#samuruha

[antihistamine0825]

samuruha yuri for @/Oryxified and @/NadoX020 on twt who supported the humanitarian efforts of Oman Charitable Organization in Palestine. Thank you! Support charity, get a doodle

[uruhayojis]

Master and disciple taking a rest after training (⸝⸝ᴗ_ᴗ⸝⸝) z z 𐰁 SamuUru commissioned from @hunihimig 💜💚 

[azamisoshiro]

"Those eyes.. He feels nothing for me. Not even hatred.."

"I've been chasing after you.. all this time. Only I persued you relentlessly.. Only I.."

[antihistamine0825]

fic series: May Spring Come (links + commentary)

Fics are in the same continuity. Can be read as standalone, but more fun when read together.

1. Embers and Bubblegum | ao3 | T | 1.4k

Uruha-centric. Double-drabble sequence.

characters & relationships: Samura/Uruha (onesided), Fushimi/Uruha.

Over the years, Uruha has learned that some habits are hard to quit.

2. Still Waters | ao3 | T | 9.3k

Natsuki-centric. Speculative post-canon, character study, grief/mourning.

characters & relationships: Natsuki & Ibuki, Natsuki/Uruha, Fushimi/Uruha

Now that the enchanted blades are all gone, Uruha could finally vanish with nary a whimper, and Natsuki could once again be alone and at peace. As always, the universe has other plans. - Misaka Natsuki was meant to fight alongside Ibuki forever. Uruha Youji was meant to make a phone call. Nobody quite gets what they want in the end.

Making-of author commentary behind the cut! (spoilers)

Embers and Bubblegum

I didn't actually plan on making a fic series at first. You can tell because the publication date of this fic was way before Natsuki's debut. I was in a slump and needed practice, wanted to try my hands at a double-drabble sequence fic, and had been wanting to write a multiship fic for a while to Spread My Vision into the world.

I knew I wanted to write something about smoking (courtesy of seeing fanart of Fushimi vaping/smoking on Twitter and obviously Samura is canonically a smoker) but there is already a very excellent samuruha fic with smoking as a motif so I didn't want to repeat what has already been done. If I were to do it, I wanted to bring something new to the table.

To me, vices such as smoking are as much about the substances themselves as they are about identity and connection/community. It's a great metaphor for growing up, coming into yourself, and building relationships with other people. With Uruha as the main character, who canonically has an idol worship streak nearly 20 years long and clearly struggles to define himself outside of being an Enchanted Blade wielder, but also has a strong desire and natural affinity to connect with other people, it is a perfect sustained metaphor to use. After that was decided, it wasn't difficult at all to come up with the rest of the fic.

The double-drabble sequence format posed some interesting challenges as well; every word has to hit, and the fic needs to be much tighter than I'm used to. So the fact that I had a central theme clearly defined definitely made things a lot easier.

Still Waters

I enjoy natsuruha casually as a comedic duo, but as a ship it took some work for me to form a Vision for it. How much work? 9k words' worth of it, clearly.

My take on Natsuki is that he doesn't hate Uruha; he has massive insecurity, guilt, and unresolved grief, and Uruha is a convenient target to project all of it on. So this entire fic is really a character study challenge for myself. Can I write a scenario in which Natsuki and Uruha develop a relationship that is believable and compelling, given Natsuki's Many Unresolved Issues? Along with that, can I write an Uruha that is complex and compelling in his own right, even through Natsuki's very biased POV? This fic is basically the result of this experiment.

Unlike the previous fic, in which the motif was decided first, I approach this one as an entirely character-driven fic. Well. Delusion-driven (as all fanfics are), but delusion in a way that feels as in-character as possible. If that makes any sense.

When writing, I also enjoy worldbuilding - in this case, adding minor details which ground a story in the time and location it is situated. Lucky for me, I lived and worked in Japan for quite some time, so while Kagurabachi is set in a fictional alternate version of Japan, I was happy to sneak in details from my experience to bring a little authenticity to the fic. So yeah, drunken karaoke nights, company housing, the weather - it's all Very Real 2 Me.

