Chapter Eight – Dawn of the Great Eclipse
The rainbow of soldiers gathered to form a semicircle in the pouring rain. Water dripped off of their noses in fat drops, splashing onto the grass. The rain slipped its sodden hand down the front of their subarmors, leaving wet trails from its watery fingers.
The warriors were as quiet as the rain, silently practicing their moves on one another. The sound of swords clanking barely rose above the drone of the rushing water. Only their individual selves could hear their grunts of anger and frustration. Rowen drew his Hankyu from his back, grasping an arrow from his quiver as well. He aimed at a far off Ginkou tree, his eyes narrowing on a knot in its bark. He pulled the string taut, letting the water trickle down the bit of wire to his gloved fingertips. Then he released the string.
The arrow went whizzing down over the sloping valley walls, straight to the tree shaking violently in protest. Just as it was about to penetrate the trunk, a familiar figure stepped out from behind the tree. "Miri!" Rowen shrieked with all of his might. "Move out of the way now!"
She never listened. Instead of dodging the arrow, she caught it with her bare hands, never even wincing. Carelessly Mirichu threw the bit of golden metal to the side, paying no mind to just how close to death she had come.
Why didn't I detect her? Rowen screamed angrily to himself. I could have killed her! He felt foolish and stupid like he had last night. He had almost killed his best friend.
Slowly, Miri made her way up the rising hill, taking her time like she was the only person in the world that mattered. Trailing behind her was the Ancient One accompanied by Anubis. So that's where those two had been… All throughout the climb, Mirichu kept her eyes focused on Rowen, scanning his face for some reaction other than shock. She never got one until she was standing inches from his trembling form. In the instant she had reached the top of the hill and moved to his side, he went from concerned friend to angry stranger.
"I could have killed you! Are you stupid or something?" Rowen barked as though he had never felt anything toward her other than hate.
"I knew what I was doing, Rowen. I was fast enough to catch it. There was no danger."
"No danger? No danger! Are you crazy? My arrows fly at unimaginable speeds and you step right into the path of one, knowing that it is coming? You HAVE to be nuts!"
Noticing that the group was staring at the both of them, Miri suggested they move off to the side to finish the conversation. "What is it that you have to say to me exactly?" she inquired greedily, angrily.
"Why did you lie to me, repeatedly? Did you think I would never find out?"
"I didn't think it was necessary for you to know. What business is it of yours anyway? I control my life; I never try to control yours."
"Listen very carefully, Mirichu, so that maybe I can penetrate that think skull of yours. I cannot, no, I will not let you throw your life away just because you want to fight like a warrior. The point is that you are not one, and you never will be. To be a warrior means-"
"What? That I have to be a man? Nope, sorry, but I don't believe that for one second. If I want to fight in this war, then, dammit, I will, and no man or warrior, for that matter, is going to keep me out of it."
Rowen was once again furious with the woman who was supposed to be his best friend. He couldn't take her when she was so stubborn and so determined to always be right. "Dammit, Miri! What do I have to do to get you to see that the only reason I am trying to keep you out of this fight is to keep you safe."
"Are you sure it's not because you want to keep me from spending time with Ryo?" she questioned, grinning because she knew she had discovered something she could exploit to her advantage.
Rowen blinked in disbelief. She hadn't just asked him that. "What a ridiculous question! Of course that's not why I'm saying what I'm saying."
"Yes it is!" she screamed, forcing the other Ronins to look their way again. She glared viciously at them, sending them the clear signal that their attentions were not wanted or needed. "You're jealous because I love Ryo and not you!"
Both of them stared at each other in shock. Every surrounding sound ceased, and there was only the chorus of their pounding hearts and their infuriated breaths. Rowen's eyes saddened, it seemed, with this news. They focused on her trim figure clothed in tight yellow garments, creating a sunny feel to the dreary day. Her green eyes widened with surprise at her confession as well. "Wh…what did you just say?"
"I— I love Ryo. And nothing, no, no one can change these feelings, get it? They are here to stay, whether you want them to or not."
The warrior of Strata was silent. What more was there to say? The other secret had been revealed, and she was right; there was nothing he could do or say to change it. So all Rowen said was: "You can come. Move it out before we lose the sparse daylight that we have."
Disappointed, Miri followed Rowen over to the circle of soldiers, all glistening wet in their subarmors. She infiltrated the perimeter and stepped into the center so she would have their full attentions. "Listen to me, and listen well. I am fighting with you guys today, and I expect you will treat me as an equal, not as a hindrance, there to slow you down. I will fight my hardest for you as well as the Earth. Spend all your time trying to protect me and you might only succeed in losing another chance to take down Talpa." The raven woman slipped delicately out of the limelight and next to Ryo, astutely observing the envious countenance Rowen wore.
