Author's note: Hey everyone! Sorry for the long author's note below.

Firstly, I wanted to make a quick note for fanfictionnet readers/subscribers: there may have been an issue with the last update alert – a few people said they didn't receive it. So in case anyone else missed it, I thought I'd confirm that 'Chapter 52: A World of Princes and Knights' comes before this one.

Secondly, I just wanted to remind everyone about the whole no-longer-MR-mostly-Dionys-going-rogue thing. I know canon Haruki is meant to be cute and platonic and nothing else haha, but it's like I couldn't help where my imagination went when I envisioned this story over a year ago. Like I said in the preface a while back, this is my little experiment on characters and I hope you're bearing with it so far!

Much love to the amazing people who are reading it despite the blasphemy (AND SOME OF YOU ARE EVEN ENJOYING IT OMG YOU'RE ANGELS, YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE).

Thirdly, because adult Haruki is such a huge part of the story, I've posted a new drawing of him on my Ao3 page (same page, same place) - would love if you went there to have a look. We're already so well-acquainted with visuals of the canon characters that I wanted to give Haruki a bit of face time too. The drawing is of Haruki with his two Mad Dogs (couldn't fit Kaiser in there, though I wanted to haha). So Kolya's there, if anyone's keen to see what he looks like, plus there's 36-year-old Klaus with his scar :)

Anyway, hope you've found something to enjoy in the story! I always love hearing from you guys, and I'm so happy and surprised at the response to Part 3 so far, so thank you, really! Xx


The weather was gratingly cheerful as Klaus made his way back to his shed. The mellow springtime sun shining from between pearly clouds seemed to mock the storm-shaped little knot in his stomach. He had completely left the peace of the afternoon behind, along with the gentle happiness he had felt as he wrote his reply to Claudia.

He's twelve years younger than you.

The barracks filed past and he reached the officer's courtyard. He barely noticed when the soldiers he passed saluted him.

He's a goddamn kid. What the hell is wrong with you?

Even stronger than the self-disgust, stronger than any thoughts of Haruki, were thoughts of Taki.

Taki glancing up from the harvest forecasts just in time for Klaus to catch his lips in a kiss.

Taki turning in his sleep, his hair trailing behind him over the pillow, so Klaus could pull him in closer and hold Taki's head to his chest.

Taki.

Taki.

And the guilt sliced through him like a blade.

How demeaning. How cheapening. How utterly, profoundly unworthy of everything they had shared over eight years for Klaus to harbour even the thinnest sliver of a thought for –

He couldn't help but feel, beneath it all, a pinprick of resentment towards Haruki himself. It almost felt like he had been worn down over the past six months; like he had been forced to drag himself out of the pit, forced into the light, forced to smile, forced to feel – in fire-lit offices, on moonlit balconies, in the most ephemeral of fragments – happy again. All for Haruki's sake. All because Haruki had called him.

He never should have come.


Not long ago, on a bench in the groundskeeper's quarters, Klaus was thinking about leaving. He could picture himself getting up slowly, walking past the patch of tall, pale, wheat-like grass, and slinking back to his shed where he would try to make sense of his momentary lapse in reason.

He knew, however, even as he reasoned, that it wasn't momentary. That it had seeped into him in small moments at a time without his knowledge, over the course of months, and he had only then turned around and noticed what it all amounted to.

And, in any case, he had waited too long to make his quiet getaway. On the bench beside him, Haruki took a deep breath, stirred and awoke.

Klaus guiltily watched the peaceful drowsiness in his eyes transform, when he caught sight of Klaus, into one of surprise.

'Klaus –'

A low, pleasant voice that was made slightly hoarse by sleep. Klaus felt a small, powerful tug of emotion that made him grit his teeth.

'Hey, kid,' he managed.

Haruki lifted himself up into a sitting position and ran a hand through his hair, feeling somewhat disoriented. He stared at Klaus sitting on the armrest and couldn't be sure whether he had, in fact, woken up at all.

'Sorry if I scared you,' Klaus said.

Haruki wondered if there was something different in his tone. Something both quieter and tenser than usual.

'You didn't. But how did you –?'

'Kaiser blew your secret.' They both looked at the bench where Kaiser still slept soundly, innocent as ever. 'Little traitor led me right here. Good thing I wasn't the Hitobito.'

Haruki chuckled.

Over the past few seconds, Klaus had tried to avoid looking at him but, largely, failed.

He had seen and spoken to Haruki almost every day for six months, but he found, in that moment, that he was back in the wheat field on the day that Haruki had arrived at the cottage for the first time. When Klaus, for a split second, had confused him for someone else.

And so he stared again, like he did that day. Taki in the shape of the eyes, if not the colour or size. Taki in the shape of his hair, if not the colour or texture. Hair that wasn't as dark and skin that wasn't as pale, a frame that was larger, wider in the shoulders, and yet –

Gritting his teeth again, Klaus forced himself to look away just before Haruki turned back.

There was a lull in the breeze and it was like the world had stilled for a moment. Then the trees and flowers rustled again.

I should get going. I'll leave you to it.

That, or something like that, was all he needed to say. Then he could get up and leave.

But the words that came out of his mouth were, 'Nice little corner you've found.'

He tried to tell himself that it was no different to the countless times he and Haruki had sat together in his office at the end of the day.

Haruki sat on the other end of the bench, his right knee propped up and a hand on Kaiser's fur. He still looked drowsy, hair swept back and a few strands curling down and over his forehead.

'I've always liked it here,' Haruki agreed. 'Ryoumei and I found it when we were cadets. We snuck in and got in trouble from Watanabe, but he was nice enough not to tell any of the officers.'

The image of Haruki as a cadet suddenly hit Klaus in full force. That was when he felt the first stab of self-disgust.

