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Hyakkimaru leaves home behind on the dawn of a spring day.
He knows it’s spring because the flowers beside Jukai’s house are blooming and the ground is still soft from constant rain, and he knows it’s morning because that is when Jukai said he’d be leaving. It is spring, it is morning, it is goodbye— Jukai had told him so, barely a week ago. You need to leave, Jukai had written, his fingers gouging through the dirt. Eight days from now, in the dawn, it will be best. You will be ready.
Wait, Hyakkimaru had written back, because he had been thinking, because he had not understood and still believed he could change Jukai’s mind— but Jukai had not let him wait.
You need to go.
A long pause followed this. With you? Hyakkimaru replied, and his shoulders were shaking badly enough that the prosthetics were shaking too, and his writing was sloppy and childish in the dust. Hyakkimaru could feel it.
He could feel, too, the sudden kick in his chest when Jukai replied, because the answer left him hollow and aching.
No.
The rest of that conversation had not gone well. The story Jukai unraveled in the dirt—ghouls and demons and promises that required living sacrifice—the family Hyakkimaru cannot remember and doesn’t really want to know, that left him to die when he was barely a day old. The monsters that are drawn to him by the curse he didn’t choose, and the journey he must make alone.
I’ll only be in your way, Jukai had written, and Hyakkimaru has been thinking of a response to this for days now. I don’t care. I don’t mind. I don’t want to do this alone.
He hasn’t said any of it, because he knows it wouldn’t matter. The other, more secret wish— do I have to go at all?— that, Hyakkimaru has barely allowed himself to consider. There is no other choice. Not because Hyakkimaru needs his limbs—he’s lived just fine as-is for sixteen years, thanks—but because in this, too, the monsters have given him no choice. They’ll come after him whether Hyakkimaru wants his limbs or not, which means he has to fight either way and at the very least he might as well get something out of this damn endeavor.
Not going at all— well. No matter how much Hyakkimaru wants to stay, that is not an option. But every night after the eve Jukai told him to go, Hyakkimaru has spent the hours in restless thought, flexing wooden fingers and thinking of all the ways he could say no. Thinking of how easy it would be to carve denial into the dirt. No, no, no. I don’t want to, don’t send me away, I don’t care if I have limbs or not.
The monsters will only get stronger, Jukai had written. There is nothing more I can do for you. I will only be in your way.
Even now, a week later, Hyakkimaru still has nothing to say to that. All those denials and arguments he’s formed half-written in his head— I don’t care, I don’t want to go, why do I have to go at all— they are nothing more than useless wishes and childish dreaming, in the end.
Hyakkimaru doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t want to go, but he doesn’t want to disappoint Jukai either, and most of all he doesn’t want to make Jukai sad. It’s been bad enough as is, this past week, with the way Jukai has stayed up whole nights making these new weaponized prosthetics, his white-fire soul shivery and fragile like glass to Hyakkimaru’s sight. It’s the same shaky flicker that overcomes Jukai’s soul whenever he’s upset, like his whole self is falling apart.
Demons, death, and bodily sacrifice are nothing compared to that sight. Hyakkimaru would do almost anything to keep Jukai’s soul from looking like that again.
And so— Hyakkimaru says nothing.
The whole situation is just… a mess. It’s a mess, and Hyakkimaru hates it. Even the joy of finally, finally being allowed to fight with real steel has been dulled. Hyakkimaru has a real sword, now—three of them, even!—but it’s next to nothing compared to what he’s losing in return.
He’s spent a whole week fighting with the words, and even now, here at the end, Hyakkimaru still has nothing to say.
He hates this. He hates it all so much.
Goodbyes are as terrible as Hyakkimaru always thought they would be. Jukai fusses the whole morning long— fixes a cloak around Hyakkimaru’s shoulders and ties back his hair for him in a way he hasn’t since Hyakkimaru was ten. Hyakkimaru can do all this himself, has been able to tie his own hair with the prosthetics for years, but just this once he pretends to be sulky and makes Jukai do it instead.
It doesn’t feel like enough. Breakfast goes too quickly; packing takes no time at all. Hyakkimaru gets a small bundle of food and a traced reminder in the dirt of when to eat and what foods to avoid; he gets new bandages for his leg and a cloth to clean the joints of his prosthetics.
I know, Hyakkimaru wants to write back, I know all this already, but then, if this is the last time Jukai ever fusses, then—then—
In the end, he doesn’t write anything.
It’s not enough. Before he knows it, it is already dawn, and he is already ready to leave. Hyakkimaru stands outside in the blush of a spring dawn, a green wooden charm placed around his neck; the road stretching on behind him like a promise.
Time to go, Jukai is saying. Not in words or in writing, but in everything else: the charm and the outside and the way he steps back, steps away. Time to go.
A week of trying to find the right words to say, and Hyakkimaru still can’t find the courage to say it. To say—
But what if I don’t want to?
— but then, why bother, if he already knows what the answer will be?
But what if—
What if, what if, what if. This isn’t what Hyakkimaru wants his last words to Jukai to be. He has to go, now. He has to say goodbye. He doesn’t want to make Jukai’s soul shake any more than it already is. He doesn’t want to ask that useless question and make Jukai cry.
And Hyakkimaru decides, in that moment, to say something else instead.
He lifts his hand, stretching out those wooden fingers for Jukai’s face. It’s hard, tracing a word, but Hyakkimaru persists. Writing is something that he has always pushed himself to excel at, be it with a wooden twig or carved fingers.
I love you, he writes, and Jukai turns his head. Hyakkimaru freezes, hand wavering in the air, feeling something catch in his throat. He wishes he could see more from souls than just color. He wishes he could know— has he said the wrong thing? Has he upset Jukai after all?
He has a second of blind panic, helpless fear— and then Jukai steps forward, and wraps Hyakkimaru in a hug.
Hyakkimaru goes still.
He has been hugged before, of course; Jukai is a constant comfort, always placing a hand on Hyakkimaru’s shoulder or ruffling his hair if he’s done well. But— but there is something different in this hug. Jukai’s arms wrap around Hyakkimaru entirely, pressing the mask against his shoulder; the palm of his hand cups the back of Hyakkimaru’s head. More than anything else—tying back his hair or his new cloak or those written reminders of remember to eat— this action makes Hyakkimaru feel small, young, sheltered. He feels like a child once again, short and stumbling and always tripping into trouble. He feels as if he could be shielded from any danger, any demon, just so long as he stays hidden in Jukai’s arms.
Hyakkimaru has never had a very safe childhood. He knows that, vaguely. He knows demons and ghouls are not a usual occurrence, not for most. But home—this house, those flowers, these kinds of hugs—home has always been safe.
Jukai has always been home.
He can feel the tears like a burning itch behind his glass eyes, and Hyakkimaru shudders in the embrace, hiding his face against Jukai’s shoulder. He can’t stay here, he knows. Jukai would never send him away unless there was no other choice. In a few minutes time, Hyakkimaru will have to walk away, and leave home and Jukai behind forever. But for now—for this moment—
Hyakkimaru lets himself be held, and finally says goodbye.