#ikesen medieval AU

[ikesenhell]

I See Starlight

You can find all other IkeSen works of mine here. NOTE: SPOILERS FOR THE ‘TO HONOR AND PROTECT’ LONG FIC. Also: it was a fascinating challenge to write for someone who isn’t sighted. I’m looking forward to trying more of this. 

Had he been asked before to describe blindness, Mitsuhide might have said blackness. It made sense to his sighted brain back then. After all, wasn’t that the absence of all things? Surely nothing but the infinite void was what those without eyes ‘saw’.

He was wrong.

“What does it feel like?” Hideyoshi asked once. Mitsuhide could feel the calloused tips of his fingers smoothing the blindfold, easing those wrinkles out bit by bit. He didn’t mind that so much. Hideyoshi fussed over him daily now, seeing to him in a way he never had before, and in some ways, that was soothing.

“It’s…” Mitsuhide paused, at a loss for words for the first time. How did he describe something more felt than seen? Frustrated, he held his tongue, finally answering with a simple, “Like trying to see out of your elbow.”

Those fingers on his blindfold paused. “What?”

“It just isn’t possible. It isn’t there. There’s no blackness, no void, no nothing. It just… isn’t.”

The day to day was an adventure. Mitsuhide memorized the layout of the barracks kitchen, navigating it with a mixture of bumped knees and spilled drinks. The oddest part was learning what senses he’d never employed before. His ears were good (better now, even--he’d grown accustomed a long time ago to overhearing valuable snippets of conversation), but his nose? His hands? His hands were by far the part of him he’d never paid so much mind to. Sometimes he would spend time just running his thumb over something new, sensing his way through the countertop, or the metal links of his armor, or the embossed leather of his sword hilt. A world of feeling was a strange place indeed.

More than anything, Mitsuhide tried to pretend he didn’t hear the whispers.

Obviously, he wasn’t much use to the Nine if he couldn’t even perform his daily tasks. Training was a strange new land. There was nothing to aim for. His marksmanship had always been the high point of his talents, and now? Now he couldn’t even aim true to parry a sword. Kenshin tried his best (with truly uncharacteristic kindness) to adapt something for his use, but it was a frustrating effort. They were one man down already, what with Mitsunari being the whole damn ocean, and he was almost utterly useless.

“Perhaps we should have him retire,” Mitsuhide overheard one night. It sounded like Shingen’s soft murmur. “He’s having a difficult time as is. There’s not much we can do for him.”

“Mitsuhide is resourceful,” Hideyoshi pushed back. “He’ll figure something out. Besides, he’s sharp.”

“‘Figuring something out’ and actually being able to fight are two separate things,” Masamune added. The man couldn’t whisper to save his life. Despite himself, Mitsuhide almost chuckled. “But let’s give it time and see what happens. It isn’t like we can just find a replacement for him anyway.”

Mitsuhide learned how to read with his hands first. That much wasn’t so hard. It was just the alphabet all over again, except with fingertips. Whenever Mitsunari was free from the water he lived in, he always took the time to teach him more. Maybe it was some kind of misplaced guilt that compelled him, but Mitsuhide didn’t know. He didn’t ask.

“So how long can you spend out of the sea, anyway?” He half-laughed. “A real fish out of water, aren’t you?”

“I suppose so.” Mitsunari’s gentle laugh was sweeter without sight to distract him. “I usually have about four to five hours. Then it’s back to the water for me--I feel weak and stretched until I’m back in then. I doubt I’d be able to go on a long trip as I am now. At least not over land, that is. Maybe one day the Princess will decide to go on a voyage. I could accompany her then.”

That didn’t sound half bad. Mitsuhide supposed that he wasn’t the only one adjusting.

But his frustration was only slightly allayed by learning to read again. He could assist with the intelligence reports again, but there wasn’t much else he could manage. It was almost impossible to track the days now--he woke at odd hours, slogging through the kitchen for his morning routine only to discover it was well into the night. How did someone stop feeling so disconnected?

Granted, he had before. He’d always had a general malaise, the kind of free-floating emptiness that felt like the wind swirling cavernous through his chest. There was a word for that in the City, in the ancient dialect that once had been their main language: Ornishi. It was difficult to translate, but how Mitsuhide understood it was “To be so empty that the whole world can fit inside.”

Here, in his personal nothingness, he understood the word at last.

Sometimes he thought about ending it. It wasn’t so much the lack of sight as the detachment from everyone around him. He’d spent his whole life honing and securing his identity, never realizing how much of it depended on being alone, and now--now how could he be alone? How could he be without Hideyoshi’s guiding hand?

Getting out of bed became harder and harder. He lay swathed in blankets, a prisoner to his own mind. How pathetic was that? It felt like the punishments he’d inflicted on his own prisoners in the past; but now it was him, and he didn’t know how anyone he’d tortured coped with that.

One morning, fed up with the silence and the loneliness, he decided to try a walk.

If Hideyoshi saw him, Mitsuhide had no doubt the man would try to stop him. Silently, he gathered up the walking stick he’d propped in the corner and edged it around the doorframe, finding his way bits at a time. Somehow he navigated his way outside. He could hear the distant crash of the ocean, the breeze flowing over his cheeks, the crush of rocks underfoot as he slipped out into the streets. The market was loud today, which was a blessing. Still, the pathways were different now with all the construction. He managed his way with uncharacteristic slowness, feeling the press of people around him and easing the longer he went. The far-above call of birds soothed his spirits. He could smell the cedar of crates, hear the rustle of skirts and squeak of boots, the scent of fresh bread and fruit from merchants. Nearby, the blacksmith hammered out the hot iron of blades.

Maybe he would try to do a little bit of shopping. He wasn’t one for that, but this was slightly different. He was willing to test himself. Sliding into a shop, he parsed his hand over the wares and discovered it was a book stall.

“Can I help you out?”

He turned his head ever so slightly and heard the muttered ‘oh’ long before he could formulate a response. Cheekily, he grinned. “Looking for a bit of light reading.”

Either the vendor was too polite to stop him or just accommodating, but she brushed up along his arm to let him know where she was. He appreciated that. Her dress was a dense satin by the sound of it, a long, sweeping thing that skirted stiffly over the toe of his boots. He could smell the faint perfume of lilacs from her hair and surmised it was very long indeed. Sometimes, when she turned her head, it swept over his knuckles.

“What kind of reading are you looking for?”

“Oh, nothing in particular. Something engaging. Perhaps a bit of history, maybe some political intrigue.” Now he was just curious. How would she react to him?

“Well…” She paused a very long time, considering it. “I’m sorry. Not to be rude, but would you prefer books in braille?”

“That’s the only way I can take my books now.” He snickered. “Not a terrible question.”

“I don’t have many of those, to be frank.” Another pause. He could hear her sucking on her lower lip. “But come back in a week. I’ll have some for you.”

How charming. Was she really going to? How many blind readers did she get regularly? Mitsuhide snickered despite himself. “Of course. I’ll give it a go and see what you find.”

---

He escaped Hideyoshi’s prying eyes long enough to make another trip to the market a week later, though Masamune had to wake him up in time for it. This time the street was easier. Stupidly, he took pride in that. Now he counted the stalls, finding his way by memory to the booksellers.

“Good afternoon,” he called in the general direction. Much to his surprise, apparently he was correct. The rustle of stiff satin sounded near him, a gentle hand settling on his shoulder to let him know where she was. Her hands were small and slender. Absently, he wondered if the rest of her was the same.

“You’re back.” She sounded happy, of all things. He couldn’t remember the last time someone other than the Nine were pleased to see him. “Come here. I arranged some things.”

He permitted her to guide him into the tent--which it had to be, since the sun cooled after a few steps. Rolling her fingers over top of his (and her hand was very small, he could feel it now when theirs were compared), she moved his hands to a--

A label. In braille. He ran his fingertips over it, back and forth. History, it read.

“I took the liberty to label them all for you.” She told him, her voice shy and calm. The more he heard it, the more he liked it. “And there are some braille selections in each section now.”

What awaited him? One? Two? Mitsuhide ran his hands over the cool leather spines and found himself surprised. Five. She’d gone to the trouble to find him five titles in history alone. One by one, he went through each of the sections, finding more books than he’d dreamed she might conjure up for him in each. All told, she’d procured something in the neighborhood of fifty books.

And it made him happy. Not even happy--downright emotional. Something tightened in his chest like a fist, resting heavy against his ribcage. She’d done all this for him. She’d taken the time and trouble to do all this for him. “Did you know braille before this?”

“No. I did a little research, though, and got some input from others. I hope they’re all accurate.”

“They are,” he assured her, trying to keep his voice level. “They’re perfect.”

“I’m glad.” Now she was all softness and sunlight. “I’m very glad. I hoped you might like it.”

Mitsuhide barely thought about it before he reached for her hand (and found it on the first shot, which he considered a great success), squeezing it hard to still the trembling in his arm. How could something so small make him feel normal again? But he did; he did, and it was the most hopeful he’d felt in months. “Thank you.”

---

He visited the book stall every week now.

Navigating the cramped streets grew easier with time. Hideyoshi spotted him once and tried to intercede, but a stiff tap against his boots, and the man stopped.

“I can go through the market just fine,” Mitsuhide said. “Let me do it.”

Sometimes he stopped in other stalls, picking his way over fruit and selecting ripe oranges to present to the bookseller. He didn’t know her name, but every time he swung by with the snack, she seemed utterly delighted by them. They were expensive, so maybe she couldn’t afford it? Mitsuhide didn’t ask. He was content to find out on his own, sorting through bits of information like he used to do as a sighted man.

“You’re always finding new things for me, Princess,” he commented lightly one day, teasing his fingertips over the rough hewn countertop of her stall and purchasing what felt like the dozenth book.

“Princess?” She squeaked, and he reveled in the surprise in her voice.

“Not a good nickname? Should I call you Little Mouse?” He snickered at the faint rustle of her skirts, wondering what the expression on her face read. “Come now. Are you blushing?”

A moment’s hesitation. Then she reached out and cupped a hand over his, guiding it forward. Oh. There was a cheek. It bloomed hot under his touch, her skin soft and supple under his thumb. How similar it was to a petal. Mitsuhide frowned in concentration, easing his hand over her jaw.

“Oh, you are blushing.” He wanted to laugh, to tease, to pry at her until she was even redder--but it felt like too much of a gift to have her this way now, so vulnerable in his hand, so he didn’t. A grin would have to do. “Precious.”

#Ikemen Sengoku #Ikesen Mitsuhide #Ikesen Fantasy Au #Mitsuhide Akechi #Akechi Mitsuhide #My writing #Ikesen #Ikesen Fanfic #Ikesen Medieval Au #Blind!Mitsuhide #I see starlight

[rainylune]

ahhhh @ikesenhell is such a gifted writer that i couldn’t stop myself from drawing Seiren, a descendant of Kenshin and leading lady in the fic The Measurement of Time, which is a sequel to the medieval fantasy AU To Honor and Protect. 

if you like ikesen and beautifully written multi-part fics with amazing world building, character interactions, and stories that will both make you go “awww” and sob loudly in pain, then please for the love of god go read yesha’s fics 

#i hope i did her justice hdjkfhdalk #she so cool and bad ass fighting off shadows #also ive decided that i no longer care about drawing straight clean lines anymore sorry yall #ikemen sengoku #fem kenshin #cybird #otome #art #portfolio #seiren uesugi #ikesen #illustration

[ikesenhell]

We Shadows

This is Chapter 10 of I See Starlight. You can find all other IkeSen works of mine here. NOTE: SPOILERS FOR TO HONOR AND PROTECT. If you have not read it, please go back and do so before proceeding. Warning: This starts with some bad bad feels/major character *non traumatic* death. You’ve been warned. It’s also kind of inevitable for a fic that spans a certain amount of time. Also: blood, minor horror elements.

By the time their son was born, the Nine knew Shingen was on his way out of the world. His health never recovered after the Invasion. He’d been reduced to leaning on his pregnant fiancee, Rose, as much as his cane. Even when he kept the smile on his lips, they all saw how much pain he was in--so after Hideyoshi and Mitsuhide and she had their turn with him, they let Shingen and Rose settle into the bedroom with them and hold the baby.

“Look at him,” Shingen crooned, patting the boy’s nose with his fingertip. “A good man, I’m sure. Look at his eyes. That’s the gaze of a fighter. He’ll do great things.”

Scarcely an hour later, he was on his deathbed--and then, gone. 

Where Yuki cried openly at the funeral, Kenshin was stoic and impassive as ice, only the tight clench of his hand around his second wife’s hand betraying him. Sasuke Sarutobi was appointed to the empty slot a week later. It was a good fit. The former bodyguard was quiet and polite enough to evade faux pas, but strong enough to win over Kenshin’s utilitarian facade, and the wheels of time moved on. 

They sold the little one room townhouse for a larger one. Rose even moved in with them, for a time, until her own son was born: Shingen Takeda. He was a redhead like his father. 

As for their own child, Gin Toyotomi-Akechi (they’d gotten into a bit of an argument about whether or not to name him ‘Nobunaga’, which was shut down when she pointed out that ‘Nobunaga Toyotomi-Akechi’ was a mouthful) grew like a weed. He was five when she became pregnant again with Saburo, their second son. And--last of all, when Gin was already fifteen and Saburo ten--Kaito Nobunaga Toyotomi-Akechi (they relented) was born, an eerie echo of both his fathers. 

“I think you had yourself a chimera child,” Ieyasu remarked, doing a check up on the two year old. He was a frequent sight at the house; his four children, Masamune’s daughter, and the junior Yukimura and Shingen (and Shingen’s half-sister) were forever emerging in the front lawn and begging to play. “That’s rare.”

“What is that, exactly?” Hideyoshi hovered anxiously. “It’s nothing, I hope?”

Masamune grinned. “Hideyoshi, you’re gonna go grey faster if you worry like that.”

Ieyasu brushed him off with a scowl. “We aren’t certain. The best theory we have so far is that it started as twins, but the eggs merged together.”

Kaito stared at Ieyasu with huge gold eyes. “Does that mean I’m a cabbage?”

“A what?” Ieyasu softened at the child. 

“A cabbage! Shingen said that cabbages are people who eat other people--”

“That’s a cannibal, a cabbage is a vegetable.” The blonde corrected gently. “And no. You’re not. Also, someone needs to talk to that child.”

They were in their late thirties and early fourties now, and Mitsuhide wondered where he’d ever gotten so lucky.

Their house filled with the chaos of three growing boys and a million different machines, all prototypes of their mother’s. The Nine kept them all busy, but god if he didn’t give everything in him to their family. He nestled alongside her on the porch, his knees stacked with hers and the gentle brush of her thumb insistent over his knuckles.

She chuckled softly, resting her head onto his shoulder. “Can you ‘see’ Hideyoshi out there?”

“No. I think he’s beyond my sight. What’s happening?”

“Mmmm.” He knew that sound. She pulled in closer to him, the hum of her arousal nearly vibrating off her skin. He loved how attractive they were to her still. He never doubted, not for a moment, that she was as in love with the two of them now as she’d ever been. “He’s wrestling the boys. Gin kind of has him in a headlock, and Saburo is trying to pull his arms down. He’s holding on to Kaito to keep him from getting hurt. You know how he is.”

He chuckled and wound his fingers between hers. “I do. Do you want me to call him inside with us?”

“Oh?” She played coy, but he heard the tease. “Whatever for, love?”

“I don’t need my eyes to read you. I think we could all be doing a bit of wrestling ourselves.”

The giggle was music to his ears. He nuzzled his nose into her neck and listened to her laugh, her hands running through his shoulder length hair. God. He was so, so, so very lucky. He wished that all would have the same fortune he had. 

“What’s going on here?” Hideyoshi emerged panting.

“Nothing much--currently. We could rectify that, if you get Gin to watch the other two and grant us three some time alone.”

“Oh--Oh!” He heard Hideyoshi’s blush. “Ahem. Uh. Yeah. Absolutely. Hang on, I’ll--I’ll be right behind you two.”

“Oh, I know you will be.”

“Mitsuhide.” 

He restrained a genuine laugh and followed her inside. 

---

Eighteen years after the incident at the Well, it finally opened to them. 

Yukimura and Masamune inspected it first before returning to the others. Even then they didn’t exactly provide a report. “Hideyoshi?”

“Yeah?” He answered uncertainly. 

“Could your wife come with us?”

“No.” All those ancient fears of whatever lay under the city reared their ugly head. “Absolutely not.”

“Hide--”

“No!”

“I promise it’s wo--”

Mitsuhide clamped a hand over Hideyoshi’s shoulder. “Why?”

“There’s... shit, I don’t know how to explain this. Yuki?”

The other man squinted at Masamune as if he had three heads. “What makes you think I’m better at this? It looks up her alley is all. It’s not dangerous or anything--we’re pretty sure.”

“Pretty sure?” Hideyoshi barely kept his tongue in check. Fortunately, Mitsuhide intervened. 

“That’s fine, so long as we go with her.”

---

She, Hideyoshi, Mitsuhide, Yukimura and Sasuke all descended beneath the well one at a time. Hideyoshi squinted down the long, damp pathway each way, crinkling his nose. “When was this made?”

“Judging by the stonework? I’d say that this was a construction contemporary with the oldest of our structures in the City.” Sasuke cleared his throat. “Approximately the same time, I’d imagine.”

“Thanks for the translation, Encyclopedia.” Yukimura scoffed, rolling his eyes at his best friend. “Come on. Follow me.”

Further and further into the dark they crept. Yukimura lit a lamp, but it cast a feeble glow. Hideyoshi wrapped his wife protectively beside him (and she cast him an amused stare but allowed it regardless), and finally they found the item in question: another lamp, with a single fraying wire beside it. 

“Here.” Yuki tapped his flame to it, and--

SsnnnnnsnAP! A ghastly sizzling sparked off the tip of the wire and crackled along. Bit by bit, the hallway before them burst into life, weak lamps struggling in the dim yellow glow. She gasped with shock. 

“What happened?” Mitsuhide asked. 

“Uh--” She hesitated. “Apparently the residents down here figured out how to formulate some kind of electric lighting system. It is bad, but it works.”

“Fascinating.”

“The lighting appears to be wired in afterward.” Sasuke shoved his glasses up his nose. “Interesting.”

“Right.” Yuki coughed. “Well, it only stays on for so long. The lights get dimmer and then start going out, and we’d really like to clear this place once and for all. I don’t suppose you can figure out a way to fix it?”

“Fix it?” She echoed, her eyes lighting up. “I’d love to. This would be incredible to study.”

“Are you sure...?” Hideyoshi cautioned. An uncertain fear lurked in his throat. “Especially given the past of it...”

“I know. I won’t be down here alone.” She smiled and pet his hands. “Don’t worry, my dear. I’ll be just fine.”

---

The month passed slowly. Bit by bit, she restructured and rewired the lamps, changing out their filaments, discovering their secrets, illuminating the lost pathways under the city with greater clarity. Sasuke, for his part, did his best to research its uses and came up blank. 

“Damn,” Kenshin muttered, rapping his fingers across the table. “Ishida would have been very useful for this.”

“I know,” Nobunaga agreed. His black hair was shot with silver now. “But it is what it is.”

Hideyoshi visited down there as often as he could. She was delighted; he saw it in the way she handled the artifacts, prodded them for information and learned what the ancients knew. He almost warmed to it too, except for--

On one of his days off, he was in the kitchen, getting ready to come visit her in the well, when his front door slammed open.

“Hideyoshi!” Ieyasu screamed. 

He was already halfway to his sword. “What happened?!”

“Just--just come on!”

