Author's Note: this is Yukimura/Ina fic, though not quite romantic! Based somewhat on the conversation that they have in SW: Chronicles when Yukimura's at Mt. Kudo.

This fic does involve sex, blood, and a bit of drinking, so read at your own risk! And the formatting is intentional, before anyone asks.

exile.

it might as well have been a death sentence, but worse. his honour, broken. his spirit, gone. far removed from those whom he remembered and loved.

those who were living, anyway.

his father had finally passed away just the previous month, of both illness and old age. yukimura had been beside himself with grief, and though the alcohol he drank - one of the few supplies he had more than enough of - numbed the pain, it had yet to alleviate it completely.

ina sent food, supplies, and clothing every day. he was thankful to her, because she made his exile tolerable, though she only packed in new books every once in a while, and wrote letters and notes that were present in nearly all of her packages.

she herself saw him far less.

when his father died, yukimura's brother and sister arrived for the body. they stayed the night, the warmth and presence of other people a comfort for yukimura he didn't know he'd needed until he'd moved his bedroll closer to nobuyuki's sometime after midnight, as he had done when they were children.

thankfully, neither nobuyuki nor ina had said anything the next morning.

they hadn't said much at all, but had taken the casket with his father's body, and ina had promised yukimura she would return within a month's time, patting his face gently after his brother had left the small cottage in which he was currently living. he'd closed his eyes and let her do it.

the morning before her scheduled arrival yukimura spent the day cleaning, repairing the torn paper in the sliding screens that separated the rooms, replacing rotting lumber in a corner of the small porch that wrapped around the house. he didn't drink for once, something he thought she would be proud of.

she arrived, just herself, without either of the children and without his brother, though she'd brought a servant to help her carry the supplies she'd brought.

enough supplies for an army, it looked like. he smiled at her as they bid each other hello, a hollow movement that hurt more than it helped, and he helped ina and the servant bring in the boxes and crates just for need of something to do.

blankets. books. candles. lamp oil. enough preserved food to last him through the next winter. he couldn't help but be grateful, as awkward as it felt. as painful as the lump that grew in his throat was, when he noticed the box of his favourite food.

ina...

he corrected himself. "sister," he said once it was just the two of them, her servant already leaving to return to ueda. "you need not trouble yourself with this."

she had been warming a pot of food in the tiny kitchen of the cottage, and glanced over at him, eyebrow raising. "what are you saying, yukimura? this is no trouble at all." her look was concerned, almost pitying. he... found himself hating it.

he shook his head, rather than say anything more. it wasn't worth spoiling their little time together.

after dinner, he drank, for the first time that day. he knew she disapproved, the way her lips curved downward and her brows furrowed, but she said nothing, this time. for once. it made things feel a little better, and he kept his eyes on hers as he took a long drink, as though to see what she'd do.

his drinking was steady enough that he was hardly drunk by the time the sun disappeared over the mountain, leaving him and ina alone in the dark, but the pain and the discomfort he felt had been dulled into something of a haze. almost pleasant. almost, as pleasant as he could feel these days. he felt hot, a heat that couldn't even come close to the fire that had raged within him on the battlefield, a fire that had been extinguished with the death of one of his closest friends. but it was enough, for now. the heat was a different sort now, one that was confusing as much as it was liberating.

it was just as liberating when he leaned his head against ina's shoulder in the darkness, letting her cool fingers trail over his fevered skin, though his damp hair and down the back of his neck. she was radiant in the dim light that shone through the high windows, as radiant as his brother had always said she was, and he closed his eyes against that brightness.

her voice was low, soothing, careful - as though she were speaking to a wild beast and not to her brother-in-law. he sat there, mollified, and listened to her speak, until he recognised the words of a lullaby he'd heard to say to her children before. the realisation made the lump in his throat return, and he tried to swallow it away, reaching almost automatically for the bottle of wine he'd left not too far away.

she caught his hand, and her fingers curled into his own.

"you've had enough," she told him, gently but firmly, her voice very close to his ears.

maybe he had. but the haze inside of him needed fueled by something. he wasn't entirely numb. not just yet. he needed just a little bit more...

so he kissed her.

he turned his head to meet her mouth, eyes slipping shut again because they were useless in the darkness as close she was to him, and he pressed her closer still, his hand moving to her lower back, pulling at the fabric of her kimono until it threatened to tear.

he felt her move against him, as though she wanted to pull away - but then she relented, a gesture that took far less time than he had expected, her mouth opening to his, cutting off the lullaby and any protest she might've made to this treatment. her hand, the one that had been tangled in the hair at the base of his neck, moved to his shoulder, clutching him just as tightly as he held her now.

and they continued to hold hands, his fingers refusing to let go of hers until he was sure she wouldn't be able to use a bow until the bruises had healed.

from her mouth, he moved to her neck, allowing her to suck in air with a wet gasp - a gasp that shifted to a moan as his tongue worked against her pulse point, playing with the beat of her heart with his teeth, trying to be careful as to not leave any marks on her flawless skin.

almost flawless.

as he tugged away the kimono she wore, nudged aside far too many layers of red and white silk, embroidered finely with the sanada clan crest, he found scars over her torso, some still red and angry looking, though they felt years old under his fingers. they were an interesting sight to behold, the remnants of her enemies on the battlefield, as though each man had left his signature upon her before she'd killed them.

she seemed self-conscious of them, her hand nervously twisting in the fabric of his yukata even as she pushed it down his shoulder. "you shouldn't look."

