A/N: Oh look, you get another Duchess Guard! Have fun.

Chapter 27

Mifune

"Summer nights are the worst…"

The complaint was candid, nothing more than an observation of the hot air making their uniforms cling ever the more uncomfortably to their skin. Mifune was thankful for the light breeze, however; being stationed outside was a blessing this time around, even if her present company was a little whinier than her usual comrades.

Romefeller and Oz had been thankfully quiet recently so the Queen decided to take this opportunity to do some clean-up on their borders, which was why the Duke had been deployed. Given that the majority of their force had gone with the Duke on the expedition to the barbarian territories, they were reliant on the more peripheral knights and soldiers to guard the Yuy estate.

There were still a handful of the more experienced knights in residence: Sir Mikhail and Sir Asahi were on Duchess duty for the foreseeable future, Sir Lyle was running rampant in the training grounds, and Mifune had heard that even Sirs Berion and Sayaka had stayed behind.

Mifune herself knew she was one of the more seasoned knights, but this often ended up giving her the unenviable role of playing babysitter to the Duchess. Only knights who had proved themselves masters of the sword were granted the opportunity to serve as bodyguards to the Duchess, and though the role was honorable - it had become something akin to a punishment among those in her rank.

The Duchess hardly ever left the estate while in-province, preferring to spend his time inside doing things that made Master Chang's face turn red in anger. There was also the addition of his personal attendant, Hilde Schbeiker, who Mifune knew from experience could hold her own - even against Commander Barton. For knights like Mifune, guarding the Duchess was essentially just spending hours at a time standing in one spot and staring listlessly at nothing.

Not to mention in the rare occurrences where the Duchess directly interacted with his guards. Those times were perhaps the worst; Mifune had borne witness to the time where the Duchess had verbally assessed all of Cassio's faults with pinpoint accuracy, causing the once-boastful knight to cower in fear and get hurriedly reassigned. Mifune herself had only received the occasional withering glare from the Duke's husband, but as she was not quick to rise to the bait, she usually went ignored by the acerbic man.

It was Asahi's turn this week, which usually had everyone breathing a sigh of relief. If the Duchess was guarded by Mikhail or Asahi, chances were that there would be no imminent breakdowns or stress-induced midnight training sessions as a result of being subjected to the Duchess's presence for an extended length of time. Mikhail was too amiable and composed; Asahi too easy-going and relaxed. There was only so much the Duchess could pick at them for before it got redundant, and they tended to receive the same cold shoulder treatment Mifune did.

"Shift change!"

Mifune gratefully exchanged places. The other guards she'd been on duty with broke away from her pretty quick, heading in the direction of the estate gate to head to town. Late-night guard duty could get pretty boring, but stationed as they were on the far northern side of the estate just made it worse; she'd have to travel the entire length of the estate to get to the opposite side where her dorm room was located.

It was still a pleasant walk. The summer air was humid but not overbearing, and she enjoyed the rare moment of peace. The gardens and pathways were mostly deserted at this hour, and though she glimpsed the occasional guard, the locations were few and far between since they were only placed in the necessary posts.

It was why Asahi looked so out of place.

The man was standing some paces in front of the Duchess's greenhouse, giving Mifune a wave and bright smile as she approached. There was no one else in sight, although as she drew closer, she saw the interior of the greenhouse was dimly illuminated - signifying someone was inside.

"Hey Mifune," Asahi said. "You on your way to the barracks?"

Mifune nodded, eyes glancing from him to the closed door of the greenhouse some yards away. It was hard to tell who was inside as the walls were covered in all manner of flora, but given that only one person was ever allowed entrance, she could make an educated guess.

"His Grace came out to the greenhouse this late?" Mifune whispered.

Asahi shrugged, "I suppose he was having a hard time sleeping."

Mifune suppressed a sarcastic comment in reply, instead glancing around as if checking for something. She knew that if the Duchess was here, then...

Asahi noticed her reaction and snickered, "If you're looking for Miss Hilde, she went back to the Duchess's wing to fetch a blanket. His Grace is cold."

Mifune raised an eyebrow. "In this weather?" Forget cold - she would be more worried about the Duchess catching heatstroke.

Asahi shrugged again. "To be honest, I think he was just trying to get rid of her. You know how they are," he said.

Mifune understood the reference: the tense relationship between the Duchess and his personal attendant was notorious among the knights. It was one thing for the Duke to hire some person from the Capital, it was another thing entirely to have her guard the one person the Duke actually seemed weak to.

