Author: Rewatched the entire series and OVA. Decided that I need to write Dais/Kento. And this is what comes from it. /sigh
Disclaimer: Ronin Warriors/Samurai Troopers will never, ever belong to me.
Being Human
"That sounds like a terrible idea," Dais said dryly.
"Oh, come on," Sekhmet drawled. "You've been bored, too."
"Now that Lord Talpa has been dethroned, the Dynasty has been reduced to dozens—maybe hundreds—of small, petty warlords trying to fill the power void," Kale chimed in.
"Which is why we should stay. To make sure that things don't get out of hand," Dais replied calmly.
"Kayura is more than capable of quelling any insurrection that gains influence," Sekhmet said as he picked out the threading of a pillow on the pile he was sitting in. "She doesn't need our help. I think she rather enjoys it—perhaps a hold over from her time as a Dynasty warrior."
Dais rubbed the bridge of his nose. He hated being reminded that she wiped the floor with them on multiple occasions and that only Anubis' sacrifice brought her back to her 'good' self. He had a feeling the final battle would have ended much differently had she been in it.
The three remaining former-Dynasty warlords were together in what served as a War Room, the rice-paper doors rattling slightly each time a patrol passed. The magicked pieces that signified different warlords and armies shuffled quietly on the raised map that took up the center of the room as the three men stared at each other.
Dais had a bad feeling that things were about to get far more complicated than necessary.
"You—" he began.
"Oh, get the stick out of your ass, Dais," Sekhmet interrupted.
"Bet you're just scared," Kale said slyly.
Dais frowned and barely kept himself from showing his annoyance. Doing that would only gratify them. "Me? Scared?"
Kale smirked. "Why else wouldn't you want to go into the Human World? We still have our armor—who can touch us?"
"The Ronin seem to have entered a kind of…retirement. They won't be a problem even if something does happen," Sekhmet added as his nails pried loose tightly stitched threads in the pillow he sat on.
"But it won't be that easy to blend into the Human world," Dais said. "You two have faces that aren't exactly forgettable, and it's been over 400 years since any of us lived in the human world. You saw how much it has changed since we agreed to serve the Dynasty—all the stone and metal and glass. The strange vehicles, accents, clothing, social system...need I go on?"
Sekhmet and Kale shared a look and Dais barely kept himself from sighing. "You're set on this, aren't you?"
"See, that's the fun," Sekhmet said cheerfully, the rip of fabric loud in the soft quiet. "We'll be so in over our heads that it'll be a challenge worthy of a Dynasty Warlord!"
"Then go. Why bother telling me?"
"Because we thought you'd have the balls to join us," Kale replied.
"I have the gonads to be responsible, unlike you two," Dais drawled. "I give you two weeks before you come back."
"I think you'll be surprised, Dais," Sekhmet said as he pushed himself out of the pile of pillows, leaving one with stuffing spilling out of holes he had clawed into the fabric. "I think we'll be seeing you in the Human World. One month, tops."
"One month? One week," Kale said and shook his head condescendingly.
"Try not to get killed," Dais retorted. "That'd be embarrassing."
Kale rolled his eyes as Sekhmet snickered.
"Bye-bye, Miss Dais," Sekhmet cooed and barely evaded a knife Dais threw at him. Sekhmet cackled his way down the hallway as Kale gave Dais a mocking salute before leaving the room as well.
Dais ran a hand through his hair and sighed heavily. I'm not sure if I'm glad that they're out of my hair or not.
"What had Sekhmet so cheerful?" Kayura asked as she entered, her gaze turned towards where the other two warlords had exited.
"He insulted me and is going to inflict himself on the unsuspecting human world," Dais drawled and looked to the map that detailed the activity throughout the Dynasty.
"He's going to the Human World," Kayura repeated slowly.
"Not as a warlord," Dais said as the girl as she came up beside him. "As a human. Or as close to human as the lunatic can come."
"And Kale is going with him?"
"He is."
"But you're not."
"No."
"Why?"
Dais gestured to the map before them. "Because of this. I'd like to keep things as under control as possible."