'Watanabe is still the groundskeeper, almost ten years on,' Haruki continued, unaware. There was a faint smile on his face. 'It's sort of reassuring, isn't it? That some things never change.'

The pale wheat-like grass bent backwards in a choreographed domino effect.

'Kind of reminds me of the cottage,' Klaus said.

He was surprised to see Haruki looking a little embarrassed, like he'd been caught.

'What?'

'Actually… that plant over there,' Haruki said, lifting his chin to indicate the wheat-like grass. 'That's called maiden grass.* Watanabe had just one patch growing earlier this year but when he found out how much I liked it, he grew a lot more. I told him it reminded me of a cottage I stayed at in the west.'

'No kidding.'

'Yeah. I… really liked it there.'

Klaus tried to remember the four days Haruki spent at the cottage. He remembered the place felt lighter than it had been in a long time. He remembered how Taki had smiled softly as he listened to them talk and laugh. He remembered, in a strange little fragment, how Ori had leaped onto Haruki's lap and nearly made him drop his dinner plate.

Drops of light. Like the dappled sunlight falling through branches into the groundskeeper's little secret. Or like the lights in trees he envisioned. Nothing overwhelming. Not something that drowned out the darkness; just something to hang onto as he waded through it.

'You should come back for a visit,' Klaus heard himself saying. 'When all of this over, I mean. You'll brighten the place up.'

Haruki looked at him in surprise and looked away again, his smile slightly embarrassed.

Klaus kicked himself. What the hell was that? Pare it back, moron. He noticed for the first time, and then tried not to look at, the long line of Haruki's body where he sat low on the bench, his right knee still bent in the air.

Haruki was lost in his own memories, beginning with the day he had stared across the amber fields from the front porch, a few minutes before Klaus invited him to stay, at Taki's behest. He was remembering how Taki, in that quiet, firm voice of his, had asked Haruki to summon Klaus after he was gone. He thought about the easy friendship he liked to think he and Klaus now shared; enough that the captain was able to sit with him like this in Watanabe's little corner, talking of happier times. It seemed too good to be true.

Haruki knew that the world, in Klaus' mind, was divided into two – Taki Reizen, and everyone else. He had always known that, and it didn't matter. It was enough to be that close, he thought, in an echo of what Klaus himself had said on Feulner's balcony.

Out of the corner of Klaus' eye, he noticed Haruki's vacant gaze. He watched him yawn and rub the back of his neck. He remembered a late night in Haruki's office he had interrupted a month ago.

'Getting enough sleep? You seem tired these days.'

Haruki smiled. 'Kolya asked me the same thing this morning.'

Kolya.

Another image rushed Klaus; Haruki folding sleepily against Kolya's body in the morning light.

It was a question Klaus hadn't been able to ask in the past six months and now it surfaced with a new, bitter aftertaste.

'I have been having a few late nights,' Haruki admitted. 'But only because I'm trying to stay ahead.'

Klaus tried to expel the image from his mind. He focused on what Haruki had said.

'Stay ahead?'

'It's been almost six months since we heard from Shoda.' He threw Klaus a serious glance. 'Do you know what the capital's saying about him?'

Klaus nodded.

The Tachibana administration had been encouraging rumours that the leader of the Hitobito was dead and that the revolution was over.

'I think he's still out there,' Haruki said resolutely. 'I think the Hitobito is stronger than ever. I've been staying up trying to look over their old strikes, trying to figure out what they might be up to next. I don't have much evidence to support any of this, but it's like all the little brushes that the police have had with possible rebel members are sort of like Shoda's… testing us. Seeing how much manpower we have. It's like he's waiting to strike. And I... want to be ready.'

Klaus thought he heard beneath the words themselves a thin layer of self-doubt.

'We've been training regularly. The men are as ready as they can be. There's only so much more you can do with what you have, kid.'

'I know, but…' Haruki hesitated. He tried to explain something that he hadn't been able to explain properly to Kolya. Something he had worried about since the first murmurings of war over a year ago. 'Most of the men here remember the last war. A lot of them fought in the last war. They remember how we won. They – they remember…'

He trailed off.

'Taki,' Klaus surmised.

Their eyes met.

Haruki knew by then not to bring up Taki's name unless Klaus did so first. Feeling guilty and relieved, he nodded once before turning to watch Kaiser's fur riffle between his fingers.

'I know all the men see something of Taki-sama in me,' he said quietly. 'I know that's probably why I was vetted and chosen by headquarters in the first place. So I'm… I want to be ready all the time, and strong all the time, like Taki-sama was.' He paused. 'I don't want my men to look for him in me and be disappointed.'

Klaus swallowed and averted his gaze. At any other point in the past six months, Haruki's words wouldn't have had the effect on him that they did now. The guilt came to him in a fresh wave.

He mulled it over before speaking.

'You know,' he began slowly. 'Taki never let anyone see it, and I had to be looking really fucking close to notice, but… he doubted himself at times during the war, same as you. He wasn't always strong.'

Haruki seemed doubtful. 'I can't imagine him being weak in any way.'

The memory that came to Klaus made him smile. He moved off the armrest and onto the bench.

'On Taki's first day at Luckenwalde, he went in to see the Brass. In his fatigues.'

'Fatigues?' Haruki echoed, a little shocked. Having been in the west and in Luckenwalde himself, he knew the strictness of the dress code there when facing officers.

Klaus chuckled. 'Turns out one of our comrades had decided to play a trick on the new guy. Anyway, when I found Taki again, he was in our room. And he was curled up in a ball under the sheets, from head to toe.'

Haruki was confused. 'Curled up in a –?'

