Chapter Text
King Daichi the First ran his gloved fingers in his hair over and over, on the same spot. His advisor, Kō, looked at him with worriness written all across his face ; he probably thought the hair there would thin out if he kept going.
In his other hand, he held tensely on a letter, all crinkled from the pressure. He had tried, really, to keep a steady but relaxed grip on it, but the knots that had started in his stomach had soon progressed to his throat, and then to his whole body. He could barely move now, under the weight of ten suns knocking the breath out of him.
- Daichi ? Daichi, what's going on ? he heard Kōshi's voice asking through the ringing in his ears.
He couldn't answer immediately, though, as his brain felt like it ran at half speed, struggling to grasp that news and to process everything around him.
As if there hadn't been enough on his mind already. The eternal geopolitical games shaping the world, the recently created Demon Kingdom with its ferocious, cruel, heartless inhabitants - or so they said - and their especially terrifying ruler, and the menace of the previous war still roaming had troubled him ever since he had gotten his title about five years ago. And now, to top it all, this ?
- Get Yui here, immediately. It's about- it's about Hitoka.
He registered his advisor's face paling next to him, before he turned around and rushed outside of the royal office. The tension that kept his body going left with Kōshi, and he sagged in his chair with seemingly no energy left.
Well. That was bad, very very bad.