The Armor of the Soul

By Dixxy

Chapter Ten: Boston

(Kento)

Ow. . .

Slowly, I opened my eyes. My head hurt pretty darn badly. "What happened?" I asked. I sat up and looked around. All I saw was the night sky, a few trees, and the grass I was lying on. "Where the heck am I!?"

I stood up and looked down, almost surprised as to what my outfit was as to my location. "Jeans! T-shirt! Blessed, blessed modern clothes!" I said. "Sneakers!" Sure enough, I'd somehow been clothed in a pair of jeans, an orange T-shirt, a denim jacket, and a pair of sneakers. Compared to a year of nothing but weird slippers and temple robes, this was heaven.

However, the temporary distraction was eventually closed and I got back to my original question. I realized I wasn't in the Dynasty. There's no grass in the Dynasty and the sky is always the same dismal gray. The sky was a deep, bluish-black with white stars speckling the night sky, the sound of cars in the background. "I'm back home," I said quietly. Then, I frowned. "I could be anywhere on Earth."

My name is Kento Rei Fuang, but I'm also known as Kento of the Hardrock. I was given the title because I am a Ronin Warrior. But I am also, now, a somewhat powerful sorcerer, in some sense. But that's a bit of a long story. One you should already know by now. You know, evil Dynasty emperor/empress try to take over Mortal Realm, old dude with a magic staff stops them, makes armors, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Now here's where the sorcerer thing comes in. While you may know that, too, you might've also skipped over that part, which means its highly likely you're staring at the screen with one finger (or some foreign object) stuff up one nostril like the kid who eats glue on The Simpsons (don't know, please don't ask. . .). If this is you, shame, shame, shame! If not, you're cool like people including Harrison Ford, Sean Connery, Val Kilmer, and, the best looking in the entire group, yours truly.

Hey, I can dream, can't I?

Now, for the Ralph clones, here's what happened: during our second war with Talpa, Sage, Cye, and I were captured, tortured, and turned into living statues. Fun, right? Gets better. Turns out the torture method Talpa chose broke magical barrier that prevent Ronin Warriors from using elemental magic and prevent Ronin Senshi from using attack magic. Trulpa found out about this and decided she wanted to kidnap three unsuspecting sorcerers and the former head-honchos of Talpa's army. Sad to say, she got away with it and for a while, the three of us were stuck in the Dynasty with some brainwashed Warlords and the psychotic sister of Talpa.

You know, now that I think about it, considering the last few girlfriends I had, I'm not surprised Trulpa's the more evil of the two. . . go figure.

Eventually Trulpa ran an experiment on the three of us after the Senshi handed her big fat old butt back to her. Our bodies were combined into one horrendously ugly body and placed under the care of a very high ranking Nether Spirit named Kaze. He fought the Senshi. Our souls, deep inside the prison Kaze had created, were helpless to stop him. But the Senshi freed us. After that I didn't remember anything until I woke up.

Remembering the Kaze experiment, I realized that maybe Sage and Cye were out of the Dynasty, too. I started to search for them, only to come up empty handed. I couldn't sense them and I had a gut feeling that they'd been brought back into the Dynasty. I was alone.

I looked up at the stars. They were the same constellations from Japan, but it still felt so different. At least I knew I was north of the equator. Like it helped. I could be in Czechoslovakia for all I knew!

I sighed heavily and started walking towards the sounds of the cars. Maybe, if I got lucky I was near Boston or Toyama. Boston meant the Senshi and Anubis, Toyama meant Ryo, Rowen, Mia, and Yuli. I missed those guys, but the Senshi needed my help. Trulpa certainly wasn't dead yet and there was no way they could handle all of her forces alone. Even with Anubis.

After I got to a point where I could see the skyline, I realized I definitely wasn't in Japan. All the bulletin boards were in English. I could hear people yelling at other people in English with a kind of weird accent. (Hey, I don't wanna go in the watah, watch wheah ya goin', ya freak! Leahn ta drive a caa!) (Note: Bostonians normally don't pronounce their "r" sounds. The previous was: Hey, I don't want to go in water, watch where you're going, you freak! Learn to drive a car!)

This was a strange, strange society.

Eventually I learned that I was indeed in Boston. Now I just had to find the Senshi and/or Anubis, although I figured I'd be better off finding Anubis first. The Ronin Senshi might not trust me right off the bat.

Once I got into the main part of the city, I realized it was made of very twisted, winding roads. "Mia would get a headache here," I mumbled. Then, I felt my stomach rumbling. I frowned. No money meant no food. Once thing I hated was going hungry. I put my hand on my stomach and frowned before I sat down on a bench.

It was getting close to roughly three in the morning, but I wasn't all that tired. Just hungry. And lost. And homeless. And broke. And kind of annoyed. Not to mention worried. How the heck was I going to survive in this crazy country!?

Eventually I started walking again. I was then put in shock and amazement when I found myself looking at signs written in Chinese. "Huh!?" I asked. Then, I saw a sign in English saying "Welcome to China Town". I sighed heavily. Well, at least I could find people hear who spoke my native language. I started wandering the streets of the Chinese neighborhood, feeling terribly homesick. Seeing some of the restaurants made me think of my own family back in Japan. I wiped away some rain water that had found its way onto my cheek. From the looks of the sky and the warm, salty taste, I realized it wasn't rain water.

"Am I ever gonna get home again?" I asked in Japanese. More tears came and I eventually ended up in a back ally, crying my eyes out. I felt weak doing that. I hate crying. Cye keeps trying to tell me that crying is a normal human emotion and that even big, tough strong guys like me need to do it once in a while. I was lost, alone, hungry, and actually kind of frightened.

Eventually I cried myself to sleep. . .

The next morning, China Town was alive. People of my own heritage lined the streets as well as some from other heritage. Wild, long strings of Chinese flew off of several mouths, but it had been just a little over a year since I'd spoken the language with other people, so half of it I didn't catch. A lot of it was about drugs and sex and stuff.

American culture was VERY strange. I was wondering why people considered it the best country in the world to live in. To me it looked like a bunch of horny and/or high idiots.

Eventually I saw a strange shop with black curtains and little yellow stars all over it. My senses getting curious, I stepped inside and found a kind of mystic, dark atmosphere. A woman sitting behind a desk looked up at me. She was old, not-Chinese (why she was in a Chinese neighborhood was beyond me) and wearing kind of shiny robes and a purple turban. "Ah, welcome to my studio, young one."

"Um, hi," I said in my still rather-poor English. "What kind of a studio is this?"
"Psychic studio," she said. "Would you like your fortune read?"

"Um, no thank you," I said. "I'm just kind of lost-"

"You do look rather. . . un-kept," she said.

I snorted. "I spent last night in a cardboard box, thank you very much," I said. The woman's eyes widened.

"Oh? Tell Madame Shinshu about it, uh, your name is. . . Chin!"

"It's Kento," I said. I made up a story about being taken hostage by Iraqi terrorists smuggling crack in the US while I was vacationing with my family in Los Angeles. Then, they brought the crack to Boston and were secretly apprehended by the cops as to avoid public attention. I ran away before they thought I was a terrorist, too. Believe it or not, Madame Shinshu bought it and felt bad for me. She gave me some food and let me take a shower. She even provided me with clothes!

In return, she wanted me to work at the desk for her studio. Madame Shinshu ran her own little fortune telling business and was starting to have trouble managing desk work. All I had to do was let her know when more customers came in.

Somehow I got a weird feeling about it. . .