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She was the one who had broken it off.
That didn’t ease the sting, exactly. If one could call it a wound, the thought was like an herbal poultice she had hand-created in the hours between battle. If one could call it a fire-charred bridge, the thought was like a bucket of water, sizzling as she tossed it over the remains. The loss remained, but Kagero had always prided herself on dealing with her losses.
All in all, it had been a brief conversation, like the majority they had shared over the years. They had been sitting next to one another between a dense clump of trees and rocks, hiding beneath the shade of a particularly large boulder to conceal their position should an enemy approach. Saizo had scouted the area before she had arrived, and finally returned to her, deeming it safe for the night before they journeyed onwards to Lord Ryoma.
The air had been warm, which had boded well, as a fire would have given their place away instantly. Kagero had shed her scarf alongside him, and they had sat for a few seconds in silence, the weight of the package they were carrying for their lord sitting heavily between them.
"Saizo." He had turned his head a fraction to look at her out of his good eye. She met it steadily. This had been the easy part, and she had known it even then. "Can we talk?"
"What do you need, Kagero?" Brusque, business-like. She had known how he would react before he had done so.
"I have been thinking much about our relationship." The light was dim, but Kagero had seen his surprise in the brief flicker of motion in his shut eye. The scarred tissue would have concealed the action to any other person perhaps aside from her and his brother, who noticed things with the same precision.
"And your conclusion?"
She had watched his expression for a second. This was the right thing to do.
"We have fought often this past week, especially about this mission. I have begun to think these differences irreconcilable." Rehearsed words, with grains of truth swirling in them like the dregs in a cup of tea.
Saizo had frozen beside her for a second, both eyes open, milky white and brown, before his bad eyelid had dropped like a shutter and his expression darkened. His mask was on still, but she had known that below it he was approaching something close to a scowl. "I see."
Kagero had mutely met his gaze for a second longer, knowing that if she kept her peace he would continue. His stare was piercing, hot as the flames he occasionally called to flicker about his fingers and shuriken in the midst of battle. Many soldiers had faltered under this gaze before; surely more recruits would do so in the future. Nonetheless, Kagero had welcomed this searing heat, though she knew that its intensity meant that she would never again feel his weight atop her, never again wake up to a warm spot and neatly folded covers at her side. She would never again feel his mouth on hers and rise to meet him as he pulled her upwards, never again hear him mutter something in his sleep when he thought she was lying asleep at his side.
"You believe our differences in strategy to be enough of an issue to call this off?" Saizo's voice was harsh.
She dropped her gaze a second to rest her eyes on the package between them, swaddled in cloth to look like a child. They had agreed mutely earlier in the day that she would carry it. Kagero had paused before picking it up, before strolling calmly through the town with Saizo at her side. As though her life would ever be this - a child, a man, and a hot Sunday afternoon.
"We must set aside these differences to work most effectively for Lord Ryoma. Especially considering he grows older and will thus begin to take more responsibilities in the future." Kagero had drawn her gaze back up through the darkness to see Saizo staring once more at her, his expression now unreadable.
Several seconds passed. Kagero had contented herself with merely watching him. His red hair that twisted upwards into the air, so bright and uncommon a style for a ninja. The stiff way he had been holding himself that night. The beads of sweat that had gathered on his temple, as they had gathered on hers, that darkened the roots of his hair. His dark clothing had melted away in the darkness, as they were meant to do. Kagero remembered observing, as she had many times in the past, how much she would have liked to paint him in that moment.
Indeed, she had painted him once, a swirl of red and black that Orochi had thought was supposed to be a torch in the halls of Hoshido. Kagero had surveyed it and realized that for once she had painted something intelligible, for Orochi was correct.
"I see," he had said again, shortly. He had turned to face forwards again, leant his shoulders back against the rock.
That was the end of it. Kagero had mimicked his actions, leant her head back against the stone which lay so solidly behind her. But still, in the end, she could not turn her eyes from the bundle between them. Children, or husbands - any sort of enduring alliance - were unthinkable in her position. They could be used as pawns by rivals, or bait by enemies; they could force her allegiance to turn. As though she would ever put herself in that position, where she found herself weighing her allegiance to her country with her allegiance to a human.