'Yep. He was so humiliated he threw the sheets over himself and didn't move a muscle for a long time. He looked like a goddamn strudel.'

Even though Haruki laughed, Klaus could tell he had a hard time believing it.

'That… doesn't sound like Taki-sama.'

'It doesn't, does it?' Klaus said with a grin. He remembered how he had finally coaxed the young prince out of his cocoon.

Let's start over. It's nice to meet you, Taki.

'And yet, that was the man who led us all to victory in the last war.' He turned to Haruki. 'We're all allowed to have moments of weakness. Even the commanders among us.'

Haruki looked at him.

'You're doing just fine, kid. Better than fine.'

The words didn't sound as strong or emphatic as Klaus wanted them to. He had more to say. He wanted to say that Taki had been somewhere above it all and that divinity was his strength, but that Haruki was closer to the ground, where his soldiers were, and that was Haruki's strength. But suddenly Klaus couldn't bring himself to say more; to compare them so bluntly.

In any case, what he did say seemed to resonate with Haruki anyway.

When Haruki's warm, grateful expression inspired another tug of guilt, Klaus let out an exhale and got to his feet. He feigned tiredness and ignored Haruki's quiet protests that he didn't have to leave.

As he left that little sliver of tranquillity behind, he also ignored the small, treacherous voice in his head that wanted him to have a quick final glance over his shoulder.


That feeling – the one that resembled small, tinkling lights – evaporated soon after he left. By the time he reached his shed, he caved completely to the self-loathing that had only shown up in snatches when he had been sitting with Haruki.

He pushed aside the indiscretions of that afternoon, however small they were, by filling his mind with thoughts of Taki. Eyes that made him feel small. Pale skin beneath the devil's peak of shining obsidian hair. A small, lithe form that trembled beneath his fingers.

And a still body that he held in the blue light of dawn.

When he closed the door of his shed, he almost welcomed the familiar ink-stain that spread from the centre of his chest, like an old friend, on the heels of the thought of Taki's pale, lifeless face. It was the darkness he had resigned himself to for the rest of his life. A place where distant, tinkling lights and the gentle swaying of pale, wheat-like grass and fire-lit offices and moonlit balconies stood no chance.


WEEKS LATER

Klaus felt like he didn't mentally leave his shed since that day.

Physically, he still went to meetings and drills and even hand-to-hand training sessions (though he didn't spar with Haruki again, blaming his little urge during their last spar for having triggered everything else). But his mind was longing for the safety of his own space where he wasn't in any danger of letting this new inner turmoil break the surface.

It was mid-afternoon and he knew there was a training session he was missing out in the square. He lay in bed, trying hard to uphold his promise to Haruki that he wouldn't reach for the black satchel, which the young commander, in his good faith, hadn't confiscated.

He tried not to picture Haruki in his kendogi absently twirling his shinai, oozing strength and vitality in the way of the young, soundly defeating each of his soldiers, patiently improving their techniques, helping them back onto their feet with a smile. The back of Klaus' teeth had begun to ache from how often he clenched his jaw.

He hadn't spoken to Taki in weeks. He couldn't bring himself to face him.

Intimacy had been unappealing over the past year and a half in homage to Taki. It was a resigned coldness he almost embraced. And now his body was turning on him.

In almost every way, he was reminded of feelings he had faced once before, and failed to subdue, almost twelve years ago in Luckenwalde. First, he waited for his wayward thoughts to simply go away.

Just like the first time, they didn't.

Just like the first time, to his dismay, the thoughts only came at him in stronger surges. It flickered again – the hunger he thought had died with Taki – and rose through his body. It morphed and twisted like a new lifeform into things he had no control over.

Images of Haruki lying beneath him, his face turned away but his eyes still on Klaus, his mouth covered by a hand, moaning and flushed and –

Klaus slammed his fist against the bedframe.

He sometimes awoke in a similar predicament, where he was stiff and sweating and images of Haruki and Taki would combine in an unholy mess and he would be left to hate himself in fresh shades. He had landed squarely in it; in the world of confusion he had predicted when he sat beside a sleeping Haruki in that little corner of the compound.

Over the past few weeks, when those thoughts refused to ebb, when they instead grew stronger, he began to rationalise.

He was misunderstanding his own feelings. He was, quite simply, mistaking Haruki for Taki. This was nothing more than a perverted manifestation of his grief. Of how much he still longed and loved. Surely it wasn't a coincidence that they looked similar enough to be brothers, that they occupied the same post at the same division and sometimes even shared that same fierce, faraway look in their gazes at the outset of battle.

And yet, Klaus' rationales stopped short when he couldn't explain why their points of distinction struck him almost as strongly as everything else. How quick Haruki was to smile. How forthcoming with his trust and his words. His generosity and gratitude. He was warm where Taki had been –

Stop it. Shut up.

Besides all that, there was something else, at the root of it, that was fundamentally different from his feelings for Taki.

When he first met that nine-year-old boy beneath the wisteria tree, the boy with the spellbinding eyes, and when he saw Taki again ten years later in Luckenwalde, and when he sat beside Taki in their room and kissed him for the first time, he felt something outside of his own body. He felt that pull of destiny. Something that was external as much as it was internal.

It wasn't there now. That sense of destiny. Here, it wasn't ethereal. Here, now, the feeling was more… raw. More real. Less –

Shut up!

Tired of hearing his own voice in his head, one that veered mercilessly between treachery and self-loathing, Klaus got out of bed and returned with a bottle of scotch. He talked himself through the necessary steps for self-restraint, took a few mouthfuls, and tossed it back into his suitcase from where he was. He sighed and stared at the ceiling.

'You're a fucking joke, Wolfstadt,' he murmured.

