A/N: This fic is subject to (minor) revisions whenever I get picky

Disclaimer: The Ronin Warriors—never owned them, never will.

Prophecy

Written by: Kadri

Prologue

It was a quiet, mid-afternoon day in late April. The air was pleasantly warm and only slightly humid, and overhead the cloudy gray skies were clearing to reveal the fresh, clean sort of blue that always appeared after a good spring rain. Just a hint of a breeze teased the leafy green canopy of the campus trees, languidly stirring the otherwise still air.

From his classroom on the second floor, Ryo Sanada had a bird's eye view of the glimmering greenery and marble courtyard below. He gazed out across the school grounds with a wistful sigh, his thoughts straying from the lesson to more interesting things. The weather was so perfect… What he wouldn't give to be out there on the practice field, tossing around a soccer ball with a few of his friends... The grass underfoot, the sun on his face...

"Mr. Sanada!" the history teacher snarled, slamming his hands down on Ryo's desk. "Would you care to repeat the last few things I've said for the class?"

Somewhat reluctantly, the raven-haired teenager drew his gaze from the alluring world outside the window to look up at Mr. Kibishii. He withheld another sigh—this time at the rude interruption of his happy daydream. A few of his classmates were hushing giggles behind their hands, while another snored away softly somewhere in the vicinity of desks behind him. He suddenly found himself fighting the urge to grin.

Kibishii is most definitely a snore.

But there was no way he could voice that particular opinion out loud. At least, not when the teacher in question was breathing straight down his neck. "Excuse me?" he asked instead, his tone suspiciously innocent as he tried to banish the amusement from his voice.

"I said, 'Would you care to repeat the last few things I've said for the class?'" the teacher ground out slowly, looking, if possible, even more aggravated.

Ryo shifted in his seat, having the grace to look mildly uncomfortable. "Um... no, not really, sir."

Mr. Kibishii narrowed his eyes, folding his arms across his chest as he stared at his least favorite student with ever-growing dislike. "If memory serves me correctly, your final exam is rapidly approaching, Mr. Sanada. Unless you are just determined to fail my class, I suggest that you start paying very close attention to my lectures. It might even be intelligent," in sarcastic tones, "to take a few notes every now and then."

With those venomous parting words, he stalked away towards the back of the room. A few moments later there was yet another loud, telltale 'thwump' as his hands descended on some other poor, unsuspecting student's desk. The snoring Ryo had noticed earlier came to an abrupt stop, replaced with incoherent stuttering.

"What? I'm awake, Mom, I swear! ...wait a minute, where am I...?"

"And I shall assume," Mr. Kibishii said acidly "that you can't discuss today's lecture with me either, can you Mr. Masaki?"

There was a prolonged pause.

"Uhmm... huh?"

"Now tell me, the point of this is… what, exactly?" the teenage girl drawled, sarcasm creeping into her voice.

Her grandfather finished tying the blindfold over her eyes with gnarled brown hands, sighing. "I've already explained the concept of this exercise to you, Rael. Twice. Weren't you listening the first two times?" he inquired in an overly patient tone, raising one bushy eyebrow at her taller form.

Rael straightened with a grimace, directing her blind scowl towards the sound of his voice. He was a short old man, nearing his mid-sixties, with a bald head and bronzed, weathered skin that was very similar to tough old leather. Thick white eyebrows dictated his every expression, topping a set of piercing steel-blue eyes that seemed to get sharper with age. Even though she had seven inches on him, Rael would be the first to admit that her grandfather could cut an imposing figure when he put his crotchety old mind to it.

"Pops, I was listening," she growled in annoyance, scuffing the toes of her beat-up Keds into the hard dirt. "I get the whole 'concept' thing. What I'd like to know is why you're making me practice it."

Hinoshi simply shook his head and thrust a slender wooden pole into her hands; his granddaughter frequently had the tendencies of a terrier, taking hold of a question or idea and then refusing to let it go. Rather than giving her the answers she wanted, he circled around her impatient form, twirling his own pole in one hand. After a moment, he poked at the back of her knees.

"Feet apart, Missy. Find your balance and raise those arms; I won't have you half-assing this exercise just because you don't know why you're doing it!" he ordered, in 'the-tone-that-would-be-obeyed.'

Rael sighed in exasperation and bit back a smart remark as her body automatically shifted into the new position—a habit after years of obeying 'The Voice'. She spread her hands apart on the pole and focused on her breathing, forcing herself to relax.

"Good," her grandfather said approvingly as he inspected her posture with a critical eye. "It looks like you've been practicing after all. Now, I'm going to move around a bit. I want you to keep your ears open and stay focused for the next few moments, so you'll know what to expect."

