For the original Ronin Warriors, the next three days passed in a stupor. Everything seemed clear and vibrant to their renewed sense, yet at the end of each day, they were exhausted and unable to recollect what happened until a full night's sleep. They felt as though there were plenty for them to do, but they didn't know what. The very first thing they did after seeing their great-grandsons depart was watch Toriyama Hashiba give Rowen's great-great-grandson, Zaji Hashiba, a bath. They had nothing better to do.
Zaji had been terrified of all the strangers until his father introduced them as his friends. Kento tried playing with the toddler. His initial attempt ended with Zaji wailing in mortal terror.
"I was just trying to tickle him!" Kento exclaimed as Tori comforted his son. "All my children loved being tickled."
"Zaji's skin is very sensitive."
"I'll say…" Kento sighed, "So, what games does he like to play?"
"He likes puzzles, sound games, depth-perception games, and object permanence games. He also has some virtual games I let him play."
"Ah. What's object permanence?"
"They're games like peek-a-boo and hide-and-seek."
Kento smiled. Leave it to a Hashiba to make the most normal things sound sophisticated. He then began playing with his friend's great-great-grandson without further incidents. He learned that Zaji could not handle many games considered "rough and tumble" by toddler standards. The only thing he could do along those lines was bounce Zaji lightly on his knee. Tori watched him curiously.
"Something on your mind?" Kento wondered.
"You're very different from what I had expected."
"Is that good or bad?"
"Neither, but it's very interesting. I expected you to be more like Kento-kun."
"He doesn't like kids?"
"Well, he's fine around Zaji. Seito once said he wouldn't know what to do with a baby if one crawled up to him and called him 'daddy.'"
"He actually said that?" About his namesake?
"Well, I think he used the word 'papa' instead of 'daddy', but it's pretty much the same. I think Kento-kun's scared of babies."
The simplistic tone compelled Kento to chuckle. "Why would anyone be scared of a baby?"
"I don't know. He seems to act that way."
Kento frowned. "Does he have a girlfriend or fiancé or …"
"I think he's scared of them too."
Kento's frown deepened, understanding his great-grandson to a small extent. Sai had been terrified of marrying Michiko. He didn't want his duties as a Ronin Warrior to hurt her or any children they might have. He had agonized over whether or not to propose and whether or not to call off their dating relationship. Kento's namesake might be experiencing the same anxieties.
The original Ronins also couldn't stop themselves from marveling over their youthful forms. They had become so accustomed to how they appeared in old age that they forgot what each other looked like during their youths.
Tori's wife, Lena, cut Ryo's hair the evening after the new warriors' departure so that his hair came just below his shoulders and tapered off from the sides into a V shape. Ryo had started having his hair trimmed that way around the end of college. Rowen and Kento, with nothing better to do, watched Lena cut his hair.
While Ryo was giving her directions on how to fix it, Rowen stared at his own reflection in the mirror. He couldn't quite believe what happened to his eyes. Because his eyes and Ryo's eyes were naturally a solid blue, the transformation last night now gave their eyes an opaque appearance. Kento commented to him, "That's just too much blue, even for you, Rowen."
After Ryo finished with the directions, Lena spoke up, "Tori's hair used to be a lot like yours, Rowen, until I started fixing it for him. He was always hacking at it and chopping it."
"Hm." The current silky texture of Tori's hair was actually similar to that of Rowen's wife, Vidali. He didn't think his great-grandson could have inherited both types of hair. Of course, he had never thought his hair color and Vidali's hair color would have blended together for their son to have had purple hair. Purple hair became a dominant Hashiba trait.
Enjoying their newfound agility, Sai and Sage sparred frequently during those two days. Once, Sage accidentally knocked him onto the ground. Sai felt a brief moment of terror – such a fall would have been hazardous in his later years – but he didn't even receive a bruise, and he ended up laughing.
The day after the new warriors' departure, Sai decided to watch television. He found on a genre-specific channel a marathon one of the last shows he had watched 19 years ago, but he never made it to the finale. Finally, he would know how the series ended. Ryo came into the living room during a commercial and wondered what his friend was watching.
Sai said, "It's an anime that I always used to –"
The commercial ended, and Ryo said in surprise, "That's anime?"
