The Ryushiki Clan

3 months had already passed.

"Ho boy, It feels like it has been ages since I saw Ichitsu." Akihira says.

"It's only been 3 months but can't say I'm surprised you feel like that since you guys seem like great friends and rivals." Ishihaya says.

"I wondering how strong he's become." Akihira asks with a excited smile on his face.

"Oh, you don't have to worry about how powerful he is now." Ishihaya replies

"Akihira!-" Ishihaya calls.

"Yeah?" Akihira replies.

"Out of curiousity but what happened to your parents?" Ishihaya asks.

"Well, my dad died when I was born. My mom is alive and she lives in a small village far away from here." Akihira replies.

"Oh I'm sorry to hear that." Ishihaya says.

"How long has it been since you saw her?" Ishihaya asks.

"Its been almost 4 months I think." Akihira replies.

"Before we head out to see Ichitsu, let's go meet your mother first." Ishihaya says.

"Alright, I can go along with that." Akihira says.

Akihira and Ishihaya grab their stuff and then they both head to visit Akihira's mother.

After a few days, they finally reach Akihira's home village.

"So this is where your residence is it?" Ishihaya asks.

"Yeah, we might not be rich or anything but we're happy! Let's head inside now." Akihira says with a smile on his face.

Both then enter the house, as they enter the house Akihira shouts out loud.

"Mom! I'm home!"

A door straight down the hallway opens, a beautiful woman comes out of the door.

"Mom, you seem well." Akihira says as he runs towards her and hugs her.

Akihira hugs her then his mom asks

"How are you? I haven't seen you for almost 4 months."

"Yeah, I'm doing good, sure as been a while though." Akihira says.

Ishihaya walks down the hallway to Akihira. As Akihira's mother saw him she stood back up to greet him.

"Sorry to interrupt your reunion." Ishihaya apologizes.

"Oh It's fine." Akihira's mother replies.

"I'm sorry I didn't introduce myself. My name is Ishihaya Tsuraseki, I'm a friend of Akihira nice to meet you." Ishihaya says.

"My name is Sakane Ryushiki, I'm Akihira's mother. Nice to meet you too." Sakane says.

"Oh Akihira, forgot to ask. How much did you earn with the goods I sent you with? This year was way better than previous times, they did buy it for high price right?" Sakane asks.

"We didn't earn anythi-" Akihira was interrupted by Ishihaya.

"Oh well, he has earned a lot." Ishihaya says with a fake smile.

Akihira was confused and was bothered by the fact that Ishihaya lied to Sakane.

"Sorry, not to be rude but why are you here?" Sakane asks.

"Oh don't worry you're not being rude. While akihira was on his way back he was met with a bunch of thugs who wanted to rob him of all his belongings and steal his money but I was there just in time to help him and decided to escort him back to his house without a problem since I had nothing to do." Ishihaya lies once again.

"Oh in that case please sit down, let me guide you to the spare room." Sakane says.

Sakane then brings Ishihaya to the spare room.

"I will prepare tea for you, give me just a minute." Sakane says.

"Oh, there's honestly no need for that!" Ishihaya says.

"You saved Akihira, he's the only family I have left and I can't lose him whatever happens. This is the least I can do to express my gratitude." Sakane says as she goes away in the kitchen to make tea.

Akihira wasn't happy with the fact that Ishihaya lied to Sakane.

"Ishihaya what's the meaning of this?" Akihira asks in anger.

"What's the meaning of what? Ishihaya casually replies.

"Why did you lie to my mother?!" Akihira asks in anger.

"It's not something I can just tell you." Ishihaya says.

"Wait, you planned this from the beginning didn't you?" Akihira asks.

"No, I didn't. What I planned was for a normal mother and son reunion but then something came up out of nowhere so I had to change the plan." Ishihaya replies.

"That's just not acceptable!" Akihira says as he slams his fist on the table.

Before Akihira could say anything else he was interrupted by her mother as she opened the door and brought the tea.

"What's going on here? Sorry for the delay, someone else came so I had to attend to them." Sakane says while she brings the tray of tea near the table.

