Chapter 72

Touma was in his favorite place. The small clearing, set on a hillside, provided an unimpeded view of the night sky. He frowned as he tried to remember how or where it was. In the distance, a large house sat beside a lake, but Toma didn't remember either of his parents or any of his relatives taking him on vacation or having a vacation home. He puzzled over it for a moment more and then gave up, unbothered. He was here, and it felt wonderful. Peaceful. Safe. He didn't have a single worry in the world, and he wanted his life to always stay this way.

He stretched, tucking his arms beneath the back of his head as he continued to lose himself in the vast mores of the sky. The light of millions of stars, of endless galaxies, pressed down on him with the cold comfort of was tiny, insignificant. But that was a comfort, not a fear. He liked feeling like a lost spec in the velvet darkness of the sky. He drifted, feeling content.

Until a massive ball of blue flames blasted out of the sky and hit the ground hard mere feet from where he lay, tearing a gash in the hillside. An explosion of dirt and debris exploded far too close to where he lay, the ground trembling in a small earthquake with the force of impact. Thrilled, trepidatious, Touma huffed air from his lungs and leapt up, jogging toward the crash site. He hoped whatever it was, it was intact. Maybe a meteorite. How cool would that be?!

He rounded the bend and inhaled sharply through his nose.

That…wasn't a meteorite.

A massive suit of armor – trimmed in deep blue and sheathed in silk that depicted rolling clouds greeted him instead. It sat as if it had been waiting for him to come and find it. Its gauntlets rested on its knees. It was an empty shell, but Touma still felt as if it might be staring at him expectantly. He stared back, feeling weird, and not sure what was happening.

"Touma Hashiba. Will you once again bear the Tenku Armor and fulfill your vow to protect the innocent?" a woman's voice intoned suddenly. He jumped. She stepped out from behind the armor like she'd been there the whole time, but Touma couldn't see where in the hell she'd been hiding. It was giant armor, sure, but still not big enough to hide a whole person. He could still see between its legs for crap's sake.

He mentally rewound the tape of their conversation in his brain and played it back again, picking up where she'd left off.

"Say what now?" he asked, feeling confused. The word Tenku sounded familiar, but he was pretty sure he'd remember something as serious as a vow to protect all of mankind from imminent destruction. With a small shiver, he recalled his most recent trip through an apocalyptical landscape, and wondered if maybe he was having some kind of fantasy dream that gave him control over his fate for once.

Wait. Hadn't there been a girl? Something about cakes?

Touma sort of wanted to climb back up the hillside and go back to stargazing.

"Your memories have been stolen from you, Tenku no Touma." The woman put her hands on the shoulders of the armor and it glowed briefly before the light faded. "You once wore the Mystical Armor of Tenku, bearing the Sho Ha Kyu in defense of the Earth," she explained, running the tip of a finger along one visible edge of a massive golden bow.

Touma scowled.

"I thought this was supposed to be a nice dream," he muttered. "It's just getting weird now."

But in the back of his mind, certain things were beginning to fall into place. The crazy, unexplainable stamina he'd been having, for instance. How he'd somehow known how to fight when he didn't really remember taking up any martial arts.

Wearing a giant mystical armor and shooting arrows with that beast of a bow would be a good way to get in shape. He tilted his head, crossing his arms as he tried to clear some of the mental fog and access his missing memories.

No luck. The fog seemed to have no end.

"So what? I just….put this on and then I'm a superhero?" he asked, unable to keep the skepticism from his voice. He certainly didn't feel like he had any superpowers. And that thing looked…..heavy. It looked like it would slow him down more than anything else.

The woman laughed, the sound high and musical – infectious like a child's laughter.

"Of a fashion. If you take up arms again, you renew your vow. I cannot return your memories to you, but once you reconnect with the armor, they'll return in their own fashion," she told him, the statement solemn for all the laughter that had spilled from her lips moments ago.

Touma stared at the armor.

It seemed unfair, that he had to assume such a heavy responsibility to gain what belonged to him by right. But he thought over his life. The emptiness. The loneliness. The lack of fulfillment. He was doing everything that had ever been expected of him. But he knew something was missing. And really, what else was he doing with himself? Nothing like this. Like saving the world.

He thought about the wreckage he'd been drifting through, and then thought about having the power to change that. He edged toward giving in, but skepticism gnawed at him. This was a dream, but the vow felt all too real. Touma had a feeling that whatever was happening here would affect him in the waking world. He looked up at her, his gaze calculating.

