Period of Adjustment
Chapter 1
I was trying to post this as one big long story rather than chapters, but I think at the rate I'm going that it's better to go with the chapter method. This way, I feel like I'm accomplishing SOMETHING!G The other portions of this story will be out as fast as I can write them, but something is telling me that this is going to be a long story.
Summary: Set after season 2. The boys have moved into Mia's house, and they're all adjusting to the new living situations, but there are a few problems. Throw in a new enemy later on, not to mention school starting and our boys are in for an interesting time!
It started innocuously enough. They'd all settled in comfortably to Mia's house after the final battle with Talpa, and everything seemed peaceful. Ryo, Sage and Cye inevitably rose earliest in the morning. Ryo and White Blaze left the house early each morning for a run, regardless of the weather, while Sage spent a brief period in the bathroom and then headed for the trees behind Mia's house. He'd found the perfect spot to meditate, a gently shaded glade that glistened with morning dew as the sun rose over the hills in the distance. Cye immediately went toward the kitchen in the mornings, having found that he truly enjoyed preparing meals for such an appreciative audience. Mia usually came down halfway through breakfast preparations to help, and Kento and Yuli could always be counted on to be awake and downstairs before breakfast was ready to be served. Rowen inevitably overslept, sleeping through all manner of alarms and wakeup calls, having stayed up too late reading the night before, so the task of waking him usually fell to Kento and Yuli. Between the two mischievous youths, they devised all manner of devious ways of waking poor Rowen, who was almost always in a foul temper after being woken. Breakfast was a lively meal, with everyone attempting to obtain food before Kento could eat it all, while Yuli related to everyone the latest method of getting Rowen out of bed. Indeed, everything was peaceful.
"So what's everyone doing today?" Mia asked as she reached under Kento's questing fork and speared the last two pieces of bacon. She grinned triumphantly in response to his "hrmph!"…it wasn't often any of them beat Kento to food sitting on the table. And it was only because she was looking directly at Kento that she noticed it, but while Yuli answered her question, Kento was looking at Ryo. In fact, all the boys were. Poor Ryo looked a bit uncomfortable as he answered that he intended to practice in the morning, and then he and Yuli were swimming in the lake in the afternoon. When the other Ronins chimed in that practice sounded fine, as did the swim later, Mia almost laughed at Ryo's expression. He looked rather discomfited at everyone's inclusion of themselves in his plans.
Later, when she and Ryo were washing and drying the breakfast dishes, and the other boys were getting the practice equipment from downstairs, she asked him about it.
"Ryo? Did you not want the guys tagging along today? I can try and distract them if you'd like," she offered.
"Oh, no, that's okay Mia," Ryo answered. He focused his attention solely on the plate he was drying before glancing at her out of the corner of his eye. Should he…could he talk to Mia about this? She was a good listener… "It's just lately they seem to be…" his words came out in a rush, "well, I feel like the leader of a follow-the-leader game. And it's fine, really, but I'm not used to it." He laughed somewhat self-consciously. "I'm sure they're not doing in on purpose, but I feel like they always wait for me to decide things, and I'm not sure why, or if they're even really doing that."
"If it bothers you, you should talk to them about it. I'm sure you're right, and they're not doing it on purpose, and if you mention it they may stop." Mia replied, frowning slightly in consideration. She could think of a few times outside of battles where the boys had all paused when a decision needed to be made, and come to think of it, Ryo usually spoke up with what was eventually the group consensus.
"Mia, if they don't realize they're doing it, I'm certainly not going to mention it to them," Ryo answered. "That'd just make them all uncomfortable." And finishing drying the last dish, he smiled at her and headed off to join his friends outside. Apparently to Ryo, the subject was closed. But as Mia watched the boys pair off the spar, she decided that if it kept up, she'd talk to the boys herself.
Outside, the boys paired off, with the odd boy out watching. Currently Rowen was being reacquainted with the flats of Sage's feet (Rowen just ducking out of the way of a kick aimed at his head), Sage having the height advantage over Rowen. Kento was attempting to use his strength to knock Ryo's swords from his hands, but Ryo's quickness was for the most part thwarting that plan. Cye, for his part, waited impatiently until they were all focused on their opponents before speaking, hoping to distract someone. The sooner someone was knocked out, the sooner he could get off the sidelines.
"Hey guys? School starts in a week…" Cye announced, watching them closely for a reaction.
