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It hurt.
When the scythe slashed through his wrist, moving through the skin, sinew, muscle, and bone like Tengen’s body was made of butter.
It hurt. Every time Tengen’s mind forced him to relive that moment, it hurt. And it hurt when he was forced to remember that poisoned blade gouging into his eye too. It hurt.
It hurt. It hurt. It hurt. Would it ever stop hurting?
In his dreams, things didn’t happen the way they happened in real life. He didn’t make a miraculous recovery. He didn’t save young Kamado at the last moment. He didn’t get to go home with his wives and build a normal life for himself.
Instead, in his dreams, he got sliced again and again and again—And he just stayed face-down in the dirt of that God-awful entertainment district ruin. And he screamed. He screamed until his throat went raw, and until he could taste blood on his tongue. He screamed until he thought he couldn’t scream anymore. Then, he screamed more.
And every time, he woke up in his bed, far from danger, but with his heart pounding inside his muscled chest like he’d just been running for his life.
Tonight was no different than all the others. When he managed to wrench himself free from the cruel tendrils of his nightmare, Tengen realized that he was screaming out loud. Every so often, the dreams bled into his waking life, and it always set his poor wives on edge.
“Lord Tengen,” Hinatsuru said softly as Tengen’s shouts quieted down. He couldn’t quite see her in the dark of the bedroom, but he focused desperately on her soft voice. “You’re awake. Take a breath…”
It took a long while for Tengen’s breath to flow normally once again, but eventually, his gasps turned to proper, long, deep inhales. He wondered, vaguely, why his torso felt heavy, but the warm weight helped to calm down his overactive nervous system, like it was gently pressing the fear out of his body.
Someone shifted on the mattress and turned on a lamp by the bed. Tengen blinked in the sudden, yellow brightness and noticed that it was Suma who turned on the light. Concerned tears gathered in the corners of her large, watery eyes, and she looked like she was just hardly managing to hold back her wails.
Now, with the light on, Tengen realized that the weight on his stomach was none other than Makio, perched on top of him, thighs straddling either side of his body. Her hands were pressed gently into his bare chest, and she massaged him as he relaxed more and more.
He realized, in his more lucid state, that she’d done this many times before. He’d just forgotten, after reliving that night from two years ago once again. It always took a moment for him to remember where he was after a dream like that—but now he had his bearings. He was at home, with his family. He was safe.
Makio slowly climbed off of him, like she was afraid moving would cause his panic to seize him again. “Was it another dream?” she asked, like she already knew the answer.
After all, Tengen knew that all three of his wives knew the answer. This had been happening since a few weeks after he returned home from his mission in the entertainment district. Even so, he nodded tightly. He managed to sit up, propping his back up against the headboard.
The bed was large, with enough room to accommodate for him and the three women. Two years ago, they hardly shared a bed all at once. His wives didn’t used to get along enough to compromise their sleep cycles for one another, although Tegen was sure that they cared for each other as much as he cared for them. They would take turns in the bed, a different wife each night. It wasn’t until Tegen started waking up screaming, racked to the core by horrific flashbacks, that things began to change.
At first, Tengen brushed it off. He insisted that it was fine, that it was a temporary issue with his nervous system. It was only natural that his brain would need to adjust after losing a hand, an eye, and retiring all within a matter of hours. He nearly died in that battle, and it was a close call, so of course he was feeling the residual effects of that intense stress.
But then it kept happening. And Tengen stopped sleeping entirely.
Of course, Makio, Hinatsuru, and Suma didn’t know that he wasn’t sleeping. He’d go to bed as usual, only to remain awake through the night, employing his recovery breathing and concentration to stay alert until dawn. Sleep was an enemy, and he’d managed to fight off worse enemies than that thousands of times before. He managed to hold his own for a month.
It was on the day that Tengen suddenly collapsed in the middle of dinner when his wives realized that something was seriously wrong. He’d fallen right out of his chair, hitting his head on the corner of the table. Luckily, he was okay, but it forced him to admit to the three women what had been going on.
That’s when Hinatsuru, Makio, and Suma all came to an agreement—they would be there for Lord Tengen in his dreams, even if it meant sleeping with two extra people for the rest of their lives. Whenever he woke up, he wouldn’t need to call for any of them. Instead, they would be right there, within his reach. They would be there to catch him when panic gripped him in its cold clutches, so that way sleep would feel a little less daunting.
“What was it this time?” Suma asked, voice hesitant and sniffly. “You don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to… I know it was probably scary.”
Tengen sighed.
Admitting that he was scared… It made his insides crawl. It certainly wasn’t flashy, waking up shrieking in the middle of the night. Still he answered Suma’s good-natured question, “It was the entertainment district. When that demon took my hand.” He gazed own at his missing hand and brought his remaining one to his empty eye socket. Usually, he wore an eyepatch to cover it up, but he took it off at bed time.
“It’s been a while since that one, huh?” Makio fussed with his pillow, propping it up behind his back to make him more comfortable.
Tengen didn’t want to be doted on like this, but he let her. He knew that these episodes scared all of them, and he wanted to make it as easy for them as possible. If they needed to adjust his pillows like he was a sickly child, he would allow it.
All he had to do was swallow his pride. Besides, these nightmares had already stripped what little aura of cool flashiness he still had, at least for his wives. They saw first-hand how ungodlike he was.
After a moment, Tengen nodded at Makio’s observation.
