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fourthwifematerial · 9 months

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garden of forking paths | 四 | part i. guilty

yandere lord tengen x fourth wife, eiji. word count: 7,077. explicit content. 18+ MDNI >>

man proposes, heaven disposes.

please be mindful of the ample warnings as we're all responsible for curating our own fandom experience✌️ this chapter contains ultimatums & coercion of an intimate nature, deception, forced marriage, dubious consent on all fronts, foreplay, degradation, consummation & deflowering, forced orgasms, self harm (not in the way you might be thinking) & scarification, nonsexual voyeurism, an off screen rape & accompanying aftermath, murder, threats of suicide, and a very apologetic author for taking on another behemoth when she still has works in progress

She’s never worn a piece so fine as her sister’s wedding kimono.

Bathed in white, the shiromuku settles heavily on her body and soul… A chilling wave passes through her as she stares herself down in the mirror. Crown to cunt, settling deep in her gut. Her nerves are at a fever pitch, threatening to boil over and lash out at any moment.

She hardly recognizes the woman staring back at her. Hardly an easy feat for one such as Eiji. The heavens saw fit to bring flesh to her reflection, one she was forced to protect their whole lives.

On their worst days, Emiko was more her charge than blood. A painful reality for the younger of the two. Years spent in her shadow, ready to strike those that would see her harmed. For flowers so lovely as the twins, it was ugly work in the Red Light District.

No. Her looks were always a matter of contempt rather than ignorance. The bride is abundantly aware of what she looks like.

The palette, however, is new.

A traditional visage for a traditional bride. Something the girls at the brothels were never granted beyond the realm of a marriage born from ashinuke or a buyout.

She couldn’t give into the temptation to touch. She wouldn’t risk damaging the canvas, eyes and lips painted as they were.

There was little need for it before all this. It wasn’t something she ever envied or missed. The closest she came to seeing herself with a full face was her sister.

Still. Not a trace of either sibling in the looking glass.

Eiji has never looked so beautiful. Nor as frightened.

Even through the beads of sweat lining her temples, she was grateful for the katsura wig concealing her sparse hairs. Remnants of her days in the Sisterhood, her cut had yet to grow past her ears. Her keeper was generous enough to postpone the marriage until after their wounds had healed.

It wouldn’t do for the ruse to end on such a glaring oversight.

The pins adorning the piece look costly. Too extravagant for one as modest as Sister Eiji. Hazarding a guess, it looked to be worth more than a month’s wages at the brothel.

Cocking her head to the side, her eyes catch on the embroidered flowers that rest upon the uchikake. The sharp angles and thorns give birth to a dangerous suggestion.

“Not enough…”

She gives voice to the intrusive thought before thinking better of it. Seppuku is on the girl’s mind, though she’s not fool enough to follow through. Would that she could and spare herself the devastation of this whole affair.

A delicate touch presses on her shoulder. It’s soft, but there’s an edge… as if the owner doesn’t have the strength for a proper scolding.

“Remember what this is for,” breathes a hushed voice of admonishment. “If I’m to marry him, I’ll never forgive you.”

Standing vigil is her better half. Wrapped in more fabrics than she’s accustomed; her kimono a muted black, with what little she has left of her once prized locs concealed under a zukin. The wimple is an unassuming periwinkle. Nearly so blue as the virgin snow.

While Eiji might dance with the idea, Emiko has every intention of bedding it. Neither sister needs the reminder…

Even once more and I’ll die. By my own hand if need be.

The threat lingers unspoken between them. Emiko draws back her hand, holding the wataboshi with a white knuckled grip to match. Placing the bridal hood upon her sister’s head, she collects herself with a sniff.

They meet each other’s gazes in the mirror, color on their lids nearly matching at this point. While one wore rouge, the other bore far less intent. Her eyes are red rimmed from endless days and nights spent sobbing. The anger and resentment, the fear, the loathing—it’ll end her life before the blade has a chance to.

Placing the bridal hood upon her sister’s head, Emiko nods in approval.

“You’re ready.” Her voice is broken, still shot from the fight.

Drying the twin tracks running down her cheeks, she lets her go.

No processional. No one to give her away. No tears in tribute.

She doesn’t even see their betrothed until the purification rites.

For as taboo as it sounds, she doesn’t consider Lord Uzui to be her husband. All the same, she’ll take her sister’s place as his lady wife. She has no choice, not if she wants to keep her alive and unmolested.

