KKM A 'Yuuri-less' Year

Chapter One: 'Immediate Aftermath'

In the months after the 27th Maou returned to Earth the tenor of the Castle subtly changed.

A less-than-keen observer would've immediately noticed there was considerably less laughter than before his departure—fewer smiles, more uneasy frowns and far too many careworn sighs circulated amongst the populace and even the gentry. Shin Makoku's citizens argued sooner and made up with less enthusiasm and the Lords Gunter and Gwendal spent a great deal of their precious time soothing the feelings of obstructive nobles, the easily irritated denizens of the castle's town and the surrounding villages, not to mention the leaders of various neighboring kingdoms, all of them quite peeved that the Chosen Maou had insensibly chosen to be elsewhere. Conrad Weller, however, wasn't around to participate in any this soothing and petting of ruffled feathers, having departed very soon after Shibuya Yuuri, with the excuse given to Gwendal that he must continue to keep a weather-eye on his teenage charge. Gwendal had no objection to that.

His Lordship Wolfram von Bielefeld wasn't doing much soothing either, having the very day after Yuuri departed packed up Greta and his assortment of seductive nightwear and retreated posthaste to the von Bielefeld family's estate to lick his wounds. They were many, it seemed, all deep and unhealing, and the comfort of his lands and the 'other' side of his extended family might do a little to ease them, or at least provide a welcome distraction. Or so he hoped. In any event, Greta was delighted to meet her various adoptive cousins, which took some of the pressure off the previous Maou's ex-Fiancé to appear relatively unfazed in private as well as in public, and that was all to the good. His visit there stretched on into weeks.

Until a swift rider arrived from Gunter and his eldest half-brother, demanding Wolf's return to Blood Pledge on the excuse that the Castle's people wanted him in residence at least, since they couldn't have Yuuri. And there was more, all of it couched in verbiage that indicated Wolfram had little or no recourse: he would rule, on Yuuri's behalf, as the 28th Maou – the Ten Aristocrats had decided that (Nine in his absence, really, but who was counting?) and they would not take 'no' for an answer - not this time.

Wolf went as commanded, reluctantly, taking with him only his very favorite pink nightgown (the one Mama had given him when his luckless engagement was first announced), the golden brooch that Yuuri had somehow left behind him in his hurry and the barest minimum of outriders, insufficient for his new stature as Maou. Greta, too, of course, for he couldn't bear to leave her behind and she couldn't bear to be parted.

Greta was pleased to be 'home' (her term); Wolf less so. Blood Pledge was 'their' Castle, far more than Gwendal's or the Original King's. He had too many memories embedded in the walls and the grounds to ever be truly comfortable, although he tried quite hard to appear cheery for his daughter's sake. The halls rang with silence where there should have been the whine of the Wimp and the roar of a younger Wolfram; the grounds were empty of casual baseball players and idiots falling off their horses and other idiots spending all their valuable time shouting at the first ones. No one yelled Wolfram's name suddenly or attempted to hide behind the dusty tapestries to escape him; no one lazily slept the mornings away in the Maou's bedroom, attempting unsuccessfully to avoid their paperwork and fencing lessons. The baths held no black-haired blushing boys; the stables contained only warhorses run to fat and sleepy stablehands. It was dismal.

Wolf endured it, for Gwendal told him he must, and he was slightly more obliging now than he had been, before Yuuri. He had their private chambers moved, though, his and Greta's, to a floor below the Royal hallway, so that he wouldn't have the glimpse the barred door out of the corner of his eye or imagine that he heard his name called at odd moments late at night. The nightgown was tucked away in the bottom of the armoire, safe and secure and largely unseen. He wore the brooch, every day without fail, for he'd briefly had soaring wings lifting his weary heart and the twice-given, hastily abandoned memento symbolized his memory of them.

Time managed to flow forward, though, on a somewhat even keel, with the help of Gwendal and his mother, who stayed at Blood Pledge far past the time when they should've been elsewhere. Gunter, too, of course, who insisted on advising the newest Maou as he had the previous one, and Yozak, who could be found loitering in any empty space or sleeping like a lizard in the sun where one least expected him. Sometimes Wolfram felt that Yozak kept entirely too close an eye on his doings; he wasn't suicidal, he fumed to Gwendal's bland face, just a little lonely. His half-brother only nodded and said nothing to the point; he did not a thing to stop the red-headed spy from shadowing his baby brother.

