Why Me? by Nakamura Ayumu (book club reads .TXT) 📕

flute. I was given the flute from my mother who had acquired it from her friend Aika over in the Kingdom of Aido, she said that I could keep it for she no longer needed it. When my mother had received the flute she said that the flute is supposed to have "mystical powers" that you can tap into when playing it. I realized what had caught my eye most on that instrument when my mother had given it to me was the beaded strings that had hung off the brown rack that binds the six pipes in place. I guess that's what I highly liked about it. I looked over to him with a look of a question;

(Are you ready?)

He nodded in reply to my mental question and I could see that he was slowly but surely testing me to see if i had been following up with my lessons. In order to make sure that his Violin was in tune, I played a few notes and to my surprise the violin was perfectly tuned. Oh! I had forgotten to mention this to you earlier is that if I play an instrument; the parts that weren't covered play in the background, I got sensei to join me as well and my two other music tutors, Rinta and Ruko appeared from the shadows. Rinta and Ruko are about my height, they’re twins too. They're both brown haired and Brown eyed. Ruko wears what Kanagawa-sensei wears. Whereas, Rinta wears an intricate Burgandy commoner’s dress that she painstakingly made by hand. Kanagawa-Sensei handed me the flute and he took the violin. I gave Rinta my cello and Kanagawa-Sensei gave Ruko an acoustic guitar. We played our usual song and it worked out really well. Anything not covered by a person playing an instrument was playing out of the blue. The song sounded better than every other time that we've attempted to play it. Afterwards we switched instruments and I started our second song. The same thing happened again, this ability no longer bothered me, but it began to bring back memories of when this first happened to me; it was slightly uncomfortable at first, it even scared me to the point where I would refuse to pick up an instrument. As the years went on I slowly got used to it but today, I finally had the courage to ask sensei. I intend on receiving a plausible answer

"Sensei, where does all the music come from when you Ruko, Rinta, and I play these instruments together?" I look up at him, expectant to gain an answer.

"Um.." He takes in a deep breath and lets out a long sigh.

"Do you remember that horrid day?” He just had to open the wounds again, didn’t he?

“I do remember, why do you ask?” A look of curiosity masking my true feelings.

“The reason why I’m asking is because on that day your potential was unlocked.”

“What do you mean by ‘potential was unlocked’?” My eyes widened in horror.

“Kuro, I’ll tell you when the time comes” I gritted my teeth in frustration. As if his lack of an answer didn’t already add on to the extra stress that I have because today I become the queen of the five kingdoms.
As if on cue, three strangers walk into the courtyard. I can tell which kingdom they're all from based on the uniforms that they all wear. I look off to the far left and see a girl, wearing a traditional mage's outfit, a simple strapless dress that ends at her mid-thigh, her dress is a dim orange laced with silver trim, and she has a white cloak to cover her face if need be, and to top it all off she has knee-high silver boots, she's from the eastern kingdom, her long orange hair is down past her knees and putting it in twin tails doesn't help much either. She has the most beautiful orange eyes I've ever seen, I walked over to her to greet her.

"My name is Kuro." I greeted her with a warm smile.

"My name is Kagoshima Amaya." I was interrupted by sensei tapping me on the shoulder to greet the other two people. I then looked to the right and saw a very tall man with red hair that barely reached his chin, and he was wearing the silver amour laced with blue and gold of an imperial knight from the southern Kingdom by the ocean. He kneeled down and looked up at me.

"My name is Nagasaki Akio." I looked at him in awe of his stature. At a height of 6'0". Finally I looked over at a...boy about my age, and about my height wearing the imperial knights silver amour laced with gold and black. He reminds me of someone, hmm but whom… SENSEI? He's the spitting image of him, hair style, eyes, everything. I slightly blushed at him and I think he noticed me blush, because he smiled softly. He kneeled down, and kissed my hand. I blushed even more. In response to this action sensei walked over to him, and backhanded the boy across the face...hard.

"You do not kiss the princess's hand unless she gives you permission to!"

"S-" I tried to stop the argument from getting tenser
than it already was.

"But I was just trying to show my res-"

"Sen-" I tried to interrupt again to no avail.

"No buts, GUARDS! Send him to the-" I was getting tired of being interrupted by the two.

"SENSEI! No one is going anywhere, now. Tell me what your name is." I looked over at the boy with an inviting smile.

