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Yukimura didn't mean to go through so many smartphones. Really. He knew how to take care of personal property, even delicate electronic devices - his lordship had made sure of that after the first time Yukimura accidentally put his fist through the TV as a small, excitable child. Anyway, he'd been careful to choose the most durable phone case. It was advertised as bulletproof. Yukimura's fists were perhaps slightly more dangerous than the average bullet, but as long as he didn't set anything on fire, it should have sufficed.
And it did. Most of the time.
That did not stop Yukimura from having to visit the local electronics shop so often the lady at the counter knew his name and questioned his life choices.
"It just keeps happening," he said plaintively.
The cashier looked at him, then down at the three mobile phones he'd placed on the till, then back at him. "Are you expecting to go through three more phones this month?"
"It is far more likely that I will go through three more phones this week!" he confessed. His fists - safely empty - trembled at his sides. "I feel like such a failure at keeping the good products of this fine establishment safe from what ails me."
"Hey, don't get too upset. It's no skin off my nose, I get a commission fee on everything I sell."
He perked right up. "Oh! That is most reassuring to hear. At least my misfortune can benefit someone."
She hummed and started scanning his purchases. "Seriously though, you seem like a good kid. What's got you going through these things so fast? They not surviving your hobbies?"
Would that the problem was such a simple fix.
"My hobbies are not the problem," he said. "I have accidentally dropped my phone off a building and it suffered no lasting damage - merely some dead pixels and a cracked screen. No, the problem is..."
His voice trailed off. He squeezed his eyes shut. It was just so stupid.
"You don't have to tell me," the cashier said. Plastic rustled as she tucked his purchases away.
"I keep throwing my phones at my nemesis and he won’t give them back!" Yukimura burst out in a rush.
For a moment, all was silent. Then the cashier started laughing.
To be clear, Yukimura had not set out to use his cell phone as a projectile weapon. It was just that...
Look, when someone came up behind him and stood so close there was hot breath on the back of his neck, his instincts demanded some kind of counterattack. That was perfectly reasonable. When Yukimura had been younger, this had mostly taken the form of grabbing Masamune by the collar and/or kicking him. But they were in high school now. They were meant to be responsible. So Yukimura had started trying to break himself of his more violent habits.
Technically, it was working. But only technically. Because now every time Masamune maliciously popped up behind Yukimura and sent Yukimura's fight reflexes screaming, Yukimura grabbed for the nearest throwable object and hurled it at his face.
Most of the time, that object was his phone.
"You are being most unhelpful, Sasuke!" Yukimura grumbled as he returned to school grounds at the tail end of lunch break. "I know you could do more than you are currently doing to stop me!"
"Danna, you're the one who asked me to let you 'experience the direct and unbridled consequence of your own actions,'" Sasuke drawled from Yukimura's shadow.
"I am quite certain you know that I did not have this situation in mind!"
"Look, if you really hate it, you can just take them back. They still work. Probably," Sasuke added in an undertone.
"No, I can't," Yukimura said glumly.
"...why not?"
"It's against school rules to confiscate previously confiscated property," Azai Nagamasa chimed in from the gate. "Sanada, you're not late. Yet."
"Thank you for the warning, Azai-dono!" Yukimura picked up his pace and ran for the school building.
Sasuke was quiet as Yukimura raced through the halls toward his destination. Just as the classroom came into sight, he spoke again.
"'Confiscated property?'" he asked.
Yukimura slammed the door open, bowed, and entered. Then he spotted Masamune's desk - near enough to the window to calm his rival's nerves, near enough to Yukimura's desk that his rival could dance on Yukimura's nerves - and scowled deeply.
Masamune grinned. His one eye sparkled meanly in a way that made Yukimura's heart thump louder. Eighteen cell phones sat in rows on the scarred desktop in front of him, occupying most of the surface. In front of them was a hand-made paper sign reading 'SPOILS OF WAR'.
"What's wrong, Yukimura?" Masamune asked, still grinning. "See something you like?"
"You are a deceitful man who will face justified punishment for parading my lost property like this," Yukimura hissed. "Mark my words, I will challenge you for their return!"
"Yeah? When?"
"After school!"
Masamune rested his arm on the one bare part of his desk. "That's what you said on Thursday."
"Maybe if you would stop showing up behind me like some kind of wicked spirit-"
Mr. Uesugi stepped into the classroom and cleared their throat pointedly. Yukimura snapped his jaw shut and settled down to listen. He did not pay any attention whatsoever to the quiet click of Masamune playing with his stolen prizes. Assuming that 'stolen' was the correct word for an item that had been hurled at Masamune's face with the force of a meteor.
Well, even if the phones hadn't technically been stolen, Masamune could still have very easily offered them back to Yukimura. That he had not spoke of the young man's poor character.
Or Sasuke had enlisted Masamune's aid in forcing Yukimura to face the smug consequences of his actions. That might be worse.
Neither of them had cleaning duty today, so Yukimura made good on his threat as soon the bell rang. He shot to his feet and jabbed a finger at Masamune. It was incredibly rude, but he was so fired up he no longer cared.
"Masamune-dono! I challenge you for-"
"The return of my extensive cell phone collection, right?" Masamune finished. He sounded bored, but his smirk was positively wicked. Truly a deceitful man. "Poor thing. Did you get tired of petitioning the teachers for help?"
"I would have gotten away with it if the Principal wasn't so invested in the idea of might making right!" Yukimura declared passionately.