"Go, my warriors, and do not fail me," the Ancient One bellowed almost fiercely. "Have faith in not only yourselves, but in your compatriots. The best allies are the ones in disguise."
Only Mirichu grasped the true meaning to his statement.
@~~`~~~
It was once nicknamed the Valley of the Emperor – a wide, lush gorge of serenity sleeping between one Great Mountain and another – but now it had been dubbed the infamous Valley of the Dead. For almost one thousand years ago it was in this valley that 10,000 unfortunate Japanese soldiers marched to their dooms, unaware of the lurking Dynasty invaders.
The Valley of the Dead slumbered halfway between the city of Toyama and Mia's house. It was incredibly green, like a color one could only dream of. There were no roads or paths that could be seen, simply unmarred grasses and weeds for miles around, free from humanity and its destructive nature. Creeks of silver rainwater poured as fine, Earthly wine from the holes in the mountains' sides, rushing down their slippery slopes to crash into the small stream in the valley's minute forest of cherry blossom trees and Ginkou trees. A thick white mist obscured the aesthetic appearance of most of the basin, covering the center of the glen with intense ivory, but fading to wisps of fog the hue of fresh milk as the altitude steadily climbed; however, it added a gentle look of peace to itself.
But what appears to be peaceful is not always so.
As Rowen rounded a bend in the mountain highway, he glanced back to make sure the other jeep was still with him. His speeds had alternated between incredibly fast followed by an incredibly slow. "What is with you, Rowen?" Cye queried as his head peeped out from the back seat to stare at the driver. "Pick a speed and keep with it. Geez, you've never been nervous before a battle before."
"Lay off him, Cye," Sage scolded. "Rowen's always been cautious when it comes to-"
"Everything."
"-battle. Besides, we are fighting someone we've never fought before, and she's a woman. He can drive however he wants."
Cye apologized, then returned to keeping lookout for the Mia's jeep behind them.
Although Mia had not come, the boys needed transportation. So Rowen took Sage and Cye in his jeep, and Kento took Anubis and Mirichu in Mia's. As usual, Ryo rode White Blaze, bringing up the rear of the bizarre train.
Sage let his eyes wander up and down the valley walls as he strained to see the actual veld below the silken blanket. He thought he saw movement, but he deemed the flutter of the trees and fog as animal motions. Then, however, he instantly changed his mind about that.
A faintly blue-haired woman had perched herself on a small precipice just above the rim of the haze. Her dazzling blue eyes shone with the fire of evil and hatred. She was slender and beautiful, wearing an outfit of rags crudely constructed into a shirt, with a tight gray leotard and a pair of ivory pants finishing the look. Two long, thin swords constructed of resplendent silver criss-crossed on her back, deadly and magical at the same time. She proudly wore a necklace with a gold pendant and red tassels around her neck as though it were a trophy of some sort.
"She's here! Stop the car!" Sage cried, pointing frantically at the cliff's sheer face.
The jeep screeched to a halt, the one behind following its example. The warriors piled out anxiously, practically clambering over one other to get a glimpse of their new arch rival. Her beauty astounded the boys, but even then they detected the deadly power she controlled. As she hollered out orders to the soldiers hidden under the massive white cloud, the Ronin Warriors felt as though they were mere marionettes, and this woman was the one pulling their strings.
She doesn't look so tough, Mirichu mumbled to herself. "So she's the one who's going to do it…"
Miri thought that no one had heard her words until Rowen glanced her way and asked with angry curiosity, "What is it she's going to do exactly?"
Surprised, Mirichu fumbled with her response, trying to make up some answer he would accept. "Um, ah, she's supposed to help Talpa dominate the world."
Cye turned and smiled reassuringly at the speechless woman. "Don't fret, Miri, hon. We'll stop her before she even gets the chance."
"That's right, Cye, WE will… together, INCLUDING me," she nodded. The other Ronins sighed, but decided not to pursue the argument at this critical moment.
Ryo leaned toward Rowen, wondering, "I thought they were supposed to be in Toyama, not this close to Mia's house. How are we going to launch a surprise attack from plain sight?"
"Well, at least she hasn't seen us yet." The moment Rowen spoke those words, it was only natural for the enemy to finally notice them.
