Chapter Text
It was impossible to pinpoint exactly when it happened.
Maybe it was when she had scoffed in his face after he'd ordered her to brew him tea one evening, the first day he'd gone under her protection. The servants in his house had never failed to provide him with hot tea and fresh desserts whenever he'd requested. It was relaxing and helped him to focus on his studies, let alone aided in a peaceful night's sleep. That dismissive chuckle he got as she plopped down onto her futon and closed her eyes, that flippant smirk on her face in response had nearly left the shugenja reeling on the spot.
Or was it when he'd been crying at night, childishly wallowing in the discomfort of having to sleep on anything but a thousand ryo worth of blankets and pillows for the first time in his life? He'd tossed and turned, sniffles breaking the silence of the night until eventually the ronin grumbled about whiny rich boys and their porcelain skin before sliding her own pillow to his side of their tiny rented room. It didn't make a difference; both were threadbare and thin as a sheet, but he tucked it under his own tear-soaked pillow nonetheless, trying and failing to ignore the chill in the air that made his wet cheeks sting.
Or maybe, just maybe, it was simple moments like this one that had done something irreversible to his image of her. Something that made this dirty, sweaty, vulgar ronin into so much more in his eyes. Something that, somewhere along the line between employer and bodyguard, had made him her shugenja and her his Akane.
Akane was sitting across the room from him now, rubbing at the blade of her katana while the kid pretended to read spell scrolls in a poor attempt to hide how his attention was really fixed on the side of her unwashed face.
They would be in the Capital soon, making a beeline for the renowned Sleeping Duck inn that Masashi would trade an arm and a leg to be in right now, but for tonight, just for one night as Akane had stressed, they were hunkered down in a much smaller and much more tattered establishment just on the outskirts of their destination.
The room had a single window facing the South, allowing little to no light inside, but the sunset was painting the sky orange which in turn tinted the room with a dull glow. Akane's blade was less its normal silver and more a pale copper in this light.
Her hair was greasy, had obviously not seen soap of any kind in God knew how long. A smell clung to her that wasn't unpleasant, but distinctly reminded Masashi of sweat and something else salty that he could not place. She looked every part a ronin, a skilled sell-sword who cared less about her appearance and more about her katana arm.
Masashi had only glimpsed her bare arms a single time thus far. Her kimono sleeves had fallen back as she had raised her katana a few days ago to a sleazy, drunken man who had called the shugenja pretty and tried to touch his long black hair. They were muscular arms, the kind one might frequently see on men more than women, but somehow on Akane those lean muscles fit her perfectly.
"Hey kid."
Her voice made Masashi flinch in surprise, averting his eyes and trying to shake those intrusive thoughts from his mind. He straightened and cleared his throat, smoothing out his scroll on the tatami mat.
"Y-Yes? Is there a justification for this disturbance?"
"Was just wonderin' if you're gonna eat tonight," she shrugged, sheathing her katana with a soft click.
"Wha- Of course I plan to eat, you ruffian!" the kid cried out, leaning forward on his hands before collecting himself. "How can you ask that?! I expect you to be useful for once and acquire our dinner, least I am forced to go out and scrounge some meager sustenance up myself as usual!"
The ronin sighed, shook her head, and pushed herself to her feet, taking her katana with her. It was beyond Masashi why she insisted on taking that thing everywhere she went, even at times like getting food or using the restroom. The weapon never left her side - never. Sometimes Masashi wondered if she valued it more than her own life. If he thought about it, in a way, that blade was her life. And under her protection, now it was his as well.
"Damn brat," she muttered as she left, shaking her long hair over her shoulder and not bothering to slide the rice paper door closed behind her. Masashi huffed in annoyance as he got up to close it himself, intentionally stomping his feet.
It didn't hurt when she said things like that. There was never any bite to it; never more than the nip of a mosquito's sting. It didn't hurt, because the shugenja knew she didn't mean it. If she did, she wouldn't have even asked if he was hungry in the first place. She would have never even taken this job.
