Once again, and again, and ever ever again: the intimacy of guiding each other's hands to places where you wish to show them the effect they leave on your bodies - one goes hard & the other goes wet...
This is Chapter 2 of I See Starlight. You can find all other IkeSen works of mine here. NOTE: SPOILERS FOR TO HONOR AND PROTECT. If you have not read it, please go back and do so before proceeding. Shout out to @ihavenotfallenyet for making me do this and @shadowfairyy‘s headcanon art of... particular peoples that also inspired me in some ways.
Hideyoshi was plagued with violent nightmares. It felt ridiculous. All those years in banditry doing inexcusable things, and only now was he suffering.
He was positive that he wasn’t the only one. After what befell the city not so long ago, who didn’t? The changes in those around him were slight, but deeply felt nonetheless. Shingen had never really recovered from the relapse in illness. Kenshin was softer around his edges now, as if his time under the magical madness wore some of his bloodlust away. And Mitsuhide--
Oh, Mitsuhide.
Despite himself, he was desperately fond of the man. He always had been. Their silver kitsune was slick and fearless and utterly shameless in ways he never had been. To see him reduced to such a shell of himself was more than Hideyoshi could take. He’d felt Mitsunari take his last breaths and felt the bone-deep sorrow and trauma of not protecting his very best friend--but Mitsuhide was a different kind of failure. He was there...
And Hideyoshi couldn’t even protect him from himself.
He did his best. He served as Mitsuhide’s eyes as often as he could. The others whispered about retiring him, maybe having him relegated to a different role in the background, but Hideyoshi couldn’t let it go.
“You’re blinded by feelings.” Nobunaga said it so matter-of-factly that Hideyoshi forced himself to acknowledge the truth there.
“I just--” He grit his teeth and forced the words. “He’s changed. Maybe Mitsunari’s change was the most drastic, what with...” A simple hand gesture was all they needed. How else did they describe their friend being the ocean? “But Mitsuhide’s is the hardest to swallow.”
“We’ve all changed.” Shuttering his ruby eyes, Nobunaga took a long moment. Hideyoshi knew that expression. It was when his greatest inspiration needed to steel himself. “But practically speaking, Mitsuhide has lost much of his physical capabilities. He has retained his wisdom, and his intellect never waned, but I challenge you to look at the man and tell me that he is still fit for service.”
There was wisdom in that. Hideyoshi knew it. He heard the soft creak of footsteps as Mitsuhide pattered around the kitchen at entirely incorrect times. He watched him relegate himself to his bed, staring at a ceiling that didn’t exist anymore--not in his world, at least. Sometimes he found himself arranging chairs and furniture so his friend wouldn’t collide with them entirely.
Masamune found him one day and laughed. “You know you can’t child-proof the whole house, right?”
“I’m not child proofing,” he snapped back, “I’m being accommodating.”
The other man shrugged. “Whatever you wanna call it, Mamayoshi.”
---
Mitsuhide started his outings not long after.
Hideyoshi didn’t even know about them until a bit later; maybe the third or fourth one. Admittedly, his first reaction was terror. He was doing what? Where? What if someone hit him? What if he got lost? A thousand what ifs bounced through his head like hail until Mitsuhide fixed him with a look--dead on, at that--and gave him a quiet “Let me do it.”
Maybe he needed some independence. He relented, and Mitsuhide came back fine, an armload of braille books in his arms and a glow around him.
“Where are you getting those?” Ieyasu asked over dinner, his curious eyes on the ever-growing stack. “We had to specially order yours in.”
Mitsuhide chuckled. “I have people.”
“Do you have to make everything sound ominous?”
“Where else might one buy books, Ieyasu? I’ll grant you three guesses and even a hint. It rhymes with ‘hookstore’.”
Shingen laughed so hard he started wheezing. Kenshin slapped him on the back to speed the process along. “Don’t kill me, Kitsune.”
“I don’t think I need to. It looks like you’re doing quite well at that yourself.”
“Says the blind man.”
Mitsuhide just grinned at that, and for the first time in a long while, Hideyoshi’s heart felt full again.
---
Apparently there was a woman in the mix.
Hideyoshi didn’t mean to pry. Mitsunari was visiting on one of his outings from the water, so he was taking much-needed time with his best friend in the marketplace. It almost felt... normal. After all the trial and tribulation of the prior year, just walking and talking was a rare luxury indeed.
