between the shadow and

Summary: It is not the sound of the clock that is breaking him. OneShot- Mitsuhide, after the events of ch 79. Introspection. (These are the moments that led up to this.)

Warning: spoiler. Drabble-esque, introspection.

Set: Post ch 79.

Disclaimer: Standards apply. Title and quote are from Love Sonnet XVII, by Pablo Neruda.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

The clock is ticking.

Tick, tock.

A steady rhythm. Every sixty seconds, the hand moves.

Tack.

He should probably rest.

There is nothing to do but wait, and he is not even sure what he is waiting for. For the Bergatt twins to make their move? For the mastermind behind these events to accidentally reveal himself? For the Royal Guard to apprehend the traitors?

The door is not locked.

But there is no way out when the prison is not the room but one's own mind. No way he can simply leave and forget everything. He can still hear Zen's scornful laughter, the incandescent steel in Kiki's tone. They defended him – of course they did, he would have defended them, as well. But then, they never would have been accused of hiring assassins to depose of possible rivals. This ploy only worked because it was him – Mitsuhide Rouen, soldier, knight. A common, low-born man.

There it is: the reason why he should never have been allowed to serve the Second Prince, why he should never have been placed alongside the heiress of the Seiran Family. He should never have been allowed to get this close to them.

What has led them all up to this moment? When did it all go wrong?

Once upon a time, when Clarines' Second Prince was still struggling to find his path and his knight was still making his own place at the Prince's side, the knight found himself on a battle field facing two opponents. Next to him was a woman, silver-haired, intriguing and strong; and she chose to fight alongside him. That day, Mitsuhide gained a partner and a friend for life and the promise of something.

Moments that led up to this one:

"End of fight! Winner: Knight Mitsuhide Rouen!"

He is covered in sweat. His side is bruised where an especially vicious kick has met his ribs, his sword arm feels comfortably heavy and his heart is pumping with adrenaline and the knowledge that he has met a worthy opponent. He cannot remember the last time a training spar had posed such an exhilarating challenge.

"Thank you for the fight, Sir Mitsuhide."

Mitsuhide smiles. "I have to thank you, Lady Kiki. It was a pleasure." The woman Zen chose is a remarkable fighter, lithe, quick, ready to adapt, and Mitsuhide already has about a dozen questions for her. "The next time we spar I won't be able to beat you."

Her smile is like a ray of sunlight breaking through the cloudy sky on a rainy afternoon: surprising, brilliant.

"I am looking forward to it, then."

Beautiful.

The towel Zen throws him hits Mitsuhide squarely in the face.

Tick, tack.

It is not the sound of the clock that is so hard to bear.

(He should be out there. He should be with Kiki and Zen, following the Bergatt twins, trying to find out who is willing to sabotage the peace of the kingdom by challenging the Second Prince like that. Because it is clear that the only reason Mitsuhide's name was written on the tiny piece of evidence was that he is close to Zen, and for Mitsuhide, this is unforgivable.)

It's also not the suspicion that has fallen on him that he is chafing under, the fact that they blame the injuries of some of the heirs of Clarines' most distinguished houses on him, or the fact that the familiar weight of his sword at his side is missing. It is the silence – no sound of rustling paper, no sound of swishing pens, no breathing, no voices. It is the silence that surrounds him: no Zen, no Kiki, no Obi and no Shirayuki, and, if he assumes correctly, no other person in this tract of Fort Celeg. They would want to keep him as far apart from the other soldiers as possible. It is a silence that is complete, a silence that comes from around him as much as from within him.

(He has done something unforgivable.)

There are myriads of silences, and Mitsuhide knows every single one of them.

Moments that led up to this one:

"Good morning."

Caught, Mitsuhide starts guiltily and turns his face away. His shoulder tingles where her head had been resting only a few moments before.

"Good morning."

It's almost five in the morning. Both of them know.

"Kiki-"

She stands with a grace that belies the fact that she has spent hours sitting on the ground, leaning against an uncomfortable brick wall. The sun rising behind the forest they can see from the window dances on Kiki's hair.

"I will go wake Zen," she says.

His mind is empty, echoing silence.

"You're going home."

The smile is genuine, albeit small. "I promised my father I would."