"Nothing at all, me and Akihira were having a conversation." Ishihaya replies with a fake smile.

"I see, by the way, Akihira uncle Zensei needed a favor from you, could you kindly go see him?" Sakane asks with a smile on her face.

"Sure mom, I'll be right back." Akihira says as he walks off.

As Akihira left the house and closed the door, the atmosphere of the house turned very serious.

"So Ishihaya, what does a warrior like you want from me?" Sakane asks.

"Oh so you knew about me from the second you saw me, Impressive!" Ishihaya says as he smiles then starts sipping the tea.

"Shut up, I'm no fool. State your purpose for this visit." Sakane asks as she stood up, and point's a knife at Ishihaya.

"Well I come in peace, I just wanna talk about that emblem you have on your wrist that you try so hard to hide from Akihira." Ishihaya says as he smiles and continues to drink.

"How'd he know I was trying to hide it? Sakane worriedly thinks.

"I won't say anything about that." Sakane says as she moves away the knife pointed towards Ishihaya.

"You see I've heard an interesting rumor about a powerful clan." Ishihaya says.

"Choose your next words carefully otherwise you won't live to see the next day." Sakane threatens Ishihaya.

"Alright, scary woman. I'll get right to the point, even you probably know that there are different magic powers with different power stages but the more powerful a magic element is, the rarer it is to find people who use it. As for now, it's been observed that in this generation the rarest magic element is Fire. It has become so rare to the point where you'll find a Stone colossal but not a person who possesses fire magic, and the other day I heard a rumor about a missing clan, a clan where every single person possessed the ability to use fire. Since Akihira had Fire magic, I assumed his dad was a member of that clan but since the clan went suddenly missing in a single night. At least, that's what I thought but when I saw that emblem on your hand so I had to ask you about it myself." Ishihaya explains.

"So you received so much information and you also had so many questions still you didn't manage to get the clan's name?" Sakane asks.

"Oh right, how did I forget such a critical piece of information? I was too interested in learning about your story that It must've slipped my mind." Ishihaya says.

"Alright, I guess I can clear up a few things for you." Sakane replies as she sits down.

"Our clan was known as the "Ryushiki" Clan, unlike other clans we had no restrictions. We could marry a woman or a man who was not from the clan. We lived in peace, Akihira's father and I both belonged to the clan, but that one horrible event turned everything upside down and our clan was completely wiped out in one night so much so that no one even remembers we even existed or just refuse to acknowledge our existence. Akihira does not remember since he was just a few days old. The entire clan was supposed to flee but Akihira's father stayed back fought the attackers so that we could escape.

Akane explains the night in detail exactly as she remembered it.

"GO! RUN AWAY! I'LL HOLD THEM OFF!" Akihira's dad says to akane.

"NO! COME WITH US PLEASE!" Akane says while crying and holding a baby akihira.

"I really wish I could raise him well. Give our little boy enough love for both of us, I'll miss you both."

Akihira's father says as he touches Akihira's face with his right hand and put's his forehead on akane's.

"NOW GO!" he says.

Akane runs away crying in the forest and looks back to see Akihira's father as he looks back and smiles at her and runs into the chaos.

"And so I came and settled here, started raising Akihira as best as I could. I will say that he was a great warrior, the chief and the strongest member of the Ryushiki clan." Sakane says as she starts crying.

"I'm really sorry to hear that." Ishihaya says with a face of sympathy.

"Could you do me a favor? I only ask you to find out what happened on that awful night." Sakane says as she stands up and wipes her tears.

"Every time akihira asked where his father was I always used to say he was away for work and that he would come back soon but he was never going to come back." Sakane says.

"Excuse me." Sakane says as she walks away.

"My main motive to come here wasn't to know about your clan but instead I wanted you to know the path your son is going-" Ishihaya was interrupted by Sakane.

"Forgot to tell you two things. First, every ryushiki clan member have a Special Ability Feature and Second that I already know what he is going to do, I have no problem as long as he has a friend like Ichitsu-"

Sakane was interrupted by Ishihaya.

"How did you find out about-"

Then Sakane interrupts ishihaya.

