Chapter One
Many years ago, there were two solar souls who were made of stardust and minerals, born together from one fallen star. They got along well with each other, until one of them was corrupted with the sin of jealousy and revenge. This particular soul was Darkness, and the other one was called Light. Light was constantly showered with love, unlike his counterpart, who was hated and scorned by the people on the planet of Ko. The latter tried to kill the people, but was stopped and killed by accident by Light.
Everyone rejoiced, thinking that Darkness had disappeared for eternity. But alas, they were horribly wrong. They did not know that Light could not exist without Darkness. If Light was still alive, then Darkness would be alive too. It was only lying in wait in the shadows, absorbing energy from the Solar System and gaining power.
Later on, these two souls were each reborn into a human body on Earth. Solar souls could only exist for a thousand years before being reduced back to minerals and stardust, and the only way they could continue to exist was by living inside a human body for a minimum of fifty years. If they survived this period of time, they would continue to live in the universe. If they did not, they would disappear forever, never to see the light again. Such was the never-ending cycle of the solar souls in this particular universe.
By the time the two souls were reborn on Ko, the planet had developed into a beautiful, advanced civilization. The people lived in peace and lived in happiness, not knowing that sooner or later, Darkness and Light would engage in battle.
It started when a bright blue star fell from the dark night sky. It crashed into a dumpsite, and remained unnoticed under the piles of rubbish. After a period of time, it evolved and formed two spheres, a dark one and a light one. These two treasures proceeded to split into sixteen spheres of light, and shot off to different parts of the country, Arium. They waited for years for the trigger to activate the destined events of the future, and finally the time came.
It was when the Dark King and the Light King met.
***
Eighteen-year old Lavi walked out of a classroom half full with silent students, their heads buried under piles of books and worksheets. It was nothing new. In First Literature and History School, where all the talent was gathered and amassed and nurtured, studying was a common occurrence. It was a school tradition, in fact. Some even said that if you didn't possess a pair of glasses in FLHS, you were considered a retard.
Lavi had been one of those lucky people born with brains and brawn. He could solve difficult mathematical problems and recite his literary texts with no problem. By passing the International exams a year ago, he had been invited to join the prestigious academy and the band of scholars in their never-ending quest for knowledge. Of course, he accepted it without any hesitation. After all, writing literature essays and solving math was his strong points.
Now, this scholar was heading over to the school just a fence away from FLHS. It was the Shin- Kurodan school, where intimidating long grasses flourished and attractive yet poisonous wild flowers grew. Students who could not pass their International exams were sent to this school, and were taught skills such as cooking, pottery and mechanics. They were thought to be the least-academically inclined batch of people, who, unlike the scholars next door, did not possess as brilliant a mind. Thus, whoever sent to Shin-Kurodan was basically labeled as an idiot. And clever Lavi was now climbing the brick wall over to this school of supposed idiots. This was because a Seminar on Literary Texts was being held there, and Lavi wanted to attend it. Since the gate of the school was quite a distance away from FLHS, he decided to climb over the crumbling brick wall to save time.
He hopped over the wall and made his way through the thick mini forest, trying to find the seminar room. No one seemed to be in the school at the moment. After all, it was already quite late in the evening, and it was Friday. No one, even the scholars, would want to stay back so late on a Friday. After giving up on looking for any possible navigation signboard, he decided to climb up the stairs beside the cafeteria and try his luck.
The halls were eerily quiet, so quiet that you could hear a pin drop. The classrooms were all locked, and so were the storerooms. Lavi clutched his literature book tucked under his arm even more tightly as he continued his seemingly-futile search for the right room. "Did I come on the wrong day?" he mumbled softly, grimacing at the badly-vandalized lockers. Curse words had been carved onto the rusty metal, and kiddy scribbles were all over the place in correction fluid. Such an uncivilized place, thought Lavi as his ears perked up suddenly, picking up a clackety-clack sound at the end of the hallway. Looking far ahead, he spotted a classroom with the door half open. It was not locked.
"Ah, that must be it!" the relieved teenager let out a sigh, and advanced towards the door. As he slid it open with a quick motion of the arm, he saw a single student sitting in the middle of the classroom, his head slumped on the table. Ice-cold orbs flickered and turned to taunt Lavi as he nearly choked on his tongue in disbelief and shock.