It’s all she can do to keep her sister in her prayers as she draws water into the chouyuza’s ladle, washing their sins clean. Twice, in as many hishaku, before rinsing her mouth with a third.

Uzui works himself over in silent tandem. Much as she’s loath to admit it, his refined montsuki haori and golden hakama make the man striking… gorgeous, even. His starlight hair was worn up when last she saw him. And now it rests, barely grazing his broad shoulders.

This is the closest she’s been to someone of the opposite sex who wasn’t a client. He hardly made a favorable impression to start. She didn’t know him well enough now to gauge his intent. Whether she’s walking into a den of wolves or a field of rabbits strikes her as a mystery she wouldn’t solve until he was already inside her, she’s sure of it.

Their union is a somber affair before the Shinto priest. Intimate. Tense. Almost severe.

The priest gives the blessings.

With the marriage announcement, Uzui bows where they stand. She realizes too late that she missed the prayers in favor of the mounting anxieties taking root. Nudging her out of her daze, she follows suit. Muscle memory and a lifetime of obedience takes her hand and guides the path before her.

The saké teases her lips and she finds herself tempted to drink before long. It’s not until passing off the small and medium cup that they are permitted to imbibe. She focuses on her throat, still burning from the alcohol as they move on to the rings. It keeps her present of mind enough to fulfill the task she’s been charged with.

A ring is slid on her finger. His handling isn’t rough with her but he’s hardly gentle. When she does the same, she notes the calluses on his battle-worn hands—a testament to his years spent honing his skills in combat.

The warmth throws her. She stills beneath his touch… Even worse when he’s cast his garnet gaze on her like that. With that smile on his lips, he almost looks fond. He turns her hand over and gives her wrist a small caress, far more tender than he’d been with the rings.

She has the grace to blush. The watashobi only allows her so much coverage from his prying eyes, so she takes advantage where she can. His vows barely register. When it’s her turn, her voice is a hollow echo of the priest’s dictation.

“I will marry this man,” he says.

“I will marry this man.”

“No matter what may come, I will love him, console him, help him. Until death.”

“No matter… No matter what may come, I will love him. Console him. Help him… Until death.”

“These things, I swear.”

“These things… I swear.”

The shrine maiden presents twin Sakaki branches to the couple. In turn, they place the branches upon the altar. Together they bow twice and clap in quick succession.

With the stinging of her palms and roar of her ears, it’s over.

It’s finally over.

In every other respect, this is only the beginning.

There was before Tengen… and after.

In another life, she might have been simple… a simple girl of simple means, grown into a simple woman.

What bliss.

No simple girl would ever endure the hand fate had dealt her. They’d never even know it’s touch, let alone see the blow coming.

Back when Eiji had a purpose, she was a nun.

Her mandate was as simple as things went for her. Find your sister, they told her. Find her, mind her. The task proved easier said than done for an Oiran in the brothels of Yoshiwara.

No. If she was anything like the girls to grow up not knowing any better, she’d have thought it a heavenly night.

The scene was a deep wash of cerulean and coal; falling snow aglow with what moonlight peered behind the kawara roof. A contoured edge ran crisp over the engawa, shadows and flakes stopping in tandem before she could so much as wet her feet.

It was the tenderest mercy she would be afforded in a place such as this.

The languid stream of smoke bled from her lips, too soon to think over another drag as she set her gaze on the abyssal sky.

Her brows furrowed, eyes pleading the heavens for intervention when she couldn’t will the tragic whimpers and panicked groans from breaching the walls.

The only warmth known to her was the burn between her fingers and the fury in her veins, neither poison more bitter than the last.

If her lungs didn’t fail her, it was bound to be her heart.

After a terribly violent gasp, Eiji tossed the remains of her cigarillo into the mounting snow, the pressing need for quiet far surpassing any desire for escapism. Flush palms ran over the veil concealing her ears.

Enmeshed in a deathbed of white, the snuffed out embers found themselves buried under the fresh flakes.

“Stop it.” A whispered bid—painful as it was fruitless. She broke on the words, knowing they’d never reach the bedroom. “Put her out of her misery, damn you.”

If that fucker didn’t come soon, she was going to have to finish the job. Tear the stuck pig limb from limb, out of the frying pan and into the fires of Hell. He would bleed for this.

She wouldn’t betray her vows. She only sought to avenge her sister’s rape. Nothing more, nothing less.

You can’t afford to fall apart. You know she can feel you. You have to be strong for her.

And before she could make good on that promise, there was nothing. Not a breath, not a sound.

The silence was deafening and nearly so oppressive as the screams.

