Chapter Text
Mafuyu observed the room once more to assure that her princess was safe in the room. She glanced at the liaisons, the contractors and the others that were in the room. The representatives of the Marigolds - who had taken up a vow of silence once they discussions of the contract had begun and were only there as a deterrent of starting war once more - that sat in the room and watched them. The minimal and insignificant party of people from the Dark and those of the Light.
Noticeably, they were significantly lighter but they had lost many people. And some of the people seemed to be unsure and it was, most likely, their first time on the job. Having had received a promotion because their boss died tragically.
She could not place names to faces, so they were most likely all unimportant to her and the war save one. One very important face. One face that Mafuyu was offended to have even seen to begin with. A face that had legends surround her and her stupid sword, Hauteclaire, though she was rarely if ever seen on the battlefield. Safe and secure in a fortress so impenetrable that not even the dragons led by Sakura could break in to try and end the war faster, back in the days where they thought that amount of bloodshed was dastardly and disgusting.
They had all underestimated how much war took from you and how little could ever be returned after it was over and you were in peace. When there was nothing else to fight for and you had grown addicted to the adrenaline. Craving it and your next fix.
Mafuyu most likely looked dishevelled for the Abyss Knight, large bags clinging under her eyes as she tossed and turned remembering it all in vivid and clear detail. The peeling of skin and how it smelt. The blood on her hands as she tried to stop people from bleeding out under her before it was a wasted cause and after the fifth person, any of her fallen comrades that were near her knew that they were going to die. She wasn't going to waste time in saving them.
She was haunted by it all and she, the other knight, seemed so unaffected. Simply she was there and she was fine. She was perfect and each time that Mafuyu scanned the room and caught her out of the corner of her eye. She was enraged. She felt heat swirl in her before she threw it off the cliff into the abyss and seemed as unbothered as the woman in front of her with less success because she had the physical traits from the battles of the mind and physical kind that stopped her from looking like her.
From looking like one, Yoisaki Kanade.
Knight Yoisaki Kanade stood to the right of the nervous, cowering princess of Light as though there was nothing wrong in the world. As if her princess was not signing herself away in a death warrant and that they, finally, were admitting defeat after the battle of Bourne. After that slaughter where famous and heralded knights such as Shinonome Akito (an immigrant from the Marigold Kingdom) and Marquess Tenma Tsukasa. Which was a devastating blow for Saki and Touya.
There were always plans that when they won, Tsukasa would be spared for Saki and Touya's sake. He was their older brother and whilst he fought for the wrong side of the war, he was still family. And they prioritised and cared for family most of all in their Kingdom. There was nothing more sacred for them than that and it had to be protected at all costs. Even if that family hurt you.
So, to lose Tenma Tsukasa in the midst of a battle and the only surviving general was Akiyama Mizuki. Blood battered and bruised. Leader of the reinforcements and the one to make a difficult decision of a tactical retreat. To survive against all the odds when faced with a grieving Touya - who could not accept it was his fault his brother died - and to survive.
She had earnt a medio crème amount of respect from Mafuyu. Begrudgingly so.
So, for Mafuyu to not see the heralded hero and not even the cowardice traitor but instead Yoisaki Kanade. She was offended on behalf of her country once more.
Yoisaki Kanade, the daughter of tea makers who lived in Nutin land a rather crucial town for the war front, was not someone Mafuyu considered a threat. She was not the most imposing of Hinomori's guards, that was Shinonome Akito. She was not the most outgoing either, that was Akiyama Mizuki's role to claim. She most certainly was not the most scared, that was Hoshino Ichika. The traitorous bitch.
Yoisaki Kanade was simply there. And whilst the numbers had been whittled down, there was no good reason to have Kanade. Other than to mock them over losing out on Nutin.
Queen Shizuku kept her eyes firmly on the papers presented to her by Liaison Ootori Hinata. She didn't flinch. She remained impassive as Mafuyu's own princess, Queen-to-be, Kusanagi Nene did not. She was too blatantly nervous and Mafuyu wanted to assure her it would be fine, but she could not. She was the guard and a future-Viscountess. She had her limits of what she could do.
"I would like Lady Hoshino Ichika to be granted immunity," Shizuku began primly.
"She was a traitor to the Dark."
