[YUZUKI]
The borders were burning, quite literally.
And without a queen to lean on, the Kurayami warriors were dejected.
They were doing their best, trying to keep up their appearance as the greatest army in the entire realm, but there was only so much that they could defend themselves without burning out.
They were just an army against tens of armies that had rallied against them.
Kurayami was the largest kingdom in the realm and had the best of resources. If there was time for people to attack the kingdom, then this was the perfect time, because their queen was MIA.
She was gone, and no one had come clean about what had happened, or even if there was a chance that she'd come back to them. And that was the one possibility that no one in the kingdom wanted to be true.
It was a nightmare that was graciously wrapped like a daydream, and gods were the worst of things for them. They were trying their very best. Hell, even Yuzuki and Rinko, who somehow got there as fast as they could, saw it all.
Some of the Kurayami warriors were dead, and the enemy warriors were stabbing them even harshly to confirm their deaths. They didn't want the Kurayami warriors rising and making another army.
Gods, was it a hard watch for Yuzuki.
"Your majesty, perhaps we should wait until the army can hold its own. I can go and fight too. We will be fine. If you don't want to reveal your true identity, there is no need for this.
"I know that is what the people need, but if they see me there, they will be sure you sent me. Please think it over before you reveal yourself," Rinko said when she noticed how much her queen had changed in such a short span.
Yuzuki had put her hair in a bun, ripped the sleeves off the darn servant dress she was wearing. She looked like she was ready to dismantle whatever the fuck was going on and teach everyone a lesson on humility… and fear.
Rinko did not doubt that they would win with the queen on their side.
But at the moment, it wasn't really the best of ideas for Yuzuki to show herself like that. It was cruel, not just to the history she had forged, but also to the fact that she had made certain to keep her anonymity for so many years.
The kingdom had functioned pretty well even then.
But was that a risk that Yuzuki was going to try and run right now?
Was it something that seemed like a terrible idea?
Then again, Yuzuki was still reeling from the aftereffects of finding her Matsui in this life.
If she were to gain power and be the best for her Matsui, she had to be ready. She had to embrace the present, even if that meant undoing the thing that Queen Kuramitsu had done to keep the kingdom safe.
Yuzuki would figure out another way around this. That much was obvious, even as she watched the warrior fall like dominoes on the battlefield. They had been fighting for too long.
Three weeks was not a short time, and they were holding up better than Yuzuki would have expected at this point. They were doing their jobs and even losing themselves while at it.
Yuzuki loved that.
She loved the fact that the warriors were loyal to Kurayami. How they were not letting intruders win. But then again, there wouldn't be any more soldiers if they left this to continue for longer than it had already gotten.
"The kingdom needs its queen, Rinko. I understand where you are coming from, but perhaps you should focus on strategizing now that I am going to reveal myself. Come along, we have to finish this," Yuzuki said calmly.
Before Rinko could say another word, the Kurayami queen ran towards the enemies who were passing down the Kurayamis.
This kingdom was not going to fall.
Not on her watch.
This was the kingdom that would give her a second chance at life, and she refused to lose it the way that she had lost Fukada.
So, Yuzuki fought.
She had no weapon when she stepped into the battlefield, but after fighting tens of warriors bare-handed and strangling them with her magic in the cruelest of ways, Yuzuki figured it was time for her to hold her sword.
Or rather, the queen Kuramitsu's sword.
It was the only symbol of hope for the people right now.
"Yuzu!! Catch!!" Rinko shouted amid the chaos.
No one paid heed to her, even though she was their enforcer.
They didn't want to waste time when their friends and families were falling; they had to fight, and if whoever Yuzu was… was going to help them fight, then the Kurayami warriors had no qualms or even questions about that.
And when the sword reached Yuzuki's hands, the battlefield went silent.
Not because of the shock of the queen's sword being held by a servant, but because of the sudden wave of magic that swept through the battlefield, downing the enemy warriors like they had just been dumped in the heart of a tsunami.
This was crazy.
The Kurayami warriors noticed that too.
They could see where it all had originated from.
The woman in a servant's clothing.
The familiar woman they had seen on the streets of Kurayami one too many times. The woman whom most of them had laughed with in taverns, while others enjoyed her company in school.
She was always all over, and right now, seeing her in the battlefield and still in her servant clothing was not only a shocker but confusing as hell too. This time, the warriors slowed their fights.
They wanted to see for themselves what the fuck was happening right now. They wanted to know what in the world the woman was, and why she was so confident on their battlefield.
"Come on then…don't tell me you're shy because of a serving girl," Yuzuki mocked as she aimed for the enemies who had decided that she was now the target. It was an interesting change of events, but Yuzuki welcomed it with grace.
She was angry.
Way too angry at what Kazuya had done. And waking up to the fact that the love of her life was that dumb king's daughter in this life wasn't something that made her feel any better.
So she channeled that rage and let it all out on the enemy warriors. Swung her sword through them, slashing bodies like she was in a target practice field.
She slapped some of the heads off their necks. While for others, she broke their bones and folded them into curled, round balls of flesh and bones. Her clothes were covered in red now, but she wasn't stopping.
Each time that she came across a Kurayami warrior who aimed for her, Yuzuki didn't pay the warrior any heed.
It was like she was not here for them, which was true, because this was about the losses that they had been incurring in the past weeks, not the losses that they would incur if they engaged with her.
"Kill them all!!" Rinko shouted to the Kurayami warriors, who were still too shocked to say a word at what Yuzuki was doing.
And with Rinko's command, they continued their fight, even if the numbers had managed to dwindle so fast since Yuzuki had shown up.
Gods, was it a beautiful sight.
"Oh, gods," Rinko sighed in uncertainty as she watched what Yuzuki was doing.
She could see the way the woman was unhinged, and the fact that the fates had chosen to pair the most unhinged queen alive in this realm with the most lethal enforcer was just insane.
It was as if the fates were still undecided on the kind of damage they wanted to make of the entire realm, because how did they even approve of such a bond?
Whose idea was it to make the craziest pair that ever existed in the realm then?
"The queen came?" the Kurayami warriors whispered as they watched Yuzuki's lethal actions on the battlefield.
It was a shocker for them at first, but they all knew in silence that there was only one woman in the realm who was capable of besting everyone without even breaking a sweat.
And the serving girl, who was not even wearing protective gear while murdering their enemies, was not exactly the kind of sight they ran into every day.
Like clockwork, the rumors began to spread on the battlefield, hitting the ears of the dead and the undead.