Hasim Kudo Lemuse

That day, in one piece, Hasim stepped into a chamber of Zuria's royal castle.

The road there had been, in its way, a tense one.

Aisha's exclusive intelligence cell had moved Hasim into the Kingdom of Zuria under cover. That part, on its own, hadn't been particularly difficult.

Hasim had a very thin profile even among Lemuse's princes. The reason, of course, was that the Lemuse king's jealousy had kept him out of public visibility. Not exactly a silver lining, but in moments like this, one could fairly say it had its uses.

Among the Lemuse public lately, however, Hasim had begun being whispered about — quietly, hopefully — as the prince who might still save the country. So a basic effort at face-concealment had still felt right.

The real problem began after entry into the country.

How to get into Zuria's castle, where the Summit was being held.

A travelling stranger was not going to walk past the castle's gate inspection.

If they'd had time to set up an in-country cover for him, that route might have opened. But almost the entire window between learning of the Summit's date and arriving had been used up just on the journey. There hadn't been much margin to begin with.

Which left, in practice, infiltration.

Hasim had to recognise — in the particular intimacy he felt with that word — that he had a reasonably extensive personal history of it. He let out a small inward laugh.

He thought back to his months at Aios Academy, attending classes without ever being enrolled, and felt — half self-reproachful, half quietly proud — that his record was, on the whole, not particularly princely.

Roughly the feeling of a mischievous boy who has just successfully fooled the adults.

Aisha, charged with delivering Hasim into the Summit, was wearing her sour face. The Zuria castle had a great many guards on station; the responsibility for moving past them safely sat on her, and any failure was hers to absorb.

Hasim was hardly without ideas, but on infiltration specifically Aisha was several rungs above him. So he largely held his tongue and let her work, watching her profile in concentration as she pored over the castle floorplan she had — somehow — acquired, and laid it out on the inn's table.

As a result Hasim had, in the end, succeeded in stepping into the chamber where the Summit was meeting. The route was — to put it lightly — inelegant.

The plan Aisha had assembled was unflashy, and reliable. It was also a plan that demanded Hasim's dignity be set aside, briefly.

"Crisca. I told you this at Aios already — your perimeter is sloppy. The underside of the castle was wide open. Ambition is fine, but if you only ever look up, somebody is going to take your feet out."

"—"

Hasim, brushing dirt off the hem of his cloak, said it casually to Crisca.

Crisca — bangs falling across her eyes, which she hadn't even brushed aside — was simply staring at him.

"Mind, that's how I got here. — But while we're on the subject, the rest of the corridors have plenty of blind spots, too. I won't get on your case about it; the castle was built by an earlier Zuria royal family, presumably. — But you can fill those blind spots in now."

His sermon delivered, Crisca finally found her voice.

"…K-Kudo. You — you didn't crawl under the castle floor to get here, did you?"

"I did. — My clothes are an utter mess. I've been brushing them this whole time and they refuse to clean."

He was still brushing. The hem had visible dirt on it. The black-clad woman beside him — Aisha — produced a handkerchief from her sleeve and wiped at his cheek. He had streaks on his face.

"Even thieves don't go that far, these days…"

"I'm not a thief."

"Then — what are you?"

Another voice cut into the pair's exchange.

Stepping in between Hasim and Crisca was the bear-like, large-bodied King of Filarfia — Fasalis.

"Let's hear your name from your own mouth."

While speaking, Fasalis closed a step on Hasim. Some real wariness in his body language.

Hasim let the wariness slide off him with a casual ease.

"〈Hasim Kudo Lemuse〉. Just to clear the obvious — yes, I am the same man you spent your time at Aios Academy with. Not some twin or impostor."

"…I won't doubt that. — In fact, I'm sure of it now."

Fasalis released his stance, abruptly. The way Hasim was speaking matched his memory of Kudo exactly. By that line alone, he was certain.

"…Seriously? You just said Lemuse, didn't you."

"That's right, Muran. Even like this, I'm a Lemuse prince."

A small self-mocking laugh.

"— Hah… Really, Kudo. That's really you?"

