The whole room and the High Council of Elders stared in utter silence at the sight. The man in purple, chained to the floor, was struggling in his restraints, a fearsome look in his glowing purple eyes; a sort of manic face twisting with rage. The paper-white skinned elf also wrapped in chains was furtively struggling. But he wasn't trying to get away from the manic-looking young man a few meters to his side. Rather, he was trying to protect the trembling twin tailed girl pressing herself against his side.
Kuri studied the situation with a thoughtful look, keeping her left hand on her sword handle. The ninja with the blood red sash stood next to her with a thoughtless gaze into nowhere, and Kakuro had this sort of silent but remembering and highly indignant expression on her face. Her gaze remained fixated on the young man in purple with the mullet.
April blinked several times before realizing the person she was looking at was real.
"What a disturbance," Councilwoman Zera spoke up after the crippling silence since the unexpected outburst from Hiroko. "Coa, if you please."
At her request, there was an obnoxious wind that beat against everyone on the floor. When it cleared, April was standing in the center of the room ahead of everyone, the silver haired ninja standing right beside her. Several meters behind her stood the former wolf and former golem. Their positions were shifted as well and they were chained just a meter apart. Chains rattled. Hiroko's tube gag was secured across his mouth once more as he hissed at Saka.
April whisked her head around in confusion.
"As I was saying, I cannot begin to express how you have turned into a subject of great desire in lieu of a plausible liability to the hidden kingdom of Xander, April Commerce of Acugamathura." Zera announced out loud, everyone listening, including the pair chained to the floor.
She continued:
"We as the High Council of Elders humbly express our deepest gratitude for the little you've done. For the kingdom… and for the crown."
April narrowed her eyes in confusion. Why was she being thanked? What was the reason for their sudden applaud when the last they said to her just a few hours earlier had been that she was a monster? And why was Saka in chains? Why was there also a man who resembled Hiroko also chained up?
Was this an elaborate prank, since all she had ever heard the so-called High Council of Elders say was humorous and childish?
How did they even get some older look-alike to play Hiroko?
"You must be wondering why all of this is happening," Rodias added. "To be honest, we had not foreseen a meeting of this scale ourselves, but we shall take care of everything at once, thanks to you."
"The man you see behind you to your left is a shape-shifter who suddenly appeared in the sanctuary of Mount Jagged," Corvallis explained carefully. "For breaching the security of the mountain, a simple banishment would have sufficed, if he was but a simple golem without a master. He would have been released on the far stretches away from Xander, offenses disregarded. But seeing as he is a person of measured intelligence and he bears full recognition to you, he is a second case."
April shot her eyes back and squinted at the young man. He glared back in response.
"Now if you look back to your right, young lady, that porcelain figure of magnanimous design is none other than the Third Prince Sakature, the youngest of the Kraufford sons." Rodias pointed to half-naked Saka who was glaring at fully clothed Hiroko.
"He has been missing for almost a year now, and it has been a top priority of ours to find and bring him back, long before your arrival…"
April hesitantly glanced back at the subject of conversation.
"Missing?"
This elf was the first one she had run into the day she was spat into this ludicrous dimension. He was in the form of a giant white wolf then, rabid and willing to chase her around all night. But it turned out he was a creature of immeasurable danger to her as she perished by his hands… which were strong enough to throw a tree.
She looked back to the council members when her thoughts seemed to attract his attention. Nonsense, it all was. None of it made sense to her. As did all the past events of the literal past three days. These eight figureheads were all just bumbling children playing court dress up!
"His solemn charge as the youngest Kraufford son," Rodias continued amidst April's inner turmoil. "Was to espouse a maiden of our design."
April narrowed her eyes in sudden confusion.
"Huh!? His what was what now?"
The council of elders did not crack a smile as Kuri's bioluminescent blue eyes grew exceedingly wide.
Zera repeated:
"His sacred obligation lay in being united in matrimony with a maiden chosen by us. As in, he was bound by honor to wed a lady of our will. It was his ordained duty to take as his bride a damsel of our choosing."
April's face contorted with further confusion at the riddling speech. She could barely piece it together; matrimony, maiden, wed, bride, she gasped in horror.
"And then we have the matter of you," Councilwoman Sefina softly spoke out, leaning forward, her peach-tinted cheeks soft and glowing. "You were a marginal interruption in our search. We had assumed the other Kraufford sons had hidden Sakature from the kingdom…"
"But as it turned out, they went ahead and brought us a prize in exchange," Rodias smirked. "A dark elf hybrid with a predatory heart."
Everyone in the room remained silent as April took time to register these words. The situation would have marinated in its seriousness had Hiroko not burst into laughter, his wheezing chuckles escaping despite the tube gag on his mouth.
They all diverted their attention to him as he continued to drown in his amusement, his shoulders trembling. Saka blankly stared at him, right next to him, April also staring.
"Hmmm~" he casually sighed after his laughter, raising his head to find everyone gawking.
"Something a laughing matter?" Zera's voice flowed down from the high podium.
Hiroko chuckled again, a second before Kuri removed his gag once more. "Mmph!" He flexed his purple tongue and licked his teeth before pausing. "Oh, that's right…"
And he barked out a harsh laugh, buckling over, his bangs covering his glowing eyes.
"Do these proceedings amuse you?" Zera asked, her crimson eyes narrowed to slits.
Hiroko wheezed. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—bwahahahaha!" He ruptured into more cackles, April gawking.