Sai didn't comment. It was now an outdated anime style, anyway. Ryo watched the rest of the show with him. Kento also came in, became interested in the storyline, and the three made a little snack party out of the marathon.
The original Ronin Warriors were shocked that Toriyama Hashiba had chosen the life of a househusband, but then they learned that Tori also had a job which supported the family. He wrote short stories, published in all three magazine formats. Sai read one of his stories and then hurried to Rowen to tell him all about the awesome story.
"Rowen, you have to read the stories that Toriyama writes! I just read one of them, and it's –" he paused to catch his breath.
Rowen asked, "What is it about?"
Then, Sai frowned thoughtfully. He loved the detail and the nifty sentence structure. "Well…" What was the story about? "It's about these people, and they're sitting at a table and drinking tea." The description was so awesome. "But, I think the tea is laced with something." Excellent use of syntax. "And then, a strange bird flies in through one of the light fixtures." H. P. Lovecraft would be proud of him.
After Sai finished, Rowen commented, "It doesn't sound like it was about much of anything."
"But it was written so well!"
In all honesty, Rowen found the state of his family disturbing; he couldn't find any of his parental influence through the generations in Toriyama. Tori told the original Ronin Warriors all he knew about their heirs. Aiden, Seito, and Reiji called almost every day to know how things were going. Even though Aiden came from the highest and most culturally-advanced social class, completely opposite from Ryo, Rowen saw and understood how Ryo's parental influence affected each generation leading to Aiden Sanada. Ryo didn't even live to attend his children's college graduations let alone see any of his grandchildren, yet his influence remained the strongest. Ryo's love of nature inspired his son Hiroyuki to become an environmental scientist; this led to Hiroyuki and his family traveling throughout the world; from that influential standpoint, Ryo's grandson was able to meet and marry a kind-hearted yet high-class Scottish woman. Ryo's wife Sayoko also had a strong influence, always encouraging their children to bigger and more powerful activities. Rowen found himself wondering if his family perished in the car crash which orphaned Toriyama. Where was the Hashiba place among the intellectual elite? Because of Rowen, his son Mateo became a social and political critic, a well-known social philosopher who helped protect Mia Koji and who had published numerous thought-provoking books. Because of that influence, Hajime was able to socialize with the higher classes. Then, a car crash (of all the insignificant ways to die!) orphaned Toriyama and destroyed the influence of Rowen Hashiba. Rowen saw only the most superficial resemblances between his heir and himself, and he felt as though a large part of his own spiritual worth had perished as well.
"It's all because of Japan today," Kento said that night. "It's like society itself was trying to ruin our families and everything we've worked for. The good thing is that they're still here, and they're persevering. We're here, and we can do what we can to help them."
Both Kento and Sage worried that their influence had also diminished. Although they never voiced their thoughts, they speculated that Ryo's family was only successful because the Sanada family left Japan and never endured the instability plaguing the country. Rowen nodded. If Kento and Sage could help their heirs and play a good part in their lives, he could also play an important part in Toriyama's life.
Tori kept a collection of newspapers since 2057. Once the original Ronin Warriors accepted the fact that they would live out their lives again in the mortal world, they began reading those newspapers from the earliest dates. Japan resembled the Sengoku period all over again. Sage's native prefecture, Miyagi, was commonly referred to as "Bloody Miyagi." However, the other prefectures such as Kento's native Kanagawa prefecture had their equal share of problems. There were no Ronin Warriors during the Sengoku period. The four warlords were born during that time, and four of the armors Kaosu the Ancient created became corrupt, full of Talpa's evil influence. No wonder their heirs had such difficulties with their guiding virtues.
When Ryo mentioned to Tori how hard life must have been in the 2050s and 60s, Tori shrugged, "I only read about that stuff. I stayed in my room and read. Kuroda-san made sure I had a lot of books."
