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A Marriage of State	By : Niko Category: +G to L > Kyou Kara Maou Views: 2727 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Kyou Kara Maou or any rights to its story, characters or plot. I make no money from this.

Chapter List
- 18
- 19
- 20
Murata was not a big fan of surprises. Surprise parties, maybe, but surprises in general were hard to work in to a viable plan and often resulted in chaotic response. The soldiers stationed inside the castle had been numerous indeed. He'd accounted for as much, planned to divide their strengths in such a way as to keep both the rescue and military operatives well in force. He had not considered there presence there to have been quite so quickly foreseen as to bring houseki amulets into the fray. It spoke volumes to him in short bursts of illuminated disgust. King Lanzil had taken his prejudice far too far this time.
He dashed along not too far from Gunter but always mindful of the span of his swing, wanting the expert to have every available angle open to him to combat the swarms of soldiers. His brow was damp still from the houseki brought by the last wave of now dead and dismembered men. Murata worried for his stamina more than his strength. The painful gemstone was all too easy to miss until the waves of agony grew close enough to mazoku flesh to crawl beneath the skin and suck dry all reserves. Murata enjoyed being a special case but remembered well the strange, pulsing hollow inside that was the touch of houseki; like kryptonite and just as green.
Gunter ran with his sword drawn and pointing towards the floor, gesturing to doors and windows with his free hand as he commanded the men to search and destroy. This was more like the wars Murata recalled, not the feel-good, sit around and talk sort of politics that Yuuri clung to. Both could be effective, both had a time and a place. Murata was under no illusion that this could have been fought peacefully. That had been at least one conversation he hadn't had to have had with the young king. Shinou would be proud of his chosen one; Yuuri was learning to compromise.
Before them the grand entrance to the royal audience chamber stood barred by several swordsman. It was almost laughable how easily Gunter could take them down, even at his less than stellar state. The accompanying Trebic men and armsmen took care of the rabble that swooped in to surround them, the way forward cleared almost single-handedly by the mazoku lord. They pressed hard at the tall, heavy doors which gave a creak of resistance and smelled of old pine.
The audience chamber was very large with a high domed ceiling, walls of evenly spaced windows along the sides. At the front center was a raised podium on which two thrones sat, the left slightly larger than the right, flanked by curtains and oil burning lanterns hanging from stone columns. Aside from its dressings, the room was empty. Gunter ordered the men to close the door behind them and they did so without hesitation, keeping the wide room safe from attack as breaths were caught and muscles rested. The lavender haired man approached the thrones with unsettled interest. Murata did not like surprises. The self-appointed king of Trebic was not where he'd been expected to be.
"What now, Your Grace?"
Murata adjusted his glasses, nose pinched irritably under the press of their weight. "We wait here. He's a military man above all else. If he knows here is where the fight is to be had, he'll mobilize here. We can push out easily from this location to other outlying regions in the castle. For now, this is our base of operations."
Gunter nodded, sword sheathed for a breath of momentary cessation. He jerked to attention when the curtain behind the thrones parted, sighing out in mild annoyance when the orange haired maid waved his way out of the shadows. Yozak planted his hands on his hips, biceps bulging out of puffed sleeves trimmed in lace.
"So much for laying in wait for the assassination."
"Yozak," Gunter shook his head, no attempt made to hide his dismay. "What are you doing here? Did you complete your task?"
The cross-dresser's face wrinkled in a dark grimace. "Someone got to him before me. Or, I don't know, maybe he got himself out. Kid was alive last anyone knew but I never saw him myself and didn't see him before all hell broke lose. By the look of it, sounds like that ol' king of ours was right after-all, though."
Perhaps there were still other surprises that were of the good variety. "He's alive?" Murata couldn't help but be a little shocked. Shinou had outdone himself this time.
"Alive ain't the half of it. These Big Cimarron jokers are playing a dangerous game."
Murata nodded, his own assumptions having alluded to as much. "I'll be interested to hear what the general has to say for himself."
Yozak shrugged his well toned shoulders. "Why wait around for him? I can tell you just about everything you need to know and plenty you probably don't as well."
Gunter gave the room a cursory glance, checking the remaining shadows for more well trained spies that might be lurking for the enemy. "Alright, Grier. Tell us what you know."
--
There seemed to be a never-ending supply of soldiers. The more men Yuuri saw fall down dead, the more came out from behind corners and doorways to be cut down as well. He'd seen several of their Trebic allies fall, the numbers that comprised their troop beginning to dwindle to frightening proportions. They were almost there, though. According to the men the royal audience chamber was not much further. There they would regroup with the others and hopefully bring an end to the sad and desperate ordeal.
