...His Majesty the King Ayumu Tachibana couldn"t believe it.
Not too long ago, his second son, Akira had burst into his office, teary eyed and speaking too rapidly for him to comprehend anything. But when the boy finally calmed down, King Ayumu was able to understand the situation, and a dreadful one at that. His third son, his precious little punk had acted on his s.h.i.tting impulses again and had ended up somewhere no one knew. Add to that, in desperation to get him back, Mamoru, Kohaku and Akira made an attempt.
But sadly, they didn"t get back the Third Prince of the Saishi Kingdom Yuri Tachibana, but some other Yuri Tachibana who, up until this moment seemed as though he hadn"t recognized Akira. They were close after all; instead, he seemed to shut everyone out.
King Ayumu then entered the room where it all happened, and saw the mess. There were blood splatters all over the walls, and thank G.o.d it was blood from that d.a.m.ned monster. The books and their shelves were all either in disarray or destroyed. He knows he"ll have to repurchase all these books again. But what struck him were the spell circles on the ceiling and the floor.
According to Akira, Mamoru told him that Yuri used the one on the ceiling to leave, while they used the one the ground to get him back. But something didn"t sit right with the King. First, how the h.e.l.l did a Youma end up in his son"s room? There was no way they could get past the barrier they"ve set up. And what"s more, there hasn"t been a single report of any other attack in the Kingdom. After all, those lower life-forms aren"t so sensible to target one specific place like his son"s room.
The second thing was that if Kohaku followed Yuri"s magic circle and only added the "return" character to it, then it should have opened up where his son had gone. It"s the standard law of spatial magic. So, how is it that they managed to take the wrong Yuri Tachibana?
The third thing was that there was a world out there with duplicates of the people here? The fact that his son had a duplicate somewhere was unnerving, but the problem was, where was Akira"s duplicate?
King Ayumu felt a headache coming and his wife and eldest son aren"t even back from their diplomatic trip yet. Deciding to take a breather, he exited the room, only to end up encountering a member of the palace staff.
"Your Majesty!" he said as he made a bow. "The Prince has awoken!"
"Just in time," King Ayumu smirked. He wanted to have a chat with the other Yuri Tachibana after all.
…
Tachibana woke up at long last, and stared up at the white ceiling. He looked to his left and saw a huge window, but the only thing it revealed was what Tachibana deemed to be the sky. However, unlike Earth, the sky wasn"t blue but sea green. He then looked to his right, and saw that there was a bedside table, which was empty except for a b.u.t.ton.
"Must be the hospital, huh?" Tachibana said to himself. But then he wondered about the machines he"s always seen on TV. There were none of those that read his heart rate and showed his heart rhythm"s on lines on a monitor, there wasn"t the other that measured blood pressure. But what he found was that there were suction like things on his arms and chest; it was similar to ones of Earth, but there were no strings attached. But around his neck, there was a thick choker, resembling a leash.
Tachibana then slid out of the bed, although he had to stumble a bit since his body felt sluggish. "How long have I been out for?" he wondered to himself as he made his way towards the door.
But as soon as he placed his hand on it a siren went off and a machine-like voice saying,
« Your Highness, as a patient, you are unauthorized to leave this room. Please return to your bed until further notice. »
"Excuse me? Who are you? Can you hear me?! Let me out!"
"Your Highness, please refrain from creating such noise. You are in a hospital." The door finally slid open to reveal a young female, the same one who Tachibana saw come to his rescue when he was being interrogated. But what stunned the silverette was the fact that she addressed him as "Your Highness". Tachibana was sure he was no royalty.
"Umm…"
"At least return to your bed first." The female started. "We can talk once you"ve done that."
Tachibana obeyed and swiftly returned to his bed. As soon as he was settled, the female said, "I"m Ayane Mizutani, your doctor. What is it that you"d like to know?"
"Everything." Tachibana replied. "Where am I? How did I get sick? Am I Prince or something?"
Ayane whistled. "I"ll only tell you what made you sick. I"ll leave the rest to your father."
Tachibana nodded.
"In this world, there is the existence of what we call Mana. What is it exactly, we"re not a hundred percent sure yet. But, Mana is present everywhere, it"s invisible to our eyes; still, if a certain amount of it is gathered in one place, it becomes visible." Ayane explained. "It"s similar to air. You can"t see it, but you can see a Tornado, right?"
Tachibana nodded once again.
"Thus, our bodies absorb Mana to be able to use magic. But to prevent the excess from poisoning our bodies, we have a "Vault" that regulates the mana within our system. But you, who don"t have that organ, you kept absorbing mana and it stayed in your system. It was killing you."
"Mana was killing me?" Tachibana said as though he was a.n.a.lyzing the information. "So you got it out, right?"
