Fantasia

Arc3: The Heir of Ardneria

Chapter5: The infamous tale of Tsukiname

Eikoku; a vast territory hidden in the shades of the eastern regions of Féena, a large kingdom built in a classic oriental architecture under crimson red sky due to a powerful shadow spell casted upon that region, it was inhabited by the exalted magic hunters known as: the shadow imps.

Fearing the sad offspring of their cursed vicious blood loving nature, the famous landlord of imps "Tsuchigoumu" built and sealed their village where he gathered the shredded clans of his people away from the eyes of the other tribes restricting them from entering any sort of war, putting law and rules restraining their brute nature, keeping them from hurting themselves before hurting others.

And so his followers cherished his doctrines and passed his teachings to their descendants and so they've slowly disappeared from people's memories and with time the shadow imps became nothing but a mere bed time story that mothers tell before their children go to sleep, while their village's location became the uncharted promised land for any adventurer who greedily seeks the discovery of that era.

Several centuries passed since the founding of Eikoku, of course there've been some "mistakes" from shadow imps that let their myth return back to reality, and that era was the time when a regular imp with an interesting fate was born.

She was Tsukiname Shisora the daughter of Kurata Shisora and Umiyame Shisora, a normal shadow imp from a simple family with the tomboyish ambition of achieving the highest rank of fighters in her village and to stand next to their landlord.

Her faith was based on some folktales saying that when an imp is born in the memorial day of founding Eikoku, this means that he or she is fated to a great destiny, and so she was, she was born in the fifth day after the dawn of the tenth moon, and staying loyal to the myth the girl proved at young age that she's a tough sword player and a strong mage.

This built interest around her and thus she was accepted in the trial that leads to being a royal guard, and with a simple effort she gained that title at the age of ten, becoming famous for being the youngest royal guard there's, but her happiness wasn't to be complete because it had been discovered that her three years old brother Inari was a "Megalish" or "Soul devourer" in the native folklore of shadow imps.

-Megalish: Another magical term that refers to those who are born with immense magical reserve, which might surpass what ten fully-fledged mages might have, Megalishes' magic power is usually instable and dangerous for them and their surrounding if not controlled well, despite most of the clans consider them as blessed people, other tribes like shadow imps consider them as harbingers of destruction.

This belief came from the fact that one of the former landlords preceding Tsuchigoumu who was known as lord Amaterasu was a Megalish as well; he was a cold blooded tyrant who had been rumored to have tendency of devouring the souls of those who opposed him, breeding terror in the hearts of his clansmen.

But even after his death, and with the arrival of Tsuchigoumu as a leader to the clan, imps still believe that his soul is lurking in the mortal coil and one day a boy shall be born among them and reincarnate that terrible history.

And that was the birth of a cruel tradition that consists of disfiguring Megalish imps making them improper for the soul of Amaterasu to possess.

As a last note, it should be mentioned that in some cases Megalishes are born with weakened and physically retarded bodies giving them midget like builds as in the case of Luffine and Inari-

This event blown out the candle of the young Tsukiname's hope, but this wasn't what grieved her it was her brother's fate, because beyond the will of her family her baby brother had his left eye taken leaving his pretty innocent face deformed.

Five years passed since that horrible event, Tsuki's father died in an earthquake that hit Eikoku orphaning his family, leaving her in charge to take care of her mother and brother, she worked in hard mining labor ever since then because after losing her job of being a royal guard the only option left for her is to replace her father by working in the mines.

But even though their financial state was sufficient, the woman couldn't help but to feel the sorrow coming from her brother who suffered discrimination due to his appearance, her noble heart couldn't stand his misery, so she stepped on her heart and took him to some witch doctor and asked her to do the forbidden; she asked the sorcerer to use the darkest witchcraft and give Inari the left eye of Tsuki so he can finally see the world like any other imp.

Yet Tsuki didn't realize that with this foolish act she restored her brother from disfiguration, and thus causing the villagers to believe that the cursed boy is really an incarnation of the feared Amaterasu, and so they wanted to deform him again, but this time Tsuki pulled her sword against her own kind swearing that the only way for them to get her brother is past her dead corpse.

Despite his young age, Inari understood the whole story, and his kind heart couldn't let him witness his sister getting hurt especially after she sacrificed her left eye for his sake, so he headed to the landlord and asked for banishment begging him to give Tsuki another chance to fulfill her childhood dream.

And so the landlord agreed on this, and the gates of Eikoku were shut forever against the poor Inari, witnessing sorrow oppress her mother to death Tsuki followed her brother's tracks, but alas…the only thing she could've found was his blood tainted kimono and a small paper that says: "Dear sister…Please stop living with me…and live with your dreams…I'll be okay…Take care of mom for me…Your forever loving brother: Inari"

Yes Inari died, beast ate him, he knew that he's going to die, yet he didn't run back asking for help, instead he wrote his death will and preferred his sister's happiness over his life, it was an act of pure innocence from his side that left a wide gap in Tsuki's heart.

Swallowing this grieving ire, the imp returned home to her empty house, people rumored that she didn't talk for like a year and the only thing that came from her mouth back then was loud cries of sadness in the middle of the dark nights, but with time Tsuki decided to continue her life following her brother's will…

Five years passed since then, Tsuki slowly learned to forget her past and live as the high leader of the royal guards of Eikoku…

After years of watching her walking in the palace, watching her fight, watching her beautiful long hair…a heart of a man moved somewhere in the royal residence.

