Chapter 34
The bed was empty.
Another door, leading to the outside, had been left partially open. Just outside of it, a splatter of blood sat on the ash-dusted floor. It looked fairly fresh.
That small splatter had Shin's blood pressure pulsing dangerously high. His muscles tensed, fists clenching.
Where in the hell was Rei?
Had someone taken her? Had she wandered off somewhere? He was generally calm and clear-headed by nature, but he'd lost his last vestige of level-headedness as soon as he'd opened the door Ami had pointed to and found Rei missing.
If he was honest with himself, as soon as they'd found Ami and seen the condition she was in, it had been a battle to keep his temper. They had been toyed with. They had been lied to and manipulated. And dear allies had suffered because of it.
And if he were being totally honest with himself, which their separation had forced him to be, he could also admit that he had bonded with Reiin the Underworld much too closely for her to be only his ally or his friend. Knowing now that she was missing and very likely in grave danger made it nearly impossible for him to think clearly. He'd rarely encountered this side of himself, and the intensity of his emotion was a little frightening.
But he wasn't going to let that hold him back.
His blood burned through his veins as he stared at the empty, ominous bed, trying to get himself under control and not simply level the back half of Rei's family shrine. Trying to figure out where to even start looking. Wondering how much time he might have to find her.
Rajura crouched down, blocking his visual of the blood trailing out the door. The warlord dipped two fingers into the splatter. He rubbed his thumb against those fingers carefully, a thoughtful look on his face.
"It's warm. She hasn't been gone long." Rajura turned an assessing gaze out the door. "With an injury so fresh, I can track her," he murmured.
Shin nodded mutely. The idea of Rajura hunting Rei down for any reason didn't really help him contain his rage, but Shin promised himself it didn't matter. Rajura. Kayura. He didn't care. He'd work with Arago if it meant getting Rei back safely. So when Rajura took off out the door and then out of the back of the shrine, Shin followed, sticking to his tail, vibrating with impatience each time the man stopped and crouched to read the signs in the landscape.
They didn't need to track her far.
"You already don't have much time left. If you give in now, surrender to me, I will gift you a painless death," a gravely, distorted voice rasped. Shin's hackles went up immediately, but he forced himself to wait as they crept up on the scene. They needed to see what they were up against.
"If you want to take me out, you'll have to fight me to the death," Rei snarled in a low voice that shook with rage. "I'm not just going to lay down for you. I'll never make it easy. If I'm going, I'll take you with me."
The threatening voice laughed mockingly. "How are you going to do that? You can barely hold that little toy you're carrying. You really think you're going to do any damage with it?"
Shin couldn't bear it any longer. Not when she was right there, and not when she was in danger.
"She won't have to," he snarled, interrupting, as he stepped into the clearing with Rei and the voice and leveling the Suiko Yari at the first monstrous thing he saw.
"I see there are still some lessons the Troopers haven't learned," he heard Rajura mutter from behind him, but he ignored the warlord. He couldn't reasonably be expected to just hide out in the underbrush when Rei was being threatened.
He doubted the masho even knew what it felt like to have someone they cared about threatened. They considered close relationships a weakness and a liability, and wasn't that sad?
Shin viewed it as a strength. Perhaps the most important strength he had. He hated fighting. Hated battle. But when it came to the people he loved and cared about, he'd fight until his last breath to see them safe and happy.
He'd taken his moment of surprise a hair too late. The creature was already mid-move, and Shin wasn't going to be able to manuver himself between Rei and its attack, so he could only watch helplessly as it struck her dead-on, delivering a nasty wound to her mid-section. The bow she was clutching hit the ground, the arrow dropping beside it, before Rei herself hit the dirt on her back, skidding several meters away with the force of the strike.
He buried the instinct to run to her, growling as he turned to face the monster instead.
The first thing he noticed was that it had claws like a badger – dangerously long and thick, dripping crimson now. That was where the similarity between it and anything that might be considered pleasant ended. The very next thing he noticed was that it had no head and no neck. No eyes or nose or mouth or face, just skin pulled strangely taut across its shoulders. As he stared at it, a slit across its shoulder tops opened up, revealing a nasty looking set of teeth, and let out a wicked laugh.
"Too late, whoever you are. Too late."
Shin snarled and swung the Suiko Yari in its direction.
"It's never too late," he growled. He let the rage inside of him boil up and out like a geyser, gripping his yari as it flowed out of him and into his weapon.
"CHODANDO CHYOOOOOO RRRRRRYYYYUUUUUU HAAAAAAAAAA!" he growled, his voice inhuman and laced with the righteous anger flooding his system. The attack that he unleashed came out more like ten tsunamis. Shin didn't care, he let the energy flow out of him, like water loosed from a collapsed dam.
The monster was gone within seconds. There wasn't so much as a molecule of it left when the attack cleared.
"Hell. I guess the Troopers have learned a thing or two."
