Chapter 1: Volume I. Chapter I. – The Prologue

"na....una.......YUUNA"

A girl’s voice resonates through the area accompanied by a heavy rainfall. It sounds...familiar.

"Yuuna wake up! Please!"

I'm being held by someone. Her hands feel soft, she sounds desperate.

I slowly open my eyes, the view is blurry yet I'm still able to recognize the person before me.

The dark color of a Purple Pansy covers her short hair and her forehead is drenched in blood that slowly flows down her face, crossing her eyes on the way.

"I...ris..."

That’s all that manages to escape my lips as I'm deprived of strength. A single, word faintly pronounced, the name of someone really close to me. But that single faint word triggered a sudden wave of joy within the named.

"Thank god, you are alive!"

She begins to cry while tightly embracing me with her thin and trembling body.

I use the last of my strength to lift up one of my arms covered in blood and gently place the palm of it on the back of her head to comfort her.

I feel warmth, but it's not just her. As I slowly move my eyes around, I'm presented with a bright burning view.

We are surrounded by ruins in flames indicating that a fierce battle, which I cannot remember, has held place here.

Just what...happened?

Life is an odd thing. A powerful word, a word with a different meaning for each person. For some it may present joy yet for others fear, but even life can be ended with just a snap of a finger. That’s what makes it so precious to us.

People say the weak die and the strong survive, but the terms weak and strong don't describe a person physically only. It’s something most of those people fail to realize and in a world like this such a mistake will ultimately mean the end of life.

This is a story of the weak, a story of the strong, but most importantly a story of one’s life.

My name is Yuuna Hakryuu and this is my story.

***

[March 28th, 863]

"una....Yuuna......."

I wake up from my slumber as I hear a voice calling out to me.

It is a beautiful day with a sky clear as the blue oceans and a gentle spring breeze. I often like to gaze upon it every morning as I lay beneath this freshly bloomed cherry blossom tree, that is giving me a nice and cool shade.

I sit up and yawn

"Finally…..I knew I would find you here."

The voice enters my right ear. I use the sound to navigate to the source with my sight and shortly spot a girl crouching near me. The two golden eyes of hers look vicious with the disappointed face she’s putting on for display.

"Oh...hey..."

I say in a sluggish manner.

“Don’t ‘Oh…hey..’ me! I was trying to wake you up for several minutes! I swear, did you not sleep? You look like you are about to fall apart!”

If I recall correctly, I was making a sketch for a new version of my combat clothes that I wanted to send in. I must have fallen asleep.

The crouching girl that dared to interrupt my peaceful rest is my older sister, Iris. Hair long enough to reach the top of her neck, dyed in dark violet. But despite those dark colors, her eyes shine brightly, just like a ray of light piercing through darkness. Always dependable and kind, but her words have the power to inflict mental scars. Currently at the age of sixteen and at a height of a hundred and seventy-five centimeters.

She’s about to go on a rant when another female voices starts echoing in the near distance. Together we respond to the voice and redirect our gaze. A girl is running towards us while waving.

"You are late."

Iris and I pronounce in unison.

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"Sorry, couldn’t find my lucky handkerchief."

The girl connects her hands for a praying position before Iris, while closing one of her eyes and slightly sticking out her tongue. She then looks at me, her expression goes from playful to a disappointed sort of expression.

“Hey, Yuuna, you were sleeping yourself until now, weren’t you? You eyes are still red.”

I answer as I rub one of my eyes.

“I don’t know what you are talking about.”

This is my other older sister, Charlotte, fifteen-years-old. Possessing black hair, reaching to her hips, accompanied by the two crimson eyes as red as blooming roses - It goes well with her tanned skin. A big rack too, and not just that, she's squishy in all the right places. Known by the people around her for her beauty and laziness that often brings her to sleep, hence the ‘Sleeping Beauty’. She’s currently the tallest, reaching at about a hundred and eighty centimetres.

She oversleeps so often that we usually don't bother waiting for her, but since the academy is starting again, Iris has put in extra effort to get her ready on time.

And yet….she still somehow managed to make us wait.

For just a few seconds, Iris looks at her with a serious expression, then lets out a sigh.

"Whatever... Let's just go. We don't want to be late on the very first day, do we now?"

She says as she gets a hold of my hand and pulls me up to my feet.

In order to reach our academy, we need to cross half of the district. We live on the outskirts of it and our destination in the center.

This is the town of Salvador, the Hogo-sha district to be exact. Hogo-sha is a special district where people called "Knights" live - the guardians of the town. Every single person living here either is or will be one. Your role in life is pretty much decided once you are born into a family living here.

When passing through the streets, many children being trained by their parents or masters can be seen all around, but they have no other option. If a child refuses to become a Knight, it is seen as disrespecting the God that has given us the power protect, taking it for granted.

The children that are against becoming a Knight are sent to an orphanage outside of the district, or in the worst-case scenario, left homeless.

It might seem cruel, but I guess it’s the price we must pay for this power.

Of course, this town has Knights that were born outside of the district and thus do not have any abilities, but that is more of a role that they took upon themselves rather than being forced into being one and since they don’t have any powers, they are the ones to deal with small threats and problems.

So what are the powers we posses? Where did they come from? Once upon a time there was a stone, a stone with unnatural energy stored with it, the God’s stone. Some guy found it, took it, did something with it and boom, we got powers. Sorry, but I wasn’t listening during class, this is all I will tel you.

But what I can tell you is that the power varies from person to person, one could be moving objects simply through mental effort while another could control flames or any form of heat. The power usually surfaces between the age of six and ten, but if that doesn't happen, the child is considered defective and is sent out of the district. There have been cases of the powers surfacing past the age of ten, but it's quite the rarity.

The powers belong solely to the Hogo-sha district, so people aren't abusing them against powerless citizens or becoming a target of jealousy. For this purpose, a variety of security measures have been put in place, one of which is performing a ritual with anyone planning to move out of the district. It seals off their powers and prevents the person from using it in the outside world as they are no longer a citizen of the Hogo-sha district. Or just walls….separating us from the rest of the town.

We can still visit the rest of the town of course.

Suddenly, as we take our way through the alley surrounded by houses made of stone and wood with brown tiles on their roofs, an alarm bell begins to ring.

“Ah, another one.”

Says Charlotte with a carefree attitude as we proceed to calmly march forward.

What the alarm bell signals is a demon appearance. Yeah you heard me, this is what we have our powers for.

We have three types of alarm bells, each one designated for a different level threat. The bigger the threat, the deeper the bell’s sound. The bell we are hearing right now is the lowest level one, most likely a demon no stronger than a nine-year-old. It’s a common occurrence.

We are about to hit a turn when a small black ball reminding goo comes flying from behind the corner, crashing into one of the houses behind us and bouncing it’s way through the street from one structure to another.

A few seconds later, a couple of Knights come from running through the turn while yelling at the object, chasing it. Though despite the commotion, we didn’t bother to stop.

That was the demon alright.

Oh right, I still haven't introduced myself. I'm Yuuna Hakryuu, thirteen-years-old. Hair covered in gold, eyes taking the color of ripe oranges and a hint of suntan. I'm the shortest out of the three of us, about a hundred and sixty-five centimetres tall . I also have a thing for pony-tails.

I look around as we walk and spy the familiar cherry blossoms that are in full bloom whenever school starts. I never get bored of the sight.

But it also signals that we have arrived to our destination. The Hogo-sha Academy.

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