The shugenja finally managed to get some reading done while she was out of the room. When she returned a while later with two bowls of rice and a plate of small lumps that may or may not have been pork dumplings, she set their bowls down across from each other with the plate in the middle, and Masashi scooted over with a grumble to pick up his chopsticks.
"This was the best you could do?" he mumbled around a mouthful of rice that was far too moist, almost sticky in texture. He had been raised to not speak with his mouth full, as was proper, but in Akane's presence he noticed these practiced formalities were beginning to slip more and more often.
"Less whining, more eating your... things," she ordered, poking at their sad little dumplings. One toppled over and nearly deflated in the process. Masashi shuddered.
"What's wrong?" She plucked up a dumpling and leaned forward with a smirk, waving it like beckoning a dog. "Want this humble servant to feed you, my young master?"
The kid had enough time to glance from the dumpling to her smug face before his cheeks burned. He leaned back, covering his mouth with a hand. "B-baka! None of my servants feed me! I'm not a... a child!"
"You nobles..." she sighed out, bitter as a tepid cup of black tea.
The kid refused to look at her, pouting down at the floor. A petty side of him wanted her to know she had hurt him, even if her useless teasing did anything but. It was more embarrassing and degrading than painful. Masashi's mother could dote over him like that, but when Akane did it, even as a joke... Of all people, he didn't want her to see him as a child. He didn't know why exactly, but the thought of that hurt more than any words could.
They ate in silence until Masashi finished his rice and promptly turned to crawl back to his scroll on his hands and knees, still pouting.
"Hey."
He stopped and sat up on his knees, looking over his shoulder. His bodyguard pushed the plate of dumplings forward with an index finger. It caught on the mats and almost toppled over.
"Eat up. You're a growing boy."
She had set her own chopsticks down and was wiping messily at her mouth with the back of her hand, her other hand holding the hilt of the katana in her lap like she was dying to get back to pampering it. Masashi didn't know why his chest ached to think about it that way.
"I don't want those," he lied out of spite.
They looked unsavory, but his mouth watered at the thought of them. It wasn't that they were poor; the shugenja had enough ryo from his father to cover the expense of their lodgings and food for quite some time. It was the establishments they'd been staying in that lacked. After eating meals his whole life cooked by a professional chef, cheap inn food left much to be desired and then some.
"Eat them, or I really will feed you. Forcefully." She looked to him with hard eyes, no longer joking, so Masashi frowned and scooted back over to take the plate.
"You're abhorrent," he whispered with a sniffle, though gratefully plucked a dumpling up and stuffed it into his mouth. They didn't taste nearly as bad as they looked.
"Dunno what that means," the ronin replied, smiling in that rough, lopsided way she did when she knew she had won. "But I'll take it as a compliment."
With that, she turned her back to him, once again unsheathing her katana.
The longer he stared at the blood soaking through the bandages across her stomach, the deeper the guilt and sickness burned through his core until it was almost too much to bear.
Akane and Jun... What she was to him. What he was to her. Wild thoughts and suspicions tore through his mind without consent, like the hands that had grabbed him, petted his hair, and almost slit his throat open.
Akane just laid there and slept through it all. If it weren't for Momoko's reassurances, Masashi would have worried himself sick about whether she was still alive or not, or if she was at risk of passing away in her sleep. And even with Momoko's consolation, that horrible possibility still clung to the forefront of his mind.
He stayed close to her for most of the day because he didn't know what else to do. Their time on the road so far was somber. Aside from Hatch single-handedly attempting to be the group's main source of cheerfulness and entertainment, everyone carried on quietly, as if they were taking Akane to her burial site instead of escorting her away from Jijinto to safety.
Masashi hated it. He hated it so much that he complained to their horse, Kiso-chan, then even told Akane herself so, hunching over her when they were alone in the back of the cart. Momoko told him that he was a good nurse in training watching over her wounds like this, but Masashi knew Momoko let him be alone with Akane more than any of the others in the group not because of any budding medical skills, but because the doctor knew about the extent of his guilt. Maybe they all did.