Speaking of karaoke, the karaoke scene was one of the first scenes I envisioned delusioned, but I didn't pick the actual song for it until I had gotten to actually writing that scene. This was just after Uruha's birthday was revealed to be February 12 - a winter birthday - so Haru yo, koi (May spring come) is really just the perfect song. It's one of my favorite songs of all time and has that bittersweet, hopeful message that fits the theme in this fic to a T. And it's old-school, which suits the ages of Uruha and Natsuki - if Matsutoya Yumi existed in Kagurabachi's Japan, they would definitely know this song.

And of course, sections 1-5, and 8 are all 200 words each, just like Embers and Bubblegum.

-

Uruha is in a very interesting position as a supporting character, who, despite the expanding cast and fast pace of the manga, has been shown to have varied, complex relationships with multiple other characters in the story. I have seen people talk about how he has "main character" vibes and I agree with them; draw a map of Uruha's social network and you can see how "well-connected" he is. (That's why I've always been a believer in a multiship vision for Uruha; or at least, a monoship vision that acknowledges all the important relationships in his life.)

Coupled with all the other things about him that are interesting, and you have a gold mine of a character. Uruha is my favorite, a great muse, and I think I'll be writing about him for a while yet. Whenever an idea comes to me, I mean.

[uruhayojis]

title: from now on, i swear not to be a hero (ao3) pairing: samura seiichi & uruha yoji summary: Samura understood that there would always be a difference between their principles – both in how to fight and how to course through life – the best he could do as Uruha’s mentor was guide him along the way, no matter where the path led to.

Uruha stood breathlessly among everyone else laying on the ground, his eyes drilled onto the swordsman responsible for defeating over a dozen students without breaking a sweat.

Samura Seiichi, as blind as he was, moved into the battlefield as if an owl that would never miss its prey. It took all of Uruha’s strength to parry his strikes, even having to make use of his comrades as shields. After all, when one is in a real battle, one must do all that it takes to survive, right?

“Uruha.” Samura walked towards him, stepping over the fallen bodies on the ground with care, until they were an arm apart and Samura raised a hand and ruffled Uruha’s hair unannounced. “You did great today. Shirakai-sensei will be happy to hear about your progress.”

“It’s not enough,” Uruha muttered in disappointment, still he couldn’t stop the heat rising to his cheeks from hearing Samura praise him. “I still haven’t beaten you.”

“It’s good to be driven by a goal, but don’t rush it.” Samura nodded, his tone almost patronizing. “You’ve been here for what, two years? I’ve been training much longer. You’ve still got a long way to go.”

“If I don’t then I get stuck here playing with wooden swords while you’re out there killing evildoers!” Uruha blurted out, his voice squeaking towards the end, an unfortunate consequence of being fourteen. “I want to be a hero, too.”

If not for the scars that ran across Samura’s eyes, Uruha would probably be scrutinized by those deeply purple eyes already. Uruha had not seen them since Samura blinded himself, but they were so hauntingly remarkable that those colors never left his mind. Combined with the blood splatters on his clothes every time he came from a mission, Uruha had always thought Samura looked stunning, but he would also notice how Samura’s hand trembled whenever he returned. And with every passing day, as more bodies fell by his hand, the shine in Samura’s eyes dulled, until the day he forever decided not to lay eyes on the carnage he wreaked anymore.

“Taking up the sword does not just mean being a hero.” His hand landed on Uruha’s chest, right at the spot where a fatal wound left him with a lifelong scar, his palm feeling for the rhythmic beating of his heart. “It also means killing people. Do you want to kill people so bad?”

“If they deserve it, why not?”

Uruha’s heart did not even waver at the slightest. Samura was well aware that the sword was a way of survival for this boy. He had hoped that under his mentorship, Uruha would see Iai as an alternative way into dealing quicker and more merciful deaths to his enemies. Yet, Uruha embodied it differently – something feral, almost primal to the core. Samura didn’t even realize the Iai White Purity style could be so ferocious. At that point, Samura understood that there would always be a difference between their principles – both in how to fight and how to course through life – the best he could do as Uruha’s mentor was guide him along the way, no matter where the path led to.

In the end, Samura only heaved a deep sigh, lightly tapping the last bits of baby fat on Uruha’s cheeks. “Go clean yourself up, we’re done here for today.”

“Absolutely not.”

Samura stood by the doorway as if blocking it physically with his body would stop Shirakai’s abhorrent plan.

