Categories > Anime/Manga > Kyou Kara Maou > 50 Years Gone
50 Years Gone
0 reviewsYuuri has been gone from Shin Makoku for a long time. When he finally returns, he discovers a lot of changes -- a new war, a deadly disease, and a new Maou...
0Unrated
Some Quick Author’s Notes: I’ve put a rating of PG-13 on this, along with warnings for Alternate Universe and Medium Spoilers. It’s also in the Romance and Drama categories. Most of this is for stuff that happens later in the story, but I’ll always welcome suggestions on rating warning, and category additions/changes along with general reviews and constructive criticism. Oh, and another warning…there’s some very mild slash and a few original characters in this story. Don’t hate me for it. Thanks!
As always, I don’t own anything in this story except my original characters.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter 1: Puddles and Meetings
“Yuuri, are you even listening to me?”
Yuuri Shibuya, son of Shoma and Hama no Jennifer, brother of Shouri, former fiancé of Wolfram, and current typical Japanese salary man, raised his head and blinked his huge black eyes at the man across from him. Ken Murata, his long-time friend and companion on many adventures, gave him a slightly sour look. “Sorry, Murata. I was distracted.”
“Hmm, I know. Thinking about Shin Makoku again?”
Yuuri hesitated, then nodded and glanced down at his hands, clasped around the small cup of steaming green tea on the table before him. “Always, Murata. It’s been ten years, you’d think I could forget or stop worrying, but…I always wonder how they are.”
Murata adjusted his glasses and leaned forward. “I’m sure they’re fine. They probably miss you, but they’re resourceful people. Do you really think Conrad or Gunter or Gwendal would just let Shin Makoku fall apart?”
“I suppose not,” the former Maou said. But somehow, he didn’t feel any better.
“Of course not!” Murata said firmly. “Now, Yuuri, you really should get your mind off this…Akiko’s cousin is coming to visit tomorrow, you should meet her. Everyone says she’s quite the beauty.”
Yuuri shook his head slowly. Murata might have acquired a steady girlfriend in the last few years, but Yuuri himself had never really bothered to look. Plenty of girls had approached him, but for some reason he had always turned them down (gently, of course). Murata had other ideas for his friend, and it seemed like every week his girlfriend Akiko had a new sister, cousin, friend, or coworker who was pretty and sweet and would be perfect for Yuuri. And every week Yuuri found himself making excuses as to why he wouldn’t go meet said latest sister, cousin, friend, or coworker. He was getting rather tired of this game. Shouldn’t a former Great Sage like Murata have more important things to worry about?
“Yuuri,” Murata chided. “How do you plan on finding a nice wife this way?”
Yuuri shrugged and Murata sighed, finally giving up his quest to find Yuuri the perfect girl -- for the moment, at least. They sipped their tea in silence for a bit, then Yuuri yawned and stretched. “I’m so tired,” he muttered. “All this rain is getting to me.”
They both turned to look out the nearby window and watched the rain pour down from the dark, angry clouds overhead. It had been raining like this for much of the week, and some parts of the city had reported flooding. Everyone was sick of the rain.
Murata nodded, his somewhat shaggy black hair swaying a bit. “It’s very strange,” he said. “But you should go home and get some rest, Yuuri. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Yuuri nodded and gathered his things, making sure to have his umbrella handy before waving to his friend and venturing out into the downpour outside. He grumbled miserably to himself, glaring up at the clouds before finally opening his umbrella and stepping out into the street, doing his best to avoid the puddles and miniature rivers in his way. It didn’t help, really -- he still got wet. But his apartment wasn’t too far from here, and he would be able to change his clothes before he knew it.
Well, that had been the plan, anyway. Unfortunately for Yuuri, the universe had other ideas that day. He began the trek up the long hill leading towards his apartment complex, and had actually made it almost all the way to the top when a small calico cat darted in front of him. This normally wouldn’t be cause for alarm -- Yuuri had nothing against cats -- except that he hadn’t noticed the cat before and its sudden appearance so close to his feet startled him.
