Chapter Text
The night was calm. The sky was clear, stars bright and the wind was welcome to break the heavy summer’s temperatures. The city was silent and the only hearable sounds was the constant clatter from the castle’s guards armor. It was another of those nights where Iwaizumi could feel himself gradually falling asleep while staying up because of the lack of sound to entertain him.
Iwaizumi Hajime was an Emerald knight, the highest rank within the kingdom’s knighthood. Emerald knights were the strongest, smartest and simply put the best knight from the Kingdom. Each knights from this squadron was assigned the protection of a member from the royal court, depending on his rank within the Emerald Knights. The stronger you were, the most important the person you were assigned was. Full time protection was the highest mission for a knight. And it implied staying up all night in front of a bedroom door when there was literally nothing to do. Iwaizumi sighed loudly.
At least, he thought, he was not alone in this damn corridor, glancing at the two soldiers patrolling on this floor. He could recognize Kyotani at his left easily. He was, once again, not wearing the soldier uniform (or rather, he was only wearing the tunic with the kingdom’s color and had probably ditched the rest somewhere, since they were expect to wear the full equipment at the beginning of each shift). As for who was on his right, well… He had no idea.
Rolling his shoulders, Iwaizumi moved from the wall he had been stuck from the past hour and went to the small window in front of him. He could see the patrol of soldiers on the exterior wall, and the stale below him. But something caught his eyes and he had to squint to distinguish what seemed to be a light. A fire maybe.
“Kyoutani”, he called. At the sound of his name, Kyoutani came, trotting to halt beside Iwaizumi, who was still focused on this light.
“Guard the door for a minute, I’m going to check something.” Kyoutani made a disgusted expression while eyeing the door and grunted but positioned himself next to the door nonetheless.
Iwaizumi then traversed the corridor and he could heard while going downstairs the second soldier saying something along the lines of “The Great Councelor is under your protection, Iwaizumi, wait…” Still, he rapidly find himself out and went straight to the exterior wall. He meet a few soldiers who bowed when recognizing who he was, but he was still focused on this light. He climbed to the highest point and watched. He could now clearly estimate the light’s localisation. Beyond the city and if he remembered correctly, it was around the windmills’ hill.
“It makes no sense…”
At some point, the soldiers on patrol came to him and (not) surprisingly, none of them had spotted the light before Iwaizumi arrival. After a stern glare, he sent some men to check it up, and decided to come back to his post.
He was still outside when the bell went off. The sound came from afar, the alarm bell outside the city probably. He rushed inside, climbing the stairs and run straight to his previous place. By now, every bell in the city was chiming and the castle one (the louder) was conveying the message, waking up the whole building too.
Kyoutani and the (still unknown) second soldier were on guard, sword out, back to the doors. Iwaizumi ran straight through them, slam the door open and made a beeline to the bed, where Oikawa Tooru, the Great Magic Counselor was sitting up, confusion and sleep all over his face, brown hair sticking up at odd angles.
“Oikawa, up ! Get dressed, we’re moving.”
Between the chorus of bell and Iwaizumi tone, Oikawa jumped straight to his clothes. (The famous emergency set of clothes neatly folded next his bed he had laughed of during so many years.) “What happened ?” Oikawa asked, suppressing a yawn as he was putting on his boot.
“No idea, the alarm bell went off from the outskirt of the city. It’s safe to assume we are under atta-” He was cut off by Oikawa, who rolled his eyes at him, “No kidding, Iwa !”
Iwaizumi glared at him, before throwing Oikawa’s face a cloak from his dresser. Had the situation been different, he would have made a comment on Oikawa’s stupid habit to shorten names. Instead he took his sword out and motion to Oikawa to follow him. Just as he was going through the door, Oikawa stopped, looking down at the floor on his right, frowning. Iwaizumi knew that motion, he always wore that face whenever someone used telepathy on him.
“Makki says we have to go to East exterior court”, Oikawa transmitted, still frowning. Iwaizumi just grunted and grab Oikawa’s arm, keeping him on his left while they went downstairs, Kyoutani and his pairs on theirs heels.
***
Iwaizumi was on edge. This was not how they were supposed to proceed. Under attack, the procedure was to bring Oikawa to the throne room, where they would keep them until the situation was settled. And if things went wrong, they were to escape through the secret road, since they all connect in the throne room.
And Hanamaki was supposed to follow the same procedure, even more since he was the actual Regent. Why would he go out of the way (that he instaured !) this early if things weren’t already bad.
After flying down a couple of stairs, passing across an empty hallway, turning some left and a couple of right, they finally arrived to the East exterior court. Soldiers and knight were running across the court, hastily handing out weapon, climbing the exterior wall, shouting to get in position. Kyoutani and others soldiers they had came across in their path went their own way, probably rejoining their faction.
Iwaizumi spotted the Regent, standing still near the stable, eyes to the sky and made his way to him, Oikawa still in his grasp. (He would have loved to complain about Iwa’s grip, and how his brute strength was going to make him bruise, but his focus frown dissuaded him. That and the whole atmosphere on the castle. Everyone was on edge and it was starting to get on his own nerve.)
“Hey, Hanamaki, what’s the meaning of this ?! That’s not the -” Iwaizumi was cut off by a tug on his arms from Oikawa who was carefully studying the Regent face. Hanamaki was stiffed, looking up, eye glued to the sky. Wait ! Were his eyes glowing ?