He didn't like to judge others, but Principal Oda Nobunaga was entirely too fond of saying that if one left a weapon in or around the target, it belonged to the target now. Possibly because people kept trying to stab the man. Yukimura had seen his office. The principal was building himself a new throne out of the weapons, impromptu and otherwise, that had failed to defeat him.
Yukimura graciously refrained from pointing the similarity between that and Masamune's cell phone display. His eternal and eternally frustrating rival had more than a few things in common with Principal Oda. However, Masamune had historically responded extremely poorly to having this pointed out.
Not as poorly as he responded to being compared to Toyotomi Hideyoshi, though.
"Enough! No more distractions! Meet me on the training field, where I will defeat you and reclaim my property!"
Masamune stood up and swept the phones into his bag. He was still grinning.
"So eager. The cashier laughed at you, didn't she?"
"Th-that has nothing to do with it!"
They continued bickering as they headed out to the field. Club practice had been cancelled today, but they still managed to gather quite the audience.
Masamune cast the crowd a baleful look. "None of you have anything better to do? Really?"
"Of course not! There are few things in this world better than the chance to see Date Masamune in action!" Yukimura raised his arms, flexed his hands around phantom weapons, and then dropped his soccer ball into place.
For some reason, Masamune looked poleaxed. "Thought you were mad at me?"
"I am furious!" Yukimura admitted at the top of his lungs. "But I am also not a liar! Now, have at-"
"Wait!" a high-pitched voice wailed. Yukimura's head snapped toward the noise to find Tsuruhime leaning out of a third-story window, waving frantically. "There's a kitty on the field!"
"Ah hell," Masamune grumbled in English. He sheathed his bats and sighed. "Yeah, that sure is a cat."
"Oh dear." Cats were not generally fond of Yukimura. They liked to bite him. "Sasuke, can you..."
A silhouette flickered into view behind Yukimura. "On it, danna."
Masamune jabbed a finger at Sasuke's revealed form. "Wait, was he in your shadow the whole time?! That's cheap, Sanada Yukimura!"
"Not the whole time! He has his own classes." Yukimura crossed his arms. "And just how is it 'cheap?'"
"You're getting outside help in our duel!"
"He's not helping me at all!"
In the distance, Yukimura could faintly hear Sasuke sigh, but he was too invested in arguing with Masamune to care.
"Do you truly think so lowly of me?" he snapped. "To presume that I would besmirch both of our honour by acting in such a low and uncouth manner!"
"So you expected me to be the cheater?" Masamune said hotly. He was still handsome when he was angry. Truly unfortunate. "Or do you walk everywhere with a damn ninja in your shadow?"
"Sasuke gets nervous!"
"So does Kojuro! And look where he is! Not in my goddamn shadow!"
"I would expect you to have more trust in me!" Yukimura yelled.
"Same here!" Masamune retorted, stepping closer.
Yukimura returned the gesture. Soon, they were yelling each other from less than an inch away.
Somewhere on the sidelines, Katakura Kojuro sighed deeply, but Yukimura wasn't paying attention to that, either. The only thing on his mind was the red-hot fire that Data Masamune never failed to invoke in him. All that mattered was the one gold eye simmering before him and the curl of Masamune's lips. The rest of the world ceased to exist.
"Hey, danna-"
Someone leaned over Yukimura's shoulder. Reflex kicked in. Yukimura let out a wordless war cry, seized the phone sitting heavy in his pocket, and spun around like he was sweeping a spear in a wide circle.
Sasuke, who had been standing behind him, cradling a very spooked cat, yelped and leaped backwards. At roughly the same time, there was a crunch and the sound of tearing fabric.
"What the hell!" Masamune roared.
Yukimura whipped back around and froze. Masamune was reeling back, clearly stunned. The phone must have clipped his face at a bad angle. The side of the case had crumpled, and it had taken Masamune's eyepatch with it.
Something like fear sparked in Masamune's remaining eye.
Yukimura's stomach flipped. The device slipped from his numb fingers. He caught a glimpse of skin darkened by what might been shadow and might have been scar tissue before he snapped his eyes shut. He started to turn away, remembered to bow, and ended up in a wobbly dogeza, forehead pressed against the grass. The image of Masamune's eye, wide and afraid, burned itself into his vision.
"I am so very sorry! Please accept my deepest apologies for assaulting you from your blind spot before the duel had even begun!"
For a long moment, he heard nothing. Then a set of familiar footsteps approached. Date Masamune crouched down in front of him and patted him on the head. It was shockingly gentle.
"Don't worry about it. Even a cheat like me can tell when something's an accident. Anyway, I'm no bashful maiden. Can't say I'm a fan of being stared at... but if you kowtow, I start feeling like I did something wrong."
"Masamune-dono..." Yukimura whispered, touched.
"That totally killed the mood, though, so I'm heading back early," his rival said, which was fair enough. Masamune stands up, picking something from the grass. "And by the way... I'm keeping this."
Keeping this? What did Masamune have...?
Yukimura's eyes snapped open. Sure enough, that bastard had his new cell phone.
"Wait, no!" Yukimura shot to his feet, but Masamune was faster. "Masamune-dono! Give that back!"
Masamune laughed from halfway across the field, eyepatch back in place, and waved goodbye. With the hand clutching Yukimura's nineteenth stolen cell phone. He wasn't too far to chase yet, but the mood was well and truly ruined.
Yukimura grumbled and started picking grass off his uniform.
At least Masamune was pretty when he was smug.