Chapter Text
Previous masters define a sword.
--Actually, no, that isn’t completely true.
---
Shokudaikiri Mitsutada is defined by the One-Eyed Dragon.
He drags his eyepatch over the back of his hair, gels the ends, smiles a smile only familiar to Ookurikara and Tsurumaru-- he cooks, all the time, trying new recipes and almost force-feeding anyone who looks like they have too much time to spare. “Another habit,” Ookurikara mutters, and it’s almost funny in this day to think about how Date Masamune took great pride in feeding his houseguests with whatever he’s come up with.
And that’s why Hasebe thought Mitsutada was the same as him, at first. Someone chained to the past, but at the same time, not really. Someone who lets a dead man’s actions dictate who they are now, and what they say, even to the saniwa, born seven hundred years too late.
“Hasebe, what are you doing outside? It’s dinner time.”
Mitsutada also finds no shame in letting the tantous, barely half his height, boss him around during this time. He finds no shame in speaking of his old masters, both his favorite and ones which are not so. He finds no shame in showing that he still remembers the days that were and weren’t recorded down in history books, the days that the saniwa cannot remember, because they were born far too late.
And Hasebe wonders if he should feel ashamed on Mitsutada’s behalf. Instead, he smiles and says-- “It’s quite early for dinner, isn’t it?”
“It’s the saniwa’s birthday!” Imanotsurugi’s declaration is a little too loud, and Mitsutada shushes him with a finger over his lips. “Oops, sorry-- but we need to distract the saniwa with dinner, so Mitsutada can finish baking the cake.”
“The saniwa’s sharp. They’ll catch on too quickly otherwise,” Mitsutada says.
Hasebe only looks amused, as though he already knew this was going to happen. “So, you’re going to deceive the saniwa and launch a surprise on them. Is that it?”
“It sounds incredibly uncool, when you put it that way.” Imanotsurugi looks up at Mitsutada, before running back into the inside of the dining room. “--Well, things are already in motion. Go join them.”
“I’m afraid I’m not very good at acting,” Hasebe admits, and it is half of a truth. “Perhaps the saniwa will find out about your plan more easily if I try to blend in.”
Mitsutada signs. “Well, what do you expect to do, then? Sit out here? How about you help me out in cooking, then?”
---
It turns out to be more of ‘Hasebe hides in the kitchen’, but Mitsutada seems to appreciate the company.
“I’ve been curious,” Hasebe says, while Mitsutada is taking off his eyepatch and a brushing his hair back so none of it can contaminate the food-- “Why do you wear that?”
Mitsutada turns his head back, and his bangs fall over where his right eye should be. Mitsutada sweeps them away, clipping them onto the top of his head, and Hasebe sees the sore lack of something.
And yet, it doesn’t answer his question. “Why else, Hasebe?”
“I remember seeing portraits of your master,” Hasebe replies. (When he was owned by Kuroda Yoshitaka, a man who served by Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s side but was barely anything to Oda Nobunaga, and yet Nobunaga simply gave--) “He had two eyes.”
“Only in portraits,” Mitsutada sighs. It is still not an answer. “He never wore an eyepatch during his life, of course.”
Hasebe watches Mitsutada, and Mitsutada watches the oven. “--So, why do you wear it, Mitsutada?”
He doesn’t know why he’s asking this. But it is a fact that he is, and Mitsutada finally answers-- “He never wore an eyepatch in his life, because he thought it wouldn’t be cool. Not for any petty reason, of course. As you know, humans back then considered every part of their body as a gift from their parents. Marking himself with an eyepatch, pointing out that he’s lost an eye, even if it’s for reasons he couldn’t avoid-- it would be a disgrace.”
Mitsutada spares a glance at the counter, before continuing. “I lost my eye in the earthquake. It wasn’t my fault, but some would say it’s a disgrace.”
“You don’t seem to care,” Hasebe notes.
“Exactly.”
--And suddenly, Mitsutada is not so defined after Date Masamune.
“My old master was afraid of what others would think. He had his portraits draw him with both eyes. Some people thought it was so enemies who don’t know the truth won’t try to target him based on that weakness he had. In a country still wracked with war, that made sense. But I was with him-- I know it wasn’t the reason.”
There’s a smile of sorts slipping across Mitsutada’s face. “Humans have such short lives, though. They worry too much about what others would say, without even realizing that it doesn’t matter. I’m not ashamed to wear this eyepatch, or acknowledge what I’m missing. I don’t hold anything against Date Masamune, of course. But, I’d like to transcend him. That’d be cool, won’t it?”
A sword, a non-living thing, transcending his master--? That’s what Mitsutada says, anyway. And he does it for more than looking cool. That much is obvious.
At one point, Hasebe ends up staring into the air, and Mitsutada waves a hand in front of his face. “Have I left you deep in thought?”
“I can’t say,” Hasebe mutters, and he’s not sure what expression he’s making.
“So that’s a yes, then,” Mitsutada smirks, before the ding of the oven confirmed that the cake was done. “--Oh, by the way, Hasebe. How about you bring this cake to the saniwa? They know how hard you’ve been working, and they appreciate your efforts. It would definitely be touching for you to be the one to surprise them, right?”
Hasebe blinks. “...It would be a rather big surprise. I might even give Tsurumaru a run for his money. After all, the saniwa has never seen me doing anything...”
“Gentle? That’s because you’ve been working too hard,” Mitsutada replies. “You can transcend your old master, too.”
Mitsutada says ‘master’. As in, singular, as if Hasebe only has one master which really mattered. And that’s kind of the truth.
“Make it so your acts of kindness aren’t something to be feared,” Mitsutada suggests.
Because people feared Oda Nobunaga the most when he was being unexplainably kind. Oda Nobunaga, who does not seem to care about what others think, has to be transcended in a different way compared to Date Masamune.
“Come on,” he says, pressing the cake tray into Hasebe’s hands. “You can say you helped me bake it. That would sound even cooler.”
---
Hasebe surprises the saniwa with a cake on their birthday. And they smile in gratitude, without fear.