"You're just so stupid..." Masashi whispered to her now in a fit of childish frustration. How dare she do this to him? How dare she almost leave him all alone? "You're so dumb to let him do that!"
Akane's unconscious face betrayed nothing, not even a twitch. Her short, masculine haircut courtesy of Ume-Ume messily framed her forehead. Masashi wanted to slap her cheeks until she woke up and yelled for him to stop.
"Why didn't you fight back?!" he hissed out, grabbing the sleeve of her open kimono. "Why did you just let him..?!"
"Hashimoto-san."
He flinched and peeked towards the back of the cart to see Toshio keeping pace behind it. The shugenja wondered in embarrassment how long he had been lingering there.
"Y-Yes, Toshio-san?"
Toshio didn't respond immediately. Instead, he smiled in a gentle way he only seemed to do for Masashi, looking down to Akane's still form and then back to the young shugenja's face. The kid's small hands let go of her sleeve to twist uneasily in his lap.
"What do you think Akane-san would say to you," Toshio asked, "if she were awake right now?"
Fittingly, Masashi's mind cycled through infinite insults, countless complaints, and vulgar mutterings. He knew Akane well enough by now. She would grumble that she was hungry. She would complain about how long this was taking. She would say she wanted to get someplace warm and find the nearest joint to pour sake down her throat.
Wouldn't she?
Masashi looked down to her now and wasn't so sure. Toshio gave him a helpful but annoyingly vague piece of his mind.
"I do not think there are many things in this world Akane-san would not do for you, Hashimoto-san. In fact, were it not for you, I do not believe she would even be here right now."
"What?" Masashi grumbled, looking up with a glare. "I implore you to think about what you're saying, Toshio-san... She is here right now because of me, but you make that sound like it is a feat to be celebrated. Her being in this state... why would I be happy about that?"
If anything, Toshio's patient smile softened.
"When I was younger, Hashimoto-san, I once heard a story about a mother and a child who were trapped within a burning building. Stricken with panic, the mother froze on the spot and would have been devoured by flames if not for the sharp cries of her baby in the other room. The only thing separating the two was a large wooden pillar that had fallen, one that weighed a hundred times the woman's weight. Though, at the sight of her beloved child in danger, miraculously, she found the strength of a hundred men, lifted that pillar, and escaped safely from that building with her child in her arms. Have you heard of this tale?"
"Well... Something akin to that sounds familiar..." Masashi stared down at the red dots peering through Akane's off-white bandages. It almost matched the shade of his own clothing. "Please do not tell me you're equating the likes of Akane to that of a loving mother."
Toshio chuckled, looking down to the dirt beneath his feet.
"Such a comparison doesn't feel quite right, does it? No, I am not, and I hope you recognize that is not what's important about this story. The possession of motherhood is not what makes Akane similar to the woman in the tale. In fact, I dare say that her womanhood has nothing to do with it at all. Rather, it is her will to fight, Hashimoto-san, and the undeniable source of her strength that make the two comparable."
Masashi continued to stare down at those bandages in favor of looking Toshio in the face. For some reason, perhaps the mention of burning buildings or children being carried to safety, his thoughts returned to the Lion Temple, when Akane had swept him up like a maiden and leapt from the rooftop with him in her arms. His face grew warm at the memory.
Such a thought also brought back another uncomfortable memory with it. One much more recent. One that still lingered on his neck with a dull ache and made Akane's torso look like it had been the canvas of a painter particular of the color red.
What had Akane said then? "I could only ever love you, Jun"?
Masashi's face burned once more, but with an entirely different emotion.
"Even if what you say is true, Akane still..." The kid stopped. Took a deep breath and closed his eyes. It didn't help much. If anything, he saw the scene replay perfectly in the darkness of his eyelids. "She failed to display any of that 'strength' against this man, Toshio-san. She was going to- to kill him, but it was as if her body shut down. Even in that moment of great danger, that peril in your story when the mother's house is ablaze and the child is crying, I saw Akane hesitate... She stopped, a-almost like she lo..."
Loves him more than me.