“Gah!” he exclaimed, jumping back a bit as the cat trotted past. But the jump hadn’t been such a smart move. His foot landed on a small, smooth, slippery stone on the sidewalk, and before he knew it he was falling face-first into a huge, muddy puddle…
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Yuuri spluttered and struggled and finally managed to sit up, spitting out a mouthful of mud-filled water and wiping some gritty muck from his eyes. This was not how he had planned to spend his afternoon. With a long-suffering sigh, he finally managed to open his eyes and blink at his surroundings.
He was most certainly not in Tokyo anymore.
The young man was sitting in the middle of an old, broken-down fountain. The water appeared fresh enough, so he guessed it must be water from a recent rain storm -- whatever water had once run through this fountain was long gone. Not that it would have mattered, really, as the fountain heads were all broken and lay in small piles around the pool where he lay. The garden surrounding the fountain looked overgrown, as though it hadn’t been tended for years. And beyond that, the walls of the once-majestic building surrounding this courtyard garden were crumbling. Yuuri strongly suspected that someone had attacked the building and helped the process of decay along.
He rolled over a bit so that he was kneeling in the water and began splashing it over his face and hair in an attempt to rid himself of the last of the mud. The activity also gave him some time to think. It seemed that, for the first time in ten years, he had traveled through time and space to arrive in another world. But was this place really Shin Makoku? Yuuri certainly didn’t remember any crumbling buildings from his time as Maou. At least, he had never before arrived in the courtyard of a crumbling building. A wine barrel once, yes (and that had been highly unusual), but never an old, crumbling courtyard. Plus, there was almost always someone to greet him upon his return to Shin Makoku. So perhaps he wasn’t in Shin Makoku at all. But if not his old kingdom, than what was this place?
Climbing carefully out of the fountain, Yuuri took another look around the courtyard and shivered in the cool air. He looked up at the sky, noticing the pink and orange color of the clouds in the otherwise clear sky, indicating that it was evening. Which meant that he wouldn’t have much time to find out where he was or where he could stay, if he kept dawdling here. He made quick work of finding a way out of the courtyard (though, much to his dismay, it seemed that the only way out was to go into the crumbling building) and began carefully picking his way through the thick weeds, uneven paving stones, and various-sized rocks and boulders scattered all over. The door he was aiming for didn’t open at first, but he finally managed to wrench it open with a loud creak of old wood and a shriek from rusted hinges. There was no hope of shutting the door again, so he just left it and stepped into the building, looking around. The whole place was strangely familiar, as though he had been there before…it was a disturbing feeling.
Under normal circumstance, Yuuri would have found the nearest exit as quickly as he could and left the old, crumbling building without another look back. But somehow, he felt like that would be the wrong thing to do in this situation, and he turned his attention to exploring the place a little instead. Heading deeper into the building, he felt stranger and stranger every second and couldn’t shake the feeling that he knew this place, in almost the same way that he knew his childhood home or his old school or his current apartment. It felt like he could just close his eyes and keep walking and find anything he wanted in the building with no problem at all.
It felt like he had memories here.
On a whim, he closed his eyes, stretched his hands out in front of him, and slowly walked down the long hall he had entered from the courtyard. He stumbled over some loose stones and rocks lying around, and every so often his foot would land on something that crunched or snapped under his weight (he really didn’t want to know what), but he just kept going. And then, without warning, he walked right into a wall. Or rather, a door -- the walls around here were all stone but he was obviously touching wood. He ran his hands over the wood before him, searching for some sign of where he was, but aside from a few painful splinters the wooden panel didn’t give anything away. Finally tiring of his little game, Yuuri cracked his dark eyes and squinted at the wood.
He stared. This door was so familiar…”No. No, this must be a mistake,” he muttered. A couple of steps to the left centered him in front of the large double doors, and he planted his hands firmly (one on each door) and gave one good push. That was enough to make the doors creak open, leaving a space for Yuuri to look through. He didn’t have to do anything else. The room beyond the doors, so big and empty the sound of his breathing echoed harshly through it, was a room he would have recognized no matter what.
This was Shinou’s Temple.
But it was in ruins.
What in the world had happened in Shin Makoku?
