Haschwald opened his eyes and blinked a couple of times, trying to see something in the darkness of the room. It was an early morning and most part of the soldiers was still sleeping in their beds. However, the blond Quincy was awake, because he felt a bit cold during his sleep. At first, it could seem like a minor reason to wake up all of a sudden. But for Haschwald it had a slightly different meaning.
"I wonder where did His Majesty go..."-Haschwald thought, looking a bit sadly at the empty place next to him. He put a hand on a bedsheet. It wasn't warm at all.-"Looks like he left some time ago."
The blond Quincy concentrated, trying to find the Emperor's reiatsu. He felt a bit worried, when he found out that His Majesty wasn't in Shatten Bereich at the moment. Haschwald quickly got up, and soon enough he was already heading to the Gate of Sun. There he asked the soldiers guarding the Gate about the Emperor's whereabouts.
"As we know, His Majesty headed to Hueco Mundo."-the guard said.
"What?!"-Haschwald surprised.-"Did he go all alone?"
"Yes, sir."-the guard replied.
"Why did he...?"-the blond Quincy thought in confusion.
"We heard that His Majesty got some really interesting news from Jagdarmee. Looks like exactly this fact made him visit the Hollows land today."-the other guard explained.
Unfortunately, these soldiers knew very few things about the Emperor's sudden leaving, so Haschwald hurried to the other part of Silbern to meet with the first Jagdarmee captain.
"Oh, yes~! His Majesty was looking rather eagerly, after he heard my latest report."-Kirge said to Haschwald.-"We managed to find an old abandoned castle in the far part of Hueco Mundo. Once it belonged to Amatsuki Bansui the Shinigami-scientist, who left Soul Society long ago and went to Hueco Mundo to study the Hollowfication there. But now he is already dead, I think. We managed to gather some interesting information about him and his secret researches. You can soon read the new Daten about him and..."
"I am more interested in His Majesty's whereabouts now, Kirge."-Haschwald reminded impatiently.
"Oh, His Majesty was going to investigate the castle by himself soon. But when I told him that there are still a lot of unique and powerful Hollows left at Amatsuki's territory, His Majesty became really excited."-Kirge said.-"Those unique Hollows are the part of Amatsuki's experiments. They are much stronger than the usual ones. It seems His Majesty really wanted to fight those powerful enemies, for some reason."
Haschwald became even more worried, when he found out the truth about the Emperor's leaving. He quickly checked the coordinates of Amatsuki's castle location to head there immediately.
"Ohh~"-suddenly Kirge's voice was heard again.
Haschwald turned around with slight surprise and found out that Kirge was blushing while muttering something to himself. It seems that Jagdarmee captain already forgot about Haschwald's presence nearby.
"Ah~ Seeing His Majesty being excited like that made me so...~"
Haschwald decided not to listen to Kirge's freaky speech and hurried to Hueco Mundo through the Shadow. He managed to find the scientist's castle pretty fast. It was partly ruined and looked rather gloomy. Haschwald felt a strong spiritual pressure coming from inside the castle and headed there, using Hirenkyaku.
After passing a few ruined corridors Haschwald finally reached the spacious hall and entered the old wooden door. He saw His Majesty there. The Emperor was ebulliently fighting the group of strong-looking Hollows. It seems Quincy leader wasn't hurt, so Haschwald breathed a sigh of relief.
"Your Majesty."-Haschwald called, though, guessing that the Emperor most likely won't hear him.
Haschwald saw His Majesty fighting many times, so he perfectly knew that it was useless to try to stop him during such time. Every time when His Majesty got a chance to fight the strong enough enemy, he was going into berserker-like mode, fighting furiously with great eagerness. During such time it was almost impossible to stop him or appeal to his common sense.
Meanwhile the Emperor finished off the whole group of powerful Hollows. However, he wasn't going to stop and planned to search for next enemy. Haschwald felt that the Emperor's continuously growing spiritual pressure made the castle walls start trembling. In any second the whole building could be crumbled down by the incredibly powerful spiritual energy. However, it seems His Majesty didn't care about that and wasn't going to hold down his destructive power either.
"Your Majesty!"
In the next second Haschwald appeared behind the Emperor and tightly embraced him from behind. Surprisingly, but it worked at once. The moment His Majesty felt Haschwald's touch, the uncontrollable desire to fight disappeared from the Emperor's eyes, and he calmed down fast enough. Right after that the strong spiritual pressure returned to normal level, and castle walls stopped to tremble.