"I have my ways, you don't need to worry about it. They remind me of someone else from my own past, anyways I will go about my day as usual now, you still have some of your tea left so please make sure you drink it all." Sakane says with a smile.

When Akihira comes back home, he sees Ishihaya sitting on a bench in front of the house.

"What are you doing outside?" Akihira asks.

"I was just waiting for you, now go bid farwell to your mother. We're heading out now." Ishihaya says.

"Okay, I'll be right back." Akihira says.

Akihira goes inside the house, meets her mother, and says goodbye's. Akihira was just about to leave but he was stopped by Sakane.

"Wait here for a minute." Sakane says.

Sakane goes inside one of the rooms and comes out with a scarf.

"A scarf?" Akihira asks in confusion.

"Yeah, a scarf. This was the scarf that your father always used to wear, he always held great pride while wearing it.

Sakane then thinks back.

Before akane flees to the forest, akihira's father takes off his scarf and puts it in akane's hand as she clutches it tightly then backs off and runs away.

"I hope you can do the same as well!" Sakane says as she smiles at Akihira.

"So dad wore this scarf, Thanks mom. I'll treasure it and wear it with pride and I'll always keep it with me and greatly care for it you don't have to worry." Akihira says as he wears the scarf and smiles at akane.

Then akane proceeds to hug Akihira as he hugs her back.

"Alright, I'll be heading out now." Akihira says.

"Goodbye! Make sure you take care of yourself. Always eat on time and make you get plenty of rest so you don't catch a cold." Sakane says.

"Don't worry, I'll take care!" Akihira says.

Akihira walks out of the door-

"So, ready to go?" Ishihaya asks.

"Yeah, never been more ready." Akihira says.

"Boy, I can't wait to meet Ichitsu again." Akihira says.

"So where are we headed?" Akihira asks.

"Oh right, should've probably mentioned this before but I have some important work to do so I will be heading out to someplace else." Ishihaya replies then sticks his tongue out as a sign of taunting.

"WHAT? THEN HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO GET THERE?!" Akihira asks in anger.

"Don't worry about that, Here-" Ishihaya says as he passes a map to Akihira.

"You'll journey inward towards the near-center parts of Esharia. Meanwhile, I will go back to the port and head out on a boat, you have a long journey ahead of you." Ishihaya says.

"But what if I get lost?" Akihira asks

"I gave you a map for a reason." Ishihaya says.

"When you open the map you'll see two crosses, One cross will be near a waterfall with high-speed currents. That's the place where you must go first, take the boat I left there and get across that, after crossing to the other side. Walk-in a straight line, the second cross takes you deep inside the island. At the statue symbol that I've marked here, head towards that statue and find its root and when you reach there you must wait there until Ichitsu arrives-

Ishihaya looks at Akihira whose head was spinning from all the instructions.

Ishihaya sighs.

"Knew this would happen, there are some additional things I've added for you to understand." Ishihaya says.

"Also, Do not for ANY reason harm or destroy the statue." Ishihaya says with a serious look in his eyes.

"Wait, what's so special about the statue?" Akihira asks in confusion.

"All you have to know is that that statue has some mysterious magical properties that repels away people with any evil in their heart and no one knows how or where that statue came from, which is the reason we'll be meeting Ichitsu there. Since that guarantees no one from the shadow king's army will be there since they won't be able to enter that part of the island, a lot of people depend on that statue for their lives. Which is why if you destroy or even bring a scratch to it, I will kill you." Ishihaya says with intense bloodlust.

"GOT IT, SIR!" Akihira straightens up and salutes.

"Oh and also, you both have to stay on that part. You can't leave together until I come back and meet you both and allow you to go." Ishihaya says.

"Alright, that's all. Stay safe out there akihira and I'll meet you there soon!" Ishihaya says as he walks away while waving.

"Okay! We'll be waiting for you!" Akihira says while he walks towards his destination while waving goodbye to Ishihaya.

When Akihira was far enough out of sight, Ishihaya thinks to himself.

"3 months passed so fast that I didn't even realize." Ishihaya says while smiling to himself.

"It will be hard to bid farewell to them." Ishihaya says with tears in his eyes.

End of Chapter 10