Yamato no Kami Yasusada (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
okitactless) wrote2016-01-11 02:40 pm
okitactless) wrote2016-01-11 02:40 pm
Entry tags:
memory bank
– Awakening
– First meetings
– Comrades
– Home
– Mumyouken
– Failure
– Weakness
– Goodbye
– Summoning
– Reunions
– Toba
– KBC
– Loved
– Influence
– Hard work
– Companionable enemies
– Leadership
– Journeys
– Ikigai; reason for living
– Déjà vu
– Goodbye Redux
– First meetings
– Comrades
– Home
– Mumyouken
– Failure
– Weakness
– Goodbye
– Summoning
– Reunions
– Toba
– KBC
– Loved
– Influence
– Hard work
– Companionable enemies
– Leadership
– Journeys
– Ikigai; reason for living
– Déjà vu
– Goodbye Redux
i - awakening
[Yamato's awakening as a tsukumogami.]
ii - first meetings
[Yamato is given to Souji and taken to the Shinsengumi headquarters for the first time.]
ii (hc)
It's not the first time. He's been passed through other hands, tested, given hope. Been found lacking. Put back. Left behind.
But he's never been held like this.
Gentle hands, a firm grip that isn't uncomfortably tight. He feels his body swing through the air, deadly precision and strength flowing through to him. No one has ever guided him like this before. It's thrilling and terrifying all at once.
He hears a pleasant laugh, soft around the edges.
"Well, you're awfully hard to handle, aren't you?"
Someone is speaking to him. He wants to respond, to look behind him, to see their face-- but he can't. No matter which way he turns, all he sees is a flash of blue and white. The sky, maybe.
He wants so badly to see the sky. Now, tomorrow-- anything to get out. To stay by this person's side. He can't take being left behind. Not again. Not by someone with hands like this.
Voices, tension, a pounding heart. He's hard to handle. But this person can. But maybe they don't want to. But then... who would? If someone like this can't handle him, is there anyone that can?
And then--
"Come. Let's go home."
Fear. Hope. Elation.
Home.
What's a home?
He can't wait to find out.
((Important points: a sense of belonging, only valuing himself through the opinions of others, beginning development of unhealthy attachment))
iii - comrades
[Yamato meets Kashuu Kiyomitsu for the first time--Okita's first sword, and his partner for the foreseeable future.]
iv - home
[Okita uses Yamato for the first time in a real battle; Yamato discovers what it feels like to truly belong to someone.]
v - mumyouken
[Okita performs his famous strike with Yamato; Yamato learns it so he can perform it perfectly too.]
vi - failure
[Okita collapses at Ikedaya. Kashuu breaks irreparably. Yamato becomes Okita's primary sword.]
vii - weakness
[Yamato can only watch as Okita's health rapidly deteriorates from the tuberculosis. Once the best swordsman in the Shinsengumi, Okita has grown so weak he can't even kill a cat (said to be an omen of death in Japanese culture).]
viii - goodbye
[Okita dies with Yamato at his side. Yamato is filled with despair at having been left behind by his two most precious people--he's now all alone.]
ix - summoning
[Yamato is given a corporeal body by the saniwa in the year 2205. He has a new master for the first time in centuries.]
x - reunions
[Yamato is reunited with the other Shinsengumi swords, even Kashuu Kiyomitsu, who broke at Ikedaya and was the first to leave him behind. Yamato is glad to see them, but there is some tension; Kashuu refuses to even mention Okita by name, whereas Yamato is practically his spitting image.]
xi - toba
[Yamato and Kashuu travel back in time on a sortie to Toba. Yamato remembers Okita, and mourns the chance they never had.]
xi
...Wait, no. That's not right.
They should've been here before. But they couldn't make it. Not together like this, and not with that person.
"What're you getting all gloomy over? It's annoying."
A wry drawl, with an underlying edge; it's a tone he knows well. His companion often puts on a facade of irritation, especially when he doesn't want to deal with something painful. Yamato knows this better than he knows his own feelings.
He says something in response but it's automatic, and he's barely paying attention. He stares out over the hills, the mountains and fields and the bright blue sky.
The sky...
That person was like the sky, he thinks. Bright and ever-changing and larger than life.
Is that where he is now? Back up to the sky, watching them from afar?
"I guess~ Well, as much as that person liked a hard-to-use sword like you, he had a weak body, after all."
