Judgment (the One You're With part 4)

The One You're With part 4: Judgment, chapter 1
by Tsutsuji
Fandom: Kyo Kara Maou!
Pairing: Conrad//Yozak/Murata, implied Shinou/Murata and Shinou/Daikenja, implied one-sided Conrad/Yuuri & Murata/Yuuri, and mention of Wolfram/Yuuri. Whew.
Rating and Warning: Adult (NC17). BDSM, yaoi, angst. (Nothing major in this chapter, though.) Spellchecked, not beta'd.
Original date written: (8/17/08)
Word count for this chapter: around 2760.
Disclaimer: Characters and settings are the property of Tomo Takabayashi and associates, and I'm just a pervy fangirl who's not making any money off of this.
AN: I decided to post this part separately from the previous parts, as a sequel. Apologies for the weird part-chapter divisions. I thought this was going to be a simple little series of scenes, then Yozak showed up and changed everything I had planned.

Summary: Yozak heads off on another mission, making Murata realize how much his presence may have changed things for all of them.


"It can't be helped, Geika," Yozak said. He frowned and shrugged, shifting the pack slung across his back. "Duty calls; those rumors have to be checked out, and Gurier is the best man for the job - or the best woman, if necessary!"

Murata managed a smile with the ease of many years of practice, lives of practice in fact, although he was certain Murata Ken had forced more smiles than any other life he could remember.

"I know. You're still Shin Makoku's best spy, and gathering intelligence is still an essential task even in these peaceful times," he said. "Still... I wish you didn't have to leave just now, or at least that I had time to think up a reasonable excuse to go with you."

He spoke cheerfully, but he guessed Yozak already knew how he really felt about the sudden departure. He'd gone out of his way to come to the Shrine and say goodbye, after all.

"Oh?" Yozak grinned. "Now that you mention it, maybe we could've come up with a plan including you, and Taichou as well. Too bad! I think the Maou would object to me taking both of his favorite advisers away at the same time without an airtight reason for it."

"Ah, you're probably right," Murata said.

The mask of a smile slipped back into place automatically as soon as the Maou was mentioned. He wondered if Yozak knew it, and if the spy's grin was just as much of an act. Since Yozak had appeared so unexpectedly in Conrad's room on that night a week ago, Murata knew better than to underestimate the half-mazoku's power of observation - not that he ever had, really.

He'd been surprised and more than a little embarrassed when he woke up the morning after that encounter, and found Yozak snoring away in a chair in his bedroom. He didn't believe for more than a second that Yozak was just as surprised and embarassed to wake up there, as if he'd fallen asleep suddenly by accident. Even if Murata had believed that, he would have known otherwise when he saw how carefully Yozak watched his every move until he'd left the Shrine later that day.

For the past week since then, Yozak happened to have business in the vicinity of the Shrine often enough to be suspicious, but the final, most revealing piece was how much less often Shinou had appeared to pester Murata during the same time. The ghostly king still visited him, usually unannounced and uninvited, and often at the most inconvenient moments. Lately, though, Shinou's poorly hidden concern for his well-being, tinged as it was with possessive jealousy, was much less obvious. Instead, Murata often caught a different set of brilliant blue eyes watching him, slipping aside to look at something else whenever he noticed their gaze.

He couldn't feel as annoyed with Yozak as a nagging sense of discomfort always made him feel in reaction to Shinou's watchfulness. Of course, the spirit king still watched him - unseen, but Murata knew his presence perfectly well by now. Shinou's concern chaffed at him like a scratchy collar, reminding him of some old role that didn't seem to fit any more, even if his dreams still craved his king's attention. That was why Murata had given Shinou the most intimately detailed account of the night in Conrad's room, just as he always did, and Shinou had fully enjoyed the effect the telling had on Murata in the haunting dreams that followed - dreams that only made the rift with waking reality harder to reconcile.

Murata also remembered to tell Shinou what he thought of his secretive schemes, but of course the spirit was only amused by his tirade.

"You mean to say you didn't enjoy our little surprise for you, my sage?" he teased. "Weller-kyo certainly approved of the addition. We thought you'd be pleased as well!"

Murata didn't go so far as to say he wasn't. The vision of the two older men entangled together, and of Conrad writhing on the bed and thrusting up into Yozak's eager mouth, kept returning to his mind, nearly as persistent and haunting as Daikenja's memories that left him twisted in soaked sheets on so many restless nights.

