This was different. This was wrong. This was something he'd never experienced before, something that he couldn't get past or hold down or let go of. It moved his limbs, pumped the blood through his veins, kept his heart beating at this very moment, not letting him die, not yet.
(Wars were not made for love, they were not made for living.)
So why was he here, doing both simultaneously and favoring the former over the latter? What was wrong with him? What force had compelled him to stand here and make this choice, to forsake the entirety of his lifetime, all that it had culminated into, for one person? For one man, no less? This was not how he had loved before…this was different. This was wrong.
And yet, he realized as he threw himself forward, swords clattering to the ground and helmet falling discarded in his wake, this would probably be the greatest moment of his life, for what better purpose could sacrifice hold than for love?
(It was a battlefield, a bloody one at that, and here he was, thinking of poetry and nobility and love. He had gotten soft.)
He couldn't bring himself to care, not with every step, not with that final push forward and the brute shove that he heaved into the other.
He couldn't bring himself to care, not with the power of the blade slicing skin, not with the force behind it and the pain that it wracked across his body.
He couldn't bring himself to care, not even with the cries of horror behind him, not even with someone holding him up and keeping him from hitting the ground.
(Someone warm, someone close, someone beautiful. There is no beauty in war, he knew that, but this came as close as he would ever deserve to get.)
"Lord Masamune!"
He grinned, bloodstained and feral, up at Yukimura.
"Y-you got s-something to say, R-Red?"
The Tiger Cub gaped, pretty brown eyes wide and uncertain. Gods, he was beautiful, so young and so full of everything that he had ever looked for in a rival, in a fighter, in a lover.
He would never get a chance to have that last part.
"H-Hey. Y-Yukimura."
The rain slicked his hair to his head, droplets sliding through the strands and along his face. Yukimura was about the same, soaked to the bone, normally spiked hair drenched and falling limp over his eyes, regardless of that headband that he always wore. When Masamune speaks, he startles, gazing attentively into the other's eye.
"Yes, Lord Masamune?"
He had to swallow down a bit of blood before he could speak again, the action causing spots to dance at the corner of his vision. He didn't have much time left. Better to make it quick.
(War is spontaneous, after all, drawn out only by those safe from the abrupt hand of death.)
He gripped the back of Yukimura's head with a trembling hand and pulled him down to meet him, mouths crashing together somewhere in the middle. He was no stranger to surprise, but apparently the other was not the same - and then he responded, carefully, timidly, so uncertain that Masamune wouldn't have even noticed had he not been desperate for it.
"…Lord Masamune…?"
His voice was hushed, at long last. Fitting that he should be the one to make the Tiger Cub lose that strident tone, if only for a moment.
"Wanted to d-do it now. B-better late than never, right, Red?"
(Rain may wash away the leftover traces of whatever transpired on the battlefield, but the memories linger incessantly, like blood on a warrior's hands.)
This was different. This was wrong. This was something he'd never experienced before, something that he couldn't get past or hold down or let go of. It moved his limbs, pumped the blood through his veins, kept his heart beating at this very moment, not letting him die, not yet.
But with a kiss and a few quiet, broken words - "I think I may have fallen for you, ya see?" - maybe it could let go now.