I don't own anything except the Takahari family, their Dragoon Spirits, Kenji Okamura, and Cassius
***
Falling off a cliff is a wonderful way to focus your thoughts.
This I discovered as I hurtled toward the beach, over a hundred feet below, while locked in mortal combat with my mortal enemy, Cassius. What made things worse was that my sword was nowhere within reach, while Cassius' fangs were inching toward my throat. If I didn't act fast, I was vampire meat.
I wrenched myself out of his grip, just in time for a katana to hurtle out of the sky and into the old bloodsucker's throat. Then, still in freefall, I yanked the sword out, discovering that, however it had come to be there, it was the blade Cassius had deprived me of only a minute previously, Raiden-Ken.
I didn't hold onto it very long; even a hundred feet goes by quickly when you obey the call of gravity. I was smacked in the face by the unyielding ground, breaking my nose and splitting my lip in the process.
When I tried to stand, it quickly became evident that I'd also broken a leg and several bones in my right foot. Even with my vampiric healing, I'd be out of the fight for far too long.
Cassius had fared better; he was still on his feet, with the throat wound rapidly healing. He walked over to me, gladius in one hand. "Well, well, well... the last great vampire hunter of the Kyuuketsuki Ryoushi, reduced to such a state. There's no doubt that you were an excellent fighter, Takahari-san, but it appears that even you cannot defy gravity."
I spat out a broken tooth and glared up at him. "You... bastard..."
He smiled agreeably. "Perhaps. But the fact remains that you're out of tricks, Takahari. You can't get up, your sword is too far from you, and I doubt that you can move sufficiently to draw you pistol. Now, shall you give up now, and end this, or would you prefer I wounded you even more and let you go for now?"
I managed a tight smile. "I regenerate almost as fast as you do, Cassius. It would be foolish for you to simply leave me."
"Ah, but I didn't mean physically. I know something that will hurt you a great deal more."
A pit of ice began to form in my gut. "What do you mean?"
Cassius' smile became a grin. "You've always known that it was a prophecy that alerted Emperor Doel of Sandora to the threat you posed, but haven't you ever wondered just how he knew to send his men against you and your family, specifically?"
The pit became an abyss. "No... you-"
"Yes. It was I that gave the information to Sandora. It was I that caused the deaths of your family and all else you held dear! All that remains is for me to kill your brother, sister, and girlfriend, and turn you, and my work will be complete! Oh, don't worry," he added, "I'll save you for last, that your torment may last as long as possible."
The journey chasing the past ends, and
The ice turned to a core of burning rage, and the ring on my right hand began to glow. "You bastard!" As the power of the ring healed my wounds, I lurched to my feet. "You killed my family!? You caused the destruction of everything I had ever known!?"
Cassius backed off a step, looking uncertain for the first time as I rose. "Impossible," he breathed, and dove for the spot where Raiden-Ken lay.
It did him no good. The blade lifted from the ground and flew into my grasp. "Now you're going to die!" The air around me began to glow with a dark aura, with a corona of black fire engulfing my sword.
"Impossible! Not even vampires-"
"Are telekinetic? Well, I've got news for you, bastard! I am more powerful than human or vampire! I am a Dragoon!" I sprang into the air, drawing on the power of the Dragoon Spirit. For a moment, my vision was obscured as the black flare of power of a rushed transformation engulfed me, lengthening my limbs, giving me wings, and granting me the power of the Dragon.
Cassius took another step back. "Then the prophecy-"
"Was true. You made the mistake of believing it to be superstitious nonsense, and now you pay the price!" I drew on the Dragoon Spirit's power, using its non-elemental properties to draw on the Dark Element. "Dark Flare!"
The vampire weathered the blow, staggering but remaining alive. "Another time, Takahari! But I promise you, I'll be back!" With a flare of his own power, Cassius vanished.
I collapsed on the ground, exhausted, and by the time my Dragoon armor faded, I was already asleep.
***
I had no idea how much time had passed when Rose awakened me. "Ian? Are you all right?"
I glanced up groggily, trying to focus my eye. "Rose? I'm fine now. Just tired." I started to push to my feet.
She held me down. "Wait. We've got time, and you need to rest. It's not like Kadessa, so you're staying here."