She growled something indiscernible under her breath, but obediently stood still and waited for his next move. Hinoshi circled her again, very slowly, his feet barely scraping the ground. In the next instant, he lashed out with his pole. The wood whistled past her shoulder as it cut through the open air. Rael twitched as the air beside her shifted, her eyes straining to see past the cloth blindfold.

"In the next moment, I will attack you," Hinoshi said evenly. "I want you listen and anticipate where my strikes will be, then counter them. Are you ready?"

Without waiting for a reply the old man pivoted, whipping his practice pole around towards her back. Rael tensed and yanked her own pole up to protect the side of her face, flinching when he struck the small of her back instead.

"You aren't listening. Pay attention!"

"Easier said that done, thank you!" she retorted in frustration. "I've never done this before!"

He swung a second time; she missed the block and he connected with her upper arm. "It's never stopped you before," Hinoshi replied mercilessly, continuing the assault with a speed that belied his elderly appearance.

"Well gee, why don't I blindfold you and whack at youwith a broomstick, then?"

He grinned. His next blow was aimed straight at her knees when her pole suddenly appeared out of nowhere, foiling the attack.

"Good. Now we're getting somewhere. Again!"

"OW!"

"Again!"

Rael barely missed the following strike, picking up a new bruise across her shins, but she managed to block his next move, and then the next. The pair began to pick up speed, moving across the dirt towards the house as Rael both blocked and evaded her grandfather's attacks with growing accuracy.

Without warning, she parried and lunged at Hinoshi through the slight opening. The elderly man ducked under her unexpected attack and countered, using a combination that effectively knocked her feet out from under her and sent the practice weapon flying out of her hands. Rael gave a grunt of dismay as she toppled backwards, landing on her butt in the dirt. She tugged the blindfold from her face with a grimace, looking up into Hinoshi's twinkling eyes. She couldn't help the rueful smile that tugged at her lips.

"Okay Pops, you got me."

He chuckled at her good-natured resignation to this latest defeat. "You need to improve your concentration a bit. You'll get there eventually—you're learning."

"Slowly. I'm learning very slowly," she grumbled back with a little sigh. Turning her head away, she whistled a short, cheerful note. "Dragon! C'mere boy!"

Rael brushed her light brown hair over her shoulders, grinning as a very large black dog catapulted itself from their front porch and bounded over. The Labrador panted happily as she rubbed her hands over his floppy ears, running her fingers through his silky fur with a rare, affectionate smile. The overgrown puppy woofed and leaned over, washing her face with a great show of enthusiasm. She laughed and raised her arms to fend off the dog slobber.

"Ack, no! Dog drool!"

Hinoshi rolled his eyes heavenward, muttering, "That's not a dog, that's a small horse…"

"…who is in serious need of some strong breath mints," Rael added with an amused look, scouring the ground beside her for sticks that she and Dragon could play 'fetch' with. She picked up a particularly study one, studying it for a moment. When it passed her inspection, she waved it in front of Dragon's grinning face and then hurled it across the yard, chuckling as the dog tore off in hot pursuit. "So, why did you want to play with sticks today, Pops?"

Her grandfather froze in mid-smile and his gaze flitted uneasily towards the line of trees at the edge of their property. Rael followed his stare, unnerved by the intensity in his eyes, but she couldn't see anything out of the ordinary peering back at them from the shadows. Dragon trotted back to them, his tail proudly erect as he dropped the retrieved stick in the dirt by her hand. She picked it up, smiling to hide her wariness, and threw it even further out into the yard.

"Last night... I had a premonition," Hinoshi began quietly. "Very soon now our world will be in grave peril. It has already begun. There is going to be a terrible battle between the forces of good and evil. We will be drawn into the chaos to come. I can't change that... but I fear I may not be here to guide you when the time comes. So you must be prepared."

Rael stared at him for a long moment, weighing his prediction in her mind. Finally she gave a derisive snort of disbelief. "Premonition? Pops, come on... you know I don't believe in that kind of thing. You probably just had a bad dream or something. I've told you not to eat weird things right before you go to bed."

Hinoshi's eyebrows came together with an audible 'click'. He drew himself up to his full four feet and eleven inches, bearing down on his granddaughter with a ferocious scowl. "You listen to me youngster. I may be old, but I still know what's what. There is a great battle brewing and we must be prepared for it. Fate pays no attention to whether you believe or not. I refuse to be negligent in my duties! If only to appease me, stay on your guard for the next few months."

