19 Prophecy

It was the year 1637. Amakusa Shirou was 16 years old, and had been lauded by Japanese Catholic followers as "heaven's messenger" just one year ago. Now, he was the leader of the Shimabara rebellion, which aimed to overthrow the Tokugawa Shogunate.

Amakusa Shirou had already gained fame among the rebels for his miraculous works. Among the rebels were some spies sent by the ancient families. They did not want to go against the Tokugawa Shogunate yet, but they had to keep up with the recent events.

Amakusa Shirou began foretelling the future. For example, he had predicted that the rebel forces would be pushed back just before successfully sieging the Tomioka and Hondo castles. They would again fail to capture Shimabara castle, but would instead gather at Hara castle and put up wooden palisades.

At first, nobody believed him. But when the events happened exactly as how he had described them, they were left in awe. No-one dared not to believe him. Afterwards, it was said that Amakusa Shirou was a saint.

Soon, this folk saint started proclaiming prophecies of the far future. He said that a global financial crisis would occur in 2007 to 2008, despite the fact that no-one knew what a global financial crisis was.

He proclaimed that Barack Obama would be the first African American President at the start of 2009.

He made all sorts of predictions, and since they claims about 400 years into the future, no-one could verify them. Nevertheless, the spies from the ancient families were diligent when copying down his prophecies.

In the end, Hara castle had been besieged and conquered after the betrayal of a rebel, and Amakusa Shirou was taken captive and beheaded. His head was displayed on a pike in Nagasaki.

But before the fall of the castle, Amakusa Shirou had proclaimed a final prophecy.

"One day, the saviour of the world will grace this land. He will share the same name as I, and begin his life an orphan. I proclaim, to all those who heed my words. Treat him well, and he will repay the favour. Not with personal benefits, but by saving the world! His name begins with 'Na' and ends with 'Mi'!"

That was Amakusa Shirou's last prophecy. It was said that just before he was beheaded, he had mumbled these words: "I've done my job, Administrator."

Years later, the ancient families still kept his prophecies safe in their archives. Every other rebel had been killed, so they were not afraid that these all-important prophecies would be leaked out to the general populace. When the time came for the GFC in 2007, these families had been prepared. Their mindset had been, 'better safe than sorry'. Some had not heeded Shirou's words, and had lost a lot. Others, who believed Shirou, benefited.

His prophecies were once again proved true when Barack Obama was elected the President of the USA.

With these accurate predictions of the future, no-one doubted that his last prophecy would be false. As such, the ancient families had scoured the entirety of Japan for years, hoping to find this so-called saviour of the world.

Alas, no-one could find him. That was, until two immature youths reported their friend's name to their parents…

*****

The Ashikage family, who were one of the families that believed in Amakusa Shirou's prophecies, was currently in a state of turmoil. The only successor of the main family, Ashikage Junko, had just finished her report on her assignment in Australia.

As for why the Ashikage family were acting like ants in a hot pot, her guess was as good as any. She had simply reported that she had met Miyamoto Basara and Hattori Iwatani personally on the plane. She didn't leave out the fact that Amakusa Naofumi was present with them, and that they seemed to share a good relationship.

It wasn't until her parents had finished freaking out that they explained the circumstances to Junko.

And when she heard it, she was shocked beyond belief. 'To think that the person I was worried about, the person I had warned about the Miyamoto and Hattori families, was the saviour of the world!'

Naturally, as someone who hadn't fully succeeded the family, there were many secrets that were kept from her. Growing up in a technological era where superstitious things such as prophecies and fortune-telling were considered scams, Junko was reluctant to believe what her parents had told her.

But when the personally brought her to their archives and showed her the ancient scripts that the Ashikage family spies had written, she could no longer refuse to accept reality.

Suddenly, she felt thankful that she had not blown up in a fit of rage in front of Amakusa Naofumi. If she had, she wouldn't be able to bear the consequences. It was unknown whether this 'saviour of the world' was one who would bear grudges. If he was, then anyone who crossed him before the calamity that he was supposed to save the world from, would definitely suffer.

It would be a good thing for them if he didn't personally step in to deal with them. However, it would be definite that he would not do anything to save them from the pending disaster.

Alas, everyone had underestimated this saviour. As someone who had come across the Great Calamity before, Plato knew the importance of unity. In front of such a massive threat, it was no time to be holding grudges and stabbing people in the back, even if they deserved it.

They needed as much manpower as they could get, and considering the size of the Beast Emperor's armies, they would need a humongous number of soldiers to fight them back.

The Ashikage's had gone out of their way to notify all the other ancient families in Japan. Their line of thought was that if they could not hog him, then the Miyamoto's and Hattori's shouldn't be able to either. In any case, having more support would be good for him, right? They could also take the chance to kiss *ss and lick his boots.

It was a strange sight to see so many ancient families wanting to suck up to a single, young man who, in this lifetime, had yet to draw blood.

But, reality was often not what one pictured it to be. Plato would not play favourites, even for the Miyamoto and Hattori families. In his view, it would be a good thing to suddenly gain so much support, but it was inconsequential when it came to deciding who he would give benefits to. Why? Because he wanted all the benefits to be shared by the human race, as a collective.

People nowadays barely thought this way, and even in ancient times, it was a school of thought that did not propagate. It could be said that only someone like Plato, who had truly seen the end of humanity, could think like this.

Therefore, all the worrying that the ancient families were doing was wasted on Plato.

However, the target of all these worries, had absolutely no way of knowing what was going on around Japan. He had read the histories of the four elders, and all four had the same prophecy by Amakusa Shirou in their recent logs. Shirou's last sentence before he was killed shook Plato to his core. Even till now, he could not forget the message that the "Administrator" had sent him, let alone the fact that the reason he was still alive was all thanks to this being.

Somehow, Plato intuitively knew that if he wanted to know more about this "Administrator", he would have to fight and defeat the Beast Emperor first.

Therefore, Plato chucked his train of thought into the dark expanse of the back of his mind, and sat down, ready to divulge his future plans to the four elders.