Necromancer, part 10 Regicide The King is Dead.
Sliding against the wall to keep upright, which Yuri was finding more and more difficult to do, he realized how dire his situation had become.
Pinned by sword to that said wall with the crushing weight against his, his heart for the life of him Yuri didn't understand why it was trying to burst from his chest like this. He realized he couldn't breathe, swallowing hard, somehow he managed to signal that to the force that was Conrad Weller.
Conrad pulled out of the kiss for a moment for Yuri to gasp in the air, his head was swimming, Conrad's lips were so sweet. The brunette took the break to adjust his sword to stop it from sticking into Yuri's hip.
"I'm sorry." Conrad mentioned but with that guilty smile, Yuri highly doubted Conrad had an ounce of sincerity for the sudden pin and kiss. Not one iota of true remorse for it, and that was good because if Conrad had Yuri was pretty sure he'd have run off to cry and boys really shouldn't have to do that.
Swallowing once more, he proceeded to suck in a breath, it looked like he was about to open his mouth to say something when Conrad's thumb found Yuri's bottom lip, using it to tilt his chin up and guide his own lips back over Yuri's, Yuri let out a needy moan ever so softly.
Pulling back, Conrad whispered into Yuri's ear a faint nothingness but the words didn't matter, no, that sweet voice, that gentle tingling vibration on his sensitive skin, all of that conveyed more than language could at this point.
He heard it mentioned again, this time he had tried to catch the words though, Yuri's eyes shot wide open as the car hit a jarring bump, launching him from Conrad's lap where the brunette had been playing with his silky hair.
Yuri's wide eyes locked in on Conrad, as if hurt by some unseen demon, Conrad looked at him with a bit of confusion in his own eyes, when he saw Yuri shake his head like he was trying to recollect his own senses Conrad merely smiled at Yuri with assurance.
All that echoed in his burning ears were the words spoken over and over again in his dream, "Bring Julia back."
That might sound like a strange request, but as Yuri recalled the scent of his own blood, the warmth of it, or should he say the fading warmth of it as it had spilt from him… the sudden offer of the necromancers to bring her back instead of him… if that was what Conrad wished, in exchange for him keeping the portal open that much longer.
Yuri cupped his head in his hands, and no this had nothing to do with a headache brought about by a swift kick to the head. Yuri knew his eyes were watering, but that was his own self-conscience doing what self-consciences do best to teenaged, well, adolescent men. Torture them. "Ah, I uh, got something in my eye." Yuri said as he rubbed away at the tears.
"Yuri?"
Yuri turned to face out of the car window to spot the ever-changing wooded scenery as it moved closer and closer to the hot spring resort Bob had made the arrangements with.
After those necessary few moments, Yuri turned back around, convincing himself that what he just had dreamt was nothing more than that, a horrible, bad dream. Conrad could never hurt him like that, he loved Yuri, so he was obviously just more tired than he cared to admit.
"Yes Conrad?" He smiled playfully at Conrad, the brunette thumbed Yuri's bottom lip and tilted up his chin. Yuri felt he was about to lose himself to the sensation of that same sultry kiss, and then that same crashing sensation of the floor disappearing from under him, but somehow he managed to ignore it, it helped that Conrad's lips weren't pushing onto his.
"Be very careful today, if anything happened to you…" Conrad's voice cut out as if it was too painful to endure even finishing the thought let alone to voice it. "Yuri, you're our world so please be careful."
Yuri smiled at Conrad, "I know, I know! If it's too much I'll stop." He winked at Conrad as he leaned into the strong arms, "And you'll be there, so you should know everything will be fine."
In some sick way it felt like the last-rites, the way the procession had went in order to leave Yuri with the most time away from the magical presence that would otherwise tax him. Murata and Shori were working on the fine details that required just a bit of maryoku while Gunter and Gwendel were busy conversing with the groups explaining just how they are to enter and exit the portal. Upon the end of the detailed instructions, Gwendel noticed the sheepish looks of countless children and the serene stares of some able-bodied males and females.
Yuri and Conrad entered the massive resort, approaching the inn portion in order to deposit and unpack their own belongings; Conrad was certain Yuri would hardly be able to leave the area until he finished this task.
Finally, after these dragging few days, Yuri was able to do what he came here to do, return peace and safety to his worlds. Well, while he wasn't under the disillusionment that he couldn't do that on Earth as he was nothing more than a teenaged Japanese boy in a gakuran, on Shin Makoku he knew he held enough authority to carry the threat.
A thought struck Yuri as he mused about the likelihood of how much of an effect he could have on Earth with the thoughts of how- no, why wars were often started in history lessons. Battles, scouts, he suddenly became very curious to know if Belal's country was in a recession or possibly worse, a famine or disease-state.
