Konnichiwa Minna-San. Starting with this chapter, I will not only place disclaimers, I will also place the credits, and my personal thanks. Okay here goes. Disclaimers: I don't own Samurai Troopers. I only own my five characters, Sakura, Soo-Yung, Mara, Kasumi, and Yui. Credits: Samurai Troopers are owned by Sunrise, Nagoya TV and is from the collective group Hajime Yatate and whoever else created it. I am using quite a few ideas from a couple of the stories by the wonderful writing duo Mirror and Image. The following ideas are from them: Seiji as an elf, Shin as a merperson, and maybe a few more further on down the line. If anyone has been to their website, you'll probally know what I mean. Personal Thanks: I really want to thank Mirror and Image for letting me borrow a few of their ideas. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. And last, but not least, thank you to all of my wonderful readers. Without you reading this and reviewing, I would most likely just let this story go to pot, or something. Thank you, everyone, and I hope I don't disappoint any of you. Please let me know if you are disappointed though, okay? One final note, I will be trying to write a few things in Japanese. I have a very cool Japanese-English, English-Japanese dictionary, so if you can speak Japanese, please write me and tell me if I'm getting it right or not. Thanks again. And now on with the story.
The Magical Realm
Chapter 3 Dreams
(This will be a dreamscape, or a flashback in the form of a dream. The flashback itself will be written in regular print, while the additional part of the dream will be written in italics. After he wakes up, the writing will return to regular.)
It had been a normal day for Ryo. He, his future father-in-law, and several men from the village had been working in the woods around the forest, as it was their jobs as woodsmen, hunters, and trackers. Woodsmen were cutting down trees and removing brush, hunters were hunting for food and wild animals, and trackers were looking for signs of any wild creatures, such as vampires and trolls. Halfway through the day, things happened like normal, except, everything seemed to be going easier than normal. He had a feeling down deep in the pit of his stomach that something big was going to happen. Sometimes he disliked his 'gift of foresight'. Or 'premonition', as his now dead older sister had told him once before when he was still little and his family was still alive. He was so wrapped up in his thoughts, that he didn't hear his fiance, Sakura, walk over to the fallen tree he was standing next to. She heard him swear softly under his breath, but not in normal speach. Instead he was using the dead language of the Ancients, the language his ancestors and hers were desended from. So she calmly walked beside him and, being curious, asked him what was wrong.
"Do shita no, Ryo?" (What happened Ryo?) At the sound of her voice, he looked up from his musings. He knew he had heard her right, she was speaking in the Ancient language. He just didn't know why, had he been speaking it to himself when she walked up? He decided he had and chose to continue to speak in this language.
"Nan demo nai! Watashi wa ni tsuite kangaeru koto." (It's nothing! I was just thinking about, things.) He turns back to his work of moving a small pile of branches to a larger pile a few yards away. After he moves the pile, he turns back to Sakura and sees her worried face. "Shizuka ni naru. Daijobu. Yakusoku suru." (Calm down. Everything's okay. I promise you that.) Then chooses to switch to normal speech. "So, what's for lunch?" Sakura's expression switches from worry to amusement.
"Akira made lunch today." Sakara's little brother was very good when it came to cooking. Unlike his older sister, who was known to have made at least seven people sick because of her cooking. Ryo smiled and then said.
"That's wonderful. That means that I can eat without getting indigestion. Oowww!" Sakura hit his right arm with all she had. And, for a non-fighter, she could hit hard when she wanted to. The rest of the day went by without a single incident. It was only later, that night, that things took a turn for the worse. They had gone to bed after having a wonderful and much deserved dinner. It should be mentioned that Ryo lived with Sakura and her family since he was nine. The same time his parents and older sister had died. He slept in the small smoke house like building outside. It wasn't really a smoke house, rather it was like an extra room that wasn't attatched to the house. It was after 3 in the morning and Ryo kept seeing images of fire and dead bodies all around him. He also saw what appered to be two male elves.
One had a long sword and a mark that identified himself as the one who could manipulate light, the other had a bow and several arrows and a mark that identified him as the one who could manipulate wind. God had been good to these two. But the images continued to appear before him and the last thing he saw was Sakura being carried away by vampires. Vampires, that thought alone was enough to wake him from his slumber. He sat up breathing heavily and he heard a small noise. Looking to his left, he saw Akira holding a lantern up to look at Ryo. He could see that Akira was scared and, taking a quick look around, saw the bed of hay he slept on was disturbed, and knew that he must have cried out in his sleep. He was about to talk to Akira to calm him down, when a loud woosh disturbed him and he immediately recognized the noise.'Vampires, and lots of them.'