She was right. He hadn’t dreamt about the night he lost his hand and eye in a few months. Lately, most of his dreams had involved the lives he’d taken as a shinobi, and the family members that he’d lost to his father’s cruelty. In those dreams, it was more abstract, with him wading through seas of human blood, being forced to stare at the faces of those he’d killed. The ones about his siblings were worse—their images flashed in and out of his vision. They taunted him. Called him a coward. A disgrace. They cut him with kunai until he was a mess of lacerations.
He also had a lot of dreams about losing his wives. His mind spun scenarios in which he hadn’t been able to save them from the clutches of the demonic oiran. Those were the worst ones. He stared helplessly as he watch Makio and Suma and Hinatsuru die over and over, in increasingly horrible ways.
Before that damned night, Tengen never had dreams like this. But something about that mess in the entertainment district, from when his wife went missing, to when he nearly died… Even though he won… He heard something snap during that battle.
Tengen realized that he’d been thinking for too long. His wives gazed up at him with their varying expressions of concern and worry. The three of them were so different, and yet they all cared for him so deeply. If not for them, Tengen was sure that he would have cracked under this ever-persistent stress. There were still moments, mostly after particularly low, sleepless nights, when Tengen considered joining his lost brothers.
After all, their voices in his dreams were so vivid—so real. It would have been easy to shuffle after them, head hanging, eyes closed. But then he thought of what would happen when his wives found him. If he lost this battle with his own mind, those three would do nothing but blame themselves.
It was enough to help him endure. And yet, the shame about ever thinking those thoughts, after all he’d been through, crushed him like a vice.
“I’m sorry for waking you up,” he said finally, mustering as much bravado as possible. He made himself grin, throwing his eyes open wide. He was sure that they were ringed with dark circles. “I’m sure that was the last one for a while, so you can all go back to sleep.”
None of them seemed particularly convinced by his performance.
After a moment, Hinatsuru took his hand in both of hers and pressed it gently against her cheek. “Lord Tengen… You know you don’t have to pretend to be brave here. We love you just the same.”
“She’s right, you know,” Makio added. She scooted back up into his lap, sitting sideways and remaining under the blanket they all shared. “You’ve spent so much of your life smiling like that.”
“It’s okay to cry,” Suma finished, and she cuddled into his side, face pressed into his shoulder. She seemed to be taking her own advice, and Tengen could feel the wetness of her tears against his skin.
“I should be strong for all of you,” Tengen said, and he realized how close to tears he was himself. All this time, he hadn’t cried once. He only screamed. Screaming seemed flashier—braver—than crying, but something in Suma’s words tonight pushed him past the brink.
He took his hand back from Hinatsuru and covered his face with it, disguising his rush of emotions. He kept his voice steady, swallowing hard, “I’ve survived a million deaths. A few bad dreams are nothing. Something this small can’t keep me down.”
A soft grip tried to pry his hand away, but Tengen held it firmly in place. Then, a second hand joined in, then a third. Eventually, all three of his wives managed to peel his hand back, exposing his expression. He eyes flowed freely with tears, and his mouth was screwed up defiantly against the torrent.
“I survived,” he said again, more to convince himself than anything else. “I refuse to believe that a mission like that could have broken me. Who cares about one hand, or an eye? It was a hell of a flashy way to retire!”
Makio, Hinatsuru, and Suma listened to him talk. Once he was done, Makio reached up and wicked away his tears with her thumbs. “Nothing about you is broken. You handled so much, so it’s only natural that it would catch up to you eventually.”
“You’re so kind to everyone, and selfless,” Suma sniffled out.
“You’ve been injured,” Hinatsuru added. “They’re the sort of injury that goes deeper than flesh. Your wrist scarred up, and your eye healed shut, but those injuries inside of you will take more time, especially if you don’t take care of yourself.”
Tengen dipped his chin to his chest, staring down at the brightly patterned bed spread. “When I married you all, I told you to always put yourselves first. Now all of you spend so much time looking after me. I’m using you for my own gain. I can’t be like my father…”
“You could never be like him,” Makio said, voice rising slightly. “You’re not using us.”
“We want to take care of you,” Suma agreed. She managed to dry her tears for a moment and suddenly she beamed with confidence. “You can’t always expect us to just take care of ourselves, especially not when we love you so much.”
Tengen lifted his gaze and looked at the faces of each of them. “What if it never gets better? What will you all do if I stay this way forever?”
“It makes no different to us,” Hinatsuru insisted softly. She reached up and cradled his jaw, and Tengen melted into her loving touch. “You’re allowed to feel powerless sometimes. Because you’re prepared to take care of all of us, we’re prepared to do the same for you.”
Hinatsuru’s lips found his, and they kissed, soft and slow. Even more stress leeched out of Tengen’s shoulders.
When he turned his head away, it was Makio who kissed him next, with her mouth slightly open, and a strong, unwavering hand on his chest.
Suma’s kiss calmed him down completely, and it was as light as butterfly wings on his lips.
“Let’s try to go back to sleep now,” Hinatsuru instructed, firm and kind. “When you wake up again, and if you have any more doubts, we’ll have this conversation as many times as it takes. Until you believe us.”
Tengen smiled to himself, and it was a real smile, tender and filled with love for the three women whom he had the privilege of calling his wives. He let them settle him back into bed, and their bodies curled around him, warm and alive and steady. He wished that he had enough arms to hold all of them at once, but he did his best, wrapping Suma in his left, Hinatsuru in his right, and tucking his chin on top of Makio’s head.
When he closed his eyes, he wasn’t sure if the nightmares would come again, but it was enough to know that he could at least wake up afterward into a dream.