The divine stall, dutifully prostrate before the raging tempest.

Any relief felt was dead on arrival. She knew better than to get comfortable. Her shoulders were still wound tight as a bow primed for the shot. Tense and waiting.

Rooms away, Eiji could hear the pleas so viscerally…

“Eiji—” she cried, her voice a death rattle that cut to the marrow. “Sister… Help me.”

a crash in the distance.

a whisper of fabric on the

wind.

the final screams to prelude

disaster.

The shoji was barely ajar before she’d pushed her way inside. She rushed past the hall of incredulous voyeurs, all with the same questions on their minds and lips.

She didn’t even know where they’d put her tonight. She had to follow the commotion like a dog after a vendor in the streets.

Desperate. Near rabid with its goal to fulfill. Out for blood.

If she centered herself, she could be by her side in an instant.

But her mind was racing. She had no time, no focus. All of her being narrowed on the sole objective of leaving this place for good.

Ashinuke beckoned with an outstretched palm whose finger curled so seductively, there was no need to ask twice.

The door flew open with a shout, “Emiko!”

She surveyed the room. Save the cowering fuck in the corner, it was a barren sight.

Dragging him by the collar of his disheveled robe, she hauled his sweating hull from the ground.

“Tell me where they took her,” she demanded. “I’ll gut you, I swear it.”

He shook beneath her. When the night air kissed the tracks on her cheeks, she didn’t have to look hard. There was a gaping hole in the screen of the shoji, ushering the cold inside.

You cried for me…

She shook the memory, focusing solely on the path ahead of her. Her entire world fixated on what little she could see from outside the door; a mere pinprick of vision in that busted screen. All she was able to manage were the snapping swords of some third party who’d entered the fray.

The pig squealed, fear coursing through him at the prospect of a fight.

“Useless,” she spat.

Blood came when the words failed him. The blade from her sleeve made fast work of disposing his filth without preamble or mercy.

sank into his ear…

pull out game for

the gods.

…dragged across

his throat.

He slumped pitifully at her feet, exsanguinating below her turning frame. She was already following after the chaos—dried her tears and righted the cloth just under her eyes.

The body was still warm as she made for the biting cold.

Eiji sullied the courtyard’s pristine canvas. She ran as fast as her feet could carry her. Didn’t make it very far in the dark; someone flew overhead, missing her entirely.

What should have urged her all the more only brought her to her knees.

She couldn’t afford to falter like this, not when the wager was her sister’s life.

“No one’s after you,” she muttered to herself. “There’s no time for this… Get up.”

She had to press on. So why couldn’t she move?

Eiji refused to give way to the fear. Surveying the perimeter, there was little to be done and less to be seen.

It had to be now.

Closing her eyes, she leveled her breath. Slow. Deliberate.

She emptied her lungs with a hiss in her throat and put her all into seeking Emiko out.

With the rolling of her stomach subsided, she picked herself off the street.

Nails bit crescent moons into the meat of her palms, arms trailing behind her as she took off into the direction she foresaw.

She felt her. She saw her in mind’s eye.

Smelled the cracked wood in the air. Burnt, not yet ablaze.

Blood… so much blood.

Eiji found her before too long, limbs akimbo under the caved-in front of a vacant business.

Her sister wasn’t alone. Shock coursed through her as she took it all in.

Three women crowded the body. One at her head, keeping her still, as the others made quiet work of removing the debris from her broken form.

She didn’t have to turn to know they were less alone than the moments that had passed. “Is she dead?” The man asked, feckless to a fault.

He was an eager one, wasn’t he. If this had been out of character for the man, if he’d been a stranger to them… surely they would have reacted.

The smallest among the women only threw herself at him with tears in her eyes.

“Lord Tengen,” she sobbed. “We couldn’t find the lair. I’m so sorry.”

He nodded towards Emiko, his eyes never straying from her unconscious frame. “And the girl?”

“An Oiran.” The name fell from Eiji’s lips with the ease and vitriol of a curse, “Kyogoku House.”

Every stranger encountered this night turned to her, suddenly occurring to them she was worth acknowledging at all. Turned on her just as quickly.

“Kakushi are meant to be seen… not heard,” he warned with a snap, all bitterness.

An incredulous echo fell from her lips, “Kakushi?”

He pinned her down, swiftly and effectively cutting the indignant echo from the root.

“Now what did I just say.”

The man towering over wasn’t asking, not remotely. He looked at her nearly expectant, all but daring her for a response.