"you look fine," he assured her in his own quiet voice, a little slurred with the alcohol he'd consumed. she looked more than fine; he thought her scars were nothing short of beautiful, but he wouldn't tell her as much. he'd show her, dipping his head close until his hair dragged over her skin, his tongue flicking at the scars until he'd payed a homage to every one of them. he wondered if any of them had been left by himself, in the days when they'd fought one another.

she wasn't as careful about leaving marks on his body, her fingers trailing over his tanned skin, nails digging in just enough that it felt as good as it did bad, the pain prickling through the haze of his drink and building in his stomach, urging him to continue forth in the moments where he hesitated, aware of exactly whom he was so carelessly making love to.

this was his sister-in-law, after his. his brother's wife. the woman who'd cared and loved for him as though he was own her flesh-and-blood sibling, had provided him with all the comfort he'd needed during his exile, as much as he wished for a quick, honorable death.

perhaps, the sober part of himself thought, as he leaned his face against ina's chest, her ragged breathing matching his own, the pounding of her heart against his cheek almost a mirror of the pulse he felt throbbing in his stomach, perhaps he was hoping that his brother would kill him for this inconceivable act.

it made him smile to think, and he pressed his lips briefly against the curve of ina's breast before he straightened, moved, his free hand nudging her legs apart so that she could wind them around his now bare hips. he may have been inexperienced, but ina wasn't, and she guided him with her hand, touching his face and his chest before her gentle fingers trailed, her hips lifting of their own accord as though she were begging, body movements louder than her voice was.

his fingers, if it were possible, squeezed hers all the more tighter when he finally entered her, a low moan in the back of his throat nearly masking her noise. pained or pleasured, he couldn't tell, and it bothered him to think of it that way.

he finally let her hand go, let her grasp him around the shoulders, her nails digging into the muscle of his back. he in turn, slipped his arms around her so that he could hold her, really hold her, and she fit so nicely into his arms, her legs wrapping so easily around his hips that he almost felt at ease as he leaned over her in the middle of the floor, not an inch of air between them.

almost.

she was quiet, out of habit or out fear he wasn't sure, but he was thankful for it. he didn't want to miss anything she might say to him, he didn't want to hear anything she might say to him, any encouragement or sympathies or admonishments for how rough he was sure that he was being with her. how rough they were being with each other, as he felt ina's fingernails slick down his back, hot fluid dripping down his spine that he knew - by familar scent alone - wasn't sweat.

but she made up for lack of words by her movements, meeting each snap of his hips with her own, her face pressed against his shoulder. he could feel her teeth against his skin, her tongue and lips joining them, fueled by the fever pitch of their movements and of each noise he made when pain melted into pleasure and he lost control of his restraint, slipping further and further into a white heat with each passing second.

and he'd been worried about hurting her.

his restraint - perhaps his sanity - had almost completely gone, his mind a blank slate trapped somewhere between the pain and the heat of their act, and he felt that perhaps in a few more moments he would die... when he broke completely, arching over her with a gasp, forgetting how to breath for a few long moments. it was bliss, for possibly the first time since his exile that he felt sincerely good, and sweet, and perhaps completely dead like he'd needed and wanted and as he struggled to remember how to breathe on his own, chest and back aching from either the act or the lack of air, he slowly became aware of the woman's body underneath his own.

her skin still flawless, despite his ferocity, though slicked in sweat and shining in the faint light. still trembling with her own desire, her hips twitching almost instinctively against his own as she let her head fall back against the floor, sucking in cool air that was heavily tainted with the smell of sex and blood. he'd marked her as surely as any of the men on the battlefield had, hadn't he?

yukimura tried to speak, to apologise for his loss of control, but she pressed a bloody finger against his lips, kept him from saying a word. she smiled; he realised she must have swept her damp hair out of her face, because blood, his blood, was smeared across her exhausted features. he found himself loving that more than he loved what they'd just done.

"don't move," ina told him, and he obeyed, laying his head back against her shoulder as he settled over her again. she had to be uncomfortable, for he was heavier and much taller than she, but she didn't complain - simply folded her legs loosely over his. kept him close.

her hand moved back into his hair, and she started to murmur the lullaby to him again.

and later, again.