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The taste of blood hasn’t left Sayo’s lips for centuries.
It feels like he’s been asleep in a dark place for years, where the only thing that ever reaches him is guttural laughter and the ever-sharp sting of something piercing into his very core, fueling him with hot coils that curl around his insides. It isn’t until he's held in those smaller, calloused hands that he realizes the origins of this dark flame that's constantly being fanned inside him.
When his first master’s son slices open the gut of the bandit that killed his mother, Sayo understands two things (which he’d later learn couldn’t be more contradicting):
Satisfaction. Twisted and as powerful as the triumphant howl of a beast. Then, hatred - pure and unbridled despisement that permeates from his blade and immediately thirsts for a new target to direct this surge of heated emotion.
It’s the beginning of the end, of tasting blood and knowing that never again would he know anything else except trying to fill this dark craving. And so from that moment on, these are what his memories are flavored with, bittersweet and soaked in red.
“Like the blind sea turtle who seeks for his floating log in the vast ocean, I have waited so long for this opportunity of a lifetime where the flowers of Udonge would bloom…”
It’s death, he thinks simply. Then, he corrects himself. No, it’s revenge.
The difference, he feels, is apparent in what it is that eats you up on the inside afterward.
Death, of course, is not a foreign concept to a sword, even to a tantou like him. Even after emerging from the hot forge, Sayo got the vague impression that one day, he’d be someone’s tool - for protection, for strength, maybe even for comfort.
Instead, he becomes something much more ruthless, something used in desperation; and in the black-heated coils of hatred, Sayo Samonji becomes a tool of revenge. The first drop of vengeance injected into him poisons his entire being, and by now it's one with him.
It takes a few decades to realize that what he’s harboring is such a dark stain. He knows nothing of honor or any pure notions such as that. When he’s brought in as a gift first to Yamauchi Kazutoyo then to Hosokawa Fujitaka, it’s the first time that Sayo is around not only prestigious humans, but also refined swords.
And so he meets Kasen Kanesada around that time, and it’s when he speaks to Sayo for the first time that he suddenly realizes that he’s not merely floating through a muffled dream. The present is now, and he’s long since been cleaned of the bandit’s blood, no matter the aftertaste that continues to dig its claws into his steel.
“Such an unrefined aura you have,” Kasen comments, almost airily. “It’s not elegant at all.”
Sayo frowns, his body curled once more like a snake waiting for prey in its hole. Distractions aren’t permitted for the one-track mind, but Sayo peers a bit curiously at Kasen and doesn’t say anything.
“My, and no manners either to speak of. You are a rather ragged-looking one.” Ignoring Sayo’s squinting, Kasen says, “I am Kasen Kanesada, of Nosada. My master is Hosokawa Tadaoki. What is your name? Oh dear, there’s no need to make such a sour face. I think we’ll be spending much time together, so we might as well be friendly. I could teach you how to be more elegant while we’re at it.”
Although having no interest in such flowery matters, Sayo glances away as he mutters the name given to him. (It’s strange, having a name. It forces him to be more solid and real, rather than some tool alone.)
“I’m Sayo Samonji.”
“Won’t you look at me when you speak? That is proper manners, after all.”
Without complaint, and strangely without irritation, Sayo complies. He’s surprised how quickly he listens, but when he does look at Kasen again, he can feel his aura better this time. It’s something that at first feels soft and unassuming - but then underneath, Sayo can feel something sharp, even unstable, like a heavy blade held overhead by a thin silk string, in danger of ripping.
But Kasen smiles. It’s friendly, and rather handsome. Maybe the danger that Sayo had sensed before was just an illusion.
“There we go,” Kasen says approvingly. His expression softens even more. “That small frame, and yet what I see shrouding you is…”
He never finishes his sentence. He doesn’t have to. Sayo can hazard some guesses about Kasen himself too.