"And a valuable asset to the Light. I do not want to fight a war anymore, I know my coffers cannot handle it, I predict yours will be in a similar state of disarray. I am agreeable to all your terms, I request only this."
Mafuyu's training of impassiveness was leaving her as she let out a sound of annoyance. Yoisaki Kanades's eyes snapped up to hers. Trying to not glare at her for whatever transgression she had done against Queen Hinomori.
Those blue eyes seemed sharper and stronger than ever.
Fascinating.
For what they had heard from 'their' spy, she was often meek and delicate. She was so unassuming really. Though Mafuyu had to note that since the spy was not spying on the Light for the Dark but rather, the Dark for the Light, she was unsure of the validity of the statement. Perhaps, their biggest weakness was always Yoisaki and Hoshino was deceiving them all into thinking she was less important than she was.
Yoisaki didn’t remove her gaze as others had often done, too scared by the intensity of Mafuyu’s own stare. The two of them locked in a pointless staring contest.
She looked differently from how the reports described her. She was often compared to Rapunzel because of her long, silky white hair that was always tied up in a loose braid that hung down to below her waist. A soft smile and a voice of a seraphim with the looks to match. When she stood next to Queen Hinomori, there were so many features they shared that it would not be shocking if she was a bastard child of the King. Maybe that was why she was there because there was really nothing of merit about her.
The two contractors from each kingdom and the princesses seemed to be off in their own world whilst Mafuyu and Kanade tried to incinerate one another with their gazes alone. To restart the war and bloodshed between them two and to let it spread out like wildfires. To burn everyone and everything and start anew.
The contract was edited once more, amended to accommodate the safety of someone the Dark had all rights to murder since she was a liar and put them all in danger. Since she told the world government secrets. Betrayed their trust and broke their hearts. Betrayed their friendship. Refusing to value them to the same degree that they valued her and such. They were expendable in her mind but to them no one was expendable.
Mafuyu kept her thoughts deep down and buried as Queen Hinomori signed her name with a flourish and a flick. A swish and an elegant scrawl that no one could compete against. Simply and elegant, over dramatic like the Light were known to do, but who was Mafuyu to judge.
Nene was slower to write her name on the contract. More hesitant really. She didn’t want to be in it but, as Queen Hinomori had aptly stated, their coffers were also suffering under the weight and the pressure of the war. Less so than the Light but enough that if the Light were able to launch a successful attack or counter attack, push them further from the border of Nutin, then they would be struggling. Rationing would only get worse and if the trades stopped not wanting to be involved in the war effort or found to be picking a side, what could their farmers do? Their lands were smothered in blood and if they dug too deeply under the ground and the dirt, they could find anything horrifying from a random finger or a head that had its eyes wide open and mouth in a scream.
She still wrote her name on the contract and then Yoisaki Kanade stepped forward and took the pen from Queen Shizuku’s hand and looked down the scroll. There were many places for signatures on the scroll. It was a strange thing but Mafuyu could not judge, soon she would have to sign on there. As the Queen-to-be’s personal guard since she was ‘promoted’ to that rank.
For her it felt like a demotion because to breathe in the blood and the gore and the violence and to lead the troops strategically when their plans backfired. That was natural to Mafuyu as it had been to her father, God rest his soul, since she grew up watching him plan and learning from him. She grew up with a chess board as her only friend since she was not allowed to partake in the same fun activities as her peers. Only Ichika was allowed through the threshold but that was because Ichika and Mafuyu’s mothers were friends. Commiserating about having soldiers for husbands and the pains of being titled women and ladies. Of having staff and more that flocked around them like lost ducklings. Of being mothers and their daughters’ disobedience.
She finished writing her name before turning it to Mafuyu with barely concealed venom in her lips and eyes. Bright and smouldering. Cloying and suffocating.
Mafuyu returned the gaze with the same intensity and the two were locked in a staring contest between themselves. Content with glaring at one another, even as Mafuyu wrote her name, she didn’t waver or break eye contact once the quill met the parchment and she began to write. Asahina Mafuyu, guarder of Crown Princess Kusanagi Nene. Right next to Yoisaki Kanade, guarder of Queen Hinomori Shizuku.