Ayane laughed. "I told you, didn"t I? Mana is like air. With every breath you take, you"re inhaling both oxygen needed to survive and mana needed for magic. The most we can do is store the excess in a device."
Tachibana placed his hand on his neck. "You mean this leash."
Ayane laughed. "It is a known fact that your father has always wanted to put you on a leash. But yes, as long as you"re here, mana will be in your system. But the regulator around your neck prevents it from reaching fatal levels by storing the excess."
Tachibana pondered. Mana was like air, so it"ll always be inside his body but the regulator is there to prevent it from killing him. But, what if the regulator fails? He"ll die, won"t he?
"This regulator…what if it malfunctions?"
"It won"t anytime soon, but you"ll have regular check-ups to ensure your safety. After all, you are the Third Prince." Ayane said with a playful voice. "Even if you come from another world."
"Why do you even have regulators in the first place if you all have "Vaults"?"
Ayane sighed. "Because people get injured and their Vaults become dysfunctional. So to prevent death, the Regulator was invented."
"Yuri!" A voice took them out of their conversation. The door slid open and a man who had long silver hair which was tied in a low ponytail with two bangs coming down the side of his face entered. His red eyes were cloudy with many emotions, but he was well dressed. He wore a lavender suit ―a lavender blazer over a black dress shirt and lavender pants. He wore no tie; instead, he left a few b.u.t.tons undone.
Tachibana gaped. The man was a carbon copy of his father back on Earth; the only difference is the hairstyle. The man then approached Tachibana and sat in the chair next to the bed.
"How are you feeling now?" King Ayumu asked.
"I"m fine, thanks." Tachibana replied. "So umm…am I going to be executed or something?"
"No, why would you ask that?"
"Because I found out that the Yuri of this world is a Prince, but I"m not your Yuri."
"I know." King Ayumu sighed. "And don"t worry, you"ll be safe. I can"t punish you for my son"s actions. If anything I want to apologize."
Tachibana was relieved. "No, it"s fine. I"ve always imagined what it would be like to get transported to another world anyway."
King Ayumu raised an eyebrow. "Huh?"
"It"s a popular genre of fiction. You know, the premise in which a main character somehow finds himself in a fantasy-like world with magic and mythical creatures."
King Ayumu could only stare at the teen in amazement. He was forcibly taken from his world and he"s here talking as though nothing much happened? Such bravado. Getting back to reality, King Ayumu said, "We have no such fictions." In the most serious voice he could muster. "But that"s not the issue here."
Tachibana had a feeling where this is going. He"s seen it happen many times in manga and anime, and he prayed that the Yuri of this world was not to inherit the throne. He"d s.h.i.t himself if that was the case.
"My son is missing." King Ayumu started. "You"re here, so you"ll be the Prince until we get him back." The King lowered his head. "Please?"
Tachibana let out a groan. As if he has any other choice. He"s in another world, and the only thing that could make him be at ease is to be around people that he"s used to. Well, in this case, people"s faces that is the same from his world. Plus, this Ayumu was his father basically, so where would he go if he refuses?
"Fine." Tachibana said. "I"ll be the Prince"s stand-in."
"Great!" King Ayumu perked; he was too excited for his age. He then turned to Ayane, "When can he leave?"
"Tomorrow." She answered.
The King frowned. "Are you serious?"
"Yes, I am Your Majesty." Ayane sighed. "I have to make sure everything"s fine. He isn"t from our world, remember? He isn"t that st.u.r.dy."
Tachibana felt offended. "Are you saying that I"m weak?"
"Yes, you are. Pathetically so." Ayane said bluntly. Tachibana nearly tore up. His lips trembled and his eyes watered, and seeing this, King Ayumu took swift action. Even though Tachibana was not his Yuri, he couldn"t ignore the boy. He was, essentially his son, just from another world. With a swift action, he then hugged the boy and rubbed his back.
"There, there." The King soothed. "It"ll all be alright. Daddy"s here."
Tachibana was not amused.
x.x.xx
Prince Yuri lay with his face turned up to the ceiling. After having the talk with Ayumu, the Prince didn"t know what to think of this world. For one, he thought he"d die due to the backward technology, but when he ignored that, he felt as though he could stay here. One reason being ―he was no Prince. On Earth, Tachibana Yuri was just an ordinary commoner, who went to school, and aspired to become a pilot (whatever that was, Ayumu planned to inform him more tomorrow). The only thing "princely" about him was his good looks. Which meant, there were no restrictions to his actions. He could become whatever he wanted, whenever wanted.
Realizing that, Yuri had grinned. All his life, he"s been preparing for ruling. Even though his big brother will inherit the throne, he still has to be groomed into a King in case anything happened. But here, he doesn"t have to.
