Tsukiko was surprised to hear this. She had always been taught by her mother and father that the Five Major Clans had always existed in peace and loved each other as they loved their own people. But it seemed that was not the case.
"But...why?", she asked.
Miyuki seemed to have understood something and looked at Jae-sung. He saw this and stood up, carrying his book.
"I have something to show you, both of you", he said as he started walking towards the staircase. Tsukiko and Miyuki followed closely behind him.
Upon reaching the second floor, there was a seemingly normal, rich family hallway which had a family portrait consisting of Jae-sung, his mom and his dad, the current leader of the Aoiro Hikari clan. He looked just like Jae-sung only that instead of both his eyes being black, one of them was blue.
Tsukiko stared dazedly at the blue eye before being brought back by the sound of moving stone. Jae-sung had somehow triggered a mechanism that opened up a rectangularly shaped opening in the wall. It was a secret passage!
Jae-sung urged them in and closed the opening behind them, submerging them in darkness. However, almost immediately after this, rows upon rows of lamps sparked into blue flames, instantly dispersing the darkness.
They continued down a long flight of stairs before reaching a stone wall. This time. Jae-sung tapped on of the bricks and a device with a camera came out. It scanned Jae-sung's eye and with a ding, it turned green and opened the wall.
Jae-sung stepped inside first and once again urged the two girls to come in which they did. Once inside, Tsukiko couldn't help but gasp at the room she had just entered that seemed like a whole new world. She spotted rows and rows of books that seemed to go on forever. The smell of paper and history filled the entire area. In the middle of it all, was a large blazing blue flame kept in something that resembled a cauldron. Strangely enough, the presence of the fire didn't exactly make the room warmer, instead it felt somewhat cooler.
Miyuki was also in awe of it all, more so than Tsukiko.
"So, this is the great Aoira Hikari family library; Aoi Seiiki", she said.
Jae-sung replied, "Yes, that's right. Years and years of the Five Major Clan's history is kept here and taken care of by the older members of this house."
With that, Jae-sung removed a book from one of the shelves and placed it on a nearby table. On the cover were the emblems of the Five Major Clans: blue fire, cold moon, black swamp, drifting clouds and twisted dreams. It also had written on it; "The Five Friends"
Tsukiko was confused by this.
"Five friends? The Elders...were friends?", she thought. Never had she ever heard of The Five Elders being friends but as she thought about it, Tsukiko started to think that it made sense.
Tsukiko grew more intrigued by the book and looked at Jae-sung, waiting for him to explain what it entailed.
With that, Jae-sung carefully opened the first page of the book and began narrating its contents.
"In a land were apparitions and demons roam free, magic seeping out from every corner, there were five human friends: Aoira Hikari, Tsumetai Tsuki, Kuroi Numa, Hyoryu Kuma and Yuganda Yume. They had been raised together and grew up to love one another dearly", he stopped.
"One day, they stumbled upon a large elm tree that granted them an ability that no other human had ever been granted; the power to harness and use magic. They had all sworn to use their power for good and help the human community and protect them from evil spirits that roam free."
He continued, "Thankfully, they stayed true to their promise and the human realm was peaceful. Unfortunately, this didn't last..."
Tsukiko softly sucked in a breath. Having heard to this point, she actually started to feel happy for the humans of that time before that was replaced with a foreboding feeling.
"The friends had become very adapted to the usage of magic and became The Blue Fire, The Cold Moon, The Black Swamp, The Drifting Cloud and The Twisted Dream. They all grew up and had families of their own but still maintained their strong friendship. However, Yuganda Yume (The Twisted Dream) was starting to behave...strangely. He grew more secretive and closed off. At some point, he stopped associating with people as a whole, he even refused to see his only family at the time which were his mother and his sick, pregnant wife. The other friends grew more worried and tried visiting several times, only to be met with closed doors and apologies from his mother and wife"
Then Jae-sung grew more solemn as he continued to flip the pages.
"The day his wife, already heavily pregnant, left their world, Yuganda Yume had completely disappeared. Once word got out of this, the remaining four friends searched and searched for him for ages, but not a trace of him was found. It was like he had never existed"
He continued," It wasn't until five more years had passed before they found a baby, on top of Yume's wife's grave did they realize that their friend, whom they thought they knew, was hiding a terrible secret. Unfortunately, they would never get to know what secret this was and could do naught but take the baby and raise it with Yume's mother. One day however, as they lay their heads to rest, they had the same dream; Yuganda Yume, eyes green and crazy with intense emotions, was seen. The dream showed Yuganda Yume, cutting his unborn child from his wife's belly and using all his magic to perform some crazy magic to somehow put part of his soul into his baby's, managing to wake it up. After that, he grew weaker and weaker until a whisper of his soul was all that was left, and that whisper of a soul spoke to them.
"I will be back, and when I am, you all and those who come after you, will be destroyed by my hand...!"
And then he was gone.
The Friends who were now known as the Elders, never knew the meaning behind this, but they did know that it was indeed their old friend who made that dream. All they could do is protect their people and families to the best of their ability, until one day, Yugande Yume would come back and have destroy all of those who use magic"
Jae-sung flipped the book to the final page and there was an illustration of green, glowing eyes that resembled that of a snake.
Tsukiko shuddered at this and felt her blood run cold.
"From then on, he was dubbed as the Greedy One by the humans, who had misinterpreted the situation and assumed that he wanted all the power in the land for himself"
Miyuki responded to that, "But, his actions don't seem like that of greed. More like, intense pain, frustration and insanity"
Tsukiko was still trying to process the information that she had just learnt when she was befuddled by how cool Miyuki was being about this.
"Wait a minute, did you know about this Miyuki?", she asked.
Miyuki, "I did actually, my grandmother used to be one of the people in charge of this library. She often told me these stories."
Now Tsukiko was even more surprised.
"But I thought only descendants of Aoira Hikari could do that?"
Jae-sung responded to this, "Yes, that still stands because...her family, is a branch of my family which means we're related"
Tsukiko, "But wouldn't that mean that you both knew each other??"
She turned to Miyuki, "How come you didn't even say hi to each other on the first day of school...?"
Jae-sung and Miyuki exchanged a look before attempting to placate Tsukiko.
"Yes but, we were never allowed to speak of it in public, nobody is", said Jae-sung.
"We would've told you sooner if we could", said Miyuki.
Tsukiko wasn't even angry, instead she was a bit embarrassed for not finding out sooner.
"I know...I just wish I could've found this out myself", she said as she sighed resignedly. Jae-sung and Miyuki exchanged another look, only this time, it had an air of nervousness.
Jae-sung started, "Actually Tsukiko, there's something else that you need to know...."
Tsukiko turned to Jae-sung with widened eyes.
"Our parents all know...each other"