On top of everything else, his feelings about Private First Class Kolya di Lupo had resolved into simple, barbed jealousy. He watched the way he and Haruki seemed to communicate effortlessly, with looks and gestures even more so than words. He would battle images of them together, locked together, locked in their mysterious past together, and he realised that he had cast himself in their private world as Hans Regenwalde.

At that, Klaus allowed a dark little chuckle to escape him. It was part-resignation and part-nod to the gods for their warped and cruel sense of humour.

None of it mattered.

None of it mattered. This was just a brand new perversion that Klaus would have to ride out in silence. There was the war. There was Kolya di Lupo. There was the way Haruki would react if he ever, gods forbid, came to know what Klaus was thinking.

Have you no shame?

Words Taki had spoken in that very shed, on that terrible afternoon when Klaus' hunger had consumed him.

That boy admires you so much. And you betray him with this… depravity.

Though Taki couldn't have known how his words would resonate ten years later, his prescience was nothing short of astounding. Klaus sighed in frustration.

None of it mattered, he reminded himself as the scotch slowly warmed him up. It was just a brand new perversion that he would have to ride out in silence. And solitude. In total silence and total –

There was a knock on the door.

'Klaus?'

Fuck.

Klaus squeezed his eyes shut and counted to three. 'What's up, kid?'

'Can I come in?'

The last time someone had asked him that, it was Ryoumei standing on the front porch of his cottage. He wondered if he should simply have slammed the door in Ryoumei's face.

His first instinct was to make an excuse. But he realised the commander had probably noticed his distance over the past few weeks. And probably made the wrong assumptions. Old habits.

'Sure,' he said tiredly. He sat up a little straighter.

The door opened. Kaiser bounded in ahead of his master, as usual. No matter how much Haruki had tried rebuking him, the dog always ended up on Klaus' bed, tail wagging, and always managed to raise Klaus' spirits, even if only by a fraction.

Klaus looked up and saw Kolya's outline some way in the distance beyond Haruki. He felt a familiar, pointless swirl of annoyance.

And then he focused on Haruki himself, who had apparently stopped in on his way back from the auditorium. The young commander was still in his kendogi, his face bearing some of the afterglow of combat.

Haruki, meanwhile, was greatly relieved to see Klaus' gaze was focused and steady, unlike the day he had seen him under the effects of morphine. There was, however, still something guarded about Klaus. His face and his posture. Something Haruki had noticed over the weeks.

He tried not to let it upset him.

'Sorry to – interrupt,' he began uncertainly.

'I wasn't doing much.'

'It's just that… Sen mentioned to me that you seemed a little off this morning.'

'Who's Sen?'

'She's the maid who brings the officers their meals.'

'Geez, kid.' A small smile of affection. 'Do you know the names of everyone in the compound?'

His eyes lingered on Haruki's mouth and jaw. Different to Taki's. Less delicate. Still beautiful –

He sighed and cut to the chase, if only to get Haruki out of his shed faster. 'I'm not using again, Commander, if that's why you're here.'

Haruki hesitated.

Klaus indicated his forearm wryly. 'Want to check?'

'No, I – I believe you. I was worried maybe you were sick or something.'

'Just tired. I'll sleep it off in time for the drill tomorrow.'

'Okay.'

'And I'll be sure to put on a huge smile for Sen when I see her in the morning. Not my fault if that scares her, though.'

Haruki's surprised laugh made a few distant lights blink on, just for a few seconds, before they were lost in the darkness again.


After he left, Klaus let out an irate exhale he didn't know he had been holding in. He hated how much he revelled in the commander's smiles and especially his laughter and realised he made stupid jokes, as far back as when Haruki arrived at the cottage, just so he could hear it. He even felt a strange, bitter satisfaction when it occurred to him that Kolya never brought that side out of him.

There was a light that came from Haruki, one that, whether divine or not, he could see clearly, and one his men could see clearly. He could tell that almost everyone was touched by it. It had been strong enough, after all, for Kolya to leave the darkness of his past behind in Eurote. Enough for Ryoumei to come all the way to the west on Haruki's behalf. Enough for an entire division of men to continue to have hope even in the midst of a war on two fronts.

Once, a few months back, Klaus had asked Haruki a question in passing, after recalling a conversation about name derivations he had once had with Taki.

Waterfall.

The people's victory.

And –

'Oh, it means something like the light that shines,' Haruki replied a little self-consciously. 'My mother chose it,' he added with a soft smile that Klaus hadn't seen before.

Despite the mouthfuls of scotch, Klaus was still being tossed from one memory to another. From laughter to light to name derivations to an old friend talking to him gently in a terrible dream.

You trample all things divine. Like you were sent to them just so you can tear them down.

You killed your rose. Just like you'll kill your pup.

And the back of Klaus' teeth ached again.

Even if he put aside all the things that mattered – including the war and Kolya and the perversion of Klaus' feelings themselves, even Taki – Klaus was still certain of one thing when he watched Haruki scale the side of Murakumo at the start of their drill the next day and smile before he ducked out of sight.

Haruki's light was one he didn't deserve. And he wouldn't be the one to put it out.


More victories on the Western Front, and no hint yet of either side resorting to nuclear weapons, had the newspapers teeming with overly patriotic sentiment. Newspapers which, no doubt, were controlled almost exclusively by Tachibana.

Haruki scanned the pages with his lips set in a firm line. It was clear, through the bursts of rhetoric in headlines and subheads, where it was all heading. An empire that extended in all directions. A fool's hope. But one that men like Tachibana had dreamt of for decades and needed only the excuse of another war to see it happen.

And it was rhetoric that Haruki was familiar with. He had heard it countless times from his own father.

Lesser nations than ours have done it before. We may be small, but we are more than capable of commanding an empire. It's the glory we deserve. The glory we were always destined for.

