Archive of Our Own

The thing is, despite having ample opportunity to practice, Shiba isn't all that good at dealing with grief - his or anybody else's.

He hadn't ever been able to do more than keep an anxious eyes on Azami and Chiaki, who both liked to insist they were, 'fine, fine, fine' until they would break down seemingly out of nowhere into fits of fury or tears. Hadn't even realized that was them upset and grieving until he'd had it pointed out to him as an adult by Rokuhira.

And as for Rokuhira, … he had always been even more worrying.

Despondent. Preemptively lifeless. As a child, Shiba had panicked and shoved the burden of fixing him entirely onto Chiaki. As an adult he'd somehow managed to devolve into more or less dangling Chihiro in front of Rokuhira - occasionally literally .

As for himself, well, Shiba kept busy. Preferably with something productive - not dying, revenge, trying to help a guy who could barely keep himself alive on a good day figure out how to take care of a baby. Though if he ran out of productive things to do, there was always destructive, self or otherwise.

There is a part of him that wonders if what he's currently doing counts as the former or the latter as he teleports into the Kamunabi's headquarters, but honestly, Shiba doesn't care that much.

Getting to the basement is almost embarrassingly easy. He's pretty sure the barrier sorcery in headquarters is actually advanced enough that, theoretically, it could keep him form teleporting in, but also that programming it like that would probably take a fuckton of work. Way too much effort when most of the leading council still treated Shiba like he was some teenager going through a rebellious phase, not technically an employee but still certain to come to heel when called.

So it is with very little effort that Shiba finds himself opening the door of the Swordmaster's prison.

"Get up." He says, holding out Rokuhira's seventh and final blade out to Akemura, "We've got people to kill."

There are a lot of places this story could start.

Maybe with Rokuhira, furrowing his brow and sighing, "If you're lonely, you can just ask to hang out instead of trying to pick a fight", not even ten and already way too observant for him own good. Or maybe a few months later, sitting in the sunshine while Chiaki gently, gently fixed his hair after a day of running through the woods with their friends, and Shiba had just for a moment grasped what it meant to be at peace.

Maybe Irishima? Or any of the awful, chaotic moments leading up to or following it.

A better memory, Chihiro looking up at him thoughtfully with an expression that wasn't quite Rokuhira's and wasn't quite Chiaki's, when it had really, fully hit Shiba that the then toddler was a totally new person, one who loved and trusted him without reservation. It had been followed by the equally mortifying and delightful self-revelation that Shiba was definitely going to end up doing his best to spoil the kid rotten.

A far worse memory, arriving at the burning wreckage of the Rokuhira's home too late to save either of them. Chihiro had been dead in a manner brutal enough to leave the fact indisputable. Rokuhira had still been breathing, but with a far away look in his eyes that already promised that as a temporary state of affairs.

So maybe this also started with picking the pieces of Chihiro's body out burning rubble, smoke mixing nauseatingly with the illusory scent of seawater, or maybe it was choking on the taste of iron while he wondered if it was worth effort to clean up the blood stains in his tub left-over from Rokuhira's self-directed exit from this world several months later.

Who can say?

If Shiba was telling the story, he'd probably start somewhere else. Something neutral and blank like the unreadable expression in Akemura's eyes when he takes Enten in one hand and Shiba's proffered escape in the other.

"Why … are we in a car?" is the first thing Akemura says about twenty minutes after Shiba's terse explanation of who they were going to be killing and why.

It is a very non-climactic break in fifteen years of silence, especially given the last time Shiba heard him speak, Akemura was lying through his teeth in a disgustingly even tone about why killing hundreds of thousands of people was nothing more than a logical necessity for peace.

… well, it's been a pretty non-climactic prison break considering Shiba's got the most dangerous and heavily guarded criminal in the country sitting shot-gun, so maybe that's fitting.

"If you were looking for a guy that could be anywhere in the world in less than a second, would the first place you check be in a car five blocks away?" Shiba answers dryly, "Also I like driving."

"Ah." Akemura says, but does not inquire further. There is a persistent downwards tilt to his mouth. Distantly Shiba wonders if he's grieving, if a person even can grieve a brother they betrayed so horrifically and a baby they never saw grow up.

Thinking about it makes him mad enough that when Akemura asks several more silent minutes later, "Where are we going?", Shiba does not give the reasonable practical answer he'd been planning, 'to get you a bath, some real clothes, and food so you don't collapse,' because he's got enough experience with Rokuhira to know what a guy running on fumes looks like.

Instead he snaps, "Anything else you want to ask? Your nephew, Chiaki and Rokuhira's kid is dead, and the Enchanted Blades are in the hands of the sort of evil bastards that would do shit like that."

Shiba wants Akemura to be just as upset about their loss as him, wants him gnashing his teeth and tearing at his hair and hating the entire world. He is simultaneously disgusted by the very notion that Akemura might even feel a fraction of his heartbreak.

"Do you not have anything better to ask?"

Shiba's temper might smolder and burn like toxic smoke, but Akemura's is an icy plunge into lifeless water.

"I can sense what is happening around Magatsumi. Not perfectly, but enough to feel the presence of the other Enchanted Blades, Rokuhira, and my nephew all those years. Enough to feel when they were gone."

The fury in his tone deepens, cold enough to burn.

"I've known. I've known for months while I sat in the dark. Asking details isn't going to fix anything."

Does he really think they're going to fix things? Shiba knew they were anywhere between three months and fifteen years past anything being fixable. Whatever, Akemura could be as delusional as he liked as long as he was being helpful.