It was easier to think about the plan than it was to dwell on Wolfram's condition. Cradled in Conrad's arms and still out like a light, the only sounds from the widower were occasional gasps or moans of pain as he stirred against his brother's chest. They had made themselves quite assured the blood on his borrowed clothes was not his own. The source of his pain was indeterminable and so was the means to ease his discomfort. It was easier not to think about it than it was to accept that for now there was nothing that could be done.
But he was alive. In pain or not, he breathed and his heart pulsed with the venom of life. Seeing him, having him near and in friendly arms, that alone could have made Yuuri light enough to fly. The burden of so much of his guilt had fallen from his shoulders to crack against the stone like a Big Cimarron skull.
The doors to the audience chamber were closed with a handful of enemy soldiers trying to break there way through. In a few slices they were gone like bad memories, the way now clear save for the heavily barred doors. Yuuri knocked hard.
"Murata! We're here! We've got him!"
He looked over his shoulder, waiting for the next wave of eager deaths to rush forward. The door groaned from fatigue as it was pulled open, muscled arm gesturing them all through. "Quickly. Come on."
Yuuri smiled at Yozak and did as asked, rushing ahead to see that the others had all made it safely as well.
Within the large space, Murata and Gunter talked quietly amongst each other, shaking their heads and gesturing with their hands in a odd pantomime of arguing geese. Yuuri walked over to them, interested in their undertakings as Conrad followed close behind him. Murata looked over at them and gave them each a nod of greeting. Gunter smiled at Yuuri, eyebrows raised in relief as he opened his arms to embrace his king. He took one step closer to him, though, and twitched, pulling back, retreating several steps with a stunned whimper.
Yuuri looked at Gunter with surprise as the swordsman kept his distance for perhaps the first time in memory. "Gunter, what's wrong?"
"Houseki." Murata explained, stare boring into Wolfram whose eyes were off and distant. There was no pity in his voice, just the cold of calculation. "Yozak discovered a great many things during the day. Wolfram was forced to consume a chunk of the stone. I'm afraid that is the lesser of our troubles at this moment, however."
Yuuri paused in shock, memory filling in the gaps of intimate knowledge where houseki's usage had led to pain and impotence. Anger swelled within him, ice cold tendrils of rage he knew he had to keep under control. He saw Conrad's fingers flinch around the bloody, trembling body in his care, muscles tensing to bare him all that much closer to him. Houseki was a pain neither of them could ever know. Perhaps that made the sympathy for it all the stronger. He caught his guardian's eye, returning his blank face with a determined frown. "We'll get him to a doctor. He'll be fine."
Conrad nodded though the silence from the other party remained heavy and foreboding over them.
Murata continued to stare at Wolfram for a long time before finally looking away and keeping his gaze averted thereafter. "He has to stay here, Shibuya," he said, knowing full well the fury of questions and outrage sure to follow.
Yuuri stared at him dumbly. He'd misheard his friend. Certainly he'd misheard. "What? What are you talking about, Murata?"
The sage went quiet. Yozak cleared his throat, a step taken forward for the address, but Murata raised his hand, a gesture to say he was more then capable of explaining the political ramifications facing them. How to word it was perhaps the more difficult part of the task. Slowly he tipped his glasses forward. "Wolfram is married to the Big Cimarron general by rather archaic but still legally accepted grounds. As the last living vestige of the Trebic royal house, this marriage legitimizes the general's claims to be the new king. As his Prince Consort, if we leave this country with Wolfram, it would be considered kidnapping and Shin Makoku would have essentially declared war on Trebic and by extension Big Cimarron."
Yuuri shook his head hard, "Murata, we're winning! All we have to do is depose the general and we've won!"
"Shin Makoku is allied with Trebic. We cannot attack their king even if he is a vile tyrant. Big Cimarron is just waiting for us to make these mistakes and give them every reason possible to launch us into another full blown war."
"Look at him!" Yuuri heard his own voice crack. "There is no way I'm leaving him behind! And he can't be married to that guy, we'd have heard something!"
"Like His Grace said, it's an old ritual but it's never been officially discharged." Yozak crossed his arms over his chest, looking serious and grim. "Trebic rules by bloodline and marriage. Couple thousand years back they got it into practice that every act of sex was considered a common law marriage so every child born was a legitimate heir. No caveat for same gendered partners so the law's wide open for interpretation. How I hear it, to make any common law marriage a legal one is as easy as appearing before court and stating your intentions. The general appeared with Wolfram a day or so ago in front of what was left of Trebic's noble class, bunch of human supremacist jackasses who staid around to buddy up with the new dictatorship. As far as anyone here is going to attest, they're married and the guy who came in here and killed all these people is their new king."
Yuuri stared at Yozak, eyes darker than black with an azure edge beginning to wash over his silhouette.