Looking to Akira, he told him to wake his parents and Sakura and get them out to the room they were currently in. Akira nodded his head and causiously went back outside. Ryo had jumped out of his bed, put on his dark blue shirt on, making sure he could pull the right side down so he could get to the mark on his shoulder, if it became nessissary.(Spelling?) He already had his black pants on and his hair pulled into a ponytail, so all he needed to do was put his boots on and gather his swords. All this took about a minute but it seemed like an hour. Just as he had finished putting his shirt on and began putting on his boots, he heard the first screams, they had begun their attack. After getting his swords, he lifted the rug next to his bed and pulled on the ring sticking up from the floor. At that time, he heard Akira and Sakura running into the room. They shut the door as they entered and a loud thud was heard on the other side. Appearently the vampire that been following them, had a little collision with the door, causing it to tremble and push forward against the combined weight of the two of them and the door. Ryo motioned for the two of them to hurry over and they ran with all the speed they could.
He lifted the door and the two siblings went down the hole with Akira's lantern leading the way. Ryo yelled for them to help the others before he shut the door, safely behind them. He replaced the rug and grabbed his swords. He was outside within seconds. He ran into the vampire that had run into the door a few seconds before and impaled him on one of his swords before he had a chance to recover. He ran to the middle of the village to see that he wasn't the only one to take down a vampire. He joined the fray and was fighting with all his might. It seems that it had been close to 4 in the morning when the onslaught had begun. And now over an hour had passed with Ryo still fighting. He had helped several people down holes similar to the one in Ryo's room. Dozens had been killed, but several others had gotten away without a scratch. He had slowly moved towards the stables when he heard Sakura. He jerked his head in her direction and cursed to himself as he knew what she was about to do. Even though she couldn't fight, she had deadly aim with her throwing knives. And proceded in taking four vampires down at once. He moved quickly to Sakura, grabbed her left arm with his right hand, and dragged her inside the stables.
"I told you to stay with Akira and help the others until you found your parents. Why do you always ignore me like this?" He almost snapped at her as they pulled the stable doors closed. She looked at him and he suddenly wanted to back away from her. The look on her face was one he had seen only a few times when her anger was far greater than his own. She was about to respond when they heard wings flapping over head. Ryo ran to one of the empty stalls, brushed away the hay, and jerked the ring up from the floor. Sakura was running towards him, when three vampires jumped down throught he roof. Ryo had no choice but to quickly shut the door to keep them from seeing the hole. Sakura was by his side now and had drawn more of her throwing knives as Ryo stepped protectively in front of her. One of the vampires, a female, looked at Ryo and said,
"Aawwww, look boys, he's protecting his sweetheart. How touching. Master wants her alive, and the boy is mine. Is that clear?" the other two silently nod. Then the next thing Sakura knows is two strong arms wrapped around her arms pinning them to her waist. She is lifted up and screams with all her might. Ryo moves to save her, but comes face to face with the second male vampire. Or rather, chest to claws. He tries not to scream as the claws dig into his chest. And raises his swords to strike his opponent. All he hits however is air. Four marks appear across his back again causing Ryo to restrain from screaming. This attack from behind makes him fall forward, where his forehead makes contact with the wooden gate of this particular stall. He begins gasping from all this pain. He gets up and swings again at his opponent to once again hit air, before more scratches appear on his arms. Then the next thing he knows is the female knocking his swords out of his hands, turning his head around and whispers in his ear,
"Calm yourself, my little man, my name is Sheena. You will soon be one of us and all the pain will cease." Then she pierces his neck and the cries he has held back, suddenly come forth, as he screams at the top of his lungs. He could withstand being beaten up, that was fine, but that bite, he would rather die suddenly than put up with this pain. It seemed to travel all the way from his neck to his head, his fingertips, and even down to his toes. His vision start to blur and with all the strength he could muster, pushed her off of himself. She looked at him amused and licked her lips. Then she said," Two more bites, a little of my blood to you and you will be one of us." Ryo barely sees the male vampire charge at him, but manages to trip him. Which was kind of a bad idea, because he tripped into the lantern Sakura had carried in there with them. And thus, a fire broke out and quickly spread. Ryo took this time to gather his swords and almost fell down as his sense of balance suddenly left him. The fire had caught the male vampire in its wake and after a short scream, all that was left was a terrible stink of burned flesh.
At the scream, several more vampires appear and try to attack Ryo. He's just barely able to count that are ten vampires before him. And his concentration starts to leave him. Then he sees a jug of oil.(Think of it as similar to gasoline.) Ryo dashes to it, uncaps it and flings the contents into the fire that has now surrounded them. The results being, the oil explodes, knocking eight of the vampires out the, once sealed, now open and burning, stable doors. That meant two of them had perished in the explosion. He hears them hiss at him as he slowly makes his way out into the open. Every move making him grunt and gasp in pain. Almost like he was panting to get air.
That's when he notices two male elves watching this with amazement. The vampires charge and he can feel his movements are slowing down. He manages to injure two of them, feeling his grip on his katana's loosen, before he sees the elves have decided to help him. Three are taken down by the elves and he suddenly sees the ground rising to meet him. A strong hand grabs a hold of his right arm, helping him back to his feet. Another attack and this time Ryo kills this one. He sees out of the corners of his eyes, that both elves are on either side of him. An arrow is fired, but it misses, before he sees a strong gust of wind knock two vampires away from them. He feels an eery calm fall over him before he blacks out.