After all, the other options tended to be for property-gain or popularity, and he highly doubted Belal would easily be able to raise an army with his current status unless there was more reason, and as there was absolutely no aggression from Shin Makoku, well, Yuri decided he'd ask Gwendel to check on the financial stats, and suggest the sudden import of the finer products Big Chimeron had to offer.
"Conrad," Yuri started, "I want to speak with Gwendel and Gunter before they return. About Belal, you don't think Big Chimeron is in trouble do you?"
Conrad gave him a strange look, well, the question was a bit bizarre, is the country trying to trouble our country having problems? He knew the follow up would be, Can we fix it? "Ah, I do believe Big Chimeron has been in a recession, one of their major crops had a poor yield."
"I see. Opening more trade with Belal may make him have to withdraw his troops, if he sees his chance for financial gain, he might be tempted to actually take his subjects' side."
Conrad smiled, so Yuri was devising ways to keep peace even without an open understanding. It surprised him a bit how Yuri was being a tad bit manipulative, however he knew this was something diplomacy was founded upon. It anything, this marked a mile-stone, Yuri growing more into the role of Maoh but the connotation that he was able to read a situation and play it in a certain way… he thought back to the way Yuri had been looking at him in the car. Yuri was hiding something from him, is hiding something from him, and Conrad wasn't particularly fond of it.
"I shall collect them, then Yuri-heika."
Yuri looked at Conrad, noting the heika with a bit of scorn, "It's Yuri, there's no heika in my name."
Conrad merely bowed to excuse himself. "Please wait here." He decided that paying Murata a visit was apparently necessary.
With Conrad gone, Yuri began to dress for the ceremony, technically he had to look kingly with this, didn't he? Yuri chose to wear a white and black cloak with intricate stitching and detailed precision for the garb. Below it, he wore a black suit more familiar to a uniform than an actual suit, but it was streamlined in a way that defined it as something much more formal than a gakuran. He slipped on two wrist-bands with an imprint of something scarily akin to Morgif on each.
As he was ready to put his crown on, which he supposed he was glad Gunter had insisted he bring, the door slammed open. Conrad was giving Yuri a look of a very dangerous person, the only thing Yuri could think of at the exact moment was Murata let it slip.
"…Conrad?"
He was quickly shuffled towards the wall, pressed to it, making the teen squirm as the brunette's hands crushed Yuri's shoulders. "Those aren't the sort of things to hide from your private guard, Heika."
Yuri swallowed hard, "Conrad… what are you doing? And it's Yuri!" He tried to show some form of indignation, knowing that Conrad's anger trumped his infinitely.
"Explain to me, just when exactly you planned to tell me that they might go berserk during the ceremony?"
Yuri laughed nervously, "Murata has a big mouth, doesn't he."
"I heard this from Wolfram."
"…" Yuri's eyebrow twitched, "…Murata does have a big mouth." He let out a sigh. "Conrad I wasn't going to tell you because if you act like that in there, the chances of them going berserk is all that more."
"So you couldn't trust me?" Conrad's eyebrow gave Yuri a stern look explaining to him that he did not take that excuse as a good one.
"Conrad, I do trust you, don't be like that! You trust me, don't you?" Yuri countered, "Or is it okay to question my judgment?"
Conrad's hands released from Yuri's arms, "…I'm sorry, Yuri. I understand what you're saying, but this is something I must be informed of. I am your personal guard, any information like that is critical for me to have to better your protection. You said you would allow me to protect you, so I need to be informed especially with things that drastic."
Yuri bowed his head, "I… I'm sorry, Conrad. I should have said something, you're right. Please forgive me." All the while, Yuri buzzed in his ears how big of a mouth Murata had when he wanted to.
Conrad stroked Yuri's cheek with the dorsal side of his hand, sad eyes more of a punishment than Yuri thought he could take.
"…Ok, so, um… well, I'm unpacked and dressed… we should, a, get this rolling don't you think?"
Conrad stopped moving his hand, still pressed to Yuri's cheek. Yuri felt how those cheeks burned, he imagined the shade of red he probably was, Conrad leaned in to kiss him. Yuri closed his eyes to enjoy it. After savoring the taste of Conrad's lips for no less than 97 seconds, Yuri pulled back, "We should get going." Yuri mentioned again.
With that said, Conrad relented and let Yuri start his pace. "I love you, Yuri." Conrad whispered before opening the door leading to the main hall of the resort.
Here, Yuri would address the subjects before the procession to the bath-house and Shin Makoku. Yuri swallowed as he faced the horde, two hundred people were in attendance, half of which with a ticket to the other side of the looking-glass as it were, and the rest were either there for support or trouble, but Yuri was pretty sure it was the latter.
