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.

Swish.

Akoya heard the hiss of the blade swooping through the air. In a moment, the sharp steel would slice through her skin, cleaving through flesh and bone to release her head from her body in a spray of blood.

She wondered if it would hurt. If it would take enough time for her to feel the metal separating her from life, or if it would be over so swiftly that she would open her eyes to find out that the strike had fallen and that she was just a ghost, wafting over her dead body because she hadn't even realised she was dead.

She wondered, and wondered why she couldn't decide what sort of death she wanted. If she would prefer pain and knowledge to a quick execution. She wondered why, in this last moment of her meagre life, she could think so fast that her thoughts ran into one another and yet managed to stay in a straight line.

The blade touched the side of her neck.

She expected...nothing, still trying to wonder what to expect. All she could think was, Ichijou...no...Date Akoya dies here, and yet...

Yet...

Still, yet.

She knew, even as she thought what must surely be her very final words, she knew that she wasn't dead.

But why?

Her eyes snapped open and she stared at Masamune, standing above her with cold eyes and curiosity on his face, the edge of his sword grazing her throat.

Unable to thank the gods for their kindness, unable to comprehend anything except his sudden decision to let her live, Akoya had to know. "Why...why didn't you...?" she choked, throat dry with residual shock and fear.

Masamune tilted his head, hair obscuring the leather eyepatch he wore. "Still no objection? Want to die that bad? Don't you give a shit about what I do to you?" he growled.

"No!" Adrenaline shot through her limbs and she scuttled back to get away from him.

"Still going to fight me?" he asked, eyeing her ungainly movements with a raised eyebrow.

Akoya couldn't answer that. Not without thinking it over. It was strange – after the experience she had just had, she should have immediately shaken her head and said "No, never, shujin!"

But she just couldn't bring herself to say it, to give ownership of herself so explicitly.

He moved, raising the sword again. "Well?"

What do I say? I should say no. I should say no. Let me say it. Say it! Say it now! Heavens above, why can't I say it? Why can't I say it?

Her mouth worked like a fish's, flapping open and shut with soundless gasps of breath, but no agreement or refusal to appease her husband. The complete disgrace of the circumstances – she was cowering on the futon, clinging to the floor in terrified pride and desperation to live – closed in on her, suffocating every other sense.

"Damn it."

The words, spoken in a strange foreign language, were frustrated – and oddly gentle. The alien sound of them broke through the haze that was muffling her ability to think and act, and she came back to her surroundings like a swimmer breaking the water with great life-giving gulps of air.

"What are you saying?" she asked weakly.

Masamune shook his head, shrugging the question off. The sword dropped from his hand as he knelt near her, pulling her upright. "Scared you too much, eh?"

She flashed a startled look at him. Scared me too much? What this some sort of newly-wed prank? But that couldn't be right, logic asserted. She had behaved outrageously and his anger had been very real.

He poured her some water and she accepted warily, downing it with gratitude. When she set the bowl down, he was watching her with that predator's gaze again. No more of this madness... Disorientation nipped at the margins of her slowly gathering composure; she took herself in hand before it could set in further.

"You didn't want to marry me, did you?" he asked.

Akoya nodded, simply because she thought he was owed honesty.

He ran a hand over his face. "We'll...damn it all,we'll get into the why and how of that later. Right now, tell me and tell me the truth, woman," he said harshly. "Do you plan on doing your duty, or are you going to fight me?"

Akoya gaped at him. "Are you offering me a choice?"

He snorted. "Hardly."

"Then what difference does it make...unless you mean to say that you won't hurt me if I stop fighting you."

The glint in his eye intensified till it morphed into the unmistakable shine of a warrior charging into battle. "Oh-o. So you were fighting. You still are." He mulled on it for a moment, then scoffed, "Heh, what a waste. You can't even do that right."

She eyed him in confusion.

"You," he bit out, "are the most useless excuse for a human being I've ever seen. And I've seen plenty of those. Needling me one minute, crying in terror the next 'cause they can't handle the heat. The One-Eyed Dragon doesn't play to lose. You see?"

Without a second look at her, he gathered his sword and its sheath and slid the shoji door open.

Just before letting himself out, he stopped, turned, and gave her a searching look. She met his eyes squarely; bemusement had washed away most of her fear and self-pity, leaving behind nothing but steady defiance in their wake. He caught the silent challenge in her face, and once again stumped her expectations by nodding in approval.

"Good girl. You found your spirit...and here I was scared you were going to let me walk all over you like this damn tatami."

He was scared? Him? Her temper sparked and she snapped, "Glad to know you're such a half-baked man that a defenceless woman scares you enough to make you kill her." And hang the consequences. I'll fight him physically if he comes at me again.

Masamune smirked at her. "You're alive, woman. Which you wouldn't be if I really wanted your head on a pike."

"So you make idle threats to get your underlings to conform to your wishes?"

The smirk on his face widened till it was a mocking grin. "Underlings, yes. Wife, not so much."

She shook her head in irritation and settled herself more comfortably on the bedding, rearranging the folds of her yukata till her legs were decently covered.

"Hey."

The call was soft and almost polite, and so was his gaze.

"What?"

"I'm the One-Ey..." He stopped mid word, closed his eye, took a deep breath and quirked his lips in a whimsical half-smirk.

She waited. When nothing was forthcoming, she stated, more out of curiosity than any real terror of what he would do – if it infuriated him, then it would and she would take that chance to regain her pride – "I should be a dutiful wife. But I did not wish to marry you and I cannot give myself to you...a man I do not care to know or respect. I will fight you."

The battle-light in his eye grew brighter. The sword twitched in his hand, light glancing off the naked steel and blinding her for a moment with the fierce hint of fire hidden within it. Within him. "Then fight me properly."

I couldn't resist writing more! So here it is...an early resolution to the cliffhanger. What do you guys think?