As the faces of the High Council of Elders turned into hard canvases, everyone else silently watching him laugh himself to the point of tears, he suddenly stopped and sniffled, shaking his head.
"April, what a surprise. It's been so long," he cleared his throat. "Ignore the part where I tried to flatten you earlier. I was just excited to see you. It's just been a really long… long-ass time without seeing your face."
He gritted his purple-stained teeth.
"You look exactly like the day I saw you in the kitchen…"
"Hi-Hiroko…!" April gasped out his name with repetitive recognition, her eyes going wide. "You're alive!!"
"Heh. You said my name the exact same way last time." He scoffed and turned to the council of elders. "Pardon me, members of the esteemed institution of elvish people… I know my words are going to land on deaf ears or insult someone at some point, and they won't lead to so much as my release, so I beg you to forgive me in advance…"
The High Council of Elders shifted slightly in their high seats, intrigued. He continued:
"I realize it's by accident that I've made it to these proceedings… but I arrived here, I guess, four or five hours ago and lost consciousness, which is… something that's become a common occurrence to me…"
He lifted his head and huffed.
"There was an incident. None of you are going to care about my story, but ever since I was trapped in Modest, I have done nothing but survive and plow through the many challenges I faced… by my own grit and grace, mourning over this girl ever since we were kidnapped from our home by an entity that SHE provoked!"
April's shoulders tensed as everyone turned their gazes to her. She blushed.
"No one needs to know about that, buddy…" she thought, holding onto one of her tails.
"It's been a foul and grueling time for me," Hiroko continued. "I was by myself in the Fourth Dimension. I thought she was dead. I prayed it was a painless end for her sake…"
He chuckled, his laugh gradually turning into something dark and disturbing, his purple teeth showing.
"So you can hardly imagine…" His pupils dilated. "...my excitement when I found her right in front of me."
The ninja shuffled to the side as shadows swirled around the young man, Saka visibly straining in the chains.
Hiroko chuckled, exhaling shakily.
"I realized in that moment that I must give her… a proper greeting."
Saka uprooted his chains.
The eight figureheads shot to their feet and Hiroko's chains shattered to pieces as pieces of black rock shot out of his skin only to return to stick to him like armor.
He charged at April, his colossal rock figure dwindling her size, but just in the nick of time, two large cinder blocks clinging to black chains connected with his armor. He shot back and crashed into the far grey wall.
April landed on her tails on the floor, eyes wide with shock.
Kuri and Kakuro glanced to the blue-eyed ninja. He shook his head almost imperceptibly and the three of them stood aside and watched.
Hiroko found purchase on the floor, his stone feet grinding against the grey stone as the wall shuddered in late response to his earlier impact. He shot his blazing eyes ahead.
In the middle of the courtroom, Saka stood, his arms wrapped up in chains. He grunted from behind the muzzle, his eyes wide.
[Get behind those three…] He telepathically relayed to April.
She visibly trembled as she felt the tension of his chains on her own skin. He was trying to break them, and Hiroko's golem form was approaching.
Hiroko did pounce him, and April felt as the tension around her arms snapped, as well as the chains around the whitehead.
There was a flash of light above April that Hiroko pounced into. When it disappeared, a white wolf and a black rock golem fell to the floor, the muzzle still covering wolf's snout.
April buckled over when Saka's impact on the floor transferred a pain to her shoulder.
"Argh!"
She was immediately pulled over by Kuri.
"Watch your little legs, Precious Thing."
April gasped as she watched the golem and the wolf circling each other in the center of the courtroom.
"Aren't you going to stop them?" She asked.
The High Council of Elders stared down at the commotion with indifference.
"Hiroko! Saka! Stop it!" April cried.
"Looks like they're fighting over you," Kuri mumbled. "Too bad they won't get you."
April gawked up at Kuri who watched the two males brawling, a smirk on her fine features.
Sefina turned to Zera. "This meeting was a failure."
Zera sighed and raised her chin. "Masaru," she called.
The silver-haired ninja with the silvery mask and blue eyes looked up to the podium.
Zera nodded. "Take care of it."
He nodded obediently and stepped forward, April watching with wide eyes.
"What is he going to do?"
Kuri shushed her and gestured her to keep watching. April was forced to bear it and watch. Masaru the ninja stopped nowhere near the two colossal creatures. He put a hand inside his robe, taking out something.
"Marbles?!" April crowed as she watched him juggle them in his palm.
"Wait for it…" Kuri mumbled, her hand gently squeezing April's shoulder.
April waited with wide eyes as Saka and Hiroko prowled at each other. They suddenly stilled, muscles and rocks tensing as they prepared to spring forward. They sprung forth. Masaru threw the marbles. There was an explosion of black smoke. April squealed in surprise, clinging onto the samurai's wrist as the smoke covered everything.
"What was that?" She exclaimed. "A smoke bomb?"
"Well done, Masaru," Zera nodded from her seat.
The smoke cleared and revealed the two aggressors. One of them, clad in black and purple, laid on his face, silvery metal rope entwined around him securely, gagging him as well. The other one, with paper white skin almost as white as his hair, laid on his back, the silvery metal rope also coiling around his bare, unclothed body, a muzzle gag secured to his face.
April's mouth dropped. "Eh?"
Saka sighed, his eyes closing in resignation.
[This is going to get old too soon,] he whispered inside April's head.