Swords and Swallows

By Dixxy

Prologue

Quick Author's Note: The prologue, for those who have seen Ronin Warriors, might seem a little information heavy. That's because it's written for those unfamiliar with my other obsession so they know what's going on and who's who. Also, there isn't a whole lot of Chrono Cross characters in the prologue as it's more of an introduction to RW for non-RW fans, but I promise you that chapter one puts us right in El Nido. Thanks!

One thousand years ago, the Earth was invaded by an evil demon warrior with an armor of incredible strength and power. With his army of darkness, Lord Talpa attempted to take over the Mortal Realm and make it apart of his empire, the Dynasty. The people of the world tried valiantly to drive him back to the Nether Realm, but it was no use- he was too strong, and seemed as is all hope was lost.

But one day, an old man and a white tiger confronted the demon, the old man carrying a golden sword that made a clanging sound due to the eight rings it bore. Unbeknownst to Talpa, the sword was actually a magical staff that possessed an immense amount of power. The old man, known only as the Ancient One, used the sword to defeat the demon and drive him out of his armor- his only physical form, it would seem- and back into the Nether Realm.

However, even after every last demon had been driven back into the other world, Talpa's armor still remained in the Mortal World. Realizing that if Talpa ever regained control of the armor, the Ancient One split the armor into nine separate armors that represented the five elements of that world- Fire, Light, Water, Earth, and Wind- and the four seasons- Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. In addition to these elements, the armors were also blessed with human emotions- Perfect Virtue, Wisdom, Trust, Justice, Life, Loyalty, Serenity, Piety, and Obedience. He then hid the armor in hopes that none of their bearers would fall to Talpa's army, or, even worse, that none of them were seduced by his power and joined forces with him.

In a few hundred years, however, his fears became a reality- Talpa was able to convince four men who could use the seasonal armors joined the evil Dynasty in exchange for their souls and their mortality. These men became known as the Dark Warlords of Cruelty, Illusion, Venom, and Darkness.

The remaining five armors fell under no such spell and remained unscathed by bearers with weak minds and a hunger for power. The Armors of Wildfire, Halo, Torrent, Hardrock, and Strata became known as the five Ronin armors, their bearers known as the Ronin Warriors.

(Ryo)

"Junk."

DELETE

"Spam."

DELETE

"Junk again."

DELETE

I sighed, looking through my WAY over-crowded e-mail account. Nothing but "business offers" and "special offers" seemed to get into my in-box, and that didn't exactly please me. I wouldn't mind some jokes or friendly letters from my friends, or one of the mailing lists I'd subscribed to. But all I seemed to be doing was cleaning the junk mail to make room for more.

Finally, seeing that I had no more new messages, much less any from my friends, I logged off and shut the computer down, gritting my teeth in mild frustration. I hadn't heard from any of my friends in what felt like a millennia, and all I wanted was at least some sign of life from ANY of them!

I got up out of the computer chair, stretched, and went to look for my soccer ball. I could go into my room and bounce it off the top of my head for a few hours, or until I got a headache. Whichever came first- usually the headache. With that, I plodded out of the computer lab and towards my room.

"Ryo?"

I stopped and slowly looked towards Mia, who was just coming up the stairs. "Oh. Hi Mia," I said with mild interest. I yawned and leaned up against the wall, resting my head on my shoulder and a crossed my arms. "What's up? Yuli and I haven't seen you all day today."

"I've been busy at the University, that's all," she said. "You?"

I shrugged. "Just seemed if one of the other e-mailed me," I said.

"Why don't you just call them?" asked Mia.

I snorted. "Requires picking up the phone and dialing numbers- too much work."

"Yet you don't mind booting up a computer, waiting for it to load, waiting to log on to the Internet, then logging into your e-mail box AND sifting through all that junk mail you seem to accumulate?" Mia asked, raising her trademark Skeptical Eyebrow at me as I had- yet again- said something that defied logic. I only grinned in response.

"Yup- I don't have to use my voice and I can take all the time I want to think about what I'm going to say," I said, moving off the wall. Mia rolled her eyes at me and pretended to smack me upside my head. I grinned in response, playing blocking her. Mia knew she'd never be able to get even close to hitting me.

I AM, after all, a Ronin Warrior.

To those who don't know me so well, like the teachers at school or my boss at the comic store I work in, I'm just Ryo Sanada. I'm a junior in high senior in high school, I love soccer, and I live just outside of Toyama with a college professor and another orphaned boy, Yuli.

To my close friends and to my enemies, I am called Ryo of the Wildfire. I draw my strength from the heat of fires and the magma of volcanoes, and I draw my spirit from the virtue Jin, which means "perfect virtue". With my armor and my katanas, nothing stands in my way, especially if I have the assistance of my friends. The power of the five Ronin Warriors is a force to be reckoned with- hey, I've been told than even ONE of us can be a handful. Well, at least that's what Mia tells me.

