TheTragediesofMagic(Part Two)

Segment Three-Memories

The golden sunshine always awakened Kioko. She had risen up early at dawn each day, just to see the sun slowly rise. In her tight training kimono, she walked over to the pouring water fountain and sat down, clutching the end of her wooden sword.

In a few hours, her teishi (apprentices) would come to her to train.

The maiden sat up from her sitting spot as she looked upon the sky. It was a light and refreshing blue color, and where the sun was, it shone brightly. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes as she breathed with the soft wind.

“Father…” She thought. “Mother…” The memories of their deaths would never vanish from her mind. Yet, there was another, apart from Masaki, on her mind. “Tetsu…” her heart gave a painfully beat. “Where are you?” she opened her eyes and looked at the uprising sun, squinting. “Are you alive?” she hated that question, but it had been two years since he had ever returned to Mahou Kyuutai.

She still remembered that heart-stabbing day. He had told her, “Kioko, I’ve decided to go to the east.”

Her heart had nearly stopped. He, apart from Masaki, was the only loved one she had left, ever since her parents had died in a fire. They were found in the Forest of Mahou, burned along with the leaves and animals.

Ever since that heart-ripping day, her life had shut down. It was as if the sunshine was blocked from her life, and suddenly everything was lost.

Her aunt and uncle took over the castle, but she knew everything they planned to do. She hated them for it. She had overheard them a week after her life fell apart.

“We finally have this place to ourselves.” Her uncle was saying to his wife and a general.

“ But what about those two brats?” Her aunt crackled. At the time, Kioko could barely recognize her aunt’s voice, which was always sweetening and warm.

“The girl will soon to be married,” The general crackled back.

“And the boy?” her aunt asked, her voice hoarse and scratchy as dry ice.

“He goes where ever his dearly sister goes.” Her uncle gave a sickening smile. “After they leave, we can take control of this land and turn it over to Lord Shikiru.”

So that was their plan, they were working for the great Lord of Tenma. Although at that time Kioko did not know whom this ‘Lord’ was, she understood their plan wasn’t a good thing and told her brother. Reluctant to believe her, Masaki quickly understood what had happened.

“Let’s leave this place.” He had told her.

“No.” She couldn’t, and she wouldn’t.

“I will come back for you,” Tetsu had told her. “Someday. Please wait for me.” She had decided to wait for him, until the end.

Now, it had been about two years, and she still waited for him each day. But the eighteen-year old lost hope on her birthday last year.

“I’ll come back for you by your birthday.” Tetsu had sworn, but slowly, as her birthday passed, he didn’t come back. She cried that day, wondering what had happened to him.

For everyday she stood, a little bit of her began to dawdle and she lost hope. Still, she stayed, feeling his presence still deep in her heart.

The day after he had left, she found a present from him on her bed. A small bracelet with clear black and white jewels; there were Chinese characters on each of the beautiful beads. She wore it everyday, and never let it go.

Kioko rubbed her hands over the beads. In a few days, she would turn nineteen, by that time; she had vowed to Masaki that she would leave Mahou Kyuutai with him.

Masaki and Tetsu had been best friends; they had gone fishing together and often helped each other out. They also competed in their martial arts, even thought Tetsu always won.

Yes, they all had great times together, and Kioko knew how bad Masaki also felt when Tetsu never came back.

The sun was now fully pasted in the sky, and some of the villager teishi began to arrive at the palace’s front yard.

“Good morning, Teishu Akaike.” A girl greeted, giggling.

“You know what I prefer to be called, Yaeko.” Kioko greeted to her best friend. Yaeko Kido was her childhood best friend ever since her martial arts training. After they graduated from Swordsmanship School, Yaeko and Kioko immediately began their Teishu-Teishi careers.

Although Yaeko did not have Kioko’s magical chi powers of Tenka or her high skills of a Kenkaku, meaning ‘Swordsman’, she didn’t seem to mind. They always told their secrets, and shared everything they treasured with each other.

Her hair was the color of blissful sunshine, long and blonde, running all the way to her hips.

“Hidenka Akaike!” There was another shout and the two girls turned.

They saw a blurry figure running towards them. Slowly, out of the brightness, appeared Sei.

She seemed pretty happy and appeared as confident as ever. “Hidenka Akaike!” She stopped to catch her breath, bending over with her hands on her knees. When she finally looked up, she smiled. “I just wanted to thank you for letting us stay.”