A familiar shop-keeper was busy pouring drinks for the children and talking to them about moving, the big adventure, and generally keeping peace. To his side was the would-be Anissina, she was divvying out survival packs, Yuri noticed the distinctive absence of Kiyosuke. He approached the group.
"Attention, everyone, if I may please have your attention." Yuri began.
He felt the eyes of everyone in the room focus in on him, which was a bit unnerving to the teenager, but he got over it as he continued his address, "Everyone who is going to Shin Makoku on this trip should
proceed to the main bath-house. Everyone else, please say your goodbyes here. You will be reunited as soon as possible."
Some cheering was heard, but for the most part it was a solemn event, people waving, hugging, crying and carrying on with their lives. Yuri watched on as the one hundred approved were escorted, the others on lock-down.
Yuri allowed his doctor to accompany the group as the representative, though she assured him she had no plans to go over just quite yet.
Upon viewing the massive pools, Yuri approached Ken and the others, "We'll see you in a few months. Please take care of Shin Makoku in my absence."
Ken nodded, "I'm sure Gwendel will even take down all of Anissina's gaudy trappings by time you get back."
"We'll look into Big Chimeron's activities at once." Gwendel added.
"Good, and please take care of the new denizens." Yuri turned to look at Murata once more, "If there are any incidents… well, just take care and I hope nothing does happen over there."
Ken nodded knowingly, "I'm sure it will be fine, Shibuya."
Yuri nodded once, he was shocked by the sudden looming appearance of his older brother, "What are you mumbling about? This isn't some team-huddle before a ball-game Yuri. They're all waiting."
Laughing off the nervousness, Yuri scratched his head, just glad he could take the bandage off, the crown doing wonders in hiding his chopped section of hair.
"Everyone, we will begin in a few more moments. Please listen to Jose and Shori by moving in single-file lines through the portal."
Yuri took a deep breath and drew out both of his hands, stooping to the water, he touched it with one hand, drawing it upward he splashed the warmed waters, transforming it into a vortex. The swirl settled down into a glowing, ripple-less surface. He nodded at Gwendel who started the procession, walking in. Immediately following him, a string of Mazoku proceeded to enter.
By the time 70 people had transferred, Yuri felt a strange prickling in his arms. He winced, he had figured something like this would happen, to his own dismay.
Conrad eyed Yuri, suspicious of the look on his face. Approaching the teenager, Conrad whispered, "Yuri, are you alright?"
Yuri winced his left eye closed, relying on his right eye to keep the room in focus, he hoped that his eye had enough rest to be willing to perform. "Something's wrong…" Yuri whispered in an equally muted voice, "It feels wrong."
Yuri's left eye opened as he spotted 'something wrong' protruding from the portal, a monstrously out-of-place living blockade… well, okay probably not living but a blockade all the same. It was the size of King Kong's hand reaching through the portal.
His shoulders felt heavy, as the first of the last approached, Yuri became acutely aware that he wouldn't be able to close the portal upon the object. When the doors slammed open, Yuri was expecting a bum rush, but instead found a fiery raven-haired woman storming the main hall. Well, that was promising.
Face contorted in his wince, Yuri drew his left hand away from the water to summon maryoku to attack the intrusive figure.
Yuri let out a shriek of pain as sets of much longer hands reached from the portal, grabbing his ankles and lower legs.
Before Yuri could utter out "Wha" from his question of "What is going on?!" Conrad had his sword drawn and was hacking away the unfortunate bits of expended flesh. Yuri shook his head, returning his focus on the massive hand protruding the worlds, the bum-rush he had initially expected, instead of coming from the hind-quarters, came from where the maintenance equipment was held. A mix of unfamiliar faces with nose-bleeds and even more unfamiliar faces of the long-dead creatures from the surrounding mountains approached as a mass hysteria began to swarm around the exhausted teenager.
Gritting his teeth, Yuri tried to force back a skeletal hand as it chipped away, the dying bodies rushing for the portal as Yuri made efforts to seal it.
Clenching his eyes shut, Yuri's eyes shot back open in narrow focus as an authoritative voice boomed, "You can't go through, it's too late for you already… you're all dead… It won't bring you back!"
All the while, the portal chipped along with the fringed edges of the disintegrating hands, less and less making it through. Yuri took his right and left hands, raising them into the shape of a globe as he began collapsing it smaller and smaller.
As twenty bodies rushed past, several colliding with Yuri as they made their way to the portal, Yuri stumbled back in the way only the awkward teenager could, Conrad grabbed hold around Yuri's waist, pulling him to a defended position, angry that even three others' shoulders brushed so callously against Yuri's.