"Why should I trust you?" he asked, trying his best to cover every angle.

"We were enemies once. Then allies," she replied simply.

He shook his head, blowing a puff of air through his lungs. "That doesn't really give me warm fuzzy feelings," he muttered back at her, shoving his hands into his pockets. She returned his stare blandly.

"You do not know me and so do not trust me. I respect this. But trust your instincts. Think about the armor. Are you willing to let go of it? Of life as a Samurai Trooper?" she asked him, her voice deliberately neutral.

Touma didn't really feel comfortable agreeing to anything without his memories intact. He had no idea what he might be walking into. Saving the world sounded fun at first blush, but that was a serious, heavy responsibility, and he had no idea, if he really had shouldered such a burden before why he didn't know. What had caused him to lose his memory in the first place? How were his memories linked to this armor?

Touma studied it as it sat, empty and gaping at him. Something...something about it pulled at him. Sang to him. He could feel it in his blood and his bones, just as he could feel the vast cold of space thrumming in his heart and his lungs. Whether he remembered it or not, it felt like part of him – an important part – and Touma was unwilling to let go of something that felt so intimately connected to him.

Which left him with no choice really. "All right," he said, clenching his hands where they rested in his pockets.

For a moment, nothing happened.

And then, he knew. Knew exactly what to do – as if some long-buried instinct was coming to life. Touma threw out a hand, and yelled "Busso, Tenku!"

And when he blinked himself clear of all the lights and the fanfare, his arms and hands were clad in metal trimmed in dark blue, an incredible feeling coursing through him. He looked up, back into the vastness of space, and realized he could feel it now. Somehow, he could feel the endless night sky. The wind buffeted him, and he laughed with the joy of being reunited with his armor.

How had he forgotten this?

Tenku sang through his veins, making him feel so light he thought he might take off, into the sky.

And then the rest of his memories began to flood inside of him. The blood. The war. The devastation and pain. The terror of not knowing if he'd make it out alive. If his brothers would make it out alive. The Troopers. Where were they? Presumably, off somewhere else, disconnected from their armors? Or had it just been Touma that'd been unlucky enough to somehow forget who he was?

No. No, Touma didn't think so. He wasn't sure how he knew, he just did. Tentatively, he reached for them, feeling a faint connection. But that connection was getting stronger.

He was going to find them. He couldn't relax, couldn't feel ok, until they were all together and could figure out what the Hell was going on. What had he last been doing? What had happened to all of them?

Vague memories began to filter in then. He remembered a lot of things around death. The realm of the dead? No, that wasn't quite….

The Underworld.

The second flood of memories hit him harder than the first, and he put a hand to his head, as if trying to hold it up.

Mako-chan.

His missing memories synced with his most recent memories. Wandering, lost. And then the bakeshop. The girl in the green fuku.

Jupiter had saved him, and he hadn't even known who she was. Touma put a fist over his chest, trying to catch his breath as all of the emotion that had been locked away from his consciousness stormed his mind, leaving him feeling as though he were drowning. This monster had stolen Makoto from him not once, but twice.

And now, she was out there somewhere, fighting, and he was….where? Sleeping? Rage bubbled up inside of him, a black, boiling cauldron that seethed as he thought about it.

He'd been separated from his armor. From his friends. From the woman he loved. From his own memories. He snapped his gaze up to Suzunagi, recognizing her now – feeling wary, but still grateful. He had enough presence of mind to sketch a respectful nod in her direction.

"Thank you for guiding me. How do I get out of here?" he asked.

She smiled at him, returning his nod, and then extending a hand toward his forehead, where his kanji glowed in shocking tones of blue.

"You wake up, Tenku no Touma," she said.

He bolted upright in a strange bed, in a strange room, and then kept momentum, leaping out of the covers and calling his armor before his feet even hit the floor. It felt so good, surrounding him, energizing him.

He realized his injuries hadn't fully recovered, but they were a distant thought right now as he threw open the door and bolted into the hall, only to crash into none other than Ryo Sanada. "Ryo!" he exclaimed, embracing Rekka in a manish hug, unable to contain his delight at seeing the Troopers' leader. Ryo returned the gesture, looking equally thrilled. "I was just trying to find the others and get the hell out of here. If I don't miss my guess, there's a battle going on," he growled then. Ryo nodded, his face hardening.

"Same here. Let's go," Rekka growled as they both turned towards the connection they shared with the other armors.

A happy reunion would have to wait.

They had a battle to finish.