"Onii-chaaaan it's time to get up" Yuuki Mikan shouted from downstairs.
A person on the top floor, more specifically on a bed in his room, opened his eyes and noticed the time on his alarm clock. Being woken up by his sister was Yuuki Rito's everyday life.
It was a school day so his conscience made him get out of bed and head to get changed thinking about yesterday's events.
'And to think everything was normal until yesterday' Rito let out a mental sigh at the reminder of the change in her daily life as she saw her hand and tiny sparks of electricity pass through her fingertips.
Just a day ago Yuuki Rito was just a random 10 year old boy holding his little sister Yuuki Mikan's hand on his way back from shopping for the week. His parents had to work and didn't have enough time to leave the house, so he being the oldest took the responsibility of the few chores his parents ordered him to do.
One of those was to take care of his sister.
Mikan kept walking until his gaze ended on a specific place "Ne Onii-chan, can we detour to the temple? I want to try to climb the tree like you did."
"Mikan you are still too little to try."
Mikan at the refusal put on her depressed face and pouted "Ehhhhhhhh, I'd just like to try."
Normally Rito doesn't consider himself a siscon or that term his father uses when you spoil your sister too much but every time she makes that face his instincts tell him he better give in and in the end he grants her what she wants, but there are few occasions when he comes to his senses and sees the wrong in these decisions. "Mikan even if I wanted to see you try it you would most likely fall" Mikan was about to complain but his brother continued "But I don't see anything wrong with us going for a ride to play there".
At the answer Mikan smiled, he might not get permission to climb but he achieved his main goal.
To spend more time with his Onii-chan.
The pair of brothers turned off the path and found themselves at the gates of the temple where they always played together. Rito found it a long time ago when on his first time shopping for things he just got lost and ended up there. It took several hours for his parents to find him there but he has to say that his time at the temple was fun trying to climb the tree.
Now several times he went there to play and lately he took his sister there too and she liked it.
The temple has a whole big space for the siblings to play various games for hours and hours alone without anyone bothering them and it's not like their parents are waiting for them.
The hours passed for the siblings in the temple and when it was time for them to go home Mikan noticed something strange in one of the corners of the temple "Onii-chan look at that" Rito fixed his gaze where his sister told him and was surprised by what he saw.
A statue covered in bushes and full of moss was what he found. Its figure was a kind of pig form in a human body, the siblings approached with curiosity to look closely at the statue although for Rito the feeling of being close was weird and strangely nostalgic.
"Mikan could you stay here for a while, I'll take a closer look at the statue."
"But, onii-chan it's not fair that it's only you to come closer if I found it."
"Please, Mikan."
At his brother's serious look, Mikan relented and backed up a few steps. Rito was slowly drawn in until at her touch his world and everything around him went black in its entirety.
Rito seeing the world turn black went into despair and exhaustively moved his head around looking for his sister "Where?...Mikan can you hear me, is anyone here, helloaaaaaa!"
Rito was starting to cry when something strange appeared before him, he recognized it instantly. The statue being had taken on a life and flesh of its own and even had a straw hat as it looked at him haughtily. "So you are my successor?"
Rito ignored his comment and began to speak in a desperate manner "What? Where am I? What happened to me? My sister is-"
"Calm down human we are in a mental space so as soon as we finish talking you will return to your body."
That calmed Rito down a little but when he saw again who gave him the answer he realized how it was and jumped back "W-what a-are y-you? and W-why a-why a-am I here?"
"That has an answer but you have to calm down to talk Yuuki Rito."
Rito took not one but several breaths to have to calm down and analyze the situation where he was. He was just playing with his sister like all the times they came to the temple only this time he touched some kind of statue which transmitted something that attracted him and now he is in a 'mental space' as this strange being who happened to know his name was telling him.
"That has answer but you have to calm down to talk Yuuki Rito."
Rito took not one but several breaths to have to calm down and analyze the situation where he was. He was just playing with his sister like all the times they came to the temple only this time he touched some kind of statue which transmitted something that attracted him and now he is in a 'mental space' as this strange being who happened to know his name told him.
This could have happened to anyone in the world, right?
"If you have calmed down I ask you to sit up and pay attention human."
Rito still frightened by the situation slowly complied with the request and sat down in the dark infinity. For Rito it was surreal that there could be floor in what would be the darkness let alone see the being speaking to him.
"I will start by introducing myself, my name is Raiden or as in your place I am called the god of lightning, Raijin." The god now called Raijin sat in a cross-legged position as he spoke "And the reason why you are here is that you are my successor."