Shiba doesn't try to correct him, instead answering his initial question, "We're going someplace we can plan, and you can change into something less conspicuous."

Planning their next move in one of Tokyo's many nondescript business hotels is almost nostalgic. A bit like being back to who they were during the war.

They sit and eat over-priced and under-seasoned room-service while Shiba tells him what he knows about the Hishaku, almost nothing besides their murder of the Rokuhira's, theft of the Enchanted Blades, and the flame-like tattoo they brand themselves with. Akemura, in turn, tells him what he can feel from Magatsumi, the sense of its seal being prodded at and a vague pull to the west.

Excepting a moment where Akemura had pouted slightly at being given a Western style outfit to change into in a way that made him look entirely too similar to Chihiro, and Shiba had the brief, all-consuming desire to kill him, it's actually pretty civil.

At least until, plan vaguely in place, they run out of practical things to say, and Shiba ends up staring at Akemura who is himself staring at Enten laid out unsheathed across his lap. Wondering why Rokuhira forged this seventh blade probably.

Well tough luck, cause Shiba doesn't know either. Redemption, probably, or maybe reparation, or something like that if he had to guess. A desperate apology to the victims of Akemura's revenge, to Chiaki for every horrific crime committed in her name, to Chihiro for bringing him into such a broken world. Guilt, guilt, guilt, like the red splash of blood circling a drain but never quite washing away.

They need to move, he needs to be doing something.

"Ready to go." Shiba says, not really a question as he stands up.

"A little longer." Akemura responds, not really a request as he stays sitting.

A furrow knots his brow, "I'm trying to connect with Enten, and the blade is being … difficult."

Shiba sighs, frustrated, "You could immediately use Magatsumi just fine." Too well actually, even before he'd committed the Malediction, Akemura had been akin to an act of vengeful god with that blade.

"This is different." Akemura insists, he opens his mouth as if to elaborate, but then after a second closes it.

He doesn't have to say anything, Shiba sort of gets it. The datensekai they're forged from elevates the Enchanted Blades beyond lifeless objects, gives them personalities even if they aren't exactly alive. Used to give him the creeps listening to the Swordbearers trying to describe it, though the way Chihiro had always spoken of them more like unruly pets has buried that old disquiet beneath borrowed fondness.

Not so sympathetically, Shiba sinks back into his seat, "This one was made by someone who hated you with the help of someone who didn't know you, obviously it's different than the Shinuchi."

Akemura doesn't respond for several long minutes. Shiba's fingers itch, wondering if he has any more cigarettes left in his current pack.

"He-, Chihiro didn't know of me?" The question is quiet.

"Did you expect us to be remembering you fondly?" Shiba asks acidicly in return. Gods, he wants a smoke.

"No." The answer is immediate, and the follow-up sure, "And I have my own grievances with my brother-in-law, just as he had with me."

Akemura doesn't deserve to call Rokuhira that, Shiba thinks. Though before he can say something to that effect, Akemura continues in a slightly softer voice, "But surely he told Chihiro about my-, about his mother?"

"Of course he did." Shiba answers, though the truth is 'barely' and 'not enough'. He'd never been sure how much of that silence was that Rokuhira's grief was too overwhelming to bear even the mention of Chiaki's name and how much of it was a desperate attempt not to burden his son with the weight of his maternal family's sins, "Just, nothing about you or any of the Soga."

"Oh." Then a tilt of his head, in the same manner and angle of his sister and his nephew, "What was Chihiro like?"

"Why does it matter? He's dead." Shiba snaps.

An unhappy clench of Akemura's jaw, a muscle jumping as he chews down his annoyance to answer, "I can feel that Enten is as much his as Rokuhira's. It would be easier to connect if I knew … anything about my nephew."

There is possibly a subtle emphasis on the last two words, though possibly that's in Shiba's head. Whatever, whatever. If it got them moving again then,

"Rokuhira once came home with a bag of goldfish out the blue." Not really, it had been a sort of shared game, maybe more a hobby, to bring Chihiro surprises. Part guilt for locking him away from the world, part amusement at how seriously he'd consider whatever treat or bauble he'd been given.

"Honestly, they were probably leftover junk from a nearby festival or something, and you know nobody excepts the damn things to live long. But Chihiro absolutely doted on them. Bugged me to bring him books on fish and watched'em like a hawk till they got settled."

Shiba closes his eyes tightly, trying not to break at the memory of Rokuhira's simple happiness badly disguised as whining about their pets liking his son more. As if he didn't more than agree with the decision.

"And the stupid things lived as … as long as he did. Loved him too, if goldfish are even capable of that. If he was in sight, they'd always swim over to that side of the bowl, trying to be closer to him."

Gentle. Good at taking care of others. Easy-going when he wasn't being the most stubborn person on earth.

When he opens his eyes again, for a second Shiba thinks he's succumbed to the urge to cry before realizing that the water is coming from the air not his his own eyes. Clear bubbles ripple forth from Enten's blade, eventually followed by the curious flickering of a trio of goldfish fins in painfully familiar colors.

Shiba has seen the physical manifestations of spiritual energy characteristic of the datensekai many times, and they've often been beautiful. Everything Rokuhira made was beautiful after all - no matter what cruelty it was capable of. He's never seen one so peaceful, and for a moment his grief is so great it ceases to ache.

He wants to reach out and touch the cool water and shimmering scales, certain in some mad way it would either kill him or free him from the rot that smolders in his chest.

Before Shiba can muster the strength to lift a hand, the goldfish and water disappear.

