footsteps. Thirty-one breathing lungs. A wet brush on paper, the crackling of fire in the forge, then a cacophony of laughter. The slide of five koi in the pond and a water strider casting ripples on its surface. Ookurikara clasps his hands over his ears but the sounds barely become softer-the beating wings high above him, the rushing river beyond the citadel’s walls. Crunching of grass, exactly half an arm’s length behind him. The shifting of soil beneath weight and then the whistle of an arm parting the air-
He bats the hand away before it can reach him, but a sharp blow on unarmed skin echoes across the noise.
Ookurikara freezes, and the world turns silent.
He only realizes that he’s sitting up once Tsurumaru draws his hand back, chuckling despite the clear wince on his face. “W-well, that’s gonna bruise.”
Gritting his teeth, Ookurikara looks away. He lies back down but the very earth beneath him is too loud, and though he clamps his hands over his ears and screws his eyes shut, the sensations threaten to drown him. Everything, noise. His own thoughts being overtaken.
A voice, then touch, firm on his skin. “Hey.” His own hands being pried from his face. “Don’t hurt yourself. Can you hear me?”
His eyes find Tsurumaru, silver hair almost glaring against a backdrop of night. A growl escapes from Ookurikara’s throat unbidden.
“Your dragon’s coming out.” Tsurumaru leans closer and presses a thumb on Ookurikara’s cheekbone. Too close-Ookurikara’s arm lashes out by its own will, but Ookurikara won’t let it, and Tsurumaru pins him to the ground by pressing his own weight onto Ookurikara’s chest. He laughs nervously. “This hasn’t happened in a while, huh?”
Foreign voices, distant hoofbeats, creaking, rustling, clamor. Sensations he never wanted. Ookurikara tries to pull away. “Leave me alone!” All, unwanted-flawed. “I can handle this alone.”
“I know I’m old, but trust me when I say you’re really being a brat right now.” Tsurumaru leans down and presses his forehead to Ookurikara’s own. "Does it bother you that much? Going out at night, I mean.” Though Ookurikara struggles in his grip, Tsurumaru smiles, face soft and open as if there’s no safer place in the world. “Since they’ll see your dragon eyes.”
“I never wanted them!” Not these, his nights always as bright as his mornings, always noisier, every breeze colder. “I don’t need any of them.” Ookurikara wants to turn away but Tsurumaru’s everything is holding him in place; he tucks his chin closer to himself because the very mixing of their breaths feels like a thick fog. “I can fight on my own without them.”
Tsurumaru doesn’t immediately respond, still and noiseless. His heart, though, is loud in its proximity. “Yeah.” He exhales. “That doesn’t mean you can ignore them, or reject them. They’re a part of you.” Then he chuckles. “I’ve always thought that you’re stronger than any of us, you know? And not just because of the dragon.” Impossibly, he relaxes like that, on top of a damaged, dangerous being-not sword nor dragon nor human. “Day or night, you’re always looking forward.”
And once more, Ookurikara lets himself close his eyes. No visible world, no sound but for the breaths and heartbeats so close to Ookurikara’s own. He buries his face into Tsurumaru’s neck and stays there.
After a long moment, Tsurumaru speaks. “Still going to Ikedaya?”
This time, when Ookurikara opens his eyes, the world only murmurs, illuminated. His reply comes without a moment’s thought. “I’m fine.”
Footsteps in the distance, carefully shuffling by the grass-Ookurikara nudges Tsurumaru’s shoulder. “Go sleep.” He rolls back onto his side once Tsurumaru moves away. “You too, Mitsutada.”
“Oh, was I caught?” Mitsutada says, mirth clear in his smile even from far away. But his next words, though similarly light, are spoken with a concerned furrow to his brows. “You don’t look very well. Were you bothering him again, Tsurumaru?”
Tsurumaru puts an affronted hand to his chest. “I’d never!” At the raised eyebrow he receives in response, he corrects himself. “Well, I wasn’t just now. Right, Kuri?”
Ookurikara elects to ignore them, sitting up without a word.
“Silence means yes,” Tsurumaru says.
“It means silence,” Mitsutada follows. He sits by Ookurikara’s other side. “Your night sortie is today, right? Make sure you have enough food! It’s easy to get lost in the city, and it won’t do to fight hungry.”
Tsurumaru murmurs, “And it begins.”
Ookurikara slaps a hand onto his own face.
“Remember that you can’t use catapults! On that note, are your troops well-rested? How about your horse? You can borrow my omamori if you want.”
“And mine, too! Though it may have a bit of a surprise. Just a cute one, I promise.”
Mitsutada interrupts himself to turn to Tsurumaru and stutter out a chuckle. “The last time you lent me your omamori, it made bird calls when pressed…”
“I’ve added more sounds!”
Past their banter, Ookurikara's ears find voices gathering by the stables. “Noisy.” He stretches to his feet. “I’m going.”
“We just worry-!” Mitsutada sighs after him, but Ookurikara briskly walks away. “There he goes.”