“He’s using a vision spell, powerful from the look of it. He’s probably surveying the kingdom”, he said in a hushed voice. When Hanamaki finally moved out of his trance and slowly look at them, he quickly add while getting out of Iwaizumi’s grasp.
“Makki ! Why didn’t you tell me to do the spell ? I can hold it longer and that’s essentially my job, you know !”
As the Great Magic Counselor, Oikawa was in charge of everything related to magic : magic user’s counting, marketing authorization, control over the magic export market, spell creation and regulation… The Great Magic Counselors were always the best mage of the Kingdom and Oikawa was no exception. Thus, he usually was the one performing spell (particularly the most powerful and draining one) within the Regent Council so seeing the Hanamaki performing such a spell himself was quite unsettling.
Hanamaki suddenly seemed to process their presence and in a quick stride, catched Oikawa’s arms (why were they all trying to rip his arms off, seriously) and lead him inside the stable, Iwaizumi following closely. He lead them to two horses, a brown and a black one, both fully saddled. Matsukawa, Hanamaki assigned Emerald knight rejoined them, holding two imposing bag in his hands.
“There you are”, he said calmly, tossing a bag to Iwaizumi whose eyes widened as realisation dawned on him.
“Wait a minute,” he exclaimed, glancing back and forth between the bag in his hands, Matsukawa who had start hanging the bag on the darker horse, “What the fuck is happening ?!”
“Makki, what did you see, why did we come here ?” added Oikawa, whose voice had slightly tighten upon their serious and closed faces.
“I don’t have much time for explanation,” Hanamaki finally said, ignoring Oikawa and Iwaizumi as they both started to retort something, rummaging in his pocket before taking out a golden bracelet. As soon as Oikawa catched sight of the bracelet, he started backing off, eyeing it suspiciously.
“Wait a minute, Makki ! What are you going to do with THAT ?”
Iwaizumi had half a second to wonder why Oikawa had suddenly entered his panicked mode before Matsukawa grab his left arm and hand it up to Hanamaki who swiftly put the bracelet around his wrist. Then, as quick as ever, Matsukawa grabbed Oikawa, still eyeing the bracelet mouth agape as he was settled on the brown horse. He then looked at the Regent, eyes wide open and whispered a small “seriously ?”
Hanamaki looked at him, hunched over his horse, confusion all over his face, and sighed. His clammy hands patted the front of his pants, before he finally took a deep breath and calmly expressed.
“The Quartz have launched an attack. Since they don’t use magic, we didn’t locate them until they hit the city. From what I saw, they have surround all the west part of the city and then launched their attack. We are clearly outnumbered and since we don’t have the resource to sustain a warfare, we can only oppose for a short time. And they know it.”
As he was talking, Iwaizumi had saddled up, Matsukawa hanging up a bow, some arrow and a few other things at his saddle. He was one of the highest knights, he knew their army could not hold on an army like the Quartz one. There was something bothering him though but the Regent was still talking.
“They are going to surround the castle in less than two hours, and only if they don’t send more troop than those who are already here. And to make the situation worse”, the Regent said through gritted teeth, “The Quartz prince is leading the attack.” Oikawa visibly stiffened at that, hands tightly gripping his reins.
“Wait a minute Hanamaki !” Iwaizumi spoke in, drawing three pairs of eyes to him. “Why are you not getting ready ?” He looked over Oikawa’s surprised expression to Matsukawa composed one to finally settled over Hanamaki, voice growing suspicious. “If the situation is so critical, why are we the one escaping, Regent ?”
The three of them stiffened at his declaration, and suddenly, they were avoiding his gaze. Oikawa went back to glaring at his golden bracelet like it had personally offended him while Hanamaki and Matsukawa glanced at each other, knowing look and raised eyebrows.
Iwaizumi was about to snap at their silent conversation when the sound of an explosion reverberate through the castle. Iwaizumi gripped his reins tightly, forcing his horse to hold still while Matsukawa caught Oikawa’s, allowing him to regain control. Hanamaki was looking in the West gate direction, face contorted in anger and worry.
“Okay, time’s up. Iwaizumi”, he said, voice serious, “Oikawa is the future king, so you are both escaping because the last thing we need now is Quartz getting his hand on him.”
“What ?”
Oikawa, the future king ?! Oikawa Tooru, the boy he had grown with was the actual king ? The crybaby who got nosebleed out of nowhere and proceed to freak out every fucking time was the King ? No way ! No fucking way… Well, it actually explained a few things like his monstrous magic ability (Iwaizumi was not a mage but even he could tell that) since it was one of the Emerald’s king characteristics. That and the fact he was chosen and do not inherit the title. Oh, that explained why a farmer’s child had been brought to the castle and raised among the royal court. It wasn’t because he was quite a strong mage but because he was the fucking King ! Damn.
Iwaizumi instantly had a million of question but Matsukawa was already leading Oikawa’s horse out of the stable, and he follow behind, the Regent by his side, giving him some last minute instruction.
“Avoid the forest of Dreams. I know it’s a great place to hide but without Oikawa’s magic, it would be suicide.” Voices were rising from the west side of the castle, and they were hurrying to the East gate now. “Again, Iwaizumi, they must not get Oikawa. The kingdom’s safe as long as they don’t have him.”
Before he got a chance to say anything another explosion resounded through the castle and this was their clue to leave. The East door was opened just enough to let them pass and they could not hear the crashing sound of its closing over the sound of a third explosion.