"I've got it." Akemura says, unnecessarily. "We can go."

Shiba's not in a great mood when they get back into the car.

It makes more sense to drive at this point, easier to follow Akemura's vague sense of where the Shinuchi was than to have Shiba guess at a location and teleport them around like darts thrown on an unseen dartboard.

Hard to say whether it's a risky move or not. Certainly it's true almost no one would guess Shiba's sticking around so close to the scene of the crime, but Tokyo is crawling with sorcerers, both of the Kamunabi and not. They're like rats, tend to congregate around cities especially rotten ones.

Not that most anyone is capable of giving Shiba a problem. Not that anyone, full stop, is capable of standing against Akemura when he has an Enchanted Blade in hand. They don't really have to sneak around, no one could do anything even if they are found. The end of this story is inevitable as the beginning is vague.

Maybe the secrecy is habit, maybe it's well-buried shame. Either way, it's something to contemplate while Shiba drives that isn't Akemura holding onto the last piece they have of Rokuhira and Chihiro in the seat next to him.

"You're angry." It's said like a statement but obviously meant like a question.

"Yeah, no shit." Shiba replies despite himself, unable to say if letting the feeling spark up feels good or bad but eager to press his fingers to the burn regardless, "I've been angry at you for the past fifteen years just like everybody else we know. Throwing away our shot at peace so you could throw a self-indulgent temper-tantrum will do that."

"I carried out the Malediction so that we could have peace." Akemura insists, his tone as stubbornly reasonable as if they were doing nothing more than debating what route to take next on their drive, "You know better than most what the Mikaboshi were like. You were there at Irish-"

"I broke you out of prison because a terrorist group stole the Enchanted Blades and murdered all your remaining family." Shiba interrupts harshly, "What goddamn peace?"

"It worked." Akemura insists mulishly, "The Mikaboshi will never hurt anyone again. There was peace, even if Rokuhira, you, and the rest squandered it by hanging up your weapons and letting other evils fester."

"You have no one to blame for that but your own fucking self. Rokuhira wouldn't have locked away the Enchanted Blades if he hadn't been so terrified someone would follow in your footsteps. If you turned out like that, how could he trust anyone?"

Akemura brows tilt down, halfway to a sneer, "That's what you're actually angry about isn't it?"

Yes. No. Maybe.

"You were supposed to be good." Shiba finally spits.

Everyone knew it. Sure they'd all trusted each, sure Rokuhira had trusted all of them, but it was different with Akemura. Rokuhira might have known that Shiba would always have his back, would have died for him, but you didn't trust a kid that had been stealing shit and picking fights their entire life, who'd started killing before he was old enough to drink or smoke and not been particularly bothered by it, who'd laughed about putting out his cigarette in some bastard's eye and not understood why Rokuhira wasn't laughing along to be a good person.

Shy, hesitant Akemura who'd picked up snails that wandered into the street after the rain and cried over everything from sad stories to dead animals on the roadside was different. Chiaki's actual little brother - not one of the strays she'd picked up to dote on -, was always obviously going to be good, worthy of all of Rokuhira's love and respect.

He should have been there helping Azami restore order after the war. He should have been there comforting Rokuhira in their shared unending grief. He should have been the doting uncle Chihiro greeted with his father's pretty, expressive eyes and his mother's sweet, subtle grin, one who wouldn't have let him-

"Good wasn't enough." Akemura explains in that same stupidly reasonable tone that he'd used to explain his massacre, "It didn't save-." He swallows, can't say it, and starts again, "It wasn't enough to save people. If I have to be a bad person-"

"Shut the fuck up." Shiba grips the wheel of the car so tightly his fingers ache, "I've been a piece of shit human my entire life, and that sure as hell didn't keep me from losing-" Mashiro, Chiaki, Rokuhira, Chihiro.

Chihiro, Chihiro, Chihiro. How many pieces did Shiba find his body in again? He's dead either way, best not to think about it.

"It didn't keep me from losing anyone." Shiba finishes quietly. The car falls silent.

They make it through another hour of driving in silence besides the occasional questions and responses about directions. Apparently the Shinuchi, and hopefully its thieves, are slightly to the south as well as still generally west.

Neither of them touch the radio, though Shiba does eventually roll down the windows to smoke the last two cigarettes in his pack to Akemura's obvious disgust.

Eventually however the car does need gas, and Shiba's stomach reminds him that he's had like four bites of food today, so with a reluctant grimace Shiba pulls off at the next signpost advertising a rest-stop.

It's a beat-up looking place. Not close enough to Tokyo to be well-kept and modern but close enough to lack any sort of rural charm. A dinky pit-stop not so much on the road to nowhere as stuck between two somewheres.

After pulling into a parking spot in the empty lot and killing the engine, Shiba digs around in his pocket for a couple of bills to shove in Akemura's direction.

"Get something to eat, piss, and then meet me back here in thirty minutes." He instructs, realizing as he says it that Akemura doesn't have a watch. Whatever, he's an adult now, he can figure it out.

Akemura takes the money with a wrinkled nose even as he complains, "I'm not hungry."

"You don't feel hungry because you didn't have regular meals for over a decade," Shiba explains with a deliberate patience he doesn't feel. "You still need to eat."

Rokuhira used to get like that. He'd go days without eating, whine about being hungry when someone showed up, then take like two bites and declare himself full. Of course he'd just collapse again usually not even a full hour later, and then whine about that. It had happened a lot less after Chihiro got old enough to start cooking for them both and being strict about mealtimes, but it had still occasionally happened to his and Shiba's shared annoyance.

