Sorry for the late update! Crazy weekend involving Open Houses, Volleyball, LOTS OF BIKE RIDING, and Midnight Karaoke. My legs HURT. Not to mention I'm busy working on some other fics too. But here it is, rather long one as an apology.
Title: Into the Indefinite Sky
Author: S.P. Kathrine
Anime: Kyou Kara Maou
Genre: AU, Angst/Drama, Romance
Pairing: YuurixWolfram
Rating: M (R)
Chapter: Chapter 10 -10 of ?
Warnings: Angst, Non-Consensual Sexual themes (referenced/implied), AU, OOC Wolfram, possibly OOC everyone else BIG SURPRISE! (not everyone will probably like it but…Oh well (shrugs))
Summary:
Wolf had spent his life believing that he was meant for servitude. His master was strict, and often cruel, but he never thought he could be anything more than what he was. One night changes everything and he is thrown into a world that he knows nothing about and given a life he never thought he could have. But a secret he keeps could only throw his life into further turmoil and not to mention the Demon King…
Chapter 10 - Two Steps Back
As Wolf would find, everyone had known of Yuuri's rather unique way of returning to his homeland. When he has asked where the country was, he had been given a rather complicated answer that he did not fully believe. Another world? It was too fantastic a concept. He had enough trouble dealing with the world he lived in, how could he possibly deal with moving between two of them. It was then that he decided to give Yuuri a little more leeway. It seemed that he did understand what it was like to suddenly be thrust into a new world he knew nothing about and try to cope with it. But it did not change the fact that the other boy was a wimp who needed to grow a backbone.
He had started his lessons with Günter a few days later, as well as sword lessons with Conrad when Gisela confirmed his back was healed enough-he still refused to remove his necklace. He had been given the choice of many different teachers, but for some reasons he knew that Conrad would be the least likely to cosset him during training. He didn't want to be pampered, he wanted to learn how to fight. He never wanted to be caught helpless ever again.
It had been a strange transition, living both as a Freeman and with Mazoku. While he was forced to study for his lessons (literature, culture, history, and writing) and practice daily with his swordplay, he did have the choice to quit. He just refused to. Daily chores were not demanded of him-he was forcibly removed from the kitchen on more than one occasion for trying to assist the maids-and he spent much of his free time with Greta, often in the library. It had been so long since he'd been permitted to read that he had not realized how much he missed settling into a good book until Greta had pointed out he'd gone several pages without reading aloud to her.
He had also gotten to know the red-haired woman, Anissina. She was somewhat of a frightening experience. Within ten minutes of being introduced, she had tried to coerce him into being the subject for one of her latest scientific experiments. He had been saved by Günter, who had come to take him for lessons, but the woman had sworn that she would not give up. Wolf took to running whenever he caught sight of her.
The one thing he was not permitted was to go into the village without supervision. While he did not enjoy the restriction, he could not deny that he understood why it was there. He was officially the Maou's fiancé-much to his irritation-and was not efficient enough to protect himself. No one denied that there were dark-minded Mazoku, just as there were evil Humans. He would just have to wait until he felt himself strong enough to challenge the rule.
What had shocked him was that so many people took his being the fiancé of the Maou seriously, including Conrad, Gwendal, and Günter. As the intended of the King, he was expected to protect him with his sword, and fill in for him when he was unable to attend things himself.
A month and Yuuri had still not returned. This led to Wolf being the one to bless the newborn children and the Baby Celebration as the Maou's fiancé. At the time, he finally met Gwendal's cousin, Geigan Huber and his wife, Nicola, who had brought their daughter, Ernesta. It seemed that she was a very special child, a Half-Mazoku who actually inherited the maryoku of her father. All of this-and help from Anissina's maryoku enhancement helmet-led to a strange situation with baby Eru being abducted by the strange skeleton animals, called Kotsuhizoku, and calling upon a dragon to visit the castle.
