Disclaimer: I don't own Sengoku Basara. However, the reluctant heroine of this piece, Ichijou Akoya (now Date Akoya), is mine.
A/N: Any Engrish that Date uses will be in bold type.
Hard, calloused fingers traced the curve of her cheek, trailing down her neck and hooking the lapels of her kimono. Akoya held herself still through the touch, breathing slowly and deeply, assimilating the sensation.
It's warm, she thought with some surprise. Warm and firm. Doesn't hurt, either. She wondered if her husband's anger had diffused far enough for him to regain his former tolerant equilibrium, then tossed it away as an unlikely possibility. In her experience, samurai did not forgive – or forget – easily. They don't forget at all.
So when he asked in that smooth, low voice if she had any objections to him touching her the way he was, she forced herself to shake her head and indicate acquiescence. But she still wouldn't look him in the eye for fear of what she'd find there. She didn't want to see the lust and anger and spite that would no doubt be painted on his face as he ravished her.
"No objections, huh?" he remarked, a note of derision in his words. "What changed your tune?"
Without waiting for an answer, he grabbed her round the waist and pulled her close to his hard, unyielding body. She felt the breath leave her in a frightened gasp and the soft brown strands of his hair tickle her face as he lowered his head to nip sharply at her ear. A yelp of pain and horror escaped her and tears prickled at her eyelids at the rough treatment.
"Still no objections?" he inquired again, scorn bleeding through every syllable.
"N-no," she stammered, hoping he would believe her this time.
The next thing she knew, he had flung her on the futon behind them, uncaring if the fall hurt her, uncaring that her yukata was gaping open to display her legs in an undignified sprawl.
Heaven help me, I'm going to be ravaged. Help me!
But the weight she was expecting, the alien weight of a ruthless male body, did not crush her in the next moment. As she lay there, stifling sobs and pretending agreement to everything he had done and was going to do, he did not let himself cover her and take her.
When she finally cracked her eyes open to look for him, perhaps plead with him to get it over with quickly, the room was empty.
No husband.
No one at all.
Where did he go? What is he doing? Did he get tired of this and decide to seek a more willing woman?
Akoya sat up in a daze, wondering if she was walking into a nightmare or out of one.
Seconds later, she had answer.
Not that nightmare. Another one.
Her husband was back, and he was armed. A braver woman might have felt joy at the sight of the sharp blade, because it could have only one meaning. But Akoya had never been particularly eager to lose her life and she did not eye death beckoning her as a friendly gesture on fate's part.
She wanted to live. Even if life came at the cost of nightly terror and ownership by a samurai, she wanted it. Too late, she realised how badly she had erred in going against her husband without giving him a chance. She could have had a workable marriage if she had played along on his terms.
Perhaps if I grovel for forgiveness, he'll let me live?
To a wiser woman, that would have been the obvious way out of such a situation. For Akoya, staring into the angry, disgusted face of the killer she had married, there was no such luxury. Her pride would not allow it and she suspected that neither would his.
"I want to live!" was what she wanted to think, to scream and weep and choke out.
But her final thought as Date Masamune raised the sword high over her head and brought it down in a precise arc towards her neck was – I'm going to die.
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