"Mmm." Akemura replies, neither disagreeing nor admitting Shiba's right, "And what are you going to be doing?"

"Same deal, just also buying gas and maybe a map of the area. No clue about the roads around here." Shiba answers. He does near all his driving in Tokyo after all, if he wants to go somewhere far away normally he'd either teleport or take a train.

Akemura's face creases into a frown, "Fine. Just remember you still need me to locate the Shinuchi and to deal with those who stole it." He exits the car before Shiba has a chance to respond.

Deciding he doesn't really care enough to spare a thought on whatever that was about, Shiba also exits the car a minute later.

It's a relief to get up and stretch his legs even with the itchy feeling of wasting time stopping in the first place. It's late enough in the year that they don't have much daylight left for driving, though not so late that his breath fogs the air while the sun's still out.

A glance at his pocket watch, it's a weird time to eat, far too late for lunch and early for dinner, and Shiba heads into the nearby shop.

His eyes are immediately drawn longingly to what is almost certainly cheap and disgustingly overbrewed coffee for sale, but Shiba's old enough to know he needs actual food and water. He contents himself with instead buying another pack of cigarettes in addition to two bottles of water and the least disgusting of the various snack bars on offer.

The map turns out to be free, though that's probably cause the thing is covered in advertisements for nearby tourist traps rather than any goodwill on the cashier's part. The middle-aged man running the register barely glances at his face while ringing Shiba up, all his attention glued to a horse race shown on a small, flickering television behind the counter.

Shiba forces himself to eat the chalky snack bar he'd just bought, cut with frequent sips of water, while he looks at the map. Still no clue where they might be headed. There are a couple of smaller cities and towns out this way, but it's equally possible they're driving to some remote mountain hideout.

After pitching his trash, Shiba heads outside to find Akemura leaning against the side of the shop, his eyes closed and the subtle hum of spiritual energy surrounding him. Given his grip on the hilt he must be trying to connect with Enten again.

"Can you still not activate it?"

Akemura's eyes blink open, not looking startled, "I'm trying to figure out what the fish do."

Still? "That katana really doesn't like you, huh?" Shiba comments.

"No, or rather the issue is it's just-" Akemura pauses for a half a second, obviously thinking, "slippery, I guess?"

Subtle, quiet, patient - one of its creators the sort who was never afraid to be direct but who rarely felt the need to.

"You remember the sort of silent Hiroto was, or how Chiaki got when she was being serious?" Shiba asks, hoping Akemura will understand what he's getting at without him having to say anything else.

"Of course I remember." Akemura answers quickly. Thankfully he seems to understand what Shiba was implying as he then wonders aloud, "I wouldn't have guessed my brother-in-law would have raised a child like that."

"Rokuhira could be quiet when he was in a mood." Though that had been a different, more hesitant and miserable sort of silence, "'sides, kids are more than just tiny copies of their parents." Shiba turns away to start heading back towards the car, the near silent pad of Akemura's footsteps behind him.

Unfortunately there is someone waiting for them by the car when they get back.

Shiba has about half a second to curse at the familiar sight of Samura's dark glasses and aura of overwhelming focus before he registers the familiar sensation of Azami trying to punch his head in.

Shiba has fought with Azami a lot, almost certainly more than anyone else he knows combined.

Partially this is because Shiba's primary method of making friends as a kid had been to be as annoying as possible until he got the attention he wanted, and Azami had neither Rokuhira's overwhelming distaste for violence nor Chiaki's stubbornly even temper. Partially also for less stupid reasons like actually training or because giving each other concussions was a lot less painful than some of the things they could yell at each other during an argument.

Sometimes they even fought just for fun. A poorly kept secret and guilty pleasure because Rokuhira and Chiaki had both really hated the habit. Chihiro had just seemed to find it stupid which was somehow worse.

Regardless, it's second nature for Shiba to twist away and turn what should have been a broken skull into a glancing blow, even as he shoots a hand out to brush against Azami's shirt and take them five miles north and two hundred feet up.

Likewise, it's second nature for Azami to immediately twist in the air and grab Shiba's left arm, forcing him to either join Azami in freefall or take them both back down safely.

Falling to his death would be an incredibly stupid way for Shiba specifically to die, so he once again activates Itazura. Back down a hundred and ninety-seven feet but a change in orientation by ninety degrees so that Azami's back hits the ground with a nasty thud followed shortly by his head.

Unfortunately Azami's inured enough to his sorcery that the sudden change in pressure and position doesn't leave him disorientated, and he keeps a tight grip on Shiba's arm - not letting Shiba ditch him in the relative safety of wherever the hell they are and flee back to Akemura.

Shiba shoves one of his knees into Azami's stomach from his awkward half-kneel over him. Azami just sneers, his right hand sparking at he starts to flip one of his electrified coins.

Before he can complete the motion, Shiba uses Itazura again and momentarily increases their weight to the point that it makes his bones ache, causing Azami to fumble the motion and curse as their combined gravity crushes him.

Shiba has half a moment to hope Azami will lose his grip from the pain - especially with Shiba's knee still pushing down cruelly on his upper abdomen - before Azami uses his grip on Shiba's arm to pull him down and headbutt him hard enough to break skin.

"Fucking bastard!" Shiba hisses, dizzy enough that Azami's able to flip their positions so that he's leaning over Shiba as he yells.

"Right back at you! The hell were you thinking letting the Swordmaster out? Especially with the Shinuchi who knows where!"

