~.~.~

Title: Maoh, A Day Late

Summary: Eleventh hour exposition. Why didn't you ask all this earlier, Yuri?

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Part VI, Chapter 5

Eye of the storm

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"So, we got the last Box! Murata's setting it up at the temple now," Yuri said, grinning brightly. "Our mission was a total success!"

Gwendal watched him for a long moment before his gaze slid to Wolfram. His youngest brother's expression did not convey a feeling of success. In fact, Wolfram looked just short of miserable.

"I see. That's good to hear," Gwendal said instead, turning back to Yuri. His king did not necessarily appear to be faking happiness, but now that Gwendal payed close attention to his expression, he could see where it seemed a little forced.

He shared a quick look with Conrart and Josak, to let them know he expected an explanation.

"Then, we'll leave this matter in the hands of the Oracle and the Great Wiseman," Gwendal said, his tone conveying very clearing that their conversation was finished and they were dismissed.

Watching Yuri and Wolfram depart, Gwendal turned to the other two.

"I would have expected you to be more relieved to have this settled," he told Conrart, who only smiled blandly.

"You know it's not really over yet," Conrart replied.

Gwendal sighed. He remembered what Yuri had told Belar in Van Da Via's volcano - they would put an end to the threat of the Forbidden Boxes. They would destroy the Originators.

'Is it really possible?' he wondered. The answer should have been no. But strangely, Gwendal found himself uncertain.

Whatever the Great Wiseman had planned - because assuming Yuri had a plan was just ridiculous - he had not chosen to share it with Gwendal, not matter how the man questioned, hinted and outright demanded.

"It's out of our hands... for now," Gwendal muttered.

All they could do was wait and prepare for the worst.

~.~.~

"It's nice to be back in the castle! We were only gone for a bit, but I really missed this place."

"Yuri."

"I wonder if I could get away with pretending to be a servant again? Or maybe I can go visit Murata. I might get in his way though..."

"Yuri!"

He turned to look at Wolfram, who was almost fuming in frustration. However, when their eyes met, Wolfram looked away quickly.

"Cut it out," he ordered with false bravado. "It's bad enough when Weller does it."

Yuri smiled, shaking his head. "It's not like that," he assured his friend. "I just don't want to think too much, or I'll end up moping. Better to keep myself busy, you know?"

Wolfram didn't appear convinced, but all the same, he nodded sharply. "Alright then. If you're so itching for something to do, we can get started on properly training you to use a sword. Or any weapon at all. Do you know anything about fighting?"

"Um..." Yuri chuckled uncomfortably. "I think Gunter mentioned having some papers for me to sign..."

Wolfram's eyes narrowed, and Yuri began to slowly back away. "What was that? It sounded like you were wimping out, but you wouldn't do that, right, Yuri?" he growled, and Yuri began to retreat faster, posed to take flight at any moment.

"Of course not! I just... um..." Yuri stammered, waving his hands.

Fortunately, salvation appeared in the most unexpected form.

"Your Majesty!" a familiar voice hailed them, making both boys turn in surprise. A woman was striding down the hallway toward them, her long red hair flowing behind her. Sizing them up quickly, she nodded to herself. "There you are! And Wolfram's here too. Good, good."

"Hello, Lady Anissina!" Yuri said brightly, feeling a profound sense of relief he had never expected to associate with the forceful and somewhat terrifying woman. "It's been a while! How have you been?"

"Oh, I've been visiting Celi," Anissina said. "She agreed to help me with my research, and I thought I'd help her reorganize Spitzweg Castle - instill a bit of progressiveness in that dreary old place, since we had such a wonderful opportunity for change." Turning to Wolfram, she added, "Here, Celi asked me to pass this to you."

She held out a thick envelope, smelling faintly of perfume. Wolfram accepted it gingerly, and Yuri had to wonder if he was worried about what his mother might have sent or about what Anissina might have done to it in the meantime.

"So what brings you to Covenant Castle? Anything I can help with?" Yuri inquired. Normally, he wouldn't have risked giving her an opening, but at the moment, he felt like being Anissina's "research assistant" was better than being Wolfram's punching bag, er, sparring partner.

Understanding his thought process, Wolfram shot him a dirty look. 'If that's how you want it, then fine!' Wolfram thought. Huffing, he turned up his nose and declared, "I'm going to see what Mother sent me. Good luck, Yuri."