"M-my name is Kanagawa Kazuhiro, a-and-"

"You're from the Northern Kingdom, like Sensei, and by the way you look you’re obviously the spitting image of him too." I think about all the things that sensei and this kid...Kazuhiro have in common, and finally it all clicks into place.

"No way, you're brothers!" I shouted with joy, knowing that my sensei was brothers with another boy, and said boy was an imperial knight at that.

"I have no relations with this boy at all; my mother said that she had already lost one of her sons during birth."

(Lost a son during birth? What could that mean? Well whatever I need to know why they came here to require my assistance.)

"Well, now that introductions are out of the way, may I ask why you three require my assistance?"

"Well" Akio spoke smoothly and softly to make sure that he was not heard by anyone else that might pass by, "We are requiring your assistance for Sir Kazuhiro, the best imperial knight that you'll find anywhere in any of the five kingdoms." Not knowing how to respond, I look to sensei for approval, he nods, and I look back at the three.

"Well, what kind of assistance do you require?"
Amaya decided to speak "Sir Kazuhiro requires an assistant, with which he has none. I had told him that if it's an assistant that he requires, he needs to go to the centre kingdom to look for the princess and ask for her assistance."

"Well, I be-"

"NO! I WILL NOT ALLOW IT!" We all look to see chancellor Junichi standing beside sensei, without his assistant, chancellor Daisuke.

"But why?" I ask Junichi.

"The response doesn't matter, what I'm saying is that I forbid you to go further than the castle walls at all times, do you understand?" He said sternly. As the Chancellor walked off, I looked to the three, then I handed Sir Kazuhiro an envelope and whispered to them.

"Here, take this, and please...be careful...” I looked left and right to make sure I wasn’t being watched “…around the chancellor.'' I walked over to sensei, and i told him to lead the three to my quarters so they don't get in trouble with the guards, he nodded, and I walked into my room, violin still in hand, I noticed my mother's old garb beside my bed with a note attached to it, I picked it up and read it aloud to no one in particular.

‘Happy coronation day my dear young one, May you try your best to bring peace to these five glorious kingdoms, Love, mom.' Tossing the note aside, I quickly changed into the dress; it was an ornate ballgown all Burgandy and trimmed with black lace. The one thing I particularly liked about this dress was the fact that I looked like my mother the dress. I began to smirk as the thought had crossed my mind of me looking like Queen Amaterasu of the five kingdoms. I have my mother's old piano in my room that I play practically every night, so I closed my eyes, placed my hands against my chest, and concentrated all my energy...and not only one ball of light appeared in my presence, but two, I thought that they would be images of my previous music teachers, Anju and Her Husband Jun, I usually continue my lessons with them after Kanagawa sensei leaves. They slowly began to take shape and form, and they became tangible images of my...parents? Tears began to fiercely well up in my eyes, and I handed my mother the pan flute, and my father the violin that I had in my hands, everyone walked in casually, sensei had the cello that I brought to the courtyard, and I glanced at Kazuhiro, who picked up an flute on my vanity. I sat in the piano seat, I had pulled my father's harp out of the corner and the five of us played our own little song, all the parts that were not covered that we had thought up by ourselves were played by other forces, ones that you couldn't see, but could feel in the atmosphere of the room, it gave off a feeling like no other, one so indescribable that you just had to be there to understand it. After we had finished, I heard my mother speak, worry threaded within her tone;

“My young one you must get to the tower shrine, for there is an unspeakable demise that will befall upon us if you do not hurry.”

Then, they both faded away, never to return again.

"Wait, I have something important to ask you!" I said, realizing that I had possibly glimpsed a final look at my own parents. I collapsed to my knees and began to sob as loudly and as violently as I could. Sensei rushed to my side and began to attempt to comfort me, for there was no possible way to relieve me of the one question that I had kept in the back of my mind. The one time I wanted to have it answered, the answer is nowhere to be retrieved.

"It's today, isn't it?" His perfectly combed bangs began to fall slightly in his face, his expression darkening.

"...yes it is today." I said back to him with a slight quiver in my voice, "B-but I don't want to go, sensei! Don't you remember what happened to mom and dad? The thing is that I'm honestly afraid that I'll meet the same fate!" I said swallowing hard. Sensei looked at me and memories of me fighting the masked man that killed my mother and my father on my mother's coronation day and how I taken on the burden of becoming a mage, had come rushing back to him. I placed my mother's old crown on my head and left them a few words.

"Meet me in the throne room ASAP, please be careful, always be on your guard, and if anything happens to me...forget about it, and move on,