From Nematsu With Love
A KYLARIS ROLEPLAY;
Murder;
Intrigue;
Revolutionary Activities;
Spy kitsch;
ALL IN ONE.
Cast
Nematsu
Songguo
And others
Imperial Capitol of Teien - 帝都庭園 - Teito Teien
State of Nematsu - ぬまつ国 - Nematsu-koku
Okurimono District
October the 25th, 2016
Ryota turns the corner with haste - he doesn't want to keep the others waiting. Nor does he wish to run into one of the Department of Harmony officers who patrol this area. He has learned that if you are young-enough looking and walk with a fast pace that they will just assume you are a student late to class, so they will not disturb you. He is only partially being deceptive, he is late and he had just left his technical institute - the kami will forgive him for this indiscretion.
Ryota is from the Riponki Valley, and had moved to the city to study - suprisingly - farming. His father had farmed during the disastrous Collectivizations. His grandfather saw the Revolution and the Great War, so much societal change in Nematsu had happened during his life. Ryota's great-grandfather had known the waning days of the last doomed Shogunate, the Baku. He saw the last Shogun, a sad and frail man, beheaded by the Lord High Executioner. That very same day he was in Teien to watch the Tsuji Emperor proclaim his reclamation of power. In reality power fell from one feudal lord to another, albeit dressed up in the pretensions of democracy and imperial power. His family had farmed for a long time, this is certain.
The precocious young Ryota had won a scholarship to study at the best agricultural technical institute in Nematsu, located in the heavenly capitol of Teien. The scholarship didn't cover all expenses, so he scraped together enough savings so that by twenty-eight he could attend the institute.
It was there he became disillusioned.
Okurimono means "gift" in Nematsugo. Supposedly, the district was named this by a snarky princeling - who declared that the reason all the poorest lived in said district was "because it is our gift to them, our gift to allow them to live in our city." All the poorest of the poor lived here, prostitutes, drug dealers, poor students like Ryota. The officials of the government came here to indulge in their vices, now matter how...obscure. It is the hub of the black market. And the government tolerated it - the tolerated the name, which was so derogatory. The communist government made no move to improve the area or even rename it. Everywhere there is misery.
Police brutality is regular. Welfare is minimal and wages poor. The food is expensive because the crops failed, most products are cheap and break easily. No one makes money, since all means of producing money are under state control - to run a fruit stand requires going to seven different bureaucracies for appropriate permits. Nothing is clean. Yet atop Palace Hill the Shikken, the tycoons who profited from this filth, complacent capitalists masquerading as communists and imperial puppets participate in the decadence of monarchy and obscene wealth. It was like this everywhere, the wealthy grew wealthy as they always had.
Ryota turns the corner once more, then takes a sharp turn down a dingy and trash-littered alley and climbs up a fire escape. He stands the backdoor of the apartment and knocks thrice, in the arranged pattern. He is greeted by a slender youth dressed in the scrubs of a medical. He is lead through the cramped and yet sparsely furnished apartment to a conclave of people sitting in a living room, talking in hushed tones. He has most of them before, so go to the institute with him - others he knows from student functions and some he met at this secret meetings.
"Greetings Ryota-kun," says the leader of the group, the one in scrubs, Taira Yoshi.
Ryota nods to Yoshi out of respect, "greetings Yoshi-senpai." Yoshi returns to his previous conversation and Ryota takes a seat on the floor.
"As I was saying I have a family friend who used to be involved in underground political activity, I will set up a meeting with them to see if we can get support for our cause," the gathering nodded in agreement. That night they stay for many hours in the cramped apartement, talking theory mostly - they don't know it, but this conversation in this cramped room filled to the brim with eighteen people, will have an effect on the whole country.
Ryota is from the Riponki Valley, and had moved to the city to study - suprisingly - farming. His father had farmed during the disastrous Collectivizations. His grandfather saw the Revolution and the Great War, so much societal change in Nematsu had happened during his life. Ryota's great-grandfather had known the waning days of the last doomed Shogunate, the Baku. He saw the last Shogun, a sad and frail man, beheaded by the Lord High Executioner. That very same day he was in Teien to watch the Tsuji Emperor proclaim his reclamation of power. In reality power fell from one feudal lord to another, albeit dressed up in the pretensions of democracy and imperial power. His family had farmed for a long time, this is certain.
The precocious young Ryota had won a scholarship to study at the best agricultural technical institute in Nematsu, located in the heavenly capitol of Teien. The scholarship didn't cover all expenses, so he scraped together enough savings so that by twenty-eight he could attend the institute.
It was there he became disillusioned.
Okurimono means "gift" in Nematsugo. Supposedly, the district was named this by a snarky princeling - who declared that the reason all the poorest lived in said district was "because it is our gift to them, our gift to allow them to live in our city." All the poorest of the poor lived here, prostitutes, drug dealers, poor students like Ryota. The officials of the government came here to indulge in their vices, now matter how...obscure. It is the hub of the black market. And the government tolerated it - the tolerated the name, which was so derogatory. The communist government made no move to improve the area or even rename it. Everywhere there is misery.
Police brutality is regular. Welfare is minimal and wages poor. The food is expensive because the crops failed, most products are cheap and break easily. No one makes money, since all means of producing money are under state control - to run a fruit stand requires going to seven different bureaucracies for appropriate permits. Nothing is clean. Yet atop Palace Hill the Shikken, the tycoons who profited from this filth, complacent capitalists masquerading as communists and imperial puppets participate in the decadence of monarchy and obscene wealth. It was like this everywhere, the wealthy grew wealthy as they always had.
Ryota turns the corner once more, then takes a sharp turn down a dingy and trash-littered alley and climbs up a fire escape. He stands the backdoor of the apartment and knocks thrice, in the arranged pattern. He is greeted by a slender youth dressed in the scrubs of a medical. He is lead through the cramped and yet sparsely furnished apartment to a conclave of people sitting in a living room, talking in hushed tones. He has most of them before, so go to the institute with him - others he knows from student functions and some he met at this secret meetings.
"Greetings Ryota-kun," says the leader of the group, the one in scrubs, Taira Yoshi.
Ryota nods to Yoshi out of respect, "greetings Yoshi-senpai." Yoshi returns to his previous conversation and Ryota takes a seat on the floor.
"As I was saying I have a family friend who used to be involved in underground political activity, I will set up a meeting with them to see if we can get support for our cause," the gathering nodded in agreement. That night they stay for many hours in the cramped apartement, talking theory mostly - they don't know it, but this conversation in this cramped room filled to the brim with eighteen people, will have an effect on the whole country.