The chime of bells swooped down out of the air on a wind, carrying with it petals of cherry blossom trees. Her sharp, clear voice echoed, not because of the great mountains, but because it was naturally that way. "I see you Ronin Warriors have finally decided to show up for this momentous occasion. We had planned on taking you by ambush at your little hideout; however, this will do me so much better. Now I, Lady Kayura, can kill all five, six, SEVEN warriors? And just who is this ravishing woman? She cannot possibly with you six sorry boys. You know, she would fare so much better under Talpa's rulings, don't you think? Perhaps if you warriors will just surrender her now, I will not have to take her by such vicious force that I might damage her pretty face. By that time she will be of no use to you."
Rowen, forgetting his obvious anger with Miri, stepped in front of her with his arm guarding her protectively. "You will be doing no such thing, Lady Whatever-your-name-is."
"That's Lady Kayura to you! But you don't need to bother memorizing it, for you will be dead soon enough." Kayura turned her face to the valley below them and the haze mysteriously lifted. Beneath the Ronin Warriors lay the Valley of the Dead, quaking with the furious footsteps of the 10,000 fallen soldiers resurrected to once again do battle; but this time they were fighting for the exact people they had once fought against. "Come, my hapless cadavers! Rise and avenge your deaths! These are the warriors that killed you 1000 years ago! Take your long awaited revenge, so that you may once again rest in peace!" The twisted, rotting corpses obeyed, clawing their way up the cliff side, their figures writhing obscenely as they became almost one with the dirt into which they had once decayed.
"There's no way we can fight all these guys once they reach this road!" Sage exclaimed feverishly. "With only the seven of us to fight against 10,000, how can we defeat them?"
"Let me show you how to win this fight," Ryo returned with assuredness in his voice. "Armor of Wildfire! Dao chi!" Cherry blossoms fluttered around him as crimson light exploded with a rage from Ryo's fists. His armor formed from these blossoms by the magic of the gods. He felt his power grow, and the strength of his Awakening blossom into an inferno inside him.
The other warriors followed his example, calling forth their armors as well.
"Armor of Halo! Dao chi!"
"Armor of Strata! Dao inochi!"
"Armor of Hardrock! Dao chi!"
"Armor of the Torrent! Dao chi!"
"Cruelty to Arms!"
Anubis seemed so out of place to the others, but he didn't appear to mind it at this point in time. Instead, he donned his armor, too, and prepared to fight along their sides instead of along Lady Kayura's.
By this time the army of corpses had advanced up the mountainside so far that their molting flesh was splattering on the pavement. They moved with stiff, dead joints, their bones creaking with the weight they supported. Each body remained in the ancient armor it had died in, only most of the once beautiful fabric had disintegrated with age and decay. They moved slowly, but they also moved steadily, so they covered a lot of ground in minutes. Their pace never wavered for a second.
"Thunderbolt cut!"
A brilliant flash of light ripped through the air and severed nearly twenty-five of the undead beasts. Arms and legs rained upon roadway like a violent thunderstorm had just passed through the mountains. In its aftermath it merely left twitching torsos and heads squirming with a dissipating fury. "Hardly a dent!" Sage shouted, cursing his sword's lacking power. Casually, he looked over the carnage, taking no mind to the groping hands without arms attached to them.
"Perhaps this might help… Super Wave Smasher!" Water and anger poured from the end of Cye's Yari, blasting into the freshest onslaught of the living dead. They squealed in sheer agony as their bodies were shredded from the intense pressure of the water. The stench of 1000-year-old breath clung viciously to the stale mountain air, nauseating the warriors. When Cye perused the scene – staring at the mounds of glistening wet human skin – he discovered that his weapon, too, had only succeeded in destroying about thirty soldiers. "Oh hell! This isn't working! Maybe Ryo should take a turn…"
"Maybe Ryo doesn't have time," Miri observed cleverly, with anxiety tightening her throat, as more than one hundred creatures clambered soundlessly over the roadside and onto the blacktop that was steaming with water and sweat.
Kento stepped forward, his lips curling up at their ends in a sly grin. "Allow me, fellows."
"Kento," yelped Rowen, "you can't fight all these guys off!"
"I'm not going to. I'm going to do what the rest of you can't do: bury them again." Everyone looked at one another quizzically, wondering what Hardrock could possibly mean. But all was soon revealed as Kento stepped to the edge of the cliff, pressed his hands together as if he were praying, and closed his eyes.