They spent the rest of the day trying to get her back. She had spent some time crying on the roof, her maryoku causing some trouble as the dragon cried and threw a tantrum as well, before Wolf and Nicola had gotten to her. It seemed that her mother was the only thing capable of calming her down. The dragon, which Conrad had called Pochi-he could not help thinking at the time that it had been a very poor name for a dragon-would not leave until his own mother came to get him.
Two months and there was no word from Yuuri. By now Wolf could tell that people were starting to worry. The Harvest Festival was fast in approaching and with it the Alliance Ball. How were they going to have a convention of allies without their leader and the host? It would be both embarrassing and insulting. Once again, pressure had been placed on Wolf.
Because he was Yuuri's fiancé, Günter had been training him in more international affairs the closer the event came, in the chance that Yuuri did not appear in time. Conrad seemed absolutely certain that everything would be fine, that Yuuri would return, but it was obvious that he was concerned. All trips to Ulrike to inquire over it were met with secretive silence. She simply stated that the Maou would return when it was time.
It was during one of these inquisitions to the priestess that he had finally noticed the boxes. They sat on the an upraised landing, each of them seeming nondescript save for the extra-although faded-coloring to their old wooden frames. When he had asked of them Conrad had replied, "For now, they are nothing more than mere boxes." He discreetly touched his left arm with his right hand and the discussion was dropped. He knew that it was something that was being kept from him.
But his relationship with Conrad had gotten easier. Spending time with the man on nearly an everyday basis meant that he would have to come to a truce of some sort with him. What he had not expected was to find that he actually enjoyed being around the older man. Their first days of acquaintance were spent with the man acting almost as his jailer and treating him in a distant and brash way. He had not understood why his actions were so different when dealing with Yuuri and Greta.
And yet, as he watched him, he saw him treat his soldiers with the same upfront, no-nonsense attitude. He did not accept laziness, impropriety, or failure from them. And yet they loved him for it. It seemed that the more pressure he put on them, the harder they worked and the more they accomplished. They were devoted to proving their worth to him and standing by him. From Wolf's observations, they didn't seem to realize just how much Conrad already believed in them.
The Harvest Festival was only a week away and it was said that certain dignitaries would be arriving within a matter of days. Günter had increased his lessons and study hours, and compiled with still having training exercises with Conrad, Wolf was usually left drained, both physically and mentally by dinnertime. After dinner he took part in his one guilty pleasure, long soaking baths that would relax his muscles and send him off to sleep as soon as he settled to rest for the night.
It was his rest time, the hour he had to himself before lunch after spending five hours that morning trapped in the library with Günter. He knew the Mazoku meant well, but it didn't change the fact that he wanted to collapse from overload of information. He would be repeating the lineage of the past ten Kings of Franschire in his sleep that night.
"Wolf-chan?" Greta poked him.
His head shot up, looking at her in surprise. He had not even realized that he had been drifting off. He had been reading to her from the new book that Anissina had gifted her with. It was a very odd book, with a aggressive, 'sexy' heroine by the name of 'Anissina', who always defeated the villain in the end and left every man enraptured in the aftermath of her presence. Thankfully, nothing overtly sexual or mature was mentioned or else Wolf would have burned the book rather than allow Greta to see it.
"I'm sorry," he apologized. "I should be paying more attention."
"They're really working Wolf-chan hard," the dark-skinned girl stated. "You're always tired now and Günter makes you get up really early to study."
"They just want to make sure that I'm prepared for the delegates that are coming," he told her.
"It's because Papa Yuuri hasn't come back, yet," she said with a sigh, her eyes glancing out the nearby window as if it would make Yuuri suddenly appear. "He's never been gone this long before. He's usually not even gone a whole month. What if something happened to him after he went home?"
"I bet he's just been held up," he assured her. "When he gets back, he'll tell you that himself. There's nothing to worry about." He gave her a small hug before standing. "It's probably lunchtime by now. We should go eat."
"Okay," she agreed.
"Tell me again about the friend you have coming," he asked her, the perfect distraction.