He can feel those eyes burning into his back. Sadness is radiating off of him, loneliness etched into the lines of his shoulders. Maybe he shouldn't be so obvious about it. But he can't bring himself to care about the others, not right now. This is a sad place, deserving of mournful respect. And that's exactly what he's going to give it.
Yamato looks down at his own hands, at his sword.
Hard to handle.
He is, isn't he.
Just like that person was.
((Important points: being stuck in the past, unable to move forward, clinging to a memory of the past instead of the present, fixating on one person))
xii - kbc
No matter how many of the Retrograding Force’s troops we slay, still more appear to take their places. I suppose this is simply the difference in our numbers.
Then, they appeared. As though to put an end to the fighting altogether, a new force appears.")
[Yamato's team encounters and fights the Kebiishi for the first time.]
xiii - loved
[Yamato is injured on a sortie and painstakingly repaired by the saniwa. He reflects on the feeling of a loving master and resolves to work harder so as not to disappoint the saniwa.]
xiv - influence
[Yamato spars with Nagasone Kotetsu, the sword of Kondou Isami. As Okita studied under Kondou and highly respected him, Nagasone sees the influence of Kondou's teachings in Yamato's Okita-esque fighting style.]
xv - hard work
[Yamato tends the fields with Kashuu, scolding Kashuu for attempting to push the work off on him. On the surface, it seems like a simple interaction--but Yamato knows about the insecurities and paranoia driving Kashuu's reluctance to get dirty. While part of their interaction is their usual sibling style bickering, it's also Yamato's way of supporting and encouraging Kashuu to push his limits.]
xvi - companionable enemies
[Yamato spars with Mutsunokami Yoshiyuki. In the past, they were on opposing sides, with Yamato belonging to the Shinsengumi and Mutsu belonging to Sakamoto Ryoma. But now they're allies, and Yamato shows it by deciding to spar in Sakamoto's style "Hokushin Itto-ryu", rather than Okita's chosen style. Mutsu is pleasantly surprised by the spar, and Yamato acknowledges Mutsu's skill as well.]
xvii - leadership
[Yamato is promoted to the captain of his team. It's a leadership role he isn't accustomed to taking, but he accepts without complaint, always eager to be a good sword and do what he can for the saniwa.]
xviii - journeys
[Yamato leads his team on an expedition to the past for supplies. Given that they are, in the end, not actually human, "attempt to be self-sufficient" is harder than it sounds.]
xix - ikigai; reason for living
[Yamato returns to Ikedaya with the other Shinsengumi swords. Naturally, Ikedaya is full of painful memories--it's where Okita collapsed, and where Kashuu broke. Yamato is full of grief and wavers, desperately wanting to save the person he still considers to be his master. His love for and loyalty to Okita are stronger than ever--but at Izuminokami Kanesada's not-quite-warning, not-quite-reassurance, Yamato steels his resolve. Okita's life was not a failure, and his legacy does not deserve to be forgotten or erased. With that in mind, Yamato finds the strength to fight.]
xx - déjà vu
[Yamato speaks to Kashuu while they fight at Ikedaya. Kashuu's flippant attitude seems to annoy him, but really, Yamato is worried about him. As painful as it is to be at Ikedaya, he knows it must be even worse for Kashuu. Despite his irritated response, he trusts Kashuu knows that he'll be there to support and protect him.]
xxi - goodbye redux
(canon death quote: "Okita-kun.... Finally.... With you...")
[Yamato dies while fighting at Ikedaya. Against his better instincts and all his warnings to Kashuu, Yamato allows himself to be distracted by Okita's collapse and Kashuu's first "death". That distraction costs him--Yamato isn't quick enough to block an enemy spear's attack, and once again, Yamato is forced to watch a blade break right before his eyes. Only this time, it's his own.
A tsukumogami's physical form is stronger than a human body. It doesn't need to eat or even breathe. It can take massive amounts of damage. But it has a fatal flaw--it's irrevocably linked to its vessel. When a sword breaks, the spirit dies, no matter the state of the physical body.
Once again, Yamato is helpless to protect his beloved people, his precious master, his dearest comrades. But this time, he's the one leaving them behind. It's a bittersweet end--pain, regret, helplessness... and relief. Relief, because he'd never stopped loving Okita. And now, at last, they can be together again.]