"What else would it be. Granted, the entrance was a bit short on style. Mind you, I had to put your guards outside to sleep on the way in. I'll apologise later. — A lighter detail might draw less suspicion in some sense, but their numbers were frankly thin. You three are individually capable, so you let the defences slip."

"Oi. That's Kudo. The vaguely irritating but accurate lecture. That's Kudo, no question."

"So that's the criterion you're using to ID me." A wry smile.

— and then —

"— I missed you, Kudo!"

— Muran sprang up from his seat, walked over, and threw his arms around Hasim.

Hasim accepted it with the same wry smile.

"Oi. How old are we, exactly. How many years has it been. Letting people see this, of all things, is a stretch."

"I don't care! It's a fated reunion!"

Muran's face — until then carrying that ironic smile — had shifted entirely into pure, present-tense delight.

―――

――

―

---

"— What. Third prince? I'd been told Lemuse only had two."

The four of them had taken time for the reunion. They were all conscious of the broader clock, and got back round the table quickly to start exchanging information.

The three nations' guards had come thundering in at the commotion; the three kings waved their respective men back. The men retreated — heads tilted in confusion.

"My father and I aren't on terms, let's say."

"This may be awkward to say in front of his son, but the current Lemuse king is bad. Can nothing be done?"

"It can. It's about to be."

Hasim was — internally — relieved at how cleanly the three of them had taken his arrival.

In the same beat, he confirmed to himself that the Three Kingdoms had absolutely seen Lemuse's current condition. Half relief, half private shame at having one's family failings out where the neighbours could see them.

"— Are you going to kill him?"

Crisca, gravely.

The line caught Muran and Fasalis off-guard; their faces, after a beat, showed acceptance.

"I won't go through my whole story. — Yes. That's the plan. I cannot accept Lemuse being crushed in this state. So — I become king. — I'll kill him. I'll go to whatever hell awaits afterward; what comes after death is not the concern. I live in the present."

His resolve sat, plainly, in the aqua-blue of his eyes; the three kings absorbed it without a hitch.

"…On dark matters, we are hardly in a position to throw stones. Before we became kings, and after — we got our own hands dirty."

Muran's small nod, then a redirect to himself.

"— I won't ask forgiveness. I won't from you, either. Just stating fact: we let a hero die."

Hasim placed it instantly. The Three Kingdoms' near-Demon-Lord-Hunting episode.

"There's no taking it back. And — even if circumstances had tilted slightly — I think, even now, I'd have made the same call. We were that cornered. — So as Kushana's king, I won't apologise for the choice itself to anyone but that hero. Whoever else called him a Demon Lord — to us, he was, unmistakably, a hero."

Hero to Demon Lord.

Across the turning-points of eras, the relabelling had happened plenty.

But for Muran, the man he had let die had instead gone, in his head, the other way — Demon Lord to hero.

A reversible labelling, in the end. An indictment of the lightness of the labels themselves.

Knowing that, Muran refused to judge the man by the labels alone. Hero still glowed across any era. So he chose to keep calling him that.

The hero who had saved them.

"Got a touch heavy. — So. Why have you come now, Hasim."

Now Muran was speaking as the King of Kushana.

Not Kudo, the Aios friend. Hasim, the Lemuse prince.

Hasim caught it and squared his collar.

From here on, it was diplomacy.

"To save Lemuse, and to make Mūzeg choke. Lend me your strength. — Naturally, I'm staking something on my end, too."

A roaring blue flame danced in the aqua of Hasim's eyes.

---

"Staking something. Does Lemuse, in its current state, have something? — Apologies if that's bruising. But this is diplomacy. Our peoples' lives ride on us, too. Allow some directness."

Fasalis, large dignified frame planted upright — the body of an old tree no gale would move.

"I follow what Fasalis is saying. As a king, of course."

"Then to put it plainly — can you offer something out of the present-day Lemuse worth our military commitment?"

A nod from Hasim. He raised his right hand, index finger up — first.

"One."

A pause.

"Lemuse has a vein."

"— A vein."

