Disclaimer: I don't own Monochrome Factor or any of its characters.

Author's Note: Summer makes me really lazy, so this took really long to write… Well, most of this was done at around the same time as the previous chapter, but I never seemed to get around to editing it. Ah, I'm sorry I'm so slow! And there's no fight scene, so I'm actually a bit disappointed…

Warning: Some implied stuff, kissing, evil scheming, and not much humor going on. Thought I should warn about it just in case.

The King is Dead, Long Live the King

Chapter Ten: Promoted Bishop Part III

While the other Shin moved to the table of food outside or over to Sawaki to remind him of the outing to the light world he had promised them, Shirogane looked sideways at Ryuuko and found that the other was still blushing, his mouth compressed, and the blood showing under smooth pale cheeks as if through paper. Ryuuko's eyes were fixed on the interesting chip on the pillar nearest where they stood, and his arms were crossed loosely over each other. Shirogane noted one finger idly tracing a line along his upper arm over and over, and he turned so that he faced Ryuuko more fully. "Do you want to check up on Kou?"

Ryuuko looked at him, startled, his flush turning guilty, and Shirogane frowned. Hadn't he been thinking about Kou? But now Ryuuko nodded, and Shirogane led the way back to his palace. Even though Ryuuko should know at least a little of the way by then—he'd visited a few times before on business, and the path they had taken earlier was a simple one to remember—Ryuuko looked distracted enough that Shirogane thought it better to lead.

He wondered, with a slight feeling of resentment and even slighter disgruntled guilt, if Ryuuko was worrying about the affairs he had left…or been pulled away from…in the light world. That wouldn't explain why he was blushing though.

He couldn't still be thinking about the kiss, could he?

Shirogane looked back at Ryuuko and decided he was still thinking about it. He sighed.

"There's a garden if you want to see it," Shirogane said.

"No, it's all right."

"We can go to the light world if you want."

"No, it's all right."

Shirogane stopped walking. "…There's hakua eating your hair."

A pause from Ryuuko, who also stopped walking to blink at him. Then Ryuuko said, his tone amused: "I am listening, you know. You don't have to test me with a farfetched statement."

"I mean," Shirogane said, "there is hakua eating your hair."

Ryuuko turned around with a speed that almost dislodged the hakua from him, had it not been, as Shirogane had mentioned, attached to his hair. More slowly this time, Ryuuko craned his neck to look behind him. The hakua was sucking on the edges of his hair, probably attracted to it because it belonged to another being of light. It dug its thin insectile legs in the fabric of the skirt, and another inch of hair disappeared in its mouth. Ryuuko made a sound that could have been a whimper of fear, sympathy, or plain disgust.

Ryuuko pulled the hakua from him cautiously, wincing a bit at the saliva left on his hair. He pulled his hair over his shoulder and wiped it down using the gown's ample skirts with a probably understandable lack of modesty. Shirogane thought Ryuuko might have forgotten what he was wearing, or more probably that he wasn't wearing his normal clothes underneath them.

Ryuuko let the skirt down. He squatted to inspect the hakua on the ground, finally probing it with a gentle finger. "You really only realized now?" Shirogane asked, his eyes narrowed slightly in disbelief.

"The corset's too tight," Ryuuko answered, his cheeks warming again. "I was too caught up with the pain in my ribs that I didn't realize I was hurting somewhere else. This hakua is in bad shape," he added loudly, setting his hands on its back to heal it. The hakua made a senseless animal purr of gratitude, its back beginning to gleam with a healthier sheen. Ryuuko stopped once or twice, apparently not fully recovered himself. Finally, Ryuuko looked up from his work with an apologetic smile. "Um, could you…?"

Shirogane materialized his sword and cut a hole in the ground, and Ryuuko nudged the hakua into the opening and back to the light world. The hole sealed again, Shirogane allowed his weapon to disappear. "Shouldn't you have sensed there was hakua nearby?"

"My carelessness, I'm afraid." Ryuuko gave a little nervous laugh, and seeing Shirogane wasn't going to let him go with just that, elaborated a bit: "I was trying to sense something else."

"Something else?" Shirogane pressed. Ryuuko flicked him a glance from under long bangs.

"Why are you being so attentive, Shirogane?"

Shirogane couldn't have stopped his quick flare of annoyance if he tried. "Because you're clearly worrying about something."

