The main city of Gozen, Akatura, really smelled “peace”, “love for others” and “desire to let other persons get in”. It was nothing but a large city trapped between immense walls covered in spikes, with bloodthirsty archers who lived to see blood flows, guards with enough sight to see a fly from miles away, paranoid law-applying agents who used their sword more than anything and a constant sense of dread.
People did not live in there, because time was perpetually frozen, after centuries of learning how to hate and fear someone else, the persons inside saw all the law abuse as natural, all the poor merchants having their head blown off by the arrows of archers as a defensive reflexes and the walls has “necessary”, to live in Akatura, one needed to accept that horror was everywhere and that the enemies can and will kill on sight, and that victory was near since the enemies of Gozen burned down everything in their countries.
It was a natural reflex to mock the enemies of the king after all, and depicting people from Amena and Daishiru as apes was the favourite tactic of the various papers, taking a jab at Daishonin was also good, what’s with their paranoid fear for something, and nobody bated an eye when they learned of the destruction of the country.
In fact, few really cared about such a fact. For them, everything that wasn’t in Gozen was second news at best, apart from the war, and people in there, poor and rich, were equal in their sentiment of indifference toward anything that did not belong to their country, these petty people claimed themselves to be patriots but it was merely ignorance and cowardice, people only cared about the position of the enemy armies, to see if it was a good time to flee the hell out or something.
Only the elites knew that there was other continents, and they were all hiding in a massive, intimidating tall structure at the north of the city, much bigger than the Ootsutsuki castle, much more defended and more than capable of handling invasions, with the king lounging on his throne without troubles, forever hidden behind the stone walls.
Said king, however, was actually sitting on his throne and glaring at an unfortunate general, who could only hope to bow down and carefully says “We’re sorry”, “it was a mistake”, “we did not take into account their…” as the monarch unleashed his wrath on everything and everyone. Darjobu Damonaro was the proud descendant of a generation of larger-than-life kings or queens, the desire to be remembered in history was strong in this person.
He wanted to be know at the end who will end the war, unlike all the powerful monarchs who came before him with the same idea in mind, and nothing could enrage him more than learning that his army was pushed back or something, and currently, he thought that his soldiers were busy ransacking the capital of Daishiru, Namara, an hopeful thought which was shattered when he learned that they were merely near the capital, and that attacking it would do nothing but destroy the Gozen army and allows for Daishiru to take back lost territory.
And meanwhile, Amena’s own army was hiding in the mountains not far behind the capital, waiting for a chance to strike.
“If the amy isn’t brought back quickly, sir, they may invade us.”
“The giant wall, built by my dear and powerful and holy ancestor Anaru the 9th, will take care of them ! Only a fool would think that they pose a threat, are you a fool, mister Inero ?”
“No sir.”
“Fine, then use catapults to pepper them, throws corpses at them or make comments about the size and weight of their mothers, I don’t care ! I want to be seen as the king who got close to the capital of Daishiru, dammit !”
“Plenty of kings nearly did that, mister.”
Being the monarch in the war was a dangerous task, assassins were nearly doing the queue to have a chance at killing the king and were sometime only failing because an hidden assassin prevented another from doing her or his job, king Jeofard 7th of Amena was stabbed in the mouth by a ninja during his crowning speech, for an example.
Therefore, many kings succeeded each other and generally had one occasion to have a go at the war for a moment until sickness, ninjas or coup d’états took care of them. Darjobu himself was going to be taken down in four days by the general he was currently yelling at but he had no idea of it, like the general who will eventually succeed him and make the same mistake.
“Plenty of kings got CLOSE, as you said, you wise-ass. But I’M GOING TO GET ESPECIALLY CLOSE TO THAT RAT-FACED KING, AND I’M GOING TO POUND ON HIS FACE SO BAD THAT HIS PORTAITS WILL GAIN THE SCARS.”
He leaned back.
“SUGAR.”
A servant appeared, holding a plate with a single, tiny cube of sugar, which the king promptly eaten to calm down before turning to look at the general, a sneer slowly forming on his face. The king was tiny, fat and had oversized white side-burns but his smile was perhaps the most unsettling thing the seasoned general saw, it exposed both the yellow teeth of the monarch and his evil ideals. Sometime, the way someone smile before an order is a good way to know that you’re going to be sent to pierce the Nadasa front.
“I have a mission for you. Don’t worry, our dear enemies already made most of the task for us.”
“Announce, my king. All for the glory of Gozen.”
