Minutes to Eternity (Touken Ranbu fanfiction)

A Hot Potato

Gossip, is an idle talk or rumor, usually about someone's private life or secrets. It's juicy, it's addictive, it keeps you on your toes because you never knew whether it's true or false.

Or at least, that's what Yamanbagiri saw at some device called... what did Konnosuke say about it? Intra... inter... internet? Not long ago, the fox gave him some kind of weird thin rectangular-shaped box. A gift from master.

Turns out that the thin black box is a futuristic device called laptop. Konnosuke said that master usually uses this thing to help them completing numerous tasks much faster. For example, collecting data of the collected swords so far, taking notes of the revisionists' strategies and then making the counter-attack plan, etc, etc.

"As the current retainer for master, they wanted you to have this," the fox said, "it should help you when you're doing your tasks. Or perhaps when you're bored out of your mind. Let me teach you how to operate it."

After an hour and another half of it, Yamanbagiri knows the basic control of the device, and also the applications in it. The learning process was slightly tedious, considering that he's an ancient relic from the past trying to learn something from the distant future, but he can't say that it's not worth it.

He's reluctant to admit it, but he felt happy that his current master bestowed him an important thing like this and not to mention -although indirectly- teaching him how to use it.

Alright, it's not the time for him to talk about his new companion, Laptop-san.

Recently, a new gossip in the citadel have been spreading around like a wildfire. The one who starts it, the first Uchigatana didn't know, but now everyone's talking about it like some kind of a new fashion trend.

Like when Tsurumaru brought home those lame 'COOL' glasses.

But no, the topic was not about the Tachi's incredibly lame glasses. It's about their master.

Now one might think that as the retainer and the first sword to arrive here in citadel, Yamanbagiri had seen their master's face at least once, but in reality, he has never met the Saniwa in his entire life.

Not even once.

"But it's strange!" Yamatonokami once said, in one of their fieldwork duties, "how come that we hadn't seen Master ever since we arrived here? Don't they need to get out from their room sometimes?"

"They're probably really busy," Izuminokami said.

"But at least they could go out and meet us for a while, couldn't they?"

Tsurumaru piped in, "or maybe they've got  some secrets that they can't show! Who knows? Maybe they'll surprise us when they actually showed up!"

"You mean... super dirty secrets?!"

"Taboo things?!"

"No way!"

Yamanbagiri ignored the other swords' banters until Hasebe showed up and scolded them for not working properly to fulfill their master's duty.

From then on, other swords started to talk about the topic. Even the ever-uninterested-in-useless-things Uchigatana, Ookurikara, actually started to pay attention to the small talks and rumors about their master.

Kashuu once approached him to ask about their master's ever-lasting absence, and was forced to be disappointed when even the retainer of the citadel remain oblivious about the true information.

Thus, the once small rumors, have turned into such a big topic that not even Hasebe could stop the gossips spreading.

After all, the appearance of their master was a complete mystery to the swords.