Chapter 1
No matter how many times she looked at the delicate watch face nestled against the pulse of her wrist, it was still fifteen minutes past one o'clock. Beside her, Ami was staring intently at a brochure for Hirosaki Castle, glasses perched on the end of her nose as she assembled a complete and educational string of tourist and other historical sites for them to visit. Rei tried hard not to let her eyebrow twitch. The longer they waited, the more time Ami had to slowly crowd their trip around museums and castles and antiques. She tried not to shudder and focused her ire on its source.
Usagi Tsukino might be a grown up in years, but Rei was convinced that inside she hadn't aged a day past fifteen. Even as she felt the irritation curling against her muscles, deeper inside she could feel thin but sharp threads of worry slice through her heart. It couldn't be avoided. Battle after battle over decades, and every time, there was always the niggling fear that maybe this time, Usagi's late arrival foreshadowed yet another struggle with evil looming on their horizon. She repeated to herself that nothing felt out of place. Everything was fine.
As if agreeing with Rei's internal mantra, Makoto yawned and leaned back against the café table, resting her elbows on its sturdy and filigreed iron surface as she studied a cloudless sky that reminded Rei of the beaches she'd seen on her last vacation to Hawaii. Its memory still lingered against her mind's eye in splendid jewel tones.
Beside Makoto, Minako lay on her arms over the table, eyes closed. "Rei, if you're going to stare lasers into people's heads, can you at least wait until Usagi gets here and do it to the person that deserves it?" the blonde said into the tabletop. Rei scowled at her for good measure and planted her hands on her hips in an attempt to ignore her watch.
"I still say we should just leave her behind. It'd serve Odango Head right for keeping us all waiting. She's a full-grown adult now, there's no way its ok to be this late everywhere still!" Rei turned her nose up in the air as she crossed her arms, whirling around to scan the crowded downtown area. Her stomach rumbled, but the shards of worry pierced her heart a little deeper. She reminded herself that this was just Usagi being Usagi, and the only thing she should be feeling right now was some righteous anger.
Minako blinked at her and sat up. Makoto turned her head and shrugged. "C'mon Rei. You know Usagi is always late. I don't think it has anything to do with her being immature. That's just her." Ami nodded, finally looking up from her literature.
"She has come so very far Rei. She does try hard." Rei crossed her arms again, ire rising at the feeling of being outnumbered. Why was everyone taking Usagi's side? Why couldn't someone be on her side for once?
And for the love of everything holy, why couldn't Usagi just show up already?!
As if answering her inner call, an excited cry went up from across the market-way. "Rei-chan!" Rei turned in time to see Usagi waving an arm in the air like her life depended on catching Rei's attention. Rei put her face in her hands and groaned. Someone behind her made a choking sound, doing a poor job of disguising laughter. She tried not to envision strangling Minako.
"Speak of the gossip, and they shall materialize…" Minako's sage voice did nothing to hide the muddled proverb that somehow reached deep into Rei's guts and just ripped the anger the rest of the way out.
She shoved her sleeves up her arms, fists clenched, and began to stomp forward into battle when an explosion rocked the neighborhood from several blocks over. They all braced themselves as if in an earthquake as the aftershocks roared past. A shower of glass began to pelt the street-goers from above as a second blast rocked them all again. The sound of steel groaning made Rei's skin crawl. People were screaming, panicking, running frantically for shelter. Not good.
Frantically, she shot a look at where Usagi had been, only to see Minako and Makoto had dragged her beneath a shop awning and were hunched over her squealing form. Rei nodded to herself and next turned to look for Ami.
The blue haired young woman was already on her computer, visor in place, scanning the direction of the blast. "It's definitely not something normal," she said absently, and Rei rolled her eyes. Even if the blast hadn't had a supernatural source, it wasn't exactly normal for massive explosions to be happening in a city's downtown.
She could feel tremendous energy signals coming from the area of the blast. Narrowing her eyes, she scanned the horizon, almost immediately finding the source of the chaos – lights flashed and energy seemed to fly wildly from an area southwest of their position. "I'm going to get a closer look!" she yelled over her shoulder, not pausing to see if she'd been heard as she leapt to the top of a small shrine, and then used its height to catch the top of a fire escape before making it up to a nearby roof. She cast a cautious glance around, and then transformed quickly in a burst of fire.
The power of Mars fueled her already enhanced speed and strength, and she made her way to the epicenter of the chaos in moments. Making sense of the scene beneath her took a bit longer.
