Each time I make a major change to a chapter, I will post a new one to replace so anyone following this story would know that "oh come one. What did she change this time?"
Enjoy. Also, this is record time updating. Probably because I wrote this a while ago, and can't think of a way to better it unless I delete 400 words, which I am not doing. Nuh uh.
Slow update next time, I promise *sarcastic thumbs up*.
CHAPTER FOUR: The Art of Falling For Another in a Arranged Marriage
(it did not end as well as those in romance books)
-.-.-.-
The balance scales of justice in life and death had always been slightly skewed.
Sometimes the evil end up controlling their victims with no consequence. Sometimes ambitious dreamers fell until their bones and hopes shatter, leaving the world wondering why. Why was it that endings are so unpredictable? Why was it that sometimes people gain nothing from their hard work, and others were given it as freely as scraps of worthless valuables?
Why was it that the world isn't black and white, so you'll know when to stay away from lost causes, away from liars, tricksters, and back stabbing trust?
The thing was, truthfully, no one really had a single speck of idea why.
It's all revenge revenge, hate, cries of injustice, howls of toppling thrones and anguish over lost loves who shouldn't have gone but still did.
Who cared about hipocracy and their mistakes when they had their own exsistance to keep them company?
-.-.-.-
At age seven, it was a particularly difficult age for Kougyoku.
Mainly since it was when her mother passed away, partially because the aftermath flew into a debate whether to keep the young girl in the palace or send her away quietly. No fuss, no muss, and no more blood of a whore's flesh and bone.
Her father died not too long ago. Her mother, a lowly courtesan who, while the favorite of the Kou emporer, soon became the only thing that keptthe eighth princess in the palace.
There was no funeral. The princess stood by when they cremated her mother's body and her belongings, the smell of ashy burnt flesh, old paper, and thick smoke. She coughed, and sneezed and sniffled, wrapped stark white mourning robes made of cheap plant fiber, later to be burned also by tradition. The sky was the yellowish grey color of old bleached bones and aged, peeling skin, the paper coins fluttering down like feathers.
Cloudy, misty, and dead. So cold, the sun hiding behind it's sleeves of grey, never peeking through the folds.
She was the only one there, other than some servants and a boy with a long, full black braid that brushed the blackened ground. He seemed fascinated by death, and watched with curious eyes. A few veiled men stood beside him until the boy yawned, proclaiming that he was tired before leaving, and Kougyoku was alone with the remains and ashes.
She remembered him ever since then. A boy who was there when her mother left forever. A boy with bright, brilliant, curious eyes of red precious gems whom she only met a few times in her life, and only when she was still a young girl.
Were they so pure because of her own rose tinted view in innocence of the world at that time? Or was it because of his own?
It didn't matter.
She never forgot, while he never remembered.
-.-.-.-
"By the Holy Royal Highness, princess Kougyoku of this Kou empire will enter arranged a marriage for you with the king of Balbbad!" The herald bellowed for the whole court to hear, an embroidered scroll spread between his hands. Kougyoku kept her respectfully head down, hiding her face in habit.
Her head swam dizzyingly, and she felt as if she couldn't breath. She was scared to look up, terrified that the weights and fears settled on her head will fall if she shifted her head even a little, crashing down at her feet with shattered dreams.
She did have dreams then. She had dared to wish, to hope after she captured a dungeon. Perhaps she shouldn't have. Disappointment, as she had said before, was inevitable when reality woke her up, like a slash of coldness or a sharp pinch.
"You will set out to meet him next week. The engagement is a truce between the two countries."
She bowed and choked out, "Yes, your Highness." She knelt and touched her head to the ground, hands clenching the red silk floor covering under piles of extravagant cloth that meant nothing. "Long live the Emperor."
"One million years we wish the Emperor!" The whole court bowed, breathing in the dust of decades and centuries of shedded beliefs.
Not father. Never father.
Kouen stood next to her on the balcony as she watched the sun die in a blaze of red, bathing the palace grounds in its remains.
"It is an honor," Her brother said. Someone who helped her become stronger, and aknowledged her meager strength. "Peace is very important for an empire of this size."
"Yes," she replied.
Putting a hand on her head once, Kouen smiled kindly, "I know you are strong."
Kougyoku smiled back, still smiling as he walked away. She was strong. If only she was stronger than being married off, though.
"What are you gonna do now, old hag?"
The princess didn't need to look. "I..."
Judar swung himself from the roof top and floated onto the ground. He always liked to be in higher places. To be above the ground, the earth and everyone else.
