Under the light of the moon, a motorbike was going at full throttle on the narrow paths between the rice fields. At the helm, Akemi, very much showing off her driving skills, talking to the passenger nestled against her without looking at him, eyes on the road:

"Not the most romantic of setting, but I've tried the forest, and it's full of big spiders, and not the kind with a pleasant bite. Also wearing our armors would have kind of killed the fun don't you think?"

Shokomaru was, naturally, the very picture of calm. He might have been holding Akemi a bit tightly, but that didn't stop him from shifting with her as she turned so that his weight didn't cause the bike to come out from under them. Going fast, flying, these were not his things, but he gritted his teeth and smiled, sounding calm, almost bored with his response.

"I mean, you could have ridden in your undies, I guess", he joked. Maybe.

"Sexiness hardly survives a huge number of insects squashed on bare skin. Consider my current biker suit an investment on its future value.

So, first time someone takes you for a ride? Or are you used to such rodeos?"

"Not at all! I do this all the time!" he shouted over the bike's motor. "Where we headed, anyway?"

It was a polite way of asking how long until we stop trying to die on purpose.

"Nowhere! That's the fun part! We ride into the unknown until something gets our attention or the sun appears on the horizon! Then we sneak back to our room and do not leave bed before midday!

Well... That's like I would like to do... But I might need to be reasonable. We'll be home for actual sleep before midnight.

Until then, enjoy!"

"I'm for it, yeah", he lied excitedly. "Show me what you got, if you suddenly feel the bike lighter, I'm probably fine."

He squeezed her a little tighter.

Luckily for Shokomaru, the farmlands did not really offer occasions for Akemi to scare him more than he already was. It was domesticated terrain for growing crops after all.

Akemi finally stopped her bike near a big rock in the middle of nowhere, some granitic block suddenly coming out of the earth at the limit of one field the locals had deemed not worth the hassle of unearthing.

She removed her helmet and dramatically flipped hair a bit too short for the effect to actually work.

"So, your impression?"

He dismounted and removed his helmet, placing it on the seat. Taking in the damned smell of mushrooms again, he looked at the sky, the moon and stars, then his gaze settled on Akemi again.

"I like complaining, but I don't have the words for it, not right now."

Looking over across the paddies he smiled. "Kind of reminds me of home, actually."

Akemi opened the chest of the bike and grabbed a blanket and a cooler in it. Her armor and tetusbo were also in there, but she didn't touch them.

She put the blanket on the rock, opened the cooler, took two beers out of it, sat on the blanket, tapped the spot nearby her and handed Sho one of the cans.

"I remember swearing to myself not to drink again in a Spider company, but I think we're far past that.

And please tell me of your home stories."

Shokomaru took the beer and the offered seat, settling in and cracking it open with a hiss-snap. He drew his arm around Akemi's shoulder, then drank with the other.

"Ah...that's beer alright", he didn't seem disappointed, just expected beer and got it. "Though about home, huh?" he rolled the idea in his head. "It is a lot like this, on quiet nights, though not as hot usually. And this is pretty small, too. We use more technology in farming a well. It's a bit more modern, probably half the people making enough food to feed 100 times as many. Shadowless Village sits on a wetland that was converted into vast rice paddies. So big that in the long winters people can ice skate on them", he said, then stopped a second. "Have I told you this before? I feel like I have."

She smiled, eyes looking into the void and the past:

"First day here, about 10 minutes before I shove you on the dance floor. Almost exactly one week ago actually. Feels like an eternity."

Her free hand reached for his own and tenderly gripped it:

"Since then, we've both brushed with physical and political deaths so many times I kinda miss the battlefield. Are technically playing with fire at this very moment, as way too many people are in the known of our... relationship. Cannot manage to care. You're somehow the best thing that happened to me there."

He caressed her hand with his when she took it, smile always threatening to explode on his face.

"You mean I've been promoted past wrestling and dive bars?" He looked at the starry sky. "I'm... beyond honored, really."

Then he laughed. "Hida Akemi-chan is also the best, her manner of making this one feel as if he's done something right for once is... well, a little miraculous in a way."

She bent her head backward in a purposefully goofy manner.

"Are we both irredeemable dumbasses Sho? Is that why it even works?"

She put her can down, placed a second hand on Sho's own, and looked at him into the eyes. Her expression was of sincere worry for him.

