Monologue (on This is Tokyo Future)

War. War never changes.

Patriots or tyrants, governments or religions- it doesn't matter: the three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on in an endless waltz. Thirty years ago they came, unbidden and unannounced, proclaiming their arrival in a beacon of light high over Tokyo, visible from the towers of Mumbai to the beaches of Honolulu. The Seven, the Idoru. Goddesses, at least to our mortal eyes. With them came the return of magic to the world, a hard clash against technology and society and the science that said it was impossible. Many denied the truth of these Idoru and the power they wielded, but many more flocked to their banners.

These factions, calling themselves the Clans, spread their power and influence throughout the city, then the world, driven by their greed for resources and recruits. Nobody remembers who made the first strike, but it wasn't long before all seven Clans were embroiled in bitter conflict. Though the rest of the world was spared the worst of the fighting, the home city of the Clans was all but razed, with no end in sight.

Eventually a coalition of heroes banded together to put a stop to the fighting: only at great cost they were able to break the hold of the Clans' power and bring the Great War to an end. Seen as saviours, these heroes assumed positions of leadership and influence within the Clans, and a truce developed, with one Clan, the Church of the Lady of Lace, emerging as the leader among them.

Slowly, the clans rebuilt the city they had destroyed, but what was called a truce and an alliance was merely a cover: the war went underground, fought by spies and assassins rather than infantry and artillery. For years the Church of Lace defended itself from all comers looking to bring them down, all the while becoming more insular; adopting an elitist, isolationist mindset that demonized and alienated them in the minds of the other Clans. Despite this, their power made them proof against the feeble attempts to topple them.

Then, in an instant, a moment never fully explained to this day, the Church destroyed itself: it's spires brought down, it's people killed, it's Idoru vanished without a trace, the memory of it's very existence erased from the minds of most of the world in an event the few who remembered came to call the Exodus, for it is believed by some that the Lady of Lace took her followers away, to a place far beyond our reach.

The remaining six Clans rushed to fill the power vacuum, heralding the return of war to the world. But without the heroes of the past, the war saw no end. Clans were devastated, split, reformed and altered even as they changed the world around them. New factions arose, old ones died out, and the march of years carried on with still no end in sight. What came to be known as the Exodus War never stopped, but the Clans eventually lost their ability to fight it, settling into an uneasy cease-fire that persists to this day, none willing to commit their resources to an attack that would leave themselves defenseless.

But war never changes.

Just before it’s destruction, a champion of the Church of Lace, a man known only as Nightwalker, spoke a prophecy that promised the return of the Lady of Lace to the world and her faithful once again rising to power. There are some who believe that this prophecy is close to fulfillment and that the time to begin the next beat of the waltz -revolution- is now.