When Haruki was old enough, the rebuttal – several rebuttals – had lined up on his tongue. Other nations may have done it before, Otousan, he would say quietly. But they all lost their empires one by one. Each and every one of them. Should we not learn from that?

But Haruki had never once been able to stand up to his father.

And neither he nor millions of others in his nation had been able to stand up to their emperor.

Kolya, who was alone with Haruki in the office, knew there was something weighing on Haruki's mind even more than the state of world affairs. He suspected what it was, though he had yet to muster the courage to ask Haruki about it.

Haruki had tried, as much as possible, not to be disproportionately upset by Klaus' distance over the past few weeks. The captain had shown up to briefings and drills but rarely to any of their hand-to-hand training sessions and he never stayed behind in Haruki's office or after briefings like he used to. Haruki took him at his word that he wasn't using again. He always seemed to be of sound mind whenever Haruki saw him, if more detached than usual.

Though he could never tell what Klaus was thinking, or the kinds of demons he was grappling with in his solitude, Haruki knew it was the lingering effects of a loss so profound it would define Klaus for the rest of his life. And so Haruki could only hope from afar that Klaus would know how to emerge from this latest plunge like he did the last time.

Mostly, he was guiltily, and selfishly, upset that his newfound friendship with the captain had suffered as a consequence.

He was almost relieved when Aizawa entered and pulled him from his thoughts.

'Commander,' Aizawa said crisply, his clipboard in hand. 'General Nakamori is here, sir.'

Haruki's brow furrowed very slightly. 'I wasn't aware he was coming today.'

'I'm sure I put it in your schedule for you, sir,' Aizawa said smoothly.

Haruki looked at him evenly. He was just as sure that Aizawa hadn't.

Whatever the case, the general himself strode through the doors, bulging a little at the seams of his uniform. He was accompanied by two black-and-mauve clad members of a new branch of Imperial Guard that Tachibana had introduced.

The ones who made people disappear.

Kaiser's low growl was audible until Haruki quietened him with a hand on the scruff of his neck.

Kolya, who had seen his fair share of secret police back in Eurote, took a step closer to Haruki so he stood beside his chair and not behind it. Haruki spared him a sideways glance before turning to Nakamori, who sat before his desk without being invited.

'I'll get straight to the point, Commander,' said Nakamori, his tone blunt and unforgiving. 'We've just received reports about an incident that has taken far too long to come to our attention. Apparently, two months ago, you showed a great deal of leniency to the enemy.'

'Leniency?' Haruki's face remained impassive. 'I'm not sure what you're referring to, General.'

'I'm referring to the strike you led against one of the defence outposts on the Western Front. They say you took up our own resources to ensure that something like fifty of the enemy's wounded soldiers were returned across battle lines.'

'Actually, it was more like sixty,' Haruki corrected without skipping a beat. 'We had the jeeps and the manpower. The enemy had surrendered completely. I didn't see any point in taking POWs when our victory was so decisive.'

Nakamori had seen the commander's calm-faced insubordination in the war room but it did nothing to placate him.

'I'm not sure what game you think you're playing, Yamamoto, but the emperor isn't amused. You and your entire division are already on thin ice as far as the capital is concerned.'

'To be honest, General, I'm not entirely sure about the capital's prerogatives anymore.'

Aizawa pursed his lips. Nakamori's expression hardened over sagging jowls.

'What exactly are you insinuating?'

'Just that I find it strange that the capital would ignore my missives about a possible impending Hitobito strike but that they'd send you, personally, to deal with a months-old matter of POWs.'

'It's not your job to question the capital's priorities, Commander. Your behaviour over the past few months have been a hair's breadth away from –'

'Sorry I'm late.'

Klaus strolled into the office without any preamble.

It was the first of two interruptions that would take place in Haruki's office that afternoon, both within minutes of one another.

'Hot as balls outside,' Klaus declared as he rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. He glanced up at the party assembled before Haruki's desk. 'Hey, General. Didn't realise you were here.'

In fact, he knew full well. When he spied Nakamori going up the steps of the building flanked by the two tall black-suited imperial guards, Klaus' hackles had raised just slightly. Despite knowing how important it was that he kept Haruki at arm's length, he crossed the square and followed discreetly behind the small, ominous procession from the capital.

He stepped between the pair of imperial guards, who remained standing, faces set, and sprawled himself liberally in the chair beside the General's. He glanced at Haruki, who seemed unruffled by Nakamori's presence but vaguely pleased and surprised to see Klaus.

As he sat down, Klaus threw him the subtlest of winks.

Haruki felt a rush of warm relief.

'I'm in a private meeting with the commander,' Nakamori began, a familiar anger growing at Klaus' crassness and irreverence and his deigning to sit beside him.

'The captain is part of my counsel,' Haruki said. 'I wouldn't mind if he weighed in on the issue.'

'Which is what, by the way?' Klaus said.

'The capital thinks I've shown too much leniency to our enemies on the Western Front.'

'Oh, you mean when you returned wounded soldiers to their own army? Yeah, I saw that,' Klaus confirmed lightly to Nakamori. 'Probably one of the most decent things I've ever seen in wartime. And decency is hard to come by in war.'

Haruki gave him a swift, grateful smile in return.

'Troop size is the only way that the western nations outrank us,' Nakamori said, his gaze fixed on Haruki. 'Returning their soldiers helps them strengthen that advantage.'

'General –'

'This is only the latest matter to come to our attention. There's been a trend. The company you keep –' Nakamori said with an unsubtle glance to his right. 'Including that fool Feulner. Your time spent studying in the west –'

'None of that has any –'

'This is wartime, Commander. You know that any hint of sympathising with the enemy is seen by headquarters and the capital as treasonous.'

