The Obajan was
unmasked. A small boy that looked like he
could have been related to any one of them at one point or another was who was under the
mask. The only thing that made the group take
him seriously was how much damage he had dealt out to Mia and the others.
He had Rowen's
night blue eyes and intelligence, Mia's build, Sage's general charisma, Cye's hair and
from the look in the eyes, Kento's stubbornness, and as the boy smiled they all noticed
fangs that looked like they had come from Sekmet's pet snake. The other traits were less noticeable but equally
there. Ryo's skill and talent in the martial
arts, Cale's affinity to the shadows and darkness, Dais' cunning, Anubis'
temperament/patience and Kayura's vitality.
As they each
identified a piece of himself in this boy Ryo's temper almost got the better of him. "What kind of sick perversion of nature are
you??" He would have leapt at the boy
except Anubis stepped in front of him and Cale and Sekmet grabbed him by the shoulders to
restrain him.
"I am the
worst in all of you. I found it in my opinion
to be some of the best parts of you so I thought I would come together and see what I
could do with these traits. The looks were a
side effect of this little fun house experiment." He grinned at Anubis whom he knew was ready to ask a question.
"How is it
that you 'seem' to know so much about us then." Anubis stayed where he was in front of Ryo since he could hear the boy
struggling behind him to get free.
"Why I
asked a friend of yours of course. He was
ever so helpful since he wanted pretty much the same thing I wanted. Your eventual destruction, I just had one thing he
never had. Patience enough to let a plan wind
out to its bitter end." His laugh
chilled them all except Mia. She was
listening on a deeper level and knew that she had nothing to fear. Her own end would be one that she would write now.
"How is it
then that you were able to come back then demon lord. I destroyed you all those years ago." SilverRaven took the fore and the others were now able to identify the
spirit that inhabited the body. It was the
Lord that SilverRaven had killed all that time ago to free/avenge the people that had
suffered so under his heal.
"Lets just
say that making a pact with the devil can be a most rewarding endeavor." His smirk made everyone want to smack him. Kento stepped forward and as he looked the boy
over he shuddered. "How do you know
what the worst in all of us is then if you barely know us??"
"Oh come
now Kento of Hardrock. I know that you
struggle to retain your belief that your armor is not the bloodthirsty monstrosity that
Dais told you it was. You to this day still
wonder if you are the right one to be wearing the Armor of Hardrock." As Dais and Kento looked at each other one in
apology and the other in shock, the little man laughed, delighted in the success of
stirring up the old fears of one armor bearer.
"Well
then, if you know so much about us, then you will know that we will never give up and that
you will be destroyed in the end." Cye
looked ready to pounce on the young man. A
look that had the other ronin's scared since they all remembered what happened the last
time he looked like that. Kento and Rowen
subtly moved to flank the Torrent bearer in case he did decide to act on his own. They were a team and that was how they were going
to fight.
Mia did not
know what to do, but SilverRaven counseled her to patience as she had fought him before. He would make a mistake, and when that happened
the full might of all nine ronin armors and her own would be unleashed on the doppelganger
destroying him once and for all.
Then it
happened. A flash of red passed them all and
as everyone turned around to see what happened to Sekmet and Cale they found the two
Warlords looking as confused as the rest of the group. One moment the pair had restrained Ryo and standing almost quietly behind
Anubis, the next, he was flying past them all on a collision course with the young man
that stood smirking before them all.
"You'll
pay for every thing you have done and every life you have hurt for your own purposes. You will be made to suffer for every soul you
tortured in every life you came to and were snuffed out from. On this I swear." Ryo drew his swords and as he came up to the
Obajan everyone was surprised at how calm Ryo seemed after his burst of speed and temper.
On the other
hand, Ryo was not calm at all. Instead he was
channeling the furious angst into a different direction and as he walked up to the boy he
moved faster than any one but Anubis could follow and when he was done the Obajan had a
wound that looked like a Kanji on his cheek.
The Obajan
looked at the scarlet clad warrior and grinned. "An
effort, but in the end, ultimately futile." As
he pulled himself together to try to heal the wound he found that it was bleeding red
blood and not healing at all. "Wh-What
is this!!" The Obajan was shocked; a
sword had touched him and wounded him. Now
the wound would scar and he would have that mark for the rest of his unnatural life.