Thick arms neutralized the struggle, pressing into her to drive the point home. Voice lowered in tandem with his head, the words in her ears enough to fill her gut with coal.

“If you’re going to interrupt, at least make it worth my while. Might just be tempted to take matters into my own hands and modify the offense.”

“Don’t. Please… stop. You can’t touch her. Please don’t touch her.”

Eyes fell shut as she laid witness to the swan song rasping from her sister’s bruised lips.

Tears streamed, hot and itching. Time slowed to a crawl. “Emiko. Forget about me,” she bade. “You have to save your strength.”

Gravel dug into her cheek the rougher he forced her down. A hitch in her breath. Eiji kept her gaze fixed ahead, locked on the carnage.

The women on assist weren’t concerned with lowering their voices.

“The hell’s a nun doing in the Red Light District?”

“You can’t say that in front of her, idiot.”

She burned under the heat of their scrutiny. Even more as his touch grazed her prone form, searching for weapons. It seemed he’d been blessed with brains to match his brawn and beauty after all.

“You’ve got red on you,” he noted. “You must have seen something.”

“Not my blood.” The words ran cold on her tongue. Near metallic as the blood staining her veil. “He’s dead now.”

“And the demon spared you after it fed?”

“Sir, there was no demon.”

He turned her over. Crouched over her thighs, urging her to continue.

“Patron. Something took her and he was a shit witness. I eliminated my sister’s rapist. If you have complaints, I suggest you keep them to yourself.”

“Eliminated, huh?” He pressed, incredulous. His eyes returned to the women tending to Emiko’s injuries. “Don’t suppose she’s one of ours?”

His aubergine companion spoke with unbidden ease. “Lord Tengen.” A pressing gentleness, as if shepherding apoplectic cats in their twilight years rather than the man straddling her. “In polite society, there are certainly ways to extract such information.”

He eyed her beneath his rippling thighs. Considered the account she’d woven for him. “You really don’t know anything?”

“If I knew what you were talking about, I’d tell you.” She met his gaze, beseeching. “Please, just help my sister. Kill me for my crime if you must, but please… She needs to leave this place.”

When the weight on her thighs was suddenly relieved, she had little time to breathe. He loomed over her, making fast work of tossing her over his shoulder.

“Don’t go getting too dramatic on me, Sister. Isn’t blind faith supposed to be your thing?” He gave her backside a condescending slap before taking off.

Too burnt out from the fight to argue, she merely allowed herself to be lulled by his hellish pace.

She hadn’t slept in so long. The push and pull of the jostle took her back to that day.

Fractured memories of the shore. She was no more than a child then. Now a woman grown, the bitter cold kissed her cheeks.

She looked out on the water’s edge. The drag of the waves. The crash as they touched back down.

Walking into the sea, she collapsed. Falling onto her knees, the water soaked her kimono. She abandoned her zukin, letting the habit drift away. When she looked down, there was an isolated pool of blood.

Her eyes widened, hands shaking as she dragged her touch underneath. The source of the bleed was heavy. She pulled desperately, fighting the mounting tide and her own limitations.

When it breached the surface, she was loathed to lose her grip.

She knew that face. She wore that face.

Realization dawned on her and she was all the more desperate to retrieve what the watery grave that saw to claim from her.

Limp in her arms. On death’s door, if she hadn’t crossed the Sanzu River already. When she opened her eyes, they were worse than void—they were dead.

Eiji woke with a start, her own eyes locked on the ceiling of the infirmary with a scream locked in her throat.

The medical wing remained so unclouded, so quiet, there was a small part of her that considered she might be dead already.

Eyes blinking into consciousness, she wondered to herself how everything got so fucked.

“The prodigal daughter wakes,” came a rasping welcome.

“Emiko!”

She nearly tripped over herself trying to reach out to her; the hand beckoning her closer so small under the covers.

Closing the distance between them, Eiji was treated to a slap to the cheek. She didn’t even register it at first. Her expression thrown, ears roaring.

“You’ve killed me, bringing me here.” Her voice was as weak as her will to live. “Good as signed my death warrant, you bitch.”

Eiji stared in shock before it hit her as one thousand blows.

She was asleep.

She couldn’t move, couldn’t protect her. Hell, she was barely able to find her on time. She’d failed her and the burning realization that there might be more threatens to consume her.

“What happened while I was out?”

Emiko turned away with a hiss—either from aching injuries or her own malcontent, she’ll never tell. “You heard what Lord Tengen said,” she groused. “Demons and the like. He works to annihilate them…”

Her throat went dry in an instant. “What?”