"You mean Beatrice?" she asked, her body thrumming with excitement. "She's not my friend yet. I haven't met her, but Papa Yuuri said that she is my age and really nice and her Daddy is nice, too, but he has a really shiny head…"
Wolf let her ramble on the entire way to the dining hall, not even listening most of the time, as he tried to stem off the fatigue he felt.
Parry, slash, duck, draw back, thrust. Parry, slash, duck, draw back, thrust.
Sweat was dripping down his brow and his neck, his palms were finding it hard to grip the sword. And yet Wolf would not give up. They had been training only for two hours. He still had one more to go. Conrad was not going easy on him. But rather taking advantage of his mistakes and then pointing them out. He dodged to the right, only to be knocked backwards with a sharp shove from his teacher. He took in sharp breaths, trying to cool himself and ignore the slight blurring of his vision. Conrad stood a few feet away, surveying him.
"You're letting your guard down on the left," Conrad schooled him. "Remedy that."
"Yes sir," he said. He returned to his starting position, sword outstretched with both hands on the hilt, back slightly arched and waiting.
Neither moved, each staring at the other. Wolf could tell that his peripheral vision was failing him. His mind was swimming, from both the heat and the exertion. He kept his hands as steady as possible, even though he could tell his arms were trembling from the act of doing so. Conrad watched him, eyes searching. He suddenly lowered his sword and stood, confusion obvious.
"Wolfram-" he started-the blonde acknowledged the fact that Conrad was the only one who knew of his past that actually called him by that name-only to be interrupted by the sounds of splashing water.
They both turned to the fountain that was some distance away. The water was churning and splashing over the edges of the fount. Suddenly two dark heads burst from the waves and the water calmed instantly. One took in a deep breath while the other spit out the water that had gotten in his mouth.
"Yuuri…" Wolf whispered. The other boy looked up at him and he knew he could tell those eyes from every other set like them. It didn't matter that the only other ones in the world were Murata's.
"Anou…" Yuuri waved. "Hey, long time no see."
"You louse," the blonde growled. "How dare you be gone so long! Do you know how worried all of these people have been? Do you know how much Greta has missed you?"
The boy-King at least had the decency to look abashed by his words. "I didn't mean to be gone for so long," he stated. "I was even trying to get back here! We had final exams the last two weeks and I just couldn't get away!"
"Do you think that excuses you for…" His thoughts were fading. The grey around his vision suddenly enveloped it completely. His chest tightened and he couldn't breathe. His balance was off and his sword dropped to the ground faster than he did.
"Wolf!" He ignored the voices in favor to trying to breathe. But it was too much effort. He couldn't breathe, couldn't see, and his mind was swallowed by a blackness that was far too different than the eyes that shared the color.
He awoke to silence. His attuned senses could tell that someone else was in the room, but they did not speak. He opened his eyes, seeing the thick cream-colored lace of the canopy of his bed. What happened? he wondered. Did I really faint during training? The thought was humiliating. He had worked so hard so that he could prove to others that he was more than the 'stray' the Maou had brought home, but it seemed as if he had just set himself back again, for all the effort he had made.
"It's good that your finally awake."
He turned his head, and looked through the opening in the shade and saw two figures standing there. One had long green hair that trailed over her shoulder, the other a golden blonde. Gisela and Cheri-sama. Wolf was confused. Cheri-sama had left three weeks ago for a voyage to find 'free love', as she called it. Was she supposed to return that day?
"I fainted again, didn't I," it wasn't a question and it ended with a snort.
Gisela frowned at him but stepped forward, a hand touching his brow, as if to check for fever. "You don't have a temperature, so that is a good thing," she sighed. "You shouldn't have been working yourself so hard. Greta said that you've been skipping breakfast to spend five hours with Günter every morning, spending three hours with Conrad and then studying for two-to-three hours every night, while still spending time with her. You should have collapsed days ago."
The blonde frowned. "The studying would have lessened after the Ball," he said. "It was expected of me, because we were uncertain if His Majesty would return in time."