"That's awfully sweet of you, warlord," Kayura said with a small, slightly mocking smile.
Dais barely kept a frown off his face. "The Dynasty isn't a small place. While your abilities as the last of the Ancients might give you sway over much of it, you're not all-powerful. Smaller warlords could band together and attempt to seize control of everything with an army not even you could stop."
"I'm surprised that you care so much," Kayura said, leaning on the Staff of the Ancients.
"Should I not care?"
"Oh, no. Feel free to care. I'll take any help I can get."
Dais had the strong urge to rub his eye in frustration. Why does everyone delight in insulting me?
"How long do you think they'll last out there?"
"I have no idea," Dais said and watched a figure representing one of the more vicious warlords that had popped up move to encompass the army of a weaker-willed one. "The novelty of it will wear off on them quickly, I suspect."
Kayura hummed in acknowledgement. "Kale or Sekhmet first?"
"Kale," Dais answered after a moment's thought. "Sekhmet will find ways to entertain himself for much longer."
"Really? I would think he'd get bored more quickly."
"The Human World is larger than the Dynasty, I believe. I'm sure he'll be wanted for some crime in every country that exists there before he decides to come back."
Kayura snickered.
Dais frowned as he watched the pieces dance across the board. "A battle is brewing."
"Oh?"
Dais nodded. "Look." He pointed to a banner that was quickly overtaking the northern part of the map. "He's gaining power. Too much, too quickly. I know him—I've had spies watching him for decades. He can't be left alone to accrue a following."
"I'll take care of it," Kayura said. "You just hold down everything here."
Dais was about to protest, but Kayura had left before he could utter even a sound.
"I hate that woman," he muttered to himself as he rubbed his eye. Dais pushed away from the map and walked out of the room towards his quarters. He sidestepped a poison trap Sekhmet had left for him as he thought.
What will it be like without them here? Dais mused. Certainly quieter.
He reached his quarters and changed out of his subarmor into more casual clothing, his shoulders falling slightly as the cloth settled on him.
He sat down before his low desk and took out a rather guilty pleasure of his—reading up on the Human World. Once things in the Dynasty had settled down slightly, Dais had become interested in what he had missed from the time that he had fallen in with Talpa.
Over 400 years had changed many things. Devices had been developed that Dais would never have even fathomed during his time as a human, wars had been fought that cost countless lives, weapons of destruction on an unimaginable scale had been unleashed. Diseases that would have caused swaths of death had cures, the environment had changed, the roles of women and men had shifted, there was contact with all sorts of bizarre cultures…it was bewildering.
Still, he was happier staying in the Dynasty and reading up on the insanity that was the human world than being there. It was almost like a novel that way.
He was perusing a history book he had retrieved during a secret foray into the realm of the Ronin Warriors when the door slid open to reveal a rather satisfied-looking Kayura.
"Back already?" Dais asked blandly.
"It was nothing you needed to wor—really, Dais?"
Dais looked at the technology manual detailing 'computers' and 'cell phones' and all sorts of devices that made his head spin that was lying on the floor beside him and barely kept his face from flushing. He settled for giving her a haughty glare that she shrugged off.
"You seem more interested in the human world than they," Kayura said as she stepped inside his room and closed the door behind her. "Why don't you go there?"
"Knowing about the human world is one thing," Dais said. "Actually surviving there is another."
"So you're scared?"
Dais snorted and shook his head. "Why does everyone mistake caution for fear?"
"Go, Dais," Kayura said as she sat beside him and plucked the history book out of his hands. "Live a little."
Dais looked at the small library he had scattered around him and heaved an inward sigh. He was more prepared than the other warlords were to exist in human society as he had correct expectations of the human world. He just needed 'money', but, from what he had read, anything from the Dynasty would be considered a 'historical artifact' and therefore of interest to collectors.
It was tempting, but he would hate to prove Kale and Sekhmet right.
"Just so you know, if you go to, hm, Japan, which is where the Gates have traditionally opened into, you won't come across the other warlords," Kayura said 'absently'. "However, you will run into the Ronin Warriors."