The 28th Maou cared less and less about Yozak's intrusion on his privacy as the days dragged on. All his energies went toward Greta or the unending business of the kingdom. Yuuri's pile of paperwork had become his own – and he had to smile and be politic and unbearably polite in public far too often for his liking, all for the sake of carrying forward the peace the 27th Maou had left behind him. It was an intensive and ongoing exercise in self-control and determination and Wolfram had little energy left over for anger or even annoyance and went about his duties blind to the worried glances that followed him.

But the Great Peace held, steadied and supported and nurtured by a blonde demon warrior with a fully human daughter. The allies knew him – who could not know the beauteous Wolfram von Bielefeld, ex-Third Prince, the 27th Maou's Chosen Fiancé – and they grudgingly accepted him, as Yuuri had. He would do, said the ongoing lack of uprising in Human Territories; he would do, said the official ambassadorial letters, proclaiming a 'peaceful co-existence', from surly Dai Shimaron to other places even more distant and nastily foreign than that. He had changed, they all agreed; had come into his own, having shrugged on the mantle of his new responsibilities. Wolfram would have disagreed entirely if he'd bothered to listen – his 'own' was only scrambling after Yuuri's grand vision and that was never enough.

As the months dragged on, the 28th Maou found himself more and more often outside the walls of Blood Pledge, gladly escaping whenever he could. His thoughtful half-brother and inherited advisor turned a blind eye to his wanderings, and even sometimes even went so far as to provide a valid excuse, no doubt realizing that the high-strung blonde, however bound by his perceived duty to the absent Yuuri, would eventually crumble if there was no relief.

It was cruel to keep him, both Gwendal and Gunter agreed, but there was no one else in Shin Makoku with such a clear vision of what Yuuri Heika had been aiming for, or such an excellent grasp of how he would've done things. They needed him – all of Shin Makoku needed him -- so they allowed Wolfram to bolt every now and then, letting him roam as long as he stayed within the carefully proscribed boundaries. The Mazoku never went far, mindful of his duties and of Greta, who relied on him now more than ever before. But he often travelled as far as the Original King's Castle, which proved a refuge of sorts now that the Sage had departed. Ulrike was Wolfram's friend, it seemed, and not just because Shinou had once inhabited him.

It happened one day that he'd been sent off to deliver a message to Ulrike – Wolfram was the Maou, yes, but he was still Gwendal's little brother - and to retrieve a book Gunter was in need of. He arrived in the late morning, entering by way of the grand courtyard, and he and Ulrike paced slowly past the large reflecting pool Yuuri had once appeared in, discussing the intricacies of foreign affairs. She left him a moment later, excusing herself to fetch the book that Gunter wanted and the most recent pigeon-post message from one of Yozak's spies. Wolfram waited, looking about him, remembering better days.

That day, the pool was as innocent and blue as the summer sky and Wolf found his attention drawn by it while he conversed with the remaining Maidens, awaiting Ulrike's return. There was something disturbing the birds in the blue sky reflected in the pool; some round, white object hurtling by and obscuring the sun.

But it was not Shin Makoku's sun that rippled in the water, nor Shin Makoku's clouds. Here, in the Demon Kingdom, it was early autumn. The sky above Wolfram was a pale, thin, transparent blue, utterly free of any fluffy mounds of moisture, not at all like the deep, rich sapphire reflected in the pool.

There it was again, that rapid movement, silent and removed from him by an untold amount of time and space.

There! He could almost hear the 'thunk' as the object landed. Wolfram's lips parted.

He stopped conversing with the Maidens abruptly and peered into the pool with great curiosity, struggling to get a better view, teetering on the very edge until a nearby Maiden grabbed his arm for safety's sake.

Was that a baseball whizzing past what surely looked like—like a pitcher's mound? Was that faraway figure his Yuuri?

"Oi!" he exclaimed to the Maidens, not sparing them a glance as he did so, green eyes on the pool.

"Can you see him? Is that what I think it is?"

Oh, but it had been so long since he'd glimpsed black hair and black eyes. So long and he would surely pay any price at all to see them again.

Wolfram leaned perilously close to the still water, shaking off the Maiden's helpful hand, desperately seeking another glimpse of the dark-haired, dark-eyed figure.

The Pool obliged, panning in like a zoom lens to provide the 28th Maou a lovely view of the details. He could suddenly discern a whole group of young men, clad in striped red-and-white uniforms, one sporting that strange open-weave cage over his face; one swinging the oddly shaped stick just like the one Wolfram's Yuuri had brought back from Japan.

The round stitched-up object (it was a baseball!) went by again – a low ball, spinning viciously until it slapped into a catcher's mitt. The black-haired boy—one among many other black-haired boys--grimaced and smiled and spit over one shoulder as he hunkered down to swing again. Another black-haired boy was jumping up and down behind him, familiar glasses catching the light.

"Yuuri?"