The next thing he is aware of, is air blowing through his bloodied hair and clothes. He hears a male voice speaking calmly to him.
"Hey, are you going to make it to the forest? Do you think you can hold on until we get there?"
"I, I th-think s-s-so. Yeah, I think I can hang on a little longer. Th-thank you a-and your f-f-friend." All he knows after that is darkness. Soon, however, he sees Sakura. He sees her as the vampire grabs her and hauls her upward. He hears her scream, he sees her look at him with fear, and she screams his name. "Ryo." He sees that he is unable to move from where he is standing. He hears an evil sounding feminine laugh just behind him. He's forcefully turned around to face the female vampire from earlier. She laughs again and stares at him. "Now you have lost the one person you truly love. What, oh, what, will you do? You can't do anything. You are unable to do anything. You belong to me now. And I will keep you for as long as I possibly can." He tries to move again, but he is still unable to move. She walks over to him and leans his head to the side. "NO!" he yells. "STOP! Please stop! Please leave me alone." The yell is weaker this time. She laughs at him and his begging. "You can't stop me from doing what I want to do. So just give up and relax. You'll just love the pain once you get used to it. Just relax." He tries to say something else, but all he can get out is a series of soft moans and pain filled grunts and gasps. "Sshhhh, it'll be okay. I'll be by your side the whole time. And you won't feel by your self anymore." Just to see him get angry, she rubs his hair. He jerks his head away and is rewarded with a sharp pain that moves all over his body. "I told you to relax." She leans his head back to expose the bite marks on his neck. She opens her mouth to re-bite him, when a strong light appears before the two of them. The female, Sheena, backs away quickly to get away from the light. He hears a strong, yet gentle voice speak to him. "Calm yourself young one. This is just a pain filled nightmare. It is not real. Now just calm yourself. This is just a dream. Nothing bad is happening to you. There is nothing to fear." Ryo closed his eyes and instantly relaxed, freeing himself from his pain. Everything he sees, including Sheena, disappears and all he knows is calm, peaceful darkness.
Meanwhile, back in the white recovery room in one of the many trees of the forest the elves call home. The young man relaxes and calms down. Touma and Seiji let go of his arms. For about twenty minutes, before now, they weretold to hold down the young man, because he began to thrash about and yell. Earlier the head healer had stripped him to his underclothes to get a better look at his wounds. After cleaning and bandaging his wounds, she had changed his clothes, dressing him in elven attire. She had noticed the mark on his shoulder andwent to tellthe leader. That had been three hours earlier. When she found the leader, she told him about the mark. He told her he had known about it and told her not to tell anyone else. She nodded and left before he went to the recovery room and had Seiji and Touma summoned to him. Then he spoke to them in the presence of only the head healer and the unconsious patient, no one else was around.
"As much as you two don't want to hear this, when that young man recovers, I want you to go with him. When you find two other unique individuals, you are to find Arago and attack him. You will win this time. I know it." Seiji, usually the quiet one of the duo, was the one to voice his opinion.
"High and Wise Leader, what is the meaning of your comment? You know we can't go against Arago without the fire child and the beings who can manipulate water and earth. It would be suicide to go against him without the others, and while we're on the subject, why should we travel with a human? You know humans are weak." He stopped when the leader looked at the two of them with an amused expression on his face. Touma's eyes lit up when an idea struck him.
"You can't possibly mean that he is the fire child." The leader nodded. Seiji looked at him with shock in his eyes.
"So you're telling us that this human is the fire child? That he is the only one who can help us against Arago?" The leader nodded again, looking very pleased. "I don't believe you. Touma and I swore not to fight against Arago ever again. I refuse to believe you. I refuse to believe that a human, once again, has that kind of power." The leader's expression changed to sadness and regret. He walked over to Ryo, very carefully undid his shirt and rolled him over. He pulled the sleeve off his right arm and, pulling back a bandage, showed Touma and Seiji the fire mark on his shoulder blade. The two of them gasped and involuntarily step back. The sleeve was replaced on the arm and he was rolled over onto his back. The blankets were readjusted. The three of them stayed there until Ryo cried out and began thrashing. To keep from reopening any of his wounds, the leader had Seiji restrain Ryo's right arm and Touma restrain his left arm. The leader spent twenty minutes trying to calm Ryo with his voice. Finally he sighed, as he placed his first two fingers of his left hand to Ryo's head. Then he tried again, and almost immediately, he calmed down. The healer thanked him, Touma, and Seiji before turning to the window to the east. One of the curtains had caught fire, but it was quickly extinguished. The leader turned to the now standing Touma and Seiji.
"Now, do you believe what I told you?"
Phew, I think that was the longest chapter I've written before. Ryo's going to be fine, don't worry. Thanks once again to all my readers and especially Mirror and Image. From now on I will thank you two at the tops of my chapters. And if I translated my Japanese wrong, please write me and tell me. Sayonara.