Boss Rush
XXIX: Silver Fang
It was with a pounding headache that Ryuusei awoke by the pavilion of the Forest Park. He sat up, marginally exhausted and groaning.
"Good evening," Setsuka was seated opposite him, the bodies of Koichi and Tsugare laid out on the two remaining benches. Only she could remain so composed with three downed.
Around them, the fairies and Cloudians gathered, some tittering and some chattering. Most of the fairies cluttered around Ryuusei as he awoke, trailing sweet-smelling flowers and something like rotted lavender in the air. On the floor was the body of Satonaka Ryuuga, covered in what looked like dried wood.
"As the potentate of Summer, he is yours," Setsuka indicated.
Marguerite's shadow appeared by the king. "We should take the 'seed'. At least, his body will then be free."
Ryuusei sighed as the glowing mote of light glittered about him. "A werewolf... we really unleashed hell there."
"Ah," Setsuka murmured as the black cars began to arrive. "Here they are. Do not worry. We will take care of the body."
"Thank you," Ryuusei bowed his head.
Marguerite shot Tsugare a displeased look before turning to Setsuka. "You drive a hard bargain, Queen Winter."
"I am what I must," Setsuka quietly answered. "Good night, Fudo Ryuusei, Witch of the Time Flower."
Ryuusei wearily saw her walk to one of the waiting cars. "What was that about?"
"A hard bargain," Marguerite answered simply.
That prompted him to give up. "Was anyone hurt?"
The fairies tittered, some giving him quick pecks as he began to leave.
"The coronation must be next Midsummer," Marguerite whispered.
"That's nice- wait, I don't know what to do," Ryuusei mouthed, suddenly more awake. "When is Midsummer? Does it mean I have to stay there?"
Marguerite's shadow was clearly shaking her head. "Unlike your human coronations, which are more elaborate because humans are less attuned to the laws of the land, the ceremonies amongst spirits are less complex. Coronations are also generally the few times the monarch is seen, aside from addressing complaints and public addresses. The closest comparison I may find in your memories is very much like a birthday party. No, you will not have to live full-time in the spirit realms, although you may wish to."
She lived in his head, so it was probably obvious that she was going to find a few memories, but Ryuusei was still taken aback. "Aren't these things still formal? As in, I don't even know many of them, right?"
"Unlike Winter's centralised power structure, Summer runs on a less formal way," Marguerite primly answered. "Of course, there are many centralised structures of government, but the majority of Summer's denizens are largely nomadic, if in a very loose sense of the term. The Summer sovereign is not meant to be a dictator the way the Winter Queen is. You could be a tyrant, as in a sovereign that employs unconventional methods of power, or you could be a despot, a respected sovereign with very little actual political power."
"Why do I see that they all have negative connotations?" Ryuusei sweat-dropped.
"Words are like snakes, they change meaning," Marguerite sighed. "The change prevalent in mortal-kind is something I shall not understand."
I don't understand you either, Ryuusei bit back the protest. It was then that he came to another realisation; that neither really understood the other that much. "Marguerite... do you miss your world?"
"It was... covered in forests," Marguerite hesitated. "Nostalgia does not become me, as a handmaiden. I will see Tír na nÓg soon enough."
"It must still be painful. To leave."
"Yes, it is," Marguerite finally replied when they were on the highway. "But pain is part of the universe. Pain allows us to appreciate that which is precious all the more."
By the sunset, the headquarters of the Arcadia Movement loomed, forbidding in the half-shadows that played about the face of the building. Atop the building, two spirits talked. Both wore armour, each a shade of blue, yet one was of the leonine family and the other was of a completely different predatory feline persuasion.
"So the Summer King was that boy. Perhaps his link to Black Rose..."
Dewloren snorted at the other feline. "Did you really think that your girl could have been the one, Regulus-dono?"
Regulus looked offended. "There is nothing wrong with Ruka!"
"No, there is none," the Tiger King agreed. "Certainly, the child might have accepted the soul of Titania, once upon a time. That time is long gone; the glamour is wearing off. One day, Regulus-dono, that boy will have to come to the Spirit Worlds in exchange for that of his forbears."
