"How did you get it?" Mutsu asks, looking at Sakamoto's arm. Sakamoto runs a hand over the rough, puckered edges of the knotted tissue, and his smile turns into something thin and tired. Mutsu does not regret much - there is no point in regret (and when she told this to Sakamoto he laughed and said that Kintoki said the same thing, a long time ago, but that the idiot regretted things anyway - her captain's smile was a regret of its own, fond and sad).
Mutsu does not regret much, but she regrets asking this.
"I was stupid," he says, and grins at her, like his blue eyes aren't steely with pain, skies made of metal and ice. "Kintoki and Bakasugi and Zura always said that we couldn't save everyone. Ahahaha, they're such hypocrites, right?"
Her captain is smiling, because he always smiles, but there is something painful and closed-off in his eyes and his grin, like steel doors pulled shut and paneled with bulletproof glass. Mutsu wonders what sort of stupidity (kindness, loyalty, fire-fierce devotion) it was - if it was idiocy or kindness or Sakamoto's own unique blend of the two - if Sakamoto is capable of being anything less than foolishly, self-sacrificially kind. (And the answer is no, the answer is no and was no and will always be no, because leopards don't change their spots and Sakamoto will never know how to be anything else.)
She shrugs, pulls her hat down over her eyes, and mutters something about stupidity and fools. Sakamoto laughs; "Ahahaha! Don't be mean, I learnt my lesson!"
No, he hasn't. He hasn't learnt his lesson and never will, and if he could give away every piece of himself to save someone else he would do it in a heartbeat. But he's her captain, dammit, captains have to live, captains have to lead - he is an idiot but he is Mutsu's captain, and that is important on a visceral level, a pull even stronger than her blood.
"You haven't," she informs him. "You've just got a whole crew of idiots to join you, now."
And Sakamoto just laughs, eyes scrunched shut behind his sunglasses so that she cannot read what he is thinking. "That's a bad idea, what if they end up like me?"
Mutsu wonders if he worries, wonders if he's terrified that the whole crew of idiots will end up injured because of a stupid mistake he made.
She has never been one to take risks. "That isn't so bad, is it? This life isn't so bad either way. Idiots have to stick together to survive."
And this time- this time when her captain smiles, it's sharp-edged like the sword he left behind on a bloodied battlefield, white teeth flashing like steel beneath the sun.
(Sakamoto's sword was never the metal piece he kept in a scabbard by his side. Mutsu's captain is stronger than that, is better - his weapons are lighting thoughts and a silver tongue and laughter that pushes insults and failure off him to make it look like he doesn't hurt. His weapons are anything he can swindle or talk or bargain out of people: money, weapons, emotions.)
These are Sakamoto's weapons; these are the weapons of the captain of the Kaientai:
Loyalty and friendship, bought with loyalty in equal measure (more, more because he would die, would damn himself a million times over for them, and Mutsu knows it better than most) and devotion and kindness so fierce they could swallow the entire world.
-x-
The next time they offend a client, the Amanto returns a week later with a group of mercenaries behind it.
Sakamoto laughs, loading his gun and slipping extra ammunition into his coat pocket. (Extra ammunition, four different explosives, a knife, and a mocha bun.)
"Ahahaha," he says, as his crew gathers behind him, hundreds of men and women falling behind their captain, warmer and stronger and better and more loyal than any mercenary in the universe. Their eyes are as sharp and hard as the swords Sakamoto can no longer wield and their hands (ten of them, thirty of them, seventy of them) hold blades in their captain's stead.
And Mutsu stands beside her captain, beside the man with eyes the colour of the sky and a heart just as wide, her hand on her sword and his finger on the trigger of his gun.
(Sakamoto could never make them do anything they do not want to do, but she and the Kaientai would do absolutely anything for their captain. A sword has never been Sakamoto Tatsuma's weapon of choice.
A samurai without a sword is still deadly, but Sakamoto is more deadly than most.)
A/N:
Done for the ask "Sakamoto" for the fic meme! Posted cause saturnaway was a little sad bout the lack of Sakamoto so I figured why not. I am still open to asks and requests, guys, please hit me up, and please drop a review on the way out if you've got time, it'd really make my day!
Thanks for reading and God bless!