Two Kings in the Star-Tree Plaza

For some time after, Merea walked Lemuse's commercial district, taking in the eaves of stalls that had begun to fill with goods.

After a moderate round of conversation with the Lemusan citizens, he stepped into the Star-Tree Ward, abutting the commercial side.

The Star-Tree Ward was a particularly nature-dense ward.

Within it, he walked a forest path coloured by the same strange blue-and-green light as the Great Star-Tree.

"Ah — speaking of —"

Mid-walk through the Star-Tree Ward forest path, Merea, as if remembering, raised the line.

— Leilas's grave is here, isn't it.

He'd heard it during a meeting with Hasim.

Called 〈White Emperor〉 — the hero who had set Lemuse's pride in saving the unjustly trodden Demon Lords on still firmer ground — also the original owner of Merea's snow-white hair — 〈Leilas Lif Lemuse〉.

To Mūzeg, whose ambitions her ideals obstructed, she was a Demon Lord. In Lemuse, she was, even now, enshrined as a Heroic Spirit.

And not just Leilas — the contemporary Lemuse King at the time (her father, the Twenty-Eighth Lemuse King) and other royal-line figures, were also enshrined at the same grave, was the standing word.

— Let's go look.

Merea, busy on his end too, had taken in the information but had not yet walked the path.

Stepping into the Star-Tree Ward to be soothed by the cool air and the beauty of the scene, the memory had now come up; tracing what he could remember of the where, he kept a slow walk going forward.

---

After a stretch, Merea found the grave.

A large grave.

Or, more accurately — by then no longer grave, but tower.

Given that the Lemusan royal line down the generations was enshrined here, the prediction that the grave would not be small (like the ones he himself had built on the sacred mountain) had been part of the picture; the prediction did not, in any sense, betray him.

"The location, also —"

Off the forest-path, a side-track ran into a denser stand of star-trees; following it, a small plaza opened.

Around the plaza's perimeter the star-trees grew thicker still, branches interlocking, and the rising particles of light from each were drawn together into a single field above.

In the plaza's centre stood a tower carved with many names; on it too, the star-trees had laid branches as if in cherishing gesture.

The star-trees were embracing the white-stone tower.

"— Beautiful."

Merea, sweeping his fringe back, looked up at the tower's crown and, plainly, gave the line.

He had no intent to read every name carved into the tower. But Leilas's name, he searched for.

Leilas's name was near the front centre of the tower.

"Enshrined here too — and there's the grave I built for you on that side as well — sorry, made you a busy one."

A wry smile, alone.

"Mind, Leilas alone with no grave on that side would have read as left-out, so."

If it had been him, he'd have asked for one on both sides.

"Possibly — not building one would have made Leilas furious enough to come down from the 〈Empyrean〉."

Merea, head slightly down, expression fragile, said the line.

Merea had never heard Leilas's voice.

Truthfully — even just once, he would have liked to.

If Flander were taken as his father, then Leilas, his wife, would, structurally, be his mother.

— No.

There were other mothers.

Beginning with the three female Heroic Spirits who had ascended after Leilas — he had many mothers.

Picturing that, Merea revised his thought.

— Eventually, if I too ascend — perhaps then I'll be able to hear them.

Their voices — once more.

— But —

"I cannot afford to die for the foreseeable. No plan to. — I still have something I want to do. Not should do — want to."

— So — for the foreseeable, I will not be coming to your side.

Merea, smiling small, said it to the stone tower.

Then, finally, Merea turned on his heel, his back to the stone tower. About to step away from the star-tree plaza.

When —

"— Ran clean into you."

The instant he turned, Merea caught a figure at the edge of his vision and, on his face a small grin, raised his voice.

"You — ran away too?"

"…Don't be stupid. This is constructive rest. Hardly the same as you fleeing a paper-mountain."

Hasim Kudo Lemuse.

Resigned by Merea's voice, the man stepped out from where he'd been hidden in the shadow of a star-tree.

The bright brown hair — close to orange — and the flashing aqua-blue eyes, beautiful as ever — Lemuse's current King.

---

"If you fess up, I might decide not to circulate this."

"Spare me, Merea. The citizens reading me as not serious during this period would be a problem."

"Even if I did circulate it, no one would believe me, and I think they'd forgive you on the basis of your overworked record so far."

"I wonder."

Merea, with his back still turned, brought his toes neatly together and welcomed in Hasim, who came striding up over the stone-tile floor with deliberate footstep-noise.

To Merea's staged vassal-posture, Hasim, looking exhausted by the bit, waved a hand — cut it out, cut it out — and approached.

"Hasim — apparently doesn't grasp how superhuman his own activity-level is."

"I do what's there to be done. Not my achievement alone, either."

"As long as you remember that, all should be well. — On both sides."