Rito never heard of any lightning god named Raijin, maybe because at school they still don't talk about such things about gods and religions but the way he mentioned it seemed like he was proud of his name so he didn't interrupt him but when he said successor he couldn't help it. "Successor? I don't know anything about that so if you are wrong could you send me back to my sister please?"
"I am not wrong human you really are my successor and if not then why did you feel an attraction towards the statue with my figure" Rito at that he could not refute since it was the truth since he saw the statue.
"But what does that have to do with me I don't know anything about being a successor" Rito tried to make the god come to his senses in vain.
"If I don't explain the situation to you, you won't even know what I mean by being my successor" Rito saw that what they were talking about was something important, he calmed down completely with a big breath and paid attention, the god said that when the conversation was over he would return to his sister, so the sooner he spoke to her the better "The simplest thing would be to explain the situation in which you find yourself. Calm down since you are a child I will make the explanation as simple as possible."
Rito saw that in the hands of the god rays came out and these began to form a kind of ball, he was going to ask what that was but the God began speaking "Long time ago there was a planet with a race that dominated the elements and lived in peace without calling the attention of the galaxy." Raijin continued taking a breath "I come from that distant planet, more specifically on the planet Adsul in the Andromeda quadrant but I don't think you understand or remember that."
At that the little Rito who was sitting paying attention nodded, he found the name strange plus he was never told about what a quadrant is but up to this point he understood that the 'god' was actually an alien ,as his father writes and explains in his sleeves, someone who comes from outer space and who is not human.
The 'god' continued with his explanation seeing that the boy paid attention to him again "One day some aliens came to our planet without warning, they razed our world and everything in their path" In the hand of the god the rays separated from the circle and showed weird ships shooting lasers from them "I tried to defend my world but I only failed miserably and my world was subjugated to the invading race" The rays showed a flag sticking out of the ball and on it a kind of strange symbol "Deviluke".
The venomous tone the 'god' used when saying that word was not lost on Rito and he had a shiver pass through his body.
"I was able to escape my planet with my ship along with others before they found and captured us but I swore revenge against the Deviluke race" From the rays a small ship was made different from the others heading in the opposite direction of the planet "My ship was not prepared for long journeys so we stayed on the first planet that might have what we needed like oxygen and also that there was no chaotic or powerful race, and in the end we ended up on your planet, Earth" The beams now showed an image that Rito found a lot in his study books, a large blue sphere with green parts.
"We had only intended to stay a while on your planet to train until we are ready to fight the deviluke but there was something we didn't predict when we arrived." Raijin spread his two hands apart, one to show people standing and in the other people bowing and pleading to the other people "You constantly asked us for help with your problems and since we were understanding we helped you and on occasion interacted with you so much so that you started calling us gods if our universal translator wasn't lying."
Rito up to the point that the god spoke to him wanted him to continue the story. Maybe it is because he is a child and this his curiosity or because the story caused him a little unconscious anger if the clenching of his fists indicated something or a combination of both but what was certain was that he already had an idea of where his story was going and what would be its end.
"We divided our time into helping and training but less and less the latter. Time passed and we did not reach a level where we believed we would have a chance against Deviluke but when the ship we fell into reported Devilukian presences in the system our flames of revenge were fanned and we recklessly went out to attack" The rays at one point turned red as they were blue before, something that Rito did not know if it was because of Raijin's anger or that the story was over but they showed the ship where they escaped heading off planet.
"The result was already dictated, we ended up with a good part of Deviluke's ships along with many soldiers by surprise attack but as soon as the kingdom arrived we were all defeated and massacred" The rays merged to show more clearly than the other images a strange person with black cloak covering his body, with the face in the shape of a devilish stuffed animal and the most characteristic thing that was a pointed tail, the person in question was laughing while the bodies of others including Raijin lying lifeless.
Rito was no longer a little angry, he was furious to see how that person could laugh after stealing their planet and killing them. The boy seeing their behavior calmed down and fixed his eyes on the 'god' to ask. "If all this happened a long time ago then what does all this have to do with me?"
Raijin let out a sad and melancholy sigh, obvious that part of the boy's role on purpose as he didn't know how he would react but he had to tell him. "Before I go on the attack and my thirst for revenge clouds my judgment I placed part of my soul in the earth hoping that someone with a soul almost like mine would be born and could inherit my powers and knowledge to continue what I started." Raijin pointed him right in the chest "That someone was you, my statue only served so that you could assimilate my soul faster than normal and that's why you ended up here."
