Die Dinge, die wir wollten, waren so einfach.
The things we wanted were so simple.
Summer, 2003.
"Tomorrow we're gonna have an important guest come visit us."
It wasn't unusual for the two Colourless clansmen to hear such words from their King, Ichigen Miwa. The weakest of the Seven Kings -although at the moment there were only five of them alive- had, after all, the ability to see into the future and choose which path was more favourable. Only once in his lifetime, his older clansman, his vassal Mishakuji Yukari had seen the man surprised, and this four years prior roughly at the time of death of the Red and Blue King.
"A tragedy has been averted," the wise man had murmured, "beyond what I thought possible."
That was also the only time Yukari had seen his King cry with joy.
"Who?" Kuroh's curiosity brought him back to the present. The kid had been his fellow clansman for two years now, yet he was still unable to call upon his aura. It didn't really matter: unlike Yukari, he saw Ichigen like a mentor and a father, not a King. The diligent and clever child had brought a breath of fresh air in the stale peace of their clan.
"Aren't you curious as well, Yukari?" was Ichigen's question.
"I am," he admitted, "but I'd rather be surprised."
The Colourless King laughed, "I can assure you will."
The morning after, Ichigen was sitting peacefully on the porch, his legs crossed and a bottle of fine, unopened sake beside him, when an unknown figure dressed in black landed from the sky in the road in front the house. Long, silver-coloured hair framed an ageless face, making him look like an angel descending from Heaven.
Yukari saw Kuroh hold his breath, straight as a rod as the figure slowly walked up the road, unwillingly he did the same as soon as he was able to perceive the man's aura. Warm, kind and yet enveloping his surrounding without any effort: so unlike Ichigen's stifling Sanctum which seemed to seep all colours from his surroundings when activated, this man's made everything around him shine brighter.
"I am honoured by your visit," Ichigen rose on his feet and bowed politely, mirrored by his clansmen. "First and Silver King, Adolf K. Weismann."
Yukari held his breath. So this was the King in the Sky, the King of Origins responsible for saving the southern Kanto region from destruction by the hands of the Red King Genji Kagutsu. Yukari had only heard fragments of the story from his own King: the Red King was about to cause a Damocles Down, his powers reaching the limits allowed to any King, when the Silver King had intervened in the middle of the confrontation between him and the Blue King, Jin Habari and forcefully relocated both of them offshore on an artificial island. The result of the Damocles Down was a mildly dangerous tsunami that caused a very few casualties, instead of the catastrophic event that would have occurred if the same had happened on land.
Not even Ichigen Miwa was able to foresee this miraculous turn of events. The Silver King who isolated himself in the sky for more than half a century had suddenly decided to interfere. This was the man in front of them, and yet Yukari couldn't help but wonder what the reason for his visit was.
Once again, Yukari was taken aback by a crystalline, heartily laughter.
"Please, there's no need for such formalities," the Silver King smiled warmly. Yukari noticed for the first time he wasn't alone: in his arms there was a little girl, even younger than Kuroh, with hair just a shade off the King's and bright intelligent blue eyes staring right through them.
"I am well aware my name is hard to pronounce," the Silver King continued. "Just call me Shiro."
The young girl was as loud and extroverted as Kuroh was quiet and timid. She introduced herself as Miyabi and almost immediately dragged Kuroh away to play: the Silver King had taken her in after she lost her parents and house in the tsunami.
" Some things cannot be changed ," Weismann, or Shiro , as he apparently preferred to be called, had commented on the matter with a sorrowful expression.
The initial conversation between the two kings was about the new Green King, chosen almost simultaneously with the deaths of the Red and Blue Kings. There had not been a Green King for decades, and the new one was a child barely able to control his own power.
"Seigo Ootori, the Grey King, took him under his wing. His aura seems to be able to suppress the child's for now, and he's a man of integrity." The Silver King explained.
"What about the child's family?" Ichigen inquired.
"The Hisui family moved to live with CATHEDRAL as well. The change was hard to get used to, for all of us: this is the first time a child is chosen as King, and the potentially most powerful as well…" Shiro's eyes unfocused, his gaze lost in the distance as he spoke these words, as if they meant something more he couldn't disclose to them.
