It was snowing.
Bontenmaru held his brother's hand, following their mother up the long set of stairs. The great manor loomed before them, and at the not-so-subtle snapping of Yoshihime's fingers, the two boys following her up the stairs inside. The twin sparrows of the Date clan hung above the entryway. A safe place. The one-eyed youth helped his brother, the two silently following their mother's lead into the main hall. Another formal meeting, uncles and cousins all wanting to meet the two potential heirs to the great Date clan.
A blur of faces and voices seemed to swirl around the two of them at a frantic pace, like a sick whirl of a vertigo. He wasn't sure what to do, but the viper-eyes of his mother were more than enough to keep him polite and formal while his brother got away being a child. Faces faded into the dark like a fog, the two left nearly alone. There was a tug on his hand, his younger brother pulling him off into the darkening halls and away from their mother. She did not seem particularly interested in going after them.
The manor had looked massive on the outside, and on the inside, it was colossal. So many halls and rooms, the two boys running through them without a care. It had become a playground, a castle to their own, all places to be theirs. Bontenmaru was smiling, laughing for the first time since he had lost his eye, chasing his brother through the emptiness and the silence.
The two found themselves in one of the inner courtyards. It was still snowing, a light layer of white on the ground. They stared, a large mound of graves on the left side of the open ground. The younger boy pulled his brother down into the courtyard, passing the graves in silence. The one-eyed youth looked at them, looking for names. He couldn't read them, couldn't find names to pray for. There was no way to honor these deceased, was there? Bontenmaru nearly tripped up the steps, missing that his younger brother had been leading him on. The laughter had subsided to simple chatter. Why was the snow white? Why was the manor so big? Why was he missing one eye? Only questions an older brother could answer.
The deeper they went into the manor, the more a darkness started to creep over the young Bontenmaru. He started to shiver. Shiver! A sign of weakness! If he was weak, that meant he was not fit to lead, and Father would not want a weak son. It was not the feeling of cold, instead the intense sensation of a growing fear. The one-eyed youth looked at the walls. They were different than in the foremost part of the manor. All held with paper. He stopped in his tracks, his younger brother stopping with him. His single eye studied the wall, and his free hand shook as he reached to touch it. Something compelled him. When his finger slowly graced the paper, he shuddered. There was something on the walls. Something strange in them. Dirty outlines, something pushing through to the paper. Something reaching to him from the other side.
He pulled away, walking away through the halls at a faster pace. He pulled his brother through the halls, through the halls with something horrible piercing through to them. There was something else in here. The two boys found their way to the second courtyard. There was no childlike laughter now. Only horrible silence. Sickening.
There was a single tree in the center of the courtyard, slowly being blanketed with snow. Something about it felt off, felt wrong. Bontenmaru was pulled towards it, his younger brother nearly dragging him towards it. Around the base, nailed to the trunk, were countless small red dolls. Each one impaled through the chest. Little dolls in red kimonos. He stared at them, watching his brother kneel down to touch them. What are they, big brother? Why are they nailed to the tree, big brother?
Questions a big brother couldn't answer.
Suddenly, his brother took off, releasing his hand and running deeper into the manor. Bontenmaru screamed his name, trying to run after him. They soon lost sight of one another, the one-eyed boy frantic, screaming for his younger brother. He stopped running, feeling lost. He looked around frantically, finding himself in a hallway lit by lanterns with bells on their strings. The walls all looked the same, and no one answered his cries.
There was a chill on his skin, the hairs on the back of his head standing on end. He looked around the crossroads, calling again for his brother. He was scared. He was scared and he did not want to admit it. Something in the air started to whisper behind him, in his ear. Slowly, he looked over his shoulder, staring wide-eyed in terror as a black mist, a harsh miasma started to spread down the hall, devouring everything. Lantern light turned gray, the world turned colorblind. Bontenmaru tried to scream as the shadow passed over him, but no sound escaped his lips. He was shaking in terror, watching the lights get dimmer.
Something moved at the end of the hall.
He wanted to run from it, but his feet were rooted to the spot. He seemed unable to move, staring wide-eyed at the human shape that emerged from the darkness. A woman. A woman with hair over her eyes, only wearing a hakama, nothing to cover her upper body. And tattoos. He could see them as she got closer to him. Endless serpent coils over her body, dotted around holly leaves and flowers. Her eyes stared at him, blackness seeping slowly towards her irises. He couldn't run, he couldn't scream, couldn't escape. His heart pounded in his chest.
She stood before him. Stood right in front of him, staring down at him. She extended her hand, brushing his hair away, her tattooed fingers pressing at his ruined eye, digging into the empty socket. Her voice echoed in his head, her voice pierced into him, through him.
