Black Rose

Not On My Watch

"You look horrible," Charlotte's father commented as they were riding a luxurious carriage on their way to the cathedral where the wedding would take place. "It's a wedding, Charlotte, it would be appropriate to smile instead of scaring people away."
Because of her huge dress, she was crowding her parents who were sitting across from her but they couldn't complain since it was her father who chose it in the first place.
"This is my natural face, didn't you always say I took after you?" she said wryly.
"Don't get smart on me, young lady.. uhh, I guess you're not young anymore."
Her mother decided to intervene. "Charlotte, this is your last chance. Sir Percival is all we have left. Behave yourself today, he'll be waiting for us at the entrance.
She scoffed. Even his name was boring.
"You should just hurry up and forget about that barbarian of a captain. He could be dead for all we know."
Charlotte clenched her fists on her sides while maintaining her deadpan facade. Yami's alive, she chanted in her mind, trying to calm her turbulent heart. She was worried but in this three years, she never doubted Yami was alive somewhere.
"That man is too much trouble, the afterlife would've kicked him out." A smile inadvertently escaped her lips at that ridiculous notion.
Maria just stared at her daughter intently while his husband complained about how unreasonable their daughter was being.
Charlotte squared her shoulders and looked out the window, gazing at the scenery blankly as the carriage sped by through the town.
A few minutes later, they stopped in front of the Noble Realm's cathedral where nobles of the Clover Kingdom traditionally get married.
Sir Percival, baron of House Laurent, was a good eight years older than Charlotte. She heard he was a widower and his wife passed away some years ago with no heir to speak of.
The minute she stepped out the carriage, the older man's face lit up. He looked so dumb looking at her with heart-shaped eyes. He was a bit tall but lanky and looked nothing like his age. Men, she reaffirmed, were disgusting.
Her father took her hand and assisted her out of the carriage after her mother. Even as the baron approached and offered his hand to escort her, she refused to look at him. "It's fine, I can manage."
Her father caught her eye and glared at her. She balled her fist between the pleats of her gown. She was wearing white glove so she wouldn't exactly touch him but..
"Charlotte, don't keep the kind baron waiting," her father rebuked.
She sighed. It's fine, we'll not really be touching with my gloves on, it's just a courtesy, she told herself. She steeled herself as she lifted her hand to accept the baron's hand.
But before their hands actually touched, an immense amount of unsettling mana shocked through her veins. And from the looks of the baron's face, she wasn't the only one. Before they could move, a pitch black thing flashed between Charlotte and Baron Percival, making them backed away from each other and in its wake was a deep trench on the ground - like it was cut by an invisible force.

"Okay, that's as far as it goes. Thank you, Mr. Whatever-Your-Name-Is."
Charlotte looked up beside her at the sound of that gruff voice. There's no mistaking that voice that occupied her night and day dreams.
"Yami?!"
"'Sup." His eyes gazed at her face for a while before dropping down to her clothes. Looking uninterested all the while. "The fuck are you wearing?"
Her face instantly turned red, both in indignation and embarrassment.
"What are you saying, Yami-san?" the spatial magic-user guy from Yami's squad stepped in. "She's goddess, I'm telling you! An angel!" Finral went on about how beautiful and wonderful she was but Yami stayed quiet.
"You..." Charlotte found her voice after while. "You came back."
"I told you, didn't I?"

This is bad, Yami's head could barely function after seeing Charlotte for the first time after so long. And in that dress! He couldn't even make fun of her like he used to when she dressed up all ladylike in that outrageous sparkly white dress.
When he saw her agonising over having to touch that squid-faced old man, his body moved on his own. It's a good thing he didn't unsheathe his sword by instinct.
"W-when did you come back? And... what are you doing here?" She was starting to panic.
Yeah, what was he doing there? Yami was asking himself that very question.
"Hey, Prickly Princess, I just wanna make sure," he turned to her. "You don't want to marry this old geezer, right?"
"O-of course not, what are you even saying?"
"Then, I'm not holding back."
Before she could even guess what he had intended to do, Yami released an incredible amount of menacing mana. The air turned heavy and for a second, it looked like an evil force was stemming from his back. Even without drawing his sword, Yami looked terribly dangerous.
His mana didn't go unnoticed by the nobles. From inside the church, the wedding guests came outside to know what's going on.
"Listen up, you noble snobs! This Surly Ice Queen isn't someone you can tie down with your stupid customs. She could cut you all down if she wanted to."
"Oi, Yami, what are you saying?"

Yami relaxed his stance for a while to get a whiff out of the cigarette dangling from his mouth. He exhaled the smoke nonchalantly. "I'm saying if you can't beat them all up as you like, I can do it for you."

"What? No, you can't! Everyone in here is a noble, you know, even for you, you can't-"

But it was too late, Yami unsheathed his sword and with it, a ominous pitch black aura permeate the air, making it hard to even draw a breath. Everyone around them seemed to be paralyzed by the overwhelming display of power.

Strangely enough, after a while, his aura stopped affecting Charlotte, she could breathe normally. She looked back and found Finral. He seemed to have put up some kind of barrier around the two of them, it was strong enough to completely cancel Yami's dark mana, albeit only in a small perimeter. Such a high-level magic spell for someone who was pegged as the House of Vaude's failure.

"Hey, you," she called out to Finral. "Shouldn't you stop him?"

Finral cowered. "You can't be serious! Captain Yami will surely kill me. I only managed to create this spell in order to protect my life from his insane murderous mana. Besides..."

"Besides what?"

"Captain Yami is serious this time."