Name: Solar Glare
Fandom: Kyou Kara Maou
Rating: The entire story is rated PG-13, with one R-ish chapter...
Summary: Yuuri and Murata are called to Shin Makoku only to discover that a plague is killing the Mazoku at an alarming rate. Yuuri's arrival changes the picture but once he successfully vanquishes the disease, Conrad falls ill. Can Yuuri save him? Before that question can be answered Cheri has a conversation with her son, Yuuri have a few epiphanies, Shinou makes an appearance and Murata gets to plays his usual sage role.
Pairing: ConradxYuuri. Is you really want to see it then there's also some GwendalxGünter. ShinouxGreat Sage.
Timeline: AU. Takes place a couple of months after the end of the 2nd season. Contains heavy spoilers for season 1 and 2, and mild spoilers for the OAV.
A/N: I would like to thank the best beta in the world, Shari Maxwell. Hugs and kisses, this fic would not have been here if it wasn't for your help. Look her up in the Beta Readers section!
Disclaimer: I don't own Kyou Kara Maou.
Warnings: I don't know just how much of this is necessary given the nature of the anime, but this story contains shounen-ai, meaning boys love. Here be boys kissing boys (and possibly doing something more) so if you're uncomfortable with it please stop reading. If you're underage please close the browser before your parents come into the room. If such a thing is illegal in your country please leave before you'll be thrown into jail. If none of the above applys to you - enjoy the story!


Solar Glare

(A Solar Glare is a visual phenomenon caused by strong sunlight reflecting off a glass or other reflective surface, causing an exaggerated lightning effect. It also refers to the astronomical condition that scatters light from the sun in the sky.

-Wikipedia)

Chapter 1

"Good work, everyone!"

Yuuri was very proud of his little baseball team. They were making excellent progress and even though the practice was harder than usual they manage to follow his every drill, every maneuver and every instruction with perfect ease. Under Murata's management and his coaching they were beginning to take the shape of an in-league team.

As they were all gathering their things and scattering to their respective homes, Yuuri could hear them talking about how joyful they were. Yuuri was also happy, but he wondered if his happiness would last once he was back in his own home. It wasn't as though his baseball habit was frowned at, it was simply met with less enthusiasm then he had expected. His father was always disappointed that Yuuri was not spending his time at home having a father-son quality time and his mother always complained about baseball being boring ("But do your best, Yuu-chan!"). But then she used to complain about boys in general being boring ("I've always wanted a girl so that we could go shopping together and eat frozen yogurt by the promenade. Boys are so boring, all they do is play baseball and then they're off to be the rulers of some foreign land and forget all about their mothers, but mama loves you no matter what!").

Shori was a different story.

"You should try and study more, Yuu-chan. Nobody would want an ignorant king!" he would say loftily to Yuuri whenever he bothered taking a break from his Dating Sims game. Yuuri would always find some excuse to avoid having Shori teach him Algebra or Literature or Physics or whatever it was he felt like doing for his little brother at the time. Shori, in turn, would always frown and chide him. "You should do something a little more worth-while than baseball with what little time you've got left here," he would say sternly.

As Yuuri walked from the pitch to the adjoined showers to wash off his face, he remembered those words. With what little time you've got left here. It was, after all, the natural choice to continue his path as the Maou of Shin Makoku, but he should have realized that things wouldn't always remain as they were. His sixteenth birthday was just around the corner and he already knew what choice he would make. He was prepared to live the rest of his life as a Mazoku and pledge his loyalty to Shin Makoku. But he wasn't prepared at all for Murata explaining to him that once he turned eighteen he could no longer return to his life on Earth. Or, more accurately, he could still visit but this time whenever he would return to Earth he would not return to the same minute he had left. As the days in Shin Makoku passed, so would the days on Earth.

He had no idea what to do with his life once he would make his choice, or how to graduate from school while ruling a kingdom, or even if he wanted to attend college, but…

"You're still you, no matter how much you stare at yourself. Or are you regretting that?" Murata said gently as he came to stand next to him. Interrupting his musings with what seemed like an innocent question, only Yuuri was not fooled. Murata's questions usually held deeper meanings than the obvious, simple words he said. Yuuri suddenly realized that he'd been standing with his hand on the tap. Instead of opening it and washing the sweat off his face, he'd been staring at his own reflection in the mirror.

"No," Yuuri answered Murata, smiling. Despite the hardships that it entitled, he wouldn't have given his position up for anyone. He had once made that mistake, just after he had defeated Soushou, and it tore him up from the inside. "I love Shin Makoku. There is no one else I want to be other than the Maou," Yuuri said and opened the tap. The next thing he knew he was being sucked towards the sink, Murata's surprised exclamation lost in the roar of water in his ears, and he saw the familiar black hole that marked the somewhat random entrance to the other world.

Both Yuuri and Murata emerged, coughing up water and soaking to the bone, in a dimly lit hall. It was definitely not Shinou's temple, and, come to think about it, it wasn't even a hall. Halls didn't have piles of hay in their middle and didn't smell of horses, nor did they have horses staring down in fear or… er, wait… WHAT!?