The girl paused. "I will marry the king of Balbbad."
"Don't you wanna change that though? I know you don't want to marry. Heck, everyone knows. Don't you hate your fate?"
Born as a whore's daughter, placed into a large empire as the eighth and forgotten princess. Neglected, cast away. Even after becoming a king vessel, conquerer of a dungeon, her destiny to be used as a simple pawn of a grand chessboard chased her down to that point, used as a trade marriage for some other country. Sure, Hakuein married. But she was a general. And Kougyoku was not.
Judar grinned excitedly at what might happen. He wanted the stupid, naive princess to fall, down to his own level. They could destroy world, and she would be even easier to manipulate than ever. Just a few words of her despised life could set her off. Her eyes will forever burn and teeth flash from feral grins, a beautiful destruction.
But her pure, white rukh didn't even waver a shade darker. Kougyoku carved a bitter, wistful smile on her own mouth, but her soul remained untainted. "I guess I should have seen this coming. After all, I am the eighth princess and a lowborn."
Boring.
However, he supposed that's what made her interesting as well. The black haired boy was used to her presence, so much so that hanging around her became a habit.
Besides, she was still one small pawn that had yet to be touched by the empress Gokyuen, so just with that she was still a usable tool.
-.-.-.-
"Judar-chaaaan," Kougyoku shook his arm gently. "Hey, Judar-chan?"
"Wha...?" The boy mumbled through his pillows, his loose black hair splayed out in disarray while he slept in those same clothes that shows off way too much belly to be Kou custom. Such a lazy Oracle, not even trying to change clothes when he slept.
"It's my fifteenth birthday, c'mooooon!" The princess flung the blankets to the ground and proceeded to continue tugging at the boy's arm.
"Go away..." Judar batted weakly against her hands as she huffed in annoyance. Looking around in his room, she admitted it was pretty early to wake someone up, especially of Judar's calibre in sleeping regards. Still, Ka Koubun wouldn't let her go to the Magi's room if she asked, saying that it was improper, inappropriate, ect.
But what could she do then, if Judar wouldn't wake up?
Humming to herself, she played with the tips of the boy's silky black hair. He never once cut it in his life, claiming it was one of his pride and joys. She started braiding it absent-mindedly before getting an idea.
"Hey, Judar-chan?"
"Hah...?"
"Can my birthday present be braiding your hair?"
"I can't hear, just shut the hell up," Judar mumbled absently as he tossed in his bed as he resumed being dead to the world.
Grinning gleefully, Kougyoku parted the black hair, hming in delight, wondering what she should do... this was a chance she may never happen upon again, and Judar might change his mind. Doing his hair was like touching a star, a near impossible dream. This may be the last time, ever...
Judar woke up hours later, when Kougyoku was long gone, groggily rubbing his eyes and yawning. He thought that he had a vague dream where someone was messing with his hair, but he couldn't really recall. Getting up, he felt something strange on his head. Touching his head, he froze at the irregular forms. The boy then noticed a note next to him on the pillow.
"Hi Judar-chan! You didn't wake up to wish me a happy birthday (I'm fifteen!), but thanks for letting me do your hair."
Next the the sentence was a crude, near unrecognizable drawing of his current state, but he could tell just by the pain in his scalp. Two, intricate, agonizing braided buns on either side of his pinned with dozens of pins and bows. Below the drawing was a small, terrible word.
"Kawaiiiii."
Judar screamed when he made it to the mirror. No magic can make this right. No. Only painful hours of undoing this horrible, horrendous hairdo with careful hands lest his hair get tangled and he'll be forced to cut it.
NO.
Kougyoku will pay, oh, she will. After sabotaging her beauty expeditions and tricking her into bathing with pigs, he will be only halfway satisfied with his revenge.
After all, if the minor chess piece played the player, then the world must be going backwards.
-.-.-.-
"You're wrong! Ugo was fighting to protect me - protect everyone! Judar was the one who attacked first!" The young boy yelled, pointing his staff at Kougyoku in anger, ready to take aim at her once more.
The princess felt her blood boil as she tried to calm herself down, to keep composure because damn it, she was a seventeen year old, mature princess. And she was not about to panic in front of a bunch of strangers. Her fingers twitched in strain as she managed a cold glare at the people below her.
'Deep breaths Kougyoku.'
"... I see... so... you're the master of that monster then?" She wavered a bit on the first few words before managing to clam down her emotions. Her eyes landed on Judar again, his form in her shadow of the moonlight, and she felt fear again as she knew that he was close to death.