The word rang aloud in the office. It seemed to take the shape of the two black-clad members of the Imperial Guard.

Klaus and Kolya exchanged a fleeting look that was almost instinctive. Despite the fact that they hadn't once warmed to one another over the months, their glance communicated the same thought. If it looked like the commander was about to be escorted out of there by Tachibana's secret police, neither he nor Kolya would hesitate to draw guns.

'Is that why you're here personally, General?' Haruki said, glad his voice sounded measured even as his pulse picked up. He drew strength from Kolya at his right and Klaus in front of him whose posture remained relaxed even as his eyes glinted.

'Consider this a warning,' Nakamori replied stiffly. 'I won't abide any more indiscretions. Is that perfectly clear?'

Before Haruki could respond, the office saw its second interruption of the afternoon, this time in the form an anxious-looking sergeant who knocked and entered without awaiting permission.

'Haruki-sama,' he said. He saluted stiffly before approaching with a telegram.

'Control your men, Yamamoto!' Nakamori snapped irritably.

'They're attacking, sir,' the sergeant said to Haruki without even sparing a glance at the general.

'Who is?'

'The Hitobito, sir.'

'Where?'

The sergeant drew alongside him and handed him the telegram.

'Everywhere.'


It was the attack that Haruki had suspected and dreaded.

The capital was under rebel attack for the first time, as were half a dozen other major cities, including the nearby Hokane.

From the brief reports in the telegram, Haruki pieced it together slowly. They had waited. They had waited for the war with the west to take up the nation's attention and resources. And they struck when the home front was weak.

The Fifteenth was down to around a third of their full strength. So were each of the other divisions. And with an attack of this scale…

A black drop of foreboding fell in the pit of Haruki's stomach.

The news about the attack on the capital had sent a pale-faced general from the office, along with his black-clad guards. His car tore out of the compound just as Haruki reached the square. The siren sounded across the division.

Kolya walked briskly beside him. Another sergeant from the telegram room arrived with the latest reports.

'They've overpowered the police in Hokane, sir. They're about to take control of the city.'

And then the thought came to Haruki like a whisper.

Let them.

Haruki blinked down at the telegrams, confused by his own thought. Let them?

Let them take control of Hokane. Let Tachibana know that his rule is being threatened. Let them take –

And then he looked around at the men who waited for his order. Men whose futures at the hands of the emperor would be more than dire if Haruki even considered going through with a thought as treasonous as the one he had just had.

'Move out,' he said, turning to his sergeant. 'All units deployed to Hokane, tank and infantry. Spare only the ones in the infirmary.'

'Are the cadets to be used as reserves, sir?'

'No,' Haruki said decisively, recalling Taki's order in the middle of the second war. 'Leave them with their commanding officer. They're to be evacuated if the division looks like it's about to be breached.'

'Yes, sir.'

Haruki left Kaiser in the square and the dog sat obediently but with a restlessness Haruki hadn't seen in him before. It was as though he was fighting the urge to disobey.

You and me both, Haruki thought.

Though he looked like he was ready to follow Haruki through the square and settle by his master's feet in Murakumo, Kaiser stayed. Haruki hoped he would see the dog again.

Somewhere behind the siren and the clamour of soldiers rushing to their posts, he thought he heard the sound of a motorbike tearing out of the compound. Kolya saw the way Haruki's head turned to follow the sound.

'I'll go on ahead,' Klaus had said a few minutes earlier, before turning towards his shed where his bike was parked. 'I doubt the Hitobito's gotten its hands on anti-tank missiles, but if they have, I'll clear the way for you.'

Looking up at him, Haruki felt a sudden, powerful tightness in his chest. He had never felt it so strongly before, not even when they blazed their way through the Western Front a month ago. He only just managed to stop himself from taking Klaus' sleeve. He suddenly wanted to order him to stay behind with Kaiser, where he would be safe.

Klaus saw the look on Haruki's face and stopped. He felt again that frustrating surge of emotion over the way Haruki looked at him. Deep, soulful brown eyes. He vividly remembered his urge to lean down and kiss him; the feeling that came from his body and paid no mind to anything else. He was aware, in the corner of his mind, that Kolya was only a few paces away.

'Be careful,' Haruki said tensely.

Though Klaus' pulse was racing for more reasons than their impending clash with the Hitobito, he managed a reassuring half-smile and wink before he turned. The smile he got in return was one he carried with him as he mounted his bike.


Klaus saw the direness of the situation as soon as he crossed into Hokane.

Broken glass in shop fronts, bricks from half-collapsed buildings, and the grisly sight of a body or two, sometimes police, other times a rebel, lying on the sidewalk. Civilians straggled by, some trying to reach home, most trying to leave the city.

Hokane was a prominent port city only a few hours away from the capital. Securing it would be a momentous victory for the Hitobito. And with so few tanks and men left, Klaus wondered whether they could really hold the rebels back.

A strange winged anger came to him when he saw the angular arch of a large, orange tori lying broken and splintered across the steps to a shrine. He realised then that it had been seven months since his return to the east and he hadn't once visited the shrine near the Reizen grounds where the other half of Taki's ashes had been laid to rest.

He decided then and there, as he heard distant booms and gunfire, that it would be the first thing he'd do after the battle was over.


By the time the tanks rolled into the main street, Klaus had zipped past several startled groups of Hitobito members dressed in camouflage and wearing shabby, old-issue army helmets. They only raised their guns in time to watch him zip past.

He had to weave out of the way when a few shots were fired from rooftops.

And a few times he had sent grenades soaring to send them scattering. He knew quite a few lay dead by his hand and hoped civilians didn't number among them.

'Haruki, are you reading me?'

