Dedication: This chapter is for Little-Snuffy.

Comments: I am so happy that my fan fiction account is back up! Not updating when I had the chapter ready almost killed me.

*If you want a chapter dedicated to you, please let me know.

Quote of the Chapter: If we do not plant knowledge when young, it will give us no shade when we areold. Chesterfield

Chapter 21: The Maou's Mistake

Wolfram was sitting on the bed with his arms crossed, looking slightly crankily at the world around him. Yuuri and Murata had been searching for their other companions all morning, but they had not showed up nor said where they were going when they left. His stomach clenched with worry. 'Something feels wrong,' Wolfram thought. 'Very wrong.'

His eyes searched the grounds before him, the night heavy and thick. When he peered out the window from his bedroom into the castle grounds, he caught sight of a blonde figure staring directly up into his window. A very familiar blonde figure.

"Eternity," he cried, nearly toppling over as he clambered to his feet.

Though it would be impossible for any mortal to hear his words through a closed window, she obviously did, and she waved and smiled at him. Shakily he stumbled forward, grabbing his cane again. He hobbled out the door as fast as he could, but then paused when he realized what was going on.

Everything around him was, once again, frozen solid. Yuuri was wearing a funny expression as his mouth was opened mid-word, talking to Flynn who was standing near him with an earnest grin on her face. Murata was nearby with his arms crossed, glasses causing his face to shadow. The entire hallway was eerily still, especially the way a maid was about to sit down but was stuck in the postion half way.

He exited the hallway, heading towards the courtyard ground. Eternity was waiting for him there, hair hanging down her back, blue eyes flickering. Her entire body was slightly see-through, and Wolfram wondered whether he could put his hand through her if he tried.

"Wolfram!" Eternity smiled warmly when she saw him approach. "I'm glad that you're here."

"Where else would I be!?" Wolfram said, frowning. "Do you know what happened to my older brother!? We can't seem to find him anywhere."

Her smile faded several molars. "Unfortunately, I… Dagaz has them, Wolfram. But they are both alive. His immediate goal is to use them as bait, I believe."

"NO!" Wolfram howled. "Why didn't you stop it!?"

"I did try." Eternity said softly. "But his powers are growing too great. We'll have to do it physically; there is no other way…."

"How can I when I'm like this!?" he growled back, eyes flickering angrily. "I can barely walk…My brother is in dangers and I'm stuck behind the castle walls."

For a moment Eternity eyed him, then she gave a soft, depressed sigh before nodding. She approached him slowly, placing her hand on his forehead. A tingling feeling ran up his back and neck, filling his soul with a strange sensation. The next thing he knew, he felt well again. Probably better than he had before he had gotten sick in the first place.

Eternity nodded. "You're healed…"

Wolfram agreed. "I can tell…I feel like somebody gave me the world's best shower."

For a moment Eternity paused, her eyes flicking away from him slowly. She looked very sad for a second, and Wolfram watched it all with great intensity. The guardian looked as though she had been weeping, though he wasn't one hundred percent sure why.

"What's the matter, Eternity?" Wolfram frowned. "You have me, remember? We'll get Dagaz…We'll rip him to shreds--"

"DON'T!" Eternity howled. "I don't….I don't want him to die."

For a moment there was an awkward silence that filled the night, and it was made one hundred times worse because there was no wind or bugs to even fill up the quiet. The stillness was merely there, heavy and thick like a milkshake, dangling before them as if waiting for their mouths to open so it could choke them.

"You don't…want anything to happen to Dagaz?" Wolfram cried loudly. "After all he has done to your friends and the rest of the guardians…I understand that you feel bad for him, but it seems to me that you're not telling half the story! What's going on!? I'm the one that's helping you---I should at least know the truth."

