Shichika is presented at a stranger's court like a lady – he feels eyes on him and his sister, curious, probing ones that judge them with a criteria he doesn't understand.

'They are wondering,' Nanami murmurs at his side, 'how Father is planning to shape us. And how sharp we will be once he is done.'

He has to strain to catch hold of her voice, made weak and frail by the many illnesses she has been beating back since she was a child. But once he understands her, the nerves take hold and he wobbles as he bows, the sweep of his long hair brushing against the floorboards as though seeking to clean rather than decorate. He hears his sister tut at this and flinches; but these shining wooden floors, just recently polished, will have to suffer the curse of being washed over by both the feet and hair of his family a little longer.

Shichika can hear them, from the coil of their hair touching the floor, to the shuffle of their clothes as they straighten. All of them are marked as individuals by the sounds they make as they step forwards, his father's tread heavy on the floor, strong and firm like the voice he uses to teach Shichika with, and his sister, the soft pad of her feet similar to a lioness that savours the bite before it pounces – though she is accompanied, as always, with her soft smile and tiny waist, all things that give off that courtly flavour of passiveness. And as for his mother...well, she drifts, feet as half-hearted as a light breeze upon the flower stalks. It is as though she is willing herself to be a ghost and Shichika tries not care. After all she has grown up in a house just like this one and has learnt, better than he, how not to be noticed.

Shichika doesn't like that. He also doesn't like this lord they're visiting much either. He's too cavalier and he makes his father grimance. He calls him 'Yasuri-kun'. Not many people can do that with a straight face, let alone with one that can smile so easily afterwards.

But then out of the shadows, comes his daughter, tottering over inside layers of silk, all of them churning out of each other in a series of overlapping sleeves and uneven hemlines. Their colours clash, purple, red, and blue, each with a finery too thick for her tiny frame to handle. And it is glorious; for out here, in front of these people, this grand, stylish artioscrat seems just as clumsy as him.

But then, like magic, she glances up, her eyes raking their way over his face. And though she totters on heels barely wider than a set of knives, her eyes are as steady as stone.

He's not sure how to feel about that.

'Yōsha,' says Hida grandly, 'take off those shoes your mother made you wear – they make you look too tall.'

Yōsha scowls at him and the moment is broken. Even more so when two steps later, she falls flat on her face.

Shichika shouldn't be allowed to visit her unattended. But he is. He's not sure why her handmaidens move away when he's near; but something in Yōsha's eyes shine dangerously, like a series of jewels that haven't been cut down to size properly. She's raw, unpolished, but more than that, there is something in her posture that chases them away. It stays there, making her stiff when he comes to a stop beside her. But there's no taste of fear in her face, not like there is with other nobles, and it's enough to make Shichika listen.

'You're too tall,' she snaps. 'Sit down. Someone as delicate as me will snap my neck peering up into your face!'

He really shouldn't have to put up with something like this. Such a hassle. But he doesn't say it out loud. The habit makes his mother frown and once, when he was younger, she cuffed him against the ear for it. Shichika has never forgotten the resulting noise her wrist made as her hand flinched back, away from his skin, the bone crumbling into uneven pieces, into silicon dust that helped bleached her face with pain. Even back then, his training to become the next heir to Kyotōryū had had impressive results. But it had not changed the fact that his mother had almost broken her hand while trying to discipline him.

So Shichika does not reply to this rude lady. He sits instead, tucking his legs firmly beneath his knees.

Yōsha stares back.

'That's obedient of you. But then you aren't like the other idiots who come strolling into my father court, are you? No, you possess a different sort of stupidity.'

Such a hassle, he thinks and nearly bites his tongue.

'How many people have you killed?'

Well. Shichika's never had a girl ask him that before. But then he hasn't had many girls ask him things in general. And his talks with sister, he thinks, don't really count for something like this.

'Just two.'

'Why?' She looks at him directly as she speaks, without wasting any words. It's an abrupt shift from earlier and it makes Shichika slightly dizzy.

'They taunted my sister and I didn't want her to get her new dress dirty. Mother had it ordered for her specially.'

He doesn't think Nanami would have cared that much in the long run. But his mother would have. And then she might have called Nanami a monster again. Which, in turn, would have been a hassle.

Really, Yōsha should look horrified, like this one nobleman's son had when he had told him the story. But she doesn't. She looks thoughtful instead.

'Hmm. It still seems rather wasteful, no matter how I look at it. I'm not a fan of needless killing. But then, I've never been taught to fight for my life either, so I suppose I don't really have the right to say anything.'

'Ah,' says Shichika, 'it wasn't really like that.'

But he's still pleasantly surprised. He had been expecting some sort of delayed reaction, rather like how his mother's handmaiden had blinked for a while when he had first splattered her with the blood of a freshly-slain bird; his control had been imperfect back then, the swing of his arm far too wide. But after a few seconds, she had begun shrieking nonetheless.

'You were avenging your sister,' says Yōsha slowly, as though testing out the idea for the first time. 'I'm sure some people would see it as pity. And others as a great shame. But to people like me, it would have seemed a greater shame to let it go unremarked.' Then she stops, a sly smirk gracefully plastering itself to her face.