“Do you think this is something I’ve come to decide lightly?” Shirakai said, tiredness apparent in his voice. The government sent out a call for every able-bodied sorcerer-swordsmen to join the fight in the southeastern seas, where the invaders from the mysterious island began their attack a little over a month ago. “Every fighter counts. Uruha has killed already, you can stop looking at him as a child.”

It wasn’t explicitly mentioned, but great repercussions await those who ignore the call. He and Samura had been arguing the past hour about going on the frontlines, while Uruha who had just been licensed for the Iai White Purity style a little less than a year ago listened to them in silence.

“And what of Iai?” Samura continued to argue. “If we all go out there and we die, your sword style becomes obsolete.”

“Don’t start pretending to care about Iai now, Samura," Shirakai scoffed. “Besides, if this country falls under, what use is there for Iai to survive? It’s much more useful out there – Uruha!”

“Sensei.” Uruha immediately stood in attention, looking at their master with determined eyes. Samura might have been the one overseeing his training all these years, but here in the dojo, Shirakai’s words were the law.

“Make sure the two of you have packed tonight. We’re leaving before sunrise.”

Not welcoming any more dissentions, Shirakai stepped out of the room, barely brushing against Samura’s shoulder. Uruha followed the master with his eyes and drew back his gaze at once to Samura who was still standing by the doorway, his forehead crumpled into a furious frown.

“Don’t worry about me, Samura-san,” Uruha said cheerfully, trying to dispel the dreadfulness in the air. “Shirakai-sensei wouldn’t have licensed me for Iai if I do not have the skills to back it up.”

Samura sighed in exasperation, the fury in his face being washed away with concern.  He wouldn’t deny that Uruha was a prodigy with the sword, and given his instincts, he was very much suited to being on the battlefield. Probably even more than himself. But Uruha was barely an adult, only turning seventeen this coming winter. He might already have an experience staking out criminals and killing them in their own strongholds, but to step foot in war was a different matter altogether.

No matter how Shirakai framed it, Uruha was still a child.

“Promise me one thing,” Samura finally said, walking over to Uruha and placing a hand on his shoulder, gripping the muscles in them he had not realized had developed. Wasn’t this just a bony frame a while ago?  “Do not be a hero, do you understand? I know you thrive in these sword fights; I feel it every time we go out on missions together. But you must learn not to cross your limits. I will try my best to watch over you, but I can’t always be there. Uruha, I’m asking you not to die. Can you do that for me?”

“I won’t die, Samura-san," Uruha declared with conviction. “And neither should you, not until I’ve defeated you.”

Samura let out a chuckle, his heart feeling at ease. Somehow, he believed wholeheartedly this disciple of his could stand equally next to him soon enough, but for his own sake, he must be humbled for now. “I might just become an immortal, then.”

“Liar.”

Samura vanished into ashes, leaving only Tobimune behind. There was no grave to visit, nowhere to leave offerings, nothing to light an incense for. Nevertheless, Uruha knelt before a maple tree, a makeshift grave for a corpse that did not exist, pouring wine from the jar in his hand. His master used to fly over the battlefield with Tobimune, but without the enchanted blade, he feared Samura would have to walk his way to the afterlife. How fast would that take him? Would he still be walking when it was Uruha’s turn to die? Could he still catch up?

“But I guess I broke my promise, too.” Uruha smiled wryly as the jar was emptied to its last drop. “I died by your hand. I’ve lost to you.”

He set the jar aside and continued to kneel in silence. Uruha placed a hand over his chest, where he could swear the flames of Suzaku still burned, breathing life into him. But it was all a phantom sensation; once sorcery was activated, it would have no more reason to stay. And when the sorcerer who cast it died, it would disappear along with it.

Samura had told him since he was young, do not be a hero. The last time they talked, he had killed the “hero” this nation had come to know. Now, Uruha lived as Uruha Yoji again, reclaiming his sorcery, carrying on the Iai White Purity style’s legacy. The Uruha Yoji that would have lived if he never stepped into the war along with Samura Seiichi. It might have been a peaceful life, it would have made him the dojo’s instructor in a few years’ time, and maybe it would have saved his guards from pointlessly dying for him.

Uruha understood, just as those people perished to let him live a little longer, Samura gave him an even more valuable gift – more than a second chance at life, he gave him a new purpose.

“Don’t worry, Samura-san, I know what to do.”