Mia Koji is one of our friends. She isn't a Ronin Warrior- hell, she doesn't have any powers aside from the ability to go from zero to Wicked Witch of the West in under two seconds- but she's an invaluable asset to our team. Her grandfather was a man named Dr. Koji who spent much of his life gathering information on our armors. He was killed by one of the Dark Warlords, but gave Mia a vital clue as to how to access his carefully encrypted research. Since then she's been deciphering his work to try and learn more about the armors so she can tell us about them when she isn't working at the University of Toyama.

"Anyways, I came up here to tell you dinner's ready," she said.

I raised an eyebrow. "Didn't you just get home?"

"I picked up pizza on the way home from the University- if you don't hurry, Yuli and White Blaze will eat everything before you even get a chance to smell it," she warned. "I know, I know, you don't want White Blaze eating human food, but tell that to the cat- I promise you he won't listen, and neither will Yuli."

"How true," I muttered as I started down the stairs. White Blaze is "my" tiger, though he probably sees me as "his" human. He seems to have some sort of a strange connection to the armors and the Ancient One, but what it is we aren't exactly sure. He fights alongside us whenever trouble is near and gets protective of any civilians, like Mia and Yuli, who happen to be around at the time. He even died protecting us when we were fighting against a Dynasty lord named Lord Saberstryke and his tiger, Black Blaze. When Saberstryke was defeated, Black Blaze fused himself with White Blaze and now the two tigers are one, though I'm fairly certain White Blaze is "in charge" outside of battle.

Yuli is the last person currently living in the Koji household. Yuli's parents disappeared during our first bought with the Dynasty and we haven't been able to find out what happened to them. Since he's just a kid and doesn't have any other family he knows about, he's been living with Mia. Even after all this time, he's still holding onto the idea that his parents are somewhere looking for him like he's looking for them.

Not to my surprise, I found Yuli sitting at the dinning room table with White Blaze sitting on the floor beside the boy's chair. From the orange on the white fur around Blaze's face, I had a gut feeling Yuli had given him a piece. I rolled my eyes, pulled out another chair, and took a plate. "I hope the two of you saved some pizza for us," I said.

"There's still two more boxes- Mia bought a lot of pizza," said Yuli.

"That doesn't mean we have to eat it all- we can have some at another time," she said, sliding into the chair next to time. "So, tell me, how was your day? You two weren't too bored, were you? Or did you kill each other behind my back and resurrect yourselves before I got home?"

"I went outside for a little bit," I said.

"Sage called," Yuli said.

I nearly got to my feet. "Sage called? What did he want?" I asked, suddenly excited.

"He just wanted to say hello and see how you were doing, that's all," said Yuli. He reached for one of the pizza boxes and began to tear a piece from its pie. "But you were out and I couldn't find you, so I hung up. I didn't even know you were home already or I would've told you by now."

Sage Date, or Sage of the Halo, is one of the other Ronin Warriors. His powers derive from light, thunder, and Chi, which means "Wisdom". True to his name and virtue, most of what Sage says is well-thought out and rarely stupid. He's also much more formal and traditional than the rest of us, having been born into a family that owns a very prestigious dojo. Still, even Sage has his "wild" side. He's somewhat vain when it comes to his hair and loves fast cars.

"Well. . . have you heard from Rowen, Cye, or Kento?" asked Mia.

"Not a word, unless Sage said something," I said.

"He did. He ran into Rowen a week ago in Tokyo, and his family had dinner at Kento's family's restaurant- in fact, Cye was their waiter and saw Kento get into a fist fight with one of the customers," said Yuli. He laughed. "Sage said that eventually this tiny Chinese woman came out and started smacking the customer with her frying pan and did more harm than Kento."

"Wait, wait, let me guess- that was Kento's mom beating that guy, right?" I said. A pause, and then Yuli nodded with a wide grin on his face. I burst out laughing at the image. Mia rolled her eyes at us and quietly bit into her pizza, shaking her head at the two of us.

Rowen, Cye, and Kento are the other three Ronin Warriors. Rowen Hashiba is the warrior of Strata and controls the element of air. Aside from that, there's no "one way" to really explain the guy. He (says he) is a genius, yet I'm convinced Hell will freeze over before he can put a cheese sandwich together without damaging something. He also has a habit of sleeping in really late because of his late hours and can be very dangerous if he doesn't want to wake up (for someone who's half asleep, he's got GREAT aim). Rowen tends to be a loner from time to time- this is because his parents are divorced. More so, neither one of them has a job that allows for a lot of free time with their son- his father is a scientist who lives in his lab and his mother is a reporter who's almost always traveling.