"Will you be coming back?" The question slips past his reason, past his defenses, drops from his lips before he can stop himself. The second he utters it he fervently wishes he could take it back. Sometimes, not asking is better than knowing the answer.

Her voice is as steady as her grey eyes are. "Yes."

Despite her words, no relief washes over him. His throat is constricted. Every breath is painful. There is an ache in his side, small and persistent, somewhere his heart should be.

Only that Mitsuhide is pretty sure he gave his to Zen, so this is completely out of question.

He watches Kiki's retreating back. Her steady steps, the straight line of determination in her shoulders. He knows her. He has watched her walk away from him so many times he stopped counting. She never hesitated, never halted: it is Kiki, after all. Of the two of them, she always was the strong one.

And then she stops.

Something within him stops with her. Mitsuhide holds his breath, irrationally hopeful, terrified beyond anything. Kiki does not turn around, but he knows her features better than he knows his own.

"Would you accompany me?"

It is natural to smile. Still, something twists inside him, but he ignores it.

"Anywhere."

He means it; even if the words are painful in a way they definitely should not be.

Mitsuhide is an idiot.

If he was less of one, he would not have gotten close to Kiki and Zen like that. It gave away too much of his thoughts, too much of his sentiments. It gave away too much of himself. He could have just been Zen's aide, his protector, a friend but a distant one, nonetheless. He could have just been Kiki's partner: for sparring training, in protecting Zen. A friend to both, and nothing more.

It would have served them better than this.

If he was not the huge idiot he is, people would not try to get at Zen through him. It has happened again and again, and while it never turned sour (because he is not an idiot grand enough not to recognize when people are trying to hurt Zen, even if he might oversee when they are simply trying to use Mitsuhide) it did not mean it never left its marks. If Mitsuhide had kept his distance better, Zen would not have to stand up for him in a way that made Captain Ranka, the Royal Guard's partner and all the knights of Celeg doubt their Second Prince's reason. Zen would not have had to pledge his name to Mitsuhide's – now, if he is going down, Zen is going with him no matter whether he is guilty or not. And hurting Zen is something Mitsuhide never, ever wanted to happen: something he has been trying to avoid at all costs since the day he looked at him and thought; this is it. He has promised himself nothing and nobody would ever be able to force Zen's hand like that rebel friend he made in the past, or like the lords and ladies who want their own whims seen to, or like the worthless scum that has tried to blackmail the Prince, again and again. Ironically, Mitsuhide never expected himself to be the reason Zen would be forced into a corner.

So, of course, he never thought to distance himself from his Prince.

Also, if Mitsuhide was less of an idiot, people would not gossip about Kiki so much.

If he cared less about Zen, he might have begun to court Kiki earlier. But this, too, aside from the obvious, would have been a mistake. Mitsuhide is a low-born soldier, a knight with nothing but his own name to speak for him. Kiki is the daughter and heir to the oldest noble family of Clarines. She is beautiful, intelligent and strong. There are more chances for a snowball in hell than for him to ever be worthy of standing by her side, especially if he does not want her reputation to be lost. Mitsuhide Rouen is not a Hisame Lugis; if he was, it might be easier. Hisame has always been close to Kiki, as her childhood friend with the right connections and a rich, influential family behind him he holds a position Mitsuhide will never be able to reach. And he knows this, Mitsuhide knows, which is why he would never dare to think of ever telling Kiki about his feelings for her. Zen is the person he pledged his loyalty to. Kiki does not deserve to come only second, does not deserve to have her name blackened by someone like him. To some, it might sound like a dilemma, but really, it is none.

He will forever be Zen's Sword and Kiki's partner. He loves both of them too much to step aside, too much to ever dream of being more. Or does he simply love them too little to let go?

Mitsuhide is an idiot, and he knows.

Moments that led up to this:

"I never thought of you as cruel, Your Majesty."

King Izana Wistalia of Clarines smiles.

"You think me cruel because I separate them? If they let this discourage them, they weren't meant to be in the first place."

"Your tests are exceedingly impossible."

He has never spoken to his king like this before. He'd never even dreamed of it. But seeing the sadness in Zen's eyes, the way he desperately tries proving himself to his elder brother-

"Mitsuhide."

"Your Majesty?"

"Why do you suppose I am testing my brother?"

"Excuse me?"

"Maybe I am not testing him, but the people who care for him."

