Disclaimer: I don't own Warriors Orochi and Koei did the original game while this fic is my own take on the game's story full of plot holes.
A/N: Thanks for the reviews. The next chapter has Wu in it.
Warrior Seven: Dawn of the Dragon
Chapter Two: Out of Nowhere Act 2
The forest near Shinano…
Zhao Yun and Nagamasa Azai squared off at the outskirts of the forest in the midst of the fog. One man is full of excitement and the other man is exquisite of skepticism. Nagamasa's Impaler is a strange weapon Zhao Yun never seen. It provides the similarities of a sword and a spear in one. A long spear-like sword in one handed, quite remarkable of an invention.
"My clan, the Azai clan once held the Omi Daimyo for two generations and I am that third generation to prove myself to my grandfather Azai Sukemasa," Nagamasa said. He swift back avoiding the quick thrusts of Zhao Yun's Dragon Spear, his opponent is faster than he thought.
"Three Generations?" Zhao Yun stopped glancing at the Omi daimyo.
"Yes…, I am the last of a cursed clan to be reliable with the Asukura clan who are our neighbors and now…I'm serving your enemy the Cao family," Nagamasa finished.
"There's no reason to fight me if your clan is suffering internal struggles," Zhao Yun resented.
"With Wei now as allies to Orochi, I want to keep Echizen from falling at the hands of Orochi. I, however am detest the war against the coalition and remain inactive with Oichi and my retainers," with that, Nagamasa strike the Shu general with more effective moves forcing Zhao Yun to take the fight serious.
"You did nothing for Wei, but why did you want….damn it!" Zhao Yun resumed parrying more of Nagamasa attacks.
The Azai lord execute a wave motion attack summoning his chi engulfed in the Impaler, this forced Zhao Yun to release his own special attack knocking his spear hard against the ground creating a quake like earth boulder to collide with the chi blast.
"Truly the Little Dragon I've read in folklore. Everyone thought you're just a fantasy," Nagasama complied.
"And you seem to be an accomplished fighter instead of a daimyo. Nagamasa, tell me what happened while I was held captive? What happened to Zhen Ji, the remaining Shu forces, and Wu?" Zhao Yun once again asked the question.
"The remaining Shu forces are now grouping with other forces as part of the Anti Orochi coalition, as for Zhen Ji, you have to beat me if you can," Nagamasa charged at the Shu general again.
There's no other way to get the latter information, but if he really worrying about Zhen Ji now is the time he'll beat this daimyo to spill out that information. Zhao Yun changed his attitude from nice to paranoid. He does not want to fight, because he's not happy with the current situation and this world Orochi created. Both of them don't belong here and he'll win this fight to prove to Nagamasa that they share a common concern.
"Come on, Zhao Yun! Prove to me that you're not a myth as all the legends keep emphasizing," Nagamasa taunted.
"Judging by his fighting style, it's similar to Liu Bei's only with better strength and long ranged, but lacks complex hit detection compare to my spear and speed," Zhao Yun thought.
Zhao Yun dashed towards his opponent showing the face of seriousness, but paranoid at the same time. It's clear that this man is from the future and he thought of Zhao Yun being not as much of a threat as history originally recorded or perhaps not as much detail to make it possibly true. Nagamasa's moves are fresh and he executed more moves, even crushed Zhao Yun's guard forcing the Little Dragon to dodge the thrusts and parry light attacks.
"I can't use my special skill. It concerns me about this man's motivation. He's not loyalty to the Cao family as he recalled about the alliance. Perhaps, he wanted to see if I'm that much of a threat to Wei so be it," Zhao Yun unleashed his chi and went musou rage.
"Is that your power up? Very well…" Nagamasa charged up with his entire body glowing. He just used his elemental charger to do his elemental musou, a musou more powerful than true musou.
Zhao Yun execute his charge one attack at max speed right when Nagamasa did a charge attack relate to Zhao Yun's but with more power and the elemental of lighting collide with light. A loud sound effect just caught the attention of the Azai army searching for Zhao Yun at the foggy forest.