"A week? Awwwww!!!" And Kento turned to look at him, giving Ryo the perfect opportunity to sweep his leg out, sending Kento sprawling to the ground. Ryo was on him in an instant, his sword balanced carefully at Kento's throat, ensuring that Kento lost the battle and knew it.
"Man, Cye, that sucks. You did that on purpose, just cause you're tired of sitting on the sidelines," Kento grumbled as he allowed Ryo to assist him to his feet. He moved over to the tree trunk currently serving as their bench and glared at Cye as he vacated the seat.
"I didn't do anything, Kento. It's not my fault Ryo's quicker than you are," Cye answered, looking as innocent as possible. Rowen laughed outright at Kento's expression, which unfortunately for him resulted in Sage grabbing his arm and throwing him to the ground, pinning him quickly. Sage grinned down at him, and with a smirk Kento bounded over to help Rowen up and make sure his position off the bench was secured.
"Cye, I'm gonna get you for this!" Rowen announced as he stalked over to the bench. On top of losing the round because he laughed (laughed, for crying out loud!), now his shoulder was gonna be sore for the rest of the day. He sat down, rolling his shoulder in an attempt to head off the stiffness he knew was coming, and raised his voice slightly. "Did you have a point with your comment, Cye, or were you really just trying to get off the bench?"
"Oh, no, I had a point to make," Cye answered, breathing hard. He and Ryo were fighting hand to hand now, and he was having a hard time dodging all of Ryo's shots. The ones that had gotten through had been aimed for his stomach and ribs, making breathing a more important than usual issue. What had he been talking about to Rowen? Oh yeah…"When I talked to my mom yesterday, she mentioned it, and also said that I needed to go school supply shopping. You know, paper, pencils, clothes, all the stuff you normally get before a new year sta…eek!" That last blow had nearly caught him head on, but instead was a glancing blow to the side of his head. Time to go on the offensive. He launched a series of kicks and punches that normally made his opponent retreat a few steps, but to his dismay Ryo grinned at him and blocked each move, following through with a few punches himself.
"I'm still not seeing a point here, Cye," Sage calmly interjected, blocking Kento's staff with his flat edged sword, before raising the blade in a counter attack. Kento also blocked, then swung the staff at Sage's feet, hoping to make the swordsman fall to the ground. No such luck.
"Yeah, Cye, you said there was a point to this conversation. Surely you can multi-task well enough to hold an intelligent conversation and spar with Ryo at the same time," Rowen taunted. Okay, it was a slightly cheap shot, but darn it, he'd now been stuck on the bench longer than anyone yet today.
"Well, I was thinking," Cye answered, pausing to gulp air as Ryo pressed his attack, "That we should all head into town sometime soon, like maybe tomorrow, and get our shopping done."
"Yeah, that makes sense, Cye. And surely it'll be better to undergo this torture with you guys than my mom," Rowen laughed, then continued in a high falsetto, imitating his mother. "Rowen, love, get the longer pants, you'll grow into them. And we must pick you out some shirts that aren't blue this year, darling. Surely you'd like to wear another color?" Rowen snickered to himself. He loved his mother, and both of them knew it, but if he'd wanted different colors in his wardrobe, he'd tell her so. And this was all without even getting started on the subjects of socks and underwear!
Cye and Kento made a valiant effort to contain the giggles that threatened at hearing Rowen imitating his mother, but neither was able to control it. At the most inopportune moments in their own fights, they both dissolved into laughter. Cye went down immediately as Ryo tripped and pinned him, while Kento's staff was ripped out of his hands from a blow by Sage's sword. The swordsman held his blade inches from an oblivious Kento, who was doubled over, laughing too hard to notice he'd been disarmed. The warriors of Halo and Wildfire looked at each other, then down at their laughing opponents. As one, they moved away from their friends and toward each other, Ryo pausing briefly to retrieve his katanas. They reached a central point and bowed to each other before taking up a formal stance opposite each other. Rowen, noticing their movement, shushed Kento and Cye, and all three remaining troopers sat and faced the fighters. While all of the troopers were talented fighters, Ryo and Sage had something the other three didn't, something indefinable. When the two of them crossed swords, they became poetry in motion, flowing from one strike to the other seemingly without effort. The attacks and counterattacks came so quickly that at times their weapons blurred, and none of the observers were quite sure where the next blow would come from, so quickly did the opponents strike.