Instead of trying to punch Shiba's teeth in or activate his sorcery again, Azami seems to want an actual answer, something desperate in his expression.

"I was thinking that the bastards who killed Chihiro and might as well have killed Rokuhira need to die, and that Akemura is very good at killing." Shiba tells him letting himself flop back further into the ground and stare at the tree-filled sky of wherever nowhere place he'd brought them. Shiba had also been thinking that he doesn't know how to use a sword, but if Azami hadn't noticed Enten at Akemura's waist then Shiba's not gonna tell him while still in punching distance.

"The Kamunabi-" Azami starts, before Shiba cuts him off with a sneer, "Too busy hiding away the remaining Swordbearers, just as cowardly as the Sorcery Bureau."

Same bastards that would rather try to kill the guy offering them a solution than give up one measly year of safety bought with an innocent woman's life. Literally some of the same bastards even.

"If you'd just trust-"

Shiba reactivates his sorcery, switches their orientation a hundred and eighty degrees and drops them from a foot in the air, this time leaning his free arm against Azami's throat in a chokehold the second they hit the ground.

"Because they're so damn trustworthy Rokuhira had to living in hiding from them more than from any criminal, was terrified to even let any of the Swordbearers know he had a kid they could use as a  hostage to force him to either hand the Enchanted Blades back or make new ones!"

Shiba lets his voice drop to a poisonous whisper, "And what if they'd known Chihiro was Chiaki's too? How old do you think he'd have gotten before they started demanding he let some well-bred woman push him down and try to get herself pregnant with a new princess-seer?"

It's an ugly rehash of a series of awful arguments Rokuhira had brought up blank-faced and shaking for why he'd lived and raised his son as he had. Why Chihiro had never gotten to go to school or make friends or really even speak to anyone besides his father and the two of them.

Azami's free hand wrenches Shiba's arm off his neck, "I know, I work with them you don't think I know what they're like? The question was why didn't you trust me?"

The fight visibly drains out of him, his desperately held grip on Shiba's other arm loosening from bruising to barely there, "Why are you always doing stupid shit without telling me first?"

Not trying to pull away anymore even though he likely could now, Shiba answers through a suddenly dry mouth, "You would have tried to stop me."

"Obviously." Azami sighs so deeply it sounds painful, "It was as a stupid plan, so obviously I would have tried to talk you out of it. And then when I failed because you're a fucking dumbass, I would have moved onto to helping you."

Shiba rolls off him, so that they're both lying on their backs in the dirt, "… I'm sorry."

"Not as sorry as you'll be if Samura or one of the other Swordbearers catches you." Azami says dryly.

"They don't have their Enchanted Blades and dodging trouble is my specialty. I'll be fine." Shiba replies, the assurance probably worth more to Azami than his apology had been.

Azami sits up, slowly pulling himself to his feet through what must be a matching set to the bruises Shiba currently feels himself developing, "Look, don't tell anyone, but it's almost certain there's someone high-up in the Kamunabi working with the Hishaku, and that's how they found Rokuhira's location and snuck past the barrier."

Shiba sits up so quickly it makes him dizzy, "Then-"

"I'm investigating the leading council, but if you are able to actually find the Hishaku feel free to try to beat it out of them."

Azami offers him a hand, "In the meantime, I'll try to keep the Kamunabi from sending anyone else after you - which shouldn't be a hard sell since it's basically a suicide mission -, as long as you try to keep Akemura under control. Deal?"

Shiba takes his hand, "Deal."

Shiba drops Azami off about a mile away from the rest-stop before teleporting back there himself. They'd both doubted that Samura, likely fresh off getting his ass kicked, was going to be quite so amenable to a truce - even if it was the best way to avoid killing each other. Not with how stubborn he was, and not when he'd taken the Malediction and the subsequent government cover-up nearly as hard as Rokuhira.

Shiba is fully expecting to be cursed out by his old friend on arrival.

Instead he finds Akemura sitting on the ground staring at Samura's corpse. It's covered in blood, nearly bisected at a diagonal, though all Akemura has on him is a faint splash of red across his lower face and tracking down to his shirt.

"There are ways to disagree that don't involve killing people, ya know?" Shiba points out, in lieu of asking Akemura what the hell is wrong with him.

Akemura doesn't respond for a long minute, his eyes fixed on Samura's corpse. Shiba nudges him not too gently with his foot, "Azami's still alive, by the way. Or maybe, sorry to disappoint if you're that set on killing all our old friends."

Finally, "If he'd gotten back Tobimune before I'd recovered Magatsumi he could have-, would have killed me." Akemura says quietly, "It was the correct choice."

He'd sounded more sure by the end, but also as soon as he'd finished he'd pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, like a little kid trying not to cry, like he couldn't bear to see.

"Yeah, keep telling yourself that." Shiba replies, unable to look away from the expression of hopeless desperation frozen on Samura's dead face for several long minutes in the following silence.

Shiba finally makes himself turn away, "Be ready to move by the time I'm finished getting gas."

They end up in a road-side motel that night. A pair of beds in a single room so that Shiba only has to go through the trouble of warding one area against tracking spells - more for their pursuers sake than their own safety apparently.

Akemura had stayed quiet the entire time. No more inane questions or snappish responses when Shiba had prodded at him. No even another bull-headed defense for his actions when reminded that Samura had been a father, that he'd killed some poor little girl's family today.

After a while the quiet falls over Shiba too, and he finds himself collapsing in the room's worn-down armchair and lighting a cigarette - tired but unwilling to close his eyes and see any number of bloody corpses in his mind's eye.

