Author'sNote: Leave a comment if you're interested in this story, or leave a comment if you don't like it. Otherwise, I hope you like it! This is just the prologue, so, more to come if you like it!
The world I knew was small. I didn't know much about where I lived, or why I was there, but I knew where I was: the 19th District of West Rukongai, Kasaihu. I had once heard people from the people over on the North Side of town say something about other Districts, but as far as I was aware of or even cared, my small district was the world.
My world was divided into two main parts: the North Side and the South Side. I lived on the South Side, along with my friends from school. Life on the South Side was all I knew, whatever h- the Shinigami people said it was like living there. What did they know? All they did was come once in a blue moon to make sure no one was dead – rather, that not too many people were dead.
I was told that a lot of people died in our district, in more particular, a lot of people died in our side, but, what did I care? To me, my little district, only a fraction of the size of what I came to know as the other districts were. We always had several fights with other villages of sorts on our side, but that was never the main cause of death.
Most of us died fighting the people on the North Side. The two sides of the district are separated by a vast river, spanned by a grand bridge. It's painted gold, with statues of doves on either side to symbolize the supposed peace between the two sides. I heard someone had shot one of the doves off its pedestal. After all, to us there was no meaning to peace.
The goal of everyone on the South Side was to reach the North Side. Life there was supposed to be heaven on earth, a never ending fountain of happiness. And so we fought to get there. We used to have long, bloody battles on top of the bridge trying to advance and capture the North Side. But they always had sharper swords, better archers, and more disciplined soldiers. We were always slaughtered like pigs, and thrown back to the South Side, like wasted carcasses.
Eventually, things got so bad that they stationed some Shinigami on the bridge to quell the fighting. While the North Side army could probably easily demolish the few Shinigami standing guard, we had no chance. They were far better trained than the North Side army, and during our fights we rarely killed over a dozen of them.
We didn't want to die just to kill a few worthless Shinigami, so we plotted another way over the large river. There was a small island, barely enough to fit a small village of a few dozen people, approximately in the middle of the river but much closer to the North Side. We built a small operation center there, and every few nights when we planned an assault on the North Side we would all go on boats to the island. From the island there was a small stretch of land that connected the island to the mainland on the North Side that was shallow enough to wade through, only wide enough to go two-by-two. Many died trying to get to the North Side, being swallowed in by the large currents on either side of the strip that had deposited so much sand there in the first place.
Once we reached the shallow beach water we would hide with nothing but our heads bobbing above the water until all of us had assembled, then all come rushing out of the water and attack. Most of the time we had to slowly shift our forces over on the beach so they couldn't figure out where we were coming from. It often took hours just to get ready to strike.
When we came rushing, we came rushing like a pack of wild buffalo. If there was one thing we learned from our fights, it was that numbers mattered in a fight. No matter how skilled you were, there was a limit to the amount of people you could fight and win. We would use that to our advantage for the first few minutes, until their army found us and overwhelmed us. You were lucky to escape at all, if alive. No one ever made it back to the strip of sand that same night, so we would hide away until the next night where we would slink back to the South Side.
I was remarkably good at hiding. It's why I'm still alive after several of these raids, Mitsuwa says. He's my best friend, a genius in his own way. His father, Mr. Chuichi as I called him, died when he was young so he says you have to get smart or get out. He works wonders with bombs, stealth attacks, swords, anything battle or war related. Even though he's only 15, he directs the raids on the North.
He's also the one who landed me the job as head of the South Side army, as we call it. I guess I am 16, which is the legal age in Kasaihu, but I'd much rather be having fun with a horse or a hawk somewhere. He says I have a natural prowess for fighting, and I suppose I do, but I don't like fighting. I prefer to stay on the tamer side, but he thinks it's a waste for all that skill to go to doing something stupid like riding horses.
Still, I lead the army anyways. It's always a good time, so I really see no reason not to. Actually, I used to see no reason not to. It all happened on a cold night in December, not far from the New Year's festivities. I was leading a raid to the North Side for a few good New Year's laughs, when everything went wrong.