Hosokawa Tadaoki - the son of Sayo’s master, and Sayo’s future one, once he was passed off. It makes sense why Kasen has that kind of aura when he has such a strange and dangerous master. Sayo assumed him to be as refined as the other humans he sees around here, but then he recognizes the edge that man has as well - an edge so sharp, it could only bring bloodshed, and it seeps into Kasen.
Sayo begins to think their masters hold more sway over them than he initially anticipated. They, the swords, are mere tools after all. They are crafted and used by human hands, thus leaving their fingerprints all over their steel.
But maybe their masters’ personalities, their wishes and thoughts, everything in the deepest recesses of their minds - maybe all that is something that shapes the swords as well. Sayo recalls the feeling of revenge being planted inside him, the hatred he continues to harbor even now. But for what purpose he still hates, he knows not.
Through the short time he’s together with the Hosokawa, he has Kasen for a conversation partner, albeit it’s onesided. Kasen, over time, seems to accept that Sayo is one of few words. He continues talking, sometimes speaking of the internal affairs of their master, or reciting poetry to Sayo.
Sayo himself never minds this, strangely enough. In an odd way, Kasen is like a comfort to him, even if he’s named for slaughtering 36 retainers, their blood plain on his blade even if the steel is so clean he reflects his surroundings. Or maybe it’s because of this same twisted nature Sayo senses that causes him to relax around Kasen.
Elegant or not, the spiderweb of death clinging to them is mere inevitably for a sword.
Revenge is not sweet. It tastes of death and nothing but rottenness stains the tongue. It’s a once in a lifetime chance, a needle in a haystack that, even after its found, pricks the finger and draws blood in turn. But it’s all Sayo knows, and so he soaks in that crimson pool, for years and years. When he is summoned out from the dark, and manifested a body by the saniwa, he still has not forgotten it.
“I am Sayo Samonji. Who do you wish revenge upon?”
The saniwa looks at him with surprised eyes. “Revenge?”
“That is what you wish to use me for, isn’t it? I’m that kind of blade.” Sayo considers. “Unless I’m being sold instead? Either way, if it will help in this war, then it would be fine. But I’ll kill any of your enemies without fail.”
“Oh! I wouldn’t expect a tantou to say such things…” The saniwa offers a small smile, and carefully takes Sayo’s hand. He frowns at the tender contact, so soft and giving him room to protest.
But he lets himself be led along, as it’s the first time he has fingers to be held rather than a hilt to be grabbed. Having a human form is strange. He’s bigger, but still small compared to his new master.
“Our group is still small right now. But please feel free to talk with the other tantou. If you have any questions, Kasen Kanesada is helping me oversee affairs in the citadel. This must be a bit strange, but he can help you before we start doing anything at the front lines.”
The saniwa leads him down a hallway, most of the doors open to reveal tantou like him running about or taking naps. Names are being listed to him, but he’s hardly paying them any mind, focusing instead on the patter of his feet on the floorboards.
As soon as he’s left to his own devices, Sayo contemplates visiting Kasen. He’s not sure how many centuries it’s been, nor how the saniwa found him in the first place. But he’s here, body and soul, and now given the autonomy to do as he pleases. His small feet don’t take him back down the hall to see the others, and instead he heads down the next corridor where Kasen was pointed out to be.
Now that he has a body, Sayo thinks it’s completely expected that Kasen would sit at the center of his room, the window open to let the light stream down on the book he’s reading. It looks relatively new, in bindings Sayo isn’t familiar with, and he wonders if it’s something the saniwa brought back for Kasen to read.
When Kasen notices him, his blue eyes are clear and open, like an undisturbed lake (but even those eyes beguile what is dark within, same as what Kasen’s mere aura used to do alone). He smiles, handsome as ever as he tucks back some wavy strands of his hair.
“Well,” he says, “isn’t that inelegant aura so familiar. It brings back such memories. How are you, little Sayo Samonji? Have you come to hear me recite some poetry again?”
Without saying anything, Sayo patters over, sitting cross-legged right next to Kasen. Although feeling distant, Kasen brings him back to the present like at their first meeting - Sayo jumps at the weight of Kasen’s palm on top of his head.
