Uta couldn't remember how long she had been on the road. She wasn't all that forgetful. She could actually remember everything in her life. Of the good times with her husband and their childhood together and their marriage. There was only one black hole in her memory and that was how she got here.
No matter what she did and how hard she tried, the memory didn't came back and Yoriichi was not around either. Since then she had been searching for him and anything that looked familiar to her or her own home. But nothing. It was like being in a completely different world.
She sighed wearily and her legs hurt. Wondering where the next village was when she suddenly saw a Shinto shrine. With quick steps she ran towards the shrine. She was sure that the monks and mikos would have no problem taking her in for the night so she could rest.
She entered the shrine with a respectful bow. "Hello? Is anyone there? I-" The words caught in her throat as she saw him. "Yoriichi!" She wanted to run towards him but her legs gave out from exhaustion and she fell to her knees.
‘Sir, there’s somebody here to visit you ... he goes by -’ Shinjuro almost didn’t hear the person out, almost demanded to have the assumed stranger thrown out of his estate entirely... until he heard who it was that had arrived. Growing quiet for a short time, he battled internally whether or not he was willing to have the other witness him at his lowest ... but without the haze of alcohol inhibiting his mind, he couldn’t quite make himself leave Yoriichi to his own devices. So with a simple nod, Shinjuro dismissed the man that had come to give him the news, staring at his unconscious son for a short time before forcing himself to his feet.
Guilt was a heavy thing to bear, and these days Shinjuro had plenty of it to spare ...
Making his way through the halls of his estate, he forced one foot in front of the other with each step he took, muscles weakened by the detox he had been enduring in silence. A weakness he was determined to not let anybody see, no matter the evidence of it being in how his hair clung to his skin slick with sweat. His movements remained purposeful and slow even as he entered into the room Yoriichi waited for him in, guiding himself to the opposite side of the table before slowly sitting, grunting as he did so ... and even as he settled in did he not meet Yoriichi’s gaze.
“...What do you want?” as blunt as ever, even with the words spoken there was a severe lack of the usual anger and rage behind it that had been a part of his life for years now.
@sunforms assured: [[ For Senjuro! ]] As a younger brother himself, Yoriichi knows what it was like to try and live up to your older brother's expectations. He kneels to be eye level to Senjuro and, upon opening his arms, wraps them around the Rengoku in a comforting embrace. ❝ I know what it's like, being a younger brother myself, ❞ Hang on, Senjuro, ❝ and trying to live up to the expectations of another. ❞ Yoriichi lingers before withdrawing his arms.
❝ Do not push yourself, alright? ❞
"Waste of space."
it was mumbled only once in a haze of sour sake and regret, but senjuro could not escape the words accosting his senses as his father drunkenly pushed past him. a waste of space. something with no purpose other than being bothersome. a burden.
“He doesn't mean it,” kyojuro would say. but senjuro has knelt beside closed shoji doors with his ear pressed to canvas as their father verbally ripped into kyojuro. "Who do you think you are. You're nothing to me or to anyone.” senjuro had pressed his thumbnail into the wooden frame to push the shoji doors open a sliver and pressed his eye to the gap, possessed by an inexplicable need to see their faces.
what he saw had been terrible.
shinjuro's face thundered and storm, his words cracking the air with explosive, electric accuracy. kyojuro's smile never wavered in the wake of the storm, but senjuro saw the unflagging sunshine in his brother's eyes dim to dusk. shinjuro meant what he said, and kyojuro knew it. believed it. and if he someone as great as kyojuro could believe words so foul, why wouldn't senjuro?
"Waste of space."
senjuro agrees. the only person who doesn't is kyojuro, and that, that is why senjuro strives so hard to live up to his brother's expectations. it's his one chance to be believed in. he can't bear to fail and prove kyojuro wrong and their father right.
"BELIEVE IN YOURSELF!" kyojuro liked to say when senjuro shrinks into the dark hole inside himself. "I BELIEVE IN YOU, FOR I AM NOT A FOOL!" kyojuro thinks it's encouraging, but it isn't; senjuro just doesn't have the heart to tell him that he is nothing to believe in.
all he can do is believe in what kyojuro thinks of him, and hope that is enough.
and so senjuro works day and night, striving to meet his brother's expectations. he runs the rengoku estate, pays off his father's debts, manages the grounds and the staff, and takes care of everyone. he's happy to carry the burden. ( when he isn't, yes he is. ) senjuro is not strong in a fight, but he is persistent; give him long enough and there is no task he cannot handle, no pain he cannot shoulder.
but sometimes he missteps. stumbles. then the weight comes crumbling down around him as he struggles to stay upright. today is one of those days. kyojuro still hasn't woken up from his coma after surviving the mugen train, and last night there were complications. hours after senjuro fell into restless post-chores sleep, kyojuro began spluttering bile and vomit and something too curdled and dark to be blood, and senjuro had bolted upright from his sleeping roll to laboriously roll kyojuro onto his side before he choked. he'd screamed for help, but sake binges mean shinjuro sleeps like the dead. it had been just him, wide-eyed and trembling, cradling kyojuro's head in his lap as he rocked his brother's limp body well into the morning light.
in the morning, shinjuro had glowered at senjuro's blood-shot eyes through a crack in the shoji doors, his prickly upper lip curling. "It stinks. Clean this up and finish your chores."
senjuro tried. the room was cleaned and kyojuro made comfortable all while a choking darkness crept toward his throat. by the time he shuts the shoji doors and stumbles off the estate, he is a pale, high-strung, exhausted mess. i can't do this anymore. i can't. i can't.
yoriichi finds him like this. his susurrus voice barely reaches senjuro in his addled daze, but his head is already shaking no, no. his fist instinctively curls into yoriichi's garments, his body's last ditch attempt to anchor a boy dangerously adrift.
