…
…
[Meanwhile in Saishi…]
It was now mid-morning and Tachibana was out and about after eating breakfast with the family. He's gotten used to some areas around the Palace and was able to walk around with neither Seiya nor Akira. However, he could see the numerous guards patrolling, and he somewhat felt stifled.
Ever since the whole 'attack on the Third Prince in his room', the guards around him seem to be more than those around Seiya and Akira. Although he understood that King Ayumu was just being cautious, it was extremely annoying.
A tiresome sigh escaped his lips.
He was bored and worst of all, cooped up in a gigantic Palace with nowhere to go. If this was Japan, he could've called up Mochizuki and they'd be on their merry way to Akihabara or somewhere fun. But here, there's nothing fun to do.
"I'm going to die of boredom if this keeps up." Tachibana groaned out. So aimlessly he went, strolling around the Palace grounds. He took in the sights of the various strange yet beautiful floras and of the other guards casually having fun. For a while, he stopped and stared, a little depressed that he couldn't use magic of his own free will. Even though the King told him that the longer he stayed here, the more he'd become like them, he couldn't help but feel a little jealous.
"Third Prince Yuri Tachibana!"
An angered shout took him out of his thoughts, his head snapping towards the voice. There, he saw three other guards trying to calm down the angry man. He was dressed in the standard military jacket vest with his white pants tucked into his dark boots.
⎾Who's that?⏌He thought as he looked on. But deep down, he prayed that one of his brothers would come to his rescue.
"Your Highness! Get your ass over here!" the man continued to bark, stunting Tachibana at his language. "Do you have any idea of how much we're suffering because of you?! Come the hell on, man up and take responsibility you brat! It's about damn time!"
"Calm down Hiroki! His Highness is ill at the moment!" One of the guards said, trying to get the man ―Hiroki―to quiet down.
"Ill? Where?! He doesn't look ill to me!"
Tachibana rubbed his temples with a sigh. No one told him about this, but right now, he had to get into his 'prince persona' and address this matter. He strode across to the group, and said in an authoritative voice:
"Let him go."
"Your Highness…"
"It's fine. I'll take it from here."
The guards exchanged glances before excusing themselves from the two. But now that Tachibana was left alone with Hiroki, he hadn't the slightest idea of what to do.
"Well, what are you going to do?" Hiroki asked, folding his arms with a huff.
"Can't you handle it yourself?" Tachibana sassed, hoping that he pulled off Yuri's character. But there was another reason for him to speak this way ―it was to get some information out of Hiroki. The Japanese thought that maybe Hiroki may state what the situation was. "What do you need me for?"
Hiroki dragged a hand over his face and bit his bottom lip. Tachibana could see that the man was trying his best to keep his anger down. "You little…" he started but trailed off. "Look Yuri, your division needs you. If you don't do something, we'll be assimilated into that asshole's division and as much as I don't like your behaviour, I'd rather stick with you than him."
"Hmm…" Tachibana hummed. The Prince had his own military division? Why hadn't someone said anything to him? Tachibana was inwardly freaking out. He was pretty sure that Saishi's military was unlike Japan's. But, gathering his wits, the young Japanese decided to take a risk.
"I guess you're right." He nodded, making Hiroki's eyes widened with shock. "So, let's go to my division shall we? I need to speak with everyone present since this is the case."
Hiroki broke out in a grin. "As you wish Your Highness." He walked off, before turning back around and said, "Are we taking my car or do you rather Jin drive you?"
Tachibana weighed his options. He didn't see anything wrong with going with Hiroki but just to make sure that this wasn't a plot to kidnap him, he decided to go with Jin.
"I'll call Jin. He plays music that I like." Tachibana lied.
Hiroki snorted. "What? I thought Jin didn't play any music."
"Ah…He does when I ask him to."
Hiroki laughed, running a hand through his bleached white hair with red highlights. "Ask? Don't you mean demand?" he howled. "Since when do you ask for anything?"
Tachibana's brows furrowed at this new information about Prince Yuri. There was no way he'll behave like that. Prince or not, Yuri should be more respectful to the people around him. And once again, Tachibana started to fret for his country.
"So, have you called Jin yet?"
"Ah no, I changed my mind. Let's go."
But as Hiroki led the way, Tachibana messaged everyone in his contacts where he was going and with whom.
