I don't own anything except the Takahari family, their Dragoon Spirits, Kenji Okamura, and Cassius
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It was a long, hard battle to regain consciousness. My entire body ached, and I tasted blood in my mouth. For some reason, I couldn't quite remember just how I came to be unconscious in the first place.
"I think he's waking up," I heard a familiar voice say, and my relief at hearing it was sufficient that enough fatigue washed away for me to be able to open my eyes at last.
Rose was standing over me, concern in her eyes. My siblings were on either side of me, and the Spirans were toward the other end of the gondola. "Hey, guys," I said, voice weak. "Glad to see you're okay."
"Gave us a bit of a scare, niisan," Ryan said. "I woke up just as you vaporized your vampire friend, and you didn't look too good."
Karen nodded. "Yeah; near as we can tell, the virus actually took over your body briefly. Your canines grew so suddenly they injured your lip-" which explained the blood in my mouth "-and your skin went white. But it only lasted a few seconds; then everything went back to normal. You just didn't wake up."
"I see." With a groan, I managed to stand up, wincing from the pain of sore muscles. "It's about bloody time that miserable wretch bought it. I just wish I could have stopped him earlier."
"Uh, speaking of stopping him, Ian," Ryan said puzzled, "how did you know that attack? The last time I saw Wrath of Heaven was when Father deep-sixed Takagi, in Kumamoto. That must have been ten years ago."
I smiled. "As it happens, I didn't know that I knew, either. But remember that the Clan used hypnosis for training, too; we won't consciously know a given attack until a situation arises that requires it. Apparently Cassius was one situation that required the family's deadliest attack."
Rose couldn't contain herself any longer; she threw her arms around me, holding me tight. "I thought I'd lost you!"
I grinned; she'd come a long way from the dour, expressionless warrior she'd been for eleven millennia. "It'll take more than that to get rid of me, Rose," I said, returning the embrace. "A lot more."
"So, who was this Takagi?" Tidus asked. "Somebody from your world?"
Ryan turned. "Takagi was a sorcerer, adept at kuji. He took over an ancient temple near Kumamoto, a town on the island of Kyushu, and started assembling an army with which to take over Japan. Unfortunately for him, our father, Hirotaro Takahari, found out about it before his plans were complete. He led a team of a dozen ninja, including Ian and I, to Takagi's fortress, where we killed the sorcerer's men. Father had a final, climactic duel with Takagi himself on the top floor, and in the end he blew the entire temple to rubble with an explosion of power." He cast a significant look back toward the place where Cassius had met his end. "It was the Wrath of Heaven technique, quite possibly the most powerful sword attack in existence. Only the heir to the Gekido Oni Art is taught the technique; and while Ian here is the heir, I'd thought Father died before it could be passed on."
Glancing up, I smiled. "That tale might sound extraordinary, but it's actually pretty tame compared to some of the exploits in our family history. The Clan has headed off more crises like that in the last few centuries then any other group."
"What about that Suzuki fella, yah?" Wakka broke in. "He was from your clan, wasn't he?"
Seeing Ryan about to explode, I shot him a quelling look, then looked back at Wakka. "We don't talk about him," I said evenly. "He was born Hideo Hideoshi, but we stripped him of that name when he was cast from our number. He took the name Suzuki, and as far as we're concerned, he was no relative of ours. Just another werewolf turned vampire, just like Takagi was."
Running a hand through Rose's hair, I glanced at the Spirans. "Are you okay, Yuna? Last time I saw you, you were a little the worse for wear."
The summoner nodded with a smile. "Yes, I'm fine. Thank you for your help."
"Happy to oblige." I looked back at Ryan and raised an eyebrow. "So it was definitely the Al Bhed?"
"No mistake," Wakka replied for him. "Those sand-blasted grease-monkeys! They been kidnapping summoners, those-"
Rose and I edged away as Ryan exploded out of his seat, drawing his big revolver. "I've had enough!" He stalked over to Wakka, checking his gun. "We're gonna play a little game, buddy," he said, spinning the cylinder. "It's called Russian Roulette!" He snapped it shut, put the barrel to Wakka's head, and pulled the trigger.
The big, unimaginative man recoiled, eyes wide, and he seemed surprised to realize he wasn't dead. Doesn't know how to tell a loaded gun from an unloaded one, I thought. Something he'd do well to learn, if he's going to continue ticking off my impetuous twin.
Fury vented, for the time being, Ryan spun around and sat, looking somewhat satisfied. "Next time, you might not be so lucky," he muttered. Once he was settled, I heard the sound of cartridges being slid into the cylinder, but he made no move to use the weapon again.
With a sigh of mixed resignation and relief, I settled into a seat, Rose beside me. "If we make it through this journey without Ryan killing Wakka, I'll be amazed," I murmured to her.
She smiled. "At least your death threat stopped him from going after you, love."