The girl smirked slightly. Her blue eyes danced with delight whilst everyone else gathered in the room, rushing to get out of the room.
She held her hand out, taking them out of her white lace gloves, which would achieve nothing other than making her look more pompous and preposterous, “Dame Yoisaki Kanade, pleased to meet you.”
“Viscountess Asahina Mafuyu,” she returned icily. The doors around them opening and closing with a harsh slam as they wanted to get away from her as her irritation grew.
“I wish I could stay for longer and have a word with you. We will be around one another more often due to the relationship of our protectees.”
“That is one way to put an arranged marriage to stop a war-“
“If anyone has a right to hostility, as Duchess Akiyama would say, it is us who suffered immensely from the war and the battles. Who lost our closest comrades and family.”
“Do you believe only the Light lost people? Are you so obnoxious to think this war started and ends with you all?” The absolute nerve of that woman.
She seemed to be taken aback, her eyes widening for a moment as she realised what she had said. She was, predictably, going to backtrack and pretend that she did not mean it that way when there was no other way for Mafuyu to interpret it.
She had lost people dear to her and close to her heart, for it to be discarded because she was of the Dark...
“I did not mean to imply that you did not lose people. I meant- mean that, you have no reason to be so hostile and uptight. You won the war. We all know it.”
“Your words were that you lost your closest comrades and family. So did I. So did we. Everyone lost something important to them. You took Ichika from us.”
“She was not someone to take. People cannot be taken outside of being buried too soon before they were meant to,” Kanade hissed in a fashion that was so unlike what she had heard of her that Mafuyu flinched immediately. Grasping a small dagger that was gifted to her by Durendal Chartres Smith when she came to collect the twin sword to her father’s own one.
Because it was so foreign, she wondered what nerve of the Knight's she had hit accidentally. What had triggered the Knight to become so rigged and ready to attack like that.
They were only fleeting thoughts as she acted as soon as it happened.
She twisted the dagger immediately to Kanade’s jugular, a small knife at her own within in the room as the air became still. Neither one of them was willing to breathe more than necessary or break the tension between them as their daggers rested on their arteries. One wrong move. One wrong word. And they would die a gory and painful death. Blood would splatter on the other person and well – war would start off again.
And they had fought so hard to negotiate that contract and whilst Mafuyu was weak in that moment voicing her distaste of protecting Hoshino. Peace was more important and needed. They needed to keep it because if there was peace, no one else would be hardened by war like she was. She would not lose friends and comrades and people who she did, to some degree, love.
Slowly, she pulled her dagger away from Yoisaki’s neck. The woman watched her warily before following suit. Silently and softly.
She was like a snake lying in wait in the tall thickets of grass. Lounging and lazing around until it found its prey and then it would all be over. In one swallow, the prey would be gone and the snake would return to waiting and waiting and being unassuming. And the cycle would repeat.
“If we kill one another, war would start again. I would not like to kill someone so weak as you should I start war once more,” Mafuyu sniffed at her. Wrinkling her nose up to show her distaste.
“I was only defending myself, so I would not have caused a war. You held me at dagger point first.”
Mafuyu did not honour her with a response. Simply staring at her blankly as one did with cream walls in a building was enough of one.
The two of them existed in companionable, tense, awkward silence until the door opened and in walked Queen Hinomori. She looked as poised as ever. Her lips in a permanent smile even though there was total devastation and chaos in their lives five days before and she had lost valuable people to her squadron. She walked on forwards and into the room as though nothing had ever been wrong in her life and that it was all normal. It was something domestic.
As though she had not just shot through a large amount of tension that was suffocating them all intensely by entering the room and smiling. Smiling in the presence of people she considered enemies and wanted dead days prior.
“Kana,” she began softly. “We should get going. We need to pack up and prepare the horses and such. It was a pleasure to meet you, Dame-“
“Viscountess.”
“Viscountess Asahina. I hope you will be able to greet us when we arrive next week to your Kingdom. It would be very pleasing for me and morale on ending the war should the Abyss Knight turn up. Only if your schedule allows it. I know being a Viscountess and a Knight must be draining.”