Ryuuko smiled, and Shirogane tried to hide his own frown; the smile had come too quickly and was therefore suspicious. And then Ryuuko reached lightly and patted his back. It was probably something Ryuuko had often seen Kou do for other people, because there was a sense that the action was a borrowed one and not something Ryuuko would normally do. Even so, Shirogane found himself relaxing his guard a bit.

"You're thinking too much, Shirogane," Ryuuko said. His hand traveled up, squeezed Shirogane's shoulder briefly and released it. Shirogane was not fully convinced, but he started walking again, and Ryuuko fell in step beside him. Shirogane didn't remember the path being that long, but then, they had previously taken it at a run. Finally, though, they passed under the grainy shadow of the arches that marked one of the entrances to the palace.

"It was necessary," Shirogane said, and Ryuuko looked up.

"Hmm? What do you mean?"

"The kiss was necessary," Shirogane said doggedly, keeping his eyes on the path in front of them and not stopping even when Ryuuko's steps faltered and came to a complete halt. Shirogane had gone some twenty feet before Ryuuko closed the distance between them in a thoughtless sprint, slowing down to match Shirogane's strides and stare at him with eyes that seemed a little too brightly red in their scrutiny. Suddenly Shirogane wasn't very sure. "Weren't you worrying about it?"

"As to that," Ryuuko said, and paused. His hand moved unconsciously to his lip. He did not, however, blush again. "I did think putting your tongue in was going a bit too far for something that was only necessary…but if you say it was all out of necessity, that would actually hurt a bit." Ryuuko caught his look of surprise and mumbled: "At least I think so."

Shirogane tried to translate that into something he could understand and which wasn't too hopefully biased towards him. "So you weren't worrying about it?"

"No…"

"Well," Shirogane said, noticing that they had stopped in the middle of the hall, and that Ryuuko was starting imperceptibly to fidget. "In any case, I suppose we should go."

Ryuuko nodded, and they started walking again. "Kou might already be awake," Shirogane said conversationally, flashing Ryuuko a sideways glance. There was that look of guilt again, and Ryuuko's hand reached to tug at the high collar of his coat, but found nothing over his throat, of course. Ryuuko brought his hand down to his side again. "Ah, yes, he just might be…"

…

"This was obviously designed by Shirogane, that bastard," Kou huffed, and kicked an innocent pebble out of the way. "No care at all… Didn't he just repeat this same design for everything and change a bit? And also, this attempt at scenery…"

Kou sighed, his gaze running over the airy walkways with arches scattered here and there, the tall stairs with no hand-guards which led to hidden recesses or gave way to other paths. Kou thought Shirogane had probably cracked open a photographed catalogue for some temple ruins, and without really putting much thought to it, decided that was how his realm should look like. That would have been like Shirogane, all right. Never mind that the light realm was actually similar in appearance in a lot of ways.

"Such a smelly dump," Kou said loudly for his own assurance, although his grin wavered when he passed by the wall he'd scratched earlier with a rather involved drawing of his face with his tongue out. "Damn, that's the second time…"

Kou stopped and dragged his claw across the surface of the wall, scratching out a squiggly Shirogane with a hammer falling on his head. "Divine punishment," Kou chuckled, admiring his handiwork. "If you look like that all the time, I might even get to like you…"

"And now destruction of property," said a voice behind him, and Kou jumped, scowling when he identified the voice as Sawaki's. "Please don't cause too much trouble for me."

"Hey now," Kou said, turning around and shrugging heavily under the other's frown, taking quick refuge in lightheartedness. "You forgave my existence for this long, don't get worked up over one or two drawings just because I can draw better than you."

"That's not your wall."

"This isn't your wall either."

"I still hold a tenuous claim over it," Sawaki defended, his voice taking a faintly hysterical edge. "Who do you think cleans up here?"

"…Is that really something you want people to know?" Kou asked with a disgusted pout. He made an unrepentant shooing motion with his hand when Sawaki moved forward with his hands fisted at his sides. "I'm joking," Kou said, "joking. Ah, this is Shirogane-san, by the way," Kou added, indicating his scribble. "Not you." He thought probably that was the problem.

Sawaki sighed and quite deliberately did not touch that subject. "What are you doing here?"

"Looking for Ryuuko," Kou replied, and Sawaki nodded. "You missed their wedding of course," Sawaki said, and covered his ears at the resulting cry. He waited before removing his hands from his ears and adding: "They must be back by now."

"You mean he's with Shirogane."