“ You’re welcome.” Kioko replied pleasantly, although she did not think it was such a big deal and thought the girl was just plain weird.

“How can I repay you?” Sei looked grateful and tried to look her best.

Kioko laughed and scratched her neck uncomfortably. She did not understand these outsiders and thought of a response. “First of all,” she laughed again. “Stop calling me ‘Hidenka’. I refer to be called ‘Kioko’.”

“Okay, my name is Sei Ichiro. “ Sei hoped she didn’t sound too stupid. “What are you all doing here this early?”

“Training.” Kioko answered. Then she stepped back a little to introduce Yaeko. “And this is my childhood friend, Yaeko Kido.”

The two shook hands. “I must ask you now, what are you doing up so early?” Yaeko asked in turn. “It is strange to see an outsider to wake so early, our normal visitors always awake very late.”

“Oh,” Sei blushed. “I was just hoping to learn something from you guys today. I got too excited and couldn’t sleep once I awoke this morning.”

“I see.” Kioko said coldly all of a sudden.

“So, she and her friends are another group of people those two invited just to befriend me…” Kioko thought angrily. Then beneath her angry frown came a smile. “Let’s play today then…”

“Listen Sei,” Kioko began to speak sweetly again. “ I’m really sorry, but I can’t teach you.” She saw Yaeko give her a confused face.

“Oh.” Sei felt embarrassed and uncomfortable. She had hoped so much to learn even a little speck of healing from Kioko, but since Kioko had just said she couldn’t, it seemed as if she wouldn’t. “Why?” She asked again, curiosity overflowing.

Ignoring her question, Kioko dragged Yaeko away from Sei. “We have to get ready for class, so see ya!”

Sei felt her face grow hot from the sun as she turned to the shade. She didn’t understand. After she had asked Kioko to teach her something, Kioko had turned stone cold. “What did I do?” she wondered aloud quietly.

“What did you do?” came a voice behind her. Sei turned around and saw Hideki.

“Hideki!” Sei exclaimed happily, turning her mood-point completely. ‘How was your night?” she asked.

“It was great, nice to see you woke up finally.”

“Hey!” Sei defended. “Isn’t this already early enough?”

“Yes, yes, yes…” Hideki smiled. “So, what did you do?”

“ Nothing, I was just wondering what made Kioko angry all of a sudden when we talked.”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. She seemed pretty quiet this morning when she was talking to me. It was as if she was in a trance.”

“She’s always like that.” Another voice came behind them. It was Masaki Akaike.

“ Mikoto Akai…” Sei stopped to reconsider that.

After she heard Masaki talk, she seemed a bit afraid of him, as if he was a gangster. “Good morning, Masaki?” She tried.

He smiled sweetly. It was the first time Sei had seen him so closely. He did indeed look handsome, with his dark brown hair spread wildly in different directions and the ruff, spiky front.

He looked up into the sky, then to the students in their clean, white uniforms for training. “My sister may be cold and mean in the outside, but there is a lot of love and friendliness. She just doesn’t show it.”

“But why?” Sei asked. “I don’t want to sound nosy, but why won’t she?”

Masaki took a deep breath. “I can’t tell.”

And that was that. There was an awkward silence between the three and finally, Masaki left the two.

“Do you think I took her attitude too personally?” Sei asked Hideki.

“I dunno,” he replied. “If Masaki said she acted like this all the time, then its probably normal.”

---

Kioko pulled her friend under a nearby tree to talk.

“Kioko, what the—“

“Shush!” Kioko urged, then turned quiet. “I think they are the ones.”

Yaeko’s eyes widened. “But they seem so nice…” Yaeko was from another part of the World of Ekage. She could be easily spotted, since she dressed in a way no one has ever seen in the Ekage Dimension.

Kioko sighed. “Yeah, they do. But I have to consider every possibility those two dumbasses could think of.”

The sun was blazing above their heads.

Yaeko knew her friend was talking about her evil relatives.

“But what if you’re wrong?”

“Perhaps I am wrong, but I felt that girl trying to pry into my mind the day I healed the little girl you found at the village.”

“So those two other warriors were the people you think he hired?”

“Yes.” Kioko replied.

“Well,” Yaeko had a mysterious tone as she joked with her best friend. “Your uncle still has good taste with the guys…”

Kioko didn’t know if she could take that as a good thing or a bad one, she didn’t ask if it was one either. But she did admit that the two boys did look quite handsome.