In a surge of power, Yuri felt the whole room glow blue for a moment before the portal was forced to narrow to an impossibly thin beam, the bodies now enveloped in a soft aura, the hand dropped into its' baser components allowing the portal to shut completely.
Looking at the set of bodies as they began to drop like flies, Yuri felt the tears prickle at the backs of his eyes. Turning to the sudden motion, he spotted the main-hall doors, a large magical circle with three pentagrams and a hexagram intricately drawn in suppressing a small group of four others, the woman in the center seemed annoyed that she even had to put in the effort as she continued to breathlessly chant a sealing-ritual to barricade the doors.
Yuri's eyes rolled under as he collapsed back into Conrad's arms, throwing the brunette slightly out of phase. He re-sheathed his sword before laying Yuri back onto the ground to look over the spent teen.
Conrad noticed the woman approach, taking notice of several slaps to the back of the heads of several intrusive members of the audience.
"Damn, they went through the wrong door. They must have seen me make the circle, bastards." She muttered in a dark voice all too familiar to Anissina's when she was in one of her disappointed moods, minus the colorful bits of course.
Conrad returned his attentions to Yuri.
"Yuri, are you alright?" his hands rested at the sides of Yuri's face as he smoothed down the ivory cheeks, soothing the figure. He sent a tempered glare of more expected-annoyance then rage at the woman. "What was that all about?"
"From the faces I saw, Kiyosuke had minimal success. He was trying to keep the others of the group calm."
Conrad didn't hold out on any hopes for minimal damage to Shin Makoku from their stunt, but was glad the ritual was being held outside of any city limits. "And what exactly was that hand?"
"Oh, just one of the forbidden forces," she placed her hand over her face staving off a headache, "just an all-powerful shinigami." Her eyes widened for a moment before she turned on one of the men. Cuffing his collar, she raised him from the ground and walked him into a wall, gracefully slamming him into it. "Who did you sacrifice?! I said who!"
The man's head fell limply forward, she let the body drop knowing he was just another corpse now.
"Excuse me, I have to find Kiyosuke at once." Conrad continued to give her a measuring look, "Oh don't give me that mistrusting look! In case you missed it, I was keeping them at bay. Gods, they probably murdered someone, it's probably better if I don't look into it." She muttered, notably as she exited to do just that.
"Yuri…" Conrad looked back down at Yuri, then up to see if he could spot Shori, aware at the older Shibuya's absence. At the sounds of thunder, he suspected now just where the Earth maoh's successor must be. He slipped to his feet, raising Yuri up with one arm around his waist, the other holding Yuri's arm slung around his shoulder he drew near the window looking toward the maintenance area.
His eyes tapered thin, witnessing the successor locking out a set of corpse deer, foxes, coyote and raccoons from the area. As Shori changed his concentration from a force-field to beading around the charms, he finished off the set with a yank of the wrist, sending the bodies to the ground.
He panted in a gasp.
Conrad looked back in, at Yuri, the teen seemed to be blinking himself out of sleep. Bowing next to Yuri he put a firm hand on his shoulder, "Yuri, please rest a bit longer."
Yuri's eyes suddenly shot open wide, pupils slitted. They rounded out before Conrad's eyes as Yuri came around.
The teen's mouth gaped, "…Belal… he's dead. Murata said that he was murdered by some freakish monster…" His eyes slimmed down, "…two guesses what it looked like."
Conrad's mouth opened in shock before quickly coming to his senses as Yuri staggered to his feet and approach the water.
Conrad grabbed Yuri by the wrist and pulled him away from the water. "Don't even try it, Yuri, you're in no shape."
"Do you realize what kind of national crisis this is now?! Conrad!" Black eyes flared dangerously, "The king to the second-most sized nation has been murdered and by the reports it sounds like an assassination from Shin Makoku, if I don't get back over there to work on diplomatic relations we could be facing a maj--"
Conrad slapped Yuri hard across the face.
"Your going there is inconsequential right now."
Yuri's eyes went large, shocked at the sudden strike, "Ah, thanks I needed that." Yuri bowed his head, his back followed suit as he fell into Conrad's chest unable to keep his own footing. "I'll have to leave this to Gwendel… and I'll finish up the emigration, that's what we agreed upon wasn't it?"
Conrad nodded once. He held up Yuri's cheek.
Yuri smiled with his eyes closed, though it was apparent to anyone that he was feeling a mixed victory to say the least. "We sent over the one hundred people… so at least we're on our way." Yuri bowed his head; political ramifications were running amok, now, instead of domestic issues. "Tomorrow, we're sending another hundred."
Conrad nodded knowing nothing he said would change a thing.
TBC.