“I put the omamori in your pocket,” Tsurumaru hollers. “Both mine and Mitsu’s!”
“Eh, how did you get mine?”
Ookurikara presses a hand to his pocket, and something gives way beneath his touch with a click. The roar of a dragon, small and toy-like, sounds from inside. He sighs.
They split into two groups and enter the inn through both entrances; Hirano, Yasusada, and Ookurikara from the back, and then Yagen, Horikawa, and Izuminokami from the front. Smaller groups mean it’s easier to be overwhelmed, but the revisionists are lit beacons in the dark, and the tantou’s strikes, drawn to their unnatural light, always land true.
The mission proceeds under Izuminokami’s lead. But troops, formation, attack patterns-all at Horikawa’s approval. That’s how it’s always been, for the two of them; though Izuminokami can appreciate tactics as well as any other sword, it’s easy for Horikawa to wear a second skin of shadows, and the way he always emerges with an unwavering gaze is something to admire.
Horikawa’s firm footsteps, on the other hand, tracing a path clearly not unfamiliar to him, are a thing of envy.
It’s not a new feeling. Horikawa had always been Hijikata’s companion, seeing through most battles with him, even the ones that required subterfuge and were barely battles at all. Resentment, or regret, Izuminokami harbors none of that for either of them, nor any for himself. As two different kinds of swords, they simply had their own roles in Hijikata’s hands.
They quickly clear out the first floor of the inn, and both groups meet up by the stairs leading to the next story. It seems their stealth paid off; with the few sentries on the first floor disposed of, the bulk of the revisionists on the second floor have yet to be alerted to their presence.
“Find out anything new?” Izuminokami asks.
“Looks like the inn’s staff can’t see or hear the revisionists,” Yasusada reports. "But rooms in the second floor are all reserved under the shishi-there’s a chance they’re cooperating.”
“Well, that complicates a whole lot.” Izuminokami frowns. “If they can make themselves visible to humans at will the way we can, then…”
Already, a change in history.
“What do we do?” Hirano prompts, hands curled at his sides. Following his word, four other pairs of eyes turn in Izuminokami’s direction, waiting for instruction.
But Izuminokami doesn’t know.
He grits his teeth and turns to Horikawa. At moments like these, he feels it the most-the unchanging gap between them.
Horikawa nods as if given a signal. “If they really did communicate, there’s nothing we can do now. But the revisionists must be staying here for a reason.”
“So we go ahead,” Izuminokami says, angling his head up the flight of stairs at their side.
“I think so,” Horikawa responds, looking up as well.
“How do we attack?”
At that, Horikawa looks back at him, head cocked and eyes piercingly bright. Izuminokami draws his blade in the silence, and the rest of the swords take that as a signal to prepare themselves as well.
Then Horikawa says, “It’s your call.”
Izuminokami blinks at him.
“There’s really only one entrance to the second floor,” Horikawa continues. “And it looks like we’re all in good enough condition for a more direct fight.”
“What, so we can just storm in?”
Horikawa’s face, always so serious on the battlefield, breaks out into a smile. “It’d be like a raid.”
Despite himself, Izuminokami responds with a half-smile as well. A raid he hadn’t been part of, sure. “Just like old times?”
But Horikawa shakes his head, drawing his own blade. “We’re fighting together this time,” he replies, the corners of his smile turning sharp.
For a moment, Izuminokami thinks of something to say, only to come up with nothing. He barks out a laugh as he looks back up, and then they all start running.
(A few hours before-
“Izuminokami in the Ikedaya team?” The saniwa hums. “I’d be fine with it, but would a long sword like him be fine indoors?”
Horikawa’s smile turns sheepish as he looks at his lap, where his loosely curled hands rest. “It’s not as if cities are unfamiliar to him, and he’s always been a better fighter than me. I’d also like to request for him to replace me as leader, since he’s more charismatic, and…”)
Otegine leans forward against his spear. “So would you call yourself an uchigatana or a tachi, now?”
“I’d call myself Doutanuki Masakuni.” Leaning back against the citadel gates, Doutanuki yawns and crosses his arms. Today, again, the two of them are on guard duty; it’s as terrible of a drag as always. “Does it even matter what kind of sword I am?”
In the distance, approaching hoofbeats and familiar silhouettes. Otegine smiles as he straightens. “I guess not.”
“Swordsmith, scabbard, history-hell, even the metal we’re made of-none of that stuff matters.” Doutanuki shrugs, and the two of them start pushing the gates open, ready for the Ikedaya team’s return. “We’re all just whoever we are.”
- masterlist + requests - watch - join -
- i always wonder how kuri feels about his two dategumi friends being the highest impact stat tachi and a 3-slot rarity-4 tachi lol
- also i like to think that tanuki's response to gine has an extra ow layer if you've heard gine's lines and know his history o(-(
- ps tachi to uchi is not a downgrade.
thank you for reading! leave a comment? <3