Rikunai: Genesis

Chapter One: Awaken

Tiomoyo? Tiomoyo, you have to wake up!

Tiomoyo Matsui was shaken awake by one of his friends, Guy Akama of the Akama clan. His spiky red hair bobbed up and down as his glasses nearly fell off of his face.

"I'm up, I'm up..." Tiomoyo sat up as he fixed his messy black hair. His eyes opened to reveal his bright green irises filled with life and light. The bus the two friends were on shook as it hit a bump in the road. "Are we there?"

"Pretty much, and I figured you'd rather not have Ms. Tamiko on your ass about sleeping. Did you not sleep last night or something?"

"Maybe like four hours. Gyra was up all night on the video chat talking about his weird conspiracies and stuff. He started rambling about like, I don't know, something about nuclear fallout and a dish sponge. Felt like a fever dream."

The bus ride was about two hours, so thankfully he got a good nap in. Tiomoyo rubbed his eyes as he pulled a notepad out from his satchel and flipped to a page he had marked. They were notes for his history class, and in this unit, they were discussing the history of the city that he called home. He would need it, too. Tiomoyo was a student at The Academy, the largest school in Rikunai and the primary school of Koshizuka, a massive megacity and its surrounding territory on the northern half of Rikunai. Four million people called the city home, accounting for nearly twenty percent of the island's population. The megacity was quite new, with construction starting twenty years before the start of Tiomoyo's story in 2010. Koshizuka was the home of the military faction known as the Order of Elementals, a group of warriors that utilized Reiki Seidou to protect their city from threats. The creation of Koshizuka came about from the need for a center for refugees from the Mokushiroku War.

Mokushiroku... Ah!

Still half asleep, Tiomoyo's eyes shifted back and forth as he viewed the notes he had taken during class. He was a good student, yes, but history was his weakest point. Their recent lesson had delved deeper into the creation of Koshizuka as a result of the war.

Owari... Antachi... The Revival... Good lord, I should not have just copied the textbook. This is barely legible.

Tiomoyo began to read and remind himself of the war.

The war took place in the mid-eighties when a faction of members from the Antachi clan revived the amalgamation of hatred and Reiki known as Mokushiroku in a plot to rule Rikunai, as this faction, the Owari, believed that the Antachi were stronger than the rest. Therefore they thought they were the correct people to lead Rikunai through the tumultuous time known as The Revival.

Revival... Oh, there it is.

Long ago, a couple of centuries after Mokushiroku was originally sealed away, the descendants of Antachi and Akimicha entered into a civil war that ended in the mysterious stripping of every Rikunian's Reiki Seidou. Three hundred years later, in 1979, Rikunians suddenly regained the ability to use Reiki, and chaos ensued as a desperate power struggle morphed into the war.

Tiomoyo's large notepad had a small picture on the next page showing some of the photos taken during the violent period. One showed a swath of burning buildings that extended for many miles, likely a result of a gang of Fire-form users laying waste to the neighborhood. Tiomoyo couldn't remember the details of the photo.

The Order of Elementals was formed from the sole descendants of Akimicha and his children of Akimicha, including Raja Maruko, master of the Fire-form Seidou, Funi Fushima, master of the Water-form Seidou, Masako Nakata, master of the Lightning-form Seidou, all teenagers at the time, along with many others.

Raja...

Tiomoyo smiled as he thought about his mentor and the friendship he had with Funi Fushima.