I grinned tiredly. "Guess I'm in condition to argue." I remembered well the incident she referred to. Six years before, during the Second Dragon Campaign, I had been temporarily killed by a Super Virage and only the presence of a White-Silver Dragoon had prevented it from being permanent. Our leader, Dart, made one mistake then: he tried to keep me out of the action for a while, and this resulted in Ryan being thrown against a wall when he tried to enforce it.
Nobody had ever tried that again.
"So what happened? By the time we got there, you were already out."
I lost the grin. "That bastard Cassius showed up again. To make a long story short, I was forced to knock him off a cliff. Down at the bottom, he revealed something that made me very angry." I took a deep breath. "Cassius is the one who told Doel where to find me."
Rose inhaled sharply. "But why? Doesn't he want you alive?"
"I doubt he told Doel just how dangerous I was; he expected me to survive, but wanted to torment me by having my family killed. He miscalculated a bit, though. Doel took Ryan prisoner, and Karen escaped through a rabbit hole." I frowned. "Never did find out how that happened."
"I see. So what was that spell? I felt the Darkness."
I held up my Dragoon Spirit. "As near as I can figure, the non-elemental Dragoon Spirits can draw on all seven elements. It just happened that the Diamond can most easily use Dark. Which reminds me," I added, "my Dragoon Spirit seemed to be resonating with another back there. But I thought all the others were accounted for."
Rose's eyes narrowed. "A bearer was never found for the Divine Dragoon Spirit. It's possible that after we left, it went to seek a worthy holder on its own."
"Dragoon Spirits manipulate fate..." I mused. "And the Divine Dragon wasn't the most noble of Dragons. It might have chosen a holder that we wouldn't consider worthy. One that would have reason to hate us..." I trailed off. "No!"
"What's wrong?"
"Obutsu! Cassius invaded my mind, and not even vampires are supposed to be able to do that! He's got the Divine Dragoon Spirit!"
***
Once I'd recovered enough, I headed out to find Ryan. He was standing guard outside what turned out to be part of Djose Temple.
He sensed my presence and turned. "Niisan! Glad to see you on your feet. What's up?"
"Bad news, Brother. Where's Karen?"
Ryan pointed. "Keeping a sky watch." Sky watch, indeed. She was in Dragoon form, hovering above the temple.
"Tell her to get down here. Things have taken a turn for the worst."
Once Karen landed, I explained. "I think Cassius has the Divine Dragoon Spirit," I said. "I don't think he knows how to transform yet, but he has used it for a few magic tricks, including telepathy. It's only a matter of time before we have to fight a Dragoon."
Karen groaned. "Oh, no. When was the last time we had to fight one of our kind?"
Rose answered. "Six years ago, when we fought Zieg." She managed to get it out with only a slight catch in her voice to betray how hard she still found the subject. Zieg had been her fiancé, thousands of years before, and she'd had a hard time fighting the man she'd once loved. But Rose hadn't been the one to kill him; that had been left to me, just before Zieg could kill her.
"And before that, it was Lenus," I said, breaking the awkward silence. "And Doel, and Greham. Not to mention the four Originals that Rose and I freed." That had also been the time I'd killed Hideo Suzuki the first time, when he was a werewolf, not a vampire.
"So what do we do if he does show up as a Dragoon?" Karen asked. "I remember when we fought the Dragon; the only reasons we were able to take him down at all were the Dragon Block Staff and Lloyd showing up with the Dragon Buster. And the Dragon Block Staff is destroyed..." She paused, seeing my slow grin. "I know that look. Okay, niisan, what do you have up your sleeve this time?"
"Just this." I opened my pack. "We do have the Dragon Buster. Lloyd had Meru deliver it to me before we left, remember? And since not even my armor can stop a magic blade, I can't imagine that the Divine Dragoon armor can, either."
With that out of the way, I turned to other topics. "So what's up now? I know we're at Djose Temple, but where are Yuna and her guardians?"
Ryan jerked his head toward the temple itself. "Going through the Cloister of Trials, to get the Aeon Ixion. We'll be spending the night here, too."
