Chapter 25

They were a solemn group as they moved through the woods, and Ryo guessed that probably had a lot to do with being hemmed in by the undead bodies of his new friends. The breath-stealing monsters probably hadn't helped things much either. What kind of creature sucked up your breath while you slept? He wasn't gonna get any sleep for months now.

Lack of sleep aside, being surrounded by every instance where Ami had ever died had a way of bringing his mood down, and freaking him out at the same time, and he doubted the other Troopers were doing much better. Like, it was Ami. But she was also a horror movie monster. He'd watched Night of the Living Dead once, and he still had bad dreams about it sometimes. Being escorted by zombie versions of people he'd come to really like was seriously messing with his brain. Especially because he'd come to trust them at some point, which felt even weirder.

They were zombies.

They were technically his friends. They had also kept them safe and sound.

But they were still zombies.

Then there were the living, not corpse versions of his friends, who didn't seem any more comfortable with it than he was. He tried to imagine meeting a zombie version of himself but got too weirded out halfway through figuring out what he'd look like. He had no idea how Ami was just walking around next to him like this was mostly normal. He'd been around them as long as she had, and he still couldn't adjust. Just getting past the part where Ami had died before, and seemed to remember it was difficult enough to swallow.

Honestly, his goosebumps hadn't gone down since he'd first looked up and seen Ami and Rei standing opposite an undead Venus. His heart was still kind of at a gallop. And really, who could blame him? He'd had enough of zombies to last a lifetime. Arago had used…well, he supposed they weren't actual zombies, but close enough, right? Undead spirits inhabiting moldering armor counted, didn't it? It counted in Ryo's book. His skin crawled as he remembered the way the red glow of their eyes would beam from within the shadows of their helmets.

Fun times.

Beside him, Ami remained silent, her face introspective. He wished he knew what might be going through her head.

He'd feigned sleep last night when the commotion had erupted between Venus, Mars, and Usagi. He hadn't meant to eavesdrop, he just hadn't been able to sleep, and hadn't wanted to move and disturb Ami. Then he'd felt awkward for eavesdropping so he'd just...kept pretending to sleep. It had to be awful, looking at all your past dead selves. Not even just one. A whole bunch of them.

Did the Senshi remember what death felt like?

He really hoped not. For his own sanity, he pretended that everything just kind of went black and that was it. He really, really didn't want to think about Ami struggling to gasp her last breath. Looking at all these scarred-up versions of her past self wasn't doing anything to calm his protective instincts either. He knew Ami could look out for herself, but at what cost? Ryo shivered, hunching his shoulders up around his ears as the goosebumps rolled along his skin in a wave. Ami turned then, and smiled up at him.

"Is everything all right Sanada?" she murmured, speaking in a low voice so that the others wouldn't hear.

Man, when she smiled, his insides just sort of melted. What had he been worried about again? Ryo shook himself.

"Actually, I was gonna ask you the same thing. You doing ok? With…" he hesitated, using a hand gesture to indicate their surroundings "Uhh everything?"

Ami smiled at him again, and then shrugged her shoulders up near her ears, suddenly unable to meet his eyes.

"As fine as anyone can be expected to be, under the circumstances," she replied, eying a Mercury zombie as it plodded nearby. This particular Senshi was obviously much younger than the current Ami, maybe no older than 14.

It was hard to remember the Troopers had been around the same age when they'd first received their armors and gone up against Arago in the Youjakai. Looking at a 14-year-old Ami, however, it struck him then that they'd been babies when they'd started battling for the fate of the world. No wonder they'd struggled so hard to deal with things later when Suzunagi had come after them. He didn't regret getting a new armor, but he sort of thought of that period of his life as one of the darkest. He'd nearly lost his friends. He'd questioned everything about himself, and some of the answers he'd come up with still haunted him.

Did that sort of stuff keep Ami awake at night? Ryo fumbled with a cheerful reply to her answer. Really, what could he say to her? Sorry you've got your own zombie entourage? They'll go away eventually? At least they're on our side?

"-Honestly, I'm a lot more worried about Usagi, and what she might have to do to get us out of here," Ami continued, unaware of his inner struggle. Ryo cast a discreet look at the girl in question. While she was certainly older than the Senshi zombies as well, she seemed so….innocent. He couldn't imagine the girl who'd been clinging to Shuu on the verge of tears half the time battling some giant evil monster.