With a final bow, Uruha stood up from the ground and turned on his heel. Samura had placed his bet on the future. Uruha would ensure his win. This time, he wouldn’t be a hero. But for the younger generation whom Samura believed in, he would be their most reliable mentor. Just as Samura was to him.

And perhaps, when he succeeded, he could meet Samura on the way to the afterlife. Just before the bridge where one crossed into their next lives, and with a smile he’d claim with pride, he could finally stand as an equal peer by his side.

[uruhayojis]

title: only by dying born the very same (ao3) pairing: samura seiichi/uruha yoji summary: canon divergence where instead of samura turning to ashes, he transformed back a few years younger instead. Inspired from La_gzi's art (see on Bsky and twitter)!

The inferno of black flames that consumed the wrecked headquarters starts to recede, along with Uruha feeling his strength recover. He flexes his fingers – his left hand is completely healed. He has no idea what exactly happened, after all, his life was being drained from him by the Malediction just moments ago. But now, everything has calmed down; this could only mean Samura has succeeded in containing the Sword Master.

He did see one thing in all the chaos – two bodies falling from the gaping crater that appeared in the middle of the headquarters. One of them should be Samura.

The moment he gathers his bearings, Uruha quickly stands up and rushes to the edge of the crater, surveying the destruction below. Natsuki is not far behind him, following suit the moment he saw Uruha move.

“Samura-san should be there.” Uruha says as soon as Natsuki is next to him. “I’m going to look.”

Without waiting for his response, Uruha jumps off to the bottom of the crater effortlessly. There’s a lot of ground to cover, and even if he concentrated hard, the traces of spirit energy are sparse. With the magnitude of this destruction, it’s not hard to imagine that both Samura and the Sword Master have depleted themselves to their limit.

“Can’t you at least wait?” Suddenly, Natsuki lands next to him, looking irritated. “Think you can look in all these alone? You search over there,” he points to the right where piles of debris accumulated like rolling hills, “And I’ll look over here. Two pairs of eyes should do the job faster.”

“Right.” Uruha nods gratefully. In all his panic, he hasn’t even considered asking for Natsuki’s help. “Yell at me if you find something.”

“Naturally.” Natsuki scoffs. “Go. Better do this quick if he’s buried.”

Uruha runs to the piles of debris, quickly considering the most efficient way to do his search. He goes around the biggest ones, calling Samura’s name, keeping an eye out for any telltale sign that Samura fell on this side. After about a minute or two of finding nothing, he activates Koen and starts kicking away massive blocks of debris.

“Samura-san!” he yells, hoping calling out his name will wake him up in the case that he’s unconscious, making detecting his presence much easier. “Samura-san, are you here?!”

“Hey!” Natsuki suddenly calls his attention at the far side of the wreckage. In his hand is the remaining frame of what used to be a pair of sunglasses. “Isn’t this Samura’s?”

Uruha rushes over to his spot, now with a more concrete idea where to start looking.

“Samura-san! Where are you?” Uruha yells some more as he digs through the rubble, not minding that his recently fixed hands are getting new cuts. Tobimune or no Tobimune, with Samura’s remarkable senses, he will be crushed by all the debris that must have buried him. He’ll have a hard time getting back up on his own.

Not for long, he spots a singular slipper, and not far from it was the bare foot it fell off from. It’s him!

“Natsuki! Help me here!”

Working together with Natsuki, they clear the area of debris in no time—

And sees someone who is definitely not the Samura he last saw at the Senkutsuji Temple. But Uruha can’t mistake these features for anyone else – his wavy dark hair, the scowl between his forehead, those deep purple eyes that groggily opens at them…they could only belong to one person.

“Who is that?” Natsuki asks cautiously, looking at the person Uruha is pulling out of the rubble and patting down clean.

“Samura-san.” Uruha answers without hesitation. He grabs the younger-looking Samura before him by the shoulders, looking him up and down. “Samura-san, it’s you, right?”

“What are you talk—” The voice that comes out is Samura’s, but also isn’t his. It’s devoid of years of cigarette and age, the tone of a teenager who has just recently settled into adolescence. Samura stops in the middle of talking, his hand coming up to touch his own throat, realizing the sudden difference in his tone, as well.

Uruha sees at his fingers then, barely visible underneath his coat sleeves that are suddenly too long for him. Instead of the wrinkled, calloused skin Uruha’s more familiar with, what he sees now are smooth, slender fingers that seemed to have picked up the sword just not too long ago.