The Emperor slowly turned to Haschwald and glanced at him a bit surprisedly.
"Why are you here?"-Juha Bach asked, though, already knowing the reason.
"I was worried about you and..."
"It's all right."-the Emperor said soothingly, embracing his soldier and stroking him on the head.-"I guess I had enough fighting. Let's return home."
Haschwald nodded, feeling a bit dizzy due to huge amount of strong reiatsu, which surrounded him a few moments ago. His Majesty noticed that and picked the blond Quincy up in the arms. Then they returned to Vandenreich through the Shadow. Soon enough Haschwald was resting in the Emperor's bed. He quickly felt much better, especially because His Majesty was nearby.
"I know I promised not to leave you behind like that. But I really wanted to test my current power after that ritual in Quincy village. I planned to return before you wake up."-Juha Bach said, taking Haschwald's hand and gripping it slightly.-"I hope you are not angry at me..."
"I can't be angry at Your Majesty."-Haschwald said. He sat in the bed and then moved closer to the Emperor.-"I am glad that you are fine, Juha Bach-sama."
With these words Haschwald put his arms around the Emperor's neck and cuddled to him. The blond Quincy felt that His Majesty was still a bit tensed after the long fight, so he started to caringly stroke his back to help him relax faster. When His Majesty felt the touch of Haschwald's soft hair on his cheek and got into soldier's warm embrace, he felt really calm and peaceful. Being embraced by his beloved Haschwald like that was equal to getting into the arms of light and caring angel. His Majesty felt very pleasant and smiled contentedly. Then he embraced Haschwald in response and left a warm kiss on his lips.
"I love you, my dear angel knight."-the Emperor whispered into soldier's ear, making the latter blush slightly.
During the night something made Haschwald wake up. He sat in the bed and looked around. He didn't see the Emperor nearby.
"Your Majesty..."
"I am here, Haschwald."-the Emperor's voice was heard from the far part of the room.-"It seems that something happened to our castle heating system again. So I got up to light the fireplace here."
After these words His Majesty came up to the bed. He noticed that his soldier was freezing slightly and looked somewhat upset. The Emperor thought that Haschwald most likely felt rather sad at the morning as well.
"You shouldn't worry about my every leaving, Haschwald."-Juha Bach sat near his soldier, wrapped him up in a blanket and embraced him tightly to warm him up.-"After all I will always return to my precious Grandmaster."
On the next day His Majesty decided to find out what happened to the heating system. This sudden breakdown was really suspicious, so, a group of soldiers was ordered to check almost every radiator, pipe and heating machine in the castle in order to find the source of a problem. It appeared that some pipes were damaged by unknown person. The culprit acted carefully, trying not to leave any traces, so it was hard to find him right away.
"I have no idea why somebody of you decided to make us all freezing here. But even if it was a stupid joke, it won't be tolerated. The culprit will pay for it accordingly, in any case."-His Majesty warned his Stern Ritters at the meeting.
"You are absolutely right, Your Majesty!"-Kirge agreed.-"Please, allow me to take care of this outrageous case."
"Fine."-Juha Bach nodded.-"Then conduct a search in the soldiers' rooms. Maybe it will help to find some clues."
Stern Ritters were not happy to hear about another inspection in their rooms but didn't dare to protest in front of the Emperor.
Haschwald was curious, who all of a sudden decided to damage the heating system. Besides, he wanted to find the culprit as fast as possible too. So, after the meeting the blond Quincy joined Kirge to help him with his investigation.
At first Kirge decided to visit Cang's room. There he looked around closely, trying to find some clues.
"I don't think that Cang was the one who did it."-Haschwald said.
"Oh, I am sure that it's not that easy, commander."-Kirge said, noticing that Cang tried to keep closer to his bookcase, for some reason.-"He is definitely hiding something."
Kirge came up to the bookcase and started to closely examine it. He took one of the books from the shelf and read the title.
"Philosophy for Dummies", huh..."-Kirge muttered.-"Hmm..."
Suddenly some sheet of paper fell out from the book. Kirge noticed it immediately.
"Ahah! I knew it!"-Jagdarmee captain exclaimed. He glanced at the suspicious item but was quickly disappointed.-"What? A photo of our commander?"
Haschwald was surprised, when he saw himself on the photo. It seems like someone managed to take it unnoticeably during one of Stern Ritters' last visits to the human world.
"Well... it's..."-Cang tried to explain something.
