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Title: Maoh, A Day Late
Summary: Yuri arrives in the other world late, and the race for the Boxes has already begun.
Notes: Yuri meets a king.
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Part II, Chapter 8
What is strength (III)
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In the end, Wolfram refused to go out a window in a skirt.
"This is a stupid idea. I hope you know that," Murata hissed unhappily. "Stupider than usual."
Yuri just laughed abashedly and ducked into another alleyway. The streets were almost completely empty, so he wasn't too worried about someone spotting them just yet. The Francian palace was looming larger and larger as approached.
When they finally reached the foot of the castle walls, hiding in the shadow of the surrounding trees, Murata asked, "So what was your brilliant plan for getting in? Climb up the side?"
"Don't be stupid," Wolfram said. "We're going in through a side gate. Soldiers and servants are always going in and out through the side entrances. They'll probably even be getting deliveries for tomorrow. It's like that at Covenant Castle too. We'll find the right gate and sneak in while it's open."
"Have a lot of experience sneaking in and out of castle, Lord Von Bielefelt?" Murata prodded, trying to share some of his misery. Wolfram glared and refused to reply.
"That's a great plan!" Yuri beamed. "It's dark, so I should be able to cover us really well too."
Murata sighed. "So now you start being smart," he complained under his breath.
Their stupid plan worked with almost infuriating smoothness. It didn't take them long to find a side gate into the castle or for a wagon delivering something to arrive at that gate.
"Alright, I hope it works this time," Yuri muttered, holding up one hand in a seal.
"What do you mean, this time?" Wolfram demanded. "You better-"
His words were cut off as the concealment illusion fell over them. Wolfram shuddered and lifted his hands to his ears reflexively. Every sounds had suddenly become muffled, and the shadows had darkened eerily.
"Is it supposed to be like that?" he asked, cringing a little at the way his own voice sounded, almost as if he was speaking underwater.
"You get used to it," Murata said calmly, apparently unaffected. "Once you become familiar with a person's magic signature, you will be able to see through any illusion they use. When Shibuya first started trying to cast magic, he always practiced on me, so I've pretty much immune to the effects by now. It was really annoying for a while though."
Yuri snickered, remembering some unfortunate incident. "Come on," he urged them as the wagon passed by their clump of trees and the guards were looking away.
They ran into the shadow of the wagon, letting it conceal them. Wolfram glanced around nervously, especially as they passed by the guards on either side of the gate. He knew the shadow itself shouldn't have been enough to hide them, but Murata's firm hand in the middle of his back kept him moving.
None of the guards so much as glanced in their direction.
As they passed into the darkness of the entrance tunnel, Wolfram breathed a sigh of relief.
'It's working fine now, so why didn't it work on that bodyguard?' Yuri wondered privately.
Passing through the tunnel, they walked out into the castle's courtyard and quickly ducked behind some unassuming shrubbery. From there, it was a straight shot into the castle itself.
At this point, Yuri realised they had a slight problem. "Where would they keep the Box?" he said, rubbing his head thoughtfully.
"I wonder," Murata grumbled.
"It's a secret, dangerous artifact, so probably not in one of the main treasuries or storerooms," Wolfram reasoned, looking at the two of them disapprovingly. "Somewhere deep in the castle, but not where there's a lot of traffic, I'd guess."
"That's amazing!" Yuri beamed at him, making Wolfram scowl and look away, though Murata could see a faint blush as well. Murata himself was also perhaps somewhat favorably impressed, if only a little. 'Maybe he's got a bit more sense than Shibuya,' he thought, 'not that it takes much. And only when he's not flying off the handle.'
Actually, that didn't sound much like a compliment at all.
The three Demon Tribesmen crept deeper into the palace, Wolfram leading the way. Though he hated to admit it, he was guessing too. The layout was very different from Covenant Castle or Voltaire Castle, and all he could really do was keep moving in the same general direction.
"Hey, Wolfram," Yuri whispered after a while, "haven't we already passed that, um, statue of a... octopus?"
"We did," Wolfram bit out, "because we had to double back after we hit a dead end, remember?"
"Oh, yeah... Are we at least getting close now?" Yuri asked, looking around the dark, empty corridors.
"Don't tell me you're wimping out!" Wolfram scowled.
"I'm not a wimp!" Yuri protested. "But we'll need to get back too!"
"What kind of thinking is that? You've got to put your everything into anything you do! Holding back is what a wimp would do!"