“Ulrike!” Yuuri shouted, backing away from the doors and turning to peer down the darkened hallways around him. “Hey, Ulrike-sama! Are you here? Is anybody here?” In his heart, though, he already knew the answer. If Ulrike and her subordinates were here, they would have greeted him the moment he arrived in the fountain. Not only was Shinou’s Temple crumbling around him, but its former inhabitants had vanished. Something simply was not right here. Yuuri nodded and ran back the way he had come, intent on finding his way out (not a problem now that he knew exactly where he was). He had to find someone who could tell him what was going on, and that meant a trip to the other place he knew as well as his home in Japan -- Blood Pledge Castle. Surely someone there would have the answers he needed.
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
The road to Blood Pledge Castle was much longer than Yuuri remembered and lined with far more ruined buildings and dead trees than he remembered, and before he was even half-way to the castle, it was nearly dark. Somehow, he felt that showing up at the castle’s gates just after nightfall, claiming to have come from the ruins of Shinou’s Temple, would be a Very Bad Idea. On the other hand, the issue would be cleared up very quickly, he was certain. He was, after all, the former Maou. Surely the guards would recognize him. And if they didn’t surely Conrad or Wolfram or Greta or any of his other friends would come to his aide. Wow, it would be nice to see them again…Greta would probably be all grown up by now…Conrad might have found himself a spouse…Wolfram would be -- well, Yuuri kind of hoped Wolfram wouldn’t have changed too much. He had never realized just how much he cared for the blond until they had been separated for several months, with no way for Yuuri to get back. He wanted one last chance to see the old Wolfram.
He was so lost in thought as he made his way down the winding dirt road that he barely noticed the sound of horses’ hooves pounding the packed dirt ahead of him. But the sound did eventually work its way through the fog of his memories and forced him to take notice. He raised his head at squinted into the growing darkness before him, just in time to see at least seven horses and their riders round the bend and come charging towards him. His instincts took over, and he wheeled around, preparing to run out of the way, but his foot caught a protruding rock and for the second time that day, he found himself headed for a painful meeting with the ground. He only hoped it wouldn’t be followed by a painful meeting with horses’ hooves.
The riders were too skilled to let their mounts trample Yuuri, however, and he looked up once more to see the animals circling around him, as though circling a captive. Wait, what? I’m Yuuri! There must be a mistake…
“Who are you? What business do you have here?” a voice demanded. It was somewhat muffled and sounded as though it was filtered through some sort of mask, so that Yuuri couldn’t tell if a man or woman had spoken. Well, this was certainly an interesting development.
“I’m Yuuri Shibuya! The Maou of Shin Makoku!” He struggled to his feet and gave the seven riders his most imposing black-eyed glare. “Who are all of you?” he added.
His pronouncement was met by silence, followed almost instantly by raucous laughter that ended almost as abruptly as it began. Yuuri had no idea what to make of that, and took a few steps back in surprise before feeling the sharp tip of a sword digging into the flesh between his shoulder blades.
“Very funny,” the questioner said. In front of him, a somewhat smaller than average figure slipped off a large, black horse and stalked towards him, sword drawn and pointed right at his heart. That rapidly-fading daylight made it impossible for Yuuri to make out any other details about the person, who was swathed in layers of thick, dark material and whose face was hidden by a dark mask. “The Maou wouldn’t be out and about at this time of night…and you certainly aren’t the Maou anyway. Did you come from the Temple?”
“Er…yes…”
The figure nodded sharply, and the circle of riders shifted, allowing two of their number to come up on either side of Yuuri. Both reached down and grabbed his biceps, squeezing hard enough to bruise. “Then you are a problem,” the questioner continued.
“We should take him to the Castle for questioning!” a man exclaimed.
“That might be dangerous,” another man said. “What if he’s a spy?”
“A spy for whom?” the original questioner asked. “He came from Shinou’s Temple. His arrival created a strange disturbance. We should be cautious, of course…but we do need to question him. You!” the figure jerked the sword to indicate the man to Yuuri’s right. “Carry him to the Castle. There’s no time to lose.”