He managed to give the last three words a particularly unsettling implication and stalked away.

Turning back to Anissina, who had lit up at his question and offer, Yuri found himself regaining the dread he usually felt toward her. What had he gotten himself into?

"I'm glad that you asked that!" Anissina declared, almost preening. "I came to report on my latest invention! ...Well, actually Celi and I discovered an unexpected use for one of my old creations." She added the last part as if it was a terrible disappointment.

Anissina held out what looked like a lantern at first glance, but as Yuri peered closer, he could see that it had a crystal inside, instead of a wick, and the metalwork had been modified with some kind of special coating and carved designs. As he leaned closer, the crystal inside began to glow, taking on a rich blue color.

"So what does it do?" Yuri wondered.

"It can detect fluctuations in the feelings of love around it! I call it 'Mr. Light Up the World with the Power of Love, Mark II!'" Anissina announced grandly. Before Yuri could say anything, she held up her other hand to stop him. "However! This amazing invention has another purpose! It can also detect the absence of love - in other words, the presence of miasma!"

Yuri's eyes widened in surprise. That... was really useful.

"Yes, Celi thought so too," Anissina said, a faint, pleased blush spreading over her cheekbones. She wasn't used to her efforts being well-received. "We were very surprised when Mr. Light Up the World with the Power of Love, Mark I, turned black all of a sudden. But with a bit of trial and error, we figured out it was due to the miasma lingering in some parts of the castle."

"That's amazing!" Yuri gushed.

"It's not really... Just a fortunate side effect. It wasn't my intention," Anissina surprisingly tried to demure.

"Still, even if it's meant to be a love detector, that's really cool too," Yuri insisted.

Anissina's smile twitched a little. 'Is this what Gwendal feels like?' she wondered. "...It's meant to be a lantern," Anissina said. "A light source, powered by strong feelings instead of magic energy. I thought it would be useful at festivals and the like."

"That's... practical of you," Yuri noted in surprise. The impression he had gotten from everyone's descriptions of Anissina was that she never cared about how useful or applicable an invention was, just that she felt like making it. 'Could she... just be misunderstood?' he thought.

"Since I revised my entire research approach and focus, I wanted to go back to the basics," Anissina said, tossing her long hair over her shoulder - though Yuri didn't realize it, that was her rarely-seen nervous tick. "Not that a great genius such as myself needed to start small, but for the benefit of future researchers, I wanted to lay out my progression clearly."

"That makes sense," Yuri agreed, unknowingly flustering Anissina a little further. She rallied with admirable poise.

"As you can see, I used a demon stone as the base," Anissina explained. Seeing Yuri's blank expression, she suddenly felt herself on much more familiar and certain ground. "Demon stones have long been known to react to emotions, especially love. For Mr. Light Up the World with the Power of Love, I increased the sensitivity of this particular stone, to make it truly shine with the force of the love in absorbs!"

Looking away and crossing her arms, she added grudgingly, "Unfortunately, although it reacts to far lesser quantities of love, that doesn't increase the intensity of the light the demon stone generates, which is insufficient to be of use."

Yuri nodded slowly. "I didn't know demon stones reacted to emotions," he said finally. "I know you can use them for magic, but..."

"Demon stones have many uses. The most common is amplifying the power of spells," Anissina agreed. "Demon stones are the opposite of esoteric stones - an esoteric stone disrupts spirits, whether of people or nature, while a demon stone draws in and collects spirits. That means that emotions can be absorbed by and linger in a particularly powerful stone. There's even legends about the spirits of the dead appearing through a demon stone to council their descendants and the like."

Yuri nodded along as Anissina paused thoughtfully.

"You must have seen some demon stones on your recent trip," she noted. "The Wincott territory has some of the most high-quality mines in the Demon Kingdom. Suzanna Julia even had a special stone passed down in her family. It was more potent than anything I had ever seen. It was rumored to have been commissioned by their great ancestor, Earhart Wincott, and to contain his will... Of course, when I experimented on it, I didn't find anything on the sort."

Starting in surprise, Yuri reached up reflexively to grasp at the pendant under his shirt. He tried to hide the motion, even as Anissina's sharp eyes darted toward him.