Masashi shifted awkwardly while Toshio waited for him to finish his sentence, but he never would. He couldn't. He felt foolish to even think it. He felt like a child. Though the words were never said, Toshio seemed to understand them all the same.
"There is indeed something about this man that we do not yet know. Something that no one but Akane knows. I promise I will help to uncover the truth about it, Hashimoto-san. Both for your sake and for the sake of this mission."
Toshio stepped away with a polite nod after that, but Masashi remained tense and self-conscious as if he were still being watched. The only person nearby capable of doing so was deep in unconsciousness. Regardless, he reached out towards Akane slowly, as if she could see him now. Half of him expected her to shoo his hand away, but she didn't move an inch save for her bound chest rising and falling.
Masashi dared to touch her face with the tips of his fingers, tracing faint scars there. It was odd; the skin of her cheeks was soft even though her face was usually so intimidating and guarded.
"Baka," he whispered, thinking of their encounter with Jun, of Toshio's story, of him being the one thing capable of saving Akane from perishing within her figurative burning building.
He sniffled and tried to contain the tears, but, when they fell anyway, he hide them against the bindings on Akane's chest, hugging her muscular arm to him. He turned his face and pressed his nose to her neck, trying to focus on her heartbeat. It was barely audible through the cloth bandages.
Without warning, there was a sudden muffled noise from her throat as she stirred beneath his weight, the first sign of movement since Masashi had seen her writhing in pain beneath Jun's blade. He pulled back, his eyes widening. Her face was contorted in pain.
"Akane...?"
"Nngh... Jun..."
He watched her eyebrows furrow, her lips part ever so slightly as she moaned that name. Before Masashi got off the cart to grab Momoko and pull her back here, he lingered by Akane's side a while longer, her arm still clutched to his chest, waiting to hear if she would address him as she awoke.
He waited more than a minute with a heart that felt like molten liquid in his chest. Though Jun's name was murmured twice more from her lips, his was never said.
"You deserve the rest, kid. You've been staring at those boring Shogi boards for hours, and you barely even touched your dinner. Go lay down before I make you."
Masashi looked up with tired eyes at Akane lording over him, one hand on her hip, the other curled into a fist at her side. The typical tactics of a ronin like her. Commands and intimidation. Skills that made her untouchable in her line of work but in negotiations tended to fail more often than not. Especially when the one being intimidated knew the threats were as empty as a meadow in the middle of winter.
"Cease your obnoxious harassment, Akane! You know very well this is important for our mission!"
The ronin sighed and looked over her shoulder, though there wasn't anyone else in the room aside from them. Basho was - well, no one ever knew where he went off to and never cared to ask - Hatch was out drinking, and Momoko and Toshio had went for a walk together. Masashi figured the two wanted to speak about Akane and her injury and had simply left to get away from her presence. If only, he thought, tearing his gaze away from his persistent annoyance, he could have the same privilege of some time alone.
"Important to the mission my ass..." the human embodiment of crude muttered. When she leaned over and grabbed the young shugenja's arm, he gasped hard enough to make himself light-headed. "Hey, Shogi genius, come with me."
"Unhand me, you fiend! I have forbid you countless times before from handling my person so indecently!"
"Pretty strong when you're tired, huh. The next time you feel like barking my ear off about this, just remember you gave me no choice."
The shugenja tugged his arm back once more, a very loud and very long list of complaints on the tip of his tongue that was stopped dead in its tracks as his female employer bent at the knees and scooped him up into her arms. She grunted in pain as she did so and adjusted his weight with a bounce like he was a sack of rice just bought at the marketplace. All he could manage was another gasp as he instinctively clung to her neck, appalled by her actions.
"You... you...!"
"Yeah, yeah," Akane muttered, still sounding strained. Her breathing grew heavy as she bounced him once more to get a better grip then proceeded across the room towards their collective futons. "You can call me whatever you want... so long as its in your dreams, kid."
"Akane, I must practice my Shogi!" He squirmed but was forced to pause when she made another small noise of pain. Exhausted to the bone and fed-up, Masashi begin to uncurl his arms from around her neck. "I am capable of walking without your assistance, you know."