"Shiro! Shiro!" Miyabi run back into the room, her clothes dirty with mud and grass, and proudly showed her King a collection of bones, snail shells and small stones she was holding in her small hands. Kuroh followed suit, still a bit shell-shocked by her enthusiasm.
"Did you find some treasures?" the Silver King smiled, examining her findings with apparent interest. The kindness in the man's eyes as he devoted his attention to her wasn't very different from Ichigen's when he looked at Kuroh: it was obvious he doted on the girl like a daughter.
"Are you having fun?" Yukari asked Kuroh, who was still catching his breath, probably from running after the hyperactive girl. The kid didn't reply, his eyes on the ground, maybe still too shocked from the whole experience to say he liked it or not.
"Your name is Kuroh, right?" the Silver King caught the child's attention. Kuroh blushed, his eyes fixed to the ground.
Yukari noted something weird in Shiro's eyes when Kuroh approached him. A longing, desperate sadness, mixed into that permanent smile of his, as he held out a hand to shake Kuroh's own. "I'm Shiro, nice to meet you…"
"Nice to meet you." Kuroh stuttered with embarrassment, hesitant to meet the Silver King's gaze.
"I haven't told anyone, yet. But I feel like you're the right man to talk about this."
Yukari had put the two kids to sleep, as ordered by his King, then walked back to the room where the two were still talking, sitting silently just outside of the door.
"The reason you came down from your isolation?" Ichigen inquired.
"For that, for adopting Ne-Miyabi, for me coming here…" the Silver King listed, his voice permeated with sadness. "He always spoke about you with such appreciation, I guess I never realized until now what a great man you were…"
Yukari frowned: that was a weird thing to say, almost as if the man…
"So you really know about the future," Ichigen's words confirmed that unearthly theory. "How is it possible?"
With half a laugh, half a hiccup, the Silver King didn't reply immediately. "I tried to destroy the Dresden Slate. My soul and mind were rebounded back in the past as a punishment. I lost everything I fought for, and yet I decided to try and move on, fix my mistakes."
For a long time, a heavy silence lingered in the room. Yukari was almost about to step in when he heard his King speak again.
"Was Kuroh…" he hesitantly started, "the one to talk to you about me?"
"Yeah, he really loved...loves you."
"You met him after my death."
Another moment of silence before the hesitant answer: "Yes."
Ichigen's words were heavy with compassion as he spoke again: "Who was he for you?"
The way the Silver King's voice trembled as he replied made Yukari wonder if he was actually crying. "Family." He simply replied, but there was so much more in that answer, hidden between the lines, a story that didn't happen yet, or probably would never happen now.
"I told myself I wasn't gonna intervene in their lives, this time. That I'd look after them from afar, but when I saw Miyabi, so small, so alone, after the wave…" his voice broke again. "I look at her and I see my Neko: she would have become a Strain if the Damocles Down happened on land. She didn't this time and yet she still lost everything, I couldn't not take her with me."
"I see…"
"But Kuroh...Kuroh is happy here. He has a family, he has you," he sighed, "it was selfish of me to come."
Ichigen interrupted him: "It wasn't. It was simply human."
Another long minute of silence passed.
"Can I leave Miyabi in your care?" the Silver King finally asked, "She's not suited for the kind of life I lead, she needs friends her age and she loves to play in the wilderness."
Yukari was almost sure Ichigen wouldn't agree, but he immediately proved wrong.
"Alright," he said, " but at a price." There was a smile on his lips, Yukari could tell, as he explained the price in question.
Miyabi cried like a baby when she realized the Silver King had left without her, leaving only a book and a letter behind. The book, Natsume Souseki's I am a Cat , lied unopened for weeks until Kuroh picked it up and decided to read it for her. The letter contained information about how to remain in contact with him.
Ichigen looked after Miyabi on her first day of school, her vitality and enthusiasm came back as she drew pictures and pictures of the Silver King and them. She had Ichigen write letters to Shiro and started writing herself as soon as she learned how to.