Before Yuuri could say anything, he had been hoisted onto the back of a strange horse and tucked firmly against a stranger’s torso. “Make a wrong move, and I’ll send your soul to hell,” the man breathed in Yuuri’s ear. “Unless our leader there gets to you first, that is,” he added, as though commenting on the lovely night sky. Yuuri paled, but didn’t have any time to protest, as his captors rode off into the night, taking him with them.
As always, I don’t own anything in this story except my original characters.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter 1: Puddles and Meetings
“Yuuri, are you even listening to me?”
Yuuri Shibuya, son of Shoma and Hama no Jennifer, brother of Shouri, former fiancé of Wolfram, and current typical Japanese salary man, raised his head and blinked his huge black eyes at the man across from him. Ken Murata, his long-time friend and companion on many adventures, gave him a slightly sour look. “Sorry, Murata. I was distracted.”
“Hmm, I know. Thinking about Shin Makoku again?”
Yuuri hesitated, then nodded and glanced down at his hands, clasped around the small cup of steaming green tea on the table before him. “Always, Murata. It’s been ten years, you’d think I could forget or stop worrying, but…I always wonder how they are.”
Murata adjusted his glasses and leaned forward. “I’m sure they’re fine. They probably miss you, but they’re resourceful people. Do you really think Conrad or Gunter or Gwendal would just let Shin Makoku fall apart?”
“I suppose not,” the former Maou said. But somehow, he didn’t feel any better.
“Of course not!” Murata said firmly. “Now, Yuuri, you really should get your mind off this…Akiko’s cousin is coming to visit tomorrow, you should meet her. Everyone says she’s quite the beauty.”
Yuuri shook his head slowly. Murata might have acquired a steady girlfriend in the last few years, but Yuuri himself had never really bothered to look. Plenty of girls had approached him, but for some reason he had always turned them down (gently, of course). Murata had other ideas for his friend, and it seemed like every week his girlfriend Akiko had a new sister, cousin, friend, or coworker who was pretty and sweet and would be perfect for Yuuri. And every week Yuuri found himself making excuses as to why he wouldn’t go meet said latest sister, cousin, friend, or coworker. He was getting rather tired of this game. Shouldn’t a former Great Sage like Murata have more important things to worry about?
“Yuuri,” Murata chided. “How do you plan on finding a nice wife this way?”
Yuuri shrugged and Murata sighed, finally giving up his quest to find Yuuri the perfect girl -- for the moment, at least. They sipped their tea in silence for a bit, then Yuuri yawned and stretched. “I’m so tired,” he muttered. “All this rain is getting to me.”
They both turned to look out the nearby window and watched the rain pour down from the dark, angry clouds overhead. It had been raining like this for much of the week, and some parts of the city had reported flooding. Everyone was sick of the rain.
Murata nodded, his somewhat shaggy black hair swaying a bit. “It’s very strange,” he said. “But you should go home and get some rest, Yuuri. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Yuuri nodded and gathered his things, making sure to have his umbrella handy before waving to his friend and venturing out into the downpour outside. He grumbled miserably to himself, glaring up at the clouds before finally opening his umbrella and stepping out into the street, doing his best to avoid the puddles and miniature rivers in his way. It didn’t help, really -- he still got wet. But his apartment wasn’t too far from here, and he would be able to change his clothes before he knew it.
Well, that had been the plan, anyway. Unfortunately for Yuuri, the universe had other ideas that day. He began the trek up the long hill leading towards his apartment complex, and had actually made it almost all the way to the top when a small calico cat darted in front of him. This normally wouldn’t be cause for alarm -- Yuuri had nothing against cats -- except that he hadn’t noticed the cat before and its sudden appearance so close to his feet startled him.
“Gah!” he exclaimed, jumping back a bit as the cat trotted past. But the jump hadn’t been such a smart move. His foot landed on a small, smooth, slippery stone on the sidewalk, and before he knew it he was falling face-first into a huge, muddy puddle…
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Yuuri spluttered and struggled and finally managed to sit up, spitting out a mouthful of mud-filled water and wiping some gritty muck from his eyes. This was not how he had planned to spend his afternoon. With a long-suffering sigh, he finally managed to open his eyes and blink at his surroundings.