And this, of course, was why her decision had been correct. Kagero had this thought anew each time they ran into trouble on a mission, when she realized her ties to Saizo were running dangerously deep. Lord Ryoma had not heard of their relationship's beginning, and he did not hear of its end, either, and thus they still were assigned missions together. This was the way she had wanted it, and knew he had as well.
Even so, each time they came across real danger - were surrounded, were caught off guard, were separated from one another in the thick of battle - Kagero was glad she had ended it. It was intelligent to take the knife to the leg, so to speak, to avoid getting the knife to the heart. For each time they separated, each time she watched blood run from his fingertips into the dirt below them, she could feel horror rising in her gut. She couldn't stop herself from laser-focusing on his wounds, feeling the rest of the world cloud away as she feared for his life. And - no, impossible - if she ended up forgetting where she was in the midst of battle, if she stopped paying attention, if she, ancestors forbid, chose to do something to save Saizo instead of protecting her lord - Kagero knew each time this thought came that she had made the right decision to end it.
To be fair, the only difference in their relationship immediately after their conversation was the remarkable absence of his words, so much like when she had first met him. And this silence, which had once been peaceable, affable, if not a relief then a weighty silence whose weight was not unwelcome, had become cold, impenetrable. When she sat near him, his silence now set her teeth on edge, made her shut her eyes.
A working relationship. It was exactly what she had wanted when they had broken up, but each time he came up to tell her bluntly what he was planning on doing during battle, waited for her confirmation, and then left just as quickly, she felt that familiar burn of pain all over again. It wasn't as though they had spent much time together to begin with, but there had been times when Saizo would appear outside her rooms, just sitting on the porch, as though waiting for her to get up and notice him. His purposes were different depending on the day (tea, training, discussing battle plans), but occasionally he would just sit there silently, and she would sit down at his side, and they would just be still together - just watch as the sun rose above the trees from the east.
Battles were the only reprieve from this horrible absence of emotion, so different from that quietness they had once shared. For - yes - in the midst of battles, she could watch his face contort into different expressions. Fury, irritation, smugness, concentration, worry, pain, the sudden certainty that he was about to kill his opponent.
And it was perhaps this distraction - his face, which she remembered so clearly, his expression less than seconds before she had been knocked out - which had led her to here. Now: Stuck behind bars in Mokushu, weapons stripped from her, beaten, threatened, but left mostly alone to her thoughts. Her back ached, a headache beat an insistent rap against the backs of her eyeballs, and her right knee was damaged somehow - some ninja had gotten in a particularly good kick to her medulla, perhaps. Alll the same, it was her thoughts that bothered her most.
Dawn Dragon, Kagero thought, back to a different wall, now, this one stone dripping with ivy. Dawn Dragon, if you exist, keep him safe. For the gods alone knew whether Saizo would go for reinforcements before he came after her.
A part of her - a cursed part of her, she thought, shutting her eyes against it - willed for him to come alone, slip behind the ranks and unlock the gate silently. Just him, with eyes heavy with something close to forgiveness. She knew his movements like she knew herself, knew they could perhaps escape if he managed to get there. But gods, there were few thoughts more selfish than willing your partner to come alone through a battalion of ninjas.
A roar came from outside the bars and Kagero stiffened, reached for her knives before realizing they were gone.
"Move!" A shout, origin unknown. Voice unknown as well. Kagero catalogued this with precision.
"Get out there!" To her? No. Kagero eyed the edge of the bars, trying to see past the walls that reached past them. In front of the bars was a wall, and she could not see anything on either side of the bars. No one was talking to her. Her guards, if there were any, were not visible. The Mokushu ninja were yelling at one another for some strange purpose.
A wordless yell, high-pitched. A woman's voice. Kagero stood this time, knowing the Mokushu rarely employed women, and immediately regretted it, curling over her knee.
The ting of metal to metal, resounding. Shuriken to sword, or shuriken to shuriken - Kagero had heard enough of both to recognize it. Woman's voice, again: "Go!"