“What unruly hair. Honestly… You have to let me fix you up now that I finally have hands do that.” His hand goes down to touch Sayo’s cheek. “We’ll start with those scrapes. I have bandages for you to use.”
“There’s not a point when we’re here for war,” Sayo states in a monotone. “I’ll just get more scrapes.”
He tilts his head just enough that Kasen’s fingertips slip away. He’s anxious again. Fidgety. He has no idea where they are, but he knows just beyond the peaceful scenery outside Kasen’s window are enemies that need to be cut down. Sitting here is wasting time for their chance, isn’t it?
Kasen hums and tousles Sayo’s hair again. “So we are. Fret not. We’ll claim their heads soon enough.” His voice is low when he says it. “However, we must not forget to spend our time paying tribute to the arts as well, yes?”
At least Sayo knows neither of them have changed. And that’s enough to keep him still and listen to Kasen read from the book in front of him.
Sayo doesn’t go out of his way to introduce himself to the others.
He sticks mostly to himself, finding comfort in either Kasen’s room or by himself. The other tantou chatter loudly around him, asking if he wants to play or to spar. The latter they know is the quickest way to get his attention, but their training is something he quickly views as counterproductive for himself, as he often has to tone down his intensity for their sakes. Most times, he merely wanders outside, shuffling through the tall grass or sitting under a tree. He avoids the stables since the horses don’t seem fond of him. So he walks past that and enters the fields, hanging out at the edge.
A rather strange bird catches him that day.
Sayo pulls out his blade when he hears the rustling from the tree branches above him, and he curses himself for not noticing the enemy presence sooner. He manages to dodge their leaping down onto his body, and he takes the moment to swing his blade across. The enemy ducks down with a loud, gleeful squeal, a slice in the tree bark where their head had once been.
“Ah~! A new friend, a new friend!” The proclamation comes from the enemy. He’s smiling wide, his extremely long silver hair in a tangle from the tussle, but he looks entirely unperturbed. His fingertips prod at Sayo’s blade above him. “Wow-wow-wow! You’re really fast, Sayo-chan!”
The situation clicks, and Sayo is finally able to place the face of the one he’d mistaken as an enemy. Embarrassed, he uncoils his muscles, slowly drawing his sword back and sheathing it.
“Do you always carry yourself around, Sayo-chan? Even when we’re not in battle? You’re just prepared for anything, huh?”
The whirlwind of questions renders Sayo speechless. He assesses his comrade with guarded eyes, not to protect himself from danger, but from his spontaneousness - which is a new kind of danger. But his new companion just continues grinning away.
Ima no Tsurugi is his name. He’s a tantou like Sayo, but has feelings of having once been bigger. Sayo isn’t sure what that means, but he’s feeling somehow irritated that Ima no Tsurugi is a bit taller anyway - just about all of the tantou are.
Even as the days pass and more comrades are gathered and fill up the citadel and Sayo gets stronger, he remains one of the smaller ones, if not the smallest. The only way Sayo feels he can ever prove himself capable and as strong as the larger ones is when he’s out on the battlefield. Out there, no one questions whether or not Sayo should be there, at least, not in terms of brutality. No matter how many wounds inflicted on himself, no matter how much of his blood is mixed with the enemies, Sayo, without fail, takes down their opponents.
There’s no grace his fighting, and neither does he waste time with strategies. Second nature fighting comes in two forms: those like Kasen or the Shinsengumi, who move fluidly, with practice, their blades coming down in clean archs; and then there’s Sayo, who undoubtedly knows how to slay an opponent, by viciously cutting down one, then immediately another, his feet propelling him forward with force and speed, and he never even blinks at the blood raining down on him.
Sayo isn’t physically large, but the others know his presence quite well now in the battlefield. Out there on there front lines, Sayo’s heart darkly fills with satisfaction at the bloody fall of his enemy, before hungering for the next. He sees no one else in the battle except for the shadows wrapped in armor. He’d kill more, and more, and more, all of them until they splattered dead at his feet--
“Heeey, Sayo-chaaan!” Ima no Tsurugi claps him down on the shoulder, not minding the saturated enemy blood there. “Good job out there!”
