Thank you, guys! :P Two reviews and one alert-request thing, not bad for a prologue. This is a self-reflection chapter, I'm thinking of randomly adding these in the story because they give an in-depth description of a character's thoughts. What do you guys think? Should I? Hopefully, this will solve last chapter's cliffhanger -- well, most of it, anyway. Story's going to progress more in the next chapter, promise!

Innocence

My name was Shiori Akiyama, daughter of the deceased Minoru Akiyama.

My family have been the leaders of the little village known as Hikari. Initially, Hikari was a small part of a bigger village. The townspeople relied on us for the rich agriculture that our little area provided, but since the land we lived in was rural area everyone looked down on us. They started treating our people bad, making them do extra work with lesser pay, forcing everyone to pay high taxes, and bullying our people just because they thought were better off than us – everyone was soon sick of it.

A resistance group that was led by my grandfather was then formed. There was a lot of fighting and bloodshed, but even with lesser people, with our unity and strong fiery ambition we managed to defeat them. Ever since then, we've been a separate village – the relationship between the two villages gone bad to worse.

We named our village Hikari because the god of sky seemed to always smile upon us, through good times and bad, lighting our homes and heart. The weather was always warm throughout the year, and you could smell the nature trying to spread its wings all around you, grasping you with its beauty and simplicity. Many people might not think so, but all the villagers here and I thought it's an amazing place to grow up in and worth fighting its freedom for.

I grew up with no mother, but I had no regrets. I had my grandparents and my very loving father with me. I also had other relatives, and together we lived happily. I grew up in an over-protected and sheltered world given to me by my father. He loved me too much to ever see me get hurt. So I spent most of my life at home, playing with kids in the village, playing pranks on the cranky old man who liked fishing, learning how to cook so I could prove to my dad at how responsible I've become – and that was basically what my world revolved around.

Looking back now, I pity myself. I was wrapped around by a veil of innocence.

Is innocence really a good thing? Most people marvel at innocence because there were only few innocent people in the world – the rest were cunning and malicious, and only did things for their benefit. Innocence only means that you aren't aware of the cold reality that takes place in the world, you live and dream of your perfect world where everyone and everything is made from drops of purity and sincerity. You wake up to its light every morning shining down your face and sleep as the light from outside of your window slowly fades away, having no worry whatsoever. But the truth is far from all that.

Innocence is meant to be crushed by the reality that's bound to happen to you with a pull of the strings by fate. Innocence is not knowing, not being taught, not being logical, and not being strong. If only I was told what was going to happen to me back then. Maybe I hadn't been too shocked to see my clothes tainted red.

I met a person, the one I thought I was destined to be with ever since I laid my eyes at him. At that time, I thought my happy ending was marrying and starting a family with him, and spending the rest of my life devoting to him. It was simple and pure, but it wasn't a path for me to take. I was meant for something else. Happy endings don't always happen, they're just a false fragment created by imagination and innocence.

My grandfather was murdered, my grandmother soon died because of old age, and my dad was assassinated as well. With a blink of an eye, I lost the three people that I most cherished in the entire world. I didn't know what to do. I hid in the corners of my room, begging god to give those people back for days. But it seemed like I wasn't heard.

What was I suppose to do? No one had ever told me how to ever cope with this situation. I felt like a crushed a leaf that had been trampled on over and over again because it was just in the way of where everyone wanted to go. I felt out of place, and backwards. I felt sorry of myself. Hmph, what kind of a selfish person I was, makes me angry thinking of all of this again.

But there was still hope. There was still Itsuki, and I knew he'd know what to do. I couldn't trust anyone else, I didn't want to. All the advisers and everyone in the mansion might have been together in all of this, I couldn't give in to them. So to protect myself, I made Itsuki my pillar and my strength. I made him promise to meet me in the pond that I always went to when I was sorrow, so all my sadness would float away in that small body of water.

As we stood there, together, I finally felt at ease after a very long time. I knew right there that I had to marry him and everything was going to be okay. But of course, that was just a fragment of my imagination. Before I could begin talking about it – we were attacked right then. They were masked men, that imitated the shadows of the night so they could fool the human eye. They sure fooled us. It all happened in a short amount of time that I didn't know how to react.

I again started crying and cringing to Itsuki, confused as to what to do. Wishing he'd swoop right there like a magical being or some kind and make them go away so we can go back to the moment we were in. He did take out his sword and ran towards them, but he had yelled at me to go away.

"Shiori, run! Don't let them catch you. They're after you, not me. I'll try to take them out but I have to make sure you're safe. I can't let them have you! Run, Shiori! Run!!"

His voice echoed in my head as I stared at them, swinging their metal weapons in the air. I was still confused as to what to do. I couldn't go back to the village because they were blocking that entrance where we had come from. I decided I might as well run and look for help in the other side of the bridge. But, I had never been that deep in the forest before.

I ran, nonetheless. I ran as fast as I could and didn't look behind in fright, I desperately searched for a sign of any human presence. I couldn't seem to find anyone who I could scream out to, and I didn't want to just keep on yelling to save me otherwise the shadow men would find me and hurt me, like they hurt my family. I saw this old abandoned log that was hallow and long, I decided to curl up in their for some time and then look for help again. Tears were still trickling down my face, I was exhausted, out of breath – I didn't know when my eyes closed shut and I fell asleep.

My nap didn't last long, though. They found me. They crushed the log and attacked me, laughing heartlessly, and I lay helplessly in the ground spitting blood out of my mouth and clutching my stomach as a group of four-five men kicked me and shoved me. They had gotten Itsuki. What happened to Itsuki, was he okay? Was he alive? Was all that was going through my mind at that time before I fainted and went unconscious. Why did they wake me up from sleep when they were going to knock me out unconscious again, seriously?

I couldn't really properly see where I was when I woke up. They took me someplace else, a place that was unfamiliar to me – it didn't have the same scent of nature like Hikari. My whole body was sore and it hurt to move any of my muscles. I heard a sound of water thrusting itself nearby and I figured that was it. I got up after making sure I could see again. I saw everyone asleep and my hands and mouth being wrapped with tightly tied ropes. It was night again I noticed when I went out, I was unconscious for an entire day.

I didn't what they were going to do to me, I was scared. They hadn't bothered tying my feet together because they'd know I wouldn't make it far with my current condition. I smiled as I noticed the waterfall right outside the little shack, I made my way there slowly in a hopping way. It hurt to walk. this was a cowardly act indeed but at that time – I didn't care. I wanted to be with my father and everyone.

I screamed one last time, gathering my strength, and threw myself at the rushing water. At that time, I had died.