~ Oneshot Collection: Loved ~

A/N: My braintwin, naqaashi and I came up with the idea to write complementary Sengoku Basara stories. We are using 100 prompts from the Livejournal community Fanfic100.

To that end, we will write two collections of stories. Hers is called Beloved while mine is called Loved. Our collections will feature 100 standalone drabbles/one-shots each. Each individual chapter in these collections will have a common theme/premise and prompt, with the chapter itself being our interpretation of that prompt and theme.

We will update at the same time. To properly enjoy our stories, please read both of them together!

Prompt: Beginnings

Premise: Yukimura loses an eye.

I

The Right Side Of Night

The wound is fire.

That, he expects.

It is the same as all the other things that are Yukimura., and as long as that is all it is, even if the agony is sharp and quick as flame he can handle it.

There is more that he is not expecting.

The dreams – the dreams in which he has two good eyes, the dream of the blade descending, hot and furious as it pierces the tender flesh below his right eye and then rips upward – the dream of the blood that flows in a warm flood down his face, a flow that he feels even as he wakes, gasping, clutching at his eye.

The ache – the hollow ache, the dull pain of twitching muscles that are always turning an eye he does not have in directions he cannot see. The crawling sensation of blindness on one side, the paranoia that grips him at every sound, every footstep -

But it is the loss of his prowess that strikes him worse of all. Distance changes uncertainly; his blind spot is enormous; he is always vulnerable from his right side.

Worse than all of this is the change in his heart, which he will not admit even to himself.

Yukimura is afraid now. He is afraid that death will come and take him unawares.

He is afraid that now, his death will be ignominious.

He is afraid that glory is forever beyond his reach.

He has forgotten that his chosen foe is the One-Eyed Dragon.

The One-Eyed Dragon has not forgotten him.

Two battles follow the altercation that cost Yukimura his eye; in both of them, Masamune leads the armies of Oushu to crushing victory; in both of them, he observes at a distance the Tiger of Kai leading his own forces...without Yukimura.

It is Yukimura that Masamune is waiting for, looking for, as his blades run through enemy samurai like lightning, like water. The first time, when he does not see him, his immediate thought is to turn around – for though Kojuurou is with him, if Yukimura is not in front of him, he must be behind.

Yukimura is not anywhere, and Masamune wonders – but his thoughts are distracted by the eager fount of battle spilling over all around him, and he turns back to the art of war with signature aptitude.

The second time, a week has passed. His spies report no sign of Sanada Yukimura anywhere; the land is quiet and still and then battle comes again, as it does, and in its depths he sees the standard flying over the head of the Tiger of Kai, and his heart leaps -

And then is silenced. There is a quaver in him now, a worry that will not be quenched without knowledge. His eyes fixes across the battlefield on the Tiger of Kai, and he hears a foolish shout in his memory that he hopes has not been silenced forever -

"Oyakata-sama!"

Impulsively, as he makes most decisions, Masamune rushes the battlefield alone.

"Kojuurou! There's something I need to do. Cover me."

A half-shouted warning, a tone of displeasure, is not enough to keep him still, and in three minutes Masamune proves his reputation as Dokuganryu, because he is standing unthreatened before the Tiger of Kai, and he isn't even breathing hard.

The greeting he gets is nothing like he imagined.

"So! I wondered if you would come to me this time, Date Masamune, Dokuganryu. I tried to bring Yukimura with me, but he is not to be moved – even if watching you, fighting you, is just the thing to help him!"

Masamune raises an eyebrow, sheathes his swords.

"Is that so?"

The Tiger of Kai gains a grim and serious face.

"Yukimura was wounded in his last battle, Dokuganryu. He is more your mirror now than ever; he has lost his eye."

And Masamune stares, and stares, and stares.

And then he chuckles.

"Well, what are you waiting for? We have a battle to fight!"

His eye narrows to a blue crescent of cutting intensity.

"And then we'll be leaving together, you and I. You're taking me to him, you see?"

The Tiger of Kai does not disagree.

Yukimura sat in the courtyard of a conquered shiro, watching idly from his one good eye as flower petals and leaves fell from well-planned plantings, fanning out on the surface of his sake – pink petal, blue petal, red-tinted leaf. It was not his first drink of the night, and he did not plan for it to be his last, but the red threads of fate that have tied his life together are twisting into a strong and slender rope – by chance, and through pain, the path to all he desires has opened.