“Do you know who we are?” Uruha asks the boy before him, unsure which Samura is he talking to.

It feels strange to think of him as his Samura. This form he took is a younger Samura who was just about to meet Uruha Yoji.

“Of course, I know the two of you.”

“Good,” Uruha breathes in relief. He’s the Samura he knows. Whatever happened during his fight with the Sword Master, it somehow reverted his body back several years younger. Then, he realizes his hands are still tightly gripping Samura’s shoulders. He immediately lets go, as if he has touched a hot surface. He just can’t touch him casually. “That’s good, Samura-san. It’s still you.”

The last time they were face to face, Samura had meant to kill him. Now, they stand before each other, the matter of Uruha’s ‘assassination’ dangling in the air to be discussed.

“I’ll…go look for Yura’s body. He should be secured before anything else happens.” Natsuki says, sensing the atmosphere between this pair of master and disciple. “You deal with this.”

“Thanks.” Uruha turns to Natsuki with a grateful smile at which Natsuki rolls his eye at.

“I’m not doing you a favor.” Natsuki grumbles before leaving.

“Good thing Suzaku’s revival worked on you,” Samura says as soon as they are alone, breaking the short but tense silence. “You are its first human. Of course, I wouldn’t have used it if I haven’t mastered it, but…seeing Chihiro be revived still made me feel at ease about your condition.”

Uruha briefly runs a hand across the spot where Samura cut him down. It hasn’t been that long, but with all that has gone down here, it already feels like a lifetime ago. He isn’t even sure he would get to see Samura again, and definitely not like this.

“I understand why you did it, Samura-san. You have no need to further explain things to me. But,” Uruha curls both his fists on his lap, looking his master in the eye. “You should have asked me to help you, at least. I would have gone with you in a heartbeat.”

“Which is why I didn’t.” Samura says, his pensive expression looking out of place in such a youthful face. “I’ve already dragged you in so many hells. This should have been the last one, mine alone.”

“But Chihiro won you over, didn’t he?”

“That, he did.” Samura heaves a sigh, raising his hands before him. These are the hands of someone who is still learning how to strike faster than the eyes can see, hands not stained with blood yet. Samura knows it’s the same body, but without the marks of the past decades, he does feel like reborn. “How old do I look to you?”

To describe this encounter as strange is an understatement. Uruha has witnessed transformation sorcery, changing one’s appearance is no big deal to him. But to see the man he has been watching for years turn back into this younger form is enough to make Uruha question his reality.

“Fifteen.” Uruha answers without even thinking.

“How could you be so sure?”

“Because I met you when you were at that age.” Uruha smiles. “I’ll never forget how you looked that time.”

Back then, this same boy was looking at him through scrutinizing eyes, standing over a foot taller than an eleven-year-old Uruha, a sword strapped by his waist. Uruha remembered feeling a mixture of fear and amazement – fear that he still didn’t know what the old man wanted from him after taking him away from the streets, and amazement that he finally met someone so alike to the samurai he liked hearing about in people’s stories.

Now, in the same body, Samura doesn’t look so much like a samurai anymore. He was also just a kid when they first met, perhaps forced to act responsibly after being assigned to look after a grubby eleven-year-old who didn’t even know how to draw a sword, much less than how to hold it. He is now back to that state, a kid who would need an adult to guide him. Uruha is that adult now.

“Kunishige really outdid himself. How can a sword achieve something like this?” Samura pulls his now-oversized coat closer to his body, as if to make himself smaller. “I know this is my body, but it also feels like it isn’t. Not to mention…” He put a hand over his heart, feeling for something. “Tobimune disappeared, but I can still feel its spirit energy stirring within me.”

“If anything, that is your sorcery that unlocked Tobimune’s full potential, Samura-san. You must have had a strong reason to want to live. The enchanted blades will always answer to their wielder’s will.”

A strong reason for living, huh?

“Iori,” Samura suddenly says, remembering the daughter who’s waiting for her. After years of running away, he finally had the chance to see how much she’s grown up. After achieving his goal here with the enchanted blades and the Sword Master, he should be making up for those years he deprived her of a real family. “My daughter…she’s still in Kyoto waiting for me.”

