Destined for Tragedy

—– A pretty white-haired anime boy with anger issues —– His screwball of a subordinate —– A depressed samurai who’d rather play Yo-kai Watch than do his job —– A kind, shy girl who just happens to be a Demon Queen —– Her boyfriend / husband, a tsundere power ranger —– A self-proclaimed Strategic Genius™

Create

Maybe there aren’t any gods, but you can build your own world. You are driven, but for what? For something to calm the storm in your mind, or to shake the world with your own thunder? Endlessly searching for answers only our own reflections can tell you. You long for people in eras after this to see the scratches you left, and you love the ones left from ages past. When you taste spice, you savor it. You want to climb to the top of the world and scream ‘I was here!’. You are wind, its endless flow, its eternity, the way it turns itself into song.

Tagged by: The wonderful @nobuverse​ ! Thanks a bunch for tagging me !

Someone: So you’re a ronin ?

Yakuro wondered, what did the guy want.

“Are you suggesting we become friends?”

He wasn’t sure why anyone would want to be friend with him. He wouldn’t really bring any value to the relationship. Maybe this guy was genuinely lonely?

        Seriously ?

                  It took all of Kiyomasa’s willpower not to put that thought into words. Sure, this was the outcome he'd been hoping for. Becoming someone’s friend was a way to get them to lower their guard and hand out more information. But why did this man have to ask a question like that ? And so soon after Kiyomasa had finally started acting friendly towards him ? Had Yakuro heard Kiyomasa’s story and decided that Kiyomasa was more friendless than him ? Was he pitying Kiyomasa ? The idea was enough to make his stomach turn. Kiyomasa was a genius who was going to accomplish great things ! He wasn’t going to waste his life like this man, scrubbing toilets for those who looked down upon him ! But for right now, he needed to set his personal feelings aside and accomplish what he’d set out to do.

                   ❛❛ You know what —– sure ! Since we’re both so new here, I think we’d both benefit by sticking together. ❜❜ Kiyomasa gave a wide smile ——– he hoped his enthusiasm wasn’t coming off as too forced.

It’d be been her intention to keep everyone safe. To stay out of whatever realm her demon self wandered to whenever she lost consciousness. That demon - the other side of her she’d brought back from that awful singularity - it had come so killing her master in their dreams that she had never wanted it to happen again. While servants were certainly more resilient than humans when it came to the amount of sleep they needed, she couldn’t keep pushing her limits forever. 

Now, by trying to keep everyone safe from ‘that’ her, she’d started to become cruel. So utterly exhausted that she’d found herself doing something this…stupid.

The reality starts to sink into her as she hears her sister cry. 

What the hell was I thinking?

Oichi’s sobs were louder than that annoying, mocking voice that had ground her nerves to dust in the past few days. She can’t help but think how easily things might have gone out of hand -just how cold her heart had just been. 

“’ichi, I…” her voice hesitates, trailing off as she could feel her hands shake. 

She’s not acted like that in such a long time. Not when her carefree days at Chaldea had been filled with peace the likes of which she’d never seen in their era. To revert back to being a tyrant was not what she wanted. How little control she feels like she has over the situation is enough to want to make her cry - something she hadn’t done since her father’s funeral. 

She left her chair to drop to her knees. Her movements are slow and encumbered, just lucky enough not to land on any of the shards of glass. 

“I shouldn’t have asked you to do that.” glassy eyed, she reaches out to take one of her hands into her own - to force her to stop cleaning up “I’m….sorry. That was uncalled for.”

She’d promised herself that she’d never show weakness or forgiveness again - but this was too much to try and cover up. Truly inexcusable. 

“I’m not mad at you. This is my fault. Let me clean it up.”

                   Oichi should’ve known better than to try and prepare a gift for her older sister. No matter what she tried to make, her cursed nature warped her creations. Even if Oichi couldn’t see it herself, shouldn’t she have noted others’ reactions to her gifts ? Winter clothes turned into burial clothes. A lucky charm turned into a curse. And this sundae...it must’ve turned into something monstrous for Nobunaga to shoot it as she had. No matter how Oichi tried to help her loved ones, her efforts always backfired. If it wasn’t for her, would they have been happier ? Would their lives have been free of tragedy and sorrow ? Well, for now, Oichi needed to keep trying to wipe up the sundae. If she didn’t make a decent effort, her older sister would only grow more angry with her. All of a sudden, a hand halted her movements.

