User:Bloopbloop
Background, for Lucy. RIP:
On Endo Naoki’s 8th birthday his father took him to the construction site he was working at. The workers had gone home for the evening, but the scaffolding and tools remained attached to the half-constructed mess of concrete and neon that would become the Chunha Medical Group headquarters. Matsumoto Naoki stood outside the chain-link fence with his son, their eyes turned up, and he told him that one day Endo would get to work in a building like that. That he would do anything he needed to ensure that his son would become a doctor, or an executive, or a CEO, or anything he wanted to be if he worked hard. That his father would break every bone in his own body to make sure his child had the opportunities that he never did.
That, maybe, is telling of the bonds that Endo has with his family. He was born without much, his father in construction and his mother a waitress, neither very special nor extraordinary people in anything but spirit. Both of them wanted a child, and both of them did their best to raise Endo as an honest, hard-working young man.
From a young age he grew up among the local, tight-knit community. His father’s friends, mostly men of the construction crews, had sons of their own, and Endo was hardly ever alone as a child. He didn’t have any siblings, but it always seemed like he was around other people, including both his father and mother’s extended family. Dialog was often free-flowing in the Naoki household, and nobody beat around the bush. During his early years his father taught him the value of pulling his weight. He was expected to run errands, do chores, and earn his keep. He was told that the people unwilling to work, or who lied about doing their work and played with their toys instead, were the scum of the earth. Loved as he may be, he wasn’t coddled in the least. His mother, on the other hand, did her best to smooth out his rougher edges and help him with his schoolwork and hobbies.
He did fairly well socially in elementary school, getting along with most other children. It was, however, the first time he really realized his and others social status. Juuban wasn’t exactly teeming with the rich and well-to-do, but there were a few kids who went out of their way to tease him because he wasn’t as privileged as they were. He quickly built up a low tolerance to people like that, the ones that regarded the less fortunate as somehow inferior.
On an intellectual level, it turned out he wasn’t any sort of genius. Sometimes Endo could manage a spark of creativity, but he wasn’t getting any medals or gold stars. He was average, much to his parents dismay. His mother taught him how to cook, but that was about his only artistic skill. His forte was more the physical, and he spent a lot of time running around outside playing with friends. In Middle School his studying habits didn’t get much better. He tried, but not too hard, and preferred Rugby Club over more intellectual pursuits. He shirked most of his hard work, which chaffed with his father’s ideals, putting some strain on the relationship. Endo figured he could always study hard later, and that he had at least a year or two to prepare, and everything would work out in the end.
It was shortly before his sixteenth birthday that his father passed away, victim of an unfortunate construction accident. It was a sad affair, a lot of mourning, both on the part of mother and son. Savings and help from extended family meant that money wasn’t an immediate issue, but Endo nonetheless took an after-school job at a local convenience store as soon as he could.
And then things changed. Endo was working a shift sometime at the peak hours of the morning when an odd looking vagrant drifted into the store. There was something distinctly suspicious about the fellow, though Endo couldn’t put his finger on it. He didn’t have that much time to thing, though. His attention was shortly taken up by the huge, vicious looking ball of darkness that smashed through the front of the store. It was hard to keep track of everything that happened after that. The monster came at Endo, and the stranger knocked it aside. It and the vagrant bounced around the tight confines of the store, and by the time Endo recovered from his shock he found the monster had forced the man into a corner. So, Endo did what any good samaritan would do. He hit the thing with a mop. It hit him back.
The ball was a Youma created by a member of the Dark Kingdom, a monster that was drawn out of the darkness and suffering of human and left to wreak havoc. Its presence was an accident, the thing having homed in on the closest magical beacon, which happened to be the vagrant and the things he was carrying. It also hit pretty hard. The distraction at least gave the other man time to hit it with all the energy he had, enough to drive it out of the store and away.
When Endo woke up the man was standing over him, asking him why he did such a stupid thing. Endo was mostly unhurt, though the vagrant wasn’t exactly in the same boat. He’d suffered some notable wounds, but quickly refused to wait for police or medical services to show up. Instead he asked Endo if there were any hotels in the area where he could stay and lay low, and quickly left once he’d learned what he needed. He also dropped something in the fight, a small pouch with something in it. Endo didn’t have a lot of time to look before the police showed up. He didn’t think anyone would believe exactly what he saw, so he told them that a car had come through the store. Obviously, he didn’t have much more work to do that night.
When he returned home he set to examining the things left behind. The first was a pen, metal and unremarkable. The second was a ring made of a matte black metal. It also spoke. It addressed Endo as ‘Knight’, and told him that it had been a long time since it had a wielder with conviction. Further questioning revealed that the ring was named Fallen Stern, and that it was a device created to be used by a Mage. It didn’t have very much to elaborate.
The vagrant showed up again soon enough. He introduced himself as Haru, and asked for his things back. He was quite surprised when Endo started asking him some awkward questions, about Devices, and magic, and other things. Endo also refused to give up the things he found unless he got some answers.
Eventually, Haru relented. Partly out of gratitude and partly out of necessity. Haru explained that he was a fugitive, on the run from a powerful council of wizards called the Magic Association. The older man told Endo that the world was controlled by a vast conspiracy of magicians, who unleashed monsters like the one the boy had seen. Haru himself said he was from another world, and he’d come to help free Earth from the evils besieging it.
These, of course, were lies. Mostly. Haru Kano was a criminal, and a thief. A modestly successful one, who managed to get his hands on a Boost Device, and an Intelligent Device that didn’t belong to him. There were two roughly accurate statements during the whole conversation. The first was that Haru was on the run, and the second was that he wasn’t from earth.
Haru was a Midchildan, a hunter and acquirer of magical technologies. Notably, he took interest in the illegal sort. His latest stash, Fallen Stern among them, was taken from a raid of the storehouse of another Midchildan Mage, a man working for the Magic Association. He managed to get away, but expended a lot of energy in the process, and fled to hide himself in the city. He neglected to mention any of this.
When Haru was finished explaining Endo demanded to know how to protect himself and the people around him from those monsters. Haru wasn’t sure how to answer. Thankfully, he didn’t have to. The thing that had almost killed the both of them had tracked them down, and swooped in to re-start the fight. This time they killed it, Haru with his own device, and Endo with Fallen Stern, the weapon demanding the boy take it up before unlocking and assuming its true form.
In the wake of that Haru didn’t have much of a choice but to let Endo keep it. He took the other device back, bid the boy a farewell, and wished him luck before vanishing into the night. Endo was left only with the device to guide him. Fallen Stern told him that its purpose was to destroy enemies of its master, and Endo figured his enemies were whatever that thing he’d killed was. So a contract was formed, to fight the forces of darkness and defend the innocent.
Endo is unaware of Fallen Stern’s history, which happens to be somewhat significant. It was an Intelligent Device created early during the second Belkan War. It was wielded by one of the fearsome knights serving the Saint Kings, used to murder and subjugate planets in the name of the rebuilt Belkan Empire. Its original wielder’s name is lost to time, and even the weapon itself has no real name for that ancient figure.
It was re-discovered one of the administered TSAB worlds, dug out of the dirt of the planet. It found its way to one of the Belkan enclaves and another owner claimed it. That one put it to use in combat, fueled by anger at the lot of their enclave and the rejection of the people around them. When he was brought down the Device fell into the hands of the TSAB after, and eventually to the Mage’s workshop where Haru grabbed it. Endo, unaware of the stigma of the weapon, is doing the best he can to fulfill the contract he made with it, learning what he can from the Device and making the rest up as he goes along. It’s not how he imagined his life going, but he’s proud of what he does, and he’ll do it as long as he needs to.