On the rare occasions when he'd seen Conrad since then, it was almost hard to believe what he remembered. When circumstances brought them both to the castle with all the others, it was far simpler to set aside all thoughts of their encounter as if they were moments from one of his more remote past lives. It seemed equally easy for Conrad to fall back into their familiar yet formal manner with each other, so much the opposite of their roles on those nights in Conrad's room. He was no longer the only one who knew how different those roles had become, though. One morning, when he greeted Conrad with Muraken's friendly grin and Conrad responded with polite formality to the Great Sage, he looked past Conrad's shoulder and caught Yozak rolling his eyes and quickly hiding an amused grin.

The only other sign that anything was different in the Maou's household was that he found himself watching more closely whenever Conrad and Yozak were together. Remembering their last, sudden kiss at the hidden gate to the castle, Murata hoped that something had changed between the two of them, but he couldn't see any sure sign of it. He only noticed Conrad staring hard at Yozak's back once, while the spy reported to Gwendal about some rumor from the borderlands that he'd heard. Conrad's eyes were narrowed with a puzzled expression that couldn't be due to the simple report, and the look vanished like vapor in sunlight when Yozak turned around a second later. It might have meant nothing at all.

Murata also couldn't keep himself from wondering Yozak's increased presence near the Shrine might mean he was carrying messages between Shinou and Conrad now, even thought that was hardly necessary - Shinou had his own ways of communicating with anyone at the castle. Still he had to hope it was a sign of even more elaborate plans being hatched between the three of them, more ways for them to startle him into breathless silence, but he tried very hard not to be caught looking for such signs.

Apparently, though, any plans they might have been making had now been preempted by politics.

"I shouldn't be gone much more than a month, six weeks tops," Yozak said.

Murata nodded, as if six weeks was no time at all. For a Mazoku in Shin Makoku it wasn't, but his human sensibilities said it was far too long to wait for another encounter. His adolescent body screamed that even one more day was too long, happily ignoring the fact that it had been three days after the last time before he could sit without hiding a wince, and before strained leg and shoulder muscles had stopped aching. The hand prints on his inner thighs had barely begun to fade.

"Well, then," he started to say, resigned to seeing Yozak off as cheerfully as possible.

Yozak forestalled him with a raised finger and a quick glance around to make sure they weren't observed. He leaned down and slipped the same finger under Murata's chin, lifting him up onto his toes. Murata gasped, caught by surprise all over again when Yozak pressed a quick but insistent kiss against his mouth, then let him go.

He stumbled down from tip toes, blinking and breathless. Apparently, something had changed between the two older men after all: the taste of Conrad's body lingered on Yozak's lips.

"See you when I get back, Geika?" Yozak said with a wink.

He turned and walked away with a wave of his hand over his shoulder, and was out of sight before Murata could catch enough breath to wish him good luck.

~~

All things considered, Murata was not surprised at all when the summoning message came from Conrad two days later.

He managed to ignore Shinou's smug grin, and almost as successfully managed not to anticipate how things might go between them this time. He could not help thinking, as he slipped past the guards on patrol and reached for Conrad's door, that if Yozak were here he would actually have an answer to the question Conrad always asked before they began. He knew he would not be disappointed by whatever Conrad had planned for him, but he wondered, just the same, if he was not the only one who kept thinking of how hungry and eager that last kiss between the two men had been.

All of his speculation vanished when he entered the room and saw Conrad sitting on the bed as always, smiling and holding the black bindings ready in his hands as usual, and with Yozak standing right there beside him.

Murata opened his mouth to speak, but Conrad's eyebrow shot upward and the familiar smile hardened, so he stifled the question and simply walked over to Conrad as he always did. They'd established a pattern of exchanging a friendly, ordinary greeting when he entered, so it seemed he only became Conrad's possession, Shinou's gift, when he handed over his glasses in exchange for the blindfold and the bindings on his wrists. In truth, he submitted to the prince's control as soon as he answered the summons each time. If Conrad indicated that he should not ask questions, even by the merest gesture, then he'd better not ask questions - although his curiosity almost made the potential punishment worth the risk.

Yozak simply stood there, grinning, blue eyes twinkling. Murata stole enough of a glance to take in the fact that he was still in his traveling clothes, with his hood thrown back and his hair blown wild, as if he'd ridden here in a rush. His leggings and the hem of his cloak were speckled with dirt from the road. All Murata could guess was that it must have been a very sudden change of plans. It could hardly be coincidence, even though Conrad's message had come to the Shrine in the early afternoon and Yozak looked as if he'd arrived just minutes before.

The furrow in Conrad's brow deepened, and Murata quickly gave up wondering about it for the moment. Explanations could wait. All that was certain was that Conrad must indeed have been thinking along the same lines as he had been.

