This is a work of fanfiction. I do not own Teen Titans or any DC comics alluded to in this story. Kenkaku and his swords are mine, however, as well as the basic 'Prophecies Universe' and characters.

Rolling the Dice:

The Second Prophecy

This is a sequel to my story, Waves of Fate, and is part of the 'Prophecies Universe', a collection of Teen Titans stories that all tie together. Please read WoF first to become acquainted with the story up to this point, and hopefully be entertained. Rolling the Dice picks up roughly ten days after the end of Waves of Fate, with Raven and Kenkaku returning from their visit to Kenkaku's sensei.

"text": spoken English

"text": spoken Japanese (translated or flavor text)

"text": war cry, English

"text": war cry, Japanese.

text: thoughts

-text-: stressed word

text: printed or typed English

text: printed or typed Japanese

'text': sound effect

Japanese flavor text will be in a glossary at the end of the chapter.

Frank Smalls was having a boring day. He was manager of a little gas station on California's border. The best description for his job was monotonous.

Of course, if someone was to rob the gas station, the day could get rather exciting. The bad type of exciting.

Unfortunately, that was about to happen. "MONEY IN THE BAG!" yelled a man in a prison uniform, brandishing a pistol. "And gimme your clothes!"

Amazingly enough, Frank recognized the robber. Roughly a month ago, he had been threatened by the same robber, who had been a free man at the time.

A Japanese-speaking metahuman had been on hand the last time, and had taken him down. Frank had given him some money, and started brushing up on his Japanese.

He was due to start teaching Japanese in the local high school next year, though if this guy got nervous or vicious, he might not live to see that day.

Shaking nervously, Frank started emptying the cash register into the bag the man threw on the counter.

"You have got to be kidding me." A fist smashed into the turning robber, sending him flying across the room, out cold. "I saw this same scene not a month ago," said the long-haired metahuman who had punched the robber to the lavender-haired girl standing next to him. Kenkaku, the newest Teen Titan, walked over and checked on the robber. "Same guy too. Gah." He looked up at Frank. "Hey, how're things?"

Frank sputtered. "Buh…buh…but…"

Kenkaku started browsing the candy bar rack. "What do you want, Raven?"

"Oh, I don't know. Milky Way Midnight, maybe?"

"Sure." Kenkaku picked out a Carmello as well and plopped them down on the counter to pay

Frank shook his head violently and suddenly became coherent. "What are you doing here?"

"Indulging my sweet tooth." Kenkaku pointed over his shoulder with his thumb at the cold-cocked criminal. "Really didn't expect to see him again. How much do I owe you?"

"It's on the house," said Frank quickly. "Don't even think of trying to pay."

"Your Japanese is much better than the last time we met."

"Thank you, sir."

"See you." Kenkaku and Raven gathered up the candy bars and walked back out to the Shinobi, eating them on the way. Frank watched them as they got on the bike and drove off, then went to call 911, his hand bumping into a familiar clip of bills. Kenkaku had left it behind with a 'thank-you' note. The erstwhile gas station manager shook his head.

You're certainly a rare one.

'AKA-AKA-AKA-AK!'

In Jump City's dock section, Robin, the Boy Wonder, tucked and rolled as high-velocity slugs came burning in at him. The gunfire stitched a line of holes in the floor and walls of the warehouse he and the gunners were in.

The masked Titan took cover behind a rather solid support column and pulled out his communicator. He had been on one of his routine patrols of the city when he ran into the eight black-clad and assault weapon-toting thugs.

Though thugs was probably a bad word. From what he had caught out of the corner of his eye when he was dodging fire, the so-called 'thugs' had the patch of H.A.E.Y.P. on their shoulders. And their weapons were current military-grade weapons. Robin had hoped that the rash of military weapons being stolen was the doing of Trigon when the Demon Lord had tried to draw Kenkaku into a fight, a decision which had proved fatal for Raven's father.

Unfortunately, the thefts had not slackened, instead getting even more prevalent around the world. Trigon might have been using the thefts, but he was not the mastermind.

Robin had a sneaking suspicion that it might be Slade, but the masked man had been missing for a long time and they had seen the man's mask melting into the lava. Not that it mattered at the moment. What mattered was the fact that whoever was stealing the weapons was supplying them to the HIVE and that they were currently pinning Robin down.

