#yagen voice: am i cute now nobunaga-san

[yeahgen]

[perform] for me! Wahaha!

perform [for you] - my muse shows off a skill they feel they’re the best at

seven sinday memes

‘Alright~’

‘First on the list tonight is goldfish.’

Dressed in an elegant monsuke emblazoned with the Oda Clan crest, Yagen stands in front of a portable kitchen counter at the head of the lavish hall. Before him is a chopping board, and next to that is a plate of the bright orange creatures. Limp, of course, because they’re dead.

Pinching the first of the fish in his left hand, the tantou makes a big show of raising it up high before picking up a medical scalpel in his right.

‘The first cut we do will be along its stomach, from its tail leading up to the gills.’ The fine flick of metal is the only indication of movement before Yagen splits his subject into perfect mirror halves. ‘After that, take out the stomach and intestines, then the heart and liver. Be careful not to pop the swim bladder…’

And so on. By the end, he’s managed to dig out an entire goldfish skeleton from the carcass. The delicate network of bones and spines is rather gunky, so he cleans it under the sink before drying the specimen and dipping it into a large jar of glimmering liquid bubbling over a low flame. It’s unclear what he’s done to make the concoction, but the freshly dipped fish comes out as a glittering gold skeleton.

‘Pretty,’ Yagen nods as he places it in a clean new plate. And then he reaches for the second goldfish. This time his movements are much faster, and another shiny pile of bones is preserved to join the first. By the end, the motion of his hands are nothing but a blur as he excavates nine perfect skeletons and dyes them in gold. He finishes off the show by threading a chain through their eye sockets to make a necklace.

‘For the Lady Chacha,’ he nods towards the elaborately dressed girl in the audience. A servant scurries out and takes the plate holding the fish, then presents it to the young princess sitting down below.

Meanwhile, Yagen claps his hands and two more servants appear from the back, wheeling out a trolley adorned with a large covered dish. He uncovers the lid to reveal the body of a large white snake.

Some swords can cook, while others watch the house. Besides fighting, Yagen specializes in medicine, but diagnosing sick patients hardly qualifies as entertainment. Thus, performance dissection would have to do. When he picks up the snake, it’s nearly as long as he is tall. Unfazed, the tantou simply tosses the body with both hands into the air. There’s a split second when the long slender corpse hangs horizontally in the air–enough for his scalpel to slice the creature from head to tail before it falls with a whump on the counter. The long, spindly skeleton ends up as a perfectly dissected one-piece, which Yagen drenches in more of the shimmering golden liquid. Once it dries, he has it gifted to Oda Nobukatsu as a brand new belt.

‘And finally…’

Yagen pauses to look at his audience one more time. There’s the girl who calls herself Chacha sitting on left in an exquisitely embroidered kimono, eating pudding with a tiny silver spoon. There’s the boy named Nobukatsu on the right, once traitor now beloved brother, the flames of his hair licking lazily at his belt. Souza Samonji is elegantly drinking tea in the second row, his eyes fixed stubbornly on the plate of food before him and nowhere else. Fudou Yukimitsu is sprawled across his lap, softly snoring after gulping down pure wine by accident. Heshikiri Hasebe is further back behind the rest of the retainers. He leans against the wall, ostensibly on guard, but still steals glances towards the stage.

In the front and center sits his former master with his favorite Ranmaru curled up by his side. No, not his–and violet eyes settle to rest on the petite frame, fine features, and the red flush of alcohol dusting her cheeks.

‘Hey, stop staring already!’ Oda Nobunaga points at him with an easy laugh. ‘Don’t you have a show to finish?’

All of Nobunaga’s closest are gathered here today. All of them, except…

Yagen’s face splits into a grin. Of course, General.

The last star of the day is carried in by four strong men and set center front of Yagen’s counter. The sword circles around his workstation to stand beside the man sitting tied to his chair. A cloth bag covers his head, which he easily undos and tosses to the ground. Ignoring the reactions from the crowd, he grabs the man by his hair in one hand while raising Yagen Toushirou in the other. The motion seems to stir his victim, whose eyes fly open in panic. He tries to speak, but coughs up blood instead. Some of it splatters against his chest and trickles down to join the wound in his stomach dripping red onto the floor.

Yagen looks at him impassively and readies his sword. Normally, tantou would be too weak for this kind of work, but he’s killed too many monsters to be thwarted by a single human neck.

‘No…Nobu…’ the man gurgles out. Veins bulge against his hands as he strains against the rope tying them to armrests. ‘Please, Nobuna–’

And then his head rises a foot into the air as Yagen severs it from his body to hold it up high.

‘My final act,’ he says simply, ‘Is for the last master who owned me, and to whom I owe a gift.’

The headless corpse is taken away as Yagen returns to his table. With clean medical precision, he cuts away at the head like peeling off the layers of a Heian-era robe, digging past skin and sinew and nerves to unearth the treasured bone beneath. It takes a bit more modern machinery to quickly cut around the top and hollow out the skull, but it isn’t long before he disinfects and finishes a shiny new dokurohai.

With clean hands, Yagen sets the golden skull cup on a silk-lined tray and pours wine into its recesses. Then he personally descends the stage and delivers it to Nobunaga’s table.

‘For your collection,’ he demurs. ‘Happy Birthday, Nobunaga-san.’

The skull of Akechi Mitsuhide glimmers softly in the light.