"Rules are like chains that are waiting to be broken." -Bakuretsu Deus

With the sun high up in the sky, beaming down on me and giving me energy, I glanced at the thousands of people in front of me. Crypthonic said that he was going to announce something at this time of the day, that’s why there were so many people gathered in the center of the plaza.

“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen of Icarus Kingdom.” Said Crypthonic. Misaki was already up and she was standing right next to me. She still had a very confused and disoriented look on her face, but so did I. Even though we technically just met, I feel a really close bond with her. I can definitely see that we were sisters in our past life. A lot of people were very happy seeing Crypthonic, most of them were clapping and cheering his name.

“I’m going to get straight to the point here. These two gorgeous women right next to me are my daughters.”

“Huh? Daughters? I thought he was the last of his family.” A lot of people were whispering with each other. Things like,

“What are their names?”

“Why do they look so lost?”

“What’s up with the hair color?”

“They do have the Indigo family halo though.”

“Order, please.” Said Crypthonic with a calm while pointing his finger down. As soon as he did, there was a sudden tremor. Misaki and I looked at each other with a concerned look and looked away.

“Their names shall not be made public for security reasons. As for the time being, you all shall address her as ‘Salamander Indigo,’” he said while pointing his hand at me, “And her as ‘Chaos Indigo’”

“Yes, your majesty.” Said the whole crowd.

“They are to be treated and respected just as, if not, more than myself; I really care about my little girls, and I know that this might be very sudden, but they are now royalty.”

“Yes, your majesty.”

“And as you all know, since my son Daku was killed by demons,” killed by demons? Why would he say such lie? “I have no successor, so from now on, since Salamander is the oldest out of the two, she will be the next Ruler of this land after I am no longer standing.” WHAT?!

“Huh? The future queen?” More and more whispering starting going around the crowd.

“That will be all for today. As always, honor from divinity, and most importantly, many thanks to Hikari for the life he allowed us to have.”

“HONOR FROM DIVINITY! ALL HAIL KING CRYPTHONIC!” Yelled everyone. Walking back to the royal building, I asked Misaki,

“Have you gotten used to your powers yet?”

“No… but I’m starting to understand it.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. She took some small coal out of her pocket and said,

“I was testing it on these. I still don’t know how to manipulate atoms at the fullest, but carbon atoms arranged in a different way can make diamonds. So basically, I can turn this coal into a diamond.” She said as she turned that exact piece of coal into a diamond. Her whole body started glowing green together with her green hair and green eyes. “See?”

“Wow, that’s amazing.”

“Fascinating, Misaki. I didn’t expect less from you.” Said Crypthonic.

“What about you, Yumi.”

“Uhm… not so much as of now, but I was able to change the temperature of the water. I wanted to drink something cold, but no matter what liquid I touch, it becomes warm.”

“Well, that’s perfect.” Said Crypthonic.

“Huh?”

“There is a planet that is complete ice where we highly believe that the comet gem is at. Unfortunately, no one has been able to get close to the planet without instantly freezing to death, and you, Yumi, you sound like the perfect person that can go there.” I don’t know why, but it made me happy to feel useful for this man. Well… I guess I should probably address him as a father from now on, I don’t want to sound rude after all.

“Oh, that’s great!” I said.

“But first, I want you to find Daku.”

“Yes, father,” I said. He quickly let out a quiet gasp, then smiled,

“You don’t really have to call me that if you want.”

“No, you deserve more than just respect from us for saving our lives.” Said Misaki. Crypthonic looked at us, scoffed and said,

“You two are adorable.” We smiled and kept walking.

“Do you have a slim idea of where Daku could be hiding?” I asked him.

“I do, but we need a specific someone to find his planet.”

“Is the planet hidden?”

“It uses very strong magic that it can make itself invisible from any telescope and radar, and we can’t really go randomly across the universe until we just happen to cross it.”

“I understand,” I said.

“Who is this person?” Asked Misaki.

“It’s an Artificial intelligence created by the Aizawa Family many years ago. The android was initially created to be used as an ace war machine against our previous battles with the demons.”

“Battles with demons?” I asked.

“Artificial intelligence?” Asked Misaki.

“Magic is limited by the life energy in someone’s body, but things such as machines don’t require this energy, so they can infinitely make as much magic as they possibly can. The productions of such machine were prohibited by me since it requires the sacrifices of divine lives for its core, and it also requires a sacrifice of a divine gemstone which we can’t afford to lose for some dumb machinery.”

“S-sacrifices?! And a gemstone too?!” I said while in shock.

“Yes. Divine souls are the greatest source of energy, so they needed 1600 divine souls for such thing, if they decided to use human souls it would take more than a billion, so they took the easiest way out and used people who willingly sacrificed their lives for the greater good of our race.”

“That’s…”

“Good.” Said Misaki.

“Good?! That’s horrible!” I Said.

“Yumi, sometimes sacrifices are needed to save many more lives.” Said Misaki.

“I understand, but… at least father was smart to ban such thing, since it will show that he is no tyrant, and people will follow him even more.”

“Hm, I’m surprised you understood it that easily. But it was also because we used the wind gem, we sacrificed such a good gem for something that escaped.” He said.

“Are there more wars going on right now with the demons?” Asked Misaki.

“No, as of right now there have been no wars. The creation of that A.I crushed our enemies’ hope.”

“Where is this machine?” I asked.

“We… have lost it.”

“What?!”

“Yes, I know, but it apparently grew a consciousness and escaped. It even knew how to program its own body so that the EMP bomb that we had I it wouldn’t explode.”

“That’s… scary. Such machine in the wild could cause many problems.”