Rael frowned, but nodded rather than disagree with him. "Okay, I'll keep my eyes open," she promised, knowing that he waited for a response. She'd learned from the past that such disagreements always ended with the same two results over and over again: Pops winning, and her walking away with the most insufferable headache known to mankind. Better to just concede early and avoid the brain trauma altogether.

Hinoshi harrumphed and turned to walk back towards their modest little house, deciding to let the subject rest. "I think it's time for tea."

Dragon dropped the slobbery stick in her lap and she wrinkled her nose at it, still preoccupied with her grandfather's seriousness. Impatient, the dog pranced in front of her, drawing a laugh; he still wanted to play. She scratched his ears, confiding in her four-legged companion with an exasperated smile, "He's gone off on another weird prediction, Dragon. And the annoying this is, when he says something's going to happen something usually does. But this time it's a lot stranger than his usual "beware of skunks and tall trees this weekend'. I don't know if I should believe him or just laugh it off. I mean, he was dead serious. What d'you think boy? Has he totally lost it this time?"

The dog whined at her, cocking his head to one side. Rael grinned and shook her head. "Yeah, I don't know either."

She drew her arm back, throwing the stick as far out into the yard as she could. Watching him gallop off with an excited yip, she pushed herself to her feet and dusted off her rump with both hands, then looked up to see if Dragon had captured the stick yet. What she saw left her momentarily speechless.

Dragon stood over the fallen stick, his attention locked on something within the darkness of the trees. Hackles raised and teeth bared in feral warning, he could obviously see something... but what, she couldn't tell. A moment later the Labrador charged into the forest, barking his head off and leaving Rael standing there with her mouth hanging open.

"Hey! Dragon! Come back here!" she shouted, wondering what had gotten into her happy-go-lucky companion. She shook her head, muttering to herself, "He must've seen a squirrel or something... Probably..."

He'll come back when he gets tired of chasing things that can climb trees, Rael thought, slowly regaining her humor. Or when he gets hungry.

With a snort, she headed towards their house.

Upon seeing the very large black dog barreling towards him at full speed, the man cursed under his breath and drew away from the edge of the trees. He brushed a few stray leaves from his shoulders, mulling over what he'd just witnessed in the clearing.

Obviously the old man isn't as washed-up as I thought he would be, he mused, brushing strands of jet-black hair out of his eyes. The hood of his dark gray cloak fell away, revealing troubled blue-gray eyes set in a lean face. A dappled ray of light pierced the thick canopy of trees, illuminating a two-inch scar across his right cheekbone. Though I still doubt that he'd pose any great threat to us.

There was a noisy commotion in the brush just as he turned to go, and he was forced to stop short as he found himself face-to-face with Dragon. The Labrador growled low in his throat, deep brown eyes glinting dangerously in the flickering sunlight. The dark-haired man scowled and waved for the dog to move aside.

"Out of my way," he ordered harshly.

Dragon remained rooted to the ground, his lips curled back in a snarl. The man waited a moment longer, but it quickly became apparent that the dog was going nowhere unless attached to him by the teeth. He blew out a disgusted breath and made an abrupt gesture with one hand. Dragon lunged for him, only to pass through empty air; the man was gone.

He sniffed around the ground for a few minutes, whining a bit as he assured himself that the danger had gone—for the time being, at least. After a few more moments of inspection, Dragon turned and trotted home without a backward glance.

"Mister Sanada!"

Ryo jerked out of his stupor, blinking repeatedly to clear away the hazy, faraway look from his blue eyes. Refocusing on his surroundings, he found himself almost nose to nose with an incredibly irate history teacher and nearly fell out of his chair. The man's sallow face was quickly turning chartreuse with outrage and his beady black eyes had narrowed to tiny slits. Ryo attempted to look innocent, wondering if Mr. Kibishii was going to start breathing fire at him.

"What did I tell you earlier about paying attention?" the teacher growled out in a very quiet voice. "Perhaps you need a little motivation. Let me make myself perfectly clear—if I catch you daydreaming or nodding off in my class one more time, I'll personally see to it that you have detention all the way up to your summer vacation!"

Wide-eyed with horror, Ryo gave a meek nod of understanding; he knew that Mr. Kibishii would make good on his threat, and he really preferred not to spend a month and a half stuck in detention with the man. "Yes, sir."

The teacher glared at him for several more moments before stepping back and returning to a very monotone lecture. He was relating something about the feudal era of Japan to their lesson, but Ryo had already tuned him out again. Once freed from Kibishii's evil death glare, he breathed out a sigh of relief and slunk low in his chair, pretending to stare at the text in his history book as he tried to refocus his mind. After a few minutes of intense concentration, he'd succeeded in giving himself a terrible headache but had accomplished little else.