"Robin to all available Titans. I'm in trouble at the dock. HIVE agents with military weapons have me pinned down. I don't see Gizmo, Jinx, or Mammoth. Assist as fast as possible."

"Which warehouse?" asked Cyborg, from in front of the Tower's main computer.

'PWIZING!'

A bullet ricocheted off the column and hit the ground in between Robin's legs. The Boy Wonder flinched. "34-B."

"Right, I'll send Star and BB to help you." Robin nodded and pulled out a pair of Birdarangs before another voice came over the communicator.

"Don't bother. Raven and Kenkaku, responding."

'VRRRRREEM! NEOWOWOWOWOW!'

Pulse bolts sliced open the warehouse wall like Kanesada on rice paper. The bolts scattered the HIVE agents, who rolled to protected spots, much like Robin had when they fired upon him. Robin flipped out from behind his cover as the HIVE agents aimed at the Shinobi as it sped into the warehouse, pulse cannons whining. His two Birdarangs disarmed two of the HIVE agents. Robin pulled out his staff and dove in at the black-clad gunmen. "YAH!"

'CLANG!'

Oh wonderful. The agents had metal-laced bracers on their forearms. Robin grimaced and redoubled his efforts, keeping them on the defensive, but doing little damage. It seemed that the HIVE had some good martial arts instructors.

'AKA-AKA-AKA-AKA-AK!'

Raven's eyes flared white as she erected a telekinetic barrier to stop the six assault rifles' fire. The obsidian shield flashed white with each bullet strike, but held up long enough for Kenkaku to go accelerated, his eyes flaming silver-white, chop the bike's throttle, spin it around enough to let it slide broadside towards the HIVE gunmen, and sweep both him and Raven behind it.

The shield shattered underneath the merciless weapons fire, but the bullets that came after only struck the Shinobi's armored hide, barely even scuffing the molecularly-bonded paint job. Cyborg had done a really nice job on the ultrabike and nothing short of a vehicle-mounted heavy weapon was going to do any thing more than spark against the armor.

Robin retracted the staff, then popped it out again, straight into one of the HIVE agents' masked faces. The teenaged villain flew backwards into a crate of spare parts, cracking the wood when he hit. He slumped to the ground, out cold, and with a broken nose.

The other HIVE agent kicked at Robin, catching a piece of the masked hero's shoulder. The blow hurt, and quite a lot. It seemed that the HIVE child soldiers were either metahumans or gen-enhanced humans.

The HIVE soldiers firing on Kenkaku and Raven ran out of ammo, and ducked behind cover to reload. This gave Raven the time to pop up from behind the bike, arm outstretched, and her hand at a ninety-degree angle from her arm, a depleted uranium sphere hovering in the grips of her telekinetic energy right in front of her palm.

The sphere shot off like an obsidian energy arrow, smashing into one of the columns that a pair of the HIVE soldiers were covering behind. The sphere, by design, did not shoot straight through the column and punch through one of the agents, though it certainly could've. Instead, Raven had it transfer its kinetic energy through the column using a tricky application of telekinesis. The net result was that the back of the column shot off of the core in a powerful but non-lethal shockwave, knocking out the fire team behind the pillar and sowing disorder through the others.

Kenkaku dashed across the floor, still in acceleration mode, then stopped in front of one of the fire teams, unleashing Kanesada in an iai so fast that there wasn't even a blur. When he had lost his Demon Lord-level powers following his defeat of Trigon, he had regained the ability to impart force with his blades if he wanted to. The upshot of this was the fact that instead of the HIVE agents, girls both, becoming bisected blood fountains, they simply went flying straight across the warehouse with an impressive number of broken ribs, dead to the world. A vast improvement over dead, but you could be sure that the female miscreants would be in the hospital for a long while to come.

Raven, meanwhile, unsheathed Kanemitu and Sukehiro, holding them in reverse grips and shadow-warped to right in between the last fire team's members, and slammed the kashira of her twin wakizashi into the HIVE members' temples, laying them out cold.

The female half-demon spun the blades and sheathed them in the saya at the small of her back, attached to her swordbelt in an 'x' pattern. Her boyfriend sheathed Kanesada in the traditional 'two motions' manner and they both turned to watch Robin take on the last conscious HIVE agent.