Murata stepped forward, tone that of an adult keeping his child in line. "Shibuya. Not here."
"Then where?!" Wind rushed outwards from him, the crystal chandelier swinging above them with the clink of dancing lights. "I have been more than patient with all these political shoots and ladders and I am tired of being told what I can and cannot do! This is wrong; politically correct or not! I am not going to just abide by these rules when I know it's not right!"
"You would go to war and send hundreds of thousands of people to their deaths just because you want to protect one person? Can't you see that is exactly the opposite of what this was all supposed to achieve?" Murata stepped closer to him, never one to back down from either his friend or his more terrible, powerful persona. For now it was still Yuuri, still someone open to reason above his ideals of justice. Murata stopped a foot in front of him, toes facing toes, staring without blinking at the intensity of his friend's rage. "If you do this, if you abandon peace and politics for selfishness and greed, then you are as much an enemy to Shin Makoku as King Lanzil is."
Yuuri held his stare, jaw trembling with the strain of keeping composed. Slowly, the winds died down, aura seeping back out of sight as he slumped into his heels, head bowed in defeat.
Murata placed a hand on his shoulder. Yuuri did not pull away. "We're not giving up. We only need to rethink our strategy. We all need to remain calm until we know what action to take."
Gunter cleared his throat, "If I may?" The room went silent for him as he approached with sword sheathed, thankful as Conrad retreated with his advance. "If Wolfram is married to the current king, it also makes him the second most powerful man in Trebic. Any action he takes would not be considered by extension to reflect on Shin Makoku."
"So you're saying we can't kill this guy but he can?" Yozak shook his head. "Look at him. I don't think he'd need to be carried if he was strong enough to fight."
"Indeed not. But there are more ways to win a war than through strength alone."
The large doors to the audience chamber echoed with the heavy beating of a battering ram, cutting off Yozak's words of lingering doubt. The wood creaked and cracked, splintering into a shower of chips and shards. Swords came back from their sheathes as they took to arms again, reprieve revoked in the coming onslaught.
Conrad turned to Yuuri, pressing Wolfram towards him as the king immediately wrapped his arms around the limp body. "For now, please hide somewhere safe," he requested, never one to give an order unless for Yuuri's health and safety.
It was the second time in so many weeks that he'd had his arms around Wolfram. He preferred the first time. Yuuri held him tight as he backed up towards the set of thrones--they'd make good cover along with the shadow of drapes that hung behind them. Morgif crooned for a piece of the action but eventually went silent as they sat in the half-dark of their hiding spot. Yuuri could feel Wolfram's breath against his neck as he sat in his lap, curled against his shoulder. The king rested his chin against his hair, smelling blood and sweat and burning oils from the lanterns. He wasn't going to cry. He wanted to, he could feel it in his chest and even in the sting in the corner of his eyes, but he wasn't going to do it. Murata's words had hurt but they were true. The whole situation was a mess that had them walking a razors edge but it was a path they had to stick to. Wolfram was being tortured even now, cradled in his arms, but only a doctor could help him. The only thing Yuuri had control over any more was his own actions and he was not going to cry in the middle of a battle.
He dropped a hand to Wolfram's stomach, emanating healing waves to the pit of the houseki's stronghold. He wasn't sure how effective it would be, if it would cancel its effectiveness even if it was unable to cancel out his use. Wolfram smacked his hand away, not quickly but still with some force. Yuuri sighed, taking the hand in his and holding it gently. "Don't worry about me."
"Never."
Yuuri smiled slightly, giving his hand a squeeze. "Glad you're awake again. Now's probably not the best time, though."
The thunder of the door breaking open made them both jump with a start. Peeking to the side of the gold and scarlet throne, Yuuri watched the brown uniformed soldiers of Big Cimarron swarm in like ants over a picnic. Bottle-necked, Gunter and Conrad dispatched of them easily while the hole in the door remained the only entry. With a crash of glass the windows shattered as well, more soldiers leaping in, aiming to surround them. The Shin Makoku and Trebic troops kept their backs together, walking up closer to the thrones and the high ground before a wave of soldiers cut them off. It seemed like over a hundred enemy soldier's surrounded the twenty-odd mismatched group of allied forces. Yuuri held his breath as the fighting died down, a silence of anticipation filling the air as the brown uniforms held their positions with swords drawn.
"Well, now, what have we here?" a voice asked from just over Yuuri's shoulder, "If it isn't his royal highness the demon king himself."
A dagger rested against his cheek, fingers tangling in his hair to pull his head back. A secret passage, a king's escape tunnel, a false king. Yuuri stared up into the cold, smiling face of the Big Cimarron general and knew without a doubt what it meant to hate.