“Mmn.”
Honebami, one of the older Toushirou, starts signalling them back, and his little brothers immediately flock to his side, while Sayo and Ima no Tsurugi walk a few meters behind.
“Saaay, there’s something I wanted to ask you for awhile.” Ima no Tsurugi keeps up his stride alongside Sayo, even between the corpses and rocks.
“What?”
“The way you fight, it’s really what they’d call ruthless, right? You’re so strong!”
He thinks of some of the larger swords and what they’re capable of, and shrugs. “Maybe not enough though.”
“Are you thinking how small you are again? Don’t you realize how perfect that is?”
“Eh?”
“Look, Sayo-chan,” Ima no Tsurugi starts to bounce around Sayo, his silver hair trailing behind him like drifting feathers, “I’m this small, but I was a very good sword to my master!”
“Your master?” Sayo doesn’t get to hear about the others’ past a lot, mostly because, for one reason or another, they seem to not want to speak of it. Not only that, it was rare for any of the tantou to have much of a past to speak of. Ima no Tsurugi is one that Sayo would’ve guessed to be like that too, but perhaps that isn’t the case after all.
Ima no Tsurugi nods, humming happily. “His name is Yoshitsune! He was a miiiiighty warrior,” he flexes his arms dramatically for emphasis, “and he kept me by his side aaaalways! From the beginning,” he stops bouncing, clasping his hands behind his back as his voice lowers, “to the very end, I was protecting him… Ehehe… Well, what I mean by all this is - does Sayo-chan have someone to protect as well?”
“Protect?”
“What is this, what is thiiiis, Sayo-chan is being a little parrot today! Okay, when I go out and fight, I think that I have to protect Yoshitsune-sama, even if he’s...not with me. Ehehe, it would be as Iwatooshi would say! I have to at least protect the world he lived in! So when I see Sayo-chan fight like that all the time, I wonder, ‘Wow! Sayo-chan must have someone like that too’, right~?”
Someone to...protect? What is this about? Here Sayo is, about to think that Ima no Tsurugi might’ve been different, but it turns out he was just like the others. He’s...worlds away from Sayo, from a blade that knew only killing without mercy, that knew nothing of something as noble as protecting.
That’s simply not the tool Sayo is.
At night though, Sayo stays up, turning Ima no Tsurugi’s words over and over in his mind. Why do they startle him so much, and annoy him like this? Why does he have to be reminded how different he is from the others?
Why...did his first master’s son instill this darkness inside him?
Is revenge the same thing as saving? Was Sayo ever saving anything this way? He thought all this time that being a sword meant slaying the enemy, to find that target of hatred, and strike it down. But now, he wonders about his first master’s son, his wife…
Had he protected anything at all? What still had the chance of living, when he’s a sword of revenge, of destruction? The only thing that follows Sayo is death, and in the end, he was passed and sold from hand to hand. Who would want a sword such as this?
These twisted feelings would continue to eat away at him all his existence, because revenge is never truly sated. There’s always another master, another battle, another day of bloodshed to soak the earth and feed these seeds of revenge and hatred.
And those are the only flowers that would ever bloom inside Sayo’s heart.
The Toushirou tantou are bursting with brothers, all of them clamoring around the eldest, Ichigo Hitofuri, and wishing him good luck during sorties. Hachisuka Kotetsu has two, one that he adores and another he does his best to never acknowledge. Even Kasen has Izumi no Kami to chastise for being so “noisy and inelegant”.
It’s a bit odd to think that they, as once inanimate objects, have something that indicates blood relation. Most of the time, these swords had never once seen each other, sharing only the name of a swordsmith.
The first time Sayo meets Souza and Kousetsu Samonji though, he feels something click into place. Souza is smiling and Kousetsu is refined, yet one look at their eyes (one pair mismatched and the other of ice), and unseen torments tie together with Sayo’s own shadows.