'Yes,' Haruki answered from Murakumo, relieved to hear his voice.

'Go east on the main road, I've just been that way. They've got machine guns, mustard gas and grenades but no anti-tank missiles. There's fighting in the eastern quarter that the rebels are winning. Hopefully Murakumo will turn the tide.'

'Roger that.'

Klaus remembered, out of nowhere, how Haruki had looked sleeping on the bench in his little corner of the compound. He remembered the cadet who had climbed a tree outside his prison cell to ask him if he was alright, in a time when he couldn't remember the last time anyone had asked him that.

Be careful, kid.

The thought was suddenly urgent. He almost sent it through the radio before he realised how it would spike unnecessary anxiety. He imagined the atmosphere in Murakumo, with Moriya, Azusa and Date manning their posts. And Kolya, who had trained as a second-gunner in order to fulfil his role as the commander's bodyguard. He would be in the hull only inches away from Haruki. It inspired a strange mix of jealousy and reassurance.

Then he remembered that his own gun was holstered by Haruki's side.

We're all with him, he realised. We've trained for this. The kid'll be fine.

He rolled his bike to a stop around the corner from the eastern quarter. The police were maintaining a barricade around the mayor's building and the rebels were firing and slowly attempting to get through. The hiss of mustard gas canisters, the patter of gunfire, the warnings shouted through loudspeakers, the occasional grenade explosions. All deafening.

All familiar. All feelings that Klaus knew as though they were etched into his skin.

He was a creature of war. He always would be. His seven years of peace – the cottage bounded by golden fields – was a life that was never his to begin with.

Despair and excitement and adrenaline and resignation melded into one as he gunned his bike head-on into the conflict, his gun drawn and his eyes flashing behind goggles.


The black drop of foreboding that Haruki felt upon hearing about the Hitobito's coordinated attacks began to spread slowly as Murakumo trundled towards the eastern quarter.

Every group of rebels they had seen had run for cover, as Haruki had expected. Machine guns and grenades stood no chance against their moving armoured mountain.

But there was something strange about the way they scrambled for cover. Something a bit too precise and specific about their formations. Or the way they relayed instructions over the radio. Like they had been expecting them. Haruki ordered them to keep their eyes peeled for anti-tank missiles, even though he knew Klaus said he hadn't seen any. The chances of their springing those heavy-weight missiles out of thin air was highly unlikely.

And then, through the vision scopes, something snagged in the corner of Haruki's vision.

Something high above them.

'Halt!' Haruki ordered. It was a command based on instinct.

Murakumo came to a lurching stop. For a few seconds, afterwards, there was silence and darkness in the cramped hull of Murakumo.

'Sir?' Azusa said uncertainly.

'What do you see on the rooftop at our eleven o'clock?'

Haruki kept peering and Azusa joined in using a secondary periscope.

As they watched, several figures on the rooftop clamoured together bearing an object. Something large and top-heavy with an aggressive, bulbous head.

'Is that –?' Azusa stammered.

Haruki's mouth went dry. Not only did it appear to be an anti-tank missile, it was a kind he hadn't seen before. It was small enough to be shoulder-mounted. And it was being aimed straight for Murakumo.

'Reverse!' Haruki yelled. 'Now! Now!'

Murakumo groaned and jolted backwards on its treads. Everyone within was caught in the intertial forward pull.

And yet, there was that sense that it was too late. Haruki knew. He watched as the missile flew from its sheath at a speed that made Murakumo's retreat look pitiful.

It flew with a high, keening whistle that all five crew members – Haruki, Kolya, Azusa, Date and Moriya – knew would spell Murakumo's end in a matter of seconds.

Haruki caught Kolya's gaze and reached for him instinctively right before it hit.


The sun burned over Hokane.

Klaus felt the sun's heat almost as oppressively as the lingering effects of mustard gas and the blow back from his own grenades. He was fast running out, but at least his element of surprise had thrown the rebels out of formation.

Just as he reached the safety of a building on the other side of the street, he pulled out the radio again. The one that Haruki himself, Klaus realised with a small grin, had built into the sidecar.

'Haruki, do you read?'

Silence and static.

'Kid, you there? Would be great for Murakumo to roll in right about now and flatten these guys.'

Still nothing.

A prickle of worry.

'Kid?'

'...read? This...'

There. A flicker of a voice.

The relief it brought about in Klaus betrayed how anxious he had been in that split second.

'…responding. Say again?'

It wasn't Haruki.

'This is Captain Wolfstadt,' Klaus responded, anxiety mounting again. 'Who's this?'

'Major Nakata with the third infantry unit. Sir, we've lost communication with Wolfpup.'

And then the prickle raced over Klaus' whole body.

'Maybe they lost their comms,' he said, reasoning aloud. 'Do you have a visual on Murakumo?'

'Negative. We're heading east towards where they were last seen.'

Klaus gunned the bike around, momentarily forgetting the battle for the mayoral building. He headed back in the direction that he came, ears ringing. Heart pounding irrationally.

Less than a minute later, Nakata hailed him on the radio again.

'Sir, we have a visual. It's – it's gone.'

Klaus frowned. 'What do you mean?'

'Murakumo's been destroyed, sir.'

Ever-present, the talons found him again. They readied themselves around him, ready to clench. But not yet, because the words hadn't registered.

'Say again, Major.'

'We're under fire, sir. The rebels are on the rooftops…' A crackle and gunfire and feedback that was indiscernible from the major's voice. 'But we have confirmation that Murakumo is destroyed. Anti-tank missile by the looks of it. No sign of any survivors. Requesting backup for our unit, we're surroun–!'

The radio cut out.


By the time the bike rolled into the carnage of that stretch of road, the smoke was still billowing everywhere, thick and grey. It blotted out the sun intermittently. It wound into Klaus as he staggered off his bike and into the thick of it, armed only with his gun.