He lets out a sigh inside his head however, he was satisfied at the thought of sitting on the comfy-looking throne of the king but looks like the fat man had plans for him, it didn’t matter anyways, plenty of others generals were waiting for an occasion to take the King’s place, he’ll just have to hope that said general will give him a better position.
“The Ootsutsuki clan is no more. Scattered, gone in the wind, burned. You get the idea, the war has moved on to a greater length, general. We cannot afford to go back and lick our wounds, the final battle is near and we must use every opportunity to crush their cities to the ground.”
He made yet another sneaky sighs, as a general, he was much more aware of the nature of the war, and saw the words of the king as an attempt to impress him, it failed but he nonetheless nodded in an attempt to prove that he was listening, and raised an eyebrow when he saw that the King’s facial expression was now much more maniacal.
“If the rumor are true, one Ootsutsuki survived, specifically, the one called Kaguya. Enter the fallen country of Daishonin and search for her, I don’t care about the ways you do it. Kill, murder, slaughter, interrogate the birds, smell the ground, use attacks dogs, do anything to get closer to her and bring her to the Shinju tree safely, our outposts near the roots are mostly safe and you should be able to climb it.”
“Sir, if you want the fruit, I’m sure that simply bringing your majesty to the holy Tree is a quicker way for the both of us.”
“Haven’t you heard ? Several layers of a strange matter protect the fruit, and legend says that only the Ootsutsuki can break the layer and access the fruit. Once she breaks the layers, take the fruit and bring it to the castle to allows for me to eat it.”
A popular rumour surrounding the Ootsutsuki was that the tree was made for them, and that their ancestor planted it there so that their descendants could acquire a vast power and dominate the human race later on, it was a foolish legend but commonly used by governments recently, to justify the Daishonin rampage.
“Sir, it is a sin to eat the holy fruit !”
“And it’s a sin to respond with a “no” to anything your king says ! Go, find the last Ootsutsuki before she get gutted by a random general and bring her to the Shinju ! Ultimate power is the only thing I need to end this awful war !”
The general got up and thumped on his chest, restraining himself from simply making a few steps and repeatedly punching the smug king to the face, and then proceeded to leave, preparing to head to a devastated country filled to the brim with enemies to find a random girl and climb the tallest structure on the planet for the sake of a king who will be stabbed to death on his bed some days later.
But first, he needed to think of the damn princess, the mission promised to be heard and whining wasn’t going to help him.
--
Kaguya slowly opened her large baggy eyes, revealing that they were actually bloodshot. She groaned in discomfort and tried to sleep again, only to be interrupted when a voice spoke to her. The person who spoke to her was close enough to provoke social discomfort but his voice seemed distant.
“Princess Kaguya ? Are you awake ?
She opened her eyes again and saw that her belov- wait, Tenshiro was walking behind her. She lifted an eyebrow until she noticed that Tenpo was carrying her, apparently, even after her two days worth of sleep, exhaustion was still too strong for her to handle, although the princess insisted on being dropped to walk. She could saw that they were currently in a forest, with Mikazuchi leading.
She searched for Mina for a moment and then froze : the blood, the horrible screams, the cries, all of this came back to her and she nearly fell on the ground, although she was gently lifted by Tenpo, she couldn’t help but stares at him, her grey eyes focused on his own sad stare.
“Why ? Why was she killed so suddenly with her family ? She, her family and the village has done nothing wrong ! Why would somebody do this ?!”
“Calm down, princess.”
Mikazuchi’s voice somehow calmed her down, although she still looked down on the ground. She kept moping for a while, discouraged, disgusted, saddened and aware of the burden she currently was.
“Sometime, people murders for no good reason, princess. Everyone isn’t born evil nor good but we must accept that monsters exist and that merely closing our eyes and asking questions won’t make them vanish. It is our duty to protect you, princess, and we’ll never let these men or women harm you.”
Mikazuchi said that without looking at her, even if Kaguya stopped her moping to look at her bodyguard’s back, Tenpo anticipated her question.
“I have no family to return to, princess.”
“There is no home for me to join back. You are the only thing I and Tenpo live for, princess.”
“And you, Tenshiro ?”
The younger bodyguard blushed.
“Well, I came to this continent to have a job, since my family live in one of those islands where the former king fled, so I’m staying here because, hum... well, once this is all over, I gotta get my pay, right ?”
“Right.”
