Episode 2: Friendship's Ippitsu Sojo!
Opening Theme: Climax Jump
The Train of Time, DenLiner. Will its next stop be in the past, or the future?
"Well, here we are." Momotaros stated as he, Ryotaro Nogami, and Kotoha Hanaori climbed up into a series of caves. They were well hidden, as they were on top of a large sandstone hill, and they did an excellent job of keeping out the wind. All and all, a perfect place to hide from both the elements and the enemy. The only thing that Kotoha decided she could do without was the hulking figure that was sitting against the wall, looking like he was deep in thought. After a few seconds the figure began snoring, establishing that he was, in fact, asleep.
"Well, looks like the bear decided to hibernate." Momotaros, said, giving a frustrated sigh as he did so. "And where's the other bear-jerk? He was supposed to be here standing guard! Hey, Kintaros! Wake Up! "
"Give us a break, Momotaros!" a voice familiar to Kotoha shouted behind a rock. "He said "no one evil" would get passed him, and I'll be out in a second, or would you have preferred that I peed in front of you and your buddy?"
"Chiaki?" Kotoha asked.
Suddenly, Chiaki's head poked out from behind the rock. Surprise and relief immediately took over his features.
"Kotoha!" he shouted as he finished zipping his fly and ran over to the group, unexpectedly pulling Kotoha into a hug. "You'er safe… thank goodness."
Kotoha's face quickly began to redden. Sure he'd hugged her before, but not in front of other people so readily. She had a good relationship with him, after all they were the two youngest Shinkengers so a connection was made easily.
After a few moments, Chiaki pulled back, and turned to Ryotaro saying "Thank you for finding her."
"Hey! I'm the one that found her! You should be thanking me!" Momotaros shouted, obviously angry for being ignored.
"Momotaros, calm down," Ryotaro, ever the (attempted) peacemaker, tried to salvage the situation. He saw the way Chiaki and Kotoha looked at each other, and suspicions began to come together. After all, you can't save a Imagin contract holder if you can't read people. Unfortunately, Momotaros randomly flailed an arm and unintentionally smacked Ryotaro in the face, knocking him over and, rather comically, unconscious.
"Ryotaro!" "Are you okay!" "Hey, Ryotaro wake up! I'm sorry!" Chiaki, then Kotoha, and finally Momotaros all shouted, even as Ryotaro slowly was helped to his feet by the red Imagin. Despite all the noise, Kintaros still did not stir.
After a few minutes of panic, Ryotaro finally woke up and, after one more unsuccessful attempt to awaken Kintaros, the group went deeper into the cave. At the center of the cave, the remaining Shinkengers and two other Imagin, a blue one resembling a turtle and a purple one that looked like a dragon. Takeru Shiba, Shinken Red, stood at a corner of the cave, glaring daggers at the two imagin, the blue one appeared to be attempting to flirt with Mako Shirashi, Shinken Pink, while she was attempting to also pay attention to the purple one's drawings of various animals. After all, trying to ignore someone sweet talking you is rather difficult. Meanwhile, Ryunosuke, Shinken Blue, and Genta, Shinken Gold, were arguing about who-knows-what over by the latter's sushi cart, which was somehow present.
"Guys!" Chiaki shouted, the elation in his voice evident. "It's Kotoha! We found Kotoha!"
All arguments, flirting, glaring, and drawing ended at that. All of the Shinkengers, if they were sitting, immediately stood up as they ran over to join their teammates. Genta, in his excitement, attempted to pull Kotoha into a bear hug, but Chiaki would have none of that and pulled her out of the overactive sushi seller's way. Mako however, being a close friend of Kotoha, managed to do what Genta could not and pulled not only Kotoha, but Chiaki as well, into a hug that nearly knocked the air out of Chiaki's lungs.
"Thank goodness!" Mako said as she squeezed the two youngest Shinkengers.
"Nee-san...Can't breathe...Why are you even hugging me?" Chiaki sputtered.
"Oh, sorry!" Mako said as she released them. "You were kind of right there, and you were the most worried about Kotoha so I thought you might have needed one."
"Oh." Chiaki replied. It was true, he had been the most worried about Kotoha out of all of them, and if he had had it his way he would have gone out to look for her by himself. "Thanks, I guess."
Kotoha, meanwhile was filling Takeru and Ryunosuke in about all of the events that had occurred since she awoke, and added "Please be nicer to Momotaros-tachi, Tono-sama. They really are not that bad."
"Actually," Ryunosuke replied, "Tono-sama was glaring at Urataros, the blue one, and Ryutaros, the purple one, because they wouldn't leave Mako alone."
"Tono-sama was jealous, Ryu-san?" Kotoha asked, absolutely amazed by this. Like herself and Chiaki, Takeru and Mako were in a relationship, and this was the first time that she had ever seen the samurai of fire be protective of the samurai of heaven in that manner.
"Yeah, I'm really proud of Take-chan." Genta, the samurai of light, chimed as he got off of the ground, dusted himself off, and put an arm around his childhood friend's shoulder.
"You could say he's opened up a bit, right Take-chan?"
Takeru's attempts to remain stoic were not aided by all of the talk that was about him, not to mention that Mako was within earshot of this very conversation. Thankfully, he did not have to answer, as suddenly Ryutaros pushed his way past Ryunosuke, knocking the samurai of water to the ground, in order to run up to Kotoha, saying something about having another new playmate. Chiaki, naturally, was not happy about all of the attention that his girlfriend was getting,(In a perfect world, he would already have led Kotoha away to have some time alone with her) but the samurai of wood remained silent, if only to keep the good mood that this reunion was getting alive.
