[FIC] Sengoku Basara: Re [2/4]
I NEARLY FORGOT TODAY'S DATE THAT IS HOW MUCH FAIL I AM.
Happy second week of your birthday, Shahni bb! I love you. ♥
Also beta'd by jusrecht, with Masamune-sama's lines and some thought processes again stolen from sieglein.
Re [2/4]
Chapter Two: Re: Calls
Characters/Pairing: Kojuurou and Masamune, eventual Kojuurou/Masamune
Rating: PG
Words: 2213
Summary: Kojuurou and Masamune find each other again. Four hundred years late.
Sometimes, Tohru dreams.
He usually doesn’t remember his dreams, because Tohru always tries to make his waking hours as vivid and bright as possible, using every single drop of his energy until he drops into bed and sleeps like the dead. There’s no use in holding back - he hasn’t held back since he was Masamune, or perhaps even before, when he was Bontenmaru. He has never seen the merit in dreams or nightmares either, because they are so ephemeral, so much like mist through fingers, and he can never catch them.
And if he can’t ever do anything about his dreams, why will he want to have them at all?
But sometimes, he does, and he remembers each instance with stark clarity, as if he hasn’t dreamt it. As if he had lived it once, and is now remembering it, the memories slowly filtering back in his mind. His dreams have never been about Tohru, after all.
Of all these dreams, there is one that he remembers the best. It’s heavy and stark, each second passing by his eyes like a high-definition photograph. Tohru dreams of a glorious battle, of flashes of red and fire and joyful laughter. He remembers the clash of swords against spears and the weight of his six swords in his hands and the roughness of their hilts against the calluses of his fingers, and he can’t help but feel the same thrill, the same happiness. Because he was and is and will always be a dragon and dragons belong to the battlefield, with their wings outspread and soaring high, claws outstretched and ready to kill.
And he remembers pain, and the heat of a spear burning through his flesh. He remembers dying, but clearest of all, starkest of all-Tohru remembers Kojuurou’s face, the despair in his eyes as he holds him in his arms. He remembers Kojuurou’s voice, shouting his own name.
“Masamune-sama.”
**
There is a click inside Tohru’s head, as if a missing piece of a jigsaw puzzle has been pressed back in place, and he can finally see again.
“Kojuurou.”
The name wrenches itself out of Tohru’s throat, and he sees this man in front of him, wearing a rumpled suit and glasses and enough desperation in those eyes that he feels like he’s drowning it in. He hears that voice, that name, and it almost physically knocks him backwards, feeling as if that voice has pierced through all of his shields. It pierced through him and wrapped its cold fingers around Tohru’s heart, pulling that name out from his chest, forcing it to tumble out from his throat, half-formed.
And he says it again-
“Kojuurou.”
Like the fate of the world rests upon that name.
And Tohru is falling down from his seat, stumbling forward and that name-no, those names resound in his mind, over and over. He’s here. Kojuurou’s here.
His Right Eye. That missing part of himself, returning to his side.
Finally, he is whole again.
***
It’s funny, Hikaru muses quietly, almost hysterically, joy mixing with disbelief and a relief so great that it almost crushes him. It’s funny how much difference a single word can make.
Kojuurou. That’s his name; that’s what Masamune calls him-and Hikaru feels Masamune’s arms around him, hugging him so very tightly and close, almost hard enough to crush his ribs but at that moment he doesn’t care. He holds him just as tightly, fingers clenching around the back of Masamune’s shirt as he tries to hold back his tears, as he feels his eyes burning.
It’s real. All of it is real.
Hikaru wonders if this is a dream as well, if he’s going to wake up with his cheek aching as if a blade has slashed the skin open again, but Masamune’s heat against his own body is far too real. That tiny click he felt to the very depths of his bones was too real, that sudden sense that here, finally-he has found where he truly belongs.
Where he should be all along.
“I’ve found you,” he says, giddy with the peculiar, odd feeling of drowning, as if he’s so happy that he cannot breathe. He pulls away slightly, fingers (too smooth, his own fingers) smoothing over the stark white of the medical eyepatch that covers Masamune’s right eye.
(it’s the wrong colour, the wrong shape-
a dragon should not look like he’s injured)
He ignores all the stares around them, ignores the world because none of them matter anymore. A beat, and Hikaru presses his lips against the spot of the skin right above the eyepatch; soft, gentle, as if he’s kissing a young child’s wound, trying to soothe. He closes his eyes, breathes out slowly-
And Kojuurou crashes down onto him like a tidal wave.