"That sound, it's the young lord!" Kisotsuna Akao alarmed.
"Then he's fighting the escaped fugtive. We must assist the lord," Kuzumasa Isono rallied. The Azai pursuers hurried to where the sound of fighting comes from.
The fight is getting intense; both men tanked their adrenaline pulling more advanced techniques against each other, but not a single one gets knocked out. They're evened in a certain level where neither of them wanted to put their abilities to the highest level. Although, Nagamasa is the more powerful fighter due to his elemental musou, but Zhao Yun's experience put the power level aside and the main focus in this fight is the skill level. When Nagamasa mistakenly did a 619 cyclone kick with his lance stuck on the ground, Zhao Yun countered with his own 360 degree swing with greater strength sending the daimyo to the tree branch hard.
"Aggh!" Nagamasa struggled himself off the ground. He's careless to have gone abit over the top with his style and Zhao Yun don a perfect execution with better skill effectiveness.
Zhao Yun keeps the same stance and never let his guard down. What he wants is his opponent satisfied.
"No, there's more! You haven't seen it yet," Nagamasa shouted. He panted softly and concentrates on surprising Zhao Yun.
"….." Zhao Yun listened to the bragging quietly.
The daimyo leap to the air and thrusted is Impaler against Zhao Yun. Zilong dodged it and Nagamasa Azai strikes several mix up combos with five of them parried and then thrust at Zhao Yun's chest faster. His opponent dodged, but that's going to be the extend of the surprise waiting for Zilong.
"Now, here's the true speed of my lancing skills!" Nagamasa canceled the last thrust summoning all his chi and elemental energy charging it all to do his true musou mix with the elemental musou together.
"What…?" Zhao Yun sensed the change of his opponent's thrusts as they become much faster. He dodged, but couldn't outrun the speed of lighting striking with the potency of the true musou attack and he finally gets hit by the next strike that rapidly accelerate the attack.
Nagamasa thrust his Impaler faster and faster, there's no limit to how much speed his True Musou possess compare to a normal version of this deadly attack. He can hear the sound of groaning on his opponent's agony. Yes, this Dragon can be touched, he's as human as the historical records didn't describe clearly. He finish the hundreds thrust combo with five swings as the last one send Zhao Yun yards away crashing through every tree his back knocked so hard he could have gotten himself paralyzed.
Crash!
"Did I beat him? That…that was supposed to be my best attack. He did happen to go at an amount of power against mine, but his skill makes mine look bad. How lucky I am…," Nagamasa thought. He slowly walks towards the destruction to surveillance the damage done against his opponent.
Yards away from Nagamasa's approach, Zhao Yun opened his eyes resist from fancing after taking hundreds of strikes from that True Musou. Is this the extent of a samurai's power compare to an outdated general? He's starting to have an interest in the daimyo's fighting style, but it lacks substance, so this guy can be a good training partner to spare, however there's no time for that. He must find out what happened to Zhen Ji and then escape to search for the remnants of Shu and this coalition. He'll set up a surprise of his own, still he'll not use that hidden musou. It's not worth his time right now to force the samurai to answer his question. He softly sounded asleep pretending to lose to his duelist.
"Hm? There he is, but it couldn't have been this easy to…to beat the Zhao Yun!" Nagamasa thought. Strange to him, he always heard stories that this guy is strong, but never read anything about Zhao Yun dueling famous officers. Well, Han history isn't very clear as Roman history he heard from the visiting Europeans, but after fighting Zhao Yun, his True Musou combing the elemental musou must have overpowered his opponent. So it can be describe that he lucked the Little Dragon.
"……"
He's not dead, injury of course, but his wounds caused some bleeding. Zhao Yun bleeding is another surprise; there is no record of Zhao Yun getting wounded. To Nagamasa's amazement, Zhao Yun IS human, he's real, but what makes him one of the Five Tiger Generals? Even Guan Yu is as real as the legend the Ming praised him as a god, just like the great Zhuge Liang.
