Riots and Revolution

Seven Years Ago

The Earthwall gang and the Anti-Exalt Faction had bad blood between them ever since the failed business transaction a few years ago. The gang said their weapons were stolen. The extremists said the weapons were destroyed. Last thing Rei could remember was somebody becoming exalted and the facility getting demolished by the idiot terrorists who started wreaking havoc. Biases aside, he believed the gang was correct. He told his fears to Kakohime.

“The consortium have some sort of timeline,” Kakohime said to Rei, sipping from the fresh cup he poured her. “I think they plan to have their ‘revolution’ soon. Bastards.”

“And you’re okay with this?” Rei asked. Pleaded.

“What?” Kakohime said with humor in her eyes. “Living in Tokyo Sky made you fond of them? Fond of our kind?”

Rei had barely met other exalts. They were few and mostly high up in society for him to interact with. No, this was about humans. Exalted and non-exalted. It made no difference to him.

“Whichever the case, those monsters have a plan and I don’t like it.” Kakohime’s cup slammed so hard on the table, Rei thought it’d break. “I was gonna refuse selling them our weapons.”

“Was?”

“You weren’t there when we last met, Rei. We’d be lucky if they even paid us. We are their only supply of weapons in this country, and they’d get it whether we cooperated or not.”

Rei relayed this information back to the detective and his police connections. He became their mole and he was glad for it. For months they tried to figure out the faction’s plan. Neither the gang nor any other informants in Tokyo Sky had any clue.

Until that fateful day.

Haruto. The healing exalt. The symbol of all the good the exalted and their aether can bring people. He was planning to extend his help to the lower wards. He couldn’t use much of his powers outside of the ascended city, so they welcomed people from outside to come into Tokyo Sky instead.

Kazuo Ninomiya, through his brilliance and eccentricity, deduced exactly what the Anti-Exalt Faction wanted. They planned to start their riots—their so-called revolution—during this charitable event.

Monsters, Kakohime called them. Devils, they were. Their official name, Humanist Consortium, was an insult.

A general of the military was apprised of the situation and personally oversaw the city’s defense during the event. There were squads of soldiers, police officers, and their exalted members.

Rei warned Kakohime not to come to the event. He pretty much hinted he knew more than he should, and as always, Kakohime was soft on him. But she didn’t care. She wanted to see this exalt that could used his powers for good.

“I wanted to believe,” Kakohime said. “This powers we have. They have to mean something.”

Fire.

An explosion so big and high it reached up to the sky.

The event had gone well at first. Thousands of people, not just from the outskirts of Tokyo, but all over Japan, had come to witness Haruto’s powers.

Despite decades of ascension and documented change, many living outside the circle still feared those within. This was supposed to change that.

Haruto gave the people of the lower wards, those who truly needed it, rich or poor, old or young, the power of healing.

Many exalted could heal wounds and minor injuries, a feat Rei barely understood. But even then, he knew Haruto was different. A true, one-of-a-kind genius that could target specific cells in the body and offer it rejuvenation.

Kakohime, tough and powerful as she was, cried at the sight of it.

But of course, seeing such positive change, such favorable view of the ascension and its exalted, was something the Anti-Exalt Faction couldn’t allow. They planted bombs where the event took place, a weapon that never existed in the gang’s inventory, and it made sense why. The devils wanted the gang, the police, everybody to assume what their arsenal was like. In reality, they probably important weapons from overseas too.

The police and military had contingencies, of course, but the damage was done. Riots started all over Tokyo Sky as the faction tried their best to ruin the event.

Rei had seen the group’s leader once. Kakohime brought him along their final meeting, probably because she wanted Rei to deliver as much information to the police as possible.

The man they called ‘Kisaragi’, coward as he was, hid himself well under a mask. At that point in time, Detective Ninomiya had taught Rei a few things from trade, mostly to pass time because he was bored, but Rei was able to read a few tells from the faction’s leader. He deduced the man to be young, probably a few years older than Rei at most. It made no sense, of course, but the detective took his words seriously. In the end, however, it made no difference.

Fighting ensued at the gates of Tokyo Sky. People fled in horror or got caught in the crossfire. Bodies fell one after another.

Rei ran amongst the crowd with Kakohime as they tried their best to help.

And then… the exalted soldiers were deployed.

With their amazing powers they blasted through the terrorist group, bringing with them the wrath of the last forty or so years of ascended history. Hot fire. Swift lightning. Whatever weapons the Anti-Exalt Faction amassed were no match. It wasn’t even a contest.

What happened was a terrible tragedy of the highest order. But when the media portrayed people not as individual human beings but mere numbers on a screen, the amount of people who died was relatively low. Instead, news outlets spun the story to portray the ‘righteous exalted’ as exhibiting their powers to show the world they can take them.

Ninomiya assumed this too was part of the faction’s plan.

Kakohime blamed herself and disappeared. Rei never shared stories with her.

Haruto was traumatized and later moved to the Finnish Circle.

As for Rei…

“Like I can peek into a person’s memories or something. Probably more than that.”

Kazuo Ninomiya’s look of genuine shock was everything.

“Well… damn. That sounds like the perfect ability for my line of work.”

Afternoon of the second challenge

December 11th, 2050

Shinjuku Skyline

Commander Kisaragi walked down the stairs, each step an echo of his followers’ heartbeats.

Clothed in his casual façade, disheveled as it were, the commander passed by the remains of his comrades-in-arms lying on the ground. His face was still as a lake at the height of winter. Unmoving. Frigid. Dead.

“Why,” he said, silently. “Why does Ruby Tennojima still live?”

The soldiers tensed. They kneeled, not for reverence but of pure exhaustion and injury. They fought Ruby Tennojima and her security team. They suffered for the cause. Died for it.

“This was our best chance to get rid of the heir to that fraudulent house of wonders.” The commander stood above the corpse of a transformed soldier. The body was… unrecognizable. “Perhaps our last chance before they can claim this research that’s supposed to change the world. I ask again. Why does Ruby Tennojima still live?”

Nakayama stood up, trembling as he did. “With all due respect, sir, you have forced our soldiers to make this… exaltation. It goes against all our beliefs, but they still did it! All because—”

“They FAILED!” The commander’s voice echoed across the building’s hallway.

“Sir, our troops are divided,” Nakayama explained with pleading in his voice. “Between the police headquarters, the institute, and this… obsession with the Tennojima heir. We’re spread too thin.”

“We’re all exactly where we should be,” the commander snapped. “You were there seven years ago, Nakayama. You should know.”

“I do, sir, it’s just…”

“You’re a monster,” one of the soldiers whispered. A man with a bruised cheek and a broken arm. “This wasn’t what we signed up for!”

Kisaragi turned in one quick motion and shot the man with his obsidian revolver, its cylinder glowing a painful shade of bronze. The man fell down with a gaping hole in his stomach, a burnt mark imprinted on the wall behind him.

“I apologize,” the commander said. “I only meant to say that unlike our foolish mistakes in the past, this time our attacks are more precise. Surgical. Which is why. I. Ask. WHY. RUBY. TENNOJIMA—” the commander sucked in a breath of cold air, then brushed a hand over his dyed hair. “I apologize. I will continue the game and be where I’m supposed to be. My precise location in all of this.”

Commander Kisaragi walked past Nakayama and proceeded down the hallway, his footsteps ringing the sound of insanity.

The soldiers breathed out a sigh of relief. Even Nakayama leaned on the wall next to him.

“For the cause, my friends,” the commander said, his voice echoing. “For our vengeance. And the superiority of the human race!”