Piercing the grey smoke were the evil yellow streaks of light from rifles and guns perched on rooftops. Picking out the third infantry unit, which was quickly retreating.

And there, in the centre of the cloud of smoke, was the sad husk of Murakumo, charred and dead, barely recognisable as a tank.

No –

Klaus ran forwards, tripping over debris, passing bodies wearing the jade of the Fifteenth Armoured Division and bearing the triple-leafed rose, faces open to the sky. None of them Haruki.

The tank loomed ahead. A bullet passed too close for comfort and he barely noticed.

'Kid…'

You're not cursed, Klaus. You are the curse.

He had told Haruki he'd clear the way. He had told Haruki where to go. He had –

You killed your rose. Just like you'll kill your pup.

And the talons squeezed again until what remained in him suffocated. He struggled to breathe as he reached Murakumo. There was no way in. The blast had buckled and welded her closed.

Klaus wheeled about, eyes wild, his breathing laboured. He heard the tinny sound of bullets glancing off Murakumo's hull and made no move to duck. He scratched his shin against a scalding piece of metal that protruded from Murakumo's track, leaving a deep gouge that he felt only peripherally.

His vision was clouded and there was a ringing in his ears that muted the rest of the world. He walked away from the destroyed tank, all of his senses straining. All of his senses looking for a figure in a jade jacket and dark brown hair somewhere, anywhere.

Nothing. Just smoke and gunfire and bodies.

'No, please. Please…'

The blue light of dawn. Taki's lifeless form.

No, please. Please, God. I can't, not again –

He was back in the wheat field and saw Haruki standing a little distance away, staring at the road, his hair and coat swaying in tandem with the stalks. Then Haruki turned and saw him for the first time in eight years.

And hot tears sprang to Klaus' eyes.

'HARUKI!'

He bellowed Haruki's name as loudly as he had once bellowed Taki's in an abandoned farmhouse in No Man's Land.

And someone answered.

'Klaus!'

Klaus spun around so fast that he nearly stumbled again. His injured shin oozed blood through his pant leg. The voice was faint, but it sounded like –

And there he was, emerging from a side street in the distance.

Klaus blinked in a daze. He was so far away from Murakumo. It made no sense. Surely it was an apparition. Another of the gods' cruel tricks. But Klaus' legs moved of his own accord and he was suddenly running. And suddenly he was conscious of the bullets. If he was hit before Klaus reached him…

The distance between them closed. And Klaus' disbelief threatened to spill over. It was Haruki, alive and whole and almost within reach.

He was saying something but his words were strangely muffled, like Klaus had just been near a shell explosion.

For Haruki, his relief that Klaus was alright was heavily tempered by their precarious situation; out in the open, in smoke that was steadily thinning and would bare them to the gunmen above. He also noticed, as he got closer, that there was a look on Klaus' face that he hadn't seen before. A fierceness and focus that would have thrown Haruki if he didn't have more pressing things on his mind.

'Klaus,' he panted when he was within earshot. 'I need help. Azusa's been hit. We need to get him out of the –'

But he was cut off mid-sentence; Klaus didn't stop even when he reached him. Haruki stumbled backwards a step when Klaus suddenly engulfed him, arms enclosing him like a cage and a hand clenching the back of his head.

Haruki's breath left him.

For a perilous second, they were standing still within range of enemy fire and Haruki was trapped against a form that was as rigid and unmovable as steel. The hand in his hair was tight enough to be painful.

'Klaus –'

And then that same hand pulled Haruki's head back. Haruki again glimpsed the wildness and fierceness in Klaus' eyes in the split-second before Klaus kissed his mouth.

He felt mild pain before he understood what was happening. The grip in his hair was still far too tight. And Klaus' lips had pressed against his so forcefully that his bottom lip was crushed hard and fast against his teeth.

He blinked hard, eyes wide, and made a small, muffled noise of shock.

And then, after only a few seconds that passed with all the slow deliberation of life ages, Klaus pulled back. His grip in Haruki's hair had eased but he was still holding onto him like he was afraid of what would happen if he let go. His face was still close, still taking up Haruki's entire field of vision, yellow hair framing his eyes.

A few details filtered into Haruki's steadily numbing mind. How Klaus' mouth was slightly open and his breathing was unsteady. How there was a hint of something in his golden gaze that tore at Haruki's heart. He felt sure he had stumbled out of that awful day into a dream from his youth.

It caught up with Haruki then. At least part of it. Enough for him to feel winded. Then he remembered where they were.

'Klaus,' he breathed. 'Az– Azusa…'

Klaus tried to focus. He had surrendered completely to instinct and he felt icy relief coursing through him still and it had all come together into a moment he couldn't control. The consequences of what he had done seemed vague and distant. Negligible.

But somewhere in the far corner of his mind, he heard what Haruki said. Azusa had been hit.

And so he tried to bring himself back. And he nodded as he released Haruki.

'Let's go,' he said.

Haruki needed another second before he turned and went back the way he came. He picked his way over debris, trying to keep an eye on the rooftops that loomed through smoke, his lips stinging and his mind reeling.

Klaus followed.


*Author's note: Maiden grass is a real type of grass that sort of looks like pale wheat stalks. The 'maiden' part of the name is just a coincidence that made me blink at the Google results page a few times.

PS After writing this chapter, it occurred to me that it's sending the following message: if you fall in love with Klaus von Wolfstadt, you should prepare yourself for ten years of unrequitedness and pining. But if Klaus von Wolfstadt develops even the vaguest hint of feelings for you, you should prepare to get mauled by him only a few weeks later, in the middle of a war zone to boot LOL.