She let out a hopeful sigh. No one could attack her with her bodyguards, she was still torn up about Mina but she had no choice but to look forward and somehow hope that once, she’ll be able to finally solve this and move on !
And then, she got pounced on by a shadow.
People did not live in there, because time was perpetually frozen, after centuries of learning how to hate and fear someone else, the persons inside saw all the law abuse as natural, all the poor merchants having their head blown off by the arrows of archers as a defensive reflexes and the walls has “necessary”, to live in Akatura, one needed to accept that horror was everywhere and that the enemies can and will kill on sight, and that victory was near since the enemies of Gozen burned down everything in their countries.
It was a natural reflex to mock the enemies of the king after all, and depicting people from Amena and Daishiru as apes was the favourite tactic of the various papers, taking a jab at Daishonin was also good, what’s with their paranoid fear for something, and nobody bated an eye when they learned of the destruction of the country.
In fact, few really cared about such a fact. For them, everything that wasn’t in Gozen was second news at best, apart from the war, and people in there, poor and rich, were equal in their sentiment of indifference toward anything that did not belong to their country, these petty people claimed themselves to be patriots but it was merely ignorance and cowardice, people only cared about the position of the enemy armies, to see if it was a good time to flee the hell out or something.
Only the elites knew that there was other continents, and they were all hiding in a massive, intimidating tall structure at the north of the city, much bigger than the Ootsutsuki castle, much more defended and more than capable of handling invasions, with the king lounging on his throne without troubles, forever hidden behind the stone walls.
Said king, however, was actually sitting on his throne and glaring at an unfortunate general, who could only hope to bow down and carefully says “We’re sorry”, “it was a mistake”, “we did not take into account their…” as the monarch unleashed his wrath on everything and everyone. Darjobu Damonaro was the proud descendant of a generation of larger-than-life kings or queens, the desire to be remembered in history was strong in this person.
He wanted to be know at the end who will end the war, unlike all the powerful monarchs who came before him with the same idea in mind, and nothing could enrage him more than learning that his army was pushed back or something, and currently, he thought that his soldiers were busy ransacking the capital of Daishiru, Namara, an hopeful thought which was shattered when he learned that they were merely near the capital, and that attacking it would do nothing but destroy the Gozen army and allows for Daishiru to take back lost territory.
And meanwhile, Amena’s own army was hiding in the mountains not far behind the capital, waiting for a chance to strike.
“If the amy isn’t brought back quickly, sir, they may invade us.”
“The giant wall, built by my dear and powerful and holy ancestor Anaru the 9th, will take care of them ! Only a fool would think that they pose a threat, are you a fool, mister Inero ?”
“No sir.”
“Fine, then use catapults to pepper them, throws corpses at them or make comments about the size and weight of their mothers, I don’t care ! I want to be seen as the king who got close to the capital of Daishiru, dammit !”
“Plenty of kings nearly did that, mister.”
Being the monarch in the war was a dangerous task, assassins were nearly doing the queue to have a chance at killing the king and were sometime only failing because an hidden assassin prevented another from doing her or his job, king Jeofard 7th of Amena was stabbed in the mouth by a ninja during his crowning speech, for an example.
Therefore, many kings succeeded each other and generally had one occasion to have a go at the war for a moment until sickness, ninjas or coup d’états took care of them. Darjobu himself was going to be taken down in four days by the general he was currently yelling at but he had no idea of it, like the general who will eventually succeed him and make the same mistake.
“Plenty of kings got CLOSE, as you said, you wise-ass. But I’M GOING TO GET ESPECIALLY CLOSE TO THAT RAT-FACED KING, AND I’M GOING TO POUND ON HIS FACE SO BAD THAT HIS PORTAITS WILL GAIN THE SCARS.”
He leaned back.
“SUGAR.”
A servant appeared, holding a plate with a single, tiny cube of sugar, which the king promptly eaten to calm down before turning to look at the general, a sneer slowly forming on his face. The king was tiny, fat and had oversized white side-burns but his smile was perhaps the most unsettling thing the seasoned general saw, it exposed both the yellow teeth of the monarch and his evil ideals. Sometime, the way someone smile before an order is a good way to know that you’re going to be sent to pierce the Nadasa front.
“I have a mission for you. Don’t worry, our dear enemies already made most of the task for us.”
“Announce, my king. All for the glory of Gozen.”
He lets out a sigh inside his head however, he was satisfied at the thought of sitting on the comfy-looking throne of the king but looks like the fat man had plans for him, it didn’t matter anyways, plenty of others generals were waiting for an occasion to take the King’s place, he’ll just have to hope that said general will give him a better position.