Silence. And then, Mitsuhide asks:

"Are you testing me, Your Majesty?"

Izana smiles, enigmatically. His face never gives away his thoughts. "You tell me, Knight Rouen."

As he walks away, he speaks over his shoulder.

"Remember that I am not the only one who might be."

These are some kinds of silence:

There is the silence filled with rustling paper and scraping pens, when Zen is working at his desk and Kiki reviews the reports and Obi scans through the reference volumes they use, pretending hard not to be interested. The silence Mitsuhide associates with being in a place he knows, with people he cares for: doing work that is important to him. The silence of comfort, and shared goals and friendship.

There is the silence that is made up of labored breaths and the song of echoing metal, when Mitsuhide and Kiki fight and Zen keeps track of them from the sidelines and Shirayuki is waiting with tea and biscuits. The silence of steel ringing on steel, of fast attacks and equally fast defenses. It is the silence Mitsuhide associates with doing what he knows he does best, what he loves most when it is with the oh-so-few people that can see hold their own with him. Fighting: doing what he was born for. The silence of training, of being completely and utterly in synch with one's partner.

There is the silence that is made up of unsaid words and small smiles, of hidden glances and mutual understanding. Mitsuhide is not stupid enough to not notice, to not realize how important Kiki is to him. How could he? When he falls asleep, the last thing he sees is her face. She is the first person he greets in the morning, aside from Zen, and the one person that never fails to make him smile. With Kiki, silence feels like silver, like the light of the stars reflecting off her hair, like the warmth of the sun on a Sunday afternoon. With Kiki, being silent is like being able to read her completely. In return, he is pretty sure she can read him like an open book, as well.

With Kiki, there also is a different kind of silence. One that is not pleasant but uncomfortable, bordering on painful. It surfaces whenever he remembers how it feels when he and Kiki are not talking. Because one of them said something stupid (or didn't say it), or for whatever reason (excuse) it is he desperately uses and she side-steps, equally desperate. The silence rises up and overwhelms them, swallows them and takes their breath away, and they cannot bear to look at one another.

It is a similar silence that he is feeling now, the silence of failure and self-loathing, disgust and desperation. And it is breaking him.

Moments that led up to this:

i) Zen

"So now that you know she is a woman, what do you think of her?"

"Please stop laughing, Your Highness." So easy to rile him up.

"Stop calling me that when you are embarrassed! And quit stalling!"

"I think…" He stops to think, continues. "I think she is a good person. Strong, too. Determined. She will protect you well."

"I'm not inviting her here so she can protect me."

It makes him smile. "I know."

"Do you?" Zen shoots him a doubtful look. Then he shrugs and stretches his arms over his head. "Ah, I suppose it does not matter yet."

...

ii) Kiki

"One year. Are you not going to look at me for the rest of this time?"

He knows her so well he can match her looks to her voice exactly, knows her better than he knows anything. He did not expect her to hide something that important from him. It just… She should not have done this. Thinking of how she was there, how she knew when they traveled, when they trained, when she smiled at him, knowing she would leave h- them. He cannot even wrap his mind around it. Which is why he is so angry.

"So what if I wouldn't?"

"I don't know." Kiki, always so calm, always so sure of herself. "I suppose it would not matter."

And it… hurts. It takes everything he has not to yell at her, and then-

"I don't need to look at you to understand you."

...

iii) Hisame

"So is Miss Kiki still not engaged?"

"No."

"Coward."

Hisame's taunting look is enough to rile him up in a way he dislikes very, very much but cannot help.

Oh, but Mitsuhide knows exactly which moment has led up to this one.

He is Zen's aide, his Sword. He should not have let himself get distracted in the first place. But – Kiki. Her perpetual invisible smile. The way her eyes show her feelings so clearly, as if they are written-out words for him to read only. The focus on her face when they fight, the way she wears dresses as easily as riding boots and armor. The way she forces him, again and again, to bring out the best in him. The way she looks at Zen and Shirayuki.

The way she leans on him, almost unnoticeable, as he leans on her, and allows him to gather strength from her determination while drawing strength from his loyalty: how could he not love her?

How can he love her when it is the one thing that can hurt her and Zen most?

(Mitsuhide also knows that, at heart, he is incredibly selfish.)

Dong.

Midnight.

Tick, tock.

Tick, tock.

The clock is ticking.