They sprinted toward the alleyway. Masamune staggered out of the narrow opening first, what looked like grease coating his hands. Next came Nobunaga and Kenshin, both of their arms supporting her between them. Hideyoshi grabbed hold of her and checked every inch of her, blacking his hands with the viscous liquid sticking to his skin. 

“Are you alright--are you--what happened--?”

Mitsuhide emerged last of all, his mouth grim set, the black substance streaking down his face and through his ghost-white hair. Over his shoulder he dragged a figure so bloody and ragged he barely recognized him: Yukimura. 

---

It was a while before Yukimura stabilized and she was coherent enough to explain what happened. Mitsuhide, for his part, knew nothing. All he understood was they were under attack and then--and then Yukimura crumpled, and he couldn’t see but he knew well enough that his wife was down there, so he just threw all of his magical arts in a massive cone and hoped it did the trick. Presumably it had. The longer they scrubbed away the tar-like substance, the more obvious it was that it wasn’t just any liquid. 

“I think,” she managed shakily, “I think that was abandoned for a reason.”

Kenshin settled in by her knee. Hideyoshi almost snapped, but reason held firm and he just rubbed her arms, stilling her. “What happened?”

“So--” She inhaled deep, stabilizing breaths. “We got to the underground palace. It has--it’s really beautiful, you know? Really beautiful. Obsidian walls, fantastic carvings--Um, anyway--” Another breath. “I was up in the rigging, changing out some of the lighting, and then there were... shadows.”

“Shadows?” Kenshin echoed. “Of something?”

“No. Just... just shadows. Nothing else.”

Sasuke paused. “This... might be crazy, but do you think the lower levels were both lit and abandoned because this was known?”

“Rabid, killing shadows?” Nobunaga questioned. “This isn’t like anything we’ve heard of before.”

“I can take a look into the Royal Collection for any mentions.”

“Please do.”

“So--so what, then?” Hideyoshi managed shakily. “So we just close it back up then, right? Can it not live in the light, whatever it is?”

He knew before they said anything that it was a foolish hope. She pinched her nose between her fingers and inhaled. 

“I don’t know, honey,” she answered. “I don’t know. There was plenty of light when they attacked.”

“Then we have a potential threat on our hands.” Kenshin swept coolly up from his chair. “If light kept it at bay this long, we will have to discover a way to intensify it. Can you do that, Princess?”

“I can definitely try and figure something out.”

“No!” Hideyoshi snapped. “No! She might’ve died! Yukimura nearly died!”

“I agree,” Mitsuhide added, “This could’ve gone very poorly--”

But the flash of Kenshin and Nobunaga’s eyes stilled them both. It didn’t need to be said. The unspoken reminder of the Invasion swirled between them, and the ghastly silence settled uncomfortably. 

“I can figure something out,” she started again, more firmly this time. “Because if it gets out, my children are here. I can figure out some kind of a machine.”

#Ikemen Sengoku #Ikesen #Ikesen Mitsuhide #Ikesen Hideyoshi #Ikesen Fantasy Au #Ikesen Medieval Au #ISS #I See Starlight #We Shadows #Bi!Hideyoshi #Bi!Mitsuhide #Engineer Mc #toyotomi hideyoshi #Hideyoshi Toyotomi #Akechi Mitsuhide #Mitsuhide Akechi #uesugi kenshin #kenshin uesugi #Ikesen Kenshin #Ikesen Nobunaga #Nobunaga Oda #Oda Nobunaga #ieyasu tokugawa #masamune date #yukimura sanada #major character death #shingen takeda #takeda shingen #sarutobi sasuke #sasuke sarutobi

[ikesenhell]

If It Weren’t For Second Chances...

This is Chapter 6 of I See Starlight. You can find all other IkeSen works of mine here. NOTE: SPOILERS FOR TO HONOR AND PROTECT. If you have not read it, please go back and do so before proceeding.

Hideyoshi’s life had taken unexpected turns before. He still wasn’t entirely certain how his life lead him to this moment. From a nothing orphan, running the streets of the City, to a bandit terrorizing the trade routes near and far, to a member of the Nine--

And now this.

It took the better part of an hour to reconcile in his mind that, yes, last night had happened. He stood in the bathroom and traced his finger around and around his lips, dragging the memory of Mitsuhide’s mouth against his up from his dream-heavy mind. Mitsuhide was given to tricks, for certain, but Hideyoshi couldn’t bring himself to believe that this was one.

But it didn’t help that no one talked about it. They woke all tangled together in Mitsuhide’s bed, legs and arms and her hair twisted around each other; it felt both so natural and foreign at once that Hideyoshi disappeared into the bathroom and splashed himself with cold water until he was completely certain he was awake.

Mitsuhide went to his training with Mitsunari alone for once. Hideyoshi busied himself training with Nobunaga, as if that would help him outrun the swirling questions. By the time they were done he was dripping with sweat and eager for a shower.

The Bookkeeper passed him on his way back into the Barracks and shot him a grin. ���Hello! You look well exercised.”

He dragged a hand through his hair and tried to look less like a soaking mess. “Where are you off to?”

“I thought I might take a trip down to the docks. I don’t suppose you’d like to come with me?”

Well, the sea was nice and cold, and it seemed a moot point to shower before getting sprayed with salt. Hideyoshi rubbed his face and fixed her with a smile. “Sure. Might as well.”

Despite all the changes since the invasion, the dock was still untouched. They took the slick obsidian steps, Hideyoshi bracing his hand behind him to keep her from falling.

“Maybe one day they’ll fix these,” she sighed. “They’re awfully narrow.”

“And dangerous.”

Her teasing smile rivaled Mitsuhide’s. “Says the former bandit.”

Hideyoshi felt his whole face turn red. “You know about that?”

“I don’t think you understand how much the city idolizes the Nine. We know all sorts of things about your backgrounds.”

He couldn’t think of anything to say. Instead he offered her a meek hand and helped her down the last few steps. Grey clouds spiraled in the unknown distance, dancing and curling along each other. He could see the thick spray of rain miles away, the Trinity Islands billowing in the storm wind. Not many came down to the docks in the overcast weather, so he wasn’t shocked to find them alone.

“It looks like it’ll rain soon,” she murmured. “How long do you think until it reaches us?”

“Maybe an hour and a half? It seems to be a while off yet.”

She didn’t release his hand, and he didn’t pull away. Instead they walked the length of the dock and discarded their shoes. Bunching up the thick skirts in her hand, she settled in and dipped her toes in the freezing surf, cringing at the icy surge around her feet. “It’s quite cold.”

“It’s always cold.” He laughed at that and dipped over the side, splashing water over his face. At last his skin cooled. “They say it feeds from icecaps to the north.”

“No one has ever been there. How would they know?”

Hideyoshi shrugged and folded his legs up to his chest. “Dunno. I always left that to more well-read men than myself.”

Waves roared against the obsidian cliffs, beating their bassline rhythm into the earth. Hideyoshi wondered if Mitsunari knew they were there. Frankly, the whole idea made his head hurt. Banishing thoughts to the wind, he lay back against the weathered beams of the dock and shut his eyes, content to let the breeze skate over his face.

“Hideyoshi?” She asked. “Is that nice?”

“Mm? Yeah.” He inhaled the tang of seaweed and licked his salty lips. “Yeah, I’m kind of trying to figure out how Mitsuhide sees everything right now. He said it’s like looking out of your elbow.”

A gasped laugh. “What?”

“Look, I don’t know. That’s what he said. Maybe it’s his idea of a joke, but he seemed serious.”

Overhead, the sea birds screamed and wheeled. Hideyoshi forced all of his willpower into trying to create nothing, to construct that artificial absence that Mitsuhide lived with. He struggled to pick out the rock of the docks and the creaking timbers, the swell of her breath beside him. He listened to the rush of blood through his veins. Most of all, he tried to force down the thousand questions in his heart.

But he couldn’t.

“Hey.” Hideyoshi opened his eyes to the grey sky at last. “Can I ask you something?”

“Okay.”

“Do… is this all a fluke?”

Apparently that struck a nerve. The Bookkeeper shut her eyes and inhaled deep, as if she meant to make the whole ocean give her strength. “What do you mean?”

“I keep waiting for the shoe to drop. Mitsuhide is a joker.” Hideyoshi paused. “I don’t think he’d kid about something this serious, but I can’t help but think that at the end of it, it’ll be some sort of prank at my expense.”

She frowned at him. “Do you really think that?”

“No,” he admitted. “But I’m scared anyway.”

“Of what?”

Hideyoshi sucked in his breath and measured that question against the truth humming in his chest. What was safer: the truth, or the silence? At last, he answered, “That I’ll get this close to something I wanted and find out it wasn’t anything at all.”

Overhead, a bird screamed and wheeled, its shrill voice echoing through the city. The Bookkeeper laid down beside him and stroked a damp strand of hair from his face. Warmth followed her touch; without meaning to, he shut his eyes and just let her put her hands on him.

“I’m scared, too,” she whispered.

Silently, he wrapped his hand around her wrist and tugged her over top of him. Her neck tasted like lilac and salt, like a soft morning and a sweet goodnight. She shivered. Emboldened, he pressed his mouth against the small of her throat, then her mouth.

“Did that scare you?” He whispered against her.

She giggled. “No.”

“Good.”

---

Mitsuhide brought a stack of books back with him for translation. He was greeted at the gate by Kenshin lurking with a sword, but managed to rip out his weapon and parry the blow.

“Excellent.” Kenshin sheathed the blade, sounding more satisfied than he had any right to be.

“Don’t you have the ninja to chase?” Mitsuhide snickered. “Or Yuki? He seems to enjoy your random assaults.”

“Both of them ran off.”

“Mm, pity. Can’t imagine why.”

He bumped the door open with his hip and felt his way around the familiar kitchen, taking the stairs two at a time to the second floor. Even before he was in the hall, he could hear Hideyoshi and the Bookkeeper laughing and chatting. It warmed his heart more than he could stand. He almost thought about just seeing what they were so animated about, but he decided instead to enter the library. “Having fun? Without me? For shame.”

She gasped and staggered back into Hideyoshi, who just laughed. “You walk so quietly!”

“Everyone else here stomps around like a drunken Masamune. Someone had to be put together.” Mitsuhide shuffled the books onto the workbench. “More books for you.”

“Thank you.” She peeled back the cover of one and checked it. “Okay. Hey, I’ve got a question. Hideyoshi and I were just talking about music. What sorts do you like?”

“Me?” That was a fair question. He had the same relationship with music as he did with food: the details didn’t exactly matter, they were all lost on him anyway. “I can’t exactly say. I haven’t been privy to enough music to really have an opinion. Why do you ask?”

“Well, do you dance?”

She was going somewhere with this, wasn’t she? He cast an amused glance in her general direction, hoping he aimed true. It felt like he did. “Whatever are you trying to do, little mouse?”

“Don’t you worry about it. Just accept the surprise.”

“Surprises? Oh no no, my dear.” He snickered. “Nothing surprises me.”

But he heard the smile in her voice as she ran her hands up his arms, squeezing the curve of his elbows. “I think I might try anyway.”

---

He was surprised.

All this time he knew she was tinkering at something. In the afternoons when she returned from her book stall, she would cast off the cloak Hideyoshi lent to her and settle into her desk for a long stretch of translating, and afterward, the familiar clink of metal on metal was the backdrop to his studies. Hideyoshi passed in and out in his constant fretful way, forever offering to fetch water or snacks or checking in on the fire in the room.

“You’re aware my legs function, correct?” Mitsuhide snickered once. “It’s the eyes that don’t work.”

“Yes, but still--”

“We’re quite fine. Get back to your patrols.”

She started a habit of collecting sheet music for one end or another. He only even knew that because Hideyoshi let it slip once; she shushed him, but the secret was out. Whatever was she doing? Mitsuhide considered the options for only a short while before letting it go.

“Are you sure you don’t have a favorite piece of music?” She asked him again one night.

“I’m certain.” But he set down the book regardless, struggling to bring the world into focus around him. It took some doing to ‘feel’ the shapes of things around him still. “Why do you ask?”

“Damn. Well, this will be less fun, then.”

“Is it done?” Hideyoshi rocked forward in the chair.

“No fair if he knows what it is and I don’t.” Mitsuhide chuckled.

“I don’t know what it is either.”

They didn’t have to wait much longer. A click, and then the faint thrum of a song filled the room. Mitsuhide wondered if it were magic for a half second and realized all in one that she’d made a machine for this.

“How?” Hideyoshi gasped. “How did you do that?”

“Show me it,” Mitsuhide demanded. “I have to see this.”

She took his hands and guided him forward to a large box on her bench, easing a single fingertip forward. A small needle propped to a cone ran around the ridges of a large metal plate. He could feel the grooves and marks punched in it; no doubt those were the keys.

“This is incredible,” Hideyoshi muttered. “Absolutely genius.”

“Now you have to both learn how to dance,” she teased. “Because I went to all this trouble and I enjoy dancing.”

“Now now,” Mitsuhide chided. “Whoever said I didn’t know how?”

Before she could protest, he swept her up in his arms and spun her around. Hideyoshi yelped something about watch the table! and scooted it away from them. Her laughter rang heady in the room, circling around him same as the salty ocean wind and the patter of footsteps on the street outside, same as the echoing surge of the water against the earth. Back in she came, and he pressed his hand into the small of her back to him. God, she was so much smaller than him. He loved the stiff brush of her skirts against his shoes and the tilt of her shoulders, the way her pinned-up hair came falling down against his arm and swung out as they took long steps around. He couldn’t see her smile, but he could hear it, could feel it in the way she eased her face against his chest and squeezed her arms in tight.

“Hideyoshi,” she giggled, and the laugh pooled in his heart, “you have to learn how to dance, then.”

“I’m not much good at that,” he admitted lamely. “I’ve tried. Two left feet and all that.”

“Hm.” Mitsuhide spun her out and released her with a fingertip against her lip. “Come here. Let’s see if you’re so terrible.”

“Uh, don’t you think--”

“I can lead just fine without eyes.” Tugging Hideyoshi to him, Mitsuhide grinned down where he thought the other man’s face was. “I feel the music in my soul, Hideyoshi, clearly that’s good enough.”

“You have one of those?”

The Bookkeeper cackled and flopped down onto the couch. Snickering, Mitsuhide tilted his head. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you’d seen through my thin facade. Come on then. Don’t let the soulless one be better at this than you.”

Three steps in and Hideyoshi came down squarely on Mitsuhide’s foot. He grit his teeth through the pain and tried not to laugh too much (he’d never been deterred by pain the way others were, and he’d learned to keep that particular quirk under wraps). “You’re supposed to use the floor, not my person as the ballroom.”

“Sorry! I told you--”

“Take it slower. Stop acting like it’s a wrestling match.”

“Yeah, I could actually do the wrestling match.”

“Mmm, well, maybe later.”

He felt Hideyoshi’s face splotch red with embarrassment and just snickered, guiding him purposefully into a spin. “Focus man, focus. Or are you busy letting your mind go elsewhere? Do we need to explore that?”

“Wh--” He audibly swallowed. “Just tell me the next damn step.”

She laughed again in the corner of the room. Mitsuhide dipped Hideyoshi low, swept him back up, and finally released him with a grin. “Fine, fine, fine. I’ll let you wriggle out of that one tonight.”

#Ikemen Sengoku #Ikesen #Ikesen Fanfic #Ikesen Hideyoshi #Ikesen Mitsuhide #Mitsuhide Akechi #Akechi Mitsuhide #Hideyoshi Toyotomi #Toyotomi Hideyoshi #Kenshin Uesugi #Uesugi Kenshin #Ikesen Kenshin #ISS #I See Starlight #If It Weren't For Second Chances... #HideHide #Bi!Hideyoshi #Bi!Mitsuhide #ikesen Fantasy Au #Ikesen medieval Au

[ikesenhell]

To Honor and Protect

You can find all other IkeSen works of mine here. NOTE: I thoroughly blame my imagination for coming up with this, and @ihavenotfallenyet for encouraging me to do the thing.

To those in the city, The Guard was a position of honor. Who could mistake otherwise? Those elite few in its ranks set themselves apart. Nine men, and only nine men, could lay claim to that position of prestige, and each of them were known through the land as brilliant, talented, awe-inspiring soldiers. They were peerless. 

The men inside The Guard knew better. 

True, their mastery knew no bounds, and the Crown knew that. It was why they were given the position, after all. But as many as fell into The Guard through sheer talent, half of their ranks less earned the rank as much as had it thrust upon them as a punishment. 

Mitsunari Ishida understood this as well as anyone else. 

It didn’t bother him anymore. It was a stretch to say it ever had. While Shingen still swallowed back his disgust at working alongside his most hated rival with a smile, and Kenshin barely restrained his sword arm and lust for battle even among his peers, where Hideyoshi secured his place as a punishment for banditry, he--

Well, his story was one best left behind.

Besides, he’d grown to love the City. It was a sprawling, beautiful place. The gates were made of polished obsidian, the white stone streets leading in a sunray to their center: the palace. Golden spires reached up to the heavens, as if kissing the clouds. The cliffs behind them crashed with the roar of the ocean. Sometimes, when he woke in the morning, before donning his armor, Mitsunari would stand in the window of his room and just inhale the tang of salt. 

“You adapted well,” Nobunaga commented one day in the training yard. “Though your swordplay leaves something to be desired.”

Mitsunari just smiled. “My talents never lay in physical prowess.”

“Fair. That isn’t why you were recruited in the first place.”

No, it certainly wasn’t. Mitsunari didn’t need to establish that. Even Kenshin and Shingen had adopted him as a master of strategy, though he reported to Hideyoshi directly (and frankly, for a man previously established as a bandit lord, Hideyoshi was far more honorable and kind than Mitsunari expected). Books weren’t all that common in the kingdoms, but he had amassed a collection that rivaled the Royal Library itself. When they took him in, they confiscated his whole stash and stored it there. 

He wasn’t too angry about it anymore. They let him take whatever he wished, after all. Besides: considering the circumstances, it could all have been much worse. 

Most of his days were spent the same. First, training: Nobunaga and Kenshin were intent on making him a fine swordsman, and though he’d faltered at first, he’d gotten a lot better in the recent months. Then the nine of them would take up their positions along the castle, addressing security concerns and aiding in other aspects of the military. After lunch, he would convene with The Guard and the general of the at-large military, addressing any tactical concerns and potential security threats. Occasionally, when the Princess’ bodyguard Sasuke was called away, one of them would be requested to serve as a replacement. Mitsunari hadn’t received the honor yet, but from what the others said, she was an intelligent and kind woman. 

Given all this--and his background, Gods forbid--Mitsunari was sort of surprised when he received a request. 

“You’ll be meeting the Princess soon,” Ieyasu snipped, flinging a letter at him. Despite his few years with them, Ieyasu had never warmed up to him, which was odd. Mitsunari had nothing but respect for the man. “They want you to report to the palace every other day for her.”

“Whatever for?” He fished for his glasses. Ieyasu rolled his eyes and flicked them down off his forehead. “Oh, thank you.”

“Don’t know. Why don’t you read the letter and find out?” And with that, he stormed out. 

Well, fair enough. Mitsunari broke the seal and scanned its contents. 

His Lordship, the King, requests your presence at the castle every other day during the week. Your status as one of the most learned men in the city is known, and for this reason, you are asked to tutor her Highness, the Princess, in matters of diplomacy, history, mathematics, and tactics. 

Huh. Didn’t she have a tutor already? Mitsunari swore she did, but he didn’t mind the request. Diligently packing his things, he took his horse further into the city proper to attend to his first day of duties. 