"And I meant every word." I gazed thoughtfully at the pale, shaking Guardian. "I don't think he'll be a problem for Ryan anymore, either. Which just leaves..." A thought occurred to me, and I shot a look at my sister. "I wonder what kind of heat she's packing?"
Rose chuckled. "A Colt .45 and a Gyrojet; she showed them to me before we left."
I raised an eyebrow. "You've been doing some research, I see. A few years ago, you wouldn't have known what either of those were. Gotta wonder about that Gyrojet, though; where on Earth did Karen find one of those old things? The hand-held rocket launcher idea never did take off."
With another sigh, I leaned back, able to relax as I hadn't in a decade. The bane of my existence, the vampiric infection Cassius had inflicted upon me, was gone at last, along with the vampire himself. It's over at last, I thought, content for a time. I don't fear what lies ahead; I've defeated a deity before, so the minion of a deity shouldn't be much of a threat. I wondered idly what had become of Alucard; Cassius' departure from the mortal plane was undoubtedly sufficient to cause a "shift in the balance of power", as he put it. But it was no more than an idle thought.
Before long, I was sleeping my first truly untroubled sleep in years.
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I awoke quickly after our arrival on the other side of the Moonflow, having recovered from my brush with vampirism. I was also far more relaxed; with Cassius out of the way, I could concentrate on our primary mission: the destruction of Sin.
Ryan, Karen, Rose, and I were the first off the shoopuf, and I turned to my twin. "I think you've shut Wakka up for awhile," I said with a slight smile. "Nice trick. He didn't even realize it was unloaded."
He spun, an agitated look on his face. "Unloaded? Unloaded!? You think that was unloaded!?"
"More like unhinged," Karen muttered.
Ryan's tirade was still gaining in power. "There was a one-in-six chance that would have blown his head clean off! And we'd all have been better off!" Glancing around wildly, he took off into the forest ahead of us, his blade swinging in all directions.
I blinked. "I think Ryan's gone off the deep end. I've seen him amused, irreverent, angry, even nervous, but I've never seen him act like a paranoid wild-man before. I think something has actually affected his mind to some extant."
Karen snickered. "Don't worry about him, Ian. You were off an a mission at the time, but two years ago Ryan was just like that. You'd left him in charge of the dojo, there were monsters and disgruntled people attacking, and to top it all off, one of the younger students had just set his pants on fire, apparently to see what would happen. I think the stress gets to him after a while, and this is the result."
The description caused me to burst out laughing. "I never heard about that one! What did he do to the poor student, anyway?"
Rose chuckled. "If memory serves, he stuck the unfortunate apprentice in a pocket of null-time for a week."
"That explains why nobody's tried any practical jokes on him in a while." A thought struck me. "By the way, what happened to the Divine Dragoon Spirit after Cassius bit the dust?"
Karen frowned, then pointed at Tidus. "It went to him, though I don't think he's realized it yet. It hasn't resonated or anything, and he seems to think it's just a jewel. It's almost as if..."
"It's waiting," Rose put it. "The Dragoon Spirit has selected him as one having the potential to be a Dragoon, but until he proves that he can fulfill it, it will do nothing but watch and wait. The Divine Spirit is very particular about its bearer, as evidenced by the fact that it has not yet chosen one."
I nodded slowly. "I see. It has sensed Tidus' convictions, but is waiting to see if he is strong enough to act upon them. Interesting. Very interesting indeed."
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Tidus was the second into the forest, after Ryan, and the rest of my little group wasn't far behind. Despite Karen's glib explanation, I was worried about my twin, so I carried a tranquilizer as a precaution.
Not far in, Tidus stopped abruptly, near an unmoving body on the ground. Cocking his head, he approached cautiously, until the body began to move.
My hand went instinctively to Raiden-Ken's hilt as the figure, who appeared to be a girl of about sixteen, stood, slipped out of some kind of wetsuit, and removed a face mask. "Thought I was done for back there," she said, looking at Tidus.
Tidus started, then blinked in recognition. "Rikku? You're Rikku!?" He grinned. "Hey! How you been?"
"Miserable."
He nodded. "Yeah, you don't look so good. What happened?"
She glared at him. "You beat me up, remember?"
"What? Wait a minute... You were in that machina?"
"That's right!" After a moment, Rikku's glare was replaced with a smile. "But I'll forgive you." She seemed to notice my brother and I for the first time. "Who're you guys?"
"Oh, uh, this is Ian Takahari, and his younger brother Ryan," Tidus said, introducing us. "Guys, this is the Al Bhed who rescued me when I first got to Spira."
"Nice to... meet you..." Rikku said uncertainly, looking first at Ryan, then at me. "Uh, which one of you is which?"