"So those people down there too... Are comrades of that monster," she continued calmly.
Forget it. They're dead.
"What do you plan to do now, princess?" Ka Koubun asked respectfully behind her.
"We have no choice but to put things in order." Kougyoku raised her hand sharply. "Enshin, Entai, Engi," she called to the veiled men that always came when it was about Judar. "Get rid of them!"
'What ever you do to my friend, I'll pay you back tenfold,' she thought darkly. 'Judar couldn't die, he couldn't. Without him, what would happen to me? I don't want him to die. Don't die, don't die, don't die...' she repeated feverishly in her mind, while she schooled her face into the familiar ice mask.
Perhaps she had gotten used to it.
-.-.-.-
Kougyoku, eighth princess of Kou, fell in love at first sight.
Perhaps him grabbing her wrist, touching her bare skin while not a relative, made her feel as if he had some responsibility, although that is an old rule. Perhaps it had been his eyes, gold and rich in the slanted moonlight.
Yes his eyes.
She tried to push him away in her mind because crap, he might die, Judar might die. But Sinbad, King of Sindria, invaded her mind once again after the Oracle's danger was gone, breaths even and safe. With a sweep of soldiers and footmen, he conquered her weak defensed heart.
'So this is love' she realized. 'The magical thing I've read in books. The souring feeling, the loss of my mind and body to dedicating another being.'
Kougyoku wouldn't know literal she had been to think that until much, much later.
-.-.-.-
"Come with me, Kougyoku. I'll make you a general in Kou. You wanted to fight as a soldier of your country, right?" That pale outstretched hand. Those red, red eyes, flickering like smoldering coal. A genuine smile, not unlike the one he gave her all those years ago when he first presented her a choice.
Just because it was genuine doesn't mean friendliness. After all, he did warn her before:
'We aren't friends.'
-.-.-.-
Judar.
Hey, Judar. Wake up.
Kougyoku steadily looked away from Ka Koubun healing the still, too still Judar.
Her back was straight, her eyes were narrowed and dry, her lips thinned into a tight, tense line full of inexpressed worry and panic. Not knowing how to respond, because Judar was always so strong, and she could of nothing, nothing at all to think of, for, about.
She counted to ten.
One. Ten.
The sky remained an inky void of dying light, and no movements came from the black haired Magi. Kougyoku, did not shift, nor scarcely daring to breath. Not knowing that the magi had many, many times before when he was paralyzed in sleep.
She relaxed only when Ka Koubun relayed that Judar was going to be fine, alive, pieced together. The air rushed out of her body in one heave of relief.
She left him in the care of her assistant, worried that he would be angry that she saved him.
After all, Kougyoku knew enough about Judar's man pride. Not knowing that in the laws of this universe, pawns aren't supposed to be anymore to the player than the weakest unit on his side of the war.
-.-.-.-
Authors note -
Finally, an actual part from the original manga from Kougyoku's view.
I think that having a depraved king vessel is important to Judar since he probably saw that potential from Hakuryuu after his own mother killed his brothers, hence Judar always trying to get him to conquer a dungeon.
He then left the other half of the Kou empire to join Hakuryuu after the prince finally fell, basically throwing away all his other king vessels because Judar probably needed someone who understood. And so that's the reason I made him try to goad Kougyoku into hating her fate.
I'm not sure if she will fall into depravity in my fanfiction (cause I like twisting some events in their past and present canon events to suit my story). She might, but most likely not... for instance, in the manga they didn't show where and when exactly did Judar first hold out his hand to Kougyoku, so made the timeline and setting up. In the anime, apparantly it was in a room, Kouhen was there too, but I follow the manga, so... I don't really base on the anime.
Thank you for reading up to here *flashes double 'cool!' hands signs*.
Spoiler: chapter 181 Chinese translations just came out. There's a lot of good things, and so, so many bad things (in my point of view, any who).
Kougyoku. My fav girl in Magi. I feel with you. I'm so pumped to write her shift. Things just even more interesting for me and my story. Also, I'm really surprised at how well my story is going with the character themes. Kougyoku's in this story was "mask", and I was kinda like, ehh, maybe, because she sometimes recently seemed more like "open book". But now, it's definitely masks. Like just now when I read 181, she put on a smiling facade, and when she turned around, she started digging blood from her own hand and glaring with fire spitting eyes. When I was first writing her, I was afraid that the part about firey eyes when she fights would be a dead idea after seeing her hesitant in the war as a general, but now? Damn! The original story is working like puzzle peices with my story!
Happy/crying face. That author's note was way too long.