"Shut it," she huffed out, continuing to take heavy, measured steps, and, in that moment, Masashi realized that she wasn't doing this for his sake. This was more about her pride. About proving to both herself and him that she still had the strength to protect him as his bodyguard. So Masashi kept his mouth shut the rest of the way, letting her carrying him to his unrolled futon and lower him down upon it.
When his body was safely delivered, she dropped to her knees beside him, glaring at his face and catching her breath. She looked harsh and scary with that raw expression, but Masashi felt anything but scared at the sight of her.
"Why would you do that?" he grumbled, rolling onto his side and accepting his fate. He had to admit now that he was in bed for the first time in over 24 hours that it felt divine.
"Sleep," his ronin just ordered, closing her own eyes, her breathing still labored. Her hand was squeezing the hilt of the katana at her side - his katana. She'd been doing that more and more often, Masashi'd noticed. He'd even spoken to Toshio about it in great length. The ninja had agreed there was something off about this new habit of hers, and that it had everything to do with her encounter with Jun.
"Only if you sleep with me," the kid said after a moment of silence. He spoke gently with an effort to show his genuine concern for her well-being, confused when Akane's eyes flew open.
"Uh, no offense, but you're a little young for my tastes, Masashi-kun..."
"A-Akane! You disgusting woman!"
She chuckled mercilessly at his reaction while he busied himself with hiding his burning face in his pillow and trying to erase such horrible thoughts from his mind.
"Shhh." The carefree tone in her voice was evident of her grin. "Don't cause such a scene. Everyone's first time is always a little awkward."
"You pervert!" he yelled into his pillow while she cackled beside him. He threw out a fist that hit her knee and bounced off. "Cease speaking before I summon a storm and flood this house!"
"But you're so cute when you're angry," she cooed, unhindered. Masashi just groaned, hoping his cheeks would simply fall off so he wouldn't have to feel the fiery warmth of them anymore. "You make it so fun to tease you, Masashi-kun."
He grumbled unintelligibly into his pillow until the sound of her snickers faded to silence. If he were being honest, he was so tired and his soft futon was so inviting that Akane's infuriating jokes were the only things keeping him from passing out and sleeping for hours straight. Or until Toshio woke him up to go over Shogi strategies again.
The next thing he felt was a hand touching his shoulder and opened his eyes to see Toshio kneeling beside his futon in the spot Akane had just been in.
"My deepest apologies, Hashimoto-san, but there are still many strategies we must go over before tomorrow's match."
He sat up, yawning and rubbing at his bleary eyes, looking for his bodyguard who he could have sworn was just speaking with him. The ronin was nowhere in sight. Hatch and Momoko sat with Basho across the room talking quietly about something he couldn't make out.
"I fell asleep..." he mumbled, to which Toshio nodded, laying a hand on his shoulder again.
"Yes. Again, I apologize, but there will be plenty of time to rest after we are confident in our ability to win the next match. This is a formidable foe. We must be prepared for anything."
Toshio was right. He had no time to be sleeping when this Shogi tournament held the only key to finding the Emperor's prophesied demon. Akane was the one responsible for him dozing off, who now fittingly was nowhere to be found, the scoundrel. Masashi pushed himself to his feet and away from the warmth of his futon, interrupted just as he was about to inform Toshio on who suggested- no, forced him to sleep.
"Masashi-kun!" Momoko's soft voice rang out. She was leaning away from the two men she was sitting with, waving her delicate hand in a come here motion. Masashi obliged. "Though it was nice to see her getting some rest, I would not advise letting Akane sleep while sitting up again. The least abrasive sleeping position for her right now is on her back. If she tries to sleep like that again, would you stop her for me, please?"
"Sleeping while sitting up... That baka. Yes, I will Momoko-san."
Momoko smiled gratefully and turned back around to face her conversation partners while Masashi turned on his heel and joined Toshio back in front of their Shogi board.
It only took a few minutes of repeating his sentences at least twice before the shugenja responded for Toshio to realize that Masashi was hopelessly distracted. He assumed its cause was having just been roused from sleep, but, really, a single image that refused to leave the kid's mind was the culprit. It brought a helpless smile to his lips now as he thought about it.