“I’ve found you,” the words are heavy, choked at the base of his throat and he forces them out with difficulty. It’s as if he can’t breathe, the weight of one and a thousand lifetimes weighing against his chest, forcing down his shoulders until he’s desperately hunched over, his bones and muscles protesting.
Still, he tries. Nothing else matters right now but this man. Not the countless accusing eyes in this carriage, in this train, in this world.
“I’ve found you, my Lord,” there’s a barely-there attempt at calm, and Hikaru’s smile shakes, lips tremble, like he’s a leaf blown in the wind.
“Let I, Kojuurou, serve you for all of your life once more. Please give me another chance to protect you.
“Please-”
“A dragon’s Right Eye doesn’t beg, Kojuurou,” Tohru says, and there’s giddiness in his words, in the joy that he tries to keep hidden. But Masamune has never been particularly good at hiding himself, and so it all bursts out, like bubbles, and he can’t stop smiling.
A dragon’s Right Eye.
His Right Eye.
Kojuurou.
Now he no longer needs to walk through life half-blind. Now he has his Right Eye back at his side, and immediately the world seems sharper, brighter, the darkness on one side brushed away. He can see the world again, in all of its beautiful and filthy glory.
But his gaze is fixed upon Kojuurou, on his knees in front of him, calling him Masamune-sama with the same reverent tone as if the name means something. As if there has been a black hole within him and Kojuurou, with just a name and a presence, so warm against his own skin, has filled it.
Masamune exists only within Tohru’s mind, because there has been no one who had recognised him. He’d feared spending the rest of his life searching for some trace of that past. For someone else that knows him and acknowledges everything he's done. To be Date Masamune again. These are all things he's been wanting. It's truly who he is at his core, an identity he can't detach himself from because his soul is rooted in that place so far in the past.
But Kojuurou is here, and he remembers and calls him by the name that the world has forgotten and relegated to obscure history books. His Right Eye has found him.
Tohru is whole again, with this man by his side.
And this time, he has no intention of leaving first.
“Don't sweat it, Kojuurou. Not to worry. I'm here, aren't I? You're my Right Eye.” He reaches out, buries his hand in Kojuurou’s now-shorter hair, tugging at the ends of the strands like a child. A long, slow breath out, and he swallows thickly before he continues, “Haven’t you always guarded my back?”
***
The last thing he remembers of Kojuurou-
The tears that had wet Masamune’s own face as the darkness encroached on his vision; the warmth of the arm wrapped around his body, so hot when pressed against his rapidly cooling skin. And Masamune remembers how his own bloodied fingers had trailed down Kojuurou’s cheek, following the line of the scar-and how his greatest regret was leaving his Right Eye behind; was leaving so soon.
Because the two of them could conquer the world together. Because he knew he was capable of so much more, and yet he didn’t regret dying, for this was the greatest battle he ever had.
Because he knew, even then, at the brink of death, that Kojuurou would follow him very soon. For if a One-Eyed Dragon without a Right Eye was half-blind, a Right Eye without a Dragon is a cut-off, dying limb.
Masamune wasn’t a man who regretted anything he did. He threw himself entirely into what he wanted, what he believed in, and fought his hardest and wrangled victories from the mouth of a Demon King. He never looked back because he had a Right Eye to watch his back for him, a Right Eye with his own teeth and fangs and claws, just as vicious and strong as he was.
Yet then, as he was dying, he regretted. Just that once.
For Kojuurou’s sake.
***
His Right Eye. That's what Kojuurou is, that's all he ever was, and that's all he wants to be. There's nothing of Katakura Kojuurou if there is no Date Masamune, because just as much as Masamune had been raise by Kojuurou's own hand, Kojuurou was shaped by Masamune. He has always been simply a part of Masamune - he is his Right Eye. They have the same wishes, the same desires, the same ambitions, because Kojuurou rarely wants anything for his own sake.
His Lord is whom he fights for, kills for, lives for.
He has already been gone for too long already, left the Dragon without his Right Eye by his side. He has been away for a lifetime, no two, no three, no four-
Lifetimes that he cannot remember. Hikaru thinks he has been a merchant, a teacher, a peasant, a soldier. He had seen the most peaceful years of Tokugawa Ieyasu’s reign, he had witnessed and even fought in the Bakumatsu-at least, that’s what he thinks, because those memories are hazy, the edges faded, and whenever he tries to chase them they slip away from his fingers like water, like mist itself. He can’t capture anything, for they are too transparent, too... forgettable.
As if lifetimes without being by Masamune’s side are simply not worth remembering at all.
He remembers Kojuurou with such clarity that it doesn’t seem that four centuries have passed. Perhaps four years instead, or four days, or four seconds, even - everything seems to be so stark that Hikaru feels himself being blinded.