There appeared to be a Heian era war going on in Heisei era Hirosaki. Armored soldiers that looked like they'd just leapt off a silk scroll clashed – it seemed to be several hundred troops versus a handful of young men in brightly colored, modern-looking armor. Rei pressed her lips together and cocked her head to one side. She didn't have a lot of time to assess the situation, but her senses were telling her she needed to help those young men.
Pinpointing the biggest threat in the melee, she took a deep breath and focused, chanting beneath her breath as her energy built. Arching her body and gesturing gracefully, she let the mystical flames roll off her arms. "BURNING MANDALA!"
Massive rings of superheated flame flew from the rooftop and slammed into several concentrated fights, freeing up precious seconds for a few of the colorful warriors to recover. As she expected, the move garnered her a great deal of attention, but this was where Rei thrived. Feeling energized, she stepped up onto the narrow ledge that lined the edge of the roof, her mouth curving in a small grin. She didn't say anything. The Senshi had (mostly) stopped giving speeches nearly a decade ago – particularly after they'd nearly gotten fried a few times mid-speech.
Rei had been through enough battles to know that she needed to use the element of surprise while she still had it. The men in the colored armors were gaping at her, and she felt strangely self-conscious as she leaned into a Fire Soul that ended in a significant number of the drab colored armor figures near the colorful samurai exploding. She had most of the attention of the remaining army now, but she supposed that was all right.
Until someone or something launched a nasty shot at the building she was standing on and she was forced to jump to ground level to avoid being crushed in the fall.
She landed near the men wearing the small rainbow of armor and tossed her hair over her shoulder. "Hi. I'm Sailor Mars. We've never met before, but I'm going to assume we're on the same side here," she said, casting them a glance over her shoulder. A samurai swathed in black undergear overlaid with armor in brilliant scarlet glared at her. "How do we know we can trust you?" he snarled. He turned abruptly, swords arching gracefully as he gave his attention to the eager enemy.
Rei tugged up one shoulder and gave the samurai her back. "You can't. You don't know that I'm trustworthy, but we both have the same enemy right now and I think we're better served handling this mess first before anyone innocent gets hurt." she snapped, letting lose with a Snake Fire. She followed it up with a Flame Sniper, clearing the way for them.
A samurai in similar armor as the scarlet warrior, but trimmed in dark blue, aimed a great golden long bow and yelled "SHINKUUHAAAA!" A spiral of equally golden energy appeared in front of the point of his arrow, and then dispersed in a massive wave that blew away several more troops. But the holes they left were immediately filled with more.
Mars smiled in triumph when those soldiers were obliterated in a massive surge of lightening shaped like the majestic head of a dragon. A familiar emerald-green blur dropped beside her, and an orange one blitzed up against her other side, the residue of a Venus Crescent Beam Shower burning up overhead. "Hi!" Minako chirped with enthusiasm. "You weren't going to hog all the fun for yourself, were you?" Rei snorted, feeling the corners of her mouth pulling downwards. "Until you showed up? Yes."
The Senshi of Venus tossed her hair with a dramatic gesture. "Puh-leez. I am the fun." Without misplacing a movement, the blonde gestured with her pointer, thumb up, like a pretend gun, and yelled "Crescent Beam!" A stream of orange energy shot from her pointer and cleared a path the size of an F5 tornado as it passed. The breeze of it going ruffled Rei's hair, and the Senshi of Mars had to admit that Venus' light-hearted banter and Jupiter's steady strength had lightened her mood a bit. She didn't bother looking around for Mercury or Moon. Odds were that Ami had Usagi on the sidelines and was keeping a sharp eye over the battle. Some things never changed, but that felt nice in this case.
"Cocconuts Cyclone!" A gigantic sphere of coalesced lightening shot past the heads of samurais in armor trimmed in orange and light blue, terminating in the midst of what she was starting to think of as cannon fodder with an explosion so large the ground shook.
"Whoa! These girls pack a punch!" the samurai in orange yelled. As if called to compete, he swung the tetsubo he carried and twirled it expertly, stopping the motion as rocks and debris rose from the pavement. The ground before him began to crack apart and drift upwards, the atmospheric pressure becoming incredibly heavy for a moment.
"GANTETSUSAI!"
There was some kind of crazy shockwave explosion and when the confusion cleared and the ground stopped shaking, most of the soldiers were gone, but so was a small building that had been behind them.
"Shuu! We're not trying to level the city here!" The samurai in red snarled. But he leapt into the air, slamming the ends of his katana together. He began to glow so brightly that Rei had to turn her gaze away. She accidentally made eye contact with the samurai in light blue, who sent her an apologetic shrug and a small smile before closing his own eyes.
