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Kashuu comes back from his journey… different.
It’s difficult to say what, exactly, is different about him. Yasusada can’t quite put his finger on it. It strikes him at the oddest moments: at dinner, when their elbows don’t jostle because they’re sitting just a little too far apart. During fieldwork, when Kashuu buries his hands in the soil without complaint. In the mornings, when Yasusada opens his eyes to find Kashuu already awake—not fixing his hair or makeup, but laying still on the futon beside him, watching him with an unreadable gaze.
Kashuu’s paler these days. Or maybe it’s just that he paints his lips redder, permanently bloodstained. He doesn’t eat much, and his flippant comments about “diet” this and “cars” that (“Carbs, Stupisada”) ring just a little false to Yasusada’s ears. They’ve never really been warm, not the way humans are, but ever since his journey, there’s been something even colder about Kashuu’s beauty.
Looking at Kashuu now is like looking into a broken mirror—all he sees is a distorted image, no matter how long he stares. Yasusada loves him, but he doesn’t like it.
-
They say you can’t fix a broken sword. Once, that was true. Yasusada remembers a swordsman who would’ve sold his soul for the power to fix his most beloved blade. Kashuu knows it too, even if he’ll never admit it.
But it’s been a long time since Genji 1. Things have changed so much; the unthinkable has become mundane. Spirits given flesh. Bodies and hearts and minds and life. And with life comes death, even for beings like them—those caught between realms. They are the unthinkable, but they aren’t infallible. They never have been.
There are rumors, though. Whispers, though, if pressed, Yasusada isn’t sure he could pinpoint where he first heard them. You can’t fix a broken sword—but what if you could? Keep your mon, young spirit, there are ways to dam the Sanzu River. Oh, but it’s not worth the price. Miracles never are.
Something happened while Kashuu was away. No one wants to tell him about it, which is, ironically, how Yasusada finds out. Kashuu’s always clung to the saniwa, needy and demanding to hide his genuine fear of abandonment, but they’ve never had so many meetings behind closed doors. Kashuu always looks so distant and serious afterwards, but the one time Yasusada asks after him, Kashuu waves him off. Yasusada doesn’t bother trying again.
The others know. Some of them, at least. Izuminokami seems the same as ever, after all, and Horikawa—well, it’s impossible to tell either way, with him. But they fall silent too abruptly when he walks in on their conversations, and Horikawa excuses himself with excuses that are far too thin. Nagasone tells him not to worry, but he’s not as good at hiding the pain in his eyes as he seems to think he is. Yasusada doesn’t push him either, though. They’re all bad liars, but if they’ve decided he shouldn’t know, then no amount of begging will change their minds.
Something happened on Kashuu’s journey. It doesn’t mean he broke—doesn’t even mean he was injured, necessarily. But why else would they go so far to hide it from him? Why else would Kashuu hold himself so stiffly, like he’s new to these bodies all over again? Perhaps it’s blasphemous to doubt their new master like this, but Yasusada’s never quite managed to understand them the way he understood Okita. Okita would do anything to protect his swords. Yasusada doesn’t know what the saniwa would do one way or the other.
Kashuu’s fine. He’s here. More than likely, Yasusada’s worrying about nothing. Seeing things that aren’t there—desperate, maybe, for some sign that his journey back to Okita’s side changed him the same way it changed Yasusada. Were he to voice his concerns, Yasusada’s certain that that’s exactly what they’d all tell him.
And still, Yasusada can’t help but wonder.
You can’t fix a broken sword… can you?
-
It all goes wrong at Ikedaya.
It always, always goes wrong at Ikedaya.
The Retrograde Army must know what this place means to them. It’s the only reason that they’d send their strongest here, using battle tactics that none of them have ever seen before. Somehow, they know that Kashuu’s gotten stronger: their target, therefore, isn’t the humans. It’s Kashuu. Past, future, both—it doesn’t seem to matter. There are so many enemies, they might as well be trying for a second apocalypse.
Their blades emit such an aura of wrong. It hurts to clash with them, but there’s no choice. Yasusada sees a deadly gleam in the moonlight, and he doesn’t stop to think—he throws himself forward, shoving Kashuu out of the way.
"Yasusada!"
Oh. That’s the most like himself he’s sounded in months. Maybe he really is fine after all.
Yasusada misses the death of their enemy. When he registers his surroundings again, Kashuu’s bending over him. His eyes are so, so red. Red-rimmed, bloodshot, glowing in the darkness like demonfire. Ah, he's crying. He's going to smudge his makeup. Yasusada wants to tell him so, but he can barely breathe, let alone speak. It's okay, though. Kashuu still looks beautiful.
A broken sword can't be fixed.
It breaks Yasusada's heart to leave him behind like this. He knows just how much it's going to hurt.
A broken sword can't be fixed…
Kashuu's saying something again. It seems important, but Yasusada can't hear his voice anymore; it's all white noise, the rush of blood in his ears. How odd, he thinks dimly, that blood has a sound. He’s learned so much within this odd, odd body. He’ll miss it more than he thought he would.
He musters up what little strength he has left and tries his best to focus. He wants to say goodbye. Okita never got to hear him, not even the second time. If Kashuu has to hear it from him, then he deserves to hear it out loud. But his throat is full of blood (so that’s what it feels like) and his mouth won’t move, no matter how hard he concentrates.
He can't be sure, but he thinks he catches the shape of an apology on Kashuu's lips.
A broken sword can't be fixed…
The last thing he feels before darkness overtakes him is two sharp pinpricks of pain, right in his neck.
...without losing who they are.