"What else, Kou?" Sawaki stared at Kou for a moment and took pity. "You shouldn't stay long here," he said, gruff and matter-of-fact, the kind of voice he used when he didn't know what voice to use. Kou hadn't caught on with this yet though; he just thought Sawaki was stuffy that way.

"Yeah, you can't wait to get rid of me, can you?" Kou said, plodding away from Sawaki. "Unfortunately for you, I don't plan to leave Ryuuko here."

Sawaki did not try to follow Kou or detain him, but after a moment's silence he did call after: "Kou. This is for when you reach that first intersection. Turn left, then for the intersections that follow: right, straight forward, left. A long walkway with arches, and then another intersection. Right, straight forward, another right."

Kou stopped walking. The stiffness of his back at least told Sawaki that he'd heard, and that he was considering the instructions carefully, memorizing them. Still, Kou looked at Sawaki over his shoulder. "And then I end up even more lost than I am now?"

"If you don't have Ryuuko with you," Sawaki said, meeting Kou's eyes and speaking with a different level of seriousness, "it's impossible for you to get more lost, right?"

"Hmph," Kou said grudgingly after a while, and dropped his gaze. "You don't expect me to follow you at all, which must mean that you want me to take any path except the one you said I should take, and that therefore has to be the right one."

"A confusing line of thought," Sawaki said slowly, and Kou laughed.

"Ah, I'm just saying I'll try that," Kou explained, "but I'm not thanking you because I know you tried to trick me." Kou looked at Sawaki critically. "This would probably lead me to Lulu or something," he said. But Sawaki's expression didn't change at all, so Kou walked on and called 'Thanks' over his shoulder.

"You just said you wouldn't thank me," Sawaki said.

"You obviously weren't expecting it," Kou answered with a lazy wave of his hand. As he walked, he muttered the instructions to himself to be sure he remembered them. Further on, the walls of the labyrinth stopped precisely before a dusty clearing, down the middle of which ran what was most likely Sawaki's 'long walkway with arches.' Kou walked down it with the feeling of wary trust disappearing somewhere in his stomach, replaced by a slight feeling of stupidity.

"…another right, and then I'm…here."

Lulu looked up from attacking the plate of cake in her hand with a fork. "Poochy! So you came for some cake after all!"

Kou sighed. "I knew it…"

…

Shirogane turned the knob with a sense of dry suspicion—normal since he was dealing with Kou—and opened the door to a room littered by cotton from a gutted pillow. The perpetrator, however, was nowhere to be found, probably gone out the open window before Shirogane could have a chance to skewer him, or Ryuuko to scold the brat and then forgive him with an infuriating statement like 'Well, I suppose I wasn't watching you properly.' Shirogane thought of that, and decided he could forgive Kou for not having stayed around.

"He's not here," Shirogane said aloud. He started to turn, but Ryuuko slipped his arms around Shirogane's shoulders from behind, pressing his cheek against the hair falling freely over the back of Shirogane's head and neck. Shirogane paused for a breath. "Ryuuko?"

Ryuuko's answer was to tighten his hold around Shirogane. Even if human restrictions didn't apply to them, Ryuuko was holding tightly enough that Shirogane had to fight back a wince. He lifted his head slightly, eyes gentle as he patted Ryuuko's arm, and after a while Ryuuko relaxed his hold and pulled back, hands still lightly resting on Shirogane's back and shaking a bit. Shirogane loosened the neck of his coat in a lazy effort to encourage the air back in his lungs, but ultimately wasted the effort by turning and pulling Ryuuko into a kiss. He was just a little surprised when the other tentatively kissed back.

They stumbled towards the bed and fell down on it, and Shirogane finally broke the kiss to push himself up on his elbows. Ryuuko took hold of the front of Shirogane's coat and pulled him close, and Shirogane understood it was embarrassment more than anything; Ryuuko didn't want him far enough away to see him sprawled there like that.

Shirogane kissed Ryuuko again, waiting for the other to loosen his grip before pushing himself up to gaze down at him. He laughed softly at the frustrated look on Ryuuko's face. "Ryuuko…" Shirogane murmured the first thing that came to mind: "You don't know how to kiss."

Ryuuko flushed and pulled Shirogane down by his coat again. He said, almost reproachfully: "It's not something a king needs to be particularly good at." But he allowed Shirogane to sit back, only frowning up at him a bit. "You seem to be very good at it," he said at length. "Do I want to know who you've been practicing on?"

