Tyranny of Steel

It did not take long for Yasmin to recover from her illness. Soon enough, she was up and about again, performing her duties as the motherly figure of so many children. While Berengar was hard at work, Itami was wondering about the castle where she came across her younger sister playing with a group of Berengar's younger children. 

By Momo's side were Adela and Henrietta, who were both taking a day off from work to look after the young ones. As many of Berengar's wives and concubines played essential roles in German society, they often rotated on what days they took off during the week to help look after the children. 

Momo appeared to be in her element around the young ones, as she wore a warm smile on her face, and played with them as if she herself were their mother. Something that neither Adela nor Henrietta took offense to. 

As for Itami, she watched from a distance with a bit of an envious expression on her otherwise pretty face. She had no children of her own, and being around Berengar's many kids, especially the younger ones, made her quite nervous. 

However, just when Itami was about to leave the scene behind, she felt a tug at the hem of her dress, and looked down to see a young boy no older than five, who was gazing up at her with a curious expression on his face.

At that moment, Itami became paralyzed as she looked around for someone to assist the child. Yet Adela, Henrietta, and Momo were quite some distance away. Before Itami could call out to them, Bruno spoke to her.

"Mommy, I'm hungry!"

Itami gazed at the child in disbelief, as he looked up at her with a whimpering expression on his face. Did this boy seriously confuse her for one of Berengar's women? At this moment, a bunch of thoughts went through the albino beauty's mind as she debated with herself about what to do in this troublesome situation.

As Itami continued to think about a proper solution, the boy's stomach grumbled, causing her to take sympathy on him. Thus, rather than fetch someone who could properly look after the child, she smiled and bent down to grab the boy's hand.

"Then how about we find you something to eat, shall we?"

Bruno's face lit up into a smile as he grabbed hold of Itami's pale and dainty hand before following her off to the dining hall. Despite Itami's best efforts, she could not find a member of the kitchen staff in sight, and thus decided to make a meal for the boy herself. With a rather gentle tone in her voice, she commanded Bruno to stay seated while she prepared him something to eat.

"Be a good boy, and wait here for a few minutes while I prepare something for you, okay?"

Bruno smiled and nodded his head in silence as Itami fled from the scene and into the kitchen. Where she found that it was larger than she could ever have imagined. This was no mere home kitchen, but a commercial size kitchen, with stations for every possible part of the cooking process. 

Butchering stations, sinks, ovens, stoves, fryers, commercial dishwashers, you name it. Normally, an entire staff of over a dozen people would be here preparing food for the royal family. However, they were currently on their lunch break, and thus nobody was there to assist Itami.

Ultimately, Itami resulted in making tonkotsu ramen with pork broth, and a side of both takoyaki and ebiyaki for the boy, which was a meal she herself very much enjoyed. After some time, she emerged from the kitchen with a bowl in one hand and a platter in the other, which had three octopus dumplings and three shrimp dumplings. She then handed them over to Bruno before rushing back into the kitchen to fetch him some iced tea. 

Bruno looked at the foreign food, which was strange to him for several moments, before looking back at Itami, who continued to smile at him. After a few more seconds of thought, he tried one of the pieces of takoyaki and instantly fell in love with it. He then proceeded to eat the entire meal as his curiosity peaked.  Itami sat down next to Bruno, and ate her own portion of what she had cooked, while complimenting the boy. 

"You keep eating like that, and one day you will grow big and strong like your father!"

Upon seeing that the boy had some sauce on his face, Itami pulled out a napkin and dabbed it off, before getting back to her own food. As Itami and Bruno continued to eat, Henrietta came rushing into the room, shouting out the boy's name.

"Bruno, where are you?"

Bruno looked up and gazed at his other mother and smiled before responding to her. 

"I'm with white hair mommy!"

The term white hair mommy was definitely a new one for Henrietta, who rushed into the dining hall and saw the troublesome child snacking on some food. It was only after seeing that the boy was okay, did Henrietta finally sigh in relief before expressing her deepest fears.

"There you are! Do you have any idea what your mother would have done to me if I lost you?"

Naturally, Henrietta was referring to Linde, who was Bruno's biological mother. It was only now, after seeing the boy safe and sound, did the golden-haired princess realize that Itami was sitting next to the child while fawning over him. Suddenly, Henrietta realized that the boy had mistaken Itami as one of his mothers and was quick to scold him for being so careless.