Mifune privately thought it was amazing the Duchess and Hilde Schbeiker hadn't killed each other yet. They never argued - Miss Hilde would never dare chide her master - but there was something strangely suffocating in the way they traded barbed words and sharp looks. Mifune was grateful that for the most part, the guards were stationed outside the doors any time the Duchess spent time inside; she could only imagine how much worse it was to be caught between the two while in the same room.

Mifune decided to leave it at that. Whatever the Duchess decided to get up to was his own business, and as of right at the current moment, Asahi was the one in charge of protection. Mifune could worry about late-night greenhouse visits in the future and was just privately relieved that the Duchess, for all his vitriol, was still pretty stationary.

"Oh, she's back," Asahi murmured, eyes going past Mifune to someone behind her. She glanced back to see Miss Hilde turn the corner and enter the view of the courtyard, carrying a small stack of blankets as if knowing the Duchess would just send her back to get a different one. She really had to hand it to Miss Hilde - she could predict the Duchess's moods quite well.

Mifune turned back around, intent on bidding Asahi goodnight and getting a move on before the Duchess and Miss Hilde descended into one of their infamous cold shoulder-offs when the illumination in the greenhouse just- flickered.

That wouldn't be so unusual; sometimes the oil lanterns were poorly made and the fire died away quicker, but something in the air just put Mifune on edge. It was the sensation she got when facing the blade of another on the battlefield, that last moment where she needed to dodge before her life was ended. It tasted like blood and steel in the back of her throat, it made her feel like cornered prey on her last legs.

In the bare illumination of the lantern Asahi was holding, Mifune could make out the thin tendril of a vine withering away into dust.

It was suddenly hard to breathe. Desperate, she looked toward Asahi - but he had his face turned away, gaze locked in the same place hers had been, dark eyes wide. White puffs of air came out of his slackened mouth, and only then did Mifune realize that it was freezing.

The light of Asahi's lantern went out at the same time as the light in the greenhouse.

"A-Asahi-"

Mifune couldn't finish what she tried to gasp out, her voice weakened into abrupt silence, the air sucked out of the very words. It was too difficult to speak, too difficult to see; the moonless night sky was illuminated only by the faraway stars, although Mifune would not be able to see them even if she looked now. Her neck could not move, her body stiff and cold, her eyes seemingly locked on the greenhouse.

In the absurdly silent night air, she could almost hear something.

"...ive in?"

"***********"

Mifune felt a thin trickle of warm blood drip from her nose. Her body ached , as if she'd gone through hours upon hours of training. Her eyes could barely focus, but when they did, they only saw the thin trails of vines withering and falling away from the interior walls of the greenhouse.

"...want to. Even if…"

"***********"

Ice crackled along the edges of the glass panes, obscuring the interior even more, and the air was so cold that it hurt to breathe. Mifune didn't know how she remained standing, an unseen pressure crushing down on her at all sides, but her body no longer felt like hers anymore. Every beat of her heart seemed like it's last, painful and aching, and every breath drawn with the greatest effort.

"...I'm sure."

"***Very*well."

There was a gust of cold air, and then all Mifune saw was black.

"...o! NO!"

Mifune's eyes snapped open, and only a second later, she became aware of the overwhelming heat. She jolted upright, the courtyard illuminated clearly despite the lack of moon - but only because of the monstrous blaze burning several yards away from her.

"...Mifune?"

She turned her head to the side and found Asahi there on the ground just like her. There was a dried trail of blood from his nostrils, along with several bleeding cuts along his face. His lightweight armor was in a similar condition, smeared with ash and dirt. Mifune realized she was much the same, rising to her feet as she took quick stock of herself. Her body ached, small jolts of pain letting her know that she'd been injured by the shrapnel of the exploded greenhouse glass - but it was nothing compared to the sensation from before.

The greenhouse was in burning shambles, no evidence of flowers or ice, and the heat of the blaze was terrifying in its intensity. Mifune's mind rushed to reassemble the sequence of events but nothing made sense about any of it: the chill, the ice, the murderous pressure, the voice.

"Wake up! WAKE UP!"

Mifune startled at the scream, suddenly recalling what had woken her. Asahi was a step ahead, rushing forward and around the burning structure, Mifune on his heels. They came to an abrupt stop at the sight before them, a cold knot settling in Mifune's gut.

Hilde Schbeiker was sitting on the ground, bent over the prone body laid before her. The face was obscured by her curled form but a thick rope of hair trailed outwards past bloodied, still fingers.