He’d never even been in the Princess’ tower before. He climbed the winding staircase to the first floor of it, broad windows open to the crashing grey waves below. For a long moment, he paused to drink in the sight of it. 

“It’s lovely, isn’t it?”

Startled, Mitsunari spun on his heel. And there she was--the Princess stood poised in the doorway of a study, hand on the frame and smiling. She was a lovely woman with long, dark ringlets of hair pinned back at her neck. Her dress was a gauzy pink and white dream, pinned delicately at her throat and wrists, falling in long pleats to the floor. She was a princess, that much was certain. Recovering himself, Mitsunari dropped to one knee.

“I apologize! I was just taken with the view.”

“Oh, come on.” She laughed lightly and extended a hand to help him up, but he got up on his own. It wouldn’t do to sully her hands, not when he hadn’t washed them, and after traveling through the city, doubtless he needed to. “You don’t need to do all that. We don’t stand on ceremony much in my wing of the castle.”

“It would be wildly impolite of me not to at least bow to you, your Highness.”

“You don’t have to call me that, either. Please. It’s too much.”

Too much? Mitsunari paused, a little uncertain with the informality of it all. It felt too impolite to just call her by her name, so he settled on finally saying, “If you so wish, Princess.”

She laughed, but shrugged. “Ah, good enough. Sasuke!”

“Yes?” Her bodyguard emerged in the doorway as well, his brown hair tousled. He’d met the man several times before; he was a sharp, well versed individual. In fact, Mitsunari wondered temporarily why they hadn’t picked him to tutor the Princess, but then he cast that thought aside. No doubt Sasuke had enough to do already. 

“Could you do me a favor and grab the tea tray? I forgot it.”

“Sure. Do you want some snacks, too?”

The Princess cast a questioning look at Mitsunari. He fumbled at the unspoken ask before responding, “No! No, I’m good, thank you very much.”

“Alright.” Silently, Sasuke slipped by him and down the stairs, and the two of them were left alone. For a second Mitsunari thought nothing of it, and then the reality struck him. 

They were alone. Together. He wondered if she even knew about his past. How could she feel safe, being alone with a... well, a criminal? Sure, she had been with Hideyoshi alone before, when he served as her bodyguard, but Hideyoshi’s crimes were so tangible. A man with a sword was not as open-ended in its terror as what he had done. He had half a mind to ask--but reason got the better of him, and he just smiled instead. “Then shall we start your lessons?”

“Certainly.” She motioned him into the warm, large study, bookshelves and comfortable seats and a warm fireplace and a broad table awaiting them. “I’m looking forward to it.”

His silent question went unanswered for several weeks. She was a bright and lovely person. Even on the cloudiest of ocean days, something about her presence was sunlight. He emerged drenched in the tower one day, his cloak flung over the satchel to protect his books, and she laughed at him and took his glasses from his head. 

“Sasuke, would you grab a towel?” And without ceremony, she took the broad sleeve of her red dress--a dress, he realized all at once, that looked very fetching on her--and started cleaning his glasses.

“Princess,” he sputtered, “You don’t have to do that.”

“No, I don’t,” she agreed, lifting them to the firelight to inspect her work, and resuming again. “But I wanted to, so I am.” 

When Sasuke brought the towels, she took one and dried his face herself, and he was so full of warmth that he thought he might burst from it. 

One day, in the middle of a history lesson, she finally asked the question. 

“Mitsunari.” And she paused a long, long, long time, finally recovering herself. Her thoughts spun in those dark eyes like the spark of flame. “Mitsunari, I’ve a wonder.”

“Please, ask.”

“I know why some of the others are in The Guard, but you...” She paused again. “I’ve heard rumors.”

Oh.

“Well.” Mitsunari hesitated. “Do you want me to tell you?”

“I don’t need the whole story. What I’ve heard was gruesome. I’m having a hard time reconciling it to you. You’re...” Her voice trailed away. “Not what I expected. I don’t know what I expected, if I’m honest, but it wasn’t you.”

What did that mean? He cocked his head at her. “I can’t tell if that’s a compliment.”

“It is.” She laughed, light and musical, and it warmed him again. “It’s a lot better than I expected, to be honest. But... Mitsunari, I hear you can do magic?”

The silence lasted longer than he meant it to. Before, the story had come so easy to him, so clearly and simply. He’d shared it with Hideyoshi without hesitation. But now--now, facing her, it was so much harder.

He swallowed. “I can.”

“And... correct me if I’m wrong, but performing that--”

“It’s not pleasant.” The quill he held creaked threateningly, and all at once he realized he was clutching so tight his knuckles were white. Setting it down, Mitsunari continued. “Performing feats like that requires a significant sacrifice of some sort, and sometimes that sacrifice is more tangible than one might like.”

Those dark eyes probed him, searching for something. “So it’s true?”

“All true. Probably.” He paused. “I don’t know what exactly you’ve heard, but I’d say ‘gruesome’ is an apt description.”

He thought she might ask. Her mouth parted and hung there for just a second, and then she closed it again. 

“Not the whole story. Just some details, but--well, I can’t imagine you like talking about it.”

No. But he wasn’t about to admit to that. “Do you have any questions?”

A million, her eyes whispered, but she just smiled and reached across the table, taking his hand in hers. The gesture stunned him so completely that he froze, staring wide-eyed into her face. What was she doing? Here he was, admitting to the terrible--truly awful--measures he’d taken, the path he’d resorted to, the Road to Hell he’d been on, once upon a time, and she was still looking so kindly at him?

“Yes?” He asked, smiling on habit. “Princess?”

“Nothing.” And then she withdrew her hand, leaving his colder than he’d ever thought it was before. “So, history? We were in the middle of a lesson?”

“Of course, Princess.” 

#To Honor And Protect #THAP #wow that's a stupid acroynm #THAP? #Jesus christ #How about HP? #That doesn't work #THP? #Okay #THP #ikesen #ikemen sengoku #ikesen medieval AU #ikesen fantasy au #my writing #mitsunari ishida #ishida mitsunari #ikesen mitsunari #hideyoshi toyotomi #ikesen hideyoshi #toyotomi hideyoshi #nobunaga oda #oda nobunaga #ikesen nobunaga #ieyasu tokugawa #tokugawa ieyasu #ikesen ieyasu #sasuke sarutobi #sarutobi sasuke #ikesen sasuke

[ikesenhell]

Heard And Not Seen

This is Chapter 3 of I See Starlight. You can find all other IkeSen works of mine here. NOTE: SPOILERS FOR TO HONOR AND PROTECT. If you have not read it, please go back and do so before proceeding. THIS WAS A LIVEWRITE! Shout out to everyone who dropped in and made comments! I loved every moment. 

Truthfully? Mitsuhide was terrified. The whole morning felt a little like holding your hopes in your mouth and trying not to swallow them. If this failed--if he couldn’t do this--then he was truly useless to the Nine.

Apparently Hideyoshi was just as nervous. Mitsuhide picked up on some of his ticks better without eyes. He did a faint humming thing under his breath when he wasn’t so certain of something, flexed his fingers until the leather of his gloves stretched and ground. With a quiet snicker, Mitsuhide reached out and patted Hideyoshi’s hand on the breakfast table.

“Anxious, are we?”

A pause. No doubt Hideyoshi wasn’t expecting that. “Do I look that nervous?”

“Nothing looks nervous to me anymore.”

Hideyoshi managed a thin laugh at that. “Ass.”

He picked through his clothing in silence (and that had gotten much easier. He didn’t need any help with the buckles and buttons now, easing his way into his uniform with practiced hands) and met Hideyoshi at the door. As if on cue, the other man adjusted his blindfold to smooth out the wrinkles.

“Am I suitable for the public, dear?” Mitsuhide crooned, the snaky grin on his lips.

Hideyoshi just coughed. “Alright. Let’s go and find your bookseller.”

The sun only gently brushed over him. Was it overcast? Mitsuhide reached out his hand and tried to decide, waving it back and forth. It didn’t feel too moist in the air, so no doubt it really was just a few clouds--or early. “What time is it?”

“Barely eight.”

“Ah. Is it sunny?”

“Overcast.”

Despite himself, Mitsuhide laughed. “I was correct, then. I’ll take my victory. Shall we?”

Hideyoshi tried to guide him through the marketplace by hand, but he rapped his cane against the other man’s boots to make a point and he stopped trying. The scent of fresh bread circled around them. A misty wind swept in from the ocean and he licked his lips, relishing the tang of salt that forever lingered in the City. On habit, he picked around the fruit stall and selected an orange, paying for it and going back on his way.

“That was… You did really well with that.” Hideyoshi commented. “Pretty smooth.”

Mitsuhide grinned and slicked back his long hair, realizing at the last second that he couldn’t wink. He settled for shooting a sly glance in the other man’s direction. “I’ve always been smooth.”

Hideyoshi just groaned.

At last they reached the bookstall. Almost immediately he heard the swish and turn of thick satin skirts, her little patter of footsteps as she came to him and settled her arms on his elbows. She hadn’t even spoken before he heard the smile in her voice. Oh, he could get used to that. “Good morning! You’re by early.”

“Miss me, little mouse?”

She was close enough that he felt the radiating heat of her cheeks. “And who is with you today?”

“Oh, forgive me.” Hideyoshi bowed by the sound of it. “Hideyoshi Toyotomi.”

A slight pause. “The Hideyoshi Toyotomi?”

“Err… yes.” Hideyoshi was blushing, too. Mitsuhide didn’t need eyes to know that. “Were you not… aware of who Mitsuhide is?”

Come to think of it, he’d never given the little bookseller his name, had he? He felt her grip tighten on his elbows. “You’re Mitsuhide Akechi?”

“Oh, and here I thought you knew all that.” In fairness, he’d never made a habit of announcing who he was in the past. Made it easier to sneak around the City and eavesdrop on unsavory conversations. Snickering, he ran his thumb over her cheek. “Never mind all that. I came by to ask a little favor of you.”

She hadn’t quite recovered herself, but she rubbed his arm agreeably nonetheless. “Alright. Alright. What do you need? A particular book?”

“Not quite. I need a braille translator. You do all that yourself for me here, right?”

“I…” A pause. “Yes. I do, though it isn’t perfect--”

“I’ve found your work flawless. Would you be interested in doing a little help for me? I’d consider it a personal favor, but we would also compensate you for your time.”

“Oh, um--sure! Is it more book-related stuff?”

He grinned and laced his arm through hers. “I don’t suppose you’d be interested in locking up shop for a bit and coming to find out?”

“Mitsuhide, could you not make that sound creepy?” Hideyoshi cut in, worrying as usual. “We need someone to translate a large number of volumes into braille for him. It’s not an easy job, but it is one we need filled.”

A pause. She clearly thought about it before he felt her nod. “Alright. Sure. Um. Let me just lock up for a moment.”

---

They entered the Royal Library to find Mitsunari chasing the Queen around a table, both of them laughing hysterically. Mitsuhide grinned and paused in the doorway, listening to the patter of their feet. “Did I come in to a stampede?”

“Hideyoshi! Mitsuhide!” The Queen laughed and dashed behind them, clinging to their shirts. “Save me!”

Mitsunari just stopped in his tracks, panting softly after the exertion. Mitsuhide laughed outright and reached for his friend, finding his chest with his palm. “And here I thought your stamina might have gotten better.”

“I don’t think you know what kind of stamina I have?” Mitsunari answered, confused.

“Mitsunari,” Hideyoshi stammered, “We don’t--why--”

“What?”

“Our dear, sweet rosebud is as oblivious as ever.” Mitsuhide snickered. “At any rate, I’m here for tutelage in your fine hands. I suppose we can talk about your stamina afterward, should the good Queen want to--”

“Oh my God, please, let’s change the subject.” Her Highness sounded mortified. “Mitsuhide, you were the one who wanted the training?”

“I volunteered, yes.”

A long moment of silence.

“Um,” Mitsunari paused, clearly considering his words. “Well, the reading might be a little… interesting.”

At this point, the bookkeeper stepped forward, her skirts rustling around her ankles. “Your Highness, I’m so sorry to interrupt. I’ve been recruited to transform the books into braille versions for him.”

“Oh! Huh.” Another moment. The Queen sighed lightly. “That’s very work intensive.”

“I’d love to figure it out.”

At that, Mitsunari clapped his hands together. “Alright! It’s settled. We’ll give it a shot.”

--- Watching the training terrified Hideyoshi.

They cleared the main study table from the center of the library, creating as much space as possible--which also meant there wasn’t much for Mitsuhide to triangulate his position with. Hideyoshi tried to soothe himself with the knowledge that Mitsunari and the Queen would never let him endanger himself--but still. What if the floor was uneven? Surely being in the dark about your positioning was nerve wracking.

Fortunately, he had other things to distract himself with.

The Bookkeeper had set up a little platform on the side table and was squinting at some of the volumes, a small hole punch held in her hand. It took him a moment to understand what she was doing. Had she been hand punching the braille this whole time? How much time had she invested in making the stall more accessible?

“Excuse me,” he murmured, tapping her shoulder. “Can I help you with that?”

“Mmmm?” She blinked up at him before smiling. It was a sweet, pretty little smile. Hideyoshi found himself very fond of it. “No, no. Unfortunately there’s not much you can do. I’m just… I’m just trying to discover the best way to do this.”

“It looks time intensive.”

“It is.” She sighed at that, rubbing her fingertips down the old volume’s thin pages. “Monumentally so.”

The old fears that this just wasn’t possible surfaced in his mind. As one, they watched Mitsunari putting that iron staff in Mitsuhide’s hands, watched the white-haired man trace his palms up and down it to better understand the weight of it.

“You know what?” The Bookseller said at last. “I’ve got a thought. Would you mind helping me with something, Sir Toyotomi?”

“Err, Hideyoshi is fine. And certainly.”

--- The something was a large box of tools and metal. He carried it obligingly back to the library with her, making small talk the whole way. Her favorite color was red. They both came from the same small village out in the southern forests, which was odd. She’d only moved to the City after the Invasion.

“An odd time to come, don’t you think?” He asked, readjusting his hold on the box.

“That’s what my mother said,” she laughed, her giggle soft and pearly.

“That’s not the first time I’ve been compared to someone’s mother.”

“Oh nooo.” But they both cracked up anyway at that. “Well, I understood it wasn’t going to be the most, you know, put-together after all that happened, but…”

He watched her bright eyes flicker over the far-off ocean. Something familiar sparked in her gaze. It wasn’t so unlike the way that Mitsuhide used to watch the world, a keen inner world coloring the shape of things around her.

“I don’t know,” she said at last. “I thought after everything that happened, maybe people would need a bit of another world to escape into. Books are good for that. I’m not gifted at much else.”

That turned out to be a lie. She was terribly gifted. Hideyoshi watched as she took the box of small metal bits and bobs, forming what looked first like a casing, then formulated small, long levers that connected to a central device. He sat by, fascinated in turns by her intricate engineering and Mitsuhide’s intense focus in Mitsunari’s tutelage.

“What are you doing?” He asked at last, enchanted.

The Bookkeeper looked at him from her comically large magnifying glasses. “I’m making a machine.”

“A machine?” He gawked. “For…?”

“I’m… I’m trying to think up a faster way to do this.” And then she flipped over the small tray she’d been working on, setting it onto the casing. A series of buttons laid out on it, each marked with an individual character. “My thought is this: if I could just press a button for the letter and have the corresponding braille character stamp onto a page, then I could do this much faster.”

“That’s brilliant.” Where the hell had this woman come from? Hideyoshi just stared in disbelief. “I’d have never thought of that.”

She flushed bright pink, twirling the screwdriver in her fingers. “I’m just trying to do my best.”

Admiration surged in him. Without meaning to, he reached out and took her hand. “Thank you.”

“Whatever for?”

“For doing this for him.”

He watched her lower her eyes, her gaze flickering over to Mitsuhide. They both watched as he furrowed his brow in concentration, stretching out his hand--and a tiny flame emerged from the tip of his fingers. And oh, oh, the expression on his face was radiance itself. After all those long months seeing a stranger, there he was. There was Mitsuhide, in all of his sharp and predatory and brilliant glory, buoyed by success.

“I don’t need thanks,” the Bookseller murmured. “I’m rather fond of him, as it happens.”

Me too, thought Hideyoshi. Me too.

---

By the end of the lesson, Mitsuhide was sweaty and worn out, his muscles screaming for a stretch and a hot bath--and despite all that, he was so happy he felt fit to explode. He’d done it. He’d done it. Strung together with adrenaline and the taste of normalcy, he slipped in the direction he heard Hideyoshi and the Bookseller in, wrapping his arms around someone’s shoulders. It felt like Hideyoshi.

“I do believe the ocean is receding. Must be low tide.”

Mitsunari laughed at the joke over the Queen’s groan. Hideyoshi shifted and Mitsuhide knew he was rolling his eyes. How good it was to feel their reactions still.

“Mitsuhide, if you would?” Her sweet voice caught his ear. “I just want you to read something for me and see if it is legible.”

“Mm?” Had she spent all of her time here punching out the braille? That must have taken forever. Obligingly, he slipped to her side, ignoring that Hideyoshi braced his elbow as if he might fall. “Do tell. I’m all ears… or fingertips, as it were.”

Into his hand she pressed… a whole book. He frowned and gripped it tighter. There was no way. “Is this the original book?”

“No, it’s the translation.”

Bewildered, he flipped open the first page and ran his hands along the thick pages. He could read it. There it was, in the staccato ridges, the valleys of language itself rising and falling against his skin. He paused in disbelief.

“How did you do this?”

“She made a machine,” Hideyoshi told him. “It’s this brilliant thing.”

“Show me it.”

They reached for his hands at the same time. Without meaning to, he snorted, feeling them both fumble over who would show him what. “You know, I like both of you quite a lot. I’ve two hands. No need to fight over me.”

“Alright then,” Hideyoshi managed, his voice strained with embarrassment. “Here you go.”

Cool metal met his hands. He danced his fingers between the pedals, pressing a few experimentally. “You did this all in the space of time I was training?”

“Well, I had bits and pieces laying around, so not all of it…”

“She’s being modest,” Hideyoshi interjected. “It was insane.”

“Mmm,” he sighed, trailing a hand over hers. “I thought you were a special one.”

Stammering, she managed a simple, “Th-thank you.”

“Hideyoshi, listen to that little mouse.”

“I’m not a m-mouse!”

But he just grinned and placated her with a kiss to her hand. “Of course you aren’t. I am most thankful for you.” ---

They saw her off to her house and walked back together. The sky lanced with sharp streaks of orange and purple and red, a horizon so infinite that Hideyoshi couldn’t conceive of the end of it. He wished for the faintest second that Mitsuhide could see it, too--but then he glanced over at his friend and saw how his long white hair reflected each thread of that infinite rainbow, catching an entire world on its own.

“Hideyoshi?” Mitsuhide finally started. “This blindfold is miserable. Am I unpresentable without it?”

“Hmm?”

“It catches sweat. I’m not fond of that.”

“Oh. Well, try it out. I’ll tell you if it’s really as bad as your normal face.”

Mitsuhide snickered at that and reached behind his head, undoing the silk tie. It slipped away and Hideyoshi wondered that they’d ever thought to put it on him at all. His white eyelashes rested like frost on those angular cheekbones, the eyelids hollower, but still smooth nonetheless.

“It’s just fine,” Hideyoshi reassured him. “You look just fine.”

“Good.” A ghost of a smile flirted with Mitsuhide’s mouth; he straightened and sighed deeply. “That woman really is something else, isn’t she?”

That bewildering mix of jealousy surged in him; for the first time, Hideyoshi wasn’t sure who he was jealous of. “She is.”