Uruha takes a while before remembering the baby he briefly saw almost eighteen years ago. It was just a short encounter, after all, Shirakai Itsuo wasn’t so heartless that he wouldn’t check on his first successful disciple’s first child. Though, Uruha had an inkling Shirakai-sensei just wanted to check if the baby was a boy and if he could, in the future, be a practitioner of Iai White Purity, as well. How come Uruha’s only remembering this again now? Did his memory get altered or something?

“Once everything settles down here, we can go together,” Uruha suggests. “I’m sure the two of you haven’t had a proper reunion yet.”

“Like us?” Samura winces, looking back at the only proper disciple he had in his life. Echoing the words he had told him back at the temple, he adds, “We…haven’t had a proper chance to talk. Even until now.”

“We’ll get our chance.” Uruha inches closer to Samura then, adjusting the oversized coat on his body, rolling up the sleeves so that Samura’s hands are free. He does the same to the hems of Samura’s pants, rolling them up to his knees. Once done, he meets Samura’s gaze with a determined look. “I won’t die again, and neither will you.”

Ever since Shirakai completely dumped Uruha’s training under his responsibility, he had tried his best to be an adult Uruha could emulate, even if it meant putting distance between the two of them. A distance that didn’t exist in the first place when they were just a pair of Iai students.

What good did it do them, though? Uruha saw it as challenge, exerting every bit of energy to get licensed for Iai just so he could catch up to Samura. Which then led to Uruha being drafted along with Samura to the war, to being chosen as a wielder of an enchanted blade, to being complicit in the death of two hundred thousand lives, to living the rest of his life carrying that sin, and to be struck down by Samura himself in Samura’s attempt to atone for everyone.

Perhaps, trying hard to be an adult has doomed them from the very start.

And perhaps, Tobimune knew that too, and when it gave its last breath for Samura’s rebirth, it gave him this form where he could start all over again.

“I can’t take care of my daughter like this,” he says in resignation, looking again at his now youthful hands. Iori is seventeen, and in this form, she even seems more reliable than him. What type of father can he be in this situation?

“I’ll take care of both of you!” Uruha earnestly replies, holding Samura’s hands between his. “We can stay at the dojo, rebuild everything. I’m sure Shirakai-sensei wouldn’t mind. And if Iori is there, maybe Kiri would second guess about destroying Iai? It’s only her grandpa she’s really going after, anyway. If sorcery turned you like this, I’m sure we’ll find a way to bring you back. Don’t lose hope, Samura-san.”

Samura chuckles then, Uruha’s rambles about the future stirring something akin to hope in his chest. For the longest time, he thought getting by alone is the best way to course through this life. But again and again, he’s proven wrong. By Inori, by the Masumi, by Chihiro…and now, Uruha lays before him a future where he is surrounded by the people he cares for the most, a ragtag of personalities, but still a family.

“Alright.” Samura leans closer, laying his head against Uruha’s chest. The fatigue from the past twenty-four hours is catching up to him now, and there’s nothing he’d like to do more than rest. With Uruha next to him, Samura feels he can finally close his eyes to sleep in peace. “I’ll hold you on to that.”

[uruhayojis]

title: for i know you won't lead me astray (ao3) relationship: samura seiichi & uruha yoji summary: uruha ponders on what it means to be a samurai. samura thinks himself as no samurai.

The cries of the summer cicadas filled the early afternoon air. Gentle wind gusts through the dojo’s open corridors, rattling a nearby windchime in an almost rhythmic interval. On the corner of the training grounds, Samura and Uruha are resting after having just sparred – Samura, leaning against the cool stone wall with his eyes closed, and Uruha, lying face up on the grass and staring intently at the sky.

“What does it mean to be a samurai?” Uruha suddenly asks out of nowhere.

Samura cracks his eyes open, reaches out, and feels Uruha’s forehead with the back of his palm.

“Are you not feeling well? Why are you suddenly spouting philosophical thoughts today?”

Uruha swats his hand away with a frown and sits up abruptly. It always hits a nerve when Samura teases him even just a little, but as ferocious as he was in fighting outsiders, he has a soft spot for the people of the dojo and can do nothing more than have a short tantrum.

“I’m being serious here, Samura-san!” He hammers his curled fists on both his knees, as if striking hard drives his point further. Then he dramatically raises his chin, facing the sky once more, now with an earnest face and closed eyes, placing a hand over his chest. “I must embody the way of the sword, both in my form and in my heart, then I shall become a real warrior.”