“I manage. I have less on my plate than you do. I only look after two villages and most of the inhabitants are not- my family are not as prosperous as we once were,” Mafuyu explained politely. Bowing her head to avoid any ability to guess and call out her sardonic smile and the way that her nostrils flared as she spoke to her. To keep the tightness of anger out of her voice when addressing her was hard enough. Keeping all emotion from her face was harder.
When she was younger, she could’ve done it. No one would’ve been none the wiser. She had done it often enough to her mother and father. Lied to them over how happy she was with something because if she disobeyed them and showed them disrespect, they would be upset and she would not be cherishing family as she was meant to by being a pioneer of the Dark.
But now, she was too worn down by it. Her hair was still matted with blood and if it were longer, if it was back to the long locks she had. Where it curled and coiled around her arms and would’ve been a hazard for her to use and do anything with her trusted sword. If it were back to that length, she would’ve hacked it all off. Her fingers twitched every so often from displaced and harmed nerves that did not heal over properly. Her body was sore and everything hurt from her scalp to her toe nails.
Her heart hurt most of all and so did her back from where Hoshino had stabbed her and managed to worm her way into the hearts of the Light.
So, she kept her head down and tried to seem unassuming. They knew her legacy and who she was. They knew of Vielles Vérités and the power she could bring down when she wielded it. But they did not know it was a sister sword to her father. They didn’t even really know who her father was. Thye knew of him, he was famous and so was Jeune Rêves, but they did not know him. They knew little to nothing about the Asahinas. What she did within the war effort was a strange mystery. They had some pieces of the puzzle but not all. So, they did not know her outside of the picture that they had created when they melded together pieces to formulate what was, to them, a suitable answer. Came to conclusions that were improbable because it justified the murder in their minds.
If they wanted to know her, they simply would not. Neither of them. She wouldn’t allow them to know her. To look into her soul and see her fears and her regrets. She would carry on in life the way it was.
She didn’t even chance a peek through her lashes at Knight Yoisaki. She simply kept staring at the floor and let her anger simmer and be pushed down like one pushes a box into shape when it clearly does not fit.
“I am sorry, for your loss. Sol Falaise was a prosperous city. Should you manage to return it to even one percent of its splendour, I hope you will extend some hospitality to me. I would like to visit it.”
“We shall see. With my time being split between protecting my Princess and fighting for funding in times after war, it may be a difficult endeavour.”
“We have all the time, Abyss Knight,” Queen Hinomori could only repeat. “If you must excuse us, please, we have an arduous journey to trek once again. I shall see you soon.”
“I look forward to it, Queen Hinomori. Knight Yoisaki,” she bid, the two knights looking at one another for a moment. Narrowing their eyes and toying with the swords resting at their belts before smiling in perfect sync. Apparently, Mafuyu was not the only one hiding her annoyance with people under smiles. Though Mafuyu had too much of a reputation for that to work anymore.
Once the Fleeting Light Knight had her back turned, Mafuyu’s smile fell and all she could imagine was stabbing her right through the spleen. Stab her in the back and watch as the blood dripped down her sword and blended in with the red flecks that were painstakingly beaten into the blackened metal.
She would never call herself vengeful or that she had a particular thirst for a blood. She was never really in that category. Blood and death was a devastating tragedy but for Knight Yoisaki Kanade, she would love to do it.
She shook her head though as one of the maids from the Marigold Kingdom moved to and thro. Ignoring her presence wholly as she dusted and rearranged the chairs to be perfect as the Marigold Kingdom had been before they were dragged into the war with a few stray shots from the dragon tamers.
She shook her head and cleared her mind. Remembering the tactics that her mother taught her to keep her feelings at bay before leaving the comfort of the room and facing her own princess. Her princess that held her parasol and protected herself from the mocking sunlight as she flattened her dress and stared at her with a small smile. Though it did not meet her eyes.
Not much met her eyes anymore. Not since the death of Kamishiro Rui, the sorcerer and her best friend. The one person that understood Princess Nene better than anything else and the one, Mafuyu thought, that had the blue dress she was wearing commissioned for her. With the heels with butterflies on the back of shoe and intricate gold metal bent into a butterfly near her breast.
She turned to look at Mafuyu with a feeble smile. “How do you find my betrothed? And her knight?”
“I am surprised it was not Knight Akiyama, though she is a Duchess now I suppose.”
