Akame Ga Kill - Split The Earth In Two, Quake

Chapter One Prt 1: His Home

One warm afternoon, there's a crowd of people surrounding a brawl. A boy, roughly eighteen, is fighting a grown man with bulging muscles that's over eight feet tall. The boy hits the bleeding man's face one last time, and he's out cold. The crowd cheers in amazement as the man's body hits the ground with a thud and the boy raises his bloodied fist in the air, claiming his victory. A man dressed like a sheriff walks to the center as people move out of his way when they see him coming. "Starting fights again, Minazuki?", the sheriff asks as he glares at the boy. "Coming to finally arrest me? I guess that's the downside of growing up.", the boy says with a grin on his face. He starts to reach for his handcuffs before men from the crowd say, "Come on Sheriff, the guy was askin' for it." "Yeah, that guy was a real ass!", a woman shouts out from the crowd. The crowd gets louder and louder with their attempts to keep the Sheriff from arresting the boy. "Pipe it down! I'm not arrestin him!", the Sheriff shouts forcefully. He pulls an envelope from his back pocket with 'Minazuki' written across the front in a fancy font. "Old Man Yata told me to bring this to ya. Now, I understand it's your birthday 'n all, but don't be causin so much trouble. It's bad enough I got all these Imperial Soldiers to deal with.", the Sheriff says as he hands the boy his letter. Minazuki starts to open the envelope as the Sheriff disperses the crowd. The letter seems to be written on fairly old paper and it reads, "Minazuki, come to the Dragon Shrine and obtain your fortune." "I guess the stories were true. Hopefully the other story is true.", he thinks to himself as he folds up the letter and puts it in his pocket. He grabs his shirt off the ground and starts heading up the winding stairs along the mountain side leading to the Dragon Shrine. As he puts his shirt on, he reaches the gates to the shrine where an old man is waiting patiently, looking off to the horizon. "I got your letter, are the stories really true?", Minazuki asks the old man. "I had... a vision...", the old man says as he turns to the boy. "A vision?", Minazuki asks in confusion. "Come, there's much to tell.", the old man says before starting to walk inside the shrine. Minazuki follows him as he asked and says, "What kind of vision did you have Old Man? Was it me becoming king? Oh, maybe me becoming a professional boxer and winning the Imperial Championship? Or maybe, do I grow a mustache?" The old man stops in the middle of the room and says, "No, I'm afraid it wasn't anything of the sort." "Then what was it? It must've been pretty important for you to sick the Sheriff on me.", Minazuki says as he walks up to the old man. "There's a terrible storm coming, one that will cause this little village of ours to be engulfed by a river, but no ordinary river.", the old man says vaguely. "A storm? There's going to be a flood!? We have to warn the others! I bet if we get started now we'll-", Minazuki begins to say before the old man cuts him off by saying, "It's not that kind of flood, child." Minazuki turns to him with a confused look and asks, "Then what kind of storm are you talking about?" The old man turns to him and says, "One that will rain blood down upon all of us, lining the road with bodies of men, women and children alike. And with the blood will come a freezing wind. Thus it is foretold in my vision." "Rain blood? And a freezing wind? You must really be out of it then, Old Man.", Minazuki says, doubting his fortunes. "All of my fortunes have come true, and so will this one. There is no avoiding it, but that wasn't all that I saw.", the Old Man says as he continues deeper into the shrine. Minazuki follows him into the sacred room with a giant dragon skull. "Long ago, the elder of this once great village captured a dragon and tamed it to be his servant. He was a great man, and my great great grandfather.", the Old Man says with a slight smile. "And with that dragon, he entrusted his greatest secret.", the Old Man says before pressing a hidden button, disguised as a brick in the wall. The dragon skull opens, revealing a hidden path through the mouth. The Old Man walks through the skull and says, "Follow, and receive your destiny." "My destiny?", Minazuki asks as he follows the old man. He follows the Old Man through what seems like a deep and winding tunnel. When the Old Man stops, they see an open dragon's claw holding what look like gauntlets made of dragon scales and leather with a gem in the right gauntlet. "This is his long forgotten secret. Boy, have you heard of weapons called, Imperial Arms?", the Old Man says as he walks over to the gauntlets. "Yeah, they're supposed to be super strong weapons made from even stronger monsters by one of the former Emperors, right?", Minazuki replies. "Correct, and you're looking at one right before your very eyes. This is Split The Earth In Two; Quake, the legendary gauntlets forged from the scales and hide of The Ancient Earth Dragon with its heart as the core. These gauntlets were used by a mythical man who went by Shoryu, who stole from the rich and gave to the poor. His gauntlets have been hidden away here for generations. This Imperial Arm was considered to