Black liquid was oozing out from the corner of the lone student's mouth, forming a small pool near the edge of the desk his head was lying on. As the liquid overflowed and spilled onto the floor, the black droplets crystallised and became small black beads which bounced on the floor with the same clackety-clack sound Lavi had heard before. Upon seeing the stranger, the boy sat up slowly and wiped the black liquid off the corners of his mouth. He stood up and gave Lavi a menacing look.
"What are you here for?" he demanded, sounding quite irritated.
"Uh, um, I was looking for the - um, seminar room," said Lavi, trying to piece the words together, "well, I'd better be going, I'm going to be late if I don't hurry - "
"You're not going anywhere," smirked the boy, eyes flaring, "you're gonna die here. You disrupted my ritual, and you are going to pay." With that, the boy's eyes turned black and the beads on the floor rose up into the air. They morphed into black daggers with extremely sharp tips, scaring Lavi out of his wits.
"Wait, don't get murderous here, this is a school!" the poor scholar croaked, turning to escape through the classroom door. Before he even managed to take a step, the door slammed shut, blocking off his only escape route.
"What the? - "
The other boy smiled sadistically. "Would you like to be speared like a fish, a squid or a barbecued shellfish?" he asked, folding his arms.
"It doesn't matter, they're all speared!" Lavi cried, clinging onto his book. His heart rate was at its maximum. He could feel his blood pumping vigorously around his body, and sweat forming on his forehead. Shrinking into a corner, he pressed himself onto the wall and shut his eyes, praying that what he had just seen and heard and experience was all but a dream.
"Die, you stupid rabbit!" yelled the long-haired boy, who seemed to be taking pleasure in watching the cowering Lavi. With a point of his finger, the daggers shot towards Lavi, aiming for his acupoints -
Just as the daggers were about to hit him, Lavi saw a flash of white light, and felt himself being carried by something, or someone. Within seconds, Lavi found himself being whisked through the walls of the school building, across the six classrooms on the second floor of Shin-Kurodan, and finally, out into the evening sky. Everything happened so fast, it was as if it was a video on fast-forward. And then, realizing that he was not on solid ground but in the air, Lavi let out a yell, and began to struggle.
SLAP!
Lavi felt a tingling pain in his left cheek and heard a sound which resembled the sound produced by housewives who slapped their cheating husbands in drama shows. Did he just get slapped? That he didn't know, and did not really want to know. He was freaked out enough already. Soon, the boy found himself being lowered onto a rooftop of a house which was a safe distance away from his school. Thankfully, he wiped the sweat off his forehead and let out a sigh of relief.
Little did he know that this was just the beginning of trouble. A bright white light appeared out of nowhere next to him, and when it faded, there was nothing but a teenage girl with shoulder length hair smiling at him. Clad in a light pink dress and red rings around her ankles, she settled down comfortably and looked Lavi straight in the eye.
"You shouldn't have struggled you know, you elbowed my chin."
Lavi gulped. Was this a supernatural being? He had read about them in history books and novels, but this was something real. He pinched himself and winced in pain, earning a laugh from the girl.
"I'm real," she told him, stretching her arms out, "see? Didn't I save you just now?"
"...you saved me!? Oh yeah! There was this freaky guy who had black paint oozing out of his mouth - he tried to attack me with some magician's toys - "
Before Lavi could go on any further, he stopped, noticing the grim look which had replaced the smile on the girl's face.
"That was not your average boy," she said solemnly, "He wanted to kill you."
Lavi's eyes widened in shock when he heard the girl's words. Kill?
"It was a good thing I was in the neighborhood, or you would be killed and the whole game would be over," continued the girl, "anyway, I'm Lenalee Lee, and I'm one of your "chess pieces" - I'm your 'Queen'."
Game? Queen? "Chess Pieces?" Lavi was utterly confused. He looked at Lenalee stupidly, trying to piece her words together to form any possible connection to his daily life. Chess? Nope, he didn't play that game. Queen? Nope, he did not have any girlfriend. He scratched his head, unsure of what was going on. Lenalee sighed.
