Author's Notes
Ok, yeah, I'm back. I know, I know, I'm tired of hearing from me as well considering the fact that I can't seem to get more then two freaking chapters of a story up even though I say that I'm going to. I swear I don't mean to, it's just that I get the story in my head and then I get the first part down and POOF! It's gone! Just like that and I can't finish it, either that or I get bored with it for some reason and I just move on to another story that is really good but I don't write it down. –sigh- I can't promise that this one'll get farther than the first two but I have faith that it will, I've taken measures to make sure that it'll get farther then the others, maybe. Feel free to send me angry messages if I don't keep this promise ( actually, and this is only for this time, I encourage people to send angry messages and reviews. Maybe that'll get me to finish it, but only this once, and please wait at least 2 weeks, THEN send the messages) Okay, enough of my blabbering, here's the story oh and some of the "measures" that I've taken are that I went and looked up some things for the story, make it more interesting so if you see anything that is familiar and makes you think "Hey! I've seen that somewhere else!" like some of the names, that's all part of the "looking up things" part, so here's a disclaimer: I do not own any of the things in this story that may seem familiar to any of you anime watchers out there including names, techniques, moves, words, etc. Okay, now that that's done. Here it is.
**Character thoughts, dreams, and flashbacks
Chapter One: Legend
Screams in background, people running this way and that, buildings blazing, armies of creatures rampage through the small town of Sine.
"Mommy?! Daddy?! What's happening, why are the buildings on fire?"
"There's no time for questions sweetheart, just keep running and don't let go of me or daddy"
"But why? And what are those creatures doing to our homes and our friends?"
Crash! A house collapses and reveals a group of the creatures that spy the three helpless humans running for their life, they begin to chase them.
"Daddy! Wait! What are you doing?! Mommy! We have to go back and get daddy!"
"Layle, take our daughter and keep running, try to find a safe place to hide! I'll stay back and try to hold them off for a little bit!"
Crash! Another house collapses, blocking their way. They are surrounded by the creatures now, the creatures pause for a moment. Then they attack, viciously and without mercy, the mother and father try desperately to protect their daughter.
"Erin! Watch out! You evil creatures will never get to our daughter, I swear it on my and my beloved Erin's lives!"
The mother and father fall, dead, to the ground and the creatures begin to advance on the girl. Boom! A bright white light engulfs the creatures , the man and woman, and the girl.
"Mommy! Daddy! NO!!!"
Blackout.............
"NOOOO!" Serenity bolts upright, snapping violently out of the dream, screaming at the top of her lungs but soon stops and slumps over panting. "-huff huff- No, not that dream again, why must all my nightmares be that ONE dream? It was twelve years ago, but it still seems so vivid." She mutters to herself trailing off. "-sigh- Whatever, it's nearly daybreak anyway so I should be getting a move on already. Lithe! Sirus! Where are you two?" after she says this two shapes descend from the overhead tree, one lands gracefully on her out-stretched wrist and the other on her shoulder. "Good morning Lithe, how are you today?" The Peregrine falcon on her wrist snaps its beak and gives a small squawk in response. "Well that's good to hear, how about you Sirus, my friend?" The Eagle hawk on her shoulder gives a similar response. "Ah! Very good! So what do you say we get going for today? If we don't start now we'll never make it in time for the dusk and you know as well as I the dangers that lurk in the shadows after the sun has set." Both birds take flight from her and fly high into the sky to spot ahead for possible early morning dangers. "I don't know what I'd do without those two. Actually, I do know what would happen, I'd be dead." She gave a short laugh and smiled as she proceeded on into the underbrush that was the western side of the Diqui valley.
The Legend of Shinma
In the days of old, before The Great Divide, the days long since forgotten by the present world of man, the world was a single land called, Shinma ,by its inhabitants. In this time there was a group of beings known as The Council, they watched over this land and its people and creatures keeping peace and balance. It was composed of the Seven Guardians and the High Council. The Seven Guardians were Ankoku, Guardian of Darkness and elder brother of the twins of light Hikari and Akari. Tsuchi, Guardian of Earth and Plants and stepbrother to Hyou, the Guardian of Ice. Seika, Guardian of Fire who was wedded to Mizu, the Guardian of Water and fathered Tsuchi. Sora, Guardian of Air and Wind, he was the lover of Mizu and fathered her second child, Hyou. The High Council was of two brothers, Arrancar, leader of the Seven Guardians and elder brother of Lord Sesshomaru. He was the keeper of the Eien Suishou, the Eternity Crystal, which was the source of balance and harmony for Shinma. With the crystal he was able to do things that were beyond imagining. Sesshomaru was the commander of The Council's army which helped protect the people and creatures who lived in Shinma against the evil that would invade the land from time to time, for without both good and evil, a world would become unbalanced and die.