The image of Akane, her shoulders slumping, her head lowering onto her bent knees, drifting off to sleep while she sat beside his futon.
The whole place was extravagant.
It was magnificent and exquisite. A beautiful sight that one in Hyuga may only be able to glimpse from words in a book. A mere description would do no justice to where they found themselves at the end of their boat ride out of Tonogasha. The Baron's palace was, in a word, captivating. In more ways than one.
Masashi would have liked to enjoy it, but Toshio was more on edge than a hare in a fox's den and Akane seemed endlessly indecisive between confused, awed, and suspicious. The shugenja didn't understand why they were both being such rude guests to their wonderful host. In the back of his mind, when he thought hard about it, he encountered a faint scratch of something important he was supposed to remember, but then it was gone.
Soon, he found himself just as mentally occupied as his two adult companions, torn from the joy of this once-in-a-lifetime experience of viewing and staying in a foreign castle ruled by a foreign lord. What was he forgetting...? Whatever it was, he knew one thing for sure: it had something to do with Akane. Which was why he found himself on their first night in the castle standing outside the door to Akane's room in a silken sleeping gown that the Baron had provided him with.
He felt more than foolish to be here, lingering like a child outside their mother's room because they couldn't sleep. He prayed Akane would not see him in the same way as he raised his hand to knock. He heard a muffled curse and some fumbling before heavy footsteps approached, and the door flung open. She was glaring and held her katana by her side, but when their eyes met, her face softened in concern.
"Masashi."
She was immediately scanning him for injuries, an annoying thing she did either consciously or unaware he couldn't tell, her eyes running over every inch of him she could see as she leaned forward, gripping her blade tight.
"I-I am fine! You needn't be so circumspect in every situation!"
"...So what?"
"Nothing. I'm entering now," he declared, slipping past her. "So excuse me."
Her room was just as, if not more royal and extravagant than his, all whites and golds, glitz and glamour. Her Western-style raised bed was covered in immaculate blankets and plump pillows, big enough to fit their entire company across it, including Hatch and Momoko. Well, including Momoko if the doctor were even still around.
Masashi frowned at the thought, turning back to look at Akane. She was lingering by the closed wooden door, her hand still on her katana as if she couldn't believe that Masashi had sought her out at this hour without somehow being in danger.
The tiny shugenja sighed. "Would you please slacken your stance? Your acute wariness of this marvelous estate is close to soiling the experience for us all!"
"Ugh," Akane groaned after a moment of narrowing her eyes in confusion. "It's too late for so many big words. Quit writing a book and tell me what's going on already."
Masashi brought a palm to his face in utter exasperation. "Nothing is happening other than the obvious fact that I am here."
"And why are you here?" the ronin pressed, stepping closer.
"You imbecile! Do I really need a reason to..." To want to be near you. "To..."
Akane watched as he spun away, boldly going to the large bed and taking a seat upon it.
"I cannot sleep," he announced, smoothing down his soft gown over his legs. "As my personal bodyguard, I order you to ensure me a good night's rest."
"Haven't we been over this, kid? My job is protection, not making little boys their nighttime tea."
Masashi bristled at the phrase "little boys", but ran his eyes over the room in faux disinterest to save face.
"This is not about warm beverages, Akane. I am proposing we retire in the same room, for a multitude of reasons."
"I suggested that earlier and you turned me down. Finally come to your senses about how foolish it is to sleep alone in some strange foreigner's house?"
"Must you be so infuriating about it? I just want to be close to you!" he blurted out, balling his fists against his knees. His embarrassment about the matter seemed to be wasted as Akane paid his confession no mind, closing the distance between them and setting her katana down on the bedside table.
"Good," she simply stated. "Get ready for bed so I can put the lantern out."
He fussed about under the many covers and blankets that weighed down over his body, patting at the fluffy feather pillows until he was comfortable. In the meantime, Akane walked back to the door, opened it once to peer out, then closed it again, running a hand over the wood as if to test its integrity.