Samura scratches his nose, trying to cover a snicker behind a fake cough. Uruha seems to sense it though, bringing back his gaze and directing it to Samura with a glare.

“Fine, fine,” Samura finally yields, pursing his lips in thought. “Let me think. You’ve put me on a spot here.”

Truth be told, Samura picked up the sword not for any noble reason, only that in this turbulent society, to go about one’s daily life without a katana is to put a foot on the grave. It wouldn’t have mattered if his sorcery was an offensive one, but it isn’t, and so he must supplement it with sword skills. By some fortune, he happens to have an affinity with it, and he is on track to being licensed for the Iai White Purity Style in half a year.

That is to say, he isn’t living by some chivalrous code at all. His sword is to protect, to survive. It serves nobody, waits for nobody, it only discerns threats and cuts it down.

“Well?” Uruha follows up impatiently, his deep green eyes wide in expectation.

“I can’t answer your question,” Samura finally says and sees the expression on Uruha’s face fall. “Look, I told you before, I’m not a samurai. So, I can’t speak from experience. What I do know is that a samurai is bound to his retainer. Their lives are no more than tools to realize their lords’ goals. To be a samurai is to be an extension of someone else. That’s why when a samurai’s lord dies, the samurai usually follows soon after. It’s not so glamorous, don’t you think?”

Samura thinks that the bleak truth he shared about being a samurai would dampen Uruha’s enthusiasm about the concept, but instead, he sees his eyes shine even more, his cheeks flushing from excitement.

“It’s…beautiful. An honor.” Uruha dramatically whispers, clutching his wooden training sword to his chest. “If someone believes in me enough to choose me as their tool, I think I will live a fulfilled existence.”

Upon hearing his junior’s ludicrous words, Samura can’t help but reach out once more, but this time to flick his forehead right at the center.

“Ow!” Uruha’s hand immediately comes up to his forehead, the spot where he was hit already throbbing in pain. Samura did not hold back at all for this one. “What did you do that for!”

“Because you’re spouting nonsense! Use your sword as you see fit, not because others dictate it to you. Otherwise, your existence will be nothing but misery.” Samura taps at the wooden sword now resting on Uruha’s lap. “A samurai may be honorable; it doesn’t mean his retainer is. What would you do if your lord asks you to kill people undeserving of death, hm? These kinds of things, samurais have no choice but to follow. But if your sword is your own, then you always have the chance to do the right thing.”

Uruha’s expression turns solemn then, as if he is seriously contemplating Samura’s words.

It feels blasphemous, lecturing to Uruha about the sword this way. They are still both students of the Iai White Purity, and if it comes to skills, Samura can admit Uruha’s not that far behind, the kid’s a real prodigy.  If anything, it should be Shirakai who should be teaching this, but that old man is no good unless it’s about the sword style he is so proud of. Samura hates to admit it, but he’d rather Uruha take after him now than their sword-obsessed master. Maybe once he gets that license, he can feel more confident in talking to Uruha like this.

“Do you always do the right thing, Samura-san?”

Samura hesitates for a bit, weighing in on all that he has done since the day he picked up the sword, not only within the premises of the dojo but also outside in society where his choices and actions affect other people.

“I’m no saint, but I try.”

Uruha regards him with a keen eye, staring for a beat too long that almost made Samura’s skin crawl. Even after being peers in the dojo for over a year, he is still yet to fully comprehend how Uruha’s mind works.

“Alright, that settles it.” Uruha huffs then, a satisfied smile lining his face.

“Hah?” Cold dread suddenly fills Samura’s body, as if he has just signed himself up for something he isn’t quite ready for. “What’s settled?”

“I won’t say.” Uruha grins mischievously, “Or else it might get jinxed.”

“You rascal.” Samura playfully pulls at Uruha’s ponytail then, earning him a yelp from Uruha. “I’ll make you say it one way or another.”

“This is abuse!” Uruha yells to no one, wrestling his hair free from Samura’s loose grasp. He crawls on the soft grass, putting some distance between him and Samura, then rises, turns around, and sticks his tongue out at him. “You can’t make me.”

“Oh, really?” Smirking, Samura grabs his own wooden training sword and prepares to stand. “You can’t run away from me, you know.”

Uruha assumes a fighting stance as well, ready for another bout. “I have no intentions to.”

[nadox]

Happy Valentine?