Adolf K. Weismann came back to them four years after his first visit. Yukari had thought about leaving many times but ultimately stayed in the Miwa household: thanks to Miyabi their life was never boring, and although she and Kuroh were often arguing, they had quickly become family to each other. Also, he felt like he was waiting for something.
The girl cried tears of joy when her King came back, latching onto his arm and refusing to let go.
"There's a new Red King," Shiro announced. "His name is Mikoto Suoh, he already has a small Clan following him."
The announcement barely fazed them, as this was a matter of the city. They shared a meal around a small table, Kuroh proudly showed his newly awakened powers and there was again a pang of pain in the Silver King's eyes as he looked at him.
Mishakuji Yukari left with the Silver King that night. He didn't wish to become his clansman, he admitted, he only desired a change of scenery. Both Kings were surprised but ultimately accepted his decision: Ichigen gave him one his swords, Ayamachi, as he left.
Yukari finally admitted having overheard the conversation between Shiro and Ichigen, the first night the Silver King visited, after a few months of travelling with him. The Silver King was not surprised.
"I knew you would leave Ichigen soon. I would have never thought you'd come with me, though," was the man's first comment.
"Why? What did I do in the...events you know of?"
"You joined the Green Clan," and there was something new in the Silver King's words. Hostility? Wariness? This something was enough to send a shiver down Yukari's spine and never ask any more questions about the future that never was.
They went back to the isolated house every six months, watching Kuroh and Miyabi grow up. As the girl finally learned to use the Silver Aura Shiro bestowed upon her when they met, she started floating everywhere around the house, but remained very careful not to use it at school, where she had become fairly popular thanks to her enthusiasm.
They all stood together beside Ichigen Miwa's bedside as he passed away. He warned them the next Colourless King would be an unfortunate soul without proper guidance, and they all assured him they would look for him. After the funeral, Yukari went his own way: the Silver King's words had stuck in his mind for a long time and he yearned to meet the Green King he supposedly served in another life.
Sometime later, after hearing Kuroh officially joined the Silver Clan, he decided to visit them again. The Silver King had cut his hair, now just barely reaching his shoulders, and Kuroh was wearing western clothes more appropriate to his new -old? after all he was always supposed to go this way- Clan. Miyabi had grown into a beautiful young woman but still acted like a kid, hugging Yukari and calling him big brother like she did as a child.
"You know what I was thinking?" Yukari stated, during their meal. "Both the Colourless Clan and the Silver Clan don't have a name!"
"So?" Kuroh arched an eyebrow. He had become such a serious boy, but the people who loved him, surrounding him, knew he only used that stern expression of his to mask his shyness.
Shiro looked at him like he was expecting this conversation, and smiled. "Then why don't you choose it, Kuro?"
The question left the boy astonished: "You're having me choose it?"
Yukari wondered since when the two started to speak so informally to each other.
The Silver King nodded, eagerly, with that childish attitude of his emerging only during moments like this.
Kuroh crossed his arms and closed his eyes, thoughtful and concentrated as everyone looked at him expectantly, until Kuroh once again opened his eyes and proclaimed with solemnity: "I've decided."
The Silver King grinned, clapping his hands together.
"We are EDELWEIß." Kuroh announced, a proud smile growing on his face. "It's the German name for a white flower that blooms at high altitudes and represents nobility. I think it suits us."
Yukari didn't miss Shiro's smile falter for a fraction of a second, before settling into a resigned expression. "It's nice."
"It used to be different, in the other timeline? The name..." Yukari asked the Silver King when they were alone.
Shiro laughed: "You saw right through me. I suppose I couldn't expect everything to be the same: we met under different circumstances, we weren't a proper clan. Die Dinge, die wir wollten, waren so einfach. The things we wanted were so simple : a room to go back to, a warm bed, and white rice to fill our bellies." He sighed, looking content despite the melancholy in his eyes. "I suppose HAKUMAI-TO was the real victim of my hubris in trying to destroy the Slate."
Yukari giggled: "I would have loved to see it, but honestly? I don't think it was much better than now…"
A moment of surprise, then a pleased grin appeared on the Silver King's face.
"No," he confirmed, "it wasn't."