"I hate you." Shiba finally says, somewhat to Akemura and somewhat to the room at large.

"I think you were the first person I ever really hated." Akemura replies blandly from where he's sprawled out on one of the beds staring at the ceiling fan. He still hasn't done anything about Samura's blood splattered and dried across his face and shirt.

Shiba blows out a cloud of smoke. It feels weird to smoke indoors and it's a shitty habit, but he doesn't particularly give a shit about Akemura's lungs and it's cold out so might as well start now. "Why didn't you just kill me then?"

"I hated the Mikaboshi and the mainline of my clan a lot more." Akemura answers, then as if remembering his favorite lie, "Besides, it wasn't about hate. It was about-"

"Vanquishing evil. Protecting the weak." Shiba parrots sarcastically, "What, whatever I did to make you hate me not good enough to qualify as evil?"

"You should have died on Irishima." Akemura responds coldly. Shiba coughs on his next exhale, on the taste of salt and blood.

"I never liked you. I always thought you were just a self-important, power-drunk bully who only acted semi-decent in front of Rokuhira and my sister because you had a crush on them."

That's not entirely inaccurate, so even if Shiba wasn't currently choking he wouldn't have much to say in his defense.

"But he respected you and she insisted you were a good person. And you were strong." Akemura's voice is like ice, "Everyone knew you were strong, and yet you still came crawling back from Irishima with everyone else dead and that disgusting offer."

"I'm sorry." Shiba manages to rasp out. He knows Akemura can hear him, but he doesn't stop. It was probably foolish to ask for mercy in the first place; it isn't a virtue either of them have cultivated.

"My sister saw what happened on Irishima. She cried for you. Apologized for not protecting you from your own failure." Finally the burning cold core of his anger, "She wouldn't have agreed to be sent off to be raped and killed if she hadn't felt so guilty about you getting hurt."

"I didn't think anyone would actually consider-" The cigarette in Shiba's hand burns down to the filter, burns his hands. He doesn't let it go. "It was ridiculous."

Everything had been ridiculous. Hiroto and Yoshinojo couldn't be dead, not with their strength. Mashiro couldn't be dead, Shiba had promised to keep him out of trouble. Nothing bad should ever happen to Chiaki, too many people loved her too dearly.

"We didn't let her-" Shiba tries again, before stopping when he realizes how horrible it sounds. Another choice she didn't get to make, as much an item as the datensekai was by the time the war started.

Akemure doesn't respond.

"After we kill the Hishaku, you're more than welcome to kill me too."

Akemura's eyes flick over, half-open in a way that makes him look far too much like his sister, his voice blandly unimpressed with Shiba's begging, "Why? It wouldn't change anything."

Shiba flees the room with a thought.

The next morning Shiba comes back to find Akemura sitting on the floor with his eyes closed, Enten gripped tightly in his hands.

"Oh you're back." He sounds genuinely surprised, "Where did you go last night?"

To Azami's to apologize, mostly because Shiba hadn't had anyone else alive enough for him to apologize to.

He must have really looked like shit when he'd gotten there too, Azami had done nothing more than sigh at him before letting Shiba crash on his couch.

"None of your business." Shiba tells him as he collects the few things he'd left behind while fleeing the motel room last night.

"Don't be so irresponsible." Akemura lectures as he rises to his feet, "We're in this together. You need me, and I need to know where you are."

Shiba distantly remembers that Akemura had never liked being alone as kid, had spent a lot of time trailing after Samura or Rokuhira during their downtime in the war.

But really, how he is still so goddamn clingy? Especially since they'd just outright admitted to hating each other.

… Well, maybe if Shiba's nearly run out of people who can accept his apologies, then Akemura's run out of people he can latch onto. Their family and friends form a near perfectly overlapping circle after all.

"Fine. Went to Azami's." Shiba relents, before adding, "And stop acting like I'm about to ditch you. I need you to locate the Hishaku and probably also to deal with them since thanks to someone they now have both Kuregumo and Tobimune available to use."

"Misaka Ibuki's dead?"

Oh, Shiba hadn't really been thinking of it, that loss busy being eclipsed by his grief over Chihiro and Rokuhira, but "Yeah, forgot to mention. He was killed by the Hishaku that same night."

Akemura shoots him a disgruntled look, "Anyone else dead you forgot to mention?"

Shiba shrugs, "Not unless you plan on throwing another temper-tantrum."

Akemura sneers at him, pulling open the motel room door with a sharp snap, but doesn't try to defend himself this time. Maybe because though he's finally cleaned Samura's blood from his face, it still lingers on shirt. Maybe because at this point he's just sick of Shiba's shit.

Even though they're going to need real food at some point, trying for breakfast seems a bit much after the everything of yesterday, so Shiba just drops some disgusting looking snack bars he'd stolen from Azami's place in the center console of the car before he pulls back onto the main road.

"Still heading west?" He checks, not really expecting anything different. Even if some traitor in the Kamunabi's already altered the Hishaku that Akemura's free, they'd still have no way of knowing he could sense the Shinuchi.

"Yes." And then something new, "We're getting close."

"How close?" Shiba asks, an anxious eager feeling stirring in his chest, "Like in an hour or not till this evening?"

"It's not as if I have a map." Akemura grumbles, his eyes closing as a furrow appears between his brow, "Close enough that I can almost see what surrounds the blade. Definitely closer than wherever Rokuhira lived when I was imprisoned."