"This item has no connection with our current case but I will confiscate it, anyway."-Kirge said and then left the room.
Haschwald decided not to ask embarrassed Cang about the photo and followed the Jagdarmee captain. But before he could catch up with Kirge, he was stopped by Bambietta.
"I think I found our culprit."-the girl said.-"Come on."
Soon two Quincies were in Bazz-B's room. There Bambietta made a serious face then took some special pose, probably trying to imitate some anime character.
"The culprit is you!"-she exclaimed, pointing at Bazz-B.
"Eh?"-the punk said with anime sweat drop near his head.
"It's useless to protest."-Bambietta said.-"It was you, who damaged the heating system and made us all freeze for a whole day. And it all was done for a single goal - to get your hands on our Grandmaster. Because without heating system you are now the only source of heat left in this cold castle. You would definitely try to offer your "help" to freezing Haschwald."
"How did you know?"-Bazz-B surprised.
"Hah! Don't underestimate the Great Detective Bambietta!"-Quincy girl said proudly.
Haschwald felt irritation after the culprit's shameful confession.
"And what about evidence?"-he inquired with a frown.
"Hmm. Let's see. The soldiers examining the pipes decided that they were damaged by the hit of Heilig Pfeil. But it's wrong. The traces left after the holy arrow coming into contact with a target usually resemble the traces of small explosion. But in our case, there were no such traces. In fact some parts of pipes were melted. And since none of Stern Ritters, besides Bazz-B, uses fire skills, he is the only person, who could do it. And of course he had an obvious enough motive."-Bambietta explained.
"It has a point, indeed."-Haschwald nodded.-"Good work, Bambietta."
After that Haschwald turned to Bazz-B and gave him a special cold glance, which usually gave creeps to Stern Ritters.
"You should think about how you are going to explain it to His Majesty."-the blond Quincy said.
"He will kill me..."
"He will kill him."-Bambietta emphasized.
Both Stern Ritters glanced expectantly at their Grandmaster.
"What?"-Haschwald asked with anime sign of anger.-"Do you expect me to help you out? Hm. Maybe you won't pay with your life, but I am sure you will never want to do something like that again, once Kirge gets his hands on you."
The blond Quincy gave another cold glance to the culprit and then left the room.
At the evening Haschwald came to the Emperor's room to report him about the today investigation. His Majesty was sitting in the armchair and thought about something. When Haschwald came up to him, the Emperor glanced closely at his knight and frowned slightly.
"I presume you are trying to come up with a plan, so that the culprit's life would be spared?"-the Emperor said, looking into the soldier's eyes.
It appeared that His Majesty knew Haschwald so well that he managed to guess what his soldier was planning, just by looking at him. Haschwald apologized and after that briefly told the Emperor about the investigation. While Haschwald was talking, the Emperor took him to his lap and pressed the soldier closer to himself.
"Now I understand why you didn't want to tell me about it right away."-Juha Bach became very angry after hearing the report.-"I presume I have to go and deal with him right away."
"Maybe Your Majesty will spare his life to show other soldiers that you can be very merciful?..."-Haschwald supposed. Actually, at a times when Stern Ritters' impudence went too far, the blond Quincy began to think that getting rid of the most problematic ones would be the best choice to maintain the order in the castle. However, as their Grandmaster he felt responsibility for his subordinates' lives and tried to give them a chance to redeem their wrongdoings.
"You know, Haschwald, if I will be too merciful to him, next time he will try to assassinate me..."-Juha Bach said gloomily.
"I will never let such thing happen. No traitor will get away."-Haschwald promised confidently.-"However, I don't think that any of our soldiers would do that, anyway..."
The Emperor sighed.
"Fine then. Our Stern Ritters should be very grateful that they have such kind Grandmaster on their side."-the Emperor said, stroking his knight on the cheek. Then he smiled a bit slyly and released a small part of his powerful reiatsu.
Due to that Haschwald lost his breath for a second and felt a bit dizzy. Though, it was a pleasant dizziness. Feeling the Emperor's heady reiatsu along with his hot kisses on his skin, made Haschwald get an unusual feeling. The blond Quincy was slowly replying to the kisses, meeting the Emperor's glance full of love from time to time. Haschwald felt a slight weakness but it wasn't bothering him very much. He felt completely safe and calm in the Emperor's strong arms. His Majesty smiled contentedly while looking at Haschwald's pacified face and gave him another gentle kiss.
"You are only mine, Haschwald."-he uttered softly after that.