Kyou Kara Maou Fan Fiction ❯ Pulled in Two Directions ❯ The Talisman ( Chapter 7 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

"Just what is this?" Wolfram asked as he stared at the glowing item. It was in the shape of a circle with intricate knots around the edge. Peeking out from the mud was a small silver chain attached to it that reminded Wolfram vaguely of a necklace.

Anime/Manga: Kyou Kara Maou Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Shounen / Romance / Drama / Adventure | Type: Yaoi | Uploaded On: 12.12.2012 | Updated On: 01.14.2017 | Pages: 9 | Words: 4.9K | Visits: 202 | Status: Work In Progress

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Chapter 7: The Talisman

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After a while, Yuri and Wolfram managed to shake themselves off the trance that they were in while they were in the baths. The two of them dried themselves in silence, dressed in silence, and walked to their shared room in silence. The silence shattered with the sound of Yuri closing the door behind them.

"Yuri-" Wolfram began, but Yuri held up a hand as a signal to be quiet.

"Please, let me go first," Yuri pleaded. "I know that things haven't stopped being crazy. Orbs, dragon princes, visions, and relics...it's enough to make my head spin. But, there is something I want to clear up right now."

Though Yuri's voice was calm, Wolfram couldn't help but wince a little. He could tell many things about Yuri from the way that the other-worldian representative held himself, the way he acted around others, and even the way sometimes talked in his sleep. However, what he wanted to know the most about Yuri was the same thing that he didn't want to know, which was how the young man truly felt about him.

"Wolfram, how do you really feel about me?"

Wolfram could have asked him the same question, but he was afraid of the answer. And was the blonde brave enough to answer that question? Wolfram didn't know, but he was about to find out. "You are one of the most ridiculous people I have ever met. How can someone be such a wimp and still be kind, determined, and cute? You stand your ground for what you believe to be right. You proved that when you tried to free me..."

Yuri found it difficult to keep his face free from any expressions as Wolfram talked. He felt a little offended when Wolfram once again called him a wimp, but he felt something else when he heard the blonde's admiration for him. Before he knew it, Yuri's heart began to beat a little faster.

"Yuri, I-"

A loud honking sound came from the door and startled both of the young men. Yuri stalked towards the door, thinking something along the lines of 'I'm getting sick and tired of interruptions.' When he opened the door, he saw Varyx fluttering his wings in front of him. The small dragon's head moved forward, slitted eyes narrowed. 'Did I interrupt something?' Varyx inquired.

Yuri took a step back, not because he was intimidated, but because the dragon was invading his personal space. "You have no idea," Yuri muttered. He let out a sigh. "Well, what happened now?"

'Sir Murata believes that he may have found the current location of the Orb Chamber,' Varyx explained. 'He asked me to lead you to him.' The group had been looking for the entrance to the Orb Chamber for days, but neither Yuri nor Wolfram could remember which hallway it was in. The castle was like a complicated labyrinth.

"You are very loyal to Murata, aren't you," Yuri realized. The small turquoise dragon always called everyone by a certain title, but never by their fist names. Regardless, Varyx seemed to show so much more respect to Ken than to anyone else. "Why do you treat him differently than you do us?"

"That better not be jealousy I hear in your voice, Yuri," Wolfram threatened.

"I'm not jealous!" Yuri quickly countered. "I'm only curious."

'The answer is simple,' Varyx replied. 'Sir Murata has a brain.'

"Oh you are asking for it," Wolfram growled, his hands fisting and unfurling as if he was holding himself back from strangling the creature. He didn't take back any of the grand respect he had towards dragons, it was just that dragon which caused him grief. The blonde stopped and straightened up, however, when he heard strange sounds coming from the hallway. No, not from the hallway, but from even further away. "Something's wrong!"

Yuri and Varyx watched as Wolfram ran down the hallway for a moment before frantically following the blonde. They had a hard time keeping up with Wolfram's speed. The young man stopped in front of the dragon stables. Every single dragon mewled and yowled in fear. "What could be troubling them?" Wolfram wondered aloud, his face set in a worried frown.

Varyx swooped closer to the stables and started to squawk questions left and right. 'They feel an ominous aura not too far away.' The small dragon's thoughts sounded tremulous. 'I don't understand why they can feel this so easily and I can't. I'm usually much more sensitive to magic than my brethren.'

"Where are they saying that the aura is coming from?" Wolfram asked.

'Somewhere in the woods,' Varyx replied. He sent Wolfram a look that neither of them could decipher. 'How did you know that they were trying to relay their bearings to me?'

"It's the obvious next step, seeing as how you can't feel a thing," Wolfram answered in a dismissive manner. "Can they pinpoint exactly where the aura is in the woods?"