Suddenly, Zhao Yun did a wake up rising strike at the unguarded daimyo. Nagamasa is too shocked to recover from the surprise attack, and then gets hit by a set of combos from Zhao Yun and finally the earth attack that launched him into mid air. Reactivating the Musou Rage and charging his own chi, Zhao Yun prepares to do his own True Musou.
"He's much smarter than the history recorded him!!" Nagamasa winced. The shock is so great that he was wrong to underestimate the Little Dragon's cleverness. One surprise now returns another and he gets a taste of his own medicine.
The flames of the True Musou blazes the air covering much of the spear and the chi. The juggling ends when Zhao Yun launched himself up in the air making a strong wind and a vicious slash at his fallen opponent sending him higher into the air.
"That should prove him enough," Zhao Yun thought as he landed softly into the ground while his opponent hit harder than before at the ground causing a small quake.
He's happy he didn't need to put this duel into a fight to the death. All his opponent wanted is the real Zhao Yun and there's the proof to prove it.
"Can he survive my True Musou at such a rate? It wasn't my best attack, but it's the first time I use Musou Rage against a Japanese samurai this strong," Zhao Yun thought. As two minutes pass, Nagamasa awakes and struggles to get up, but the pain is so heavy that his voice is a mix of groaning and soft vocal.
"So…my prediction is right. You are more of a clever man with words than a courageous one…uugh…. with action," Nagamasa said. This surprised Zhao Yun enough to learn that this man knows about him from a record. Perhaps he'll ask more questions about what happened to Shu before this man exists till later.
"Are you done or do you want to fight me and die pointless as a servant to the Cao usurpers? If not, answer my question. What happened to Zhen Ji while I was held captive?" Zhao Yun once again put an important question that can reason Nagamasa's concerns with the Orochi/Wei alliance.
"Zhen Ji, before her disappearance and after my father choose to ally with Wei, she was with my wife Oichi in search for the disappearance of Cao Cao after we all brought ourselves into this strange new world," Nagamasa answered.
"Go on, it happened after my last efforts with the resistance army until I surrendered from learning of Liu Bei's 'death'," Zhao Yun nodded.
"It was two days later after you were in prison; Oichi was the only one who returned. She and Zhen Ji were searching at Eichzen until later Zhen Ji hadn't return with her troops while Oichi waited in Odani castle for her return," Nagamasa explained.
"Then she must have went on search alone…." Zhao Yun muttered.
"Oichi had no idea why Zhen Ji didn't come back, but I do know it had something to do with the alliance formed when Da Ji came to Cao Pi earlier. Perhaps, Zhen Ji must be crossing with other officers of Orochi's army," Nagamasa takes his Impaler off the ground and gaze at it.
"It's not like her to do anything for an evil entity unless she has a reason, her son," Zhao Yun cringed.
"Yes, Cao Rui. She worried about him so even that is another reason this alliance came in form. Now that you're free and I told you everything you needed to know, go and rebuild Shu until we meet again, we'll plan to join the forces to fight Orochi. I'll be filling in on Cao Pi's activities while you're busy and go to Eichizen and gather some of my troops with my permission," Nagamasa turns to get to his horse, but not before he hears Zhao Yun retort.
"Shu is dead…." Zhao Yun shook his head.
"But there's still a chance to rebuild it. Please, only you can do it because you're one of the Five Tiger Generals," Nagamasa begged.
"I can rebuild an army, but not a dynasty. Tell me, what happened to ShuHan when your time came?" Zhao Yun asked.
"….Shu was conquered by Wei," Nagamasa sighed.
"Then everything Orochi orchestrated proves why it's dead," Zhao Yun closed his eyes blaming himself for a great failure he thought would have made the Han restoration possible.
"But, it doesn't prove why we have a second chance!" Nagamasa argued.
"He is correct, Zilong," a mysterious voice told.