“Mm.”

The two of them lapsed into silence. Overhead, the first stars shone through the dipping dark.

#Ikemen Sengoku #Ikesen #Ikesen Fantasy Au #Hideyoshi Toyotomi #Mitsuhide Akechi #Toyotomi Hideyoshi #Ikesen Hideyoshi #Akechi Mitsuhide #Ikesen Mitsuhide #my writing #I See Starlight #ISS #Mitsunari Ishida #Ishida Mitsunari #Ikesen Mitsunari #Mage Mitsunari #Ikesen Medieval Au #Engineer MC #Heard And Not Seen #Bi!Hideyoshi #Bi!Mitsuhide

[ikesenhell]

Concrete and Glass

The Measurement of Time: Chapter 7. You can find all other IkeSen works of mine here. NOTES: This whole story does not make much sense without the context from To Honor And Protect! Please go back and read that before you proceed with TMOT. Tagging @ikemenprincessnaga at request.

The tunnel stretched on and on. Sasuke wondered about how far they were walking. Practically speaking, they didn’t have enough supplies to go forever onward, given that they’d literally been snatched at a moment’s notice from the kitchen. To conserve their torch they doused the lamp. The dim light of the moon filtering through the water was enough. 

“When do you think this was built?” Uesugi mused, knocking her fist against the glass. Sasuke wondered if he would’ve chanced something that bold. Mercifully, the glass held up. 

“Well, glassworking in this region has always been remarkably advanced. The main glass wall of the palace was constructed approximately two hundred years ago. I’d place this as a contemporary.” 

She cast him an amused glance. “You’re a walking dictionary, huh?”

“I’ve heard that before. Apologies.”

“No, I didn’t mean that as a bad thing. I like it.”

Sasuke didn’t know what to say to that. He nudged his glasses up his nose and tried not to parse that too much. “Can you see the end yet? I wore my spares this morning. Clearly it isn’t working out.”

“That’s fine. It’s too murky to tell anyway.” With a sigh, she reached up and teased out her braid, twist after twist of ice blonde hair swinging free down to her waist. What else could he do but stare? She was beautiful regardless of the context, but something about her easy expression made his chest tighten. “I wonder if Uncle Kenshin knew anything about this place?”

That was right. How had he forgotten that? “Did you know him long?”

“I lived with him for almost five years.” She rapped her fingers on the hilt of her sword. “He granted me his own sword in his will. My father and mother had four children--myself, my elder sister, and my two brothers--and I was always more like Uncle Kenshin than anyone else. I idolized him anyway.” Absently she ran her thumb over the hand guard, eyes staring off. “When my great-aunt died, my father and mother knew he wasn’t going to... he didn’t handle loss well. He’d seen enough of it, what with the invasion and his first wife and all that. So they sent me to live with him when I was four. He was around eighty, and he didn’t have any kids of his own, so he doted on me like crazy.”

“Did he?” Sasuke chuckled. “I haven’t heard any stories of him like that.”

“Oh hell no. Most of them are about him doing things like surprise attacking the others in the Nine to keep them on their guard.” But she grinned and nodded. “Probably true, mind you. But anyway, he adored me and I would have died for him. He started training me in little things like ‘discipline’ and ‘stance’ when I was probably five. My father and him had a bunch of arguments about when I’d be allowed to have a knife. Uncle Kenshin’s idea of an ‘acceptable age’ differed wildly from my father’s.” 

A beat. She lowered her eyes, those pale lashes kissing her cheeks, and softly exhaled. Without thinking, Sasuke brushed back a lock of her hair and tucked it behind her ear. 

“Do you miss him?”

“All the time.” But she sighed and looked up again. “But I move on. I am the inheritor of the Uesugi name, and I’m proud to wear that. No one will take that from me.”

Sasuke didn’t usually smile. It was so foreign that he realized he was doing it immediately and Uesugi’s eyes widened in shock.

“You smile?”

“I--” He flushed. “I’ve considered the possibility that I have some kind of physical or psychological limitations on the range of my expressions--I can, I just--”

“Encyclopedia.” She snickered and checked his chin with the edge of her finger. “Don’t worry. I’m just giving you hell.”

Before he could stop himself, Sasuke teased back, “You make jokes?”

Surprise flickered on her before she leaned back her head and laughed. It echoed off the glass, sang through the hall, sank deep as the ocean into his stomach and settled there. A fan of being locked underground he was not--but seeing her finally undone was worth it in ways he didn’t know how to articulate. 

“Good one, Sasuke.” She fixed him with a rare smile. “We’ll make you one of us yet.”

“Thank you.” And he paused. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“Do you prefer I call you Captain, or Uesugi, or...?”

Her lips pursed ever so slightly. “Since we’re technically off duty, you may call me by my name. Usually you would refer to me as Captain.”

“I’m sorry, I’ve never caught your first name.”

“No?” She tittered. “I guess not. Seiren. Seiren Uesugi.”

---

They reached the end of the hall, and there was a massive door before them. Or there was. It was ripped out of place, swinging back and forth on a single, lonely hinge. 

“That’s a great sign,” she muttered, drawing her weapon. “Would you?”

Sasuke lit the torch again and waved it in front of the opening. Nothing greeted them except another pitch black hallway. No more was there a glass skylight. Now they would be utterly alone in it. 

“Wonderful.” Squaring her shoulders, Seiren stepped into the gaping dark. “No way out but forward.”

This section of hallway was less polished than the others. Rough, hastily-constructed concrete framed the walls here. He could see handprints and footprints from days gone by memorialized in the cast. Once upon a time it was well used. The ground was smooth and worn under his foot. 

“This looks like it was a main causeway.”

“Then we were right in our theory.” Seiren tapped a fist against the wall. “It was probably the main way between the Trinity Islands and the City. What happened? Communication and travel would be easier with this. Why did they change it?”

No answers awaited them in the dark. They pressed onward. Eventually they reached a stair step leading upwards--and at the top, a faint light.

“Okay.” She squared her shoulders. “Time to face the music and find out.”

This was their chance. Cautiously she braced her shoulder under the trapdoor before them. Sasuke readied his weapon, just in case. Then--in one fluid motion she shoved it open, and they both drew their swords. 

“Fuck,” she gasped. “What the fuck.”

The scorched room around them was familiar. It was a full five seconds before either of them recovered themselves long enough to clamber from the hiding spot and take a cautious look around. Nothing had changed since their last visit. The shattered sarcophagus lay in fragments around the room. 

“Can--” Her voice staggered. “Can it fit through this passage?”

“I don’t--”

“Sasuke, this is very important. Could that thing, theoretically, fit through this passage?”

He ran the calculation in his mind. “Yes. Probably.”

“Fuck!” The expletive echoed, so she lowered her voice to a whisper. “Fuck. Fuck.”

“So it can reach the City.”

“Apparently. Apparently! And it isn’t in here. And it can’t fit that way--” Seiren motioned up the stairs toward the rest of the island. “So there’s only one way out. How did we miss it?”

“Was it behind that wall?”

“I don’t know. Maybe? I hope so. This is not good.”

Sasuke didn’t know what to say to that. She was right. To offer blind assurances was insulting to both her sense of alarm and his understanding of probability. It had attacked them. It had free roam underneath a city full of people. Someone had locked them in. It seemed to possess intelligence, ergo, it wasn’t a stretch to assume they were just prey in a maze and happened to escape. He couldn’t think about it now. The moonlight dipping into the room from the island was high, and they needed rest. 

“Come on,” he said. “We need to at least summon help, if not take a bit of a rest. We’ve been at it for hours. You can’t maintain vigilance if you’re exhausted.”

“I’m fine,’ she snapped. Only a moment later she mellowed. “I know.”

“Let’s go.”

They navigated their way up. The breeze washed cold over his cheeks. At least the rain had stopped. Seiren fiddled with her necklace until it pulsed a faint blue. 

“What’s that?”

“Aria’s grandmother made these. They’re signal flares of a sort. Theirs will flash in the City--probably--and they’ll be given an idea of where I am by sound. It’s a nifty little thing.”

“Oddly specific, too.”

“I think she made it for Mitsuhide Akechi. He was blind after the invasion, I think.”

Fair enough. Sasuke and she picked their way through the rubble of the Town Hall and into the village on the island. Some of the structures stood, though not many anymore. They broke their way into one that had a half decent living room and lit a fire in the grate, spreading their cloaks across the floor for makeshift futons. His legs hurt, his feet were sore, his shoulders were weary--and still he didn’t know how he would sleep.

“Seiren?”

A beat. He wondered if she was asleep before she responded. “Yes?”

Sasuke didn’t even know why he was saying her name. “Nevermind. I think I forgot what I was going to say.”

“Hah.” Her chuckle rumbled through the floorboards. “Is it strange if I say I’m very uneasy right now?”

“No. I think that’s fair.”

“Yeah.” Another beat. “If anything happens to the City while I’m gone, I’ll never be able to forgive myself.”

What could he say? “If anything happens while you are gone, it will be at least better than if we never discovered anything below the City at all. No doubt the others have an alarm going because we’ve been gone.”

“You’re right.” She hummed. “You’re right. They’re capable.”

Finally sleep crept up on him. Sasuke folded his glasses against his chest and shut his heavy eyes, willing it to take control. Just before he slipped into a dreamless sleep, he felt a soft head nest against his shoulder. 

“Seiren?” He mumbled through a fog. 

“I’m cold,” she muttered petulantly.

“Alright.”

#Ikesen #Ikemen Sengoku #Ikesen Descendants #Ikesen Sasuke #Sasuke Sarutobi #Sarutobi Sasuke #my writing #TMOT #The Measurement of Time #Female!Uesugi #Seiren Uesugi #Ikesen Medieval Au #Ikesen Fantasy Au #Uesugi Seiren #Concrete and Glass #Fluff

[ikesenhell]

Epilogue

This is an epilogue of To Honor And Protect. You can find all other IkeSen works of mine here. NOTE: I wasn’t gonna do this, but then @iamaikotachibana asked a couple things of me, so here we are. 

The City thrived for generations. Rebuilt anew, it played host to hundreds of students to the new College of Magic. Mages harnessed the powers so long denied, serving the public and tapping into the universe. The marketplaces flourished. The land stilled. The bloodshed of the past fell into memory and nightmare.

And the Princess--no, the Queen--grew old.

Mitsunari aged with her. Sort of. It was certainly fake, she knew that much. He could choose to look like whatever he wanted. Still; it was precious of him, choosing where his wrinkles would be, making his silvery hair white. He still gathered her in his arms and kissed her like they were young. 

But they weren’t young. And she was dying. 

One night, they both knew. 

He gathered her up in his arms and together they slipped out the door. Now the stairwells to the docks were deeper and smoother, no longer the slick things they used to be. Pressing a kiss to her forehead, he stepped to the edge of the dock and walked off, his feet treading over the waves seamlessly. 

"Are you ready, my love?" He asked. 

 "With you? Whenever. Always." 

And he smiled at her, and kissed her, and it felt like they were falling in love all over. Every day with him felt like that. Then they were going down, the water rushing in over their heads and tangling through her curls, her dress sodden and floating around her, and it was quiet and peaceful. The rest of the world seemed so loud in retrospect. Mitsunari steered her back to him and there he was, young and smiling, kissing her soft as a petal, and as the world darkened around them, all she felt was love, love, love, infinite love. 

Up on the surface, the young Prince watched from his tower as the waves of the Northern Sea rippled, then surged upward, crashing back down with a mighty echo. And he knew. Holding tears back from his eyes, he watched until the waves stilled, knowing that both of his parents were gone--and happy. 

#THP #To honor and protect #epilogue #mitsunari ishida #ishida mitsunari #ikesen #ikemen sengoku #my writing #ikesen mitsunari #mage mitsunari #ikesen fantasy au #ikesen medieval au #angst #fluff

[ikesenhell]

Through the Tide

The Measurement of Time: Chapter 6. You can find all other IkeSen works of mine here. NOTES: This whole story does not make much sense without the context from To Honor And Protect! Please go back and read that before you proceed with TMOT. Tagging @ikemenprincessnaga at request.

Uesugi lifted the torch higher, both of them peering down the long tunnel.

“A sewer, maybe?” She suggested, her voice carrying.

“I don’t think so.”

She paused as if meaning to come up with another reason for its existence, then just shook her head. “Come on. Let’s check this place out. I’ve never seen it on a map before.”

It was impossible to be quiet in the echoing stillness. Their feet crunched over the crumbling stone pavement. Water ran in freezing rivulets down the walls and pooled underfoot. No matter how far they walked, it always seemed they were just behind an infinite, choking darkness.

Then they found the second torch.

This one was strange. It linked to a fine wire that stretched down the tunnel, disappearing in the inky black. Uesugi fixed it with a skeptical eye. “What do you think this contraption does?”

“Honestly?” Sasuke inspected it as best he could. “It looks sort of like the wiring in the Trinity Islands.”

“So…” She stared at it. “I’d put that as a hard pass, then.”

“I’m not certain. We could use the light.”

Silence. She inhaled hard and shut her eyes before tapping the flame to the new torch. And--woosh. The fire snapped the wiring, a spark crackling along its length into the dark, and the next moment, they were washed in searing light. As one they recoiled. When their eyes finally adjusted…

“Ocean preserve me,” Uesugi gasped. “What the devil is this?”

It was no mere hallway. The pathway broadened, and before them was a circular room. No--a town square. A struggling tree hung limp in a still-running fountain. Shop fronts circled it, locked tight. Roads forked out from its center, spreading off in different avenues in each direction.

“Is this a city?” Sasuke asked, hardly believing his eyes. “A whole city?”

“Under our city?” Uesugi took tentative steps forward, observing every nook and cranny with warranted suspicion. “When was this built? Who built it? Was this done legally?”

He rapped his hand against the tree and stared upward. “Uesugi? What do you think is above us right now?”

“Right now? Err, I’m not certain.” A pause. “Maybe…”

“Do you think it’s the market circle?”

The implication hung heavy on them. As one, they turned around, reading off the signs surrounding them and matching them bit by bit to the mental map of the city above.

“Holy shit,” she muttered. “It’s a duplicate.”

Sasuke peeled off his glasses and cleaned them, struggling to make sense of this. “It wouldn’t be possible for this to get built after the city was placed on top. It had to preexist it. When was the City built?”

“We’re not sure. Long before recorded history. We’re not even sure who enchanted the docks.”

“That can’t be possible. This is too advanced to predate recorded history.”

“Yeah, no shit,” she snapped. “You’re telling me?”

“My apologies.”

There was no need for the torch anymore. She doused it in the fountain and set it on the stones by the tree, drawing her sword instead. “How do you think these lights even work?”

“I’ve not the faintest idea, but I’d love to study it.”

“Maybe after we’re done.”

Fair enough. They took a side street, working their way past long-abandoned houses that imitated the ones above. Not everything was perfect, but it was close enough to be eerie. No howling wind, no crashing waves, no familiar cawing birds greeted them here--just the silent patter of their feet reverberating off stones and the sightless eyes of windows.

“I’ve a wonder,” she whispered. “Maybe this was for protection from the winters? They can be incredibly harsh.”

That was true. “But you’d think no one would forget this was here, then.”

“Who knows? We forgot all about who enchanted the docks. I’d assume it was fair game. Maybe something about the first invasion meant this knowledge was lost.” Uesugi paused. “And I’ve a second thought.”

“What’s that?”

“If this matches the city above… where is the palace?”

That was a fair question. As a unit, they took the corresponding side street and wound their way up the long avenue, passing dead gardens and empty market stalls, abandoned parks and unprotected guardhouses. There it was. Where above ground there was the towering marble and golden spires, here there was just a massive obsidian gate. Uesugi tested it with her fist and it gave way, creaking open at her touch.

“Well.” She swallowed. “Let’s go in, then.”

The light was blue here, a thin trail of it illuminating the hallways. Sasuke played his hands along it and discovered it was cool to the touch, a thin pane of glass separating him from it. Uesugi’s blonde hair shone like ice. There was the broad entry hall, black and white marble in intricate designs laid out before them. But where the doorway to the royal chamber was--well, there was just a massive black barrier.

Sasuke approached it hesitantly. At its core was a large orange device, cogs whirring and clicking, powered by a massive blue crystal. Bits of casing that once protected it littered the stairwell. The longer he stared at it, the less it made sense. It was so clearly out of place with the rest of the architecture that it clearly was added later, but…

“Why?” Uesugi questioned for him. “And the door. It looks like it’s been damaged.”

“...from the inside,” Sasuke added. “Like something was trying to get out.”

As if on cue, a harsh, metallic bang echoed deep inside the palace. He drew his weapon and went back to back with Uesugi, frantically scanning the chamber. Nothing was amiss.

“What do you think is in there?” She asked. “Is this why it was forgotten?”

“Doesn’t feel likely,” he whispered back. “But I’ll save my hypothesis for later. I suspect we should vacate the premises unless we receive reinforcements.”

“Great idea.”

As quickly as they dared, they slipped from the palace and locked the gate, sprinting double-time back to the ladder in the well. Odd. Where once there was a shaft of light, now nothing shone.

“Fuck.” Uesugi took the ladder two rungs at a time before banging her fist against the doorway between them and the outside. How was it repaired? “Toyotomi-Akechi! Aria, do you hear me!”

“I hear you,” came the muffled response. “How the hell did you fix this thing?”

“We didn’t!” Uesugi yelled back. “So get us out!”

“Right. Clear the way, if you would.”

She dropped down the ladder and stepped aside. Only a moment later, a fierce, earth-rocking explosion collided with the barrier--

And nothing happened.

“What the actual fuck,” Toyotomi-Akechi muttered.

“What’s going on?”

“It’s--” A pause. “It isn’t moving.”

Sasuke didn’t need to be told. He swirled around, keeping a keen eye on the tunnel they’d come from. “So it was a trap.”

“So it would seem.” Uesugi banged her fist against the barrier ineffectively. “Damnit. Damnit!”

“Do…” Toyotomi-Akechi paused. “Do you need me to grab the others?”

“I don’t know. See if you can get it open. In the meantime, we’ll look for another route out.”

“Do you think there’ll be one?” Sasuke questioned.

“There has to be.” She slipped off the ladder and braced herself against the wall, clearly calming herself. “No one makes an underground anything and only one way out. That’s pure idiocy.”

She was right. He blinked up against the water still dripping through the slats of the barrier, considering. “Isn’t there a chance that the person who trapped us here also knows the other exits?”

“Gee, Sarutobi. That’s a great line of questioning and all, but I’d rather we exhaust our options before sorting that one out.”

Fair. He squared his shoulders and nodded. “Then let’s give it a shot.”

---

They wandered the paths of the city several times over, but no other options presented themselves. By the time they returned to their entryway, it was silent and dark. No more rain dripped through the cracks.

“They probably are looking for other options,” Uesugi sighed. “Fair enough. Let’s figure out what to do for the night.”

There was logic to that. Sasuke worked his hands over the hilt of his sword and considered their situation. “There are two things we haven’t done yet.”

“And what is that?”

“Well, one,” he lifted a finger. “We haven’t tried going that way, the opposite direction of the light.” And he gestured into the dank reaches of the tunnel. “And second, we haven’t tried getting in past that door.”

Uesugi almost laughed. “Yeah, that seems like a terrible idea if I’m honest.”

“It’s an idea.”

“Whoever put it there clearly didn’t want that… whatever… getting out.”

“I know. But it is still an option.”

“Not much of one.” Still, she shouldered her cloak and nodded at him. “We can try that way, though. Lead the way, Sarutobi.”