A rumbling growl that sounded a little bit like a purr came from the third stall from the left. Three heads turned towards the sound. A sea-green dragon with long whiskers approached them. It held its head high, the dark green of the scales from under his neck and torso reflected the sun's light as it moved.

Varyx began communicating with the other dragon, never breaking eye contact with the yellow eyes. After a moment, he turned back to Yuri and Wolfram, his tail flicking in a nervous gesture. 'He says that if the blonde one wishes it, then he will more than gladly lead us to the pulse of the ominous aura.'

"Tell him that I would be in his debt," Wolfram requested.

'He claims that he considers you a brethren and that there are no debts between our kind,' Varyx translated with a confused underlying tone.

Wolfram looked into the larger dragon's yellow eyes and bowed. "I, Wolfram Von Bielefeld of the Demon Kingdom, will never forget your kindness."

'And I, Seuriel, remind you that you there is no debt between us,' Varyx reiterated. He felt sheepish and childish to have ever treated Wolfram rudely after such respect the blonde had showed toward his fellow dragon. He made a silent vow to himself to stop being so judgemental of others.

"So are we going to meet up with Ken after we check out this evil aura thing?" Yuri wondered aloud.

Varyx sighed. He ammended his previous thought of being judgemental of others. For some reason, Yuri Shibuya would always be an idiot in his eyes. 'Discovering the source of an ominous aura that has disturbed a group of rider dragons does seem to be a more pressing matter at the moment, I believe.'

"Exactly," Wolfram agreed before another argument began. He turned to the light green dragon. "Lead us to it."

Seuriel took off to the sky, leading the group below into the woods. They walked through the woods for almost an hour before the green dragon stopped to land. Wolfram Yuri, and Varyx moved around the foliage until they came across a small glowing object in the mud.

'A talisman!' Varyx shrieked.

"Argh!" Yuri whimpered before hunching over. The pain in his stomach felt familiar, but he couldn't quite remember when he had felt it before. He fell to his knees on the ground and his mouth opened wide as a tumultuous scream tore from his throat. "AAAAHHH!"

"Yuri!" Wolfram cried, running over to him. When he touched Yuri's shoulder, the other man's head snapped up. Wolfram was no longer looking at Yuri. The slitted eyes and cackling power around this man was..."The Maoh?" Wolfram pulled his hand back as if it were burned.

"No, not you," The Maoh whispered. "I would not have you fear me."

A pained roar turned everyone's attention to Seuriel. A dagger was embedded into his tail and the green dragon bent his head to pull it out with his teeth. He roared something to Varyx.

'It's a trap!' Varyx warned Wolfram and the Maoh. His mind was running over several scenarios until his gaze fell towards the talisman.

'The talisman!' Varyx picked the talisman up with one of his claws and examined it. 'It's a talisman to awaken power. Just who is behind all this?'

"I have a feeling we're about to find out," Wolfram mumbled as the group became surrounded by at least a dozen armed men. "What are all of you after?"

"We were sent to take your dark-haired friend out of your hands," One of the men admitted. He held up a long chain and tugged in between his hands. "And we were to be sure that we weren't followed."

"Wolfram," The Maoh called. When he made eye contact with the blonde, the Maoh sent him several mental images through his power. Wolfram nodded once before grabbing Varyx and sitting down next to Seuriel.

'Whatever you do, don't let go of the talisman,' Wolfram thought to Varyx.

'What is he doing?' Varyx questioned.

'You'll see soon enough,' Wolfram replied.

Tendrils of silvery blue power surrounded the Maoh. "How dare you endanger the lives of my friends on someone else's whim! I do not enjoy resorting to violence, but you leave me no choice!" A large gust of wind spiraled around the group, expanding to take on leaves and loose dirt from the ground. Once the winds picked up speed, they became one enormous typhoon with which the Maoh expanded to blast their pursuers out into the woods and away from them.

Varyx clung to both Wolfram and Seuriel in case the Maoh lost control of his typhoon, but he was surprised to note a strange barrier surround them. As the winds pushed around them, the talisman in Varyx's claws found its way around the small dragon's neck. His slitted violet eyes snapped open when he felt a stab of sharp energy go through his heart around the area that the talisman touched his chest. 'Uhn...it...hurts.'

"Justice," The Maoh hissed in a whisper as the winds slowed down to a light breeze. "Be done." His silvery blue aura waned the moment he fell to his knees.

Wolfram let go of the dragons and moved to him fast enough to catch him before he fell to the ground. "Yuri!" The blonde looked back at Seuriel as if to ask the dragon to help him carry the other-worldian representative back to the castle. The sea-green dragon nodded in response. They felt a strange pulse coming from Varyx, so Wolfram's attention moved to the small dragon. Had he known that the day was going to turn from one disturbing event to another, he wouldn't have gotten out of bed to begin with. For, where Varyx once stood, there currently stood a man. And he was a very naked man with slitted violet eyes, shoulder-length aquamarine hair, and pointed ears.

