How Do You Change The World? One Village at a Time. [Plot Thread. Locked.]

This wasn't how he wanted to do this, originally. Oh, the plan was the same: but the timing was wrong, and the emotions fueling him at the moment where wrong. He'd wanted to do this at high noon, not during the off hours when everyone was in the market. The more people in the admin areas, the better. But this would have to work out, it would have to do. He couldn't put it off anymore, not knowing what he did now. Or rather, having heard it from the source, directly. He could put his emotions aside after reading something, but having it directly told to him by someone that he cared for as much as he did his daughter; knowing what he did about what had happened to her over her lifetime without them because of the stupid corrupt bullshit systems of this country... there was no forgiveness; not anymore. Never again. No more. No more playing that he could be above or beyond the system that stained all of them in the blood of innocents that they claimed to protect.

All he could hear was the sound of the wind in his ears, the distance chirping and squawking of birds, the gentle din of people milling about their afternoon, and a specific chant in his mind. It was his mantra. It was the focus that kept his mind clear, an almost meditative chant that allowed him to work without allowing his burning rage and anger to overcome his rationality and turn him into the very monster that he strove to fight against.


Nobody can save me now
The king is crowned
It's do or die
Nobody can save me now
The only sound
Is the battle cry
Nobody can save me now
It's do or die...


Do or die...

They made their choice. They chose their path.

It's do or die...

No turning back.

He would bring light back to this wretched land. He would save them from their spiral into decadence and darkness. Their holy land was anything but, now; and every single one of them was responsible for allowing the fall. A people cannot continue the righteous path if they turn a blind eye to the shadows; a people cannot save the world if they believe themselves to be better and above the rest. They had lost their way; and their golden glory was now a bitter darkness warping the hearts and minds of everything the touched. The worst part was, they only touched themselves, now; they had pulled away and removed themselves from the world so hard that some believed that the legends and stories of the great floating kingdom where just that, rumors and myths and stories and fables.

No more.

He we make them return to the world; force them to look inward and see the festering corruption in their hearts; bring about a path to salvation and a cleansing of the wounds. He would be the instrument of change.

He would stand together in the light and lead the people home. With Ai and Kaia by his side, he would heal the ancient wounds and bring back the Golden Age of the past.

Amagakure would be a Golden Utopia once more; or it will fall into the depths of depravity and darkness. There was no other choice.

His mind was focused on the past, the stories of the glory and might of his people; long lost and nearly forgotten by the faceless masses. They held on to the notion of their own glory, but had no concept of what that glory was. They were 'great', but had no greatness. There was no substance to their claims, now; it was empty words and empty hearts. Vessels ripe for corruption and darkness, no longer the holy bastion of shining light they where.

His mind turned to recent events as he moved closer to the point where it would all happen. To the stupid meetings that held no reason, the annoying treatment of the officers by the people in charge, the refusal to allow for travel to the mainland or for the mainlanders to come to them. Isolationist tendencies. The slap in the face of being treated like a rank greenhorn for no reason whatsoever.

Better times, the rare moments alone with his love in their hidden sanctuary; the joy on her face when he showed her the place that should have been their home for months to come while they worked and planned and made sure everything was right. The moment that they realized that they could do this together, that they would do it together.

Seeing Kaia, alive and there, holding her for the first time; he'd never even gotten to see 'her' in the hospital, they refused to allow him into the room with Ai at all; he couldn't even be there for the birth of his child; but now he had her back, and there was second crack in the darkness of his world. They could shatter that veil and live in the light once more. Together, they could.

They had to.

He'd raced off from the market, but now he was slowing; a gentle, easy amble across the streets and bridges and alleys and sidewalks toward his destination.

But he didn't want to think of that exactly yet. No, focus on the reasons, remember the why. Embrace the truth of your actions.