"You when you were asleep," Shirogane said, just to watch Ryuuko's eyes go wide. He chuckled and buried his face in Ryuuko's neck, stroking strands of their hair out of the way. Ryuuko squirmed, but recovered enough to hold Shirogane away by the shoulders and say "That was a joke, right?" Instead of answering, Shirogane busied himself with unfastening the corset, and Ryuuko forgot his question and took in a long grateful breath, eyes sliding shut in relief.

"Ryuuko," Shirogane said, serious, "you're not drunk, are you?"

Ryuuko held still for a moment, then opened his eyes to stare vacantly over to one side. "Well, I was hoping I would be," Ryuuko admitted.

"Why?"

Ryuuko looked at Shirogane, then turned his face away. "To make things easier…I suppose?"

Shirogane frowned slightly at that, and dropped himself down on the side of the bed facing Ryuuko. The other, surprised, met his gaze and held it. "I hope you know I will never take advantage of you that way," Shirogane said.

"I didn't think—" Ryuuko began in a dismayed rush, but checked himself, willing himself back to his usual calm. He clasped Shirogane's hand and said more normally: "I'm sorry, Shirogane. That was just running away, wasn't it?"

Shirogane looked at Ryuuko for a long moment. "No," Shirogane said. "Not really. Just stupid." And Ryuuko laughed a bit.

"All right. I'll agree with that."

After all, Shirogane had to ask: "How long did you know about Kou?"

Ryuuko's pause had a little of surprise and a lot of self-consciousness in it. "Since the beginning," he said. "Kou tried to activate a bit of his power, then thought better of it."

"So that alerted you, but you say nothing, and we return to an empty room," Shirogane said, and smirked, reclaiming his previous position on top of his counterpart. "How fortunate for me."

Ryuuko shifted uneasily, almost panicked. "Shirogane," he said, looking over Shirogane's shoulder. "Close the door." When Shirogane only leaned down to kiss him again, Ryuuko put his hand against the other's chin and pushed him away. "Shirogane!"

"All right," Shirogane said sullenly. "But afterwards, you're giving me a reward."

…

For the first time in the last three days or so, Kou actually felt mature. Lulu had that effect on some people, especially when she got to repeating herself in that high voice she used. Since Shirogane usually compared Kou with Lulu whenever he caught Kou complaining to Ryuuko about something, Kou felt a little miffed and offended. His voice wasn't Lulu-high, and he didn't cling! Not unless it was Ryuuko, anyway.

"What, Poochy isn't going to eat anything?"

"For the last time…" Kou sighed, moving his shoulder blade in quick but hopeless shrugs to try to dislodge Lulu. By then he knew she didn't even need to cling harder to stay put. And why was the feel of her breasts on his back just making him tearful instead of happy? "It's not 'Poochy.' That's Kou-san or Kou-kun to you. I'll even settle with 'kouhai' if you really feel like your seniority should be respected."

That was one thing about her too: she was supposed to be older than him. Which meant she knew Shirogane and Ryuuko for longer, and to her, as probably to Sawaki, Kou was like a baby chick kept around for pet purposes. And he wasn't exactly sure they weren't right. Ryuuko had never clearly told him why he thought Kou's existence as a Child was a good idea, and he didn't need to know what Sawaki thought.

Lulu put a finger to her lip. "Kou-kouhai?" she said, and burst into a fit of giggles. "Kou-kouhai?" Lulu tested the sound again, and Kou gave another sigh.

"Lulu, you know the way back to the palace, right?"

"Lulu does, but…"

"Shirogane's there right now." He crossed his fingers for her to take the bait, but Lulu only shifted, and then after all released him, jumping to the table to dangle her feet down the side. She propped herself up with her arms on either side of her and looked over her shoulder with her face arranged in a not-quite-pout. "I know that, but…" She let that hang too.

"But?" Kou repeated, feeling impatient. Lulu's face screwed into a proper pout this time.

"Lulu doesn't want to cause trouble, and Sawaki said to leave them alone."

"Oi, oi," Kou said, lightly. "Bad things might happen if we leave them alone. The ground could break open… my hand might accidentally twitch and smack that cake from the table. Sawaki might find his weekly planner missing…" The second one was a threat, but the last was a promise to himself more than anything; and if Sawaki was any bit like Ryuuko, Kou would know where his planner was kept too.