Masamune came quietly, taking note of the subconscious cocking of Yukimura's head to every sound on the right side. It brought him to an easy conclusion.

His fist slammed out of nowhere, gave Yukimura no warning, and in half a second Yukimura was flat on his back, protecting his face with his hands and kicking out in the direction of a foe he had not yet seen.

When he did look up, he saw Masamune standing over him, dressed casually in white haori and blue hakama. For the first time, Yukimura's gaze fixed on the blank side of Masamune's face, on the black patch that is not-quite-hidden by the soft fall of his hair.

"What is it you're doing, Red?"

Yukimura started, scowled, and pushed himself to his feet. Masamune didn't offer his hand; Yukimura wouldn't have taken it if he had.

"Drinking – until you spilled my sake."

"Your fault – you were rude, Red."

"Don't call me that – and I wasn't rude."

He turned away and showed Masamune his back. Masamune was not deterred. Yukimura heard sake pouring, the dull, faint thud of the bottle being placed down on the grass.

"You missed our date. Two entire battles without you – so I came looking for you, you see? I thought you'd let someone else kill you – but apparently you've been sitting here the whole time -"

Yukimura's face grew dark at the mocking tones in Masamune's voice, and he turned swiftly to face the man his heart had chosen as foe and focus.

"You -"

But he stopped, because he had been about to say you don't know, you don't understand – and he was aware, as he stared into Masamune's face, that here was one man who did know – who did understand. It hit him suddenly, more heavily than the blow to the face.

Dokuganryu.

The One-Eyed Dragon – one of the most feared of all samurai, powerful, strong – there was no foe he could not conquer, no man he feared. Faint echoes of bitterness sang in him, tightened the line of jaw and throat – and then Masamune reached out, and traced that shivering line of tension with callused fingers, testing.

Yukimura gasped; for no reason he could explain the gentle touch was like flame, a line of heat that flared and shot through his body to his loins.

Masamune spoke quietly, thoughtfully, his fingers still moving, reaching up now to run through Yukimura's bangs, hanging shaggy over his bandage.

"Your master was right, Sanada Yukimura."

He enunciated the name slowly, perfectly. The sound of it sent a shiver through Yukimura's whole body.

"He is more your mirror now than ever, he said. And you even lost your right eye...the right eye..."

His wandering fingers moved lightly over the bandage, and then down the other side of Yukimura's face to his throat, the lean line of dancing muscle, the throbbing pulse invisible beneath the skin.

"I know your feeling, Red. I know everything you've been thinking and all of your worries and the fear you're hiding – the fear that keeps you away from the battlefield -"

And suddenly, hearing the words, Yukimura knows both that they are truth, and that they are the last thing he wants to hear. A thousand thoughts cross his mind in a moment; he grasps at any possibility, any idea that might shut Masamune up.

In the crossfire of sensations and feelings and fears, there is one idea that seems terribly, terribly good – or terribly, terribly bad.

Before he could decide which, before he could second himself, Yukimura acted. He pressed his lips against Masamune's lips, and had only a single moment to be surprised at the softness of them before Masamune pulled away, a strange glint in his eye now, a stranger smile on his face.

"What are you doing? That's how you kiss a woman! I'm no woman, Red."

What follows is a firestorm, a typhoon, a merging of opposite natures into one scattered being. Yukimura's breaths are ragged, torn by desire and inexperience and the knowledge rushing through him, the knowledge he knows Masamune shares.

All their battles have been building to this, every bloodletting a prelude to these moments of torn silk and throbbing flesh in tandem. Yukimura's hands are everywhere; Masamune's tongue traces a line down Yukimura's chest, tasting sweat and spilled sake.

"I will fight you every day, Sanada Yukimura."

Yukimura closes his eyes and lets that shiver traverse his skin again. The fear is fading away, only half-recognized; Masamune's presence is enough to bring back what he needs, to remind him:

His life is built on luck and training; he is one of the strong, and he will be stronger still. Even now; especially now.

"I will fight back, Date Masamune."

He feels Masamune's smile against his mouth as his hakama and fundoshi fall away.

"I'm counting on it."

After that, what is beginning between them requires no words.

Fin

Don't forget to read Beloved by naqaashi!

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