As one, they moved, going so quickly from standing still to full-on attack mode, that none of the watchers could quite tell who moved first. Their arms fluidly in motion, their bodies making minute adjustments to each other's position, the two of them sparred, neither giving nor taking so much as an inch from the other. Their faces, carefully blank, gave no one the slightest hint as to what they were thinking, planning. Usually these matches ended in a draw, Sage and Ryo both pulling back from each other in the same motion and putting down their arms, but that never kept the other boys from watching. One of these days someone would win a match, and they would be there to witness it.
Midway through the bout, Sage appeared to gain an advantage when he partially disarmed Ryo. His sword caught the underside of a katana as Ryo was raising the blade, and the blow sent the lighter sword spinning through the air a few yards behind and to the side of the combatants. Ryo, however, adjusted instantaneously, using his much quicker strikes to thwart Sage's planned attack strikes as he leapt backward from the fight. Retrieving his right sword from the ground without even looking, he raised both swords to block Sage's downward strike that, if unchecked, would have split his skull like a watermelon. Ryo, in the meantime, used the move he'd used earlier on Kento, sweeping his leg out and behind Sage's. Sage fell, as Kento had, but rolled with the fall to fluidly move back to his feet a few feet beyond Ryo's reach, moving quickly forward to begin the next round of strikes.
They continued on in this manner for perhaps another 15 minutes, just long enough for both combatants' shirts to be drenched in sweat, before the two of them moved apart.
"Good match, Sage. You had me worried when I lost my sword," Ryo complimented.
"And to you Ryo. You needn't have worried, I never had any doubt that you'd regain your sword in plenty of time," Sage replied.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're both wonderful, enough with the compliments already!" Kento interrupted. "It's getting hot, are we going swimming now, or what?" Cye and Rowen looked at Ryo, to whom Kento had directed his question.
Sage raised one golden brow at Ryo in silent inquiry. Periodically they'd continued training after one of their bouts, but today it seemed unnecessary. "What do you think, Ryo? I agree with Kento, it is getting hot, and a swim would be nice about now."
"Sure, I think we've worked out enough for the day," Ryo answered calmly. "I'll meet you guys down at the lake after I retrieve Yuli. He and White Blaze were going a bit into the forest this morning to have 'adventures'," and here he grinned wryly. "Hopefully it won't take me the rest of the afternoon to find them!" And he moved off toward the woods at their back while the other boys moved as one to the house to change into swimming trunks and retrieve towels.
More on the way, hopefully soon! Kahta
Chapter 1
I was trying to post this as one big long story rather than chapters, but I think at the rate I'm going that it's better to go with the chapter method. This way, I feel like I'm accomplishing SOMETHING!G The other portions of this story will be out as fast as I can write them, but something is telling me that this is going to be a long story.
Summary: Set after season 2. The boys have moved into Mia's house, and they're all adjusting to the new living situations, but there are a few problems. Throw in a new enemy later on, not to mention school starting and our boys are in for an interesting time!
It started innocuously enough. They'd all settled in comfortably to Mia's house after the final battle with Talpa, and everything seemed peaceful. Ryo, Sage and Cye inevitably rose earliest in the morning. Ryo and White Blaze left the house early each morning for a run, regardless of the weather, while Sage spent a brief period in the bathroom and then headed for the trees behind Mia's house. He'd found the perfect spot to meditate, a gently shaded glade that glistened with morning dew as the sun rose over the hills in the distance. Cye immediately went toward the kitchen in the mornings, having found that he truly enjoyed preparing meals for such an appreciative audience. Mia usually came down halfway through breakfast preparations to help, and Kento and Yuli could always be counted on to be awake and downstairs before breakfast was ready to be served. Rowen inevitably overslept, sleeping through all manner of alarms and wakeup calls, having stayed up too late reading the night before, so the task of waking him usually fell to Kento and Yuli. Between the two mischievous youths, they devised all manner of devious ways of waking poor Rowen, who was almost always in a foul temper after being woken. Breakfast was a lively meal, with everyone attempting to obtain food before Kento could eat it all, while Yuli related to everyone the latest method of getting Rowen out of bed. Indeed, everything was peaceful.
"So what's everyone doing today?" Mia asked as she reached under Kento's questing fork and speared the last two pieces of bacon. She grinned triumphantly in response to his "hrmph!"…it wasn't often any of them beat Kento to food sitting on the table. And it was only because she was looking directly at Kento that she noticed it, but while Yuli answered her question, Kento was looking at Ryo. In fact, all the boys were. Poor Ryo looked a bit uncomfortable as he answered that he intended to practice in the morning, and then he and Yuli were swimming in the lake in the afternoon. When the other Ronins chimed in that practice sounded fine, as did the swim later, Mia almost laughed at Ryo's expression. He looked rather discomfited at everyone's inclusion of themselves in his plans.
