Disclaimer: I don't own Sengoku Basara. However, the reluctant heroine of this piece, Ichijou Akoya, is mine.

A/N: As a note of warning, the chapters will vary in length, and they will probably not be very long; most will be drabble-length. I have done my best to ensure that my heroine doesn't turn into a Mary-Sue, and that the romance grows at a believable rate. At the end of the day, all that I want is to write a realistic romance between two people who live in turbulent times with different ideologies. I hope you all enjoy it!

For ease of explanation – a bukeyashiki refers to a traditional samurai mansion, such as the ones Date and Takeda live in, as shown in the anime.

Any Engrish that Date uses will be in bold type.

She arrives tomorrow.

Date Masamune paced his dojo, preoccupied not with swords as was his custom, but with matters far more domestic and intimate than he was accustomed to thinking about.

She arrives tomorrow. Damn it, what was I thinking?

The answer to that, he reflected ruefully, was that he hadn't been. Not that having all his faculties would have made any difference – his answer would have been the same. "I'd be honoured to marry your daughter, Etsuko-san."

How else was a man supposed to answer the plea of a bitter, soft-spoken lady with dead, desperate eyes? Masamune had the niggling suspicion that those eyes were precisely why Ichijou Dengyou, head of the Ichijou clan, had allowed his wife to make the request when such a duty would traditionally fall to the father of an unmarried girl.

I would have refused. I should have, anyway.

And so it would have been, if it had been a man in front of him, begging him to take his daughter's hand in marriage. Date Masamune valued his freedom far too much to allow any man to maneuver him into accepting that sort of political match, but Ichijou Dengyou was a crafty old bird who knew better.

So he had sent his wife. Ichijou Etsuko – a faded beauty with nothing on her face save careful politeness that changed in a flash to despair and pain as soon as they were closeted in a private room for discussion.

If only I'd had just a little warning. Damn it, damn it all.

Masamune had been under the impression that the lady was visiting to negotiate control of a rather fertile and tactically advantageous tract of land that had been the cause of dispute between their two clans for some time now. She had, but the control came with a price, as the young lord of Oushu discovered a few minutes into the talk.

"Marry my daughter, Masamune-sama, and we will gladly give you control of that land you want so badly."

Such a simple plea. It should have been easy to refuse it. He'd been tempted to throw the woman out then and there; no one put conditions on his personal freedom. But perhaps she had sensed his distaste, because the next moment her mask had dropped, and Masamune found himself confronted with a terrified mother.

That was not the way diplomatic meetings were supposed to go, he had pointed out. Brash and battle-worn he might be, but he knew the protocol for such delicate debates.

She had shrugged wearily. "If not you, it'll be some other samurai. That's all these daughters are good for...political pawns. I had the same fate. My two elder daughters were no different. And if you will not have my youngest, there is no dearth of men who will. But," her voice softened and turned cajoling, "I would rather it be you...if anyone. She's young and idealistic; an older, more jaded man will only crush her soul. But you are young...just like my Akoya..."

"So?" he had sneered, fighting off uncomfortable stabs of guilt and chivalry.

"So," she had shrugged again, "this was a mother's wish to arrange a tolerable future for her last daughter. I had no say in what happened to the others...but if I have been given the opportunity to bargain for a better fate for Akoya, I will at least act on it. Once. She will do what a daughter must, but her delicate constitution might not survive the men her father has in mind for her."

Panicked at the rapidly escalating urged to do something stupid – like agree – Masamune had fled the chamber and hunted down Kojuurou, expecting that his retainer would take over from there and save him the trouble of an unwanted marriage.

But all that the older man had had to say on the mater was, "If she's young and healthy and comes of good blood, why not agree? You will need to marry someday, Masamune-sama. The Ichijous are a power-hungry lot, but they have never been associated with deceit or lies. If Etsuko-san asserts that you might make a good match for her daughter, I would be inclined to believe her."

Masamune could only gape at him.

"And if I recall...I have heard that the Ichijou girls are generally good-looking, well-trained ladies," Kojuurou had continued, before taking pity on on his lord. "Is she placing any restrictions on control of the land or our money and power?"

"No."

"It's a clear exchange?"

"Seems to be."

"Well, then?" Kojuurou had donned that implacable, responsible look that Masamune hated, because it usually meant that he was going to be asked to do something equally troublesome and lordly.

And thus, he had been roped into playing the saviour, the honorable samurai. All for a woman he had never seen. A woman who would invade his sparse, warrior's life in less than a day and probably overturn it to something quieter. Tamer.

A woman who would, this time tomorrow, be his wife.

Damn it all to hell!

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