I snorted. "Figures. Waste a perfectly good night sleeping instead of traveling. Oh, well; I guess we can't expect non-ninja to enjoy the night properly. Or non-Dark Dragoons," I added. Rose had used the night to her advantage many times in her eleven thousand year-long quest to prevent the birth of the God of Destruction by killing the Moon Child every 108 years. Fortunately, that was finally behind her.
Ryan slapped me on the shoulder. "Speaking of sleep, you should get some yourself, niisan. Most people aren't fit for journeying right after being thrown off a cliff and otherwise maltreated."
I raised my hands in surrender. "Okay, okay. I'm outnumbered. Just wake me when it's time to leave."
***
I actually awoke several hours before it was time to leave, and spent the time polishing, sharpening, and otherwise repairing Raiden-Ken. Originally forged in 1612 A.D. by Tatsumaru Hideoshi, my clan's best swordsmith of all time, as Arashi-Jisan, it had been shattered at the end of the Second Dragon Campaign, and was not reforged until just before I arrived in Spira. It had a history almost as old as the clan, created in the days when we were still the Hitoshirezu Buke. It had passed down through the generations until I received it in 1999 A.D., three years before I came to Endiness. It had gone from the Stormbringer to the "Thunder and Lightning Blade", and had always lived up to the name. It was said that Sensei Tatsumaru had imbued it with the element of thunder, but no one could say for sure.
It obviously was somewhat magical in nature; when the time came to reunite the shattered pieces, they had melded together almost before I put them under the hammer and into the fire. Now, there was nothing to mark them as having been separate pieces.
"You alright, Ian?"
The voice startled me out of my reverie. "Hey, Rose. Yeah, I'm fine. Just thinking." I gazed out into the distance. "You know, there are still times when I think I'm just not up to this. Thrust into a battle save the world at seventeen, forced to build a ninja clan from the ground up at eighteen, and now dropped into another world-saving quest at twenty-four. I've seen more combat than some people twice my age. You'd think the powers at Court back in Serdio would have screamed bloody murder over the very idea of sending somebody my age on such an important mission. Instead, they're the ones who wanted me here in the first place."
Rose sat next to me. "Maybe. But I was only eighteen myself when I began fighting in the Dragon Campaign."
"Things were a lot more desperate then," I pointed out. "It was humans versus Winglies in a battle for survival, and everyone knew it. Six years ago, nobody even knew anything was going on until it was over. Looks like it'll be the same here, too." I smiled. "Of course, objectively, that's a good thing. Ninja aren't supposed to be famous unless they're safely dead. With any luck, no one will know of this escapade for a few centuries yet. By then, I'll probably have gone through a few identities."
"No desire for recognition, then? No interest in everyone knowing your name or tourists invading the Shrine?" Rose sounded amused.
I grinned. "Absolutely not. I don't like tourists, I don't like being well-known, and most of all, I hate reporters. One thing I'd hoped I'd escaped when I reached Endiness was mass media, and then I found that even Serdio has newspapers."
"Be glad Albert doesn't like them either, then," Rose replied. "A less enlightened king might not have made the Shrine off-limits to ordinary citizens."
"True enough." I glanced toward the east, noting the sun's position; Spira at least seemed to rotate in the same direction as Earth. "Come on; it's about time to leave." I took her arm. "Wouldn't want them to leave without us, would we?"
She laughed. "Not with Wakka ready to rant at us given any excuse."
"Indeed. If he keeps this up, I'm going to have threaten to kill him. Again." We headed off to rejoin the others.
***
Author's note: Chapter Seven complete. A bit lacking in the action department, but you can't have all action.
One thing I should mention: I have a Xenosaga story on the drawing board, a crossover with Highlander. I'd like to know what you think before I post it.
A couple of reviews to respond to. First of all, to answer Sword Master Jeff, to use the Dragoon Spirit at that time would have left Ian vulnerable for crucial seconds, which could have led to his demise. Not even a Dragoon Transformation is instant. To respond to Ye Say Ye Fool, I've actually never heard of the Wheel of Time series. I'm simply a sword nut who goes a little overboard sometimes.
That should cover everything for this chapter. The next one should introduce Rikku.
As usual, please read and review. ~Solid Shark