…
…
The drive to the Prince's division was everything but peaceful. Hiroki seemed to take this time to vent out all his frustrations about Prince Yuri to Tachibana, making the Japanese twitch with anger sometimes. Even though Hiroki didn't know about his situation, it was still irksome when everyone is addressing him as that terrible Prince.
And whenever he apologizes, Hiroki would stare at him as though he was a different person. The man looked at Tachibana with disbelief, unable to believe what he was hearing.
Soon, the two arrived at the division, Tachibana was the least fazed. It was a regular rectangular three storey building with the country's flag flying high. It had a pretty normal façade, with a canopy over the entrance.
"Don't be in such a daze," Hiroki started, patting Tachibana on his back. "It's not like this is the first time that you've been here."
⎾Oh great, Yuri's been here before.⏌ He thought with sarcasm. "Who said I was in a daze?" He huffed, trying to throw off Hiroki. "Why should I be anyway?"
"Your eyes said something totally different." Hiroki replied as he placed a small thin card at the door. Tachibana realized that it was a card pass, similar to the ones that businesses use in Japan. When they entered into the building, Hiroki barked in an extremely loud voice, "Everyone! Yuri's here! Get your asses out here now!"
Within a couple seconds, Tachibana saw numerous people flooding out of the doors to stand before him. They were all in the same uniform as Hiroki, except the females wore short-shorts or mini-skirts and thigh-high boots. When most of them were gathered, they all stood at attention, saluting Tachibana.
"Welcome back Your Highness!" They chorused.
"Thank you for greeting me." Tachibana bowed.
At this gesture, loud gasps rang out as chatter rose up. Everyone looked at him with disbelief and shock, given that the real Prince would never behave in such a manner.
"The real Prince has been kidnapped! And replaced with this knock-off who doesn't even know how to act!" one female shrieked.
"Well, look on the bright side," another joined in. "The brat is gone and this one seems to be more tolerable."
"Alright, alright," Hiroki clapped his hands to get their attention. "Jokes aside, His Highness would like to address us."
Tachibana chuckled. If only they knew that their 'jokes' were actually reality (except the kidnapped part). With a deep breath, Tachibana took a step forward, and prepared his speech. Well, the young man planned to bullshit his way through anyway.
"Good day everyone," He started again. "I'd like to say sorry for leaving you all like this," More gasps rang out in the room at this statement. "But, I'll let you know that I'm here for you now." Tachibana continued as though he wasn't interrupted.
"Great! You can start by signing all those documents and give us some new weapons!" A male shouted. The crowd nodded in agreement.
"Eh?"
"Seriously?" Hiroki asked him. "As division leader, you have the responsibility to not only lead your division in battle, but provide us with any necessity that we'll need." He explained. "And we can't do anything without your approval―which would be your stamp and signature."
Tachibana huffed. "Of course I knew that. I was just surprised that you needed new weapons already."
Everyone drew back in shock.
"With all due respect Sir, you never gave us any weapons. The ones we have are the ones that we entered your division with." One male said. "That said, we need some weapons or the next time we head out to fight Youma, we'll be dead."
"Either that or we'll end up getting assimilated into Yuno's division. And that will be a nightmare." Another voiced out.
"Yuno? Do you mean…?" Tachibana deliberately broke off his sentence to give the impression that he knew who Yuno was.
"Yes, the same power hungry shit that boasts about having the best and powerful division separate from the four Elite divisions."
⎾Four elite divisions? What's all that?⏌Tachibana felt a headache coming on. Where were Seiya and Akira when he needed them?
"Oh, him." Tachibana sounded disinterested, trying to mimic Prince Yuri. "But anyway, let's get you those weapons, shall we?"
"Finally!"
But the problem Tachibana faced was he didn't know anywhere in the building. So, he decided to drag Hiroki along with him. Using the excuse of not having an access card, Tachibana got Hiroki to bring him to the Prince's 'office'. It was rather dusty, indicating to the Japanese just how much Yuri didn't use the space.
"Man, this is so dusty!" Tachibana coughed as he fanned the dust away from his face.
"Well, given that you don't come here…" Hiroki drawled. He even rolled his eyes for extra effect.
Tachibana ignored the older male and proceeded to clear the dust off the desk. The space was a regular office setting ―the desk was nestled to the left hand corner of the room with a small table lamp and a laptop on top. On both sides of the room there were bookshelves, and as Tachibana's eyes scanned their spines, they all had something to do with the military, be it 'tactics' or 'organization'. Even though their personalities were almost like opposites, at least they had something in common.