The general pulled up on his hair, forcing him to stand. Yuuri let Wolfram slide gently from his lap as he raised up at the behest of the human, blade sliding down his chin to his neck. Somehow it was much easier to be brave when the one in harms way was himself.
"I see you've met my bride."
"He's not your anything as far as I'm concerned."
The general chuckled, blade digging in as they stepped forward, booted feet stepping on rather than over Wolfram as the general forced Yuuri into the clear among the thrones. "I'm sure even you have to agree that he made fine bait to draw you all the way out here and a fine pawn to get me to the crown. Now I have your queen and all your little knights." He gestured out to the encircled men, their anxious faces watching in fear as the dagger's blade drew a thin rivet of blood from their king's throat. "I believe that makes this check-mate."
"I was never really much of a chess player." Yuuri winced at the sting of the cut. The iron was cold against his skin in contrast to the warmth of his blood.
Gunter pushed towards the edge of their circle, crossed swords keeping him at a distance. "Let him go. As the recognized ruler of Trebic, it is your duty to uphold the alliance between our two countries."
"On the contrary; I have no reason to wish any peaceful settlement between any human kingdom and yours. I can either kill you all now or deliver you to King Lanzil who can personally witness your deaths. The outcome is the same either way." He chuckled again, the cruel sound echoing in the large chamber. "I'm sure you've realized by now that there is nothing you can do. No matter what course of action you take, Big Cimarron wins."
Conrad's eyes were narrowed to fine slits, his sword at the ready. Death before dishonor was how it went. If the general made any move to kill Yuuri now, he'd get to watch the hundred enemy soldiers slice his friends to pieces first as they rushed in to save him.
Yuuri swallowed, mouth painfully dry and mind drawing a blank. Even if he tried to become the Maou, there was no guarantee the soldiers wouldn't first kill his friends or the knife at his throat wouldn't just as surely bleed him dead. There was no way out. He either died a martyr or lived to see the next greatest war in their lifetime. He did not relish in either outcome. "Even if you kill me, you can't take back the changes that are happening."
"Big Cimarron will never fall."
"I don't want it to," Yuuri said, trying to keep his body from trembling. "All I want is for humans and mazoku to live together peacefully. And it will happen, with or without me." he angled his gaze over at the vile man. "And with or without you."
He felt the knife press harder and heard the clash of metal. There was no more patience, no more waiting to see what the next move would bring. It was war. Conrad, Gunter and Yozak were in a frenzy, blood sweeping across in ruby rainbows of gore over the disembodied heads and limbs of soldiers in their way. Yuuri felt the cold blade begin to move, a slice starting below his ear and sweeping down across his throat. His blood felt warm but behind him was even warmer. With an alien shriek the general pushed Yuuri away, blade tumbling from his hand. Yuuri grabbed at his wound and its slow dip of blood as he stared in surprise and horror at the ball of flame engulfing his assailant. Their leader aflame, the Big Cimarron soldiers fell distracted. Gunter made mince out of them. Yozak sliced through them three at a time. Conrad cut a path of death up to Yuuri. The general fell to the ground in a scattering of glass and splinters, a crackle of brilliant light screaming and rolling in agony with flames too stubborn to die eating away at his flesh. Yuuri could not look away.
Conrad put his hand to his neck, inspecting the severity of his wound, relieved sigh ending in an awkward embrace that kept pressure at his throat but cradled his head. Yuuri turned to keep his eyes on the dying man whose death howls rose in intensity. Soldiers were running away, climbing back out the windows they'd dropped in from, scrambling for the shattered door. The Trebic troops pursued. The general begged for death rather than life. The flames kept on burning even after his last scream had ceased to echo.
"Long live the king."
Yuuri turned his head, gaze towards the thrones and their shadowed shelter. Wolfram leaned heavily against the king's throne, eyes locked on the dead man's smoldering corpse. One of the oil lanterns that had lit the backdrop was missing. There was a small pile of glass on the floor, flames dancing on the last few drops of split oil.
Wolfram slowly, and with little grace or dignity, plopped himself into the queen's throne as he let his head roll back and rest on the ornate high back of the chair. The smile on his lips was wicked and dripped with self satisfaction.
Murata let out a long breath, surveying the carnage as though it was toys left out by toddlers. "That man loves his theatrics. Still, there have to be easier ways for Shinou to help than this."
Whatever Murata was on about, Yuuri was sure he would hear more about it later. For now, all that mattered to him was the people still left living and their future that again seemed hopeful. He leaned heavily into Conrad, more tired than he could recall ever feeling. There was still a battle to fight, still hours of night left before a victorious dawn. He looked forward to seeing it.
- 18
- 19
- 20
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A Marriage of State