A/N: IeyasuOichi ONESHOT. Based on Sengoku BASARA 3 - Samurai Heroes. Very short, I know, but I felt like trying my hand at IeyasuOichi after listening to "Happy" by NeverShoutNever on repeat. Flower meanings from wikipedia (article on Hanakotoba)


He had begun to realise that she followed him to the battlefields because she was afraid of being alone. But he couldn't protect her properly if she was there, amidst the chaos. That's why he tried to reason with her every time, again and again.

She wanted to protect him too. That was one of the things that made him so fond of her: she didn't just sit idle (even if he would sometimes prefer it that she did) and wait for him to do everything.

She did everything in her power to make him happy, even if her means to that end were a little short of strange. One of those things was to give him a single flower whenever he looked troubled. He didn't know where she found the flowers, but the act was so sweet it immediately put a smile on his face. After some time he had realised that the flowers she brought conveyed meanings: a bluebell when she was grateful for something he had gone through for her, a daisy whenever he doubted himself, a yellow poppy when she wished him success in his endeavours.

She didn't speak much. At first the silence had unnerved him, but before long he actually preferred it that way; there was no pressure to talk just for the sake of talking, nor was it necessary to say things that didn't need to be said.

That is why Ieyasu was startled by Oichi's words two weeks before the planned battle at Sekigahara.

"The darkness is beckoning." Statements like these didn't usually require a reaction, but she clearly was expecting something from him. He tried to read his next lines in her eyes - what did she want him to say? - but he couldn't decipher the emotion in them. He very rarely could.

"Ichi must go." There was nothing he could say to that. His head was void of thoughts, void of emotions. Seeing that he wasn't going to react in any way, she presented him with two flowers: a sweet pea and a red spider lily.

"Lord Grumpy needs Ichi more than lord Happy.." The reference to Mitsunari finally woke him up from his shocked state.

"How-"

"Shh", Oichi shushed him gently, pressing one slender finger against his lips.

Funny how coincidences led to so much more, just to have fate crush the awakened hopes and dreams. And with that, gone. Gone from his life. A red spider lily for 'never to meet again'; a sweet pea for 'goodbye'.

Those were her last words to him, and he couldn't understand how someone like her could be so selfless to leave things that were good to save someone who didn't want to be saved.

.. how could someone like him be so selfish to want to keep her by his side for eternity?