"That didn't give them the right to put so much pressure on you," Cheri-sama countered. "They put the success of the Ball and communicating with the delegates on you and they shouldn't have. How could they expect you to know and remember everything about Mazoku and Foreign customs in just two months?"
"I have never seen Greta so upset with everyone," Gisela told him. "She said that they had been making you do too much. She even blamed Yuuri Heika for not returning earlier so he could help you. She hasn't spoken to him since before dinner. We just sent her to bed an hour ago."
"What time is it?" he inquired. It was obvious from the dim lighting that it was late, but just how late?
"Nearing midnight," Cheri-sama replied.
His eyes closed at the answer, before he forced himself to sit up. "You should stay down," Gisela advised him. "You'll only make yourself sick."
That stalled his movements, but he did not lay back down. "Where is everyone else?" he asked. "Are they sleeping? I would have expected at least one of them here to scold me."
"That is what we're here for," Cheri-sama smiled. "We threw everyone else out. We knew that it would only make everything more difficult if they stayed."
"Harder?" He stared at them and could see the glances passing between them. There was something they were trying to weigh between them. "What is wrong? Did you find something other that exhaustion wrong with me?"
The looks became even more apparent then. What is it they're trying to hide? he wondered. Am I dying?
Gisela shook her head finally. "There is nothing wrong with you," she assured him. "But we did find something that we shouldn't have found."
He waited, watching them both. Wolf could feel the anxiety creeping up on him from their silence. What were they trying to tell him? Why did it seem so hard for them?
"Wolf…" Cheri-sama started, only to let her voice fade. Where was her usual vibrancy? Where was her smile? "Wolf, I must ask you this question. Have you ever been intimate with someone? In a sexual way?"
"No," he stated immediately. "What would that have to do with anything?"
"That's impossible," Gisela stated.
"Why?"
"Because you're pregnant."
Whatever he had expected from her, he had not anticipated that. "That's not funny," he told her. "Now what are you truly trying to hide that you would come up with such a terrible cover?"
"You are pregnant," Cheri-sama supported Gisela's diagnosis. "Gisela discovered it when she used her maryoku to test your body after you collapsed and were brought inside."
"What? But you can't use maryoku on me unless-" his hand went to his throat. His necklace was gone.
"I'm sorry," Gisela looked towards the floor. "I know that I wasn't supposed to, but I had no idea what was wrong with you and worried that you had been injured during training. I took it off after they put you to bed so I could assess the damage." She motioned a hand to his bedside and he found the rope with the pink stone sitting there on his nightstand, looking so out of place.
"Y-You took it off?" he started. "Without my permission. And that was how you found out…?"
"Yes, Wolf-san," she nodded. "That was why I didn't notice it when you first arrived. The Houseki blocked it from me."
"Wh-When I first arrived?" he stuttered.
"You're approximately ten-to-eleven weeks along," she still not looking at him, obviously guilty about what she had done. She knew that it was an explicit order not to remove the stone from around the blonde's neck.
"H-How?" he asked. "I-I've never…"
But then the memories came back. He had spent the past two months pushing it behind him, slipping pleasantly into denial as if it had never happened. He didn't question why he flinched when someone-particularly men-touched him without warning him first. After a while he had been able to push that away as well. Anyone else simply thought of it as an after affect of his years of slavery. No one knew that he had never flinched in all his years of being a slave, even when Verik beat him for it. Not until those last two weeks.
"No…no…" he refused to believe it. He shook his head in refusal. No… It wasn't possible. Not then. Not after… I'm pregnant…
And he could not simply claim that as a man he was unable to bear children. He had spent a week going over the differences in the anatomies of men and women, Humans and Mazoku. Full-blooded Mazoku men could bear children, but only if…
"Wait…" he looked up at them. "You have to have made a mistake. The only way a Male Mazoku can bear children is if there hasn't been any Human blood in the family going back-"
"Thirteen generations," Cheri-sama finished, her voice soft. "You may see yourself as a Half-Blood, but genetically you are a full-blooded one of the greatest Mazoku lineage. The von Spitzweg and the von Bielefield have not mixed with Humans since only two generations after the death of Shinou, when the first true dissent between us began. I was the first in either line to give birth to a Mazoku with Human blood in a very long time."