Later, when she and Ryo were washing and drying the breakfast dishes, and the other boys were getting the practice equipment from downstairs, she asked him about it.
"Ryo? Did you not want the guys tagging along today? I can try and distract them if you'd like," she offered.
"Oh, no, that's okay Mia," Ryo answered. He focused his attention solely on the plate he was drying before glancing at her out of the corner of his eye. Should he…could he talk to Mia about this? She was a good listener… "It's just lately they seem to be…" his words came out in a rush, "well, I feel like the leader of a follow-the-leader game. And it's fine, really, but I'm not used to it." He laughed somewhat self-consciously. "I'm sure they're not doing in on purpose, but I feel like they always wait for me to decide things, and I'm not sure why, or if they're even really doing that."
"If it bothers you, you should talk to them about it. I'm sure you're right, and they're not doing it on purpose, and if you mention it they may stop." Mia replied, frowning slightly in consideration. She could think of a few times outside of battles where the boys had all paused when a decision needed to be made, and come to think of it, Ryo usually spoke up with what was eventually the group consensus.
"Mia, if they don't realize they're doing it, I'm certainly not going to mention it to them," Ryo answered. "That'd just make them all uncomfortable." And finishing drying the last dish, he smiled at her and headed off to join his friends outside. Apparently to Ryo, the subject was closed. But as Mia watched the boys pair off the spar, she decided that if it kept up, she'd talk to the boys herself.
Outside, the boys paired off, with the odd boy out watching. Currently Rowen was being reacquainted with the flats of Sage's feet (Rowen just ducking out of the way of a kick aimed at his head), Sage having the height advantage over Rowen. Kento was attempting to use his strength to knock Ryo's swords from his hands, but Ryo's quickness was for the most part thwarting that plan. Cye, for his part, waited impatiently until they were all focused on their opponents before speaking, hoping to distract someone. The sooner someone was knocked out, the sooner he could get off the sidelines.
"Hey guys? School starts in a week…" Cye announced, watching them closely for a reaction.
"A week? Awwwww!!!" And Kento turned to look at him, giving Ryo the perfect opportunity to sweep his leg out, sending Kento sprawling to the ground. Ryo was on him in an instant, his sword balanced carefully at Kento's throat, ensuring that Kento lost the battle and knew it.
"Man, Cye, that sucks. You did that on purpose, just cause you're tired of sitting on the sidelines," Kento grumbled as he allowed Ryo to assist him to his feet. He moved over to the tree trunk currently serving as their bench and glared at Cye as he vacated the seat.
"I didn't do anything, Kento. It's not my fault Ryo's quicker than you are," Cye answered, looking as innocent as possible. Rowen laughed outright at Kento's expression, which unfortunately for him resulted in Sage grabbing his arm and throwing him to the ground, pinning him quickly. Sage grinned down at him, and with a smirk Kento bounded over to help Rowen up and make sure his position off the bench was secured.
"Cye, I'm gonna get you for this!" Rowen announced as he stalked over to the bench. On top of losing the round because he laughed (laughed, for crying out loud!), now his shoulder was gonna be sore for the rest of the day. He sat down, rolling his shoulder in an attempt to head off the stiffness he knew was coming, and raised his voice slightly. "Did you have a point with your comment, Cye, or were you really just trying to get off the bench?"
"Oh, no, I had a point to make," Cye answered, breathing hard. He and Ryo were fighting hand to hand now, and he was having a hard time dodging all of Ryo's shots. The ones that had gotten through had been aimed for his stomach and ribs, making breathing a more important than usual issue. What had he been talking about to Rowen? Oh yeah…"When I talked to my mom yesterday, she mentioned it, and also said that I needed to go school supply shopping. You know, paper, pencils, clothes, all the stuff you normally get before a new year sta…eek!" That last blow had nearly caught him head on, but instead was a glancing blow to the side of his head. Time to go on the offensive. He launched a series of kicks and punches that normally made his opponent retreat a few steps, but to his dismay Ryo grinned at him and blocked each move, following through with a few punches himself.
"I'm still not seeing a point here, Cye," Sage calmly interjected, blocking Kento's staff with his flat edged sword, before raising the blade in a counter attack. Kento also blocked, then swung the staff at Sage's feet, hoping to make the swordsman fall to the ground. No such luck.