Kagero limped to the gate slowly, careful to keep to its edges in case her captors were not yet aware she was no longer knocked out. Without warning, a shuriken spun to the left past the bars and hit flesh, a heavy wet noise. A man's yell of pain, horror.
She stiffened. Saizo? With reinforcements, perhaps. No - but who would have come? Who could he have stumbled across fast enough?
There was no need to think longer - he sprung suddenly into appearance outside of the gate and hit the ground running to her left, towards the sound of a wound inflicted. Kagero drew in a breath. He was furious - moving so swiftly he seemed almost wraithlike, like childhood tales of demons in deserts that conjured fire with a look of their eyes. Perhaps power was truly addictive; she could feel the pull of his strength, couldn't turn her eyes from him as he took out the man he had practically leapt upon. And when another ninja appeared before her cage - sword at the ready, about to fling it at him - he met her eyes the split second before his second shuriken found its home in the man's neck.
"You are hurt," he said curtly as he slipped over, pulling the shuriken from the man's neck with barely a second glance.
"Yes." Kagero's mouth pressed together, unsure if he was angry or - she dared not believe he was worried.
Saizo busied himself with the lock on the door for a few seconds, and Kagero heard the thrum of the battle raging on around them. "Who assists you?"
He paused slightly in his work. "A third party."
"Third?" Kagero's eyes narrowed in contemplation. "The princess."
Saizo's lips curled unpleasantly. "Not of Hoshido."
Kagero didn't bother to disagree - not when his hands were streaked in blood, the tiniest flecks of it barely visible across the bridge of his mask. Saizo pushed forward and the gate swung open; Kagero caught the end of it with relief as it came toward her and leaned against it, glad for some small support.
She almost didn't see the distaste on Saizo's face grow slightly more pronounced. "You are very hurt."
She surveyed herself grimly. "I will live." Kagero stood straight again and then paused, not allowing herself even to breathe in when she found her eyes meeting his collarbone instead of his face ten paces away.
Saizo was only inches from her, now. She met his eyes at first, and then he took his time as he looked at her, eyes scanning her arm, her legs, her eyes - and she was the one who finally dropped her gaze first, a fact which she would later regret and cover her burning face over, thinking of how his eyes on hers, his eyes tracing her body, had once meant different things.
"Let me." Saizo slipped an arm under her shoulder before she could move, pulling her to his side, and this time Kagero did inhale, so quickly it caught in her throat and she began to cough, and then was glad for the excuse to put her hand over her face, as she could feel the beginnings of a flush slipping over her cheeks. For she could feel the indent of his pelvic bone on hers, she could feel the ripple of his muscle over his torso, and she could smell him, too close to her. Blood, primarily, but under it, something woody, aromatic, making her head float.
"I can walk alone," she said, for pride, but not pride of her own strength, as he might have supposed.
"You cannot." Saizo began to walk, arm under her and supporting her, an action both brusque and oddly comforting. Kagero could feel her focus slipping. Each damaged cell in her cried out to be supported by this man, as she had been in the past.
"I am fine," she insisted, all the more wishing to lean into him as he readjusted his arm around her, curled his fingers around her waist (memories pulled at her - hands on waist, on hips, on thighs) and grasped her hand that was slung around his neck.
This was what she had wanted - this was not what she had wanted. He was slow at first, as though mindful - mindful? Saizo being mindful? - of her injuries. Kagero desired, so badly, to lean her head against his side. Perhaps this could be forgotten as an act of weakness, a succumbing to her injuries, not a succumbing to her heart.
"Clearly not." Saizo's voice thrummed somewhere close to her ear and she shook herself at his words. No. No. No weakness. This was her decision. Kagero pushed her shoulders back, shifting his position on her waist slightly.
"I can walk alone," she repeated, pulling at the arm he had over his shoulders slightly, though he did not release her hand when she did so. Instead, Saizo made a grunting noise at her and otherwise ignored it. Kagero gritted her teeth.
