Disclaimer: I don't own Akuma no Riddle. All OCs are of my creation, as well as the outlinings of this alternate universe.
WARNINGS: MILD violence and more-or-less incest. REFERENCES to slavery and various forms of abuse (this, more or less a given in every AnR universe. Hopefully nothing worse than the main series).
Preliminary notes: For the sake of the plot, the ages and backgrounds of just about every AnR character were altered or outright dismissed to fit them into their given roles. For the same reason, many things here will be out of character to a degree that some characters may or may not seem to be the original's total opposite. There are five main characters, and each story will be largely independant from the others', outside of some reference that will probably be easy to understand either way.
That said, I'm currently in the middle of exams time, so updates might be slow at first.
Beneath the Mightiest Phoenix they gather, the Four of greatest power, loyalty unshattered. Today, tomorrow and forever they stand together, for blood is thicker than love, and pain only strenghtens those of the Greatest Four.
Come and let me relate, sit and hear, why the House of the Phoenix rules over thee.
Prologue: About the Vampire Race
They say that everything is stronger by union. This might very well be the reason why our people has lived for so long, standing together against all storms that Fate has decreed we must face.
The ties amongst our people's enemies were weak, they scattered, and you can see the results of that in their population: those who aren't dead, are standing with our people as if they were of our kin.
We are all stronger by union. But it wasn't always like that (and maybe it is better that way, as it makes our history more glorious than if we had been always like we are now. There is a certain beauty in struggle).
It took thousands of years for our people to develop to what it is now, and maybe our current glory can be attributed to our enemies as much as we can thank the four dynasties that have ruled the Empire since the unification. Our people standing together as one is, after all, a basic reaction of cause and effect triggered by our enemies' needless violence against our ancestors.
Because, we weren't always a militarized society, you know?
You doubt my words, I can see it, but I don't blame you. After all, we vampires are the race that needs blood to survive, carry ten kinds of poison since birth to beyond death and whose eyes can show the very pits of Hell.
But let me tell you about how we came to be, why the Empire is more glorious than any human nation, why we all bow to the Mightiest Phoenix regardless of our parentage.
Let me tell you the story of five children of the Imperial House. Worry not, for these five cousins played a big part in the final leap our people took to be what it is now. Each and every one of their stories carry a meaning greater than their own selves, a meaning no one could see until all was said and done.
Before you can understand their stories, though, maybe you need to be reminded of the glory of our people before the fourth dynasty began.
The vampire race, the first to appear in this world, was once divided in hundreds of nomad families, which slowly started settling together and forming clans. Believe it or not, the race as a whole was actually quite peaceful those days, something that seems obvious if you think about it. After all, there was no one to fight for the dominance that came to rest so naturally on them.
Then the lycans happened.
As with each of the three races that matter the most for this story, no one really knows how or when they really appeared, but they were a fairly unremarkable race and the vampires minded them just as much as they minded your everyday animal. But then the lycans killed a vampire clan to take over their territory in lands that today belong to the human territory of Nepal, which motivated the rest of them to unite under the wise Li clan to avenge the fallen and prevent future attacks.
This started the vampire race's fame and thirst for violence.
The first war ended in the Pact of Himalaya, with the defeated lycans being cornered in a land the vampires had yet to populate, both promising not to attack the other and stay in their respective land, and the lands that caused the dispute were returned to the last survivor of the dead clan. After the war, Li Zhu, head of his clan, was given control of all the vampire lands by the clan heads themselves, and the vampires thus formed an empire, with Zhu the Sage as the first ruler of the first dynasty.
A consequence of the war that would become very important for the vampires was the hierarchy, expressed in the House system. Many marriage alliances between powerful clans ensued because of the war, mainly result of clan heads uniting to strenghten their military prowess, but as clans were awfully proud there was no way one would submit itself to the other, especially if both were outsanding in the war and equally important to the new Emperor. Thus, the Houses were born: nucleus of two powerful clans at first, with others joining in following times, all of them bound together by blood, marriage and power. Beneath the clans belonging to Houses stood the common clans, those who weren't part of a house. Each clan had its own lot of families, all of which stood lower than common clans, with those of houses being more important than those who weren't, and the families that did not belong to any clan standing the lowest of them all. And so, the Council of Houses was created to assist the Emperor, and the Clan Council to enact the Emperor's orders.