“I haven’t,” he says, his words small gusts of air against Masamune’s skin, barely audible. “I could not protect you in the end. There is nothing I can do to repent for my failure-” his words are cut off as Masamune raises his head, pinning him down with a fierce gaze.
“Then don’t. Can't go back and change what history's already written, so leave it as is. What happened happened. Leave it,” he says. Though his stare never dims, Masamune smiles, poking Hikaru’s cheek, stroking down a line where Kojuurou’s scar should be.
“You’re late.”
***
There’s a pause, and Tohru feels his own breath catching in his throat before Kojuurou finally smiles, laughing. There’s a hint of bitterness there, the heavy weight of regret, but Tohru promises to himself that he’ll reach in one day to tear it out, to rip that weight into pieces and scatter it to the winds.
They have no time to regret the past. Their time is here, now, and now, with Kojuurou here... Tohru feels as if he can do anything. For the first time since he had died in that time, Tohru feels as if the world is at his feet, and he only needs to reach down and pick it up, and it will be his.
(How could I have lived without you? Without you I was only half-formed, half-seeing, the world closed to me.)
“I'm late,” a breathy little declaration, and Kojuurou's smile is shaky but sure, and his eyes shine not just with tears. Tohru can’t help but return the smile, cupping his hand on Kojuurou’s jaw, brushing his fingers against a scar he can see in his mind’s eye again.
“Please forgive me. I got a little lost. But I'm here now, Masamune-sama, and I will never leave your side. Not even if death tries to part us again.” And Tohru feels that hand, smoother now though still slightly callused, most likely from holding a pen, brushing over his eyepatch. He smiles, for he hears everything Kojuurou cannot and will not voice.
(Even in this world, you still suffer. How much sadness have you experienced? How many tragedies you had to go through, that I wasn't able to protect you from?)
Tohru throws his head back and laughs, a sharp, loud thing, because Kojuurou hasn’t changed in four hundred years. He still takes the blame of everything upon his own shoulders even when Tohru has swept everything away and crushed them into tiny pieces on the ground.
He reaches out with a grin, punching Kojuurou lightly on the shoulder. Then he opens the balled-up fist, holding out his hand.
“The name’s Matsuda Tohru. Nice to meet you.”
TBC
1. Bontenmaru is Masamune's childhood name.
Happy second week of your birthday, Shahni bb! I love you. ♥
Also beta'd by jusrecht, with Masamune-sama's lines and some thought processes again stolen from sieglein.
Re [2/4]
Chapter Two: Re: Calls
Characters/Pairing: Kojuurou and Masamune, eventual Kojuurou/Masamune
Rating: PG
Words: 2213
Summary: Kojuurou and Masamune find each other again. Four hundred years late.
Sometimes, Tohru dreams.
He usually doesn’t remember his dreams, because Tohru always tries to make his waking hours as vivid and bright as possible, using every single drop of his energy until he drops into bed and sleeps like the dead. There’s no use in holding back - he hasn’t held back since he was Masamune, or perhaps even before, when he was Bontenmaru. He has never seen the merit in dreams or nightmares either, because they are so ephemeral, so much like mist through fingers, and he can never catch them.
And if he can’t ever do anything about his dreams, why will he want to have them at all?
But sometimes, he does, and he remembers each instance with stark clarity, as if he hasn’t dreamt it. As if he had lived it once, and is now remembering it, the memories slowly filtering back in his mind. His dreams have never been about Tohru, after all.
Of all these dreams, there is one that he remembers the best. It’s heavy and stark, each second passing by his eyes like a high-definition photograph. Tohru dreams of a glorious battle, of flashes of red and fire and joyful laughter. He remembers the clash of swords against spears and the weight of his six swords in his hands and the roughness of their hilts against the calluses of his fingers, and he can’t help but feel the same thrill, the same happiness. Because he was and is and will always be a dragon and dragons belong to the battlefield, with their wings outspread and soaring high, claws outstretched and ready to kill.
And he remembers pain, and the heat of a spear burning through his flesh. He remembers dying, but clearest of all, starkest of all-Tohru remembers Kojuurou’s face, the despair in his eyes as he holds him in his arms. He remembers Kojuurou’s voice, shouting his own name.
“Masamune-sama.”
**
There is a click inside Tohru’s head, as if a missing piece of a jigsaw puzzle has been pressed back in place, and he can finally see again.
“Kojuurou.”