Alright not an exact time frame, but definitely reachable today.

"You ready?" Shiba asks, "They might have already bonded one of their members to an Enchanted Blade. You figure out what those goldfish do yet?"

"The black one is for cutting." Akemura answers promptly, "It's form is almost as fluid as the forms I could shape Magatsumi's darkness into - it could be anything from a large forward strike to a thousand cuts from behind."

His next answer is more unsure, "The red one … pulls things in, I think. It might be able to absorb others' sorcery as a sort of defense."

"And the tri-colored one?" Shiba asks, wondering privately why Rokuhira had given his last work such straight-forward, almost simple, abilities. Maybe it had something to do with the katana's intended purpose, which can't have been to cut down lives on the battlefield like its siblings, but hell if Shiba knows.

"I … don't know." Akemura admits with obvious reluctance, "It feels like something lucky, maybe?"

"Wanna buy lottery tickets?" Shiba asks sarcastically.

Akemura frowns at him, an annoyed twitch in his jaw, "Not like that. It's … the sort of thing only Rokuhira would call lucky."

"Oh, like one of his weird metaphors." Shiba realizes aloud, then with a grimace, "Could be anything then."

"You don't know either." Akemura says, tone the slightest bit smug.

Chihiro's the only person, present company and Chiaki included, that always knew exactly what weird thing his dad was getting at. It used to make Shiba laugh till he was red in the face and duck his head to hide an adoring grin at the way Chihiro would just nod and seriously respond to whatever nonsense came out of Rokuhira's mouth.

"Just as stuck as you." Shiba admits, and then because he does have an advantage to remind Akemura of, "And Chihiro always got Rokuhira's weird metaphors, so no luck trying to approach it from his angle either."

Something about that makes Akemura frown in thought and fall silent for several minutes before asking, "They … sound like they got along?"

Obviously, or maybe not so obviously. Who had Akemura ever known, had either of them ever known really, that didn't grow up at least resenting their parents, if not outright hating the generation that came before?

"Chihiro loved his father more than anything in the world." Shiba answers, staring straight ahead at the road, unblinking since he cannot close his eyes this time, "And to Rokuhira …" his son was obviously the sum-proof that there was anything good left at all in the world.

Shiba breathes out harshly, "And Rokuhira didn't see the point in a life that didn't have his child's future in it." And Shiba couldn't at all blame him for that. Rokuhira had little stomach for revenge, and really, what else was left?

Akemura does not ask him to elaborate further.

They end up pulling off the main road into a small city not too long after, Akemura's directions becoming more detailed as he directs them through streets littered with buildings still not yet reopened or fixed from the damage of the war. Not a terribly unfamiliar sight.

Also not terribly unfamiliar is passing by a memorial to the war, honoring Soga Akemura and Rokuhira Kunishige specifically in large false-gold characters, as they drive through the city's downtown. Akemura eyes it with confused distaste.

"Government lied about you having a good reason to slaughter a bunch of civilians so they could prop you up next to Rokuhira as heroes." Shiba explains, "For morale, or some shit."

It made a nice story the way they told it too. Here is the talented, favored son of a clan with a well-founded claim to divine lineage and the brilliant, salt-of-the-earth swordsmith ready to gift him a weapon to deliver the country from evil invaders. Azami had once dryly commented that if it became public knowledge the two were brothers-in-law with a shared lone blood relative, every biographer and historian in the country might expire from collective joy.

Akemura does not mirror Shiba's disgust, instead looking away with a persistent frown, "I … didn't think people would agree with me. It was supposed to be a necessary evil. Not something …" he doesn't finish.

"People can get pretty bloodthirsty when they're hurt and scared. You of all people should know that." Shiba points out, too busy navigating to really start another fight about it. Akemura doesn't try either as they turn away from the city's downtown into a more industrial district.

Or least, what used to be one. Many of the warehouses they pass look abandoned, another still floundering and unable to get back on their feet after the war.

"This one." Akemura says suddenly, gesturing to a warehouse not any different from the last half-dozen they had passed.

Shiba's heart begins to thump, shrugging off its sluggish beat in his chest as the world comes into focus. Not with joy, or satisfaction, or even anger, but simply with some sort of echo of purpose. Some sort of apology he might be able to fruitlessly offer to his grief.

"Alright. Then let's go."

They enter without much fanfare besides a broken lock into a large empty central room that seems to take up most of the building. They hadn't been particularly subtle in their approach, so perhaps it is no surprise that there are a few people waiting for them.

A tall women, a bald man, and another man wearing a suit of armor straight out of a period film. How convenient, one of the few things Shiba had been able to get our a near catatonic Rokuhira was a description of who struck the dismembering blow that had officially ended Chihiro's life.

"I got the wanna-be samurai." Shiba tells Akemura, who accepts this with a nod, his hand on Enten's hilt in obvious preparation for a simple iai that, because he is Akemura, will still be more deadly than the fancy trick Samura and Uruha pull.

The false-samurai grins widely, "Sorry, I'm only interested in sword-" Shiba teleports behind him and hooks a foot with his ankle, "-play."

A hundred and fifty-feet up, rotated a hundred and eighty degrees, and triple the weight to make gravity an immediate bitch. Shiba's been told that the worst part of his sorcery is how nauseatingly disorientating it felt to have your physical characteristics jerked around during his moment of total freedom with Itazura's activation.

Shiba takes himself safely back to the ground and watches dully as the wannabe samurai falls to the earth with a bloody splat. He bends down to pick up the man's sword, a little surprised he's still breathing - must have really cultivated his spiritual energy this one.

