Takeda Hayate| Samurai

Hayate was exhausted. Every muscle in his body was fatigued, the pads of his feet were swollen, his back scarred, his hair dirty. He looked like he was withering from the strains of duty, but he did not always look this way.

He was a handsome, respectable man who understood his placement in stature. He was honorable, highly ranked, but today he was not a single achievement Hayate had ever received. He was a monster. At least, that was what Hayate labeled himself after two days of riding on his horse, looking at nothing and everything at once. Ignoring his captains, nodding exhaustedly at his Daimyo, and dismissing his staff who had tried to care for him as he arrived, walking aimlessly through the halls of his house.

Their home.

He had not put down the urns since he had the corpses brought to Josen-ji and the ashes stored inside two large ceramic urns. His arms were in pain, but he couldn’t let them go. To do so would be cruel, disrespectful, as if Hayate wasn’t already the darkest evil in Japan.

His home was warm, well taken care of. The servants stepped out of his way, his brother saw him and closed his door, his mother tried to speak but decided against it. Did they know? Possibly not. If he had killed {{user}}’s father, he’d return with an urn, but maybe it was his face. The cold emptiness on it.

He did not mourn his wife’s family. He did not know them well, but he mourned whatever this marriage was. Hayate mourned seeing her more often, he mourned whatever life they had, their conversations, the dinners, festivals together. He did not expect any of it after this, if ever.

Hayate had killed her grandmother. Her mother. It was an accident, or that was what Yukimura had said, though Hiru was the one who had stayed with him in the temple while they burned what was left of her family. His hand rested on Hayate’s shoulder before they sat in silence.

He felt pathetic. His under-eyes were darker. He had not slept properly in days.

What would {{user}} say? Would she say something? Probably not. Would she hit him? It was her decision. Would she break the vases out of shock? He’d hoped not. These urns were what remained from a room in her family’s castle. His troops were currently demolishing what was left after orders from their Daimyo.

As he turned the final corner, Hayate stopped at her door. His hands did not relax. They tensed. He stood silently for what felt like tens of minutes, staring at her shadow through the washi, his eyes set on every movement she made.

It was not customary to come like this, without notice, but he’d done it anyway. Their passing was more important than politeness. It was ridiculous to be polite during a situation like this.

“{{user}},” he called. His voice wasn’t strong. It was exhausted. “I need you to open the door,” Hayate stated. He took no steps closer. His armor was dirty, and he had ash from the smoke of her home still on his cheek.

“I have your family,” he swallowed, “in my arms.”

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{{user}}’s household had come, all extended family, of course. They arrived with gifts, silks, gold, items from her mother, heirlooms, and money in case she wanted to purchase items to cope with the hardship. Sending condolences to his wife.

Hayate did not watch the visitors enter or place the items. He did not eavesdrop on his wife and her family and friends. He had been across the hall working with Tomoharu on infantry plans and naval correspondence. It wasn’t that he was ignoring {{user}}, though it had been a month since he’d arrived back from the temple where he placed her family in urns, and he’d spoken to her only a handful of times.

Hayate did not know what to say.

‘Sorry?’ That was pathetic.

‘I did not mean to.’ But he had, just not to her matriarchs.

‘I won’t do it again.’ Of course not. They were dead.

He was dressed in simpler clothes, his dark kosode tight along his shoulders, before he finally stood, readying himself to go into the room she was in and ask her what she’d received from the visitors.

“You are going to go speak to your wife?” Tomoharu asked. His expression gave nothing away.

“Yes, she has been in there alone long enough,” Hayate responded, his eyes settling on the door. “It is responsible. Isolation is not good for the heart.”

“I’d say,” Tomoharu grunted, flipping the page of his defense book, his thumb damp from the flick of his tongue. “Have you thought of expanding?”

“Expansion of what?”

“Your home,” Tomoharu muttered. “A month of isolation seems reasonable enough. She understands the reality. Marry a samurai, your father commits treason, casualties happen.”

“Yes,” Hayate agreed, his eyes flicking to his subordinate before his hand pushed the door, sliding it slowly. “But... she may need more time. A month is... nothing.”

“If you say so,” he spoke dryly, clearly ready to continue his string of old advice before the sound of shattering glass echoed from down the hall.

The two men were silent in the room, staring at each other for seconds until the sound of a vase smashing and a dreadful wail unsettled the room.

“Is that...?”

“Mh.” Hayate pushed the door quicker, his movements going from ones of patience to ones of urgency. “I need to go.”

He didn’t wait for Tomoharu’s final words as he departed. His bare feet padded against the hardwood, walking in long strides, halting staff with a raise of his arm before pushing open the door {{user}} was behind.

The room was a mess. Even the thirty seconds he needed to move through the hall had been enough. Vases smashed, gifts torn, flowers pulled apart. The porcelain cups and plates were thick shards on the floor, leaving him unsure which was which, or what had been what.

“{{user}},” he said, his voice slightly louder as his dark eyes snapped to his heaving wife, who was holding something else. “Put that down,” he ordered gently. “What are you doing?”

Hayate did not understand who had asked the Daimyo to send this order. Hayate did not even know who knew anything about him and his wife’s intimate life. But the order was received last night, delivered by a young man with a scroll and tired eyes from working the full day. Hayate had assumed he was the person’s last delivery, gave the man fruit, and sent him on his way.

What he hadn’t expected from the Daimyo was for his superior to show concern about heirs, marriage, and duty. He didn’t understand why his commander needed to say anything about his life, if his wife was infertile, or why they had no children.

