Chapter Text
The battlefield had long emptied.
A few distant crows wheeled in the sky, calling sharply like rust scraped against iron. The grass was heavy with ash and blood.
Akashi crouched beside a shallow stream, sleeves rolled halfway as he rinsed the gore from his blade.
No one was watching. He didn’t pretend to yawn or sigh or make some remark about how troublesome it all was.
He just worked in silence.
Cloth steady in hand, the movement careful—too careful.
As if by gentleness alone he could undo the violence he’d been forced to commit.
A smear of red lingered near the hamon. He paused.
“…Tch.”
He dipped the cloth again.
Still it wouldn’t come clean.
Akashi stared at it. Not the blood.
Not even the mirror-polished steel.
But at the place where the blade ended and the tsuka began.
Hidden beneath layers of silk and wood, nestled in the tang where no eye could see—
The name.
There were things Akashi never said aloud.
Like the fact that his nakago bore the name of his maker.
Not the famous Awataguchi smith, but the founder of the Rai school—his creator, his origin.
国行
Kuniyuki.
A name meant to be remembered.
A name carved with such reverent care that even now, Akashi could feel the ridges of the characters pressing against his shame.
He never liked talking about it. Not because he’d forgotten—he never could—it was that he remembered too well.
The precision of those strokes etched into the tang, the reverence that must have guided the chisel.
“Please… let this blade remain unsullied.”
His smith had whispered that once—voice hoarse, holding up the finished blade in trembling hands.
Akashi had been too new to understand. Too proud.
Now he understood.
And he wished he didn’t.
He hadn’t asked to participate in a war. He’d been still for centuries—glass-cased, untouched.
But they came anyway. Said he was needed. Promised him something he couldn’t refuse.
And now—each drop spilled was another oath broken.
So he never mentioned it. Never invited the weight of that name into the room.
Let it remain hidden, like the nakago itself—tucked beneath layers, unseen and unspoken.
He sometimes imagined his name being read off during maintenance. Kuniyuki , it would say.
And some hakobi might murmur, “Ah, what a lineage.”
And then they’d see him. Slouched half-asleep in the sun, letting others do the paperwork, grumbling when sent to sortie.
None of them ever asked where he’d been before.
What he’d been promised —
Hotarumaru, restored , never to sink again.
That part stayed buried.
Like his name.
It was easier to yawn, to sigh, to let others think he was unmotivated.
A blade that shirked its duties, unfit for command.
A coward, maybe. Or just lazy.
It felt like a betrayal.
But he let them think it.
Because it was better than what he really was.
He leaned forward and let the cloth fall into the water.
It drifted away without resistance, like a promise broken long ago.
“…Sorry, oyaji ,” he murmured, eyes closed.
“I didn’t know how to stay clean.”
The sky rumbled faintly—distant thunder, maybe.
I let myself be used. Perhaps… if I were stronger, I’d find the strength to turn their rules against them.
He knew there was only one way to do that.
Akashi stood, and turned his back to the darkening sky.
When he returned to the citadel, silence followed him in.
It took him longer than it should have to work up the will to ask.
The request sounded half-hearted even to his own ears—mumbled, evasive, something about training, growth, responsibility. He didn’t expect it to convince anyone.
A long silence followed.
The saniwa and the attending Nikkari Aoe exchanged a look. Nikkari’s smile didn’t change, but there was something behind it—tilted just so—like a mask slipping just enough to show he’d heard everything Akashi hadn’t said aloud.
Then came the scrutiny.
The kind that saw too much.
Akashi squirmed under it. Started to ramble—to say something about discipline, maybe swordsmanship, maybe being stronger—but even he didn’t know what he was trying to sell.
The saniwa said nothing at first. Just looked him up and down.
Akashi nearly turned to leave, fumbling for a way to pretend the whole thing had been a joke.
Then:
“You may go,” the saniwa said.
He blinked.
A travelling kit was handed to him—standard for any sword permitted to undertake such a journey.
Along with it, a folded set of oddly dated clothes, and a letter set pressed into his hand.
Tucked beneath the folded uniform was a slim map.
“Take all the time you need,” the saniwa added. “Only four days will pass here. Activate the device when you’re ready to return.”
Akashi nodded, still half-stunned.
Letters? he thought wryly. As if I’d be motivated enough to write.
He didn’t look at Nikkari again as he left.
But he could feel those smiling eyes follow him all the way out.