I grinned; the only differences in our appearance, having been born identical twins, was that Ryan looked about a year older (a difference so unnoticeable as to be irrelevant) and the eyepatch over my left eye, courtesy of the Diamond Dragon. "I'm Ian; you can recognize me by the eye. As for my brother..." I jerked my head at him. "I suggest you stay away from him for now; he hasn't had the best of days. Weeks, for that matter." I held out my hand. "By the way, you don't have to worry about machina with us; one of our companions is a true-believer in Yevon, and that's resulted in some clashes. I nearly cut off his head, and Ryan almost blew his head clean off."
"Nice to meet ya!" Having settled the problem of identification, the girl was bubbling over with enthusiasm. "So, you're more of Yunie's Guardians?"
"Yunie"? Does she know our favorite Summoner? I shook my head. "'Fraid not. My siblings, Rose, and I are on an official mission for our monarch. It just happens that our mission is to destroy Sin." I glanced back at where the other Spirans were; still a good distance away. "No offense to our native friends, but I think we have a rather greater chance of stopping Sin than the Summoners do; six years ago, we literally killed a 'god'. I don't think the servant of a so-called deity will cause us much trouble."
Rikku brightened noticeably at the mention of defeating Sin without the Summoners. "So, you don't want the Summoners to complete the pilgrimage either, huh?"
"Not exactly." I cast a warning look at Ryan; this wasn't something I wanted spoken of in front of Tidus. "We'll talk about it in greater detail later."
"Good idea." She glanced around. "By the way, who's 'Rose'?"
Ryan regained his sanity abruptly, and I felt a sense of dread. The only thing that could have brought him around this quickly was the prospect of causing another person or persons (in this case, no doubt Rose and I) discomfort. "A warrior friend of ours," he said with a lazy grin. "Oh, and Ian's fiancé."
Any irritation I might normally have felt was buried by surprise, and I jerked my head around to stare at him. "How did you know that?"
His grin widened. "Oh, come on, niisan. First of all, you haven't exactly made a secret of your relationship, which made it inevitable; and second, don't you remember that kuji invisibility spell you taught me?"
Furious at his eavesdropping, and his inopportune timing of announcing the fact, I made a quick kuji motion, creating a wall of force that slammed him into a tree.
Rikku's eyes widened, and then she burst out laughing. "You have got to teach me that trick sometime! That was great!"
"It comes in handy," I said with a shrug. "Not that difficult to learn, either. You don't have to be a magic user to use kuji." I cast a glare at my groggy brother. "But I might wait awhile before teaching you something that advanced. You remind me a great deal of an old friend of mine, by the name of Meru. I have the feeling you two would get along like a house on fire. And that's a truly scary thought."
She grinned. "I'll have to meet her sometime-" She broke off. "Behind you!"
Before she finished her warning, Raiden-Ken was already in my hand, and the razor-sharp katana sliced cleanly through a fiend that had snuck up behind me. "Try to make a snack of me will you? I don't think so." I swept the blade through a cleaning cloth, wiping off the blood, and sheathed it with an air of calculated indifference. "As you can see, young lady, I'm quite capable of taking care of myself. So is my deranged brother, when he's not comatose."
The rest of the group finally caught up with us then. "Who's this?" Wakka asked.
"Uh, this is Rikku. I told you about her, remember? She's the one who rescued me when I first came to Spira. She's an Al Bh-" Tidus cut himself abruptly, just before he could utter the words that would make Wakka distrustful of the girl.
Apparently the brain-dead Guardian didn't catch the slip. "Nice to meet ya, yah?" he said, shaking her hand. "If you hadn't rescued Tidus, we never woulda won the tournament."
I rolled my eyes. Does this big idiot ever think of anything besides Blitzball? I thought he was done with that for good.
Attempting to create some order in the brewing chaos, I turned to the rest of the group. "Rikku, these two are my sister Karen, and, of course, Rose. The other Guardians are Lulu, Kimahri, and Auron."
Karen immediately walked over to the Al Bhed girl, and a horrifying thought occurred to me. Oh, no. Karen got along with Meru so well... And Rikku looks to be almost as bad.
I quickly stepped over to my incapacitated sibling, hauled him to his feet, and motioned Rose over. "What is it, niisan?" Ryan asked in a low tone.
Motioning at Rikku and Karen, I grimaced. "Let's make sure that Rikku, Karen, and Meru are never, ever in the same place at the same time, okay?"
Rose winced, and Ryan gulped audibly. "Yeah, Sensei," he agreed. "The consequences of failure do not bear thinking on."
He started to turn away, then paused. "That reminds me, Ian. Something I brought from the dojo that I've been meaning to give you." Ryan reached into his pack, rummaged, and handed an autopistol in a shoulder holster. "It occurred to me that your machine pistol might not be up to the job, so I brought a backup gun."