He recalled the scene in the shrine when she'd used her Crystal to utterly destroy a monster that the rest of them had barely been able to touch. If what he'd heard was true, she'd died before too. That determined warrior seemed so at odds with her personality. Kind, loving, cheerful, Usagi seemed more like she belonged riding roller coasters in an amusement park than she did battling evil. But the look on her face now gave him pause. Her open, normally cheerful expression had been replaced with quiet dread. She seemed anxious. It was jarringly out of place on her. Beside her, Shuu's face was hard, his eyes watchful, taking in their surroundings. Kongo walked so close to Usagi he was nearly on top of her.

Ryo turned back to Ami. "We'll keep her safe Ami. We're here together. She's not alone, and neither are you. I wouldn't let anything happen to the Troopers, and that goes for the Senshi too," he reassured her. She gave him a sad smile.

"You're very kind," she replied in a low voice, the statement eerily final sounding.

"You don't think we can keep you safe," he replied, his voice as dull as he felt. Ami jolted beside him, clearly not anticipating his perceptiveness.

"Oh!" she was flustered for a moment, then settled.

"It isn't…..it's not that Sanada. It's just that…I think no matter what your intentions are, there are too many factors that are beyond our control. We don't know who the enemy is. If they're powerful enough to drag us to the Underworld and block our powers, I don't like thinking about what kind of odds we have facing them in actual combat. But we may not have a choice," she murmured, head bowed.

Ryo felt his temper rise, and beat it back for her sake. It stung, that she didn't have faith him. He was used to everyone having faith in him. The only person he knew that didn't have faith in him was himself. Ami's skepticism had struck a nerve, and he was trying not to take it personally. He reminded himself that Ami didn't know him yet, or the Troopers.

It became his personal mission then, to prove her wrong. He felt the weight of responsibility for the Senshi settle on his shoulders, firmly and irretrievably in that moment, but it didn't bother him. This was a responsibility he took on eagerly. He was Ryo Sanada, leader of the Yoroiden Samurai Troopers, and nobody was dying on his watch.

Not unless he was going first.

And he had zero intention of letting some creep get the drop on him by dragging him into another dimension. He'd been in other dimensions before. He'd battled plenty of monsters and demons who all thought they were better than him. And sure, he'd learned a lot from those battles. He was humble enough to admit that he'd been on the ropes before. There had been casualties, he acknowledged for a dark moment, but they'd done their best to keep those casualties as low as they possibly could.

And they'd always pulled through. This time was no exception.

Settled, Ryo smirked, tucking his hands in his pockets as he walked alongside her.

"I'm going to enjoy proving you wrong, Ami Mizuno," he replied. Ami blinked at him then, her wide, deep blue eyes studying his face and his body carefully, taking in every detail. After a moment, she returned his smirk with a friendly smile.

"If you pull that off, I'll be happy to eat my words," she informed him. Ryo chuckled, and they continued on in companionable silence.

Gradually, the dark woods gave way to open, barren fields. Crows called to each other as they picked at undefinable lumps of….something scattered liberally over the open space. Rusted, decaying weapons stuck out of the ground at odd angles, and…man, this was kind of starting to look familiar. The time he'd spent in Arago's domain had been full of scenes like this.

Makoto stopped suddenly, veering off the trail and through a pair of her own zombies as they watched passivley. "Mako-chan, what're you doing?!" Venus called after her. Makoto bent at the waist and rummaged around in the scrub for a moment before rising again, an ancient looking broadsword clutched in her hands and a satisfied look on her face.

"Getting a weapon," she called back, making her way back to the group. Venus elbowed her hard, and Makoto shot her a dirty look, rubbing her already injured ribs. Touma scowled at Minako, looking irritated with the thoughtless jab.

"Put that thing back where it came from!" Venus growled. Makoto blinked at her.

"Why? He's not using it," she argued, jerking a thumb in the direction of the scrub she'd just left. Venus crossed her arms and glared.

"Mako-chan, the last thing we need is you carting around cursed weapons," she snorted. "That's somebody else's sword. Who knows what kind of foul energy might be hiding in it?"