He was most certainly not in Tokyo anymore.
The young man was sitting in the middle of an old, broken-down fountain. The water appeared fresh enough, so he guessed it must be water from a recent rain storm -- whatever water had once run through this fountain was long gone. Not that it would have mattered, really, as the fountain heads were all broken and lay in small piles around the pool where he lay. The garden surrounding the fountain looked overgrown, as though it hadn’t been tended for years. And beyond that, the walls of the once-majestic building surrounding this courtyard garden were crumbling. Yuuri strongly suspected that someone had attacked the building and helped the process of decay along.
He rolled over a bit so that he was kneeling in the water and began splashing it over his face and hair in an attempt to rid himself of the last of the mud. The activity also gave him some time to think. It seemed that, for the first time in ten years, he had traveled through time and space to arrive in another world. But was this place really Shin Makoku? Yuuri certainly didn’t remember any crumbling buildings from his time as Maou. At least, he had never before arrived in the courtyard of a crumbling building. A wine barrel once, yes (and that had been highly unusual), but never an old, crumbling courtyard. Plus, there was almost always someone to greet him upon his return to Shin Makoku. So perhaps he wasn’t in Shin Makoku at all. But if not his old kingdom, than what was this place?
Climbing carefully out of the fountain, Yuuri took another look around the courtyard and shivered in the cool air. He looked up at the sky, noticing the pink and orange color of the clouds in the otherwise clear sky, indicating that it was evening. Which meant that he wouldn’t have much time to find out where he was or where he could stay, if he kept dawdling here. He made quick work of finding a way out of the courtyard (though, much to his dismay, it seemed that the only way out was to go into the crumbling building) and began carefully picking his way through the thick weeds, uneven paving stones, and various-sized rocks and boulders scattered all over. The door he was aiming for didn’t open at first, but he finally managed to wrench it open with a loud creak of old wood and a shriek from rusted hinges. There was no hope of shutting the door again, so he just left it and stepped into the building, looking around. The whole place was strangely familiar, as though he had been there before…it was a disturbing feeling.
Under normal circumstance, Yuuri would have found the nearest exit as quickly as he could and left the old, crumbling building without another look back. But somehow, he felt like that would be the wrong thing to do in this situation, and he turned his attention to exploring the place a little instead. Heading deeper into the building, he felt stranger and stranger every second and couldn’t shake the feeling that he knew this place, in almost the same way that he knew his childhood home or his old school or his current apartment. It felt like he could just close his eyes and keep walking and find anything he wanted in the building with no problem at all.
It felt like he had memories here.
On a whim, he closed his eyes, stretched his hands out in front of him, and slowly walked down the long hall he had entered from the courtyard. He stumbled over some loose stones and rocks lying around, and every so often his foot would land on something that crunched or snapped under his weight (he really didn’t want to know what), but he just kept going. And then, without warning, he walked right into a wall. Or rather, a door -- the walls around here were all stone but he was obviously touching wood. He ran his hands over the wood before him, searching for some sign of where he was, but aside from a few painful splinters the wooden panel didn’t give anything away. Finally tiring of his little game, Yuuri cracked his dark eyes and squinted at the wood.
He stared. This door was so familiar…”No. No, this must be a mistake,” he muttered. A couple of steps to the left centered him in front of the large double doors, and he planted his hands firmly (one on each door) and gave one good push. That was enough to make the doors creak open, leaving a space for Yuuri to look through. He didn’t have to do anything else. The room beyond the doors, so big and empty the sound of his breathing echoed harshly through it, was a room he would have recognized no matter what.
This was Shinou’s Temple.
But it was in ruins.
What in the world had happened in Shin Makoku?
“Ulrike!” Yuuri shouted, backing away from the doors and turning to peer down the darkened hallways around him. “Hey, Ulrike-sama! Are you here? Is anybody here?” In his heart, though, he already knew the answer. If Ulrike and her subordinates were here, they would have greeted him the moment he arrived in the fountain. Not only was Shinou’s Temple crumbling around him, but its former inhabitants had vanished. Something simply was not right here. Yuuri nodded and ran back the way he had come, intent on finding his way out (not a problem now that he knew exactly where he was). He had to find someone who could tell him what was going on, and that meant a trip to the other place he knew as well as his home in Japan -- Blood Pledge Castle. Surely someone there would have the answers he needed.