The battle was over before it started. Robin might have been just a normal human, but he was a -very- good martial artist and was at the absolute peak of his body's potential. He dodged a punch and countered with a hard palm-strike that nearly cracked the HIVE member's sternum. Needless to say, the HIVE agent went down like he had been sandbagged. Robin got to work with cuffs pulled from his utility belt. "So, you two are back to stay?"

Kenkaku nodded as he pulled the limp HIVE agents over to Robin so the Boy Wonder could cuff them easier. "Hai." He caught a pair of cuffs that Robin threw at him and kneeled, snapping the 'bracelets' around one of the girls' wrists. Raven used her powers to bend some metal bars into restraints as Robin only had four pairs of cuffs on him today. She also collected the assault rifles from where they had fallen, piling them up.

Robin put a call through to the JCPD to pick up the metahuman operatives and summoned the R-Cycle. Kenkaku propped up the Shinobi and swung his leg over it, getting ready to ride. Raven settled in behind him. Soon they heard the familiar tune of police sirens and the boys in white and black took over: the JCPD's Metahuman Control Unit.

Starfire floated a few inches off the island's surface, watching as the Titan's two motorcycles and their riders moved along the suspension bridge, heading towards the entrance to the secret tunnel that led to the island.

Suddenly, she noticed a barrel tracking the motorcycles. We do not have a defensive station there, thought the confused Tamaranian. And the barrel is tracking…NO!

Starbolts sprang into glowing life on her wrists, and her eyes glowed with emerald fury as she rose into the air.

'ZAK! ZAK! ZAK!'

The triphammer blow of starbolts on the rock shelter sent chunks of sandstone flying and scattered the four HIVE agents, one bolt sizzling the flesh on the back of the one with the sniper rifle. He screamed and dashed to the water, throwing himself into the surf and screaming louder as the salty brine hit his wound.

The only girl in the squad retuned fire on Starfire with what looked to be a plasma carbine, a very powerful and fast-firing weapon. The projectiles also 'splashed' on contact, making it extremely dangerous to someone behind cover. But it did not have great projectile speed, making it possible to dodge with normal reflexes. Starfire had battle-honed reflexes. Needless to say, with all the three-dimensional space at her disposal, dodging was easy. She chipped away at the other girl's cover with starbolts before finally nailing her with one, taking her out of the fight.

'RRRRRRRRRRRR!'

Now one of the remaining two HIVE soldiers, big burly guys both, was firing at her with a three-barreled minigun attached to an ammo pack on his back. She turned and wove, doing her best to avoid getting perforated, varying altitude and speed. She rolled out and threw a starbolt at the ground in front of him. Sand shot up in a plume in front of him, obscuring both combatants' views.

Starfire was caught by surprise when he burst through the gout of silicate, whirling around and bringing up an automatic shotgun. The gun barked five times, tongues of flame reaching out, and little metal pellets spraying out in a deadly cone.

'SSSHOWWW!'

A blue cone of sonic energy carved a path through the deadly swarm. "BOOYAH! Get em Star!"

Starfire took the safe route through and nailed the gunner with a pair of starbolts. One hit the muscle-bound teenager in the gut, and the other slagged his minigun.

'PSSSSHOW!'

'VRRRRRRR!'

'BOOM!'

A boat sped away the island, a missile launched by the last HIVE soldier streaking through the air and detonating near enough to Starfire that the overpressure wave knocked her silly, grounding her.

Cyborg caught her with one arm, transforming the other into an autocannon and firing a burst at the speedboat.

'RRRRR!'

The bullets kicked up spray in front of and to the side of the boat, but short of raking the boat with gunfire, likely killing the agent, there was really nothing he could do to stop the boat. He transformed his arm back to normal and called Robin on his built-in arm comlink. "Robin, Star and I just stopped an attack on you guys by some HIVE agents with military weapons. We took three of them down, but one got away."

"I hear you. Look out, there were eight of them when they attacked me."

"I hear ya, dawg. Oh, Soothsayer came to visit. Says that another prophecy seems to be coming into focus, and that means its going to be starting soon, because she wasn't looking for it. She's whooping on BB in Soul Calibur right now."

"Right, we'll be there soon."