When Wolfram looked up again, he discovered that Eternity had a different, darker appearance about her. Hair hung in her face thick and golden, making her eyes that once sparkled with love looking greatly shadowed. For a moment he stared at her expression, frightened a little now, wondering if the blonde had a crazy edge to her that he hadn't known about. 'Well,' he thought wearily. 'She does spend that much time alone…She has to feel the need to break free--sometime.'

Her hand reached forward and grasped his shoulder, and he felt as though electric shock went through his body. He let out a loud cry that filled the night, crumbling to his knees before the world returned back to normal. Already he could hear Yuuri's frightened screaming, running to the blond that was now a crumbled ball on the square floor.

Yozak and Conrad were shivering in the corner, their bodies stripped down to their traditional black underwear with sores covering their flesh from where they were tortured. The room was darker than dark and as cold as anything could ever be. Before them was the mound of bodies, disgusting and swollen with blood and drying strips of skin.

Neither of them had talked much since they had gotten trapped in here.

"Do you think that the kiddo will be able to figure out where we are?" Yozak asked softly, his hands wrapped around his thick, muscular legs as he stared into the pile of bodies. "If he doesn't, then…You know I always thought that I was prepared to die, but when it came this close, I got scared….really scared…."

Conrad gave him a pitying look. He seemed oddly out of place without his uniform, he also cold as goose bumps sprouted from his skin like lumpy hills. Even his eyes were dark with worry, his large hands curled underneath his hairy legs. What he wanted was some clothes, but he knew that was out of the question. Dagaz wanted to make them feel vulnerable--weak--so that they wouldn't be as able to escape.

This was something that Conrad understood. He had been close to death before on the battlefield. "Everyone is scared to die, whether they say they are or not…I'm certain even the Great Sage feels it, even though he has reincarnated so many times."

Yozak nodded. "Well, I hope Wolfram and that guardian know what they're doing. Or else we might get the worst kind of fate. It isn't cool to be thrown into a pile of naked bodies…I want to at least die on the battlefield. Seems to me that this is kind of unfair."

"You should tell that to Dagaz." Conrad said, shaking his head. "Maybe he'd give you the privilege."

"Humph."

But Conrad was standing up now, feeling awkward as the breeze tickled his body in all the wrong ways. He shook his head, walking over to the door before squatting before it, hearing a deep voice on the other side. Before long he had a companion, one that was tall with overly large biceps.

They pressed their ears to the crack, listening:

"Make sure that none of them escape…" Dagaz hissed grittily. "I want to make it so the blonde human is defecated…Every inch of him must be ripped limb from limb…"

There was no answer, but Conrad got the point of what Dagaz wanted to do to his baby brother. Wolfram's face flashed before him, passionate and beautiful. Though his younger sibling had gone through stages of being a brat, it was something that Conrad could easily understand…For awhile, he had experienced the same thing.

When they were growing up, though Lady Cheri never admitted it, all of them had been a bit neglected. As queen, their mother was busy with the war, and there had been more than one time that the woman had burst into tears when she thought that no one was watching…But someone was. Wolfram had a sneaky way of hiding behind closed doors when he was small.

That was why Conrad could never hold any of Wolfram's temperamental ways against him. The young boy had been confused, fatherless, and without any real proper guidance. The war that was constantly raging was eminent in the back of everyone's minds….That was not an environment that any child should have to grow up in. Probably, Conrad assumed, that was why the blonde had such trouble dealing with his feelings.

"He's going after your kiddo." Yozak said. "What are we going to do?"

Conrad smiled. "What do we always do? I promised my little brother that I would protect him, and I meant it….No one is going to hurt Wolfram again, that I assure you."

"I thought you'd say that, Captain."

Conrad frowned. "This is going to be difficult without swords, though…"

That made Yozak give a grin.

"Besides those."

"Aye, aye."

For a moment they both clambered around in the thick, oozing bodies, tossing away limbs and pretending that they were merely pieces of cow meat. The only problem was that it was hard to imagine such things when the body parts were still slightly warm, and sometimes they found bits of people that made it impossible to even think that they weren't human.