Lulu dismissed both threat and promise with a wave of her hand. "That can't be, right?" Lulu said. And then, face contorting in an expression Kou guessed was only softened by her face not being used to it: "You have to try harder than that. Kou-kouhai," she added as an afterthought, not laughing.

Kou sighed again, turning away from Lulu, who jumped right back to happily babbling about something else. Everyone on the Shin side was crazy, and he was beginning to wonder just how Ryuuko and Shisui were able to keep calm when dealing with them. Especially Shisui, seeing as he mostly took care of business with Shin after it had sadly been established that Ryuuko was too naive for his own good, and incapable of hard bargaining besides. Suddenly, Kou started.

"Ah," he said in hollow realization. "I forgot about Shisui."

…

"This is unexpected," Ryuuko said over his shoulder, sounding like he really hadn't expected it. "When you said you wanted a reward, you meant tea with me."

Ryuuko was back in his old clothes, though these were a bit crumpled and missing the arm bands and gloves. Having found Ryuuko somehow still unable to materialize new clothes, they had gone to look for his old ones, and Ryuuko told Shirogane that Lulu had taken them earlier for safekeeping. Lulu's idea had apparently been to tuck them away in different drawers between other clothes, probably so Ryuuko would have a hard time finding them again if he backed out. Fortunately, Shirogane had been able to find most of them, and then later he remembered to ask Ryuuko for his reward.

Shirogane sighed and moved his teacup idly in front of him on the kitchen table. "Because we were interrupted last time."

"Hmm, well, tea is always nice," Ryuuko said, glancing back at Shirogane with a smile that dropped a bit as he continued: "But you don't have any tea leaves."

"We have enough tea things," Shirogane said, sounding like he wasn't concerned at all. "See? We have cups. Saucers too."

Ryuuko sighed and gently lifted a small stack of coasters out of the way of his rummaging. "Saucers usually do go with cups," he said in the type of voice Shirogane imagined went with a raised eyebrow. "Ah, wait, I think I found something…" Ryuuko returned to the table with a small cardboard box Shirogane didn't even recognize as his anymore. He frowned down at it, finally lifting his gaze back to Ryuuko, who was dusting the top of the box with his hand to read what was written on it. "Well," Shirogane said when Ryuuko's eyes half-closed in a critical stare, "what is it?"

"Black tea," Ryuuko said, opening the box. "In teabags." Ryuuko lifted one out by its string, turning it. "And this one has been used before." He gave Shirogane the same stare he had given the teabag, then set the teabag down to heat some water. "Somehow I feel like I understand your character more and more," Ryuuko remarked.

Shirogane lifted an eyebrow. "And what character is that?"

"To begin with," Ryuuko said thoughtfully, filling the silence as they waited for the water to boil, "you're the type of person who doesn't stop to consider others much. You don't like asking for help, approach people only when you have no choice in the matter, trust people sparingly and expect them to completely trust you, and generally try to do a lot of things on your own. Which sometimes results in interesting failures."

Shirogane's eye twitched. "You just wanted to tell me that and couldn't find a way to say it, am I right?"

"No, no…rather than criticism, that was an observation. How do I say this? I thought it was really like you."

Shirogane narrowed his eyes, not knowing how else to react. "You have strange ideas about what isn't criticism," he said slowly.

Ryuuko laughed gently, returning to the table to pour hot water over the tea bags he had placed inside their cups earlier. "Obviously some of that wasn't just from seeing your tea," he said. "But you know, Shirogane, people don't usually put used teabags back in the box they came from. It's easier to leave them lying on the table. I know that's what Kou does. If this was Sawaki, he would have disposed of it properly, but it was put back so neatly in the box, so I thought it had to be you."

Shirogane frowned. "Why should it be me?"

"Well…" Ryuuko glanced at the box again. "Teabags should be thrown out after you're done with them, unless you're scrimping and don't mind using the same ones over again. You're the only one I can think of who might not concern himself with knowing something like that," Ryuuko said bluntly. "And besides," he added, smiling again, "I don't get to see it often, but this definitely has the mark of Shirogane's gentle and awkward side."

Shirogane looked down at his cup and didn't say anything. But he did raise his eyes after a moment, saw Ryuuko glancing at him, and wondered if he hadn't been able to hold down his blush.

Ryuuko leaned forward slightly. "Shirogane?" he said. "You have to agitate it."