Kento Rei Fuang is the Ronin of Earth, controlling the Armor of the Hardrock. He's got more brute strength then you can shake a stick at (I've seen his throw boulders bigger than him) and an appetite to match it. Out of the five of us he's got the largest family (he's the oldest of five children) and probably the best people-person. Kento enjoys fighting more than the rest of us and has the tendency to rush into one without thinking. This results in either A) getting himself hurt B) getting someone else hurt or C) both A and B. He's getting. . . um. . . kinda better about that. He's got a GREAT head for business- his parents run a successful restaurant, so he's grown up around most of the aspects of it.

Cye Mouri is the last member of our Mutant Boy Scout Troop with the Armor of the Torrent, the armor of water. Unlike the rest of us, he isn't a citizen of Japan, natural born or naturalized (Kento and his parents came from China- his siblings were all born in Japan)- he's an exchange student from England. He's a lot like the ocean- normally, he's pretty relaxed and laid back. But once you get him riled up, he gets rather dangerous. He's currently living with Kento's family and works part time at their restaurant. Hence why he and Kento are the only ones who don't have to bum money of our parent(s) or Mia- they have jobs, the rest of us don't.

Dinner continued as it normally did. Various topics came up ranging from movies we wanted to see as a group and odd occurrences (such as this rock Yuli found that had a startling resemblance to a frog). It started off a very normal, boring, and rather uneventful dinner.

And then the noise started.

I held up my hand during the middle of Mia's story about the janitor at the University when I heard it. "Shh- quiet," I said. Mia, Yuli, and White Blaze all quieted. I stood, White Blaze getting up and silently slinking over to me. I narrowed my eyes as my ears picked up the faint wind-like sound, only deeper and somewhat animalistic. "There's something in the house."

I took a few steps away from my chair, my eyes darting across the room as I searched for the source of the sound. Much to my dismay, I saw nothing out of the ordinary. Whatever it was, it was good at hiding. But I didn't feel like playing Hide and Seek. "Come on!" I said. "Show yourself! I'm not afraid of you!"

You will be, Ronin.

And then everything was covered in shadows.

(Serge)

"Well, looks like going out now is out of the question," my mother commented as she glanced outside the window. She turned to me and Kid, a cumbersome look on her face. "I haven't seen a storm this bad since the one fifteen years ago. I certainly hope no one's out in that storm."

"Aw, don't worry about it, Marge- any sailor worth his boat turned back once they say first sight of this monster," Kid said, leaning back in her chair. "Thank for letting me stay the night, though. It's nice to know I've got some mates down here in Arni- going through the valley to get back to Termina in this weather is suicide."

"No kidding- I wouldn't even dare trying to get to even Leena's house, and she's right next door," I said, watching the rain with interest. It was almost like our house was under a waterfall with a never-ending source feeding it. No doubt the ground was wet outside, and there was no doubt that Poshul and the children would be outside the following morning splashing around in the mud. Kid, too, for that matter.

A crack of lightening split across the sky. Kid yelped in surprise, successfully jumping a good foot off her chair. Apon landing, the furniture toppled over and Kid was lying clueless on the floor. My mother and I rushed to help her up. My friend said an absent "thank you" as she shook her head, trying to get her wits about her again.

"Are you all right?"
"I'm fine- the lightening just startled me, that's all," Kid said, rubbing the back of her head. She looked out the window as another bolt ravaged the land. Her cerulean eyes blinked as she walked over to the window and studied it for a minute. "Something about this lightening don't feel right."

Confused, I joined her at the window and watched as a few more struck. I turned to Kid with a skeptical look. "I don't see your point, Kid. It looks pretty normal to me- it's loud and makes a bright flash across the sky- all lightening does that. What makes this storm so different?" I said.

"I didn't say it LOOKED or HEARD different- but SOMETHING ain't right about it," said Kid. She looked down at her Astral Amulet, clutching her hand around the ancient gemstone. "Something's going on and I know I'm not just imagining things, mate." Slowly, she released her grip on the pendant and put her hands on her knees.

The amulet then began to glow.

"Uh, Kid?" I said. Kid didn't look up at me, took busy staring at the piece of jewelry with wide eyes. Even my mother was interested in what was going on. "I'm starting to think you're right about something being up. Whenever that thing glows it NEVER means something normal."

"You know what this means, mate," she said, getting to her feet. Kid struck a dramatic pose, pointing in the general direction of the place where angels loose their way with a determined look in her eyes. "Grab the Mastermune, some elements, and yer rain gear because guess what? We're going to Opassa Beach!"