Bloodlines

Footage

NOTE: Ayana is @jindalraekarkki's lovely OC! Thank you so much! 

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She grew on him.

Maybe it was this new and uncertain past behind him. The whole world felt like it titled and swirled out from under him, the whole of his bloodline running out of him in red rivers, brimming with questions. Sometimes he lay awake at night, wondering if he could shout his question to the heavens, and if–like Albert Camus wrote in The Myth of Sisyphus–the benign, indifferent universe would bother to hear him at all.

But her presence calmed all that. He didn't like the wondering. He was a man of action, and being forced into the present by her helped.

They ate dinner together now. In the spirit of cooperation, he took turns preparing the meal and cleaning, though he couldn't force himself to look anything but annoyed at the arrangement.

"If you'd rather that we not do this, we don't have to," she offered one night, twirling some penne on her fork. "I don't want to impose on you. You're already doing enough."

"I..." I like it. I like having someone to talk to. I don't mind having you around, it makes me feel grounded. "It isn't entirely awful."

She stared at him a long while. At last, a smile cracked her lips, and he felt the lurch of excitement at realizing she was reading him. Never before was he so pleased at being vulnerable. "Alright then."

Ayana kept in contact. Apparently she was doing alright; she was currently in custody of Masamune and doing well. The Princess (he'd caved and mentally dubbed her that, having forgotten her real name) laughed out loud and shared a series of texts with him. "The poor woman is so shy around men."

"Then they really fucked up by putting her with Masa," Ieyasu snorted. "He's just about the least shy person in the world. No doubt he's flirting with her left and right."

"Apparently he's cooking her all sorts of incredible food, though."

A fleeting pang of jealousy flitted through him before he reminded himself of how ridiculous that was. "Yeah, well, Masa's halfway decent at that, I guess. Has to make up for his personality somehow."

She snickered and squeezed his shoulder. The last time anyone did that was years ago. As soon as her hand moved, he missed the touch.

—

The next dossier wasn't a file. It was a contact.

"He's got some interesting documentation he wanted us to see." Mitsuhide slipped the contact details over Ieyasu's desk with a snaky smirk. "I have reason to believe it has to do with you."

"How so?" Ieyasu didn't take it, but she did, quietly parsing its contents.

The white haired man just smiled. "He's an inside in the Mafia that we planted a while ago. Since it's the same branch that seemed to take such singular interest in your family, I can only assume that you might want to follow up on this yourself."

Ieyasu just sighed. "One problem with that: if... my 'uncle' is involved with them somehow, then I'll be immediately recognized if he's tailed. His cover would be utterly blown."

"More to the point, then. We don't have the agents to send out to rendezvous with him right now."

"I'll do it."

Both of the men blinked, turning to face the archivist. She just stared back at them. "I'm volunteering."

"Have you the faintest idea what for?" Ieyasu snapped, all of his frustrating bubbling to the surface. "You don't. You don't know a damn thing about handling these kinds of things. You would get killed."