Here's the New Year drabble you've all been waiting for!

Posting this in advance of New Year's Eve.

Enjoy!


Anyone ever heard of the King's Game?

You know, that game where you all have to randomly pick out sticks that are labeled with numbers? The one who has a stick with a king symbol on it?

The one that makes the "King" of the game have absolute control over the numbers, who must obey every one of the "King's" absolute command? That one?

Sound familiar?

If not, then you're lucky-you've never been subject to its torturous ways. If it is, then well, I'm sure you can guess what happens when the role of "King" falls into the hands of a sadistic, maniacal person.

Like, say, a certain black magi who lives in Kou Empire.


Alibaba looked at the darkening sky wistfully. "Man, I can't believe the year is ending already."

Aladdin nodded in agreement with Alibaba. "Time just passes by so fast. It seems like yesterday when we first met. It seems unreal the year ends tomorrow."

"So much has happened since then, huh?" Alibaba grinned in reminiscence. "We all had our ups and downs this year, but we managed to pull through somehow." He frowned as a sudden though struck. "I kind of want to end this year on a good note with everybody. But how do we do that…?"

"Did someone call for me?" A mischievous voice piqued up next to Alibaba's right shoulder.

Alibaba may have leaped a few feet into the air. "Judal! What are you doing here?"

Judal pouted. "You called for me."

"Uh, no, we didn't."

"You said you wanted to end this year on a good note with everybody, but you didn't know how."

"How does that equate to calling for you?!"

"I know a good way to end the year and prepare for the New Year." Judal cut into the beginning of Alibaba's tirade. "It's really fun-and it's a good way of determining the strong."

"Determining the strong? Wait, that's not what I-"

"So it's been decided!" Judal interrupts Alibaba again. "We're going to play the King's Game tomorrow at the Kou empire! You better be prepared to lose!" with that, Judal scampered off, with a few cackles of "Kehehe!"

Alibaba stared at Judal's retreating back for a few minutes before he turned to gaze at Aladdin. "I-he-what just happened?!"

Aladdin gazed back at Alibaba, equally bewildered. "I don't know."


"Thank you, everyone, for arriving to play the King's Game at this time of the year. I just know we're going to have fun!" Judal was moving past gleeful to bordering on ecstatic.

If you looked closely, you might have even seen a dog's tail wagging.

"…we had no choice, Judal." Sinbad deadpanned. "I only came because you threatened to destroy Sindria's barrier if I didn't come."

Titus nodded in agreement. "This better be short. Sphintus and Marga are waiting for me to light fireworks."

"This better not be one of your little schemes, Judal." Koumei's pink eyes peered out from behind his fan. "We have better things to do."

Kouen said nothing. But his eyes held a wary glint in them.

Muu smiled cheerily. "Now, now-who knows, this might actually be fun!"

Both Alibaba and Aladdin stared at Muu in disbelief.

Kouha appeared to be the only one excited.

"Okay, so here's what we're doing: we're going top play a game called the King's Game. The rules are simple-each of the sticks in this little can here (he shook the can) is numbered. One of the sticks, however, has a crown symbol on it. Whoever gets the crown stick becomes King, and is allowed to order the numbers into doing whatever the King wants. It's a game of whims!"

"…" Everyone stared at Judal. No wonder he wanted to play this game so much-it was like his birthday party come early!

"Judal, there are twelve sticks in here." Alibaba noted.

"So?"

"We only have ten people. Ten. What are the other two sticks for?"

"For fun!"

How is that for fun?

"Whatever. Let's get this over with." Kouha reached over and pulled a stick. The rest was quick to follow suit.

"Who's King?"

Alibaba quickly glanced at his stick in hope. No such luck, he had a ten.

"Aladdin, are you King?" Please let it be Aladdin.

But Aladdin shook his head. "Nope, I got 2."

Alibaba glanced at the others in the circle. Was it Hakuryuu? Hakuryuu's a nice guy, he can take him. Or was it Koumei? That guy can barely throw a punch, let alone a dare. Or maybe Muu-he's not the sadistic type.

Please don't let it be Kouha. Or Kouen. Especially not-

"I'm King!"

Alibaba swore blood drained right out of his mouth as he gazed at the one and only Judal triumphantly holding up a stick with the gleaming crown symbol on it. Everyone gazed at Judal with a similar expression on his face. After all, if there was one thing everyone agreed on, it was that Judal had the undisputable title of being the-

"Number 6 and Number 10, I dare you to hug each other while you are both shirtless for ten minutes!"

Alibaba's mouth went dry. He was Number 10. But who was Number 6?

"I'm going to kill you for this later, Judal!" Kouha growled while he pulled off his shirt and stood up. "Oi, which one of you is Number 10?"

-of being the Sadistic King.


"Who's King?"

"I am!" Judal gleefully lifted up the stick again. "Number 2, cluck like a chicken while dressed as Sindrian dancers!"

Muu stood up, glared at Judal and immediately asked Sinbad, "Can you help me get dressed?"


Alibaba resisted from using Amon to burn his eyes out.


"Who's King?"

"Me!" Judal's eyes glinted mischievously. "Number 7, find the first cat you see, grab it, and bring it back here, all while calling it the person you love most and kissing it!"