This system would exist for many millenia to come, still strong without foreseeable ending, one of the most important bases of our society.
When the humans (race of less consequence than the lycans, and probably descended from them) started growing in number, they were given lands by Emperor Octavius III of the second dynasty under condition that they would leave the vampires alone and dispose of any lycan declared enemy of the empire they came across, which started the first purge and led to the Second Vampire-Lycan war.
From then on, the frontiers were moved back and forth, with the elegant vampires slowly losing ground to the naturally violent race. Their population dwindled until they started training each and every vampire to be a warrior since young age; with a better preparation and a militarized society, they gained strength and took back everything they'd lost.
If you think about it, it is entirely possible that the first war was won only because of the lycans' youth. We almost lost the second, after all, and paid dearly for a victory that came at the prize of the second dynasty.
The Fourth Vampire-Lycan war, otherwise called the First Apocalypse, saw the end of the third dynasty, replaced after two months of near anarchy (and difficult times in the war front) by one of the few Houses that held such title since the first war, and whose head had been a close advisor of Emperor Erik IV within the Council of Houses as well as one of his closest friends since their early years. This dynasty forced the empire into recovery, and by sheer brutality won the war in everything but name ten years into the coronation of Empress Tsubaki, the first of the dynasty.
Tsubaki, who had already been old even for a vampire by the time she took the throne, died in 1105 before the war could be properly over, although the lycans were practically defeated already and were making last desperate attempts at keeping firm ground, stubbornly refusing to surrender. She was replaced by her only son, Takahiro of the Bloody Skies, who took a week to mourn his mother before commanding the armies against the last military settlement of the lycans, thus winning the war once and for all.
Of the lycans that couldn't hide in human lands, the adults were killed and children kept to raise as slaves loyal to the vampires, as had been customary since the second war.
Immediately after returning from the final battle, Emperor Takahiro led a purge to get rid of the accommodated, understanding this as all those vampires who felt too high and mighty to dirty their hands working. Most of those were of noble Houses, many of which had members that led armies under the third dynasty's reign (how was that possible, given that some never even were in the front lines, was everyone's guess). The people who actually worked (mainly rightful warriors) and the children were spared. Additionally, he gave some of his most trusted comrades's Houses the very deserved status of nobility.
At the same time this brutal vampire began the purge, he ordered an investigation of all servants of the imperial palace, only to avoid such a thing as the betrayal that killed the third dynasty happening again. And good thing he did that, too, as there were traitors amongst them, some working really close to the family. One of them the woman who would have been his son's maid – he felt special pleasure in killing her slowly, painfully, when her true loyalties were uncovered. From then on, only the most faithful servants would be allowed near children of the Imperial House.
Crown Prince Takehiko, son of Takahiro of the Bloody Skies, was later killed by a rogue lycan shortly after his fifty-fifth birthday. This led to Emperor Takahiro personally leading another purge against the free lycans, killing several dozens in two days as revenge for his only heir's death.
Takahiro was succeeded by his second child, Karami, who was born well after her brother's death. She dedicated her reign to completely calm things down, both within the Empire and regarding their relations to humans, using ruthless methods that would cause her to be remembered after her death as the Unrelenting.
Karami had twin daughters, Karami and Makoto. While the youngest would never have a relationship worth mentioning, the eldest married Daisuke of Inukai (also a son of the Imperial House) and had two children with him: Hitsugi, second in line to the throne of the vampires, and Tokaku, the third heiress; however, Crown Princess Karami's death at Tokaku's birth moved the succession line forward without need of a new Emperor.
Just beginning the 18th century, some free lycans formed a rebel group with the ambition of eliminating the vampires and freeing their enslaved kin, which was not by far the first attempt but the only one that interests us, both because their role in this story (and thus our history) and their status as the last group that resisted the vampires.
It was only a cruel twist of Fate what made Crown Princess Hitsugi of Azuma meet one of the lycans loyal to that movement and fall head over heels in love.