The Duchess.

Neither of them moved. Mifune could only stare at the unconscious man; even with the way Miss Hilde crowded him, she could make out the deeply drawn breaths. The silken, dark violet garments were smeared with ash, patches torn and burnt here and there.

Mifune remembered hearing his voice. He was inside the greenhouse, and yet…

The heat of the fire beside them was enough to elicit a fine sheen of sweat on them all. Despite this, the Duchess's skin was pale, littered with only light scrapes and light burns. His hair was in disarray, fallen out of his braid, but not a single strand was singed. He had not been touched by the fire - only carried out of it, likely by the woman holding him.

Hilde's head swiveled to them, her expression desperate but her tone controlled. "Get the doctor!" she snarled at them. "His Grace needs to be treated immediately!"

It was only through strict training that her body obeyed immediately, even as her mind rushed to keep up. Just as she was turning away, Mifune caught sight of the Duchess's eyes slowly opening - brilliantly illuminated violet irises more arresting than even the fire raging next to them. The very sight of them spread ice down down her throat and into her lungs, a violent echo of that previous pressure thrumming throughout her body.

His eyes-

Asahi grabbed her by the elbow when she faltered a step at the sight. "We need to go," he whispered to her, keeping one hand on her arm as he half-guided, half-dragged her along. The Duchess's eyes slid closed, Hilde leaning over him and whispering feverishly, her deft fingers checking his pulse and gliding along the contours of his face.

Another tug from Asahi and Mifune got her feet moving of their own accord again, allowing him to pull her around the corner so that the Duchess was no longer in view. She could make out the distant shouts of knights now that they were moving away from the blaze, the guards likely having caught sight of the flickering firelight from their posts.

"What was that?" fell from her lips numbly.

Asahi's hand tightened on her arm. He glanced back at her, and her heart dropped like dead weight in her chest at his words.

"Mifune. You already know the answer to that, don't you?"

Mifune said nothing.

The air inside the room was tangy with sweat, a common occurrence these days when their training regimen was under near-constant revision. Mifune paid it no heed, her steps taking her down the rows of equipment and training weapons until she hit the edge of the cavernous training area where Asahi was located. The man himself was lying flat on the ground, sweat and grime clinging to his skin as he worked to regain his breath.

The reason was no mystery: he'd just finished his fiftieth lap around the estate, as prescribed to him by Vice-Captain Mikhail. This was Asahi's punishment for failing to inform anyone of the Duchess's whereabouts last night, although Mifune knew Asahi had gotten it easy because Mikhail had felt vindicated by how shocked Captain Simon had been by the whole thing. The new Duchess Guard Captain had received a withering dressing down from the Duke earlier for his failure to realize the Duchess had gone missing last night, and then been saved by the Duchess who had pointed out that he'd purposely absconded out the window just so Simon wouldn't know.

Between failing in his duty and then being protected by the person he least expected, Simon had apparently taken some kind of mental hit and asked Mikhail to deal with Asahi so he could lock himself in his office and ruminate. ("Sulk," Berion had scoffed. Takeo could not even defend his captain.) The original Duchess Guard had hardly been surprised by the Duchess's antics, although the look both Mikhail and Vice-Commander Broden had given the walls made Mifune think another wall-climbing training session was in their near future.

Mifune wasn't concerned about that though. To an extent, she wasn't even too concerned about the Duchess climbing up walls or Asahi enabling him.

"Hey Mifune," Asahi said, weakly flapping a hand at her in greeting.

Mifune leaned against a training rack, eyes scouring Asahi's exhausted form in thought. Friendly and sometimes-scatterbrained Asahi, who could expertly wield a sword and easily converse with the Duchess of Yuy, both before and after the greenhouse fire. Who could be relied upon to take up extra duties without too much protest. Who demonstrated skills on par with knights like Mikhail and Simon. Who was one of the few knights that hailed from the Maxwell province.

Who was one of the few who followed the Harvester faith.

Asahi wasn't present the day of the Peacemillion church incident, but even if he had been - Mifune wondered if he would have stepped in. Something about Asahi was so laid-back, his approach so easily reflecting that take-it-as-it-comes attitude. It was why the Duke had often tasked Asahi with guard duty of the Duchess since they were first wed, as he did not chafe from that barbed tongue; it served him just as well now, even if the Duchess's attitude had shifted to something nicer but just as chaotic.