Those weeks and months and years where so long. Sitting in the dim glow of the cave, struggling to read by the tiny flame of the singular candles he allowed himself before he knew what he could do there. Studying faint carvings on walls by touch more than by sight; trying to make out the details drawn on scrolls so small that there was no true space between lines; only a train eye would see anything but black ink even with a magnifying lens. Learning of the crystals in the walls, learning what they could do, what they where, the power they represented. Finding the key to the ciphered text. Finding the codes below that. Unlocking and translating. Learning. Testing. Creating new. Always learning, always looking for more and deeper and beyond; never stop, never stop looking for more; when you stopped looking you forget what you strive for, you forget how to live.

Discover more and better and remember the forgotten; the lost and the unknown only to this age; knowledge they had lost due to nothing more than their own superiority complex. Knowledge suppressed to keep the sheep from becoming the wolves; you can’t afford to let the pawns get too powerful, or they might start to challenge the status quo. Control the history, and you control the future. Control the history, you control the minds of the populace; if they never knew better, how can they ever know anything else?

Weeks and months and days and hours and years and time had no meaning when he was alone underground; if not for the timer seals that alerted him to when Ai was returning from missions, he would have lost himself in his little world long ago. Discovering the crystals for the first time; thinking of them as little more than pretty jewelry. Discovering their properties, their very nature; what they could be and what they could become. Researching. Always researching. The nascent idea in the depths of his mind; testing his skills to see if he even could. Carving dozens of crystals, hovering over the magnifying lens and holding the small hammer and chisel until he couldn’t open his fingers anymore, until his arms were stiff and shook and he hurt himself because he’d start to slip and slice open his arms and fingers and hands.

So much carving, so many tests. So many failures. Finally, weeks and hours and seconds and years later; success. A singular success. That was all he needed. A singular success, and the support of his family. With that… he could do anything.

Ai knew what to do. By the time he set this plan in motion, she would be far away with Kaia and the little monkey. They would be safe.

Not long, now. A few more blocks, he was reaching the edge of the territory where civilians were allowed. The crowds began to thin, exactly as he planned for. Exactly as he knew it would; it had to, after all. The numbers of ninja had dropped significantly recently; between retirements, dropping enrollment at the academy, and some rather strange… accidents; well, it was basically empty here. Perfect. Far less chance of injury to the populace, and more room for the spread.

He knew exactly where to place his masterpiece. A small hollow in the wall of the main building; a brick had come loose and animals had been nesting in the area for years, by the look of it. It was abandoned now, and the perfect size for what he needed. He could hide it safely, no one would see it; and move on.

From his pocket he produced a small scroll; common looking as it was just a common everyday storage scroll. The type most ninja carried on them all the time; either filled with gear or filled with training materials; diagrams and paragraph after paragraph of vapid ‘history’ and information that gave them just enough to work with, but not enough to do.

Around the side of the building, not that unusual; ninja did have a habit of walking up walls and such. Nothing suspicious there, really. He cracked the scroll open and unraveled it to the seal that held his master work; opening it and extracting a simple cotton cloth bag; held closed by a bit of twine and a small wooden bead.

So much power, contained by nothing more than thin cotton. So heavy for being so small; the item inside was only the size of a large marble after all. It was totally plain to the eye as well, appearing as nothing more than a clear crystal shard roughly the shape of a die; it wasn’t until you used a jeweler's loupe or other magnification that the tiny lines of the seal carved into it appeared. Intricate in the extreme; layers upon layers of seal had been carved into it in a way that seemed to defy logic entirely. It was like entire parts of the seal had been ‘carved’ inside of the crystal without actually cutting it. At the very center, almost invisible, a tiny spark of light, the dormant power waiting to be released.

A thing of beauty.

It was just too bad that no one would ever see it.

Without removing the crystal from the bag, he lit it on fire; he’d treated the cotton with a special resin that would allow it to burn without smoke, slowly and evenly and perfectly for what he needed. One the bag had caught, he placed it into the hollow of the wall and made his way from the area. He had a few minutes before he needed to run, and he’d make it to a safe place with plenty of time.