“Yes, it has killed more than millions of demons, from babies to elders, and that’s exactly why I need you both to find the machine and neutralize it or at least convince it to come back.”

“It sounds incredibly strong.”

“Yes… it is said that the machine was equal to 70% of Ochiru’s strength.”

“So… we have many things to do.” Said Misaki.

“Yes. I didn’t bring you back to life just to relax.”

“We have to… find this machine first, then with the machine, we are going to be able to find Daku. Wait, this might sound rude but, why do we need to find Daku?” I asked.

“Well, he has one of the gems.”

“He does?! Which one?”

“The moon gem. It's very special and powerful, that’s how he is able to hide his planet. With one more gem on our side, we will have more chances of fighting Ochiru back. I don’t really care about Daku in specific since such a rebellious son is not deserved of the throne.” I kind of feel bad to just take the throne from Daku though… I hope we become good friends once we find him. We heard the bell from the church, and quickly everyone got out of their home.

“Huh? What’s happening?” I asked.

“There’s a set time when people have to go outside and pray to Hikari once a day.”

“Such order… I admire it.” I said.

“Hmm… what if you don’t feel like it?” Asked Misaki.

“There is no such thing as that, Misaki. A kingdom without discipline and order will just turn out like how hell did. There is a set time for almost everything in this kingdom, and people seem to be happy with it as long as they are safe.” Said Crypthonic.

“But… there’s no freedom.” Mumbled Misaki.

“Misaki, are you doubting our father’s ruling?” I asked.

“No, no! I’m just saying… I mean, this looks like an actual utopia; many people seem happy and stuff, but… that’s because they don’t know what they are missing.”

“Misaki!” I yelled at her.

“Yumi, don’t yell your real names out; and Misaki is right. Misaki, I understand where you are coming from, but with freedom comes chaos and abuse of such freedom, and with chaos comes a failure of a kingdom.”

“I-I understand, father.”

“What people mostly care about is love, and with safe walls and order, love can grow as strong as possible. As long as people have love, they have happiness.” Father is such a smart leader… could I ever be on his level? We suddenly heard someone saying,

“Ugh, I don’t feel like praying today, I’m just going to go back home.” As soon as our father heard that, he started to look around.

“There are no guards nearby… well, it looks like I have discipline him myself. Yumi, Misaki, wait for me at the royal building.”

“Yes, father.” Our father put his hood on and started walking back with that person.

“Yumi, I have a bad feeling about this, let’s follow him.”

“He told us to wait for him at the royal building, we shouldn’t follow him.”

“Screw that, aren’t you curious?”

“A bit…”

“Let’s go then!”

“But-” She grabbed my arm and pulled me. We followed our father around a corner, but when we turned one specific corner, he was gone.

“Huh? Where did he go?” We started looking around, but he was gone together with that person.

“We should just hurry back, Misaki,” I said.

“Hmm… how did he disappear out of nowhere like that?” Asked Misaki. Thinking about it, I’ve seen him appearing and disappearing out of existence time to time… it’s weird. “Whatever, let’s just go back, I’m thirsty and hungry.” After coming back, I started having a nice dinner with Misaki, our father came back and I said,

“Hey, father! How did it go?” I asked.

“Oh, you mean that guy? Hopefully, he learned his lesson.”

“You want to join us?” Asked Misaki.

“No, thank you. I’m not that hungry right now.” Misaki and I stood the rest of the night practicing in the training area that he had prepared for us back at the lab. I was getting used to using my gem in stronger ways, and so did Misaki.

“By the way, have you been able to talk to your archangel?” Asked Misaki.

“Luminous? No, I need the other half of the sun gem. How about you?”

“Yeah, I have. And he is actually a very cool guy! His name is Bakuretsu.”

“Ah, good for you. I can’t wait to meet Luminous; I need to thank him for his blessing and many other things. Was Bakuretsu a famous warrior once he was out of his gem?” I asked.

“Hahaha, no, he was a funny drunk.”

“Well… I guess he fits you in a certain way.” After our training, we went to sleep. The next day, the newspapers arrived. I took one since I was bored, sat on a bench in the plaza, and opened it. On the headline, it read, ‘Citizen brutally beaten by guards, he was pushed on the ground, stomped on, and kicked fifty times.’ Wow… did our father call guards?

“Did you read the newspaper?” Said a random citizen to another.

“Yes, but I think he deserves it for ignoring such an important event. We pray for our one and only god.”

“But don’t you think they went a bit far?”

“That’s what happens when you go against the rules.” I guess father is really not merciful when it comes to breaking the rules. I went back to the royal building where I saw Misaki playing with a wolf.

“Chaos! Where did you find her! She looks adorable!” I said while petting the wolf.

“Apparently, us angels have an honorable race that serves us, they are called the ‘Hakujos.’

“Huh?” The wolf that was in front of me, suddenly turned into a human-looking girl with wolf ears and a tail, while it had clothes made out of its own fur.

“Good morning, princess Salamander.”

“Woah! You can shapeshift?!”

“Yes. Just like demons have Satana Lynxes, angels have Hakujos. But we are not slaves, we are a clan that once made an oath to serve and aid the angels when in need.”

“That’s so cute!” I said.

“Cute?” Asked Misaki, “It’s the coolest thing ever!” As we were petting the Hakujo, our father walked in.

“Girls, we have an idea of where the A.I is hiding.”

“Where?!” We both yelled.

“The planet where humans reside… and where you both once lived, Greenterra.”

“Oh, ok. Does this A.I have a name?”

“Yes, it’s Irma Tempest Airflow, or at least that’s the name it decided for itself, such damned machinery better thank us for having the honor of acquiring a name.”