"They escaped the harsh destiny that awaited the Signers!" Regulus protested. "Dewloren, you too have lingered amidst mortals, and how sweet they treasure their time. The destinies that awaits the two rulers will be bitter and alien and painful. That is petty cruelty, even for you, Dewloren-dono."
"Such is the fate of all," Dewloren remarked. "Your master commanded that the girl be dragged into the Spirit Worlds at a tender age, barely able to communicate the simplest of ideas, and commanded her to protect the Spirit Worlds. You stand there and call me cruel when you may have done something far more heinous? My Queen had nothing to lose. Yours still had a twin."
Regulus did not answer.
"Hearts," Dewloren murmured. "Hearts. Good. Evil. Mortals are always concerned with such nonsense."
"Winter-bound, always preoccupied with wilder things," Regulus muttered, shaking his mane out. "I must bring greetings from Ancient Fairy-sama to the mortal lad, then. Think about my words, Dewloren-dono, old hunter. The way you press your Queen lies madness."
The Tiger King frowned at something faraway. "It may well be, Regulus-dono. Dark things stir in Winter's heart. Things even I have never before seen. Dangerous things. I believe they are a portent."
"Dark things stir in Winter's heart?" Regulus echoed. "How so?"
"That, old king, is something I cannot answer," the Tiger laughed, something completely at odds to his bestial form and grating. "The Queen yet calls. Go, Regulus-dono, go attend to Summer."
Regulus quietly rumbled as the tiger pawed away. "Dark things of Winter...? But what?"
Within the building itself, there was a door. Few actually knew that this door led off to who knows where in the world. A six-sided mirror hung from the door, reflecting everything and yet nothing at the same time. In fact, this mirror indicated that this doorway was one that led into the heart of the spirit realms, used only by only one. It led into the Ice Barrier Plains, just for tonight.
A cool air drifted under the canopy made of strings of fairy lights, dangling under the dark skies of the Gensokyo. Whatever the dance floor had once been, it had always been meant for dancing. The dance floor was made of blocks of rose-coloured marble, and even though the floor was tilted, the blocks had been slipped to the level, here and there, creating something that looked almost like a flight of low, shallow stairs. Over the treacherous blocks danced those of Winter, from the Ice Barrier to even the smallest Duel Spirit tribes represented, thirty of forty couples in all. Men and women, fiends and monsters, outright monstrous or beautiful beyond reason, they spun, arching and offering in time to the beat.
To one side stood a bandstand, and the musicians on it all wore tuxes. The ringmaster was conducting, top hat, tail-coat with white gloves, and wielding a sword in place of a baton. Three tiny imps wearing different clothings and styles played the double-neck guitar, the brass horns and the marching drums in sync. They were good, playing with the unity of tone and timing of bands who had truly honed their art.
Beyond the dance floor stood raised tiers of platforms, each one set with a separate little table, one that could sit three or four at the most, each one with its own dim, green-shaded lamp. The tables all stood at different relative heights to one another, staggered back and forth-until the tiers reached a pinnacle, a single chair made out of what looked like silver, its flaring back carved into a sigil, a snowflake the size of a dinner table. The great chair stood empty.
The drummer on the bandstand went into a brief solo, and then the instruments cut off altogether – but for one. The other band members sagged, but the lead trumpet stayed standing, belting out a solo while the Winter Lords danced.
Then, all at once, they stopped dancing. Dozens of beautiful and unusual faces turned to watch the soloist, eyes glittering in the muted light as the end of the solo happened, the sound good, the tone just right, and as the Fiend finally stopped playing, a murmur of approval went up.
The crowds of dancers were parting, stepping aside with deep bows and curtseys for someone emerging from their midst. A girl walked slowly towards the bandstand. Pale, radiant, physically perfect, her dark, dark hair worn long and loose complemented her pale features and her cold eyes narrowed, pinched at the corners by heritage.