His only hope. Gone. This isn't true, he repeated as he curled in on himself. If it is… I'm going to have a child. The child of That Man. Oh Great One…I'm going to give birth to a monster's child.
"It's going to be all right." Cheri-sama was there, her presence comforting. Her arms were opening and ready. Without a second thought, he let her hold him, wrapping around her in return. She was pulled onto the bed and he clung to her, subconsciously seeking a way out in her arms. It was the one thing he would not let Hilde do at the time.
"It's all right," she cooed, staring at Gisela over his head. "It's okay to cry. Hahaue will try to make it better."
Tears were streaming down his face. "I…I didn't…I couldn't… It hurt…" He was unable to finish any sentence. The words cluttered in his throat and his choked on them and his tears.
"It's all right," gentle fingers rubbed his back, the other holding his head beneath Cheri-sama's chin. "It wasn't your fault. Whatever happened, it wasn't your fault."
"I didn't want him to!" he shouted into her chest. "I didn't… I couldn't say no."
And he cried, letting out the pain and fear he had held back for so long. He didn't want to remember. It was supposed to be part of his past. Something he could throw behind him and never let bother him again. But now it was back. He couldn't run from it. It was as if it was happening all over again. He didn't want to remember!
Both women simply watched over him, allowing him to let out everything. Neither spoke, not to him nor to each other. They knew that it would do no good until he was capable of rational thought. As his soft cries turned to hiccupping sniffles and finally nothing, they waited. When he still kept his face turned into Cheri-sama's chest, but was completely still, they knew.
"Do you wish to talk about it?" the former Maou asked softly. "You don't have to, but we won't judge you either way."
Gisela nodded in agreement before kneeling at the side of the bed so that they were both near him. "Nothing you say will change that," she concurred before deciding it might be best to start them off. "Did you know him?"
Wolf didn't reply at first, but eventually said, "He…He always c-came to the inn, was the son of the ap-appointed Head of the nearby village. He was engaged to marry a girl from Dai Shimaron. S-some noblewoman."
To look at Cheri-sama would to been staring at a contradiction of emotions. Her face was darkened, eyes hard and angry, but she still held Wolf as gently as possible and continued to rub his back. "Did the man who…'owned' you allow it?"
Wolf gave a deprecating snort. "He didn't even know. H-He wouldn't let anyone touch me like that. The only thing he wouldn't let happen. He was too far under the table to notice that night."
"Drunk?" Gisela clarified, hoping it would push him to continue.
The blonde boy let out a sigh, burrowing into Cheri-sama once more. "It was that man's sending off party. He was going to get married the next day. There was so much ale. Verik drank so much that he would have blacked out on the floor if Hilde and I hadn't gotten him to bed. He…The man had ordered a room for the night, wanted to sleep off the drinks. I was putting him to bed because he couldn't stand straight enough to walk on his own. B-But he wasn't as drunk as he seemed."
"He tricked you?" This time the edge could be heard in her voice.
Another nod into her beasts. "H-He kept holding me wh-when I tried t-to l-leave," he said. "W-wouldn't let go. His hands were everywhere. I-I tried to push him away, but we fell to the floor. I couldn't get him off. I tried to yell, b-but he covered my mouth. I…I couldn't say no. I wasn't allowed to say no. It hurt…"
Wolf choked once more, and took in deep breaths to calm himself. He wanted to finish, needed to now that it had begun. It was as if the words were tumbling out of his mouth so quickly that they were clogging each other. If he didn't get them out, he thought he just might explode.