Yuuri looked up once more into Gwendal's horse's eyes, his own eyes going round. The horse stared, and Yuuri stared. The horse whinnied in alarm, and Yuuri was startled so badly that he instinctively tried to skit backwards and ended up tumbling from the horse's water barrel and into a pile of wet mud. As Yuuri was rubbing his sore behind, the horse gave them both an affronted bray and turned his behind to them. Murata Ken crossed his arms over his chest and looked darkly northeast, the general direction of Shinou's temple. "That wasn't very funny, you know," he said at length to the skies after a good amount of (admittedly somewhat fruitless) glaring.

It was a good half an hour after by the time the boys got out of the water barrel, although Yuuri would've been perfectly satisfied to remain there in case he would be sucked back to Earth. He was so put out that only the looming threat of Gwendal's horse giving them a kick was what finally got him to his feet. As the two began making their way towards the castle, they noticed that something was very wrong. For one, there were no stable boys around the stables. And two…

"It's strange that not even Sir Von Christ is here to welcome us back," Murata mused as they both looked around them at the deserted courtyard. "I would've thought that he wouldn't miss any chance to give you a big hug," he teased.

Yuuri suppressed a shudder. It was true that it was strange that Günter wasn't there, but Yuuri was happy of that, even if Conrad did say that the gyu in Günter's name meant a big hug for 'his majesty'. Not only was he spared the horror of getting his breath squeezed out of him with a force he would never thought Günter possessed (and really, he was doing excellent work in making Anissina think he was a weakling whenever she tried to use his Maryoku in her experiments). It had spared him the unpleasantness of having his wet baseball uniforms pressed closely against his skin.

"Don't remind me," Yuuri moaned in a tortured voice, but the matter was quickly forgotten once they entered the main hall of the Blood Pledge Castle and found it deserted as well. Even the kotsuhizoku were not about as they usually were, which was even more unnerving (if possible, considering that they were flying skeletons). Also, there was an odd smell about the place. Usually the Blood Pledge Castle smelled of flowers, cooking, and recently from the special washing lotion of the machine Anissina has invented and then bullied the maids into using (the I'll-Clean-That-Smile-Off-Your-Face-kun). Now there were none of those smells, as if nobody had cooked or did any laundry for a while.

"Just what in the world in going-"

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!"

Yuuri's query was cut short by a scream. Not Günter at seeing His Majesty covered in mud, but a horrible, agonized scream that echoed off the stones of the castle. Both boys snap their heads to look for its source. Something was definitely wrong.

"Shibuya, the East wing!" Murata called as they both began to run.

"The East wing? But that's where the military hospital is!" Yuuri cried out to Murata over their heaving breathes. With the return of Murata's dark look, Yuuri hastened his pace.

By the time they got to their destination Yuuri's mind has already created a thousand and one scenarios of what they were going to find. From Cheri-sama holding a newborn baby in her arms and smiling victoriously at her three completely shocked sons to a room filled with kotsuhizoku that were once Conrad and Wolfram and everyone he loved. (Were kotsuhizoku real people once, and if that was so, then did that mean that the kotsugyozoku were real fish once?).

They reached the East wing, dripping and panting and, in Yuuri's case, covered with mud, to see Gwendal coming out of one of the rooms along the corridor, looking pale and worn out, his expression even tighter the usual. He coughed uncomfortably and said something in a hushed tone to someone who was crying inside the room. Now that Yuuri was there he could smell it more strongly. It was the smell much like the hospital he went to once with his mother to visit a friend with a terminal disease. The smell of sickness and death.

"Gwendal!" Yuuri hurried forward, his heart in his throat and all thoughts of kotsuhizoku literally flying from his mind. Gwendal turned with a grunt (which Yuuri had already learned signaled surprise) at hearing Yuuri's voice. It was painfully obvious, even to the usually oblivious Maou, that no one here expected them. "What's going on? What just happened in that room? Where is everyone? Why is there no…" his flood of questions was stopped when Gwendal looked sharply and him and then at the door.

He approached Yuuri and Murata, his voice low. "Not here. Let's go to my office," he said and then sniffed the air. "I've changed my mind. You should go and bathe. You smell of horse," he said sternly and turned to go without waiting for an answer.

"That's because we landed here in your horse's water barrel!" Yuuri exclaimed in agitation, and didn't even notice that the lines around Gwendal's mouth turned lax enough to be called a small smile. "But this is bad, isn't it?" Yuuri's voice lost its volume and its power as he continued, much like it did when he was lost and unsure, or afraid to hear the answer he had asked for.

"It's a disease, isn't it?" Murata asked from his side, filling in for Yuuri's sudden silence by turning the question at the exhausted-looking advisor. As Gwendal nodded his grave answer, Yuuri's heart began to pound.

"A disease? Who is it? Conrad? Wolfram? Günter? Don't tell me it's Greta!" Yuuri asked, his voice now truly becoming strangled. The thought that his beloved daughter could be really sick was too much to bear.