Sayo falls in line with them rather easily, although most of the time they’re together at first is only filled with silence. Souza is usually the one to steer conversations, but he doesn’t always push the quiet to being pierced. Souza and Kousetsu both, while seeming calm and collected, seem to always be tense like Sayo, even when the times are peaceful and the days are sunny.
While the others are animated and noisy with their "relations", Sayo usually finds more comfort in joining his older brothers in their room to pass the time when none of them are listed to go on sorties or doing chores.
On days when Souza stays in the citadel, he tells Sayo a little of his past, and its a little similar to Sayo’s, of sitting around, waiting to be used in battle, but only being passed from hand to hand. He briefly mentions memories of fire, of a demonic man, but then switches the conversation topic with one of his easygoing smiles. Sayo wonders if Souza realizes he knows they’re fake.
Kousetsu doesn’t want to fight. The purpose of his existence contradicts his beliefs, and that’s what makes him hard for Sayo to understand at first. He sees the world and all its black bloodshed, and knows there’s no helping needing to go out on the front lines, even though his expression is reluctant all the while.
These are the twisted shadows that tied them together, yet some nights they slept in the same room and there are times when both Kousetsu and Souza reach out to ruffle Sayo’s unruly hair. They help him with his clothes and they let him (messily) tie their long hair up sometimes if the weather is hot. The interactions he has with his older brothers feel different from the ones he has with Kasen, or Ima no Tsurugi. It’s not an unpleasant feeling, but for the first time, he feels something like a child. Like something that could be loved.
Maybe because of that, he can understand Kousetsu and Souza’s astonishment after going with Sayo on a sortie one day. The enemy’s blood drips down, and his wounds have torn open his clothes, but he stands there in the aftermath, undisturbed in the slightest as he tries to regain the breath he lost in that last vicious attack.
Sayo sees their worry.
After being repaired, Kousetsu decides to prepare some tea for the three of them, and he brings the warm pot and cups on a tray back to his room, where Souza and Sayo are.
Souza is in front of him, sticking a fresh bandage on Sayo’s cheek. He sighs, “Well, as expected, these same cuts still stayed on your body even after repairs. I suppose these kinds of marks just don’t go away, hmm?” His smile is a little more forced than usual. If Sayo knows Souza right by now, he should be changing the subject soon.
“Anyway,” there it is, “I was really surprised by how you fought today. You always seemed fine after sorties, so I was never worried, but this was the first time I had seen you out there with my own eyes. Kousetsu too, right?”
Kousetsu settles the tray down neatly on his table, slowly lowering himself down in a habitual meditative position. He nods in answer to Souza’s question, picking up the pot by its handle and starts to pour the tea.
Sayo fidgets a bit under the attention. “It was bad?”
“Bad? No, no. It’s just that no one really expects one with your appearance to fight like that.”
“Ima no Tsurugi said something like that to me once.” As did many of the others he’d gone on sorties with... It’s starting to sound like everyone is waiting for him to realize how shocking this is as well. But how could he find any restraint when this is simply the will that was instilled into him?
Maybe, it’s just that that was happening to him all over again: he’s the odd one, even among his brothers. Kousetsu is a pacifist. Souza is a treasure. Yet he was a killer.
Again. Again. He’s the one tainted with blood. This is simply how he is, the only thing he knows is shredding through the next target with his blade, all he knows is this desire to eliminate, and there’s always another enemy beyond the first, and another beyond him…
His hands curl into fists over his lap, shaking. Souza notices, and gently brushes his fingertips over Sayo’s knuckles.
“Don’t hold such despair. It’s good that you have that kind of power. It’s how we know you can protect yourself, and the others.”
Ah. There it is again too, that thing Ima no Tsurugi had mentioned, with “protecting”. Sayo shakes his head, his body trembling even more. He wants to smash the teapot and cups and tear his way outside, and just keep destroying until at last, at last his heart could have its fill of it.