"He kept saying things," he finally managed to carry on. "He said I was pretty, exotic, and that he was going to buy me from Verik after he was settled with his new wife and her family. A month. A month and I would belong to him. I couldn't say anything. I couldn't fight back. An-And when it was…over…he just left me there on the floor. Gave me the rag from the washbasin…and left me there. He didn't care ab-about what happened to me afterwards. He just left me…"
Letting his words drift off, Wolf sagged against Cheri-sama in fatigue. He had gotten it out, finally. But rather than a weight lifted from his chest, it felt as if he had simply lost everything. He felt empty.
I'm bearing his child, he thought. How can I give birth to a baby created by such pain What would Yuuri say if- His eyes widened and he sat up instantly, hands grabbing Cheri-sama by the shoulders.
"Who else knows!" he demanded. "Who else knows about this!"
"No one!" Cheri-sama assured him, bring her hands up to mimic his position. "We wouldn't say anything to anyone until we had spoken with you."
"No one must know!" he insisted. "No one can know about this…this thing."
Neither woman contradicted his words, he wouldn't have listened to them if they had. He was bearing the offspring of a man who had…who had…
No, he decided. I will not suffer because of him anymore!
"How can I get rid of it?" he asked. "There has to be some way to lose it."
Both women's eyes were wide now, neither one knowing how to react towards his words. "A-Are you absolutely sure?" Gisela asked him.
"Yes!" he hissed. "Now how can I exorcise this parasite from my body?"
"Wolf-chan!" Cheri-sama gasped. "Surely you don't mean such a thing about your own child?"
"My child?" he repeated. "No, this is no child of mine. This is a curse that man left behind so that I would never be able to live beyond what he did to me. Well, I have! And I won't go back! I won't live like that again! I want it gone!" He then turned a piercing glare to Gisela. "Now tell me how to do it."
"It has been too long," she said. "A Mazoku child begins feeding off of the maternal parent's maryoku after one month. If you were to try to abort now, it could-"
"Is. There. A. Way?" he asked in a very slow, deliberate tone.
She didn't want to answer at first, it was obvious. But after being stared down by him for some time, she finally broke. "There is a potion you could take that would forcefully abort the fetus," she stated as clinically as possible. "But the ingredients would take time to gather."
"Get them," he ordered. "As quickly as possible."
"But if you take it, you risk the chance of becoming infertile," she told him.
"What?"
"You would never be able to have another child," she explained.
This stopped him. "Never?" he repeated.
"That is why it is only used by the most desperate," Cheri-sama told him. "Those that don't want to have children at all or are too old to carry the baby to term without endangering both the child and the maternal parent."
Could I take that? he thought. He had never even thought he was capable of having children, only to find out not only was he capable, was carrying his first child by a man he hated from the core of his soul. Children… I was always so afraid of having children that would be separated and sold off into slavery… And I never thought I would find the girl who I would be with long enough. I could have been sold or she could have died… She would have been Human. I have lived my life knowing I could never have children, what is the difference now?
"I don't care," he stated, his decision made. "I want this thing gone as soon as possible. Hopefully before the Ball."
"It will take some time to work through your system," Gisela said, eyes lowered in compliance.
"Then right after," he said. "I just want this over with. No one will ever know of this and I want to go on with my life. I can't if I don't do this."
Cheri-sama pulled him close to her once more. "I'm so sorry," she whispered. "I'm just so sorry. I wish I-"
"Don't," he stopped her. "It doesn't matter anymore. If a few days it will be over and no one will have to think about it ever again." The look in his eyes spoke otherwise.
Neither woman said anything after that and it would be long after they left that night before Wolf could finally force himself back to sleep. But none of it would change the decision he had made or ease the nightmares that came from memories he had thought he had finally pushed to a place where he would never have to look at them again. His dreams were filled with heavy hands, pain, and the echoes of a baby crying.
And the BIG SECRET is revealed. Please don't stop reading just because of it, though. The pregnancy is only a plot device that I might be getting rid of later on...or might not. It all depends on how the story goes. I'm not even sure how it will all work out yet. Until later!