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Within the great country of Midi, there were little villages peppered all throughout. Although great metropolises existed, a great number of people hailed from small hamlets in which they were born, lived and died without ever so much as visiting beyond three towns away. In a village called Tsukishima, the same was true for the majority of the inhabitants, with the exception of one odd family. Many, many years ago, the Kageyama clan had shattered into branches which spread all over Ishgar. Others remained but would always welcome newcomers back home and teach them of the family's sacred art. Otherwise, the Kageyama clan served as a family of some renown. They served as healers for travelers far and wide, curing the most mystical curses to regular diseases with similar levels of skill and knowledge. Not all remedies required magical interference, as many well knew, and thus most of them were trained in the medical arts as well as mystical healing.
Here was where Tsubasa Kageyama had spent the better part of the last few months. Training in his family's ways both in medicine and learning to unlock his genetic gift, The Pure Eye. It was only under the careful tutelage of his elders that he was allowed to use it at first, as any reckless usage could cause the bearer to age themselves to death. As always, there was more to the story than that. Including the part where the horrifying curse had come unleashed and Tsubasa had to contain it within his body, causing a blackened scar throughout his back which gave him an outrageous but terrifying magical power that would erupt painfully if he didn't utilize its power regularly.
Tales for another day.
Once his training had been deemed complete, or as much as it was going to be while remaining within Tsukishima, Tsubasa had traveled from his ancestral hometown to the small mountain town of Minari in order to practice on his own. It was here that he spent time training by himself, helping the townsfolk and just generally keeping his chill.
Until the floating castle came.
To be precise, one cloudy morning found Tsubasa sitting in a meditative position as the sun rose to its prominence. He had created a little ritual of waking up as the day began, making breakfast for himself and the others, then heading out for a little meditation just before the children of the town started heading to school. Some mornings Ishmael would join him, but due to the fact that "mornings are bullshit", Ahab never would. Today, however, it was just him. Him and the morning. On a large hill overlooking the town itself, he could see the movement of the people, having memorized their names and routes, the routine gave him a sense of calm as he centered himself.
The clouds this morning portended rain later in the day, further foretold by the soft scent of petrichor just on the tip of the nostrils as the far clouds dispersed what the near clouds soon would. The temperature would remain fine all day, but the elderly would likely need help taking their laundry in before the showers started. Nothing would put a damper on a day like mildew-laden clothing.
His thoughts were interrupted by a newly familiar presence within him. A creeping syndrome stretching like spindly spider legs in the recesses of his mind. "Why aren't you afraid of me?" Said a voice, a rumbling like an avalanche from his back, through vibrations into his heart. Tsubasa was wrong, of course. It was him, the morning, and it.
"Because you aren't worthy of fear," He responded with an exhalation. No one was around, so he could speak aloud, although normal conversations with this creature happened internally. While his scar was closed, no one else could hear it anyway, and he didn't want to sound more crazy than usual.
"I can take over at any moment," It warned. This came with a trepidatious vibration within the shoulder blade on his left side.
Tsubasa remained quiet, breathing deeply. The movement ceased after a few moments. "But I can always take over your taking over. And don't try to take over my taking over with your own taking over or else, boy-o I will take over that take over like you don't even know."
"Child." The voice rumbled, sending a spasm through Tsubasa's back. This seemed to be nothing more than an empty thump of a currently powerless creature against its container. It stopped just as quickly as it had started as the curse-bound resumed its rest.
"Our talks are fun." Tsubasa had come to call it Kuzu, which in the Midi language translated to garbage or trash. He never wanted to give it more attention than it demanded, and insisted that it deserved no more than the minimum. And yet he knew that holding it back for too long would create pustules of pure mana on his body that would, quite literally, explode into darkness and threaten to let the creature permanently free. Therefore, he would choose opportune times to let it free now, weighing the pain of his own suppression with the need to let it, for lack of a better term, breathe.
It was an uneasy relationship to say the least.
"Mister Tsubasa!" Came a voice from before him. Snapping himself from his daze, he searched for the voice and saw a young boy roughly half his age attempting to climb up the hill to follow him. It was far too steep for him to get up by himself, and as Tsubasa stood up to hop down and give him a hand, he noticed that the boy was pointing at something.
Pointing at a lot of somethings. From above the clouds descended a castle roughly twice the size of the town itself, a flying base of some kind. And as it took to a resting place above the town, it unleashed what appeared to be a flood of squids. Tsubasa didn't stop to stare, he threw a small disc in front of him as he jumped down the hill, landing on the flying hover-device as it expanded, swerving slightly to grab the child that had come to get him. How long had Kuzu kept him in a stupor for him to ignore this? None of it seemed to carry any kind of magical sensory for him to pick up which meant it was probably mechanical or… just weird.
He swung the kid around his back and held him for long enough for the kid to grab piggy-back onto him. Flipping open a small communicator on his wrist, he sent out a signal to Ish and Ahab to protect the townspeople. The Mach 16 took him higher and higher to the point where he was about to come into contact with the first of the squid-creatures.
"This is your stop, kid. Find any classmates you can, tell them I told you all to hide, okay?" Not waiting for a response, (though he would indeed find one, Tsu had become a fan favorite of the local chililn's) Tsubasa reached around behind him, placing the kid steady on the hoverboard. The gyroscopic stabilizers would keep him from falling now. Which was good because Tsu used it to springboard up towards the Squidling that was flying right towards them.
"Knock knock. HAMMERSPACE!" Tsubasa shouted, bringing from behind him the rapidly expanding rocket-powered sledgehammer that smashed down against the first Squidling, sending it hurtling to the ground as a mixture of metal and goo. "I'll take weird hybrid-metal robots for five hundred!" With no steady way to move upward, he activated the hydraulics on his hammer and boosted himself up, but found his progress halted by a Squidling heading down for the boy he'd just let go.
"Bad squirmy! What's the rush?" He smacked the back of his own hand and seemingly his hand 'coughed up' a giant futuristic six shooter which Tsubasa proceeded to fire at that Squidling and then five others that were within his considerable range. It made quick, incendiary work of them, showing that they definitely weren't made of much. Of the first, initial wave, that was roughly half. However as he finished all six shots, he'd made a full 180 rotation and saw the second wave. Now the clouds weren't what were blotting the sky.
"Oh I'm gonna need more guns."
STATS HP: 000 MP: 000 Current Durations: Spell Name 0/0 Current Cooldowns: Spell Name 0/0
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