'I take back every vaguely favorable thing I thought,' Murata decided.
He paused, ignoring the steadily growing bickering of the other two boys. "Be quiet!" Murata snapped, dragging them both around a corner. "Someone's coming!"
The footsteps that had been growing closer paused suddenly. 'They must have noticed us!' Yuri thought. 'Is it a guard?' His eyes met Murata's, and Yuri came to a sudden, unfortunate realization. 'I forgot to cast the illusion again!'
Judging by Murata's glare, he understood Yuri's unspoken message. Looking between them, even Wolfram seemed to catch on.
"Lyla?" a voice called out from around the corner. "Lyla, is that you?"
The footsteps began to hesitantly approach again.
'He'll see us!' Wolfram thought frantically, his hand dropping to grip the hilt of his hidden sword tightly. 'Well, fine! If he's down here, he can give us answers!'
Seeing him dart out into the corridor, Murata tried to grab Wolfram's arm, but just barely missed the edge of his sleeve. Throwing caution to the winds, Yuri ran after Wolfram. In the flickering torchlight, he could see that a young man stood at the other end of the corridor, dressed in nightclothes and frozen in shock. Wolfram had already begun to draw the hidden blade in his parasol when Yuri tackled him from behind, sending them both crashing to the floor.
"S-stay back!" the young man in front of them yelled, terrified despite their prone positions. "You'll get in trouble if you do anything to me! I am Antoine Jean Pierre! The king!"
'He's... even more foolish than Shibuya,' Murata thought, lingering in his hiding place. He honestly couldn't see a way out of this mess. Maybe he wouldn't be able to identify them? 'At least Wolfram was right about this part of the castle being only accessible to the king and his immediate staff.'
Yuri laughed awkwardly. "It's, um, a pleasure to meet you, Your Majesty!" he exclaimed, shoving the cursing Wolfram down to stop him from attacking, or saying anything unfortunate. "So what brings you down here at this time of night?"
"Oh, I was just going to look at my treasures, down the hall. It really calms me down..." the young man began to answer before realizing what he was doing. "Wait! This is my castle, I can go wherever I wish! What are you doing here? For that matter, who are you?"
"It's pretty dangerous for a king to wander around by himself," Yuri continued, unabashedly ignoring Antoine's questions. "You should probably take some guards with you."
'Like you do?' Murata thought. 'Hypocrite. Listen to your own advice!'
"Lyla always says that too, but there isn't supposed to be anyone down here. I thought it would be safe," Antoine said, drooping. He straightened as he suddenly seemed to realize something. "But if you're here, and no one is supposed to be here, then you must be... assassins?!"
"We're not!" Yuri protested quickly, waving his arms. "We just got lost." He smiled, thinking, 'Well, it worked once...'
"Oh, I see," Antoine said, smiling as well. He seemed to accept Yuri's words easily. "But... is that young lady alright?"
He pointed down to Wolfram's prostrate, shaking figure. Little did he know that Wolfram was shaking in absolute fury. 'I don't believe this. I can't believe this,' the young nobleman repeated to himself.
"My friend was just so happy to see another person down here that she ran out without thinking. She tripped," Yuri supplied, finally getting to his feet and hauling Wolfram up as well. The blonde carefully kept his head down, trying to hide his furious expression. "We were really scared that we'd get lost down here forever!" Yuri continued cheerfully.
"It's pretty confusing, isn't it?" Antoine agreed. "Well, come along, I'll lead you out." He smiled, puffing out his chest a little.
Behind his back, Yuri and Murata exchanged a quick look. Murata nodded back down the other way, to the room Antoine had indicated before. He would go check it out, while Yuri and Wolfram headed outside and hopefully didn't make an even bigger mess of things.
"That's great! Thanks!" Yuri said, following Francia's king and pulling Wolfram along. Behind them, Murata disappeared into the shadows. 'I probably shouldn't give him too much opportunity to think about things,' Yuri decided. Instead, he started talking. "So, do you come down here a lot? By yourself at night?"
"Not that often," Antoine replied absently. "But lately I've been really worried, so I come down to my treasure room to think things over. Being surrounded by all my treasures is really calming. I've got to keep it together, so that I don't become a burden for everyone."
Yuri glanced at him thoughtfully. "We heard you haven't been feeling well recently, so you couldn't meet with anyone," he said.