Out of the area and toward the residential areas; like he was heading home for the day. Just another face in the crowd.

Until he turned left instead of right. Left would take him ‘home’ to his apartment.

Right would take him toward the edge of the village, near the air docks for the ships and gliders and the bridge that lead down to the next level; the nearest of the other floating islands. Still not where he was going, not really, but an easy cover. Heading for a vacation down in the port, or on one of the small inhabited islands. Nothing hard to remember, or that unusual.

Not that anyone would stop him (or could!), as he wasn’t doing anything wrong. He was just another man out for a walk, heading toward the ship ports with plenty of time to make a quick hop down to a specialty market in the Port or something like that. Or something of that nature. Fade into the crowds, and be gone. As simple as that.


Meanwhile, back in that slowly dimming alleyway, far from the eyes of anyone that would know what was about to happen, the bag was slowly burning away. If he’d done half the quality job he thought he had, it would take it a solid hour to burn clean through. In that hour, life would go on as normal; no one would be the wiser. How could they? There was no smoke, the ‘fire’ was a slow smoldering ember that released such a light scent that the blooding flowers and humanity in general drowned it so harshly that it was non-existent. No glow could be seen either, as the hollow was deep and the bottom rounded; so that the bag sat in a depression and completely out of sight.

The roar was glorious.

It was like a boom of thunder; as if lightning had struck the building. Only, instead of nothing, everything. One moment there stood a large stone building, covered in glass and paints and full of offices and records and gears and everything the administration building would be full of.

And then it wasn’t.

It simply wasn’t.

It was like it never existed.

Or rather, it was never finished being built. The wooden substructure was there; entire floors held up by nothing more than the solid wooden support structure. From around the edges of these bare floors spilled a waterfall of paper; the records and memos and such locked away from the world multiplied and copied and growing in number before the eyes of anyone there. By the time the seal had finished working, a sea of paperwork would be washing across the village; making it impossible for the people to not see the hidden secrets of their village. Knowledge suppressed and hidden; records of injustice and terrible things done in the name of ‘glory’ and ‘peace’. Proof of the forced isolation, the rewritten histories, the state mandated ‘brainwashing’ of the people and the children, and the soldiers that protected them.

All would be known, now.

Change was coming.

Below all of this, the ground was blackened and burned; but not hot, nor on fire. A final effect of the seal before the crystal’s power was consumed and it turned to dust that would fly n the gentlest of winds; leaving not a trace of it’s existence behind.

No, the evidence of what had happened was left on the ground itself.

A sign, a seal, a signature.

Large and imposing and detailed and telling of exactly who was responsible for this.

It was Hyakurai’s personal seal.

No, not Hyakurai; he was done with that name. It was never more than a cover name, anyway. His parents had believed in having two names; a ‘public’ name that held no power, no meaning beyond something to be called and respond to; and a ‘true’ name that held the entirety of your being and the magic of your soul. His mother’s family was descended from the gypsies of the old world, long removed from the desert’s harsh embrace, but never forgetting the old ways that they only practiced in secret now; they’d been entranced with this village for so long they didn’t want to risk being thrown out with the rest of the ‘undesirables’, as it was commonly put.

He’d rescue them using his true name. He was Raijin; named for the god of lightning and the power that sang in his veins. He would bring his family from this cursed land and to a place they could know freedom once more. The call went out with the burning of the bag, a small secondary seal placed in the cloth triggering a warning for all to leave, and leave quickly; escape to the mainland and meet at an agreed upon place far from the reach of the floating island.

He was to the water now, racing across the sea and to the small uninhabited island that held his ‘home’. He was racing to be sure they had made it free; that everything was brought with them.

The cave was empty and dead, now; the door would open no longer.

Perfect.

Across the sea he raced once more; to the mainland and beyond; meeting with his family as they moved across the edge of the desert and into the deep forests that covered the lands. They were free.

Soon, the world know that feeling too.