"Truly."

Hasim passed by Merea and stood in front of the stone tower wreathed in star-tree branches.

Eyes shut, both hands lightly clasped in a familiar motion, looking up at the sky.

Strictly speaking, eyes shut, he was not seeing — but the outward picture was the same.

As if delivering prayer to the Empyrean.

Merea watched Hasim wordlessly, then, judging the moment Hasim broke off the gesture, raised the line again.

"Come here often?"

"Now and again. Resting in this posture, Aisha doesn't grumble at me."

"…Ah."

Merea narrowed his red eyes, cheek twitching, recalling Hasim's attendant.

In the present situation that pulled, in parallel, the memory of his own near-equivalent attendant — Marisa — and a small interior dent ensued.

He did not, yet, want to recall that paper-stack.

"I might use that method too…"

At Merea's line, Hasim, also in wry smile, answered —

"You using the same technique would only make them more suspicious of us."

"Those two — pretending to pray to the ancestors but actually skiving in collusion?"

"That sort. Idle chatter on top would deepen the suspicion. Recently the opposite side seems to be coordinating, somewhat."

"Your attendant and our maid really are something. — Both of them, too good."

"Excessively able is, on occasion, a problem too."

Merea sighed, Hasim shrugged in time.

Merea then sat down on a nearby stone step and waved Hasim over to do the same.

"A little won't get caught, no?"

"And — heading back without sufficient rest defeats the original aim. This mission must be discharged for the sake of body and mind."

Hasim, on a mischievous smile, sat next to Merea, who wore the same smile.

"Then — let's call this a secret strategy meeting between Lemusan camp and Demon Lord camp."

"There's no other framing to be had."

Merea folded his arms on his knees, hands clasped, and put up a conference posture with appropriate dignity.

Hasim mirrored.

"Mn. — Mind, while we're here, shall we run a serious line of talk too — to a degree that doesn't give us a headache?"

"Surprisingly chipper, you, Merea."

"As long as it isn't study, I'm fine!"

To Merea's hard-faced firm declaration, Hasim, briefly blinking, returned a wry smile.

"That's the read, is it. — You should, at some point, go to Aios."

"Academic-city, was it. Lilium had been there before coming to the sacred mountain — she'd said as much."

"〈Flame Emperor〉-house Lilium. — For reference — the Academy, she said?"

"She did."

"Then she's first-rate. No question."

"Oh — just the word Academy tells you?"

Merea's eyes widened slightly at Hasim's instant declaration.

That Lilium was bright was not in doubt — but Hasim's instant insistence was so certain that he was somewhat pushed back by the force of it.

"In Aios there are, naturally, several academies — but called simply the Academy, it refers, in Aios's whole, to the school where the most outstanding students gather: 〈The Academy of the Blue Rose (Mies Aios)〉."

"Hm."

"Sometimes shortened to 〈Blue Rose (Mies)〉. Inside the city of Aios, these students often wear a blue rose somewhere on body or clothing. It's encouraged, but the lazy ones aren't bothered."

"What about you?"

"What I infiltrated was 〈Blue Rose (Mies)〉 too. In my case — needless to say — strictly an outsider. At first I considered putting one on for cover; once I was confident I could pass without one, I dropped it because it was a bother."

"Always uncannily smooth-handed in that direction. — Academic-city, eh. I'd like to go too, eventually —"

"No — but, if you go, several of the formula-side instructors at 〈Blue Rose Academy〉 might faint."

"Because of the Heroic Spirits' formulae?"

"Roughly. Plus the absurd endurance and so on, for the rest. — Headed to be a lab-rat (morumotto), then…"

"S-stop saying it with a stoic face — getting frightening!"

"Hah. Joke. — On my end."

"That last sentence makes you completely untrustworthy!"

Merea put the volume up and protested at Hasim, who wore a thin smile.

"…Hah. Mind, if I do end up in the academic-city someday, I might borrow your weird infiltration-craft. For the foreseeable, I pray that doesn't happen."

"At present, in Aios, Demon Lords themselves are scarce. Not zero, but — keeping a Demon Lord inside one's borders draws other powers — Mūzeg in particular — into the country with trouble attached. Aios, in name at least, prioritises academic development; to avoid war business, they'd hardly bother sheltering a Demon Lord."

"For reference — Mūzeg's movement, currently?"

Merea, abruptly, asked with a serious face.

Hasim, in time with the shift, straightened his collar and threaded the line in a slightly lower tone.

"No big movement yet. — Or rather, the western and northern fronts they laid down have proved more troublesome than expected. Whether the morale-lift in west and north is keyed to Lemuse's recent push, I can't say — but the morale on those fronts has visibly come up."

"Why are those near-other-continent states fighting Mūzeg in the first place?"