On the third day, the new warriors would return that afternoon and take the old warriors shopping for clothes and then stay over the weekend. Before going to the bathhouse, the original warriors cleaned the kitchen, watched television, and took care of Zaji while Tori checked the news on his computer. They had been acting like guests in the Hashiba household for long enough and now wanted to be helpful around the house. They didn't know what the new Ronin of Strata was reading. "Oh, this is cool!" Tori exclaimed to himself over one article, but no one heard him. In the center of Japan, an old shrine had been discovered. No one could pinpoint the exact date of the shrine, which housed thrones of reflective black crystal. Current estimates were from 4,000 years ago to from 12,000 years ago. Who built the shrine, who it was dedicated to, and the purpose of the shrine remained a mystery. Furthermore, the reflective black crystals were the first of their kind ever discovered. The archeological site was not open to tourists or visitors. Tori didn't tell anyone what he learned. He didn't realize the importance of the shrine, and he had been attempting not to annoy people with every bit of information which interested him.
Katsuo Kanzari happened to be reading the same article in his apartment. As he read, he remembered what Kento Rei Faun II had told him about the armor world in their tutorial session. Rowen Hashiba knew about the nature of the armor world. How it was connected to the other worlds and how it was created remained up to wild speculation. However, the armor world was perhaps the oldest of all the other worlds, and there did exist portals into each world. In his book, Rowen Hashiba affirmed that hidden portals between all the worlds existed. How else could the worlds interact? Katsuo wondered if that unusual shrine might be such a portal.
Katsuo then contemplated whether or not to discover a way into the shrine. He considered how his last attempt into the armor world failed and worried if he could even cope with the armor world. He remembered an old friend who had opened his interest in the Ronin Legend and who had been optimistic about a wonderful beautiful future. He had adored his friend's optimism. However, what good had the Ronin Warriors done for Japan? In the years since he last saw his friend, he realized even if the Ronin Warriors existed, they were useless. He decided to sneak into the shrine. In honor of all who suffered, he needed to reach the armor world.
At the mall, Rowen listened to Tori talk to Lena over the cell phone. How strange that a man would give a woman advice on how to care for a baby! Everyone thought the same thing. Househusbands were a rarity in Japan and attracted everyone's attention.
Once Tori hung up, Aiden asked him, "How familiar are you with the mall?"
"Oh, not at all. I hate the mall. It's always too crowded."
Rowen detected a little childish whine in his great-grandson's tone. They entered through the full food court, and he noticed how Tori cringed. Tori lifted his hands close to his ears and stayed close to Kento-kun. Rowen frowned. Those might be behaviors he would need to correct.
"I wish we could've gone on a weekday," Tori grumbled, again in that childish whine. "Then, it's not so crowded."
They wandered around for a little while, seeing all different groups of people. They saw some dressed in leather and others dressed in wool and wore feathers in their hair. Sai noticed that his great-grandson was one of those people dressed mainly in leather; Seito also wore a T-shirt featuring a wicked warrior-magician whose head was that of a dragon's skull. Sai shuddered, noticed Seito's fingernails were painted a grotesque blue, and then reminded himself that Seito was a wonderful Ronin of Torrent. Still, he couldn't shake off the queasy feeling in his stomach. Sai examined the clothes of the other new warriors; they were dressed normally. He glanced away from the group and saw some people wearing necklaces with an orb shaped like the Earth.
He told Ryo, "Chikyuko worshippers wear those necklaces."
Ryo remembered something he had wanted to ask. "How come they're fans of the Sanada family?"
Aiden spoke up, "The Chikyuko are Earth-worshippers. They revere Mother Earth, and since our family cares for the Earth, they support us."
Sai added, "It's not really a new religion, though. They're mainly interested in the Earth, so anyone from any religion can attend Chikyuko shrines."
Kento cheered to his namesake, "Isn't this exciting, hanging out with your great-grandfather?"
"Uh, yeah," but his voice held no enthusiasm.
Kento tried to cheer him more when they found a clothing store and searched through the clothes but received no response. The rest of the new warriors, however, stared at him every time he made a jovial comment. Undoubtedly, they were comparing him to his namesake, and his carefree attitude startled them.
Sai noticed Tori, feeling claustrophobic, back away from the group into a wider section of the store. "Where do you usually shop?"
"There's a used-clothes store a few streets away from the house. Clothes there are in wonderful condition and only cost a few yen, and Lena and I resell our old clothes there all the time."
