Golden Era (Book 2)

7. History

Disclaimer: This is all fiction. It's not my intent to dismiss or mock any religion. 

***

The Creator breathed life into all beings.

With this in mind, Ayuna reached the first shelf and located the book containing her family history, including the rules and structure of this world.

Bringing it to the nearest window, she sat down with her legs folded and allowed words to take her across eons, back to the beginning of time.

***

The Creator divided the world into two: mortal and immortal. 

The mortal world was all about human life and death, love and war, desires and greed. Mankind created chaos consisting of bliss and suffering, and created rules about the world they seemingly own.

The immortal world, in contrast, did not allow disorder. Hierarchy and a clear chain-of-command were key to maintaining peace. Punishment and rewards were exclusively administered by the Creator, who had absolute power over all. The Creator called His providence the "Garden of the Sun": a floating residence housing all immortals.

Two archangels were the next in line. Together, they formed the Creator's executive council and were given names and gender as a symbol of privilege. To maintain confidentiality, their names were concealed. They represented fair judgment and impartiality.

Beneath archangels came the eight gods who controlled four seasons and oversaw the living and the dead. They were the pillars that balanced insidious human greed with selfless devotion.

After the gods came angels, who were invisible guardians to the mortals and the Creator's messengers. They reported to the archangels, occasionally served gods and had neither genders nor names.

This highly refined system, however, had an outlier: the Masa family.

The Masa family were below the archangels but above the gods. They were female deities who served as the Creator's scribe and ambassadors. For this reason, they were a vital link between the mortal and the immortal world. But with entitlements came rigid rules: the Creator governed marriage and childbirth in the Masa family so they would serve His best interests. 

The matriarch Masa Masayuki was married to the God of Time. She was granted permission to have two daughters: Masa Kaguya and Masa Kagusa. The elder daughter, Kaguya, was later betrothed to the God of Light and gave birth to one child: Masa Ayuri.

For the time being, the immortal realm was a place of order and peace. Little did anyone know, a silent yet deadly upheaval was soon to strike.

***

When Ayuna looked up again, the light around her had dimmed. Sheaths of broken starlight fell through the basement window. Without her realizing it, hours had passed and the day was gone.

She looked down at the book on her lap and decided to close it. There was no need to read the next pages. The story to come would rock the world and pulverize rules. It was a tale that had been told a thousand times, a theme that had even unknowingly leaked into the mortal world: the forbidden love between two people from different worlds.

Ayuna leaned back and closed her eyes. She could picture her mother and aunt in the back of her eyelids, young and beautiful, gearing up for their first voyage to Earth.

***

The Masa sisters—Kaguya and Kagusa—were the first to visit the mortal world. They were asked to document their mortal experience undercover. This order came at around 800 A.C., colliding with the development of major human civilizations around the globe. While Kagusa was sent west to Europe, Kaguya was stationed in the eastern hemisphere. She would start from Japan, then head south and move clockwise to Thailand, Myanmar, China, Korea, and circle back to the starting point.

When this mission was publicized to the other immortals, the Masa family status peaked: they were now the Creator's favorite and might even surpass the archangels one day.

This mission was proved successful in its early days. Both Kaguya and Kagusa sent back letters detailing their human experience. They wrote insightful reports that allowed the Creator to select human royalties to swear allegiance to the immortals. Not only did this help bridge immortal and mortal governments, but it also helped to reinforce the Creator's influence.

One of these places was Kyoto—the geographical and political center of Japan. The imperial family was in power. Under Kaguya's facilitation, they were the first to be subjugated by divinity and swore their loyalty to the Creator. To support this alliance, Kaguya joined the imperial family and took temporary residence in Kyoto.

Several years later, the emperor passed away and was succeeded by his second son. At this time, the immortal alliance was cemented. Though Kaguya was scheduled to depart for Southeast Asia, she'd done the unspeakable and fallen in love with the new emperor, Saga Senari. Worse, not only did she have an intimate relationship with a mortal man, but she also became pregnant with his child.

The ensuing years were wrought with lies to keep her crimes hidden. Kaguya fabricated all sorts of excuses to stall her time in Japan. She would send back detailed documents to justify her prolonged stay and to quell suspicions.

And Kaguya had succeeded until the illegitimate child was born.

***

Ayuna shivered. It was chilling to recall her birth: it was a reminder that she was evidence of an abhorrent crime.

The aftermaths were cataclysmic. Her grandmother, Masayuki, had uncovered this secret. Before she had the chance to kill the bastard child along with her father, the Creator had caught on. It was not simply a scandal, but a sin so vile that the entire immortal world turned on the Masa family because Kaguya had committed a trifecta of misdeeds: the crime of treason, deceit, and adultery.

Kaguya was put on the first trial in the Garden of Sun and sentenced to die with Saga Senari.

Death for them wasn't only in terms of their physical bodies, but also their spiritual bodies. For Masa Kaguya, her divine spirit was extinguished; for Saga Senari, his soul was shattered. They would never enter the immortal or the mortal world again; they would never be resurrected. As for Ayuna, she was delisted from the Masa family and lived life after life as a mortal.

Until recent times, anyway, thought Ayuna as she stood up to reshelve the book. It wasn't until three years ago that a messenger angel delivered the backstory after Ayuna was attacked.

Knowing the truth, however, didn't mean that she'd be accepted. Like her father, she was unwanted, an outsider. The Masas refused to acknowledge her and she continued to be perceived as a disgrace. So really, Ayuna couldn't say her life turned out for the better.

Still immersed in the clips of past and present, the dislodged book slipped out of its place and fell to the floor. When Ayuna bent down to retrieve it, slips of paper fell out of the jacket sleeve.

Did someone hide letters in here? She wondered, unfolding the yellowed pages.

"Transcription from the Masa Kaguya Trial", the title read.

***

A/N: For those who are confused/lost/thinking nothing but WTF, a helpful chart has been made in the following chapter :)