I examined it carefully, and nodded in agreement. And satisfaction: it was a Heckler & Koch USP Tactical, .45 caliber, with ten-shot magazines. This particular example was outfitted with a laser aiming module, recoil compensator, and sound suppressor (silencer, of course, is a misnomer; the weapon may be quieter, but it is not silent). "You're right," I said after a moment. "This may be useful, indeed, especially if I should have to put my old skills to work. Quieter than the Ingram." Glancing at him, I waved a hand. "Go; we don't want to make anyone suspicious, do we?"
His mind accustomed to paranoia, Ryan obeyed without a second thought. Rose, on the other, raised an eyebrow. "Who do you think would get suspicious?"
"Wakka, of course. You don't think he really wants to see another bit of 'forbidden machina' invading his world, do you?"
Meanwhile, Rikku, Yuna, Lulu, and, ominously, Karen, had turned to the rest of us. "Uh, the four of us need to talk for a minute, okay? We'll be right back."
I groaned, and Wakka looked at me strangely, animosity temporarily forgotten. "What's wrong with that? Somethin' I should know about?"
"It's nothing serious, Wakka," Ryan assured him. "My fearless clan leader is just remembering that a friend of ours, Meru, is a lot like Rikku. And our sister always got along well with her. And there is simply no telling how much havoc the two of them can cause together."
His eyes widened; even Wakka's imagination was sufficient to conceptualize the insanity ahead. "Uh-oh."
"What's so bad about that?" Tidus asked. "Maybe you guys just need to lighten up a little."
Rose and Ryan exchanged glances, then edged away from me. They knew exactly the sort of reply I'd make to that.
"Let's see, kid," I said softly, head turning toward him like the turret of a tank. "I began my martial arts training at the age of five. I killed a man at thirteen, became a full ninja at fourteen, faced vampires for the first time at the same age, was bitten by a vampire that year, lost my parents and dropped into a world I hadn't even known existed at seventeen, lost my eye and got caught up in a civil war, fought with a group of unique warriors on a mission to save the world, and you tell me that I need to lighten up!? Would you be very carefree if you'd been through what I've been through in my life!? I've even died, lest you forget!"
"Ah, I guess not," he said after a moment, in a very different tone.
"That's what I thought."
About then, the females walked back to us. "I want Rikku to be my Guardian," Yuna said. "Does anyone object?"
"Well, I'm for it," Wakka said. "The more the merrier."
"Well then, I'll just have to be the merriest!" The girl was practically hopping from foot to foot.
"Just like Meru," I heard Ryan mutter in despair. "We're doomed."
Auron was silent at first. "Look at me," he said finally. When she complied, he added, "Open your eyes." After a moment of study, he nodded to himself with the ghost of a smile. "As I thought." He turned to Yuna. "Shall we resume our journey?"
Once we were on the move once, I frowned, thinking. "Hey, Tidus," I said quietly. "We're going to Guadosalam, right?"
He glanced at me. "Yeah, so?"
"That's where Seymour rules, isn't it?"
"I guess so. Why?"
I sighed. "This just is not my day. Here," I said after a moment, pulling the Ingram from its holster. "Take this. I wouldn't recommend letting your buddy Wakka know you have it, but if things get real bad, it could mean the difference between life and death."
The Blitzball player from Zanarkand took the weapon, puzzled. "How does it work?"
"Just point it at your target and pull the trigger. That's really all you need to know." I started to walk away. "I hope for all our sakes that I'm wrong about what lies ahead. But if I'm not, remember that weapon."
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Author's note: I know, it's been another month since the last update. I've just been busy, especially with another fic going at the same time. The next chapter, though, shouldn't take quite as long.
YSYF, as you can see, that attack was explained in this chapter. As to your other question, let's just say that I have some ideas. Nothing is set in stone as yet, however, since I haven't even completed this fic.
Red Eyed, Divine Dragoon77415, the time is drawing nigh when the Divine Dragoon Spirit will be used. Watch for it in the next chapter or so.
Songwind, I gather from my own writing that Wakka is ignoring the Dragoon Spirits for now. I can't really say if and when that will change, though; I've noticed that after awhile, a story starts to write itself. We'll just have to wait and see.
One more thing: a certain review for my brother's The Third Generation has come to my attention. Now, Dragoon Swordsman can't comment, else he would give this piece of garbage credence, but I have no such limitations. So I put this question to Arreat's Hymn: Exactly what is wrong with you? Dragoon Swordsman is by no means the first author to use a chapter for character bios, and I should point out that he did not post the bios alone; the first true chapter was posted simultaneously. And I also must say that he is a better writer than you are, so there is no point in lending any credence whatsoever to this nonsense. Oh yes, and did you write that review because you had nothing else to do? Because I can't really see your point. You complain, but you don't say exactly what your problem is, so why bother?
That's all the space I'm going to waste on that nonsense, so that should about cover everything. Read it and let me know what you think. -Solid Shark