Dais tapped his fingers against his knees and looked at the technical manuals before him. "No."
"Why?"
"I'm not like the two fools who go charging off at whim," Dais drawled. "I need to know some things first, plan a little."
"That's just reasons to not go because you're lazy or scared."
"I am not scared," Dais hissed, temper waxing. "I'm prudent. I don't have the same fallbacks as when we went into the human world before. I want to be prepared."
"You and your plans," Kayura said as she rolled her eyes. "Fine. Stall all you want. Just be helpful like you said you would."
Dais glared at the doorway once she left. Now I want to stay here just to irk her. Bitch.
Dais looked at the tomes surrounding him and ran a finger along the band that held his eyepatch in place.
If there was one thing that would distinguish him, it would be the lack of one of his eyes. He needed to figure out how to work around that if he wanted to blend in at all. He had a feeling that not many humans wore eyepatches. At least, he hadn't seen many among the humans that they had captured.
Then there was that problem. He didn't think of himself as human, even though he technically was. He had left his humanity behind over 400 years ago. Perhaps he didn't even know how to be human.
Dais closed the technological manual before him and brooded at the tatami floor.
What did it mean, anyway, to be human? Was it a language? A way of acting? A certain perspective on the world? He had been divorced from his humanity for so long that he felt that only his appearance could be called 'human.' What was history for the human world had been his present. He wasn't entirely sure that he would be able to reconcile himself with the situation that had evolved. He was, almost literally, stuck in the past.
He was surprised that it was the clothing that bothered him the most. Cars and computers and cell phones were things he could deal with—they were just tools, albeit confusing and complicated ones. How buildings were constructed didn't perturb him much, and he was actually glad that it would take a whole lot more to bring them down than a fire. He was even okay with the gender roles—Kayura had proved on multiple occasions that women were far from weak. The clothing baffled him, though.
And if I want to blend in, I have to wear it, he thought with distaste as he flipped through a 'fashion magazine' that he had acquired.
However, the idea of seeing Kale and Sekhmet thus attired made him snicker.
I would bet that they get it wrong at first, he thought with a small feral grin.
He closed the strange, thin, paper-book and closed his eyes.
He was more torn about going to the Human World than he would like to admit. Of course his duty to the Dynasty came first, but that didn't mean that the prospect of something different wasn't exciting in its own way.
The option, now that it had been suggested, bothered him unduly. He transformed back into his subarmor and left his room, walking towards the training grounds for the sake of movement. He had no intention of training—he wasn't in the mood, and Kale wasn't around to provide target practice—but it would be someplace outside of the palace halls, and that would be welcome.
He had a feeling that being stuck alone with Kayura all the time would also wear on him and drive him either insane or into the human world sooner rather than later.
Dais stepped out into the courtyard, ignored the soldiers that sparred in the rings, and looked up at the sky.
He remembered the eclipse clearly, even though he had been trapped, powerless, inside a tower meant to help merge the Dynasty with the Human World. It had left him burning with shame at his own incompetence, and the feeling was magnified by the fact that the Ronins managed to not only escape, but also defeated Talpa.
It did make him wonder, however, how things would have been had Talpa succeeded in the merger.
He let his mind wander as he watched the soldiers practicing and the tension in his shoulders slowly notched up.
Sure, things had calmed down from the first few turbulent months, but the power void left all the warlords in the Dynasty seeking domination. That he had also heard whispers of non-Dynasty entities in the Netherworld made him uneasy. Perhaps the partial-merger had alerted other Netherworld-like civilizations that they existed and were powerful enough to force their presence into the Human World.
Dais bit back and sigh and schooled his face into an expressionless mask.
The Dynasty was his home, anymore. He had fought too hard to keep it under Talpa's regime for it to be anything but. He knew he had a myriad of enemies and kept tabs on all of them. He didn't want to leave the Dynasty, didn't want to leave it defenseless, since he and the other warlords had been its defense.
Still, it might be a pleasant diversion to figure out the logistics of existing in the Human World.
Dais turned and faded into the shadows, his mind already leaping ahead to what he might have to do to worm his way into mortal society.