It was fortunate that they hadn’t gotten rid of the spare torch. Lighting it once more, they took the long, dark route in the other direction. Where the underground city was warm and dry, it soon became cold and wet, the freezing air leeching into their bones.

“Are you warm enough?” She asked suddenly.

“No, though my body temperature is stable enough to prevent hypothermia in current conditions.” Sasuke paused, examining the ceiling. “Where do you think we are?”

“If I had to guess? The docks.”

“So we’re likely under the ocean,” he mused. “How much further do you think this goes?”

“Sasuke.” She gasped, pointing forward. “Look at that.”

Just ahead, instead of the billowing dark they’d grown used to, was a faint shimmer. It was almost imperceptible at first. The closer and closer they walked, the more familiar it became. Above them was the sweeping, rolling tide, separated from them by a massive glass wall. Far up in the inky waters was the night sky, ships bobbing up and down.

“How have we never known about this?” Uesugi asked aloud. “Never, not in a million years. I’ve gone swimming here. I never saw this.”

“Perhaps it is also enchanted? It feels probable.”

“Do you think--” She paused, then rushed forward. “We’ve never had clear maps of where to anchor off the Trinity Islands, nor was there ever a dock. Do you think--?”

“This was the way to get there?” The thought rested heavy in his chest. If only Kaiea were here. She would be far more useful than he. “It seems incredibly likely, though it begs the question again of why we’ve lost that knowledge. The Trinity Islands aren’t large.”

“They aren’t.”  

She tilted her head back to soak it all in. Sasuke watched her, watched as the dark water rippled over her sharp features, watched as her green and blue eyes flashed and sparkled as if she, too, belonged in its depths. All at once it struck him how beautiful she was. Even as the muscles in her shoulders worked and tensed, rolling back to release the stress she held there, he wondered at the hard-won strength there. The Queen and her family were the heirs of the ocean, for certain, but Uesugi looked as if she were made of it, too.

For one fragile, long moment, Sasuke realized that for all the understanding he had of the Queen’s bloodline and inherent magic, he couldn’t peel apart the layers of the woman before him, and he was suddenly so fond of her it squeezed his heart.

“Well.” She turned to him, her face calmer than he’d ever seen it. “No way but forward, hmm?”

“You’re right.” He stepped to her side and adjusted her cloak over her shoulders, covering the ridges of her muscles to keep them warm. “No way but forward, Miss Uesugi.”

She fixed him with a sly sideways smile and brushed forward into the tunnel--and he followed, watching the sway of her blonde braid the whole way, wondering where it would lead him.

#Ikesen #Ikemen Sengoku #Ikesen Sasuke #Sasuke Sarutobi #Sarutobi Sasuke #TMOT #The Measurement of Time #Ikesen Fantasy Au #Ikesen medieval Au #Ikesen Descendants #Female!Uesugi #Through The Tide #My writing

[ikesenhell]

What The Trees Know

This is part ten of To Honor And Protect. You can find all other IkeSen works of mine here. NOTE: Yes, I put up two in one night. I apologize... but I had to.

She was stiff and sore the next morning, but she just giggled recklessly at his fussing over her, wrapping those glorious thighs over his hip and dragging him into her. How could he feel anything but love when she was so vibrant? Even if he merged into one with her, it wasn’t close enough. His heart was hers, only hers, and he was so far gone he didn’t care. 

Bone-chilling wind swept through the library, their fire barely enough to keep up with it. They bundled together under a cloak. Sometimes her curls brushed against his shoulder as she read, turning pages with focused hands. 

“Anything interesting?” He asked softly, switching out his book for another. 

“It keeps jumping years,” she murmured. “This doctor wasn’t very consistent. I also don’t think he was a doctor.”

“No?”

“No. I think he was another mage.”

Thumbing his way through his notes, Mitsunari lapsed into thought. So if the monsters were bound to someone, who was it? Who was it that held such deep hatred? The timing made a kind of sense; if the Southern Kingdom and The City joined together now, their combined force might have delayed the invasion and turned the tide. And more importantly, how did one break a binding seal? Did the bound person have to come with the force, or could they stay behind? And--

He nearly lurched out of his skin when the Princess shot to her feet. 

“They’re the trees,” she gasped, and raced out of the town hall. 

“Princess!” Mitsunari staggered over the bench and righted himself, sprinting after her. Drizzle pelted against his cheeks as they tore through the village to the edge of the woods, her eyes searching every which way, book clutched in her fist. “Princess, what’s happening?”

“This way.” She grabbed his wrist and pulled him into the canopy. The trees were thicker here, more haphazard, roots laced together and trunks bent inward like lovers. For a long while they crunched through the dead leaves, until finally they reached the edge of the woods and a cliff. 

And there--there on the very lip, driven deep into the earth, was a staff. 

It was a rusty iron thing, an obsidian ball set in the top. Faint bands of dark wood decorated the handle, a vine crawling eagerly around its base. Curious, Mitsunari stepped forward--and it began to glow from within. 

“What did you read?” He asked her.

“The last entry is dated three years ago.” She paused. “There was a plague. It was slow at first, then started coming quicker and quicker. About four years ago they knew they needed help, but since they were all mages...”

“They were marked.” Mitsunari paused. “Mages pick up the magic they’re around after long enough. It’s like an aura. No one would miss it. They knew they couldn’t go to the City for help.”

She held the book out, examining it at an arm’s length. “The last one is cryptic at best. He said he was leaving his staff behind and leaving the island. He said he was the only one left--he’d made sure of it, that he’d saved everyone who was left.”

That didn’t make much sense. Before he could say so, the Princess turned back towards the woods, her eyes wide. “And I thought the trees here were strange already.”

When he turned around to face them, he saw it, too--where once he’d simply thought them strange, now he knew. They bowed toward the staff, outstretched and longing, hundreds of people turned to nature itself. He could see the etched frames of faces high up in the boughs. Grandmothers with crows feet smiling toward the sun, children who never knew the grace of age, couples growing intertwined. Breath hitched in his throat.

But the Princess stepped to the closest one and put her hand on it, a woman’s face serene on the bark. Quietly, she pressed her ear to the trunk. 

“They aren’t angry,” she whispered. “I think they’re content.”

He stood stock still, horror caught in his throat. She slipped between the trees and he wondered what he would do to save her, to preserve her from the yawning mouth of the grave--what this unknown man already sacrificed for this power. 

The staff pulsed behind him. 

Stretching out his hand, he gripped the handle and pulled. It came easily from the dirt. A purple spark flickered and flashed in the sphere’s depths, swirling over his hand and arm, the grip reshaping to his palm. It felt prophetic somehow.

“Mitsunari?” The Princess called, watching him from the trees. He tested its weight with a swing. 

“I think it... wants to be used.” He tried it again, setting the end of it against the earth. Something rippled through his mind; once more he tapped it to the ground, feeling the surge of something primal searching him. “I’ve never seen one of these before. It’s a real staff. It’s meant to call on the magical tides.”

“Is it safe?” She asked. A fair question. He gripped it with both hands. 

“Maybe.” But he laughed. “That’s not reassuring. We’ll do a bit of research.”

Their mystery mage was a father and husband, as best as they could tell. Mitsunari cleaned the staff until it glowed in the fire, and edged carefully into the handle were three names: Lianna, Nahryah, Orsun. The symbol for ‘Loved Ones’ capped them all, a small ring around Lianna’s name to indicate marriage. Mitsunari took special care to not erase the inscription. 

“So what’s the difference between using your hands and using a staff?” The Princess asked. 

“A staff draws on more of the power around you.” Mitsunari waved a finger around his head. “You can be struck by lightning on your own, if you wait a while, but raising a sword above your head will draw it to you much better. It’s a conduit for the thing, as best as I understand--not that I’ve ever seen one personally, just illustrations.”

She frowned and sorted more of the books, still picking through them. “Practically speaking, do you think it could help us break the binding seal on those creatures? I imagine doing one on our own is a bit of a proposition.” 

“You’re right, and probably.” Mitsunari paused. “Though I can’t imagine how we’re going to practice with this thing. It feels ridiculous to go into a battle with a weapon you’ve never tested.”

“Maybe it’s better to think of it as an extension of an arm or something.” 

“Maybe.”

Mitsunari rubbed his thumb over the handle, considering each of the names, and all at once he could hear it. Whispers lapped at the very edge of his consciousness, swirling in the dark tidal waters of his brain. Reflexively he resisted it--then thought better of it. Quietly, he let them slip in one at a time. 

They were memories of a kind. Laughter and music from a wedding. The cry of a newborn. Squeals of children. A village festival. The huff of breath from a lover. Each of them passed through him like a wave, throbbing empty and echoing a single question through the cavern of his chest: what would you do if you were losing everything you loved?

“Mitsunari?” 

He blinked up at her. The Princess peered into his eyes, concern etched in hers. “Are you alright?”

“Me?” He asked, his voice a thousand miles away. What would he do if he lost her? A cavernous gulf hollowed out in the whole of his being, all she was surging and flowing through it, stemmed for now. Slowly he brushed his hand over her cheek, relishing the glow of it. “I think so.”

“What just happened?”

He twisted the staff in his hands. “I’m not sure.”

“Is it dangerous?”

“No.” Mitsunari paused, not certain how he knew that. “No. It just remembers what it means to be loved, and knows what it is to lose that.”

She didn’t ask him any more questions. Instead she slid into his arms and he squeezed her tight. Outside, the trees sang their wind-song. 

#What the Trees Know #THP #To Honor And Protect #ikesen #ikemen sengoku #ikesen fic #ikesen fantasy au #ikesen medieval au #mage mitsunari #ikesen mitsunari #mitsunari ishida #ishida mitsunari #my writing #body horror #angst

[ikesenhell]

Unmoored

The Measurement of Time: Chapter 2. You can find all other IkeSen works of mine here. NOTES: Kaiea is @boopbeepbopblarg ‘s lovely OC! Thanks for letting me use her! 

Given that they lived on the coast, the City had gotten quite good at recovering after a heavy storm. Merchants were out and about early, hammering shutters back into place and sweeping flung seaweed and sand from the streets. Soldiers and mages alike helped clear homes of debris. The quiet hum of everyday life filled the air. 

But Sasuke was on his way to the docks. 

“They’re not going to let you do this,” Kaiea protested, keeping up with his wide pace. She’d gathered up a notebook and some reference materials at his request, but she certainly wasn’t on board with this quite yet. “The Trinity Islands have been marked off since the War. No one is allowed out there.”

“We will have to ask permission, but I’m certain this should be concerning enough to merit it.” 

Apparently she didn’t share his confidence. Even so she shrugged her cloak tighter to her neck, pulling the hood over her head. “I don’t really like going on, you know, treks anyway. I’m not great at this whole outdoorsy thing.”

“I’m sorry. You’re the best historian I know. If you don’t terribly want to go, then I certainly don’t want to force you.”

“No, no.” She shook her head. “I want to see the place with my own eyes, I just... don’t exactly like traipsing around in the woods. But if what you said happened happened, then it is important.”

Luck was on their side today. As they drew nearer to the palace, a small contingent of guards and the Queen emerged, heading toward the docks. His heart thumped loud in his chest as he picked up the speed. What was he supposed to do? Call out to her Highness? Ask for a favor so openly? Oh, this was a terrible plan. All at once, he felt small and stupid. 

But she saw him. 

Her Highness stopped in her steps and motioned to her guards to do the same, smiling in his direction. She was even more beautiful in the sunlight than he’d expected. Mouth dry, he halted and gave her a deep bow.

“Sasuke Sarutobi.” She laughed a little, motioning for him to come closer. “How fortuitous. How are you on this day?”

She’d remembered his name! He almost couldn’t speak, but Kaiea’s gentle elbow in his ribs prompted him once more. “Your Highness, I was actually coming over here to investigate something. Last night, in the storm, I saw the Trinity Islands aflame.”

“Did you now? You’re quite right. Something happened out there last night. We’re preparing someone to take a look at it.”

What did he say now? This felt like the perfect in, but he felt very unprepared to take it. Instead, he cleared his throat again. “Well, um,, your Highness, I was hoping that I could be involved in going out there.”

She tilted her head at him, frowning. Behind her another guard emerged, dressed in the familiar uniform of her personal bodyguards, white-blonde hair tied behind her head--and a pair of mismatched blue and green eyes appraising him coolly. 

“For what particular reason do you wish to be involved?” The Guard asked. 

“Now now, Miss Uesugi,” the Queen soothed immediately. Uesugi? Sasuke eyed the woman again. Was she really a descendant of another of the Nine? It seemed that way--she bore a strong resemblance to the fabled Kenshin Uesugi. “But yes, Sir Sarutobi. For what purpose?”

“It’ll sound ridiculous, your highness, but I had a dream.”

The guard stepped closer, those mismatched eyes boring into his brown ones. “Of what?”

“Of a coffin under a crumbling building. As I watched, it began to glow orange--”

She didn’t wait for him to finish his sentence. Instead she swung around and addressed the Queen. “It’s the same one.” 

“Hm.” And her Highness paused for a long moment. At last, she motioned to Sasuke. “And the young woman with you?”

“Historian and Researcher Kaiea. She was coming with me for research purposes.”

“Perfect. We could use one on this inquiry, no doubt. Come along, then.”

Guard Uesugi stepped into line right behind Sasuke and Kaiea, and the small group took the long, elegant stairs down to the docks. Once upon a time these stairs had been small and treacherous, but in the years since the War, they’d been widened for safety. Down at the edge of the crashing shore, they stepped onto the dock, taking only a moment at the massive statue on the water’s edge. Two figures stood together, locked in a beautiful embrace: a man emerging from the water, sodden hair swirling around his head, a smile on his lips, and a Princess holding a staff wrapped in his arms. 

“They’re beautiful,” Kaiea whispered. “Aren’t they? The Princess and Mitsunari Ishida.”

It really was. Sasuke stood silent at its base, looking up at the gaze of two people so utterly in love and wondering if that would--or could--ever be him. 

“Alright.” The Queen’s voice jerked him from his reverie. She patted the side of a moored yacht, smiling brightly. “Guard Uesugi, are you certain you need no others with you?”

“I would be just fine with Sanada alone. It should be a simple scouting mission. I suppose we can take the researchers with us.”

“That would be excellent. Please report on the findings of the fire and any other things amiss on the Island. If you must take the stay overnight, then do so. I shall expect you back tomorrow.”

She and the other guard--Sanada, was he? He had mousy, tousled hair and a serious expression--clasped their hands over their hearts and bowed to her. And with that the Queen swept away, back up the stairs and toward the city. 

“Alright.” Kaiea bounced on the spot, apparently trying to hype herself up. “Okay. Whew. Let’s do this then?”

“Let’s do this.”

The four stepped onto the yacht, settling in around the bow. A tiny crew bustled around--and next they knew, they were off, the dark waters splitting around them as they headed full-speed toward the Trinity Islands. 

“What did you say your name was?” Uesugi asked again, her bright eyes piercing straight through him. She looked just as much like something made from the ocean. 

“Sasuke Sarutobi.”

“Like the Sasuke?” Sanada cut in. 

“Yes.”

“Huh. Weird. You related to him?”

“Distantly. Cousins of a sort.”

“Huh.” Sanada shrugged. “I’m Yukimura Sanada. Direct descendant from the Yukimura Sanada. Guess I get it.”

For the first time, Uesugi chanced a grin. “Or Yuki. Yukes. Yukon. Murrie.”

“Do not start that Murrie thing again, or I swear on the whole Northern Sea, I’ll throw you in.”

“Miss Uesugi, are you related to Kenshin Uesugi, perhaps?” Kaiea asked. 

“Grand-niece.” She slapped a hand against the hilt of her sword. “He gave me this in his will.”

“Yeah,” Yuki added, clearly taking his shot at revenge, “We call her Princess.”

“I swear to god, you start that again and I will live up to the family reputation.”

The idea of being surrounded with his heroes descendants gave Sasuke goosebumps. Maybe it was the ocean air, or the names of those around him, or the island looming before them, but he suddenly had the very real sense that whatever was going to happen would be important. 

#The Measurement Of Time #TMOT #Ikesen #Ikemen Sengoku #Ikesen Fanfic #my writing #Sasuke Sarutobi #Sarutobi Sasuke #Ikesen Sasuke #ikesen fanfasy au #ikesen medieval au #Boopbeepbopblarg's Kaiea #kaiea #Yukimura Sanada #Sanada Yukimura #Ikesen Yukimura #Female!Uesugi #Ikesen Uesugi #Unmoored

[ikesenhell]

Down in the Rain

This is part six of To Honor And Protect. You can find all other IkeSen works of mine here.

Their lessons were back on, and each and every one of them killed him. 

They weren’t alone anymore. Usually Sasuke sat in, but sometimes it was Hideyoshi, or Shingen. Other times, Lord Kennyo himself sat in the corner of the study, busying himself with ancient books. He felt the eyes on his back as often as he saw the flit of a gaze under eyebrows. 

She wasn’t much the same when anyone was looking, but he could tease hints of her back out. One time he misspoke during their history lessons, and she got so tickled that they both dissolved into laughter, leaving Lord Kennyo confused in the corner. Her eyes glittered when they shelved books together. She played with the silver chain around her neck when deep in thought, and every time his heart thumped so hard he half expected to pass out. 

“Mitsunari.” Lord Kennyo stopped him one day as he went to leave. “Indulge my curiosity.”

“Yes sir?”

“They tell me you weren’t recruited to the Nine so much as condemned to it.” His dark eyes searched Mitsunari. That was just fine. Mitsunari smiled cheerily back. 

“I’m afraid I don’t understand. It’s always an honor to be in the Nine.”

“They say,” Kennyo followed up, sharper this time, “that you were a mage of some power.”

Mitsunari considered carefully before answering. “I don’t know that I’d say of some power, but any magic at all tends to attract attention. I suppose it was simply interesting enough.”

Either the lord wasn’t up to the task of threading the diplomatic needle, or he simply thought Mitsunari oblivious, but either way, he let it go. 

The Barracks never stilled now. A never-ending stream of information poured in from Shingen and Mitsuhide’s spies, painting a confusing picture of backward tactics at the border. 

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say they were exercising a diversion.” Shingen remarked, tracing the path of the Western Army’s route. 

Nobunaga hummed. “A diversion for what, exactly?”

“That’s the golden question, isn’t it?” Mitsuhide grinned as if the game of war were merely checkers. “But if I were to stretch my imagination, I’d say they were looking to destabilize our region as well as they could before attempting an invasion.”

Their leader narrowed his ruby eyes. “Ah. So you’re suggesting they’ll attempt an assassination?”

“Perhaps. Maybe a coup. Either way, I have little but rumors to rely upon. We should employ our good senses either way.”

“Cowards.” Kenshin sniffed. “Send an army. Fight like warriors. Then we must up the defenses.”

Ieyasu huffed, leaning over the map. “Fine. If they’re going straight for the royal family, they’ll have to work for it.”

“That’s the spirit.” Masamune grinned and slapped his friend encouragingly on the back. “Ieyasu and I can handle upping the wall defenses. Put us straight on those front lines.”

“Obviously Shingen and I are spoken for,” Mitsuhide drawled. 

“Which leaves the King, the Princess, and Lord Kennyo.” Nobunaga rubbed his chin. “Kenshin, you make the most sense guarding His Highness with myself. Hideyoshi, Yukimura, you take care of Lord Kennyo. Mitsunari--”

“Wait.” Hideyoshi cut in. “Wait. Allow me to trade with Mitsunari.”

“Why?”

“Because--” Hideyoshi paused. “I think Mitsunari and Yukimura have a great working relationship.”