And then they saw it.
“Is that Mitsuhide?” Mitsunari remarked. “His hair is certainly growing long, isn’t it? It’s at his shoulders now.”
“Now that you mention it, it is.” Hideyoshi squinted to see the man better. It looked like he was buying more books, making a transaction at the stall with a woman around his age. She was short and fetching, with waist long dark hair and dark eyes, a rosebud mouth and a shy smile. As they watched, Mitsuhide said something and she blushed--then reached out and took his hand, guiding it to her hot cheek.
Something strange in Hideyoshi recoiled and delighted all at once, and he was so bewildered by the feeling that he halted in his tracks to contemplate it. Mitsunari looked back, confused.
“Hideyoshi?”
“Coming. Coming.”
---
Mitsuhide was settled in a sunny spot at the kitchen table when he came back. Hideyoshi half expected the usual snaky glance, reminding himself only a moment later that he wouldn’t see that again. “Afternoon.”
“Afternoon,” Mitsuhide drawled, trailing a hand over a book until he reached a stopping point. “How is our resident body of water?”
“He’s good.” Pouring himself a cup of hot water, Hideyoshi prepared his tea quietly. “Tea?”
“Sounds excellent.”
He fixed a second cup and scooted it into Mitsuhide’s obligingly open hand. “I passed you in the market today.”
“Oh?” Some things never changed. Frustratingly hard to read as ever, Mitsuhide just lifted the cup to his mouth and sipped.
“Yes. It looks like you have a little fan of you in the book vendor.”
Uncharacteristically, Mitsuhide paused. “I’ve been wondering. What does she look like?”
“Look like?” Hideyoshi faltered. “Long, dark hair. Narrow-ish dark eyes, sort of like Sarutobi’s. She’s very short. She wore a red dress with a tiny golden trim. I’d say she’s pretty.”
“Mmm.” A ghost of a smile flickered over Mitsuhide’s mouth, but then it stilled. “Thank you. I appreciate you being my eyes.”
For a moment, Hideyoshi had an awful pang of jealousy. Jealousy? He paused, reexamining himself. He was. Of whom, exactly? It was almost terrifying in its implication--but he crushed it and reached out, taking Mitsuhide’s hand and squeezing it. “Of course. I’m glad to be your eyes.”
---
New orders came down only a few days later.
“One of us is to enter magical training.” Nobunaga paced idly before them. “The ban on it has been lifted, and it’s considered important now for us to engaged in and understand its potential.”
“So we’re guinea pigs?” Shingen offered. “That’s reassuring. Mitsunari didn’t even have complete mastery of it. Who are we learning from?”
“A combination of Mitsunari and the Queen. She’s grown more adept at it, too. In due time, hopefully we can generate enough experience to generate some kind of learning process.”
Yuki huffed. “If it’s all the same to you, you can count me out of that one. That shit honestly terrifies me.”
“Fair enough.”
“Me.” Mitsuhide stood up from the table. “Me. I’ll do it.”
“No one ever said that. We don’t even know that.” Mitsuhide cocked his head in Kenshin’s general direction. “Mitsunari learned from books. I can read, you know.”
“None of those texts are in braille.”
“I know someone who can get a translator for me.” The white haired man didn’t budge. “Let me do this.”
Hideyoshi cast his eyes around the room, absorbing all the skeptical eyes. It was a strange thought, no doubt. Would it even work? There was always the possibility it was a waste of time... but who else could make it work if not Mitsuhide?
At last, he stood too. “I’ll back Mitsuhide. If anyone has the willpower, he does. If he needs help, I can help.”
“Hideyoshi,” Masamune warned, ever the blunt one, “you can’t be there at every turn.”
“I won’t be.”
“I won’t let him be,” Mitsuhide added with a chuckle. “I am nothing if not independent.”
Nobunaga exchanged glances with Kenshin. At last, the blonde nodded reluctantly.
Y'all ever considered the fact that True Primes have more daredevil attitude like talking back to celestial beings like the Guiding Hands and The Thirteen?
Because for me I think that the True Primes should be allowed to have attitudes because technically becoming Primes meant they're part of the family now
Here we have Rodimus slandering the Guiding Hands and still be like "Oh wait,I'm still alive!Anyways-" after being zapped,of course he didn't noticed the zap part looks painful-
Let The True Primes be sassy
They deserves to have attitudes towards the ones that held them responsible for such task of becoming leader