"Asahi," Mifune began quietly. "Where can I find gemstones appropriate for His Grace the Duchess's altar?"

Asahi groaned, throwing an arm over his eyes. "I told you to stop calling it that," he complained. "Every time you say it like that, it sounds like we're worshipping the Duchess."

Mifune just stared straight at him.

"...look, just call it Death's Door, alright? That's what everyone else calls it anyway."

Death's Door - the informal name for the altars made in worship of the Harvester. Rather than"the Claw that Cradled Life," the oft-used depiction of Peacemillion, the Harvester had no idol or proper form. Instead, the worshippers of the God of Death crafted beautiful cabinets, inlaid with precious metals and gemstones, the back carved out to create a miniature "doorway."

The key point of any Death's Door, however, was impermanence. They could last for a few years, or a few months, or even only a single day - it depended on the worshipper and the craft. They would destroy their altar at some point, whether that meant chopping it to pieces or burning it to ash; it was through this ritual act that the altar gained transcendence and opened up another path for Death.

It's what had happened to the Duchess's altar prior to the greenhouse incident. He had destroyed it himself only a week previous and had yet to recommission another one to be built before he woke up with amnesia. In the aftermath, given that near everyone around him were followers of Peacemillion, it had slipped under their notice to create one in his stead.

"Why do you even need gemstones?" Asahi asked, finally sitting up. "Most Death's Doors are made of wood. Although my uncle did make one out of stone before, but, uh, that didn't end too well."

Mifune could imagine. The only reason a follower of the Harvester made Death's Doors out of any material other than pure wood was for sacrificial rites. Although sacrificial rites were very rare in this day and age, the notoriety of them was what gave followers of Peacemillion pause when meeting someone of the Harvester faith.

"I read that they are sometimes decorated with gemstones," Mifune dutifully reported.

She had decided to be the one to build a Death's Door for the Duchess to use. After the Peacemillion church incident, Master Quatre had quickly cottoned on to her efforts, which helped increase the funding for it, and occasionally some of the other Duchess Guards would help. It was meant to be a pleasant surprise for the Duchess, since he's had so few of them lately, and the work was nearly completed.

As someone who grew up under the care of the Peacemillion faith, though, Mifune was still learning. Asahi made an awful teacher sometimes, but Mifune had no one else to ask and after the Duchess had purportedly met another Harvester follower in the Peacemillion church, Mifune was wary of just approaching any old Harvester believer. Asahi himself had never crafted a Death's Door, only ever having been given some from his family or purchasing some during his occasional trip back home; even then, they were small and loftily-made, more for the mere utilization rather than artistry.

It wasn't as if the Duchess before seemed particularly religious either. Only every now and then since he'd first married the Duke did the Duchess actually perform any of his religious rites, destroying only two Death's Doors during the year before the greenhouse fire. Mifune had not been very familiar with the Harvester religion, as what little she knew about it before had been picked up by simply being around Asahi - who she had assumed was not particularly devout, given that she'd never actually seen him do anything too.

Until the night of the greenhouse fire.

When he'd dragged her across the estate to fetch Doctor Po, when he'd washed the blood and sweat and ash off of himself right beside her later that same night, when he'd looked her in the eyes knowingly. He'd pulled her into his room, empty and quiet as the other knights went to investigate the fire and help clean up the debris, and opened up the small cabinet he kept safely tucked away in his trunk.

It was a simple pinewood box, dusted lightly with what seemed to be ash that left no trace of itself on his fingertips as he opened it. The back of the box was hollowed through, as if it had been scorched with a concentrated blaze. Foxglove flowers were threaded together and kept pin the interior sides, beautiful and dangerous.

It was like looking into a casket.

"Flowers would be more appropriate but I can see why you'd forego that," Asahi mused. "His Grace has probably received too many flowers by this point."

Mifune stiffened, the bottom of her gut dropping out; they both knew it was not the bouquets that the Duchess received from the Duke that Asahi was referring to. Mifune could practically taste the smoke in the back of her throat, could feel the heat flash across her face, could feel the ice in her lungs.

She remembered, she remembered, she remembered.

Mifune said nothing - just like back then.

Asahi smiled, "Use amethyst, Mifune. The Harvester has always been associated with the color of amethyst."

A/N : Kudos to everyone who thought OG!Duo in the greenhouse was suspicious - because yes, it was very suspicious. LOL

By the way, I do update on AO3 faster than FFnet – and there's also a little fanart corner for this story too over there.

Anyway, please be kind and drop a review! :)