With a snort, Nobunaga repeated the question. “Why?”

“Look, I think--”

Rolling his eyes, Kenshin cut in. “Because he doesn’t want the lovesick puppy to be responsible for the Princess.”

And it was out. Any pretense of blindness the other eight had slipped away, Hideyoshi’s expression twisting.

“No,” he snapped, “I don’t want Mitsunari’s emotions to be used as leverage in a combat situation.”

“It’s hardly inappropriate.” Nobunaga remained as cool as ever. “Mitsunari has the most incentive to keep her safe. I highly doubt he’d allow so much as a single hair on her head to fall without her say-so.”

“At best, this is a bad idea. At worst, we’re actively using--”

“Hideyoshi.” Mitsunari cut in. “May I speak for myself?”

All the others fell silent. Rising to his feet, Mitsunari bowed before them. “Let me protect her.”

Kenshin fixed his green-blue gaze on Mitsunari. “Can you keep a cool head? Will you hold yourself together if she comes to harm? Can you keep your sense if she is threatened?”

He held fast, staring Kenshin down. “Have I ever failed to analyze a situation properly before enacting a secure plan?”

“Need I remind you of the last time you were under emotional duress and granted power?”

Point taken. Mitsunari shut his eyes. Would he? “That was many years ago. I cannot promise I’d never use that in her defense, but that is simply an extension of my job.”

“Please think about this,” Hideyoshi implored. “Really think about it.”

“I’ve made up my mind. I’m happy to accept this position. Please allow me to do this for myself.”

With that, Nobunaga nodded his head, and it was done. As they filed from the hall, Mitsunari felt doubt flicker in his heart for only a moment--and then it was gone, replaced with nothing but resolve.

The month passed with the quiet thrum of his lovesick heart as much as the heavy crash of waves. His feelings grew like unchecked weeds into the thick of his throat, watered to life with every glance she graced him with. Their routines were different now: he didn’t return to the barracks at night. Instead he took up residence in the tower, same as Sasuke, close enough to their charge to be useful. 

She took her mornings in delicate silence. Mitsunari never felt so lonely and full in his whole life. The wind rushed around them and the ocean thrashed outside the windows, the crackle of fire warming her tea the only sounds to remind him that this was real life at all, that she wasn’t an angel his mind dreamed into life. In the quiet dawn he was brave. Maybe she was, too--maybe that was why they brushed up against each other in the kitchen, knuckles kissing as they parsed through bread and expensive cubes of sugar, tea leaves and cups and bread. Sometimes he pretended to spill things just to have an excuse to stand by her longer, bound by the sweetness of her perfume. They never spoke. That would break the spell. Eventually the rest of the castle was up, too, and with the rustle of voices, it shattered anyway. 

And night--oh, blessed, blessed night--she took the steps up to the top of the tower and lingered there. Storm-born winds swept through her hair and skirts and flung them out toward the ocean. Stardust scattered over the length of her arms and pooled in her eyes, the gloss of her full lips swelling in the moonlight, and every time the darkness fell, Mitsunari wondered when he might snap utterly and shade her mouth with his. 

Somehow he didn’t. Instead he hovered on the brink of madness each waking hour, dipping himself further and further into the well of her eyes and wondering when he might never get out again. 

“Father is to announce the wedding date today,” she informed her bodyguards one damp afternoon. Rain sprinkled outside the window, scattering over the waves. “I suppose it’s to be a public thing, despite the weather.”

Mitsunari wondered, selfishly, why it couldn’t be postponed, but forced a smile on anyway. “Well, I’ll see to it that you stay dry.”

Sasuke pushed the glasses up his nose and nodded. “And I’ll be only a few steps away at any given time, so maybe I can employ my ninja arts and sweep the water away.”

That got her to laugh. “Oh! Well, if that’s how it works, then I suppose so.”

They fetched an umbrella and headed down the stairs. Mitsunari tried not to fantasize about sharing it with the Princess too hard, but--Lord Kennyo emerged in the doorway, followed by his own entourage, Hideyoshi, and Yukimura.

“Good morning.” He bowed before the Princess, who returned the gesture. “I thought I might escort you to the speech. I brought an umbrella for the occasion.”

“It would please me.” She responded, formal as always. “Thank you.”

Ah. Mitsunari set the one he’d gathered down by a cloak stand, avoiding Hideyoshi’s mothering stare. As a group, they left the tower and headed toward the square. 

A podium arranged for the brief announcement sat squat in the vast marketplace. The people already milled around the edges, eager for news. A royal wedding was exciting, after all. Mitsunari tried not to resent everyone involved and plastered on his smile for the Princess, nodding reassuringly at her every time she glanced back at him. 

“On your guard,” Hideyoshi hissed. “Mitsuhide thinks something might happen.”

Of course. It was too obvious a target. Subtly, Mitsunari separated from the group and eased around the edge of the stage, positioning himself as close as possible to the Princess’ side. Tactically speaking, this was a nightmare. So many people in one space, so many rooftops facing inward, so few places to hide...

He wasn’t exactly surprised when it happened. 

The speech had only just commenced when Masamune’s bellow cut through the ceremony. Mitsunari didn’t need to understand him. Brash as their One-Eyed Dragon was, he wouldn’t interrupt without a reason. In almost perfect unison, the Nine drew their swords. Just in time. The crowd screamed and parted like a flood, three men breaking forward from different positions toward the stage. 

Kenshin caught the first. He swept from his place with wave-grace, his arms fluid as water and sword a deadly silver ribbon, setting upon his opponent. Nobunaga intercepted the second; his sword became the hammer of the Devil, a grave marker not yet embedded in the heart of the soon-dead. And the third--

Mitsunari watched the seconds tick by in half-time. The third lifted a crossbow, readying the bolt. The only two men close enough to stand between their targets and a certain death were gone; the King was nearly ducked, Lord Kennyo drawing his own weapon, but the Princess--

Something in him snapped. 

With savage focus, he yanked his sword free and sliced his hand open. Blood spattered on his uniform, but he didn’t care. Instead he extended his arm. 

“Mitsunari!” Hideyoshi yelled from a thousand miles away. “Mitsun--”

He crushed his fingers closed. 

The man twisted on Kenshin’s blade crumpled and shrieked. Kenshin took one step back before the victim howled again, his neck wrenching with one sickening crack, and then all his blood swept in a massive tidal wave into Mitsunari’s hands. Two thoughts passed through him: the man with the crossbow was slipping his hand into the trigger now, and if he acted, he could wrap the blood around his neck, bring him thrashing into the air with a dripping noose--

The Princess wouldn’t want that. He didn’t want that. And Mitsunari recovered himself in a fractious, tense second, flinging his hand up into the air, and the blood coalesced into a pearly force field. 

And the bolt shattered against it. 

Yukimura had the last one in the next moment, forcing him down with his spear. Mitsunari released the magic and watched the wall dissolve. All was silent for a long, long time... and then he realized what he’d done. 

“Well.” Mitsunari forced the usual cheer into his voice, trying his best not to acknowledge the horrified stares on him. “Well, I suppose I do have to answer for that, don’t I? It is forbidden, after all.”

“Mitsunari--” The Princess tried to go to him, but Sasuke held her back.

“Don’t worry.” He smiled at her, doing his best to be calm, and knelt before the King. “Don’t worry. It’s alright. I know what I did.”

“Mitsunari!” She yelled again, trying to shake Sasuke off. “Father, don’t do anything, he saved us--he was doing his job--”

But the King said nothing. Hideyoshi and Nobunaga came to his side, silent and serious, and clasped him into irons. The Princess burst into tears. 

“It’s alright,” he soothed. “It’s okay. Don’t cry, Princess. It’s okay.”

“We’ll handle this matter later.” Kennyo announced gravely. “For now, we have to see to the people. Take him to holding.”

#ikesen #ikemen sengoku #my writing #ikesen fic #thp #to honor and protect #ikesen fantasy au #ikesen medieval au #mitsunari ishida #ishida mitsunari #ikesen mitsunari #mage mitsunari #Kennyo #Ikesen Kennyo #Nobunaga Oda #Oda Nobunaga #Ikesen Nobunaga #Shingen Takeda #Takeda Shingen #Ikesen Shingen #Mitsuhide Akechi #Akechi Mitsuhide #Ikesen Mitsuhide #Ieyasu Tokugawa #Tokugawa Ieyasu #ikesen Ieyasu #Hideyoshi Toyotomi #toyotomi hideyoshi #ikesen Hideyoshi #Kenshin Uesugi

[ikesenhell]

Tidal

This is part two of To Honor And Protect. You can find all other IkeSen works of mine here. 

Her reputation was accurate: she was very sharp. Complicated concepts came easily to her. She grasped on to history lessons with the kind of wonder reserved for fairy tales, took to matters of diplomacy with grace, and completed all of her work accurately and well. Mitsunari couldn’t help but admire her. 

“You’re an excellent student,” he noted one day. “It’s impressive.” 

She smiled at him. “Thank you so much, but your smiling at me right now is praise enough.”

Was he? Mitsunari touched his cheek, realizing all at once that he was. “Oh! Well, of course I’m smiling. It’s very pleasant, doing these lessons with you.”

Summer bloomed and wilted, and fall swept in from across the Northern Sea. A chill wind slipped between the flagstones and the houses. Already they were putting blankets on the horses and securing windows, readying for the inevitable storms off the coast. Still--every other day, Mitsunari would go about his training, wash up, and pull a thick cloak over his shoulders before heading up to the palace. The fire bloomed hot in the study now, the door propped open to watch the grey churn of the ocean. 

“I love the fall,” she commented one day.

“The storms don’t scare you?” He asked, surprised. “Most here don’t like them much.”

“No, I like them. It’s an incredible sight, watching the rain and waves. Besides, I like a little chill.” Her eyes flashed with her smile at him, and he felt his heart lurch staccato in his chest. How odd. He kneaded his skin lightly, wondering where that came from. “It’s soothing to me.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, Princess.”

They received the news on his off day. A delegation from the Southern City was coming within two weeks, with a ball held in their honor. A thousand security concerns at once lay before them. Who would protect the incoming royal party? Who would secure their lodgings and such? Were there any threats they needed to address? Mitsunari stayed up into the small hours of the night often now, dragging himself from bed only with a few sound shoves and a huge mug of Hideyoshi’s special tea. Still--occupied as he was with his work, Mitsunari noticed something odd. No matter how worn he was from his breakneck schedule, whenever he stepped inside the Princess’ study for their lessons, his heart eased and muscles relaxed. He made a note to investigate that when he had time. Perhaps she had a particularly relaxing candle hidden away somewhere. A pleasant scent did bloom in there. 

“They’re going to work you all to death.” The Princess furrowed her brows as she patted a drenched Sasuke down with a towel, ignoring his meek protests. “We shouldn’t push you all like this.”

“Oh, it’s nothing.” Mitsunari tried to assure her. “We’re all very used to working hard! I’d daresay Kenshin feels better busier than not--he gets bored without anything to do, and then he starts doing wild training sessions, and someone gets hurt--usually Yukimura.” 

“No, it’s just--” She flung the towel onto the chair nearest the fire, and all at once Mitsunari saw something simmering just below the surface. Something was wrong. “We don’t need to be going to all these lengths. And then there’s the ball, and all that--”

“You aren’t excited? I find the idea fantastic. All the colors and sights, the music and lights. Those don’t happen often.”

“No, they don’t.” But there was something bitter and hard in her voice. “But I just can’t be excited. Not when--”

Silence. She stiffened before the fire, her back stony and rigid in that dark green dress, and Mitsunari wondered if he should stay seated or go to her. Neither option felt safe. Safe--he considered the word. Why had he thought of that one, of all things? What was he scared of?

“Princess?” He asked, uncertain of what he couldn’t name. 

“I’ll be right back.” She turned on her heel, but no matter how swiftly she left the room, he still saw the tears threatening those bright eyes. Her feet pattered up the stairs, the quiet click of a door echoing after her. Sasuke sighed. 

“Well then.”

“Is something wrong?” Mitsunari asked. The bodyguard pushed up his glasses and sighed again. 

“I imagine so. She hasn’t taken well to the arrangements, though she’s accepted them as best she could.”

“Arrangements?” Nothing made sense. “What’s going on?”

“You haven’t been told?” Sasuke’s dark stare peered straight through him. “I thought all of the Nine knew. The Princess is betrothed to the Southern King, Kennyo. They seek to announce it at the ball.”

Mitsunari didn’t know what he expected, but he certainly hadn’t figured in the stone-hard drop of his stomach. “Since when?”

“She was notified yesterday.”

“She had no say in this?”

“It’s for diplomacy purposes. Surely you understand?”

He did. The Southern Kingdom had long been a rival of theirs, encroaching on their territory and stirring dissent for decades. Unfortunately, their power made it impossible to truly engage them. Shingen himself knew of their power; once upon a time, he was lord of a kingdom now swallowed up by them. It stood to reason that the City had no interest in seeing themselves invaded and subjugated similarly. Even so, Mitsunari tried to picture the Princess married off and his mind faltered. How odd. He’d never been one to stray from reality before. 

“I understand.” But Mitsunari paused anyway. “Is there anything I can do for her?”

“I don’t think so.”

“When are they due to meet? Have they met?”

“They will be meeting for the first time in a week’s time. I understand she’s to provide him with a tour of the city herself. His Highness requested it.”

And one didn’t deny a request from the King, especially not when he was your father. Mitsunari tried to swallow, his throat suddenly dry. “I see. Well, hopefully she’ll come down soon, and perhaps a little learning will take her mind off things.”

She didn’t. When he left that afternoon, the sound of soft sobs echoed through the stairwell. 

She requested him personally as her bodyguard for the day.

“Well well well,” Mitsuhide snickered, that chameleon smile leering across the breakfast table. “Someone has endeared themselves to the Princess.”

“I suppose we’re friends.” Mitsunari beamed. “It’s an honor.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“To think,” Shingen clasped a hand over his heart with all his dramatic gravitas, “that a Goddess like herself has passed over me. I suppose I can only honor her command.”

Kenshin scowled at his friend. Despite their bickering, it was obvious that the two men were close. “Keep up your ridiculous blathering and I’ll see to it that your soul ‘passes over’.”

“Ohh, death threats before breakfast? My word, Kenshin. Shouldn’t we wait until after five? That’s a good, respectable hour.”

Hideyoshi, for his part, passed Mitsunari a steaming mug of tea and fussed out the lines of his silver and blue dress uniform. It felt strange, having a former bandit lord so occupied with his state of dress, but Hideyoshi was an honorable man, so Mitsunari let him do as he wished. “You’ll do just fine, but remember to watch her back, okay?”

“Of course.”

“And don’t allow her to run too far ahead. Keep her within a good distance, arm’s reach is preferable.”

“Certainly.”

“And--”

“Make sure that you test all of her drinks, to ensure they’re a proper temperature so she doesn’t burn herself?” Mitsuhide teased. 

Shingen snickered and joined in. “And brush all the pebbles out of her path, lest she stub a toe.”

“Move all tables, especially the ones at calf height. They jump in the way, you know.”

Hideyoshi scowled at them. “Am I the only one taking this seriously?”

“He’ll be fine,” Kenshin huffed. “Ishida knows his way around a room. Let him be.”

The air was crisp and the wind strong, but the sun was out, so that was on their side at least. When he arrived at the tower, Sasuke ushered him up to the Princess’ personal chambers. She perched on the edge of a stool, combing the last of her ringlets before a mirror. 

“Hello.” She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “You look sharp.”

Mitsunari bowed elegantly. “Thank you. I love wearing the dress uniform. I hope I do it proud.”

“I have no doubt you will. Would you help me with something?”

“Certainly.”

She held up a small bracelet of silver, extending the clasps to him. “Could you please put this on me?” 

Mitsunari took the piece from her hands, turning it in his fingers. It was fragile and old, no doubt about it. He appraised the ends with skeptical eyes. “If I may, Princess, the clasps aren’t very strong.”

“I know.” She sighed. “But it was my mothers. When I’m feeling nervous, I wear it. I try my best not to lose it, but I can’t find anyone in the kingdom who can fix a piece this old, so...”

“I see.” He smiled at her reassuringly. The Queen Mother had died long ago, when the Princess was very young, and no doubt she needed that love and courage today. Silently, he took her hand--was this the first time he’d touched her? It was, and his heart raced--and affixed it around her small wrist. “There. I’ll keep an eye on it as well. You won’d lose it today, at any rate. I promise.”

This time, her smile did reach her eyes, and it made his pulse beat straight out of him. How strange! Were her nerves rubbing off on him? Without further ado, she stood and swept a dark woolen cloak off a stand, drawing it about herself. “Shall we face the music, then?”

“After you, Princess.”

Kennyo was waiting for them with his own retinue at the base of the tower. He was older than expected. A streak of grey graced his black hair, a long scar slashed over his features. Still, his smile was kind, and when the Princess stepped before him, he had the decency to bow before her. 

“Princess. I hear you will honor me with a tour of the city.”

“I shall.” Mitsunari had never heard her so formal before, but he supposed that was normal for a diplomatic tour. She bowed in return to them, taking Kennyo’s offered arm after a moment’s pause. “Shall we?”

“We shall.”

She guided them through the markets dripping in fabric and teeming with people, sweeping her hand across the stalls and vendors. They walked the long, green paths of the public gardens and fountains. They slipped through the housing districts, the humble people of the city dipping their heads as they passed, and after a long day, when the sun was at its zenith, she guided them all down the slick, obsidian-cut stairs to the docks at the rear of the city. 

“This is where our navy and fishermen alike congregate.” The small group padded across the broad beams of the pier, the wood creaking beneath their boots. “A very old enchantment changes the level of the docks with the waves and the storms, ensuring it never falls below the water.”

“Magic is long forbidden,” Kennyo commented. “Who performed that ritual?”

“We don’t know. It predates our history, so I can only assume it was long before the banishment of magic.” 

“Then these docks are ancient indeed. They’ve held well.” He cast his dark eyes across the Northern Sea, squinting out into the distance at a small island off the coast. “Out there, what is that?”

“That island? That is the first of the Trinity Islands. I hear tell there was once a fishing community out there, but the waves are difficult and the rocks sharp. Few attempt to traverse it now. And out that way--”

Mitsunari watched it happen in near slow motion. She stretched her arm out to point at the second one and a shimmer caught his eye. The bracelet! It loosed from her wrist and flew into the air, sailing over the water and sinking into the waves. 

Without a second thought, he ripped his sword belt away, slamming it into Sasuke’s chest, and dove into the ocean after it. 

The water was freezing. He’d learned to swim long ago, but the shock of the cold held him for one long moment before he recovered himself. The weight of his armor tugged him down, down, down, the tide swirling heavy around his boots, but--there! There it was. Sinking slowly to the depths, there was the shimmer of her bracelet. With singular determination, Mitsunari swam forward and caught it, forcing his way to the surface. 

“You fool--” 

He gasped and clutched onto the dock’s edge, too winded to tug himself up. The Princess flung herself forward. “Mitsunari!” 

“Princess.” He grinned at her, realizing all at once that he’d lost his glasses in the waves. Well, too late. “You should get up. The dock is wet, and it’ll soak into your cloak.”

“Hang the cloak! Are you alright?”

“Of course, my lady.” 

“Come on.” She offered him her hand, but he shook his head. How could he? She would just get wet. Besides, there were more important things. Without ceremony, he lifted his clenched fist and carefully secured the bracelet around her wrist. 

“There you are, Princess.” 

And then she smiled at him, and--oh, he swore to himself in that moment that it was worth diving into the Northern Sea a thousand times for that smile. It radiated so pure that he half expected to go blind. “You didn’t have to.”