Nothing else had changed, anyway. He felt it in the way Conrad's hands slid down his arms from his shoulders, caressing the black uniform as he turned Murata around in order to bind his wrists. The reason Conrad had accepted this task, this gift of the young, double-black sage's utter submission to him, was still the same, just as the reasons Murata had offered himself hadn't changed. Yozak's presence here added another, unexpected layer to the longing between them, one that wasn't nearly so well hidden as his and Conrad's had been, but just as much unspoken.

He shivered, happily, and had to bow his head to hide a pleased smile when Conrad handed one of the lengths of cloth to Yozak. Conrad pulled his arms back to bind his wrists, while Yozak knelt on one knee in front of him to place the blindfold around his head. He felt Conrad lean forward, felt the swordsman's hands slip around him, one to to clutch at his hip and the other pressed over his heart. Yozak leaned into him as well, and he fought the urge to wiggle between them and lean up toward Yozak to invite a kiss - and probably a sharp squeeze from Conrad's hands as well if he did.

Conrad's breath was warm on the back of his neck as he nuzzled Murata's hair, then leaned further forward to lick the curve of his ear. Murata shivered again, and let a sigh escape; he felt Yozak's puff of silent laughter on his nose.

"You know, Ken-chan," Conrad said softly, "Trust... is such a precious thing, isn't it?"

Murata hesitated, uncertain if that was truly a question he was meant to answer. He twisted his hands in the bindings; his fingers brushed against the buttons of Conrad's uniform.

"Do you trust us, Ken-chan?" Yozak asked, the lilt in his voice making the loaded question sound like mere curiosity.

Murata swallowed hard, and licked lips that suddenly felt as dry as sandpaper.

"Answer Yozak's question, Ken-chan," Conrad said, his voice so low and soft it could have been a purr of pleasure, or a threat.

Murata swallowed again and nodded.

"From the first moment I met each of you... there is no one I have trusted as much since the time of the First King."

He would never ask if they trusted him.

"Good, Ken-chan," Conrad said.

Conrad's hands tightened briefly and then left him. So did Yozak's as they both moved away, leaving Murata with the feeling that he'd just agreed to something unimaginable.

A weight fell on his shoulders; it took a second for him to recognize it as a heavy cloak, which their hands wrapped around him tightly. The thick fabric bound his arms at his sides as well as trapping his legs all the way down to his ankles. Yozak reached behind him and pulled a hood up over his head, tugging it so low over his face that the rough cloth tickled his nose.

It shouldn't have been any more disorienting than the blindfold was already, but it muffled his other senses as well, blotting out everything around him. He stumbled when they turned him around, all four hands tugging at him roughly, and then let out a startled yelp when Yozak's muscled arms lifted him right off his feet and hoisted him over one broad shoulder as if he was no more of a burden than a feather pillow.

He was so surprised that he couldn't tell if the hand that clamped over his mouth was Conrad's or Yozak's, but it was definitely Conrad's voice that spoke in his ear.

"Quiet now, Ken-chan!" He thought he heard Conrad's smile in his voice. "You can make all the noise you want, for once... later."

With that, Yozak spun around and started to walk. Murata was too surprised to even wiggle in his grasp, and the cloak was twisted around him from head to toe so tightly that it would hardly matter if he did, anyway.

His heart raced; memories of being bound, imprisoned, carried off by far rougher hands than these, welled up from more past lives than he cared to think of, memories that tensed his limbs even as he pushed them back to the darker corners of his mind. What followed in those cases had usually gone from bad to far, far worse...

Do you trust us?

If he spoke, if they even sensed his panic, Murata knew they would stop and let him go. That knowledge was enough to slow his racing heart and calm his breath, a little. He forced his thoughts back to the present; he was only Murata Ken now. He meant what he'd said: he'd trusted these men from the start and that had never changed, even when he'd given them so many reasons not to return that trust.

He was carried along quickly but silently through passages he could only guess at, gently jolted by Yozak's long stride, but steadied by strong arms holding him in place. Occasionally another hand, Conrad's, reached over to squeeze the back of his thigh, both reassuring and suggestive. They went down a flight of stairs, twisted along more passages and then down more steps, and finally he felt Yozak duck briefly as if to pass through a low doorway.

Suddenly, Conrad's other words came back to him with the full realization of what they meant. You can make all the noise you want, for once...

He was utterly blind and helpless to move, sound was muffled, and his sense of direction was completely lost. All he knew for certain was that they were leaving Blood Pledge Castle.

to be continued