No one will survive... no one.
One solitary amber-gold eye snapped open, cold air rushing into his lungs as consciousness returned in one solid whipping sensation in Masamune's brain. It was snowing. Snowing on him. The one-eyed dragon coughed softly, starting to raise his right hand but gasping in pain when he tried. He lifted his left hand instead, untying the string on his helmet, letting it stay on the ground when he sat up.
He tried to assess the damage. First, his right arm, and he couldn't help but wince when he looked at it. It was broken, the metal of his arm guard twisted grotesquely. He looked the rest of himself over. Nothing looked broken, nothing looked out of place. His second task was to find his weapons, but his sword was gone completely, and his pistols were probably buried in the snow.
The third problem was where he was. Masamune looked up, and looked around. It looked like he had been thrown from his mare, but she was nowhere to be seen. With a small groan, he stood up. The helmet would have to be abandoned. For now, anyways. His legs and back felt sore. The snow seemed to have covered the road, and he wasn't quite sure where he was. Well, it was snowing, and he didn't feel anything strange, he was confident he was still in his own territory, pretty sure at least.
Masamune started walking. The snow he was trudging through was over his ankles. He could feel the cold through his boots, he held his arm, feeling the broken bone almost through his busted wrist guard. He soon had to pull the entire guard off, biting into his lip as the twisted metal caught on his skin and shattered bone. He threw the piece of armor into the snow, gripping his arm tightly. His lip started to bleed from biting it. The leather of his glove was torn. Nothing he could do but keep walking. He would be no good to his army if he had frozen to death.
The snow settled on his shoulders, and he tried to shrug it off. The road ahead of him seemed to stretch on forever. His mind was swimming a little, and he chalked it up to the fall, or presumed fall, somehow he ended up thrown from the saddle and was now weaponless in the snow, in the middle of what was nowhere. That was his land. He was the king dragon of Nowhere, Japan.
Masamune chuckled at the thought, imagining himself ruling over a sandbar.
The one-eyed dragon licked at the bite in his lip. It stung in the cold. Snow was too cold to be helpful, and it just hurt instead of healed. He wouldn't admit that he was feeling weak, and growing tired. He couldn't lay down and sleep, that would be the end of him. He could just imagine someone laughing over his corpse. Probably that idiot Kanetsugu...
A faint shape seemed to break in the snow, something looming in the moonlight, through the falling snow. He picked up the pace for a whole two steps before tripping over a rock and falling flat on his face, and on his broken arm. He cried out in pain, suddenly happy for screaming into the snow, so no one else could hear him, hear his moment of weakness. Now he was shivering and shaking. From the cold, he told himself. It was just from the cold and nothing more. He wasn't weak. He wasn't weak. He was still strong. Still strong enough to survive.
Masamune pushed himself up to his feet again. He was starting to lose feeling in his right arm. This was bad. He was not a doctor, but he knew enough that this was not good, hurting like this was not a good thing. He kept walking. Keep walking and stay awake. He had to do something to stay awake. The one-eyed dragon twitched once. The object in the distance was becoming clearer. He could make it out, getting closer to it.
His stomach lurched at what he saw.
A great manor emerged in the snow and darkness. It felt familiar. Fleeting memories rose in his head. The young warlord stopped outside the first gate, slowly taking the behemoth in. It was there, it had been real. He could almost hear his mother's voice in his head, snapping his body instinctively to attention, stiffening at the hallucination. He could almost feel her hands on his throat again.
The one-eyed dragon could see Date crest on the gate. It was something familiar, something that felt safe. If his crest was here, then that meant he could stay. There had to be a staff on hand. Someone could tend to him until he could get word out to Sendai. Before the more rational part of his mind could protest or react, Masamune walked through the gate and towards the manor, winding along the path and climbing the steps.
With one arm, he pulled the heavy doors open, expecting a warm welcome. But instead there was nothing. The entryway was dark, the air was cold. At least it was warmer than the outside. Masamune closed the door behind him. It didn't look like there was anyone but him. He was hesitant to step in without removing his boots, but he didn't want to risk losing another limb to frostbite. He just didn't need it. His arm was problem enough.
He wandered inside. The halls felt familiar, cold and familiar. Fatigue was starting to tug at his bones. Masamune roamed until he found the great hall, the familiar whirl of a vertigo taking him.
Deeming the room safe enough, Masamune sat down in a corner, so he would be able to see the doors. He pulled his knees up to his chest, pressing his broken limb close to his body, trembling a little with the cold.
Safe enough in the halls of a manor that was once a memory, Masamune rested his head on his knees and fell asleep.