“I swore I would, Princess.”

“Come on.” Sasuke stepped forward from seemingly nowhere, extending an arm to Mitsunari. “Let’s get up.”

He dragged himself from the tide, squelching to his feet and realizing that his leather boots were doubtless ruined. Accepting his sword belt back, he secured it around his waist with a smile, slicking back his hair. The world was hazy without his glasses, and Lord Kennyo was staring at him, but all he could see was the Princess, smiling at him still. “Shall we carry on?”

“While you’re in that state?” Kennyo half-laughed. “You’ll drip everywhere. Certainly you aren’t prepared to walk in the chill like that?”

“Of course I am!” Mitsunari adjusted his clothes and bowed back. “I made an oath to protect. A little water won’t stop me from that. Please, continue.”

The retinue looked at each other, but he supposed they accepted his logic, because they all passed back up the pier toward the mainland. As she walked by, the Princess offered his arm a little squeeze, and his heart leapt up into his mouth. 

Early the next day, a courier came by with a small package for him. Enclosed was a new pair of glasses, complete with a note. “Since you lost yours in pursuit of my bracelet, I thought it appropriate to find you a replacement. Thank you so much. I send my affections-- Princess.”

Mitsunari thought about pinning the note to his bedside table, but thought better of it. Without understanding why, he slipped it inside his pillowcase. 

#ikesen #ikemen sengoku #THP #To Honor And Protect #my writing #Tidal #arranged marriage #ikesen medieval AU #ikesen fantasy au #mitsunari ishida #ishida mitsunari #ikesen mitsunari #fantasy mitsunari #kenshin uesugi #uesugi kenshin #ikesen kenshin #shingen takeda #takeda shingen #ikesen shingen #sasuke sarutobi #sarutobi sasuke #ikesen sasuke #mitsuhide akechi #akechi mitsuhide #ikesen mitsuhide #hideyoshi toyotomi #toyotomi hideyoshi #ikesen hideyoshi #kennyo #ikesen kennyo

[ikesenhell]

The Surge

This is part seven of To Honor And Protect. You can find all other IkeSen works of mine here. NOTE: Some of this is violent/gory. While I would hope it isn’t considered excessive, you are forewarned.

On the western border, a second patrol was dispatched. 

The first one hadn’t come back from their simple reconnaissance. Some in the barracks grumbled about stupid greenhorns, out getting drunk. Some of them sighed and wondered how you could get lost on a straight path. But the officers worried silently, bolstered by Mitsuhide Akechi’s warnings. 

They found the first body halfway down the track. Were it not for his uniform boots they might not have recognized him at all. The mangled ruin of his torso scatted halfway across the grass, entrails wound around the tree where they found the second one. As for the other three, no amount of searching did any good. 

But clutched in the ruby-red, dripping fist of their unlucky comrade, they found a slip of paper. No--not paper. The men recoiled in fear when they realized it was skin, peeled raw from something inhuman, and branded deep into the flesh was an arcane sigil. 

Mitsunari wasn’t allowed a book in his cell. He tried asking, but they refused, doubtless on the grounds that something in it would assist his skills. His request for a piece of chalk was equally refused. 

“Look,” he sighed at the jailer. “I can’t do anything with that aside from draw. I just want to do a little bit of math to keep myself occupied.”

The soldier stared at him sideways. “How can we trust that you won’t make some kind of summoning circle with it?”

“That isn’t even how it works. I’d need something sharper than chalk to do anything.” 

No amount of words could convince them to fill his request. Defeated, Mitsunari took to counting bricks and calculating them with imaginary equations, solving each with frustrating ease. Time eked by. Each hour passed in agonizing slowness, and even trying his hand at meditation did little for his rushing thoughts. What of the Princess? Was she okay? His last vision of her was her tears, and he couldn’t take that. He’d made her cry. How could he forgive himself?

After a week, Kennyo and the King came to visit, flanked by Nobunaga and Hideyoshi. 

“Your Highness.” Despite his stiffness, Mitsunari forced himself to kneel. 

“It’s alright, Ishida.” The King motioned for him to stand. Kennyo was less forgiving. 

“Mage.” He thrust out a piece of paper, a symbol scrawled on it. “What does this mean?”

Mitsunari squinted at it, craning his neck forward. Hideyoshi coughed.

“My lord, he needs his glasses.” After a pause, the King nodded and Hideyoshi stepped forward, presenting Mitsunari with one of his pairs. 

“Oh! Thank you.” Settling them on his nose, he stared at the symbol again. It was... familiar. A thousand thoughts raced through his brain, sorting through each with calculator precision. Well, the symbology certainly wasn’t of a healing kind. It didn’t have the shape or make of a summoning spell in the strictest sense, nor was it some kind of dangerous contraption...

“I’m waiting.” Lord Kennyo snipped. 

“I’m afraid you’ll have to wait a bit longer.” Mitsunari answered as kindly as he could. He didn’t blame the man. How could you trust someone who used blood as a tool? “You have to understand, magical sigils aren’t easy to unpack. Each mage has their own that needs to be deciphered. There isn’t enough unity, obviously, for a uniform system to establish itself.”

“One of our patrols was attacked to the west.” Nobunaga explained. “Mutilated beyond recognition. Three are still missing. One had a piece of skin clutched in his hand, branded with this.”

Oh. Mitsunari hesitated, taking another look at the symbol. “Well...”

“Well?”

“I...” He paused. “I’m sorry. This will sound like a ploy, but I need to see my books.”

“You have books on this?” Kennyo raised both brows. 

“Yes. How else would I learn? I have to do some research on this. If I’m correct, this could be quite bad indeed. I think this is a repeat of the Great Army.”

All save Nobunaga paled. A hundred years ago though it was, the Great Army was not forgotten. It was the single reason for the banishment of magic in the whole region. Once, a great general had made a monstrous army of horrific, twisted creatures of flesh and blood, sending them into the world to destroy and conquer. But though all knew the history, what the books did not detail was how the combating armies stopped the surge--or how the creatures were made in the first place. 

“How?” Lord Kennyo demanded. “We outlawed and burned all the books we could find.”

“Respectfully speaking, not terribly well.” Mitsunari smiled. “I had a whole library of them growing up. May I get to them, please?”

Apparently they knew they had no choice. Reluctantly, the King motioned to the jailer, who unlocked the cell and freed Mitsunari. 

“But you stay in irons,” Kennyo added.

“Lord Kennyo,” Nobunaga noted, amusement in his voice, “If Mitsunari can create shields with blood and take lives, I highly doubt a mere manacle would stop him. If he’d cared to kill us, he would have done so long before now.”

Mitsunari didn’t add to the point (which was terribly correct, if he really put his mind to it). The King sighed and simply set them forward to the library.

They presented him the sample of flesh, which he sat in a clear box on the massive library table, and set to work. The King had the whole of the place locked down just for him, and the silence settled him. Sometimes Mitsunari wondered how he felt more akin with pages than people. If souls were concrete things, he swore his was made of paper and bled ink. Among his kin, he could lose himself.

Hideyoshi visited most, bringing him food and forcing him to eat. Nobunaga brought updates and Mitsuhide further information. Otherwise, the intrusions were few, and the problem weighty enough to keep his interest.

That was likely why he didn’t even notice the door open one day. 

In fairness, he was up on a ladder, poised with a book and balanced just so against the railing. A chair shuffled. Food said his unconscious mind, conjuring a Pavlovian response to Hideyoshi’s coming and goings, and so he gingerly stepped down, never shutting the page. There was too much to absorb. Feeling his way to the table by memory, he settled down into a stool and groped around for a pen, and--settled his hand on another hand. 

“Sorry!” He jerked it back, glancing up to flash a smile at Hideyoshi. But it wasn’t Hideyoshi. Not at all. Instead, a pair of bright eyes stared back at him, mouth poised to say something, dark ringlets of hair swirling over her neck.

Oh. 

He shot to his feet so fast that the chair crashed to the floor behind him. “Princess, I--” Did he bow? Did he kneel? She didn’t want him to kneel before, but he figured now was a good time. He tried to get down, but his heel caught on the edge of the chair and he staggered over instead, catching himself narrowly on the floorboards. 

“Are you okay?” She asked, going to him.

“I’m sorry--I didn’t hear you--” Mitsunari fumbled over his words. “I--I didn’t realize you would visit--”

“I’m not technically allowed to.” A shy, nervous smile crept over her. 

“Then...” He tried to steady himself, to push down the heavy want of his heart. “You shouldn’t be here. I can’t drag you into this mess.”

“I wanted to see you. I didn’t get to after...” She lamely motioned. “You know.”

A long silence passed between them. Eventually, Mitsunari extricated himself enough from the chair so he could kneel properly before her. “I’m sorry, my lady.”

“Stop that.” She was so soft and kind, her hand touching his shoulder. “Stop that. I told you not to do this.”

“But...” He swallowed. “I’m sorry. I told you I wouldn’t do that again. I said I’d never do it again, and then I did.”

“It wasn’t the same as last time.”

“It almost was,” he admitted miserably. “I thought about it. I imagined stringing him up by his neck and watching his neck break.”

Silence. “Why didn’t you?”

“Because--because I didn’t want to. And because you didn’t want me to.”

Soft as a feather, she put a hand on his hair, stroking her thumb over his flyaway locks, and he nearly wept from the kindness. “My mother used to say, ‘What you think first is what you used to believe, and what you think second is what you really believe’. You didn’t want to do it. You’re not the same person. You protected my father, and that man was already dead. Kenshin’s blade would have done him in long before then.”

The full weight of her mercy sank in his chest, and--without thinking--he dropped entirely onto his knees, resting his head forward against her thighs. For the barest second she paused. Then, tender as ever, she pet his head again. 

“Thank you,” he croaked, holding her calves. “Thank you. Thank you.”

The Princess said nothing, just hushed him and stroked his hair. 

She visited him often after that. He suspected she’d spoken to her father about it, because her presence wasn’t a surprise to any of the Nine that came by. While he shoved his face into a book in search of answers, she carefully organized his notes and transcribed them into something legible, did her own cross-referencing and research.

But it was all too late.

The first volley hit the castle at night. It rocked it straight to the core, sending books flying from shelves and scattering over floorboards. Mitsunari recovered himself just before the second one. 

Oh no. 

Shoving as many reference books as he could get his hands on into a bag, he slung it over his shoulder and snatched the sample off the table, tearing into the hallway. He met Hideyoshi halfway to the central hall. 

“What’s happening?!”

“Attack.” Hideyoshi gasped, tossing Mitsunari his sword. “Come on!”

They raced to the throne room. Soldiers scattered everywhere, guided by various members of the Nine, but there in the eye of the storm, Nobunaga, Kenshin, Lord Kennyo, the King, and the Princess stood.

“We need answers,” Kennyo demanded as soon as Mitsunari arrived. “Now.”

“If I could give you any, I would,” he breathed. 

“My lords,” Hideyoshi gasped for air. “We need to evacuate. The castle can’t hold this many bombardments.”

Kenshin frowned, delicate as ever. “I can hold off the forces outside long enough to buy you space to get to a safer place.”

“And I can escort you.” Nobunaga agreed.

“My daughter.” The King managed. “My daughter--she needs to leave the city. I can’t have her in here during a siege.”

“Respectfully, we are a man down, your highness. We can’t afford to stretch ourselves thinner than we are.”

“I can protect her.” Mitsunari volunteered before he could stop himself. “I can do it.”

“No.” Kennyo snapped. “You won’t touch her.”

“I don’t have to touch her to protect her.”

“Don’t play dumb with me. We all know you’re sharper than you behave.”

But the King was staring at Mitsunari, his dark eyes intent. “You broke the law to protect my daughter before.”

“That...” Mitsunari swallowed dry. “Yes, your Highness. I did.”

“And you would stop at nothing to do it again?”

“Your Lordship--” Kennyo started, but the other man held up a hand to stop him. 

Mitsunari sank to one knee before them, planting his sword in the ground before him. “My life would be forfeit before I let anyone have your daughter.”

The ground rocked again. In the windows behind them, a massive storm brewed black and serious, waves beating like a howling animal. And at last--at last, the King nodded. 

“Take my daughter away from here.”

“Your Highness!” Kennyo protested again, but Mitsunari rose to his knees and bowed. 

“Of course. Hideyoshi and Nobunaga can reach me wherever I am. Princess?”

Again, the whole castle rocked. It was too late for any discussion. Grabbing the Princess by her hand, he drew his sword and they sprinted toward her tower, leaving the others behind them. Kicking the door open to hasten their escape, Mitsunari paused only a moment to stare across the city. Rooftops glowed with flame, the screams of civilians echoing down the streets. Distantly, fleshy, horrible things scrambled between houses and shops, followed by the agonizing shrieks of the doomed. There was no exit from the City--not that way.

“Princess,” he gasped, “Stay close to me.”

They took the steps to the dock as swiftly as they could. Wrapping his cloak tight around her, Mitsunari grabbed the nearest boat and unwound its rope, settling her into the seat before they set off into the choppy waves. 

“Where are we going?” She yelled above the turbulent wind.

Mitsunari forced on a smile, trying to look more confident than he felt. “The Trinity Islands!”

#The Surge #THP #To Honor And Protect #Ikesen #Ikemen Sengoku #ikesen fic #my writing #mage mitsunari #ikesen mitsunari #mitsunari ishida #ishida mitsunari #ikesen medieval au #ikesen fantasy au #blood tw #violence tw #gore tw #Hideyoshi Toyotomi #toyotomi hideyoshi #ikesen hideyoshi #Nobunaga Oda #Oda Nobunaga #Ikesen Nobunaga #Kennyo #Lord Kennyo #Ikesen Kennyo #Kenshin Uesugi #Uesugi Kenshin #ikesen Kenshin

[ikesenhell]

From Air

The Measurement of Time: Chapter 3. You can find all other IkeSen works of mine here. NOTES: Kaiea is @boopbeepbopblarg ‘s lovely OC! Thanks for letting me use her!

Kaiea told him some time ago about the Trinity Island’s treacherous reputation, and it certainly lived up to that. The sailors desperately turned the boat back and forth and back and forth, struggling to find safe waters and not shred out the hull of the yacht. Finally they managed to find a small inlet. Without a second’s hesitation, Uesugi planted her foot on the railing and vaulted it, landing ankle deep in the water. Yukimura followed easily.

“I am not doing that,” Kaiea protested. “No way. I’ll break an ankle.”

Sasuke appraised the drop. The distance wasn’t unsafe by any measure, but he understood her hesitation. Before he could formulate a plan, Yukimura pulled himself back up onto the balustrade, holding out a hand to her. 

“Come on. I’ll help you in.”

She eyed him warily, but he jerked his head in a just come on motion and she obeyed. He propped himself up long enough to wrap a strong arm around her waist and pinned her against himself--and over they went, her surprised shriek echoing through the island. The ocean splashed over her cloak, but she was fine. Yukimura had even kept her from falling in the water or touching it. 

“You’re fine,” he mumbled at her, hefting her legs over his arm and carrying her to shore. His cheeks were red, but he set her down kindly anyway on the sand. 

And that just left him. Conjuring up distant memories of physical exercise, Sasuke finally took a running leap over the edge and landed. He wasn’t so graceful as the others. Wheeling in a frantic bid to stay on his feet, he splashed his knees into the water and was only stopped from faceplanting by Uesugi’s arm. 

“Nice.” She chuckled at him. “Not accustomed to physical exertion, are we?”

“I am a researcher, not a soldier.”

“Maybe you ought to consider that before volunteering yourself on a scouting mission next time.” She was blunt, but far from wrong. “Come on.”

Odd, smooth trees bent inward over them as they trekked to the island interior. Their supple bark swept upward to strangely human branches. Sasuke played his fingers across one, only for Kaiea to swat his hand away. 

“You don’t want to do that.”

“Why not?”

But she just shook her head, eyeing it warily. “It’s a little freaky. I’ll tell you when we’re off the island, but there are... these aren’t normal trees.”

He took that at its face and stopped touching it. They trudged through crushed leaves and at last, they reached the skeleton of a town. Once it was cute; he could see the wilted remnants of a garden overflowing its fence. Half of the cottages had collapsed. The ocean was unforgiving on buildings. Wind swirled through the relic of a time gone by, bringing with it the tang of salt. 

“Look.” Uesugi fell back beside Sasuke, motioning ahead of them. “Is that the place you dreamed of, too?”

It wasn’t a building anymore--not a whole one, at least. The belltower leaned hard into the wind, half of the walls supporting it collapsed... outward? That didn’t make much sense. As they grew closer, the sight before them puzzled him more. 

“If this wall had just collapsed, this wouldn’t appear like this.” He eyed where the timbers had scattered outward, pieces of debris flung into the woods. “It would have settled in one place.”

“That’s what I was just thinking.” Yukimura nudged a beam with his toe. “This looks like an explosion.”

Uesugi stepped fearlessly into the gap, drawing her sword. Yukimura handed his own to Sasuke, taking a spear for himself. “Know how to use that?”

“Barely.”

“Let’s hope you don’t have to learn.”

Kaiea went completely white at the implication. Yuki just took her hand and tugged him beside her. “Stick close and you’ll be just fine.”

The town hall interior was dark. Sasuke blinked until he could see again. Molding floorboards creaked dangerously underfoot, light lancing through cracks in the ceiling. Uesugi picked her way around a bell lodged deep in the floor. 

“There’s a library in here somewhere. We emptied it out and moved the contents into the Royal Library years ago,” Kaiea whispered. Her voice carried through the emptiness. “This is where Mitsunari Ishida and the Princess found the way to defeat the invasion of the City. It’s a shame it’s derelict. I would think they’d try to preserve this place.”

Uesugi shook her head. “This place was declared off limits decades ago by the prior Queen herself. I don’t know what prompted the declaration, but we’ve honored it ever since.”

“Hey. Come here.” Yuki motioned from a corner. “There’s more damage here, but this is different.”

The three of them joined him. At his feet, the floor had collapsed outward, the beams cracked up toward the sky--and in the dark, a set of stone steps heading downward.

“You know what I just realized?” Uesugi commented. “The island was on fire. Why is nothing burned down?”

As if answering them, a wind billowed up from the hole at their feet, carrying the smell of smoke and dust. Yuki squared his shoulders and spear. 

“Well. Nowhere to go but down, right?”

“Right.”

Yuki took point, taking the first tentative steps downward. Uesugi followed behind him, fiddling with a necklace she wore until it produced enough light to help them. Kaiea looked very much as if she’d rather stay up top. Even so, she swallowed her protests and slipped down behind the other two, Sasuke taking up the rear. 

The scent of smoke grew the further they descended. He tried to calculate the distance, but soon it escaped him. All he knew was that it was deep. Oppressive darkness pressed in around them, the faint green glow from Uesugi’s necklace the only thing that cut through to the hard stone walls around them. And at last--at last they reached the bottom floor, a scorched door resting in ashes before them.

“Well.” Yuki nudged the debris, peering into the room. “What the hell?”

The concrete walls were black with soot, scorch marks splayed over the walls and ceiling like fingers. Maybe once there was furniture in this room. Now it was nothing but thick, grey, crumbling ruin. When the four of them stepped inside, the walls pulsed, a faint orange light glowing around them. 

“What the hell is happening?” Uesugi muttered. 

Sasuke took a long look at the walls. “If I had to speculate? It’s a form of responsive magic. It feeds off the residual energy of human presence.”

“Great. That’s not reassuring, given the dream--and the thing in front of us.”

That thing was a coffin. He recognized it immediately--his dream was remarkably detailed. The lid was cracked open in pieces on the floor, its interior entirely empty except for some odd, twisting cables. 