“The Ootsutsuki clan is no more. Scattered, gone in the wind, burned. You get the idea, the war has moved on to a greater length, general. We cannot afford to go back and lick our wounds, the final battle is near and we must use every opportunity to crush their cities to the ground.”
He made yet another sneaky sighs, as a general, he was much more aware of the nature of the war, and saw the words of the king as an attempt to impress him, it failed but he nonetheless nodded in an attempt to prove that he was listening, and raised an eyebrow when he saw that the King’s facial expression was now much more maniacal.
“If the rumor are true, one Ootsutsuki survived, specifically, the one called Kaguya. Enter the fallen country of Daishonin and search for her, I don’t care about the ways you do it. Kill, murder, slaughter, interrogate the birds, smell the ground, use attacks dogs, do anything to get closer to her and bring her to the Shinju tree safely, our outposts near the roots are mostly safe and you should be able to climb it.”
“Sir, if you want the fruit, I’m sure that simply bringing your majesty to the holy Tree is a quicker way for the both of us.”
“Haven’t you heard ? Several layers of a strange matter protect the fruit, and legend says that only the Ootsutsuki can break the layer and access the fruit. Once she breaks the layers, take the fruit and bring it to the castle to allows for me to eat it.”
A popular rumour surrounding the Ootsutsuki was that the tree was made for them, and that their ancestor planted it there so that their descendants could acquire a vast power and dominate the human race later on, it was a foolish legend but commonly used by governments recently, to justify the Daishonin rampage.
“Sir, it is a sin to eat the holy fruit !”
“And it’s a sin to respond with a “no” to anything your king says ! Go, find the last Ootsutsuki before she get gutted by a random general and bring her to the Shinju ! Ultimate power is the only thing I need to end this awful war !”
The general got up and thumped on his chest, restraining himself from simply making a few steps and repeatedly punching the smug king to the face, and then proceeded to leave, preparing to head to a devastated country filled to the brim with enemies to find a random girl and climb the tallest structure on the planet for the sake of a king who will be stabbed to death on his bed some days later.
But first, he needed to think of the damn princess, the mission promised to be heard and whining wasn’t going to help him.
--
Kaguya slowly opened her large baggy eyes, revealing that they were actually bloodshot. She groaned in discomfort and tried to sleep again, only to be interrupted when a voice spoke to her. The person who spoke to her was close enough to provoke social discomfort but his voice seemed distant.
“Princess Kaguya ? Are you awake ?
She opened her eyes again and saw that her belov- wait, Tenshiro was walking behind her. She lifted an eyebrow until she noticed that Tenpo was carrying her, apparently, even after her two days worth of sleep, exhaustion was still too strong for her to handle, although the princess insisted on being dropped to walk. She could saw that they were currently in a forest, with Mikazuchi leading.
She searched for Mina for a moment and then froze : the blood, the horrible screams, the cries, all of this came back to her and she nearly fell on the ground, although she was gently lifted by Tenpo, she couldn’t help but stares at him, her grey eyes focused on his own sad stare.
“Why ? Why was she killed so suddenly with her family ? She, her family and the village has done nothing wrong ! Why would somebody do this ?!”
“Calm down, princess.”
Mikazuchi’s voice somehow calmed her down, although she still looked down on the ground. She kept moping for a while, discouraged, disgusted, saddened and aware of the burden she currently was.
“Sometime, people murders for no good reason, princess. Everyone isn’t born evil nor good but we must accept that monsters exist and that merely closing our eyes and asking questions won’t make them vanish. It is our duty to protect you, princess, and we’ll never let these men or women harm you.”
Mikazuchi said that without looking at her, even if Kaguya stopped her moping to look at her bodyguard’s back, Tenpo anticipated her question.
“I have no family to return to, princess.”
“There is no home for me to join back. You are the only thing I and Tenpo live for, princess.”
“And you, Tenshiro ?”
The younger bodyguard blushed.
“Well, I came to this continent to have a job, since my family live in one of those islands where the former king fled, so I’m staying here because, hum... well, once this is all over, I gotta get my pay, right ?”
“Right.”
She let out a hopeful sigh. No one could attack her with her bodyguards, she was still torn up about Mina but she had no choice but to look forward and somehow hope that once, she’ll be able to finally solve this and move on !
And then, she got pounced on by a shadow.