"Wh-why am I in this form?" Varyx's voice sounded a bit deeper when it was spoken aloud. "I haven't been in this form in over five hundred years."

"The talisman?" Wolfram nearly choked on his words as he averted his gaze. The typhoon of questions and puzzlement in his mind was enough to rival the one that the Maoh had created earlier. The blonde swallowed his worries of what the day's events could mean in order to do what he had to do. "Don't just stand there! Help me get Yuri to Seuriel."

The two of them heaved Yuri, one by the shoulders and the other by the legs, and carefully swung him onto Seuriel's back. Wolfram dusted his hands in a gesture of a job well done. He began looking around for one of their unconscious pursuers to strip him of his clothes and handed the garments to Varyx.

"What makes you think that I would ever agree to wear a stranger's clothing?" Varyx questioned, his nose scrunched up in distaste.

"Listen," Wolfram reasoned. "It's only until we get back, unless you want to arrive at the castle naked and with blisters on your feet. I swear, you had more common sense when you were a dragon."

"Yes," Varyx huffed as he put on the other shoe that Wolfram handed him. "I can feel my intellect diminishing in this form as we speak."

Wolfram turned around so that Varyx wouldn't see the sad smile on his face. He actually felt pity for Varyx. He was worried over Yuri. And he was confused about the trap that was set up for them. If he had to guess, he'd say that the trap was set for Yuri. Neither Seuriel, Varyx, nor Wolfram were a threat to anyone. He could only think of one person behind the assault and he didn't like the idea. "We should head back now," He mentioned aloud. "It'll get dark soon."

Unseen by anyone, a lone black adder slithered out from behind a nearby tree and cut ahead of group to give the report to his master.

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The Demon King smiled as he stroked his Raven's head. He was the one that had sent for the talisman to be thrown in the woods in order to lead the other-worldian representative there. And he had only sent the band of assassins-for-hire to test his power. Though he had felt a stab of jealousy at Yuri's show of power, he was also very satisfied. He knew that Yuri would be the only one that could retrieve Earth's relic for him.

What had occured afterwards with the talisman and the small dragon were of no consequence to him. He only cared about the relics. The Earth's relic along with their own relic, The Orb, would make it easy for the Demon King to combine both worlds and reign over them both. He would go further than any of his predescesors. Afterall, who could stop him from taking over an entire galaxy after his goal was acchieved? "Things are becoming interesting again," the Demon King practically purred. "I can almost feel Earth's relic in my hands."

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Varyx sat by the windowsill in Ken's room. He wore a white long-sleeved blouse with the first few buttons undone and a pair of kakhis. The clothes were Ken's, because Varyx could barely stand being in any other stranger's clothing. He took a bath the the minute the group had arrived at the castle. Just as Wolfram had said, by the time they had arrived, it was already nightfall. They had worried that Demon King would surely question just how the hell Varyx had changed forms, but their worries had been in vain. The Demon King didn't care.

Conrad, Yozak, Günter, and Ken had rushed over to them. Like mother hens, the four men took care of the group. Yozak took Seuriel to the stables, Conrad carried Yuri to his room while Günter hunted down his Healer daughter, Gisela, and Ken rushed to get Varyx towels and a change of clothes. Varyx's slitted violet eyes narrowed when he felt a hand flick one of his pointy ears. He didn't bother to turn around, for he knew who it was.

"I already miss knowing what you're thinking about," Ken told him with a smile that the other could feel more than see. "Hey, at least all of you came back in one piece."

"How's Yuri?"

Ken's face was free from any emotions, but his hand clenched in his lap. 'So it's just plain "Yuri" now?' He thought to himself. He didn't let any of his jealousy bleed into his words, however. "Last I heard, he was coming to. Wolfram claims that he had seen Yuri's power manifest like it did in the woods before."

"I can see why the Demon King summoned him," Varyx decided. "But, I have yet to understand what he wants with Yuri's power."

Ken sighed. "What's troubling you?"

Varyx shifted to allow Ken enough room to sit down beside him. "A lot of things," He said softly. "The Demon King's lack of reaction to what happened. Julia's vision. Yuri's power. You."

"Where do I fit into the equation?" Ken asked, struggling to keep the words neutral.

"Just..." Varyx thought for a moment. "...your safety. In general."

"Oh," Ken replied, trying not to sound as disappointed as he felt. "Things will sort themselves out before long."

"For all our sakes, I hope so," Varyx agreed. "But, be ready to brace yourself for the worst."