Sai then noticed Sage and Rowen considering some of the more expensive items. He said to Tori, "I hope you don't my mind asking… how come we're not shopping there? I know we need a lot of clothes, and since you are familiar with the store –" he stopped.
Aiden spoke up, "Well, we did discuss it. I figured you guys would need the best, everything new, and everyone else agreed."
Tori told his indefinite guests, "Don't worry too much about how much everything is. Lena and I have plenty of money."
Rowen replied, "From your trust fund?" He and Vidali had started a trust fund for Mateo in case they died before their son reached adulthood. When Hajime was born, they got rid of Mateo's trust fund and put the money into a trust fund for their grandson. Mateo also added a considerable sum of money to it. Rowen had assumed Mateo and Hajime did the same for Tori, in which case, his heir had automatically amassed a large fortune. He was correct.
After picking out their clothes, they found a rack full of eyeglasses. There, Kento provoked a response from his namesake. He put on a pair of sunglasses and asked him, "Are these cool, or what?"
His namesake, now irritated, replied, "Whatever."
Sai tried on a pair of green-tinted glasses, but everyone agreed they made the blue part of his eyes look yellow. Yellow-tinted glasses, on the other hand, made the blue part of his eyes look green. He chose a yellow-tint he liked. Sage considered buying glasses but decided against it. Rowen picked out both sunglasses and yellow-green tinted glasses which obscured his eyes completely. Ryo chose not to hide his blue-within-blue eyes, but he did buy a pair of sunglasses to carry around and wear in case anyone else was disturbed by his appearance.
They then met up with Lena and the baby at her and Tori's favorite restaurant in time for the dinner buffet and before the large crowd arrived. They pulled three tables together for all twelve people to sit. The old warriors sat on the left side, and the new warriors plus Tori's family on the right. There wasn't much conversation until everyone had their food. The new warriors still couldn't believe Kento-sama had such a huge appetite.
Aiden wondered, "Have you guys figured out what you're gonna do or what's happened or –"
Sai said, "Well, we're all pretty much stuck here. I think we all know that. We haven't figured out what happened." He glanced at Lena, who had been active the past three days but was quiet and subdued, out of place among both sets of warriors.
Ryo said, "There's no way for us to pick up where we left off. What we'd need to do is go to college, get degrees all over again, and then start over. There's nothing we can do except start everything over."
Rowen added, "We'll probably need to change our family names. With the books I've published, I would certainly attract attention calling myself 'Rowen Hashiba.' We would also need new birth certificates later and new proofs of identity. No one would believe we're actually nearing 100, and we don't need to attract any attention to ourselves. We would need to reestablish ourselves as a part of society in every way possible."
Kento-sama also added, "Yeah, it's strange to say this, but we all have death certificates. We don't exactly exist in this world anymore."
His namesake smirked, "So, that's what? Forging high school transcripts, and several other kinds of official documents?"
Rowen replied, "It's the only thing we can do. We can't tell anyone what actually happened."
"Are you sure we should do something so illegal?"
Seito spoke up, "I'm sure we can find out some way to make you a part of society again. We have ten months until the next college year starts."
Sage set his chopsticks on his plate. The situation made him lose his appetite. He looked at his friends. They once had their lives firmly established – Sage teaching at the dojo, Rowen educating college students, Kento running the restaurant, Sai selling commonplace items, Ryo coaching high school soccer. Now… Sage felt uneasy. He had never imagined himself with any other job than taking over his family's dojo. It had been his life, his whole existence, and a historic heritage which he came from and which he continued. But that heritage was continuing without him. He had fulfilled his part in life. What else could he do? He noticed the same troubled expression on Kento's face.
Sage said, "I wonder what life will bring us this time."
Sai said, "It's strange that we have to start over – all over again."
Kento spoke up, "Japan's changed so much, but at least we're all here together."
Rowen nodded.
Smiling, Ryo picked up his glass, "Let's have a toast. I guess this is for the future then. Good, bad, whatever brings. To the future."
His friends also picked up their glasses for a toast and a resolute, "To the future!"
The new warriors stared at them, amazed at their beaming optimism and their amiability among each other.
Seito spoke quickly, "We should also have a toast!"
Aiden agreed fervently, and the five new warriors touched their glasses together with a brief embarrassed "cheers."