Shirogane blinked a few times in perfect lack of understanding, wondering what sort of order that was, and Ryuuko sighed and flicked his wrist, moving the teabag around slightly in his cup by the string. "Don't just let it lie there like that," Ryuuko said. "Or it's not going to taste very good."

"Of course," Shirogane said, and stirred his own teabag around obediently.

…

"So? Why did you call me here?" Sawaki asked, and added, "My lord."

Homurabi frowned at the disrespect implied by that pause, but did not directly comment on it. Instead, he said: "I want to remind you that your contract is for absolute obedience."

Sawaki glanced up from inspecting the wrecked tiles of the floor, making a point not to ask Homurabi how it had happened. "You have no need to remind me of that," Sawaki said, and added dryly: "If it's on your order, I'll lick the floor or whatever you want."

Homurabi hesitated only briefly, then stepped away from the balcony and moved nearer to where Sawaki stood on the other side of the hall. Something about him made Sawaki flinch, and then he realized that Homurabi was looking rather thoughtful. Sawaki bore his stare for as long as he could, then hazarded an uneasy guess: "Do you require proof?"

"Yes," Homurabi said. "How about you to sing the most embarrassing song you know?"

Sawaki allowed the pause to stretch a bit before he said: "I don't know any songs." It wasn't a lie, exactly. If he didn't include the songs that had inevitably burned their way to his brain because of Lulu singing them, then he really didn't know any songs.

"Dance?" Homurabi asked expectantly, and Sawaki said: "Can't I just lick the floor?"

Homurabi frowned, his eyes narrowing in his face in judgment. "Why do you keep mentioning licking the floor? If that's a fetish, Sawaki…"

Sawaki slapped a hand to his face, feeling very tired. "My lord, I am loyal. That is what you want to know, right? In any case, why do you need to know?" Now it was Sawaki's turn to look at Homurabi with his eyes narrowed. "You didn't kill anyone, did you? And need to hide the body?"

Homurabi moved one of his earrings idly between his fingers. And then, gently and seemingly off-topic, he asked: "What do you think about the balance between our worlds?"

"A tiring topic," Sawaki said. But Homurabi only waited patiently for him to continue, and Sawaki sighed. He had in fact expected talk like this before, but not now. And he couldn't just pretend that he didn't understand, not when it was Homurabi himself who had brought it up. "It has never come down to a war," he said, treading carefully around the topic.

"But the balance can be tipped in our favor," Homurabi said, "if Ryuuko wasn't there."

There was no way but be direct about it then. Sawaki had the urge to slap Homurabi across the face, but that was surely pushing the limits of what he could do, and random brawls had always been Kou's way, not his.

"Any plan about tipping the balance can only lead to failure," Sawaki said. "Let's admit it, lord: no side can win in this. If we get rid of Ryuuko, which is what you seem to be dangerously implying here, it might mean the end of both worlds. There will be one Direct King, and even if that Direct King is on our side, it's not necessarily a good thing when he has no counterpart and his counterpart is there as a means to keep his power stable."

Homurabi watched him with a show of amusement that did not alarm Sawaki so much as irritated him. Homurabi had never really been threatening to him, and Homurabi's composure now was only making him surly. "So you think it can't be done?"

"Impossible. Yes."

"But the two worlds might actually have begun from one world, and only the existence of the Direct Kings keeps the two separate. In which case, tipping the balance would mean going back to how the world should be, wouldn't it? As for my brother…" Homurabi paused, and finally seemed to hesitate. But he went on: "As for Shirogane, you said it yourself. If his power becomes unstable, it would be dangerous to have him here. However, there is a simple solution for that." Homurabi looked at Sawaki, watching for his reaction. "Once the light world loses its Direct King," Homurabi said, "we will give them ours. Perhaps that will even affirm the balance for a while."

"What do you mean?"

"Exile."

Sawaki allowed that to sink in, and then sighed and shook his head. "This isn't something we should be talking about, is it?" Sawaki said. He made to turn away.

"Sawaki," Homurabi said, and his tone was light. "This is the time when you can't turn back, or I will kill you."

Sawaki stopped. "Are you giving the order as a King?"

"Yes."

Sawaki did not even bother sighing this time, but dropped on one knee before Homurabi and bowed his head. "I understand." He lifted his head, but did not look at Homurabi. "Whatever else you might have planned, the world might simply just end anyway. Are you all right with that?"

"I don't care about the end of the world," Homurabi said, turning back towards the balcony and the shadows that massed underneath it. "All I wish for…"