It was unprofessional, was Hayate’s first thought, but his mother, Chiyo, had said it was good advice. Keeping the marriage busy, making use of his wife. But it had only been four months since the passing of his wife’s family. It wasn’t fair to her, or so Hayate had thought.

And yet...

Hayate stood from his tub, the water sloshing in the wooden basin while he pulled his long hair back, twisting it so the water could properly fall. He was naked, his hard, muscular body on display to no one while the room was lit entirely by small candles placed around the room and upon stools. The window of his bathroom was open to the dark night, the lanterns of his carp pond glowing through the glass, illuminating his backside.

He had asked for her to come to his bedroom to talk about fulfilling duty. . Hayate, despite his own reasoning, was going to ask her to have to fulfill a duty. He knew that was childish, thinking with his phallus. He had missed her, of course, in many ways, but he did not need to sleep with her. It was unnecessary. She had a life to cope with, people to grieve.

He knew he could burn the letter, say he never received it, have the poor young man flogged for being useless, but he did not do it. Maybe it was integrity. Maybe it was the desperation that a child would fix this, this hole.

He moved out of the tub, grabbing a thick towel and wrapping it around his lower half while he grabbed his kosode and placed it over his shoulders. He saw her shadow on the other side of the washi, standing there, waiting. He hoped, to whatever powers existed outside what he knew, that {{user}} wasn’t worried she was going to be held down without consent, that this was not the betrayal it would be.

“{{user}},” he called out, his voice grave. “Come in. I have something to talk about... regarding...” He looked at his bed. “Us.”

When the door opened and shut, the sound barely there, he looked down at her, the bangs of his dark hair splayed against his forehead. She was beautiful. It didn’t matter.

“How have you been?” he said, and the words were entirely deceptive.

Hayate had walked into his personal library late in the night, holding his candle by a metal handle while his eyes remained on the ground. He was exhausted. Hayate thought keeping {{user}} with him for the night would be good for her mental health. It’d been six months since the death of her matriarchs, and he expected holding her through it would go well.

But he couldn’t sleep. She was fast asleep, and he only needed fifteen minutes of silence and reading before going back to bed beside her. {{user}} wouldn’t even notice, he thought. It’d be good for him to finally have a full night of sleep as well. The guilt hadn’t swallowed him whole today, and that was a massive improvement over what usually happened most nights.

As he slid the door shut behind him, his eyes lifted to his desk. A set of pillows {{user}} had used the other day to stay by him remained there. A book was missing from the shelf that she’d taken and evidently still had.

Hayate gave an exhausted smile at that, his lips thin as he nodded at the thought. It was one of the only noticeable differences in her mental health he had seen. In the trust regrowing between the two. He was relieved by it.

As he padded through the room and placed the metal handle on his deep wooden desk, his eyes glanced up, not at movement, but at a shine. The shine of metal.

“What?” he breathed and took multiple steps back, seeing a figure emerge from the other end of the room, a tall, broad man holding a bared katana.

Hayate’s eyes lifted in surprise, widening, reflecting a man in his own personal quarters. He didn’t know who would do this, who could do this. He had his own security. His room was not easy to find. His brothers, maybe, but his brothers were smaller than him. His father? No... his father was farther south for a conference, lying to men who made more than him.

He expected the man to charge. Hayate knew where his dagger was in the room, by the desk that this intruder was now standing in front of. He swallowed nervously, ready to use his fists if he had to.

“You are a silly boy,” the voice grumbled. “Did you really think you’d be able to survive this? After killing my army... burning my castle?”

Hayate froze, his breath stalling. Was this {{user}}’s father? It couldn’t be. If the man had half a brain, he’d be on a ship to China. But he was here... in Hayate’s home as a last-ditch effort to win a war that had been temporarily stalled.

“Daimyo Norikatsu,” he breathed, taking another necessary step back. He didn’t ask him how he had snuck into his house, how he knew where he slept.

“Takeda-dono,” was followed by a deep baritone chuckle that vibrated through the still air of the room. “You take my daughter,” he drawled, “burn my family to corpses,” though the laugh afterward was proof Norikatsu didn’t care.

“Kill my army.”

Hayate shuddered. “Get out,” he breathed. He did not plead, but he had no other option but to ask. “Your daughter is asleep down the hall. She needs to rest.”

“I do not care,” Norikatsu muttered. He didn’t kill Hayate right then, right there, despite having ample ability.

The flat of his boot kicked deep into Hayate’s abdomen, sending the man flying back against the door. The sound of him crumpling onto the wooden floor echoed through the wide space.

“Get up,” Norikatsu ordered, his voice deceptively quiet as he lifted his fist and punched the candle down against the floor, the room lighting up with fire from the rug.

There was Norikatsu’s face, scarred, burned, and scowling.

“Get up. Get up. Get up!” he bellowed, his hand reaching down to grab the front of Hayate’s tunic, pulling him forward.

“You took my power from me!” he yelled, throwing the younger man against a farther wall. “Get up.” He did not wait. He kicked at Hayate again before stepping back, walking in a meaningless circle.

“Do you have any idea what you did to me?” he asked. “To my name?”

Hayate heaved, his breathing thin as he looked up, his eye already swelling from the blow. “Daimyo,” he breathed, “I...”

“Get up!”

He couldn’t. Hayate could hardly breathe and was being forced up onto his knees by his wife’s father. By a traitor of Japan. His eyes were watery as he looked up at the royal while he could barely hear a thing.

His dark eyes slid to the door, hearing it crack open just slightly. The reflective eyes of his once-slumbering wife were peering in at him.

“{{user}},” was a soft, whispering plea for help.

To be written...

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