“Sissy, I’m tired.”

Already having rolled to her side and brought the bedding past her ears, Emiko’s eyes pooled. She let the tears fall away from view but couldn’t hide the way her shoulders shook.

exhaustion. trauma. betrayal.

Thoughts swirled in a vicious cycle. She was as furious as she was suicidal.

exhaustion. trauma. betrayal.

The unspoken reverie was loud enough to hear even separated from the bond their blood allowed.

exhaustion. trauma. betrayal.

It was all Eiji could do to crawl into bed with her, arms wrapped around her trembling body.

“Are you more angry that I couldn’t save you… or that I did?”

“Don’t be stupid.” Emiko rolled to face her sister, curling tight against her as a babe to its mother.

“Too late,” she teased gently. Her voice is gentle as the touch that ran up and down her back. “Then tell me. What is it?”

“Just cursing the heavens for damning us with this face and body. And all the bastards who came before Uzui.”

Eiji kept her eyes on the wavering fist curled around the sterile linens they both wore. Trailing her fingers up her back, she brings her palm to her sister’s hair. Pulled her in close, stroking her scalp. She said nothing, merely gave her the means to speak.

“He’s a Hashira. Former Shinobi, by his own account.”

“Shinobi,” she echoed, incredulous. Aren’t they meant to be a dying breed?

“I can’t deliver on the promise I made. I was coerced into accepting his hand, it was the only payment he wanted…” Emiko kept talking over her, vision clouded as if in a daze. “I couldn’t just let him kill you… we needed safe passage.”

A fresh tremor coursed through her. The sight chilled Eiji’s blood.

Bloodshot eyes nearly so vacant as her dream stared back. She didn’t have to hear it to know.

“Emiko… look at me.” She was desperate with tears of her own threatening to break.

“I can’t go through this again. I refuse. Even once more and I’ll die. By my own hand if necessary.”

Her head shook, stunned to silence.

“Those women are his wives. Says I should get used to them.”

“I can’t let you go through with this!” She refuted further, “I won’t. Not for my sake.”

Holding her hands flush against her ears, Emiko’s eyes shut. Face twisting in anguish and grief, she pushes away from her. “Sleep first, then dream.”

“I’m not dreaming. I’m pleading… Let me help you.”

“You don’t understand,” Emiko argued. “That night… It left me with scars, scars you haven’t seen. He saw me. He saw all of me.”

Eiji’s face flushed with anger. “He fucked you?”

“No… He only kept me talking while I was bandaged. Said he wants to wait until the wedding night to touch me.”

“Show me,” she insisted. “If he’s seen it, I need to see.”

It’s a beat before either moved, let alone spoke. Eiji pushed herself off the bed to stand on shaky ground. She was wary, but didn’t argue. Her sister looked away in a pastiche of offered modesty.

“You can look,” she prompted, voice faint.

When Eiji returned her gaze, visions of that night returned with a vengeance.

pierced. mutilated. shattered.

Breaking on a sob, she saw her under the roof collapse so vividly as she did that night.

pierced. mutilated. shattered.

Her sister’s skin was tattooed, marred with the visible representation of her own failure. Hypertrophic scars cut around her waist. A contracture piece gnarled on her back. Superficial grazes claw across her breasts.

pierced. mutilated. shattered.

She had to avert her eyes, choking on her own shame. She would never forgive herself.

Head raised to the heavens, she was anywhere else.

“The Madame will never have me back now,” Emiko noted wryly. “At least there’s one good thing out of this mess, even if it won’t last—”

With the shattering of glass, the words died in her throat. It took seconds for her eyes to catch up, watching her sister follow after the broken vase. Eiji was there, already on the ground. There seemed to be no rhyme, reason, nor method to her madness.

“What are you doing?”

She sifted through the rubbish on hands and knees, seeking out the perfect instrument for her needs. She’d have to start soon while the sight was fresh in her mind… The rest were tossed aside.

“I’m not letting you down again.”

“What does that even mean?” She pleaded, “Eiji, stop… You’re scaring me.”

And still, she refused her. Not until hope was secured.

Lord Uzui ushers his bride inside the bedchamber, quickly sliding the door shut behind him.

no prying eyes, no vying wives.

Eiji makes to sit on the marital bed, still lost to the events of the day. It’s an absolute miracle her knees haven’t given out already.

“Not so fast.”

The command chills her to the marrow. He’s behind her before she can react, let alone flee. Uzui pins her in place, a belt of his corded arms wrapping around her middle. Despite the warmth, she’s frozen in place as she stiffly shies from his touch.