"SOUUUUENZAAAANNNN!" an inhuman voice growled, and for a moment, the whole world was light, and the ground seemed to tremble, and nothing made sense. What felt like a blast of nuclear wind followed the light show, and Rei tried to hold strong against it.
She cursed, wobbled, flailed, and lost the battle, ending up on her rear. "Owww…" she muttered under her breath, rubbing her behind discreetly as she scrambled back up. She'd be feeling that in her tailbone for days. The world at least made sense again. Everyone was blinking like they'd all just had their own professional photos taken, and she couldn't help the scowl that folded itself onto her face.
Their surroundings were…..silent. Way, way too silent. The dust finished settling, and she noticed there were no more cannon fodder coming after them. There also wasn't much of an intersection left. She took a few cautious steps in the direction of some debris and picked up the mangled triangular shape of a stop sign, shaking her head at the carnage before tossing it aside.
"Show-off" Venus muttered somewhere to her left. Rei turned and held back a chuckle. The blonde's normally sleek and flowing mane looked a bit….ruffled. The end of one of Jupiter's bows was smoking as she approached them. "Some warning would have been nice." The Senshi of Thunder muttered, casting her glance around. "Anyone seen Usagi or Ami?"
"Here." Came Ami's calm, steady voice. Rei immediately felt better.
"Oh MAN! You guys! We were almost TOAST! These people are all crazy!" Usagi was well…..Usagi. She was chewing the nails of one gloved hand, which made no sense to Rei, and clinging to Mercury's arm like an octopus with the other. The Senshi of Mercury, very used to being barnacled, simply began initiating a scan of the immediate area. Her head snapped up suddenly.
"Heads up! It's not over!" she called out. Usagi, predictably, clung tighter, but at least her knees didn't knock together like she was five anymore. Rei rolled her eyes.
Jupiter immediately put herself in front of Usagi and Venus settled in next to her. Rei moved in front of Mercury, and together they took up a battle stance. "Mercury, what is it? Any idea?" Venus had gone quiet, the levity in her voice gone, her face now set in stone.
Mercury shook her head. "Whatever it is, it's incredibly powerful. It has a different signature than the soldiers from before."
"What kind of signature?" All their heads snapped to the right, where the samurai in dark blue had apparently been standing. Mercury tilted her head at him cautiously, readings flashing across her visor before she nodded subtly, and Rei relaxed.
"I don't know. It has a particularly dense concentration and is very dark. But that's about all I can make out." She murmured. The samurai tilted his head at her, curiosity in his gaze. Rei noticed a lock of light blue hair that fell across his forehead beneath the brim of his helmet.
"That doesn't sound good at all." This interjection came from a samurai swathed in armor trimmed with deep emerald green, who had a giant nodatchi slung across one shoulder. He came up between Mercury and the samurai with blue hair. A shock of blond covered one of his eyes, but Rei could see they were a greyish violet. She nodded curtly at him.
"It's not." She agreed flatly.
"Where is this signature coming from?" The light blue, orange, and red samurai had wandered over now. The orange samurai stepped behind Mercury, trying to peer over her shoulder. The Senshi of Water and Ice regarded him coldly and he gave her a sheepish smile, rubbing the back of his head and backing up. They'd become a giant mingling of rainbow of colors, Rei thought, and felt a little ridiculous.
Mercury frowned, going back to concentrating once her personal space bubble was intact again. "It's….." she hesitated, scanning the area slowly,"…THERE!" White gloved fingers pointed diagonally across the street from them. At nothing.
"Umm….Mercury…" Usagi began. Everything dropped into an unnatural stillness then, and Rei felt Jupiter and Venus tense next to her, even as she felt her own muscles stiffen. She snapped out several ofuda, holding them in front of the center of her face.
Alerted by the intensity of the Senshi, the samurai dropped into battle ready stances in response, focusing in the direction that Mercury had pointed. Rei gasped when the sound of footsteps and clapping became audible after a moment.
"Oh man, I hate it when they clap" Usagi whisper-muttered, but Rei tuned her out. She wasn't interested in waiting for whoever or whatever it was to gloat. As soon as they were within striking range, she tensed up, the scrolls snapping straight in her fingers as she began to chant under her breath, her hair lifting with the energy. She finished the chanting and flicked her wrist, the sacred scrolls flying straight and true.
"AKU RYO TAI SAN!"