"That voice!" Zhao Yun expression turns to glance surprisingly at the mystic known as Zuo Ci.
"You and Shu have a second chance at rising to power just like this troubled Azai heir does," Zuo Ci appears.
Later at Wu camp in Jiang Xia…
Two new officers joined Wu and are from Nobunaga Oda in the Coalition forces. Sun Ce planned to rescue his father while pretending to follow Orochi's orders to attack the Oda who are stationed in Jing.
"So we meet again Sun Shang Xiang…" Ina greeted the bow princess.
"Lady Honda, it's a pleasant to see you again after our last encounter," Sun Shang Xiang said.
Sakon Shima gives a firm hand shake to Sun Ce. He was send by Nobunaga to assist Wu since Sun Ce might soon defect Orochi when the time comes and Shima Sakon is willing to make it happen.
"Lord Sun Ce, I have valuable information on where your father is being held, but in exchange for this information, Lord Nobunaga wants you to rescue his wife Nohime," Sakon said.
"First, where is my father?" Sun Ce crossed his arms putting a serious look. Zhou Yu stood next to him agreeing that they'll hear out the stranger first before they can trust him to help.
"Your father is being held at Osaka according to Oda spies, if you recover Osaka Castle from Orochi Nobunaga will be graced with a hostage return. I assume you know this girl from Nobunaga's ranks, Lord Zhou Yu," Sakon turns to the Wu strategist himself.
"Is…is it who I think it is? Xiao?" Zhou Yu puzzled the Japanese strategist as he murmur his wife's name.
"Yes, Xiao Qiao. One of the Two Qiaos I've studied your history. She's not a hostage, but Nobunaga keeping a good eye on her out of harm's way until he can bring her back to Wu. Now that I told you the information, will you help Nobunaga get his wife No who is being held in Jian Ye? Orochi's force controls half of Wu and your capital is one of them," Sakon nodded.
"Alright, it's been arrange. Taishi Ci, Hanzo, and Lu Meng will go and recover our capital along with Nobunaga's wife. Zhou Yu, summon those three and carrying out their orders, Lord Sakon, will you assist me as my strategist and help me rescue my father from Orochi?" Sun Ce asked.
"Sure, that's the whole reason why I'm here!" Sakon grinned.
"I'll give the three of them your orders my lord," Zhou Yu bowed and went out of the tent to get the three officers.
After Zhou Yu left, Sun Ce begin wondering why Nobunaga wants to help him. It puzzled him because the guy can sense what other lords are up to before they take action. Could this man be extraordinary?
"Hey, about Oda Nobunaga, what kind of man is he?" Sun Ce asked.
"Oh, so you wanted to know the most powerful Daimyo. Well, he's sort of a weirdo. To put it respectfully, he's an oddfellow with an interest in modernization," Sakon rubbed his chin thinking about the days the Oda came into power.
"Modernization, like the way you're wearing clothes huh?" Sun Ce eyes popped, looking amazed by the description of Japanese federal lords.
"Yeah, those Europeans were incredible after the first European ship wreaked in Kyushu. Nobunaga first meet the Portuguese and they reveal the weapon of modern warfare…" Sakon gave Sun Ce the pistol that Bofu already saw from Ieyasu, but this model is more detailed.
"Damn, this looks better than the one I saw from that Tokugawa guy. Well, these things are very rare. It isn't something our army invented," Sun Ce said.
"Well, the Chinese did gunpowder, except it wasn't called gunpowder in Chinese," Sakon shrugged.
"You mean our torches which we carry and place the black coal mine on to make fire and explosives? Boy, these things you're giving me were invented by some rare material. It's made of metal," Sun Ce continues glancing at the pistol.
"Alloy, Tough alloy, it takes centuries to learn how to create alloy to make a gun. Nobunaga owns a firearms compound within his home," Sakon stood up off his seat and takes the pistol back from Sun Ce.
"You know, I like the sound of creating a firearms compound, but this will be suggested by my ministers first. I doubt Sun Quan and his friends will allow such a facility to be create," Sun Ce nodded.