Daunted, Shichika feels himself shuffle backwards a little. He's not sure why, but in this moment, she rather reminds him of a demon. It's different from Nanami, whose smiles, while sometimes equally as skin-crawling, at least have an element of concealed calmness to them, like in the way a watchful predator patiently outlasts its quarry. But everything about Yōsha is loud and snappish, travelling up to perch on her face as though she doesn't have time to waste.

She spins round to him. 'Show me! Your moves, I mean. I don't want you to kill anything.' She clambers to her feet, almost tripping over the long, dangling lines of her sleeves until Shichika grabs hold of her hand and pulls her upright. He's struck then by how thin her palm feels against his own, how much more delicate it appears, more delicate in fact, than the arch of a deer's neck before he usually snaps it, all with a casual twist of his thumb.

Yōsha offers him a snide smirk, almost as though she can detect what he's thinking. The effect however is marred slightly, by a small plume of pink that comes to rest on her cheeks. 'See?' she announces proudly, despite her blush, 'I told you I was delicate!'

'That's not really something you should be proud of,' Shichika tells her before freezing, mortified at what his mother would say if she was here.

Yōsha's grin widens, despite the disapproving looks of her handmaidens. 'O-ho. It's cute how you seek to lecture me. Rest assured; you'll soon learn not to doubt my words.'

Shichika learns that Yōsha is loud and demanding and spoiled. She trips over the long lines of her clothes that stretch and trail behind her feet as though they've been designed to fit within the parameters of a traveller's cloak rather than a young girl's footsteps. And he watches, bemused, every time, as she stops to fuss and rage at the dirt that appears within the carefully blended colours. But even though it's a hassle, it's a welcome change of pace from the calm, simmering rages Shichika has to work hard to diffuse at home. Yōsha is clumsy and loud, and sometimes spiteful, but he's also fairly sure that she will never rip out his nails the way Nanami will sometimes, or stare at him wistfully the way his mother often does.

Yōsha claps loudly as the touch of his palm causes another tree to explode. 'Impressive,' she announces grandly, as though she has the right to judge him. 'Kyotōryū really is amazing.' She stares at him thoughtfully. 'You say that you're training to be a sword? Isn't that difficult? I mean, how do you stop being a person and act like a tool instead?'

He actually has to stop and think about this for a moment. 'I don't think I've ever actually been a person,' he says finally, 'or at least I've never really stopped to understand how being a tool is different from being a person. I'm simply a sword. That's all there is to it.'

Yōsha stares at him and strangely, he feels like fidgeting. It's a foreign feeling, one that hasn't stirred his stomach since he was little, just before he started to follow the training his father set aside for him.

'I see,' she says. 'It seems a little sad to me that you feel that way. But to you, I suppose it doesn't feel that way at all. In fact, I guess that's what it means to be a sword. You're not really supposed to feel things at all. At least, not the way humans do.'

He nods his head vigorously. 'That's right,' he says. It's the job of whoever wields me to feel. I simply obey.'

Yōsha is quiet for a moment, the wind stirring her black hair. Shichika's hand itches; it's so strange, like he wants to reach out and curl his fingers round the movement, anything to smooth out the ripples and ruffles the wind drags her hair into. He's seen his father do it with his mother's own hair sometimes, as though it's an impulse he's powerless to resist. But he never thought anything in him would be capable of feeling something similar.

'It must be lonely,' Yōsha says finally. But Shichika can't tell whether she's being sympathetic, or simply observant.

The time comes when they have to leave of course. Nanami and his mother are apathetic, though Shichika notices that they leaves with a few more silks and items of jewellery than they were travelling with. If his father notices, he says nothing, simply sweeping a long finger over his mother's fingers, as though in consolement. She doesn't flinch away.

Shichika wonders how Yōsha would react, if he were to do the same. Would she bat his hands away and screech? Or would she blush prettily, docile as a well-fed cat? The thought does strange things to his stomach.

She stands there, watching, as they make their goodbyes and her eyes are cool and steady, as though she's watching nothing more than a bunch of ants scurry past.

'Little Brother,' Nanami says suddenly from beside him, 'control your strength.'

Shichika dimly becomes aware of a pain in his hand and he looks down, haltingly, at the thin trail of blood being squeezed out of his fist. He doesn't know when his fingers started to curl, when they decided to break his skin, but he feels foolish suddenly, as though he barely knows how to fight.

Nanami sighs but then her head swings up, eyes narrowing into a sharp, focused look as Yōsha starts to walks towards them, tottering in heels, that are, once again, far too tall for her to handle. She winces as she clambers down the steps, arms outstretched to keep her balance. From behind her, her father buries his head in his sleeve and laughs.

Shichika shifts, uncomfortable. He's never been in a household quite like this one. The lord and his family are proud and aristocratic, no doubt, but they all seem willing to throw proper manners out of the window at a moment's notice, ready to flare up like fire against any who might disapprove.

Yōsha takes a breath before him, another step, and then promptly falls again.