By the time they were done, their own bodies were covered up to their waists in red, thick, congealed smears, even making Yozak want to go into a corner and vomit all over the place. The orange haired man stepped improperly on a body part, falling on his back in the heaps of blood and guts. Sputtering, he came up looking as though he had taken a swim in thick, red hair dye.

The man opened his mouth in disgust, about to get up, when his hand ran across something sharp. He pulled out what used to be apart of a leg, coming up with a holster that was holding multiple throwing knives. He pulled them out triumphantly, showing Conrad who nodded and tried to smile. That was, however, hard to do when you were up to your knees in human slime and body fluids.

Eventually they both had some mediocre weapons. Conrad had managed to scrounge up a chef's knife with serrated edges, and Yozak picked up a few of the heavier bones laying about just in case. It wouldn't be much good, but it was better than nothing. Both of them looked at each other, shrugging.

"I would say that I've had worse," Conrad commented. "But I'm not one hundred percent sure that's true…."

"Yes, well," Yozak muttered. "I must admit that I don't usually try to tackle monsters nearly nude, covered with blood and human entrails, armed with femur bones."

"I suppose it's always best to be open to new experiences."

Yozak grinned. "Definitely. Let's go get 'em, Commander."

Wolfram was in a nightgown the color of champagne that the maids had brought him, the silky texture smooth against his now undamaged skin. His arms were wrapped around himself, and he wondered what was going on: Why had Eternity hurt him? She was supposed to be on their side, wasn't she? She had helped him get out of trouble a thousand times before.

Yuuri snored very quietly from beside him, so soft that it was barely audible at all. His body flopped forward out of the bed, the gown falling to his ankles and brushing his skin. For a moment he went to the mirror, tracing his now smooth skin, the person staring back at him looking slightly alien.

"Conrad," Wolfram said softly. "I'm so sorry…"

This was all his fault. Now he was confused, unsure of which side he was on, not knowing whether he wanted to tell Yuuri that it was the guardian that was supposedly 'helping' them that stunned him. Though he hadn't been hurt by it, just knocked unconscious, he was now no longer certain of his loyalties. 'Yuuri is the only thing I'm sure of now.' he thought.

Even that, he wasn't one hundred percent certain of. Truthfully, before this all happened, he had been considering letting Yuuri go. It wasn't like he loved the king any less--in fact, it was the intensity of it that made him consider it. He began to become adult enough to finally heed his brother's words: "If you trap someone, they end up hating you for it."

Yuuri hating him was the last thing that he ever wanted….Now that reality was sinking in, his green eyes flickering at the king's face, he wondered which path he wanted to choose. His fiancé was acting so warm, so affectionate, lately, like Wolfram had always wanted him to be. But now he was no longer certain of the route he wanted to take.

Wolfram stood on his own, without the cane, and went over to the window. He looked down in the moonlight lit yard, wanting Eternity to appear so that she could explain everything to him. But she never did…Not when he called to her in his mind either. His fingers went to the stone, wondering whether it would even work anymore.

He wanted to cry, but he held it back this time. 'I've shed to many tears lately,' he thought. 'What happened to the tough soldier?' Shaking his head, he sat by the window and sniffed angrily. (Mostly at himself.)

"Wolfram?"

When Yuuri appeared, he rubbed his eyes wearily. The king was no longer wearing his blue pajamas that he liked so much, mostly because he had forgotten to bring them. Unlike Wolfram, he had decline Flynn's request at bringing him something…mostly because he wasn't a fan of nightgowns for himself.

But when Yuuri looked at Wolfram, he realized that Flynn had good taste. The blonde looked good in the champagne, silk nightgown….But then, the bishonen was beautiful, so he probably could have worn a potato sack and made it look like fashion sense. 'Wait…What am I thinking?' Yuuri thought, shaking his head wildly. 'I shouldn't be thinking those things about a guy!'