Rajura sounded impressed, but Shin didn't particularly care what he thought. An area the size of a small town appeared to have been cleared for miles behind where the demon stood. He couldn't really see the end of the clearing, but that was something else he didn't really care about.
He holstered his weapon and approached Rei, his armored feet squelching in the mud. She had struggled onto her hands and knees and was trying to rise. Shin reached down, grasping her under her arms, and lifting her with careful ease. He held her on her feet for a moment, taking her in, the gravity of her wounds sending concern cascading through his system.
"You're Shin Mouri," she whispered, looking up at him with wide eyes, her breathing short and shallow. A fine tremble shook her frame, and she held her bow in two hands, her grip white-knuckled against the dark wood.
Shin nodded solemnly. "That's right. I'm Shin Mouri," he echoed, gently reaching down and disentangling the bow from her shaking fingers. She watched their hands as he worked. Her fingertips had a bluish tint to them that only added to his anxiety. He pulled the quiver carefully over her head next, wanting it out of the way.
"You're Shin Mouri," she repeated, a tremble now in her voice. She made a choked noise, and he looked up to see a glassy sheen in her eyes. She tilted her chin up, her bearing regal, even as she struggled to keep her tears in check. She needed to feel strong, he realized, and hated that monster all over again, hated whatever had done this to her – brought her low and made her feel weak.
Shin couldn't stop himself from touching her any more than he could stop himself from needing to eat to survive. Gently, he placed a hand on one delicate shoulder. With the other, he cupped her face, tilting it so she was looking into his eyes.
"Yes. I am Shin Mouri. And you are Rei Hino. And Shin Mouri is taking Rei Hino out of here. Right now," he replied firmly. He didn't wait for her to react, simply reached down and swept her off her feet. He began the walk back to the shrine in long, smooth strides, urgency filling his veins.
She protested weakly, but wrapped her arms around his neck, and he knew then that she was suffering more than she was willing to let on. He hustled his pace, wanting to get them back with Ryo and Kayura. Hopefully Touma and Seiji had already come back, and they'd be ready to go. He couldn't let his guard down, couldn't let go of the anxiety plaguing him, until she was out of this dimension and in his own.
Behind them, Rajura trailed him, grumbling about dramatic children. Shin didn't care if he was being dramatic. This entire situation was dramatic. He was merely playing his part. He also didn't care if giving in to his emotions made him a weaker warrior in Rajura's eyes. He didn't answer to Rajura.
And if the masho wanted to take advantage of Shin's state of mind, he'd be happy to remind the guy what happened when he tried taking on the Samurai Troopers. Especially since he still felt much too ready for violence. There was still too much aggression rattling around in his bones.
Shin hopped the small railing and landed on the shrine terrace with ease, careful not to jostle his cargo, and then made his way back through the door he'd exited. When he stepped into the room where they'd found Ami, he found Ryo, sitting on the floor with a sleeping Mercury in his lap. Rei turned, blinking at Ryo and Ami.
"You're here," she said simply.
Ryo shot her an empathetic look, and then smiled softly at her. "You bet we are," he said gently. His expression turned grave as he locked eyes with Shin over his head. Shin shrugged, not really knowing what to say at the moment. He noticed with dismay that Touma and Seiji were conspicuously absent.
"The others…?" he asked reluctantly. Ryo shook his head.
Rei inhaled through her nose, deeply, and then exhaled slowly. "What….what are you all doing here?" she whispered.
"We came to rescue you," Ryo answered simply. Rei shook her head.
"I don't understand," she said, her voice shaking. "How did you…were you attacked too?" she wondered. Ryo's expression shuttered, guilt flashing briefly before his face hardened.
"We were fine," he said in a low voice. "We were just fine."
Shin sighed, not ready to deal with Ryo's emotional shut down at the moment. "What he means is that we weren't attacked. Everything went back to normal for us. …At least until Usagi showed up." Rei jerked in his arms, her gaze whipping to his face.
"Usagi is with you?" she breathed, her voice wild with hope. Her eyes studied his face closely, desperate for him to confirm. He nodded.
"Yes. She showed up in our dimension a little while ago. We've got her laid up with a very close friend. Shuu is keeping an eye on her as we speak, and she's waiting for all of you," he said gently. Rei's eyes watered again, and he watched as she swallowed, forcing the moisture back. She closed her eyes for a moment, brow furrowed.
"She made it," she whispered, more to herself than anyone else. The tension drained slowly from Rei's body then. "Usagi made it," she repeated, sighing. Shin sighed too, more grateful than he wanted to admit that Usagi had showed up in their dimension. She might have ended up anywhere. The mere thought of what could have happened made him hunch his shoulders around his ears.
All of this was horrific. What had happened to the Senshi was a tragedy almost too grave, too huge to really think about. This was his worst nightmare come true – not being able to save the people he cared about, the world he loved.
But if Usagi hadn't come to them, it might have been worse. So much worse. They had hope now.
And Shin would do everything, absolutely everything, to keep that hope alive.