An orange halo encircled his meditating figure while the ground beneath their feet began to tremble. The monsters' heads lifted at the sudden, imminent danger, and they shrieked like a chorus of ferocious animals, begging for a second chance at life. Mirichu grabbed her ears to quell some of the terrible sounds that pierced the air, but their cries of rage and torture pierced the very core of her. Abruptly, the hillside beneath the army's feet started to quiver and peel away from the Great Mountain to which it clung so desperately. An avalanche of rock and mud poured down into the valley below, engulfing the carcasses of the soldiers as a hungry wolf would any rabbit. There was the sound of a fantastic gulp as the famished Earth swallowed up every last body, and then nothing but the silence that accompanies the eye of the tornado was left in the air.
"I'm guessing that was Kento's Awakening," Cye muttered in astonishment to the equally amazed Sage.
"I guess so."
"Pretty neat, huh, guys?" the warrior asked as he spun around to face the troop.
"You could say that," Anubis murmured, keeping a wary eye on the woman standing on the opposite cliff.
Lady Kayura sprang into the air, practically hovering for a moment on a tiny cloud beside them, then landing softly on a closer escarpment. "How dare you bury those sentinels I worked so hard to uncover! You will pay for your insolence."
"Sorry if we didn't want to die; we didn't mean to stop your druids from tearing us to shreds," Anubis countered. "We'll never do it again."
"Good. Now that we've come to a greater understanding… Dynasty soldiers! I command you to come forth and dispatch the Ronin Warriors!" With the eerie creak of what sounded like the rusted hinges of a door, fifty Dynasty troopers materialized in the valley. This time the Ronins were prepared to bring the fight to them.
Cye, Kento, Sage, Miri and Anubis propelled themselves over the ledge, hopping from one crag to another on their way to the bottom of the pit. All of the warriors were surprised to see Mirichu's grace as she leaped expertly left and right, always maintaining her footing. Had they not been in the situation that they were, Sage probably would have made a crack about this ability being directly related to her ballet routine. And he couldn't know for sure, but maybe that was why she practiced that dance – to achieve this masterful skill of elegance and perfection.
Meanwhile, Rowen and Ryo engaged in a frantic battle with Lady Kayura. She had launched herself across the several-miles-wide gorge to plant herself firmly next to the two. Smoothly, the cobalt-haired woman withdrew her twin jitte from their sheaths on her back, crossing them across her chest and grinning wickedly. "You know, I've contemplated this fight ever since Talpa told me of you five warriors. And I've always wondered…"
"What?" Ryo queried impatiently.
"What color will you bleed?" With that, Kayura snapped the tip of her sword across the tender flesh of Ryo's face, slitting the skin in a crisp, straight line. Fiery scarlet liquid wept like angry tears from the wound, oozing down his contorted face. "Red – ordinary – just like the rest of them. Do you fight like them, too? Weak, frail, useless?"
"You shall soon see," Ryo growled while he dabbed the cut briefly with his fingertips. It was then that he dove at the slender woman, his katanas driving directly toward her heart. "Now let's see what color you bleed!" He never found out.
Kayura dodged the attack effortlessly. With the flick of her toe, she went sailing into the air high above their heads. She laughed tauntingly at the pair. "Definitely like all the others! You can't enough score a near miss on an attack. You humans are truly pitiful, truly. If I didn't despise you so much, I might actually feel some remorse for you."
"A coward's words," Rowen countered, letting his armor lift him into the air to fight her.
"Call me a coward!" she roared with the hatred of all 10,000 fallen soldiers.
"Oops, did I hit a nerve? You women are so fragile!"
Kayura was fuming. Never in her 428-year-long existence had she experienced so much malevolence and so much loathing for anyone. In her frenzy, Kayura lost the use of most of her senses; she could merely hear and see, but ignored the other three, unlike a skilled samurai. She charged him with every ounce of pain she had ever felt, uncaring of anything else but destroying this man. "You WILL die!"
But as Kayura reached Rowen's body, he used her own move against her, leaping higher into the air and using her shoulder as a booster. His thick metal boot slammed into her back, and they both heard the repulsive crack of her shoulder bade splitting in half, the hidden bone suddenly protruding through her ivory skin, soaking her rags in blood. "Red, I see. The color of the ordinary, weak, frail and useless."
Her body was hurled into the mountain's face, creating an ovular indentation in its stony flesh. Kayura's head whipped back with the shock, and she howled to the heavens with a pain yet unknown to the warriors. "Lord Talpa," she squeaked pathetically, "Master of Evil and Ruler of the Nether Realm, hear my plea. Restore my body so that I may eliminate the Ronin Warriors for you. Do not let me die with unfinished business…"
Thunder rumbled maliciously overhead, and Rowen heard the heavens cry back an answer to her. "Kayura…" With that bellow, six Nether Sprits filtered down between the second onslaught of storm clouds and encompassed the trembling woman with their ethereal arms. The swirling ghosts moaned horrifically as they performed their "miracle" on the dying general. In turn, Kayura let out a painful wailing, which morphed into a heinous snickering. "Nice moves, Rowen of the Strata. You warriors thought you could defeat me, but, ah, you forget that I am protected by the Master of your Destinies. Talpa will not stand for such disrespect, so he has asked me, and wisely so, to finish you off now. No more time to waste on testing one another's strength. It is time for you to see what the other side looks like!"