The name wrenches itself out of Tohru’s throat, and he sees this man in front of him, wearing a rumpled suit and glasses and enough desperation in those eyes that he feels like he’s drowning it in. He hears that voice, that name, and it almost physically knocks him backwards, feeling as if that voice has pierced through all of his shields. It pierced through him and wrapped its cold fingers around Tohru’s heart, pulling that name out from his chest, forcing it to tumble out from his throat, half-formed.
And he says it again-
“Kojuurou.”
Like the fate of the world rests upon that name.
And Tohru is falling down from his seat, stumbling forward and that name-no, those names resound in his mind, over and over. He’s here. Kojuurou’s here.
His Right Eye. That missing part of himself, returning to his side.
Finally, he is whole again.
***
It’s funny, Hikaru muses quietly, almost hysterically, joy mixing with disbelief and a relief so great that it almost crushes him. It’s funny how much difference a single word can make.
Kojuurou. That’s his name; that’s what Masamune calls him-and Hikaru feels Masamune’s arms around him, hugging him so very tightly and close, almost hard enough to crush his ribs but at that moment he doesn’t care. He holds him just as tightly, fingers clenching around the back of Masamune’s shirt as he tries to hold back his tears, as he feels his eyes burning.
It’s real. All of it is real.
Hikaru wonders if this is a dream as well, if he’s going to wake up with his cheek aching as if a blade has slashed the skin open again, but Masamune’s heat against his own body is far too real. That tiny click he felt to the very depths of his bones was too real, that sudden sense that here, finally-he has found where he truly belongs.
Where he should be all along.
“I’ve found you,” he says, giddy with the peculiar, odd feeling of drowning, as if he’s so happy that he cannot breathe. He pulls away slightly, fingers (too smooth, his own fingers) smoothing over the stark white of the medical eyepatch that covers Masamune’s right eye.
(it’s the wrong colour, the wrong shape-
a dragon should not look like he’s injured)
He ignores all the stares around them, ignores the world because none of them matter anymore. A beat, and Hikaru presses his lips against the spot of the skin right above the eyepatch; soft, gentle, as if he’s kissing a young child’s wound, trying to soothe. He closes his eyes, breathes out slowly-
And Kojuurou crashes down onto him like a tidal wave.
“I’ve found you,” the words are heavy, choked at the base of his throat and he forces them out with difficulty. It’s as if he can’t breathe, the weight of one and a thousand lifetimes weighing against his chest, forcing down his shoulders until he’s desperately hunched over, his bones and muscles protesting.
Still, he tries. Nothing else matters right now but this man. Not the countless accusing eyes in this carriage, in this train, in this world.
“I’ve found you, my Lord,” there’s a barely-there attempt at calm, and Hikaru’s smile shakes, lips tremble, like he’s a leaf blown in the wind.
“Let I, Kojuurou, serve you for all of your life once more. Please give me another chance to protect you.
“Please-”
“A dragon’s Right Eye doesn’t beg, Kojuurou,” Tohru says, and there’s giddiness in his words, in the joy that he tries to keep hidden. But Masamune has never been particularly good at hiding himself, and so it all bursts out, like bubbles, and he can’t stop smiling.
A dragon’s Right Eye.
His Right Eye.
Kojuurou.
Now he no longer needs to walk through life half-blind. Now he has his Right Eye back at his side, and immediately the world seems sharper, brighter, the darkness on one side brushed away. He can see the world again, in all of its beautiful and filthy glory.
But his gaze is fixed upon Kojuurou, on his knees in front of him, calling him Masamune-sama with the same reverent tone as if the name means something. As if there has been a black hole within him and Kojuurou, with just a name and a presence, so warm against his own skin, has filled it.
Masamune exists only within Tohru’s mind, because there has been no one who had recognised him. He’d feared spending the rest of his life searching for some trace of that past. For someone else that knows him and acknowledges everything he's done. To be Date Masamune again. These are all things he's been wanting. It's truly who he is at his core, an identity he can't detach himself from because his soul is rooted in that place so far in the past.
But Kojuurou is here, and he remembers and calls him by the name that the world has forgotten and relegated to obscure history books. His Right Eye has found him.
Tohru is whole again, with this man by his side.
And this time, he has no intention of leaving first.
“Don't sweat it, Kojuurou. Not to worry. I'm here, aren't I? You're my Right Eye.” He reaches out, buries his hand in Kojuurou’s now-shorter hair, tugging at the ends of the strands like a child. A long, slow breath out, and he swallows thickly before he continues, “Haven’t you always guarded my back?”