Cyborg shook Starfire into coherence and they gathered up the fallen HIVE agents and their weapons, bringing them back to the tower.

The sun was setting as Kenkaku walked over to the table that the Titans were sitting and standing around with two cups of sencha. He handed one to Raven and kept the other for himself. Lacking a seat, he leaned against the counter next to Raven. Robin stood at the nominal 'head' of the table, Starfire sitting on his right and Cyborg on his left. Soothsayer sat across from Robin and Beast Boy sat on the counter on the opposite side of the table from Kenkaku and Raven.

Robin tapped the remote to the main TV in his hand. "Titans. Well, it's good to see everyone here, but, as you may have guessed from the trouble today and Soothsayer showing up, we've got some things to deal with. The first order of business is the stolen military weapons, and it's pertinent to the following points."

He clicked the remote and a map of the world showed up with lighted red dots showing where there had been a theft. The brighter the dot, the more that had been stolen. The brightest dots were in Southern California, along the coast, particularly around Jump City.

"Okay. This problem with stolen military weapons started for us and apparently, the rest of the world, just before Kenkaku showed up. This led us to believe that Trigon and his minions were the ones causing this trouble. As Trigon had been rendered headless by our resident ronin," he nodded at Kenkaku, who nodded back, "We can see that while Trigon might have contributed to the problem, he was not the mastermind. It seems to me that Trigon was probably using whoever is doing this as a stepping-stone. Not that his motivations matter now."

Robin clicked on the remote again, showing the routes of the weapons' shipping. A large number of sources poured into Jump City, but none came out. It was the only location on the map to have that happen. It took a practiced eye to pick it out of the morass of all the other delivery routes as an important point, but it was possible to tell. Robin tapped the remote against his palm.

"We've been given the mission of solving this case by the Justice League, and our city needs us to solve it. We will not fail. That's point number one." He clicked the remote again and eleven mug shots came up, along with an 'unknown' profile. Also on the screen was the crest of H.A.E.Y.P. as well as the military-grade weapons that the HIVE agents had carried. "The HIVE has got its hands in the weapons trade, and seems to want us dead. The twelve teenagers who attacked us today were Team Cipher, a group of 12 genetically-enhanced humans with a good deal of combat training, and graduates of the HIVE's basic courses. Our old enemies, Gizmo, Jinx, and Mammoth, seem to be a year ahead of Team Cipher and are know internally as Team Hydra. They're undergoing advanced courses, sort of like supervillian college. Also, H.A.E.Y.P. seems to have gone through some major reorganization of the leadership, though exactly what has happened there is unclear."

Robin's eyemask narrowed as his eyes did underneath. "The HIVE has always just put up with our presence before. Whatever happened in the shakeup, the new policy isn't a good one. We need to get someone or a few people inside to find out what's happening."

He clicked the remote and the image of a familiar blonde-haired drifter with vaguely Asian eyes came up on the screen. "The final item that I have is, of course, Terra. Kenkaku, how soon do you estimate until you can bring her back?"

The ronin cocked his head to the side before replying in his heavily-accented English. "Two weeks if I do nothing, plus two days at the end for intense preparation. Three weeks if I stay in combat without using kiaijutsu, plus the same two days. All bets are off if I use kiaijutsu."

"Okay," replied Robin, "We'll probably be going with the second option. Soothsayer, you had something to say about a prophecy?"

"Yes. A prophecy is coming into focus, and I was not even looking for it. This generally means that the prophecy is going to be acted out soon. It seems to center on Cyborg and Raven's half-sister, who we have no idea who that is."

"Is that all you have?" asked Robin.

"Well, it's likely to involve another life-or-death, destiny changing struggle, but nearly all prophecies are like that. Also the Warrior of the Wind Soul, who seems to be Kenkaku, is mentioned a number of times, so he's likely to play a role, though I have no idea what."

Kenkaku let out a few choice Japanese epithets. "I can deal with one prophecy," he muttered so that only Raven could hear him, "Especially since it was for your sake. But two is a little extreme."

The other half-demon squeezed his hand. "Don't worry, I know you can do it, and I'm always here to help you. Besides, you aren't doing the heavy lifting this time." This brought a smile to the ronin's face.

"You have something on the prophecy, Kenkaku?" asked Robin, mistaking the curses for communication.

"Iie."