"Yeah, Cye, you said there was a point to this conversation. Surely you can multi-task well enough to hold an intelligent conversation and spar with Ryo at the same time," Rowen taunted. Okay, it was a slightly cheap shot, but darn it, he'd now been stuck on the bench longer than anyone yet today.
"Well, I was thinking," Cye answered, pausing to gulp air as Ryo pressed his attack, "That we should all head into town sometime soon, like maybe tomorrow, and get our shopping done."
"Yeah, that makes sense, Cye. And surely it'll be better to undergo this torture with you guys than my mom," Rowen laughed, then continued in a high falsetto, imitating his mother. "Rowen, love, get the longer pants, you'll grow into them. And we must pick you out some shirts that aren't blue this year, darling. Surely you'd like to wear another color?" Rowen snickered to himself. He loved his mother, and both of them knew it, but if he'd wanted different colors in his wardrobe, he'd tell her so. And this was all without even getting started on the subjects of socks and underwear!
Cye and Kento made a valiant effort to contain the giggles that threatened at hearing Rowen imitating his mother, but neither was able to control it. At the most inopportune moments in their own fights, they both dissolved into laughter. Cye went down immediately as Ryo tripped and pinned him, while Kento's staff was ripped out of his hands from a blow by Sage's sword. The swordsman held his blade inches from an oblivious Kento, who was doubled over, laughing too hard to notice he'd been disarmed. The warriors of Halo and Wildfire looked at each other, then down at their laughing opponents. As one, they moved away from their friends and toward each other, Ryo pausing briefly to retrieve his katanas. They reached a central point and bowed to each other before taking up a formal stance opposite each other. Rowen, noticing their movement, shushed Kento and Cye, and all three remaining troopers sat and faced the fighters. While all of the troopers were talented fighters, Ryo and Sage had something the other three didn't, something indefinable. When the two of them crossed swords, they became poetry in motion, flowing from one strike to the other seemingly without effort. The attacks and counterattacks came so quickly that at times their weapons blurred, and none of the observers were quite sure where the next blow would come from, so quickly did the opponents strike.
As one, they moved, going so quickly from standing still to full-on attack mode, that none of the watchers could quite tell who moved first. Their arms fluidly in motion, their bodies making minute adjustments to each other's position, the two of them sparred, neither giving nor taking so much as an inch from the other. Their faces, carefully blank, gave no one the slightest hint as to what they were thinking, planning. Usually these matches ended in a draw, Sage and Ryo both pulling back from each other in the same motion and putting down their arms, but that never kept the other boys from watching. One of these days someone would win a match, and they would be there to witness it.
Midway through the bout, Sage appeared to gain an advantage when he partially disarmed Ryo. His sword caught the underside of a katana as Ryo was raising the blade, and the blow sent the lighter sword spinning through the air a few yards behind and to the side of the combatants. Ryo, however, adjusted instantaneously, using his much quicker strikes to thwart Sage's planned attack strikes as he leapt backward from the fight. Retrieving his right sword from the ground without even looking, he raised both swords to block Sage's downward strike that, if unchecked, would have split his skull like a watermelon. Ryo, in the meantime, used the move he'd used earlier on Kento, sweeping his leg out and behind Sage's. Sage fell, as Kento had, but rolled with the fall to fluidly move back to his feet a few feet beyond Ryo's reach, moving quickly forward to begin the next round of strikes.
They continued on in this manner for perhaps another 15 minutes, just long enough for both combatants' shirts to be drenched in sweat, before the two of them moved apart.
"Good match, Sage. You had me worried when I lost my sword," Ryo complimented.
"And to you Ryo. You needn't have worried, I never had any doubt that you'd regain your sword in plenty of time," Sage replied.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're both wonderful, enough with the compliments already!" Kento interrupted. "It's getting hot, are we going swimming now, or what?" Cye and Rowen looked at Ryo, to whom Kento had directed his question.
Sage raised one golden brow at Ryo in silent inquiry. Periodically they'd continued training after one of their bouts, but today it seemed unnecessary. "What do you think, Ryo? I agree with Kento, it is getting hot, and a swim would be nice about now."
"Sure, I think we've worked out enough for the day," Ryo answered calmly. "I'll meet you guys down at the lake after I retrieve Yuli. He and White Blaze were going a bit into the forest this morning to have 'adventures'," and here he grinned wryly. "Hopefully it won't take me the rest of the afternoon to find them!" And he moved off toward the woods at their back while the other boys moved as one to the house to change into swimming trunks and retrieve towels.
More on the way, hopefully soon! Kahta