Titus had to get medical help from Sphintus to treat the cat scratches on his face afterwards, all while muttering, "Marga" with a traumatized expression on his face.


"Who's King?"

"Me." To Alibaba's relief, the king stick was not in Judal's hands this time.

Nope, it was in Hakuryuu's hand. Which was a relief, since Hakuryuu's a pretty nice guy. Alibaba's confident that he wouldn't do anything extreme-

"Number 4 and Number 3, strip off your pants and have Number 11 paint your face into cats." Hakuryuu calmly relayed his command.

Say what?!

Well, Alibaba wasn't any of those Numbers. But he knew Aladdin was Number 11. So who's face was he gonna paint?

"Hakuryuu-kun, please tell me you are joking." Sinbad's smile looked like it was going to break his face any minute now. "Come on, I won't do anything to you. Please tell it's a joke."

"Apologies, Sinbad-dono, but it was not a joke. Now please proceed with the command."

"Ppfft!" Judal bent over, laughing. "Haha! Ha! Didn't think you had it in you, Hakuryuu!"

"I was actually aiming at you, Judal, but I guess that was pretty obvious." Hakuryuu coolly retorted.

As if it was obvious!


Needless to say, both Sinbad and Kouen made sure to gather all the cameras and destroyed them when the game was over.


Judal had to be cheating. Alibaba was certain of it.

Otherwise, how else would he keep becoming King almost every single time?

It was a nightmare. Aside from that one time Hakuryuu became King, Judal kept coming up with more and more shameful acts.

For one thing, he made Hakuryuu go outside and kiss the first girl he saw.

Judging by the bruises and kiss marks all over his face and body, Alibaba judged the unlucky girl to be either very strong or a really bad kisser. (Elizabeth, anyone?)

Then Judal went and actually ordered Koumei, nice, lazy, unenthusiastic, pigeon-loving Koumei, to go out and eat some pigeon.

Alibaba honestly didn't believe he'd ever seen such a hateful expression on Koumei's face before.

And that was only the start! There were more dares, and they were more shameful, but Alibaba didn't want to think about them.

If he did, he was sure he would vomit.

"All right, gang, we can't let Judal keep doing this. At this rate, we won't even have a reputation to keep. We have to stop him." Sinbad gathered everyone around to conspire on stopping Judal from making them commit more shame. He didn't have with convincing everyone to do so; they were all ready to kill Judal.

"Yeah, but how? He keeps on being King every single darn time?" Kouha pointed out.

"If only there was a way for one of us to become King. Then we just need to know what number Judal is…" Kouen mused.

"I can do it." Everyone swiveled his head around to look at Aladdin. "I can use gravity magic to pull the King stick into my hand. Then I'll just use telepathy to see what number Judal has. It 's probably the same way he's been playing the game."

"Are you sure, Aladdin?" Alibaba asks. "You don't have to do this."

Aladdin nodded. "I have to. Judal's gone too far. He needs to be stopped."

Everyone agrees-that's their game plan.


Poor Judal- he had no idea everyone's out for blood.

Specifically, his blood.


"All right, this here's going to be the last round!" Judal cackled. "Let's go, guys-let's end the year with fun!"

Alibaba glanced at Aladdin, who nodded back at him: it was time.

They all convened on the can holding the sticks.

"Who's King?"

"I am!" Aladdin held up the stick. Judal pouted, but wiped it off quickly. What was the chibi going to do?

Aladdin took a deep breath and shouted:

"All Numbers except Number 5, throw as many snowballs at Number 5 until he is covered in snow!"

Judal cackled again. "Wow, chibi! That's actually a pretty good one! Wherever did you…" he trailed off upon seeing everyone staring at him. Was it his imagination, or were their expression bordering on murderous?

Judal looked down at his stick in horror, realizing what stick he had just drawn.

Number 5.

He gulped and looked up at the group-wait, was there a pile of snowballs there before?

"Hey, guys!" Judal started backing towards the door slowly. "Y'know, you really don't need to do this. It's just a bunch of fun, right?" he laughed nervously. "Right?"

"Sindrian dress." Muu muttered as he prepared to throw a ginormous snowball at Judal.

"Cat kissing." Titus had an unusually blank expression in his eyes.

"Face. Paint." Sinbad casually bounced a snowball in his hand.

Kouen said nothing, but his gleaming eyes said it all.

"Hugging shirtless." Kouha's usual bloodthirsty expression on his face bordered on murderous.

"…" Hakuryuu's light blue eyes shone with an unrepentant glint.

Koumei miraculously produced a snowball out of nowhere.

Alibaba kept adding to the pile.

Aladdin had a dark look on his face. "You've taken things too far, Judal. You have to pay."

They lifted their snowballs in sync. "Die, Judal!"

Judal did what any sane, doomed-to-be-killed-by-a-bunch-of snowballs-by-what-could-have-been-his-friends man would do.

He ran for the door, snowballs pelted after his wake.


To be honest, I don't know if I got the rules down correctly, I've never played the game myself. But I hope you guys really enjoyed this!

Also, I've recently set up a poll in my profile. It's about which of my fanfics you like the most. It's just for fun, so you don't really have to answer. But it'd be nice if you did.

Until 2016, everyone!