As he hugs his knees to his chest, Kousetsu stops pouring the tea, setting the pot down with a clink as he comes over as well. Sayo buries his face in his knees to avoid looking at either of them.
“Protecting?” he whispers. “I don’t know what that means. I was created to kill, to fulfill the vengeful tastes of my first master’s son. That is...the only reason I kill our enemies. That is all. I forget about any others, and slaughter my target. That’s all there is to me!” His voice rises, cracks. His nails dig into his flesh.
Kousetsu comes closer, his hand touching Sayo’s back soothingly. “Vengeance… It’s a cycle that doesn’t end.”
Souza follows up with a hum of agreement. “Humans always want more, and that’s why these things such as war and hatred will never end… To think these notions chain up us swords as well though… It really just proves how influential the human will is.”
When Sayo looks up, he sees Souza touching his chest. Kousetsu is looking away, out towards the window, where stray flakes of snow have littered the ground. Both of their expressions hold traces of pain, looking back on the days lost in the ebb and flow of time. It’s been centuries, yet here they all sat, still chained down. These chains rusted and eventually broke for humans. Time did not halt for a sword though.
The mutual understanding of this between himself and his brothers strangely clears Sayo’s mind. Souza wipes away his tears, and Kousetsu continues to pour their tea. A flower, one of the edible ones Sayo guesses, floats in the hot brew, and Sayo plucks it out, examining the delicate purple petals.
Kousetsu seems to notice, and after a sip, looks to the window again.
“Spring will be coming soon,” is all he says, and he takes another sip of his tea.
As the first sword to have arrived in the citadel, its usually Kasen who gets to help the saniwa take of many of the internal affairs and join in during visits to the stores.
On this day though, the saniwa has Sayo tag along as well. It’s strange, passing the stalls full of various items and foods, but it’s nonetheless a sight Sayo knows well. Even after all these centuries, it remains the closest thing he has to a fear. But he supposes this is something that cannot be helped. Despite all the successes of the sorties he’s been on and how much stronger he’s become, his true use for fulfilling revenge was something the saniwa never seemed interested in - which meant his presence in the citadel was obsolete.
Nonetheless, he keeps up an impassive face in front of the saniwa. “Bringing me along,” he muses, “are you having financial troubles?”
The other swords are just up ahead, looking at some items, but the saniwa has stayed close enough behind with Sayo to hear what he said. “Eh? What’s this, are you saying you’re good with money, Sayo? I brought Ichigo to help me manage, but I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to have you watch my spending as well, haha.”
Sayo frowns. Even if he’s unrefined, he likes to think Kasen’s teachings in manners didn’t go to complete waste, so he’s a bit put-off by the saniwa’s bad joke. “I meant that you’re here to sell me, aren’t you?” he clarifies. “It’s happened to me before, so I could tell you the price I fetch, to make sure you’re not swindled out of any money.”
“Here to sell--?” The saniwa is shocked. “You’re saying that again. I would never do such a thing to you! No, see, Sayo, I brought you to visit the merchants with me because of this.” The saniwa stops in front of one stall bursting with flowers, pays the merchant for an item, and then hands it to Sayo with a hopeful smile.
Sayo looks down at what is in his hands. It has some weight, but its small, bundled up in a little sack. He looks up at the saniwa in question.
“When Ima no Tsurugi helped you in the fields the other day, he told me how productive and happy you looked.”
“Well, I just thought it was important to avoid famine…”
The saniwa nods to the sack in Sayo’s hands. “There are flower seeds in there. Since its getting warmer again, I thought maybe you’d like to plant them, since there’s space to spare in the fields. They’d look really beautiful, don’t you think?”
Flowers? Well those aren’t exactly edible, unless these were the kind one could eat. What Sayo can’t fathom though is… “Why?”
The saniwa’s expression softens, a hand coming up to gently tousle Sayo’s hair like Kasen and his older brothers like to do. It’s warm. Safe. Affectionate. It doesn’t bring him satisfaction like killing an enemy does, yet somehow, it’s just as liberating, if not more so.