"Are you okay, Yuuri!?" Wolfram stood up, touching the king's forehead to see if he had a fever. "Your eyes got a little bit glazed there…Maybe you caught something from me! I should talk to Flynn right away and see if she got any antidote. We can't risk you getting--"

"Wolfram!" Yuuri's eyes widened. "Calm down. I'm not sick."

Wolfram flushed…He had to admit that he was getting a little bit paranoid and antsy. It seemed to him that all the people that were supposed to be on his side were disappearing. 'If Eternity let's Yuuri get sick,' Wolfram thought, 'Then I'd never forgive her…'

His heart hurt for some reason, and he touched the stone around his neck just once. For a moment he thought it was glowing, but when he looked down again he saw nothing. 'Maybe it's just my imagination,' he thought wearily. 'Stupid stone.'

Wolfram blinked at Yuuri, looking sullen. "Sorry about that."

"Now I know something's wrong." Yuuri said, looking worried. "You never apologize…ever…"

"Humph!"

Wolfram stuck his nose in the air haughtily.

To his surprise, Yuuri practically tackled him in a chair, and Wolfram's whole back stiffened. 'What does he think he's doing?' the bishonen wondered, realizing that he was being hugged and not attacked. Yuuri's fingers were along his back, making him get tingles down his stomach and toes. Once the king backed away, Wolfram was blushing and Yuuri was smiling naively, having no idea what affect he just had on the bishonen.

"What was that about?" Wolfram asked, blonde eyebrow raised.

"You're acting like yourself again…" Yuuri replied, grinning broadly. He looked like he wanted to hug Wolfram again, but then thought better of it. "Everyone told me that if I woke you up, you would never be the same again."

That made Wolfram's eyes widened. "You missed me?…"

Yuuri flushed. "I missed you."

For a moment they both shuffled around awkwardly, none of them seeming to know where to stand in their new found relationship. Wolfram had been waiting so long to hear him utter words like that, but once they came out he wasn't sure what to do about it. He mumbled to himself incoherently, staring at Yuuri with an embarrassed expression.

"Why don't we take a bath?" Yuuri said softly. "I don't think I can sleep…I'm too worried about Conrad. Now that Eternity made you better, you can try to wash my back again--I'll refuse, and you'll chase me around the room. That was fun last time we did it."

Wolfram looked amused. "Boy, you sure do have tall orders, eh Yuuri? But I'll make a sacrifice for you, since you're our king and everything."

"Nah, you'll do it because you love me."

Another awkward silence. Though it had started out as a 'joke,' Wolfram had let his emotions spill out in those words a few weeks earlier. Now both of them were feeling a little awkward, especially Yuuri who didn't know what to say back. "Thank you" seemed a little rude and stiff.

"Let's go to the baths…" Wolfram said, breaking the tension and standing. "I don't think I'll be able to sleep either…." Especially when this is all my fault.

As they walked to the baths, they were quiet, passing all the night guards that smirked at them through their armor. Wolfram didn't acknowledge this, feeling out of place in Flynn's castle. Yuuri, however, was too naïve to notice. Plus, he wasn't around Shin Makoku enough to know that people had a bad habit of talking about them.

They had just barely entered the private bathing corridors when Yuuri tripped and fell, grabbing Wolfram with him. The two of them flopped backward awkwardly, not at all like the graceful, 'perfectly placed' scenes in the movies. Instead, Yuuri's knee landed about two inches away from a place that was not proper, and the two of them lay like that for a second in surprise.

"Nice going, wimp." Wolfram said from underneath him. "Your weight is crushing me."

"I'm not that heavy…." muttered Yuuri back, darkly. "And don't call me a wimp…cause I'm not."

For a second Yuuri straightened up, realizing what position they were both in…again. He sighed, wondering whether Shinou was in on the joke of making them wind up that way. In fact, Wolfram's face was approximately two inches away from his, a little red cheeked.