"Is this white hair mommy? Bruno, you are mistaken. Itami is not one of your mommies!"

After saying this, Henrietta bowed to Itami before asking for forgiveness.

"I'm sorry if little Bruno here caused you any trouble. I will make sure that he doesn't do so again." 

Bruno was naturally confused as he looked between the two women. He was young enough not to fully understand the concept of polygamy. As far as he knew, every woman who was as beautiful as Itami that lived in the palace was one of his mothers.

Thus he could not understand why Henrietta was one of his mothers, and Itami wasn't. Yet he did not voice this thought process, instead he watched with wide eyes as Itami raised from her seat and assured Henrietta that she was fine with looking after the boy.

"I assure you it is no trouble at all, Henrietta, is it not? Bruno here approached me and said he was hungry, so I thought I would find him some food. Especially after considering that you and Adela were so busy with the other children. I actually enjoyed spending time with him. He's a well-behaved kid."

Henrietta looked at Itami differently after hearing this. From her first impression, the Japanese Empress was a cold, and stubborn woman who was overly aggressive and hardly agreeable. She had expected Itami to be unfit for motherhood. Yet the albino beauty had cared for Bruno when nobody else was nearby to do so. It also appeared that the boy enjoyed eating her cooking.

Thus Henrietta had begun to look at Itami in a new light, as she quickly sat down at the table and waited for Bruno to finish her meal. Upon seeing this, Itami looked over at Henrietta with curiosity and made a friendly gesture.

"Are you hungry as well? There's still a bit let over from the batch I made. I'm sure you will enjoy the food if you give it a try."

Henrietta gazed upon the strange-looking food for several moments, hesitant to try something so foreign, but ultimately nodded her head in curiosity after seeing Bruno scarf it down. Before she could give Itami her answer, Bruno held up his bowl with his big, round eyes and pleaded for seconds.

"More, please!"

Itami smiled and rustled the boy's hair before taking his bowl and platter back to the kitchen, where she prepared another serving for Bruno, this one a bit smaller than the first. She also made use of what remained of the food to prepare a serving for Henrietta as well. 

Once she had given the Prince and Princess their food, Itami sat down and examined their reactions. Henrietta, like Bruno, was hesitant to try the Japanese cuisine at first, but after doing so, she too fell in love with the meal. Although she ate with a bit more grace than the young boy sitting next to her.  After tasting the Takoyaki, Henrietta could not help but give her compliments to the chef.

"This is really good. What is it called?" 

Itami smiled upon seeing that her cooking was so well appreciated before listing out the three dishes.

"What you just ate was Takoyaki. It's essentially a fried octopus dumpling, whereas the ones on the right side of the platter are basically the same thing but with shrimp instead of octopus. They are called Ebiyaki. As for the noodles, we call that Tonkotsu."

Henrietta appeared to have memorized the names within her mind, as she clearly enjoyed the meal. After it was over, however, the German princess bade farewell to the Japanese Empress.

"Well, thank you for feeding Bruno, but it's about time I get him back to his siblings." 

Itami smiled and nodded her head in agreement before responding. 

"It was my pleasure."

Just as Henrietta had grabbed hold of Bruno's hand and begun to lead him out of the room, the boy wrenched his grip away and ran towards Itami, where he hugged her tightly. The act shocked the albino beauty and Henrietta alike, as the boy looked up to the Japanese Empress with his round blue eyes and smiled. 

"Thanks, mommy!"

After saying this, he ran off with Henrietta, who had scolded Bruno once more. 

"What did I tell you? Itami is not your mother!"

However, Henrietta's lecture appeared to fall on deaf ears as Bruno smiled and waved to Itami one last time before passing by through the corridor. Itami was left speechless as she sat in silence for several moments before finally responding.

"White hair mommy, huh? I wonder why he thought I was his mother..." 

After dismissing the idea as simple childish ignorance, Itami returned to her room, where she thought about all the things that had happened since she first arrived in Kufstein. By now, the war in her homeland was the least of her worries, instead the Japanese Empress struggled to cope with her rapidly changing worldview that was the result of her time spent living with the Kaiser and his family. 

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