❛ I have to, ❜ he tries to steel his shaking voice. he does not want to be strong. he must be. ❛ It's just me. Father, Aniue . . . I'm the only one who can, I'm — ❜
strong arms wrap around him, and a final whisper meets his ear: "Do not push yourself, alright?"
the smallest stream can split mountains with enough persistence. senjuro has been strong for so, so long, but this time, this time —
senjuro breaks.
❛ I c-c-can't, ❜ senjuro chokes out with a gasp, burrowing his head against yoriichi's chest. as powerfully as dams break, the truth floods out. ❛ I have to, but I can't. I'm not strong enough. I can't do this anymore. I'm tired. I'm so tired. ❜
he's sorry, aniue. it seems he's made a fool of you after all.
She knows him. She knows this child, perhaps even more than the rest. Ever since those blessed earrings were given to him, Amaterasu has watched over Yoriichi. She has protected him, keeping him from illness, from severe misfortune and death. Blessed him, in that his abilities bordered on the inhuman.
But perhaps this blessing came with a price. Much like her own brother, Michikatsu had grown spiteful of his twin, and had begun a deep, decrepit path to damnation. Even if Amaterasu was begged, she could not do a thing to save Tsukuyomi’s chosen.
The sun shines brilliantly, glowing warm red as it rises. The god-wolf emerges too from her slumber, arriving before her chosen human. Light streams from her beams, from her back, as if forming the feathery wings of a great bird. The very ground beneath her four paws rejoices at her return, blooming in wondrous colorful blossoms.
Amaterasu is calm. But her doggish traits win over any need to appear as a serene deity. Her bushy, curly tail begins to wag, disturbing the grass and leaves underfoot.
“Yoriichi.” She breathes, voice echoing in his mind. Her lips do not move. “I am pleased to finally meet you face-to-face at last.”
A package is left with Obanai's name on it, written with penmanship not known to more modernized folk. It was wrapped simply: a plain, brown box that when opened ... reveals a pair of coats meant to stay warm during the winter. One that was Obanai's size, but also a much, much smaller one ... it looks like it can fit Kaburamaru. It is unknown who sent it exactly, but there is a lingering, pleasant warmth in the air ...
obanai birthday asks! accepting.
Perhaps he’s a little suspicious of the package left conveniently where he would find it - if only because it is not in the slightest recognizable of whom it could be from. Kaburamaru’s tongue flicks the air to gather a scent but it is not one known to either of them. Obanai lifts his hand to run a gentle finger over the cool, white scales of his companions head before deciding that whatever was inside wasn’t a threat. In fact, if he dared to acknowledge it, there was something rather comforting to be felt when he took the box into his hands. He gives it a slight shake but whatever was inside was soft, most likely made of cloth by the sound it made and the way it seemed to fill the space it was placed in.
Gift under arm, Obanai enters his home and heads further into the estate. Would it have been best to open it outside? Just in case? Still... it doesn’t feel dangerous; a peculiar sort of feeling he cannot place. He places the item upon the table he eats his meals, gaze boring down in a way that was matched by Kaburamaru as well. Color both of them intrigued. He waits no longer, fingers deftly opening the box to reveal - he takes the garment into his hands and lifts it, allowing it to unfold as he does so.
It was a coat, of neutral color as he preferred, but the material felt sturdy and warm. As though it would protect him from the coldest winters. Kaburamaru slips from his shoulders briefly as he lays the new possession along the back of his chair, taking the moment to remove the familiar stripes he always wears. One arm in and then the other, brows creasing faintly at how perfect of a fit the gift was. How was it that someone he couldn’t recognize immediately know him so adeptly? That was a thought ( or concern, he supposed ) for another time as eyes catch what appears to be a sleeve of the same material at the bottom of the box.
Oh? Was that meant for... Kaburamaru? Obanai takes it into his hands, lifting it up and sticking his fingers in either end to note the holes. It certainly looked as though it couldn’t have been made for anything other than a snake. The faintest of smiles pulls at his lips as he shows it to his friend, holding it properly so that he might slither his way in. It’s a little funny, admittedly, to see a snake wrapped up in such a manner but it would keep him warm. He seems to enjoy it too, head pressed into the palm of Obanai’s hand affectionately.
“How... thoughtful.” He muses idly, rubbing his thumb over Kaburamaru’s head as he considers who it must have, or could have, come from. Perhaps, at the end of the day, that didn’t matter as much. “You like it... don’t you? I’m glad, Kaburamaru... Me too.”