The second reason as to why he"d want to stay here is the fact that there are no Youma attacks. Like, that should have been the number one reason, but he likes killing those d.a.m.ned monsters. It allows him to let out all the pent-up frustration he has acc.u.mulated. Beautiful stress relief.
Still, he was currently bored.
It was late, the sun"s gone down and Ayumu didn"t want him out on the road. The older man had told him that he"ll give him a tour of the City and Tokyo"s popular places soon, so for today he just had to rest. But the Prince was too excited to rest.
He then got up and headed back into the adjoining room. When he had first arrived, he noticed that there were bookshelves and deduced that maybe Earth"s Yuri was similar to him. He walked to the first bookshelf and took down a random book. But when he opened it, he was stunned.
In the book, there were panels and in these panels there were drawings. The drawings looked like people, and to say it piqued the Prince"s interest was an understatement. Immediately, he dashed out of the room and headed towards Ayumu and Azusa"s.
"Daddy!" he screeched.
"What is it?" Ayumu groaned. He was really glad that this other Yuri was similar to his son in some ways; both had this tendency to screech when excited or frightened.
"What is this beautiful piece of Literature?!" he shrieked with excitement.
Ayumu looked astonished. "It"s a manga. You don"t have it in your world?"
"No we do not!"
"Keep your voice down!" Azusa sighed. "It"s late."
"Sorry Mom." He pouted. "But this is amazing!" he shouted with glee and skipped the pages. "But I can"t read it. How do you read it?"
Ayumu and Azusa paused in horror.
"You can"t read the characters?" Ayumu asked.
"Yes I can," Yuri responded. "I can read perfectly well, I am a Prince after all. I just don"t know how to read these boxes in correct order."
The two parents let out a sigh of relief. They had thought about the worst case scenario where Yuri couldn"t read j.a.panese.
"I"ll teach you tomorrow. Plus, you"re holding the fifth volume of that manga. If you read that, you"ll be confused." Ayumu said. "We have work tomorrow, so we need our rest."
"Come on~ just tell me how to read it. It won"t take long." He whined.
"That"s not the point. I was sleeping and I have work tomorrow. Now go back to your room."
"Daddy~" he whined.
Ayumu glared at the boy. "Go. Back. To. Your. Room. Now."
Seeing that scary a.s.s face, Yuri didn"t try to persuade him any further. If this man was like his father back home, then angering the man would only lead to his demise. But, Yuri was still p.i.s.sed that he couldn"t read the manga today.
"f.u.c.k," he whispered beneath his breath as he exited the room. Luckily, neither parent heard him or else Azusa would have probably cut his tongue out. Heading back to his room, he placed the book back on the bookshelf and stared at the magic circle on the floor. Looking at the characters, he saw "return" and a small smile graced his face. If he had arrived here earlier, then he would have been back in his world.
But thankfully, whoever created this magic circle took the other Yuri Tachibana.
"Hmm, I wonder how he"s doing." Yuri said aloud. "I wonder…"
He trailed his hand over the characters and that"s when he felt it. Mana. It was seeping out of the magic circle, but the strange thing was, it didn"t expand into the room"s entirety. It was only concentrated at the magic circle.
Yuri grinned for the umpteenth time.
"If it"s like this, then I can still use magic without fretting that I"ll run out of Mana." He then laughed. "Maybe I should prepare for world domination."
But then he had a wild thought. He wondered what would happen if he fed the magic circle some Mana. He did just that, and immediately he saw the circle disappeared to show his destroyed room. He placed his other hand on the picture but saw that he couldn"t cross over.
However, knowing that this is possible, he wanted to know what had become of the other Yuri Tachibana. He prayed that he wasn"t executed for attempting to impersonate him, because, well, he wasn"t. But sitting here was not going to solve anything. So, Yuri decided to call out.
"h.e.l.lo?! Anyone home?!" he shouted. And luckily his walls were thick; because he was sure that Ayumu would come storming in here to strangle him.
"Yuri!?"
Seeing the face on the one person he"d prefer, Yuri shrieked in delight. "Akki!"
x.x.xx
Akira headed back to the "crime scene". Although a nurse had come to inform him that "his little brother" has awoken, he couldn"t go look for the boy just yet. It wasn"t that he was avoiding him; Akira wanted to find a clue to his real little brother before it was too late. He wanted something ―anything that told him that his little brother was alright. That he"ll be okay.
So deep into his thoughts, Akira had ended up at Yuri"s room. The investigators were on their way, and well, since his father didn"t want the whole world to know that the real Prince was missing, this was not a priority.
Making his way into the boy"s reading room; Akira heard a shout…from an all too familiar voice. Dashing towards it, he saw that it was his precious little brother, Yuri.
"Yuri?!" he asked in his disbelief.
"Akki!" Yuri responded in that regular high pitched shriek of his.
"Are you alright?!" Akira asked. "You"re not hurt are you?!"