Rowen hurried back down to support Ryo, where they awaited the worst. White Blaze remained protectively in front of them, but all three of them knew that if something really awful were to befall them in that instant, even White Blaze could not save them.
Kayura chuckled one last time before she spoke serenely. "The stars cry out for your demise. I shall only grant them their wish. Star Sword Scream!" With an elegant swoop of one of her jitte followed by another crossing swoop of the other one, a funnel of mysterious water began to form and start rotating like a waterspout above her head. It pulsed heatedly before descending upon their shocked forms and engulfing all three with one swallow.
Rowen and Ryo boomed with the incredible pain as they were flung in opposite directions from one another into the mountainside. White Blaze crashed onto the ground in a flutter of black and white. The two young men groaned in agony at their paralysis and their pain. "Never mess with a woman, especially when she's a general of an undead infantry," she scoffed, clucking her tongue.
Below in the fracas Mirichu somehow managed to hear the pair's screams. "Ryo! Rowen!" She saw their bodies fly into the rock face, shattering her faith in herself. "Oh my god…"
"What is it, Miri?" Sage inquired almost casually as he had been engaged in a fight with several Dynasty troopers and had not heard the fight above.
Tears streamed down her face freely while she walked toward the foot of the Great Mountain. Mirichu sniffled thickly, every fear she had ever harbored collected inside her body. It seemed as though the soldiers had parted for her, and like a beacon of a lighthouse, they lead her to her Fate. "Is it time already?" she whimpered miserably to the trees in the little forest. They answered her with a moan as the mountain wind tore their limbs, sending leaves scattering helplessly.
"Where are you going, Miri?" Sage demanded after her, but he could not reach her. Soon he was surrounded by an enclosing group of gray-blue armors, angrily shoving their weapons at him. They moved in so tight that he could barely swing his sword to fight back. "Miri! Come back! Don't go up there!" She did not even turn her head. Instead she walked onward to the puzzling trail that had just surfaced on the bluff. She was possessed.
Mirichu climbed the path slowly. Each step appeared planned and careful; and each step had a purpose not known to any of the Ronins or Anubis. Her body was straight as Rowen's arrows, and her balance was perfect. Never once did she teeter on any of the slick, slanted stones for even one second. A greater force, an unseen one, controlled Miri.
The moment her foot fell upon the asphalt she reverted to the old Mirichu, or so it seemed. The wind fluttered in a great gust, sweeping her long, jet-black hair over her shoulders and throwing it around carelessly. She inhaled deeply, bracing herself for what she was about to reveal. With longing eyes, Miri looked upon Rowen, then Ryo. Her last of her tears was blown across her cheek and down onto the Valley of the Dead, exploding like a nuclear bomb somewhere below them. And with the conclusion of her sobbing, the simple woman transformed into greatness even she did not expect to become. "Armor of the Eclipse! Dao inochi!"
Golden light pulsed rapidly around her, a ray from the sun shooting out from her exposed palm to wrap about her form as a python. Mirichu wore nothing for a microsecond as a string of cherry blossoms stripped off her clothes only to almost instantly replace them with a saffron armor that gleamed from an inward source of light. She was draped in white and yellow metal from head to toe, with a helmet – adorned with a row of five gold spikes leading down the back of it – completing the ensemble. Appearing in her hand was a flaxen pole decorated with a sparkling ruby at one tip and a sickly-orange topaz at the other, and they sparkled with mischief. Both the top and the bottom of the staff possessed a curved metal hook, perfect for skewering then gutting the enemy. The back curves to these points were serrated to add an extra painful effect for the unfortunate soul, as well.
Everyone, including the Dynasty army, stopped to witness the metamorphosis. Every mouth stood agape with shock, especially Rowen and Anubis'.
"Mirichu is a Ronin? But how?" exclaimed Rowen.
"A tenth armor? Is that possible?" mumbled Anubis.
Kayura stared at her new opponent with envy. Why was it that everyone had an armor but she? "Another competitor? Little girl has come to lose a fight, I see."
"No," Mirichu corrected, "little girl has come to kick your ass!"