“I did hear that her sister was taken, unfortunate,” Nene mused rather helplessly, haplessly. Plucking one of the marigolds from the hanging baskets that lined the whole kingdom idly. Picking at the petals and watching them cascade down onto the people below as they tried to fix and reassemble their lives.
The Marigold Kingdom was involved the least, but because it was neutral territory, it was swarming with people seeking refuge and help. Add on the accidental burns from the dragons and magic that was wild and uncontrollable, then there were more people who were displaced from their homes. Ground that was scorched to the point nothing could grow on it and then the whole kingdom was in stress and duress.
“It can be. Duchess Akiyama Yuuki was one of the best with the Light’s relations to us. Though she aligned herself with them in the end, she was still impartial and fair.”
“So will Duchess Akiyama Mizuki with this marriage. We act as one. My wife and I.”
“With conflicting norms and values and ideals,” Mafuyu pointed out. “You will have me though. I will protect you whilst… I think Sol Falaise is too much of a wasteland for me to be a Viscountess.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
“As am I, for yours. We all lost something in this war and made difficult decisions. Your sacrifice will not be forgotten.”
“So you will try to make amends and be civil with Fleeting Light Knight Yoisaki Kanade?”
Mafuyu’s fists tightened subconsciously against her will before she forced herself to relax and unclench. “It is my role as your protector to do so. Although I find that our intel about her is less accurate than we thought. She was openly antagonistic to me.”
“We knew who she was before a war, not who she became during and after it,” Nene reasoned wisely. “Like people know us. We need to get some emergence food to Duchess Minako and Duke Tsukino.”
“I think our farmers are trying but most of the viable land…”
The two of them lapsed into awkward silence as they realised how much they truly had lost in the war. And not just the people who they wanted to save but the ideals and dreams and hopes of those people as well as the ease that they could run a country. The ease and reliability of the farming season to keep everyone fed and keep most people off the streets should the worst happen.
And now poverty was rampant and…
“We cannot solve the problems by avoiding the Kingdom. Ready the carriages for us please, and the horses?”
“Of course, your highness. Do you require anything else?”
“Only privacy, if you can afford it for me,” Nene requested politely.
Mafuyu nodded and followed the orders, she was best at that. Having had it drilled into her since childhood that for her it was automatic and instinctual until it was done and she was guiding Nene up the steps. Supporting her along the way and leading them back home. To where the caved in houses were not just one every street or so like they were in the Marigold Kingdom but it was every house on every street. Where children were smothered in their own excretions and they were covered in blood and dirt and filth. Bones protruding as starving became more and more common.
And a marriage would solve it all.
As if.
War was bad and she hated it and, yes, it was devastating. But war would solve it all if they were able to sweep in and claim territories as their own but they couldn’t. And her father’s vision for the future, the future that granted him the title of Viscount in his life was impossible.
She held on tighter to her sword, whispered a soft prayer and dwelled on it no longer. It was distracting. She needed to kill it and avoid it and work on getting her emotions under control again so Knight Yoisaki could not successfully rile her up and annoy her. So that she was not so weak and vulnerable in front of the woman she wanted to kill and take pride and delight in killing.
The reminders of the agony of war all around her was a good way to get her instincts and her urges under control. To cool off her anger. Like she had bathed in the holy, sin freeing waters and rivers that flowed all throughout the Kingdom of Light. Or so they claimed, there was never much evidence of it, it was perhaps, an old wives tale. The kind you were told about avoiding stepping on cracks or under certain doorways without stepping forward on the right foot. That kind of thing. Myths and legends and superstitions that when coincidences occurred, they viewed it as cause and effect. Though the two things were not inherently linked though they could be observed.
The human mind worked in mysteriously annoying ways.
Her hand twitched for the moment as she held onto the reigns of the horse and took in another stilling breath of air to calm her rampant heart. All she had to do was to make sure that Nene and Queen Hinomori married one another and not kill Yoisaki Kanade. That was it. Nothing more, and nothing less.
Simple and logical. She could do that. She could do that and become that scared child once more. She could obey like a good little bitch and she could heel and bark on command. She could pretend to be an ice cube once more. She just needed to keep her head about her when near the other Knight.
That was easy. Doable. She could do it. She would master it. And peace would be secured and she would never have to see her again! Thank Dieu!