THEME: The History of Southern Cross Island Part 1
Welcome back! Sorry for the extended hiatus.
I have begun a project to completely revise Ohtori Academy's integration. This is the first part of a rather long True(ish) History of Southern Cross Island, where Ohtori Academy is situated in the modern day.
Of course, that wasn't /always/ its name...
Long, long ago, in the archipelago that would come, one day, to be called Japan, there was an island known as the Land of Fuuka. In the old times, when magic ruled the cosmos and the moon shone absolute over reality, a great demon god was sealed in the island, inhabiting an eternal obsidian statue. Lord Obsidian, as he came to be known, was permitted but one consolation for his imprisonment: He could place his mark upon women of the world, granting them great power, but tying their fates irrevocably - to each other, and to him. As these princesses of war danced their lethal dance for his pleasure, cycle after cycle, century after century, even as the glory of the Silver Millenium faded like a dream, they drew to them Children and Orphans, beings which fed on the power of their intense emotions.
In time, others came to the island - from above, from beyond, they came, bearing with them the cursed relics of a war far greater than any since the turn of the Age. They called the relics Cybodies, and they entreated the magse of the island: "These relics are accursed, and must never again be free. They have destroyed one world; let them not destroy another." With their great power and the aid of the mages of Earth, the Cybodies were sealed away under the guardianship of four women, four maidens tied to four Maiden Cybodies, that neither the Cybodies nor their guardians would ever again leave the island. But the power of the Cybodies could not be contained so utterly, and they Marked the souls of those they deemed worthy of their power, even from their prison outside of the world. Slowly - via mages and their consorts, by the Marked called in their dreams, through all the many ways men and women come to claim the remote places of the Earth, the land of Fuuka gained a new name: Southern Cross Island.
These powers, the HiME and their Children, the Cybodies and their Marked, had no choice but to disrupt the natural order of humanity's functioning, and so, on the island, emotions ran hotter than elsewhere. The loves of that place ran deep, and friendships were as good as hardest steel; but hate and sadness, too, burned hotter, and the land was often stained red with the blood of feuds that would seem petty to the unenlightened eye. Such naked emotion was more than even the hunger of the Orphans could ever need...
And so the Witches came to Southern Cross.
The Witches and their Familiars were as hungry as the Orphans, and their lust for the sorrow of humans allowed them to twist and bend people in ways those lowly creatures could never achieve. But where Witches go, so too will those who hunt them - the Puella Magi appeared on Southern Cross in short order, and the island became a seemingly permanent front in their unending war for souls.
For centuries, so it was - a twisting nexus of power, colonized by mages and their allies, Marked families and their associates, and regular humans drawn into the orbit of a place of singular might. But it could not remain so; after all, where the wise go, so too will those who seek that wisdom. And the adventure called Life goes on...
I have begun a project to completely revise Ohtori Academy's integration. This is the first part of a rather long True(ish) History of Southern Cross Island, where Ohtori Academy is situated in the modern day.
Of course, that wasn't /always/ its name...
Long, long ago, in the archipelago that would come, one day, to be called Japan, there was an island known as the Land of Fuuka. In the old times, when magic ruled the cosmos and the moon shone absolute over reality, a great demon god was sealed in the island, inhabiting an eternal obsidian statue. Lord Obsidian, as he came to be known, was permitted but one consolation for his imprisonment: He could place his mark upon women of the world, granting them great power, but tying their fates irrevocably - to each other, and to him. As these princesses of war danced their lethal dance for his pleasure, cycle after cycle, century after century, even as the glory of the Silver Millenium faded like a dream, they drew to them Children and Orphans, beings which fed on the power of their intense emotions.
In time, others came to the island - from above, from beyond, they came, bearing with them the cursed relics of a war far greater than any since the turn of the Age. They called the relics Cybodies, and they entreated the magse of the island: "These relics are accursed, and must never again be free. They have destroyed one world; let them not destroy another." With their great power and the aid of the mages of Earth, the Cybodies were sealed away under the guardianship of four women, four maidens tied to four Maiden Cybodies, that neither the Cybodies nor their guardians would ever again leave the island. But the power of the Cybodies could not be contained so utterly, and they Marked the souls of those they deemed worthy of their power, even from their prison outside of the world. Slowly - via mages and their consorts, by the Marked called in their dreams, through all the many ways men and women come to claim the remote places of the Earth, the land of Fuuka gained a new name: Southern Cross Island.
These powers, the HiME and their Children, the Cybodies and their Marked, had no choice but to disrupt the natural order of humanity's functioning, and so, on the island, emotions ran hotter than elsewhere. The loves of that place ran deep, and friendships were as good as hardest steel; but hate and sadness, too, burned hotter, and the land was often stained red with the blood of feuds that would seem petty to the unenlightened eye. Such naked emotion was more than even the hunger of the Orphans could ever need...
And so the Witches came to Southern Cross.
The Witches and their Familiars were as hungry as the Orphans, and their lust for the sorrow of humans allowed them to twist and bend people in ways those lowly creatures could never achieve. But where Witches go, so too will those who hunt them - the Puella Magi appeared on Southern Cross in short order, and the island became a seemingly permanent front in their unending war for souls.
For centuries, so it was - a twisting nexus of power, colonized by mages and their allies, Marked families and their associates, and regular humans drawn into the orbit of a place of singular might. But it could not remain so; after all, where the wise go, so too will those who seek that wisdom. And the adventure called Life goes on...