***
The last thing he remembers of Kojuurou-
The tears that had wet Masamune’s own face as the darkness encroached on his vision; the warmth of the arm wrapped around his body, so hot when pressed against his rapidly cooling skin. And Masamune remembers how his own bloodied fingers had trailed down Kojuurou’s cheek, following the line of the scar-and how his greatest regret was leaving his Right Eye behind; was leaving so soon.
Because the two of them could conquer the world together. Because he knew he was capable of so much more, and yet he didn’t regret dying, for this was the greatest battle he ever had.
Because he knew, even then, at the brink of death, that Kojuurou would follow him very soon. For if a One-Eyed Dragon without a Right Eye was half-blind, a Right Eye without a Dragon is a cut-off, dying limb.
Masamune wasn’t a man who regretted anything he did. He threw himself entirely into what he wanted, what he believed in, and fought his hardest and wrangled victories from the mouth of a Demon King. He never looked back because he had a Right Eye to watch his back for him, a Right Eye with his own teeth and fangs and claws, just as vicious and strong as he was.
Yet then, as he was dying, he regretted. Just that once.
For Kojuurou’s sake.
***
His Right Eye. That's what Kojuurou is, that's all he ever was, and that's all he wants to be. There's nothing of Katakura Kojuurou if there is no Date Masamune, because just as much as Masamune had been raise by Kojuurou's own hand, Kojuurou was shaped by Masamune. He has always been simply a part of Masamune - he is his Right Eye. They have the same wishes, the same desires, the same ambitions, because Kojuurou rarely wants anything for his own sake.
His Lord is whom he fights for, kills for, lives for.
He has already been gone for too long already, left the Dragon without his Right Eye by his side. He has been away for a lifetime, no two, no three, no four-
Lifetimes that he cannot remember. Hikaru thinks he has been a merchant, a teacher, a peasant, a soldier. He had seen the most peaceful years of Tokugawa Ieyasu’s reign, he had witnessed and even fought in the Bakumatsu-at least, that’s what he thinks, because those memories are hazy, the edges faded, and whenever he tries to chase them they slip away from his fingers like water, like mist itself. He can’t capture anything, for they are too transparent, too... forgettable.
As if lifetimes without being by Masamune’s side are simply not worth remembering at all.
He remembers Kojuurou with such clarity that it doesn’t seem that four centuries have passed. Perhaps four years instead, or four days, or four seconds, even - everything seems to be so stark that Hikaru feels himself being blinded.
“I haven’t,” he says, his words small gusts of air against Masamune’s skin, barely audible. “I could not protect you in the end. There is nothing I can do to repent for my failure-” his words are cut off as Masamune raises his head, pinning him down with a fierce gaze.
“Then don’t. Can't go back and change what history's already written, so leave it as is. What happened happened. Leave it,” he says. Though his stare never dims, Masamune smiles, poking Hikaru’s cheek, stroking down a line where Kojuurou’s scar should be.
“You’re late.”
***
There’s a pause, and Tohru feels his own breath catching in his throat before Kojuurou finally smiles, laughing. There’s a hint of bitterness there, the heavy weight of regret, but Tohru promises to himself that he’ll reach in one day to tear it out, to rip that weight into pieces and scatter it to the winds.
They have no time to regret the past. Their time is here, now, and now, with Kojuurou here... Tohru feels as if he can do anything. For the first time since he had died in that time, Tohru feels as if the world is at his feet, and he only needs to reach down and pick it up, and it will be his.
(How could I have lived without you? Without you I was only half-formed, half-seeing, the world closed to me.)
“I'm late,” a breathy little declaration, and Kojuurou's smile is shaky but sure, and his eyes shine not just with tears. Tohru can’t help but return the smile, cupping his hand on Kojuurou’s jaw, brushing his fingers against a scar he can see in his mind’s eye again.
“Please forgive me. I got a little lost. But I'm here now, Masamune-sama, and I will never leave your side. Not even if death tries to part us again.” And Tohru feels that hand, smoother now though still slightly callused, most likely from holding a pen, brushing over his eyepatch. He smiles, for he hears everything Kojuurou cannot and will not voice.
(Even in this world, you still suffer. How much sadness have you experienced? How many tragedies you had to go through, that I wasn't able to protect you from?)
Tohru throws his head back and laughs, a sharp, loud thing, because Kojuurou hasn’t changed in four hundred years. He still takes the blame of everything upon his own shoulders even when Tohru has swept everything away and crushed them into tiny pieces on the ground.
He reaches out with a grin, punching Kojuurou lightly on the shoulder. Then he opens the balled-up fist, holding out his hand.
“The name’s Matsuda Tohru. Nice to meet you.”
TBC
1. Bontenmaru is Masamune's childhood name.