"No. It's not any of them," Gwendal said with a sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose. "It's the whole of Shin Makoku."


Eventually Gwendal, with considerable effort and a lot of help from Murata, managed to convince Yuuri that the hallway in which the sick people were trying to rest was not the best place to have their conversation. Instead he brought Yuuri to his office, where Yuuri found a peculiar scene unfolding.

By the windowsill was a tray with clean cups, a teapot and a container Yuuri could only presume contained sugar. Just next to it were fresh towels and a stone basin to wash one's face and hands, and next to it was Doria the maid, sound asleep, still clutching her broomstick. Yuuri could only stand there and stare at the little pile of dust that Doria began to clean before she had fallen asleep. Gwendal seemed not to mind, and even if at first Yuuri was weary of waking Doria up he soon found that she slept so hard she didn't even stir from the noise.

"Tell me!" Yuuri said sternly once he was seated and once Murata finished making all three of them the tea he had so insisted on making. Gwendal frowned disapprovingly at him but Yuuri figured that he had the right to hear what was going on in his kingdom.

"I've called Gisela to fill you in, but from the look of things we might have a plague on our hands, and one we know close to nothing about how to fight against," Gwendal said after it was apparent that Yuuri was not intimidated by his frowns (Yuuri was, but it was more important to hear the truth, and beside, he was beginning to get used to it).

However, at hearing the word 'plague' Yuuri became alarmed and stood up so quickly that he had spilled his tea on the table. "A Plague?" he asked, disbelieving. Gwendal looked angrily at him and then the leaking puddle of brown liquid on his table.

"Oi, don't create any unnecessary work for the maids. They have enough work to do with the sickness as it is," he chided sternly, and Yuuri quickly fetched a towel to clean the table, but didn't give up on getting his answers.

"Gwendal, is it that bad? Is it really a plague?" Yuuri asked his advisor seriously, a king demanding an answer from his subject.

"I'm afraid it is, your majesty, judging by the rate this illness is spreading throughout Shin Makoku," the voice answering him was not Gwendal's but that of Gisela. She entered the room, dressed in her usual white military uniforms, but up close they looked rumpled and wrinkled, as if she had spent many days and nights in them, rather then crisp and clean. Following her steps was Günter who, after spotting Yuuri by the table, made a beeline to where he was seated and launched himself on his king with beaming eyes.

"Ah, as expected of your majesty, turning up just when we need all the help we could get!" Günter said with a voice choked with emotions and, ignoring Yuuri's uncomfortable look as his wet baseball uniforms were pressed against his skin unpleasantly as well as the general state Yuuri was in, hugged him close and rested his head on Yuuri's shoulder.

The grip didn't come loose for a while and as Yuuri tried to pry himself free of his retainer he realized that Günter had fallen asleep on his shoulder. "G-Günter!" Yuuri exclaimed as he lost his balance and both he and Günter fell backwards onto the thick rug of Gwendal's office.

"My apologies, your majesty. My father has had little sleep over a too long period of time and had used his powers too much that it's taking a toll on him," Gisela said as she and Gwendal helped the exhausted man into a chair, where he promptly placed his hands on the table and resumed his slumber.

"That's fine, Gisela," Yuuri smiled brightly at her, but the smile was short lived. "You said it was a plague, though. That's a harsh word to use," he pressed once again for information, Murata by his side leaning in to listen as well.

"Yes," said the healer, taking a seat as well. "About a week ago one of the patrolling squadrons came back sick. They all had a massive headache; some were nauseous and felt a great weakness. We thought that they caught some passing infection while on patrol, maybe ate something bad, but before we could verify or deny this we started getting reports from all over Shin Makoku about many people having the same symptoms. Soon enough people started coming here for treatment and we declared an emergency," Gisela said heavily.

"How many people are sick? Do we have a cure for them, a vaccine or something? Do they even get green tea? It's good for everything, you know," Yuuri had said, and Gisela smiled slightly despite herself.

"Our situation is quite dire. So far we have over two thousand sick people in the Blood Pledge Castle alone, and more in the provinces, and we have no cure or vaccination to give them. Most people work in close contact with the patients until they get the disease themselves. We do everything in our power to make things easier for the sick people but unfortunately 'our best' is very little and ineffective."


A/N:

Kotsuhizoku are, of course, the flying skeletons.

Kyotsugyozoku are the skeleton fish Yuuri encountered at Ondin's forest's lake.

"The gyu in Günter's name meant a big hug for 'his majesty'" is a pun Conrad made after Yuuri returned from Bandarbia for the second time. "Gyu" is the verbalization of a big hug. Since Günter's name is written with a special "ü", making it pronounced as Gyuntar, Conrad sais that Yuuri can't escape Günter's hugs since a hug for his magesty is even embaded in Günter's name.

An interesting note is, that Murata is looking towards northeast when he looks for Shinou's temple. I have no idea which direction Shinou's temple is, but the northeast is the direction that is believed to be an easy path for evil. In a kingdom where everything is backwards, it seemed appropriate.