Muran's casual hum, easy on the surface. The eyes had sharpened.

"That's right. A magic-stone vein."

"…Seriously."

"Seriously."

Hasim matched Muran's tone exactly.

"Different from what your current king proposed in his non-aggression letter, then?"

"Yes. That one I had him dig up specifically to draw his attention away from the real one. Keeping him from sniffing the actual deposit took some doing. He's surprisingly sensitive to the scent of money. — Years of bribery will do that. — In any case, the real vein is one I've been sitting on for some time. I knew it was there. I deliberately did not dig it up."

"Why?"

— Fasalis, taking the question.

"As I said. Digging it up makes it smell. Apart from my father, others might catch the scent."

"…Mūzeg."

"Maybe. The current Mūzeg can take a vein or two off any country it wants. North of Mūzeg, where our hands can't reach, has, by report, multiple precious deposits already."

"Mūzeg's speed of action is its own thing. As you'd expect, in a king who built a major state up that quickly. He prioritises what to prioritise, and his hands are fast."

"Mūzeg's king has been politically formidable for some time. This is not a new pattern."

A growl in the body for an answer. The Mūzeg-read seemed broadly aligned across the table.

Crisca, quiet until now, rejoined with the same kind of pulled face.

She tucked her long blue bangs behind her ear with a small motion — almost flirty — and opened her thin lips.

"Even so, thanks to that, we south of Mūzeg are still alive. Thanks to the 〈Alliance of Three Kings〉 and — Mūzeg's whim."

"It's not luck. Mūzeg's king has been making rational calls. The three of you, plus the Alliance, plus what you've quietly accumulated — you've done well, in fact."

A clean compliment — into the bitterness of Crisca's word. Then he routed back.

"— Right. So. I dug into it. We've already accumulated a workable stockpile. Those magic stones — I'll hand them to you."

"Hand them. — Magic stones, just dropped in our lap, don't help unless we have something to do with them. They might even put us on Mūzeg's radar."

— Muran, theatrically sceptical, hand-and-arm gestures.

"The Kingdom of Kushana has been building a new strategic weapon, hasn't it."

"— Spotted it, then."

The act dropped instantly. Muran stuck out his tongue and grinned.

"I overheard, here and there, that the Kushana craft-industry has remained a priority."

"At least hide the fact that you've had spies in. Honestly."

"You didn't notice, so I'm telling you. Educational."

Sniff. Wry exchange. The atmosphere stayed friendly.

"We've actually caught a few of yours, mind."

"Aisha is competent. Don't lump her in with those."

"I get it. The fact that you got into this castle says enough.

— Right. So. The scale of the vein?"

"Larger than Kushana's exhausted one. Reliably."

"Hh… you know that, too…. Fine. Fine. Enough."

Muran laughed wryly, hand-flick.

"If Lemuse hands my Kushana the magic stones in good supply, I'm willing to enter the alliance. Speaking only for me, mind."

"Magic stones and you fold like a cheap cot, I see."

"The development of formula-machinery industry is the cherished wish of my Kingdom of Kushana, after all."

Crisca's barb earned an elegant little bow in reply.

"All right. Muran's in. — The other two? Fasalis. Crisca?"

The two went silent at the same moment. The silence said clearly: not yet.

"Not on that alone. Speaking for Zuria, at least."

"Reason."

— Crisca first.

"The other side has Serius Brad Mūzeg, plus a deep bench of lieutenants. Even if Muran's Magic-stone Cannon works flawlessly, we don't reach parity. We need more power. — Can Lemuse provide it?"

A clear-cut condition.

Hasim had foreseen exactly that condition. His answer came smoothly.

— a lying answer.

"— I can."

"Are you serious?"

"Yes. Lemuse has the power."

"It's hard to imagine that it does."

Crisca made no effort to hide the I don't believe a word of this on her face. Hasim let a deliberate beat pass — and then, slowly, clearly:

---

"— I'll lend you the strength of over twenty 〈Demon Lords〉."

---

From there, Hasim was on the line.

A once-in-a-life bluff with his life riding on it.