"You really don't know what is going on, do you?" she asked, pulling out a map of Arium and started studying it.
"..."
"I'll tell you what. You buy me dinner, and I'll tell you everything you need to know. Deal or no deal, it's a deal." With that, Lenalee jumped off the rooftop, waved to Lavi and ran down the street.
"Meet me at Route's Diner!" she said, grinning. Lavi hurled his book in her direction.
"O - oi, what's the meaning of this! Come back here, I can't get down! OI!"
"I recently arrived in Arium," said Lenalee, sipping her lime juice, "my older brother is a white mage. We received news that the aura of the Dark King was sensed in Arium, so my brother and I decided to move here."
Lavi raised an eyebrow. "Uh, you left your home country to kill a person?" It had been thirty minutes since the duo had placed their orders at Route's Diner, but there was no sign of the dishes anywhere. He was already quite hungry himself, and ordering two cups of latte did not help matters at all. He slumped back on his chair and crossed his arms.
"Geez, their service is terrible. Why did you want to come here anyway?"
"Their food is good. It is worth the wait. You should have ordered their seafood pasta. It's got really delicious cheese sprinkled on top!"
"Alright, girl, chill. It's just pasta. Now tell me, what were you blabbering about earlier on?"
Lenalee reached out for the salt and pepper shakers beside her. "Listen carefully now, I'm not gonna repeat things for you," she said, raising the salt shaker up. Through the transparent glass, Lavi could see nothing but pure white salt and a few rice grains.
"Uhh, Sodium Chloride?"
"Right, and wrong," replied Lenalee, "Light and Darkness have been reborn as humans. And you, unfortunately, are the Light King."
Lavi twirled his spoon. "How would you know that?"
"My brother's a white mage, remember? He gets reports from the members of the White Mage International Council. Those peeps from that organization are responsible for sensing any black mages and white mages ... anyway! If you had not met that boy, the world would still be at peace. But the moment you met him, you triggered the wheel of time to move on. Now, you have to fight him and his chess pieces, whether you like it or not!" Lenalee picked up the pepper shaker, which was filled with crushed black pepper, and started hitting them against each other.
"Cut that out already! That's seriously childish," Lavi said, swatting the shakers with his spoon, "it's not as if I wanted to meet that guy. I was looking for the seminar room in Shin-Kuroban, and I happened to see him - "
"Anyway, I was born as a "chess piece" on the Light side, as the "Queen". Each side has sixteen "chess pieces", and every piece excluding the "pawns" have something called a symbol stone." The girl reached for her necklace and pulled out a blood red stone. She placed it gently on the table as Lavi picked it up and examined it closely.
"This one is mine. Every "chess piece" is born with it. We can sense auras of darkness and light with this. If we lose it or are killed by the other side, we will lose our power to protect you. It's kinda like a chess game - pieces are eliminated by the opposite side. And we have to protect you; if you're killed, Darkness will take over from there, and Light will disappear forever."
"Seriously?!"
"Hey, I don't joke around, unlike you," said Lenalee, clasping her hands in delight as the dishes of food were finally served, "and here's my chocolate pudding!"
"That's your dinner?" Lavi questioned, staring at the sweet dessert. Ignoring him, Lenalee dug her spoon into the pudding.
"Anyway, for your safety, my brother has insisted that I go to your school to study," she said as she swallowed it happily, savoring the bitter-sweet chocolate taste of the pudding, "the school of nerds."
Lavi's jaw dropped.
[Somewhere in the city:]
"Hey, Tyki, do you see them?"
A girl dressed in a black gothic dress and platform heels waved a lollipop in the air as if it were a magic wand. She smirked at the young man beside her, who was busy tying up his tangled curls. Both of them were sitting on the top of the city district's highest building, the Crystale. The wind blew hard at their faces and hair but they didn't seem to care.
"I saw them," came the reply, "they're eating right now. We don't want to disturb them, do we?"
"Tyki, I thought we were supposed to kill them."
"We are, but we have to pick up our dear leader from work," replied Tyki. He dug his hands into his pockets and pulled out his cellphone. The time was 9.30pm.
"How long do we have to wait?" whined Rhode, the girl with the lollipop, "we're gonna catch a cold!"