be one of the most dangerous Imperial Arms created.", Yata says as he picks up the gauntlets. He turns and hands the gauntlets over to Minazuki, "With these gauntlets, you'll avenge our small village and bring an end to all of this." Minazuki just looks down at the gauntlets and then back to the Old Man with a confused look before the Old Man says, "Go on, put them on." "He'll see, my fortunes are never wrong.", the Old Man thinks as Minazuki goes to put on the gauntlets. He slides them on his hands and they resize to fit his hands perfectly. "T-this is amazing! These things are for real!", Minazuki shouts in amazement before growing silent. "Y-your fortune... It told you that these things would work for me? You saw this coming?", Minazuki asks slightly nervous. "Yes.", the Old Man says bluntly. "How long?", Minazuki asks with a blank stare. "The trees in my vision, they were starting to bloom with life. Based on that, I'd guess we have about... a month.", the Old Man replies as he starts to walk out of the tunnel. "A-A month!? How am I-", Minazuki begins to ask before the Old Man shouts, "Enough! You'll figure out a way. You must..." "You should also keep this conversation just between the two of us. If the villagers were told, they'd go into a panic.", the Old Man adds. They're heading out of the tunnel and as they reach the shrine they hear a loud explosion come from outside. "Boy, go check on the others! This can't be good.", the Old Man shouts as he points to the door. Minazuki rushes out the door to see smoke coming from the village below. He rushes down to see what happened and sees a group of soldiers surrounding the Sheriff and the Blacksmith. "Looks like we're in a real bind this time, huh?", the Blacksmith says surprisingly calm. "You don't say? There's at least twenty more of these guys here, and I'm outta bullets.", the Sheriff whispers. The soldiers are quickly cut down in a flash and as their bodies hit the ground, they see a man dressed in an all white kimono sheathing his sword. "This must be pretty serious for you to get off your lazy butt, Chief Izunaga.", Minazuki says as he walks over to them. Izunaga looks over to the Village entrance and sees a few soldiers retreating. "They're retreating, we need to formulate a plan. Ikashi, Toda, are you both unharmed?", Izunaga says before turning to the Sheriff and the Blacksmith. "We're fine, but it looks like we might be bitin off more than we can chew...", the Sheriff says with a worried look as he holsters his pistol. "No way, we need to do this! If we don't stand up for ourselves, what will our ancestors say in the afterlife!? You need to look at the bigger picture, Ikashi!", the Blacksmith says as he puts down his giant hammer. "What was that all about exactly?", Minazuki asks. "Those were soldiers sent to collect overdue taxes for the Imperial City.", Izunaga explains. "We didn't anticipate them arrivin so soon. Toda didn't even have enough time to finish makin the mines we were gonna plant to ambush them.", Ikashi says. "I ended up usin what I had as grenades. It was awesome, you shoulda seen it kid!", Toda says as he wraps one arm around Minazuki and points to the craters in the ground. "So, what did the Old Ma-", Ikashi begins to ask before Izunaga notices the gauntlets and says, "Well by God, they accepted you." "What are you talking about Izunaga?", Toda asks with a confused look. "This boy is wielding an Imperial Arm.", Izunaga says as he points to the gauntlets. "An Imperial Arm? But, where did he get it?", Ikashi asks with a suspicious look. "Does it matter!? We just found our ace in the hole! Those Imperial bastards won't know what's coming!", Toda says enthusiastically. "Don't get too antsy, he hasn't learned how to use it yet.", they hear the Old Man say from above them. They look up to see the Old Man looking down at them from the edge of the shrine. "Izunaga, you'll be this boy's mentor. Teach him all you know, he'll need it.", the Old Man says before heading back into the shrine. "Yes sir, right away.", Izunaga replies with a bow. He then turns to Minazuki and says, "Meet me in the training yard north of the village in half an hour. We're starting your training immediately." As Izunaga walks off, a girl with long green hair braided down the length of her back walks up to Minazuki. She's roughly Minazuki's age and wearing brown leather armor and pants with matching gauntlets. "Minazuki! Are you ready for your birthday spar with me? I can really feel myself improving.", the girl says as she looks up to him. "Actually, I'll have to pass on this one, Phi. The Old Man wants me to train with Izunaga for a while. He gave me this Imperial Arm and everything.", Minazuki replies as he shows her the gauntlets. "Oh, you're training with him now? I guess you're really moving up in the world then. And you got an Imperial Arm too? Aren't there like, less than fifty of those things in existence?", she says as she's fascinated by the gauntlets and the shiny gem in the right one. "Yeah, you should ask him if you can join in. We can get stronger like we always wanted to.", Minazuki suggests as he starts heading to the training yard. She nods her head and says, "I'll ask the Village Elder if I should. He's never wrong.", before heading up to the shrine.