This is the outline and basic information of what is going on in the book. |
Obon (Festival of Souls) was created so families could guide the ancestors' souls back to earth. This was created as a Buddhist holiday because it’s believed that at this time the souls come back, but this is also the time when the souls can become Fushimon or while in the Other World they might become a Virus. Out of the two, becoming a Virus is worse, for a Virus feeds off the souls of the living human while a Fushimon kills its friends. The Fushimon takes the look of what most would call zombies or this living dead. They only take this form when they are about to feed. Fushimon suck the fluids from the living body. But this usually happens at night, and the body then is shortly taken away to hunt before any type of observation of the body. A Virus however was just a evil being whom died and now lives off other's souls. These come as shadows, usually with four red eyes on the side of their shape like head, two on each side one under the other. Another kind, that is more rare than the others, is the Moral Devil, which is a demon that can possess the living or control the dead. Even though rare, the Moral Devil can basically kill whoever whenever and even when a monk tries to exorcise it, the Devil can turn the chant against them and end up ripping the limbs from the monks. There is only a hand full of cases of a Moral Devil and only one monk has ever been able to exorcise it. ---------------------------------------------------First Obon-------------------------------------- During the first obon was a bloody one. The spirits came back almost all evil. A lot of monks lost their lives that day, but they were able to cleanse the souls and put to rest the Moral Devils and Viruses. Hoping this would never happen again they started a celebration known as Obon that was to be celebrated on this day. The 15th day of the 7th month. (Lunar calendar, so that’s August in Japan, and July everywhere else.) Now of course, the Japanese tried to cover this history up by a different story. The story of Mokuren, a disciple of Shakyamuni, who saw a vision of his deceased mother in the Realm of Hungry Ghost where she was indulging her own selfishness. Greatly disturbed, he when to the Buddha and asked how he could release his moth from this realm. Buddha instructs him to make offerings to the Sangha on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, The disciple did this and, thus, saw his mother’s release. He also began to see the true nature of her past unselfishness and the many sacrifices that she had made for him. The disciple, happy because of his mother’s release and grateful for his mother’s kindness, danced with joy. And that’s were they say the Obon dance came from, the dance that Mokuren did of joy, but truthfully that dance came from the chant the monk performed and the movements they made. ----------------------------------------------2067---------------------------------------------------------- The era of technology is at its peak. Everyone is in the future and almost no one even knows what Obon is. Now there is a handful of people who know it, and even less who celebrate it. Those who do celebrate it live in a section of Japan in a part of Kyoto behind everything else. Those who live there are people who still carry on all the other celebrations and religions. The two religions that dominate this section of Kyoto is Buddhism and Shinto. A lot of samurai, of course not true samurai but most likely a blood line of a samurai, live there. Even a few ninjas and emperor blood live there, doing everything in the traditional style, from rice patties to hand woven cloths. This section is known as Assarishita, or in English just Simple. At the Buddhist temple they have the monks know that it was coming, and now it’s here. Because the ancestors haven’t received any offerings, they became angered. The Virus's, Fushimon, and Moral Devil’s have decided to reap havoc once again. In the mainstream city of Kyoto they had no idea what was going on but those in Assarishita knew, and they are the ones who can stop this from happening, for they are the ones with the power of the first monks who fought this the first time. |