Tyki gave a wry smile. "If you don't want to wait, Rhode, then go home and do your homework."
"No way!"
"Then stop complaining. Anyway, It's time. We're leaving." A deep purple stone glowed as the man faded into the darkness. Rhode grinned.
"At least I won't be late for Papa's sponge cake now," she thought aloud, and jumped off the sixty-two storey building in glee. As she fell, her body slowly turned into ashes, and by the time she reached the forty-sixth story, her body was replaced with fluttering black specks.
Somewhere in that same city, another eighteen-year old boy had just finished packing some chocolate boxes into the storehouse of a Chocolate shop, and was getting ready to leave his workplace when the bell attached to the door handle of the shop tinkled merrily. He frowned as he identified the customer.
"Sorry, we're closed."
"Don't be so harsh towards your customer, Yu - u -u !" came Rhode's sing-song voice. It irritated the boy to no end.
"What did I tell you? Don't follow me. Let me go home in peace!" he said, walking past the counter and stepping out into the streets. He had barely taken two steps down the pavement when he saw yet another familiar figure.
"Kanda, we're here to escort you home," said Tyki, bowing politely. Kanda gritted his teeth in absolute annoyance.
"Get lost! Go away! I don't want to see you!" He said, brisk-walking past Tyki, who seemed quite amused by this reaction. It was as if Tyki was a housefly, a pest which he could not wait to get rid of.
"Come on, don't be so touchy," said Rhode, catching up with her Uncle and Kanda, "Papa just messaged me to say that he baked some really nice sponge cake. It's got peaches and strawberries. Come along with us and we can eat it together!"
"No. Now go away."
Tyki sighed. "Boy, do you have anything more to say than 'go away'? It sounds really bad to the ears - "
Kanda stopped, and turned around. "If you don't like it, then go away. I have another job to do."
Rhode stuck out her tongue. "You should accompany your 'Queen' tonight for supper. Or should I say, Princess?"
"God, can you two just stop disturbing me? I'm just trying to make ends meet!"
"You can make ends meet for all you want, but you are not allowed to go to a pub to work," Tyki said, "it's going to ruin you inside out."
"In what way?" asked Kanda, plugging his CD player earphones into his ears.
Rhode stared at those black earphones. "Gawd, you seriously are a pauper. Nobody uses CD players anymore! Do you know what an MP4 is? Flyplayer? Wireless Media Streamer? Say, do people still sell AAA batteries? I thought rechargables were the worst of the lot..."
"Now what the hell are you talking about, Rhode? Our poor boy here doesn't have enough money to buy a computer, let alone an MP4 at the very least," said Tyki, waving his finger in the air.
Che. Stupid people who had the money to enjoy such gadgets! Kanda rolled his eyes, and pulled out a granola bar from his bag. Tyki stared at the pathetic lump of oats and dried cherries.
"A granola bar," he said, "is not fit for growing boys."
Ignoring him, Kanda proceeded to take a bite of the bar. He chewed it slowly, looking at his feet. "I saw the light today."
"The light?"
"Simply put, that guy is a pathetic piece of crap," continued the boy, "nothing more than a bookworm living in an elite academy. It was too bad I couldn't kill him. Some stupid woman ruined my chance…"
"That must be one of the Light "chess pieces"," said Rhode thoughtfully, "how delightful. Shall we look for them tomorrow?"
"He's my prey, and you're not going to touch him," snapped Kanda.
Tyki smiled. "You're a King, for goodness sake. A King is supposed to rule behind the scenes. Is that not what the pawns are for? To protect our leader." He snatched the half-eaten granola bar out of Kanda's hand.
"I will take this," he said in a superior tone, "and Rhode will pay a visit to our dear friends tomorrow. Let the little princess play with her soon-to-be new-found friends. You just sit back, conserve your energy and study for your upcoming exams. You failed your mid-years, is that not correct?"
Kanda felt his face flush in embarrassment. "It – it is none of your business. Do whatever you like; I'm not going to care anymore." He stomped down the street and turned left.
Rhode grinned, and turned to Tyki. "So, tell Papa that I'll be home late. I'm gonna have some fun." Licking her lips, she slowly sank into the pavement as if it were a pool of water, and disappeared under the concrete.