When finally settled, Tachibana said, "So, what should I sign and stamp?"
"Don't worry, Hideo is already on it."
"Then why didn't you have it ready and waiting?"
"Your Highness, need I remind you that you didn't care about us before. Naturally, we're not going to have those documents sitting here, waiting on someone who may never come."
Tachibana couldn't counter that one. "Fine." He grumbled. ⎾Well, since there's nothing for me to do at the moment, might as well I get some info about Saishi's military.⏌
By now, Hiroki had left the room, leaving Tachibana to his own devices. Walking up to the bookshelf on the right, Tachibana's eyes swept across the spines, hoping to find something that would help. It didn't take long, as there was a book that caught his eyes.
Military Organization.
The name of the book stood out like a sore thumb which the Japanese was glad for. Quickly, he pulled the book from the shelf, dusted it off and sat back into the chair. He read through the table of contents to find exactly what he was looking for.
"It's just as I thought." Tachibana said to himself as he read. "Saishi's military is definitely nothing like Japan's."
There was only one aspect of Saishi's military that was similar to that of Japan ―the existence of three of the arms: Army, Navy and Air Force. Everything else was completely different. Each arm was headed by a General, and within each arm, there were a total of fourteen divisions each with their division and vice-division leaders. Divisions like Infantry, Armour and Tank didn't exist, instead; the heads of each division decided what they would want to specialize in, if they specialized any at all. But given how much time has passed, any Mage promoted to Division Leader cannot change what the division specialized in.
Tachibana continued to read about the specialized divisions to see what they were really about. At first, he thought that they would consist of solely Mages who used one type of weapon but he was wrong. In each arm, there were only five specialized divisions ―one for each element, while the other divisions were mixed with Mages of all the elements. Though, there wasn't an equal distribution of Mages. Like in the First Army Division, there were more Earth Mages than Air Mages. However, the Military Arm also influenced this distribution. There were numerous Earth Mages in the Army, in opposed to the Air Force and Navy that had primarily Air and Water Mages.
"Interesting," Tachibana hummed as he skipped the page. He continued skipping given that these pages were taking about the different divisions within the three arms. For now, he wanted a general knowledge; any further detail would have to wait until later.
So Tachibana skipped until he stumbled upon another part of the Military that wasn't classified in the previous Arms. They were called "The Purple Berets", and were the best of the best in the entire Kingdom. They were the Elite Forces who reported directly to the Commander, in this case, King Ayumu. In addition there was a division of the Purple Berets in each Arm of the Military.
"Wow, so they're the cool ones, huh." Tachibana said, impressed. Here, he realized that they were the "four Elite divisions" that Hiroki had spoken about earlier. Within each Military Arm, there was a Purple Beret division, but the fourth division was almost like an Arm itself.
But, the young Japanese thought of taking a rest. He didn't want overload himself with this new information, even though he was processing things at a much faster rate now.
Just then, he heard his phone ringing. He quickly fished the phone out of his pocket, and answered it. "Hello?"
"Heavens! Yuri are you insane!? Why did you go to the Division Headquarters?!" Akira screeched. Tachibana couldn't tell if he was angry or scolding him.
"I didn't know what to do! And you didn't reply to my message when I sent it!" Tachibana countered.
"That's because we were doing something! Duh!"
"I wouldn't know that!"
"Well, anyway, Sei and I are on our way. Whatever you do, don't do anything stupid!"
"As a matter of fact, don't do anything that Yuri wouldn't do." This time it was Seiya who spoke. But unlike Akira who was shouting, he spoke in a soft voice. Probably not wanting Jin to overhear them. "At least, not until we get there."
But before Tachibana could reply, he heard a knock on the door. "Your Highness, the docs are here!"
"Well, I hope signing a couple documents isn't un-Yuri-like." He said with a nervous chuckle.
"EHHHH???!!!" The two Princes shrieked. "Step on it Jin! Floor it!!"
Unable to withstand the shouting, Tachibana hung up the phone and told Hiroki and Hideo to enter. Seeing the amount of documents, Tachibana wished he didn't.
"Shit. What have I done?" He groaned out.
Hiroki laughed at his expense. "It's all the months of back-log, Your Highness."
"Enjoy~" Hideo sang as he placed the stack of papers on the desk top. "Just make sure we get our weapon upgrades."
⎾I want to get back to Japan.⏌