Zhou Yu check for Lu Meng, Taishi Ci, and Hanzo Hattori at the barracks seeing how these new ninjas are training for Wu.
"They're kind of unique Ziming," Taishi Ci scanned at the group of ninjas training with ridiculous methods that could have got them killed. One of them tried to do hanging from a pit of spikes and lost his balance into his doom. He died before he can be made into a ninja.
"Aye, this requires a lot of flexibility. I doubt I could do it. Some of our troops in Wu feared to have this kind of training," Lu Meng gazed at Hanzo who quietly stare at his ninja trainees.
"Guys, listen up. Bofu has giving you an important task to retake Jian Ye from Orochi. Lu Meng, you'll be commanding the troops with Taishi Ci and Hanzo is joining you with permission from Ieyasu," Zhou Yu announced.
"So we're going to get Jiang Dong back from Orochi! It's about time dammit! Just wait those hordes feel the wrath of my rods," Taishi Ci raised his wolf slayer.
"I feel the same way, my lord. We promise to succeed without fail," Lu Meng bowed.
"Please refrain from making reckless choices, since Pan Zhang had captured Guan Yu with Ma Zhong before and you didn't give an order to release the captive, but left Pan Zhang to execute Guan Yu causing Wu in insecurity," Zhou Yu sighed. He reminds Lu Meng about the future he learned after his death from the Tokugawa on Wu's history.
"Really, I wanted Guan Yu to remain as Wu prisoner until Shu can accept our terms to keeping Jing Zhou for exchange of Guan Yu," Lu Meng smacked his head of the serious consequence for his actions taking Jing.
"At least, Wu lived the longest from what my son said," Taishi Ci smiled hoping that will comfort the two scholars.
"It doesn't matter, Wu and my reputation has already been ruin thanks to that stupid novel wrote by a Ming scholar. I have no idea there's a dynasty after Wu," Zhou Yu shook his head disappointed.
"Relax, I'll make it up once I come up with a decent strategy into capturing Jiang Dong," Lu Meng said.
"With Lu Xun not around, you'll need Hanzo's advice this time. Lord Hanzo, I heard you're an intelligent man from Ieyasu," Zhou Yu faced to the King of Shadows himself. Hanzo turns his head half way and nodded.
"I guild my master with both the mind and the body, that is the potency of a true strategist in Japan," Hanzo said.
"That's quite like me," Zhou Yu smiled.
"Men, we're moving out to reclaim our home from that snake!" Lu Meng shouted to the soldiers of Wu.
"Yeeeah!!" The soldiers of Wu rallied.
Wu is finally preparing to make their move. While Wei prepares for another skirmish against the Oda coalition and Shu finally reach Yun Nan and employ the list of Nanman officers among them Zhu Rong and Meng Huo.
Elsewhere….
"Master?" a mysterious man's voice called.
"What is it?" Orochi sat down bored with his fist on his cheek.
"Zhao Yun has escaped from Ueda castle,"the mysterious man informed.
"Heh…it appears the time has finally come. Soon, there will be those who are plotting to stand up against me and to use Cao Pi as a tool, this is what I wanted. Zhao Yun, will you accept your destiny or escape it and search aimlessly for your big brother? I dare you things aren't what they were back then as I have a surprise waiting for you soon, very soon," Orochi snickered.
"Dark Lord, Wu will try to get their land back. I have sent a valuable retainer to guard Jian Ye when they arrive," the mysterious man said.
"You mean Da Ji's slave? Surely is she really that capable and feared by my strategist?" Orochi questioned.
"That woman…Da Ji told me she had a hidden power within her, but didn't know it after Da Ji put a mind control spell on her. One thing we know is that she can be your container in the future," the mysterious man clarified.
"Ahhh, I'm pleased with the remedy of this woman. What is her name?" Orochi asked.
"Zhen Ji"
Next Chapter: Out of Nowhere Act 3