I could've sworn I sensed something earlier... Damn Kibishii! he thought in irritation, running his hands across the smooth, polished surface of his desk in an absent manner. I'm sure I didn't just imagine it!

Ryo growled to himself softly as he reoriented his thoughts, propping his chin up on one hand and resolving to wait until after school when he could question his friends. While the class drug on, he satisfied himself with staring at the clock, ticking off the minutes in his head as they slowly slipped away.

As fate would have it, Ryo ended up waiting even longer than usual that warm afternoon. Fifteen minutes after the final bell, he was still idling on the white steps of Han'a High School, debating which of his friends would walk through the doors first. Sage, Rowen, and Kento each had gym as their final class of the day and he had a sneaking suspicion that they were being held up in a long line for the shower. During his own gym period he'd discovered that at least half of the bath facilities in the men's locker room weren't in working order thanks to a couple of jokers and a large can of rubber cement. It'd taken him a little longer to remember where Cye was, but their lunchtime conversation quickly returned to him—Cye was busy helping the cooking club prepare for their end-of-the-year bake sale, just as he had the year before.

Kento poked his head through the front door and spotted Ryo reclining on the stairs. He grinned. "Hey there, buddy, whatcha still doing hanging around here?"

"Just waiting on you guys, that's all," Ryo replied with an easy smile as the plump boy clambered down onto the step above him. "I had something I wanted to ask before everybody headed home for the day."

Kento ran a hand through his damp, ashy-black hair. He didn't need to ask Ryo what was on his mind—he already had a pretty good idea. "Yeah, I thought you might. Sage and Rowen had to make a locker stop, but they should be coming out this way any time now. Cye may take some waiting on though. Those members of the cooking club are raving lunatics—when I passed the Home Ec. Room a few minutes ago they were screaming something about muffins and chocolate cupcakes."

"Mm... Did someone say 'chocolate cupcakes'?" came Rowen's cheerful voice from behind them. "I'm starving!"

He and Sage had pushed open the school's double doors, stepping out into the warm, sunlit afternoon air. Both of them were carting their book bags and various homework amenities, and for some strange reason Rowen had a large, yellow rubber ducky tucked beneath one arm. Ryo stared at it for a moment, then raised his eyebrow at the blue-haired boy in an unspoken question.

"He found it in one of the broken showers and no one knew who it belonged to," Sage replied, an amused look gracing his normally serious face. "And you know Rowen—the weirder, the better. So now he's toting around a duck."

Rowen grinned sheepishly, lifting his shoulders up in a half-shrug. "What? You can't tell me that a giant rubber ducky isn't funny. Look, it even squeaks!" He proceeded to squeeze it, proving that his new toy did indeed make the infamous squeaky rubber ducky noise.

Ryo snorted. "I don't know which is weirder Ro—you, or that duck."

"I vote for Rowen, hands down," Sage remarked instantly, pushing his blonde hair back with a smirk.

"Yes, definitely Rowen," Kento agreed, nodding wisely. He laughed and covered his head with his hands as the taller boy threw a crumpled paper ball at him. "Aw come on man, even you admit you're weird."

Their amusement was interrupted by a softly accented voice. "Who's weird?"

Cye emerged from the school with his book bag in one hand and a stack of cookbooks in the other, his blue, flour-splotched apron slung over one arm. He smiled at his friends, wiping a smear of cake batter off of his cheek with the corner of the apron. Then he spotted the duck.

"Rowen...?"

The blue-haired boy turned towards him, his eyes sparkling with mischief. "Yes Cye?"

"Where in bloody hell did you get that thing?"

Kento grinned. "He found it in the shower after gym. Somebody left it lying around, so he decided he needed a new pet and adopted it on the spot."

As the little auburn-haired boy rolled his eyes skyward at their blue-headed friend's latest antics, Ryo groaned and dragged himself to his feet, offering Kento a hand up. "Are we all here now?"

"Everyone present and accounted for, sir!" Rowen responded instantly, throwing Ryo a smart salute. The ducky slipped out of his grasp, bouncing off the concrete sidewalk with an indignant squeak.

Sage bent to retrieve it, raising an eyebrow as Ryo bopped his friend over the head with his history book for being silly. "So Ryo, what's going on? I'm sure you didn't stay half an hour after school just for the hell of it."