"Come to bed, Akane," Masashi muttered, already curled into a ball behind his covers. "I cannot sleep when you're anxiously pacing and fumbling about over there..."
The ronin faced him, making her way to the oil lantern on the bedside table before she stopped dead in her tracks and blinked down at his small face peeking out from beneath the mountain of soft and colorful blankets.
"Kawaii..." she breathed out, almost in revelation. Masashi pulled the covers up to his cheeks.
"Your ogling is not appreciated!"
She settled into bed beside him after putting the lantern out, the foreign mattress dipping under her weight. Masashi had his back to her, his eyes closed tight, but after about a minute of silence, he rolled over with a huff, patting down the edge of his pillow so he could see his bodyguard.
Akane was laying on her back, just as Momoko had medically instructed. His eyes having adjusted to the darkness of the room, Masashi could see that she was staring up at the ceiling, probably not even planning to sleep for the night. He watched her for at least a minute more, quiet and thoughtful, until he cleared his throat and whispered out, barely audible.
"Akane?"
"Hm?" she responded immediately.
Masashi thought his next words over, struggling to collect his thoughts. About them, about this place, about their entire imposing mission.
"Something terrible is going to happen soon," he settled on, "isn't it?"
Finally, for the first time since getting into bed, Akane moved. She turned her head to look at him.
"What makes you say that?"
"There is something... I don't know," he mumbled, clutching fistfuls of covers under his chin. "I feel as if there is something invaluably important that I can no longer grasp. I can't help but feel we are walking into a terrible danger. Though the more I try to ascertain what it may be, the more puzzling it becomes."
The ronin was silent for quite some time, then shifted once more, turning onto her side to face him. Masashi wanted to lecture her that she was not allowed to sleep in that position, but bit his tongue about the matter.
"I know what you mean, kid. Something is off. But whatever it is, I'll keep you far away from it."
Her voice was so firm and sincere that it made his chest feel warm. He fidgeted with his blankets, looking up at her short hair to avoid her gaze.
"I'm a part of this team, too, baka. If something does happen, you and Toshio may need my assistance."
"I will let nothing happen to you," she pushed, her voice rising in volume. "If anyone here dares to harm you, I will make that decision their final regret."
Masashi was struck silent in the wake of her determination. Images of a burning building and a man with wild brown hair came to mind, but they faded soon after as if swept away like a leaf in the wind.
"Toshio-san is not doing well," he mumbled. Once again, Akane tried to appease him.
"I'll snap him out of it tomorrow. And if I cannot, then I will just protect the both of you."
"Akane..."
He didn't resist when she reached out to him, scooting over when she hooked an arm around his shoulders and pulled him in close. He felt her chin rest atop his head while he pressed his face to her upper chest, his hands curled up against her bosom. The indecency of it didn't register to him. In fact, it didn't matter. What mattered was the strong heartbeat he could feel against his hands, the warmth and sense of safety that came from the arm around him, holding him close.
"I'm sorry, Akane," he whispered against her skin, but when she asked what for, he couldn't give her a clear answer.
What was he sorry for, really? For Akane's terrible childhood? For the man she loved trying to take everything from her? For being a shugenja and causing trouble for everyone in his life because of it? For answering the summons from the Emperor and getting them mixed up in this troublesome divine mission? For being so childishly enamored with her that he wanted to stay with her forever regardless of what tried to pull them apart?
"I'm sorry," he breathed again, on the cusp of tears. The hand of the arm around him cupped the back of his head, smoothing over his hair.
"Don't be sorry," Akane whispered. "None of this is your fault. It never was."
It felt good to believe her.
He buried himself further into her embrace, wishing they could stay like this for more than just one night. They couldn't, however, and the next morning when Masashi awoke, he was met with the sight of his rugged Akane in a beautifully bright kimono with a cheerful smile on her clean face.
"Good morning!" she chirped to him, and though he smiled pleasantly back, crawling out of bed to get dressed, he couldn't shake that feeling. That something was off.
That something absolutely terrible was about to happen.