The others
looked at the wound and were shocked. It was
an ordinary Kanji, but what it meant was the mark of the Shinigami. The boy was marked for death now and it did not
take a genius to figure that Ryo had channeled his rage and the burning fires of the
Wildfire armor into a blow that would never heal magically.
Ryo only smiled
slightly, pleased that what he had done had worked. The Wildfire armor had responded to his wish to mark the brat and so when it
happened it was fast and painful. He turned
around and looked at Sekmet and smirked, "Your turn snake lips, you all have an
opening, and I recommend using it."
Sekmet looked
like he was ready to pounce on Ryo but the insult of that creature behind Ryo was too much
even for his reptilian patience and so he merely nodded and set his swords up for the
Strike. The others got out of his way and Ryo
glowed. Mia saw what he was doing and backed
off over towards Anubis. ~He is channeling
his rage into Sekmet's Strike. Something
about the purity of his anger and the combination of it and the Wildfire armor is able to
make the wounds stay open on the Obajan. I
thought I was the only one that could do that and make it stick.~
~Looks like Ryo
has learned that his Armor can help him do many things that he never dreamed possible. Now all we have to do is to get them into the
Inferno Armor and your battle will be much easier.~
The Obajan took
that moment to strike back at the other warriors. Sekmet
had struck and the venom was now in the system. He
would live, but it would only be a half-life of torment. He would have his revenge and it would indeed be sweet. First he would take out that nuisance of a ronin,
Ryo. Then he would break them all. One at a time, and one by one they would be
begging him for the mercy that he would never show them. After all. What was the point
of being the ultimate evil in this realm if you could not kill the opponents that would
kill you with out a second thought?
As he jumped at
Ryo, he drew his sword and prepared for the battle. Unfortunately he no longer had the edge since that damnable Mia had been
training the little bastards that opposed him now about how to see him. No matter. This
was a battle of skill anyways. But if he
cheated what was the harm, except to maybe Wildfire.
Soon after this
though passed the ninja showed up and the battle was on. As per orders, the ninja separated the fighting warriors from each other and
the battle was fierce. Sekmet was dealing out
damage left, right and down the middle with his poisoned blades and Kayura was mowing down
the shadow warriors like grass with her own brand of Dynasty death on a platter. The others were doing the same, but it was soon
painfully obvious that Ryo and the others were going to be over powered. Ryo was in a battle of his own with the Obajan and
starting to tire again as his armor had not had a chance to revitalize. Since there was nothing in the Limbo except gray,
no one except Cale and the ninja were fighting very well. Dais was doing reasonably well with making the Ninja think that there were
more of him than any self respecting recycled spirit would want to think about taking on.
Mia however was
struggling a bit though. Good as she and
SilverRaven were, Mia still had her problem areas and she was taking far more hits because
of the previous wounds that were still healing, than she should have been. Anubis and Cye noticed this and they fought their
way to her aid.
Nodding her
thanks she kept fighting over to Rowen who was in close combat, so he could not use his
bow. His hand-to-hand skills were exceptional
for a human with demon armor, but when it came to fighting hordes of ninja that seemed to
come from all sides, he was being crushed. Mia
nodded to Anubis and Cye and on that signal, Cye fired his sure kill, sweeping away the
ninja that were around Rowen, and as soon as the ninja were away, Anubis brought the staff
down casting a small protective circle around Rowen.
Rowen breathed a sigh of relief as he felt the press ease off. He leapt into the air and as he drew his bow from its place on his back he saw that Sage, Kento and Cale were closer to each other than to the others. Focusing in the center of the trio, he shot off several arrows gaining Sage's attention. As Sage looked up he saw a focused Rowen and got out of the way. Kento and Cale watched him dodge out of the way and as they both looked up at the warrior in blue they understood and got out of the way. "Arrow...Shock...Wave!!!" The golden blast of energy added a glow to the entire battle area as the resulting explosion rocked the void.
Ronin Warrior and Warlords, Past present and Future are not mine...Just my characters and my story ideas. Send Flames QC&C to Dragon Dagger