“What the hell was in there?” Yuki asked, poking it with his spear. 

Bending over the inside, Sasuke took them into his hand and examined them. Nothing like this was in any of the books he knew. He looked to Kaiea for some kind of guidance, but she just shook her head, wide eyed and uncertain. 

“Here’s a thought,” Uesugi started slow. “Do you think this was... connected to something?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not sure how to articulate it. Like a binding?”

He twisted the cable and stared down the center of it. Bits of copper and twisted wires protruded from the end. “The metals inside this all conduct electricity. I’m suspecting that this was used to... power something, perhaps.”

“Power something?” Yuki echoed. “Power what?”

It was then that the thing appeared. 

Even afterward, Sasuke couldn’t have possibly described it. The closest he could get was a statue, massive and twisting, a dark nightmare of cogs and whirring pieces. Its eyes glowed a slanted orange. It stood maybe ten feet tall, its spidery fingers moving in jerks and stops. A chainmail vestment draped over its shoulders and secured at some sort of a waist. To what end he couldn’t imagine. It looked like a dream of a mechanical knight--and it drew out a massive greatsword, bringing it in a gleaming arc down toward them.

They scattered as it cleaved clear through the coffin. Fragments of stone shattered like missiles against the walls. Yuki planted himself solidly between Kaiea and it, brandishing his spear.

“Up the stairs!” Uesugi bellowed. “Get up them!”

The Metal Knight swung hard toward her. She reflexively planted her sword to parry, but it just hit her so hard that the impact flung her into the wall with a sickening thud. Yuki almost threw Kaiea up the steps. 

“Go! Go go! Sasuke, get up there!” 

But he couldn’t. He watched the Metal Knight take an earthquake step toward Uesugi and knew she wouldn’t make it. She’d taken a hell of an impact, and she was scrabbling to her feet, and that sword was coming down--

And he was between her and it before he could stop himself, sword lifted above his head to stop it. Steel locked. Sasuke braced himself for the inevitable crush under overwhelming power--

It didn’t come. 

Instead his sword arm glowed a wild, brilliant green. That energy rolled up through his shoulder and shot up into their swords, bracing like a shield between them. Uesugi threw her sword upward too, and a blue energy joined his, entwining like snakes around the greatsword pressing down on them--and it snapped back. 

Precious seconds were back in their hand. 

“Go!” She yelled. 

All four of them raced up the steps, taking them two and three at a time. Sasuke turned back in time to see the thing vanish, swirling out of existence like smoke, but he didn’t trust it. None of them stopped until they were well above ground, standing in the ruins of the Town Hall and waiting for it. It never came.

“What the hell?” Yuki gasped, his chest heaving. “What the hell? What the actual hell?”

“Fuck.” Uesugi panted. 

“I d-d-don’t think there was an-any record of th-th-that in the archives,” Kaiea managed. “Th-th-that shouldn’t b-b-be there.”

“How did you do that?” Uesugi rounded on Sasuke next, her mismatched eyes peering straight through him. 

“Frankly, I don’t know.” He shoved his glasses up and realized they were fogged from sweat. It didn’t feel safe enough to take them off, so he just squinted through it. “I don’t know what that was. I was told I can’t do magic.”

“That wasn’t just any magic. That’s something signature. The Nine could do that, and we still aren’t sure how.” She paused. “And then I did it. I’ve never been able to do that. I don’t even know how I did.”

Was it? Sasuke poured through his memory, searching desperately for any reason why. “I’m only a distant relative to Sarutobi, and he wasn’t a member of the Nine, anyway.”

“Can we please leave?” Kaiea jogged frantically back and forth between her feet. “It can’t get off the island, can it? We could just leave it here.”

“We don’t know that.” Yuki didn’t shift from his battle-ready pose. “We really don’t know that. I think it teleported in there.”

“Then theoretically,” Sasuke posited, “It could be anywhere.”

“But you could stop its swing.” Uesugi stared through him for one more moment. “Alright. We need to full retreat and do some investigation. Sarutobi, I hope you aren’t needed at your lab too much.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because.” She stepped closer to him, her white blonde hair swirling in the wind. “I’m recruiting you.”

#The Measurement Of Time #Ikesen fanfic #Ikemen Sengoku #Ikesen #Ikesen Sasuke #TMOT #Sasuke Sarutobi #Sarutobi Sasuke #My writing #Yukimura Sanada #Sanada Yukimura #Ikesen Yukimura #Boopbeepbopblarg's Kaiea #Kaiea #ikesen fantasy au #ikesen medieval au #uesugi MC #From Air

[ikesenhell]

Blood and Flame

This is part three of To Honor And Protect. You can find all other IkeSen works of mine here. NOTE: There is mention of pretty dark violence and some blood. 

Their lessons were postponed for the week. 

He understood, of course. His Highness wanted the Princess to spend as much time as possible with her betrothed before he returned south. No doubt there were plans drawn up and alliances secured, paperwork to fill out and wedding plans to make. Doubtless she was busy. Besides--it freed up his schedule again, leaving him with time to do some light reading. 

If he could get any done.

For some reason, he couldn’t stop thinking about her. She appeared in his head like a vision, clear as day--the way she swept around her study, her skirts swirling around her ankles like the rush of the ocean. The way those dark curls twisted and twined against her neck. The way her long fingers touched his arm, and her smile--oh, that smile, the memory alone leaving him breathless. It drove him to distraction. What was happening to him?

“Mitsunari.”

He started and blinked owlishly at the hand in front of him, fingers splayed over the text. Following it up to the inevitable conclusion, he smiled at Masamune. “Hi. I’m sorry.”

“I’m impressed.” The man grinned, his silver eyepatch glinting. “And I can’t tell at what, yet: either you can read straight through my hand, or you were so spaced out that for the last two minutes, you completely ignored me.”

“Wait, your hand was there that long?”

“Uh, yeah.”

Mitsunari tittered nervously, brushing back his hair. “I’m sorry. That was very rude of me.”

“Ah, I don’t care about that.” Masamune slumped into the chair across from him, setting a bowl of food down heavily on the table. “You haven’t eaten, so I brought you something.”

“Oh! Thank you!” His stomach growled loudly at the reminder, so Mitsunari shoved his book to the side and tucked in. Masamune cocked a brow at him. 

“What, you aren’t gonna try and multitask?”

“Mmm. Not right now.”

The second eyebrow joined the first. Mitsunari stared back around a messy mouthful of ramen noodles. “Mmmmmmmm?”

“What’s got you all tied up?”

“Tied up?” Mitsunari took a sip of broth, gingerly considering the question. “Nothing. I guess I’m just a bit distracted is all. I’m sure I’ll be better soon.”

“No shit.” Masamune appraised him carefully. “Something to do with the plans for the ball? Or the increased workload? You usually do well with it.”

It was odd that Masamune was so concerned. Granted, just as Hideyoshi bucked Mitsunari’s image of a bandit lord, Masamune long ago had proven himself more than just the hotheaded stuntman who begged for the position. No one had expected he would take over the cooking responsibilities single-handedly, nor did they anticipate his general interest in keeping morale high. Mitsunari considered his question seriously. 

“No. That’s all been fine. I’m not sure, if I’m honest. It’s been this way ever since the day after I served her Highness as a bodyguard.”

Masamune’s grin could cut a man in half. “Oh? Really, now?”

“Mhm. I’ve just been... you know.” He shrugged, tucking back into the food. “I’m sure this weird malaise will pass. Maybe I caught a little cold?”

“Oh, I’m sure that’s it.” How odd; he sounded so sarcastic. “Right. Anyway, you also got mail.”

“Did I?”

“I think it’s another assignment request. I haven’t checked it.” Masamune set the letter on the table and scooted back. “Anyway, I just wanted to bring you all that. I’ve got a bit of training. Yukimura roped me into sparring with Kenshin.”

Mitsunari winced. “I’ll be sure to pray for you.”

“Pray for me? Shit, this is gonna be great. Pray for our blades.” And with that scything grin, he turned on his heel and left. Mid-spoonful of broth, Mitsunari shredded open the envelope. 

“Need a friend to go on a walk with me. Would you be available tonight? If so, please come to the tower at ten. Be discrete.”

He opened the door to step out and ran into Hideyoshi--almost quite literally.

“Oh!” Mitsunari stepped back. “I’m so sorry!”

“No, I’m sorry, I--” Hideyoshi trailed off, realizing all at once that the man before him was dressed in a thick cloak and unmarked training clothing. His eyes narrowed. “Where are you going?”

“I...” Hells. He was bad at lying and knew it. Casting his eyes around the room, he finally gave up the ghost. Besides, it was bad form to lie to your superior. “I got a request.”

“A request?”

“Yes.” He produced the letter. “The Princess wishes to go on a walk, and she asked that I be discrete.”

This apparently didn’t satisfy Hideyoshi. His face went through a range of expressions before settling on suspicion. “For what purpose?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t?”

“No?” Should he? He read the letter again as if it held some secret he hadn’t caught on to. “I suppose she just wanted to be left alone?”

Those hazel eyes scanned him for one long moment, and then he sighed. “Fine. Well, make sure you keep her safe.”

“Of course.”

“And--” Hideyoshi paused. “And don’t tell anyone else you’re doing this, letter or otherwise. It could look bad.”

Well, that was possible. No doubt Lord Kennyo wouldn’t like his fiancee going out at night. Perhaps he’d worry about her safety overmuch. Nodding in assent, Mitsunari wished his superior a good night and slipped out the door. 

He met the Princess on the first floor of the tower as requested. Her cloak was pulled high over her head, the curls tucked back where no one could see. As soon as he stepped in, her whole expression illuminated. 

“You came!”

“Of course I did.” Mitsunari smiled back at her. He really had to find that candle--the second he stepped inside, his whole heart calmed. “Where to tonight?”

“I wanted to go to the docks again. I like listening to the waves.”

“Then let’s be off.”

They traversed the slick steps down the cliffs carefully. The Princess refused a lantern on the grounds that it made them too obvious, so it was up to the light of the moon and stars to guide their way. Mitsunari went before her, his hand extended backwards and stabilizing hers, but when they reached the bottom and the whole ocean lay before them, he had to admit it was a stunning sight. Chill wind snapped at their hands and faces. Still she smiled. 

“Perfect,” she sighed, and tread along the docks. He followed after her, stifling his footsteps as best he knew how. It felt wrong to intrude. Her footsteps creaked gently on the planks, breath spiraling skyward. Was he dreaming? It felt that way. Something about the vast, open stretch of ocean before them, the infinite sky above, and her, small but prominent and beautiful nonetheless, and he wasn’t convinced he was conscious. He stopped at some point to soak it all in, because she turned on her heel and smiled at him, her eyes brilliant in the dark. “Are you coming?”

“Oh! Yes.” He hurried after her. “Sorry.”

“What were you thinking about?”

“Just how lovely everything was.”

Her only response was a smile, and that made every star in the sky pale in comparison. Side by side they walked the length of the pier, standing at the last stretch toward the Trinity Islands. 

“You know,” she laughed, “I don’t know how to swim.”

“You don’t?” He stared aghast at her. “And you live on the edge of an ocean?”

“I know. It feels like a tragedy waiting to happen. I should do something about that.”

He didn’t connect the dots between her answer and her suddenly drawing off her cloak and folding it, nor did he connect it to her slipping off her leather boots. He did, however, understand when she took one step off the dock and plunged into the icy water. 

“Princess!” He gasped, lunging forward, but she was just fine. She clutched at the edge of the dock, smiling up at him.

“This is colder than I expected.” Her laughter echoed across the docks. “Come on in and help me!” As he was going to help her out, she brushed off his hands. “No no, help me swim.”

Oh. Oh. Mitsunari thought about it for one moment, finally deciding that--well, yes, it was a security concern that she couldn’t swim, plus she was in the water anyway, and, well--

He folded his cloak and placed it by hers, removing his boots and setting them alongside their effects. Bracing himself for the shock, he swung off the edge and dipped himself into the frozen waves. 

“You know, Princess,” he remarked with a smile, “I’m certain everyone will worry if you come back soaked.”

“Oh, nevermind that. I’ll just say I fell in. Clumsy me. Now show me how.”

Guiding her arms away from the dock, Mitsunari braced her against his chest for stability. “Alright, first you have to kick your legs, like so.”

“I can’t see that, Mitsunari.” 

He smiled bashfully. She was right, after all. Reaching under the water, he steered her legs by hand to imitate his. “Like that.”

“Okay.”

“And you balance yourself with your arms, like I’m doing now. That’s how best to tread water, at least. It’s harder in stronger tides--in a lake, it’s much calmer than this.”

“I’d imagine.” She stretched her arms out wide and laughed. “I feel ridiculous.”

Mitsunari chuckled. “You don’t look ridiculous.”

“Oh?” She tossed the whole of her sodden curls, grinning at him. Starlight glinted off her skin, shimmering on the rolling waves around them. “Then how do I look?”

“Beautiful,” he answered, honest and well-intentioned. “And like a woman learning how to swim. Are you ready for me to let go?”

“You won’t let me sink, will you?”

“Never.”

He released her by increments, the icy waves rolling in to steal the warmth she’d given him, and almost immediately she dipped beneath the water. Mitsunari fished her out with a free hand, and she sputtered to the surface laughing and kicking. “Oh!”

“Are you alright?”

“Just fine! It’s harder than it looks!”

“I suppose it is.” He laughed and drew her back in again, balancing her with a hand and clutching to the dock. “Maybe we should try again some other time, when it isn’t freezing cold and dark.”

“Oh, fine. That’s fair.”

He hoisted her up first, clambering up after. Apparently some nail was sticking out of the planks, because it sliced straight through his hand. Blood spattered dark onto the wood. 

“Oh, would you look at that?” He remarked mildly. The Princess’ eyes went wide. 

“How--how did that not hurt? Are you okay?” Her hands flew to his, turning it over in the moonlight. “We should get you some attention for that.”

“It’s fine.” Smiling reassuringly back at her, he closed his hand and watched the blood seep between his fingers. “I barely even feel it.”

The question lingered in her eyes. Mitsunari paused, the cold air sweeping over the two of them. “Should we just head back, or...?”

“Maybe we should drip dry a little first. I shouldn’t track water through the whole of the city. And...” She eyed his hand again. “Should--would you--”

“Tell you the story?” 

The Princess went very quiet for a long moment before answering. “Yes.”

Where did he even begin? Mitsunari listened to the quiet dripping of blood on wood before clearing his throat. “I knew I could do it from a young age. Some people take well to such things. I was little, and we were a remote lordship, and I had access to a lot of books most people didn’t have anymore. We had entire collections long purged from elsewhere--and that included the arcane. My mother knew the arts. She mostly did small things: healing charms, and things like that.”

“I didn’t know you even could do that.”

“Oh! Of course.” He smiled at her. “There are all kinds. I know most people don’t hear about that sort anymore. It was lost to time. But the other things--darker things. We had that too. And I read that as well.”

He paused. “I told myself at the time it was purely for intellectual purposes. I think I even really meant it. But then my father passed, and my mother got sick--and here I was, poised to become the next lord of the domain. I didn’t want it. Not like that. Not as it was. And I was young at the time.”

“So what did you do?”

Mitsunari cast his gaze over the Northern Sea. “I heard rumors that a few of the local leaders were planning on poisoning me and my mother and seizing control. This wasn’t normal, nor was it a sure thing, but I was desperate and convinced that they were behind her illness. So I invited them all to a feast at the palace. I wasn’t so foolish as to think I could handle them all in combat, so...” 

The Princess cupped her cold hands around his clean palm. “What then?”

“The... the thing you must understand, Princess, is how magic works. You can’t give and give and expect the universe to keep giving. It takes, too. If you shift the curtain of reality to allow one thing to happen, it rustles and shutters the next thing. It requires a sacrifice.” With that, he squeezed his bloody hand shut and watched it swirl into the air, vibrating and pulsing until it transformed into a wild flame, drying their clothes and warming her. She gasped. “And I won’t lie to you and say that I didn’t know that. I did. It was the letter of the law, and I wasn’t about to make my mother or myself pay that price. So...” He sighed, then ripped off the bandage. “So I killed the first of them and used him as one. It would be a disservice to describe to you the scene after that. I can only tell you it was horrible.”

“I...” She paused. “I heard you ripped out their eyes with the man’s blood and then gorged them on their own.” 

He averted his eyes, too ashamed to confirm it. He didn’t have to. She knew. “And after that? After I went to all those lengths?” He huffed a laugh. “Mother died anyway. It was stupid of me to think that somehow, doing that would save her, but I truly... No, I won’d say that. It would be impolite at best to say I wasn’t in my right mind. I did it anyway. It doesn’t much matter if I was. I had long enough to calculate and assess, and I did, and I never turned back. I even took the last one as a hostage. I knew that if word spread, the City would send their guard to get me. Sure enough, they did, and I used the last one to spread a shield over the townspeople. They didn’t need to suffer for my decisions.”

“Were...” She hesitated. “Were they even really plotting against you?”

Mitsunari fixed his eyes on the flame, considering a long time. “I never saw proof. As best as I know, I sent innocent eight men to a brutal grave. All I can hope or now is to serve and protect as many as possible inside the City. It’s more than I deserve, and I intend to make good on that.”

As he came back to himself, he realized with a start that she was still holding his hand. Why? He stared at it, wondering when she would let go, recoil, move away and abandon him on the dock. And yet--and yet she didn’t. No. She clutched tighter yet. 

“That flame. Can I touch it?”

“That?” Mitsunari wrapped his hand around it and guided it between them. “It’s safe. Just heat, really.” 

At last she released him, moving her hands back and forth through it. A moment. She smiled cautiously, then did it again. “I’ve never--I’ve never seen magic. It’s been forbidden for hundreds of years, I never thought I’d see it.” 

“It’s our secret.” He smiled at her. “I’m sorry. I know you didn’t need to hear all of this.”

“No. I did.” And her hands were back again, slipping between his, but they were warm now, and it radiated all the way through him. “I don’t know what to say. It’s terrible. It’s horrific. But... I don’t know. I can’t reconcile it to you. I can’t imagine you doing the same now.”

“I wouldn’t. Never again. I promised myself and all of those men that I’d never make that mistake.”

“Never ever?” 

“Not that I know of.” Mitsunari smiled as cheerily as he could. “Not unless it was the only thing I could do to protect the City.”

They were dry at last. Together they slipped on their boots and cloaks and he put out the flame with a hand, trudging up the slick steps as a pair, and when he took her to the door of the tower, she turned to face him. 

“Mitsunari?”

“Yes, Princess?”

She fixed him with that bright gaze and declared firmly, “I’m fond of you anyway.”

He felt his smile clear down to his toes. “I’m honored.”

“I mean it. Really and truly. It doesn’t erase the past, but I am. I’m fond of you.”

What else could he say? He knelt before her and took her hand in his, gentle as could be, and kissed the back of it. “It’s more than I deserve, and it’s all I could ever ask for. Thank you, Princess.”

With that, she gave him a wide smile and opened the doorway, disappearing inside. He knelt there for a while longer, radiating in the warmth she’d left behind. 

#To Honor And Protect #THP #ikesen #ikemen sengoku #ikesen fanfic #my writing #mitsunari ishida #ishida mitsunari #ikesen mitsunari #ikesen fantasy au #fantasy mitsunari #ikesen medieval AU #Masamune Date #Date Masamune #ikesen Masamune #Hideyoshi Toyotomi #Toyotomi Hideyoshi #Ikesen Hideyoshi #horror elements #slight horror tw #slight blood tw #blood tw