Meanwhile Momotaros walked over to Urataros, who was watching the Shinkengers silently.
"Hey Kame, I half expected you to be sweet talking Earth-girl over there by now." Momotaros piped after a few minutes.
"The reason I'm not over there yet, Senpai, is that that fish has already been reeled in." Urataros replied, making a motion with his hand as if he had a fishing rod and was pulling in a big one.
"Bullshit! That's never stopped you before! Not five seconds ago you were all up in Heaven-girls business!"
"Well, that's different." Urataros answered, now turning to face his red counterpart.
"Really? Explain it to me." Momotaros demanded. He hated how he could never understand his fellow Imagin even though they had known each other as long as they had. It really did not help that Urataros was an impossibly good liar, even being able to make himself cry for a well constructed deceit to work.
"I'll tell you this: Have you ever heard the saying "Give a man to fish and he'll eat for a day, but teach a man to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime?"
"Yeah… what about it?" Momotaros could not say he liked where this conversation was going.
"We'll lets just say that our poor friend Takeru isn't the best of fisherman. So I am, without him realizing it, teaching him to "fish" so that he may "eat" for a lifetime." If Urataros's face allowed him to do so, he probably would be smirking right about now.
"Okay… so in other words by hitting on Fire-boy's girlfriend, you'll be making him protect his "fish"?" Momotaros asked. "That's not like you at all."
"Maybe not, but I already know that my attempts are not getting anywhere, so I've decided to, covertly at least, pass on my knowledge to the inexperienced Tono over there." Urataros answered, tilting his head in Takeru's direction.
"That is way too noble to be something you'd do, Kame." An unconvinced Momotaros finished.
"It'll only be "noble" if he figures out what I'm doing and acts on it, otherwise his relationship with Miss Shirashi will be a very short one."
After about 15 minutes of mingling, Chiaki was finally able to get Kotoha away from everyone else, leading her back to the entrance of the cave, were Kintaros was still fast asleep.
"Do you think he'll ever wake up?" Kotoha asked. "All of the yelling earlier didn't even make him stir."
Chiaki shrugged and said "According to Ryotaro, he does this all the time, apparently he even falls asleep mid sentence."
"Oh." Kotoha nodded her head in understanding. Despite that though, she could not help but be slightly concerned about the sleeping Imagin. It was as if he was hibernating…
"Hey…" Chiaki began as Kotoha looked back at him. "I'm really glad that you're safe." He took a tentative step closer and pulled her into a hug, what must have been the 12th time today someone held her, but this was different. Kotoha took a few moments to settle into a safe feeling, as if she was safe from the world in Chiaki's arms.
"Would you have really gone out there on your own, just to look for me?" Kotoha asked as they pulled apart slightly, Chiaki's arms still around her waist. He then moved his right hand up to caress her corresponding cheek.
"You already know the answer." Chiaki replied before leaning in and kissing her softly, making Kotoha gasp slightly. It did not matter how many times he did so, Kotoha would always react this way when he kissed her.
Suddenly, they heard a loud noise, and both of them separated and turned faster that most people, and saw that Kintaros was not only awake now, but blowing his nose as tears poured down his face.
"Young love… can make even the strongest of men cry!" Kintaros cried out, as he blew his nose again.
"Eat up, everyone!" Mako enthusiastically yelled, electing groans of despair from the Shinkenger boys, and whoops of delight from the Imagin and Kotoha, with Ryotaro being more or less indifferent. Over their time in this strange place, the Imagin and Ryotaro had had more than enough time to look around the area surrounding the hill, and located cooking and eating utensils, blankets, and, of course, firewood. It also helped that there was a river nearby, thankfully with fresh water, so they would be able to drink, use water to cook, and (to everyone's delight) bathe. They also found a store of food in what looked like a military care package, and they had found many of them in the surrounding field, so food was not an issue. The crates even contained things that were important for hygiene, so that would not be a problem either. That left only one problem…
As Ryotaro was about to take a bit of the stew that Mako prepared, Chiaki attempted to whack Ryotaro's bowl out of his hands, saying "Don't eat that! Especially if you value your life!"
"Huh?" Ryotaro asked as he dodged him, not wanting to spill his food.
"Only a girl can eat Nee-san's cooking and live!" Ryunosuke loudly whispered, trying to keep Mako from hearing.
Genta pointed at the Imagin and, in a panicked voice also loudly whispered "Momotaros don't-"
In unison, all four Imagin, Kotoha, Mako, and Takeru(He is her boyfriend in this story after all) took a bite out of their food. The Imagin and Kotoha all said "delicious" "Yummy" or "this is good", depending on the speaker, Mako ate with quiet satisfaction, and Takeru attempted to wolf it down as quickly as he could to get it over with. The other Shinkengers and Ryotaro looked on, amazed by Takeru's magnificent courage, and all followed suit. It's amazing what one can eat if you can muscle your way past the gag reflex.
"Okay… so I stand corrected…"Chiaki began as he waited for the pain to stop, as eating Mako's food resulted in pain for a few minutes, "Only girls, Imagin, and guys who have a friend like Takeru can eat Mako's cooking and live.
Suddenly, they heard footsteps coming in from the mouth of the cave, followed by a man's voice shouting "Hey, save some for me!"
"Who's that?" Kotoha asked as a man in a red and grey jacked walked into the cave. The man smiled and gave the earth samurai a thumbs up saying "The name's Shin Asuka, but you can also call me Ultraman Dyna. Nice to meet you."
Ending Song: If We Met In a Dream