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
The road to Blood Pledge Castle was much longer than Yuuri remembered and lined with far more ruined buildings and dead trees than he remembered, and before he was even half-way to the castle, it was nearly dark. Somehow, he felt that showing up at the castle’s gates just after nightfall, claiming to have come from the ruins of Shinou’s Temple, would be a Very Bad Idea. On the other hand, the issue would be cleared up very quickly, he was certain. He was, after all, the former Maou. Surely the guards would recognize him. And if they didn’t surely Conrad or Wolfram or Greta or any of his other friends would come to his aide. Wow, it would be nice to see them again…Greta would probably be all grown up by now…Conrad might have found himself a spouse…Wolfram would be -- well, Yuuri kind of hoped Wolfram wouldn’t have changed too much. He had never realized just how much he cared for the blond until they had been separated for several months, with no way for Yuuri to get back. He wanted one last chance to see the old Wolfram.
He was so lost in thought as he made his way down the winding dirt road that he barely noticed the sound of horses’ hooves pounding the packed dirt ahead of him. But the sound did eventually work its way through the fog of his memories and forced him to take notice. He raised his head at squinted into the growing darkness before him, just in time to see at least seven horses and their riders round the bend and come charging towards him. His instincts took over, and he wheeled around, preparing to run out of the way, but his foot caught a protruding rock and for the second time that day, he found himself headed for a painful meeting with the ground. He only hoped it wouldn’t be followed by a painful meeting with horses’ hooves.
The riders were too skilled to let their mounts trample Yuuri, however, and he looked up once more to see the animals circling around him, as though circling a captive. Wait, what? I’m Yuuri! There must be a mistake…
“Who are you? What business do you have here?” a voice demanded. It was somewhat muffled and sounded as though it was filtered through some sort of mask, so that Yuuri couldn’t tell if a man or woman had spoken. Well, this was certainly an interesting development.
“I’m Yuuri Shibuya! The Maou of Shin Makoku!” He struggled to his feet and gave the seven riders his most imposing black-eyed glare. “Who are all of you?” he added.
His pronouncement was met by silence, followed almost instantly by raucous laughter that ended almost as abruptly as it began. Yuuri had no idea what to make of that, and took a few steps back in surprise before feeling the sharp tip of a sword digging into the flesh between his shoulder blades.
“Very funny,” the questioner said. In front of him, a somewhat smaller than average figure slipped off a large, black horse and stalked towards him, sword drawn and pointed right at his heart. That rapidly-fading daylight made it impossible for Yuuri to make out any other details about the person, who was swathed in layers of thick, dark material and whose face was hidden by a dark mask. “The Maou wouldn’t be out and about at this time of night…and you certainly aren’t the Maou anyway. Did you come from the Temple?”
“Er…yes…”
The figure nodded sharply, and the circle of riders shifted, allowing two of their number to come up on either side of Yuuri. Both reached down and grabbed his biceps, squeezing hard enough to bruise. “Then you are a problem,” the questioner continued.
“We should take him to the Castle for questioning!” a man exclaimed.
“That might be dangerous,” another man said. “What if he’s a spy?”
“A spy for whom?” the original questioner asked. “He came from Shinou’s Temple. His arrival created a strange disturbance. We should be cautious, of course…but we do need to question him. You!” the figure jerked the sword to indicate the man to Yuuri’s right. “Carry him to the Castle. There’s no time to lose.”
Before Yuuri could say anything, he had been hoisted onto the back of a strange horse and tucked firmly against a stranger’s torso. “Make a wrong move, and I’ll send your soul to hell,” the man breathed in Yuuri’s ear. “Unless our leader there gets to you first, that is,” he added, as though commenting on the lovely night sky. Yuuri paled, but didn’t have any time to protest, as his captors rode off into the night, taking him with them.
Sign up to rate and review this story