Without thinking Shichika steps forward to catch her, gritting his teeth in memory of the blood smeared over his palm. Within seconds he twists his fingertips into her robes, bracing her against the stout barrier of his arms.

Yōsha gives him an annoyed look. 'You're lucky that I'm gracious enough to let this slide,' she states. 'Blood doesn't come out of silk easily, if at all.' But the harshness of her words seems belied by the blush on her face and the way her eyes peek up at him, half-nervous. 'You're too tall!' she snaps suddenly. 'Bend down so I can reach!'

Shichika blinks. 'You're confusing,' he informs her, 'not to mention a hassle.'

Yōsha lips twitch. 'Of course,' she tells him. 'I'm an aristocrat after all. It's our job to be unruly and demanding. My father taught me that, if nothing else.'

She reaches into her sleeve and Shichika blinks at the slight tearing sound as she rips it free from some hidden layer of silk. 'For your palm,' she adds unnecessarily as she presents it with a flourish. Then she looks at him, a slight twinkle in her eyes as she whips it against her mouth for less than a second. The silk comes away with a visible wet smudge and Shichika's brain comes to a stop as he notices Yōsha's tongue quickly darting back within her mouth.

She winces slightly as though suffering from a quick bout of whiplash and Shichika finds himself marvelling, that even something as fragile as motion from a cloth is enough to wound her.

'Salvia's good for wounds,' she informs him crisply. 'Animals use it all the time. And don't-' she tells him, pointing a finger at him warningly – 'say I'm no better than an animal.'

'I wouldn't say that,' he says, reaching out to gently take the scrap of wet silk. 'I've decided to fall for you after all.'

He turns round, confidently ignoring her stutter as he does so. For some reason, he doesn't feel the need to look back.

Yōsha turns up at his house three months later, panting, mud weighing down her thin farmer-like sandals. Shichika finds himself staring at her in disbelief, more at the fact that there is not a single trace of a heel beneath her feet.

'Ah!' he says suddenly, in such obvious distress that she scowls at him. 'Your hair!'

He reaches out to brush free all the leaves and blades of grass tangled up within it's dark lines, trying not to stare too hard at the way it end in a swirl beside her feet, run through with streaks of mud.

Yōsha winces as his fingers tug out a single, offending leaf. 'Stop,' she says, in an obvious huff. 'That's not important right now.' She fixes with a fierce glare, one that leaves him paralysed. It is frightening really; Shichika has never hesitated in a fight, has never run from pain, even if it is delivered in the form of one his sister's crueler disciplinary actions. And yet here, in the eyesight of this tiny woman, Shichika feels...small.

'Have you become anyone's sword yet?' she asks in a rush.

He shakes his head mutely.

'Good,' she says decisively. 'You can be mine then. I'm supposed to be getting married but my father has chosen an idiot.' She sighs, reaching up to artfully pull out another leave, ignoring Shichika's stunned look as she does so. 'Honestly, I think it's another one of his 'tests' for me. he wants to see how I'll go about escaping it.' She shudders. 'You won't believe the things he's made me do in the past. Urgh, he practically ruined my hands when I was younger, making me fetch my own water. I nearly died.'

Shichika hands land on her shoulder, artfully cutting her off.

'Yōsha,' he says firmly, 'what are you orders for me?'

The grin she offers him in return is nothing short of delight.

Yōsha is prickly and embarrassed, telling him to be careful or she'll break. He is mindful of her words, picturing the animals he's hunted down and killed over the years, all of them with thicker limbs and stronger bones than the ones he now feels beneath his hands. Yōsha is small and her shoulders, her thighs, all of them fit beneath each curious curve of his palm as they glide and cup at the space she almost unwilling imparts for him beneath her robes. It's strange. He's never thought of himself as a particularly hungry animal, but here, now, in this moment, Yōsha glows as a lamp to him, like a source of light a hunted creature seeks out.

He thrusts and she gasps, beating back her pain so that it gurgles inside the careful bend of her throat, much like a brave child does. He feels a little sorry as he mouths at it, lapping with his tongue.

Her hand weakly pushes at his head.

'What are you, a dog?'

He thrusts again, just so he can steal her voice again. It's something he's never really had the power to do before.

She shakes beneath him.

'I'm dying,' she proclaims shakily.

'No,' he says, 'I won't let you. I'll tear down any who try.'

She clutches hold of his hair and yanks. 'Idiot,' she says tearfully, 'you're the one who's killing me right now.'

'Fall for me,' Yōsha tells him, instructs him, throughout the years, with the cut of her clear, sharp voice, 'fall for me, as much as you'd like. And make others fall, into pieces, into their own blood, if they try to take me away.'

'Understood,' he says, his heart feeling as though it is being unsheathed each time. It is a strange way for a sword to feel. But he feels it nevertheless.

'And make me fall,' Yōsha continues, as though he has never replied, as though, she takes it for granted that he can even speak at all. 'Make me fall for you as many times as you can. It's the only interesting thing left to do.'

And in this world, as in all others, it happens, for Yōsha it seems, is as much a strategist as the Togame she is forced to be in others.

Notes:

Probably the ony feasible way I could see them ending up happy, ALIVE and together, unfortunately.