"Um, well yes, that," Antoine stammered. "It's been really busy, hasn't it? All of a sudden, all these people are coming to our country. What could they all want? I just didn't know what to do, and then Lyla told me not to meet with anyone, so I said I felt sick."
"So you don't know what everyone's after?" Yuri repeated dubiously. "And why did she tell you not to meet anyone?"
"I didn't ask," Antoine said frankly. "If I need to know, Lyla will tell me."
Wolfram growled, the sound startling both Yuri and Antoine. "That's..." he ground out, shoulders shaking. "That's not how a ruler should be! You're the one who's responsible for your people! You have to make those decisions!"
Antoine cowered away from his sudden outburst, while Yuri reached out to place a firm hand on Wolfram's shoulder.
"What's gotten into you?" he asked, looking at him with concern. "There's nothing wrong on relying on others to help you. No... it's absolutely necessary for a king to trust in his advisers and his people. Even a king can't accomplish everything alone." Yuri nodded thoughtfully to himself. 'I guess that's the problem. I trust Mister Fanfan, but I didn't trust in him.'
"That's different! You don't get it," Wolfram growled. "It's one thing to trust people, it's another to just blindly do what they say!" He shook his head sharply and looked away. 'The way Mother let her brother run the country,' he thought bitterly. 'She shouldn't have just let him do as he wished.'
Yuri was looking at him with worry, but Wolfram refused to say anything else. "I'm sorry about that. He... uh, she's just..." Yuri tried to explain, turning back Antoine.
"No, it's alright," Antoine said, his expression somber but not stricken. "I understand. Everyone wishes for a strong, dashing king. But I'm not strong or smart. I'm completely ordinary. There isn't anything I can really do for my country or my people. So the best I can hope for is to avoid being a burden to them. That's why I try not to act pridefully or willfully."
His eyes met Yuri's, oddly calm and observant, and Yuri had the sudden feeling that Antoine wasn't quite as gullible as they had assumed.
"That's true... I guess, acting willfully is a burden on everyone," Yuri mused. "I might have also just gotten in everyone's way..." It really seemed like the people around him had planned how to handle things all along. Gwendal, Celi, even Fanberlain had all been well on their way to dealing with the problem of the Box, and Yuri had just barged in without considering that.
Wolfram made an inarticulate sound of rage and spun around to poke him firmly in the chest. "I told you, don't wimp out now! Your willingness to do something is about your only good point!" Wolfram lectured. He advanced on Yuri, crowding him back. "Don't you dare suddenly lose that!"
He turned his glare on Antoine, who flinched and took a reflexive step back, fumbling with his lantern. "And you! A king doesn't have to be strong or smart! That's what they have advisers for! But advisers advise. They don't decide! That's the king's duty. The king is the one who leads the country and guides all its people!"
"The king is gives directions to the team," Yuri muttered to himself, nodding. His eyes met Wolfram's, the two sharing a meaningful look.
"A king leads," Antoine repeated, his expression growing pensive.
"That's right," Wolfram said, his temper cooling a little. He huffed, tilting his chin up haughtily. "What people wish for is a king that will lead them well and to whom they can give their strength without reservation. A king who doesn't just run away from the problems his country faces."
His eyes darted for a moment back into the shadows, and following his gaze, Yuri realized with a start that Murata had returned. Murata shook his head. He hadn't found the Box.
"Listen," Yuri said quietly, placing a restraining hand on Wolfram's shoulder and turning to Antoine, "the reason we're here - the reason everyone is here in Francia, is to find a cursed box that contains the same power that almost destroyed Caloria."
"There's something like that in my country?!" Antoine demanded, the fear in his expression dwarfed by concern and... determination.
Yuri nodded. "Everyone certainly seems to think so. I get that you don't know anything about it, but is there anyone who might?"
Antoine hesitated, his eyes darting away before he forced himself to straighten and meet Yuri's gaze head-on.
"Lyla," he said. "Lyla will know. She disappeared for several days a month ago, right after that tidal wave, and she's been on edge ever since. She left to meet with someone tonight... I can take you to her."
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This section of the story just drags on and on. Why didn't I just have Fanfan introduce Yuri to Lyla like I originally planned? Why did I add in these complication, which made it balloon to more than twice its intended length? But then I was too lazy to go in and edit this stuff out, so... uh, enjoy?
Also, I've got all the chapters from Part II all laid out, so now it's up to you guys to motivate me to post them. As in, with reviews.