"What is it?" she asked. "Chest pains? You should go see a healer. Actually, we can go together, and I'll have them try my new Intimate Healing technique on you!"

"Feeling fine, thank you!" Yuri insisted backing away quickly. "That was just, um..." Actually, he couldn't think of a single excuse, no matter how implausible. Instead, Yuri went for distraction. "Your invention is really amazing!" he declared. "In fact, I absolutely have to show it to Murata! It'll be super useful at the Tomb! Okay?"

"Yes, of course, that is why I brought it," Anissina agreed, a little off-balance as Yuri snatched the lantern out of her hand.

"I'll go do that right now. Have a good stay!" he said quickly, giving Anissina no chance to protest before he had turned and hurried away down the hall.

It wasn't subtle or particularly dignified, but Yuri was simply glad to make a clean getaway.

~.~.~

"Sorry about the wait, Shibuya," Murata said, finally stepping out of the Tomb's inner chamber.

"Are you okay?" Yuri couldn't help asking.

Murata shook his head. "Yeah, I guess. It's just that with all four Boxes here..." He shook his head again.

'That bad, huh?' Yuri thought. He glanced down at the lantern in his hand. As Yuri had moved closer to the Tomb of the Great One, the previously clear crystal had gradually clouded over and taken on a dirty grey hue. By the time Yuri had reached the main gate, it had become completely opaque.

Now, it was just black, without a hint of color inside it, and even light seemed to be swallowed up along its surface.

"Hm?" Following Yuri's gaze, Murata glanced down at the lantern as well.

"It's Miss Anissina's invention," Yuri explained. "It..."

"It's retuned for sensitivity to ambient emotions, especially positive ones," Murata figured out easily. "It works in reverse too, it seems." Smiling wryly, he pushed up his glasses.

"I guess it's not going to be much use here," Yuri said.

"We're in too deep for that," Murata agreed.

Yuri straightened suddenly, turning to face Murata squarely. "So what are we going to do?" he asked, surprisingly calm and clear-eyed.

Murata's lips quirked. "You know, I'm honestly amazed that you could come this far and only now be asking what the plan is," he commented, smiling in spite of himself. "Most people would have hesitated long before this."

Crossing his arms, Yuri stared back. "What's your point?" he asked. "I trust you. You're way smarter than I am, Murata. So you must have a plan. Are you going to tell me what it is?"

"What if I don't?"

Yuri shrugged. "That's just like you. Oh, well. Is there anything I can do to help?" he asked, apparently unconcerned.

Suddenly, Murata threw his head back and laughed. "You're really something else," he said, still chuckling. "Maybe I'll tell you after all..."

Yuri waited as Murata paused to gather his thoughts, but as the silence stretched on, his patience began to wane. "So?! Are you going to tell me or not?" he finally burst out.

Murata sighed. "I guess I better start at the beginning..." he decided. "How much do you know about what happened four thosand years ago?"

"His supreme Majesty the Great One, our founder and first king, sealed away the terrifying power of the Originators into the four Forbidden Boxes, following a long struggle at Mount Makadina," Yuri recited tonelessly. Thinking about it for a moment, he added, "Four of his allies helped him, and the Keys to the Boxes were embedded into parts of their bodies."

"To start with, that last part, is not really correct," Murata said. "Parts of their souls were made into the Keys. But I suppose it doesn't ultimately make much difference..."

'...Actually, that sounds kind of important,' Yuri thought.

"I already told you that Originator has no true form. It spreads itself by possessing people or even fresh corpses, and with each new host it corrupts, it grows," Murata began to explain. "By the time we understood its nature well enough to even begin to truly fight back, the Originator had spread across the world and amassed entire armies. Its power was unimaginable."

He could still remember it - the darkness covering the sky and earth, threatening to swallow all that remained. Murata shook his head to dispel the image.

"The best we could do was trick the Originator into gathering one place - Mount Makadina," he continued. "We prepared a large scale array, incorporating the power of the local spirits and the leylines that intersected there... The force of that ritual was so great that it turned the area into a frozen wasteland. It created a... pressure that forced the Originator into the prepared vessels, after it was split into four parts. Then, each vessel was sealed with a vow, confirmed by a sacrifice, on the level of the soul. Well, I guess you probably don't understand what kind of magic I'm talking about..."