It was in this time, the time of The Council, that Shinma was at the peak of its glory and everything was as it should be. However this did not last as the event called The Great Divide in many myths and folklore, shattered its unified existence. Shinma was divided into seven areas a time after his younger brother Sesshomaru, who had always been jealous of his older brother's power, had finally devised a means of taking it for himself and had imprisoned Arrancar within the Eien Suishou. But to keep his brother trapped inside the crystal, it had to be broken apart into several different pieces. After discovering had taken place, the Seven Guardians each took one of the pieces and fled to different parts of Shinma in order to keep the pieces from being destroyed by Sesshomaru which he had planned to do to permanently erase his brother's existence. Unfortunately, before they had a chance to find a safe spot to reassemble the broken pieces of the Eien Suishou, Sesshomaru tracked down and killed Ankoku taking his shard of the crystal. In doing this, he destroyed the plans of the Guardians to put the Eien Suishou back together and free Arrancar. Instead of destroying the shard, which he had at first planned to do, he decided to keep it since he knew that even if all of the remaining Guardians worked together, they would be no match for him. Much to their dismay, the Guardians also knew this to be true and that the only one who could ever hope to defeat Sesshomaru was his older brother, Arrancar who was trapped in the crystal fragments. The Guardians held one final meeting in the name of The Council and decided that the best thing to do, even though they all opposed this plan most vehemently, was to take each of their pieces and go to far away corners of Shinma and wait, what for, they did not know, but they waited.
Eventually the Guardians faded into the lands in which they hid, causing The Great Divide. On that day the ground shook and split open revealing the very center of the planet for what seemed like an eternity and then, with such colossal force as to crush the very foundations of life, the broken pieces of earth rammed back into each other sending up enormous mountains that seemed to reach for the sky, clawing at it like angry black demons trying to escape the fiery pits of Hell itself. When all had cleared and the earth had ceased to writhe and scream, Shinma had been divided into seven parts by the mountains. Each part, a symbol of the Guardian that remained hidden there sleeping and protecting the shard they had taken with them except for Ankoku. The place where Tsuchi lay came to be known as Diqui Valley and it was here that the humans and creatures best suited to live here were. To the north, where Hyou slept became Bing Glacier, to the south of Diqui was Huo Crater, where Seika was, to the west was the Shui Sea, place of Mizu and to the east was Guang Plains where the twins had fled to. Sora had come to lay in a place but, in order to provide more protection to the other Guardians, had moved and come to lay in a wide strip of land surrounding the other's places and creating a barrier between them and the Hei An Shadowlands which Sesshomaru had created with the crystal shard he had taken from Ankoku since it had taken on the qualities the darkness. Along with Sesshomaru's new power he took half the planet as his own turning it into a deserted and dark wasteland and Sora's place became the Kaze Void.
Many, many, many years have past since that time, it has been forgotten by man but not by beast or by the Wizards. Those born with powers granted by the Guardians in dreams, they could manipulate whatever element the Guardian could that had given them this gift. They were the ones who protected the humans from the more terrible creatures of Sesshomaru's demonic armies. Their leader was the Great Wizard, Jonin, who was the last known wizard of light and in being this; he was the most powerful of all his kind. One day while meditating in his sanctuary, he had a vision in which he prophesized the coming of the Shingami and the Bakai. The Shingami, born a human but imbued with the powers of the Seven Guardians was destined to reunite the crystal shards and free Arrancar, and the Bakai, also born a human, The Seeker, was destined to have the task of finding the shards and then bringing them to the Shingami. Together they would reunite them into the Eien Suishou thus freeing Arrancar, who would end the evil Lord Sesshomaru's reign of terror and restore peace and balance to the broken and lost Shinma. Since he knew that he could not go and find the Bakai and tell them of this quest, he sent his daughter Saya to find them, who in turn sent her two most trusted companions to find, protect, and guide the Bakai. Of course when Lord Sesshomaru heard of this prophecy, he became both outraged and afraid. Outraged at the thought that anyone would ever dare to think that anyone and a mere human at that could take the shard he had away from him. But afraid that what Jonin had said might come to pass, after all, Jonin's title as the most powerful wizard was not self-titled but a known fact. So he sent his highest-ranking fighters, the Five Sannin, to kidnap Jonin and bring him back to the shadowlands where he killed him with his sword, Shikai, which was the twin of Arrancar's sword, Bankai. When he learned that Jonin had a daughter he sent them after her as well in an attempt to show the Wizards that he would not be defeated and that he was all powerful and could do anything he desired.
Okay! Man that was long! Sorry about the part where you think that the story's starting but then it goes to a big long rambling thing about things that seem to have little to do with what was going on and just short of cut in all of a sudden. I know that you're probably thinking, "What the heck is she doing?!?" Well I really don't know what I was doing but I did know that I had to give you the background of this place called Shinma sooner or later and I thought that sooner would save some time later when I start talking about stuff from Shinma's past and you people are thinking, "What the heck is she talking about?!" So yeah, sorry, it won't happen again and you'll find out where she's going in the next chapter. So please R&R, thanks! :D