She looked young. Young enough to make a man feel guilty for thinking the wrong thoughts, but old enough to make it difficult not to. She wore leather pants of dark, dark blue, laced and open up the outside seams from calf to hip. Her boots matched the pants. She wore a white T-shirt tight enough to show her covered breasts straining against the fabric, framing the words OFF WITH HIS HEAD. She had hacked the shirt off at the top of her rib cage, leaving pale flesh exposed, along with a glitter of silver flashing at her navel.
The Fiends on the bandstand were growing increasingly nervous as time passed and her cold eyes settled upon them, the surrounding monsters looming or discreetly reaching for arms that had the Fiends swallowing nervously and looking for discreet escape routes before the riot began.
A merry laugh escaped as clapping sounded from the girl, and the monsters politely clapped behind her as well, the weapons put away. All the musical Fiends, especially the soloist trumpet, heaved a sigh of relief.
"Brava, brava ragazza!" the girl clapped, as a silver locket bounced around her neck. The snowflake etched into her locket glimmered in the dim light. "Maestro Maestroke, you must simply perform for us some more! I would be the lowest if the Winter would allow you and your Djinns to leave unsatisfied, especially Melomelody! Bring the drinks for our guests!"
A collective sigh went up from the assembled, and then they began applauding enthusiastically as servers carted the drinks out, offering goblets rimmed with frost amongst exotic fare. She looked back over her shoulder at them all with a lifted chin and a lazy smile before she stood up and bowed, left and right, to the sound of applause. The clapping died off when she stalked away and to the rising tiers of dinner seats, stepping lithely up them until she reached the great silver throne at the top. She dropped into it, turned sideways, and idly threw her legs over one arm, arching her back and stretching with that same lazy smile. "My lords and ladies, let us give our poor entertainers a little time to recover their strength. Dewloren is here."
The assembled began drifting toward the tables on the tiers, stepping into place one by one as Dewloren appeared.
"Prince Dewloren, my majordomo," Setsuka murmured as Eria knelt, offering a goblet. "What have you here from your watch upon the mortal realm?"
"My Queen," the tiger nodded. "Your right hand calls upon you. Regulus has been sighted in the city of Neo Domino."
"Indeed?" Setsuka murmured as she accepted the drink, the cup rimming with frost as she lifted it to her lips. "And for what purposes has the servant of Ancient Fairy Dragon, her closest retainer have, for the mortal world? Sooth, there is nothing in Neo Domino at the present time that might interest the servitors of the Crimson Dragon."
Dewloren growled. "I believe that Ancient Fairy is acting in her capacity as a ruler of spirits, My Queen. Regulus has been instructed to contact the Night Rose Knight."
Her face lost any semblance of a smile, turning into something flat and beautiful, but also chilling. "Is that so? Then Ancient Fairy is involving herself in these games. Why, perhaps she should know better. Winter does not play fair."
A howl of wind echoed as behind her, the aurora danced in the skies. Beneath her feet, the stones of the greatest of the Ice Barrier Mountains, Lia Fáil, began to cry out, a low, low scratching sound that resounded through the plains.
Setsuka gave a small smile as Dewloren stepped up to her. "Let the games begin."
Ryuusei had seen some strange things, and that also included keeping some strange things. Never mind the all-year blooming plum tree outside his room. Never mind the constantly blooming flowers in vases around that somehow lasted six weeks, and counting. Never mind that his room was currently host to three female spirits and one lion.
The talking lion was perhaps more familiar than it should.
"Ryuusei," Regulus greeted.
"Regulus," Ryuusei nodded. The lion having been one of the few spirits he had seen, he was more familiar with it. "How's Aunt Ruka?"
"Well," the lion shrugged. "She has not been able to see us for a spell. It matters not. What I have come is to send you a message, and an invitation. To come to the Ancient Forest once more to meet Ancient Fairy Dragon, as Fudo Ryuusei, and as the Summer King."
"Oh," Marguerite murmured. "Ancient Fairy is one of Summer's greatest forces. We should go. There are ways to cross dimensions here."
Ryuusei nodded. "I'll visit her... soon. I don't know how time crosses, you see."
"Well as any," the lion nodded. "Our second order of business, is the Old Traditions. The wars may have ended, but Summer and Winter remain opposing forces. There will come a time where you shall be involved in some matter against the Winter Queen."