He was right, Yuri didn't really understand. But there was something he got out of that explanation. "So even the Great One can't actually match the power of the Originators," Yuri mused.

Murata snorted. "Not by a long shot. No living being can."

Yuri nodded slowly. He had felt as much himself. "Then what are we going to do? Are we going to seal them again?" he wondered.

"I don't think that'll work," Murata admitted, pushing up his glasses to rub at the bridge of his nose. "The Originator learns from the experiences of whoever it possesses. Since it took over the Great One, it'll know what happened and how it worked. It'll be able to use his knowledge and experiences to avoid another trap like that. Not to mention that even after four thousand years, I wasn't able to find another suitable location..."

"Okay," Yuri said, nodding. Seeing Murata's look, he added, "I said I'd stop the Originators once and for all, so it wouldn't really be right to just seal them away again. So what's our new plan? You must have come up with one."

"Such high expectations..." Murata sighed. "But you're right. The Great One begame infected by the Originator's darkness during the final battle. Since we had sealed the main body of the Originator and the Great One held a strong will, its progression was slow, but we knew that eventually, the darkness would take over his heart and the Originator would return, using him as a medium. So we developed a plan..."

'Come to think of it, this is my first time telling someone about it,' Murata mused. 'Even Earhart just figured it out on his own. He was so angry...'

"Sealing his soul away in the Tomb was part of that plan," Murata said. "You see, the seal I used would make sure the Originator could not use its own power. It could not infect others... well, until we gathered the Boxes. So the entire consciousness of the Originator would eventually be forced to gather in a single vessel - the soul of the Great One. We knew the Originator would not make its move until all the Boxes were gathered, but once the stage is set, we will have a small window of opportunity."

Yuri's brow slowly furrowed as he listened to Murata. His mind refused to make the connection, but his hands clenched subconsciously, and he tensed, as if anticipating a blow.

Murata's glasses shone eerily as he said, "Before the Originator can infect anyone else, while it occupies that single vessel, it will be possible to destroy that darkness once and for all... by destroying the vessel."

It took one long moment, and then another, for Yuri to understand what he was saying.

"What?! That's... that's just stupid!" Yuri protested. He was, Murata noted with dark amusement, even more displeased than Earhart had been. "Why would you need to destroy the... the vessel, too? Just destroy the Originators!"

"There aren't any weapons effective enough against the Originators to do so," Murata explained, entirely too calmly and reasonable.

"But you have a weapon effective against a soul?!"

"You actually helped out, there, even if you didn't know what you were doing," Murata said, smiling oddly. "The weapon the Great One used to divide the Originator into four was the Demon Sword Morgif. It was forged just for that purpose, on Van Da Via Island, and returning it to its origin in the volcano will restore its power. If you call its name, it will come to your aid."

"You just said Morgif that can cut through the Originators!" Yuri objected, pointing at Murata as if he had caught him out on some lie.

"Yes, that's why Morgif is the weapon that needs to be used," Murata explained patiently. "Shibuya, you're forgetting a simple fact: people who have been infected by the Originators are completely assimilated. I told you, we never found a way to retrieve them. Even... even the Great One will not be able to extricate himself from them. At this point... it's already too late. It's been too late for a long time."

"...That's what you said about Stoffel too, but we got him out!" Yuri protested, seemingly growing more and more agitated.

"That was the because the Originator released him!" Murata finally snapped. "It tried to take you instead, but because it was such a small fragment, it needed to use all of its power to even attempt it! You're lucky... so lucky that you didn't get possessed in his stead, even with my help. You felt its power! You know that if it was any stronger..."

They glared at each other, more than anything, angry at their seemingly hopeless situation.

"...You said you'd believe in me," Yuri stated quietly.

"I do, Shibuya. I believe you can end the threat of the Originator, once and for all."

"I will, but not like this. I'll find a way," he vowed.

But to be honest, he had no idea where to even start.

~.~.~

((Anissina is like Hermione, except no one takes her seriously. I'd like to note that her inventions do work fine when there's a need for them. Her translation earbuds are amazing, and even the banana boat does its job quite well.))

((Also, I learned foreshadowing from Harry Potter, for better or for worse. Except when I don't so much foreshadow as spell things out in advance.))