"Well, now that you mention it, there's something I wanted to ask you guys," Ryo admitted, scratching the back of his neck. "I was in Kibishii's class earlier, and about halfway through the period I could've sworn I sensed something... but then the old windbag distracted me and I lost my concentration. Did any of you—?" He trailed off, looking around the circle at the other four boys.

Everyone exchanged uneasy looks. It was the warrior of light who finally replied.

"I felt something," Sage said, handing the rubber ducky over to its owner. "I'm not sure what, though. To be honest, I didn't think much of it at the time."

Rowen nodded, clutching his new favorite toy. "You know, now that you mention it, I think I felt something too. It was very faint—it can't have been inside the city, whatever it was."

"It went away so quickly," Cye added in his own quiet voice. "I thought it was my imagination playing dirty tricks on me. Could the Dynasty have returned?"

Ryo rubbed his forehead and shook his head with a sigh. "Whatever this was, I don't think the Dynasty is involved. Talpa is dead, and the Dynasty died with him. This was something different—something else altogether. But here's the thing that bothers me: if there's a problem in the nether realm, Kayura and the Warlords would've tried to contact us, right? So far, that hasn't happened."

"Then what are we gonna do about this, Ryo?" Kento cracked his knuckles suggestively.

Rowen brushed still-damp hair out of his eyes, glancing at Ryo before opening his mouth to speak. "I'm afraid there's not much we can do, Kento. We don't know who—or what—that presence belonged to, or why it surfaced today. Plus, now that it's gone we have no way of tracking it. We don't even know where to look."

"You hit the nail on the head Ro, thanks," Ryo said, a frown creasing his forehead. "I'm not much for waiting, but it looks like our only option at this point. We may not know where they are right now, but the minute they come back..."

"We'll know, and we can find them," Sage finished coolly, nodding with approval. "Not the best solution, but at the moment I can't think of anything better. Unless someone has an alternative they'd like to offer?" He glanced around.

The other boys traded glances, but no one spoke up. Kento fumed for a few moments, but finally nodded in agreement. "Man, I hate waiting!" he groused. "It sucks!"

Cye chuckled, patting him on the back sympathetically; none of them enjoyed waiting for something to happen. Especially when they weren't sure what would happen when the time came. Then another thought occurred to him.

"Hey guys, are we still meeting at Mamma Fuan's tonight for dinner?"

There was a murmur of agreement as they looked at one another for confirmation and suddenly Kento found his outlook on life rapidly improving; the promise of good food always cheered him up, especially when it was Chinese food from his family's restaurant. Sure, he would have to remind his mother that everyone was coming by for dinner, but he wasn't worried—Mamma Fuan was always happy to see his friends.

After a brief exchange of goodbyes, Cye and Kento waved and set off down the sidewalk together, deeply involved in a discussion about which dish Cye would try at dinner later on. Sage and Rowen hoisted their schoolwork, preparing to follow suit, but Ryo grabbed hold of Rowen's sleeve.

"Hey Ro, would you mind helping me study for my history exam later?"

The blue-haired boy blinked, then gave Ryo a raised-eyebrow stare; he knew there was some discord between Ryo and his rather unpopular history teacher. "Is Kibishii still giving you problems?" Rowen asked with a bit of a scowl.

"Eh, let's just say that I'm running low on luck today. He caught me not paying attention to his lecture twice this afternoon, and now he's threatening me with detention until the end of term if he catches me at it again," Ryo grumbled. "And in the meantime, he's trying to figure out the best way to fail me."

Rowen slung an arm over the dark-haired boy's shoulders, grinning. He loved a good challenge, especially when it involved foiling one of their teachers' evil plans. "Don't worry Ryo, I'll tutor you. Your exam grade will be so high that he won't dare fail you."

Ryo breathed a sigh of relief. "Thanks, man. I really owe you."

"Psh. No you don't. This is part of what friends are for—staying awake until all hours of the night… helping each other study to show up pissy, annoying teachers that have it in for us…"

"I'll remember that," Ryo said, flashing Rowen an amused grin. "Now, I better head home before Gram decides to bring out Whiteblaze and come looking for me."

Sage raised his eyebrows. "The scary thing is... I can actually see her doing that. And as friendly as Whiteblaze is, I don't think the police will appreciate a giant white tiger walking down the middle of the sidewalk."

Ryo winced. "Exactly. So I'll see you guys at Mamma Fuan's tonight."

Rowen and Sage waved as the dark-haired boy quickly turned and trotted off in the opposite direction, then turned and started walking down the sidewalk together, heading off towards their own respective houses. It had been a long day.

"Rowen?" The blonde was grinning.

"Yes Sage?"

"You're a really odd duck, you know that?"

"Squeak!"

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