He was Kabeyama Shinju, a simple worker at the stables with the same age as her, he was nothing of a special, despite his bulky appearance he was a shy man, but after few tries from his side somehow the woman's heart got captured by this modest guy.

They lived the limits of romance together, Kabeyama helped Tsukiname to finally suppress her old self and continue to live on leaving her miserable past behind, and so it was the prelude to their engagement as the man purposed to her.

She didn't find any reason to refuse this offer, and so their engagement was blessed by the princess of the village and their wedding date was decided to take place at the royal palace on the fifth day by the tenth moon's dawn (Tsukiname's birthday and Eikoku's founding memorial) and his early wedding present was a humble necklace of silver decorated with a pale jewel of magite.

Within those three months Tsuki learned the bleak truth about her fiancée who was not a stable worker as he claimed, but he was a spy from Eikoku that the landlord sent to investigate the rumors saying that Arcadia is about to attack Eikoku, this troubled her fearing that this man might push himself to danger.

She begged the landlord to return him, but he refused because Kabeyama was given choice of taking the task or not, and he agreed totally on accepting this mission, she couldn't take the truth and locked herself in her room for two months waiting for her beloved one…but her sorrow wasn't long because the fates smiled to her for the last time as she learned that he's coming soon.

At the dawn of the fifth moon, the bride prepared herself and wore the most charming wedding dress that any shadow imp had ever seen and stood by the palace's gate waiting for her noble knight, she grabbed her necklace tightly with her palm counting every breath that separates her from her lover with blind faith that he'll return.

But suddenly she felt a sting in her palm; she opened it to find that her jewel shattered apart leaving a small line of blood through her fingers.

Then…a powerful light flickered filling the whole village blinding her sight, soon she opened her eye to find that Eikoku the small kingdom that lived for more than a millennium had been annihilated to a barren wasteland…

She couldn't believe it! She looked left and right, but nothing! Absolutely nothing was there! There was not a single sign of life, neither the houses were there, the land was simply wrecked to a large crater of solid dead rock.

She wandered out of her village like a mad woman, aimlessly she followed the wind that blow in a land she's not familiar with, weeks had passed by the lost imp until she arrived at Clavia, where she her weakened body was gnawed by wild dogs, and that's where Juan and the other's found her.

…

"I think that Kabeyama couldn't make it either, and probably Arcadians killed him…" Was Tsuki's comment after telling her story to Juan, who was by her side using a wet towel to cool her head that suffered fever for three days.

"By the way Juan, have you found anything about that shrine?" she asked.

"What? No, nothing, after you fell down I took you and Zolu back home, and since then I'm here with you…" the shepherd answered.

"Don't bother yourself with me! Don't let me stand between you and your dreams!" she scolded him.

"But then I'll end up regretting it like you did" Juan answered her with a sad voice hidden with a smile.

This made Tsuki calm down a bit after realizing what was going inside Juan's head; the naïve man considered himself like her while she represented her brother, when she let her brother leave her life she regretted her decision after his death, and so he didn't want to let his friends go while chasing his whims.

But on the other hand Juan was thinking that being with Tsuki will only bring her sorrow, he's simply a reflection of sad moments in her life, because he lived being discriminated like Inari whom she believed to be reincarnated in Juan, and the jewel he carried in his staff somehow resembles to the gift Kabeyama gave for their marriage which disappeared along with her whole clan, thinking like this only made him uncomfortable with her.

The two gazed at each other's eyes with sorrow, but Juan wanted his friend to be happy so he cleared his head from those negative thoughts and simply clapped his head changing his tone to a happier accent:

"So Tsuki…how about going with me to the summer farewell fest next week as my dance partner?" he asked.

"Summer farewell fest!? What's that?" she asked.

"It's a festival we set when we are a week away from fall, and in the end of the fest each person have to bring with him a dancing partner for the summer dance, I've never gone to such fest because I haven't got a girl before because (he started blushing regretting this offer)…anyway it's a bad idea, please forgive me for asking such stupid thing…"

"Hey you are not hitting on me are you?" Tsuki asked him with anger.

"No, I'd never…" but then he realized that the imp was just joking making him laugh back at her creating a cheerful atmosphere with their laughter echoed to reach his mother downstairs who smiled asking herself:"Why not?".

…

After a day, Juan returned to the library at night to put the books back delaying his research on the temple, but his curiosity pushed him to peek one last time, he sat on the table and started to decipher the rest of the ancient texts he copied, with this act he didn't feel the flow of time slowly his lids got heavier while his mind started to fly away with the calmness of the night until he slept.

The next morning Juan woke up on Roné's voice who was patting on him hardly to wake him up:

"Juan! Dammit man! Wake up!" his brother shouted.

"Huh? What?!" he asked wiping his mouth.

"Come with me! You should come now! This is unforgiveable he said with his fist ignited in flames.

Juan got shocked from seeing his brother like this, somehow this reminded him of Demetri's reaction to Klaive's arrival so he just ran following his brother to see what's going on…

To be continued