                    ❛❛ Huh ? ❜❜ Oichi glanced up, her eyes widening in shock. Why was her older sister stopping her ? This was Oichi’s fault, so she needed to take responsibility for it, right ? Wouldn’t Nobunaga be upset if she refused to do so or blamed someone else instead ? Besides, it was her older sister who’d ordered her to clean up this mess in the first place. And why Nobunaga was apologizing to her, as well ? That wasn’t like her older sister at all ! It was Oichi’s duty to apologize and take others’ sins upon herself. How was she supposed to react to someone apologizing to her for once ? What was she supposed to do now ? Should she attempt to keep cleaning up the sundae, as she’d been told ? If not, though, what else was she supposed to do instead ?

“Kanbei-sama!!! I’m glad you come! (ﾉ´ヮ´)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧” 

He took Kanbei’s hands with beaming eyes.

“Don’t worry! The sermon is in Japanese. It’s just the hymns that are in Latin! I can translate it for you!”

Yakuro went to seminary as a child, so he knew some Latin.

                    ❛❛ Um, thanks. ❜❜ Yakuro sure was enthusiastic ! Kanbei almost wanted to tell him to calm down. However, he didn’t wish to offend one of the few friendly faces here.

“I am, yes.” The young man - more of a boy who tried his best to look like a man - bowed his head a little. He still had a boy’s hairstyle. With so much going on, they didn’t have time to hold his coming-of-age ceremony, and Hideyoshi said they should wait until they get home so his family could be present.

“I like being at war councils, Kanbei-dono. There is so much to learn. Hideyoshi-sama said I should observe you.”

Hideyoshi always had high praise for Kanbei. Ever since they got him back, the lord was in a better mood. 

Sakichi was good at administration and organizing things. So whenever Hideyoshi and his strategists decided on a plan, he could help execute it. Some of the other pages made fun of him for being so happy with paperwork, logistics and other “boring” things. But he knew a war was not won by weapons alone.

                    ❛❛ Right. Forgive me, but may I ask what your name is ? ❜❜ Kanbei was hoping the kid would give him his name, but that hadn’t happened. Well, nothing he could do but suck it up and ask for the young man’s name himself. Kanbei ranked above him anyways, so he could get away with a little rudeness, couldn’t he ?

                    ❛❛ He really said that, huh ? ❜❜ A smug grin spread across Kanbei’s face. Hideyoshi had a rather mercurial temperament. If someone happened to catch him in a bad mood, that could spell the end of their life. All this time, Kanbei had figured he risked earning Hideyoshi’s ire himself. His ambitious nature had already rubbed a few people the wrong way. But if Hideyoshi had a high opinion of him, who cared about those naysayers ? They wouldn’t dare bring their complaints to Hideyoshi.

                   Oichi watched as the poor girl tossed and turned in her sleep. Had she herself thrashed about like that during her own nightmares ? It was so painful to watch that Oichi wanted to put an end to it. But before she could reach out and wake the girl, she stirred awake on her own. Did she call herself...Chacha ? Wait, so this was her daughter ? She’d been summoned at a much younger age than Oichi had expected.

                    ❛❛ Yes. Ichi is here. ❜❜ Oichi found herself hesitant to respond. Because of her own family and who she was, her own daughter was suffering like this. Had she been born to someone else, could Chacha have lived a happier life ?

Listening closely to the samurai’s words, Anne nodded along with every beat and pause. All in all, it was quite the complex tale that his tongue had thusly spun. Much like a partner, there was a part of herself that wanted to regard the whole thing as absurd beyond measure; although, far louder was the inner voice that praised it’s fairytale-like whimsy.

Surely, far stranger things had come to pass than pilferers sharing hands with princesses. 