"A simple resource-and-territory war. Demon Lord business, probably, has little to do with it.

The northern side has a thriving ore industry. Quality ore comes out of the mountain ranges and underground veins; for equipment and industry-side stimulation, that is what they want. In the present age, this is what passes for normal war. Inter-state interest-conflict. — Normal in war is a phrase one wants to swear at, but in the typicality sense — yes."

"Right."

Merea responded with a quiet grunt, hand reaching idly up to the star-tree branch over his head.

"That said — that Demon Lords are entirely uninvolved is also not stateable."

Hasim continued.

He did not break the forearms-on-knees, hands-clasped posture, nor the grave expression.

Out the corner of his eye, Merea opened the line.

"…So, just not on the surface."

"— Right. At any rate, frankly — our hand doesn't reach that far yet. I have to protect the country first, on top of everything. On top of that, I have to grow our own country's strength. — The foundation isn't yet bedrock. Slack on this — and even our trade with you stops working."

"Likely so. Understood. So — your end, do your end's best. My end, I'll chase what I prioritise first."

"…Yes."

Merea, on his end, had read what Hasim was getting at.

Hasim has to grow the kingdom of Lemuse itself.

In practice, the Demon Lords also need that to happen.

The Demon Lords are not, by any means, native to Lemuse.

If the Demon Lords decided Lemuse was no longer a fit place for them —

— They'd leave.

And go looking for the next place fit to defend themselves.

That had been the trade from the start.

What Merea places first is the Demon Lords' safety.

What Hasim places first is the Lemusan citizens' safety.

These two priorities act on each other well; the present cooperative arrangement is, on that, firm.

But — if either of them slacks, the cooperation will immediately loosen.

What lies past that may, possibly, be mutual destruction. Neither, ever, forgot it.

"Still — at this level."

"Right."

Merea, dropping his hand from the star-tree branch overhead, planted it slightly behind his body.

Bracing on the hand, he leaned back and looked up at the sky.

A calm expression on his face.

A wind, sliding through the gap between star-trees, lifted Merea's white fringe.

"But — we have to keep an eye on that corner, always."

"Yes — that is the head's role."

"Holding the existence of mutual destruction in the corner of the head as a role — what a desolate role, that."

Merea, laughing again, finally rose from the stone step.

When he turned to Hasim, Hasim, on a slight troubled smile of his own, was opening the line.

"And yet — if those below us can be confident that we are watching that corner properly, then they can, by exactly that amount, forget destruction. — Even if it's a temporary flight from reality, fine. As long as time they can find pleasant — even momentarily — is truly healing their hearts, I think that is enough. — In an age like this."

"I think the same."

Merea, calm smile holding, answered Hasim.

Inside the dance of star-tree light, white hair lifting on the wind, Merea standing with that beautiful smile on him let Hasim feel a faint unreal quality.

Like looking at a famous painter's fantastical canvas — a sort of floating sense, hard to put into words.

But, on the next glance at the red eyes — there was a strong light of will, not at all matched to the light beauty around it. Hasim, on seeing it, lifted a corner of his mouth slightly and shut his eyes.

He felt, freshly reminded, that what Merea bore in him was not only the beautiful unreal.

"Right. About time I headed back. Banquet today. — Get back early, and without Marisa noticing — and tell Aiz and Lilium and the rest holed up in the document room. I told Shaw, mind — but, in Shaw's case, forgetting in money-counting is a real possibility. He looks perfect, but every so often that kind of forgetting happens. Excessive money-fiend register."

"Distinctively-shaped retainers — a great labour to handle, by the look. On that point, our retainers are first-rate, and proper."

"My side is first-rate too. — Ah! Not proper, however!"

Merea, on that point in particular, nodded with confidence.

Almost as if proud.

"Hah. — That said — Demon Lord Castle really has, by now, settled in for that castle, hasn't it."

"I'd prefer it stay 〈Star-Tree Castle〉 — but at this point, call it whatever."

Merea shrugged and threw both hands wide.

Hasim, smiling at the gesture, continued.

"Tell Lilium and the others — if they want more of the books archived in Lemuse Castle, I'll lend them on the spot. They're free to enter the castle's underground library at will."

"Right. Owe you."

"You posted idiotic battle-results, so my side is desperate to sell favours back."

One last shared laugh, and the two parted there.

After the two had walked away, a single gust of wind rose in the plaza.

Wearing the star-trees' shining particles on it, becoming a faintly glowing light-wind, it gently pushed each man's back as he walked, and ran on through the Star-Tree Ward's paths.

On separate paths, but at the same time pushed forward by the wind, the two — pitched briefly forward — let troubled smiles up at the wind's mischief.

In the rising light-wind, the two felt the premonition of the next great story's curtain-rise.

The two of them — the stone tower in the star-tree plaza watched on, in silence.