"What makes you think I'm the only right thing you did in your whole life? Didn't you tell me about your happy little home several times?"

"Childhood is supposed to be happy", he shrugged. "You get to do what you want, your lessons can be hard but you're still learning so people forgive mistakes. You have much larger idea of those above you, something idealistic that doesn't let you see their flaws."

He met her eyes and with that same sincerity he smiled sadly.

"When you grow up and are given swords, the sympathy disappears. You're treated as cattle at best, yet the expectations only pile up higher and higher. Someone who is calling you worthless is then expecting you to do the impossible, just so everyone knows where the blame will go when the plan fails." he snorted and rummaged in his pocket for his smokes. "Some people say that's just how it is, or you should lean on bushido to see your way through."

He lit the smoke, then placed his hand back in hers. "And here we are at a miai with more expectations on us, but I met you, my enemy who cares about me. I don't care what the future holds, whether it's us together, or facing each other. In this moment, I know for certain, we're doing something right."

"Hey."

She put one hand on his cheek.

"It's going to be okay. We're strong people when we need to be. We're going to survive these suckers, and rise to a place where they cannot harm us. A good marriage should help me escape my grandpa's clutches, and you'll find some way to deal with your lord. Maybe arrange so he finds himself on the path of my unit?"

This was mostly a joke, but her heart wasn't into it. However she did seem happy if melancholic regardless.

"Sure, look I don't see the situation as hopeless, just bleak when I don't have Akemi-chan sitting next to me", he said, and smiled for real then, kissing her for as long a he wanted. Then he rested his forehead against hers. "I'm pretty pathetic sometimes, but I don't feel that way right now. I know I'll take these moments with me when I leave too."

"So will I. I know that the memories of these stolen instants will accompany me for life and make me stronger."

She looked at the sky.

"What was your greatest moment of terror Sho-kun? What was the instant you pissed yourself in fear and had nothing to cling to?

For me it was when I lost my arm. When the bomb exploded on me... Well, the brain, it's a curious thing. It works at 300% in moments like this, trying to find an impossible escape before it's too late. And it goes dark places. During that fraction of eternity I thought of everything I had done that mattered so far. And the list, it had no entry. From my birth to this point I have been nothing but a pawn in grandpa's game.

Even less, a statistic. Pushed into the Shock Troops' path because his algorithms had determined this was where I was the most likely to be successful, and a minimal loss in the opposite case. No great purpose for my life but to fit into his game, not even a hobby outside hitting the bars and picking up pretty boys. No one whose life I had deeply impacted, no one who would have to hide a tear at my burial, save for my as miserable brother perhaps.

Just nothing. Hida Akemi. She lived. She died. End of story. Contemplate the void and despair.

But I didn't die. And I met you."

"I feel pretty much the same...", he admitted. "For almost 10 generations my family has fought these battles for someone else. Kobushi became different, but it was a blasted landacape like any other world the Spider were given as leftovers for a long time. I get told not to ruin that, and it's a tall order. You know how I ended up here?" He smirked and ashed his smoke.

"I was in a battle, no one was cooperating. Every commander in the legion was waiting for someone else to take the hits by leading the way. I knew battalion command was going to pick me if it wasn't aettled soon. My company is mostly green, they'd say we needed the experience." A snort. "But instead of getting ordered, I volunteered. A miai isn't a reward for that, though. What happened is i
I convinced an artillery commander to support my unit. If he rained hell on those hills, the enemy mystics couldn't target our Ushi's while we made the climb."

He puff his smoke.

"The guy was my father's rival more often than not, but he agreed as long as I took his son's place here. He didn't want his bloodline mixed up in some backwater Phoenix shenanigans. So I'm here because i made a deal to cut losses, save my men and materiel. Literally punished for doing my job."

He looked at her again. "But just like you, I found something here worth it."

Akemi looked at him, confused:

"Wait... Coming here was a punishment for you? How come? Were you already promised to a nice Spider princess at home or something?

Grandpa had to fight tooth and nail for me to come here. Granted, he did so more to increase the chances I'll turn useful to him than for my personal interest, but it still was an once-in-lifetime opportunity?

How does your clan even work? Or is this more of a family issue?"

"My father wanted me to marry a girl he had in mind, distant cousin of my mother's who came from another farming family", he said. "Someone with business sense who could also crack the whip on me."

He chuckled. "She's pretty too, we never met, but I saw pictures and we sent each other video cards a few times."