Whatever it was, it stopped clapping and stopped walking. Mars breathed a sigh of relief, even if that relief was short lived. She was going to guess some ofuda wouldn't hold it for long. But her sisters were always in tune with her. Venus arched gracefully, winking and then gesturing. "VENUS WINK CHAIN SWORD!" The ground rumbled and broke apart as the Venus Love Me Chain roared towards its target like a freight train, spearheaded by a broadsword.
"JUPITER SUPREME THUNDER DRAGON!" The electric dragon caught up with the chains and the combined attack slammed into the target with a massive explosion. Something at the center of the smoke growled and then sputtered.
"You – you DARE…" Rei heard the sound of running water and immediately took several steps to the side, dragging Usagi and the orange samurai with her. He gawped at Mercury as she released an Aqua Illusion for good measure, freezing the target. Rei moved to add her own attack to the pile but was interrupted before she could get started.
"RAIKOZAAAANNNN!" A massive bolt of electricity writhed in a column of light that blinded her again temporarily as it exploded on top of Mercury's ice block.
Satisfied, the Senshi of Mars folded her arms in front of her and waited.
It took longer than she thought. But what shambled out of the smoke had her hair standing on end. "What the…." One of the samurai to her right coughed, gagging. Rei had to agree. She covered her mouth and nose with one gloved hand and narrowed an eye. Lord, the smell. Like carrion that had been out in the sun all summer.
Tense and alert, she looked for the other Senshi. Usagi looked a bit green, and the Princess of the Moon's big blue eyes were tearing up. For once, Rei couldn't blame her. Jupiter gagged and pressed the back of her hand to her mouth, narrowing her eyes, and Venus had both hands clapped over the lower half of her face. Mercury was grimacing, but she was stoically studying her visor.
As for Mars, she didn't need a visor. She had eyes. And man, she kind of wished she didn't right now. She was pretty sure the thing coming towards them was going to be hanging out in her nightmares for a while. Even if she hadn't had eyes, the awful feeling of darkness and twisted rot that hung around the monster seemed to penetrate her very bones and squirm through her guts. In defense, Rei wrapped her arms around her stomach and did her best to study their opponent.
"Uhhh..Ryo, you remember any zombie monsters in the Youjakai? Because I don't, and I'm pretty sure I'd remember something like that." The orange samurai had edged between Rei and Mercury, and Rei didn't miss the way he was angling his body in front of them. She wanted to be irritated, but frankly, anything between her and the walking pile of carrion up ahead could only be a good thing.
The red samurai shook his head. "No way. I'd remember something like that too, and I've never seen anything like it."
"Whatever this thing is, I don't think it's the Dynasty. It doesn't seem like anything that's come out of there before. Besides, I'm pretty sure our last update from Lady Kayura didn't include any footnotes on the demonic undead." The blue haired samurai pulled out his golden bow and notched an arrow in preparation. The light blue samurai next to him nodded.
"Touma's right. There might be Youjakai soldiers here, which doesn't make sense, but that thing isn't from the Youjakai."
The green samurai nodded in agreement with both the blue samurai.
"Well, I'm sure not waiting for him to get any closer….FLOWER HURRICAINE!" A typhoon of flower petals blew into the demon, and hardly slowed it down. Jupiter put her gloved hands to her face, eyes wide. "Hell. That didn't even phase him!" Rei felt her guts tighten. She pulled out more ofuda. They'd worked before, hopefully they still did the job. She snapped them straight in front of her nose, and then flicked her wrist with a gesture.
"AKUUUU RYOOOO TAI SAN!"
The scrolls flew straight again and hit their mark, stopping the shamble. Mars let out a breath and began her chanting and gesturing on the inhale. She arched, and then flung her arms out. "BUUUURNINNNNNG MANDALA!" Massive rings of fire shot towards the zombie, exploding on impact.
There was a deep, agonized cry – graveled and inhuman. When the smoke cleared, the monster had staggered backwards, dropping to its knees. The red samurai was right behind her. He leapt up, slamming his katana together.
"SOOOUUUENNNNNZAAAANNN!" The world went bright again, but this time Rei was prepared. She closed her eyes and turned her face away.
When the smoke cleared however, the monster hadn't taken any damage. Rei frowned. Why had her fire….? She didn't have time to finish the thought. The monster was enraged now, and it had caught on. It launched an attack so quickly Rei didn't have any time to brace for it. One moment she was watching an awful cloud of something coming her way, and the next everything was agony, and she could dimly hear someone crying her name frantically. She moaned and tried to move. Nothing was working right. Every tiny motion brought waves of pain with it. What….what had…?
Rei blacked out.