Kurogane fell through the pitch-black hole, his hair flying around his face and his clothes flapping in an upwards position as though someone was grabbing it and trying to rip it off. He turned around mid-air to face what was behind him, which was just more darkness. Kurogane continued to fall through the hole, loosing count in time and being unable to do anything to stop. Then suddenly a bright white light pierced through the darkness and this time he was surrounded by white.
Slowly the white faded away and the ground below was finally visible. The ground was made up of small hills which surrounded a large, grey coloured kingdom. Kurogane could barely see anything from the height but as he drew closer his could barely make out the red and white flag with a picture of an animal on its corner, held up on a pole on each of the corner towers, flapping open every so often when the rare wind blew. Kurogane didn't waste any more time staring at the castle, he already had a problem to face. How was he going to land without injuring himself?
Kurogane stared down, feeling like a cornered mouse, forced to accept the arrival of his own death. But death never came. At around 2 metres from the ground he suddenly slowed down and Kurogane had felt as though he had just taken a blow in the stomach. 1 metre, half a metre and then finally Kurogane reached the ground, falling gently on his feet.
Kurogane stood up; fixing his ruffled up black cloak and looked around. The hills were plain. Brown and empty looking except for the castle that looked like it suddenly popped up from a different dimension (a possibility Kurogane didn't cross out) with some roads leading out of the castle. Kurogane heard some voices coming closer and closer and with nowhere to hide he took out his sword and waited.
The voices continued and Kurogane had to wait around 10 minutes until he could finally see the people who he had heard. They wore a dark red uniform with the flag the same as those attached to the castle towers embedded onto their shirt, barely visible from behind the chainmail and they each had a long sword attached to one side of their hips. They were soldiers, most likely worked in the castle.
"Can't believe he disappeared, I mean he was just went. Like poof!" one of them was saying, his light brown hair bouncing up and down with every step he took.
The red head next to him shook his head, "you don't really believe that do you?"
The third one, who was blond and short, stepped in front of them and started walking backwards whilst saying, "No, no, no! I was there. One second he was talking about some attacking thing and the next he was gone. It was a bit funny ya know but then everyone freaked out when we couldn't-"
The forth man suddenly stopped and gasped, haven spotted Kurogane. All of them stopped and turned to face him and gasped. Kurogane held his sword in front of him and was about to run at them when the four soldiers suddenly fell to their knees and started to apologise. Kurogane froze, surprised and nearly dropped his sword.
"We are most sorry Your Highness." said the black haired man, the one who had first seen him.
"We weren't badmouthing you, Your Highness!" gasped the blond.
"We are most sorry Your Highness!" chorused the rest of the men.
"Your Highness? What are you all blabbering about? Get up and lets settle this like real men." said Kurogane, bringing up his sword to eye level and glared at the four men on the ground.
"Y-your Highness? Please calm down, w-we mean no harm."
"Meaning no disrespect Your Highness, but I think Your Highness should return to the castle as soon as possible."
"Yes, especially since we need the Your Highnesses Royal Approval in order for us to be able to go to war and defend our kingdom."
What are these idiots talking about? Maybe I should just cut them up, it'll make things less confusing. Kurogane thought. He suddenly could hear the clatter of hooves coming into contact with the ground and judging by the number of hooves, Kurogane concluded that it was around 4 horses. And 4 horses it was, with three men sitting on top of each horse with one spare, their back straight and proud and their faces stoic.
Kurogane assessed them. They wore similar uniforms to the four foot soldiers he had met earlier however their uniforms were white instead of red and they also had long red cloaks flowing past their knees as the rode. It was obvious to anyone that they were of higher rank which was confirmed by the four soldiers bowing towards them as they stopped riding.
One moved forward, jumped off his horse and cleared his throat. "Kurogane-sama, would you please bless the war council with your enlightening presence. The council is in direct need of your council and your approval of your opinions on the up-coming war. We mean no disrespect sir but we have the approval from your mother to be allowed to force you back into the castle." he cleared his throat again and bowed to Kurogane.
"We will have you come with us Your Highness." said one of the other two who had just jumped off horseback, and then the three surrounded him. Kurogane had no choice, he couldn't kill them, not without losing a large part of his strength because of the curse bestowed by his princess Tomoyo-sama and he didn't want to risk that.
Kurogane glared at the three men, hating them for their snotty attitude. He looked around the plain fields again. Kurogane knew he could probably get away from the seven men easily but wasn't so sure he could survive on plain fields which surrounded the castle for miles.
May as well, thought Kurogane. He followed the soldiers to their horses and sat on the spare horse. As they started riding towards the castle gates the soldier who had addressed Kurogane suddenly turned to face the four foot soldiers, "you boys make sure no one hears of this. Be warned, if you tell anyone what happened here you will be punished." the foot soldiers looked horrified and hastily nodded their heads. Then Kurogane and the rest rode, on horseback, towards the castle.