His voice in her ears only drags her further. “Let me look at you.”

It’s not permission he’s after. He’s taking what he wants tonight.

Kissing down the column of her neck, he gives her tit a rough pinch. The assault punches a groan out of her throat, “Lord Tengen, please.”

“Look at that. My prized whore acting like a virgin for her husband. How quaint is this.”

“I just don’t want to sully the garments.” She pushes past the fear and finds her voice. “With all your wives, I don’t see you stopping at four… who knows when you’ll need it again.”

The man drops his arms. There’s a soft sound, almost muffled. She looks over her shoulder and he’s laughing behind a manicured fist. Her eyes widen, the whiplash becoming all too much to bear.

He watches her, watching him. He doesn’t react to being caught. Doesn’t scold her or tease. Merely lowers his hand, leaving only a seductive beam in its wake as he leans forward to take the wataboshi hood from her head.

His gaze lingers on her lips. Before he thinks to act on base impulse and desires, he turns to place the hood away for safekeeping. She trails after him and shirks off the uchikake, offers him the robe and fan. Fingertips graze, earning a hum of anticipation from her husband.

“If you’d prefer me not to do the rest, I suggest you undress yourself.”

She bows. “Thank you, Lord Tengen.”

“Your respect and frugality are refreshing.” A sigh escapes him. “With any hope, you’ll rub off on the others… In more ways than one, I imagine. And I can imagine quite a lot.”

Her cheeks flush at the suggestion.

He gropes her ass as he passes, already stripping as he takes his spectator’s seat at the foot of the bed. Uzui watches her as an expectant beast would his prey. She takes a steadying breath when he bids her to start.

Eiji thinks of the shamisen players in the brothels. She wills the strings to the forefront of her mind. Her eyes are closed as she tugs at the knot of her obi-jime…

No more than a feather on the stream, the silken cord spills to the floor with unbidden ease.

Her ivory obi joins the pool of fabric at her feet. She gives herself over to the music, abandoning her nerves.

Deftly unfastening the datejime leaves her kimono hanging loose. She sheds the rest like a second skin, stepping out of her confines in only her slip of a nagajuban.

More than a chrysalis. A rebirth.

The juban is her only defense. She knows it’s guileless to hope, to dream. It’s all she could have wanted just to keep her sister from the bedchamber.

No. She will do what needs to be done.

When the last whisper of cloth leaves her exposed, she’s quick to cover herself. A futile gesture born from her days in the convent.

A hand catches her wrist and she’s far too exhausted to fight him. Neither for her body, nor her modesty.

Fingers curl around her own as he guides her to the bed. Pushing her gently, back flush against the futon, he holds her in check with only his right hand; keeping her arms raised so nothing might obstruct his view.

He appraises every inch of her flesh, taking his left to explore with the pad of his touch.

neck and collarbone. sternum. breasts.

Kneading her aching tit, Uzui nods in approval. “Scratches are gone,” he notes. “Didn’t even leave a scar.”

her ribs. her waist.

He traces the lesion with reverence. “I’m sorry I wasn’t of more use to you then.”

The words tumble from her lips before she can stop them. “You’re blameless,” she says under her breath.

“Come again?”

“My… my sister. She feels every bit of shame for that night. There’s nothing left. Please don’t trouble yourself.”

Moments pass without a word. Just when she’s about to take it all back, he’s pressing kisses into the worst of it.

Eiji chokes on a whine, eyes widening in shock. “Ah!”

“I think your sister would disagree with you there,” he whispers tenderly against her belly. “I only met her once but she looked like she wanted to kill me for even breathing the same air as you.”

Her heart stutters in her chest, conflicted between the sensations roiling through her and the threat of being found out. She keeps her mouth shut. Neither pleasure nor information would pass her lips. Not when she’s come so far…

She would not let her down again.

Once she found the ideal shard of glass, she made fast work of undressing herself.

“What are you going to do?” Emiko asked desperately.

Eiji walked to her sister’s bedside. She caressed her face. “I’m going to protect you.”

She returned to her own bed, drawing the curtains around her.

Before she lost her nerve, she pressed the glass into herself. She kept digging the piece further inside until she was certain it would take.

She ignored the cries and pleas of her sister. She had to do this. She had to make this right.

With a trembling fist curled around the bloodied glass, she took a leveling breath.

“Once more,” she urged herself.