“The whole point in living isn’t just to keep killing, even in this war,” the saniwa says. “There are things we must learn to nurture, so that we remember we have something to fight for. And Sayo,” another ruffle of his hair, “it’s not vengence. There are more important things to take care of. I want you to remember that as you take care of these flowers, okay? Because I know there's something else growing inside you now."
Sayo looks down at the little sack again, holding it in both his hands now, as if he were shielding the seeds inside from harm. He isn’t sure he completely understands, but he does feel the weight of the trust being placed on him.
Lips trembling, he nods.
Just as Kousetsu says, spring arrives rather quickly. Frost stops gathering on the grass in the mornings, and Sayo can actually feel the warmth on his skin again when he goes out on sorties with the others.
When the saniwa starts listing more of them to work on the fields, Sayo knows the soil must be soft and warm enough to start planting things again. He takes this time to bring the gifted seeds with him out to the fields.
The dirt feels nice under his bare feet as he moves along, firstly taking care of planting a row of persimmons and gently patting the soil back over the seeds. The others on fieldwork with him eventually head back to the citadel for a lunch break when the sun is directly overhead, but Sayo decides to linger a bit longer. He’ll plant the flower seeds now while everyone else is gone.
He shuffles over to the edge of the field. He doesn’t know anything about aesthetics, but he figures that once the flowers bloom, they’ll look pretty lined up on the edge near the citadel. Then the others could look at them too and admire them. Lined up like this, they would even seem to make a trail to the pond. This is all just a theory though, since he has no idea what the flowers will actually look like.
Why is he so invested in this? He wonders that as he starts digging up new holes one by one to pop the seeds in.
And of course, in the middle of it, the jingle of anklets announces Ima no Tsurugi joining him, and he huddles close to Sayo.
“Uwaaah! Sayo-chan, what are you planting? Those aren’t the seeds the saniwa gave us.”
“Saniwa-sama gave me these specifically. They’re flower seeds.”
“Flowers?” Ima no Tsurugi bounces on the tips of his toes, able to keep perfect balance as always. “What kind, what kind~?”
“I’m not entirely sure myself. I guess we’ll see when they bloom.”
Ima no Tsurugi, still crouched down, hops along as Sayo makes his way down the line. Partway through, Sayo gives in to his companion’s request to help out, and so Ima no Tsurugi digs up the holes and Sayo puts the seeds in before Ima no Tsurugi pats the soil back into place. When they’re done, the others have already started to trickle back onto the fields to finish up work, but the two of them remain at the corner, fingernails and soles of their feet embedded with the dirt. Neither of them pay it mind, instead admiring the neat line of their work.
“You know,” Ima no Tsurugi begins, “you have to make sure you take of them properly, okay? These seeds need loooots of help to grow! They need sun and water, and I think even talking to them is good. But don’t worry, I’ll help you, okay?”
Sayo sways slightly as Ima no Tsurugi bumps his shoulder against Sayo’s, the breath of his giggle tickling at Sayo’s cheeks. Although he’s looking down at his dirty hands, Sayo nods, and returns Ima no Tsurugi’s smile, albeit minutely.
“It’s nice, right? Who would’ve thought we could have our own bodies like this? Being able to do what we could do now, meeting Saniwa-sama and reuniting with those of us that used to be lost or broken - it’s truly a once in a lifetime chance, right, Sayo-chan~?”
Sayo widens his eyes. “You know that poem?”
“Huh? What poem?”
“What you said… It’s nothing. But,” he peers into Ima no Tsurugi’s eyes, “you’re right.”
Like the blooming of the Udonge flower...
When these flowers bloom, Sayo will definitely give one to the saniwa and Kasen, and to Kousetsu and Souza, as proof that he can nurture something that gives life and not death. They’re still just seeds, but he’ll work hard, and he knows he’ll be guided with his friend’s help.
So, he supposes...he’ll give one to Ima no Tsurugi too.