“Heeee… Captain Motochika and Princess Komatsu huh…” Cooing quietly in awe the blonde passed a glance towards her white-haired companion. “It makes you wonder, doesn’t it Mary? Did we ever mess up by killings certain prisoners? Maybe it could’ve been us rubbing shoulders with the ‘noblefolk’, if only we’d had a firmer handle on our emotions.” 

A bit of an odd takeaway, and an equally grim admission to make so offhandedly. All-in-all a good reminder that — an air of general affability aside — the duo were still pirates through and through.

“You say ‘we’, but I’m pretty sure that _you _were the biggest source of ‘accidental’ deaths by far.” Eager to disperse the blame that’d been hoisted upon her shoulders Mary wasted no time in setting the record straight. Heavens forbid that their new ally think of her as just slightly worse of a woman than she’d ever truly been. “I won’t say that I never did anything of the sort, but it sure wasn’t anywhere near as big of a problem for me. Besides, didn’t you run away from home specifically because you were tired of dealing with those types?”

If Anne were at all upset by her partner’s accusations, then she certainly didn’t show it. Nor did she, for that matter, try to argue against any claims about her supposed temper. In the eyes of some it might have been scary how she could simply gloss over the matter entirely, laughing sheepishly only at the other woman’s parting remark. 

“I can’t say that that wasn’t a pretty big part of things. It’s just… Geez. Don’t you think it’s a little bit different when it’s a princess that you’re dealing with? Kiyomasa, you get what I mean don’t you? There’s just a certain feeling behind an outlaw tutoring someone of that stature that’s utterly irresistible.”

                   Kiyomasa listened as Anne and Mary discussed his story. To his surprise, they didn’t immediately reject Chosokabe for babysitting Princess. But then again —– it sounded like that was because they would’ve liked to partake of a nobleman’s money. That made sense. They were pirates, so of course they would be motivated by a financial incentive. As long as there was money, did it matter who they received it from ? If he believed Mary, though, Anne might have held a bit of a grudge against the nobility. Also, it sounded like they were a bit too trigger-happy to have worked with noblemen in life. Combined with their nonchalance about killing, working with them sounded somewhat risky. Kiyomasa made a mental note to keep those details in mind if he ever involved them in any of his plans.

                    ❛❛ Hmm...well, if nothing else, it makes for a rather interesting story. Even you two, with as much as you must’ve seen as pirates, seemed entertained by what I had to say. ❜❜ Kiyomasa wasn’t quite understanding what Anne found irresistible about Chosokabe and Princess. There was a an interesting twist there, he had to admit. Princess should’ve been babysat by other nobles, not a pirate. And what was Ieyasu doing, befriending a pirate ? But that was how he’d always been. Bonds were important to him, and little deterred him from forming bonds with others. That was how Kiyomasa had ended up betraying the Toyotomi, as ironic as that was. All it had taken was an offer from Ieyasu for Kiyomasa to jump from the sinking ship that was the Western Army.

                    ❛❛ A princess would stand far above your standard noblewoman, though. So it’s even more humorous for a pirate to tutor a princess rather than just any noblewoman. ❜❜ That didn’t sound quite like what Anne was hinting at, either. Kiyomasa couldn’t come up with any other explanation of his own, though. Hmm...he didn’t like giving up, but perhaps it was best to admit he was lost.

“Umh… more than a month…” he said.

Ever since he arrived in Nagahama.

People didn’t like the the fact that , a nobody, he spent a lot of time with Hideyoshi-sama. Because Hideyoshi-sama always kept botchan around him. Naturally, he had to accompany his botchan.

Yes, he was a commoner, but he served the role of a samurai vassal. It was obvious as Naoie-sama didn’t send anyone else to accompany botchan as a sign of “trust” towards the Oda. Naturally, he understood his role. He was supposed to spy on the Oda-Hashiba camp.

But, then Naoie-sama just died. There was no one to spy for.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

                    ❛❛ More than a month, huh ? Hmm...I suppose I’ve been here for at least three months, now. ❜❜ This man was quite tight-lipped. Had the bullying taught him that, or was it in his nature to keep quiet about himself ? He might have had his guard up after all the questioning Kiyomasa had done, too. Well...Kiyomasa had been hoping he wouldn’t have to go down this route, but there was one more way he could reach out to him.