She dragged the piece along her back, piercing herself to the hilt. Eiji didn’t need a reference to know. She’d never forget for as long as she lived… It would take her a great deal longer to forgive herself.

Falling to her knees, she curled in on herself… With her body shaking from the shock of it, the deed was finally done.

“Never… Never…”

He laps at the trail of pink with his lips, relishing what reactions slip past her schooled features.

“Even still, it’s healed up nicely,” Uzui remarks, dragging her back with him. “Clean margins, not a trace of infection.”

“You certainly know your way around a battered woman.”

“If you recall, my girls are former Kunoichi. Scars are a part of the work culture… You’ll fit in perfectly, my little prize.”

Eiji masks her disgust with a breathy titter. “And here I thought I’d scared you away,” she quips.

“Thought or hoped?”

With those three little words, the room chills around her. She won’t allow herself to falter.

“I am but a traumatized woman.” A dangerous answer to feed a dangerous question. “You don’t think they're mutually exclusive?”

He bullies her legs open with the mass of his bicep. Abandoning her arms, he locks her in place with a firm hold on her hip. Rakes his nails against the meat of her thigh, all too quick to soothe the path with his tongue, just as before.

“Answer me,” he growls against her.

Before she can think better of it, she pushes against his shoulder. He buries his face in her cunt, undaunted by her silent protests.

One swipe of his tongue and she’s gone.

“I… I thought!” Her thighs tighten around him, despite herself. “We had—ngg! We had a… a deal—”

A harsh slap to thigh has her opening back up for him. She stifles a cry behind a shaking palm. He carries on batting at her clit in rapid succession, her groan turning helpless when he buries himself past his knuckles.

Two fingers with a wail on the third, too thick as they scissor inside.

She’s anywhere else.

The cacophony of noises bleeding from her lips has her mind racing in tandem with her pulse.

Unrelenting pleasure. Blinding sin.

He makes quick work slinging her legs over his shoulders. Colors her thighs with his affections, cups her cunt. She jerks further into the assault.

Propping himself on the balls of his feet, he suckles his fingers. Uzui laves up the juices, savoring every morsel of her essence.

“And you’d never do anything to rescind a deal, would you, sweet Emiko.”

She doesn’t answer, doesn’t dare dignify him with a response. If Uzui wants to go fishing, he can drown in her silence for all she cares.

Slow to start, he presses down and teases her all the more. Middle finger lapping her juices, he fucks them deeper every time. His wrist twists without resistance. It’s all she hears. He latches onto her clit, a steady staccato of tongue and teeth with his forearm shining with sweat and her own wetness.

Bracing for the forced release, she maintains a white knuckle grip on the sheets beneath her.

Thighs shaking. Stomach tensing. But it’s over before she can fall over that razor thin edge.

He pulls out without mercy, without warning. She sobs at the loss, sweat beading along her temples and brow.

Uzui takes his time spreading her lips, appreciating her cunt twitching around nothing apart from a watchful eye and wandering touch to match. He slaps her tit, diving back into the fray. She’d scream if she thought it would help.

She’s never felt anything like it.

His nose prods her clit while he gives her a tongue lashing she’s never known. He laps up her juices like a condemned man drinking his last.

Hooking his fingers, Eiji sees white. She came under him and he fucked her right through it, fingering her while spreading his idle hand over her middle. His pinky caresses her scar with such care, almost worship.

It takes her far too long to register he’s been grinding into her splayed thigh.

He’s hot on her bare skin, heavy and thick… She doesn’t have to see him to know.

As if he can read her trepidation like a damn book, he takes her hand and drags it encouragingly over his cock. “You can touch,” he offers.

She says nothing, denying him all the more. Pushing against his advances, she means to end this encounter. Any longer, she fears he may see fit to fuck her into the little hours.

He pushes her back no less than three times before relenting. Fed up with her efforts, he scoffs angrily. “Should’ve brought Suma in to sit on your face,” he laments, all petulance.

Tossing her over his shoulder, he settles her before the bureau.

“Hands against the wood,” he instructs her curtly, nodding where he wants her. Damn bastard’s already slotting a knee between her legs. “Forearms, too.”

When she does so, he roughly forces her back into an arch. Eiji hears the whistle of the strike before the pain registers. Feels the dresser’s chill graze her nipples before the burn on her bottom. She grits her teeth, detaching herself from the scene.

His touch roves across the handprint left behind before drawing back to hit her again.

Appreciating the canvas before him is a short lived reward.

One hand with an iron grip on her chin forces her attentions. He pinches and gropes what he can reach with the other, the taunting lilt of his voice never leaving her.

