Chương 37: Decompress (Part 2)

The next song slowly started playing quietly in the background, it was Rivermaya's You'll Be Safe Here*, another classic. Hana took a moment to collect her thoughts before she shared her story. She felt a certain resonance with the song's lyrics.

"I was born in Fukushima. My family comes from a long line of warriors who fought together with Nakano Takeko and were taught by her as well. She was a famous onna-bugeisha**, who was legendary for her skill with the Naginata, the very same weapon I wield. You must be curious as to why someone with such deep roots in Japan would move to the Philippines?" Hana deeply exhaled before she continued, clearly affected by her past memories. "I was cast out by my family," she managed to finally say.

Everyone was quite surprised. How could such a dignified woman like Hana be cast out?

"We understand, Hana. You don't have to go further." Mabini went to her side and comforted her, giving the impression that he already knew the story behind it. It seems these two have gotten quite close.

"It's fine. That was then, and there's no point in letting it bother me any further." Hana took a deep breath before continuing. "A young and naive me fell in love with the wrong guy. An older guy, he tried so hard to convince me that he was the right one and I should give myself to him. One day we went into a love hotel. I had second thoughts when we were inside, but his eyes already seemed so rabid, he didn't listen to me, so I beat him up and ran out. What I didn't know was that he already had someone take photos of us as we were going in."

As she was trying to tell her story, one could hear the soldiers cracking their fists as they were gritting their teeth. At the same time heaving a sigh of relief that their Goddess beat the crap out of that guy.

"Nothing happened, but those photos made it look pretty bad. They blackmailed me using those photos, but I knew if I gave in to their demands, they would just record it and have more things to blackmail me with, so I refused. The photos were leaked and posted all over town. Our family all lived in a huge compound, so there has always been competition among relatives. Suffice to say, my relatives used that incident to take me out of the picture. All I had was my Naginata and what clothes I could fit in my bag. All I wanted was to start a new life somewhere far, forget everything, and I remembered researching about the beaches in the Philippines, and since a friend of mine told me about this City, I decided to go to college here. Everybody knows how to speak English here so it didn't make communicating hard for me. After the onset of the new world, I couldn't contact my family. That's my story so far."

Life was funny like that sometimes, had she stayed, who knows if she would have survived. But because she was, now she's currently in a leadership position in a <Nation> that's arguably the strongest in the world at the moment. At the very least, they were strong enough to have nights like these.

The bottles were spun, and for the most part, the others lived regular lives.

Apple and Mabini were both studying, their father, Mr. Linario was a college professor.

Maria and Clara grew up learning Filipino Martial Arts and were the school belles.

Yu-jin and Sang-Hwa actually only met after moving to Bacolod for school. Funnily enough, Yu-jin's parents moved her to the Philippines partly so she would stop seeing a guy her parents disliked. Sang-Hwa wasn't a particularly attractive guy, he was like a gentle bear at first glance, but Yu-jin fell in love with his humor and how easy it was to get along with him.

Elise and General Leman recounted their experiences moving around after he gave up his position. He had to chug a few mugs of liquor during the duration of Elise telling her story of how she and Boni met.

Sisa, Basilio, and Crispin were thankful for their lives, especially after being reunited and the fact that their abusive, alcoholic patriarch was no longer in the picture.

The bottle finally pointed towards Sura. One of the most mysterious and most powerful out of everyone here. In one on one combat, even Luna might not necessarily stand a chance.

Sura looked towards Luna not quite sure what to do. This turned from a one question game to a "share what you're willing to share" game. Something which turned out to be for the better, with everyone feeling a deeper sense of relationship with the others.

"It's fine," Luna said as he held her hand, reassuring her that despite being from an alien race, nobody here would doubt that she is on their side.

"Alright." Everyone had their ears perked as even the music's volume was lowered a bit more. Everyone was curious about the origins of this otherworldly beauty.

"I come from an alien race." everybody had an idea, especially after seeing her use her 3-Heads and 6-Arms skill to fight against the Kapre a week ago. Hearing her admit it, only made them more curious.

"We are called the Asura, a warrior race. We are all composed of tribes, never united. My father has always been outspoken in his intentions to work with other races, set up alliances, learn from others. Something which he had received a lot of criticism for, to the point where the other ignorant tribes worked together to indirectly harass ours. They were pressuring him to have me marry one of their sons, but my father would never agree to it, neither would any of our tribesmen. It's because we're so united that they haven't been able to get rid of us." Sura held on to Luna's hand even tighter as she continued.

"Coming to this world was a huge risk. If I slip up early, I would die, but if I continue this rate of evolution, I could get strong enough to silence all those opposing tribes with but a wave of my hand. I've enjoyed my time here so far, although I miss my family, seeing how you all accept each other regardless of race, makes it a lot easier."

"Mabuhay***, Lady Sura!"

"MABUHAY!!!"

Everyone cheered. No one really cared what race she was from, she was one of the people that saved them so respect was given where it is due.

This was also something that Luna has ingrained towards people's minds and one of the reasons why he put Hana and the rest in leadership positions. Of course, the other reason was that they were actually competent. It didn't matter what one's race was, as long as they proved to be capable and loyal.

This was a lesson that Luna learned from studying America. How did they reach such a height of power? Because of immigrants. If you developed geniuses in your nation, you'd be taking it from that pool, that would be a given. But if you refused somebody that would benefit your nation, just based on the fact that they were a different race? That would be the epitome of idiocy. And when that genius that you were racist against and refused, works for another nation, you would only suffer losses and no gains.

These were one of the virtues that Sura wanted everyone to embody. Especially in this critical stage of the <Sovereign Nation>. It would be much easier to influence people to go in that direction now, as they would influence any newcomers later on as well.

Just as everything was starting to die down, Luna received a report from the south wall.

"Lord Luna, there's a woman here who wants to speak to you. She's saying there's an imminent threat to our south."

After receiving that report, Luna excused himself as he went over to check it out, with Sura following closely behind him as everyone else was preparing to turn in for the night.

As he got to the south gate, there was a woman waiting for him there. Sensing an aura more intimidating than any she's experienced before, she automatically assumed that this was the leader of the <Sovereign Nation>. Bowing, she introduced herself.

"Are you Lord Luna?! My name is Josie Rizal. LODI****, it's such an honor to meet the leader of the Sovereign Nation!" Despite her haggard appearance, it was surprising how this woman was still so energetic when greeting Luna.