"Saizo." His name - or perhaps her tone - made him pause. If she did not end this now it would not ever end; she would never be rid of this ache to stand at his side, to walk at his side, to curl up next to him, to pull him to her side and feel his arms around her once again. "I can walk alone."
He regarded her, and she, not for the first time, wished she was as tall as a man, for looking upwards and appearing strong at the same time was not always simple. Saizo's expression was shuttered, and she could not decipher why his mouth twitched for a split second while his eyes remained a strange mix of dark emotion.
"Fine." He dropped her arm roughly and Kagero fought to stay upright, holding her head high though she knew he could tell she wobbled.
"Let us go." Saizo stalked ahead of her, shoulders curled, and she knew that, like a cat, he was defensive, angry, wanted to be alone.
Kagero flicked her hair from her eyes and steadied her balance, both mental and physical. Gods. To walk at his side. She shut her eyes, felt for the wall in front of her. Now was not the time to give in to foolish ideas. She stared at the ivy before her, braced herself, gritted her teeth. No - for the kingdom, she would stand alone.
"Hurry," his voice rapped out insistently from somewhere ahead of her.
Kagero set her shoulders and began to walk, every other pace a tearing pain up her leg. She crossed her cage's barriers and turned past the wall Saizo had slipped behind, suddenly met with an array of carnage, a flurry of flying weapons and discarded, broken lances. Saizo stood, tensed for a battle, some steps ahead of her, but no battle came. Instead, a girl, hair streaked with sweat, wearing royal armor, approached him. Corrin. Kagero had known it.
"Glad to see you are unhurt," she addressed Kagero, nodding at her.
"She is hurt." Saizo's contradiction was rough but commonplace - the same tone he reserved for commenting on the state of their recruits (dismal), the state of the tea (bland), or the state of the weather (only in relation to how difficult an attack would be to stage).
The princess looked at her in horror. "Oh no - your leg, I can see it now. Let me get a healer."
"I am fine." Kagero waved the woman away, somewhat wary at the sudden change in allegiance all of this indicated.
"She is fine," Saizo said grimly, and Kagero heard this time the bite in his tone, but pretended she had not.
"Are you sure?" Lady Corrin looked between the two ninja with concern.
"She is fine." This time the bitterness was apparent. Kagero flinched, immediately glad his back was to her.
"Well." Lady Corrin cleared her throat, still looking between them as though expecting some grand demonstration to take place. "I will give you two a moment, then." She strode away, shooting them a quick glance before she disappeared behind one of the hedges populating the Mokushu village.
Saizo did not turn to look at her. Kagero thought of the way he had last looked at her with any semblance of friendliness, or care, or forgiveness. She was hesitant to call anything they had shared love, for the word itself was yet another burden to shoulder. But his eyes on her had once been something more - warmer, heavier, almost insistent.
He had ran a hand through her hair once after untying it, had watched light hit it. He had given her her favorite pair of knives for her birthday. He had let her help him refasten his mask after one of its straps had broken - the mask he did not let his own twin touch. He had pulled her close to him, breathed in deeply, after a difficult battle, and she had clutched her arms around his back and wondered if the blood on her hands was hers or his.
He had slipped in her room one night, woken her with his hand skimming her stomach and traveling downwards; she had nearly reached to strangle him before he caught her arm and she realized who he was, moving aside to let him under the covers. He had made her tea that morning, left it beside her sleeping form.
Kagero sighed, so quietly it was barely an exhale. "Shall we go?"
Saizo turned slightly to look at her, his eyes flinty and metallic. "Let us go."
Kagero nodded, bracing herself for the next stretch of ground. Saizo strode away, his destination unknown to her. But this was not her concern anymore - she pushed her lips together, feeling them sour into a grimace as she began to move forward. Yes - for his sake, as well, she would walk alone.
Kagero could deal with her losses. In the end, this pain would be worth it; the small struggle would fade in the face of the larger one. The grander narrative began and ended with the kingdom. And one woman's pain would slip out of the story sooner or later, she knew, lost among the battles and blood spilt. And one woman would walk alone - but in the end, this was for the greater good.
And she had ended it. And that did ease the sting - even if it was only a little.