“Open those eyes.” The order sends tingles down her spine. “Let me see my gorgeous bride.”

Another thrashing leaves her crying out. He tightens around her jaw, tears flowing freely now.

She does as he commands, her deep brown gaze at last meeting his scrutiny.

It’s when she catches sight of herself in the mirror that her resolve nearly crumbles at his fingertips.

where did emiko end…

…where did eiji begin?

He takes her in his arms, flush against her back as he cages her against the dresser. Uzui sucks a bruise just under her ear, his eyes never leaving the mirror. He feeds his cock inside her, ears singing with every scratch of her nail against the wood.

A rough gasp tears its way through her. Eiji remains frozen to his whims as he callously fills her to the hilt. Barely four thrusts as he meets no resistance.

He can’t help but groan at the sight of her.

Stuck-still, she’s too shocked to move, to speak or breathe.

It’s not long before he tires of her cockwarming and his grunts fill the room with a renewed pace. One sharp snap begot the rest and her cunt fell so tight around him.

He sets a punishing staccato, the sounds of them filling the room in a symphony gone wrong. Coaxing the cries from her, Uzui kept pushing and pushing… bottoming out until he was coming apart himself.

“How can a whore like you be so damn tight,” he murmurs, nearly slurring his abuses. “All that work getting you open? What a waste…”

Beads of sweat make a mess of his forehead, the silver strands of his hair catching on his skin. She flushes beneath him as he nears his release.

“Keep those eyes on me,” he commands. “I want you to see who’s making you come.”

She holds more than her will as she looks at her husband. She holds her contempt. Her rage… Her every motive and intent. That’s why it’s such a shock to them both when she meets him thrust for thrust for thrust.

even as the wooden borough grates against the floor and wall. even as he works his spit inside her asshole.

“Fucking close—”

He throws his head back with a trembling exhale and stuttering hips. Eiji’s unbidden wails fall on deaf ears as he spills his seed.

His shaking breath echoes off the walls in a strange marriage of ecstasy and quiet discontent. Would that he could, he’d stay buried inside her forever.

Uzui pulls out with a hiss, beyond loath to leave her pristine warmth. Releasing her, his gaze falls to their combined fluids trailing down her legs. He spreads her cheeks, reveling in the sight of his debauched bride.

Spent. Humiliated. Done. Eiji rests her weary head against the wood, between her trembling hands.

No blood, she relishes inwardly… with Lord Tengen none the wiser, Eiji has fulfilled her duty. If there was a shadow of a doubt, it’s gone now. He wouldn’t find proof of her innocence. It was gone by her own hand the day she gave herself her sister’s scars.

Kisses press against her spine, all the way down to her tailbone. He massages her bruised and bruising flesh while huffing in the musk of their consummation. She twitches under his watchful eye and it’s all the prompting he needs to dive back in for seconds, albeit gently this time.

The deft tongue that pleasured her is the deft tongue that cleans her. She doesn’t shy from it this time. He feels the stark contrast as she bears down on his face, grunting his approval as he lazily stokes himself.

It’s not just for her benefit. Tengen knows that despite the closed doors, this intimate moment was always going to be shared.

Not his wives. Not even the heavens.

He knows the nun is sitting vigil at this exact moment, waiting outside those very doors to tend to her battered sister.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure that was her role back in Yoshiwara. Poor girl’s never known the touch of a man, has never come apart by another’s tender care… judging by her disdain that night, she’d likely only ever heard the shameful encounters of brutes and bastards.

Who was he to deny her? To deny either of them?

If the Sister wanted a show, he’d give that holy voyeur the most flamboyant fucking of her damned life.

Emiko sits beneath a wash of indigo, the stars shining bright enough to spite her. She wrings her hands, anxiously praying he’d be done with her soon. The sun was barely set when they arrived back from the ceremony… He’s had her in there for hours.

It’s all she can do to pray he’d leave her soon enough.

“Stop it.” The familiar prayer falls from her lips, a hush of a bid. She broke on the words as her sister had done so many nights. “Put her out of her misery, damn you.”

In the quiet isolation of the veranda, the only voyeur is the moon above. Emiko weeps for her sister. She weeps for herself.

No one will mind. No one is around to hear it.

#yandere tengen uzui #tengen x oc #tengen x wives x oc #can be read as #tengen x reader #tengen x wives x reader #yandere tengen x reader #for my brown eyed girlies #.garden of forking paths #.shi #honestly the tags are down to a marketing issue... please advise if possible

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