The Prince’s Bride
Author's Notes:
Hello, minna-san!!! This is Kristine-chan. I hope you like this fanfic. This is my 1st time to write anything like this (I usually stick to drawing), so I hope you like it! :>
Disclaimer: I don’t own Yu Yu Hakusho. I’m just a rabid fan who loves the Koenma-Botan pair. (KoBo forever!!!!!!!!!!). Don’t sue, K?
Prologue
Excerpt
from Legends of the Worlds: The Meikai Saga, chapter I
[Compiled
from various documents of the four realms by Her Highness the Royal Daughter
Aisha-Hime in the Reign of Queen Shiroi and Prince Consort Ryu]
The Meikai and the Reikai are old worlds, full of magic and tales of
olden gods and spirits that had gone to their place. Of all these stories, none
has lasted as long as that of the Tokugawa and Akimaru wars: its beginnings,
outcome, and its questionable end.
Many years ago, the Meikai and the Reikai were at peace with each other,
guarding the Makai and Ningenkai respectively. Their rulers, from the Akihiko
and Tokugawa families, never lacked able rulers who strove for the good of their
peoples. The Akihiko dynasty of the Meikai ruled a powerful but peaceful people
from the spirits of demons from the equally peaceable Makai, or the demon realm.
Meanwhile, the Tokugawa dynasty, known as masters in administration, ruled over
the spirits of the dead humans of Ningenkai and various other spirits and
deities with varying power levels. The relation of the two realms went so well
that a great unknown seer foretold a union of love between the two houses. From
this, she proclaimed, would come a powerful line of rulers. For this reason,
both families decreed that no power in all the worlds should be allowed to
hinder a union between the two families, if love, pure and shared, be the reason
of the union.
But
more than ten thousand years ago, an evil king was raised to the throne of
Meikai through a bloody coup that claimed the lives of almost half the
population of the land. The great Akihiko clan was believed to have been wiped
out, powerless in the face of the cruel tyrant’s minions—rebel demons from
the deepest corners of Makai. So it was that in the Meikai’s third millenium,
the tyrant ruler Akimaru Takeshi came to the throne. His reign was one of
turmoil and anarchy, for, his bloodlust still unsatisfied with the sacrifice of
so many lives, he did turn his violence upon his own people. As a drowning man
fights the elements themselves to save his life, so did the gentle people of
Meikai learn to fight for their
mere living. In the end they became almost as corrupt and vile as their new
lord, whom they hated and feared with a passion.
He
watched all of this with secret exultation and an evil plan forming in his mind.
For, as his lust for power was deep as that for blood, he now wanted the power
that would be his if he conquered the realm of Reikai. He mobilized his forces
and prepared to conquer in the second year of his reign. Reikai’s ruler then,
Tokugawa Kaji, was sorely troubled. He wanted to avenge the Akihiko clan, but he
was worried lest his forces be defeated also by the terrible army of Takeshi.
But he steeled his and his people’s hearts and brought in the assistance of
humans and powerful Ningenkai-dwellers like the faeries and magicians.
So
the war began on the south Plains of Azuma near the Great Snake road. Both
armies fought hard and grimly. But after a hundred and fifty years, the battle
was still nowhere near its end, though millions of prayers were said everyday to
the other gods, asking them to intervene and stop the warring realms.
It
was about this time that the great Daioh Hajime, the successor of his uncle
Tokugawa Kenchi, came to the throne and brought the war to its end with the aid
of his friend, Kage the great, a warrior of mysterious origins. With help from
Kage, Hajime silenced the complaints of some insolent nobles who dared question
his succession, for he had claim to the throne through his mother, the sole
sibling of Kenchi. Morever, he ascended to the throne in haste, and was not
immediately proclaimed the next ruler. He
proved his abilities when, with the help of Kage, who he made the general of his
vast army, he finally drove off the enemies from Reikai. In a stroke of genius,
he also forced Takeshi’s general, who represented him in affairs of state, to
sign a powerful binding contract that gave up Makai to Reikai’s rulers, to
save it from further corruption and also to lessen the tyrant’s most dangerous
allies. Needless to say, Takeshi was enraged and ended his general’s life, but
he could do little to regain his claim. He and his weakened army returned to the
Meikai. Hajime, however, returned with all honors to the royal palace. He was
unable to pursue his enemies and claim the Meikai because his army, even with
Kage’s exceptional leadership, had also suffered major casualties. So he
returned home to arrange his declaration as the emperor of Reikai, Makai and the
Ningenkai.
Instead
of being declared the fifty-first emperor of the Tokugawa dynasty, however, he
became the first emperor of the Daioh dynasty, even if he and his wife had
Tokugawa blood. He then set about returning peace to the three worlds in which
chaos reigned for a hundred and thirty years. Kage the great warrior was also
honored and given vast lands. Strangely, he disappeared from court after less
than a year, leaving a ‘demon necklace’ – a beautiful charm with an alien
power said to be accursed, whom no one was allowed to touch. Ot was kept in the
deepest vaults of the Reikai, until it disappeared mysteriously in the reign of
the fifth emperor of the Daioh clan, Gendo Daioh .
Things
were fairly chaotic for hundreds, even thousands of years, until the seventh
emperor of the Daioh dynasty (and possibly the greatest), Koenma, Hajime’s
great-grandson, finally sealed the entrance of the Makai. Many had then
forgotten the existence of the Meikai and its rulers. Things remained peaceful,
until Koenma’s eight hundredth birthday. It is vital to mention the Reikai’s
tradition of crowning the heir to the throne in his eight hundredth year. It is
also important to mention in passing a prophecy of the seer Aoshi that a great
good and a great evil will arise in Koenma’s reign. What happened then can be
ascertained in the next chapter of the Meikai saga.