"Really? You don't seem any good at it." Shiba says, as he sets the man's sword at an angle against the the ground, then steps down on the flat edge to shatter it into several pieces.

The man's bloodshot eyes still have enough life left to focus when Shiba puts his foot down on his head, though given the state of his jaw he's not getting any final words.

"You wouldn't have lasted long enough against Akemura for him to even have had the time to get bored of you." Shiba says before increasing their weight ten-fold and stepping down.

Shiba walks back through the front door of the warehouse to the expected sight of two more dead bodies. Akemura stands in the center of the carnage, black and red goldfish swimming in the air around him, though they once again disappear before Shiba gets close enough to touch.

"Try to keep the next one alive." Shiba says, "We've got questions for them, after all."

By description that women and the man he'd just killed were only two of three people that took part in Chihiro's murder and the theft of the Enchanted Blades. Also, there's still the traitor in the Kamunabi who made it possible.

Before Akemura has a chance to respond, there is the slight sound of a door at the back end of the warehouse that presumably leads to a warren of offices and closets, and both Shiba and Akemura turn towards the sound. A man enters through the opened doorway at an unhurried pace.

He's projecting a nondescript and casual air, enough so that Shiba's eyes immediately jump to the sealed carrying case of the Shinuchi in his arms before he registers anything about the man himself, even his unsettlingly pale yellow eyes and white eyebrows.

"I might have some answers for you." The man addresses them in a faux-friendly tone, stopping far closer than most people would be comfortable standing. Despite that, he can't seem to help letting his eyes dart momentarily to the dead bodies on the warehouse floor. More nervous than he's willing to let on.

"Go ahead then." Akemura replies, a soft-spoken command. Shiba stays silent, wondering if it will be safe to inquire about the identity of the traitor in the Kamunabi with Akemura in earshot before they kill this one too.

The killing part really isn't in question.

Not that this guy seems to have gotten the message, "Thank you." He says false-politely, "I'm Yura, the leader of the Hishaku."

Shiba's muscles tense, and he considers for a moment just killing the man right this instant. Dropping him from high enough that nothing recognizable would be left when he hits the ground.

No. Better to get a list of names and locations. Better to ask this guy who will definitely know the name of the Kamunabi traitor. Maybe he'll be stubborn and Shiba will get to beat it out of him …

"I have to say, seeing the Swordmaster here is rather unexpected. Are you here to reclaim the Shinuchi?" Yura smiles even as the blood of his dead followers soaks into their shoes, "I might not necessarily be opposed to that."

"And what exactly do you mean by that?" Shiba cuts in, voice cold. Surely this asshole doesn't think…

It was Shiba that asked the question, but Yura's answer is directed totally at Akemura, "I approve of the Malediction."

"What" Akemura's eyes are very wide, there is a slight shake in his still drawn blade, only noticeable if you know how steadily he used to hold it, "do you mean by that?"

"Sometimes we have to do, let's say, extreme things for the sake of peace." Yura replies, before a slight grimace crosses his brow, "I had hoped that losing his son might remind Rokuhira Kunishige of that fact. Might knock him out of the domestic little daydream he'd secluded himself and the Enchanted Blades in while the world outside rotted and suffered."

What a stupid speech. Listening to this is useless - there will never be a good enough reason to commit that sort of crime.

Akemura reaches out to grab Shiba's arm before he can initiate more than a twitch of movement. Shiba pauses, looking at him in horrified, furious askance, but all of Akemura's focus is zeroed in on Yura.

"That's the reason you killed Chihiro? Your hatred of Rokuhira Kunishige?" Akemura confirms dully, "He was an innocent child."

Yura shakes his head, "It wasn't for hatred, it was simply a logical decision for the sake of a greater peace."

Akemura doesn't say anything, the hand holding Shiba back is now also shaking, badly enough that he can feel it.

Yura's eyes flicker over to that shaking hand and a disappointed half-smile appears on his face, "What a shame, I really thought we might be able to understand each other."

He raises two fingers of the hand not holding the Shinuchi's case, and Shiba curses as they start to burn with some sort of teleportation spell.

He's not able to jerk his arm free before Akmura moves, a swirl of water and the liquid glass feel of a goldfish's tail there and gone again against Shiba's raised hand.

On his next blink, Enten is already impaled straight through Yura's mouth and out the back of his head. Akemura pulls the blade free with a kick, letting the body fall with an anti-climactic thud.

"I figured out what the tri-colored one does." Akemura says softly, flicking the blood and viscera off Enten's blade before sheathing it neatly, "It's a blessing."

An enhancement spell. Lucky in the sense of being watched over by something greater than you for a better tomorrow. Yeah, Rokuhira would think like that.

Shiba walks forward silently to pick up the sealed case holding the Shinuchi.

"What are you going to do with it?" Akemura asks.

"Drop it off at the Kamunabi's doorstep. They're cowardly enough that if they can't use it, they'll make sure no else can either." Shiba answers, feeling a dull surprise when Akemura does not immediately object. 

Shiba wishes he felt something at all right now besides the heavy constant of grief still rotting away in his chest with the reminder that what they just did changed nothing, fixed nothing. The story was always going to end this way, with Rokuhira and Chihiro still dead.

"Oh." Akemura says, then nothing else as he trails behind Shiba. The uncharacteristic silence lasts till they reach the edge of the room.

"Did I sound like that when I spoke about-" Akemura doesn't finish the question, and Shiba doesn't give him an answer. They're no fixing them either, after all.