"Nope! I"m fine!" Yuri perked. "Listen, Akki. There are no Youma here!"
Akira was shocked. A world with no Youma attacks? Was such a thing possible? "You b.a.s.t.a.r.d…" he started with a chuckle. "Talk about having the devil"s luck." But, he quickly got back into his serious mode. "Where are you?"
"I"m told I"m in j.a.pan, on a planet called Earth." Yuri replied. "It"s a different world or rather a different dimension altogether. There"s no magic here, and from what I gather so far, they don"t have inter-spatial devices, and they still use thumb-drives."
"Holy s.h.i.t. You"ll die!"
"No way! Minus the fact that their technology is behind ours, I don"t think this is a bad place. Plus, I"m no Prince here. I"m free to do whatever I want."
"You can"t be possibly thinking that…"
"Heeh?" Yuri cut him off, not wanting his brother to say what he was intending. "By the way, how"s the other Yuri doing? I hope Daddy hasn"t executed him."
"Ah no, he"s fine but he"s just awoken."
"Awoken? What?"
Akira let out a sigh. He then recounted the events that happened after he disappeared in the magic circle. Yuri laughed at his brother, but had also commented that if they had delayed a little, maybe they would have ended up getting him back instead of Earth"s Yuri Tachibana.
But when Akira told him what happened to his doppelganger because of Mana, the Third Prince couldn"t utter a single word. Akira wanted to laugh at his brother"s face, but this matter was too serious.
Just then, he heard a shout and saw Yuri looking frightened.
"Sorry Akki." He said. "I gotta go before Daddy catches me."
"Daddy?"
"Yeah, this world"s Ayumu Tachibana."
"Oh."
"Yeah, so we"ll talk later, right?"
"Of course, just shout me up." But Akira wondered about the time on the other side. His little brother was in pyjamas which indicated that it was nighttime, but over here, the sun was still high in the sky. But anyway, he shrugged it off as just a simple time-zone difference.
…
Akira was forced to exit the room when the investigators arrived. Accompanied by Chief Kouen, the second Prince was asked nicely to exit. But, before he did so, Akira related the information to the Chief and he let out a sigh of relief ―glad that the third Prince was alive and well.
They then departed ways, Kouen going to inform the team to leave the magic circles be, while Akira went to find his father. This was good news, at least, Yuri was safe and going to be safe since that world has no Youma. Add to that, it seems as though they"ll be able to communicate through the magic circle.
After walking the long hallways and up a gla.s.s staircase, he ended up on the next floor. He then sprinted towards the only silver door on the hallway which was located at the end.
"Papa!" He shrieked as he busts open the door.
"s.h.i.t Akira! Don"t scare me like that! And…" Ayumu started as his eyebrows twitched with anger. "…how many times do I have to say "knock on a closed door"?!"
"Sorry, I was just so excited to tell you this."
"Tell me what?"
"I spoke with Yuri! He"s fine but the most important thing is that he"s safe and we can believe what the other Yuri says!"
"Woah, stop." King Ayumu said, holding up a palm. "How did you speak with Yuri?"
"Through the magic circle on the floor. I heard his voice calling, I followed it and lo and behold, there was my precious little brother in pyjamas! He looked so adorable!" He cooed.
"Why didn"t you call me?!"
"Papa, who the h.e.l.l was going to come all the way up here just to call you for that?" he mumbled. But this time he spoke louder so that the King could hear. "I wasn"t thinking. I just wanted to know if he was going to be alright."
King Ayumu sighed. "You said should we could believe the other Yuri."
"Ah yes," Akira said as he took a seat in the chair. "When Chief Inaba was interrogating him, he said he was from j.a.pan, on Earth. Little bro told me the same thing without me telling him what the other Yuri had said."
"I see."
"Yeah, and we can communicate with him with the magic circle. He can"t cross over though." And seems like he doesn"t want to, was unsaid but King Ayumu could tell that his son wanted to say something more.
"That"s good. That"s good." King Ayumu smiled. "There"s something I"d want to tell you as well."
"And that is…?"
"The other Yuri has agreed to be our Yuri"s stand-in. And as such, I need you and Seiya to get him up to par before school reopens. Also," he added, "Tell Kohaku and Mamoru to inform the rest of his club what happened."
"But Papa, why can"t you do it?"
"I"ll have a headache tomorrow."
Akira"s eyebrows furrowed. "Talk about planning ahead." He joked.
"That"s not it." The King placed his chin on his fingers and a dark worrisome aura emitted out of his body. "Your mother and older brother are coming back tomorrow."
"Oh s.h.i.t." Akira said. He got the message his father wanted to convey. When they come back and find out that their son and little brother is in another world and a different one is here, all h.e.l.l will break loose. "They"ll turn him into mince-meat."
"Exactly. That"s why I"ll have a headache."