"Shimotsuki?" Ryuusei intoned. "Why? For one thing, why would I oppose Shimotsuki? I mean, we don't agree only on a few policies."
"It will be personal," Regulus shook his head. "The Winter Queen will not risk her influence on the mortal sphere to settle the affairs of spirits, that I grant. Yet, she may attack you, use your friends and family as pawns against you. Do not blame her, it is the instinct of Winter to be maliciously violent."
Ryuusei shook his head. "But she won't, I mean, Seika is here!"
It was odd, to be under the stares of two Duel spirits instead of one. "It will not matter. Those mortals who involve themselves in Winter's affairs will die sooner or later, and including any and all in the way."
"Why?" Ryuusei asked.
"The mantle of power is more than responsibility and naked strength," the lion muttered. "It is a force unto itself, like the Queens Maeve and Titania were forces unto themselves. It slowly consumes the wearer. Titania was of a more calm disposition, while Maeve... well, fey is the only term to describe her. Maeve is capable of mercy, but otherwise..."
"She shows no compassion," Aussa agreed, shivering.
"Yes," Hiita was curling in on herself. "The Queen Maeve was, is still, one of the monsters feared. The Ice Queen, the first Queen of Air and Darkness... she was foretold to come back, much worse. Most monsters kill and eat you. She tricks you into walking into quicksand and watch you drown, turns you into a stag and set the hounds after you, bind you into an enchanted sleep for a few hundred years..."
"Whoa, whoa," Ryuusei persuaded. "Come on, even Shimotsuki has a limit."
Regulus's eyes turned onto him. "You are saying that you have never seen her kill?"
The sheer memory itself was enough to make him shiver.
It took only an instant, but he could see from where they lay, that suddenly her eyes opened wide, realising the trap she had fallen into. She tried to suck a breath in through her nose, but cold hands locked on the back of her head and drew her closer still. Her survival instinct kicked in, and even though she weighed probably more than what the student did, her efforts to escape were all in vain. He could feel the sudden burst of pure Arctic cold emanate from her body, and could also see, and even hear the fluids in his body freeze instantly. Ice, he realised at that moment, crackles just as loudly when it is created rapidly as it does when it breaks.
She kept the kiss going, probably even after the heart had frozen solid in mid-beat, and then poured even more and more of the elemental frigidness at the mortal in her grasp, pushing the flesh past merely frozen.
The results can only be described as making the body that had been standing there collapse like a castle of dry sand, and then having even those individual particles break apart further, leaving not even a hint of residual dust to mark that a living mortal being had once been standing there. The only sound made in this process after the ice cracked was a muffled thud as the DuelDisk landed on the ground, thankfully without breaking.
It was an efficient way to kill, coldly efficient...
"No," Ryuusei shivered. "You're right. What will Shimotsuki do?"
"Be on your guard," he advised. "You have an admirable tutor, to have contracted the Sorciere de Fleur. Learn, remember, and know the laws that bind the rulers. Theoretically, as long as the laws are obeyed, one could deal with the rulers and possibly make it alive."
"Theoretically?" Ryuusei echoed.
The expression of the lion was a heavy one. "Even Summer is a warmer court, but not a better one. Death is a part of the natural order, even my fangs have tasted blood in service."
Ryuusei's fingers fisted over as his body shook. "I know. I know. It's just... why?"
Marguerite shook her head. "This is one of those questions that do not have a simple answer, and cannot be told. It can only be learned."
Blearily, Koichi opened his eyes to find himself in the infirmary. In the bed next to his own was the sleeping form of Tsugare. The bandages and the twinges of pain were a testament that yes, he had only just survived a werewolf attack.
"T- Tsugare..." Koichi murmured as he got up, wincing only slightly. Painkillers, very effective, he concluded. "Tsugare, are you there?"
Slowly, the visible eye opened to a glimmer of amber, the beautiful face quiet.
"You saved me," Koichi shook his head. "I... I panicked where it mattered, I'm sorry..."
The lone amber eye blinked confusedly at him. "Do I know you?"
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