'That's why he's so mad,' Yuuri thought, blinking and unable to move. 'He's not angry because the fall hurt, but because I'm making him uncomfortable.' Just as Yuuri leaned down to readjust his position so he would be able to get up, Wolfram had risen to push the king off of him. The result was a very confused 'lip collision,' one that was never meant to be a kiss at all.

Yuuri gulped in surprise at what happened, sitting back on his haunches in shock. Wolfram blinked, blushing, putting his hand over his mouth. Unlike on earth, kissing was a very big deal in Shin Makoku. When they brought out the Dry Wind to test, Hube planting a smooch on Nicole in public was about as gaudy as seeing breasts on a children's network in an Amish city…Of course, Yuuri didn't know that.

But Wolfram looked around. There was no one around watching them, so it hadn't been that bad. He gave a relieved glance at Yuuri, shaking his head slightly. When Wolfram and Shinou had kissed Yuuri in the Dry Wind, it felt purely accidental…Just like this. For once he wished it would be real.

His eyes found Yuuri's, who was standing to the side looking slightly red faced. Wolfram smirked. 'Get real,' he thought. 'Yuuri's acting as though I just molested him. And it wasn't even my fault!'

"Get over it, wimp." Wolfram said, smiling. "Do you want me to wash your back or not!?"

Yuuri's eyes widened in surprise.

Heavy smoke filled the night, making him feel winded and uncomfortable. Yuuri leaned against the fountain in the front of the statue, frowning slightly as he touched his hands to his lips again and again. Though he knew that it hadn't been either of their intentions to 'kiss,' he couldn't shake something out of his system: He had enjoyed it.

Though it had been fleeting, the very thought of it made his stomach get a gooey sensation. And he was become more and more uncomfortable about it, wondering what this all meant. Unlike what people thought, coming to terms with the different belief systems was difficult. 'What does this mean?…' he wondered. 'I've never been attracted to another guy, so why do I?…'

Then he thought of Wolfram, smiling at him through his memories. Yuuri frowned, deep in thought, looking out at the ocean port. His fingers grasped the siding as he gazed down into the city below, feeling flushed and embarrassed. 'My parents don't care…' Yuuri thought. 'In fact, my mom is always trying to talk me into having the wedding…Probably even more than Wolfram does. Maybe that's my answer.'

He stared into the water, splashing it; furthermore, everyone else seemed to approve…'The only one who ever didn't was me.' Once again, he flicked the liquid harder. 'Maybe I was just being stubborn. But I don't know how I see Wolfram now…We're more then friends, but I don't think we're 'lovers' either. It feels like we're eternally stuck in-between.'

"I've got to talk to Wolfram!" Yuuri cried, leaping to his feet.

But then he got his wish, though in an entirely different way. Wolfram was speeding out of the castle, which was difficult for Yuuri to comprehend, since the blond had suddenly gotten 'better.' He was used to watching the bishonen hobble around with his cane.

"WOLFRAM!" Yuuri cried loudly. "HEY, WOLFRAM!"

Wolfram's eyes flickered upward, and for a millisecond the king could see the fear in them. The blond's hand was already on his sword, his fingers shaking. Yuuri crossed the courtyard in five seconds, worried by the bishonen's battle stance.

"What's going on!?" Yuuri cried. "Did something happen!?"

Wolfram shook his head. "Look!"

The king turned around, staring into the town below, and caught sight of something happening on the port. There was obviously a large herd of people gathering at the city's edge, fires burning every which way that had nothing to do with cooking. Behind them, they saw Lady Flynn Gilbit rushing out looking frightening.

"My people!" Flynn cried. "What's happening!?"

"I think evil is coming…" Wolfram said darkly.

For a moment the earth began to shake again, and Yuuri grabbed on to Wolfram by second nature. The two of them watched the surface of the water began to get choppier, looking as though somebody had turned on the stove top underneath the bubbling, churning sea. There was the sound of a violent cry that was so shrill that it hurt their eardrums, and Wolfram took a step backwards in pain.