Makoto favored her with a bland expression. "Mina-chan, you watch way too much tv. I'm walking through the Underworld surrounded by my own zombies. Pretty sure picking up a sword isn't going to start the apocalypse. Clearly, if that was on the agenda, it would have already happened. In fact, I'm not sure the apocalypse hasn't already started. We might be living it right now, and I'd like to feel more prepared," she replied tartly.

Touma snickered behind his hand and Ryo huffed out his own laugh. Makoto simply propped the weapon on her shoulder as their group got underway again, ignoring Venus' irritated grumbling. Rei rolled her eyes at the two of them, but Ryo couldn't help noticing the way she eyed the sword sharply. She let it pass, however, so he assumed it really was all right.

…It was a little eerie how quickly he'd come to trust their instincts the way he trusted the Troopers'.

They moved on without incident, but the landscape just kept getting more depressing. More corpses – both body and weapon.

Ami was moving closer to him, looking spooked as she took everything in. Behind them, Usagi made a frightened noise, and as Ryo turned to make sure their group was still together and whole, he could see the Troopers and Senshi assembled with set, stoic looks on their faces.

Then his ears started to ring.

Their zombie entourage stopped so suddenly he nearly plowed into a Mars. The ringing in his ears got louder.

"Shit." Touma said suddenly from somewhere behind him.

They all turned to look at him, Makoto staring with wide eyes. Touma locked eyes with Ryo, his face deeply worried.

"I think that's a gashadokuro." Tenku muttered. Shuu blinked.

"A what-now?" he asked, furrowing his brow in concentration.

"A gashadokuro," Ami intoned from beside him. "It's a giant skeleton demon made out of the bones of those who die from war or famine. Or both," she added helpfully.

"Oh, of course. Just a giant skeleton monster made from the bones of other dead things," Minako grumbled from her spot beside Seiji. In the distance, a terrible rattling began to sound, overtaking the ringing noise, like thousands and thousands of bones were being dumped off a cliff. It reminded him of rain. But in the most terrifying way possible.

He shuddered. Was that really what they were made of?

"I take no joy in being right," Touma groaned. "Shouldn't we be running?" he addressed the zombies. They all turned to look at him at the same time, and he went a bit grey, holding up his hands, palm out, in a gesture of surrender.

Ami was furrowing her brow, staring at the horizon, trepidation in her gaze. Ryo followed her line of sight, feeling a bit intimidated as the shadow of a massive skeleton began to rise in the distance, vines and other debris clinging to its silhouette. A flock of birds took flight as it stood up. And up. And up.

There was a time to stand your ground. And a time to retreat, and live to fight another day.

Ryo figured this was a good time to retreat.

"Uhh, I don't really care what the zombies want to do. They're zombies. I get that they seem to be on our side, but if they're going to stand here and wait for a giant skeleton monster to show up, that doesn't mean that we need to wait here. Let's go," Ryo snarled.

"Sounds good to me. Let's get out of here!" Shuu replied, reaching for Usagi's hand as the group began to push out of the circle of zombies with the hope of getting away.

"The monster is the manifestation of your enemy," a Mercury zombie hissed.

"If you want to find and defeat your true foe, you must go through the gashadokuro," a Jupiter zombie agreed.

"Somehow, I had a feeling they'd say that." Touma sounded defeated, his head hanging. Makoto gave him a consoling pat on the shoulder, and they turned as a group to study the monster as it approached them, its steps shaking the earth as it moved.

"Any other helpful advice?" Minako muttered at the undead Senshi. She eyed their enemy with trepidation as it roared, eyes and mouth glowing the same hateful red-orange that throbbed in its rib cage.

"Destroy the heart, and you will destroy the monster," a Mars zombie replied.

"Great, piece of cake. We'll just blow that thing right out of its chest," Shuu grunted, swallowing.

Ryo kept silent as he sized the monster up. He didn't like this. Not at all. Something felt off. He pursed his lips.

"All right everyone. Remember the strategy. Let the Troopers go first. Don't use your powers unless there isn't another option," he reminded them all, watching as the Senshi grimaced. "I mean it," he snarled, satisfied when they nodded reluctantly.

"As the Mars zombie suggests any and all attacks should be aimed at the heart of the monster when possible. Hopefully if we're clever enough and fast enough, we can take it down before it does too much damage," Ami stepped up beside him as she spoke, and Ryo nodded in agreement.

It was a sound strategy.

So why did dread fill his guts as he watched the monster approach?