Rito didn't need to be an adult to understand what Raijin meant. Raijin's story, this mind space, Raijin's thirst for revenge and his uncontrollable anger at the Deviluke race all and each of those things started to fit together but from it many questions were born but he needed to confirm something "Wait if you are dead or your body is dead then that means you are..."
"Yes, I am the soul part that the original Raijin left on earth. Although assimilation should happen in a few moments" Rito was surprised when the hand of the being in front of him began to fade "Oh, look just in time, it seems time is running out."
Rito was in an internal duel, on one hand not much time passed, if in mental space there is time, since he met this 'god' but he feels as if they were almost the same maybe it's because of their almost alike souls that he can feel his pain but he didn't want him to disappear like that. "I can do something, some thing, anything to-"
"Child calm down" Rito noticing the calm tone of the 'god' his panic faded a little "It may not seem like it but in the time you were screaming when you came here I could see your life, your story really. I know my plan was for you to inherit my powers so you could take revenge on the cursed Deviluke race but now that I'm free of my thirst for revenge I see that leaving that to a 10 year old is a tremendous burden that I wouldn't wish on anyone. Anda it doesn't matter if you use my powers to help people or to do evil, I just hope you don't regret the decisions you make."
The body of the 'god' was on its last legs but Rito was unconsciously shedding tears, he could not understand what he lived through because it did not happen to him but he could know his pain for the same souls so when he was about to disappear he swore wiping his tears. "I will become strong to make them pay Deviluke for all the suffering you went through, I swear."
Raijin in his last few words spoke a few words "Thank you..."
The body of the 'god' disappeared in particles of light until there was nothing left as Rito watched from a distance until everything went dark again. Seeing that he too was beginning to fade he knew what he would do from now on. He would become strong so that Raijin's soul could rest in peace and with his abilities and powers he would put an end to Deviluke's reign. He swore and he was going to fulfill it even if he died trying.
Rito opened his eyes and realized that he was touching the moss statue and that it was still in the same position without having moved. 'Was it a dream?' He put out his hand and in an attempt to move away from the statue lightning covered his palm. Rito only saw and confirmed the facts. 'No, it was all real'
"Onii-chan?"
Rito turned to observe Mikan standing a few steps away from him with a worried face. "Oh Mikan I seem to have lost track of time how long has it been since I've been like this?"
"Huh?" Mikan looked a little surprised at that question and changed her worried face to a thoughtful one until she replied "Are you clueless or what onii-chan, you just touched the statue and got lost for a few seconds."
'A few seconds' The mental meeting, the conversations he had with the 'god', his story, his reasons all that was just a few seconds in the real world. It was strange in part but because of it he got something not many 10 year olds get or think about.
A future.
Rito took the groceries with one hand and extended the other to his sister "Mikan I think it's too late now so let's go home".
Mikan took the given hand and said "Yes".
On the way Rito thought about the things he would do from now on. Raijin's powers, he must handle them carefully he still doesn't know how to use them at will like when he took his hand away from the statue and lightning came out but he will do it in due time. Now he needed to learn to fight, in his mind were techniques and skills that the 'god' used in battle so he had to test them and the most important thing was to get in shape.
In a few years he should be able to fight with the same style as Raijin and he should be strong enough to develop his own techniques with lightning. He would leave on the back burner how to get there or even how to find the planet Deviluke but maybe if fate and luck were in his favor he would find something but until then it would only be to become strong.
Mikan watched his onii-chan all the way with a confused face as the onii-chan who was always happy and carefree about life because he was a child now looked like someone determined and with a totally serious face. He was going to ask her about the change but they arrived at their destination.
Yuuki Rito was currently heading to her elementary school after saying goodbye to Mikan and having her breakfast. On the way the only thing on her mind was why she kept going to school if what she wanted to achieve was something that was not related in any way, but remembering last night she didn't complain about this outcome because of the benefits.
As soon as he mentioned the idea to his parents, skipping the part about why he wanted to do it by replacing it with that he wanted to become a mangaka like his father, they reacted not as he thought that he would tell him the consequences of skipping classes but instead told him to wait a few more years or at least until he finished high school so that he could focus completely on being a 'mangaka'.
At least he was told that if he really wanted to be a mangaka after school he could drop by his father's work. And that gave him the advantage that he could stop by the temple and train there, it would save him the excuse of why he often went to the temple alone and since almost no one goes there it would be like a ring to his finger.
Rito cleared his thoughts as he arrived at his school and the only thought he had was his goal.
'Just wait Deviluke his end will come for me.'