"Well then, we'd better get started on the cases. Kenkaku, you're on a kiaijutsu ban excepting times of extreme need. City in danger of annihilation, certain death without it, rescuing the whole team, something along those lines."

"Youkai."

"Cyborg, I'm going to put you in charge of the infiltration of HIVE. Figure out some way to get in. Choose a partner to help you with that, someone whose powers are destruction oriented and can act evil. Actually, you should probably be taking Kenkaku. He's the least well-known of us, and being a half-demon, should be able to do an evil look rather easily."

"Yeah, I think Kaku probably is the best bet."

The swordsman grumbled. Demons were not inherently evil, but a curse had been put upon them so that they felt a bloodlust, according to some of the material his sensei had given him on his recent visit. But, classically, they were considered evil, and were more often than not. He figured that the tomes of his demon bloodlines would have some good information on demonic magic that he could use. "Right. I'll get on that." He nodded so that the non-Japanese speakers wouldn't take his grumbling and Japanese as a sign of not going along with it. He switched over to English. "Speaking of that, what about blade training?"

"Right, we need to get onto that as well as bare-hands training for everyone. You and I will work out a schedule for that. I'm sure Raven can help you out with some sort of demonic look and probably with the blades as well."

Raven raised her eyebrow. "I got a little help from Kenkaku's sensei, not a lot. I can try though, and we'll go through the oni tomes to see if we can find anything."

Robin nodded. "Good. Sorry to swamp you like this, Kenkaku, but you seem to have the unfortunate habit of having the right skills for the jobs that seem to be coming up lately. We'll leave you, Raven, and Cyborg off the patrol roster so you'll have time to work on your projects, but be ready to respond to trouble. Star, BB, you two will have most of the official patrols. I'm sure I'll get restless and go off on another one of my prowls, and I'll do a few, but it'll mostly be up to you." He scratched his chin. "Soothsayer, try to clear up the prophecy as quickly as possible. I'd like to have more information than we did with Kenkaku's. Also, I'd like you to join the hand-to-hand training so you won't be defenseless if some villain recognizes your connection to us and comes after you. Maybe you could come in on weekends."

The blonde nodded. "Sure. I'll spend all of math class and study hall on clearing up that prophecy." She smirked. Beast Boy laughed and most of the other Titans smiled slightly and shook their heads.

Robin wiped the smile off of his face and crossed his arms. "Alright, we know what we need to do, so let's get to it!" he ordered in a businesslike tone. "Kenkaku, Raven, you two come with me so we can work out the training regimen."

The two half-demons followed the Boy Wonder out of the room as the other Titans hopped to their tasks. Little did they know what was in store for them in the coming weeks.

Japanese Flavor Text:

Sensei: Literally "One who has come before". More common translations are 'teacher' or 'master'.

Iai: "Sword draw."

Kashira: Pommel on a Japanese-style sword.

Wakizashi: Japanese short sword, with the same basic style as the katana.

Saya: "Sheath."

Hai: "Yes."

Sencha: "Green tea."

Kiaijutsu: "Art of the kiai." A style of Japanese martial arts that uses the power of one's ki to create effects.

Iie: "No."

Youkai: "Roger."

Oni: "Demon." Specifically a Japanese one.

A/N: Well, here it is. The highly anticipated sequel to Waves of Fate, and the continuation of the 'Prophecies Universe' storyline. Kenkaku will still be one of the main characters this time around, and you'll see more of his flaws this time, but the new prophecy's main players are Cyborg and Raven's mysterious half-sister, who we have yet to meet, so they obviously will be getting a lot of screentime, as will Raven, for obvious reasons. The others, well, you'll see more from them in sequels to this, and they should get more time than in WoF, but this isn't really their story.

Another point. C2. I'm still looking for some good authors who think they would like to work with me in the 'Prophecies Universe', to create a C2 group containing a combined group of Teen Titans stories, in a sort of multi-author work that would let us create something much greater than what I could on my own. If you're interested, even if you're unsure of your writing talent, e-mail me or drop me a message on my Yahoo IM: reironin, and we'll talk about how you can get involved.

Well, till the next chapter, ja na.

--Kai Reased, The Rei Ronin

Oh yes, and please do review. I love to know what my readers think of this stuff I write, and how they think I can make it better.