Examine! Souza aka that gay sword.
It’s rare to find him truly at peace.
He is a weapon of war, after all, forged in the fires of conflict and ambition, seized by the hands of greedy tyrants. History has painted those men as heroes, but a hero is no beautiful thing either. Even locked away as a prize, a sword so old would have witnessed the rise and fall of several eras, been intimate with the darkness that lurks in the hearts of people... in some more than others.
There are others in this city more fit to bear the title of conqueror, though it is not lost on him that Souza Samonji should be with the Tokugawa clan in his own time. Their role in the fall of the Shogunate could as easily have put it in the Kiheitai’s possession as anyone’s, had the Amanto left the country alone. Sometimes he feels a dark amusement at having taken a treasure coveted by rulers for himself, a simple man who lives only to serve the dreams of others. And sometimes he thinks, he didn’t take anything. Souza lives in this world not as the sword, but as a person who is free to do as he pleases with his life, and he chooses to come here. Time and again, even after his months out of the city. As if he has nowhere better to go. Or, no, something more than that.
As if he likes it here, at Bansai’s side.
He sleeps quietly, stretched out on the bed in a loose yukata in the picture of luxury, the steady rise and fall of his chest suggesting he is not being visited by nightmares. (That makes one of them, huh...?)
The room is cold, and Bansai gently pulls the blankets up to cover them both. He pauses as that black mark on Souza’s chest catches his eye, not for the first time. A brand right over the heart, bearing the title of the famed Demon King. Sometimes, he wants to deface it, to erase it entirely.
Sometimes it’s out of anger on Souza’s behalf, for the way he’s been treated in the past. Sometimes, he admits, it isn’t. Souza’s pale skin bears faded scars from Bansai’s own sword, but they are barely noticeable in contrast to that blemish of the past.
A hand moves to trace one such scar, but he pulls back. Surely that would wake him, and to disturb such a peaceful sleep would be a crime. There will be another chance, a better time, to touch him.
Instead, he huddles back in under the blanket, just close enough to his bedmate to feel his warmth. Even at rest, his song is tinged with melancholy, but it is a comforting sadness; the feeling that they could remain here forever, unmoving and unchanging.