"Naudhiz," Yuuri said darkly.

As if responding directly to Yuuri's words, a dark mass began to appear, though not in their immediate sight line. The water from the sea began to flood outward, crashing over the city below them in a giant tsunami. All ships at the dock were smashed to smithereens, leaving nothing behind but wood and cargo floating among the masses.

People screamed as they tried to evade the massive tidal wave and failed, the mountain of water swiftly approaching filling up the entire sky as if it could really reach that far. The town was engulfed in the salty sea far before they had a chance to even move, sweeping the people under, their cries finally silenced by the billion tons of water. Wolfram was shaking in Yuuri's arms.

"No!" Yuuri cried. "How can this be happening!? All those people--"

Before they could stop it, Lady Flynn gave a cry of despair and desperation, heading towards the body of water that had once been a city. Wolfram couldn't move. 'All my fault,' he thought. 'If I had been quicker, I could have stopped this….'

But that was not all. The shadow grew larger and larger, blocking out the the horizon, causing a permanent overshadowed look on the ocean. The waters became red like blood, flooding onto the now broken land around it. Even the sky was black, the moon blocked out completely by the unimaginable shape that was now in the middle of the ocean.

Describing the size of Naudhiz would be too hard for even them to utter. It filled up the whole sea, making them look up even though they were thousands of miles of way. The creature had to have been miles and miles large itself, so tall that its head was not distinguishable through the clouds. It appeared to a be a solid, bloody red as well.

Then the whole earth shook again, this time Naudhiz shrieking and causing the earth to tremble in its fright. The massive beast released a hailstorm of fireballs across the night, sending them down upon the world and their villages. One of them hurled straight into the castle, crushing everything in sight. In a wail of fear, Wolfram hurled himself at Yuuri, dragging the king down to protect him from the fire.

Yuuri's body had already began to lengthen, becoming the Maou. His eyes flickered from behind his slit eyes, Wolfram's fingers grabbing at him, begging him to calm down. The bishonen already knew that whatever Yuuri tried would be worthless: Naudhiz had powers that neither of them had.

From a distance, Yuuri stood and attempted to push the water back with his powers, as he was a water mazoku. Instead, the salt sea seemed to repel him, the Maou's water dragons being sucked deeper and deeper underneath the curtain of red along with all the people now in their watery grave. Yuuri sucked in air before trying again, but his powers had no use.

Even when he turned, attempting to put out the fire, the glistening ball of heat repelled him like a magic that no one had seen before. It burned and ate through the castle hungrily, taking Yuuri's power as further fuel for its rage. The Maou was merely making the matjutsu stronger…

"Yuuri," Wolfram screamed. "You've got to stop! You're just making the power grow."

"But the people--"

"STOP!" Wolfram cried. "Look around you!"

Wolfram gave a sob of despair, feeling helpless, attempting to call upon Eternity but finding that he was half blinded by fear of the blond woman. Was she mad at them? Was she going to let all of humanity rot in hell, Wolfram along with it? His eyes shut halfway.

"There's nothing we can do…." Wolfram whispered sadly.

Both of them turned together towards the city, watching the world burn. Wolfram hid his face in his hands, shaking with guilt and despair, unable to call upon his strength to summon even an ounce of power in the face of fire. Without Eternity, all hope was gone…That was all that could be said.

Beside him, he felt Yuuri's shaking hand grasp his own, and he realized that he wasn't the only one lost in the hopelessness of the painful night. Together they felt as though they had misplaced something greater….And together they would stay.

"Wolfram…" Yuuri whispered sadly.

"Yeah?"

For a second Wolfram thought that Yuuri would ask him--no, accuse him---of not helping when he could have. But Yuuri merely squeezed his hand, a tear glistening down his cheek as people around them died. It felt so sick here…

"I'm glad you're here."